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The Power User's Guide to Google Apps

Gina Trapani — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:19:10 -0600

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Using just a small fraction of Google's vast application offerings? That's about to end!

Remember that old maxim that says we use only about 10 percent of our brain’s capacity? It’s been proven as hokum by modern neuroscience, but we think we can safely apply the same basic analogy to Google: The vast, vast, vast majority of computer users—even those practiced in hardcore nerdery—are almost certainly using a pitiful fraction of all the applications and features intrinsic to Google’s ever-expanding matrix of software code.

Sure, a Maximum PC reader may be well-versed in Google’s advanced search operators (Google allintext: “advanced search operators” if you missed that chapter), but we’re willing to wager that even the most curious among you haven’t taken the time to play with more than a few Google applications, let alone explore all their advanced features. Indeed, Google HQ is a fan-friggin’-amazing hotbed of R&D, but its developers are relatively quiet about the tools they’ve released. And that’s a shame, because Google’s constant innovation should get more press.

To address your inevitable Google knowledge deficit, we commissioned Gina Trapani to share her favorite tips. Gina launched Lifehacker.com, writes about Google for a bazillion media outlets, co-hosts the “This Week In Google” netcast, and pretty much makes it her job to know as much as possible about Google’s sundry apps and features.

Want even harder hardcore tips? Or did we leave out an application you really want to know about? Send your requests to comments@maximumpc.com. Oh, and by the way: Google Buzz was announced literally minutes before this article went to press. But we’ll certainly cover this app in a future issue—because if there’s one thing this world needs, it’s more social media options. FTW! —Jon Phillips

Maps

Google Maps (http://maps.google.com) is a mapping application and route planner that provides driving, walking, and public transit directions from your starting point to one or more destinations. Launched in 2005, Maps is based on technology created at Australian startup Where2 by brothers Lars and Jens Rasmussen (currently the lead engineers on Google Wave). Along with Gmail, Google Maps was one of the first web apps to extensively use Ajax, a JavaScript programming technique that updates map imagery as you pan and zoom, all without reloading the page.

Preview Which Streets Made Street View's Cut

The abundance of blue lines shows us that Google's Street View van covered Las Vegas pretty well, but didn't venture very far into the desert.

Not only does Google Maps display aerial imagery in Satellite view, it also offers a huge database of on-the-ground photos via Street View. To switch to Street View from the basic map screen, drag and drop the yellow “pegman” from the top of the zoom control onto the map. When you do, blue lines appear on the streets where ground imagery is available (throughout the United States and in select other countries). Drop the pegman onto the road of your choice, walk down the street by clicking the navigational arrows, and double-click any area of a photo to zoom in on it. Some images are so clear, you can read the hours on No Parking signs.

In-Car Navigation? In Maps Help, search “Using Maps with your navigation device” to learn how to send directions straight from Google Maps to your TomTom, Garmin, BMW, or Mercedes navigation systems.

Add Local Color to Your Map

Click a few boxes, and Google’s View of New York City becomes absolutely silly with user-contributed photos and videos. And when you switch to Street View, you’ll be able to peruse your More choices in a thumbnail gallery.

Don’t miss out on the brave new world beyond the Map, Satellite, Terrain, and Street View features in Google Maps. Under the More button (located between the Traffic and Satellite buttons on the top-right of a map), you can overlay links to photos, videos, Wikipedia articles, webcams, transit maps (in some cities), and real estate listings. This feature is perfect when you want to know the history of a monument, find open homes for your Sunday real estate tour, or see what’s happening on the local zoo’s “panda cam.”

Check Traffic to Avoid the Madness!

Using predictive analysis of data collected from road sensors and GPS-equipped mobile phones, Google’s Traffic function gives you a color-coded snapshot of how road conditions might shape up.

Before you start the car, check for clogged arteries by clicking the Traffic button. By default you’ll see live, current traffic conditions—anonymously collected from drivers’ mobile devices—but you can change the day and time to see extrapolated predictions. To do so, in the Traffic pop-up click the Change link, and set the day and time of your departure. Things looking bad out there? Well, when you get directions in Google Maps, you can always opt for an alternate route by clicking and dragging the suggested route to another road. Or you could opt to ditch the car entirely: Click the Public Transit or Walking link on the right panel below the starting point and destination to see how you can get there by bus, train, trolley, or on foot.

Next up, Google Docs!

Docs

Google Docs (http://docs.google.com) is a web-based word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation application that stores any files you create in it, as well as files you upload. While Google Docs doesn’t offer all the functionality you’d find in Microsoft Office, its web-based collaboration features present a whole new world of utility.

Save Time on Formatting with Templates

This personal financial budget shows you exactly where all your money's going. Oh well, at least the spreadsheet is free!

Whether you need an invoice, resume, or calendar, you don’t have to design it from scratch—just grab a template, thousands of which can be found in the drop-down menu of the Create New button. Various spreadsheets, text documents, presentations, and forms are broken down by categories like “Resumes and Cover Letters,” “Personal Finance,” and “Legal.” (Hint: Choose your language from the “Narrow by language” drop-down to hide foreign-language templates.) Google Docs will keep track of which templates you’ve used in the past for easy reuse. The spreadsheet templates—pre-formatted with built-in formulas and charts—are reason enough to check out Docs.

Conduct Surveys with Forms

Feel free to mix in "check all that apply" questions with those demanding "one answer only."

Google’s form templates are awesome for not only collecting data from co-workers, loved ones, and website visitors, but also for tallying responses. In Google Docs, click the Create New button, and chose “form” from the drop-down. Now, enter your questions, as well as the types of answers each question should get. You can format answers for multiple choice, checkboxes, and other common survey criteria, as well as add section headers and choose custom visual themes. Clicking the “Email for” button will send your contacts a link to the form (you also can copy and paste the link to publish it yourself). When your recipients answer the form’s questions, a Google spreadsheet living in the cloud collects and charts the responses for you to see. For example, you can gather all your friends’ vital personal specs—phone numbers, home addresses, even favorite foods—with one simple questionaire.

Chat While You Crunch Numbers

When you give other people access to a document in Google Docs, a blue notification icon on the far right of the menu bar will inform you who else is viewing and/or editing the document while you have it open. In spreadsheets, this bar has a down arrow on it, which you can click to expand a chat panel. Not only will you be able to see real-time updates to your spreadsheet as others change it, you can instant message your collaborators as you work. This feature is conspicuously absent in documents and presentations.

Visualize Data with Interactive Gadgets

Once you’ve got a spreadsheet full of data, you’ll want interesting ways to visualize it without doing too much work. Enter Google Docs gadgets, which are interactive charts, maps, and other data visualizations you can embed in a spreadsheet, publish on a web page, or include on your iGoogle homepage. From your Google Spreadsheet’s Insert menu, choose “Gadget...” to choose and configure a gadget that displays your data in informative ways. You can create your own gadget or use one of the many provided, which include charts, guages, timelines, org charts, and the fun "Bars of Stuff."

Ditch the Thumb Drive and Store Files at Google Docs

Files converted to Google Doc documents don’t count toward the 1GB storage limit. Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files can all be converted and stored for free, but you might lose features and formatting.

Google Docs isn’t just for office files anymore: You can now upload, store, and share any kind of file, including music, video, photos, and zip files. A simple click of the Upload button will save files to your home in the cloud. File sizes can be as high as 250MB, and you get up to 1GB of space for storing non–Google Docs files. Once your treasures are uploaded, select a file and click the Share link to give others access to it. You can also share entire folders, creating a Dropbox-like meeting space for your friends and colleagues to work on files together.

