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Line up the freeware photo manager/editor combos and you'll quickly realize that Google's Picasa stands out in its class. The latest version, Picasa 3.5 (Windows | Mac), is no exception, offering one huge new feature and a few little ones, to offer you more choices for organizing and sharing photos from your desktop.

Facial recognition is the big news here, and Google's team has handily translated the face-tagging feature that it had implemented in the online version, Picasa Web Albums, to the desktop app. You can even download tags you used online into Picasa 3.5.

If you're starting out fresh, you'll notice that Picasa now displays an extra tab, one organized around the people in your albums, and not just the pictures. After naming your contacts (made slightly less laborious with a little help from your Google contacts list), you'll have a photo album dedicated to each friend. With it, you'll be able to find other photos, create a face collage, and plot photos on a Google map. How? We won't hold you in suspense any longer. To see Picasa's new features in action, check out the first Look video above.

Cell phones are the hottest tech items of the year, and one of the most frequent questions we get at CNET is: what's the best phone?

We conferred with Mr. Kent German, who sees every phone created, and worked up a list to count down. And don't forget you can post an answer to the lame prize question in the comments for a chance to win the signed iPhone cases! So watch the show and come back.

The last time we did top Google search terms, half of Hollywood died before we could publish it. This time, we only missed Swayze's passing and Kanye West's antics. And of the folks that passed last time, only one showed up in the rising search terms for the past three months.

What that all means is that I think you can reliably say these are the hottest search terms. And one of them is Turkish. Be sure to post your answer to the trivia question below for a chance to win the football beads. And really, only answer the question if you have a valid e-mail address and will respond to our e-mails. Sound good?

Rafe and Tom talk about the long-term use of gadgets like TiVo, the MiFi, and more. We even get a road test report on FreeNAS from Dave the psychologist!

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Speed tests abound on the Internet. Some are more complicated than others and their accuracy can be questionable. I like the speed test at dslreports.com. You don't even have to know what kind of service you have. Just pick a city you want to test against.

Picking a nearby city is fair for testing the claims ISPs make. It errs on the side of the fastest conditions under your ISP's control. Picking one far away subjects the speed to more distance and more interference from other carriers, but can really prove the muscle of your ISP.

Before you start the test, shut down every application you have running and close any tabs. That goes for every computer on your home network. If you have anything else using your bandwidth, then the test application will register a lower amount than you actually received.

Once you're ready, click on your chosen city. The app will use dummy data to measure the latency, upload, and download data transfer rates. You'll see a mark on a graph for your results, compared with the results of others who used the test. This can be filtered by ZIP code and ISP. If you filter by ISP, you can see what speeds others have reported, and use that as a check against a company's claimed speeds.

Now remember, you'll never get exactly the rate advertised, because bandwidth is usually shared. In cable systems, it's shared with your neighbors, so the speed may fluctuate wildly depending on how many people are using it when you test. Even with Fios and DSL connections, overall network traffic can impact your speeds.

So, it's best to do a few tests at different times, and even from a few different services. DSL Reports offers a directory to worldwide speed tests, including some offered by CNET.

Time once again to check in on the most popular, and the trend away from cell phone domination continues this month! Hooray for Netbooks and TVs! Maybe it's the fall shopping season finally starting to turn people's minds away from phones. It's so much nicer to buy a gift that doesn't come with a two-year contract.

And of course there's a prize in this Top 5. So watch it, and answer the question in the comments below. One of the first 10 people to answer correctly wins the racing shirt. Properly laundered, I promise.

Every time Microsoft delivers a new OS it's possible to get many of the features of a Windows upgrade in the previous version of Windows. Windows 7 is no exception. Here's a roundup of a few things you can do to make Windows Vista as Windows 7-like as possible, without shelling out for the new OS.

We'll start out with a couple tweaks, then tell you about four free apps you can download. And a tip of the hat to the amazing Gina Trapani at Lifehacker, from whom I picked up several of these tricks.

First the taskbar. Windows 7 lets you "pin" apps to the taskbar and we can approximate that in Vista. Here's how.

Right-click on your taskbar.

Select toolbars.

And choose Quick Launch.

Now drag the icons you wish to "pin" into the left side of the taskbar.

Right click on the taskbar again and uncheck "lock taskbar."

Now click on the three rows of dots, hold down the mouse, and drag the bar over until you see all your icons.

Now, they look a little small like that, so let's make them bigger. Make sure the taskbar is unlocked.

Now right click on the taskbar again.

Select the view menu and choose large icons.

That's OK. But if you want a real Mac-like dock, forget all that and install RocketDock. It gives you a whole new Macish dock that you can put down at the bottom of the window instead of the taskbar.

But your Windows still looks all Vista-y. One more interface tweak before we move on. Download VistaGlazz 1.3. It's a utility that changes some system files to allow you to implement third-party themes on Vista. Launch VistaGlazz and, if you're sure, agree to allow it to modify your system files. I did it, and had no issues. But I make no guarantee.

Facebook's freshly overhauled iPhone app (Facebook for iPhone 3.0) is so stuffed with goodies, that we were anticipating a similar bounty of features with the much-awaited Facebook for Android.

Shame on the Google/Facebook development team (mostly Google's, with consulting from Facebook) for creating an abbreviated app that fails to offer a complete Facebook.com experience, and shame on us for holding Google up to the high standards we've come to expect from, well, Google.

Having said that, the Facebook for Android 1.0 application is by no means a failed application. Its features are limited, sure, but the app completes its actions as advertised. In the sense of delivering on its promised functionality, it is a success. We just wanted it to be so much more. The good news is, the app can only mature from here. Check it out in the First Look video above.

Tom and Rafe discuss what they love and hate about Apple computers.

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