But if there’s a game that can lure me to start playing, it would be Angry Birds. Starting out as an iPhone game, it has now taken the world by storm with versions for the PC, the Chrome browser and three versions for Android. I helplessly gave in to the temptation as I had to know what all the fuss was about.  Big mistake!

Stop The Frustration

Lo and behold, I’ve finished all the currently available worlds and collected all 26 Golden Eggs. But I’ve also lost many a good night’s sleep and was tempted to break a few things along the way. Believe me, the game can be very frustrating sometimes!

I’m not an Angry Birds expert, but I’ve spent a good amount of time playing the game. So, here are a few general tips and hints to help you with your frustration in surviving the world of Angry Birds.

1. Spare The Time

This is the one thing that I know for sure – you need lots of spare time to play. I know people who needed tens of tries to pass one difficult level. I also know there are people who claim they’ve repeated a level hundreds of times just to get three stars and the highest score possible.

So make sure you have time to spare before you play, or don’t start playing at all. Having to stop before being able to finish a level will only make you even more frustrated.

2. Know Your Birds Well

We all know that every character in the game is unique, and knowing the personality of each one of them will help you a lot throughout the game. And I don’t only mean their special moves, but also their strengths and weaknesses.

For example, we can accelerate a Yellow Bird’s speed by tapping the screen while it’s still in the air. We can use this ability to reach difficult and far away places. The Yellow Birds are also strong against wood, so use them to break through wood structures.  Black Birds are literally flying bombs so use them to smash through concrete structures.

Another example, we know that one White Bird can drop one egg bomb, and we can use it to destroy something. But have you also noticed that the White Bird will accelerate up after dropping the bomb? We can use this acceleration to knock down another part of the pig structure.

3. Try Different Angles – Literally

If your efforts to knock down the structure from one angle ended up in failure, try different angles. Don’t be afraid to hit the repeat button. Repeat the effort and learn from the mistakes. Don’t let the mistakes frustrate you.

4. Observe The Environment & Take Notes

Continuing from the previous point, you can use the background environment to help locate the perfect “action point”.

For example, take note of the position of your finger (or mouse pointer) when you launch the bird. If the attack is successful, remember the position and move on to the next bird. Or take note of the bird position in the air when you tap the screen to activate its special move, so you can repeat it if necessary. This step really helps me every time I use the Boomerang Bird.

5. Think Outside The Box

One of the fun things I found in the game is its creativity. You don’t always have to do everything by the book. For example, there are times when you simply use the White Bird to hit a part of the structure without having to drop the bomb. Or situations when you have to shoot the Boomerang Bird backward and let it curve in order to hit the otherwise unreachable target.

6. Seek & You Shall Find

When you are stuck, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Your friends are just a phone call away. Socializing is always a good way to take a break from the endless gaming hours. The Internet is also a wealthy place to find discussions, tutorials, and walkthroughs to help you overcome difficult levels. A quick search will give you plenty of links to visit, but my favorite places for my Angry Birds needs are Rovio’s YouTube Channel and AngryBirdsNest.

7. Cross Your Fingers

Luck plays a heavy part in Angry Birds. Once in a while, you’ll make an unrepeatable lucky shot and are able to complete the level with flying colors.

I know. It’s weird to put “luck” as one of the tips to reduce the frustration level in playing games. But sometimes, luck is all it takes to put the smile back into your stressful and frustrated face. So, always keep your finger crossed throughout the game.

Don’t Get Angry, Have Fun

In the end, the one thing you have to remember is that this is just a game. It’s silly to get so worked up over a game so have fun. If the fun is taken out of the game, then there’s no point in playing it.

If you are also an Angry Birds fan, please feel free to share your own hints and tips, experience, anything, using the comments below. Do you have any favourite online sources for Angry Birds tips?

** Editor’s Note** : This is Jeffry’s last post for MakeUseOf.com, after 3 years. Please join me in wishing him all the very best for the future.

One of the best candidates for the editor is PlainText. It’s a free iOS text editor with the ability to synchronize to your Dropbox account. It means that you can edit your documents on the road using your iOS device and then continue the process on any computer using any text editor.

