I don't need anything fancy, just fast and able to handle a good number of photos. Picasa is pretty close -- I wish they would just make a Mac version (and improve the color correction and video abilities). - Paul Buchheit

I only know of, aperture, lightroom, photon & the apps that comes with phanfare.com, flickr & smugmug - Zee from WeDoCreative

Aperture is really cool because you can make batch changes to a set of photos, make branches, and undo across restarts, among other things. It requires importing though, which sounds like you wouldn't want. - Chris White

Closest to meeting all of your requirements used to be iView. Not sure if that's still true. I bailed on it after Microsoft bought it and renamed it Expression Media. http://www.microsoft.com/expre.... I use Aperture now. - Jack Baty

Files can remain in the directory in which they reside. They do not have to be imported into the library, although that makes it easier for backup. A free trial might is available at: http://www.apple.com/aperture/... . It more than adequately meets your criteria for photos, but does not deal with video, which it will back up to your chosen directory. You can readily move them, put them on an external HD, etc. Lightroom is an alternative. - Steve Pribut

I switch to my Windows machine and use Picasa for photos. - Amit Patel

I haven't used it but ShoeBox got a good MacWorld rating: http://www.kavasoft.com/Shoebo... - Billy Shipp

The problem with a lot of these photo organizers is that they want to own your world, but that's not what I want. I'm going to upload the photos to one or two places, copy them to other computers, etc. Having them stuck in some weird system on one computer is not ok. That's why working with the actual filesystem directory structure is important. - Paul Buchheit

Why not just use the Leopard file system + Preview? Is it because of speed? Preview supports cropping and color correction. The new finder features, like coverflow and pressing the spacebar for a preview are handy too. I put the Picasa Uploader in my dock so I can easily upload photos, although I wish Picasa would accept images dragged onto the dock icon. - Chris White

how about using expandrive and hosting all your photos on on a separate server and then using one of the many photo editors to edit them on your desktop? - Zee from WeDoCreative

or might be a little too slow - depends - Zee from WeDoCreative

I'll be interested to know what you settle on. - Bruce Lewis

Chris, I don't have Leopard -- can you delete from inside of Preview? - Paul Buchheit

I don't think you can delete from the app called Preview, but I only use that for cropping and color correction. Coverflow, which lets you flip through your images does let you delete via Command-Delete. The default app for images is Preview, so if you want to crop / color correct, just double-click. Leopard is suppose to be faster for image display in the Finder, although I haven't seen any speed comparisons. - Chris White

Chris, do all these programs retain metadata for edited photos? Most important, the EXIF date the photos were taken? - Bruce Lewis

Bruce, I'm pretty sure both Aperture and Preview maintain EXIF data, although I haven't tested that. - Chris White

I love Lightroom. - Jason Wehmhoener

man, it sounds like we're looking for the same thing. iPhoto sucks. - Brett Kelly

iView is what professional photojournalists use. I would have a look at that if I were you. I'm pretty sure MS is still keeping the Mac version of it. - Gabe Schaffer

Still using iView for now. It sounds like the newer Expression Media has had less than positive reviews. I have over 30,000 pictures in various catalogs and it works nicely. It did take a while to figure out a workflow that works for me but I had somewhat of an advantage since I had to design filesystem layouts previously. Extensis is an another option. If you care about IPTC or GPS EXIF, some hackery will be required as the different tools have different levels of support. - Jauder Ho

i like both aperture and lightroom. lightroom gives me better-looking photos though aperture is a little easier to use. at least i find that to be the case - Cee Bee

@Paul could you please share your requirements with us? Blindly suggesting an app without knowing your exact needs is pretty pointless. I use Adobe Bridge for workflow automation, meta management and multi client asset organization but I bet it won't be a good match for you. So please share your functional requirements. - Berk D. Demir via twhirl

I use Lightroom, and that's what I'd recommend. If you don't want to spend any money, you might want to check out blueMarine (http://bluemarine.tidalwave.it...). I've only played around with it for a few minutes, but I see it has potential, and it seems like it'd be just fine for the items you mentioned. - Donato

