After four years of existence (it was launched in February 2004) Flickr has become the most popular online photo sharing website, with over two billion pictures hosted on their servers. Flickr has evolved a lot during these years, from the early beta stages to a social networking community that has grown around photography. It has also survived Yahoo’s acquisition, along with some slight changes in design and functionality.
As regards the latter, you can now find a handful of software tools that have been especially developed to work with Flickr, either to make image uploading easier or to make use of their massive photo catalog in some creative way. So if you’re looking for a faster way to upload your pics to Flickr or want to download entire sets in one click, have a look at the list of Flickr tools we’ve prepared for you:
- Flickr Downloader – Download photos from Flickr and create Flash slideshows with them
- Flickr Viewr – Browse Flickr pictures without even opening your web browser
- Saleen Flickr Downloader – Download, tag and rate pictures from Flickr
- Flickr Uploadr – Publish your photos to Flickr in an easier way (also on Mac!)
- FlickrDown – Batch download photos from Flickr, as many as you want!
- Flickr Wallpaper Rotator – Download Flickr photos and use them as wallpapers
- Flickrfox – Browse Flickr photos from a sidebar in Firefox
- Foldr Monitr – Automatically upload to Flickr any photo you save on a given folder
- SendTo Flickr – Use the Send to context menu to publish pictures to Flickr
- Picasa2Flickr – Upload images to Flickr right from Picasa
.Mac and iLife’08 allow you to share all your photos and videos in customized galleries with your friends and family, directly from iPhoto or iMovie. So instead of wasting time putting those snaps and videoclips from the Christmas Holidays onto a DVD and having to send a copy to each and every one, which takes time and money, you can just publish them all online, create a unifying theme and then send the link to everyone you want. It’s quicker, looks great and is really easy to work with.
Thanks to spiralling ticket prices and the outrageous costs of pay-per-view these days, it’s becoming ever more difficult for soccer fans to watch their team in action. Not to worry though because, like most things, it’s possible to combat this problem using computer software. One of the best apps for watching live football on your PC is 
Taking a screenshot is not just a question of having the right window opened in front of you and then pressing the Prntscrn key. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so you should choose the screen capturing tool you’re going to use very carefully.
Apple’s star photo editing and management software has just been updated to version 2.
New editing features you’ll find include highlight recovery, color vibrancy, local contrast definition, soft-edged retouching, vignetting and RAW fine-tuning. Aperture 2 now also includes support for tethered shooting, which allows you to connect a camera to your Mac via USB or Firewire and shoot directly into Aperture. We also enjoyed the Loupe tool, which lets you zoom in up to 1600%.
Unless you’re completely braindead, the chances are that you have an antivirus solution installed on your home computer. But have you got one running on your phone? Probably not. Yet, these days all phones are Internet and network-enabled, and virus writers are starting to exploit this by creating nasties to screw up your phone. There are plenty of effective tools for blocking these kind of attacks though, so there’s no excuse for not protecting yourself. Here are some of the best:
Many people drool over Mac computers but not all of them can afford one – and that includes me. Beautiful as they are, Macs are still too expensive for a tight budget like mine, so while I’m saving to buy one some day in the future, I’ve decided to give my Windows a more Appleish look.