Upon reviewing the GEB archives it appears I missed writing about this one even though I’ve used it for over a year. The same guy who implemented Globe Glider (a useful Windows application for integrating mapping tools with GE), ‘BernhardMuc’ at the GEC, also released another handy tool. Bernhard posted a way to view Google Maps street maps as transparent images seamlessly overlayed automatically in Google Earth. As you change your view, it reloads a proper zoom level of Google Maps. One example of why this network link 
is useful is to view detailed map data for countries like Australia and New Zealand which have great roads data in Google Maps, but the data hasn’t been ported to GE yet. The maps also show things like parks, lakes, rivers, and tourist sites as well. I think this is a handy thing worth keeping in your “My Places” and turning on when you need a map-like perspective, but still in 3D. (Tip: you can adjust the transparency by changing the parameter in the network link from &TRANS=80 to 100 – no transparency, 0 – fully transparent)