Last week I posted a nifty hint for zooming in Live maps and it prompted a bunch of mails like "so what else are you hiding". So I compiled my list of hard to find gems for your enjoyment. after reading this, you'll be a Live Maps power user. and for the record, these aren't really 'hidden' - with one exception they are all in the online help... but who has time for help :-)

There's also a vintage music trivia question down in item 2. flex your obscure new wave trivia muscle in comments.

 10. Measure stuff with a ruler

For answering questions like "how far is it across the Hudson River at the Holland Tunnel?" use the line draw tool on the Scratchpad. Sure, this feature was built for making collections of lines, points, and polygons but it is a great ad-hoc multipoint ruler as well. Go to Collections menu and select Open. At the bottom of the Scratchpad select the line draw tool and start clicking on the map.

9. Move a Pushpin.

You can move a pushpin that you created on the Scratchpad. This is very useful when you have looked up an address, but you see that the geocode is off a little. You can hover over the pushpin, select 'Move' and place it at a new location. very convenient when you want to send a location or a route to someone and you want to refine the location.

8. Business Phone Search

Often known as a reverse Phone lookup. Enter a phone number in the Business search box and hit return. Live maps will find the appropriate business listing.

7. Show me everything in a region

I originally posted this tip over a year ago, but it is so cool that it's worth repeating. Details here. I still use this one all the time, even with the caveats that come along with it. I think this is the only hint in the list that isn't covered in the Help.

6. Right Click to do all kinds of stuff!

If you aren't inclined to explore, you probably haven't found this. These days context menus in web apps are getting more common, but when live maps launched, not so much. For me, this is often the most intuitive way to interact with the map - I'm looking at a building I need directions to, i shouldn't have to enter its address. Just right-click on it and select 'Drive to'. or add a pushpin at the location to add it to a collection.

5. Keyboard and mouse  shortcuts

Unless you RTFM or poke around randomly at the keyboard, you aren't going to know about most of the keyboard/mouse shortcuts. So give our fine manual a read to learn all about the keystrokes and mouse tricks you've been missing out on. Bonus! Shift-B (for Buildings) and shift-D (for details) work as toggles in 3D mode.

4. Change Style of Objects you have drawn.

After you have drawn a line or shape on the map you can return to it later to alter its color or line style. You can even continue editing objects by splitting line segments and adding nodes! To get into edit mode select the default arrow tool on the scratchpad and click on a line you have drawn. The line's nodes will turn yellow to indicate you are in edit mode. While in edit mode you can drag the nodes around to change the shape. Also while in edit mode, use the color and shape pickers on the scratchpad to update it's style. the realtime preview is a nice touch. While in edit mode, right click on a line segment to access options like splitting it. and right click on the nodes for context sensitive option for them as well!

3. Marquee zoom

The hidden feature that prompted this article. Hold the center mouse button down and drag. if you lack a third mouse button, hold the ALT key down while dragging. more details here.

2. Linking to Live Maps

Just about everything you can do in Live Maps interactively can be captured in a permalink that you put on your website or blog to link to Live maps. The easiest way to do this is to go to the Share menu in Live maps and grab the permalink for the view you are looking at. You can then tweak it manually before putting it on your site. This Help Topic provides details on all of the parameters you can put on the URL to customize your link. Here is a route from Riverside Mall to Queens with a search for Tower Records along the way. This Link jumps to Phoenix with Traffic loaded and a Collection of real time traffic cameras overlaid. This link turns on Hybrid Maps with a crow flys tour of New York, London, Paris, and Munich. *** You get the idea... This topic alone probably deserves an entire blog post for details.

1. Put a Collection on your own website.

This one is a bit nerdy and isn't entirely specific to the Live Maps website. It's also pretty broad in scope, but super powerful. basically you can publish a map to your website with custom data layers, without having to use a GIS to create the data or know much about. to update the map, you simply edit your Collection interactively at Live maps, and your custom map on your site is automagically updated in real time. As I write this i realize this DEFINITELY needs a full article to cover - I'll post that here in the next couple of days.

 *** The Trivia part

name the song or band that this link pays homage to? put your best guess in Comments...

UPDATE  - making the trivia question more clear. What band or song is paid homage to in this link