Google Maps provides Free Real-Time Traffic Information in Canada

I assume you are already familiar with Google Maps. You have probably stared at satellite images of your house from space, planned the best route from your current location to a street address, and looked at maps to measure distances. Maybe you've even tried Google Building Maker to create photo-realistic 3d buildings in your city.  Possibly you've noticed the upgraded appearance of road-maps lately, but there is more... Google is now giving you more

Previously only available in the United States, Google Maps has released Real-time traffic information for Google Maps in Canada. I'm happy to say that I saw this one coming, requested it from the Google Maps team, and watched with interest as it was launched in Seattle and featured on the Google Maps blog.

Today I noticed my colleague had Google Maps open in Greater Vancouver WITH traffic information!!! Apparently it launched at about the same time as Google StreetView.

Here's how it works...

To see Real-Time traffic in Google Maps, open up maps.google.com and after the map loads, zoom in a bit and choose the "traffic" button. A legend will appear. Green=good Yellow=ok Red/Maroon=Bad Black=ReallyBad. On the map coloured lines will appear on top of the routes, showing you where the slowdowns are and which roads are flowing smoothly. Experiment with zooming in and out to see traffic for larger or smaller roadways.

Google Mobile Users can also access this information from their Blackberry or other compatible device. From the Menu in Google Maps Mobile, choose "show traffic", let it load and voila, colours on the roads. My favourite feature of Google Maps Mobile is "hitting zero" and having the application guess my location and center me in the middle of the map. Originally this feature used cell phone tower information to triangulate my approximate location and I would see a nice blue circle around me (your position within 1300 meters) as Google did it's best to guess where I was. Usually pretty good, but switching to a phone with GPS brought the guess to withing 3 meters. (9 feet for my friends in the USA). Now if I hit "zero" I can watch myself cruising down the road colour coded for the kind of traffic I'm about to drive into. Google Maps Mobile users can also contribute real-time traffic information from their cell phones by signing up for and logging into Google Latitude.

So where is Google getting all this real time traffic data, did they really dig up all the roads and put sensors in? or are they tracking us with real time military satellites?... no. Google's "Latitude" service allows you to share your location with friends (and Google) using your mobile phone. If you don't have a GPS in your phone you'll still get the triangulation data for your location to share with your friends, but it may not be good enough for contributing to traffic... So anyways, your GPS information is shared with Google whenever you are logged in that will definitely put some "mileage" on your cell phone's data plan. I'm just saying be aware of it if you pay per MB/GB. If the Google traffic robot sees one phone going down the road, it has an idea of speed, but if it sees a whole bunch, it can start being confident of the road's speed. Freeways/Interstates have higher speed limits than arterial roads etc. A little bit of algorithm work to allow stoplights to function without making the whole city look like a traffic jam... and voila.

Today i had the distinct pleasure of watching myself drive down the road, and seeing the traffic information being drawn on behind me as I went. I guess I was the Latitude user with the GPS equipped phone that tipped the scales and gave Google the confidence to draw the traffic on the map. It feels good! Now we have an option to "flipping on the radio" and weathering the annoying advertisements when we see the freeway crawling to a halt.


Cheers, I hope this saves you and your friends a TON of traffic headaches!

I can't wait to see what Google Maps does next...
Greg.

Backyard Vegetable Gardens & Michael Pollan's 20 Food Rules for more Healthy Eating

Growing up we had a vegetable garden, Mom speaks of the vegetable garden her family had growing up, Grandma tended it and took after the example of her Mom, Grandma May, who was a pioneer crossing the prairies in one of those red river carts.  Those folks knew how to avoid wasting food, probably because they also knew what real hunger felt like. They knew about picking high-bush cranberries, about making jam and preserves, and of course making home-made bread.  Many of the necessary ingredients came straight from the garden, whether it was cukes for pickling or raspberries growing on canes in the garden, or tomatoes, carrots and other veggies amply supplied by the ground.  How natural is that?  Somehow after my family moved to BC in the late 80s we never gave a vegetable garden a second thought.  (Despite more favourable growing conditions.)  For almost 20 years I have been falling under the delusion that vegetables come from the produce section and not from the dirt.  Recent documentaries like super-size me the "Meatrix" and others have raised some significant questions for me about where my food comes from and how healthy it is.

So...

Today I started digging my garden.  It is another in a series of small steps I'm taking to eat food that is more healthy and more socially responsible.  I'm tired of eating without thinking as if in a waking sleep.  I want to put good foods in my body, and foods that have been produced, prepared and transported in a responsible manner. Some of you have heard of the 100 mile diet (now a book The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating) in which people attempt to only eat food that has traveled less than 100 miles to their plate.  To me the backyard garden is about as close as you can get in transportation cost and processing. With my recent rain-barrel project, I have 200L of (non-chlorinated) rainwater available to water the garden.