See a Document's Revision History

When multiple people are working on a document, things can change fast. To see who changed what and to compare revisions, open a document and from the File menu choose “See revision history.” You’ll get a list of all the changes a document has undergone. You can also select two revisions and compare them to see exactly what changed between them. Just be aware that revision history is available to anyone you share a document with—even your boss. So, if you don’t want collaborators or viewers to see the history, make a copy of the document, which wipes away the bread-crumb trail of its changes.

Get Your Documents Offline

Google Gears helps you keep your cloud business in sync.

One of the biggest concerns about keeping data in the cloud—instead of on your hard drive—centers on the question of offline access. So, if you’re wondering how you’ll work on your Google Docs files when you’re on a non-Wi-Fi-equipped flight, Google Gears has you covered. This free browser add-on for Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari gives you access to your files offline, and syncs changes when you connect to the Internet again. You can download Google Gears at http://gears.google.com.

Next up, Google Wave!

Google Wave: Collaboration Made Easy

At first glance, it seems like there's nothing Wave can't do.

Google Wave (http://wave.google.com) is a new, real-time group collaboration tool that’s currently an invitation-only beta product. Combining features from email, chat, wikis, and forums, Google Wave is best described as a mash-up between a real-time wiki and multimedia chat. You do all your group collaboration in “waves” (note the lowercase W), which function as a hybrid conversation/document—wrap your head around that!—that multiple people can view, edit, and add to.

Waves are live documents and change right before your eyes: You can watch collaborators’ cursors move about with fury, keystroke by keystroke. You can also embed interactive content—like polls, YouTube clips, and slide shows—and easily discuss a particular sentence in a block of text with the inline reply feature. Wave is young and missing essential features (like the ability to remove someone from a wave), but there’s no mistaking its ambitions to change how power-users work together online.

Calendar

Google Calendar (http://google.com/calendar) is a scheduling application that offers email, SMS alerts, and collaboration features. The interface is similar to Microsoft Outlook’s calendar, with daily, weekly, and monthly views, as well as a customizable time period and agenda views. Launched in April 2006, Google Calendar officially graduated from beta status in July 2009.

Get Your Agenda via Email or Text Message

When you create an event in Google Calendar, you can also configure an email or SMS reminder to come to you minutes, days, or weeks in advance—great for remembering to order flowers for Mom’s birthday. You can also receive your daily agenda via email first thing in the morning. To do so, in the calendar list on the left, click the down-arrow button next to the appropriate calendar, then select Notifications. Check the “Daily agenda” box, and save your settings to get an email each morning at 5 a.m. in your timezone of the day’s upcoming events. You can also get your schedule via text message: Text the word day to shortcode GVENT (48368) to receive your day’s agenda. The word next will get the next event on your calendar, and the nday command will send back tomorrow’s events. (Standard text messaging fees apply.)

Quick-Add Events with Natural Language

We wish more apps—and even people—could intelligently interpret conversational language.

The Google Calendar app is quite remarkable in its ability to generate calendar items from events you describe in natural, conversational language. For example, if you type “Lunch with Mark tomorrow at 2pm at Maria’s,” Calendar will parse “tomorrow at 2pm,” scheduling the event for the correct day and time, and even fill in “Maria’s” as the event location.

Subscribe to Team Schedules, Birthdays, and More

Does your company give you a paid vacation for Groundhog Day? Your IT department can share your company's complete paid vacation day schedule via Google Calendar.

You can instantly add sports team schedules, holidays, and your contacts’ birthdays to your schedule by subscribing to public calendars. In the Other Calendars module on the sidebar, click the Add link. From the drop-down, choose “Browse interesting calendars” to pick and choose from a selection of calendars, like religious or U.S. holidays, or your contacts’ birthdays (compiled from your Google contact entries and their Google Profiles). You can also subscribe to any public calendar, or any of your contacts’ Google calendars by choosing “Add by URL” or “Add a friend’s calendar.”

Incorporate the Weather Forecast on Your Calendar

Get the weather forecast for this weekend’s softball game directly on your Google Calendar. In Settings, under the General tab, enter your location (either city and state or zip code) and then, near “Show weather based on my location,” choose whether you’d like the temperatures in Celsius or Fahrenheit. Save your changes, and GCal will display a small weather icon for the next four days; click the icon to expand forecast details.

Next up, Gmail!

Gmail

When Google’s free, web-based email service (http://mail.google.com) launched as an invitation-only beta on April 1, 2004, initial speculation had it that the 1GB storage offer was an April Fool’s gag. It wasn’t a gag, and Google has only gotten more generous; as of this writing, Gmail storage capacity is up to 7GB. Thanks to all this storage space—along with threaded conversations, a powerful spam filter, conversation labels, and more—Gmail remains a standout amid other free webmail products that have been around much longer.

Access Gmail via IMAP

With IMAP settings, you can keep Gmail properly synced on all your sundry Internet machines.

While most email providers offer only one-way POP downloads of your messages, Gmail offers the more sophisticated, two-way sync protocol, IMAP. With IMAP, you can access your Gmail on multiple computers and mobile devices, and changes you make on one device are immediately reflected everywhere else. IMAP syncs the read and unread status of all your Gmail messages in all your labels (represented as traditional folders in your IMAP client of choice). To enable IMAP in Gmail’s Settings, click the “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” tab. You’ll have to configure your email program using Gmail’s secure IMAP settings; click the “Configuration instructions” link to get the details for your email software.

Mute a Chatty Email Thread

Just check the box of a thread you want to silence, then mute it—mute it good.

When an email conversation is stuck in a never-ending “reply all” cycle and you wish you weren’t on the recipient list, open the conversation and choose Mute from Gmail’s More Actions menu. This will silence the thread, meaning that any new replies to it will skip your inbox and be archived automatically. You can still search for and find muted messages; you just won’t get notifications of new replies while it’s going on. To find conversations you’ve muted, enter is:muted into Gmail’s search box.

Master Gmail's Keyboard Shortcuts

If you receive a lot of email, Gmail’s keyboard shortcuts are essential, and should be committed to muscle memory as soon as possible. To enable keyboard shortcuts in Gmail’s settings, go to the the General tab, and select the “Keyboard shortcuts on” radio button. Now you can move forward and back between your messages using the J and K keys, tap R to reply to a message, C to compose a new message, and the / key to move your cursor to Gmail’s search box. Some keys even perform multiple actions. For example, if you’re done reading a message, press ] to archive it and move to the next message. See all the available keyboards shortcuts at http://goo.gl/hlBI.

Catch Embarrassing Email Mistakes Before You Send

Google has a very canny way of making us feel slightly incompetent, doesn't he?

Just sent an email you wish you could take back? Told someone the file was attached and sent the message before you actually attached it? Gmail Labs, Gmail's “testing ground for experimental features,” offers two tools that can help. The Undo Send feature gives you a few minutes to click an undo link after you’ve sent a message you immediately regret. The Forgotten Attachment Detector checks to see if you mentioned the words “attachment” or “attached” in your message but did not attach a file. If it suspects you’ve made a mistake, it prompts you with a dialog box that asks if you forgot your attachment—all before it sends the email. To enable Gmail Labs and get these and other Labs features mentioned on this page, click the Labs tab.

Send Repetitive Replies Faster with Canned Responses

Whether you need a uniform reply to server-outage complaints, or just want to tell that latest Nigerian 419 scammer that you thank him for thinking of you but aren’t currently interested, a Canned Response will get the job done.

