This is so cool! A Google-powered pedometer (or, in my case, a bike-o-meter). I can’t believe Joseph hasn’t blogged this already, since he’s the one who told me about this.
Once you’ve arrived at the pedometer site, choose your country (if outside the US), state, and type in your city. As on the original Google Map site you can scroll around the map and zoom in/out to focus on the area that you’ll be riding (walking, running, whatever). The app can not only save a route that you’ve mapped, it can also create a TinyURL at the same time. I used this to map the route I ride between work and home.
This app is great, but the site is made even better by the “Acknowledgements and references” section. (Scroll down below the map, the section is on the left side with all the other text.) The links to all the enabling technologies and resources are awesome!
The only problem I’ve seen so far is printing. Clicking the “Print map” link is supposed to reformat the map for printing, but on my browser it opens up the print dialog. I have to cancel the print dialog to view the reformatted map. I’m using Firefox 1.0.1 on a PowerBook G4 running Mac OS X Panther v10.3.9. It’s an easy enough workaround, and until I get around to updating Firefox I’m not going to report this as a bug.
I am not sure that Google’s pedometer is 100% correct. It seems to give a longer distance than true distance. I have drawn around a distance I know to be 2 miles, and it reports it as 3. Have you noticed this at all? Is there another internet pedometer? thanks
Hmmm. I just checked the pedometer’s estimated distance from my house to the library, and it’s extremely close to what my bike and car both report. (Yes, I do know exactly how far it is to the local library.
) One thing that comes to mind, though–are you unknowingly measuring in kilometers instead of miles? (2 miles is about 3 km.) At the top left corner of the window, you’ll see “Gmaps Pedometer”, below that two buttons probably labeled “Recording” and “Undo last point”, and below that an english/metric radio box. Make sure that “english” is selected. The “Total Distance” and “Last Leg” boxes should be labeled “miles”.
I hope your problem is this easily solved. Let me know one way or the other! Just leave another comment.
you are absolutely correct! thanks