I’m a big fan of online translators, not only because I’m interested in languages in general, but also because they make my work easier every day. Google Translator has been sitting on my Bookmarks Toolbar for a long time, as it is the translating service I use more often. However I recently found out that Microsoft’s Bing has launched its own translating tool, so I decided to give it a go. You have to try things before judging them, don’t you?

The first obvious difference between Google and Bing is precisely their translating powers: while the first supports more than 50 different languages, the latter features only 20. But the truth is that when Google Translator was launched it didn’t support that many languages either, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see Bing Translator adding more languages in the future.

One thing I love about Google Translator is its ability to detect source language automatically, so I don’t have to select it every time I use it. Luckily Bing Translator offers the same functionality. Also, besides direct translations, both Google and Bing offer some extra tools, such as a widget to offer a translated version of your website (both), a special utility to perform translated searches (Google only) or a translating bot to assist you in multi-language chats (Bing only).

Now, what about translations themselves? Honestly, I didn’t find much differences between them in my tests. I tried several language combinations with Spanish, English, German and Italian, using different texts and swapping the source and target languages in order to test the translating engines. The results were surprisingly similar, in both ways: when Google Translator obtains a good translation, so does Bing; and when Bing produces a completely absurd text, Google doesn’t succeed either.

Oddly enough, both seem to be better at translating into English: as soon as you pick another target language, results are a bit distorted. Both are also equally fast: you hardly have to wait for more than 5 seconds to have your text translated. The only difference I noticed, if any, is that Bing seems to be slightly better at certain expressions, providing you with the correct translation instead of a meaningless word-by-word equivalent.

Generally speaking though, both Google and Bing feature similarly powerful translating engines. So if you work with different languages on a daily basis and need to do frequent translations, I’d suggest you take advantage of both of them!

The votes are in, the polls are closed and the results are ready…

Regular readers will remember that about a month ago, we decided to conduct a spam experiment to see what email providers perform best when dealing with junk mail. Bets were made, stances taken and friendships placed on the line, but NOBODY could have predicted the results. Read on, and prepare to be surprised!

Just to remind people, we took some deliberate risks to make sure the email accounts were given a run for their money. I entered the email addresses into a dodgy-looking Internet competition AND left the poor defenseless little fellas on the blog to be stolen by any passing spambots. We were looking for a challenge, and a challenge we got.

Many people, including myself, had high hopes for Gmail. When I took a peek, all seemed quiet - 3 emails in the inbox and a whopping 49 in spam. Unfortunately, and unexpectedly, the 3 in the inbox were out-and-out spam, while the vast majority of the ones in spam were actually genuinely from my competition!

Hotmail received the lowest number of emails overall. We found 11 in the inbox, and 7 in the junk folder. Almost all of the emails in the inbox were correctly classified, but most the ones in spam were actually genuine.

AOL took an interesting approach to the situation. There were only 2 emails in the spam folder, and both were correctly identified as junk. Over in the inbox, all but 4 of the 26 were genuinely related to the competition. Not bad going…

Poor Hushmail was very disappointing: all of the 19 messages in the inbox were spam, while the 12 in the ‘pending’ spam folder were actually a mixture of emails relating to the competition and junk. And this from the service provider that claims to have extra-special spam capabilities!

Lastly we took a look at Yahoo, one of the oldest webmail services on the block. Although it had the highest number of emails of all the accounts - 78 in total - it did well. All of the 37 emails in the inbox were related to the competition, and all of the 48 in the spam folder were total garbage.

The results were not exactly what we were expecting, but very interesting all the same. To be fair, the Internet competition that we entered generated a huge amount of correspondence and I have to admit that the emails definitely looked like spam. The key point to remember, however, is that although they look dodgy, I did solicit the communication. One of the biggest surprises was the variation in the total number of emails received by each account. Hotmail was best at keeping the numbers down, with a paltry 18, although as I counted a total of over 20 genuine emails in other accounts, it does make me wonder where the others disappeared to.

The main point of the test, however, was to see which provider did best in picking out spam and leaving the genuine - if spammy-looking - alone. To judge this, we looked at both the number of spam mails received AND the number of false positives, and when we did, the winner was clear. Yahoo, would you please step forward!

