Garrett: 2 excellent FREE mapping resources on the net: Mapquest: http://www.mapquest.com Map Blast: http://www.mapblast.com Much better than Rand McNally - complete with zoomable and scaleable maps, door to door driving directions, etc. You may need to register (FREE) for some services, but it is well worth it. Hope this helps, Wayne > > Hello, > > I've used Rand McNally a few times for driving directions and for rough > printouts of maps: > > http://www.randmcnally.com/ > > Unfortunately, Rand McNally has a lot of short comings... for example, I > may have to wait a long while for a simple map to display (if it dispalys > at all) (depending upon how busy their server is... and it's usually > getting hammered all the time)... and, even though the map (eventually) is > displayed on the screen, in order to print the map, it goes *back* to the > Rand McNally server to retrieve the map a *second time*. This is rather > lame (and frustrating), because often times, the server gives up on the > map, but I will get a nice color printout of all their banners, etc. and > some little icon where the map ought to be. (Keeping in mind that the map > is sitting on my screen, nice and pretty, but it won't use that one for its > print job...) (Print screen won't work either, because you will only print > what you see on the screen, not anything up or down the scroll bar) > > I have been looking for a better source... free would be nice, but I don't > mind a reasonable subscription fee. (Looking via online rather than software.) > > Most important, I want to be able to specify a route to my destination... > not have to accept the "off the shelf" reply from Rand McNally. Their > suggestions are wrong sometimes... and I want to be able to force my more > desired routing. I would like to specify a routing with two, three, or more > way-points en route to the final destination. > > Any ideas or suggestions based on personal experience? > > Thank you!! > > Garrett > Austin, Texas >
