Posts about review

After The Missing Manual For OpenStreetMap, Here's The Google Map Maker Version

OpenStreetMap, HERE's Map Creator (which I work on) and Google's Map Maker, anyone with a modern web browser and an internet connection can now help to make maps where previously there were none and to improve and keep maps up to date, which still remains one of the biggest challenges to map making.

There's already been a book about OpenStreetMap, which I wrote about in April of 2011. As far as I know, no-one's written about HERE's Map Creator but for Google's Map Maker there's Limoke Oscar's Instant Google Map Maker Starter.

The growth and uptake of today's internet and web allows us to do a lot of things that were previously the preserve of the professional. You can see this in the rise of words which now have citizen prepended to them. We don't just write blog posts, we're citizen journalists. We don't just take photographs, we're citizen photographers. To this list, we can now add citizen cartographer as well.

With the help of OpenStreetMap, HERE's Map Creator (which I work on) and Google's Map Maker, anyone with a modern web browser and an internet connection can now help to make maps where previously there were none and to improve and keep maps up to date, which still remains one of the biggest challenges to map making.

There's already been a book about OpenStreetMap, which I wrote about in April of 2011. As far as I know, no-one's written about HERE's Map Creator but for Google's Map Maker there's Limoke Oscar's Instant Google Map Maker Starter.

When I wrote about OpenStreetMap; Using and Enhancing the Free Map of the World, one of the reasons I liked reading about making maps with OSM in a book was because ...

OpenStreetMap is easy to use, graphical (on the website), comes with multiple discussion and documentation sites and well supported mailing lists; you can always find the answer to your question. But sometimes you don’t know what the question is. Sometimes you just want to read a book.

The same can be said of Instant Google Map Maker Starter. The e-book edition I've just finished reading doesn't appear to have the physical weight and depth of the OSM tome, but that's only to be expected of a book that clearly sets out to be a starter.

Instant Google Map Maker Starter

As a starter, the book describes itself on the cover as short, fast, focused and on all these counts it succeeds admirably. Making, creating and editing a digital map is now massively easier than it was 5 years ago, but it's still not simplicity itself.

When you're setting out, you need to have explained what the difference is between what's in the map, the spatial data of the map itself, and what's on the map, the places or points of interest. You need to know how to use your software tool of choice, be it OpenStreetMap, Map Creator or Map Maker. You need to be shown the shortcuts and how to avoid the inevitable pitfalls.

Limoke obviously knows how to use Google Map Maker and it shows in the clear, concise prose, which educates from the ground up and doesn't once stray into making the reader feel patronised or being lectured.

Maybe I've been spoilt with the depth and coverage of this book's OpenStreetMap counterpart and even though the book is clearly labelled and pitched as a high level starter guide, it left me wanting more. But that's not the fault of the author. Most of what I wanted more of is information that only Google would be able to provide; about why Google Map Maker is open for editing in some countries and about why you have to ask Google to get the data you put in back out. But I would have liked to have seen the author touching on the why of map making as much as the how, which he's admirably written about. Why do people make maps and what motivates them?

Maybe there's a book to be written about this; maybe one day I might even do that.

The Missing Manual For OpenStreetMap?

Username:", pass that barrier to entry and it said "Password:". Armed with the right combination of username and password you would be rewarded with a flashing cursor preceded by a dollar sign as a prompt ... $. If you wanted help you couldn't browse the web (it hadn't been invented) nor ask in a mailing list (the Internet was in its early days and you probably didn't have access). Instead you consulted the big, heavy, ring bound, bright orange documentation set; these were the heady days of DEC and VAX/VMS.

The computer I'm writing this on still needs a username and password but is easy to use, graphical, intuitive and comes with multiple web sites, discussion and documentation sites and mailing lists to ask questions in. But to get the most of today's computers you still need a book sometimes, which is why David Pogue's Mac OS X: The Missing Manual is still one of the most well thumbed books I have, 8 years and multiple editions later. There's a version for Windows too.

So what does this have to do with OpenStreetMap? Bear with me ... there are parallels to be drawn.

The first computer I used at work was powerful for its day (though pitifully underpowered compared to the phone that's sitting in my pocket at the moment) but was somewhat unfriendly by today's standards. You sat down at a terminal (not a PC, they hadn't been invented) and were presented with a command line prompt that said "Username:", pass that barrier to entry and it said "Password:". Armed with the right combination of username and password you would be rewarded with a flashing cursor preceded by a dollar sign as a prompt ... $. If you wanted help you couldn't browse the web (it hadn't been invented) nor ask in a mailing list (the Internet was in its early days and you probably didn't have access). Instead you consulted the big, heavy, ring bound, bright orange documentation set; these were the heady days of DEC and VAX/VMS.

