Happy Equations

I spotted the Google Map APIs for a while. In my opinion, as a web developer in Taiwan, I might choose Google Map as my tool. I don't mean Google Map is better than ArcWeb Services. In fact, Google Map offer just basic mapping APIs and can't compare with ESRI ArcWeb. But ESRI ArcWeb Services offers little content outside US. We can't get detailed sattlelite images of Taiwan from ArcWeb. Google Map and Google Earth really have very detailed images of urban areas in Taiwan.

But, Google Map has no road map in Taiwan, although ArcWeb has only outdated large scale road map. The best choice is to have your own ArcGIS Server and purchase your own data, it might cost tens thousands US dollars. If you are looking for free services, there are always trade-offs.

For information about ArcWeb Services, http://www.esri.com/software/arcwebservices/index.html

For information about Google Map API: http://www.google.com/apis/maps/

Taiwan is a beautiful island with many beautiful scenes. It has more than 100 peaks taller than 3000 meters (9000 feet). In 2003, Taiwanese government picked 100 mountains which were accessible in 1 day from urban area. Most of them have roads directly connected to the trails and closed to major cities. The elevations are from 100 meters to more than 2000 meters.

Currently I can't find any information about these trails in English, so I will provide information at my travel website at http://www.jumboguide.com/guide/tt.aspx?forumid=45&lang=English

Although it is Saturday, my wife and me woke up at 5:30am. We were going to find our first geocache. We picked the nearest cache, only 1km away my home, at the top of Hemei Mountain by the Green Lake (BiTan). We arrived the platform on the top of trail. It took us 20 minutes to search the cache. Finally we found it. There are tens have logged it. We took an elephant key ring and put some old Taiwanese stamps in it. We are very happy for success at our first hunt.