Sometimes things are a little hard to keep track of and so you need to write them down to remember later. If you think using a pen and paper is so last year, Evernote is the app that will help you to electronically track your important thoughts. What’s even better is that it will also utilise the features of Apple’s new iPad 2 in a fantastic way.
Now, after an Evernote update, the camera on the iPad 2 can be used to take snaps to add to notes; photos are stored on the Evernote servers. After a little while your photo will be analysed, and any text that is picked up in the shot will be searchable from within the app. This is undoubtedly one of the most awesome uses of the iPad 2’s camera, as it acts like a scanner and text- recognition software suite in one. However, what is most amazing is that it can actually read your handwriting. Yes, as long as you don’t write in shorthand or have the kind of illegible scrawl that leaves people scratching their heads, Evernote will read your words and allow you look them up quickly. This means that if, one day, you don’t have your iPad with you and have to head into the dark ages with a pen and paper, later on all you need to do is take a quick photo of your page and your note will be just like any other. So how do you do it?

The iPad, and previously the iPhone, have fast become the biggest mobile gaming platform in the world, with millions of people downloading simple apps like Angry Birds to their devices to play on the move. Now, though, there is a new kid on the block, and it’s going to blow Angry Birds out of the metaphorical water.

The OnLive service launched in both the US and UK for Macs and PCs a few months ago, and it has changed the way a lot of people play games completely. The system allows you to play a high-definition game on any machine, whether it’s a £200 netbook running Windows Vista or a high-end gaming PC designed specifically for producing the best the graphics. What computer you use won’t actually make any difference to how the game looks, because the entire game is streamed to you from the OnLive servers.

When you input controls, they are beamed to the server farm, which works out what you want to do and instantly beams back the visual reaction to what you have done, with every part of the computing taking place in the server. All your computer needs is an internet connection and you can play any kind of game you want at the highest quality available. And it works. Exciting, eh?

Now, though, things are getting even more interesting. While you can already play OnLive on your Mac, and buy a wireless controller for the device if you want a more traditional gaming experience, you could previously only observe games if you use the free OnLive app for iPad. Flicking between the games that other users are play and watching their progress live was increidbly impressive, but what we really wanted was to be able to play these games on the iPad, right?

Right – and the OnLive people have finally managed to do it. Check out this video, taken at E3 this year, shows an early demo of Batman: Arkham Asylum being played on an iPad, using a wireless controller. The app will be launching as soon as Apple approve it to the app store, and will include a whole selection of games that are playable with taps and swipes on the screen. At launch, there are three titles with Native Touch controls (one of which is the recent Rockstar title, LA Noire), which have been specifically designed to work with the iPad as if the game was built for Apple’s tablet.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There will be a controller launching for the service very soon (£39.99 and $49.99 in the UK and US respectively) that will allow you to connect not only to your iPad  but also to your Mac through bluetooth. You can play around 25 titles using touch controls on your iPad, but connecting a controller will unlock the full library of over 200 games currently available through OnLive. What’s really exciting is the potential here – with a MicroConsole and an iPad, you could display two different views of the same game, which could add a whole new dimension to gaming in the same way that AirPlay mirroring has with Apple TV and some iOS titles.

There’s also some great news for those in the US – OnLive have also been working on the service over 4G LTE networks with AT&T and Verizon, so you can play anywhere. Those who download the free OnLive Player app from the app store when it goes live will get a free copy of Lego Batman to test out the controls, and can test out other games for 30 minutes at no cost. So what are you waiting for – go get it now!

If you’re in the UK, you might also be interested to hear that BT is offering its home broadband customers an exclusive opportunity to get the OnLive PlayPack free for three months when they register online at bt.com/onlive before January 31 2012.

The growth of social networking has led to a sharp increase in the popularity of photo sharing over the last few years. Flickr is arguably the most well-known of the services, and this image and video hosting website now hosts more than four billion images. As well as being a popular site for users to share and embed personal snapshots, the service is widely used by bloggers to host images that they embed in blogs and social media.

