Back in December, 2009 a Finnish company appeared on the scene named, "Rovio Entertainment."  Almost 23 seconds after that, a new game made by Rovio called, "Angry Birds" appeared.  Of course, the only thing I disliked about the game was that it came out only on Apple iPhones.  But that was "corrected" about a year later, after somewhere around 12 million copies had been sold or given away for the Apple version alone. 

If you have not at least heard of the "birds" game you must have been on an island somewhere with Gilligan.  It was touted in the news, entertainment, on shows, at water cooler conversations and most anywhere else mouths and ears were present.

At one time I read it was a great game for teaching Physics. Now come on, maybe physics in a psychedelic-1960s sort of way.  The game involves using a slingshot to launch different types of birds into impossible situations and locations in order to destroy all of the evil pigs who have stolen your eggs.  Yes, you are a bird.  As you move through the game you get new types of birds with special powers for aiding you in your murderous quest.

Now for the squeamish of you out there, it is really, really non-violent. (Yeah, figure that one out.)  I will have to admit it was just plain fun when I tried it out originally.  It remained fun for the first few weeks…like most games do for me.  Rovio must have figured out the boredom pattern and released several other related games in a timely manner.

Next appeared Angry Birds Rio, where you basically are in (you guessed it) somewhere resembling Rio de Janeiro.  You have a few different birds and many, many different locations as well as many angry monkeys but not many pigs.  I guess the pigs needed some recovery time.  I found this one to be interesting too and harder to finish than the original. 

After Rio, "Angry Birds Seasons" came out.  There is basically a game for most every holiday and "special" time in the world.  I found this one to be particularly boring.  I only played it for a very short time. 

The last for the birds was "Angry Birds Space" and you guessed it, the birds are in space.  In this game they not only deal with the physics mentioned before but also gravity or the lack thereof.  This one was fun.  I suggest you try all of them if you wish.

Prices range from free to less than $5 depending on the system for which you are getting the games.

Now, let’s get back to the pigs.  In just the past week or so the pigs have appeared in, "Mad Piggies!"  This game supposedly wants to explain the story from the point of view of the poor picked on pigs.  I have played it so far for maybe an hour or so.  I am not a fan yet.  This game takes more thought since you have to design a vehicle which is sort of like an advanced wagon.  This is then used for traveling over different terrains in order to get to each finish line.  As with all of the Rovio games the graphics are great.  I am just not a fan of having to think of ways to design a cart. You need to use a fan, wooden and rubber wheels, a bellows and a box of TNT for racing to a finish line.

All of these products have updates and additions from time to time so more levels are always coming.  Enjoy and let me know if you have tried any of these great "time-wasters."

Tags: 1960, android, apple iphones, birds, boredom, entertainment, games, impossible situations, physics, piggies, pigs, psychedelic, rio de janeiro, Ron Doyle, slingshot, teaching

Tags: airline, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, autonomous vehicles, babies, driving car, fbi, fix it, games, google, Google cars, hackers, hacking, help, hodgepodge, internal documents, iPad, Jim Britt, microsoft, mulitplayer, nato, navy, nevada state legislature, online, online bookshop, parting shot, pilot, pool, pregnant, sites news, u s navy

Last time I told you about OpenDNS.com where you can set up ways to restrict website access from your home computers.  Microsoft also adds a similar feature in Windows Vista and 7, titled, "Parental Controls."

"Parental Controls" are useful to help manage how and when your children use a computer.  You can set up games they can play, programs they are allowed to run and time limits on computer use.

You need to be an Administrator on the computer in order to perform the following actions.  To access "Parental Controls" in Windows 7 go to the Start button / Control Panel.  Next, select User Accounts.  You will need to set up an account for each child you wish to restrict if one does not already exist.  If your children are equal in age, ability, trustworthiness, etc. you may only need one account with a password.  You will see the settings for the account you are currently using. Make sure it says the account is password protected. You may not want your children accessing your account.

Make sure when you set up the account for your kids, or before setting up Parental Controls on an existing account, you set the account to a Standard user account.  If your child is an Admin on the computer they will have all rights.

Next, click the Set up Parental Controls link at the bottom of the screen.  From the Parental Control screen, select the child’s account you wish to restrict.   Change "Parental Controls" to "On, enforce current settings." You will see links for Time Limits and Games and Program controls.

Using the "Time Limits" link, you can set limits on when the computer can be used. For example, you can have the computer log on from 7 PM to 9 PM every day and then block all access to the user account.

Click the Games link to control what games can be run. You can filter by rating, content or title. This setting only applies to games in Windows 7′s Game Explorer area. If they aren’t there they cannot be affected.

The last link is, "Allow or block specific programs".  Here you can stop access to any programs installed on the computer.  This will take a couple of minutes to set up since it will search your system for all programs which can be affected.  Once the list loads you can check the applications you want to enable that user to run.  Be cautious since some of them are not labeled well and you may allow access to the wrong application.

Next week we will look at a few more things you can control on your computer using Windows Live Essentials.

Tags: blocking software, censor, children, computer log, computer use, control panel, games, home computers, internet safety, kids, last time, limit, microsoft, parental control, parental controls, program controls, start button, teens, time limits, user accounts

First today I would like to thank all of you who read and applied what you learned from last week’s column.  It was regarding the cloud storage platform Dropbox.com.  Because some of you used the link I mentioned, I gained an additional 2 GB of storage.  They have a maximum of 8 GB allowed free so if you still wish to sign up and haven’t yet, this is still a good link, http://bit.ly/aszzao.

No, I don’t really need that much cloud storage but it is a fun experiment…so thanks again to those of you who registered!

I gave you all a link several weeks ago that generated a lot of email, bit.ly/965cg3.  It is a scrabble-like game site called, “SSCrabble”.  I am sure the naming is due to copyright issues.  Many of you wanted to know other games or gaming sites I regularly visit.  Well, I hate to sound like an old curmudgeon but I don’t game as much as I used to in the last century.

I stopped buying gaming consoles when they changed too often to the latest and greatest and my old games were no longer playable.  So, “No” I don’t have an Xbox or any of the latest.  I gave up somewhere after the Atari 5200, Nintendo (NES) and the Sega Genesis.  I finally put them in a garage sale with all the Mario games and stopped trying to keep up. 

For a while I bought a few PC games but found that unless you upgraded your computer to the fastest and best, the newest games were unplayable.  I think my favorite PC games were the Myst series and Morrowwind.  I still have both and occasionally fire one up.

I play a couple of other online games now.  I wrote about Evony.com last year, which too time-consuming so I quit that one.  Today I wanted to mention a couple I occasionally play, just to relax sometimes.

One that I like is called, “Defense” at bit.ly/cQoWtu (shortened link for space).  You set up an arrangement of armament to defend your area from attack by land and air.  There are many games at the main site and when you get there and see the link, chop off all but the “.com” part to see them.  The main site is onemorelevel.com.  I will shorten the others here too.

Next is, “Dogfight”, bit.ly/agxQ35 think WWI.  

Last but not least (my favorite actually) is, “Double Wires” at bit.ly/cy0uEj, which plays best in MSIE.  Once you get there you should get a gangly Spiderman type guy who jumps around a lot.  If you get to the main ‘onemorelevel.com’ page you may need to go to DoubleClicks.info and type in the actual link which I will post here  (www.themaninblue.com/experiment/SSCrabble).  You can find a mass of games are at miniclip.com too.

Have fun gaming!  Let me know if you like any of these and tell me your favorites.

Tags: cloud, games, online