For me I can't get it "perfect" it isn't about perfection, its about direction.  Am I moving towards health or away from it?  For this reason I really enjoyed reading Michael Polland's collection of "food rules" that his readers sent in. Michael Polland has authored books like; The Omnivore's Dilemma, The Botany of Desire, and Second Nature: A Gardener's Education.  The list reads like a "Cole's Notes" of collective food wisdom served in bite sized chunks.

I absolutely love this kind of reading, discovering what has worked for others outside of my experience, beyond my culture.  I was taught to "clean my plate" to not waste food.  I was more recently taught to eat until I was full.  The idea expressed above of stopping when 7/10ths full was full is brand new to me, but judging from my wasteline, this might be the best advice to date!  (We'll see how I do with the application of this rule).

Check out Food Rules: Your Dietary Dos and Don'ts (via Lifehacker)

Cheers,

Greg.

Hypermiling - A beginner's guide to eco-driving

Hyper-miling is the North American version of Eco-driving, which essentially involves driving better to use less fuel.  It is a practice where car owners can routinely exceed their vehicles rated fuel economy through the use of their skill and common techniques.  These techniques can be employed safely to effectively reduce the cost and environmental impact of driving while still allowing the driver to travel effectively.


Hyper-miling acknowledges a spectrum of driving ability, attitudes, conditions and vehicles.  The people involved vary from folks who don't want to pay more than they have to for gas, to hyper milers who modify their vehicles, route, habits, and fuel in order to achieve astounding mileages like 100 mpg, all the way to irresponsible idiots who tailgate big rigs and drive dangerously while inconveniencing other drivers.

It not only involves using less fuel, it can also involve driving less, and even transforming the traffic around you using techniques like traffic smoothing, wave cancellation, and defusing aggressive driving.  It all depends how seriously you want to be about your driving.


Maintenance:

• Use a lower viscosity engine oil like a 5W30 (or 0W30)  instead of a 10W30
• Inflate your tires to the recommended inflation (or a tiny bit more)
• Consider purchasing harder tires when replacing them.
• Remove dead weight from your car's trunk. (golf clubs, sand bags, lumber)
• Clean air filter
• Clean spark plugs
• Use a fuel additive to clean your car's fuel injectors (read the ingredients, the less expensive and more expensive additives may be the same)
• (Some additives may also help improve your car's combustion efficiency)

Aerodynamics
Reduce your vehicles drag so it slips through the air more smoothly.  The more "slippery" your vehicle is, the less energy you will spend "fighting the wind"

• Keep windows up
• Remove roof rack, roof top carrier and bike racks when not in use
• Reduce your top speed to reduce wind resistance. 

Strategy
It is a game, a puzzle, a challenge.  Information can give you an advantage.  Thinking about your approach and keeping your goal in mind can help you do better.

• Avoid unnecessary elevation gain
• Parking with Potential   (park facing downhill where you can take advantage of any elevation gain in the parking lot to get going.
• Parking to pull-through  (reversing out of parking spots, braking and pulling forward wastes more energy)
• Avoiding unnecessary traffic lights and other "stops". (fewest number of traffic lights, less populated areas)
• Using routing software like maps.google.com to confirm the most direct route
• Purchase a real-time fuel economy gauge so you can "see" how well you are driving.
• Combine errands to reduce unnecessary driving around town.
• Create a carpool that works for you.

Driving skill and style
By consciously altering your driving style and building skill, you will reduce your fuel costs through;

• Do not accelerate quickly or brake heavily: This reduces fuel economy by as much as 33 percent at highway speeds and 5 percent around town
• Anticipate what is coming.  Be looking ahead to watch traffic, pedestrians, traffic lights.
• Timing lights and smart braking (continue slowing before you actually stop until the light changes to green and you can re-accelerate without having to do so from a stop.)
• Using the Pulse and glide technique
• Driving with buffers (driving without brakes)
• Coasting in neutral (While coasting you might get as high as 131 MPG (US) )
• Idling in Neutral (You idle anyways, why not idle so you use less gas?)
• Avoiding Idling (At gas station line-ups, drive-thrus, train crossings and long lights you will use more fuel idling than you will turning your car off and re-starting)
• Minimizing AC use (A car idling with AC on will use 1.7 Litres per hour, but a car idling with no AC will only use 1.2 Litres per hour)
• Maintaining (more) speed in corners.
• Driving with Load (rather than focusing on maintaining a constant speed, maintain a constant load on your car.  As you climb a hill, you lose some speed but keep the engine at a constant load)
• Smoothing out stop and go traffic (act as a shock absorber in rough traffic to improve safety, traffic flow and fuel economy).
• Do not use 4-wheel drive if it is not needed. 4-Wheel drive reduces fuel economy.
• Driving without shoes (to get a better feel for your throttle)
• Invest in a real-time mileage gauge like a ScanGauge II
  (shop around for the best price)

Here is a Link to Amazon where you can purchase the ScanGaugeII if you are looking for one.

So this is really more of an appetizer plate to whet your appetite, to peak your curiosity, and to extend an initial invitation to the world of hyper-miling.  Come, join me.  I pay slightly less for gas but still get where I'm going in the same amount of time.  Got some questions?  Check out the links above, and post your questions in the comments below where everybody can benefit from the answers.

