Sharing Pictures = Frustrations

I have been experimenting with Google's combination of desktop picture-management software and online picture-sharing service, Picasa.  It's quite nice in several ways.

The thing I like most about it is that it doesn't move anything around on the disk (unless told to do so intentionally and explicitly); it builds and maintains a database of all of the pictures on the drives it detects (JPEG and other common formats), supports some practical (and some slightly esoteric) editing features, can be used to move files into different locations on disk, can directly import picture files from cameras and cards, and so forth.  It can upload selected pictures to a Google host online, where some management tasks can be carried out in a browser window.

That's where the difficulty lies.

Picasa online supports three levels of privacy:  _all public_, _unlisted_, and _invitation-only_.  Because I am interested in sharing only with my friends (but not in the additional layer of administration needed to maintain explicit invitations for each event/collection), I put my pictures into the _unlisted_ area and noted the URL (link address) that Google/Picasa indicated.

I checked that it worked, shared it to friends by e-mail, and felt pretty clever.

Immediately, some people replied that there was nothing there.

I don't know for certain why this problem occurs, but I am working on it.

Please accept my apology. My feeling clever is just about over.

--Mark_
04 September 2010