SPlog

I had a problem with my Seagate portable hard drive. For over 3 years now, I’ve owned a 320 GB portable hard drive that I always carry in my laptop case. I’ve used it for just about everything. At one time it held all my music because my old laptop could only fit 160GB on it. It stores my digital movies, and all my archived projects from work. I have school homework on it, as well as church documents.

While trying get some taekwondo clips of it, I was interrupted with loud beeping noises, followed by the drive losing power and shutting off. I looked it all over, and it looked okay, so I plugged it in again. It started right up, but then died again. I fiddled with it for about 10 minutes and found that the pins on the usb connecter had gone bad, and the only way to get it to connect was to slightly bend the usb cord and hold it against the drive. I got it running, and decided to back up all the files onto my new laptop… Only one problem… I had over 300 GB of files on the drive, and the transfer time was estimated to be 3 hours.

It was already 1am, but I really needed those files. So I sat there grasping a firm hold on the cable, careful not to move it too much. I watched a few Netflix TV shows on my tablet to pass the time. Finally at around 3-3:300am the files were all transferred to my laptop. I let go of the cable, trying to relieve my cramped hand, and immediately the drive died, giving up its final beeps of despair. I slowly crawled over to my bed and fell fast asleep, wishing I would somehow get more than 3 hours of sleep.

Today there are so many e-book services out there, it’s hard to choose which one to stick with. Do you go with Amazon Kindle books or stay within Barnes and Noble’s nook books? Oh wait there is also books from Google, Apple, and even Kobo. With all these services, all claiming to offer you what you need in books, which do you choose?

Amazon Books offer many books through their online amazon store. Many times their book prices are very competitive for Barnes and Noble, so most of the times it makes no difference between the two. You can read you whole Amazon library on your Amazon Kindle. They also offer free apps for the Blackberry, Windows Phone, Android, and iPhone allowing you to read your book wherever, across whatever device you own. I personally use the Kindle to purchase how to books for technology. They seem to have lower prices on books that teach you how to do things, like build a website, or mobile app.

The Barnes and Noble stores offer their nook books that can be read on your PC, iPhone, Android, Blackberry, or Windows phone. You can also purchase their nook reading device to have instant access to your library. They offer a great source for novels. I personally will tend to buy my novels from them, like Sons of Encouragement by Francine Rivers. Barnes and Noble also offer Nook Friends, where you can borrow books from friends. So this makes Nook my preferred source for personal reading.

Google Books has an e-reader device as well. They offer apps for Android, iPhone, and Blackberry. But the best part about Google Books, is that they require no program to read their books. They are all online, so all you need is an internet connection to be able to read your books. So any device that can access the internet can read the Google Books. This means you can access your book from anywhere in the world. If you own a device that has the Google Books app, you can also download the book for access during times that you have no wifi. Google Books tends to focus on material that is in the Public Domain, and books that are older. They have software to scan the pages of  a book and translate it into text. This makes them the number one source for older books.
I took a college class that was focused on the works of Thomas Hardy. I was able to get all of the required Thomas Hardy books for free via Google Books. It was great! Also I use Google Books to purchase any book that I will want instant access 24/7, like any study material, or Biblical helps.

Apple offers books as well, but I have not used them personally. They offer no app for Android devices, RIM devices, or Windows Phones. However if you have an iPhone or iPad, you can get books there for a decent price. Sometimes even better than Kindle or Nook devices. They also offer a great reading experience for iOS users.

The Kobo books are limited at this time but expanding. Although they might seem insignificant, they offer a great reading experience, and can also read your nook, kindle, and Google books all within the same app or device.

I personally stick with the following three: Google Books, for old books and things I need access to at all times; Kindle Books, for the technical books, and how to books; and the nook books for anything I want to personally read.

On a side note. There is big taboo about getting school books in e-book format. Personally, I don’t like that idea because I like to resell the book after I’m done with it. Unless there is some type of buyback option, or selling tool, it is not a viable feature for me.

If you talked with me about my career path within the last 6 months you would know that my eyes were set on Missouri S&T in Rolla. For the last several years, my focus has been on civil engineering; I have taken several physics and mathematics courses along the way. I’ve toured the campus 2-3 times already, and even had a job lined up.

I had my classes lined up, a job secured, and even found a local church of like faith. The only thing that I needed was my living quarters. It seemed that everything was lining up perfectly. It was clear that God wanted me to go, or was it? For the last two months, I fought with doubts, and kept going back and forth. Was this move actually good?

I was considering the field of structural engineering, possibly even a focus on earthquakes. It was all very interesting. I enjoyed learning about it. Enjoyed the physics applications that were taught in calculus, and even enjoyed the real life situations that were brought to me in Mr. Berry’s physics classes.

I enjoyed learning it, however, I didn’t enjoy actually doing it. The more I immersed myself into it, the more I found that I disliked it. Yes it was really cool to learn about the science of forces, measuring how much energy and mass an object would have at any given location, and the rate of acceleration. But actually solving the problem was not my cup of tea. Yes, I liked knowing that if the ball’s speed is given as it rolled toward the stairs, that I could calculate what step it would bounce off of. But I didn’t like calculating it. I thought to myself, do I really want to be doing this my whole life?

