Picasa bumped up to version 3

Google just upgraded its photo editor, Picasa, to version 3. This new version brings the following new features:

	Sync your Picasa 3 and Picasa Web Albums edits Tired of having to manually re-upload your photos after making further edits? By enabling 'Sync to Web,' edits made to your photos in Picasa 3 are automatically transferred to your corresponding online albums. You can sync the following changes: Picasa 3 edits (Basic Fixes, Tuning, and Effects) Photos added or deleted in Picasa 3 Captions, tags, or geotags Getting started The Sync to Web button is located on the right side of each folder or album header. When you click this button, you'll first be prompted to upload the photos in that folder or album to Picasa Web Albums. You can change the upload size, album privacy setting, or even add a watermark to your uploaded photos. When the upload is complete, any subsequent Picasa 3 edits to those photos will automatically transfer to your online album. Troubleshooting You can disable the sync feature at any time by clicking the Sync to Web button again, or by selecting Disable Sync in the drop-down menu to the right of the Share button in the folder or album header. All your photos and their edits up to this point remain online, but any new edits and changes will no longer be synchronized. The following changes don't transfer to your online albums: Reordering photos Changes made to folder or album properties Changes made to filenames
	Retouch your images Always want to be airbrushed? Use the Retouch tool to remove unsightly blemishes and improve photo quality. It can also help you to restore old photos with marks, water stains, and scratches to excellent condition. When editing any photo, just click the Retouch button on the 'Basic Fixes' tab. Adjust the size of your brush, and use the mouse scroll wheel to zoom in and out of the photo for precise edits. Click once to highlight the area you'd like to retouch, and then find another portion of the picture that should take the place of your highlighted area. Hover over this replacement area and click a second time.
	Preview image files with Picasa Photo Viewer The photo viewer is a fast, lightweight application for viewing images on your desktop or through Windows Explorer. Installed with Picasa 3, it lets you to take a quick look at images without having to fully open the Picasa 3 program. What you can do with the photo viewer: Add stars, zoom in and out with your mouse scroll wheel, rotate, or proceed to Picasa 3 to make more extensive edits. Upload directly from the photo viewer to Picasa Web Albums or Blogger. Jump right into emailing or printing as well. From your computer desktop or from within Windows Explorer, just double-click any image file to launch the Picasa Photo Viewer. You can reconfigure the file types that the photo viewer will display by clicking the Tools menu in Picasa 3 and selecting Configure Photo Viewer. If you'd prefer to use a different application to view certain file types, deselect the file types that the photo viewer shouldn't open. To disable the Picasa Photo Viewer entirely, click the 'Don't use Picasa Photo Viewer' option.
	Create and edit movies Combine your photos, videos, and music into a movie or use the editing room to trim your existing movies. Creating movies Use the movie maker to combine your photos, videos, and music into a movie, and create a Windows Media file. Share it with friends by uploading it directly to YouTube. About the movie maker: You have complete creative control - change the music sync, the slide duration, and slide transition style, among other things. Supported audio formats include mp3 and .wma. Add text slides: Create a title slide or a divider to provide some context. You can choose to include your photo captions as well. There are two ways to launch the movie creation screen: Create a movie for all photos in a folder or album by clicking the Create Movie Presentation button in the folder or album header. If you'd like to pick and choose photos from different collections, place them in the Photo Tray and click the larger Movie button in the Photo Tray. Use the Movie, Slide, and Clips tabs to alter movie settings, add text to slides, and insert new images, respectively. When you're satisfied, click Create Movie. Once created, use the Upload to YouTube button to share your creation with family and friends. Depending on the number of images and size of your audio file, the movie creation process can take a significant amount of time. Can't create the entire movie in one sitting? No problem, just click the Close button, and you'll be prompted to Save Draft. You can pick up your work at any time in the 'Movies' folder in Picasa. Editing movies When playing any video in Picasa 3, explore these features: Use the In and Out buttons in the lower-right corner to trim a shorter clip. Rotate your video using the Rotate buttons in the Photo Tray. Click Export Clip to output a newly trimmed or rotated video. Use the Take Snapshot button to capture a single frame of the video. Use the Play full screen button in the lower-right corner to watch the large version. Or use the zoom slider to adjust the size of the video in the Picasa editing window. Use the . and , keys on your keyboard to step the video frame-by-frame.
