Picasa Web Albums Upgrades - Includes Blogger Pictures

UPGRADES AND NEW ADDITIONS

Google announced today on their blog that they've upgraded the free storage for your photos from 250mb to 1gig. In addition to the additional storage space, Google also added the ability to share your pictures with the community. Here is a complete list of all the new features to Picasa Web Albums.

If you decided to share the pictures or keep them private you can always look around at other peoples shared albums by drop down arrow next to the search box and selecting community photos.

USING PICASA

Picasa is a great photo organization and quick editing application and the ability to quickly upload your albums to share with friends and family only make it better. I use this exclusively on my Windows XP systems.

If you're a mac user you can also take part in the Picasa Web Albums. Google has released a plugin for iPhoto that lets you export your photos from iPhoto simply by selecting the export option and then selecting the Picasa Web Albums tab.

Another option for Mac Users is the Picasa Web Albums Uploader. This stand alone application allows you to drag and drop photos you'd like to upload to your Picasa Web Albums.

BLOGGER PHOTOS INCLUDED

After loading up my Picasa Web Albums I quickly noticed a new album that I had not installed. The title for the Album was the title of my blog and I noticed that all the pictures I had uploaded to some of my posts were now included in one location as a new Album in Picasa Web Albums.

Clicking in the Album brought up all the pictures on my Blog and I noticed a "Link to this Album" option and a "View Blog" link to the left of the pictures. Creating Photo Blogs may have just gotten a little easier.

How to Use Your Wiimote as your Mac Mouse/Remote Control

This article can now be found at Maciverse.com:

http://www.maciverse.com/how-to-user-your-wiimote-as-your-mouse.html

VMware Fusion Beta 2 Can't Handle Counter-Strike: Source

The New Beta

Recently VMware released a new beta for their OSX based Virtual Machine Fusion. This beta offers something no one else has previously offered, 3D graphics. This release of Fusion includes an experimental software that includes support for DirectX 8.1. This allows users to play their windows based games while still running OSX. Download Fusion Beta 2 over at VMware's site (Registration Required).

As an Intel iMac user I was extremely excited at the thought of not having to boot into XP through bootcamp to run the various games I played including Counter-Strike: Source which I play often and I know runs at the directX 8.1 level. If VMware can deliver with 3D graphic support I would only load up Windows in a virtual machine when I wanted to play games.

Installing the Beta

After downloading the beta files I quickly installed the application, Windows XP, and started downloading Steam and then Counter-Strike: Source. This process was as if I was installing Windows onto any other machine and once installed it functioned well. Steam and Counter-Strike: Source also installed easily.

Turn on 3D Acceleration

VMware doesn't have 3D acceleration running by default. You have to turn this on by going to Settings, Display, and Checking the Enable 3d Acceleration box. NOTE: The virtual machine must not be running while you do this. The system will not allow you to check the box until the machine is stopped.

After turning on the acceleration I booted up the virtual machine and ran dxdiag to test the 3d acceleration. It passed the 8.1 test. I was excited and hopeful that this virtual machine would have what it takes to run CS:S.

Crash and Burn...

I setup Counter-Strike: Source to run in directX 8.1 mode by adjusting the launch options to include the command - dxlevel 81 and attempted to run the game. It gave me a warning that my graphics card wasn't supported, I clicked passed it and at first everything seemed to be going ok. The game started to load and I got a quick flash of the Counter-Strike: Source logo but then something terrible happened. A Blue Screen of Death ruined my excitement and I was left with a crashed Windows in VMWare.

It is true that VMware doesn't list CS:S as a supported game at this time, but I was still hopeful give the listed support for directx 8.1. Hopefully future releases of their software will include the support for all Windows games.

Macbook Performance: The Importance of RAM

This article can now be found at Maciverse.com:

Macbook The Importance of Ram

How to Make Windows XP look like Windows Vista for FREE

One of the major improvements of Windows Vista is the graphical interface that the system delivers but unfortunately not all of Windows XP applications turn out to run as smoothly as one would hope. Fortunately there is an option for those that would like a fresh interface experience but with the proven stability for applications that Windows XP has grown to offer.

While I was reading an RSS feed from one of the Yahoo! Pipes I had created I acme across a tutorial from downloadsquad.com that gave instructions on how to Vista-ize your XP. Its basically as simple as downloading the Vista Transformation Pack and setting your graphic card settings to enable transparent windows. Check with your graphics card manufacturer for instructions on how to enable the feature.

The Vista Transformation Pack can be downloaded here.

Also, if you don't like some of the applications Vista Transformation Pack sets to startup with the operating system boot you can turn this off by going to:

1. Start
2. Click Run
3. Type in: msconfig
4. Click Ok
5. Select the StartUp Tab
6. Uncheck the items you do not want to boot at startup and click ok
7. The system will prompt to reboot again. Reboot the system and the items should not boot at startup.
8. A warning box will let you know that you started in a manner where some applications were not loaded. To turn off that warning, you can check off the box that tells Windows not to warn you with this information in the future.

After installing the Vista Transformation Pack your XP system should look very similar how Vista looks and functions.