There have been plenty of ways to view Flickr photos and upload to Flickr from your iPhone using third-party apps. But Yahoo's Flickr for iPhone app is the company's first official take.
How is it? We're sorry to report that for avid uploaders, it's only so-so. You can search, view your photostream, and also friends' photostreams. You can also take and upload photos or video--for the latter, only if you've got the video-enabled iPhone 3GS. Commenting, e-mailing a photo, and tagging are also present.
So what's the problem? Flickr for iPhone is missing some management basics like deleting photos from the photostream, editing tags, and zooming in on a photo. These may seem small, but they add up to an experience that isn't fully baked. Catch all the pros and cons in the First Look video above, and share your own opinion in the comments.
Related story: Smile! Flickr has an official iPhone app
Launch Mail.
If you don't get the wizard, go to Mail, choose preferences, accounts, then press the plus symbol under the accounts pane.
Put in your name, e-mail address, and e-mail account password.
Then press continue.
Under account type, choose Exchange 2007. Your company must be running this version of Exchange. Not all companies do, so check with your friendly neighborhood systems administrator.
Give this account a name.
Then put in your mail server, again provided by whomever runs your Exchange server.
Make sure your username and password are entered correctly.
You can also choose to integrate your calendar and contacts.
Press Continue.
Then choose SSL if your Exchange system supports it. One hopes it does, and press Continue again.
Check "Take Account online," review the summary to make sure it looks correct. Then Press Create.
It may take awhile the first time, but eventually, you should start to see your Exchange e-mail in the Mail app.
Opera 10 (for Windows, Mac, and Linux) is less than a week old, and the browser has already caused quite a stir among fans (just check out the comments). It has also inspired many a comparison with the more-often downloaded (and extension-rich) Firefox, and with the upstart browser Google Chrome which, despite its newness, has managed to unseat Opera as the fourth most popular browser.
That leaves you asking how Google's young Chrome browser, just a mewling infant in its lifetime, has already ousted a browser that's been publicly available since 1996. Is Opera really that bad?
Not at all. In fact, Opera pioneered some of the industry's features, including the Speed Dial feature that has since been adopted and adapted in Google Chrome. It also includes useful hooks to your Web mail, mouse gestures to help you navigate with that favorite of peripheral devices, and a built-in RSS reader.
How, then, does one explain Opera's uncomfortable fifth place in the consumer browser category? As with most situations of market share, there is a range of factors we could debate at length. One push factor, I'll argue, is Opera's lack of extensions support. True, it does have its own version of third-party apps for developers, called Opera widgets, which are mini standalone apps that float around the screen (here's a collection of game widgets rounded up by one of CNET's bloggers). However, widgets aren't the same as Firefox's popular, incredibly numerous, and quite inventive extensions. For a start, they pop up independently of the browser, so you need to keep track of them yourself. More significantly, they're limited in number. With my picks, performance has ranged from not-very-exciting to a letdown.
As for Google Chrome's ascendancy, its famous pedigree is an undeniable draw, and as Chrome grows in strength, Google will have even greater advantage to advertise its new browser around its network, as it does now on YouTube.com. However, Chrome's other great advantage, and one constant threat to its browser rivals, is its speed. For awhile there, Google made an intensive push to outperform Firefox, with the two leapfrogging each other in the final pushes of their beta builds. Opera, while working on its own back-end speed enhancements, hasn't produced the kinds of test results to steal the others' thunder.
Opera claims it has increased its browsing speed, and is offering an interesting solution to global users with fitful browser speed to boot. Opera says that Turbo, its compression engine, can increase browsing speeds up to eight times faster than on other browsers suffering from the same network holdup--but we still haven't seen independent test results on this.
Regardless, while browsing speed is important, on our fast data connections on multiple computers, Opera 10's performance never came into question in our tests. We suggest you try it out to see how you like its new look and its take on browsing enhancements, but for a view of its new features before you commit either way, check out the First Look video above.
Picking the right TV is important. Right behind your health, and your family, and world politics. But face it, it's up there. It beat world peace once in a survey--seriously.
Anyway, this week the Top 5 tells you the best TVs you can get. And you have a chance to win a Star Wars space shooter. Watch the show, answer the question in the comments below, and you could get a free thing. And that's important too.
The release of Yahoo's latest instant messenger for Windows (Yahoo Messenger 10 beta) got us revisiting two others that were updated in the more recent past: the all-in-one chat clients Trillian Astra and Digsby. We enumerated the program enhancements that went into Trillian Astra beta here, but after three years in the making (!), we were hoping to be wowed.
In terms of sexiness, that honor belongs to Digsby, which cuts a fine figure, but doesn't always smoothly deliver the performance goods. It also adheres to some questionable software bundling, and shady CPU practices while your computer runs idle. Users have since rebelled. At the very least, Digsby will change the way they alert you to these opt-ins and opt-outs, so we can all get back to enjoying a quality IM frenzy with friends on all our networks.