What can you learn from our little test? Well, bear in mind that the situation we created is somewhat unnatural, and that when picking an email account, there is more to consider than spam capabilities; security, usability and features are all hugely important. It is also worth asking around for the opinions of actual real-life users - even though Gmail didn’t perform great in the test, it always performs perfectly in my real accounts. That said, the test highlighted some definite winners and losers, and even though I have no intention of changing from Gmail, I certainly know which email providers I won’t be recommending to my friends!

This week I had the chance to test Immunet Protect, a cloud-based antivirus tool that protects your system thanks to the collaborative work of its thousands of users worldwide. Innovative as it sounds, this is actually not the first cloud security app I’ve seen. I tested Panda Cloud Antivirus a while a go, so I thought it may be a good idea to compare these two programs and see whether the cloud trend has any future in security software.

As a starter, Panda Cloud is not compatible with other antivirus tools you may have already installed on your system (in my case, AVG 8.5) but this is in fact a typical feature of Panda software – they can’t even coexist with other Panda apps. Immunet Protect, for its part, doesn’t mind working with other antivirus software, though you should generally avoid having two antivirus apps running at the same time.

Both programs have a ‘Summary’ window that shows system’s current status and other data. But there are some differences: Panda Cloud Antivirus has a nicer interface, with visually appealing icons and large buttons that make it easier to use. Immunet Protect, on the contrary, seems to focus more on numbers and statistics, and its toolbar menu is a bit overcrowded with buttons a links. Just after installation, Immunet performs a first system scan, while Panda doesn’t lift a finger. Read the rest of this entry »

 Apple’s App Store for iPhone has revolutionized software distribution for mobile devices. Combining ease of use for end users and simple monetization options for software developers, the App Store has proved to be a great success. But the store has also been criticized by many because of the way it forces iPhone owners into using one place to find all their apps, as well as the fact that Apple has blocked applications which might compete with its own software.

So what is Apple planning for the App Store? In this post, Tom and Jon present wildly opposing views of the future of Apple’s App Store.

Tom: Yes, Apple will roll out that App Store on Macs

The success of the App Store in changing the world of software cannot be underrated. Small applications are cool, desirable and popular. The other key mobile platforms have followed suit, launching their own app stores. And all this despite the fact that software distribution on the iPhone is actually a much tighter-controlled system than anything we’ve ever seen.

My prediction is that within four years, software distribution for Mac desktops and notebooks will occur solely through the App Store. The App Store will be relatively closed (programs will need approval from Apple just like now), and while many developers will be annoyed at Apple’s move, they will finally be forced to embrace it as the only method for getting their software installed on your Mac.

Why would Apple do this? The way I see it, they have little choice. It’s a natural next step from their current position and it will maintain their control of the Mac OS platform. Additionally, controlling the distribution of software clearly generates a massive revenue stream for Apple. I see this move as utterly inevitable, and working for a software download site, I’m looking forward to the challenges this will present!

Jon: No, Rolling out the App Store to other platforms is not inevitable

In short, rolling out the App Store to bigger devices would be costly, dangerous for the cool Apple brand, and put profits above good design.

The iPhone App Store is so successful because it’s a small device, and the well designed program makes downloading and buying applications really easy. Doing so in Safari would have been a pain. Without the constraints of a small mobile screen, the App Store is less necessary. Before the App Store, there was no intuitive software distribution for mobile applications. But on Macs (and Windows PCs), this isn’t an issue. Downloading applications is already easy.

Another issue is Apple approving everything. The iPhone is popular and has tons of applications, but that number will be dwarfed by software for the Macs. There must be a point at which the overheads required to run the App Store undermine any desire for a closed system. After all, it’s not like the current system is broken, and it’s hardware where Apple make the vast majority of their money.

They might introduce an App Store, but to make it closed would really hamper people’s use and enjoyment of their Macs. Would they really stop you downloading programs through your browser? High-end users would hate this, and Apple’s cool quotient comes in part from these users.

