I was reading the “Flickr Blog”:http://blog.flickr.com/flickrblog/ today and came across this “post”:http://blog.flickr.com/flickrblog/2005/04/memory_maps.html about “memory maps.” The idea is that you post a screen shot of an area you are familiar with (from a service like Google “Maps”:http://maps.google.com), and annotate the screen shot with your memories. Wild!

Here’s part of a picture from the Memory Maps Flickr group showing an example of the annotations.
!http://www.zoinger.com/img/flickr_memory_maps.png!

Just make sure you have a browser that has Flash enabled so you can view the annotations.

This is probably not news to anyone but me, but I just noticed that Google Maps now has a “satellite” view. This displays an aerial photo of the area you are looking at.

However, if you’re looking to zoom in further than Google allows, it’s worth checking Microsoft’s “TerraServer”:http://terraserver.microsoft.com/. For areas that they have recently updated (such as Palo Alto, CA), you can zoom in much further than Google. In addition, the TerraServer offers older aerial shots and topo map overlays.

Here’s a screen shot of 500 University in Palo Alto, CA from Google at maximum zoom:
!http://www.zoinger.com/img/maps_google.png!
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