wanderingken.com

It’s been in development for a while, and I’ve hinted it’s existence to a number of folks, but now it’s finally reality. What is it? It’s QMaps: Quikmaps technology for 3rd party applications.

I’ve set up a website on Spatial North which provides documentation, examples, a class reference, and download links. In a nutshell, QMaps is a JavaScript library structured as a series of extensions to the Google Maps API. You can use this library to invoke the familiar Quikmaps editor, to display non-editable maps created by the editor, or to build your own custom map editor.

QMaps is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. This means you can use it in non-commercial applications as long as you make attribution to Quikmaps / Spatial North. For commercial endeavours, customizations, or integration assistance, contact me at Spatial North.

It’s official. I’ve started a company. It’s called Spatial North.

At present we’re focusing on providing products and development services for interactive mapping and collaborative web applications. Spatial North will manage and maintain Quikmaps, which has just a drawing library to enable interactive map editing on 3rd party web applications (post to follow).

Check out the new website, and, better yet, contact us for business opportunities.

Before you suggest I’ve just stated that Google has waded into the world of agriculture (disambiguation: n. a male bovine that is castrated before sexual maturity), I must clarify that I’ve joined the Sydney Morning Herald in referring to the more informal usage, meaning ‘a suggestion of a course of action’. More specifically, this steer refers to the driving assistance offered by Google’s route-finding algorithm.

Google’s driving directions system has just gone live in Australia, and it appears either Google didn’t test near their Sydney office (the Google Maps head office), or isn’t bothered by significant misinformation (eternal beta, anyone?). According to the route-finder, it takes 10km and 18 minutes driving time to cross the street from Google’s neighbour to Google’s office building. The Sydney Morning Herald has noticed a number of strange suggested routes in and around the Sydney area.

Of course this is most certainly an effect of ‘bum’ data on Australian roadways. According to the same route-finder, it ought to take me 13km and 20 minutes to drive from my Edmonton apartment to Terwillegar Community Church this afternoon, suggesting a route identical to my typical ’steer’ until the last winding turns through Terwillegar Towne’s notoriously snake-like lanes.

I’m not a regular Dilbert reader, but this one is one of the more telling strips I’ve seen in a while. Rather well describes the frustration us technical types encounter with our product people. Well, except for James (Geobirds), of course…

It usually goes something like this: “You want to do that? Have you not realized that the cascading implications will result in a cosmic meltdown?”