Stop looking at the prompting screens!

Why I Moved From Flickr to Picasa

The simple answer to this question is this: My mother.

Fact is that my mom isn’t on Flickr. But, she’s on Picasa. And it’s all about showing my mother pictures and videos of my daughter.

Picasa makes this transfer and sharing easy as pie. She can even download the images into her system and computer and then print it out.

Win.

Oh, and Google apparently owns the world. I’ve got so much invested in their products that I might as well have put my stuff there anyway. I needed some more space on my GMAIL account too. Google Apps for Small Business is the shiznittle, BTW.

But, for those interested, here are some additional reasons why Flickr is the bomb (and not in a good way):

• Flickr has no significant desktop application. What a loss. And no, I don’t consider their “Uploader” a serious desktop application. In fact, it’s nothing compared to Picasa. I mean, Picasa has an amazing desktop application that is dead-simple to use and “mom-proof” as they say. Win.
• Flickr’s online experience is slow. When you get over about 10,000 images it starts taking more than a few seconds to actually get into the editor and to even view the sets! In fact, on average, it took about 10 seconds to load my junk. I could go to the fridge, crack open a diet-coke and be back before it finishes loading. Sad forever.
• The layouts and user experience hasn’t really changed. Like, in years. I want more viewing options for goodness sake.
• The online editor is slow, clunky, and broken. Sad. In fact, I hate it. It’s terrible.
• The slideshow technology Flickr has sucks. Slow.
• Can’t freaking download your pictures in batches. This is a serious issue. Why should I have to “hack” or use alternative programs to get my silly pictures down?
• Quality of HD videos just isn’t cutting it. This might be me, but my Vimeo Pro account kicks the living snot out of Flickr. This isn’t even mentioning the level of customization that Vimeo has and that Flickr doesn’t. Vimeo is worth every penny.
• The 90-second rule in Flickr is lame. Enough said. (Can’t believe I bought into that crap…)
• Flickr hasn’t improved their product in years. It’s obvious to anyone with half-a-brain that Yahoo! is going down the drain and they aren’t willing to invest in one of their marquee online products. Picasa, on the other hand, continues to innovate and pump out new features.

But, to be fair, Picasa isn’t perfect either. One of the most serious grievances I have is the fact that you can’t download the movies at all. And, the video quality is the same if not worse.

Oh well, that’s why I have Vimeo (and backups). But, at least my mom can watch the videos.

Love your thoughts, comments, flames, whatever. In the end, the move was a personal one and it should be the same for you. No pressure or dogmatism from this side of the fence; do what you gotta do.

Now, if I just had the time to finish all this facial recognition stuff…

*sigh* It never ends.

Yesterday, my co-worker Matt told me about some Gmail tricks I hadn’t heard of. Well, one is a trick, and one is just “nice to know”.

Gmail will ignore (some, all?) punctuation in email addresses. So bob.smith@gmail.com is the same as bobsmith@gmail.com. (That’s the nice to know part).

Furthermore, text after a plus sign is ingored. So, when you sign up for a new service, you can use a unique email address. You could sign up for amazon.com using bobsmith+amazon.com. All your mail will be routed to the same place, but you can block certain services and track who gives your email to spammers.

Why? why do I miss out on such basic stuff. This can be so useful. Especially the + thing. The worst part is got to know about this from a girl Shoot me ←