PicasaWebAlbums
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Picasa's Web Albums work again for some reason
Back in 2013, Picasa users suddenly found themselves being automatically redirected to Google+'s web albums rather than the site they were familiar with. Of course, in light of Google's subsequent announcement that Google+ Photos would be supplanting the Picasa service as the company's go-to picture-storage platform, nixing the older Web Albums made sense. Of course, Google once again switched its photo hosting app to just Photos (which doesn't require a Google+ account) late last month. Now however, fansite Google Operating System reports that the Web Albums page no longer redirects to Google+. What's more, its search feature appears to work as well (albeit only for your own pictures and videos). So, for now, you can totally go back to using Web Albums if you want. Though given Google's historically scattershot approach to its photo management sites, who knows how long it'll stay online this time.
Google Takeout promises radical left wing-themed data extraction for Circles, more (video)
A team of khaki-clad Google engineers, calling itself the Data Liberation Front, has taken up the cause of freeing your data from the restrictive confines of El Goog's servers. Google Takeout, as the program has been billed, rips your various stashes of data from Buzz, Circles, Picasa, Contacts, and your Google Profile, and quickly bundles them in a zip file for download. The resulting booty is yours to do with as you choose. Takeout was announced the same day Google's latest social initiative sprung to life, offering an alternative to the notoriously hard to transfer data of its obvious competitor. But we're sure that was just a coincidence. Right? A hilariously nerdy promo video awaits you after the break.
Google releases Picasa 3 for Mac
iPhoto haters rejoice! Google recently released their popular photo management and editing program, Picasa, for Mac OS X. In my early testing, it didn't crash or seem sluggish, but like many Google offerings, this version still bears the "Beta" designation.Picasa integrates nicely with Google's online photo-hosting service, Picasa Web Albums, by allowing album syncing, uploading, and access control. Album syncing allows you to change a photo (by retouching, changing the caption, cropping, etc.) and have the changed photo appear in seconds on your web album. Your iPhoto library can be viewed in Picasa in "read-only" form. If you want to make edits to photos in your iPhoto library, you'll have to let Picasa make a copy of the photo and then edit it. Picasa also lets you upload photos to Blogger, create videos of your photos, and create a collage. It's nice to have a solid option aside from iPhoto to manage our photo collections locally and on the web. Picasa is a free 17MB download.
