Mini Tutorial on Google Earth By a So-So Google Earth User

I've advanced from a Google Earth viewer to a Google Earth user, credits to the assignment Siva had entrusted me with. Now, please give a chance to pass these skills to people who are interested to be a Google Earth user too!

An overview of Google Earth. The globe greets you once you start the program.

Google Earth isn't a difficult program to use. Perhaps, you could try to find your home and get yourself familiarize with the navigation control and the program itself.

If you are overwhelmed with all the trees, buildings and roads that you see at the satellite level, and had no idea what the place you are staring at is, no worries! You could switch on useful layers such as the roads, borders, populated places, and Google earth community. These will show you the landmarks and road names. Alternatively, you can download Singapore Placemarks Version 4.12. This will give you major landmarks and even MRT routes; it's definitely a very useful tool and worth downloading. =D

The layers control is at the bottom left hand side of the screen (as shown in the picture).

After you are done with exploring Google Earth, it's serious business time - marking places on it. I will show how to put a pin and make a path in this post.

Click to enlarge the picture. Follow the instructions in the picture to put a pin on a landmark. If you need to do amendments, right click on the pin and choose 'properties' (for Windows). For Mac users, choose 'get info'.

Click to enlarge the picture. Follow the instructions in the picture to draw a path.

Now, after all the pins and paths are in position, it's time to save your file and perhaps share it with others! Firstly, you've got to create a folder in say 'My Places'. Then drag all the items that you had created into this new folder.

Click to enlarge the picture. Follow the instructions in the picture to create a folder.

Now, you can save it as a KMZ file and share it with your friends! Simply attach the KMZ file to you email and you're done!

Click to enlarge the picture. Follow the instructions in the picture to save as a KMZ file.

It's the end of the tutorial! You are now certified as a Google Earth User! Congratulations!

Colours on a gloomy day

I had nothing ahead of me except press articles to scan and a schedule to chase. That was probably why the hot shining day seemed gloomy.

Nevertheless amidst my dulled senses, my attention was captured by this!



As if the blinding sun wasn't enough, I saw this blooming lotus outside the Department of Biological Science. It was initially just a bud on Monday. But when I went down on Wednesday - volia!



It's big, pink and blooming in action.

I couldn't help but take a few shots. The fact that I'd finished scanning the articles probably added to my photo-taking mood. =)



Here's the last picture of the lotus, sun kissed and smiling for the camera.

This was taken on the 27th July. I guess the flower's still there for those who want to see it, but no guarentees. So hurry down now to Level 5 Blk S2 Science Drive 4, The National University of Singapore to catch the flower in full bloom!

Googling Earth for ICCS

Siva decided to give the maps in International Coastal Cleanup, Singapore (ICCS) website an overhaul – an upgrade from the streetdirectory.com maps to Google Earth – and he entrusted me with this major map revamp assignment. After giving me a mini Google Earth tutorial, I was left to figure out the rest on my own.

I got to the ICCS website immediately and looked at the maps for each zones. (Gulp! Gonna have a tough time…)

ICCS map for Changi Zone. Imagine this in Google Earth.

Shock time over, and I began marking down the places steadily in Google Earth. It’s not so horrifying after all because I’m armed with the latest Singapore Street Directory 2007!

I started marking down on 19 June 2007 and am finally done with the first run on 26 June 2007. A little preview on the future ICCS maps and my lovely artwork:

The same Changi Zone in Google Earth.

Hooray! Hooray!! First run is finally over! No more popping eyes and mad shuffling between ICCS website, Google Earth, and Singapore Street Directory 2007!

However, just when I’m on cloud nine, Siva called for me: ‘Wenxian, go find out about Google Maps and see how these Google Earth maps can be integrated into it.’ *Gulp.*

(Sequel coming soon!)

Typhoid Mary

After being labeled as Typhoid Mary by Siva, this is what I've found:

" Today, a Typhoid Mary is a generic term for a carrier of a dangerous disease who is a danger to the public because they refuse to take appropriate precautions. "

Here's some interesting information about the first identified carrier of typhoid fever. Add the fact that she's always in denial, and you can bring several people seriously down.

I brought down Siva only, but many people seem to be getting the flu these days. So being the pioneer amongst those hit with flu, I guess it's no wonder he referred to me as Typhoid Mary.

Museums galore!

I was doing the administrates for claiming taxi fares when I came across an abbreviation - MOFF. Initially I thought it was some Ministry of bla bla bla. But I just couldn't get my hands on it.

Then, it hit me that it's got to be some Museum. And thanks to the amazing search engine Google, I've found more than I've bargained for - an entire list of museums in Singapore! They've formed an association known as the Museum Roundtable.

Internship's really a discovery process when Siva lets me have the time to explore. =P Else I'd never have known there were these much places holding Singapore's culture and heritage. And some still say Singapore's hopeless for her heritage.

Well, now we know otherwise! 42 museums around Singapore to keep the culture and heritage hungry Singaporean satisfied. Here's the list of Museums along with a general map to let you give you a rough idea of the locations of the museums.

Like me, I guess you readers out there's forgotten the reason why I've stumbled upon this list.

*Imagining Siva berating me for my porous memory* =P

Anyway, there it is. MOFF stands for Memories at Old Ford Factory. Which reminds me that I've got to read up on it. Right Siva? =P

Getting OS X 10.4.10 - Part One

There're two different chips in a Macintosh - one for Intel based Mac computers and another for PowerPC (PPC). Siva's blogged about it in his OS X 10.4.10 - go fetch! post, and also, more download information are available under Apple downloads as well.

Here are 4 easy steps I did to download the new OS X 10.4.10 on the Power Mac G4 I use:

1. Before updating the Mac, go to spotlight in a mac and search out your Disk Utility.

2. Next just proceed to repair disk permissions and wait till it's done.

3. Then carry on to update your Mac.

4. After it's done, Siva recommends to repeat the "repair disk permissions" step again.


Repairing Disk Permissions

1st


2nd


3rd

This only gets the Combo pack onto the G4. It has to be manually installed. And that will be for another post to come.

URL made cuter

Been looking at Siva's blog and trying to get some interesting (my definition) web tools to play around with. =P

So here's what I've found and thought this is cute and useful at the same time:

TinyURL !!

It's a really neat tool basically because it tidies up those long URLs you get through surfing the internet, that you want to share with your friends. Instead of a whole chunk, why not shrink it into mouth bites?

Where to get the HTML for your blog or webpage for easy access. And no need to sign up for yet another account. =)