For every Microsoft announcement of a product/service that will be available some months/years down the road, Google seems to announce a product/service that is available immediately.

Today they announced an official API for Google Maps. This is finally a reason for me to get off my butt and learn the ins and outs of Javascript and XML.

After work today, Seth and I started playing around with the API. Recently Seth worked on a greasemonkey script to show MBTA subway and bus lines through google maps. This time around we decided to try overlaying the T lines on top of a regular map using the API’s built-in polyline functionality. The benefit is that you get to use the excellent street and satellite data from google, and no greasemonkey script is required. Seth started putting some code together while I figured out the latitude and logitude of the various T stops in Boston. So far I only have a few of the locations of the red line, but it quickly became clear that it would work.

Click here for a working example. You can click each T stop to get it’s name, and in the future, any other relevant information. I’ll keep gathering T stop locations so we can add other T lines. Adding bus lines might get a little crazy.

Now that the API is official, I expect to see some pretty amazing applications built on top of it. All the while Microsoft is working on getting RSS into IE/Longhorn which should be out any year now.

Today I went to check my first Berkman Center luncheon. I don’t know what exactly the Berkman Center does but they have interesting people talk every Tuesday and give those who attend a free lunch which seems like a pretty good deal to me.

There are a ton of smart people in the Cambridge/Boston area, so my goal while living in the city is to take advantage of as many events like this as I can, and hopefully something will rub off.

Today’s speaker was Martin Zogran, Assistant Professor of Urban Design in the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. While most of what Zogran was talking about was foreign to me, he did talk about a couple interesting ideas. Links used in his presentation are available here. He also showed an idea of using the web to create a map which allows the Harvard community to find public spaces. Sort of Google Local on a even more local scale with more information on each public space.

There are a couple more photos from the luncheon in the gallery.

Yesterday after work I ventured out into Cambridge on my bike. I decided to find the Apple Store at Cambridgeside for two reasons. One, the idea of living biking distance to an Apple store is new and exotic. And two, I’ve been looking all over for a USB headset to use with my PowerBook to make Skype calls.

I managed to immediately get lost (even after carefully mapping out my route with Google Maps) but I wasn’t too worried. I did manage to find the place. Unfortunately the only USB headset was $60 which quickly makes the 2 cents a minute SkypeOut call a lot more expensive, but the headset I got (Plantronics .Audio 85) is sort interesting in that the headset itself has normal 3.5 mm jacks, which then plug into an included 3.5 mm analog to USB adapter… So I can plug in any microphone and earphones I want that have 3.5 mm jack.

On the way home I got royally lost, ending up way in the middle of Somerville. People on the street seem pretty helpful and friendly, so after many extraneous miles I found my way home.

It has been quiet around the blog lately. Not because we’ve been watching soaps all day, but rather we’ve been so darn busy. Since the last blog post:

• I have left my job at Marlboro College.
• Got a 3 month contract job working for the Public Radio Exchange.
• Corin has left her job.
• Corin has gotten a new teaching job.
• We found an apartment for me in Cambridge for the summer.
• We got Married.
• We went to Montreal. (gallery)

Things are certainly interesting. Once I catch up on some sleep, hopefully I’ll be back on a more regular basis.

Wiretap – The Big Shot. From 2005-06-11. Host Jonathan Goldstein.

Wiretap – Reach for the Top from 2005-06-04. Host Jonathan Goldstein.

RSSxl is a cool way to make a quick RSS feed from a web page that doesn’t provide its own.

I’ve set up a couple feeds and using it for a couple weeks with excellent results. For example, the local news paper has a web site but no RSS feed. It looks like RSSxl also supports regular expressions, but I’m not sure it it allows you to store the expressions for later use. For simple pages, it sure beats writing a page scraper.

For the past six days (often in the early morning), this woodpecker has has been pecking on the road sign near our house. It is quite loud even in our house with the windows closed. Corin thinks it sounds like the video game Frogger. I thought that it was just an incredibly dense woodpecker, determined to find food in a metal sign. However the Wikipedia Woodpecker entry says they also peck to, “signal pocession of territory to their rivals”. I really hope this is the purpose and it isn’t in fact looking for grubs. This photo was as close as I could get (click for a larger version) before a car came along and scared it away. No worries, I’m sure it will be back tomorrow.