Google Earth 5.0 [Archive]

Bikewer

7th February 2009, 07:26 AM

I just installed the latest version of Google Earth a few days ago, and I must admit it's rather a lot of fun to play with.

They keep adding features, and now you can get good views of sea-bottom topography, go "underwater", and take advantage of dozens of little clickable spots that illustrate indigenous ocean life, wrecks, and other goodies.
The "street view" shots are continually being upgraded; I was easily able to find nice shots of my wife's place of business and the street-corner where I live (if not my house proper...).

There are also a large number of included videos relating to the various points of interest, user-submitted photographs... A constantly-improving package.

geni

7th February 2009, 07:28 AM

Questionable:

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/06/1510228

Bikewer

7th February 2009, 12:05 PM

I had noticed the updater, but had not checked to see if it's running full-time. If so, this is not welcome; I do a lot of gaming and don't like to use resources unnecessarily.

elgarak

7th February 2009, 03:27 PM

It does indeed start up a full-time running process called "Google Update Helper" or some such, and installs the "Google Updater" application.

While the resources of the former are quite small, I don't approve of the practice. However, it only starts after installing or updating, NOT after starting just Google Earth.

I do not have any problems with the "Google Updater" app as such, though I would prefer to be asked before, and schedule it myself. However, it does not work as what I see its primary purpose, namely to update all the Google apps on my machine (when, and only when I tell it to), doesn't work, since the Google Updater does not find Google apps in non-standard locations.

Bikewer

7th February 2009, 05:06 PM

I was just running the program, and the "updater" indicated "zero" resource use throughout.

When I play games, I always engage the "game mode" on Zone Alarm, which refuses all alerts or interruptions.
So I'm inclined to let it ride unless I see a problem.

elgarak

7th February 2009, 06:47 PM

FlamingMoe

8th February 2009, 12:25 AM

I gotta say, I love GoogleEarth, except for a lot of the user-added stuff. I was cruising around Berlin a few days ago, and it seemed every user-generated point of interest was about fricking bus lines. Combine these useless POI's with the all-too-frequent "ZOMG WTF IS THIS?!?!?" and you get a slow GE. Sure, you can turn off the POI's (and I've done so with almost all of them) but then you miss the stuff that actually is interesting.

Bikewer

8th February 2009, 07:18 AM

Never owned a MAC.... The PC version includes the full-time "updater" as well, but so far as I can tell, it doesn't do anything naughty.

I was interested to look at my old army post in Kitzingen, Germany. Kitzingen is so small that even Germans have never heard of it...
Was an Me-262 base during the war, so it had a nice long runway. When the US army took over the base, they kept the airfield.
Everything is still pretty much the same as I recall, save that the vehicle parks have been paved and there's a new house-to-house type shooting range.
I wonder if they ever got the heat fixed in "B" company's barracks?
(I was there in 1965)