Picasa makes all of your photos better

So, I'm a big fan of Google software. They seem to strike the perfect balance between ease of use and flexibility. But even people who don't care about flexibility should download Picasa. Picasa was originally promoted as "what should have come with your digital camera." It's true.

Have you ever used Photoshop? I have. And if you're reading this blog, you don't want to. Photoshop is definitely for advanced users only. And while sometimes I want that, for my everyday photo editing needs, I always use Picasa.

For one, the user interface is really intuitive. You tell it what folders to scan (or have it scan your whole computer), and your pictures show up in nicely-sized thumbnails. It can also download from your camera or any other device. Double-click on a picture to edit it. You can crop your pictures really easily, and adjust the lighting, tint, and color, add effects, or have Picasa automatically edit your photo by clicking "I'm feeling lucky." It usually does a great job. For most pictures, I just crop them, then let Picasa handle the rest.

Also, as with most Google products, it has a great way to share the experience. You can click one button to upload any of your albums onto Google's servers. You can add captions, give locations, and make the pictures public, or choose who to share them with. The online site will also scan your pictures for faces, and if you do it enough, it will start recognizing people. It's kind of creepy/awesome. Go here to see my public album. And go download Picasa!

Stop Using Internet Explorer!

Seriously, Internet Explorer is vastly inferior to some of the other products out there. I suggest either Firefox or Google Chrome. Both are way faster and slow down the rest of your computer a lot less than Internet Explorer. They've also both got some great features.

Google Chrome

Google Chrome is great for casual internet browsing. The first great feature is the home screen. Let's face it: homepages are so 1999. You don't want to go to the same page every time you open your browser. So Chrome gives you a personalized home screen that has visual links to your 9 most visited pages. Totally awesome. It also lets you do a Google search right from your address bar (just type in what you're searching for instead of an URL). It's also got a bunch of little features that make browsing feel a little more intuitive. Use if for a while, and you'll start seeing that everything is just a little bit easier.


Firefox

Firefox is better if you're just a little more adventurous, for one reason: add-ons. Firefox is an Open Source browser, which means that anyone can have access to all of the code used to make the program. This matters because it makes it really easy for any programmer to make an add-on that customizes Firefox, and generally give them away for free. Check them out here. Here are a few of my favorites:

Speed dial - a Google-Chrome type home screen.
Integrated Gmail - puts Google Calendar and Google Reader in the same window as Gmail.
Autopager - You know those annoying "next page" buttons? Autopager automatically loads them in the same window. Download it and do a Google search. You'll be very impressed.
Download Statusbar - Firefox has an annoying downloader that pops up in its own window. Download Statusbar fixes this.

I don't like Firefox as much as Chrome right out of the box, but with the almost infinite customizability, it's definitely my browser of choice.

But for god's sake, stop using Internet Explorer. It's awful.

How to Read This Blog

Tired of having 15 different webpages to check every day to get all of your news? Tired of wasting your time checking a webpage that only gets updated once a week? Want to show an article to a friend, but finding it not worth the effort to write an email about it? RSS readers can solve all of these problems.

Take a look at your address bar. Does it say "http://techforthecommonman.blogspot.com/"? If so, you're doing things the old-fashioned way. If you read blogs, news sites, webcomics, or basically anything online with any regularity, you ought to be using an RSS reader.

An RSS reader takes content from regularly updated websites, and puts it all on one page. The most popular one is Google Reader. If you've got a gmail account (you should), you're already signed up. It looks like this:



The columns on the left are my feeds, and the big box on the right is where the content shows up, in chronological order. Let's say, for instance, that you read cnn.com, garfield minus garfield, Politico.com, and Tech for the Common Man. You would just go to Google Reader, click "add new subscription," and put in the following URL's:

http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_topstories.rss
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/rss
http://www.politico.com/rss/politicopicks.xml
http://techforthecommonman.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Then check out your page. It starts you out with the previous ten entries from each feed. Then any time one of those websites is updated, the update will show up in your RSS reader. So instead of visiting 4 websites every time you're surfing, you only have to visit one. You can also click "share" under an entry, and any of your gmail contacts using Google Reader will be able to see it (and comment!). It also has a handy "email" button.

To find an RSS feed for your favorite website, go to it and look for something that says "RSS" or this symbol:

That should give you the feed. Then you can either copy & paste the URL and put it in the "add subscription" box, or you can just click "subscribe," and it should give you the option to subscribe using your RSS reader of choice.

Once you've gotten the hang of it, you can start playing around with some of the other features. Google Reader allows you to create folders to organize your feeds, has extensive keyboard shortcuts, and can be accessed on your smartphone.