@Donato Cool.. I haven't seen this before.. :) @Paul I was looking for something like this in the past. What I wanted was a photo browsing application with Tagging and the ability to browse what you already have. I've ended up settling for Lightroom, but it's still sort of an overkill and it's RAW features are not useful for an amateur photographer like me. I'm really interested in what you find out from these comments heheh. - Chris Chua

Maybe I need to write my own. Does AIR have the necessary capabilities for this kind of thing? - Paul Buchheit

Sure, you could write it in AIR, but I haven't heard anything yet that convinces me you can't just use the leopard finder for what you want. - Chris White

Adobe Bridge - Bjorn Tipling

chris - i agree. Leopard finder and photoshop are the best solution until Google brings Picasa to Mac - Jared Radosevich

Chris, does the leopard finder show the photo full size, or do I have to open a separate program for that? Also, I don't have leopard. - Paul Buchheit

Also using Adobe Bridge. Love it. - cartoongoddess

@Chris, you can Delete from Preview. @Paul: you can't show the photo full size in finder, you'd need to open with a separate program. - David Vasileff

I use Xee, http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/xee... it aspires to be what Paul is looking for I think, but it doesn't do color correction, but you can hotkey to an editor of your choice, including Preview, which does color correction. Xee is free and there's source code available, too. - David Vasileff

we might see a mac version of picasa this year. Adobe elements is a $100 alternative to iPhoto. I have used it. Works good but a very heavy tool. - pankaj

David, how do you delete in Preview? Do you need more than one document open? - Chris White

I mentioned blueMarine the other day, but just found http://www.photonator.com/ a few minutes ago - then remembered your query and posted 'er back here. You're not subscribed to me, but that doesn't mean that I can't help. ;) - l0ckergn0me

One of the comments on Paul's blog suggests redoing the chart by factoring in the fluctuations of the US dollar vs other currencies: "From a European's perspective, the Dow has fallen from 11,000 to 7,000 during Bush's presidency." - Simon

When you blame someone, you are saying they have power. Someone who's to blame for all your problems is pretty powerful. - Amit Patel

"OLPC" after this? One laptop per cow? : ) - Erhan Erdogan

Just like shopping carts. - Amit Patel

That's just calling out for a good WiFi hotspot caption, but I've got nothing. - Ken Sheppardson

Of course, once you put this thing on the head of a herd leader all the other cows will laugh at him. Maybe it can be concealed under a top-hat. - Ethan Jewett via twhirl

indulge yourself into cholesterol stream :) - silpol

a KK Original Glazed only has 5mg of dietary cholesterol, not that big a deal, and "only" 200 calories. The bacon cheddar cheeseburger filling is quite a bit more nutritionally questionable than the doughnut. (On the other hand, it contains actual nutrients, which the doughnut doesn't.) - ⓞnor

Sugar's a nutrient, right? The brain runs on sugar. I have no problem with the donut or the bacon cheeseburger. I just don't like mixing sweets with non-sweets. - Amit Patel

Tad: join our sect. I'll be your guru there! :) http://friendfeed.com/rooms/da... - directeur via NoiseRiver

Go go social graph. - Eric Florenzano

Again directeur - I support the movement, I'm just bored by it. Just make it work. ;) The internets is for dumping awesome into the truck of utility. - Tad Donaghe

Tad, I myself already using some of its techs in my products :) If you're a dev do so too, if not pass the message :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

One thing I was wondering along this same vein, are there ajax widgets or something that you could put on your blog/site and allow people to subscribe/follow/digg/stumble/whatever you in one click? Must I visit the actual site every time? - Rahsheen Porter

I'd LOVE That Rahsheen! That'd be an excellent intermediate step. I think too many sites are still too worried about attention focusing. They WANT you to visit their site to stroke their ego, ads, etc - Tad Donaghe

I don't see why something like this doesn't exist for all social sites. You are adding the person so that you can interact with them at a later time on that service, so they shouldn't care if you hit the site to add them as a "friend." The "+friend" buttons on Digg work exactly how I want, I would just rather them be on MY site and work for every social network. - Rahsheen Porter

