Google Fusion Tables For Heavy Mapping Tasks

Google Fusion Tables are a great way to map large amounts of information. I won't go over the method in detail. It is fun to explore the process. In essence for people like me, who don't know much HTML code and are not that bothered about learning, Google Fusion Tables is about converting information that has been entered onto a spreadsheet, to a map.

The required spreadsheet is very simple. It might have three columns. The first column (A) might be the name of an organisation. Column B would be the address and column C the telephone number or website URL.

The spreadsheet that I use on an Apple Mac is Open Office. It creates an ".ocd" file. You can also use Google Docs spreadsheet and lots of others if you wish.

Once you have created your spreadsheet, that might have 1000 rows for example, you upload the information from within the Google Fusion Tables application which is part of Google Docs.

Thereafter you simply follow instructions. You can alter the way the information is presented on the place markers using HTML code in a CSS fashion. Even I can do that! You can also ensure that photographs and link are presented in the place marker properly with simple commands.

Google Fusion Tables is able to map 5,000 locations in about 5 mins or less (dependent on broadband and computer speed). The crucial point is to make sure that Google recognises the addresses that you have entered into the spreadsheet. I would therefore do a test for the first dozen or so and check that they are mapped accurately.

If the addresses are of a similar calibre you can safely make the presumption that Google will map the remainder accurately. You must enter good addresses otherwise you will be mapping rubbish. This is automated mapping. It is very dependent on what information goes in to the application as you can't check it if there are 5,000 locations to be mapped. You'll be checking from here to Christmas.

Google Fusion Tables accepts other forms of data to locate an address. These other methods are more accurate but we (or I should say I) don't have access to the information.

I would recommend Google Fusion Tables for large amounts of information as it is much faster to map this way than by hand using Google My Maps. But check for accuracy. I have seen some inaccuracies with Google Fusion Tables and inaccurate mapping is worse than no mapping at all.

See also: New ways to present information on the internet.

Why More Women Are Depressed Than Men

Nancy Schimelpfening of the large website About.com says that "it has been widely documented that women suffer from major depression about twice as often as men..."

She gives the reasons as:

• Genetics
• Hormones
• Seasonal affective disorder (SAD)
• Nutrition
• Medical illness
• Drugs
• Stress

All but the top two could apply to men.  One reason she omits and which has hardly ever been mentioned is this..

Women live in a man's world. Men create the environment under which we all live. The world is managed by the male of the species.

The subjugation of the female is most apparent in certain countries and cultures but is worldwide. The Muslim faith comes to mind with a prejudice against women that is sometimes distasteful. I am thinking of so called "honour killings" - highly sexist and prejudicial male behavior.

It must be inherently difficult on occasions and even intolerable on other occasions for women to live in the male world.  Common sense suggests that this must predispose some women to stress and depression (better described as unhappiness or a lack of contentment - "depression" is an overused word).

It is, after all, pretty difficult for most men as well because the world is managed by the alpha type male of the species of which there are relatively few.  Alpha males tend to use all other people to their benefit.

Apple Market Valuation Statistics

At 20th March 2012, Apple is worth an estimated $550 billion (USD). It just went up $50 billion in the last few weeks! It must have been the success of the third generation iPad with the fantastic screen.  The company has cash in the bank of about $100 billion. This is far more than the US government has. How will they spend it? There is one thing they can do and no one has mentioned this: improve the lives of people living near the Chinese factories that make the products (if the allegations are true) - see below.

Here are some surprising statistics that compare the current market valuation of Apple with aspects of the US and the world economy (source: Huff Post).

1. Apple is worth more than the "entire USA retail sector".
2. Apple is worth more than the combined GDPs of Iraq, North Korea, Vietnam, Puerto Rico, and New Zealand.
3. The world's entire illegal drug trade valued at $314.7 billion is worth $200 billion less than Apple.
4. The combined worth of Google and Microsoft ($202 billion and $275.3 billion, respectively) is less than that of Apple. 
5. Apple's revenue in the most recent quarter of $46.3 billion is worth more than that of Microsoft, Google (x2) and Yahoo (x3).
6. Apple is worth the equivalent of 321 Endeavour space shuttles (at $1.7 billion each).
7. The entire Apollo Space Program at a cost of $170 billion cost less than half Apple's value.
8. 526 NFL football teams = Apple's market capitalisation. There are currently 32 teams.
9. Apple is worth $141.41 billion more than Exxon.
10.  8 Bill Gates = 1 Apple.
11. 31 Mark Zuckerberg's (Facebook founder) = 1 Apple.