	Capture your screen Instantly take and import your screen captures and webcam captures into Picasa 3. Screen captures Press PrtScn to capture a shot of your entire screen. Ctrl+PrtScn will capture the highlighted window. These images will be placed in the 'Screen captures' folder. If you're having trouble importing screen captures, make sure Picasa 3 is open. Screen captures won't be imported if the application is closed. Webcam capture This is webcam importing made simple: Capture video or stills from within Picasa 3, and import them in the same instant. Make sure your webcam is operational, and then click the Webcam Capture button on the top button bar. The Capture tool will let you take and import video and stills. If the Webcam Capture button is inactive, first make sure your webcam is set to go. Then try closing Picasa 3 and opening it back up.
	Add text or watermarks to your photos You can easily personalize your photos using the Watermark and Text tools. Watermarks Help protect your images by stamping a watermark on all images that you export or upload. The watermark signature will be placed in the lower right-hand corner. Upload photos with watermarks Click the Tools menu in Picasa 3, select Options, then click the Web Albums tab. Select the option labeled 'Add a watermark for all uploads.' Type the text for the watermark in the field below the option. Export photos with watermarks When you click the Export button in the Photo Tray, you can select the 'Add a watermark' checkbox to include a watermark on your exported images. Type the text for the watermark in the field below the option. Text Use the Text tool to add text quickly and easily to your photographs; you can even print the result. You can edit the style, size, color, and alignment of the text, as well as drag it to your desired location on the photo. When editing a photo, click the Text button on the 'Basic Fixes' tab to access the tool. Do you want to add the same text to multiple photos? From the main Library view, click the Edit menu and select Copy Text to copy the text you've placed on one photo. Then select Paste text to apply it to all other selected photos. The text change isn't permanent. Once you've added your text, you'll see a 'Show Text' checkbox on the 'Basic Fixes' tab for that image. Deselect the checkbox and the text will disappear.
	Print captions Your captions are about to see a little more action. You can now print your captions or photo file names on or below your photos. Control the style and color of your printed caption, in addition to the width and color of the printed photo border. After you've selected the photos you'd like to print, click the Print button in the Photo Tray. Click the Border and Text Options button to add borders and adjust the style and placement of your printed text. Click Apply to preview your work, and OK to accept the changes.
	Upload easily to Picasa Web Albums Use the Drop Box to hold quick uploads and upload throttling to multi-task during your upload. Drop-box upload The Drop Box is an online album that serves as a holding pen for your quick uploads. Click the Upload to your Web Albums DropBox button located above your photo on the 'Edit Photo' screen to upload a single picture directly to your Picasa Web Albums Drop Box. Upload throttling You can choose to have Picasa 3 reserve some of your Internet bandwidth for surfing the Web while you're doing large uploads to Picasa Web Albums. During your upload, the dialog box will have an option labeled 'Don't eat all my bandwidth.' Just select this checkbox, and then continue multi-tasking.
	Control your Picasa Web Albums settings If you have an online album in Picasa Web Albums, you can now control the online settings through the corresponding folder or album in Picasa 3. There are a few different controls located in the drop-down menu to the right of the Share button in the folder or album header: Adjust the privacy of your online album. Change the online image size. Delete an online album. Sync your edits to your online album. You can also choose to apply 'Sync to Web' to starred photos only. Use 'Refresh Online Status' to pull your captions, tags, and geotags that you've added in Picasa Web Albums down to your photos in Picasa. Troubleshooting The button's only available for folders or albums that have been uploaded to Picasa Web Albums. You must be signed in to your Google Account for Picasa Web Albums. You can sign in by clicking Sign in to Web Albums in the upper-right corner of Picasa 3. You will only be able to adjust the online image size if you have enabled 'Sync to Web.'
	Manage folders on your computer It's now possible to move entire folders around on your hard drive from within Picasa 3. From the folder list, right-click the folder you'd like to move, and select Move folder. Choose your desired destination or create a new folder altogether. These moves are permanent on your hard drive, so make sure you properly stow your folders.
	Get more information about your photos We've added new icons and tools to the Library view to quickly communicate useful information about your photos.

