Photobucket

Many people are into using sites like Flickr and Shutterfly to share pictures on the web. Those are great sites. Maybe someday I will talk about them more specifically. Today, however, I want to focus on a site that is similar as far as uploading photos go, but awesome-er: Photobucket.

Awesome like the Star Wars rockband (I bet someone used Photobucket to make this picture):


Photobucket lets you upload pictures, store them on their servers, make slide shows, make virtual scrapbooks, and edit pictures. The uploading, storing, and slide show creation are all pretty run-of-the-mill. I like the fact that you can upload multiple pictures at a time, too. Really though, the best features Photobucket has to offer are the photo-editing and the digital scrapbooking.

Photo-Editing: Perhaps the best example of how you can use photo-editing to customize pictures is the logo for the dull bulb. I used Photobucket to change the look, colors, add text, etc. Basically, once you upload a picture to the site, you can click the "edit" button and begin making your pictures awesome-er. Its really easy to use. Just go try it. Setup a photobucket account, upload pictures, and edit one. Get busy making awesome edited photos.

LOOK WHAT I MADE:
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2.


Digital Scrapbooking: This part of the review is from the guest writer Baby G. She says:

"Photobucket has a new feature called Scrapblog. It is basically a really easy way to do digital scrapbooking and it is FREE! The first thing you do is choose a template that you like. There are about 144 to choose from. Each template has anywhere from 1-9 pages. The cool thing is that once you choose a template you can personalize it by deleting, adding, or moving everything you see.

"Let’s start with pictures. You simply click on pictures that you have already uploaded to your Photobucket account and you can add things like frames or borders. There aren’t rigid spaces where you have to put your pictures. You can put them anywhere, at any angel, and at any size you like. Next let’s talk about text. You have the same liberties with the text as you do with pictures. There are lots of fonts to choose from. Next, they have things called stickers. The first time I used Scrapbook I thought I could only use the stickers that went with the template I chose, but that is not correct. When you click stickers there is a button at the top called “Get Stickers.” Once you click that, it takes you to all of the stickers they have for every template. The stickers are the cute little things that are always so expensive when scrapbooking like; borders, cute phrases, pictures, and basically all the decorations you could possibly use to scrapbook.

"If you have made a Scrapblog you want to publish you just click “Order Prints.” You can have a book (soft or hard bound) mailed to you or delivered at Target. I have found Scrapblog to be very useful for my blog as well. You can save one of your scrapbook pages as a .jpeg and use it for a collage of pictures on a post or as a very personalized header."

So there you have it- Photobucket.

Mac or PC Part 3b: Operating System - Perks

Welcome to Part 3b of the Mac or PC mini-series. Today's topic is all about the perks of Leopard. I will also conclude Part 3 with my take on the situation. So here we go with some of the perks of Leopard.

Spaces: This is a terrific feature that outdoes the window flip features of Vista. In a very simple way, spaces allows you to switch between multiple desktops so that you can keep your work area clean and organized. Think of it as having a large desk that allows you to place papers, a computer, food, your cell phone, etc. all in their own area. Its the same with Spaces. You simply assign a program to a space and it will open only in that space. For pictures and screenshots click here.

Time Machine: This is probably one of the coolest features on Leopard. This is the way Mac backs itself up. You need an external drive of some sort that has been Mac formatted. You set up your Mac to back itself up every specified interval of time. It does one major backup, then, from that point on, makes a backup of only the changes to documents and files. That way, you gets quick backups whenever you want. I would back mine up every hour or so if I was always connected to an external. But wait! That isn't even the best part. The best part is when you need to go back and look for a document or whatever. So lets say you accidentally deleted a file that you were working on for work. The boss really needs the file today and you have no idea where it went. Well, you know that you made the document last Friday so you go into the Time Machine (a wide open space appears on the screen filled with windows going back as far as the eye can see) and go back in time to Friday. When I say you go back in time I mean it. A window opens up that allows you to scroll through your system backups. Each system backup looks exactly like the system looks normally so it is extremely easy to use. Check out the screenshot from the Apple website. In Time Machine you can even preview deleted documents.

HotSpots: HotSpots are a cool little feature that allow you to perform simple tasks by running the cursor to the corners of the desktop. For example, lets say you have a few windows open on the desktop and need to move them all so you can look at a file on the desktop. Easy. Simply set up your hotspot so that by running the cursor to one of your corners will move all the windows on the desktop. Even better, assume that you want to select a window that is buried under a bunch of other windows. Set up hotspots to spread out your windows. Below, the left picture shows the windows buried, the right picture shows them spread out:









Beyond that, Hot Corners allows you to select between difference spaces, bring down the dashboard, start the screen saver, and sleep the display.

iPhoto: iPhoto is not a totally unique feature, although it is noteworthy. The reason I include it here is because it comes with Leopard as a part of the package whereas with Vista, to get an application as good as this one, you would need to purchase one or use Picasa. The reason I love iPhoto so much is that it makes photo managements extremely easy. Importing and organizing pictures can be a truly daunting task without a photo management app like this one. You can also edit your photos using this application (although not to the extent that a program like Photoshop allows).

iSite Camera: The camera that comes built in to all Macs is awesome. For such a simple device, it is truly awesome. Have you ever been video chatting with a friend and your camera is really laggy and sucky. Well, that might be a bandwidth problem but it could also be a camera problem. The iSite camera on the Mac makes the chatting experience more smooth and the image more clear. You can even have fun with your images like the picture you see to the left.

