Finding the latitude/longitude of your location

1. Visit http://maps.google.com.
   
2. Enter the address of your location in the text box, and press the 'Search Maps' button. If your address is found, a marker is placed at the location. If your search criteria produces multiple matches, then you're asked to select the best match.
   
3. Geocoding an address is not an exact science, and sometimes Google Maps will not get the exact location of an address — the green marker may show up in the middle of the street, slightly down the road, etc. All you need to do is double-click on the map exactly where you'd like the coordinates for. The map should re-center itself on the double-clicked location.
   
4. Once you're happy with the location of the map center, it's time to retrieve the coordinates. Click on 'Link to this page' and a box will pop up with a URL that looks something like:
   http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=3650+McClintock+Ave+Los+Angeles+CA&sll=34.019963,-118.290047&sspn=0.00482,0.006856&ie=UTF8&ll=34.019968,-118.289988&spn=0.001205,0.001714&t=k&z=19&om=1
   
5. In that long URL of gobbledygook is the morsel of information we're looking for: the latitude and longitude of the map center. Find the ll parameter, and copy the two numbers that come after it. In my case, my address is at: 34.019968,-118.289988.