Wednesday, 24 July 2013
Tuesday, 23 July 2013
How to use Picasa-web-albums, without being re-directed to Google+ Photos
This article is about how to you can start Picasa-web-albums in way that stops you being immediately re-directed to Google+ Photos.
If you have a Google+ account, either because you only signed up for Google recently, or you had a Blogger account first and then linked your blog to Google+, then you will know that if you go to Picasa-web-albums), you are immediately re-directed to Google+ photos.
When this happens, at the top of the screen, for a few seconds, there is a message saying:
But if you do something in Google+ photos, this top banner message disappears, and the only way to get it back again is to close and re-open Picasa-web. This is tedious - it's a waste of time opening one website just so you can re-direct back to another one.
I'm going to put it into the sidebar of my blog very soon, so I have easy access to it.
In short, the answer (for now anyway) is no, there is no problem - and I don't expect there to be one anytime soon.
Why?
You still only keep one set of photos in your Google account. It just happens that Google now have two pieces of software that can access these photos. One is Google+ Photos, and the other is Picasa-web-albums. And they both work on the same underlying pictures and photo-albums. So it won't cause you to run out of space, or to have duplicate copies of your photos.
And Google still need to maintain Picasa-web-albums because there are a substantial number of Blogger users who choose to be anonymous: Google+ photos simply will not work for them, because it absolutely depends on having the photos associated with an individual, named persons profile. (And I'm pretty sure that there are no easy ways to transfer ownership of photos from one Google+ profile to another, either, in the event that you want to transfer ownership of your blog.)
Of course we don't know if this will last forever - but my best guess is that you can safely keep using Picasa-web-albums for a good while yet.
What is Picasa vs Picasa-web-albums - a basic introduction
Creative-Kit photo editor works from Google+, if not from Picasa-web-albums
Options for showing photos in Blogger
Update - August 2016
The article below was written in 2013, and has remained correct until very recently. But changes which Google started rolling out from 1 August 2016 mean that it is now obsolete. See the article Picasa-web redirects, August 2016 update for more information.
The following article is kept here for historic purposes only.
What happens when you start Picasa-web-albums?
When this happens, at the top of the screen, for a few seconds, there is a message saying:
"Click here to go back to Picasa Web Albums."
But if you do something in Google+ photos, this top banner message disappears, and the only way to get it back again is to close and re-open Picasa-web. This is tedious - it's a waste of time opening one website just so you can re-direct back to another one.
How to skip the re-direction message
To use Picasa-web-albums, without being sent to Google+ photos, you just need to start it using this link: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/myphotos?noredirect=1I'm going to put it into the sidebar of my blog very soon, so I have easy access to it.
Is there a problem with using Picasa-web instead of Google+ Photos?
You might wonder if there is a problem with using the old Picasa-web-albums instead of Google+ Photos.In short, the answer (for now anyway) is no, there is no problem - and I don't expect there to be one anytime soon.
Why?
You still only keep one set of photos in your Google account. It just happens that Google now have two pieces of software that can access these photos. One is Google+ Photos, and the other is Picasa-web-albums. And they both work on the same underlying pictures and photo-albums. So it won't cause you to run out of space, or to have duplicate copies of your photos.
And Google still need to maintain Picasa-web-albums because there are a substantial number of Blogger users who choose to be anonymous: Google+ photos simply will not work for them, because it absolutely depends on having the photos associated with an individual, named persons profile. (And I'm pretty sure that there are no easy ways to transfer ownership of photos from one Google+ profile to another, either, in the event that you want to transfer ownership of your blog.)
Of course we don't know if this will last forever - but my best guess is that you can safely keep using Picasa-web-albums for a good while yet.
Related Articles
Transferring your blog to another Google account's ownershipWhat is Picasa vs Picasa-web-albums - a basic introduction
Creative-Kit photo editor works from Google+, if not from Picasa-web-albums
Options for showing photos in Blogger
Sunday, 21 July 2013
Where is the Blogger help forum now?
This quick-tip is about how to find the current version of Blogger's support forum.
27 July update: I noticed yesterday that Google have changed the process back, and that Blogger's help link now leads directly to the summary page which includes a Community button. I guess this means they listened - if not to me, then at least to everyone else who complained.
For as long as I have been using Blogger, Google have provided two types of support:
Unlike some people, I don't have any problems with the peer-support model. It's 24x7. It supports lots of languages. It gives ordinary people a way to learn more about Blogger, by preparing answers to other people's questions. It let me build up reputation as a helpful person, and so encouraged other helpers to help me when I got stuck. It was also a place I could refer to in my own comment moderation policies: I would rather that people asked for help with their blogs on a public, peer reviewed forum than here on Blogger-HAT where there is not regular review process.
I wasn't to thrilled about the move to a Google-groups based help forum. I can see why using a standard tool is good, but the Group software just doesn't work so well on my small netbook.
And I'm less-than-happy about the way that Google seems to be making it ever-harder to find the forum: a few weeks back they added another click to the process (Gear-wheel > Blogger Help > Community), and now I see there's yet another one (Gear-wheel > Blogger Help > More (the down-arrow at the bottom of the page) Blogger).
So here's a quick link, which I'm going to keep up to date, and put on my sidebar too. Click it to go straight to the Blogger help/product forum: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/blogger
27 July update: I noticed yesterday that Google have changed the process back, and that Blogger's help link now leads directly to the summary page which includes a Community button. I guess this means they listened - if not to me, then at least to everyone else who complained.
For as long as I have been using Blogger, Google have provided two types of support:
- A set of support articles - some of which aren't up to date - that describe how to do standard things
- A support forum, where people can ask questions, which are answered by other Blogger users. This forum has some people who are tagged as "Top Contributors" who have special rights, like being able to send questions to the Google staff who are also using the foru - but who obviously don't have the time to read all the posts.
Unlike some people, I don't have any problems with the peer-support model. It's 24x7. It supports lots of languages. It gives ordinary people a way to learn more about Blogger, by preparing answers to other people's questions. It let me build up reputation as a helpful person, and so encouraged other helpers to help me when I got stuck. It was also a place I could refer to in my own comment moderation policies: I would rather that people asked for help with their blogs on a public, peer reviewed forum than here on Blogger-HAT where there is not regular review process.
I wasn't to thrilled about the move to a Google-groups based help forum. I can see why using a standard tool is good, but the Group software just doesn't work so well on my small netbook.
And I'm less-than-happy about the way that Google seems to be making it ever-harder to find the forum: a few weeks back they added another click to the process (Gear-wheel > Blogger Help > Community), and now I see there's yet another one (Gear-wheel > Blogger Help > More (the down-arrow at the bottom of the page) Blogger).
So here's a quick link, which I'm going to keep up to date, and put on my sidebar too. Click it to go straight to the Blogger help/product forum: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/blogger
Saturday, 20 July 2013
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