The Christianville Spirit
The Spirit that Sparkles
May 6, 2015-TCS # 449
So, My Readers! I Am Very Happy to say to You, Happy May! If I have not gotten the Chance to Thank You for all Your Responses to Last Week’s Newsletter about April and The God Cafe; From The Bottom of My Heart, I thank you for All Your Input as well as Being Open and Telling Me when Your “Bad Luck Month” is. Before I Move On, Please Remember that when “Ordering” from God, Remember that it is Not An Order that You yell at Him, as in, “I ORDER YOU TO DO XYZ!” and It goes without saying that Sometimes God’s 10-Star Meal ends up not necessarily what you ordered per se, but The Meal that You have is actually Bigger and Better than What You ordered Off The Menu. Anyway, Moving On. So, I’m going to throw a little Joan Rivers quote in here, “Let’s Talk” She would say. Not that I watched Fashion Police but, I know that was One of Her Trademark sayings as well as One She Said when She messed up, (Look that one up, I would rather not repeat it but It is Funny!) So, Let’s Talk. About Changes. Now, Okay, In Life, there are bound to be Changes, it is a Fact. But, I’m not talking about Life Changes, I am talking about Changes to things on Computers. Now, Before I sound like a Computer Nerd, which in The Context of This Newsletter, I am; There are Certain Things in Everyday Life on the Computer that You do not change. I call them My Lifelines. Over The Past Few Years, Websites like YouTube, Facebook, and Email change a lot. Facebook adds this Feature, YouTube and Google Plus merged (No Biggie! For Some It is a Biggie, still). It goes without mentioning Mapquest updated too and that took some adjusting. More Recently, My Favorite Site, AARoads revamped it’s site for The 15th Anniversary and State-Ends.com ended too (that one was a Little Hard to Deal with!) So, What are My Lifelines You ask? Email, This Newsletter, Facebook, Maps on The Web, and Of Course, The Major One, Google Maps’ Street View. So, With all that Said, of All the Changes and Conversions all the sites listed above did, It was Okay with Me; It flies over My Head, Make a Note, It was Five Minutes Ago (quoting Grandma Honey here) but, The Conversion of Google Street View is not really sitting well with Me. See, Google Maps’ Street View, unlike Facebook, I can not deal without. Now, as Overly Attached to My Computer as This Sounds, Google Maps with Street View for Traveling helps me learn! It helps me learn Positive Things, like How to Say a City’s Name in Said Country’s Native Language. like Roma (Rome) or Göteburg (Gothenburg) Italy and Sweden, respectively. So, What did Google Maps do? Well, See back in 2013 They, in Computer Terms, rolled out a “New Google Maps Total Program” that runs on a Different Type of Server. It used to run on Flash Player and New Maps runs on JavaScript. Anyway, One Day I got on Google Maps’ Street View like I normally do and It was a New Google Maps. I thought, “Wait, What happened to The Old Street View?!” The New One had a Full Screen Map instead of a White Search Bar, Logo, and Google Plus stuff. Now, Okay, I did check it out and gave it the once-over, it does have cool features like “PhotoSpheres” anywhere in The World, Street View was Full Screen (Hard to get used to) BUT, It did have a Feature where You can see Past Street Views, all the way back to The First Time they drove through Each Place. Okay, Now how do We get back? After Freaking Out trying to figure out How to get back, I click on the little “Help” Marker and at The Bottom it said “Return to Classic Maps?” YES! Click It, It asked Me Why I wanted to re-convert to “Classic Google Maps” and I found the option “Prefer Classic Google Maps” and Then, re-converted and asked me I wanted to go back to New Maps or Stay Comfy here on Classic. Yep! Got It! On My Cybertrips that I was too lazy to Cyber-Fly from Said Country back to My “Headquarters” in Atlanta, In My Mind, I made a Headquarters there. So, I would go to Google Maps’ Street View using the National Domain Code, .no (Norway);.au (Australia); .se (Sweden); .ca (Canada), and .mx (Mexico). Now, You will think This is Funny, but, I taught Myself how to read “Return to Classic Maps?” and “Prefer Classic Maps” in different Languages. I have to say, Swedish and Norwegian Ones were hard to Translate at First. I just learned to Find where it says “Google Maps” twice in said Language. A Bit of Advice, Thank God for Words that Translate from Each Language into English. In Other Words, It is sounds like a bunch of words I don’t understand and then a Word that I do understand thrown in there. Okay I can try to figure out what You are saying with those English Words in there. Anyway, so on The Last Day of April, I couldn’t re-convert back to Classic Google Maps, I even tried the Trick that I taught Myself. Of Course, I did have warning that The Maps that I had saved on Google Maps were Converting, Okay, that’s fine, The Maps I have saved are actually cooler on The New Maps. Another Warning Email comes a Couple Weeks Ago, “Google Maps (The Whole Thing. Street View and Everything) is fully converting to New Google Maps, You will not be able to Access The Classic Maps anymore”. I thought, “I will find my way around that!” on April 30th, That was that, There was No Re-Convertion to Classic Maps!”, So I looked it up and It gave me the same trick only with the Link to The Classic, It worked for A Day, Literally. Okay, This is It, I Guess, We have to get used to The New Maps, I told Myself. On May 1st, I tried it and I got increasingly Frustrated noticing Small Things that are Missing or that is Different. The New Maps is Slower, I can’t skip across Several Miles. Before, I took a Cybertrip from Atlanta to Grand Isle, Louisiana and I was able to see The Parts of Alabama and Mississippi that I wanted to see along the way, I could make it across Alabama in An Hour and Across Mississippi in about an Hour. I made it almost to Grand Isle before It was Bed Time. With The New Street View, It would take me much Longer! So, What do We Do Now?! Well, I looked up the same site that gave me the Link that worked for a Day. It was at a Site called “Tech for Luddites”, The Host of The Site posted a Blog about The Google Maps Program Conversion and It was a Hit on that site. Well, The Leader of The Site decided to take action the way we do now, a Change.org Petition, now I have to say, I normally don’t sign petitions unless It is something that Is absolutely necessary. But, At The Time, I was so frustrated that I just went ahead and Signed It. Said Leader (Her Name is Elizabeth) says that Google does accept feedback but, She says that Google does not listen to it’s Fan Base, if You will. Now, I am just a CyberTraveler, with a Very Interested, Curious Mind. However, I was shocked to find that Everyday Americans (and, I am sure, those Around The World as well) are effected by This New Convertion as well. Now, If I was in control, I would keep The New Maps for those that want it or need it, But I would absolutely not Kill the Classic Google Maps like They are doing. Change is Good, People will say; It is Part of Growth but, This Change is NOT a Good Change because It has Affected More than Just One Person. All in All, Let People choose Whether They want to use Classic Maps or The New Maps. If They want to use just Classic, that’s fine; Just New, That’s Fine too; If You want to use both, like I would, then I believe that is Fair. By The Way, The Petition has been signed by 3 Thousand People so far. I invite you all the Sign it!
Thanks for Reading The Christianville Spirit. Change can be Painful, But It can also be Good
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