When you receive a lot of email that requires the same response, you need not suffer the indignity of same-replying from scratch every time. Gmail’s Canned Responses feature (another tweak from Gmail Labs) lets you set up email scripts that you can choose from a drop-down to send as a reply to a message. For example, you could have a Canned Response called “thanks” associated with the message, “Thanks for letting us know, we’re working on it!” With Gmail Labs and Canned Responses enabled, open a new email, compose your canned response, and from the Canned Responses drop-down under Save, choose “New Canned Response” and enter a name for it. Then, any time you want to use the response when replying to an email, click the Canned Responses link, and choose its name from the Insert section. Canned Responses also work in filters. For example, you could say that any email from certain addresses should automatically get a particular canned response.

Send and Receive Mail from Other Accounts in Gmail

Which email identity does Gina want to use today?

Switching to Gmail sounds tempting, but what if you don’t want to change your email addresses? You don’t have to. Gmail comes with a built-in POP fetcher, which can retrieve messages from up to five existing email accounts and drop them in your Gmail inbox. You can also set up multiple “From:” addresses that match your existing accounts. This way, when you send an email in Gmail, you can have it originate from your Gmail account, or from your alternate “From:” addresses. To start using other email addresses within Gmail, go to Settings and enter your other account details in the Accounts tab.

Add an Email to Your Task List

If a message has a chore attached to it, just add it to Tasks, and it will loom over your to-do list like the proverbial albatross.

Gmail’s built-in to-do list application, Tasks, makes it easy to turn messages into to-dos. You can manage your tasks, subtasks, task descriptions, and due dates just by clicking the Tasks link in the Gmail sidebar. And if you’ve got an email message that contains a to-do item in it, choose “Add to Tasks” from the More Actions menu to add it to your list with a link to the message.

Next up, alerts and feeds!

Crawler Alerts: Let Google Do the Search Work for You

Want to know how many people are referencing your name online? Setting up a Google Alert will keep you appraised.

You want to see the latest, greatest search results for a brand name, person, or any keyword, but find it too time-consuming to manually search Google every few days? Then turn to Google Alerts (http://google.com/alerts), which will automatically deliver these hits via email or RSS feed. Simply enter the keyword you want new results for, what sources you want to monitor (News, Blogs, Web, Video, Groups, or Comprehensive), how often you want the email alerts, how many results the alerts should contain, and what email address the alerts should go to. Then, as Google crawls the Internet and indexes new content that contains your keyword, you’ll get an email summarizing those results. If you’ve already got too much email, choose Feed from the “Deliver to:” drop-down to subscribe to alerts in your feed reader instead.

Reader

Google Reader (http://reader.google.com) is a news aggregator that lets you subscribe to website RSS and Atom feeds, organize them into folders, share items with followers, and read their content offline. Billed as “an inbox for the web,” Reader displays the number of unread items per feed (and per folder of feeds), just like an email client does.

Follow People in Addition to Feeds

Once all your pals begin following each other, your reads on good reads will grow exponentially.

Your friends are your most trusted informants, and seeing what they’ve been reading might bring you the news you care about more quickly than a faceless website could. To get started following people in Reader, click the “People you follow” link in the sidebar. You can find people to follow by name or email address, as well as configure access to your own shared items. Click the Follow button to add someone to the “People you follow” area, where each person’s profile will display a count of things they liked, shared, or commented on.

Read Your Feeds Offline To read your feeds somewhere other than in a web browser, try the free desktop newsreader FeedDemon (http://goo.gl/ALNW). It syncs with Google Reader, and maintains your subscriptions, tags, and read and unread item status whether you changed them on the desktop or in the web application.

Sort Feed Items 'By Magic'

Is Doug Henning still alive? Something tells us he'd like this feature.

You can instantly see the most interesting feed items first, using Google’s version of magic: Hover over any feed, and from the drop-down menu change the sort order from “newest” (the default) to “by magic.” The “Sort by magic” algorithm ranks items based on your reading habits as well as global Google Reader activity to predict which items will interest you most. The more feed items you like and star in Google Reader, the better the magic will work.

Graph Your Reading Habits

Spending too much time reading, and not enough time writing? The Trends feature can chart this in living color.

How much time do you spend reading and sharing feeds? Click the Trends link on the Reader sidebar to get an overview of how many feed items you read per month, with navel-gazing stats like what day of the week and hour of the day you read feeds most. Trends also shows you which of your feeds are most frequently updated, inactive, and least subscribed-to, as well as how active your Reader friends are. To see how much you interact with an individual feed, click it and then click the Show Details link on a feed’s blue menu bar to see a bar graph that displays how many items that feed has published compared to how many you’ve read.

Next up, Chrome!

Chrome

Google Chrome (http://google.com/chrome) is an open-source, tabbed web browser developed with a focus on simplicity and speed. Its design is extremely minimalist, stripping away many of the menus and buttons common in other web browsers. A mere 16 months after it launched, Chrome is the third most widely used web browser, after Internet Explorer and Firefox. The latest stable build of Chrome is available as a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Willing testers can also use beta versions of Chrome, which include previews of new features that are in development.

Customize the 'New Tab' Screen

Stabbing a tab with a thumbtack insures it will remain stationary on your thumbnail view.

When you open a new tab in Google Chrome, by default you get the aptly named “New Tab” screen, a smart grid of thumbnail previews of your most visited websites. You can customize the look, layout, and position of the thumbnails on this launcher page to make it more useful. To remove a thumbnail, hover over it and click the X in the upper right-hand corner. To relocate a thumbnail to a different position in the grid, hover over it, then drag and drop it to its new location. To pin a thumbnail to a spot—so it’s always there, no matter how often you visit it—hover over it and click the thumbtack button on the upper left-hand side.

Honey, I Hid the Pr0n If you want to web surf without leaving behind traces of your activity—“to plan surprises like gifts or birthdays," according to Google's faux-naïve language—you can activate Incognito mode, which is under Chrome's Tools menu. Downloaded files and visited webpages won't appear in the browser's history, and new cookies will be closed upon exiting the incognito window.

Manage Tab and Extension Memory Usage

Chrome is a speedy browser, but once third-party extensions are in the mix, you’re a bit vulnerable to memory leaks and slowdowns. To see what’s eating Chrome’s memory, launch its internal Task Manager using the Shift+Esc keyboard shortcut. Much like the Windows Task Manager, it will show you how much memory, CPU, and network bandwidth each tab and extension is using. Select a runaway memory hog and choose “End process” to nix its greedy activities.

Sync Your Bookmarks—Everywhere

If you're running Chrome on several computers, you don’t have to worry about missing bookmarks you saved while working on another machine. Press Ctrl+Shift+B to launch the Bookmark Manager, and click the “Synchronize my bookmarks...” button. Sign into your Google account, and Chrome will merge and sync the bookmarks in your current instance of Chrome with every other installation of Chrome that has sync enabled (and is signed into your Google Account). Chrome actually saves your bookmarks in Google Docs. After you sync your bookmarks, you’ll find a Google Chrome folder in your Google Docs account with a Bookmarks subfolder, and all your links stored within. This way, if you want to access your bookmarks from a different browser, you can access them by logging into Google Docs.

Add Features to Chrome with Extensions

The latest stable version of Google Chrome includes support for third-party extensions: installable plugins that add features to Chrome, like ad blocking, email notifications, or a session manager. To start exploring extensions, choose Extensions from the blue-wrench menu on the far right of the Chrome menu bar. If you have extensions already installed, they’ll be listed here. Otherwise, click “Get more extensions” to browse a catalog of extensions categorized and ranked by popularity. We especially like the One Number extension, which adds a button to Chrome’s toolbar that displays the number of unread messages in your Gmail, Google Reader, Google Voice, and Google Wave accounts.