The last reason is that the App Store is as much a part of the iPhone experience as iTunes is part of the iPod experience. The software is an integral part of the device, and makes it complete. The Mac has OSX, which alongside the beautiful hardware makes the Mac experience loved by its users. A closed App store wouldn’t improve the OSX experience, and all Apple products are designed primarily around great user experience (from which flows their huge profits).

I can’t see the iPhone App Store model as the inevitable future for everything. It’s still relatively new, and has also been coming under sustained criticism which may even prompt Apple to open it up a little.

What do you think?

As I mentioned in my recent post about stopping spam, we’ve decided to do a little test here at OnSoftware. Earlier today, I set up five new email accounts with leading webmail providers - Gmail, Hotmail, Hushmail, AOL and Yahoo. Now we’re going to do something crazy, something that you folks should definitely not try at home - leaving them on the blog for all the world to see! We’ll also use the addresses to apply to a not very reputable-looking Internet competition. I’ll let you know if we win anything.

In a month or so, I’ll go back to each account to see just how well each has done at keeping out the spam. Will it be my personal favorite, Gmail, or an old reliable like AOL? What about the underdog, Hushmail? All will be revealed…

softonictest@live.com
softonicsptest@gmail.com
softonictest@hushmail.com
onsoftwaretest@aol.com
softonicentest@yahoo.com

In the world of iPods and iPhones, there’s nothing more annoying than not being able to copy your music from them onto your hard drive. This is because Apple have locked both devices so that you can only copy music onto them but not vice-versa. This is incredibly frustrating if you want to replace a song you’ve lost or deleted in iTunes, your Mac has crashed and your iPod/iPhone is the only place you’ve saved your music, or if you simply want to transfer some songs between computers.

Fortunately, there are two excellent “unlocking” solutions for Mac in the form of Senuti and iPodRip. Both applications used to be free but now require a modest fee to use them. Both have free trial versions however and I put them both through their paces to see which is best.

Senuti

Firstly, Senuti supports both iPod and iPhones so if you own the latter as well, then it’s a no-brainer which to choose. The interface of Senuti is very clean and as soon as you connect your iPod, your music and playlists appear pretty much instantly. To transfer a song, you can either drag and drop them or select the song and click the clearly labeled “Transfer” button in the top left corner.

That’s about all there is to it. Once a track is transferred, it is denoted with a blue dot which tells you that it has already been transferred to your hard drive. You can also play songs simply by double clicking on them. The demo is limited to 30 days and 1000 song transfers but there’s no nag screen and the full license costs $18. Read the rest of this entry »

Twitter clients for the Mac are currently exploding onto the market at an increasing rate as developers big and small try to come up with the best client. Two offerings that I recently tried are Pwitter and Bluebird. Both are free and don’t require Adobe Air like many older twitter clients so they’re super lightweight and quick.

Firstly, Pwitter only runs in Leopard at the moment so older OS X users will have to wait for

a while. Pwitter is built on Cocoa which means the developers have been able to give it a very sleek interface. While the look and feel of it is excellent (utilising Core Animation technology) you are stuck with a black GUI. The best thing about Pwitter however is its simplicity. On installation, you’re prompted for your twitter username and password. Once you’ve entered them, you instantly start receiving tweets and can start publishing them. There’s no messing around configuring sounds, skins or window views. Even someone who’s never used twitter before, will be up and running with Pwitter within seconds.

Pwitter also supports Growl alerts so you’ll never miss a tweet. On the minus side, there is no way to configure the tweet alert sounds. While the default one isn’t bad, it would have been nice to have included some way to change this sound.

Bluebird meanwhile leaves no stone unturned in the customisation department. Setting it up is not quite as straightforward as Pwitter though. For example, there’s no auto-prompt to enter your twitter username and password when you install it - you have to work out how to add a new account yourself which isn’t difficult but may confuse newcomers to twitter.

Although Twitter clients rarely get “complicated”, Bluebird is ideal for the power user who wants maximum control over how their client looks and fees. It is built on a combination of a XHTML, CSS and Javascript base so it doesn’t benefit from the Cocoa that makes Pwitter so sleek. However, what it lacks in gloss it certainly makes up for in features including the ability to filter tweets, search them and change the theme in a click. There are 3 themes to choose from (including an iChat look) which is a bit limited but better than nothing. If you’ve got a bit of HTML and CSS knowledge however, you can create your own themes which means Bluebird can at least look anyway you want it to. Changing the default themes simply requires going into preferences and using the Themes selector tab.

