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Mapping Tools
All of the map links on this site - in the pub guides and diaries, for instance - use Google Maps. It integrates well into a website, and is powerful, flexible and easy to use.
On this page we introduce some additional resources which you can download and use independently of this site.
 
You may have seen mapping programs and aerial views of places, but it's still a fair bet that Google Earth will surprise you. Road maps blended with high-resolution satellite photography, and the ability to smoothly pan, zoom and even "fly" across the entire planet make this a "killer application". Click on the screenshots to get a hint of what it can do. Add in a huge community of people creating extra goodies, and you have a sure-fire way of using up those long evenings when you're not at the pub!
Solihull CAMRA has produced a file of placemarks locating every pub in our area, which you can download and open with Google Earth. It is a .kmz file - once you've installed Google Earth, just click on the kmz file and the placemarks will be loaded into Google Earth's Temporary Places folder. From here, you can drag it into the My Places folder.
In our placemarks, the following symbols are used:
 | Pub with Real Ale |
 | Bar with Real Ale |
 | Pub with no Real Ale |
 | Bar with no Real Ale |
Tips to download placemarks: In Firefox, Netscape or Opera, simply click on the link and you will be allowed to open the file directly into Google Earth, if you have installed it.
In Internet Explorer (and other browsers if Google Earth has not yet been installed) click the link with the right mouse button. A pop-up menu will appear, from which you should select "Save Target As...", "Save Link As..." or "Save Link Target As...". A dialog will appear allowing you to choose where to save the placemarks file. Some older browsers may try to save it as a .zip file, so before clicking the "Save" button, check the "File Name" field, and if it says "beer_in_solihull.zip" change the extension (the bit after the full stop) so it reads "beer_in_solihull.kmz".
The placemarks were last updated on 7 Feb 2007.
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