It figures: after stumbling through the unofficial hack method of using Google Maps earlier in the week, today Google released a Google Maps API. It’s so much easier to implement Google Maps when you have real documentation!

So here’s take two at making Google Maps of my Plazes.

As before, I used XSLT to transform the Plazes “traces” file into a format suitable for Google Maps. There’s a new, much simpler format that’s documented here. On first blush it looks like more of the heavy lifting is left to we the API users: no more automatic pop-ups from data baked into XML. Here’s the result of my first go:

• XML locations file (from Plazes)
• XSLT file (transforms the XML file)
• XML file for Google Maps (in the new ‘markers’ format)

The result of the demo, which you can see live here, looks like this:

A click of the “Satellite” link and I get this:

The work to be done now — and there’s the API to support this, thank goodness — is to make the Plazes clickable.

G. dropped off this photo of Prince Street Elementary School this morning, taken in 1961. You can see the new school being built in the background. Photo comes from David MacNevin.

Joe Lewis and Joanna Rogers, two people from my shadowy past in Peterborough have surfaced on the web.

Joanna and I, you may recall, drove across the continent together.

I first met Joe in the Centennial Restaurant in Peterborough on the day it closed. I had breakfast there with Joe, Lisa Howard and James Ramsay. It was a remarkable day, but I’m not sure why.

Joe is from Paris. Ontario. Where they make the playground equipment.

Doc Searls on little FM transmitters.

Member of Parliament for Cardigan, Lawrence MacAulay, as reported by the CBC, speaking about the reasons for this decision to vote against Canada’s new “same sex marriage” legislation:

“Your mother and father have a lot of influence on how you believe things should be in life and I believe they should have all the rights that anybody should have. I always said I believe in the sanctity of marriage and I voted against it all the way through. It’s not easy to do but it’s something that I must do.”

Cynthia Dunsford discovered last night that Cafe Diem has open Wifi, and, through Plazes, I discovered her discovery. So I’m sitting here drinking a chai latte (the best chai latte in the city, I think) and I’ve just polished off a “chocolatine,” which is their name for what we called a “pain au chocolate” in France.

I’ve decided to launch a single-handed campaign to bring the phrase “jacking in” back into public use.

There are now 30 discovered Plazes in Charlottetown.

Minor podcastiness here on the blog:

• Everything that pours out audio-wise will show up in a new podcast RSS feed and on the new podcast archive page.
• Said new RSS feed has all the iTunes RSS goodness in it.
• I’m toying with the idea of branding the podcast The Rukcast. Johnny doesn’t like the name, but the URL ruk.ca/st appeals to me too darn much.
• I’ve added a little “play” button to every podcast-containing blog post; if you’re properly Flash-enabled, a click of the button should shoot the audio at you almost immediately. Nice for tasting.

Looks like the new iTunes podcast directory is experiencing growing pains:

Trent Radio Alumni & Friends Reunion: August 26 to 28, 2005 in Peterborough.

I grabbed the audio of the interview about Plazes that aired this afternoon on CBC Radio’s Mainstreet this afternoon. It runs just over 10 minutes. Thanks to Angela Walker for a good interview and producer and technician Eva O’Hanley for running the board.