What I liked most about Bluebird though is the sound editor. You can define separate sounds for incoming and outgoing tweets and direct messages. There are around 10 0r 15 sounds to choose from although unfortunately, you can’t preview them so you have to wait for a tweet to arrive to see what they sound like. Nevertheless, I rely on sounds more than Growl alerts (which Bluebird also supports) and this was a real winner for me. Perhaps one of the few drawbacks of Bluebird compared to Pwitter is that you can’t hide it from the dock as yet.

The more comfortable I get with twitter, the more I’m inclined towards Bluebird. I do prefer the slickness of Pwitter though overall. Now my only problem is to work out whether Demi Moore really is twittering or employing someone to do it for her.

iPhone users have today been buzzing about the prospect of making free calls, following the release (at long, last) of Skype on the Apple device. The client allows users to make free Skype-to-Skype calls over WiFi, and SkypeOut calls to anyone around the World over 3G. It marks a significant breakthrough for Skype, a company, perhaps quite rightly, feared by mobile network operators for the damage it could do to their cushy business models.

The new iPhone version of Skype will be a worry for Nimbuzz, which, until now, has been top of the pile in terms of iPhone chat apps. Until now, Nimbuzz offered the best way to make Skype calls from an iPhone. So, how does the official version of Skype compare with the Nimbuzz offering?

Firstly, it’s worth remembering that Nimbuzz is a multi-network client that allows you to pull all your contacts together in one place, so you can exchange messages with all your friends on networks such as MSN, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, Jabber, Facebook, or MySpace - as well as Skype. The iPhone Skype client, however, is designed solely for Skype users and, as a result, has more of the native functions from the VoIP service.

Usability

The user interface in Nimbuzz combines all of your contacts from all these various networks in one place, and you can see who is online at any time. Everything is presented in a very neat and clear way: contacts are ordered alphabetically and each has a different icon depending on which network they belong to. You simply need to tap on a person’s name then select an icon from: Call, Chat or Mail.

The Skype UI is equally impressive. In fact, I would say it’s unerringly similar. Skype also has an alphabetized contacts, which is even easier to navigate than the one in the desktop version of the program. You can choose to view all of your contacts, or only the ones who are online. Click on a contact and their profile page will be loaded, giving you the option to either call them, chat, or view their full profile. Both Skype and Nimbuzz have similar, finger-friendly dialpads, for making calls over SkypeOut.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you were to fix up the heavyweight P2P TV battle of the World and then watch them smash each other’s brains out, then you’d surely have to go for Sopcast and TVAnts - two monsters of the P2P ring. I’ve probably come to rely on both of these two applications more than my TV for sports viewing over the past few years because of the wide access they offer to English football streamed on foreign channels.

What they offer though is two quite different P2P TV applications. While TVAnts is purely about broadcasting and is heavily dominated by Chinese channels, Sopcast not only broadcasts but allows you to create your own channels as well. How many people actually do bother to set up their own channel on Sopcast is another question since the vast majority in the West probably use it for sports viewing like myself.

Added to the fact that setting up your own channel is not particularly well explained, it’s not a big edge over TVAnts but at least it’s there if you want it. The existence of this option however does mean that Sopcast always prompts you if you want to log in on start-up which is a bit annoying. While also heavily influenced by Chinese channels, Sopcast however definitely has a broader range of channels from all over the world.