Boot Camp: I will talk about BootCamp which I have used extensively and point you to information about the far superior (and costly) VMware Fusion, which I use far more extensively. BootCamp comes free on all Leopard distributions. It allows you to actively partition your hard drive to add a Windows partition. I say "actively" because you can do this at your leisure - partition the drive or unpartition the drive without formatting. You can install any version of Windows and it works like a charm. You can then switch between the operating systems when you boot. You can even default boot to Windows if you want. It is important to note that I use virtualization more as it is more convenient, however, BootCamp works better with Vista as it allows you to run the Aero GUI. Anyway... BootCamp is really great and it points to how unthreatened Apple feels by Microsoft. In fact, how they embrace the differences between them and capitalize off them. Amazing.

GarageBand: Last but not least, every musicians power toy, GarageBand. This also comes standard with Leopard (as do all of the highlighted perks) and is equally cool. This application allows you to edit and mix your own music. I don't do this. I am sure there are superior applications out there that you can buy but this one is free. I do use this for its ability to make ringtones for my phone, which I just bluetooth over to my phone... No purchasing, no e-mailing the file, exactly the song and part I want, awesome. So thats cool. Beyond that, I have tried mixing some random stuff I found online and I found the application easy to use.

My Take on the Whole Situation: I have found that the biggest difference between what Microsoft is doing with Vista and what Mac is doing with Leopard is all a matter of user experience. Vista seems to focus on appearance while Leopard seems to focus on the applications that users want. If you look at the two posts on the various perks, the main difference is one is all applications the other is all interface stuff. So, why is this important. Microsoft sits on a high horse. There are thousands of people that program applications that are compatible with it. I imagine they figure they can focus on other things besides deliverable applications because those thousands of applications fill the gap - for free! The problem with this view is that it ignores a few critical facts: 1) people don't like to go out and get a bunch of applications or they simply don't know how, 2) all those other apps may not run as smoothly with the OS as could other apps that are native - i.e. made by Microsoft - in fact, you will notice that a lot of problems with Windows on all platforms are the "other" applications that bug it up, and 3) native software development can lead to innovations that simply are not occuring at Microsoft. Apple, however, is trying to deliver as innovative a product as they possibly can. They don't have 3rd party programmers to rely on, they don't have the luxury of a high horse. Rather, they are fighting for a market share. This conflict is producing results for Apple and it will continue to do so as long as they maintain the mentality of innovation=market share.

So, what are the takeaways? Both Vista and Leopard offer unique features that are good for different people. Which perks do you prefer? Which ones will make your experience with your computer better? Figuring this out for yourself will help you make a selection between the two. My take of everything might be a little slanted but I hope I have demonstrated why.

Picasa

This is what Google says about Picasa:

• Locate and organize all the photos on your computer.
• Edit and add effects to your photos with a few simple clicks.
• Share your photos with others through email, prints, and on the web: it’s fast, easy and free.

I tried out the software and I think it is pretty decent, especially if you don't have a Mac. Why do I say that? Well, in my opinion, the photo management in Windows really sucks. I have used both Vista and XP to manage photos and I have to say that neither match up to the abilities of Mac's iPhoto(which may be why Google has not produced a Mac version of Picasa, there is just no need). So, Picasa is really good for XP and Vista users because it fills that lack of photo management software void. It is easily just as good as iPhoto. It even has more features.

Compare screenshots I made of Picasa (left) and iPhoto (right):












Features:

Import: Picasa imports all of your existing photos from your hard drive automatically when you first start up. You can then import more pictures from any device (camera, USB drive, etc) using the import button on the top. The neat thing about this feature is that Picasa will automatically organize the photos according to date, into albums. Lets say you went to the park with the family and took a bunch a pictures. You then import those picture into Picasa and it sets them up as an event according to the date (or action of importing in general - for events that span multiple dates) and puts them in an album. You can now see, manage, and edit all the photos you imported. Simple and amazing.

Get Organized: Picasa allows you to organize your photos according to albums. It would be the equivalent of creating a folder for your pictures in explorer but it does it much "easierly" and with a lot more style.

Edit: Picasa also works as a basic photo editor. You can fix red eye, add effects, change contrast, brightness, etc.

E-mail, Blog, Export: Picasa is tied to your Gmail account and you can use it to e-mail photos via email. You can also post photos directly to your blog using the "blog this" feature. Lastly, you can export photos out of Picasa in the same organized way your brought it in.

Collage and Screensavers: Last, but not least, you can make photo arrangements (collages) and screensavers using Picasa. They are easy to make and somewhat fun.

So there you have it. Picasa. Its a great piece of software for XP and Vista. Just make sure that you try it out and really like it before you purchase it. Wait a second.... Its FREE!!
DOWNLOAD IT NOW!