The computer I'm writing this on still needs a username and password but is easy to use, graphical, intuitive and comes with multiple web sites, discussion and documentation sites and mailing lists to ask questions in. But to get the most of today's computers you still need a book sometimes, which is why David Pogue's Mac OS X: The Missing Manual is still one of the most well thumbed books I have, 8 years and multiple editions later. There's a version for Windows too.

So what does this have to do with OpenStreetMap? Bear with me ... there are parallels to be drawn.

OpenStreetMap Book Cover

OpenStreetMap is easy to use, graphical (on the website), comes with multiple discussion and documentation sites and well supported mailing lists; you can always find the answer to your question. But sometimes you don't know what the question is. Sometimes you just want to read a book.

OpenStreetMap: Using and Enhancing The Free Map Of The World is that book ... consider it the Missing Manual if you will.

Originally written in German by mailing list stalwarts Frederik Ramm and Jochen Topf in 2008 (names which will be familiar to anyone who's spent any time on the OSM mailing lists), the book was translated into English with Steve Chilton (chair of the UK's Society of Cartographers) towards the end of 2010. A translation would be impressive enough but the English version also comes with expanded sections and all of the content, examples and illustrations have been revisited, revised and updated.

Whether you're an OSM expert or you just want to see how one of the largest voluntary, crowd sourced projects on the face of the Internet works this is a worthy and valuable addition to your bookshelf. While no OSM expert I considered myself fairly well versed in how to use OpenStreetMap. Reading the book was a salient lesson on just how much I didn't know; the section on GPS was an education in itself.

The book also provides a well written and easy to understand explanation of what you can and what you can't do with OSM's wealth of geographic data and answers so many of the questions on data licensing that crop up again and again in conversations around OSM and on the mailing lists.

As a written work, the OpenStreetMap book works on multiple levels. You can dip into it, select the parts that interest you, get distracted by reading about stuff you didn't think you'd want to know or you can read it from cover to cover.

  • If you want to contribute data to OpenStreetMap ... this is the book for you
  • If you want to use OpenStreetMap data to create maps ... this is the book for you
  • If you want to integrate OpenStreetMap data into a web site ... this is the book for you
  • If you consider yourself as a fully paid up geo nerd who lives and breathes open data ... this is the book for you. No ... really

One final thought; the old adage about the Internet being an information hose pipe holds true where OpenStreetMap is concerned. The volume of information and data is simply staggering. You can find your way through all of this information by yourself. Or you can just read a well written, well thought out book instead. Even in today's online world there's still a place for the feeling you get from holding a book in your hands and leafing back and forwards through the pages. My copy of this book is still reasonably pristine, despite being hauled on and off planes and read from cover to cover. I can't guarantee it'll stay that way for long.

2009 In Review Part 3: People

seemed to be a lot less about technology and more about communities and people so what better way to end my 2009 review by calling attention to the people who I feel deserve mention.

I finished up part 2 of my 2009 review with the observation that 2009 seemed to be a lot less about technology and more about communities and people so what better way to end my 2009 review by calling attention to the people who I feel deserve mention.

Firstly and most importantly there's my wife, my children and my family. You know who you all are. You put up with me, with geo and with my work and online life and you never stop believing. I don't need to say anymoreThen there's the other people who've believed, a word I've used a lot in this set of linked 2009 review posts, who've helped, supported, encouraged, criticised and who've given me a platform to speak on. Tyler Bell - ex head of Geo product for Yahoo! and now at alikelist.com * Mark Law - ex VP of product for MapQuest and how at alikelist.com * Chris Osborne - Mr #geomob and my geo-conscience * Steven Feldman - roving geo-consultant and the man behind GeoVation * Tom Coates - Yahoo! Fire Eagle, that says enough * Aaron Cope - ex troublemaker at Flickr and now troublemaker at Stamen * Sophie Davies-Patrick - head of Yahoo! Developer Network International * Christian Heilman - developer evangelist at Yahoo! Developer Network * Havi Hoffman - Yahoo! Developer Network * Steve Coast - founder of OpenStreetMap * Bob Upham - Yahoo! Geo Technologies * Ed Parsons - Google's geotechnologist * Paul Clarke - open data and digital engagement guru * Tony Fish - author of My Digital Footprint and angel investor * Andrew Scott - entrepreneur and CEO of Rummble And finally there's my team, my group, the Geo Technologies crowd in the United States and in the United Kingdom; you continue to produce one of the finest geo platforms there is and you consistently make me look good. Martin Barnes * Walter Andrag * Mike Dickson * Holger Dürer * Bob Craig * Roman Kirillov * Eddie Babcock * Samira Swarnkar * Rob Halliday * Rob Tyler * Chris Gent * Steve May * Ali Abtoy * Andrei Bychay 2009 was a good year for people and for geo; I look forward to writing 2010's review of the year and see that we've gone to the great heights that The Guardian and Garner expect of the location aware Internet.That's it; I'm all blogged out for 2009 and so I wish a very Happy Christmas and a geo-tastic New Year to you all. Posted via email from Gary's Posterous