The important thing to consider with any P2P TV app though is does it stream content well and are the channel names and listings decipherable? In the case of TVAnts it’s a definite yes to the former and a resounding no to the latter. TVAnts offers some of the most stable P2P TV streams around but unfortunately, most of the channels are in listed in Chinese and there’s virtually no way of navigating what’s on unless you know the language. Sopcast on the other hand is mainly dominated by channels that are at least labelled in English (albeit badly such as the intriguingly titled “Man & Woman Romance Epic”!!). The annoying thing however is that it seems not many of the channels are ever streaming (including the aforementioned epic I might add). Click on any channel on TVAnts and you’re at least guaranteed something will appear even if you don’t understand it. Read the rest of this entry »

Working as software reviewer means that you have to install at least twenty new apps every week and uninstall them again as soon as you’re done with your analysis. However we all know how unhealthy this habit is for Windows, so using a virtual environment is almost compulsory. Virtual operating systems provide you with a safe sandbox where you can test as many programs without affecting the host system. What’s more, they usually feature an easy way to rid of a slow, app-ridden Windows and get a fresh, brand-new installation in a couple of clicks.

Among the several virtualization apps available today, I’ve tried VMware Player and VirtualBox. Though I’ve used the latter only for a few weeks now, I already found some interesting similarities – and its corresponding differences – between both programs that I thought would be worth pointing out.

Both VMware Player and VirtualBox are free apps, which is always a good point for a start. However VMware Player is more limited, because it doesn’t allow you to create new images (i.e. virtual operating systems) while VirtualBox does. If you want to create new images for VMware Player, you’ll have to upgrade to the more pricey Workstation version.

As for general performance, I find VMware Player to be more stable than VirtualBox. The first one usually runs very smoothly – except for the odd blue screen of death – while the second one has often shown a blank screen on my virtual machine, which means the system is frozen and you need to restart. Besides this stability issue, the truth is that VirtualBox is lighter on resources than VMware Player, making it easier to work with the host and guest systems in parallel. Relating to this, VirtualBox also features a really handy tool you don’t find in VMware Player: the possibility to “pause” the virtual machine, so that a good percentage of processor power and memory are released and you can then run heavy apps like Photoshop with no further hassle.

Regarding usability, both programs have their own pros and cons. On the one hand, VMware Player supports shared folders and also lets you directly drag and drop files between both the guest and host systems, while VirtualBox only works with shared folders that you need to configure before running the program. Keyboard and mouse swapping between the guest and host machines is generally more intuitive in VMware Player, whereas VirtualBox requires you to press a hotkey. Also, copying and pasting between the two operating systems works for VMware Player, but not for VirtualBox. On the other hand, VirtualBox enables you to create the so called snapshots, which let you restore the system to a previous state at any time. This comes in really handy when the image is not working properly and you can’t bother to create a new one: simply restore it to a previous fully working snapshot and you’re done.

In general terms, I’d say VMware Player is more intended to heavy users who need a reliable, powerful virtual environment to test software or try new operating systems, while VirtualBox seems to be more focused on not so techie people, who only want to test new apps in a safe environment without compromising the integrity of their computers. Now it’s your turn to try them and make up your mind.

Ok, so we’re still in the middle of summer, so why would I want to talk about research papers? True, it’s not the most exciting of topics at this time of the year, but unfortunately it’s what many scholars around the world are working on right now. You may have a deadline and the important thing is to reach it with your paper completed.

Although you’ll probably find less specialized applications on Mac than on Windows, I’ve noticed three excellent applications that not only help you handle your references, but also search and organize your papers and journals. These are, in no particular order, Sente, Papers and Reference Tracker. For those of you looking for quality Mac applications to help you out on your research paper, here is a look at each application’s notable features:

• Sente - I really like this reference manager. It has an iTunes-like structure to store and organize your papers in smart folders. The search function lets you reach numerous university library catalogs, PubMed and the Web of Knowledge. Sente also lets you download and search PDFs and has a great tool to insert citations into any word processor.
• Papers - Very similar to Sente, in that it offers the same sort of interface and structure. Papers lets you search through dozens of specified search engines for scholars such as ACS Portal or Citeseer. The multi-tabbed interface is great to keep more than one journals open at once and you have quick access to discussion panels from the right of the interface.
• Reference Tracker - Probably not as complete as the other two, Reference Tracker is still a very good program to handle your references.  The app keeps all your citations stored in the Harvard formatted list style and includes ISBN lookup and Amazon search. Handy if you are starting to lose count of all the references for your research paper.

