Picasa is Google’s terribly underrated and until recently, completely unknown photo editing software. Which means the number of people who knew about Hello had to number in the hundreds. Hello was a great way to send photos to friends. You could carry on an IM conversation while flipping through photos, and you could even auto-follow your friend’s view so you could be on the same page. They got the full size pictures without any right-clicking or decompressing nonsense, and I’ve never met someone who couldn’t immediately figure out how to use it. My mother (and Kodak) lament that as cool as digital photos are, no one ever prints them, and as a result, the bonding time looking over a photo album has been replaced by hunching over a laptop screen (if that).

Google says they’re discontinuing Hello so they can focus on Picasa and Web Albums. Both are neat, but I’m not sure they’re going to fill the void.

Maybe this is all so Google can use the blue chip domain name Hello.com for something more worthwhile, especially now that Apple scored me.com.

Goodbye, Hello.

Am I the only person under 40 who looked at coupons? As I enter my fifth year as a grocery-shopper, I’ve come to realize that the coupon inserts in the Sunday paper exist primarily as a vehicle to advertise new and/or improved products rather than to save you money. The amount you save with almost any coupon in the insert is less than the amount you save by simply buying the identical store brand version of the product.

But like everything else, the Internet makes it better. Online coupon codes actually can save you some decent change, or at least get you free shipping. I saved about $100 by Googling ‘Helio coupon codes’ before buying my phone last year. But now you don’t even have to do that.

Install this Firefox plugin. Then when you go to buy something, it will display a little notice at the top of the page if a coupon is available for that store.

Or if you can’t figure that out, go to http://retailmenot.com when you’re about to buy something and type the store into their search box.

If you want to thank me, one-click me some MarioKart.

OK so in lieu of blank empty space, I’m going to feature a few online tools that are awesome and that you should use.

First up (forgive me if this is terribly old news) is Hulu.

I originally wrote Hulu off when it came out because I assumed the traditional media players behind it would mess it up, and I hated the name, which is a pretty forced attempt at sounding like a scrappy startup. But Hulu’s pretty amazing. The ads are short, although I do wonder why companies like Priceline intentionally show you the same terrible William Shatner ad 4 times in 22 minutes. The site includes Arrested Development and The Office Season 4, as well as some full length movies, like The Big Lebowski. Finally, the player is very usable, with prominent links to embed, go full-screen, or dim the rest of the screen.

Better than tvlinks?