(Credit: CNET)

Here at CNET we're about to start a 3-day weekend thanks to presidents day on Monday. If you're lucky enough to have an extra day this weekend, what better way to waste a little time than with a solid new game? There's been a lot of great game releases lately, and this week I've picked games from various genres in the hope that you can find something you like.

This week's iOS app collection is all about new games to play over the long weekend. The first is a physics puzzler sequel that's extremely polished and very hard to put down. The second uses your music library to drive the shoot-'em-up action on screen. The third is a platforming game sequel that truly tests your arcade gaming skills.

In this level, you're challenged to hit the target as if you were skeet shooting.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)

Ragdoll Blasters 3 (99 cents) is the third installment in the popular physics puzzle series, and this sequel is a solid offering with plenty for puzzle gaming fans. Like the first two Ragdoll Blasters, the game concept is simple: on each level, aim your cannon and fire the ragdoll to hit the target. Of course it's never quite that easy, you'll also want to grab buttons for extra points and the maps provide plenty of obstacles ... [Read more]

Clear is in a class of its own when it comes to both user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) in an iPhone app. It's simple, yet elegant as Jason Parker described it.

The no-frills approach to adding, deleting, and completing tasks with such a minimal UI can confuse some people at times, though. This short video walk-through will cover the basics, enough to get you started using Clear.

Once you get the hang of the gestures, moving around the app is intuitive. As I mentioned in the video, you can unlock up to three themes, each changing the color scheme of the app as a whole. You can find the secret to unlocking each theme in this post.

Clear is available in the App Store for $0.99 and is currently only compatible with iOS 5 and above.

Related stories The Clear method to complete tasks How to unlock three hidden themes in Clear, the new iOS task app

[Read more]

The SiteAdvisor add-on for Firefox evaluates search results to let you know how safe a site is to visit before you go there, but one Mozilla engineer says that it drags down Firefox and causes huge memory leaks.

(Update: McAfee announced a fix for later next week, and Mozilla acknowledged it. See below.)

It's just the kind of problem that Mozilla doesn't want to be dealing with as it finds itself knee-deep in an ambitious development plan and surrounded by ever-tougher competition.

Mozilla engineer Nicholas Nethercote wrote a blog post early today in which he recommended that Firefox users disable the add-on immediately. He also wrote that Mozilla ought to actively block it until Intel, McAfee's owner, fixes the problem.

McAfee's SiteAdvisor became a popular add-on around five years ago because of its search result ratings and malicious site blocking. It's not the only one to do so, but it has a higher profile in this instance than others because of its longevity and the fact that memory-chip maker Intel now owns McAfee.

Nethercote found SiteAd... [Read more]

(Credit: Screenshot by Ed Rhee)

Digital document service provider, SignNow, recently released free mobile apps for both Android and iOS devices. The apps allow you to import Word documents, PDFs, or photos, sign them, then send them back--no printing, no wasted paper, and no fuss.

Here's how to sign digital documents with SignNow:

Step 1: Download and install the Android or iOS version of the SignNow app onto your mobile device.

Step 2: Launch SignNow and tap the document icon to open a document.

(Credit: Screenshot by Ed Rhee)

Step 3: Choose to import a document from e-mail, Dropbox, or take a photo of a document. In this tutorial, we'll choose Open Sample. You can also open an attachment directly from your e-mail app and choose to open it with SignNow.

(Credit: Screenshot by Ed Rhee)

Step 4: Once you have the document open, navigate to the line(s) you need to sign. You can zoom in on sections by using pinch-to-zoom. After you've located the sections to sign, tap the Signature button.

(Credit: Screenshot by Ed Rhee)

Step 5: Sign your name on the Draw Signature screen, then tap the OK button.

... [Read more]

(Credit: Google)

The Chromebook photo editor is not a Chrome app, as you might think. It's integrated into the file manager. To use it, launch the file manager by hitting Ctrl+M, then navigate to where your photo is located.

(Credit: Screenshot by Ed Rhee)

Once you click on the photo you want to edit, two options will appear in the lower right-hand corner--View and Edit and Delete. Click on View and Edit to launch the photo editor.

