Here’s a nice two-part tutorial on using the Google Maps API to build yourself a distance finder for a website. Part two explains how to build functionality to allow the user to choose different kinds of routes depending on their mode of transportation and also make drag-able markers where the distance between two points is automatically recomputed. A lot of people who are not professional programmers are aware that the Google Maps API (as well as quite a few others) are available for them to use to facilitate a great idea for a web application they might have. This tutorial assumes very little prior knowledge of how to use APIs and could definitely serve to bridge the gap between that great idea and its implementation. Check it out now or save it for later.
Gmail Shortcut
OK, assuming you have a Gmail account and are using Firefox, check out a cool tip for getting to Gmail from a browser window, without having to hit a button or bookmark: just enter ‘g’ into the URL field. That’s it. You’ll regale them with this tip at this weekend’s parties.
OK that was pretty short. Here are 35 more Gmail tips. Hey, did you know that every Gmail message has its own URL, and so can be bookmarked? Or that extra space in your Gmail account can be used as an external drive via a Windows drive shell extension/gDisk on Mac/GmailFS on Linux? You did? Well I didn’t…