Picasa

Google’s Picasa photo management software (http://picasa.com) comes in two flavors: desktop software you install on your PC or Mac, and an online version called Picasa Web Albums (http://picasaweb.google.com). While you’ll want to sort, organize, tag, rate, and edit the gigabytes of digital photos you’ve collected on your desktop, Picasa’s Web Albums interface makes publishing and collaborating on those photos easier.

Group Your Photos by the People in Them

Both Picasa and Picasa Web Albums can recognize faces in your photos, and let you identify those faces by assigning Name Tags to them. Once your photos are loaded into Picasa on the desktop, it will scan them and place all the images with faces in them in an Unnamed People album (under People in the left column). Browse that album, and add a name to each person pictured to identify them. If you’re signed into your Google account, link those photos with the corresponding person in your Google Contacts list. For each person you identify, Picasa creates a person-specific album, and continually scans your library for new photos that include faces matching ones you’ve already tagged. Picasa will ask you to confirm its name tag suggestions on faces it finds. The suggestions are often, but not always, accurate. Regardless, you can always correct an inaccurate name tag. Picasa Web Albums also uses name tags, and can list photos by the people in them. To turn on this feature, click the Try It button on the right side of your album list, in the Name Tags section.

Put Your Photos on the Map

Picasa let's you geotag in a Google Maps view, and you can also "View in Google Earth" by hitting the link at the top right.

You can easily add location information—aka geotags—to your photos and display them on a Google Map, with each photo pinned to the location where it was shot. To assign location data in the desktop app, click the Places button on the bottom right, between People and Tags. In the Google Maps panel that appears, search for an address. Once you’ve found the location where a photo was taken, click OK in the “Put photo here?” dialog. In Picasa Web Albums, choose a photo, and in the information panel on the right, click the Add Location link to find an address in Google Maps, and then put the photo there. Once you’ve geotagged your photos, you can view a map of photos by clicking the View Map link for an album.

Automatically Sync Photos (and Edits) on Your Computer to the Web

Behold, the Picasa desktop app in all its glory.

Once you publish a photo album in Picasa Web Albums, you don’t have to re-upload an image by hand every time you change a caption, add a name tag, or crop a photo. Instead, you can automatically sync changes to photos. To do so, go to the desktop app and select an album or a folder of photos. Toggle on the “Sync to Web” control, and sign into your Google account. Now, configure your sync settings—what size photos should be, whether they should have a watermark, whether they should be public or private—and start automatically syncing that local album to Picasa Web Albums. With web syncing on, any photos you add to the album or edits you make to existing photos automatically update in Web Albums—all without having to manually upload them again.

Get Arts-and-Crafty with Your Photos

Notice that you can set the aspect ratio of your Picture Pile so that it matches the dimensions of your desktop.

The desktop version of Picasa comes with several built-in tools to create nifty projects from your photos. To get started, choose an album or folder of photos, and from the Create drop-down menu choose Picture Collage, Movie, or Gift CD. Picasa’s built-in Movie Maker tool can create photo slide shows with music, transitions, text, and captions, and includes an option to instantly upload your project to YouTube. The Picture Collage maker organizes a set of photos into various layouts, such as a picture pile, grid, contact sheet, or mosaic. You can save the collage to edit later, or set it as your desktop background. Finally, the Gift CD maker burns a disc of selected photos and an accompanying slide show.

Make Your Photo Albums Collaborative

Inviting friends and family to collaborate on albums is as simple as sending a quick invite.

When you’ve taken photos at an event with other attendees—say, a wedding—everyone’s got his or her own pictures, and they’re not always stored in the same place. But when you share a photo album in Picasa Web Albums, you can allow others to edit the photos in it, as well as add new photos to make that album collaborative. In both Picasa and Picasa Web Albums, choose an album or folder of photos, and click the Share button at the top. In the Share Photos dialog, enter the email addresses of the people you want to see the album, and check the “Let these people contribute to my album” box to grant them permissions. Now your collaborators can add and edit photo captions, apply name tags, edit the photos themselves, and add photos to the album. Just remember that any photos added by collaborators will count toward your Picasa storage quota, which is 1GB if you haven’t yet upgraded from a free Picasa account.

Upload Photos via Email

Don't even try uploading a photo go Gina's Picasa account. You will be stymied!

Sure, you can upload photos to your online albums from within Picasa itself, but you can also upload photos via email—a perfect method for your camera phone. To set up your secret upload email address, go to Picasa Web Albums and click the Settings link in the top-right corner. Under the General tab, in the “Upload photos by email” section, check the box next to “Allow me to upload photos by email.” Enter a secret word to get your unique email address, and click the Save Changes button. Now add that secret email address to your contacts. Next time you snap a photo from your smartphone and want to instantly upload it to Picasa, send it via email to that address. To add a photo directly to a particular album, enter the name of the album in the subject line of your message.

Next up, Search!

Search

The front door to the grandaddy of all of Google’s web applications—its web search engine—is an unassuming text box that doesn’t give you any hint to what it can do. In July 2008, Google’s index exceeded 1 trillion unique websites, and a billion new web pages are purportedly added per day. Here’s how to twiddle Google’s knobs and levers to find your needle in that haystack.

Find Business Hours, Restaurant Menus, and What's Nearby

The Maximum PC crew can't get enough of Google's savvy in finding food menus.

Get business hours in your Google search results by searching for the business name, city, and the word “hours.” For example, a search for Seaworld, San Diego hours includes the days and times the park is open, right on the results page. Likewise, a search for a restaurant name and the word menu (like Ranchos Cocina Ocean Beach menu) includes a blue link directly to the menu in the first result. Finally, when you visit Google.com in the browser on your location-aware iPhone or Android phone, you’ll see the name of your current location. Click the “Near me now” link to see restaurants, coffee shops, banks, and ATMs in your vicinity.

Calculate, Convert, and Get Local Time Instantly

Google’s search box doesn’t just return links to web pages, it can also perform calculations and conversions, as well as tell you the local time in places around the globe, and what time a plane flight might arrive. For example, search for 20% of 37.45 to see how much you should tip the waiter for dinner. To see what the local time is in faraway places like Tokyo, you would search for what time is it in Tokyo. Google also comes in handy while you’re cooking: Enter quarter cup in teaspoons when you can’t find your measuring cup. Finally, to quickly check whether a flight is on time, search for it by airline and flight number, e.g., JetBlue flight 185, and you’ll get arrival and departure times at the top of the results page.

Find Images and Videos of a Certain Size and Type

Sure, but can it find a video of a Simpsonized Christopher Walken reading Goodnight, Moon?

Google Image search has special filters you can use to specify the size and type of the image you’re looking for. For example, if you’re looking for desktop wallpaper images of the moon that are 1024x768 pixels, first go into Google Images, search for moon, then in your results, click the Show Options link to set the exact size. In those options, you can also narrow down results by the type of image you’re looking for—images that contain faces, a photo, clip art, or line drawing. Google’s Video search offers similar options. You can specify the length of a video you’re looking for as well as whether it’s a cartoon, slide show, or high quality.

Add Custom Sections to Your Google News Page

Google News (http://news.google.com) comes with built-in sections like Top Stories, Business, Entertainment, and Sci/Tech, but you can also create a custom news section that you monitor over time. For example, to track news related to the Apple iPad, in News, search for iPad. Then, at the bottom of the search results page, click “Add a custom section for iPad to Google News.” This will add it to your section list on the Google News sidebar.

