You can do some great things with Google Earth if you spend some time getting to know the program.  It can be fun to zoom around the world and look at different city and countries.   Lots of organizations have created mashups using Google Earth, like this one about the genocide in Darfur.

I wasn’t convinved about Google Earth until I found the feature that allows you to add your GPS “tracks” and create an image of your run.  Most recently I did this for the Securian Frozen Half course.  Here is what it looked like:

You can spin it, zoom in on the image, add the 3D skyscrapers, add landmarks, and a lot more. Last year I paid a whopping $20 to have the privilege of adding GPS technology to my free Google Earth software. I thought it was a small price to pay for some cool images.

I recently received an e-mail saying that the latest upgrade to Google Earth 5.0 will now include free GPS data imports. Err they took my money and now offer it for free. If you still want to pay you can get a Google Earth Pro account which offers some excellent features (but not ones I need).

The latest version of Google Earth lets customers import and track global positioning system (GPS) data. Our Google Earth Plus customers told us GPS tracking is one of the main reasons they choose Google Earth Plus. Now, since you can use this feature for free in Google Earth 5.0, there’s little separation between Plus and the free product. In order to simplify the decision of which version of Google Earth best meets our customers’ needs, we decided it no longer made sense to continue Google Earth Plus.

So if you’d like some new images and a different look at your running routes via GPS download Google Earth 5.0, for free!

[tags] Google Earth, Earth, Google, GPS, Garmin [/tags]