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
16:20 by FoxTwo
Streetdirectory.com Is Back, But Mapless
Yes I know, old news.
For those that are clueless, catch up here.
Today I received an email from a company claiming to be Virtual Map's PR firm. The funny thing is, I wonder how they got my email address. I never published this particular email address anywhere. Or at least, not anywhere public. Just as a precaution, in case it was spam or fraud, I did a series of WHOIS and Traceroutes. Seemed legit.
This is an excerpt of the mail:
This is Melvin from 20twenty. We're Virtual Map's PR agency and we've been reading your posts regarding streetdirectory.com.
On behalf of the guys at VM, thanks for your interest in the website and how it's fairing(1).
We've been receiving a lot of comments about how the loss of the site has inconvenienced people, so we've decided to come back online with most of our features like the popular bus/mrt guides. Unfortunately, the maps will have to wait, but hopefully this will relief(2) your inconvenience somewhat.
Besides, Streetdirectory was "back" last week. I just didn't think it noteworthy enough to mention it in a blog entry, since it wasn't (and still isn't) functioning 100% yet. Notice the part I underlined in the excerpt above. They aren't ready for maps yet and they know it.
Seriously though, if maps aren't ready, then what is the whole point? It's like saying "Congratulations you just won a car! Sorry, no keys though. You have to wait for those".
Having a bus/mrt guide without seeing where to get on, get off, walk, is almost useless. Google's maps have always been ready. Even their "driving instructions" work. We're just missing the bus/mrt info that Streetdirectory.com used to provide, but we can make-do with Google Maps (and other alternatives) for now. Google Maps even has MRT stations printed on their maps, so one can actually see the nearest station and make a guess how to get to their location.
If you were to actually go to the website now, and tried to search for a location, you'd get a blank green box. That's all. Only when you switch over to "Satellite" view, will you get - surprise surprise! - Google's satellite images. Google. Think about it.
As an aside, I also get irritated by incorrect/bad English used in official correspondence. This time it probably isn't even the author's fault - it's just the human reliance on automated spell-checkers.
(1) It's FARING not FAIRING.
(2) RELIEVE instead of RELIEF
See? That is why I don't use a spellchecker at all in any of my documents. The words above were spelled correctly, just used incorrectly. People nowadays just rely too much on spell checks, that they don't really check grammar and punctuation on their own anymore. Seriously, it's the same for myself regarding Chinese. I find that I can type almost anything in Chinese as long as I know the hanyu pinyin for it. Thus I don't bother to remember how to write it by hand anymore. Is this a good or bad thing? Hmm that makes for an interesting blog entry...
Anyway, it's interesting to think that they've actually bothered to engage a PR firm to do "damage control", and they actually wrote email to people like me. Personally I'm not very well known, and my blog is, according to the statistics, visited by more Americans than Singaporeans. Well slightly more Americans, anyway. It's like 50% USA visitors, 49% Singaporean, 1% rest of the world (like Greenland and Iran for example).
I should applaud Virtual Maps for this initiative though. It's a fresh approach, unlike other companies who either try to spin the media into saying "it's not our fault".
Labels: internet, Singapore, street directory
13:51 by FoxTwo
Goodbye Streetdirectory.com, Hello Google Maps
Yes, by now most Singaporeans would have known about Streetdirectory.com shutting down due to their lawsuit with SLA (Singapore Land Authority).
Many Singaporeans actually depend on this free service, truth to tell. When someone organises a ping.sg gathering at some far-flung corners of Singapore, we'd all head to streetdirectory.com to see how we can get there in one piece. When you get a job in a remote corner in Singapore, you'd head there to see how to get there before your boss screams at you for being late at the customer's location.
However, some of the basic functions can be found in an alternative - Google Maps! The basic stuff like searching for a road name like "Bedok North" will zoom you onto Singapore, since "bedok" is definitely indigenous to Singapore. However, if you're going to search for, say, "Smith Street", it's advisable to include ", Singapore" in your search query to get the right location.
Google Maps also has a mobile version, which I've already downloaded to my phone months ago. In fact I wrote about it here, back in October 2007. Since then I've been using Google Maps when I'm on the move and needed to find a location. In fact I have never loaded up Streetdirectory.com at all when on the move. To me, it feels like Google Maps work faster for mobiles, so I've stuck with it.
So, until Streetdirectory.com comes back up again with new, non-infringing maps, turn to Google as a filler. :)
edit:
Alternative 2 - Can.com.sg (thanks to Wishbone)
Alternative 3 - e-route planner (thanks to joshua)
Labels: Google, Google Maps, internet, street directory
16:48 by FoxTwo
Lost? Let Google Maps Help You!
Some years back, I was just thinking to myself, how nice it'd be to be able to carry a Street Directory in my Palm (back then a Palm 3e, upgraded to a Palm Zire 71, then now a Palm Tx). At the time, street directories were still print-media only. It wasn't until about 2005 or so that they started coming with CDs with digital versions of the maps.
At the time, I remember that I'd happily install the digital maps, run a conversion software and made them into PalmOS versions, and then copy them over to my Palm. It was SOOOOooOooO handy!
Now, Google Maps has appeared! Now, we get REAL-TIME updates (needs an internet connection)!
Yeah there's a Palm version available too, but I don't see how useful that would be on a non-smartphone Palm device like a TX. Basically you load up the software, it'll query Google for your maps. For a non-smartphone Palm device to do that, you need an alternate internet connection. However you can still jury-rig up a connection with your mobile phone with the Palm TX if you know how (I'll probably update this in my Palm section of this website). Otherwise, for those with a TX, you need to look for a wi-fi spot to use the maps.
However, Google also offers the same software for other platforms too, and I proved it by downloading it onto my Sony Ericsson K810i phone. It runs without a hitch and it's pretty dang fast. Word of warning though - any internet connection via GPRS or WAP is going to cost you data charges. If you do not have a data plan with your phone service provider, you will be running up the bills quite fast.
So, if you do have a data plan, go ahead and download it here. The PalmOS version is here.
Labels: Google, Google Maps, maps, real-time, street directory