Search Within a Single Website

Many websites don’t offer their own built-in search box, and those that do don’t usually provide results as good as those you get from Google. Luckily, you can search a single site from Google’s search box using the site:example.com operator. For example, to search maximumpc.com for the word Google, search for site:maximumpc.com Google.

Profile Enhancement: Finally, for the Eternally Anonymous

When potential bosses, dates, clients, and old high school friends type your name into Google’s web search box, what do they get back? If you’ve got a common name or just don’t have the time to keep up an active web presence, you can still get listed in search results with Google Profiles. Head over to http://google.com/profiles to set up a personal page with your name, a head shot, a short bio, places you’ve lived, schools you’ve attended, and your websites. You can even include photos from Flickr, Picasa, or any online photo feed. (Hint: specify an album that contains pictures of you so that searchers can identify you!) Once you’ve added enough information to your Google Profile, a search for your name will include your profile (along with anyone else who has your name) at the bottom of the Google results page. The more information you add, the higher you’ll move up the rankings.

Chrome OS: Just a Lean Browser Wrapper?

Google Chrome OS is a yet-to-be-released, open-source operating system whose sole purpose is to quickly get you online. As such, only a single, installed application runs on it: the Google Chrome browser, which provides shortcuts to web applications like Google Calendar, Yahoo Mail, Hulu, Facebook, and Twitter.

Everything you do in Chrome OS happens in the browser, on the web. Speed is the highest priority in Chrome OS development, and early builds running on netbooks boast promising boot speeds of four to seven seconds—which Google engineers say they will work to reduce! Currently, only source code for the open-source project—called Chromium OS—is available (find it at www.chromium.org/chromium-os). In the fall of 2010, Google and its hardware partners are slated to announce netbooks and other devices running this most lean of OSes. For more on Maximum PC’s unique take on Chrome OS, go here.

For more info on Gina Trapani and all her Google projects, go to http://ginatrapani.org.

Google Releases Dashboard to Show You How Much Data You Have Stored In the Cloud

Ryan Whitwam — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:53:51 -0600

We all know Google has a lot of information about us. Now there’s a way to have all that data laid out before you in terrifying detail. Google Dashboard is the search giant’s new site aimed at increasing user control over personal information.

The Dashboard is available in your account settings page (or just go here), and kept behind an additional sign-in page. Once logged in, you’ll see all the Google services you use along with a summary of its use. There is currently support of more than 20 Google services including Gmail, Latitude, Google Voice, Google Docs, Gtalk, YouTube and Picasa.

Google offers quick access to the settings for each service if you’re not happy with the information being stored. So, feel better?

Google's video overview:

How-To: Edit RAW Photos on a Budget (or for Free!)

Mark Edward Soper — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:30:00 -0600

Why Shoot in RAW Mode?

RAW mode, a feature of virtually all digital SLR cameras and an increasing number of high-end point-and-shoot cameras, enables your camera to capture all of the image data in your photographs in full quality without distortion caused by JPEG data compression. RAW files enable you to repair white balance and color temperature problems, solve exposure problems, and adjust color intensity and other settings far better than you can with JPEG files. Unfortunately, you must use software that supports RAW files to optimize your picture and export it to a format you can use for other purposes, such as JPEG or TIFF.

Thankfully, you don't need to spend a fortune on software to edit RAW images. In this article, we'll put three popular solutions to the test:

Canon Professional Digital Photo
Google Picasa 3.5
Adobe Photoshop Elements with Adobe Camera Raw

Professional Digital Photo and Google Picasa are free, while Adobe Photoshop Elements v8 runs around $80-100. Can you get by with a freebie, or should you cough up some bucks? To answer this question, we turned all three of our contenders loose on discolored, underexposed and overexposed Canon RAW (.CR2) photos taken with a Canon Digital Rebel XTi camera.

Google Picasa 3.5

Google Picasa is easy to download and uses the same interface for editing RAW images as for editing other supported image types (JPEG, TIFF, and so on). Picasa supports most digital camera RAW codecs (see this reference) and is updated frequently as new digital camera RAW file types are introduced.

Locating RAW Images in Picasa

RAW images are displayed in Picasa's image library window the same way as JPEG images. To determine the image type, click the image, and the file extension, size, and other basic properties are shown in the blue bar between the image browser and the action buttons.

Picasa and Automatic Photo Repairs

As soon as Picasa locates photos, including RAW images, it automatically applies fixes to those photos. This is very handy if you don't want to worry about making a lot of changes yourself, but if you don't agree with Picasa's changes, it can be frustrating, since you can't undo automatic fixes.

Fixing Color and Exposure Problems with Basic Fixes

To make manual changes, double-click the photo in the Picasa image library window. Picasa uses three tabs in its editing space. The Basic Fixes tab opens by default. For a quick automatic repair, click I'm Feeling Lucky. Sometimes you're lucky, but in this example, we've traded dark poor color for lighter poor color. Thankfully, you can undo changes made on this tab by clicking the Undo button

Using the Tuning Menu

For greater control over the image, click the Tuning tab. The Tuning tab enables you to use sliders to adjust Fill Light, Highlights, Shadows, and Color Temperature (the third tab, Effects, provides a dozen special effects). By using the Tuning tab, we achieved better color and exposure.

Once you make changes to a RAW file, the changes are stored in Picasa, but the RAW file itself is not changed.

Applying Changes to Multiple RAW Files

If you have a number of RAW images that have the same color temperature (white balance) or exposure problems, or if you want to apply the same special effects to a group of photos, you may want to make the same edits to each photo. Here's how Picasa does it.

1. Select the fixes desired from the Basic Fixes, Tuning, and Effects tab.

2. Click Edit, Copy All Effects.

3. Click Back to Library.

4. Use Shift-click or Ctrl-Click to select similar photos.

5. Click Edit, Paste All Effects.

Unfortunately, because you pasted the effects to the files, the sliders used to adjust exposure, color temperature, and effects do not show the actual settings on the target files.

Saving a JPEG File in Picasa

To create a JPEG file (which can be used for printing, emailing, websites, and so on) from your edited RAW file, click File, Save As, and select JPEG from the pull-down options. Unfortunately, Picasa does not provide options for file size/quality.

Picasa matches the image quality of the original photo, and uses a quality level of 85% when it cannot determine the quality level.

Saving Other File Types

If you need to convert a RAW file into a file type other than JPEG, current versions of Picasa can't do it (this feature was available in earlier versions).

Picasa 3.5 Summary

Pros: Free, supports most cameras that shoot RAW images, easy to use interface

Cons: Automatically makes changes to photos that can't be undone, more limited controls than others, can only export photos in JPEG, can't control JPEG quality levels.

Our take: Use Picasa 3.5 if it's all you have, but you'll probably be happier with your camera vendor's RAW image editor, or with Adobe Photoshop Elements with Camera RAW.

Canon Digital Photo Professional

Canon actually provides two ways to edit RAW files: ZoomBrowser EX and Digital Photo Professional. ZoomBrowser EX is clumsy, provides very limited editing features of RAW files only through an additional Canon-provided program called RAW Image Task, and is excruciatingly difficult to update. Our advice, after trying both: use Digital Photo Professional instead. You can install it from the CD packaged with your Canon camera, or download it from the Canon website.

