Embedded Slideshow from Picasa Web Albums

Google Blogger gives you two ways to create slideshows from your photo albums in Picasa Web Albums:

1. You can add the "Slideshow" gadget as a page element in your blog, including the sidebar (see "Cool Conifers," shown lower-right sidebar);
2. you can embed slideshows in blog posts.

For step-by-step directions that explain how to embed a slideshow in a blog or website, refer to the Picasa and Picasa Web Albums Help page, Different Ways to Share: Embedding albums, images, and slideshows; click on “Slideshow.” A sample slideshow is shown below in two sizes that fit nicely in a Blogger post.

Slideshow options
Select slideshow size:
Medium 288px [default]

Picasa Web Album: Cool Conifers

Large 400px

Picasa Web Album: Cool Conifers

Tech Tips: Apple Computer does not support Adobe Flash on its mobile devices, so embedded slideshows from Picasa Web Albums (such as the ones shown above) will not display properly on the iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad. For this reason, you may want to include a hyperlink from your blog post to the photo album.

Testing "Mail to Blogger"

I used "Mail to Blogger" to create the following blog post.

[begin test] This is a test of the Blogger feature, "Mail to Blogger." I'm using "Alpine," a text-only e-mail client for the Unix operating system, to write this text in an e-mail message; after I send the e-mail message, Blogger will convert it to a blog post automatically. The trick is to send the message to a secret, user-specified e-mail address; set the secret address under Settings/Email & Mobile. [end test]

Editor's Note: Although the test was successful (as evidenced by the preceding post), Mail to Blogger inserted a hard break at the end of each line of text in the original e-mail message; the line breaks were removed using Blogger to edit the test post. That said, the process worked very quickly!  For more information about mobile blogging using Blogger, refer to "Blogging on the Go."

GPS-Enabled Point-and-Shoot Digital Cameras

During the past few months, several new GPS-enabled point-and-shoot digital cameras were announced, including the Panasonic DMC-ZS7, Samsung HZ35W, and Sony HX5V. I am especially interested in the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7. I asked Phil Wherry, a very good friend with considerable expertise in all things technology-related (including digital photography, GPSRs, and geotagging photos), "Which camera looks like the best buy?" Phil reviewed the specifications for the three new cameras and made the following comments:

"All of these look like competent cameras, though there's nothing that stands out as amazing from a photographic perspective. GPS is going to be largely limited to outdoor use, and there's going to be some signal acquisition time. Still, a slow GPS beats no GPS. There's not enough information about any of these cameras yet to make a judgement about which one is best (and "best" is likely to depend on application, anyway). A great deal is going to depend on the performance of the sensors they've chosen, the performance of the GPS chipset, and the user interface that ties it all together. The optics matter too of course. There, the Panasonic probably has the best chance of being decent, since they're using a lens design from Leica (a company that's been in the premium optics business for a very, very long time)."

I would like to hear from early-adopters who can comment, based upon firsthand experience, about the GPS signal acquisition time performance of all three digital cameras, especially the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7.