Missouri University of Science and Technology

Physics is very interesting, and I do think that it has been beneficial to me. But lately I’ve been questioning myself on my future. I understand the problems, I can solve the problems, but it doesn’t appeal to me, neither do I enjoy the process.

I have been very interested in programming for a long time. It started out with building my first website. I taught myself all the basic website programming languages. I have been working with websites for so long, that I generally keep to directly coding it myself, from scratch. It has been an interesting journey. But it is something that I work in every day.

Lately I’ve been learning to program and develop Android apps, but I soon realized that I need more knowledge of programming before I can make a successful app. The more I researched, the more it dawned on me that the science of programming was what I needed to study. It appeals to me, I understand it, and I can actually do it.

The more I researched, the more I was convinced that it was the perfect match. I finally found something that I really enjoy doing. But there was one problem, I was already registered for classes, and everything ready to graduate this spring, then transfer to Rolla in the fall.

So I prayed for a whole week, trying to find out what God wanted me to do. I was given peace about this new career path, something that I had not had these last 2-3 months. I went ahead and signed up for the extra classes I needed at OTC. I will say that I was never so excited to go to school as I  headed to my first programming class. I couldn’t wait for the next class. I even read two chapters ahead of the class schedule. I had not been so enthusiastic about classes since my first college class 5 years ago.

Right now I am working on a technical degree in Computer Information Services. I will be learning website design and software programming. This can then be put toward a degree in Computer Science, or Software Engineering.

My degree that I am now working toward is software engineering. It is very similar to computer science but different too. Although the shady boundary line is crossed from both sides, and both degrees do the same type of work, CS is generally approached from a mathematical standpoint, fun algorithms and analyzing problems, while SE is more hands on software programming.

I view it like this, computer science is like the civil engineer, software engineering is like the architect, and graphic design is like the interior designer. The civil engineer lays out the ground rules of what can or can’t work. The architect draws up the whole plans and architecture, creating how the user’s experience will be. And the interior designer works on the eye appeal of each area, taking special care as to how things are presented.

Was all those classes of physics and math wasted? I surly wasn’t supposed to take them, right? I don’t really have a great answer right now. I do know that I did believe it was God’s will at the time, and maybe I WAS supposed to take those classes for some unknown reason. Maybe somewhere in my future I will be thankful for those classes. I don’t know. What I do know is that, it is all behind me, in the past. I can’t change it, and it doesn’t matter now. Most of the classes will transfer over to my new degree, so there is no loss academically. I know that before me is a career that has been given to me. A new goal, one that I am very excited to embrace.

I first heard about Ice Cream Sandwich a year ago. I remember getting the update for Gingerbread on my phone, and I decided to go online to see where how long it would be before I got the next major update. At that time Ice Cream Sandwich was just rumors. Many people thought it would be either called Android 2.4, or Android 3.2.

Here is a brief overview of how the Android software updates updates. (Notice the are going through the alphabet, and are all named after desserts. Mmmmmm.)
1.5 Cupcake
1.6 Doughnut
2.0 Eclair
2.2 Froyo
2.3 Gingerbread
3.0 Honeycomb (Tablets ONLY)
4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
??? Jellybean

Android 3.0 came out, and was a killer! If it weren’t for the overpriced tablets, awkward screens size, and low security , the android tablets would have skyrocketed. The design was amazing, and the graphics were awesome. Everyone wanted honeycomb for their phones since it was so sleek and powerful. The only problem was that Google didn’t release the code for Honeycomb. The opperating system was not optimized for phone use, and Google was afraid that phone companies would try to use the code for their phones, creating a very bad user experiance. So immediatelly Google said that the next major opperating system would tie in both phones and tablets together. All the great features of honeycomb, combined with the optimization for phone use, would bring about an amazing user experiance across all devices. So they decided to start the software as their 4.0 update. Ice Cream Sandwich was supposed to be really big.

The summer came and went with still only more rumors of the awaited software. Then toward the end of the summer it was announced that the first phone to run ICS would be released in the fall. The Google Samsung Galaxy Nexus would feature the new software, with only on screen buttons (a new feature for Android).

Finally in the early fall, the update was announced, features were shown, and the world had to wait a while longer for the release date to pass. Finally sometime in October, Google finally released the source code for their new ICS software. Android 4.0 was finally here! or was it? Google allows the manufature (like Motorola) to make their own version of the software, that then has to be reviewed and approved by the carrier (ie Verizon). So that part of the process can take an additional 6 months. So here we are in mid January with no release from Motorolla, HTC, or Samsung for their previous Android devices yet.

What’s funny is that aftermaket versions are already releasing ICS for their supported phones already. Showing that an earlier release date could be possible, if the manufacture didn’t have to jump through so many hoops to get their update approved.

Some may get their update before spring, some before summer, but I believe that the majority will get their ICS update in the summer and fall months (Almost a year after it was released). This is a huge problem that Google will have to address in the future.