Using Digital Photo Professional to Edit RAW Files

Digital Photo Professional (DPP) bears a striking resemblance to Adobe Lightroom. And, you can consider it a sort of "junior Lightroom" for Canon RAW files. Here's how to get started:

1. Open DPP

2. Select a RAW image created by a Canon camera (.CR2 or .CRW).

3. Click Tool to open the Tool palette.

4. From the RAW tab, use sliders to adjust brightness, white balance, picture style, contrast, color tone, saturation, and sharpness.

6. Use the RGB tab to adjust tone curves for RGB or separate channels, brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, and sharpness.

7. Use the NR tab to adjust noise reduction.

8. Click Tool to close the Tool palette.

Note: If you prefer to work with full-screen images, double-click the image in Step 2.

Using DPP to Save Changes to a RAW File

1. After editing a RAW file, click File, Save As.

2. Navigate to a different location if desired.

3. If you don't choose a different location and you don't want to overwrite the original file, enter a new name for the file.

4. Click Save.

5. A new RAW file is saved to the specified location.

6. If you have selected multiple files (see "Processing Multiple Files" for details), you will be prompted to save each additional file.

Saving a RAW Image as a Different File Type

1. Click File, Convert and Save.

2. The saved file uses the same name as the original file. Enter a different name if desired.

3. Select the image type (Exif-JPEG is standard; you can also select 8-bit or 16-bit TIFF, with or without JPEG image).

4. If you select an output option that includes JPEG, the image quality defaults to 10 (best). To decrease file size (and reduce quality), use the slider to select a smaller value (1 is smallest/worst quality).

5. Select the desired resolution.

6. Click Save.

7. The file is converted and saved.

Processing Multiple Files with DPP

To work with multiple files in DPP, you can choose from several methods.

Interactive Processing

1. Click each file you want to process to select it.

2. Click a check mark (check 1, check 2, or check 3).

3. Repeat Steps 1 and 2 until all files you want to process have been marked with the same check mark.

4. Click Edit, Select Check Mark x Images Only (x=1, 2, or 3).

5. Click Tool to open the Tool palette.

6. Make adjustments as needed using the RAW, RGB, and NR tabs.

7. Save or convert each file as desired, using File, Save As or File, Convert and Save.

Create a "Recipe" for File Editing

DPP also enables you to create a "recipe" from an edited file and apply it to other, similar files.

1. Make the changes as desired to the photo.

2. Right-click the photo.

3. Click Save Recipe in File.

4. By default, the name of the photo is used as the name for the recipe (.vrd) file. Enter a different name if desired.

5. Navigate to a different folder if desired (recipes are stored in the same folder as the source photo by default).

6. Click Save to save the recipe.

Applying a Recipe to a Different File

1. Select the file you want to apply a recipe to.

2. Click Edit, Read and Paste Recipe from File.

3. Select the recipe desired.

4. Click Open.

5. The recipe is applied to the selected file.

To apply a recipe to multiple files, select the files first as discussed in "Interactive Processing" earlier in this article.

Digital Photo Professional Summary

Pros: Free, powerful interface, able to save changes to a RAW file, doesn't make any changes for you, enables you to output both JPEG and TIFF files in a single operation, can save recipes to make the same changes to similar files.

Cons: Need to read the manual (available on the Canon camera CD or online) to learn all features; only works with Canon RAW files.

Our take: If you use Canon cameras that work with RAW files, DPP is a bargain – but read the manual to learn everything it can do.

Adobe Photoshop Elements with Camera Raw

Adobe Photoshop Elements can't work with RAW files unless you use Camera Raw to process the files first. However, once you install Photoshop Elements and Camera Raw, you're ready to work with Raw files. Camera Raw is available from the Adobe website at no charge.

For Windows

For MacOS

Cameras supported by latest Camera RAW version

Using Camera Raw to Edit RAW Files

You can open any RAW file recognized by Camera Raw with Photoshop Elements, once you install the appropriate version of Camera Raw. Here's how to get started:

1. Open a RAW image file from File, Open in Photoshop Elements, or drag the file to the Photoshop Elements window.

2. Camera Raw opens.

3. Use the Basic tab to adjust white balance, color temperature, exposure, fill light, contrast, and other settings.

4. Click the Advanced tab if you need to adjust sharpening or noise reduction.

Using Camera Raw to Create a Digital Negative

Adobe's digital negative (DNG) format provides an industry-standard file format that retains all image information, making it a useful replacement for proprietary RAW files. In fact, a few digital cameras store their RAW files as DNG files. Here's how to save a DNG file with Camera RAW.

1. To create a digital negative (DNG) file, click Save Image.

2. Enter the image name and select other options, then click Save.

Saving a RAW Image as a Different File Type with Camera Raw and Adobe Photoshop Elements

1. After making changes with Camera Raw, click Open File.

2. The file opens in Photoshop Elements.

3. Use File, Save as to save the file as a JPEG, TIFF, PSD, or other file type.

4. If you select JPEG, you will be prompted to select the desired image quality (1-lowest, 12-highest).

5. Click Save to save changes.

Processing Multiple Files with Adobe Camera Raw

To apply the same changes to multiple files, you should open the files at the same time:

1. Select the files you want to edit with Camera RAW.

2. Drag the files to the open Photoshop Elements window.

3. Click Select All to select all files.

4. Use the Basic and Advanced tabs to make editing adjustments as needed.

Adobe Camera Raw Summary

Pros: Great preview, makes most changes with a single interface, works with both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements (which provide the most flexible file output options of any program in this roundup, can make the same changes to multiple files, works with virtually all RAW file types.

Cons: Requires you to buy Photoshop Elements (or Photoshop); if you buy a new camera, you might need to upgrade Photoshop Elements/Photoshop, as the newest Camera Raw versions support only current Photoshop Elements/Photoshop, can't save settings for reuse later.

Our take: If you already use Photoshop Elements (or Photoshop), Camera Raw is a no-brainer; it's also the best of the three solutions if you plan to make a lot of additional changes to your photo afterwards. However, if you are looking only for a RAW converter, your camera vendor's software may be satisfactory – and it's usually free!

Mark Edward Soper is the author of The Shot Doctor: The Amateur's Guide to Taking Great Digital Photos.

Picasa Imports, RSS Feeds, and Custom Templates Come to Google Sites

Pulkit Chandna — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:00:53 -0500

Google has armed its Sites tool with some new features. It now supports RSS feeds and custom templates. It is now possible to import Picasa Web Albums photos from the “Insert” menu, which also makes it possible for a user to import other forms of data from various Google service. Sites is a drag-and-drop tool for building intranets and simple websites.

Another option is to upload photos directly to Picasa, which can now be accomplished from within Sites itself, just in case they are not already hosted online and you still wish to add them to your site. RSS feed of a page built using the Sites tool can be accessed quite easily by adding posts.xml to the end of its URL.

Image Credit: Google

Live Photo Gallery Vs. Picasa: Digital Photography in Windows 7

Mark Edward Soper — Fri, 15 May 2009 22:00:00 -0500

Windows 7 has the potential to be the most imaging-friendly version of Windows yet developed. Windows 7 makes viewing JPEG and other common file formats easy, displays exposure metadata, and supports more viewing options than Windows XP, while offering better performance than Windows Vista. However, to get the maximum benefit from Windows 7, digital photographers will want to make two additions:

Installing RAW image support for their DSLR
Installing a photo organizer and editor

Wondering how to get RAW support for 64-bit versions of Windows 7? Not sure which free program (Windows Live Photo Gallery or Picasa) is better at fixing common digital photo problems? Looking for the best solution for organizing your rapidly growing digital photo collection? This article helps you find the answers you need.

