Comments on: View your Picasa library in your browser

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:44:54 +0000

Hey, thanks for this tip. This is great. I really wish it was just an acceptable url that could be viewed from any location. Then my life would be complete.

PS: I wasnt gonna post anything but just wanted to let you know that people are reading.

By: mdelgaudio

mdelgaudio — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 21:20:18 +0000

Thanks for the comments! I’m glad you’re reading. I don’t get many comments, so I have no idea if anyone is actually out there!

By: vincent b.

vincent b. — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 17:35:14 +0000

We must be on the same tricking level, registry and hex-ed, same for the 3.1 habits… back to the early’s 90 I was localizing full softwares patching the executables and dll’s under hex-ed :)

You may want to check registry agin, I didn’t spent that much time on it (press F3 several times to browse all occurences of search term).

Btw, I follow your blog from a while, it’s quite interresting for me. Big Up for sharing all your discoveries. Time to contribute!

By: mdelgaudio

mdelgaudio — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 17:24:19 +0000

Y’know, I don’t know why I went to the hex editor first, either. As soon as your comment said “registry” I thought.. Oh, yeah, I shoulda tried that.

I guess it’s an old-timey windows 3.1 habit that just won’t die. I used to be able to figure stuff out if it wasn’t in the ini file.

By: vincent b.

vincent b. — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 17:11:06 +0000

lol, while I was digging into the registry (couldnt’ find any relevant key) you were opening the .exe in an editor… you’re a kind of a stuntman ;)
I am amazed you did actually find someting !

About the “this server supports localhost only”, this is weird: a http server is a http server and such limitations are more likely the work of the router+firewall. So I would say we should be able to bypass that. I have serious hopes! there is always a way to “bind” ports in order to appear as a local visitor, I guess. We will maybe have to trick it a bit.

By: mdelgaudio

mdelgaudio — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 16:51:22 +0000

Curious, I opened picasa.exe in a text viewer — to see if I could see a configuration setting for the port range. I **THINK** I came across what appears to be the source code for the web pages generated by Picasa for the Library. Smack dab in the middle is “text/plain not allowed, this server supports localhost only.”

Here is a screen cap

So, it appears that they might specifically prevent non-localhost requests.

By: vincent b.

vincent b. — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 15:21:54 +0000

I don’t really know. Quite a bunch of softwares do that, changing ports each time they start. Usually you can either fix the port used in the application parameters or find the range used by the app and open the range on the router interface.
I would say : if picasa uses a web server, there is no way we can’t use it across a lan or a internet. I’ll check that with my linux admin and let you know asap!

By: mdelgaudio

mdelgaudio — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 14:50:05 +0000

Thanks vincent. I can’t take credit for finding that one. I got it from the (now fixed) link to Chris Pirillo’s site.

Oddly, each time I start Picasa I seem to be getting a different port. So far each port has been between 1200 and 1800. Now, why would they do that?

By: vincent b.

vincent b. — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 14:32:34 +0000

Woaw Mike, how did you figured that? Are you trying every shortcut possible?
This is a great news, anyway! I am terribly excited about it, fingers crossed that it will work on my linux version as well, as it handles all my backups. It would prevents me to install another php based gallery. I am definitely trying to make it work over an LAN/WAN back home tonite and will let you know. As it works with ‘localhost’ it should work with a complete IP and appropriate permissions. You maybe have to open/route the 1818 port. I hope we will be able to change this port in future versions to include it in a more common range, something like 4180 would be great.
You made my day Mr D.