Happy Hyper-miling,

Greg.

Google Cyber Security Awareness Channel on YouTube offers helpful tips.

From the official Google blog  a couple days ago...

Google has a cyber security awareness channel on YouTube. with topics like;

• cyber bullying
• knowing who you are talking to
• keeping computer software patched
• choosing strong passwords
• malware
• avoiding phishing
• tips for parents

It appears to be the result of a contest where contestants prepared videos.  So the quality varies quite a bit, and technically savvy computer users won't learn anything new, but if you have friends and family who are new to this whole "Interweb thing" (sic) then it is a nice light intro in a very approachable format.

Hope that helps keep your friends and family safe(r).
Greg.

Corporate Greed and Upselling - Trialware On Your Computer

None of us has made it this far in life without hearing McDonald's famous "would you like fries with that?" upsell.  Whether its the "extended warranties" that put electronics retailers in the dubious position of convincing us that their products are subject to highly likely and frequent failures, or the person in the restaurant asking "did you want cheese with that?" or "anything to drink", we are constantly surrounded by upselling.  It is the corporation's attempt to extract more money from our wallets than we have decided to give them.  They have a captive audience and are greedy for a little more of our after-tax money.  Sometimes its sneaky like a well placed food-bar at the exit of a big box retailer, other times it is more overtly evil like additional charges on your restaurant bill for items you thought were included in the posted price.  Sometimes it is putting the customer in a situation where they have to work hard and spend their time to avoid paying money.  I have been seeing the same thing happening on the last few computers I have purchased.

When purchasing computers in the last couple years, it has become difficult to ignore the seriously large amount of  CRAP software that is loaded onto the desktop.  It is software loaded onto the computers that promises to disappoint in one of the following ways.  The software;

• will stop working after a time period
• will allow you to create documents in a proprietary format before locking up.
• will offer a narrow range of functionality with enough limitation or irritation that upgrading seems like the only way to make the pain stop.
• offers a service you never would have sought out on your own.
• is ad supported and to make the annoying ads stop you must pay.
• (mcafee) is stuck in a half installed state that is only solved by creating an account on their website.

When did it become OK for some corporation to put something on our computers without our permission, particularly something that advertises at us, or promises to frustrate, or slows the computer to a crawl by starting when the computer starts...  For example there was some DVD software that came installed on a net-book that ran 2 executables at boot time, each of which used several Megs of RAM (you caught that it was a netbook and had no DVD drive right?...

My best guess is that companies like HP and Acer are being paid to install this software on your computer. ($15/computer etc) knowing that a certain percentage of suckers will simply obey the computer and type in their credit card number to continue.

So I am technically savvy and have no problem recognizing these "special offers", but I truly pity the older generations and the less astute who may not understand their computer software is going to "stop working" in 60 days.  To prey on the ignorance of the ill-informed is reprehensible behaviour.  These corporations seem to think nothing of taking actions that will lead to confusion and frustration and disappointment on the part of their customers, as long as they get their $15 per computer sold.  Ok, so they make money by making their customers experience frustrating while bloating their computer's RAM and cluttering the start menu and desktop.   I would suggest that the term "free-trial" is the other meaning of "trial"  the one that means the same as "ordeal" and not a "test-drive".  There is an arrogance with these software manufacturers in that they seem to believe the following about their software;

• that it is so important it should take up space on my desktop where I will see it constantly
• that it is ok to use up your RAM on startup to keep "helpers" and "startup assistants" in memory even if you don't use their software that day.
• that it is OK to hijack file associations and make themselves the default software for use with files of those types
• that your data (audio/text etc) should be stored in a proprietary format that only their software reads/writes

When we recently purchased a computer for my parents, we uninstalled (or modified the behaviour of) the following crap trial-ware; Adobe Reader (does not need to load on start), cyberlink DVD software (does not need to load, this is a netbook), Microsoft Works (ad supported? really Microsoft you are sounding more desperate each year), 15 time limited games, Mcafee antivirus software (60 days).

MS Office student edition 60 day trial, carbonite online storage.

There are lots of excellent and free software packages out there that surpass those listed above, so I've loaded these onto the computers to replace the advertising, crippled trial-ware and deceptive marketing.

Many of these were in my list of free software earlier this year.

Hey Manufacturers....  My next computer will be Linux or Google-OS.  Stop treating your customers like a "market to be exploited" and start putting yourself in their shoes and asking "how would I like to be treated?"

Software vendors.... Your software isn't as good as you think it is.  People aren't delighted to "TRY" your software "FOR FREE".  Get out of the 80s.  Deliver real value to people with no strings attached and you will have a loyal following (anyone heard of Google or open source software).  Stop trying to trap the customer into your profit center.

People...  Use free open source software.  It works, its better, its less of a headache, it costs less.  Be free.

Cheers,

Greg

P.S.  Acer you owe me 8 hours of my life back.  I bill at $60/hour, I think you owe me a laptop.  Email me to arrange delivery.