I was just twitter-moaning the same thing when I saw this in FF, some of you want leaps and bounds, I'd be happy if I could just join a new network and have all my accounts/contacts automagically connected - Scott Bannon via twhirl

actually, it seemed like swurl did that automatically... - edythe

Ya, we do, check us out http://www.swurl.com/ We try to do as much magic as we can for you, computers are suppose to be smart aren't they? - Ryan Sit

i was just about to say, I dig that swurl and feedly just kind of did that. I haven't gotten on board with feedly yet but I like the concept. Find me. Don't make me find myself. - Jason Toney

it is my hope to built it... and then "they" will come :) - Larry via twhirl

I want a FireFox plugin that auto logs me in to all the websites I use. I think that would do a lot of good. It seems like this would be possible but no one has written one! - Stefan Hayden

I still think this is like asking GM to make your key fit in a Toyota, cause you only want to carry one key. Most of these services are competitors. No (successful) business makes it easier for you to move to a competitor. - Brian Norwood

Brian, one of the reasons I don't use more web services is exactly because I'm sick of signing up for them and manually re-adding all my friends. If sites want us to use them they can either better make it brain dead simple or offer a service so compelling that we're willing to do the hard stuff. For many competitors who don't offer something that much different, an auto-subscription thing that I'm talking about would allow them to attract many more users. - Tad Donaghe

Tad, I don't dispute the truth of your statement, or deny I suffer from sign-up fatigued as well. I'm just saying it doesn't fit any business model I've ever seen to help you easily move to a competitor. What we need is a third party service who keeps track of our info and our friends, then custom shoe horns that stuff into each new service that pops up. THAT would be handy. Open ID is too passive. What we need is a sign up SERVICE. - Brian Norwood

would love to be able to import all my flickr contacts, have them match up with FF accounts where possible and create imaginary friends for the rest which would be replaced by their actual accounts as they joined over time. - Thomas Hawk

Right Thomas - and you ought to be able to do that just by clicking a single button that says "Import my contacts." Or at the very least have a single button and a drop down - Import -> Flickr - Tad Donaghe

I really like swurl, haven't messed with feedly yet, but even with swurl I had to manually input all of my account names/URL's/etc. to bring everything together. It wasn't hard, but it wasn't automagic either. Brian mentioned OpenID as too passive, I disagree with that and think user data could be expanded to contain the social network connections you have, then when you join a new service with your OpenID that service could automagically grab everything for you in the background. I'm not pushing for OpenID as the answer, just saying that's one possibility that wouldn't be overwhelming to achieve. - Scott Bannon via twhirl

I was really impressed with how well swurl worked. - Jason Wehmhoener

concur on swurl doing that automatically via each service - doubt i'll live in it like tend to in ff but it is a cool environment - mike "glemak" dunn

I'm probably the only one who uses rather different sets of “friends” on each network. - Amit Patel

Isn't this what gnip is supposed to do? Also, about swurl -- I would say it's been working a LOT of magic, it added a TON of friends of mine on different services. Ryan - Could you consider some bulk-editing tools for the friends tab? Like "mute all people not on swurl", for example? - J. Phil

Agreed that swurl is fantastic behind the scenes once you enter in your account names/url's for each service... what I'd like to see though is a hubbed identity source so that when you join a new service you don't have to enter your FF username, your Twitter username, your FB feed url and etc. Just let me click "join" and find me--and my connections--everywhere. - Scott Bannon via twhirl

Also, if it gets too magical, you get a service like spokeo. It's kinda scary. - J. Phil

"Nexting." I like that term. I compulsively next an entire week, then get paralyzingly overwhelmed at the plethora of things I have to do, and wind up only accomplishing 10% of what I planned out. I'm interested to see what strategies work for you over the next few weeks/months. Oh God, did I just next not nexting? - Mark Trapp

I think it is much more healthy to spend time thinking about the future than the past. Myself I am more of an eat whatever is around when I am hungry person like your husband. But my lack of planning means I miss out on activities and later regret the lack of planning. - Brian Sullivan