Playing With Folders

There are lots of text editors available for iOS. Other than the ability to use Dropbox to sync the documents, another thing that sets PlainText apart from its competitors is the ability to organize the text files into folders and sub-folders. If you deal with only one or two text documents, this feature might mean nothing. But, for those who interact with lots of texts, being able to separate them into folders means everything.

There are many small things about PlainText that will make you like the app. One of them is that it remembers the last location you were at when you left the app. The start point is the “Documents” view, and the first thing that you should know is that you can rename any document or folder by tapping on the small arrow next to the document’s/folder’s name.

There are several things you can do at the root – you can view documents, dive into a folder, search for text or a document, and delete any document or folder by sliding your finger on the name and tapping the “Delete” button.

You can tell which ones are folders and which ones are documents by looking at the small arrow at the right side of the screen. Every folder has an arrow next to it.

At the bottom of the screen are the tools. They are Settings, Search, Add New Folder, and Add New Text File.

When you are inside a document, you can easily go back to the folder by tapping the bold arrow on the left. Editing the document is as easy as tapping on the text and typing using the keyboard, which will automatically appear from below. To hide the keyboard, tap the small transparent keyboard icon above the keyboard.

Dealing With Dropbox

To link PlainText to your Dropbox account, go to Settings and choose Dropbox. There are other things you can customize from inside the Settings window, such as linking TextExpander with PlainText so that you can use short abbreviations to write longer words.

If your PlainText is already linked to your Dropbox account, you can use the “Unlink from Dropbox Account” button to change the location where you want to save your documents. Tap on the “Unlink” button to confirm the action.

By default, PlainText will store all the documents created with the app in a Dropbox folder with the same name: “/PlainText“. To change the location, type the folder’s name in the “Link Folder” field. If you write a name which doesn’t exist, PlainText will automatically create the folder for you.

You can change the file types that will be synchronized to PlainText, but I advise you to leave this setting alone.

After that, tap the “Link to Dropbox Account” button to connect PlainText to your Dropbox account. Fill in your Dropbox account email address and password before tapping on the “Link” button at the top right corner of the screen.

If you are using the iPad version of PlainText, then you are in for a treat. The size of the iPad screen makes PlainText very comfortable to use. You can expand the text area to full screen by tapping on the small arrows icon above the keyboard on the right.

So far, PlainText is my favorite text editor on iOS devices. Some will argue that Evernote is better, but I like the minimalistic approach of PlainText better than Evernote’s interface.

Have you tried PlainText? Or do you have your own favorite iOS text editor? Share your opinion using the comments below.

There’s An App For That

All the methods described below are possible because of the availability of supporting apps. You’ll need two components to make the system work – the iOS app and the desktop app. All the desktop apps are available in both Windows and Mac versions, and all apps are free unless mentioned otherwise.

1. As A Second Display

What makes the iPad different from the personal computer is the size factor. Since the iPad is a big touchscreen display, why not use it to extend your personal computer’s display? Air Display can help you to utilize the iPad to be a second monitor.

Even though Air Display’s desktop app is free, the iOS app is not. The price tag is US$ 9.99, but I think it worth every penny. After installing both components, you can connect the two devices using WiFi and your iPad will be magically transformed into a second monitor.

You can use the second monitor to mirror the first, or as additional screen real estate. If you choose the second option, you can easily move any open window from your computer screen to the iPad screen by dragging and dropping.

2. As An External Drawing Board

Some digital graphic artists rely on their digital drawing pad to produce their work. If you are one of them, or if you plan to buy a digital drawing pad, you can try to use your iPad as a substitute. There are lots of great drawing apps for the iPad that you can choose, such as Brushes, Procreate, Sketchbook Express and Pro, Adobe Ideas, etc.

But if you want to use a collaborative drawing board, where several people can draw on the same digital board simultaneously, you can try WhiteBoard. The lite version is free, while the pro version is US$ 2.99.

3. As An External Trackpad

Why not use the iPad as an external tracking device to work with your computer? HippoRemote is one of the many apps that will allow you to do so. Other than transforming your iOS into a trackpad, the app can also mimic a full keyboard. The lite version of the app is free while the pro will set you back US$ 4.99.

If you are a Mac OS X user, you can use the app to do multi-touch gestures. You can also use it to remotely control your presentation or your computer media player.

