Thursday, July 31, 2008
23:41 by FoxTwo
Image via WikipediaI received an email today, pretty late in the day actually. It was from the PR firm of Streetdirectory.com, and it says, in essence, that Streetdirectory.com is up and running with new maps and satellite pictures.
So I went over and had a look.
I came away pretty indifferent. Well you can't really blame me. In its current state, Streetdirectory.com is nowhere near its former glory. Bus and MRT guides return error results. Driving directions return a blank page.
Google Maps, at the very least, gave you driving directions (oh you didn't know it could? Yes it does, pretty accurately too). Just look at the pic above.
In fact I believe the site is still pretty buggy. Here's how you test.
To test the Bus and MRT directions feature, you have to get creative to work around the bug. I clicked on "to here" link, and went up 1 level. It will bring me to this page. From there, I clicked the "Singapore Bus and MRT Guide" link, to get to the right page.
By doing this, however, you have to fill in both your start and end point information. It's not a problem, since I just wanted to test it. The result that is returned is this:
Ah well.
At least the maps are back. Still, I'd be using Google Maps over Streetdirectory.com for now, just because at least the driving directions work, and Google Maps have less ads and clutter, hence load faster. Besides, Streetdirectory.com is currently using the satellite pictures from Google Maps anyway (but the maps aren't from Google, just to clarify). I may as well go direct to the source instead of coming here for my usage. Yes I'm weird. I always load the maps with satellite pictures because I want to get my bearings by looking at nearby buildings for landmarks.
As it stands now, Streetdirectory.com is a pale shadow of its former self during its hey-day. As soon as the driving directions and bus/MRT guides are fixed, people will start to come back. Right now though, I don't forsee anybody jumping for joy.
Update: In a plurk response by Krisandro, he mentioned a site called "GoThere". It does indeed provide directions on which bus to take from your start point to reach your end point.
23:41 by FoxTwo
Streetdirectory.com Is Back.... Kinda..
Image via WikipediaI received an email today, pretty late in the day actually. It was from the PR firm of Streetdirectory.com, and it says, in essence, that Streetdirectory.com is up and running with new maps and satellite pictures.So I went over and had a look.
I came away pretty indifferent. Well you can't really blame me. In its current state, Streetdirectory.com is nowhere near its former glory. Bus and MRT guides return error results. Driving directions return a blank page.
Google Maps, at the very least, gave you driving directions (oh you didn't know it could? Yes it does, pretty accurately too). Just look at the pic above.
In fact I believe the site is still pretty buggy. Here's how you test.
- At the main page, search for any road in Singapore. I tried to look for "Orchard Road".
- At the map page for the result, scroll down to the bottom and locate the tiny little combo box under the heading of "directions to:".
- No matter which you choose - Bus & MRT, or Driving Directions, it will always take you to the Driving Directions page.
- Even so, after filling in your start and end destinations, no results are returned. Just a blank page listing your start point and end point.
To test the Bus and MRT directions feature, you have to get creative to work around the bug. I clicked on "to here" link, and went up 1 level. It will bring me to this page. From there, I clicked the "Singapore Bus and MRT Guide" link, to get to the right page.
By doing this, however, you have to fill in both your start and end point information. It's not a problem, since I just wanted to test it. The result that is returned is this:
Sorry, we are terribly sorry, there are technical difficulties when processing this routing page. Our administrators has been notified. Please try again later.
Ah well.
At least the maps are back. Still, I'd be using Google Maps over Streetdirectory.com for now, just because at least the driving directions work, and Google Maps have less ads and clutter, hence load faster. Besides, Streetdirectory.com is currently using the satellite pictures from Google Maps anyway (but the maps aren't from Google, just to clarify). I may as well go direct to the source instead of coming here for my usage. Yes I'm weird. I always load the maps with satellite pictures because I want to get my bearings by looking at nearby buildings for landmarks.
As it stands now, Streetdirectory.com is a pale shadow of its former self during its hey-day. As soon as the driving directions and bus/MRT guides are fixed, people will start to come back. Right now though, I don't forsee anybody jumping for joy.
Update: In a plurk response by Krisandro, he mentioned a site called "GoThere". It does indeed provide directions on which bus to take from your start point to reach your end point.
Labels: internet, street directory
