UMapper is all about visually creating maps very quickly and easily. In working towards this goal, we’ve just rolled out a new feature that allows you to visually edit the size of your embedded maps, prior to posting them. You can see it in action here. Or just click the “resize and embed” link under the share box (lower right corner) on your map view page.

As with all new features, we need your help testing it. Check it and see if you can find any problems or anything that you think we could improve. If you find anything, please let us know.

Today, we created a new blog category for posting stories about UMapper from other media outlets called “In the Press.” We are happy to announce that our first entry in this category comes from Google Maps Mania. They recently took a look at UMapper, and they’ve given us a great review.

“It is one of the better map creation tools that I have seen. It excels in the amount of options it gives the user …” —Google Maps Mania

Thanks guys! We’re glad you liked UMapper. We have several new features that we are working on that we will start rolling out as early as this week, so stay tuned.

If you take a look around, you’ll notice we’ve changed a few things on the site. Changes include UI Updates, Developer Central, and updates to the embed file for maps.

UI Updates
We’ve updated both the explore and view pages to better organize map meta data. You’ll also notice a new loader with some crazy random loading messages.

Developer Central
If you take a look at the navigation on the bottom of each page, you will see a new link to “Developer Center.” This is the very first, early version of an area that will be dedicated to developers who want to use the UMapper API.

Embed Updates
We’ve also updated the embed movie to use our enhanced status message box and include some UMapper branding. The “powered by” bar that you see now can be styled through the use of FlashVars. The FlashVar “poweredBgColor” accepts a uint (i.e. 0×000000) and will change the color of the bar. The FlashVar “poweredFontColor” accepts a uint (i.e. 0xCCCCCC) and will change the color of the text.

If you have any questions or feedback, please let us know.

If you are looking to create high quality maps for cities in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland and at least 10 other countries, we have some good news for you. Microsoft Virtual Earth’s June imagery release includes satellite/ortho shots of these areas, which allow for impressively-high zoom levels. See updated locations on the map.

For the past two days (July 19/20) OpenStreetMap held mapping parties in Denver. A mapping party is where a group of openstreetmappers and novices descend on an area to map it exhaustively (more on mapping parties). As you can imagine, the goal was to collect as much data on downtown Denver as possible. As a result, the Denver map has been greatly improved (and it is already available!).

If you are interested in maps and mapping we encourage you to get involved with OpenStreetMap. It is a great community and a great cause. We’ve been using OpenStreetMap with UMapper since the very beginning and we love it.