"I clapped my hands over my ears and chanted, 'NA NA NA NA NA NA,' until I realized I was driving, and turned the radio volume down instead." :D - possible248

Thinking about the future can be dangerous if it takes you away from enjoying the here and now. I sometimes can't relax and enjoy what's going on right this second because of obsessively contemplating what's going on later... - Jason Kaneshiro

Be Here Now. - Jason Wehmhoener

Yoda had a lecture about always looking to the future, of course if would have planned ahead a little more we could have avoided that whole Empire thing - RAPatton

Your description of how your husband thinks about eating vs. you is classic. Exactly describes my wife and me. Cereal for dinner? Not a problem! - Hutch Carpenter

I think you're onto something: it's often a lot more relaxing to just stop and breathe and stop thinking about the future. - j1m

I think I'm a NEXT-er and a LAST-er. The future and the past both seem more important than the now usually does. - Wm Scott Rees

Yoda was a terrorist. - Amit Patel

@Amit Patel Yeah, he was the mastermind behind blowing up the death stars and runs a terrorist training camp on Dagobah - RAPatton

Isn't thinking about the future what's supposed to get us to drive Priuses and save for retirement? Americans seem to be accused alternately of being short-sighted and of being unable to focus on the moment. Maybe it's all about being smart about what to next and how much. For example, if you did plan your meals (or a default choice) on paper a week ahead of time, it might free you from having to think about it as much. Not that I could bring myself to do that. - ⓞnor

This is big news for SEO. I'd like to see how it actually pans out and what the engines (cough - Google) says about it. Where's Matt Cutts when you need him? - AJ Kohn

This sounds awesome. According to the article, we'll be seeing a lot more flash: "This may be an even more significant announcement for businesses that have considered building Flash websites, but didn’t want to sacrifice their search rankings — now, if Google and Yahoo live up to their promises, no one will have to make that choice, removing one of Flash’s big drawbacks." - j1m

@Bret - we're checking up on that question. definitely a good one. - MG Siegler

A new breed of Flash SEO specialists will surely rise from this. - Mark Krynsky

I've been wanting more Flash sites. i hate the back button working correctly, and being able to grab images off a site. I also really dislike sites that use a scrollbar, but instead prefer fixed sized sites that simply scale larger when resized. Plus, most html sites don't have cool loading screens, with interesting music. Now that I don't listen to the radio as much, without Flash, where would I get new music ideas from? - Chris White

This is huge for web designers as well. For a long time many have been pushing their clients away from all Flash sites based on SEO concerns. - Shey

Most modern Flash design now puts text in external xml files/databases rather than the .swf itself. Similar to ajax, it's tough to know what "state" the flash movie is in as Bret mentions. Anyway... bring back the flash intro splash screens ftw! - Andrew Smith

@Bret That's a great question. Is it possible they'll start look at the AS code or some other way of reading dynamic text fields? - Shey

Haha, Chris. Do you also hate sacrificing a misguided design aesthetic for usability? I wish more Flash developers availed themselves of the tools Flash provides to make their flash apps more usable and accessible. - Mark Trapp

Ugh. - Amit Patel

Yeah!!! Congratulations. - Charlie Anzman

Mark is a good name if you're taking suggestions :) - Mark Krynsky

Stunning. Congrats Paul and family! Long day I bet. Hope all is well. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

wow! hello baby! congratulations! - browneyes

congrats - Aaron Myers

Congratulations! : ) - Jess Lee

Mazel Tov! Thanks for sharing! All the best! - Larry Kless

awwwwwwww.. so cute and cuddly !! Con'grats !! - Peter Dawson

Now that is beautiful..... - Chris Reed

"Maşallah. Allah analı babalı büyütsün." : ) That's our default congratulation for new babies. : ) - Erhan Erdogan

life is amazing...thanks for sharing. - Pokai

恭喜恭喜！ - liuyuntian

Congratulations - Francois "Shoob" Lamotte

Congratulations to you and family - Varun Mahajan

Welcome to the Father's Club! - Andrej

Congratulations, Paul, and to your wife! What a cutie.:-) - Cathryn Hrudicka

Congrats :) - Roland Hesz via twhirl

wow..new life.. :) - Jaycai

Congratulations. Wish all of you the absolute best. - Tsega D

Congratulations!!! - Vic Podcaster

Congrats Paul All the best to all the family - Dom Barnes via twhirl

Mazel Tov! Thanks for sharing! Life inexorably rolls on and it is a great thing to see the next generation. :) - Mathew A. Koeneker

