November 6, 2009 @ 8:55 pm
It’s been available as a layer on Google Maps for BlackBerry devices for a while, but it looks like Google formally announced the MTA NYC Subway transit layer for the standard version of Google Maps. Rather than simply showing the station stops like Google Maps has been doing, the new layer actually shows you how each line travels from point to point.
Looks like there will soon be no use for this digital version of the official MTA NYC Subway map.
March 14, 2009 @ 9:00 am
I’m playing around with the most impressive screen capture app ever. It’s called Layers and what it does that I’ve never seen any other screen capture app do is capture your screen as a multi-layered Photoshop file. Every single part of your workspace — meaning, just about anything that is visible on your monitor — is able to be captured in its own layer.
Layers even comes with a handy Inspector window that acts like the default OS Grab application on steroids. With the Inspector you can capture individual windows or hide individual icons, windows, or apps from a screen capture before you even do it (ultimately saving you time in Photoshop from hiding the layer). You can also edit how you want it saved either with or without framing, opacity, and shadow. The Inspector window even allows you to single out your displays if you have multiple displays set up (capture only what’s showing on a projector, for instance).
As you can imagine, a screen grab utility like this is handy when you need to capture something quickly and you don’t have the time to rearrange all of your windows to accommodate the space. With Layers, you simply capture it and literally rearrange your workspace as you see fit, bringing layers up front or pushing them back or hiding them altogether, to create the image you want others to see (and not necessarily showing what’s actually there).
Here’s an example of how powerful this utility is. The first capture below is a straight on screen capture with nothing edited.
As you can see, Transmission is on top. But if I wanted to hide my torrent window from you, all I need to do is hide the Photoshop layer which results in the following image.
And if I wanted to rearrange my workspace to better show another app in the background, say, iTunes, I just need to move my layers around and show you the following image. Mind you, all of these screenshots are made from the same original capture.
This to me is the ultimate screen grab application. I’m pretty much never going to use the default OS Grab app ever again.
January 15, 2009 @ 8:44 pm
Google Maps has shown public transportation stops for a while in New York City (and…if I remember correctly, some other cities as well), but now they are taking it one step further and offering public transportation layers that show routes and stops in the colors that they are meant to be shown in.
So far, the list of cities is pretty extensive. These are the cities that now offer public transportation layers in Google Maps:
Belo Horizonte, Berlin, Bordeaux, Brasilia, Cairo, Capetown, Caracas, Chicago, Copenhagen, Dallas, Dortmund, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Ekaterinburg, Essen, Frankfurt, Genoa, Guadalajara, Hamburg, Helsinki, Johannesburg, Kazan, Köln, Lille, Lisbon, London, Lyon, Madrid, Marseille, Medellin, Mexico City, Melbourne, Monterrey, Montreal, Munich, Naples, Nizhniy Novgorod, Oslo, Paris, Perth, Portland, Porto, Porto Alegre, Prague, Pretoria, Recife, Rennes, Rio de Janeiro, Samara, San Francisco, Santiago, Sao Paulo, Seattle, Strasbourg, Toulouse, Tunis, Vienna, Warsaw.
The new public transportation layer accompanies photos, Wikipedia entries, and video layers available in most locations in Google Maps.
But seriously, why isn’t New York City there? I bet some stupid State Government red tape is preventing Google from displaying these maps. I wouldn’t be surprised if NYS/NYC wanted money from Google for showing these on Google Maps.
UPDATE: It looks like Google Maps has taken down the Melbourne public transportation layer. Who knows why.