Don't get us wrong. Trillian Astra, with features like voice chatting and file transferring, by no means offers up a shoddy experience. There are, however, a few caveats to the service, including one of the most important--that some of Trillian Astra's best features are accessible only to those who have upgraded to the premium version. Luckily, we've captured Trillian's goods and bads on film. Check them all out in the First Look video above and see if Trillian is a better instant messenger for you.
Rafe Needleman and Brian Cooley (a.k.a. the Cat Master) discuss the best hardware and software for monitoring your home when you're not there. Plus, your questions answered!
Listen now: Download today's podcastSubscribe now: iTunes (audio) | iTunes (video) | RSS (audio) | RSS (video)
... Read more
Laptops are all the rage these days, but they're easily stolen, even from places you think are safe, like work. Even if you just lose a laptop, you probably don't want anyone to have easy access to all your data just by pressing the power button.
That's why the first step (definitely not the last, but the first step to protecting your laptop) is to put strong password protection on your user accounts. Most people think this is a pain, but it's easy to set up and a small price to pay in inconvenience to keep your data safe.
Windows
Go to Control Panel and choose User Accounts.
Choose the Advanced tab.
Check the box that says Require users to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete.
Press OK.
If that's not how your Windows machine looks, try this from the User Accounts screen:
Click Change the way users log on or off.
Uncheck the welcome screen option.
This forces a user to enter a username and password when they log in.
Now go back to the Control Panel and open Display Options. Click the Screen Saver tab.
Check the option that makes the screen saver ask for a password.
Then press OK.
Finally go back to the Control Panel and this time choose Power Options.
Select the Advanced tab. And make sure you check the box by Prompt for password when the computer resumes from standby.
Press OK.
Mac
Go to System Preferences and choose Security.
Check Disable automatic log-in.
Check Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screen saver.
Now you need to take other action like logging out of accounts, encrypting data, and so on. But you're on the right track to a safer laptop setup. Just in case.
Last week when it first updated, we related our first impressions of Facebook for iPhone 3.0. Now that's we've spent some more quality time with it over the weekend, we can confirm that the 3.0 update is huge. Sure, it takes up more room on your iPhone or iPod Touch, but that's not what we meant.
The real growth spurt comes from the pile of new and improved features that Facebook has poured into the app. They range from the typical--support for landscape mode, capability to change your profile picture--to the powerful--such as creating photo albums and kicking off a text message or call from the Facebook interface.
That last point echoes a central thesis in a June 2009 Wired article ("The Great Wall of Facebook"): by storing intensely personal data about real people--their likes and dislikes, e-mail addresses, friends, activities, and even phone numbers--Facebook is creating a formidable "second Internet" to rival Google. Indeed, the SMS and phone call triggers on Facebook for iPhone 3.0 (and a similar feature on Facebook for BlackBerry that hooks into your address book) do influence, even facilitate, the way you contact friends in real life. Now you can rely on a Web-based network as a point of entry to your actual social life.
But that feature is just one of many. See the new Facebook for iPhone 3.0 in action in this First Look video. If you have used it, let us know how you like it.
Science fiction loves to show us the future. But we've had enough science fiction around for a long enough time that we're starting to notice it's not very good at predictions. In this episode, we count down some of the worst predictions of sci fi. And we give you a chance to win a small pack of zombies from October toys. So watch, won't you? And then come back to answer the trivia question for a chance to win your own small army of zombies.
First off, a warning. We cannot advocate that you actually do any of these hacks as they may break the elevators you're in or raise the ire of other passengers enough that they'll want to break you.
Let's start with a classic. The My Floor express. This one has been all over the Internet. Allegedly, you hold down the close door button when you press your desired floor and the elevator will skip every floor in-between, whether it's been pressed or not. Experts say this should not work, but legions of bloggers beg to differ.
Reports are that this trick works on most Otis models, except for those built in 1992; Dover models EL546 and ELOD862, and Desert models (except for ELD5433 and ELF3655). Let me know if you find any other makes this trick works on! Also reportedly pressing and holding your floor button until it reaches that floor can bypass any stops.
Now, what about the smart alecks that get in an elevator and press a bunch of buttons then leave. In our example elevator, just press the button twice and the floor goes away. Not a good idea if the person who wanted to go to that floor is still in the elevator. Another method is to press all the buttons, which will cause some models will reset the selections to none.
Finally, one that every apartment dweller probably knows. If you want the lift to wait for you while you're grabbing something, press the emergency button after the doors open. The doors will stay open and the car will wait until someone gets in and presses another button. That trick is also used in TV shows to stop the car between floors so the characters can have a dramatic conversation.
Once again, be warned, if you try these tricks, you could harm the elevator get yourself in trouble, and anger others. So be advised.

Would you like a wrap-up of the week's hottest CNET TV videos delivered directly to your in-box? Then sign up for the weekly CNET TV newsletter, delivered every Friday.