Over the last few weeks, I've come across two incredibly cool, free tools I want to share. The first is PicLens. This is a Firefox plug-in you can download from the PicLens web site. Like most Firefox extensions, it only takes a few seconds to install, and then it available when you restart the browser.

Once installed, you'll see a button for it up next to the search box:

All you need to do is go to some site that shows images, like Flickr or even Google Images. It also works for video sharing sites like YouTube. Search for a category of images or videos or whatever, and once the page loads, click the PicLens button and then sit back and say, "wow".

Here's a screen shot from using PicLens to view Google Images of the Golden Gate Bridge:

You can scroll through the images using your arrow keys. For an extra "wow" factor, press and hold the arrow key down.

You'll see this once you start using it, but the PicLens environment is full screen. Enjoy!

Oh, and special thanks to Seth Duffey for showing PicLens to me in the first place.