Adding RAW Image Support for Your Camera

Windows 7's Pictures Explorer shows thumbnail views of JPEG and other supported imaging formats when you select the Medium icon, Large icon (default), or Extra Large icon views. However, RAW files (which are camera-specific) display only icons if you have not already installed the appropriate codecs for your camera. To install RAW file support for your camera:

Open your favorite web browser.
Navigate to http://www.microsoft.com/prophoto/downloads/codecs.aspx
Click the link for your camera.
Verify that the codec works with your camera and Windows release (32-bit or 64-bit)
Download and install the codec.

After installing the appropriate codec, you will be able to see thumbnail views for both JPEG and RAW files in Pictures Explorer:

Flling the Missing 64-bit Version Codec Support Gap

Unfortunately, some digital SLR vendors do not provide 64-bit codecs. However, Ardfry Imaging, LLC offers 32-bit and 64-bit versions of its independently-developed codecs for Canon CR2, Nikon NEF, and Adobe DNG file formats ($29.95 each). 15-day free trials are available. Because I'm currently using the 64-bit version of Windows 7 RC Ultimate, I was unable to use the Canon-provided codec. However, the Ardfry codec worked fine on my 64-bit system.

Using the Built-in Windows Photo Viewer

In Windows 7, Microsoft replaced the Windows Photo Gallery (now superseded by Windows Live Photo Gallery), and replaced it with Windows Photo Viewer. To use Windows Photo Viewer to view your photos in a resizable window, right-click the photo and select Preview.

You can rotate, zoom in, print, burn your photos to CD or DVD, and view your photos in a slide show. From the File menu, you can view Properties, which opens the Details tab to display image metadata, tags, and similar information.

However, Windows Photo Viewer lacks tagging, repair, and filtering tools. To get these, consider adding Windows Live Photo Gallery or Picasa 3.0 to your system. How do these free products compare? First, let's look at the major features of both programs.

Major Features of Windows Live Photo Gallery

Works in individual picture mode or gallery mode
Gallery mode organizes photos (and videos) by folder, date, and tag
Easy "drag to tag" image tagging
Zoom and pan control while viewing individual photos.
Easy, useful auto adjust image repair
Repair tools for white balance, tint, exposure, tilted photos, and red-eye
Cropping to common print sizes, widescreen, or custom page sizes
Image sharpening
Various black-and-white conversion effects, plus sepia and cyan
Multi-level undo/redo
Revert to original image
Integration with Flickr photo sharing
Plug-in support to enable integration with Facebook and other popular photo-sharing sites
Can use Windows Live Skydrive for online photo storage

Major Features of Picasa 3.0

Can scan entire system for photos or only typical locations
Basic photo fixes: crop, straighten, redeye, "I'm Feeling Lucky" auto tuning, auto contrast, auto color, retouch, text overlay, and fill light
Tuning menu: fill light, highlights, shadows, and color temperature, and a neutral color picker.
Effects menu: filters, sharpening, and black-and-white effects
Creates and prints collages
Designs banners
Integrated with Blogger, Picasa Web Albums
Tagging
Batch processing
Can edit and save RAW files as JPEG
HTML Export
Integration with TiVo
Integration with Google Earth for geotagging
Contact sheet printing

As far as features are concerned, Picasa packs plenty more than Windows Live Photo Gallery (WLPG). But, how well do these programs do at repairing problem photos?

Windows Live Photo Gallery Fix (Repair) Menus

Picasa 3.0's Repair Tools

Performing Common Photo Repairs

Although Picasa offers more photo repair tools than WLPG, that doesn't necessarily mean they're better. Compare the results when repairing an underexposed and off-color photo using auto repair tools Auto Adjust (WLPG) and I'm Feeling Lucky (Picasa):

WLPG's Auto Adjust provides a more natural, less harsh repair.

A much tougher repair task is trying to darken an overexposed photo. For this type of repair, I used WLPG's Adjust Exposure menu and Adjust Color menus and Picasa's Tuning menu:

Again, WLPG does a more natural job.

Picasa has two big advantages over WLPG,though:

Picasa can perform batch editing of selected photos.
Picasa can edit RAW files and convert them to JPEG. By contrast, WLPG can only view RAW files.

Here's Picasa's batch edit feature in action:

Saving and Undoing Photo Repairs

WLPG saves changes automatically as soon as you view another photo. Picasa's photo repairs aren't saved until you click the Save to Disk button at the top of each folder listing. Unfortunately, Picasa doesn't display any icons to show which photos have been edited. However, Windows Live Photo Gallery places checkmarks next to each editing tool you have used for the current photo.

Windows Live Photo Gallery offers a multi-level Undo feature at the bottom of its menu structure. Picasa has undo buttons on each of its menus, but doesn't display all of the edits in a single location.

Both programs save previous versions and permit reversions: WLPG uses the shadow copy feature built into Windows 7's system protection (restore points) feature, while Picasa retains the previous version internally.

Tagging Photos

By tagging photos, you make it possible to find photos of a particular person, place, object, or event quickly, no matter what folder they're found in. Both WLPG and Picasa support tagging, but how they do it and what they use tags for is very different.

Windows Live Photo Gallery now supports two types of tags: People tags and Descriptive tags. It is also compatible with tags applied with older versions or with Windows Vista's Windows Photo Gallery. Those tags are placed in the Descriptive tags category, but tags for people can be dragged to the People tags category. To create a tag in WLPG, click the appropriate Add a New Tag button and enter the tag name. To add the tag to matching photos or videos, select the photos or videos and drag them to the tag. It's a system quite similar to what Adobe's been doing with Photoshop Elements' Organizer and other products:

To view photos matching the tag, click the tag. In this example, photos from two different folders are displayed with a single click. By signing into Windows Live, you can also see if this person is sharing photos.

You can add multiple people and/or descriptive tags to a photo using the same technique: create the tag, select the photos or videos, and drag the media to the tag, repeating as needed with different tags

In Picasa, you must select each photo, click View, Tags, and enter the tag or tags for the photo. Picasa Web Albums makes extensive use of tags for organization, but Picasa itself does not use tags for filtering.

Sharing Photos

Windows Live Photo Gallery now integrates with Flickr as well as Windows Live albums. To set up integration with Flickr, you select your photos, click Publish, Publish on Flickr, and follow the prompts to authorize Flickr to work with Windows Live Photo Gallery. Once the integration is done, select Publish on Flickr, and Windows Live Photo Gallery sends the photos to the Flickr account you specify, adds them to a photo set you specify, resizes the photos as you specify, and sets the permissions you prefer:

To add support for other services, open Publish, More Services, and Add a Plug-In. You can choose from plugins for Facebook 2.0, YouTube, SmugMug, Picasa Web Publisher, Drupal Publisher, Pixelpipe, and Ipernity.

Picasa supports Blogger (no surprise there, as both are Google products), but it has no support for other photo sharing services. You must use their clients to share from photo folders, with no help from Picasa.

Which One's For You?

As you can see from this comparison, both programs offer a lot to the digital photographer who's not ready to jump into Photoshop Elements but wants decent tools for working with digital photos. Here's how I see it:

Choose Picasa if you're looking for a "Swiss Army Knife"-like set of photo editing and effects tools, especially if you use both JPEG and RAW file types, or if you want special photo effects without moving up to a full-blown photo editor. However, Picasa's tagging and file management tools are clunky and aren't well implemented. Picasa also offers MacOS and Linux versions if you want to use it cross-platform.

Choose Windows Live Photo Gallery if you're mainly concerned about photo and video organization but want high-quality photo repair tools for JPEG images. While WLPG's doesn't offer the effects and creative tools that Picasa does, it often makes better photo repairs - but sadly, only for JPEG files. WLPG, unlike Picasa, also displays videos and can tag them for easy access.

