Check out the latest version of Pro Photo Tools from Microsoft. It's free to download and play with. It's a set of pretty basic but useful tools enabling you to geotag and geocode your pictures in a very cool way: just drag in your image to the map and the GPS coordinates will be calculated automatically for you. Add a whole slew of other data to your image before saving it back to your folder. The product can also interoperate with Photoshop and has support for 64-bit Windows.

You can use Expression Media 2 to leverage even finer details such as three-dimensional maps to accompany your images. This gives you an amazing range of possibilities when it comes to torturing friends and family with the inevitable annual vacation shots... and don't forget the laser pointer ;-)

This version of Photo Tools still has all the original features (from the official site):

    * Determine location name automatically
    * Determine GPS coordinates from location name
    * Identify location on a map
    * View images on Windows Live Maps
    * Use Microsoft Virtual Earth for a 3D view of the image location.
    * Edit image metadata
    * RAW support

The Google Lat Long Blog has just announced a really cool new feature with Google Maps called "Explore this Area". According to Google, "you can explore an area by viewing photos, videos, user-created maps, and suggested local queries." This is a good example of how interesting mashups can be.

I've often surfed around to places I've been with Google Maps and this adds a whole new level to the amount of fun you can have. After clicking on the "Explore this Area" button, click the "More" button in the map and check on wikipedia and photos. This will bring up even more photo and wiki entries. I did a search of my home town of Clonmel, County Tipperary, in Ireland. The search brought up a lot of my old haunts and some great memories... try it out!