Karen Ruby

Picasa Web Albums

Google came out with their latest foray into taking over the entire internet by releasing a beta, limited release of Picasa Web Albums last week. I received my *special* invite to check out the new feature today.

I've uploaded to "My Public Gallery" over a 100 pictures of my first trip to Montreal that I took last month.

Here's the link: http://picasaweb.google.com/Karen.Ruby

So far, I'm quite impressed with how easy it was to download and install the new Picasa2 application so that I can use the Picasa Web Albums feature. Uploading my first album only took a couple of minutes.

Picasa Web Albums allows you to share your albums or keep them private. You can choose who gets to view your albums and you're also able to bookmark "My Favourites" albums.

I've always resisted opening a Flickr account for some reason, although I do enjoy viewing my friend's albums on the site. There's no tagging in Picasa Web Albums (yet), but this is a very easy way to share my photos with friends and family (and my blog readers). I'll continue to upload selected photos on this blog (check out my numerous photo albums to the left), but since I don't want to over-load my blog storage limits, and since I take a lot of pictures, I'm very happy to be now using Picasa Web Albums to share my photos.

You can also view other people's Public albums and download all their photos to your computer. Not sure why someone would allow this, though. I've turned off this feature on my Montreal album.

I love using Picasa, and now that they have added this Web Album feature, I can see myself using it more and more to share my photos. With 250MB worth of storage space, I can really share my photos now.

Check back often to "My Public Gallery" as I'll be uploading more albums soon.

You should definitely sign up and check out the new Picasa with its Web Albums.

Tags: Google Picasa Picasa Web Albums Flickr

Netvibes

I've been using Netvibes every day for about three weeks now and I must say that it's a very cool and useful homepage. I am totally impressed with the customization and features offerred.

This Web 2.0 app provides you with your own totally customized homepage. You can add almost anything you want to your homepage, including mail services like Gmail and Yahoo, any RSS feed you want - including Digg, del.icio.us, Technorati, Boing Boing, TechCrunch, (even my own blog). You can add podcasts, Google search, to do lists, notes, bookmarks, eBay, Flickr photos, Writely documents (which I'm still waiting for my invite so that I can use that cool web word processor). I'm sure that Picasa Albums will be added too, once that app out of limited test release (hopefully soon).

I love that my home page has the ability to add multiple tabs and I can drag 'n drop (very cool!) any module that I want to any tab that I want. It's totally customizable! You can even title your page to whatever your heart's desire.

Developers are adding modules all the time to Netvibes web services, including the FIFA World Cup 2006, games, local weather, map mashups, calendars, Soduku, and so many other very useful services that I keep finding and adding to my home page.

This is pretty darn cool. I can see something like this definitely hanging around as it's so useful. Why go to tons of other sites when all the information you want is on one customized site? 

Check it out.

Tags: Netvibes Google Writely Digg

Review: The Alchemist

I read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho yesterday. Right from page one, I started underlining sentences and I think I must have underlined something on every single page. I got so much out of this book and I really recommend it if you are looking for a purpose and a reason to pursue your dreams.

I can't remember where I read that this book was a must-read (probably Oprah magazine or one of my daily RSS feeds that I read), but I'm really glad that I ordered this book from Amazon. I had never heard of Paulo Coelho, but apparently he is a very famous Brazilian author with many influential books.

From the jacket cover:

"This story, dazzing in its powerful simplicity and inspiring wisdom, is about an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the Pyramids. Along the way he meets a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king, and an alchemist, all of whom point Santiago in the direction of his quest.. No one knows what the treasure is, or if Santiago will be able to surmount the obstacles along the way."

The story is very simple, but the lessons imparted in the book are timeless: that everyone has a purpose in life or a dream when they were young that came from their heart, but as they grew up they listened less and less to their hearts and allowed their dreams to die. The universe is waiting to help you fulfil that dream, if you would only listen and pay attention to the omens in your life which are leading to what your heart really desires.

Some more pearls of wisdom from the book:

"It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting."

"Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own."

"...that a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie."

"It's what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their Personal Legend is. At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything that they would like to see happen to them in their lives."

"...people need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want. We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it's our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand."

"It was my fear of failure that first kept me from attempting the Master Work. Now, I'm beginning what I could have started ten years ago. But I'm happy at least that I didn't wait twenty years."

"Because, wherever your heart is, that is where you'll find your treasure."

There's not anything really new and earth-shattering in this book, but the writings and story speaks so well and sometimes we have to be in the mood to hear and pay attention to universal truths. I won't reveal what happens to Santiago along his journey for his personal treasure, but this book has a lot to say in its simple story and I would recommend that you read it if you are interested in listening to your heart and following your dream. It's never too late.

Tags: The Alchemist Paulo Coelho

Toronto Harbour Boat Cruise

Isn't this a cool picture?

 

I took this picture last Saturday night when I went on the Yankee Lady III (Map) boat which cruised around the Toronto Harbour, Ontario Place and the 13 Toronto Islands. This picture is out of focus and skewed, but I thought it turned out quite interesting.

I had a great time on the boat cruise (dinner, dancing, seeing the sites) and snapped some good pictures of the Toronto skyline from the boat.

Here's a couple more pictures that I thought were pretty good:

It was evening when I snapped this picture from the top deck of the Yankee Lady III boat and it was cool that night (not like today when it's 40 degrees with the humidity). Last weekend was perfect boating weather, IMO.

Seeing Toronto from the water gives you a different perspective. Look how big the CN Tower and the Rogers Center looks in this picture. Very impressive.

If you're planning on visiting Toronto, I would really recommend seeing the city by water, it's a pretty fun and interesting way to see Toronto.

Tags: Toronto Yankee Lady Toronto Harbour