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Month: July 2008

Picasa 2 – Manage your photos

Published by Daniel Westerstal on July 19, 2008

Screenshot of Picasa 2

A down-side with the surge in digital photography is the pain of keeping track of all the photos. Google thinks that they have the answer to your prayers with Picasa 2. Picasa 2 creates an index of all your picture files on your computer and then categorizes them by year. After that you simply create an album and move the picture files that you want into that album.

The interface is pretty simple and a bit similar to Gmail. It’s possible to mark your photos with a star and describe them. Picasa 2 also has a number of features that enhances and alters your photos, such as red-eye reduction and cropping.  However if you are not familiar with Google from other software or services Picasa’s interface may prove difficult to use.

The real power with Picasa 2 is the different exporting and importing options. It’s easy to import photos from any digital camera. I just plugged in my Canon Powershot SD600 and Picasa found the camera directly.  Picasa 2 makes it easier to browse and select the photos that you want, compared to doing it directly in Windows.

A new feature in Picasa 2 is the web-album, which gives you the ability to upload pictures to online albums for other people to view. Albums can be password protected or public, you get 1GB storage for free. 10 GB of storage costs $20 / year and 40 GB $75 / year.  Smugmug costs $39.95 a year for an unlimited amount of photos. So basically Googles storage offer does not impress.  Other exporting options in Picasa 2 include sending the pictures to a blog in Blogger and burning pictures on a CD or DVD (which works great).

Overall Picasa 2 is a very good piece of software considering it’s free, basically it has it all.  However the paid online album and storage is not as appealing as competing services.

LogMeIn – Access your PC or MAC from anywhere!

Published by Daniel Westerstal on July 14, 2008

The market for remote desktop software is surging as workers go mobile. Having access to your desktop computer at home or in the office from anywhere in the world is a huge advantage. A service capitalizing on the trend is LogMeIn, which offers a variety of solutions with the basic one completely for free.

LogMeIn is a web-based solution, which means that any computer with a web-browser can be used. Just log on to logmein.com and enter your username and password. Naturally there are some security concerns with having access to your computers online. Luckily LogMeIn has two layers of extra security, which can be applied. The first one is that a randomly generated code that has to be entered when logging in is sent to your e-mail. The other option is having LogMeIn create a sheet of randomly generated codes, which you can print and keep in your wallet.

The free and basic version of LogMeIn offers remote control with the ability to view your desktop. It is also possible sync data in the clipboard with the remote computer. LogMeIn Free is really all you need if you just want access to your desktop PCs from anywhere.

Another neat feature with LogMeIn Free is the ability to have several computers in the same account. Say for example that you want your two desktop PCs as well as a friend who constantly runs in to computer problems in the same account; it is possible with LogMeIn Free.

LogMeIn Pro, which is not free, offers extras such as the ability to drag and drop files between the connected computers, remote printing, file sync and drive mapping among other things. The Pro-version is $19.95 per month per computer, which might work for small businesses but is on the expensive side for an enthusiast with many computers.

The real problem with LogMeIn is the fact that the software only works on Windows machines (XP and Vista) and MACs. There is currently no Linux-version available.

LogMeIn Free is surprisingly fast and powerful, it does not need much configuration and setup. If you just want basic access to your computer from anywhere, LogMeIn Free is a great product.

Freemind – Free mind mapping software

Published by Daniel Westerstal on July 9, 2008

FreeMind Screenshot

There are advantages of doing mind-maps on the computer instead of using whiteboards or pencil and paper. It’s easier to keep structured, you never run out of room and it’s possible to link images and other objects.

While there are loads of proprietary software out there just for mind-mapping (MindManager, SmartDraw to name a few) there are few open-source or free alternatives. FreeMind is perhaps the most well known alternative.

The software is written in JAVA, which means excellent portability across platforms. FreeMind runs in any Java environment but most notable Windows, Linux and MAC OS. FreeMind is released under the GNU Public License (GPL).

My first experience with FreeMind was very confusing, the program interface actually resembles a 90s version of Micrografx Graph (those were the days). After a couple of minutes the interface feels less awkward and three days later it almost feels like a part of you.

Click the yellow light-bulb to add sub-topics to your main subject, FreeMind dubs it ”Child Note”.To change the text of something just click it and write. Out to the left there are a bunch of icons that can be used in connection with each note. For example if you want to set priorities use the stylish 1-5 icons. However I don’t get why there is a Linux penguin but not a plus-sign in there.

In FreeMind you can also create links to other objects (websites, files you name it) and insert pictures. A more powerful feature is the planning tools that aren’t directly visible, such as the calendar where you can set reminders. FreeMind can generate a schedule of all the events and reminders, which actually makes it possible to create plans directly from a mind-map.

FreeMind has a pretty active community behind it supporting the software and adding plug-ins. For example it’s possible to download a plug-in that connects FreeMind to MS Project, any project manager’s dream. There are also plug-ins that interacts with content management systems, such as Drupal or MediaWiki.

The program also has excellent export features; you can export as PDF (not even Microsoft Visio 2007 has that functionality built-in), PNG, SVG among other formats. It’s even possible to create HTML mind-maps, which makes FreeMind a great tool for web or Intranet use.

At first glance FreeMind doesn’t look like much, but it really has great functionality and features in there. The graphics are a bit dated, but it doesn’t matter because FreeMind is good at what it was originally designed to do.

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