4. As A Gate To Access A Remote Computer

This one might be the most obvious use of an iPad in its relationship with the personal computer. But I won’t talk too much about this topic as there are already several discussions about it, including The 7 Best Free Remote Control Apps for the iPhone, The Best Free Remote Desktop Apps for Your iPad, and Access Your Computer From Anywhere on Your iPad.

Creating A Wireless Network

All the apps mentioned above require both devices – the personal computer and the iPad – to be connected to the same wireless network. But if your wireless arrangement doesn’t work, you could try to create a computer-to-computer network from your computer’s wireless settings and preferences. Then you can set your iPad to connect to that direct connection.

In my experiment, I found that all the apps worked better using a direct “computer – iPad” connection rather than using a home network.

What do you think about using the iPad to enhance the use of a personal computer? Do you have other usage ideas? Please share them using the comments below. And don’t forget to check out our collection of the best iPad apps.

Image credit: Avatron.com

But in its current state, SSD still has one major disadvantage compared to the traditional HDD – the price. Unless you have money to burn, you won’t get a large enough storage space to breathe. The most common SSD capacities that you can currently find in the market are around 64GB and 120GB, while most entry-level computers come with a 500GB HDD.

Since we are so accustomed to throwing all of our digital files into the terabyte-sized HDD without ever thinking about deleting them, can we survive living with SSD’s minuscule capacity? The answer is, why not? Here are several tips that can help you survive living in the smaller storage world.

Down On The Earth

1. Start Fresh

The first thing you should do after making your move to the smaller SSD drive is do a clean installation. Resist the temptation to migrate your system and/or move all of your files from the old HDD.

Rebuilding your system from zero will allow you to filter out unnecessary applications, documents, videos, and everything else that you saved “for later”.

2. Keep Large Files Out

If you have files that you can’t delete, but you don’t need to bring them everywhere inside your laptop, store them in an external drive. The price of large capacity external HDD’s is already cheap enough that it would make a perfect companion to your SSD-powered computer.

If there are several computers in your vicinity, it would be a good idea to invest in a Network Attached Storage (wired or wireless).

Music, Photos, and Videos fall into the category of files that are not so essential but can’t be deleted. Sometimes, you just can’t move them out to an external drive. If you are an iTunes user, read this article. Mac users who want to move their iLife to an external drive, read this one.

3. Hunt Down Hogs

We all know perfectly well how easy it is to fill your computer storage up. Now that you have limited space, you have to do spring cleaning more often – delete unnecessary files, completely uninstall unused applications, empty the trash regularly, and clear the browser’s cache. You know the drill.

There are several applications that can help you do the spring cleaning, such as CCleaner and NCleaner.

Up In The Cloud

4. Say No To Automatic (Local) Backup

Everybody knows that backups are one of the most important actions on the computer. But with so little storage room to spare, it would be wise to turn off the automatic backup feature, and move to a cloud backup service instead.

There are several web services that you can use to backup your important files, such as: Dropbox, Sugarsync, and Insync.

5. Webmail FTW

Those who have been using the Internet long enough will remember that POP3 used to be the chosen protocol for email systems. POP3 downloads all of your email from the server and keeps local copies on the hard drive. But if you use a small capacity SSD, having copies of your emails is the last thing you want to do.

If you are using an email client to manage your emails, turn off the options to keep local copies. Otherwise, your storage space will be full in no time with all kinds of attachments. Or better yet, ditch the email client(s) altogether and move to webmail instead. Among many webmail services, the most well-known names are GMail and Yahoo! Mail.

6. Stream, Not Download

I used to hate streaming multimedia content, especially if the content was long videos. That’s why I didn’t really like YouTube. Consuming stream content under a poor Internet connection is far from enjoyable. Users have to wait several minutes for several seconds of video. More often than not, the videos are restarted to the beginning and there’s nothing users can do. But if you value storage space more, streaming multimedia content is a better option than downloading it to the computer’s drive.

You can also choose the middle path – download the content so you can enjoy them comfortably, but always remember to delete them afterward. If you choose this path, there are several tools that can help you acquire multimedia content from the Internet. Read the articles here - 4 Quick Ways To Download YouTube Videos Off The Net and 3 Free Ways To Download YouTube Movies To Your iPhone (& Other Mobile Phones).

