in Picasa (even while it’s scanning) go to Tools > Folder Manager
and set all folders to “Remove from Picasa”

now it isn’t scanning and you can then, thru the folder manager, very quickly and easily set a few folders to “Scan Once” and others to “Scan Always” (ie. watch the folder for added pics).

pretty nice now that i found it, but while scanning there really should be an obvious “stop messing with stuff!” button somewhere!

It does have very nice options as an organizer, way better than iPhoto, but the fact that i have to wait for it to add every single little thing resembling an image on all of 3 drives before i can go and delete the entire friggin’ library and start over manually is pretty retarded. There is no “stop scanning” button ANYWHERE.

the integration with web albums will be incredibly useful, and the auto-scanning of selected folders via the Folder Manager is gonna be incredibly useful.

I sort of like the interface but overall I hate the app for all the reasons you already state.

Re: Paranoia
When a user feels powerless over a piece of software, often times they panic. As I mentioned in my post, I “came to my senses”.

Re: Gutter Images
I hinted at porn to add some humor to my entry, but the fact of the matter is that I have confidential work-releated images for multiple clients on my PC that I simply didn’t want exposed in a program like that. And furthermore, what if multiple people use the PC? I surely don’t want their images to show up in My Picasa view, and vice versa. In short, there’s lots of logical reasons that are all g-rated to want to specifically target a sub-section of a computer.