Picasa editor and Web share

Let's face it... We're all looking for that perfect photo editing program that allows us to make our pictures look better and send them to friends. Well friends, that software product has arrived. It's call Picasa Web, by Google (who else) and it is only in the beta version right now, but that will change in the future. I snagged an invitation to download Picasa Web and I used it yesterday. It is GREAT and did I mention FREE.
I've been using Picasa as a photo editor for some time because it has all of the basic functions I need without having to fire up photoshop every time I want to crop a picture.

• The upside to Picasa for the Web is that you can share photos publicly or privately (which means only people you invite can see the pictures, so they are not necessarily in the public domain).
  
• The second best feature is the ability for the people that you share with to download the pictures at FULL RESOLUTION. This is a breakthrough to me - where it may have been available in other programs before - I never found it or found it good enough to use. This means that someone can download your picture and print it or have it printed at the full resolution at which you took the picture.

• The two minor downsides to Picasa are the storage space. Right now you only get 250 MB's for free, which pails in comparision to the 2.7 GB's they give you for G-mail.
• The second downside is the lack of an integrated photo printing service. Instead of downloading the photos and then going back into Picasa to order them, it would be nice if you could just order your pics straight from the photo album. Maybe this feature will show up in the next version :)

Overall I really like this application and think that is is VERY easy to use. Check it out and sign up for Picasa for Web.

PowerPoint and Notes - Presenter's Screen

I have had tons of questions about this feature in PowerPoint. Since I don't use PowerPoint every day it's hard to keep up with all the features. But in my searching I found a link to another blog that had the directions for using the Presenters view to show the entire show on the projector and to show the presenters notes on the computer screen.

The key to this process is that you have to be hooked up to the LCD projector or another monitor in order to enable the multiple monitors feature.
Go into PowerPoint to finsh the configurations under multiple monitors.

For step by step instructions visit Michael Wyatt's Working Smart Blog.

Outlook: Share your calendar

I have been testing two various calendar programs that would make it easier to create and view calendars for multiple people without having to use the bulky import/export feature in Outlook.
One version is Google Calendar which is another fantastic Google service. This postive features of Google Calendar is the online aspect that you can log in with a Google account and upload your Outlook Calendar. There is a new feature that also allows other people you invite to share your calendar. This is pretty handy when you are trying to manage calendars for staff in different counties and it also gives the agent the ability to add tasks and appointments to the calendar as well.


The new service on the block wil be unveiled in Office 2007 which is Microsoft Office Online: Outlook: Share your calendar on Office Online.
Everyone knows that I am a big fan of Outlook and I have encouraged everyone to adopt this e-mail client. It is easy to use and it gives you much more functionality than Outlook Express or that other program that everyone use to use in Extension. This added feature in Outlook will streamline the process and keep you from using separate programs to take care of one function.

Office 2007 - It's Coming...

Has anyone been keeping up with the development of Office 2007?
Well if you haven't click the link below and check out the new look of Office 2007. The user interface is way more intuitive and you don't have to search inside 5 menus to get to something you need.

Microsoft Office Assistance: Crabby's favorite new features of the 2007 Microsoft Office system

By the way... the crabby office lady writes some great columns and I'll be posting on some of her more famous ones soon, like e-mail etiquette.

The Microsoft Office Crabby Office Lady

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