Google Maps

This is really cool. Google is going maps now. Check it out at http://maps.google.com/. You can click and drag the mouse on the map to move it around and use the slider to zoom in and out. You can also use the cursor keys to move around and use the + and – keys to zoom in and out.

The driving directions are still a little crazy sometimes, but that’s to be expected from any online mapping service. I just use them as a guide and look around for better roads.

Another nice feature is the built in searching. Here’s a search for restaurants near our house. The results are not too bad. Most of those places are still there. Wing N It is closed and so is El Mexicano, but the other restaurants look good. I wonder what that Quizno’s Regional Office is? It seems like I’ve been there before, but I didn’t get a sandwich…

Shuffle

My iPod shuffle showed up the other day as promised. This thing is so much better than the Rio. The sound quality is amazing, especially when you consider that it’s about the size of a stick of gum and weighs less than an ounce. It’s hard to really understand just how small it is until you hold it.

Matthew couldn’t wait to get his hands on it:

Matthew and the shuffle

So far, 1 GB is plenty of space. Apple says that’s 240 songs with is probably pretty close. I usually estimate 1 MB per minute of music so 1 GB would be 1,000 minutes, or almost 17 hours. Filling it with music only takes a few minutes. Sunday I uploaded about 4 hours of music and it only took 2 minutes.

I just love new toys…