Can you use both? If you're using only JPEG photos, you certainly can. However, I noticed that when I installed Picasa after installing Windows Live Photo Gallery and codecs, I could no longer view RAW thumbnails in Picture Explorer or other folders.

Where to Find Them

The easiest way to get Windows Live Photo Gallery is to open the Getting Started menu in Windows 7 and click Get Windows Live Essentials. You can select the programs you want to install. To obtain Picasa, visit http://picasa.google.com. If you are also using older versions of Windows, both programs also work with Windows XP and Windows Vista. To download Windows Live components for these versions of Windows, go to http://download.live.com/.

Mark Soper is the author of the forthcoming book The Shot Doctor: The Amateur's Guide to Taking Great Digital Photos.

Ask the Doctor - Send to Whom?

The Maximum PC Staff — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:30:19 -0600

I’ve noticed a weird problem on a clean Vista 64 SP1 install. It first happened when I was using Picasa. I selected some photos and then hit “e-mail,” but Outlook 2007 never popped up. I first thought it was just a Picasa problem, so I ignored it.

I then tried right-clicking a small file, choosing Send To, Mail Recipient, and again Outlook 2007 didn’t open. As I understand it, the program should have opened a new message with the attachment.

Do you have any idea what could be going on?

—Jordan Grant

While a Windows reinstallation might be in your future, given that the issue undoubtedly relates to a registry glitch, you can try a few tricks before going back to square one. The first possible solution relates to your default client settings in Windows Vista. Click the Start button, select Default Programs, click Set Program Access and Computer Defaults, click the corresponding drop-down arrows under Custom, then select your mail client of choice, Outlook 2007 in this case. Click OK, and then click the Set Your Default Programs option. From this list, select the entry for Microsoft Office Outlook and choose the Set This Program as Default option. Click OK, restart your computer, and see if you can now use your right-click Send To functionality.

If that doesn’t fix the problem, here’s another option. Click the Start button and type regedit in the Start Search field. The registry editor should pop up. Browse over to the following directory: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.MAPIMail. The default key in the data field should read: CLSID\{9E56BE60-C50F-11CF-9A2C-00A0C90A90CE}. If it doesn’t, make it so. Then restart your computer and see if the mail function works.

SUBMIT YOUR QUESTION Are flames shooting out of the back of your rig? First, grab a fire extinguisher and douse the flames. Once the pyrotechnic display has fizzled, email the doctor at doctor@maximumpc.com for advice on how to solve your technological woes.

Google Reaffirms Its Commitment to Linux with the Launch of Picasa 3

Justin Kerr — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 00:02:13 -0500

Many Windows users have been running Picasa 3 for the past several weeks now, but Picasa development for Linux has always seemly lagged behind. This all changed on Thursday with a public beta release of Picasa 3 with support for all the major Linux distributions. According to the feature overview, the new version includes many of the new editing and retouching features missing in the previous version as well as a tighter integration with Picasa Web. For Linux users looking to further automate the process of importing photos you will also appreciate the auto detect feature that runs each time you plug in your camera. In a blog post by Google Software Engineer Lei Zhang he reminds the Linux community of Google’s commitment to their platform. Some of its largest contributions have been in the form of patches for the open source WINE project with over 2700 fixes. WINE (Wine Is Not an Emulator) is an application for Linux which allows users to execute programs written for Microsoft Windows. Want to learn more? Check out the November print edition of Maximum PC on sale now for an excellent how to guide on using WINE for gaming in Linux.

The Best Open-Source (or Freeware) Alternatives to Photoshop

David Murphy — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:15:36 -0500

Economy got you down? No longer able to make those day-long trips to your local computer store of choice for all the latest and greatest software tools? Tired of paying top-dollar for programs that don't quite have the functionality you want? Well get ready. It's freeware and open-source week at Maximum PC. We're going to spend the next week showing you the best (and cheapest) software we've been able to find across different themes: graphics design, system optimization, games, and office/productivity.

Just because it doesn't come in a box doesn't mean that these titles are any less powerful than their retail counterparts. The graphics category exemplifies that fact, offering programs that are every bit as good as their hundred-dollar Adobe counterparts. But just for good measure, we threw in our favorite free Adobe graphics program too. Without further ado, here's our list of the top 5 open-source graphical applications!

Gimpshop

Gimp is often mentioned as one of the top open-source photo editing applications and it's easy to see why. The program offers Photoshop-like functionality at the low-low price of zero. You can accomplish a number of the graphical tricks you're normally used to, as the program includes support for layers and masking, channel coloration adjustments, and a bevy of preset filters. Gimpshop is a variant of Gimp that ups the ante one step further by blending Photoshop's look and feel directly into the program's. It's the perfect tool if you just can't bear the thought of losing "that same ol' interface" you've grown accustomed to. It's a great program for middle-of-the-road users that just need a graphics editing application with more oomph.

Pencil

Consummate Vs! For the artist that focuses solely on the basics--the careful transformation of sketched pencil lines into a finished comic product--Pencil is the perfect application. What it lacks in graphical gusto, it makes up for in its ability to integrate Macromedia Flash-like keyframe functionality into the drawing board. Taking an illustration from the sketching, to the inking, to the coloration phase is as simple as adding in additional layers. When designing an animation, you can even select alternate camera frames and integrate sound directly into the mix. Don't let our crude attempts at art fool you: Pencil is the digital equivalent of an animator's storyboard that's as easy to use as, well, a pencil!

XnView

Feh to Windows Photo Gallery. We would gladly trade the ability to crop photos and correct red eyeballs for what XnView offers: comprehensive access to your photos' behind-the-scenes data and a wide assortment of tools for managing your growing gallery. Not only can you view your photo folders just like a common Windows Explorer thumbnail interface, but XnView lets you tag, rate, and create slideshows (even Web pages) for the photos you select. We love the ability to get tweak our photos by getting elbow-deep into their EXIF data. And like Photoshop, XnView lets you perform batch editing commands using a number of different filters. You can even zoom right to a photo's embedded GPS location via a direct link to Google Maps--way cool.

Picasa 3

Whereas XnView is more for digging deep into folders you specify, Google's Picasa 3 is an all-in-one monitoring service for your photo folders. It offers less overall editing functionality than XnView, but comes packaged in a more elegant interface with additional options for Internet-related tasks. For example, you can add geotags to your photos via Google Earth and then have Picasa 3 automatically upload your shots to a Web album, FTP site, or straight to your Blogger blog. Picasa 3 also interfaces with online shops for easy photo printing, and can turn a batch of your images into collages, movies, and screensavers. Included backup functionality helps keep your precious photographic memories safe from an errant hard drive failure, provided you select an appropriate backup locale. But our favorite feature, by far, is Picasa's ability to search through your photographs by dominant color.

Adobe Photoshop Express

Ok, we couldn't resist Adobe's lure. For the company's Web-based Photoshop (conveniently called Photoshop Express) is a phenomenal tool for touching up your art when you're on the go. Or anywhere, for that matter: the program's comprehensive-yet-simple suite of editing tools offers a wide range of basic functionality. If you want more, you can drill a little bit deeper to unlock tools like color isolation, distortions, and image enhancements. But that's not all. The online application can interface directly with your Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket and Picasa galleries. Make your edits, and Photoshop Express saves your new work directly back to its original location. The time this saves versus downloading the picture, uploading it to Photoshop Express, making the edits, saving it, and re-uploading it to a new content hose is, in a word, epic.