Printing google maps
Google maps is awesome but there is one drawback. There is no good way to print its maps. Whatever map (size and scale) is showing on your screen will never be printed. You will get something totally different, most likely unusable garbage spanning 3 pages. I've never been happy once with this feature in 5 years I've been using it. Today I discovered a great way to deal with it by using another Google application. Requires use of Picasa. This idea is so good, should be on Lifehacker.
The steps are.
0. Turn on the computer (love that one)
1. Launch Picasa
2. Produce the map on Gmaps that you want. Then hit Ctrl-PrtScreen (upper right of keyboard). This will tell Picasa to take a grab of your current window in focus (which should be the browser obviously).
3. Picasa will pop up a little message in the bottom right telling you that it created the screenshot. Click on that message window to go into Picasa
4. Picasa will show the screen-grab. Use the crop tool to cut out unnecessary stuff (browser controls, etc)
5. Print the picture from picasa (button is on the bottom for it). Use the 8x10 size to fill up the whole page.
Viola - your printed map is ready to eat.