Hello (from Picasa)

Hello (from Picasa) is an awesome little program that allows you to send photos and screen-shots to your friends, and text-chat with them, as well. What makes Hello different from other "chat" programs, is that you can send dozens or even hundreds of full-sized photos to a friend with just a few clicks, and your friend can have them downloaded to their computer without even being in the room! No more browsing for or dragging and dropping a single image that your friend then has to manually download!

SAY ADIEU TO HELLO!

This was posted on May 14, 2008, at the Picasa Help Group here:

http://groups.google.com/group/picasa-help-updates/

browse_thread/thread/f8d412c86384bbe7

All good things come to an end. So it is with sadness that we say goodbye to Hello.

Hello will be shut down on June 11th. We've extended this date to make sure we have enough time to communicate this as well as we can to our users.

We originally embarked on a mission to make photo sharing easier and more fun with Hello. We plan to keep carrying that torch in new projects to come.

We hope that you continue to enjoy the other sharing products Google offers including Picasa, Picasa Web Albums and Google Talk.

Keep on sharing!

- The Hello Team

This was posted on May 7, 2008, at the Picasa Help Group here:

http://groups.google.com/group/picasa-help-updates/

browse_thread/thread/36ececa9df8fd494

On May 14, we'll be discontinuing the Hello software. We're currently focusing on supporting Picasa and Picasa Web Albums, so we're no longer able to support this service.

Following this date, launching the Hello icon will prompt the program to be uninstalled from your computer. If you would like to salvage your Hello contacts or chat logs, please do so as soon as possible.

While we will no longer offer this software, photos you've shared using Hello will still be available to you since they are stored locally on your computer.

Our goal continues to be improving Google's photo offerings to make photo management, editing and sharing easy and fun.

Sadly, since March 2008, Google/Picasa has been choosing to ignore any current issues with Hello, because they are simply too "busy" focusing on Picasa and Picasa Web Albums to bother assigning one or two people to take an occasional look at some Hello problems:

http://picasa.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=45748

Don't get me wrong -- Picasa and Picasa Web Albums are also great tools to have; but Hello is, for me, an essential part of my daily routine. Having it totally (and officially!) ignored, is really quite sad. That said, there is still some help for many of the issues you might encounter while using Hello, which you will find below.

PS: Make sure you are using the latest version of Hello, build 659,

as listed in Hello under "Help" > "About Hello." If not, please

uninstall Hello:

1. Click 'Start' > 'Control Panel.'

3. Double-click 'Add or Remove Programs.'

4. Scroll through the list of programs and select Hello.

5. Press the 'Change/Remove' button.'

Hello will be uninstalled. Reboot your computer when the removal is finished and then download and install Hello from the following link:

http://public.picasa.com/Hello659-support.exe

(Zip file of Hello659-support.exe here)

You will not need to create a new Hello username. Once the new build of Hello is installed, log in using your exisiting username and password.

This info from: http://groups.google.com/group/PicasaSomethingBroken

/browse_thread/thread/9f520c9885491ceb

Hello Help Center:

http://www.hello.com/index.php

Hello Account Management page:

https://secure.hello.com/account.php?do=login

Hello error: The UI Failed to Initialize:

http://groups.google.com/group/PicasaSomethingBroken/

browse_thread/thread/9f520c9885491ceb

(Zip file of Hello Clean-up Tool here)

BloggerBot is Dead -- Farewell BloggerBot:

http://groups.google.com/group/PicasaSomethingBroken/

browse_thread/thread/ef286bc2d5fb4c73

Hello Tutorial:

http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/university/

tutorials/hello_basic_ep.shtml

Problems verifying email address from Hello?:

http://groups.google.com/group/PicasaSomethingBroken/

browse_thread/thread/253ae0c5f03af9a6

Problem inviting friends -

"The following invitations had problems: address@email.com [An internal error occurred]":

http://groups.google.com/group/PicasaGuide/

browse_thread/thread/50c1e19db4723822/4f56bb485f8c4d2b

Hello Screen-print keyboard shortcuts:

http://www.hello.com/help/websnapshot.php

Alt + Shift + 3 = Send Picture of Screen

Alt + Shift + 4 = Send Picture of Window

Hello - Where is the Web Capture Icon?:

http://groups.google.com/group/PicasaCommunity/

browse_thread/thread/403212bfbe139a2e/5f3e21009aee6e71

Having problems sending pictures with Hello, or are you seeing greyed-out pictures and/or a greyed-out filmstrip?

Scenario:

* You're using Hello, and you've already begun a "chat" with one of your friends by double-clicking on their name in your Friends tab to bring up a new "chat window" with their name listed on the tab at the top.

* Then, while still on that chat window, you click the "Send Pictures" button at the top left of the Chat window.

* You select the "Use Picasa" button on the "Locate Pictures using..." box.

* Picasa opens up, you select some pictures, and click the Hello button in Picasa.

* Then, on the "Select the friends to send pictures to" box, you confirm the number of photos you are about to send. Your friend's user name is already highlighted, so you just click the "Send" button.

* In the "Chat with:" area of the screen, it states that you are sending x Picture(s).

* You can then see the pictures in the larger viewing section of the

screen, but the filmstrip down at the bottom is greyed out!

Things you can do to try and "fix" this issue:

This problem crops up every so often in the Picasa Help Google Group. Some people are able to correct the problem by just closing Hello, making sure it is gone from the System Tray, and then restarting Hello. (You can look at some of the

discussions on that here:

http://groups.google.com/group/PicasaSomethingBroken/

browse_thread/thread/e2db27186881ec1f/993a25f250ccf323)

In addition to what might be listed there, here are some things you

can check:

1. Make sure that neither of you have the "Follow Friend" option selected. That's the little picture-in-picture window -- if you see a red "do not enter" type of symbol at the bottom of that screen, then you are set to "follow friend" -- click the red symbol to toggle that option off (the symbol now turns to a white right-facing arrowhead in a green box). That should "un-grey" up the filmstrip.

2. When you send the pictures, go to your View > Connections screen and see if there is any action in that "Bandwidth" column. If you don't see your friend's name listed, then you've somehow "lost" the connection to them. Try closing the Hello program (click the X at the top right of the window). Then right-click on the Hello icon in your system tray and click "Exit." Then ctrl-alt-delete to bring up your Task Manager, and make sure that Hello is gone. Then restart the Hello program, and try to send the pictures again. (Hopefully, you'll hear the little "shutter" noise, and see "sent xx of xx" photos listed down at the bottom!)

3. When you receive pictures, go to your View > Download Manager screen and see if there is any action in the "Progress" column.

4. Check your Tools > Options section and make sure you have "Automatic Saving" selected (with or without Full Resolution). Check if you have any limitations selected in the Picture Sizes and

Bandwidth area.

5. Go to something like http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ and check your internet connection speed. Could be your bandwidth is throttled down far enough to prevent you from sending large stuff like photos, but is enough to still allow you to chat.

6. Make sure both of you are logged on at the same time, and that neither of you is getting logged out in the middle of the transfer.