What’s the best BitTorrent client for Mac? On Softonic it seems the favorite is still Azureus. I like Azureus, especially because it has so much statistics and features that you can go and tweak for hours. Still, I think it’s pretty resource intensive and probably not the friendliest torrent client for somebody who’s new to downloading. You can go with the basic BitTorrent client, but why when there are better ones around? Two highly popular alternatives are Tomato Torrent and Transmission. Let’s see how they compare to each other.

First up, Tomato Torrent. On start up this client doesn’t look like your usual BitTorrent client, as it shows a starting point window, where you get to choose different actions depending on whether you’re downloading or serving torrents. Even after you’ve launched a torrent you’ll have to get accustomed to it, as Tomato Torrent only displays the selected torrent with its own options and status.

You can adjust the different settings, like the number of incoming connections and upload maximums and minimums individually. Once a download is started you’ll see a progress bar, including percentage and status detail, like the download rate or the number of peers and seeds. From the preferences menu you can set how Tomato Torrent automatically stops completed torrents: according to time, percentage or amount of data. You can also choose the default maximum upload rate and have it automatically changed when finished.

Transmission has a more common interface, similar to most download managers, which shows all your torrents in a list. Torrents can be viewed in five different ways: all, active, downloading, seeding and paused. Transmission automatically shows upload and download rates and it includes a search box to find torrents more quickly. You can pause and resume downloads any time and add colored labels to them.

In the preferences you’ll see you can set download and upload limits. Even better is the speed limit mode, which overrides total bandwidth limits. This comes in handy if you don’t want Transmission hogging your connection. Speed limit can be scheduled during the day. Similarly you can set limits to the number of global connections and connections for new transfers. Even better, Transmission lets you prefer encrypted peers and block bad ones.

My personal preference goes to Transmission, as I find it very easy to use, yet fitted with just the right set of features, like encryption or speed limit. It’s simple yet complete. Tomato Torrent is a bit more basic, but it has a step through feel that makes a good choice for first time downloaders. Nothing can really go wrong with Tomato Torrent, as the application takes you through the downloading process all the way. After that, the choice is yours.

If you’re a Twitter fan then you’ll know that it’s not particularly well integrated with your desktop. However, there are two very simple solutions which can transform the way you use twitter - Twhirl and TwitterFox. Thanks to Adobe Air, you can now integrate twitter with your desktop much more easily courtesy of twhirl? By doing so, you can keep your status constantly updated quicker, improve your communication options and even change the look of twitter. In particular, it makes adding new friends much quicker and easier than in Twitter’s standalone version. In addition, this is a cross platform Twitter extension that works on both Windows and Mac and connects to multiple twitter and Friendfeed accounts. It provides instant desktop notification of new tweets and even allows you to post images to TwitPic. Also useful is the fact that if you’ve been pestered or bothered by either spam twitters or just someone really annoying, the most recent version also allows you to block other users. The tricky part is configuring it though - if it’s not done correctly, you run the risk of being stuck with old tweets every time you log in and being frozen out of twhirl occasionally although there is a very good user forum to seek help in. Keep track of the latest releases and developments on the twhirl blog.

However, the big downside of twhirl is that it requires installation of Adobe Air. In my opinion, it’s worth doing this although if you’re working a low spec machine, then it may be wise to avoid it. If this is your case, then you’d be much better seeking a lightweight solution in the form of TwitterFox. TwitterFox allows you to enjoy similar advantages to twhirl but the difference is that it simply plugs into Firefox. TwitterFox sits on your Firefox status bar for instant access to your friends and status changes. However, you can’t block contacts or post images like you can with twhirl although on the upside, it requires virtually no configuration whatsoever. One other minor criticism is that as you type, TwitterFox counts up to 140 characters rather than counting down which would be much more helpful because you always have to remember not to go over the 140 twitter character limit.

In summary, there’s probably little doubt that twhirl offers you more functionality than TwitterFox. However, it also requires more configuration and you’ll probably experience quite a few teething problems setting it up. If you’re just looking for a little better integration with your desktop and are working on a slow machine, go for TwitterFox. If you’re a serious twitter user, then you should definitely give twhirl a whirl.

