PicLens

There are a number of ways in which I think Web browsing could be made better and more pleasant. One of those ways lies in the handling of images. I've come across two tools for the Mac that do a great job of at least presenting images for viewing.

Envision lets you specify a URL and crawling parameters, and it will pull down the images to your computer, and give you a slideshow. It's a great way to watch paintings from online museums, or astro-photography, for example.

PicLens integrates with Safari, and lets you click on images on certain sites, and get an instantaneous picture browser, and slideshow. It's a great way to show kids animals or go sight-seeing. Go to Flickr, or Google, for example, and type in "pyramids mexico" or "malamutes" or what-have-you, and click the little PicLens icon. Works like a charm.