Last week, when we failed to post a new entry one day, we weren’t just sitting around barbecuing you know! No, in fact we were writing an article for PC World, the world’s largest monthly computer publication!

The article went live this morning and we think you might be interested in it – it’s called 10 Amazing Google Earth Add-Ons, and in it we detail 10 user-generated overlays, visualisations and data-feeds that in our infinite Google Earth-related wisdom we have deemed “most interesting”.

Anyway, we’ll be back onto islands later on today, but in the meantime, make sure you check out the article¹ which features “a dizzying array of information in a new and imaginative graphical form”, including maps from centuries past, 3D paths of satellites in orbit, global warming brought to life and lots more.

It’s Island Week 3 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting about Islands. For about a week.

Schiermonnikoog is a small island off the coast of the Netherlands, that only 758 years ago was actually 2 kilometres north of its current location, and a completely different shape to boot! A combination of current, tides and wind have actually moved this island at the astonishing rate of around 2.64 metres per year.

The island’s name, “Schiermonnikoog” translates into English as “Island of the grey monks” and was named for the colour of the robes of the Cistercian monks who first owned this tiny piece of land. Today it stands as a municipality in its own right, and with only around one thousand inhabitants, is the least densely populated municipality in the Netherlands.

See our April 2008 post on Sea Reclamation for more on coastal erosion.

Thanks to Arjan.

Well, it’s not exactly the same week as it has been in previous years (in fact this year it’s not even during the same month), but nevertheless, the official Third Annual Google Sightseeing Island Week is upon us!

In a nutshell: we’ll be posting mainly about islands, and it’ll last the rest of this week. If you’ve any ideas for islands for us to post then we still have a couple of slots remaining, so get submitting your cool islands!

Update: Island Week 3 featured the following posts:

• Paid a visit to the bizarre Moving Island of the Grey Monks.
• Took a day trip to Bruny Island thanks to Street View.
• Walked across the sand to the fascinating tidal island of Lindisfarne.
• Travelled to the most remote island in the world, Tristan da Cunha.
• Examined the remnants of the sunken Island of Jordsand.
• Solved the mystery of the Indonesian Island Monument.