Monday 17 November 2014

A handy hint

This is something worth knowing, particularly if you have subscribed to Picassa to process and store your photos, which I think you have to if you want to maintain past photos on Google Blogger, as I have done.

Over the last couple of years, I have noticed that if I ignore the Google pop-up which requires me to update to the latest version of Picassa, the next time I process any photos on my internal editing facility, they take an age to enhance, and once the process is complete, the rest of the computer slows down to an absolute snail's pace, if not actually freezing to the extent that I have to manually switch it off when it doesn't respond to a 'force quit' demand. If you use a Mac, then you will know the absolute sense of impotent despair that the whirling beach-ball inspires after 5 minutes of watching it.

About a year ago, I decided to stop using Picassa altogether, and went through the usual routine of trying to unsubscribe from it, but stopped at the last hurdle.

The last hurdle is a warning that although you do not have to use Picassa for your photos, if you unsubscribe from it at any time, then all of the photos you have stored on it will be lost forever. Effectively, it is saying, "Go on then, but just you see what happens!"

It then dawns on you that all the pictures that you have ever used on the Blog will probably vanish (or at least that is the threat), because they have been unwittingly stored on Picassa, and by subscribing to it you have given over the rights to them TO Picassa. Let's face it, did you actually read the terms and conditions before you clicked the box saying that you did?

It then dawns on you - or it dawned on me - that the reason that your family snap-shots are taking so long to process and bugger up the rest on the computer for about 20 minutes afterwards, is because Picassa is helping themselves to them online, whether you are going to use them for Blogger or not.

There is one solution to this problem which - because I know it works, has confirmed my fears about Picassa helping themselves with or without your permission - saves you from having to shut down the machine to get it to work properly again, and that is to switch off your router/modem whenever you process any photos imported from your camera.

That way, the only pictures that Picassa can lay their hands on are ones used for any Google application, which in this case is this blog.

It has taken me a couple of years of multiple attempts at reconfiguring my system, re-formatting the camera card and needlessly destroying dozens of personal photos before I worked this out.

Moral: Stay offline when importing or processing all your images.

17 comments:

  1. About a year ago, I attempted to download an un-water marked photo from Getty images, simply because it was not water-marked. After I had grabbed it, the whole computer shut down save for a message in the middle of the screen saying that this was just a warning, and if I ever stole a photo from Getty again, they would shut down my machine forever. Be careful what you import, they can get in!

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  2. ……… oh, that bloody whirling beach ball !! XXXX

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    1. … and, I cannot believe that Hayley Mills would be into ' Golden Showers ' { according to Cro on your last post } …… she doesn't look a ' Golden Shower ' kind of woman !!! ……. after seeing ' Pollyanna ' as a child I wanted to BE Hayley Mills ! XXXX

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    2. Were you talking about Marianne in Bristol, solids et al ?

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    3. No Mars Bars involved. This one was Una Stubbs.

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  3. I find Picasa (one s) very good; never had trouble with it.

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  4. Years and years ago when I got my first digital camera, Koday I used their software to upload all my photos. The software is now extinct in the cyber world and I've gone through several other Non-Kodak cameras since then but I still use the Kodak software. Its ancient I know but it works fabuously...until it's discovered I'm "cheating"

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    1. Your camera software isn;t the same as the stuff you use for getting it on your blog, is it?

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  5. You never get owt for nowt.
    There are plenty of free editors that work off line. Adobe Elements is at least ten times better than Picassa, it isn't free but it is only the price of a few pints and a packet of fags. You can then upload your images to any one of a dozen servers and drop them in your post.
    Have fun and e-mail if you get stuck.

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    1. I have a perfectly good bit of basic editing kit in the form of iPhoto. That isn't the point I am making here.

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  6. Oh, it's too much to think about. All of this kind of thing just makes my head explode. I've never had a Picassa message nor anyone threaten for googling a picture. Now, I probably will.

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  7. I am a coward Tom - I can no longer be bothered to take photographs which I intend to keep for any length of time. I had Picasa on my old computer but have not bothered on my new one, just using Pictures to store the ones I want.

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  8. I'm too tired now to read that again this evening, Tom. WHAT??? ALL my photos??
    I will read your post tomorrow again - and then I will ask my nearest and dearest, lawyers of copyright, if that is true...
    I think about a new blog-title: no, not "Eyeless in Gaza" - but "Imageless in Blogland".

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    1. This shouldn't all be about scare-mongering, just a few points which should be considered before editing photos online, no matter what system you are using.

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