I don’t think many people would dispute the claim that Photoshop is the best desktop photo editing suite out there. Likewise, most people would agree that it’s probably too expensive for the average home computer user. Things are changing though, and there are now a number of viable alternatives to the Adobe package that won’t cost you a penny. In the open source world, projects such as The GIMP and Paint.NET have brought huge graphic manipulation capabilities into the hands of those who cannot afford Photoshop (and who are honorable enough not to download an illegal version).

Things are getting even better too, thanks to the ongoing development of some geniunely powerful online image editing tools. Besides being free, the advantage these Web apps give you is that you can access your projects from anywhere and collaborate with others more easily. I’ve tried three of the most popular ones and here’s what I thought:

• Picnik - Users of Flickr will be familiar with this one, as it’s included as the default image tweaker with all accounts. Don’t worry if you don’t have a Flickr account because you can sign up for free with Picnik and it only takes a few seconds. The first thing that will strike you about this app is its drop-dead gorgeous interface. The quirky green background and translucent tabs make it a joy to work in, and it’s pretty easy to get around too.You can load images into the editor from a variety of sources, including by browsing to your hard drive, entering a URL to the picture, and even directly accessing your Facebook, Flickr or MySpace accounts. Clicking the ‘Edit’ tab will then present you with the main editing interface, which includes basic tweaking tools such as auto-fix, crop, resize, exposure, red-eye removal, etc. Click the ‘Create’ tab and you’ll be able to preview and apply one of a variety of effects to your pictures, as well as inserting text and shapes. Picnik has some pretty decent output options, with the ability to save to one of six formats (including to PDF) and a facility for adjusting the image dimensions.

  On the whole I was very impressed with the design of the Picnik application and it’s very intuitive to use. Unfortunately though, the free version of the service doesn’t include options such as full-screen mode, unlimited photo history, or anything in the way of advanced editing features, such as layer support or drawing tools. Read the rest of this entry »

Even though up till now all my pictures have been stored in iPhoto, I’ve gotten to a point where I can’t stand working with the application anymore. I find it too slow and too limited in terms of editing. I’m also not satisfied with the way you can organize and store your photos. The easiest solution would simply be to switch to Adobe Lightroom or Apple Aperture, but I’m waiting for a new Mac to do that. This is why I’ve gotten around to using Adobe Bridge, until I choose a more advanced solution. Now Adobe Bridge is never meant to replace any of the previously mentioned photo management apps. It doesn’t store pictures, but only displays them in multiple ways. As the name mentions, it also works as a bridge with all other Adobe applications, and you can quickly access specific functions in them, like merging to HDR in Adobe Photoshop.

I’m not ready to export all my pictures from iPhoto and save them in new folders in the Pictures folder of my Mac, so is there a way for Adobe Bridge and iPhoto to coexist? You can try but it is a little risky. The iPhoto library is a little complex and you can easily get lost in it. To access pictures stored in iPhoto, go to Library>Pictures>iPhoto Library and choose the folder with the date the pictures were taken at. If that doesn’t work you can also try this way. One thing to get right though is to select the correct pictures to edit.

As this forum discussion does well to explain, iPhoto saves photos in three folders: Originals, Modified and Data. Originals stores all the pictures imported from your camera, Modified has the pictures with your edits done in iPhoto, such as cropping or rotating, and Data contains thumbnails. Depending on how you work, you’ll choose to work with either the originals or modified, but try to stay consistent, or you’ll end up not knowing which ones are which. I prefer only working on the modified photos, that way I always keep the originals (for backup reasons), and they also already include any changes done in iPhoto. One really important thing to keep in mind though is to never, ever, move or delete pictures from your iPhoto libraries. You’ll risk messing up the iPhoto library structure and losing pictures.

Ultimately though, to the question, can you work with both iPhoto and Adobe Bridge, I’d say no. As said before the iPhoto library structure is complex and you’ll end up corrupting it. If you’ve gotten to this point, you’re simply better off switching to Adobe Lightroom or Apple Aperture in the long run. If like me you can’t do that for now, you’re safer choosing between iPhoto or Adobe Bridge. I’m choosing Bridge. In the future, we’ll compare how to import pictures from iPhoto to Lightroom and Aperture and choose which one is easier.