I like Adobe Photoshop just as much as the next guy and it is really great when you need to really work with an image, modify the contrast, levels and so on. It works great when you need layers and filters … I could go on but you get the idea.

But if all I need to do is take an image, crop it, take out the red eye (which is not as simple as it sounds in Photoshop) make the image B&W and easily save it to your local system or send it off to things like Flickr, Photobucket or Picasa then I have found the coolest thing that for just that. What is it, it is … picnik

What is Picnik?

Picnik is photo editing awesomeness, online, in your browser. It’s the easiest way on the Web to fix underexposed photos, remove red-eye, or apply effects to your photos.

What can I do with Picnik?

Pretty much everything! We’ve got amazing Edit tools that can fix just about anything that could possibly go wrong with a photograph. Lacking photo-editing prowess? A bunch of our editing tools are one-click fixes, including auto- fix, exposure, colors, and red-eye. And the others, like rotate, crop, resize, and sharpening, can be controlled with easy-to-use sliders.

Move over to the Create tab and you’ll see our custom-made Effects (most of which have the ability to be painted into just the areas of your image where you want them), an awesome text tool with dozens of fonts, dozens of shapes, including seasonal shapes for holidays and events, and some super customizable frames. Not to mention the touch up tools and new Advanced Editing tools.

The best part is that is FREE — Yes FREE!!! They have a premium service for $24.95 a year. Not a month but for a whole year.

The water froze the instant the wave broke through the ice. That is what it is like in Antarctica where it has had the coldest weather in decades. Water freezes the instant it comes in contact with the air. The temperature of the water is already some degrees below freezing.

There was a fast moving storm that started yesterday afternoon and it snowed all afternoon and night. This is a picture of our house in the morning. We got around 6 to 8 inches of snow.

George Bush wearing crocs and yes socks. I recently got pair of crocs, they are really comfortable, and it was mentioned that one should not wear socks with their crocs.

On Feb. 25, 2007, NASA scientists were calibrating some cameras aboard the STEREO-B spacecraft and they pointed the instruments at the sun. No human has ever witnessed a solar eclipse quite like this: NASA’s STEREO-B spacecraft was about a million miles from Earth last month when it photographed the Moon passing in front of the sun. The resulting movie looks like it came from an alien solar system.

Stereo Eclipse

Thanks Gabe! Cool picture.