For more detailed list of new features, including Linux specific ones, please visit the download site.Just like the previous Picasa for Linux version, Picasa 3 is not *yet* a full, native Linux application.

Google Analytics Gets a Major Ugrade (AdSense, Custom Reports, API, Bubble Charts)

Google Analytics just got better. Google will begin rolling out a set of major upgrades today to the free Website measuring tool. The new features include the ability to create custom reports, better ways to look at audience segments, the ability to track and measure AdSense inside Google Analytics, an API (on it’s way), the introduction of cool bubble “motion charts,” and some user interface improvements. Let’s take these new features one at a time.

1. Custom Reports: Lets you create reports using any source of data (such as people who have bought something on your site, average number of pageviews, geography, visiting source) as the X and Y coordinates for a chart.
2. Audience Segmentation: Lets you look at custom slices of your Website’s audience (such as people who stay for more than two minutes, people who came from TechCrunch, people who came from the New York Times, people who bought something, people who came from Techcrunch and bought something).
3. AdSense integration: This was along time coming. You can already track how your AdWords campaigns impact traffic to your site. Now you can see data from your AdSense account as well. Marry that with Google Analytics data and you can get new insights into not only which ads you place through AdSense are doing the best, but from which referring sites. (Read more on the AdSense blog).
4. API: This will be rolling out “soon,’ but is also being announced today. Google will open up an API to Gogle Analytics that will allow developers to pipe all of the data in Google Analytics to other Websites, tools, widgets, or even mobile apps. So if someone wants to create a widget that will let people show their Google Analytics charts on their blog, that will be possible.
5. Bubble Charts: The new motion charts allow you to visualize data across five dimensions (x axis, y axis, size of bubble, color of bubble, and position over time). It lets you create an animation to show you what’s been happening with your Website’s key metrics. This feature comes out of the Trendalyzer software Google bought from Gapminder in 2007. (See video below).
6. User Interface Tweaks: You’ll notice some new subtle shading and highlighting. But the biggest change will be in the management dashboard. Now, if you track more than one Website with Google Analytics, you will be able to see trends across all of them at once.

Below is a video of the new “motion charts,” which let you track data across time. You can find more videos showing off these new features here.

Vista SP2 beta due next week

The next update to Windows Vista will enter beta testing next week, bringing with it support for Blu-ray drives, among other enhancements. In a blog posting, Microsoft confirmed that a beta version of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 will be released next week.

"Because we've adopted a single serviceability model, these improvements are integrated into a single service pack covering both Windows Vista (client) and Windows Server 2008 (server) versions," Windows executive Mike Nash said in a blog. "This should also minimize deployment and testing complexity for our customers."

The software maker said earlier this week that it was working on Vista SP2, but wouldn't go into detail. A support document posted this month, however, suggested a beta version was in the offing.

In addition to Blu-ray, Vista SP2 will add support for Bluetooth 2.1 as well as include Windows Search 4.0, the latest version of Microsoft's desktop search technology.

Microsoft encouraged those thinking about upgrading to Vista not to wait for SP2, however.

"One question I know that you will ask is 'should I wait for SP2?'," Nash said. "The reality is that Windows Vista SP1 is a great platform that is both available on new Windows PCs and available as a free download for systems that are running the 'gold' release of Windows Vista. While we will recommend SP2 when it ships, your best bet today is Windows Vista SP1."

Update: Asked about when Microsoft might ship SP2, a representative responded that "it is too early to talk about SP2's final release date."

"As always, the final release date is based on quality and we will track customer and partner feedback from the beta program before setting a final date for distribution," the representative said.

The announcement comes ahead of next week's Professional Developer Conference, where Microsoft is expected to detail Windows 7, as well as give developers a pre-beta version.

Make Screencast Videos In Firefox with Capture Fox

Capture Fox Movie is a Firefox add-on and a handy tool to create tutorials about a software, a web site or anything that can be displayed on your computer. It records your screen frame by frame. You can also record your voice.

