Sidebar gadgets are one of the new features you get with Windows Vista. One of the gadgets it comes with by default lets you view a slideshow of pictures from your local computer. But what if I want to view photos from online? In my case, I want to view my recent photos album from my Picasa. Fortunately there’s a gadget that’s perfect: Feedr.
Feedr reads an RSS feed containing images and displays the images in a simple slideshow. Now I just need to set up an RSS feed for my Picasa album. Fortunately Google does that for me already. On the right hand side of every album, there’s is a link saying “RSS”. Click on that then click the subscribe button on the resulting page. The album now shows up as one of the source feeds for Feedr. (Click on the wrench to the right of the gadget to configure it).
One other tip; Internet Explorer lets you group RSS feeds into folders. Feedr (and the regular Windows RSS reader) will take a folder as well as an indidual feed. That way you can choose to view all your images feeds with Feedr and view all your news feeds in the RSS text reader.