Google did a great job with Google Maps from developers point of view. Recent V3 version of Maps API is very simple to use in projects. Recently I created an example how to embed map on the site and display custom markers on it. Markers handle mouse onClick event as well.
Сertainly, era of dial-up modems has gone and modern broadband internet made almost all sites loaded in a seconds.However, there are several reasons why you should still worry about every byte of size of your company or personal blog size.
For people who knows me and subscribers of my blog I propose WEB hosting for just $1/mth for simple sites, personal blogs, etc... I can setup Wordpress for you. If you are interested, leave me a comment to this post.
You know how boring can be site upload over and over again. Site is like a house pet, always needs some attention and after each change it should be uploaded to the Web vie FTP. Even doing this over and over again it is easy to make a mistake a miss one important file, so site can become malfunction.
I use simple lftp command line tool to automate project deployment via FTP and eliminate any possible deployment errors.