Brendan’s Blog

If you have not taken a look at Google Picassa recently, please read on. If you already use it.. I don’t have any new information here.

My Desktop PC has lots of photos and short movie clips taken with standard digital cameras. Some of the older photos were scanned in when I first started using digital photography. The collection is over 10GB in size and includes nearly 10,000 files in over 350 folders. Google Picassa is a free software package that helps me manage all of this visual data.

Picassa can import photos from cameras or memory cards. It organizes photos into folders based on events you define. The primary display of Picassa can sort your photo folders by creation date, recent changes, size, or name. Pictures can be tagged and placed into Albums that contain photos that exist in multiple file folders. Your best photos can be “starred” for easy identification. This is great for when you have a series of the same basic picture, but no one is blinking in one of them.

I use Picassa for basic photo touchs such as cropping, removing red-eye, even or minor brightness corrections. More advanced corrections and editing will require another software package such as Adobe’s Photoshop.

Showing off your photos is easy with several options for slide shows. You can display your photos in an automatic or manual slideshow right from Picassa. You can also associate an Album with the Picassa screensaver. Most impressive is the on-line slideshow available with the integrated free hosting site called Picass Web Albums. Simply press a button to send multiple high resolution photos to your personal photo site. You can then just simply e-mail a link to everyone who you want to see photos of your kids, new puppy, or special someone. I started using Picassa Web Albums instead of Flickr and WebShots to post my online photo album and even to order prints (not free.)

I have tried other photo management software including software bundled with Windows Vista, Nikon and Kodak cameras and HP printers. None of them work as well as Picassa. The product is very easy to use, and adaptable to almost any organizing scheme I have encountered.

If you have a PC and digital camera, try out Picassa soon!

Most businesses provide some sort of remote access so that employees can do work from home, or access services like e-mail when away from the office.  LogMeIn provides a free service that allows you to remotely access your PC at work or at home if both you and it are connected to the Internet.  I don’t use this service often, but it is really handy when I do.

1. Sign up for a free account
2. Use your web browser to install a small software component on the PC you want to remotely access
3. From a remote location, go to the LogMeIn web site, and login to your account
4. Select the PC you want to remotely access
5. Remotely view and interact with your PC.

The free service allows you to have more than one PC associated with your account (I have seven.)  The software works through most firewalls without issue.  LogMeIn publishes a security white paper which describes the mechanisms in place to ensure only you can access your PC, and to protect the data in transit.  LogMeIn also provides information for system administrators to prohibit LogMeIn on their networks.

Mozy is an on-line data backup tool. It runs in the background on your PC and transmits encrypted & compressed backups of your data files to a secure remote data center. This allows you to recover deleted or corrupted files without having to worry about traditional daily/weekly backups to disk.

The service is free if you have less than 2GB of data to back up. For $4.95 a month, you can backup up as much data as you can fit on one Windows PC (and fit through your Internet pipe.)

I have been using the paid version since I read a review in the Wall Street Journal last December.

Features include

• Open/locked file support
• 448-bit Blowfish encryption
• 128-bit SSL encryption
• Automatic or scheduled backups
• New and changed file detection
• Block level incremental backups
• Bandwidth throttling
• File versioning
• Public or private key encryption

I like to stay informed, and Bloglines is a great way to monitor blogs and websites for updates. Bloglines is a web-based RSS reader. Web sites without RSS feeds can usually be monitored using a custom feed creater such as FeedYes. Mobile versions are available for BlackBerries, iPhones, and generic mobile browsers too.

I really like the fact that if I view an article on my Blackberry I don’t have to view it again on my Desktop PC. Bloglines keeps track what you have read, so you don’t have to read it again (unless you want to.)

You can see a list of what I subscribe to here.

Key Features of Bloglines:

• All-in-one Blog and news feed search, online subscriptions, news reader, blog publishing and social sharing tools
• Available in 10 languages
• Mobile version optimized for handheld computers and cell phones
• Email subscriptions help manage your e-newsletter traffic
• Package Tracking (UPS, USPS & FedEx)
• Custom weather forecasts
• Quick Pick Subscriptions get new users started quickly and easily
• Personalized recommendations to find new subscriptions
• Bookmarklet for single-click subscriptions to any source
• Notifiers for all browser types to remind you when new articles have arrived
• Bloglines Saved Searches deliver future articles matching your key words and phrases
• Most Popular lists show the days hot topics and which blogs are getting the most noticed
• Handy add-on tools for bloggers such as automated blogrolls, subscription buttons

Do you use more than one computer? If you do, you have probably struggled with a method to share or synchronize files between them. I have been using a tool called FolderShare to synchronize files between my various PC’s for several months now. I synchronize My Documents, IE Favorites, and work-related project folders between my home desktop PC and my work laptop. It works over standard SSL ports, so you can use it nearly anywhere.

UPDATE: Microsoft re-branded FolderShare as Windows Live Sync since this article was first written.  The functionality is almost identical, and the service is still free.

Microsoft purchased FolderShare back in November of 2005. It has been free to use since then.

This is how the tool is described on its website:

FolderShareTM is a service that allows you to securely keep files synchronized between your devices, share files with friends or colleagues, and remotely download your files from any web browser. FolderShare consists of two components – My FolderShare and the FolderShare Satellite.

My FolderShare: Configure and manage your account from here.

• Go to www.foldershare.com from any web browser and login to access your “My FolderShare” page.
• From here you can do any of the following:
  • Setup devices to sync or share with
  • Invite others (via email address) to share your files
  • Manage your account – upgrade your subscription, change your email address or password
  • Get help
  • Download the latest software

FolderShare Satellite: The software you need to install on the device(s) you want to sync or share files with.

• The FolderShare Satellite will run in the background when you are online.
• As you update shared or synced files, it will automatically update them on the other devices connected.