Site Launcher turns bookmarks into shortcuts
Firefox extension Site Launcher lets you replace your bookmarks toolbar with an overlay window of links that can be pulled up at any time using a simple keyboard shortcut. You pick which sites you want on the list, and a one-letter keyboard shortcut is given to each. When pulled up, you simply hit the key for the site you want and it goes straight to it. Once you’ve memorized which sites are on your list, you can make use of an alternate key combination that lets you skip to each site without having to view the menu at all.
The extension comes with a handful of popular sites built in, although you can also start from scratch with your own. You also have several color and menu style options including setting the maximum number of columns you want, and how transparent the window is.
If you’re a laptop or Netbook user looking to get the convenience of a bookmarks toolbar without sucking up the screen real estate, this is a great way to save some space.
Here’s a quick demo video of how it works:
Originally posted at Webware
Hands-on with Picasa for the Mac
I’m a somewhat dissatisfied owner of a new MacBook. One of the things I was looking forward to with the computer was the vaunted easy photo management I kept hearing about. But I found the Mac’s free photo management app, iPhoto, frustrating to use, compared to the product I had become accustomed to on Windows: Google’s Picasa. I didn’t like the fact that I had to manually import photos into the product–even photos already on my Mac–and that the import process made duplicates of my photos when I did so. I much prefer Picasa, which simply scans your computer’s directories and shows you the photos it finds on your disks.
Monday, Google is releasing Picasa 3 for Mac OS X (download). I got an early look at the new product, still marked “beta,” and found it a faithful port of the PC version (Picasa is also available for Linux), minus a few features like the timeline view and geotagging (the former is probably gone for good; the latter is coming in a subsequent build). Picasa lacks some of the fun features in iPhoto, too: It doesn’t take full advantage of the multi-touch trackpad features in the new MacBooks, like zoom and rotate. It does, though, read ratings and tags from iPhoto libraries, so it would be easy to use Picasa alongside an iPhoto library. But as it doesn’t export back to iPhoto; it’s a one-way trip for the metadata.
Picasa organizes the photos on your hard disk. It also manages importing from your cameras and memory cards.
The two programs are much the same in features, although some of the differences may matter greatly to certain users. iPhoto, for example, has a slick way to batch-edit photos, including the capability to update dates and times embedded in photos and to apply the same custom image corrections to several shots at once. Picasa also has batch-editing features, but it doesn’t give you as much control. In single images, though, Picasa lets you insert text directly into photos, and offers a few handy enhancement tools missing in iPhoto, like graduated tints (useful for improving landscape shots). But overall, both products offer flexible image correction and enhancement, including variable rotation for out-of-kilter images, red-eye correction, and white-balance correction.
iPhoto currently offers much better support for printing books, calendars, and cards through Apple. Picasa should get the capability to print similar services later. iPhoto’s on-screen slideshows are also better; it lets you use the “Ken Burns effect” to make watching stills more compelling.
On the other hand, Picasa lets you pin photos to the “photo tray” for batch operations like e-mailing, uploading, or making items into a collage. You can multi-select images in iPhoto to do the same thing, but the intermediate tray concept in Picasa is much easier to use–one stray mouse click won’t undo your selection.
As Stephen Shankland reports, Picasa also integrates with the online Picasa Web Albums photo-sharing site, just as the Windows version does. Changes made on the sharing site (captions or name tagging) don’t migrate back into your computer’s library, though. iPhoto, of course, connects to Apple’s Mobile Me service for online, shared galleries. Picasa Web Albums is free, though. Mobile Me costs $99 a year.
Other features coming over to Picasa Mac in the future include Webcam capture, screensaver control, and the photo preview feature from Windows (which I believe is superfluous in OS X, given its strong Preview app).
Even though this early build of Picasa is missing some features, I’m going to use it and not iPhoto. It has a cleaner and less intrusive organizational system, stronger photo-editing features, it’s fast to use, and setting up online albums is free. When I want to print calendars and books I’ll drop back to iPhoto, but Picasa’s feature set makes it a better day-to-day product.
The editor in Picasa lets you add text and graduated filters to images.
Google to release Picasa beta for Mac
Picasa for the Mac includes the ability to make collages and other core features.
(Credit: Google)
Google plans to release on Monday a beta version of Picasa for Mac OS X, helping Apple fans catch up to Windows and Linux users already employing the free tool for editing, cataloging, and uploading photos.
The Mac version largely matches the features in Picasa 3 for Windows, said Jason Cook, Picasa’s marketing manager. Though the company has been scrambling to include some secondary features such as geotagging and the ability to get photos printed, the core abilities of Picasa are present, he said.
Picasa lets people edit and print photos, create collages and movies, and add labels, star ratings, and tags. More significantly, given Google’s cloud-computing focus, it also lets people upload their images to the company’s online Picasa Web Albums site where images can be shared. Google acquired Picasa in 2004.
“We have many Mac users,” Cook said, though declining to offer any estimates, “and we think they’ll be excited about this. It makes the Picasa Web Albums experience better.”
Online photo sites are great for several reasons, but problems can arise when people manage separate and different set of images. They often upload only a selection of photos on a PC, for example. Sometimes people upload images to an online site that never make it to the PC. And sometimes people add tags, captions, and titles online but not to the versions on their computers.
Picasa takes one important step in dealing with this potential rat’s nest: when a person edits a photo on the PC, Picasa updates the version stored online. The reverse isn’t true, though, but bidirectional synchronization is “something we’re thinking about,” Cook said. “We want to make sync as useful as possible.”
Synchronization with the Mac’s bundled iPhoto software is another area where people should tread carefully, though Picasa offers cautionary alerts to try to avert any trouble, Cook said. Picasa for the Mac doesn’t interfere with iPhoto, he said, but for example when a person uses Picasa to edit a photo, iPhoto still shows the original, which Picasa preserves. And Picasa will read ratings and tags from iPhoto, but not vice-versa.
“We play nice. We take a hands-off, read-only approach with the iPhoto library,” Cook said. “You can experiment with Picasa, and it won’t screw up the images in the iPhoto library.”
Before the Picasa for Mac was released, Google offered Mac users two other options for getting photos to Picasa Web Albums: an iPhoto plug-in and standalone upload tool.
Originally posted at Underexposed
Browser add-on makes Flickr's galleries faster
Browser add-on Flickr Gallery Plus adds extended functionality to Flickr’s set view, allowing users to click through to see full versions of each shot without having to reload the page. Once installed it will go out and pre-fetch the larger sized version of each shot, making big sets a cinch to speed through. This includes the addition of keyboard shortcuts (something you can’t get in Flickr without a Greasemonkey script) which lets you go back and forth between shots using your arrow keys.
In addition to its thumbnail optimizer, the add-on includes a simple slideshow viewer that doesn’t attempt to replace Flickr’s own gorgeous slideshow tool. Instead, it simply fades together the pre-fetched pictures without leaving the page. You can set how long you want each photo to be displayed, anywhere from one to five seconds.
If you’re a heavy Flickr user this extension is definitely worth the download as it will cut your page loads in half. It retains Flickr’s slideshow tools and its same navigation; you also have the option to turn it on and off from a setting at the bottom of your browser.
Note: As with all experimental Firefox add-ons, you must be registered with Mozilla’s Firefox add-ons site to download it. It’s also available as a Greasemonkey script.
Flickr Gallery Plus lets you go back and forth between shots with your keyboard's arrow keys. It also pre-fetches each image–letting you load it without the page re-loading.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
Originally posted at Webware