Earth to Google

How would you like to browse through the entire Earth from your PC or laptop? What is it like to see your own house as it is visible in satellite photos? How about navigating to your favourite shopping mall or eat-out? All this and more is possible only though a software called Google Earth (http://earth.google.com) . It is likely that most of you would have heard of Google Earth and its wonders, but have you ever explored it thoroughly to discover most of its uses?

First and foremost, what you really need to do in order to appreciate the many uses of Google Earth is to download it. The software is available for free on the website if you only want it for your personal use. There are different versions here available for various businesses as well. And these versions are obviously with advanced features and hence, need to be purchased. But if you are an ordinary, internet-savvy individual, the free version will more than suffice.

Once you have downloaded and installed Google Earth, you are ready to explore it. To start, you can type the name of the continent in the search box and then the name of the country and the software will zoom into that particular place. You can then browse different cities, and also areas within the city. For places in Karachi, for instance, the names of different areas may be spelled differently so it would be better to manually browse for the location rather than type the name of a place and be told that it does not exist.

Google Earth basically shows you how your desired area looks in satellite photos. There are certain countries in which you can enter a specific address and the software will take you to that very spot. Unfortunately, Pakistan is not included in the list of those countries.

The website of is quite helpful when it comes to guiding you on how to use it. There is a detailed section on Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), where you can determine if your system can really supports Google Earth, and whether or not your graphics card can enable the software to be run smoothly. The system requirements have been explained in detail as well.

Moreover, there is an entire Product Tour as well which you can take to find out the different uses of Google Earth. Did you know, for instance, that you can actually use it to find out your business prospects in a certain area? Or did you have the slightest idea that you can actually get driving instructions to and from your destination? This is just a sneak preview of what Google Earth has in store for you.

Apart from all the technical details, there are links to some very interesting Google Earth blogs. Yes, there are people who actually blog exclusively about Google Earth, and you can read up all that they have written about the new and exciting features of the software that they discovered while using it. Bugs found and fixed have also been covered in detail.

Plus, there is an entire Google Earth community, which has created its own different ways of using the software to explore outer space as well as within the Earth. These users have created their own files, which you can download and open in your Google Earth to discover just how exciting your experience can get. There is an archive of these files at your disposal as well, so rest assured, you will find something that appeals to you.

The latest addition to Google Earth is its version 4.2: a literally out-of-the-world experience which enables you to explore the outer space. So now you can view and skies and various galaxies, and the best part is that not only can you view them, you can discuss them with other users in the community as well, and keep yourself updated through a special blog.

Moreover, if you happen to be somewhat of a tech-savvy architect, you can avail the services of Google Sketch Up to build three-dimensional models of just about anything. As the website says, you can design anything ‘from a shoebox to a skyscraper.’ This is not all: once you finish designing your models, you can place them on Google Earth as a user-created file.

So there you have it – there is a whole new world out there waiting for you to explore it, and Google Earth is only one of the means to help you along the way.