I know most people use google to check facts and look up info. Google now has something called Google Earth. It's a neat program that will let you fly into a lot of major metro areas. I was surprised to find my area listed. You can see my friends boat in my back yard. This snapshot was taken 2 months before I got my Barth.

Check it out and download it for free at http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html

My house is at
41 degrees 34' 28.79 north
74 degrees 05' 39.96 west

The clarity is really something if you had a flyover during the fall or winter. A very neat program. You could land a missle with one of these things!

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1991 Barth Regal
460 EFI C6 Transmission
33' Oshkosh/John Deere Chassis

http://www.truckroadservice.com/

[This message has been edited by Bill (edited December 26, 2005).]

I have been using this for several months now.....checked out Dave's and Bill H's neighborhoods Note that depending on what you are looking at the photos may be up to 4 or 5 years old. Also some places have good detail, others places are a little disapointing because you can't really see much, but still a lot of fun to look around at different places around the world.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill:
You could land a missle with one of these things!

In the 80's, when the technology was being developed, there was an error built in to prevent the wrong people from using it for missle guidance. Only the military and surveyors had the chips to allow super accuracy. A few years ago, we all were allowed to have accurate GPS devices. It also lands airplanes.

The pool is still behind my house, however, we removed it about 6 years ago. Amazing detail and the zoom and rotate feature is very cool.

Bill G

I found my Barth. It's sitting behind the dealership that turned me onto it's plight. With all it's AC and vents on the roof it was easy to spot.

I found the best way to look at something closeup (for me) is to rotate it with the shadow facing to the bottom of the page and then putting a tilt to it. This works very well for a close up but when you pull back it is a little confusing until you hit the true north button, then it's a little easier on the eyes.

If you put your pointer between N&E the screen goes Northeast. There is no Northeast button but it will go there. Same for SE, NW, and SW.

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1991 Barth Regal
460 EFI C6 Transmission
33' Oshkosh/John Deere Chassis

http://www.truckroadservice.com/

[This message has been edited by Bill (edited December 27, 2005).]

Wow! What an incredale site!! Thank you.

What I find interesting is that my wife Deb and I were both involved in computers a few years before the PC. I in CNC machine tools and she in computerized typesetting equipment. We actually had a Timex Sinclair basic programmable computer before PC's were available. Then after that we upgraded at least twice a year from PC to XT, 286,386 and on and on and on.

Now here we are in the year 2005. The computer I am using was purchased in 1998. It is Compaq Presario 5170 PII 350 MHz. I can't even run this Google Earth thing.. funny how time and technology slips away.

Yes, and I only have a 10 gig internal and a Maxtor 40 gig external drive. But, Deb's Sony laptop is even older.

I guess finally a trip to Best Buy is in order.

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[This message has been edited by davebowers (edited December 27, 2005).]

Don't feel bad, Dave, I upgraded my Mac less than a yeat ago from a machine older than your PC, but I still feel the prejudice of the Wintel world. I go to earth.google, & they tell me they're sorry, we're not compatible with Macs but we're working on it.

Of course, a minor advantage of the Mac is I don't have to worry every day about the latest Windows virus, and the operatiion is still easier than Windows for a non-computer-nerd.