Saravanan Sahadevan

If you were a mac user that was disappointed that .mac account was pricy and could not enjoy most of the benefits that they had to offer. But as time goes on , more and more free alternatives arrive as the internet evolves into a free space. 

Recently I had my hands on the the Picasa Web Albums Uploader. With storage capacity up to 1GB for free, Im amazed and yeah if anyone who could provide this kind of service would be non other than google. I was all this while trying out other alternative services such as flickr and so on but some how or rather it just did not provide that extra flavor to it until I stumbled upon the release of Google’s Picasa Web Albums Uploader for the mac. And boy am I happy. This was basically the best way I could share my photos across other macs or just to my friends online FREE. The Uploader comes in two ways. A stand alone uploader that allows you to select any pictures on the drive, provide captions, ratings and descriptions before you upload it to the net. The best feature of all is the scaler. It allows you to upload in 3 states. Scaled with better quality , Scale to smaller dimensions (reduce in size) or remain as the actual picture. Now my friends can download it from the web just as how I had in on my mac.

The second way was by a plugin for iphoto that allows you to select any event or album and export it with ease. This was the best way for me particularly as all my photos was organized in iphoto. By selecting export and choosing Picasa Web , you will be prompt a login screen that requires your google user login details. Once that is done the rest is the same as the stand alone version. Create new albums or upload to existing albums while selecting your scaling quality and preferences. 

Once on the web , I had another question in mind on “how if I would want only a few people to view a particular album?” Then I came across a function right before uploading the photos on to the web. At the uploader there is a preference option thats allows to choose either Publicly listed or Unlisted. Publicly listed would have your album stored on the My Public Folder at your picasa profile. That eventually would be access by anyone who simply visited your profile. But if you would to select unlisted, your album would be well hidden. And a link with an authentication code, found at each album at your picasa web account will simply make your album private. The link is exclusive for your friends and family whom you wish to share your photos with. But be cautious on who you share it with as anyone could access the album provided they have the authenticated link.

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