One thing about tools: it's always tempting to remain loyal to the familiar ones. Once I've spent time learning how to use a new tool or technology, I'm inclined to keep using it. I need to be tempted away by the promise of better performance, greater convenience, or very cool features. Otherwise, my uncharacteristically conservative philosophy when it comes to tools can be summarized by this pithy bit of wisdom: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Perhaps this explains why I spent two years wrestling with Google Sites before I discovered Weebly and Blogger, or why I have until recently resisted switching from iPhoto to Picasa for Mac. Sometimes, it's the little things that make all the difference. For example, when I wanted to created tabbed web pages, Google Sites was no help to me. I suppose I could have written the HTML for a tabbed page (see this Elated article), but one of the reasons I was using a WYSIWYG editor like Google Sites in the first place was because I wanted to avoid doing my own programming. Sadly, instead of searching for a new tool, I settled for less and resigned myself to organizing pages with customized sidebars.
During the past two weeks, I have been researching different tools for creating blogs, wikis, and websites. I am delighted to see that Weebly offers a variety of tabbed web page designs. Other niceties, like drag and drop elements and instantaneous previews of template changes, make Weebly an easy tool to learn and use. No doubt, I will eventually encounter drawbacks to Weebly but, so far, I like it just fine.
Similarly, Picasa for Mac seems to offer helpful features that iPhoto lacks. My reason for using a photo management tool is primarily to store, organize, print and share pictures. I'm not inclined to spend hours editing photos, but I do need help sorting them. I installed Picasa for Mac on my MacBook Pro, and it automagically found and organized all my photos. The steps for uploading a photo from Picasa to my Google Site portfolio were simple and intuitive. I didn't have to go through a painful process of exporting individual photos to convert them to a non-proprietary format, as iPhoto required me to do (unless I was uploading to Facebook). Admittedly, I've just begun to use Picasa, and I assume the tool will find novel ways to confound me. However, my first impression is good: I like being able to tag and upload photos, establish a variety of search criteria, and employ face recognition to find photos containing people in general or one person in particular. I'm finding that Picasa suits my digital archiving needs very well at this point in time.
A quick survey of the blogosphere revealed to me how posts such as this one can spark heated debate. Consider the responses to One Man's Blog, A Direct Comparison of Picasa for Mac vs. IPhoto, or this interesting discussion of the pros and cons on ZDNet, "iPhoto vs. Picasa: Which is the better editing program?" My intention here is not to prove one tool is better than the other; I'm simply describing my experiences. While I cannot claim to know which tool is "the best" when it comes to handling photos, I did notice that personal preferences seemed to be influenced by which tool was used first and how easy or hard it was to transfer from one to the other.
Learning something new is often a challenge, and changing from the familiar to the unknown can be frustrating and intimidating. Whether we are adopting new technologies, mastering a foreign language, or learning how to work collaboratively, the urge to stay within our comfort zone can be hard to overcome. Fortunately, when it comes to this type of risk-taking, I believe the rewards tend to outweigh the hassles. Given the demands of the twenty-first century, an attitude of "I'd rather fight, than switch," of unswerving loyalty to an undeserving application, seems foolish.
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