Features

• Capture screen, record your sound and get an AVI (movie) file.
• Adjust video quality
• Easy to use. With two clicks, you can start capturing your screen and record your sound.
• Best of all, it is FREE :)

Latest Version

Capture Fox is still being developed. The latest version is 0.3.4.080917b. You can download the latest version from our web site or Mozilla web site:

• Download Capture Fox 0.3.4.080917b from our site
• Download from Mozilla Add-on web site

Support

Google Group discussion group. There you can send your suggestions and bug reports. Or you can drop an e-mail at capturefox@advancity.net.

Introducing Yahoo! Web Analytics

Have you ever bailed on an online checkout because something in the user experience bugged you? Or were pleasantly surprised that the sponsored listings were more relevant than the regular results of your web search? This week, we are rolling out a new service that creates a helpful feedback loop for e-merchants, website owners, advertisers, and developers based on how well they did with you in critical moments like these.

Born out of our acquisition of IndexTools in May, Yahoo! Web Analytics (beta) provides powerful data and insights reporting that help website owners evaluate their marketing performance and tweak their website designs. They’ll get custom real-time reports and graphs that help them slice and dice metrics like sales, page views, and sources of traffic and ultimately identify ways to amp up their visitor satisfaction.

We’re rolling the service out in phases for the remainder of 2008 and into next year. The first big deployment is Yahoo! Small Business, whose 13,000 hosted e-commerce customers can get set up just in time for the holiday shopping season at the click of a button. We have already started to roll Yahoo! Web Analytics out to advertisers who seek Yahoo!’s help to build custom micro-sites, as well as to third-party application developers who build widgets and other mini-apps for Yahoo! users via our developer network or our new Yahoo! Open Strategy tools.

Nothing is worse for site owners—and consumers—than bad marketing or a lousy user experience. Here’s an easy tool designed to combat them… and fast.

For more information, please visit http://web.analytics.yahoo.com/ and check out the FAQ.

image metrics emily cg facial animation blows my mind

The other day, I showed you guys what I thought was some really impressive computer generated facial animation. Then, the guys over at Image Metrics sent me a video clip of their latest CG creation, Emily, and I was bowled over.

Emily is a truly monumental achievement, recreating every nuance of human facial expression, even though what you’re actually looking at is the face of a digital actor. Created through a partnership with USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), the team’s primary objective was to create a completely convincing, animated computer-generated face, and I think they succeeded.

Using ICT’s special scanning system that can capture facial details down to the individual pore, the face of actress Emily O’Brien was transformed into a digital representation of herself, which could then be entirely machine-manipulated. A special spherical lighting rig captured O’Brien in 35 reference facial poses using a pair of high resolution digital cameras. The facial maps were then converted into 3D data using Image Metrics’ proprietary markerless motion capture technology.

Image Metrics then generated a new animation sequence and precisely superimposed it onto the live actress’ head. As you can see from the video below, you’d be really hard-pressed to tell the difference between digital Emily and real-world Emily.

Amazing, no? Be sure to check out some of Image Metrics’ other CGI projects, which include work on Grand Theft Auto IV, Devil May Cry 4, and a most excellent Gnarls Barkley video featuring a anthropomorphic singing heart.

Microsoft’s announcement of DreamSpark

I am very pleased to announce that Microsoft will be making its developer and designer tools available at no charge to college students in 10 countries around the world – in the first phase of the new Microsoft DreamSpark™ program. DreamSpark will be live as of Feb 19 in United States, the United Kingdom, China, Germany, France, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Belgium. Additional country rollouts are planned throughout the year with full availability expected within 12 months. While this is initially an offer for university students, we might expand this on a broader basis. Watch this space for more information!.

Students will be able to download any of the following software products via Channel 8 (channel8.msdn.com) and will have to go through a quick online third party-driven authentication process to validate their student status. Once this is done, they will be able to download the software of their choice– one title or all. Here's the current set of downloads...

Microsoft developer tools.

· Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition

· Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition

· XNA Game Studio 2.0

· 12-month free membership in the XNA Creators Club

Microsoft designer tools.

Expression Studio, including:

· Expression Web

· Expression Blend

· Expression Design

· Expression Media

Microsoft platform resources.

· Windows Server, Standard Edition

· SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition

For more information you can go HERE!