7. Get Yourself A Better Internet Connection

As the world slowly moves to the cloud, it would be a great idea to try to get yourself a better Internet connection. Even though you can survive with any decent Internet connection, having a good one will help you keep your SSD emptier by moving your documents to the cloud with the help of web services like Google Docs.

The list above is based on my experience of using a laptop with limited storage plus some quick web searches. I’m sure that there are things that I missed. So if you have any more tips or tricks to optimize SSD usage, please share them using the comments below.

Image credit: TAKA@P.P.R.S, m0dlx

Creating a movie trailer using iMovie is fairly simple, and from my amateur perspective, I think the result is astonishing.

The Beginning

Similar to Apple’s other creative applications, such as Pages, Keynote, and iWeb, iMovie provides users with several ready-to-use templates. Start by going to the “File” menu to create a “New Project“.

The template window will open. There are fifteen Movie Trailer templates you can use in your project.

When you click on a template, you can see more information about the item in the right pane. The preview window will give you a general idea about what your movie trailer will look like. You can also see the cast, duration of the movie trailer, and a short description of the template. Click “Create” when you’ve set your heart on one template.

Your chosen template will be opened in the upper left pane, but we’ll get back to it later.

The next step is to import the short clips that you want to use in your project. Go to the “File – Import” menu. You can also import your movies directly from any connected camera.

While importing the clips, iMovie will also optimize them. The process could take a while depending on the power of your machine, how many movies you import, and how long those movies are.

The imported clips will appear in the lower right pane in the series of scenes, while the library of events is in the left pane.

Start Creating

If you used a mobile device to shoot your movies, you might get clips with the wrong orientation. There’s an easy way to fix this disorientation in iMovie. First, select the disoriented clip(s), Then adjust the selection by dragging the left and right yellow borders.

After that, go to the “Window – Cropping, Ken Burns & Rotation” menu, or use the “C” shortcut key.

Go to the preview pane and click one of the rotation buttons to fix the orientation.

Not let’s start our main event. Go to the “Project” pane, and customize your project’s information under the “Outline” tab.

Next, move to the “Storyboard” tab. Here’s where the magic happens. All you have to do to create your trailer is click on the scenes on the storyboard, then browse and click on the scenes from imported movies.

Try to match the scenes between the storyboard and the movie clips. For example, if the storyboard says “Action“, pick an action scene from the movie clip. After you have filled all the scenes on the storyboard, iMovie will tell you that your trailer is complete.

Export & Share

Now that you’ve finished your masterpiece, all that’s left to do is share it with the world. Go to the “Share” menu and choose one of the sharing methods you want to use. For example, if you want to save the movie to your hard drive, choose “Export Movie“.

Give a name to the project and choose one of the exporting options according to the quality you want. Then click the “Export” button.

Another possible exporting method that you can choose is to send the trailer to YouTube. Log in with your YouTube account, complete the information, and choose the movie quality. After that you can upload the video. The time needed for the uploading process will depend on the speed of your Internet connection and the size of your movie.

When the movie is uploaded, iMovie will tell you the URL. You can share it with your friends using email or by viewing it on the YouTube site.

In my experiment, I managed to create a 48-second trailer in less than 5 minutes – without counting the time importing the clips.

If you love to record your life in short videos, then you should try to compile the clips into movie trailers and share them with your friends and family. It’s better than leaving them on your hard drive collecting virtual dust.

Don’t forget to check out other similar articles: HyperEngine – The Best Free Movie Editing Software for Mac, 7 Free Open Source Video Editors For Linux, 7 Video Editing Tasks VirtualDub Handles With Ease [Windows], and The Top 5 Free Apps To Split Or Merge Video Files.

Have you tried iMovie? Do you use other video editing applications for your home videos? Please share your thoughts and ideas using the comments below.

For those who have better eyes for design (and no interest in coding), there’s Muse from Adobe. The company claims that this multi-platform AIR application can help anybody to design and publish HTML websites without having to write any code whatsoever.

Start Planning Your Personal Landing Page

One question before we begin. Why would anyone use a web building tool like Muse when you can use WordPress and its themes instead? The answer is “customization”. Even though there are literally thousands of WordPress themes out there, customizing the theme to really fit our needs is difficult. Another reason is that using a WordPress advanced database system for a simple and linear site would be overkill.

