Another Document Format

Images are as common place and second nature on the Internet as text.  Highlight, copy, paste to retrieve text from the Internet.  Right click and Save Image As to download an image.  Creating text and images on the Internet typically generating the same format as one downloads: typically .doc or .jpg.

With movies in iMovie, the camcorder was uploaded in some unknown format and manipulated and saved through some complex unknown process.  At the end of the editing the movie was Shared, in our case, for Quicktime.  It could be viewed on the Internet as a .mov.

Now the process in GoogleEarth is becoming less clear, but still fun.  The process in GoogleEarth of finding sites is, well, easy.  Adding an image is a bit more complex because the image has to be on the Internet, not just on the computer or in Photoshop.  But it's the saving and retrieving that remains a mystery.  First we click on video to make a tour; then on the record button; and then on the disk icon to save it which needs to be in the folder with the sites.  Then we need to select the folder and Save As which is saved with the extension .kmz.  But if we save it on the Internet to share with other, we can't just click on the icon and watch it, and we can't right click on the icon and download the document (.kmz) and then view it in GoogleEarth.  Hence, a mystery to be lived and not necessarily one to be understood.

But it's a marvelous tool for geography and just about any other subject.