Track your email with Google Maps
A web site called Butter Fat offers you the opportunity to track the path of your emails
using Google Maps, using geographical lookup provided by hostip.info.
Paste in the headers of an email and it traces the jumps from server to server. If you choose your email carefully, it can also show you the location of a particular server.
It may not do a very good job. I discovered, for example, that the mail server at my new web host TextDrive
is housed in the middle of Montgomery Field Airstrip in San Diego:

Perhaps it does a better job with .Mac. At least, the trace places the server on the same map as Infinite Loop, in leafy September Drive:

Who knows? It is, at any rate, an entertaining and interesting way to waste thirty minutes or so.
Tags: Cupertino, dotmac, email, Google Maps, mac, servers, textdrive, tracerouteRelated posts

March 15th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
Re: your note about Butter Fat. I believe that Apple has several facilities on Bubb Rd and may have their .mac servers there. So Butter Fat and Google may be right.
March 15th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
That’s Interesting. I was impressed that it didn’t put .Mac in an airfield or dam or coal mine. Perhaps it is more accurate than I give it credit for.
March 31st, 2006 at 5:01 pm
The geographical lookup is done by hostip.info, not us.
April 1st, 2006 at 8:23 am
Thanks for the clarification.