Using Picasa to Take Screenshots

Here's something I just found out accidentally the other day. I'm an avid screen capture user; and as you're probably aware by now, you can capture whatever you're seeing in your computer screen by pressing the PrtSc key (from its old gone printing days "Print Screen"). That takes a screenshot and places it in the clipboard, ready to be pasted anywhere you can paste an image. (If you're using Chrome and Gmail, you can now paste the image directly to the email text box ;)

Unfortunately, most of the time you'll need it in a "file", either as a BMP, JPEG, PNG or other. That means having to open a image editor program (like Paint) pasting the image there, and saving it.
Sure, there are countless screen capture programs that can ease up that process, but I really don't like having those around.

That's when, by accident, I found out Picasa can also provide a similar feature. If you happen to have Picasa installed (and who doesn't?) and running, whenever you press the PrtSc key it will automatically save it to a specifica screen capture folder!

So, if you need to make a bunch of screen captures... just open up Picasa and start pressing that PrtSc key.

Picasa for Mac

At last, Mac users can now enjoy Picasa, the free photo management program from Google.



If you've ever used Picasa before you'll feel right at home, as this Mac version is exactly the same as its Windows version.

Picasa Web Albums now with Face Recognition

Picasa is getting smarter. Now you can use it's integrated  face recognition to help you tag your photos,

When you go to Picasa Web Albums  you now have the chance to activate its new name tag mode that will automatically find all people in your photos and allow you to easily (and quickly) tag those photos.

No longer will you have to spend endless time doing it manually one by one - or, like me, never bothering with it - until now.

I just wonder how long will it take until some people start complaining that Google is becoming to powerful and all-knowing. After all, if they can recognize you from photos... how long will it take until you can enter:
"Where was John Doe last seen?" and it will show you a frame or video clip from a number of security video cameras around the world? ;)

I imagine governments must be drooling about this kind of power...
Just lets hope Google never forgets their "do no evil" mantra. :)



And don't forget to try Picasa 3 beta as well.