Weekend Widget: Google Earth

At one time or another, I think we have all watched a bird and wished we could fly. Using Google Earth allows you to fly virtually over any place on earth. When you first open the application, you are looking at the globe. As a test, I typed "parthenon" into the search box and the globe rotated towards Europe and zoomed in on Athens, Greece until the Acropolis filled my viewing window. Not only does it show the satellite photo of the location, it also has markers indicating user submitted photos. Click on these markers and you get somewhat of a virtual tour of the area.

Of course, most users will immediately type in their address to look at their home from above. Those living in highly populated areas will probably get a nice, recent image. If you are in a more rural area, the photo probably won't be as recent and the quality not as good. This is definitely an application that is a lot of fun to use and it can also give you quite the geography lesson. Download a copy, it is free!

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Weekend Widget: Picasa 3 Beta

There are a number of applications out there for managing your digital photos. Some of the applications have a pretty hefty price and yet one of the best applications is absolutely free.

Google recently released a beta of Picasa3. Obviously the price is right. As much as I work with digital photos, I've never settled on a "management" application. I'm not sure if this is because none of them do what I want or maybe I just have no desire to organize my photos. If you've seen my desk, you might think I have no desire to organize anything. :)

Google has put together a nice video that gives you an overview of the new and improved features. If you aren't sure if Picasa is right for you, this video is worth a watch. I've included it below.



Like most photo management applications, it will upload photo to an online photo album. This might be the biggest downside of Picasa since it only supports Picasa Web Albums and not some of the other more popular online resources. Probably the coolest new feature is the ability to make basic multimedia movies from your photos and upload them to YouTube.

One thing is sure, Google makes sure that Picasa supports as many Google resources as possible. It is a small download, so give it a try and see if it is right for you. If you have another application that you prefer for managing photos, leave a comment and tell us all about it.

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Google Chrome Presents Another Option for Browsing

Those of you who are regular readers know that I highly recommend that you use something other than Microsoft Internet Explorer for the majority of your Web browsing. My personal suggestion is Mozilla Firefox for its speed, features and security.

In the last few days there have been some other developers in the world of browsers. Microsoft has released Beta 2 of Internet Explorer 8. If you are developing content for the Web, you might want to give the new version of Internet Explorer a test drive. Remember, it is beta software and it is certainly not for everyday browsing. Even when it is released, it certainly won't be my first choice.

Today, Google release a beta version of their "Chrome" browser. It is certainly different than other browsers both in looks and under the hood. Google claims that other browsers were designed for text and pictures and have been modified to handle what users are doing on the Internet today. Chrome was developed for the Internet as it is today including video, heavy scripting, multiple tabs and much more. It is also released as open source so that any developer can work on the code. Google Chrome is also a beta release. I've given it a very quick test drive and there are some things I like and some things that will require me to adjust. It is definitely something that Web developers should download and use as part of their testing process. If you aren't developing for the Web, I don't think you need to rush out and try Chrome. Just keep it in the back of your mind because it could be a major player in a very short amount of time.

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Flaws with RAW Files

If you've been reading our CorelDRAW Unleashed magazine over the past few issues, you've seen that we've had a running series discussing the usage of RAW files from your digital camera. There is no doubt that they give you the highest quality images.

The downside is that the camera makers have created so many different flavors of RAW that it can be difficult to have a single piece of software that can work with all flavors of RAW. Recently there was a post in the coreldraw.com discussion forums complaining that Corel PHOTO-PAINT X4 didn't support the RAW from a fairly new digital SLR model. The poster was correct, it was not supported. Given that it was a popular model, there is no doubt Corel will add support with the first service pack for CorelDRAW X4.

You might think that Corel just isn't keeping up with RAW. So what if a company with what seems to be an unlimited supply of money didn't support current RAW formats? That's exactly the case with Google's Picasa software as Stephen Shankland recently described in his blog.

The real problem is that camera manufacturers need to standardize on a RAW format. Even if each manufacturer would agree to a single format that worked on all of their models, the processing of the files would be much simpler. But when every new camera, and even every new firmware version, brings a new format; it is just impossible for software developers to keep up.

Adobe tried to propose a standard with its Digital Negative (DNR) format, but it has not gained any steam at all. We can only hope that some sanity appears soon and somehow the camera manufacturers simplify things.

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The Evolution of the Google Logo

I'm assuming that most of you are graphic designers. Thus, you are interested in how to create the best designs possible for your clients. Google went from nowhere to one of the most influential companies on the planet in ten years. But how was their logo born? The folks at Wired just ran an article on how the logo was created and you can see the iterations along the way. Their logo may not be the key to their success, but it is certainly one of the most recognizable logos in the world. Hopefully it can bring some inspiration to your projects.

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Easier Searching and Bookmarking

We've made a few changes to the interface of the Graphics Unleashed Web site in the last couple of weeks. Our goal is to make the site even more useful to you. These changes are small changes overall, but we hope their usefulness outweighs the size of the change.

Users are always looking for that nugget of information on the current design problem they need to solve. We've always had a Google search box to search the Graphics Unleashed site in the top navigation bar. Unfortunately it was getting lost next to other items. Since this is such an important function, we have moved the search box to the upper left of the page. Now if there is something you need to find, it should be easier to find it.

The next item we added is a Bookmark link to the upper right of the page. When you hover over this cool widget, a number of choices will pop down that allow you to bookmark the current page in a wide variety of places. This makes it easier for you to keep track of the pages that interest you the most. We like it when you bookmark as it also helps us get new traffic. Some of the services will require that you have an account so that the links get saved with your account. To the best of my knowledge, all of the services are completely free.

These changes have only been made to the Graphics Unleashed site so far, but we plan to soon make the same changes to the CorelDRAW Unleashed site. I hope you find both of these changes useful and we'll certainly be on the lookout for other changes we can make to improve the sites for you.

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