Verify Your Google Picasa Albums are Private

A topic came up today with a friend of mine of whether or not Picasa Web Albums that are marked as Private are indeed private! Well they are. In Picasa Web Albums, whether you upload through the website or through the Picasa application on your PC you can select to make an album Public, Private, or Anyone with a Link. The Drop Box and Instant Upload albums are Private by Default and should remain that way always. So here's how to verify for your own peace of mind that your "Private" album is visible to ONLY YOU and that the "Anyone with a Link" album does not show up in your public album listing.

1: Assuming you are signed into Google Services, go to https://picasaweb.google.com , Click the Picasa App in Chrome, or Click the Photos Tab (shown below.)

2: Under your name, you will see a link that says "photos." If you right click it and select "Copy Link Address" that will give you your actual Picasa user id link. It goes directly to your Public Picasa web page. So go ahead and copy that link, bookmark it, add it to Favorites, Star it, etc. It's good to have anyway. BTW, go ahead and click that link below when you get a chance. Yeah, that one, the one that says "New Privacy Notice."

3: Sign out of Google Services.

4: Paste that copied URL (the link you just right clicked and selected Copy Link Address) into the URL bar. Hit Return on your keyboard. You will see that the only albums that show up to the public are in fact only Public albums. If a friend or family member that you shared Albums with via "Anyone with a Link" will also see those albums as expected.

I hope this quick tuturial helped.

Google Android Market Knows....

The official Google Android Market knows what apps you have installed from the Amazon App Store. They won't show up in the Market's "My Apps," but if you do a search for an app and you happen to already have it from the Amazon App Store, it will tell you that you have it installed so you don't download it or re-purchase it through Google. You can open it, It will however not let you uninstall it through the Market. I thought that was interesting and helpful for people that have a lot of apps and forget what is installed on their phone. This does not work with apps downloaded from non app appstores like Getjar through websites. (The Android Marketplace did not show that I have Cut The Rope installed.)

This works on the phone app, not on your pc through market.android.com

9.14.11

I found another interesting feature of the Android Market showing what apps you have installed from the Amazon App Store. If the Google Market has an updated version, it will have the option to Update it! However, you WILL have to pay for it again (if it were a paid app to begin with.) Here's an example:
I "purchased" A Game With Balls when it was free from the Amazon App Store. It is currently at Ver. 2.1.4. In the Android Market, it is now at Ver. 2.2  An Update button is there and if you Update it, you are asked to "Accept and Buy."  Current price for A Game With Balls is .99  Interesting!

8 Google Music Beta To Give Out...

I have 8 Google Music Beta Invites to give out. First 8 to comment and ask gets them. Enjoy. Please do not type out your email. Do that thing where you type out AT and DOT COM. You know.

Google Plus Invite Link

You can either invite people through email, or it gives you this link to share with people. So here's the google+ link...

https://plus.google.com/i/tuzU4O5uKSE:Riso9H6063g