2009 In Review Part 2: Organisations

First up is OpenStreetMap. One of the things I write about a lot is geographic data, how everyone wants free, open, high quality data but how no-one really wants to pay for it. While attempts to monetise the data corpus of OpenStreetMap haven't entirely succeeded, yet, there's no denying that all the contributors to one of the biggest crowdsourced data projects on the Internet ... believe, and they've created something incredible.The second organisation is the Ordnance Survey, or to be more specific, the staff of the Ordnance Survey. Much maligned and the object of much derision within the geo community, the majority of the staff as the OS have been working towards opening up the vast reams of excellent high quality geo data and it finally looks as if their hard work and belief is paying off. And thirdly is the folks behind the GeoVation Challenge Award.

In an earlier post, I wrote about the gadgets that made 2009; now it's time to look at the organisations and by strange coincidence, as there were 3 gadgets, so there are 3 organisations.

First up is OpenStreetMap. One of the things I write about a lot is geographic data, how everyone wants free, open, high quality data but how no-one really wants to pay for it. While attempts to monetise the data corpus of OpenStreetMap haven't entirely succeeded, yet, there's no denying that all the contributors to one of the biggest crowdsourced data projects on the Internet ... believe, and they've created something incredible.The second organisation is the Ordnance Survey, or to be more specific, the staff of the Ordnance Survey. Much maligned and the object of much derision within the geo community, the majority of the staff as the OS have been working towards opening up the vast reams of excellent high quality geo data and it finally looks as if their hard work and belief is paying off. And thirdly is the folks behind the GeoVation Challenge Award.

GeoVation is all about doing stuff, worthwhile and exciting stuff with geography, with location and with geo. It's funded by the Ordnance Survey but it isn't an Ordnance Survey project per se. The best way to view it is the Ordnance Survey's first, hesitant, tentative steps towards opening up their data.The people behind OpenStreetMap believe in open data, the people behind the Ordnance Survey want to believe in open data and I believe in the GeoVation Challenge, so much so that I've accepted an offer of a seat on the judging panel for the Awards.2009 seemed to be less about technology and more about communities and people, and that means a lot of belief.Coming up later today is Part 3: People ...Photo credits: mikeyashworth and simonperry on Flickr Posted via email from Gary's Posterous

2009 In Review Part 1: Gadgets

As the end of 2009 and of the decade of the noughties approaches rapidly, I thought it worthwhile to look back over the previous 12 months and give credit where credit is due or overdue. So let's start with gadgets.Not one but three. Firstly there's Posterous. Can a web service be a gadget? I think so. According to Wikipedia, gadgets "are invariably considered to be more unusually or cleverly designed than normal technological objects at the time of their invention".So, Posterous. Yes it's a blog creation tool but it's a simple, fiendishly simple blog creation tool. Nothing more than an email to post@posterous.com and you're done. It's how I wrote and posted this post. You focus more on the act of what you're writing, or the photo you've just taken, than on the mechanism where the post is formatted and uploaded. My posterous blog is https://vicchi.posterous.com/ and this auto feeds into my main WordPress driven blog at /.

Add in the other services that Posterous can update and some WordPress plugins and by the mere act of sending a mail, I post to Posterous, to my self hosted WordPress blog which in turn notifies Twitter and Facebook. Phew.The second gadget is still my iPhone. Forget the controversy over the appstore approvals process, forget the appalling coverage that O2 provides here in the UK and focus instead on the fact that just as Posterous has pretty much revolutionised the way I blog, the iPhone has revolutionised the way in which I interact with the internet, where ever I am. Well, at least where ever I have coverage and I'm not being fleeced for international roaming charges that is.The final gadget is YQL. The Yahoo! Query Language. This simple, easy, free, web service allows me to pull in feeds from my blog at /, my work blog at https://www.ygeoblog.com/, my decks on Slideshare, my photos on Flickr, my bookmarks on delicious and a whole slew of other sources and produce the dynamically updated vanity site of https://www.garygale.com/. All this through a single SQL-a-like select statement, some PHP and the Yahoo! User Interface library. Phew (again).Coming up later today is Part 2: Organisations ...Photo credits: PurpleLimeSam Doidge and Studio Ego on Flickr Posted via email from Gary's Posterous