Chongqing to Hohhot coming up

[futianshenzhen]

I'm setting off from Chongqing on Wednesday. The route includes:

Xian (beer)
Mount Hua (near Xian)
Hukou waterfall (second largest in the middle kingdom)
Yannan (communist stronghold - cool)
Pingyao (old town)
Zhaozhou (old bridge)
Mount Wutai (self-explanatory)
Datong (cave paintings)
Hohhot (beer)

Bad news is the go pikey will not be in action as the shop needs more time to get the dust out from the last trip. So I'll be using my trusty 8 year old olympus that takes a reasonable photo but has no proper video function.

Also google are complete c nuts! No more kml files! and this from the company that said "don't be evil" - arseholes.

Ive just spent the last few hours starring locations along my planned route and I envisage having to make a gazilion maps a day! My initial thought was that I was encountering a great firewall related issue but no, i'm not angry anymore - just disappionted.

If anyone wants to meet up along the way - great. I'll be in Hohhot on the 23/24

[fahni]

Hey FTSZ!

that sounds like a great trip! Try to meet up with felix once you're in Xi'an to let himguide you to the right watering holes and other spots.
I am sure your Olympus will do the job. I like pix better then clips anyway.

Ride safe!

[ChinaV]

Yes, Google are a bunch of F*cktards and they are twice as evil as Apple, or that certain governing body controlling the largest population in the world. That said... it's not that you can't create KML output anymore, you just can't do it without big brother watching you and logging all your activity. If you're dumb enough to use Chrome or a Google account, you're already having the vast majority of your web use tracked anyway.

OK, so just go log into your stupid Google account, go to maps, create a new map, save it to your my places (which should be renamed to places google tracks you) then select the blue KML output file button and BOOM...get your KML file. Open it in Google Earth and extract just the path. Rename and upload to your ftp as usual.

45678.jpg

Have a great trip!

Cheers!
ChinaV

[futianshenzhen]

I tried that mate but as soon as I selected avoid highways etc the option to save to my maps disappeared. it seemed to me you can only save maps that go the google recommended route. or am I missing something?

[ChinaV]

You're missing something.

Don't expect google to offer a consistent user interface throughout their products, I think their programmers are the old MS-DOS team from Microsoft.

If you don't click the "avoid tolls" or the "avoid highways" options, you can still drag your route points to your preferred choice of roads. A little more time consuming, but at least you can still get what you want. Google has taken a page from Apple and decided to dumb down their PC/Web products to match their inferior mobile phone applications (lack of) features. Instead of correcting their mobile app to allow for toll and highway avoidance, they assume everyone wants to take highways. What do you expect from a company that rarely offers anything that isn't "Beta"?

One way I found around the highway issue it to choose "walking" instead of "driving". This will keep you off the highways and still allow you to save to my maps.

One thing I will say in Google's defence... what kind of f#cking country doesn't let people ride motorcycles on the highway? Still a pretty stupid thing for those that want to choose the road less travelled.

Cheers!
ChinaV

[futianshenzhen]

cheers mate, great thinking on the walking option!

[futianshenzhen]

bugger. can't drag the route when its set to 'walking' or on driving mode, google are a bunch of hungry cock masters. gonna stick with my retarded star option. cheers for trying tho mate...

[ChinaV]

I think you're giving up too easy. Route dragging works fine with walking and driving for me. Are you using Chrome or Internet Exploder?

Cheers!
ChinaV

[futianshenzhen]

chrome. I'll try ie now..

[futianshenzhen]

you beauty! its a go using ie, cheers!