Installation of Software for my Picasa/Google/Dropbox Photo setup

Install / Setup

1. Google account

If you don’t currently use gmail, sign up.  I don’t care if you use the email, but it comes with picasa web and a good amount of space to backup to.  So go to www.gmail.com and sign up for an account.

2. Dropbox ( optional, but my option for photo sharing between phone/personal computers )

Go to www.dropbox.com and sign up.  Fill in all the info, setup a password, etc.

Download and install it onto your computer(that you want to store pictures on).   When you install you’ll need to use the same info you signed up on their website with.  It’ll create a folder on your computer, and everything you put in that folder will be synced with their servers and anywhere you have dropbox.

3. Dropbox on your phone( optional – again recommended )

Install onto your phone from your app store.

Setup option to sync photos wirelessly.  At this point you can either let it sync up(it’s a little annoying cause if it goes to sleep it stops syncing), or you  turn on background uploading.  It’ll kick off pictures every so often and will get it done for you when you’re on a wireless network.  I wouldn’t turn it on for Cellular data: video’s can be big.

4. Install Picasa

http://picasa.google.com/

Go to download picasa and install on your box.  I would stick with the standard install options.  Let it save the files to the normal spots on your computer.

Whenever you see a screen like this, always look at the options:

I typically turn off anything adding to my browser, and in my case the quick launch bar as well(sorry, my screen shot left everything selected).

Let it scan your computer.

That way you don’t have to search things down later.

Unless you have another viewer, I like their photo viewer, so I’d leave this selected.

Create a folder under dropbox for photo sharing called DropboxPhotos.

Next under Picasa, go to File -> Add Folder, and choose this folder. Make sure to select the Scan Always option.  

Do the same for Camera Uploads, that’s where pictures show up from your phone.

Photo Management and Backup with Picasa, Google, and Dropbox(optional)

I’ve had a couple of people asking lately about what I do with my pictures, so I figured I might as well try to be smart about this and write out a whole setup to describe what I do and how to do it yourself.  Oh, and don't worry if it's confusing below, I'll go into more details about how to do steps(if wanted) but here's the basics of what I can do.

My goals

• Centralized storage – I want to be able to look through all my pictures in one spot.
• Remote access – Sometimes I want to pull up a certain picture from an old album away from home. 
• Backup, backup, backup – I’m big on backups.  I don’t want to lose any of my pictures if I lose a hard drive or phone.
• Easy – I’m a computer guy, I can handle complicated stuff; but the less steps it takes, the more likely I’ll do it.
• Cheap – I’ve learned there are times to pay, but I don’t like to pay much.

As soon as I started writing this stuff out I realized just how long it’s all going to take, so I’m going to split this up into a couple of posts.  First let me describe my setup, so you can decide if it’s worth trying or not. 

1. Take Pictures – This is the easy part.  I have a digital camera and a video camera, but more and more I find myself using my phone for most of this.  It’s with me all the time, it’s convenient, and convenience is worth so much.
   
   
2. Transfer pictures – Anyone with a smart phone knows you fill those things up fast.
1. Camera

                                                              i.      EyeFi(recommended) - My camera doesn’t support it, but if yours does I highly recommend EyeFi.  Turn on your camera around your Wifi, and it uploads all the pictures to your computer automatically.

                                                            ii.      Cable transfer – Simple method, quick, but involves manual steps ( I try to avoid those ).  With Picasa it’s pretty simple to import new pictures, just plug the camera in, click import and go.

                                                          iii.      SD card slot – If you have one of these slots it goes much faster than a cable typically does.  Import with Picasa.

2. Phone

                                                              i.      Cable transfer – Same as the camera, but I’ve found this to be pretty slow for the iPhone

                                                            ii.      Dropbox(recommended) – My fun way.  I got tired of hooking up my camera, so I use the dropbox app, it syncs any new pictures I’ve taken to a folder on my computer that’s automatically imported into Picasa.

3. Sort pictures
1. Imported – Import straight into a folder, then use Picasa to move pictures between folders
2. EyeFi/Dropbox – Pictures will show up in your incoming folder for each, all you do is categorize them.  For dropbox you want to move them out because you have limited space
   
   
4. Cleanup – Once you import photos from your camera or phone, you’re free to clean out any pictures you want. 
   
   
5. Backup – Depends upon your size you’ll need to decide on what to use
1. Google - Recommended

                                                              i.      You start with 5-10gb of storage(~3000 pictures)

                                                            ii.      Upgrade to 25gb(~15000 pictures) for about $30 a year

                                                          iii.      Two clicks to setup the backup of a folder, rest is automatic

                                                          iv.      Great thing about backing up to the web is that it’s a remote backup.  If your house burned down, it’s still there

2. Secondary drive

                                                              i.      I’ve done RAID before, basically you can mirror drives in case you lose one.  More expensive to setup

                                                            ii.      USB hard drives – They’re cheap, and it gives you another spot in case your drive goes out

6. Using your photos – Picasa does a number of nice things for you
1. Uploading to google.  Gives you access to all your albums on the picasa website, so easily pull up from your phone browser to show to others.
2. Easy transfer to a number of sites to order pictures(Walmart, Walgreens, etc)
3. Easy transfer to other photo sites for things like making photo books.
4. Easy transfer between computers ( with dropbox ).