If you’re a Flickr user, an iPhone app that connects to the site is a natural extension. The official Flickr app lets you do this and a whole lot more. The most notable feature of the app is the ability to upload images to your account. Whether you choose to take a snapshot with your iPhone’s camera or select an existing image from your photo library, uploading is effortless. As a bonus, you can geotag each shot with your current location, add it to a set and assign a level of privacy. iPhone 4 users will be pleased that the app supports HD video uploads and multitasking. This means that your photos will continue to upload in the background while you are performing other tasks.

Step 1: Flickr
Download and install the Flickr app; when you open it, you will see a slideshow that displays images from the site. Now log in to your account.

Step 2: Sign in
Tap on Recent, You or Contacts and you’ll go to a one-time authorisation that opens in Safari. Sign in using your Yahoo! ID username and password.

Step 3: Authorise
Tap the OK, I’ll Authorize It button and you will have instant access to your Flickr account. You can now perform a range of tasks.

Step 4: Upload
Now upload an image: tap the upload icon (top-right) and select Upload from Library. Browse until you find an image and enter a name.

Step 5: Geotag
You can geotag your image by enabling Tag Current Location. Do this and select a privacy level. Tap Upload and it will be uploaded to your account.

Step 6: View image
Tap You to view your collection of photos and you will now see the latest snapshot. You can add a comment, assign it to a set or share it via email.

Over the years, developers have made all kinds of attempts to add flare and panache to simple games so that they can be more immersive and fun than straight-up problem-solving. The difficulty a lot of point-and-click puzzle games face is the ability to find the middle-ground between where the user can get the ball rolling quickly by solving easier parts of the puzzle, but then also making the game tough enough to maintain interest. It’s a tough balance and one that’s been struck by the gorgeously designed Machinarium.

After setting up your profile in the App Store, installing a few freebies and moving on to install some commercial software too, you find yourself with a cluttered dock and the need to recover some disk space.

Indeed, with such a great tool as the App Store, it is easy to overburden your system with unnecessary software, free games and applications. The problem is that, unlike the average document downloaded from the internet, these software packages can be large and will not only fill your Applications folder, but could also litter your dock and desktop with all manner of shortcuts and preference files.

Recovering free disk space on your system and de-cluttering your environment is an essential part of maintaining a healthy system. This tutorial will help you keep your cool when considering the somewhat daunting and risky task of removing unwanted software from your system.

Step 1: Locate the application
Every software application bought on the App Store is installed in your Applications folder. Open a Finder window and navigate to the software.

Step 2: Is the software running?
For menu bar utilities, use the respective Quit menu item to close. For regular running software, switch to an active window and hit Command+Q.

Step 3: Locate the dock shortcut
With most applications, a dock shortcut is created. Browse through the dock at the bottom of your screen and look for a pictogram of the software.

Step 4: Trash the shortcut
If the shortcut is present, click and hold until the contextual menu appears. Choose Options and then Remove from Dock to remove the shortcut.

Step 5: Trash the application
Return to your Applications folder, click and hold on the software to be deleted and move it on to the Trash icon in the dock. Let go of your click to delete.

Step 6: Are you authorised to do it?
When an App Store purchase is dropped onto the Trash, a dialog box opens, asking you to enter an administrator password. Enter one and click OK.

Step 7: Check your work
Click once on the Trash icon in the dock and the Trash Finder window appears. Check carefully that the application is listed in the contents of the Trash.

Step 8: Empty the trash
With the Trash window still open, start the emptying procedure. Click the Empty button on the right-side of the Trash banner located under the toolbar.

Step 9: A word of warning
In the second step of the removal process, a warning dialog box opens prior to the Trash emptying. Click Empty Trash to delete the software.

Click on the image below to zoom in on the annotations.