http://www.mapofstrange.com/news News from the MapOfStrange Fri, 11 Apr 2008 08:19:28 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The Google Maps streetview has recently been added into the Google Maps API. This is great - it allows you to view street-level shots in various cities around the US. We've put together a lightweight interface to this on the site. It's very much a 'beta version' at the moment, ... http://www.mapofstrange.com/news/2008/04/08/streetview/ The site is now up-to-date, and as such new submissions have been reinstated. A backlog of nearly 5,000 records had built up and it was just too much to cope with, but we've whittled these down to the best. And in the meantime, we've reinstated the ratings system - click ... http://www.mapofstrange.com/news/2008/04/06/the-backlog-is-cleared/ We've got a huge backlog of new records in the database, so unfortunately, we've had to disable submissions (temporarilly). What this means is that nobody will be able to add anything for the foreseeable future. Sorry that we've done this - we've kind of been forced into it due to high ... http://www.mapofstrange.com/news/2008/04/03/submissions-are-disabled/ The website has been down a lot recently. I suppose we've been a victim of our own success - it was because we've been getting lots more traffic than we ever expected (sorry for any inconvenience, and thanks for your support). We've been on Digg.com, we've been stumbled, and we've ... http://www.mapofstrange.com/news/2008/03/25/new-server/ Google have released a new API for Google Maps.  This is really different - it doesn't require Javascript - it's static.  Simply pass some parameters to a URL and it returns a gif image of the location in question.  For more information read their blog entry - http://googlemapsapi.blogspot.com/2008/02/google-maps-without-scripting.html. The way mapofstrange.com works ... http://www.mapofstrange.com/news/2008/03/19/google-maps-static-api/ The success of mapofstrange.com has caused no end of problems! Every host it's been on over the past year has told us where to go. We've been told in no uncertain terms to move to a different host or sign up for a dedicated server. The problem is that it keeps ... http://www.mapofstrange.com/news/2008/03/05/server-issues/ Well I've finally found out why the site went down and the simple answer is ... Digg.com.  The site became popular and has (so far) got almost six hundred Diggs.  This in itself increased traffic massively to the site, but if I'm being honest shouldn't have caused the site to be taken ... http://www.mapofstrange.com/news/2007/09/10/down-time-2/ As regular visotors may be aware, the website was down for a few days at the end of August and start of September. We are really sorry for any inconvenience this caused. The downtime was caused by increased traffic over a 48 hour period.  Basically, the number of visitors suddenly doubled ... http://www.mapofstrange.com/news/2007/09/04/down-time/ This week's best post award goes to the Rooftop of 77 Water Street, New York City.  Thanks to 'Shep' for telling us about it.  On the top of this building, there is a Bi-plane, complete with landing strip! Surely a plane couldn't possibly land on such a small runway?  Wouldn't it be ... http://www.mapofstrange.com/news/2007/07/12/biplane-spotted-in-new-york-city/  I thought it would be nice to highlight each week the best things that people have added, and then I thought that it might be cool to have a laugh at some of the worse things that have been put on the site.  I've already started with the first part ... http://www.mapofstrange.com/news/2007/07/06/idiots-of-the-week/