You can download Muse from the website. It’s available for free until the v.1.0 release in early 2012. The application works under Windows and Mac, but it requires that your system has AIR installed.

To better understand how Muse works, let’s try to use it to create a simple personal landing page, something along the lines of Flavors.me or About.me. Start by choosing “Create New Site” from the startup window or from the File menu.

• Then you will be asked to customize your site by choosing the page width, the number of columns, margins, etc.

• The first step in building a website is deciding how many pages it will have and what the relation is between the pages. You can easily add, delete, and rearrange pages in the “Plan” window.

• Click the “+ (plus)” button to add, and the “X” button to close. Click on the page name to rename, then drag and drop to rearrange.

• At the bottom of the page, you can see the A-Master page. This is the template that will be used throughout your site. So if there are elements you want to keep on all your pages, it would be so much easier if you define the elements at A-Master instead of repeating them over and over.

Start Building

• If you double click one of the pages, it will be opened in a new tab. You can start building and designing the pages using the tools at the top toolbar.

• Other tools that will help you along in the design process are the “Panels” on the right. You can show or hide these panels via the Window menu.

• To build our personal landing page, let’s change the background by inserting an image. You can customize the image by changing the scale and position.

• Next, let’s add a navigation menu by choosing it from the Widget panel, then dragging and dropping it into the webpage.

• You can customize the navigation menu using the “Options“. Click the small blue arrow to summon the Options window.

• You can also change the text appearance (type, color, size) using the “Text” tab in the right panels.

• Then you can add Texts and Rectangles using the tools on the toolbar. Drag these elements to the position that you want, and customize them via the right panels. To add external links (or other HTML elements), use the “Insert HTML” menu under “Object“.

• Write down the HTML code of the links in the pop-up window and click OK to add it to the site.

• Similar to the other elements, the inserted HTML code is highly customizable. Unfortunately, we still can’t change the link color. Hopefully this feature will appear in a future version of the app.

• After everything is set, you can see the result by clicking on the “Preview” link.

The Last Step

• After everything is set, you are ready to put your site out on the web. To do that, use the “export as HTML” menu under “File“.

• Decide on the location to save the project, and click “Export” .

• If you want to attach your personal landing page to a URL you already own, use any decent FTP client to upload everything inside the folder to your web hosting account. Since different hosting providers use different settings, please consult your hosting provider about this.

This short experiment has shown us that creating a personal landing page using Muse is as simple as adding and customizing elements. But Muse is also capable of creating more complicated sites with multiple pages. There are many examples of websites showing what Muse can do on their “Showcase” page. To learn more about Muse, you can visit their “Learn” page.

What do you think about Muse? Will you try this tool to help you build your website? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

While you can capture the complete event using video, I think that taking still photos is the best way to capture the feeling of a moment. GLMPS (iTunes link) is a free iOS app which tries to bridge the video and photo world together. For every static picture you take, you’ll get a glimpse of the moment that precedes the shot – in the form of a five second video.

Just Set & Shoot

Just like almost every other app that exists today, GLMPS has added a social twist to its features. Currently it ties itself to four social services - Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and Tumblr. Before using the app, you have to log in using either your Facebook or Twitter account, and give permission for GLMPS to connect to your social account.

Then you will go through several short introduction screens. After tapping on the “Get Started” button, you will arrive at a random popular image. Other than viewing the picture and video, GLMPS allows you to like, leave comment, and share the post. Tap the location pin to find out where the image was taken and if you want to view more popular entries, tap on the top right button.

Tap on the “Back” button to go back to the main interface of GLMPS.

To start taking pictures (and videos), tap the camera icon on the main interface. Every time you snap the button, you will get a picture and a short five-second video of the event before the picture is taken.

The result will be saved in your iPhone, ready to be uploaded to the GLMPS server and shared via one of the available social networks. If you want to upload the result to Foursquare and/or Tumblr, you have to do it before you tap the “Post” button.

Once the result is posted to the GLMPS server, you can still share it via Facebook, Twitter, email, and SMS, by tapping the “More” button at the bottom right of the screen (the one with three dots). To see all the images plus videos that you’ve taken, tap the “Grid View” button at the top right next to the camera button.

