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Filed under: Fun, Internet, Web services, Google

Map your photos with Google's latest feature in Picasa Web Albums

google picasa web albums image mapping

No more forgetting where you took that picture on your vacation, Google has now made it possible for users to pinpoint the exact places they took their photos by mapping photos.

A new feature called "Map My Photos" was released on Tuesday in Picasa Web Albums, lets users show exactly where on a map pictures were taken. When creating an album, fill out the Place Taken field, or drag and drop individual photos straight onto a map. It's that simple.

You can then share these maps with friends either through Picasa Web Albums or through Google Earth (by clicking on the "View in Google Earth" button on the top right). Google has set up a test gallery you can take a peek at.

Filed under: Photo, News, Windows, Commercial

ACDSee 9 released

acdsee9Vancouver-based ACD Systems International this week released version 9 of their popular ACDSee Photo Manager software for both the consumer and Pro lines. The big news is the Quick View feature, which allows for almost instantaneous opening of pictures in your library, both in ACDSee and in Explorer. Neat. I'm not quite sure how they're doing it, but I assume it involves storing a screen res bitmap somewhere. Also included are Showroom, which allows you to view slideshows from the desktop with various effects, and a Shadow/Highlight tool that promises to "save photos you would've probably deleted."

Of interest to Pros are three new features: Calendar Events View organizes shots based on the date and time in the EXIF/IPTC data so you can quickly find pics from certain jobs, Auto Categories tags photos based on embedded data, and Private Folders allows you to password protect photo sets. Great for hiding the porn on your work computer or making sure your girlfriend doesn't accidentally find out what you've been doing with the camera phone while she sleeps. No word, though, on whether the password protection involves encryption, so if you're carrying the prototype pics of your company's next super secret product around on your Thinkpad, you may want to look for something stronger.

Filed under: Internet, Photo, Windows

Google Picasa updates and moves out of beta

google picasa

On Wednesday, Google pushed its digital photo application Picasa out of beta, with many new updates. The Picasa Build 32.91 updates include:
  • Sharing photos online though Picasa web albums
  • Choose how folders are displayed in Picasa, though a nested folder view, or date view.
  • Importing photos into an existing folder.
  • Choose between four presentation views for screensavers.
  • Tell Picasa where you shot each photo, and geotagging ads some nice integration with Google Earth. KMZ files can be exported and shared with others.
  • Thumbnails appear larger and clearer.
  • RAW formats and more camera models are supported.
  • Caption editing has been updated.
  • Starred photos get organized into a special album.
  • Buttons can be configured to the user's specifications.
Google has also added a Tools > Experimental menu where users can test out features that Google is working to develop. Sorry, but Picasa is currently only available for PC and Linux downloads at the moment.

I love Picasa, and use it daily to organize, view and store my digital photos. Over the past few months I have been experimenting with the Picasa Web feature, and I have to say, it's a great tool to use to send digital pictures to family and friends for viewing anywhere, and display them in a nice online gallery.

Google adds web albums to Picasa

Picasa WebGoogle is currently testing a new version of its photo-management app Picasa in private beta that will let users post photo albums on the web via an integrated, Google-hosted service. You can learn some more about the service or put yourself on the beta waiting list at the Picasa Web site. Rafe Needleman at CNet's Web 2.0 Blog has posted a quick review of the functionality. He says at first blush the Picasa integration is quite good and publishing albums "couldn't be simpler." Galleries have nice, human-readable URLs, albums' design is clean and easy to navigate, and other Picasa users can import your photos into Picasa if you allow it. However Needleman identifies a few "snags," including the lack of password-protection for albums you want to keep private and the mysterious absence of captions. His biggest complaint is the lack of synchronization between Picasa and Picasa Web: Once you've uploaded an album, changes to images, titles, etc. in Picasa don't transfer over. He's also unsatisfied with the amount of storage space--only 250MB for free accounts compared to Gmail's 2.7GB+. For $25/year you can get 6GB of storage, but Needleman doesn't think that's a good value, and I'd have to agree. Though he isn't overly impressed with Picasa Web's feature set, he does say, "I don't know of a simpler or faster way to share photos." If you want to see what Picasa Web's online albums look like, take a look at the demo gallery.

Featured Time Waster

Forumwarz - a potentially offensive time waster

I pwn UAfter spending the better part of an hour on Forumwarz I still can't decide if it's just sick or if it's kind of fun. It's a bit like a car wreck on the highway. I know I shouldn't be looking but I can't quite turn away.

It's sick, it's twisted, it's the internet on it's worst level and darn it, it's kind of fun. At least for a little while.

Forumwarz is a parody role-playing game that takes place on the internet - or at least the Forumwarz version of it. Your goal is to complete missions that are given to you through a mock up of GoogleTalk called Sentrillion.

Your first "friend" is ShallowEsophagus who begins giving you missions to pwn various forums by being a troll. Depending on the character type you are assigned at start up, you have tools like drooling on the keyboard or bashing your head on the keyboard that you can use to destroy forum threads and eventually, pwn a forum.

Future missions involve buying illegal software from the Russians, pwning more difficult forums and other internet oddness.

Completing missions gives you cash, called Flezz in game, and items that you can pawn or use in other missions. The game is NOT for those easily offended. It's crass, coarse and there are frequent f-bombs in the fake chat sessions.

This is also a game for a more mature audience as it requires you to shop at the Drugs R Fun store to get various concoctions to improve your playing, engage in certain cyber activities to get more Flezz and just generally use a more adult perspective.

If you can get past that, here are the more enjoyable and time-wasting aspects.

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