I really like a lot of things about Apple‘s iPhoto– it makes it easy to rip, organize, and upload your pictures. However, I HATE how it tries to keep me from knowing where my photo files are, and how it always wants to steer me into using Apple’s paid Mobile Me service.

In those sad years when I was using Windows XP on my main computer, a bright light was Google‘s great Picasa– a more lovable, open source, iPhoto replacement.
It does indeed try to steer you into using Google’s Picasa web service, but at least it’s FREE like Flickr.

Now they have Picasa for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Try it out– I found pictures and videos on my computer I never knew were there!!

Even though iPhoto is great, I’m thinking of switching to Picasa ON MY MAC so I can have more control over my photos. This means that my media won’t be as integrated into all of the other Mac programs (like iMovie or iWeb) but it also means I can quickly and easily see all the media files on my computer– not just the ones Apple wants me to see.