Comments | ggreig: I can see my house from here!

ggreig

I can see my house from here!

May 25, 2006 11:56

I seem to have brought productivity temporarily to a halt at work by telling people that Microsoft's online mapping solution, Windows Live Local, now has data for the UK, so I thought I'd spread the joy.

It is better than Google Maps in a number of areas. It looks like there's more ambitious functionality (though I've only tried it in IE, so I don ( Read more... )

kingsbarns, travel, work, software development, scotland

Comments 14

huskyteer May 25 2006, 12:31:47 UTC

Ooh! I can see where my scooter's parked!

msinvisfem May 25 2006, 12:32:41 UTC

It appears to act the same in Firefox as in IE, that is I only get a map and no satellite. And I don't know what you mean by more functionality, it seems to lack the satellite, map or hybrid option.

My opinion? I give this a "Thumbs down".

msinvisfem May 25 2006, 12:35:28 UTC

Never mind. I tried some more and I eventually figured out where they put the "Smart Users, please press here" button. Pah.

ggreig May 25 2006, 12:46:24 UTC

The pushpins, and particularly the scratch pad of pushpins once you have created one or more, are nicer than similar functionality in Google maps.

pink_weasel May 25 2006, 12:41:47 UTC

Is it really live? Our roof looks like it's got plants on it which it really hasn't! Unless someone's put them there sice this morning.

pink_weasel May 25 2006, 12:47:08 UTC

Ok, it's officially not live, the three houses which have been built in the bottom of the garden a few doors down from my parents house are not there. They've been there for months too.

ggreig May 25 2006, 12:49:58 UTC

Sadly, it's not really live, which I think should qualify as false advertising :-)

In fact, the satellite photos seem to be older than the ones used in Google as Google shows one of the two new office buildings that have been built next door to my workplace in the last five years, but Windows Live Local just shows the ground being cleared for the first one.

pink_weasel May 25 2006, 12:53:03 UTC

We could tell them it's not live I suppose but I doubt they'd care. If it was live it would be soooo much better. But everything would probably be obscured by planes and fish and things swimming over the cameras. London is much more closely mapped than mid Wales. Which is a shame as we can't use it to spy on the filming of Dr Who.

sharikkamur May 25 2006, 13:04:15 UTC

Pah! Crappy resolution of Iceland, of course. You have to zoom out to 1km before you even get a satellite image. Still, you can just about see my apartment block here. The labels aren't correct either, as they show the main road going down the middle of the fjord...

myceliumme May 27 2006, 10:31:00 UTC

It's, ahem, a little incorrect out here too. I hope the photographs will be updated before it gets out of beta.

tobyaw May 25 2006, 13:17:10 UTC

It didn't work at all in Safari (just gave a blank white browser window). But then http://www.live.com/ didn't do much better, just displaying a logo and a non-functional search box.

Anyway, Firefox fared a little better. It seems quite sluggish to use compared to Google Maps - both for loading data and dragging around the map.

Took me a while to figure out how to turn on the satellite map. Maybe its just to be different from Google that they chose the terms Road/Aerial instead of Map/Satellite?

It displays things like Woodburn Park quite nicely, though. And its good to see a satellilte view of St Andrews.

ggreig May 25 2006, 13:27:00 UTC

I didn't notice any significant difference in speed between Google and Live overall, though once or twice Live seemed to go to sleep for a while, then rapidly caught up on my click-ahead.

Maybe its just to be different from Google that they chose the terms Road/Aerial instead of Map/Satellite?

I wouldn't be surprised.