For users that are not logged in (or dont have a default location set up) it defaults to coordinates 37.06302,-95.677013 'the approximate center of the USA' which happens to be some random place in Kansas when you zoom enough.
The site could grab the client's ip and use a free geoip api to fetch their approximate coordinates, then center the map there by default.
For a while I was adding additional url parameters to center it right at my house and that worked fine for me since I don't always log in, but this could be a more robust solution for an anonymous user getting to their local area faster.
Paul- hit me up if you want the code. I thought of this when I was playing around with the google maps api so I already have it implemented, just a few lines of jquery.
For users that are not logged in (or dont have a default location set up) it defaults to coordinates 37.06302,-95.677013 'the approximate center of the USA' which happens to be some random place in Kansas when you zoom enough.
The site could grab the client's ip and use a free geoip api to fetch their approximate coordinates, then center the map there by default.
For a while I was adding additional url parameters to center it right at my house and that worked fine for me since I don't always log in, but this could be a more robust solution for an anonymous user getting to their local area faster.
Paul- hit me up if you want the code. I thought of this when I was playing around with the google maps api so I already have it implemented, just a few lines of jquery.