Google earth is a neat little program released by the boffins at Google and it allows you to view the world from space or more specifiically satelites. Many key places in the world are shown in exceptional detail down to 200ft in places. On the other hand, other places no detail is shown. - like my grandparents town - it just appears as a blur on the map.
It is a rather expansive program but even on a dial up connection i wouldnt think it takes more than a hour to download and on broadband its at most ten minutes. So for most people it doesnt take that long to download. Once you have downloaded it, the installation is rather simple. Nothing to technical to explain. I would reccomend, from experience that you untick the box that ask you to download the google toolbar as well its not worth the effort in my opinion.
The first time you run Google earth it will most likely seem like nothing has happened - this is normal - be patient, the first time, it has to connect to the googleearth servers to log you in and so on. It also has to setup default setting etc.
Once you are in there are two ways to find a place. 1, click in the box at the side of the map of the earth and type a place name in. Then click GO and it will take you there, or give you a list of places with identical names and if you click on one it will take you there.
2, click and drag to where you want to go. This is ok if you are near where you want to be on the map, but say if the default starts in america, and you want to find london for example its gonna take a long time to scroll across.
To the top right of the map, there should be a circle with a N(north ) marking on it. This gives rise to options such as the zoom of the image and also allows you to tilt the camera view and allows you t flatten the image. From experience i found this to only be of major use in places like Dartmoor and Snowdon and the grand canyon where it is the contours you want to see. In Highly built up places it serves no real purpose as everything just becomes flattened so you cannot walk through a place- although that would be a rather cool new feature!
My major grips with google earth come in the quality of the images contained within it. In some places they are excellent, in other awful or just a blur. Also, whilst i like the idea, and in the most part like the software, the images are seriously out of date - dependant on area anything upto 5 years
But to be honest thats being picky. For most users i would suspect it is a very neat tool for looking at places and getting mapping. I also find it useful for looking at my uncles house and where he lives, as i cannot visit as he lives in austrailia!!!
For the basic package, which is free, i would highly reccomend everyone has a copy on their pc - its a decent bit of kit for whats it worth
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: Facinating, Route planner, detail, possibilities. Disadvantages: Not everywhere is properly mapped to a good resolution, but they will get there.
drewboy 20.01.2006 (20.01.2006)
·
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Google Earth
Advantages: Works well. robust and resilient, user friendly. Disadvantages: The upgrade took time and needs to be left alone to do its job. Do not interrupt!
Mar 10th, 2007
very helpful by (100%):