To access GLMPS “Options“, tap the “Settings” button on the top left of the screen. You can log in to the social services via Options. The settings screen also gives you access to your GLMPS friends.

The Good, The Bad & The Future

After playing around with GLMPS for a while, there are a few things I could say about it. The first one is about the uploading process – it’s fast. This can be both good and bad. While the good part is obvious, it might be bad for some people because ‘fast’ also means that the quality of the result must’ve been compromised for the small file size. I personally think that the quality is still acceptable.

The thing that I found annoying was the long and blatant promotion that GLMPS put in every picture that I posted to Facebook. I don’t mind telling people that the picture plus video that I posted was made using GLMPS, but I think that the developer is trying too hard in this department.

In general, I found that the idea behind GLMPS is nice and the app could be one of the favorite picture sharing applications. If you love to take and share pictures and videos, you should try the app.

Do you think attaching leading video to a picture is a good idea? Share your opinions using the comment below. Also don’t forget to check out these other mobile picture sharing applications: Instagram, Snapbucket, and Cinq.

But each person has different tastes. Users love to add their personal touch to everything they own. While iOS can be customized, some elements of the UI come with minimal customization options, one example being the iOS lockscreen. The only official personalization you can do to it is change the background image. Fortunately, there’s a solution. If you have a jailbroken iOS device and you want to customize your lockscreen, there are countless ways to do it. This is one of them.

Let’s Go Shopping

There are many reasons why people jailbreak their iOS device, but I guess the most popular one is to be able to change the look and feel. You can do this by activating Winterboard and applying a theme or two. There are lots of themes that you can find on Cydia, and choosing one among many is not an easy task. So I started my quest with the good old search engine.

I found that one of the good looking popular themes is LockMS. You can get the theme via Cydia. Just tap the search tab and type in the name. Tap LockMS from the result and tap the “Install” button on the top right corner of the screen.

I took the screenshot after I installed LockMS, so the install button is replaced by “Modify“.

As mentioned above, you’ll need Winterboard to be able to run themes. You can download and install it independently, but the app should be installed automatically along with the first theme that you download. But the theme alone is not enough. To further customize your lockscreen, you need other applications from Cydia. The first one is “CleanStatus“. This app will let you customize which screen information you want to display or hide.

The next one on our shopping list is “Lockscreen Clock Hide“. As the name suggests, this app will hide the big clock on the lockscreen so that it won’t overlap with the clock from LockMS.

And the last one of the pack is MiniSlider. This app will reduce the size of the lock slider so that the slider will not block LockMS.

If you want to completely hide the lock slider, you can use one of these themes along LockMS: “Hide Slide to Unlock” or “No Slider“. I don’t use them because I feel more comfortable having the unlock slide on the lockscreen.

Let The Game Begin

With all the ingredients ready, we can start the customization process. Go to “Settings” and scroll down to the Winterboard.

Then tap “Select Themes” to view the theme list.

You can find all the installed themes here. Tap on the ones you want from the list. LockMS comes in several flavors. They are the basic version, the 24-hour version, the version with the “Tap To Unlock (TTU)” feature, and the one with invisible TTU. To enable our customization, choose one of the LockMS themes and MiniSlider.

After choosing the theme, go back to the WinterBoard main screen and tap “Respring” to activate the theme.

After that go to the CleanStatus screen from Settings and disable the icons you don’t want by sliding their status to “On“.

Don’t forget to enable Clock Hide to complete the process.

And here’s the result of our customization. You can further customize the theme (such as adding a background image) by going to the “Root – Library – Themes” of your iOS device with the help of an application like iPhoneExplorer. But a complete explanation on how to do this would take another article, and it would bring our discussion out from the “easy” realm.

Even though the process we’ve discussed here is simple, I hope it’s enough to introduce you to the world of iOS customization. Don’t forget to check out some of our other articles about jailbreaking and iOS devices such as Jailbreaking & iOS: The Pros And Cons Of Voiding Your Warranty, JailbreakMe 2.0: Easiest Way to Jailbreak Your iPhone, and How To Get Your Own iPhone Wallpapers and Themes.

Do you jailbreak your iOS device? Do you use themes? What’s your favorite theme? Please share your thoughts using the comments below.

Image credit: toastr blog