Maybe everyone has seen this...I'm often the last to know cool stuff.

If you have not seen Google Earth, go here and download it. Astonishing, beyond compare! Be sure to fly through the Grand Canyon and learn how to fly down your own street or sail your next distance race from 1000 feet up. Be sure to flip switches and read the travel forums. I spend too much time on my computer as it is but now I may NEVER get any sleep. This thing is addictive.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/googleearth.html

Google Earth download

Thank you for telling us. It is absolutely fantastic! Now I may never sleep again, either.

I agree this is real cool, can't stop checking places.
Question, I can tell some of the charts(photo's?) are 1 to 2 years old from the places I'm looking at.
How old or current do you think from the places you look at?

From very recent to more than 10 years. The source (satelite) and age depend on the location you are looking at.

My area is from late last summer. I can tell because I can see my Hunter 23 in the driveway (I was restoring it over a 6 week period and it lives at the sailing club).

Santa Cruz Island in the Channel Islands National Park

Santa Barbara to the Santa Cruz Channel



Ford Point, Santa Rosa Island


This topographical overlay will show the terrain better.
There is a slide switch at the bottom of the my places window that will allow you to vary the amount of obscurity vs transparency.

GARY

Abslutely amazing! I had heard about it, but this is the first time I looked. It seems like the pics from our area are about 1 year old. I can see my truck at work! Wild.
The lake I sail at is Wabamun Lake, which shows on the map as "White Whale". Moby Dick reference? I'm not sure.
Anyway, thanks for the reminder about the site.
Al

Incredible!

My area must have been early spring. Marinas are all there, but no boats in the slips yet. Just wonderful...

Wyatt

There are so many cool aspects of this software I can't find the bottom. Be sure you use the "tilt view" slider on the right...unbelievalbe! Try turning on the buildings, tilt it over hard, and fly through many cities (try New York) just like Flight Simulator. The interactive input of sites and discussion forums are great, too. People report seeing the weirdest things.

Resolution is VERY inconsistant. It must depend on what the Feds are interested that day and what they want to release. In rural coastal California (marijuana growing capital!) I found one area so clear that I could see a guy standing by an old Ford pickup.

You Key Largo racers, check out Jewfish Creek drawbridge and in Virginia Beach you can read a menu at the Duck Inn at Lynnhaven.

Hey, where Hugh Hefner's place?

I did the download, shut down and restarted my computer, which is new a couple months ago, DSL, Pentium 4, Windows xp 2pack, did the security change they recommened, all I get is a green screen, no pictures of anything. When I go to Map, I get a road map, but no satelite pictures...what am I doing wrong....not a geek so talk slowly and be kind please...Thanks.

Post a photo of your sailing site taken from Google Earth.

It's hard to decide which view is best but here is one of Dunedin's barrier island chain where I sail. Launch is from the bump on the causeway, then either out the pass to the left into the Gulf of Mexico or stay "inside" and race around the tiny islands.

There are two versions available (both of them should be installed). Go to your start menu, Google Earth, and set it to run by picking one or the other of the DirectX or the OpenGL mode. These are two different graphics modes - one is probably incompatable with your video card (or your software drivers need to be updated).

Here is my local haunt. The bridge is the Dupont Bridge in Panama City. You can see the parking lot in the lower right corner and the row of catamarans parked on the beach between the parking lot and the water. Options are to sail around the channel markers on the east side of the bridge, or on light wind days, go under the bridge to west side where the wind blows better. The resolution is kind of crappy, must not be a high priority area. This is actually Tyndall AFB property so not too many marijuana plantations around.

-Rob V.
Panama Ciy
Nacra 5.2

Jake and Dave, I've spent an hour reinstalling, changing settings, all the things you told me, two and three times each, went back to the original site, downloaded it all again, etc.

I get two icons, one round and one square, I changed the way they both open, twice. When I click on the round one, I get the black stars and outer space, with a zooming in baloon pointer when I click on the Colorado River. It zooms in and then goes to an all green screen. No satelite photos, nothing but green.

I get a compass and an arrow, menue bar on the bottom and menue on the left, but just a green screen. I'm sure the reason is either the new Windows XP Home, Service Pack 2, or the super duper McAfee virus protection, something is preventing the loading of the photos, obviously. Yes, I have highspeed.

I'm sure I have messed up my settings now to the point where this computer will have to be thrown in the lake and I'll need to buy a new one! The McAffe stuff is so good at preventing virus' that you can't do anything on the internet! It took me three hours on the phone with Earthlink product support just to get my email to work and I still can't get on one of the websites of my work all of which my 1997, Dialup, Windows 97 did perfectly!! This new stuff is crap! I should have bought a Mac!

Sometimes "new" technology is not "better" technology...

Timbo, With a Mac you would only be able to do what I'm doing, which is reading the thread. It is made, unfortunately, only for Windows based PC's. I HATE THATTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, my New Windows stuff isn't allowing me to see it so what's the difference?

Tim, I'm running P4 2.8Ghz, XP Home, McAfee virus protection, with a Radeon X300 series video card (pretty run of the mill). No problems.

Well here's another twist: I'd like to post a picture, and the program works on mymonitor, but if I try to save, send, or print all I get is a black rectangle! Any ideas on that?

Download and install the latest version of DirectX (9.0c).
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/default.aspx?url=/windows/directx/downloads/default.htm

Do the same for your video drivers, see what make and model it is. (Goto Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Computer Management, expand System Tools->Device manager and see what it says under Display Adapters).

Open your Start Menu->Google Earth and try both the DirectX and OpenGL version.

Let us know if this helps.