Spending the cash mountain

I'd love to be an Apple employee as there are probably generous employee stock options that are making many employees multimillionaires! It reminds me of the multimillionaire Google employees only Apple is putting Google in the shade.

Apple have said that they will pay dividends to share holders and of course reinvest in innovation. They must continue to innovate as the whole cash mountain and market capitalisation is built on that.

They are also buying back shares. I think the intention is to prevent diluting the value of shares due to issuing shares to employees under stock option agreements. I am not sure of the details.

One aspect has been overlooked. The invisible worker in China making the components. All the talk is about the American employee. What about the employees of Apple's partners in this gigantically successful process? And also what about the people who live near the factories that make the products. If the stories are correct these people should be paid compensation and medical treatment and the manufacturing process cleaned up. This should be done voluntarily by Apple without admission of liability. Apple have a clean public image. They need to spend some of their wealth on maintaining that precious image and doing the morally right thing.

The Veterinarian's Disease

The veterinarian's client is our companion animal not us. As guardian's of our animal companions we need to be vigilant for the greedy veterinarian who has a tendency to over treat an animal for financial profit. There are many great veterinarians, mine is one of them. The best vets just do what is right for the client. That brings the client's guardian (us) back again and again. That is where the profit is.

The poorer vets let their motivation for financial profit get the better of them. They think short term. They will find ways to get you back to the clinic for "check ups" or for booster vaccinations even though your cat is full-time indoors and 14 years of age!

One veterinary clinic, American Animal Hospital, 8135 Mira Mesa Boulevard San Diego, CA 92126(858) 586-7387, appears to have fallen into the habit of prioritizing their income over their client's health. This assessment comes from the comments left by disgruntled animal guardians. The vet referred to on more than one occasion is Dr. Gill. Things may have changed as the comments are fairly old. If so, so much the better.

"Veterinarian's disease" affects the brain. It turns a good, caring vet into a greedy vet. I think they catch it from the toxoplasmosis gondii protozoan which is currently in the news as affecting the human brain causing a change in a person's character! A greedy vet will never be a good vet. Neither will a vet who declaws cats, as declawing is a very clear sign that the vet puts financial profit before the client's health.

The difficulty in trying to be vigilant is that you are possibly a bit stressed at a veterinary clinic as is your companion animal and you might not have sufficient knowledge to gently challenge the vet. Most people tend to take what a vet says on face value. They will agree with him or her automatically. They are pillars of society aren't they? Think about that for a bit.

One obvious sign of overselling is when a vet starts to behave like a shoe salesman, offering you products or treatments for sale that you had never considered. Automatically question the need for continued booster vaccinations or regular checkups, the bread and butter earners for Mr Veterinarian.

Questioning does no harm and puts the vet on the alert that you are not a pushover. In fact any single question by you that has merit will help to put the brakes on the vet who suffers "veterinarian's disease".

Internet Chat or Internet Crap?

They are very similar sounding words that mean very different things. However, on the internet, they often have the same meaning. Virtually the whole of Twitter is founded on crap....sorry I mean chat. There are some pearls in there somewhere but you have to do a ton of diving to find them.  At October 2011 there were 250 million tweets per day. I wonder many useful ones there were? Tweets are a blizzard of verbal internet confetti.

A lot of money is made from this. I suppose that should not surprise us. It was always thus. You know the old north of England saying, "where there's muck there's brass". Maybe it applies to social media.

Some people almost move their entire website onto Facebook. I don't see the point unless you have shares in Facebook Inc.. Don't website owners want their visitors to spend time on their site and not support the already super rich social media sites? You can use Facebook to generate hits but you have to be careful that you don't simply transport your visitors from your site to Facebook or some other social media site.

The only way I use Twitter is by feeding posts to Twitter using Feedbburner. Every post I make goes out in a feed to god knows where. I do know, though, that Feedburner generates a Twitter post. I get about one new follower every two months! It'll take me about 20 billion years to get the same number of followers as Lady Gaga (she has over 20 million followers  - March 2012).

If you build and manage your site on your own as I do it is impossible to spend a lot of time promoting your site on Twitter and Facebook as the "experts" say you should. Unless you work 17 hour days, 24/7. Some people do this. One successful internet entrepreneur developed RSI (repetitive strain injury - to the hands) and had to start dictating her posts as she was writing so much.

99% of websites fail in the sense that the creator had the idea that they would make money, even a living, on the internet and failed to achieve that goal or anything near it.

There comes a time in website building on your own when you have to consider employing someone to expand the business and to take it to the next level. An individual working alone will struggle to compete with websites manged by more than one person.

The second person can spend some time creating some internet crap...I mean chat.