(Credit: Screenshot by Ed Rhee)

You can allow Chrome OS to autofix the image or crop it.

Auto-fix or crop the image.

(Credit: Screenshot by Ed Rhee)

You can also change the brightness and contrast, or change the orientation of the image.

Change brightness, contrast, and orientation.

(Credit: Screenshot by Ed Rhee)

That's all there is to the Chrome OS photo editor. It's about as basic as they come, but if all you need to do is make a few basic edits, it's definitely worth having, especially if you don't have an Internet connection. ... [Read more]

Sundar Pichai, SVP of Chrome

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Because I've got cloud-computing religion, you'd think that Google convincing me to like a Chromebook would be as easy as preaching to the choir.

It's not.

After a few months using Samsung's 3G-equipped Series 5 Chromebook, I can firmly say the first-generation Chromebooks are not for me, for one big reason: sluggish performance.

But there's some good news here for people like me: There are new, faster Chromebooks on the way, Google revealed to me.

"We remain very excited about Chromebooks. We got a lot of positive feedback, and we are really looking forward to the next generation of Chromebooks," said Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Chrome, in an interview yesterday. "We will improve on the dimensions of speed, simplicity, and security."

And there's one other thing. Google makes a big fuss about how Chrome OS, the Chromebook's underlying browser-based operating system, gets steadily better as Google updates Chrome every six weeks. This Chromebook isn't where it needs to be, but it's appreciably better better than when it first arrived.

Activation energy Whenever I'm using computing devices, which is a lot, a user-interface analog of ... [Read more]

Google has released a test version of its browser with the ability to run programs written in Dart, the company's language designed to improve on JavaScript.

"This release of Chromium with Dart VM integration is a technology preview, and should not be used for day-to-day browsing. After more testing and developer feedback, we plan to eventually include the Dart VM in Chrome," said Google programmers Anton Muhin, Vijay Menon, and Pavel Podivilov, in a blog post yesterday.

Google developed Dart as a way to improve Web programming, for example with better performance and with a language it thinks is better suited to large-scale Web applications. But Dart has met with a frosty response from browser rivals including Microsoft who'd rather see improvements to JavaScript and avoid the prospect of another language Balkanizing Web programming. Google's approach to building Dart in-house before running it past fellow members of Web standards also raised hackles.

Related stories

• ... [Read more]

The Wall Street Journal reported today that Google and other ad companies have been using special code to sidestep privacy settings in Apple's Safari browser and track Web users on desktop computers and the iPhone.

The Journal also said that on one of Google's sites--in language that has since been removed--the Internet giant had said Safari users could rely on the browser's privacy settings to avoid tracking by Google. (Editors' note: See Google's response below.)

The privacy-skirting code, which the Journal said Google disabled after being contacted by the paper, appears to have been used to let members of the Google+ social network sign in and then, while moving around the Web, click +1 buttons in ads that are part of Google's DoubleClick ad network. The +1 buttons let a user give a thumbs-up to an item and automatically share that approval with friends via a message on the user's Google+ profile.

Related stories

• Google wants ability to combine your user data
• Group sues FTC over Google's planned privacy update
• ... [Read more]

Users will have the ability to set the level of protection they want with Mountain Lion's new Gatekeeper feature.

(Credit: Apple)

Many people complain about Apple controlling what apps can run on the iPhone, but with Mac OS X Mountain Lion, the company has struck the right balance between security and freedom, experts say.

"Users can opt to turn this off and allow any software to be installed with the click of a button," said Dino Dai Zovi, chief technology officer at security firm Trail of Bits. "There'll be no need to jailbreak your Mac."

Apple unveiled details today about Mac OS X v.10.8, the latest version of its Macintosh operating system which is due out this summer. One of the new features, aptly dubbed Gatekeeper, is designed to protect users from downloading malicious applications. Users have three settings to choose from: only allowing apps from the Mac App Store; allowing apps from the online store as well as apps from registered developers; or... [Read more]