Windows Media Center makes it easy to browse any photo collection stored on your PC using a remote control and a 10-foot interface. But what if your pictures are stored online, not on your PC? Media Center plugin mcePicasa lets you login to your Picasa Web albums and view your online photo albums from the comfort of your couch.

Installation couldn't be easier. Just download the setup file, run it, and when you next load Windows Meida Center you should find a Picasa icon in your More Programs menu. Click the icon and you can enter your Picasa username to access your web albums.

In my test, mcePicasa only managed to locate one of my Picasa albums, even though I have several different folders. The current release is just an Alpha, so hopefully the kinks will be worked out eventually. The program is also open source, so if you know your way around Windows Media Center plugin development, you can lend a hand and help make mcePicasa better.

[via Ian Dixon]

Windows Media Center developer Niall Ginsbourg is responsible for some of the coolest media center plugins around, including Big Screen Movies, Big Screen TV Shows, and Big Screen Contacts. He also has an attractive application for viewing weather forecasts called, you guessed it, Big Screen Weather. But there's one big limitation with the current version of Ginsbourg's current weather application: it only covers Australia.

Now Ginsbourg is working on Big Screen Weather 2, and among other features it will provide detailed forecasts, maps and information for locations around the globe. Other features include:

• 3-7 day forecasts for over 4,000 locations
• Satellite imagery and charts, plus animated radar loops for the US and Australia
• Pan and Zoom to locations on the continent, region, country, and state levels
• Support for 9 languages: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish, with Hebrew and Japanese support coming next year.

Right now the application is still in private beta, with a public release tentatively scheduled for January. In the meantime, you can check out a bunch of pretty pictures at Ginsbourg's Big Screen Blog.

[via Ian Dixon]