"Hello World" -- cute phrase to use :) - RAPatton

Yaaaaaahhhh! IS this the 1st FriendFeed birth?!?!? - john conroy

hello! - Mitchell Tsai

I second Clare's comment. - Robert Felty

Mozel Tov on the newest Friendfeeder! - Mike Fruchter

world = [f.kiss for f in friendfeed.users] - directeur

congrats paul & family! - Natala Menezes

Congratulations April & Paul! Just two days ago you told me you currently have 1.9 children. I assumed April still had something like three more weeks to go :) All the best for your growing family! - Mustafa K. Isik

Cathleen: yep, that's how it works. If the conversation is interesting, it keeps bubbling back up to the top. Otherwise, it fades away into the previous pages. - Jason Wehmhoener

If you like/comment on something, you can click on your discussion page tomorrow & see what happened on the discussion after you left... It's like having a personalized newspaper. - Mitchell Tsai

When I first started using Friendfeed, I used AlertThingy, but now I run Friendfeed from an SSB using Fluid (http://fluidapp.com). All of the third-party implementations of Friendfeed are missing major features, making them less than ideal. I block out portions of time to use Friendfeed while doing other things, like watching TV, checking my Feeds, or waiting on other things. If something happens while I'm not actively FFing, I learn to just let it go rather than get constantly reminded like with Twitter. - Mark Trapp

Friendfeed is very much centered around the conversations that are happening now with people you're following, rather than always playing catchup like with Twitter and RSS. Most of the third party apps seem to attack Friendfeed like they do Twitter, and it doesn't work. - Mark Trapp

That's some deep meta workflow there Mark. I like it. :-) - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

I never liked Twitter's page, use Twitterific. The contrary here - I really really like the .com. It's great, I keep a tab open at all times. Unless I don't want to be distracted by my addiction to it. - (steve isaacs)

I always have the website open as a tab in FeedDemon - Steven Hodson

If you like sidebars, this is a very worthy app: http://mysocial247.com/ - Vince DeGeorge

I follow FF from my Google Homepage - Bryan Clark

I have FF configured as an account in Twhirl .. - Joe Magennis

It makes one feel a bit leery of handing out business cards, if only for a second :-) - Ranjit Mathoda

now i also feel bad about handing out my moo cards! ;) - Dieter Schwarz

Looks like I need new cards. :) Mine have never made anyone sweat. - Harvey Simmons

this has to be one of the greatest scenes ever! - Morgan via twhirl

Loved this scene in the book. But couldn't watch the film actually. Don't know why - I didn't like it after reading the book. But this scene is just great! - Anton Nekipelov

Hardly Working's NSFW spoof in this scene: http://www.collegehumor.com/vi... - Ryan Kaisoglus

best scene ever. I'm voting for satire here. The fact that all 3 cards pretty much look the same and they are getting worked up about subtle coloring... can't be serious. - Tsega D

yeah easily one of my favorite scenes ever. when i saw american psycho in theaters i was maybe the only person laughing throughout the whole thing. many people walked out. - MG Siegler

I got so worked up about this scene, I went and bought some cards from Smythson. They were beautiful, but the per-card cost was so high, I didn't like to hand them out. Oh - and they look *nothing* alike. Two are in serif, two in sans, for God's sake. Even the corporate marque is different, and each card has a different margin. - Mat Morrison

this movie is so underrated it's an outrage. the fact that I can't tell with certainty if this movie is satire or not gives it loads of respect in my book. christian bale should've got serious award consideration too. -