This is my first blog entry with images. Thanks to Picasa. Free software obviously. I chose one of the few agreeable photos from my collection to make a start...Two words about Picasa - superb, still can be better. Lot of features are well packaged into one single light weight application. I could not believe it scanned my entire disk for images adn movies... As it says, it can show images that you think did not exist. Be careful. I realize that it does not scan any zip files if they had images in them ;-) Later, In the options I found that I could instruct Picasa not to scan some folders... They should have asked that question during installation... May be that is too much for an average American user. Downside: I found the feature of making a collage wanting. A limitted range of options limits your creativity. Actually, when I tried more features - all of them had exactly the same trend. Just about all you need for 90% of the cases... But I guess you ahve to pay to do the other 10% where in you can show-off your creativity. Nice strategy.
During trying Picasa, I discovered another game played by Google. Its about Hello. They want to make the location of information irrelevant as long as there is internet and a high speed connectivity (especially in the last mile). Hello lets you and your buddies to see each others photo... no mails, no upload, no tiny URL, nothing. But if he wants to see it again, even if you are there, may be you will have to send it again... Neat... when Google are the ISP also. If this gets general public's approval, then there would be a spurt in Internet traffic.
Another amazing attention to open standards is Picasa's ability to read the details put in your images by your cameras. As long as they in standardized format, Picasa can show them. In my case, the display is better than Canon Utilities provided along with the camera. I thought I shall try other features of Picasa as and when I write... But Picasa has disabled and blurred the main window... Not helpful :-( but blurring the whole window is again a neat idea.
All in all, Picasa is a very good software... especially when it is FREE.
