Whatever happened to the Picasa blog?

For a brief period in December 2004 and January 2005, the Picasa team at Google ran a blog at picasa2.blogspot.com.

That URL now returns Blogger's generic "Blogger: 404 - Page not found" error message.

In its brief existence, the blog had just 5 posts:

1. Sunday, December 05, 2004 - A teaser post by Lorna, titled "Picasa 2?" and saying just "Wouldn't *you* like to know!"
   
2. Monday, January 17, 2005 - Another short post by Lorna, announcing the actual release of Picasa 2 thus: "Welcome to Picasa 2! We're so happy to release this software after many months working on it. We'll be posting tips and tricks on how to use Picasa 2 in this space, so come back soon for more."
   
3. The same day - A picture posted by Tara
4. Wednesday, January 19, 2005 - A useful post about the new collage functionality posted by MikeNitro

   Collage Tips and Tricks

   Making a collage in Picasa 2 is an easy and fun way to present a group of pictures. Here are a few tips for creating exactly the collage you want:
   

   • By default, the image used for the background is the last one in your selection.
   • Use captions! If you add captions to your pictures, they will appear in Picture Pile collages.
   • You can shuffle the picture ordering by clicking on the preview (this will also affect the background image if you are using one).
   • For Picture Piles, you can shuffle the picture locations by holding down SHIFT and clicking on the preview.
   • Remember that your collage will be made from all of the pictures in the Picture Tray, so you aren't limited to the pictures in just one folder or label. Just drag all of the pictures you want in the collage to the Picture Tray before pressing the Collage button.
   • Don't worry if pictures look a little fuzzy in the preview. The preview uses low resolution images, but the final image will be rendered using full resolution images.

5. Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - Another very useful tip by MikeNitro, this time on the full screen keyboard shortcut:
   

   Full Screen View of Your Pictures

   
   Picasa 2 has a nifty keyboard shortcut for quickly viewing a picture at full screen size, without having to enter Slideshow mode!
   
   In Library View, place the mouse pointer over the image you want to view then press and hold down the CTRL and ALT keys simultaneously. The image will display for as long as you keep the keys held down. (In Edit View, the current picture is already selected, so just press and hold CTRL and ALT).
   
   NOTE: The image may look blocky at first, but it will refine momentarily, depending on the size of the image.

After that, the Picasa blog simply died, and Picasa remains one of the worst documented and supported of the major Google applications and services. Documenting Picasa aims to go some way towards redressing that balance, by providing a web site and blog that researches and brings together available information about Picasa.