I eagerly await the update from Motorola, but since I have a Droid2, almost 2 years old, I most likely won’t get the new update anytime soon, or maybe not even at all. If so, that will be the day that I install an aftermarket version on my phone.

More on Android Versions can be found at android.com

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Can't Wait for Snow?

This letter was scheduled for yesterday, …however it is kind of irreverent since we got the cold weather and snow yesterday. (So when you read, pretend we didn’t get any cold weather yet…lol)

Living in the Ozarks region, one must get used to the weather, or better put, the changing weather. One must not get used to the current weather because it chases so quickly. There a saying around here, “Don’t like the weather? Just wait a few days, it’ll change.” The weather changes so often that our area was dubbed the hardest weather for meteorologists to predict.

One thing is for sure, our weather is never the same all year round. We experience temperatures in the 100s with the humility just as high, and then in the winter we have ice storms and snow with temperatures getting down to 0 degrees. Although we can have a few snow fall, most of our snow occurs in the months of January and February.

With all that being said, this year we have yet to have a hard winter frost, or snow, or ice, or any cold weather. We did one small snowfall in late October, but nothing significant. Lately our temperatures have been as high as 65 degrees. Some enjoy this pleasant version of winter that is occurring now. But I’m very disappointed, and a little concerned. I’m not worried about the weather, we’ve had warm winters before, nothing new. But I’m concerned for the coming spring and summer.

A good hard frost prepares is really good for our area here in the Ozarks. How? It kills off the tics, fleas, mosquito, and other pests. I’m not one for freezing weather, but I would sure rather have that than have mosquitoes and ticks biting me all over this spring. So bring on the cold weather, and let the pests die! Mwahahahaha!!!

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I leaned this in one of my calculus clasess last year, and I wanted to post it today.

The Mathmatical Equation that Proves that Women are Problems

1.      To find a woman you need Time and Money. So therefore,

So Woman = Time x Money

2.      “Time is Money” so therefore,

Time = Money

3.      Therefore

Woman = Money x Money

Woman = (Money)²

4.      Money is “the root of all problems” so,

Money =Square root of Problems

Money = ?Problems

5.      Therefore

Woman = ( ?problems)²

Woman = Problems

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It is amazing how many coffee houses, fast food restaurants, and other businesses hosts wifi hotspots for their customers. The biggest fast food chain, McDonald’s, now has WiFi provided in many of their millions of locations. In fact I’m sitting right now at my local McDonald’s as I write this, slurping up my Dr. Pepper, and munching on my golden fries. Places like music stores and store fronts, waiting rooms and hair salons, all have the wireless hotspots. Even many hotels and motels now advertise FREE WIFI on all their signage.

So what makes these places want to serve some online browsing on their menu? I decided to look at the main reasons why I think a business would want to host a free wifi hotspot for their customers, and then look at why the customers actually take advantage of it.

The following reflect my personal opinions of the subject, and offer no credible research.

Attracts more people.
I work fairly close to a McDonald’s, and I’ve seen with my own eyes that their business has increased after they provided free wifi. People come in with their huge laptop bags and all their accessories, take up a whole table (near an outlet) and park it for a few hours. I mean let’s face it. They attract the college students with their homework and fancy gadgets. The work from home type, with their laptops and headsets, using Skype frequently. Also there are the older generation with their e-reader, or iPad, reading the news or some book. I’ve also seen just about every age group on Facebook a few times as well.
People bring the craziest things in sometimes as well. I’ve seen a guy carry in a printer before, printing off several pieces of paper. Everything is there, from the small netbooks to the huge laptops, the phones, to the tablets. I’ve seen tables filled with electronic gear, and even cords hanging from the ceiling where that was the only available outlet. It really is funny some of the things you see. But all of these people would not be there if there were no wifi. They may stop in, grab something and go, but without wifi, that’s it. With the wifi they stay a while longer, even going back for more food later. Which brings me to the next reason.

Generates more business.
People stay longer, they order more, they come back more often. I normally don’t care to eat fast food very often, however I love to sit at a restaurant and surf the web, watch movies, and write blogs. So I compromise, I’ll order a drink instead of food, or maybe just fries, that way I’m still supporting the business, and not taking advantage of the free wifi. I’ve noticed that I spend on average 5-10 more hours a week as I visit quite frequently.
Many people are staying for a while, and they keep getting up and ordering more food. I saw a lady, at Panera Bread, go up to the counter to order something 5 separate times within the 3 hours she was there on her laptop. Providing wifi generates more business. People come back, if they’ve enjoyed themselves. I’ve had more McDonald’s, Hardee’s, and Panera Bread in the last 12 months than I’ve had my entire life.

Creates a better public image.
The public image is really important for a business. So hosting a hotspot increases the positive reception of the public image. I mean the business is offering FREE WIFI. Instead of taking advantage of people’s need for internet and web, they are offering it as a free accessory to staying at their store. It a great advertisement, never mind many people already get internet everywhere they go on their phone. The business are offering it to you for free with no charge, or membership fee.
Lets face it, McDonald’s, Panera Bread, and I’m sure a few more are widely known for offering free wifi. So you know that their public image has improved a bit.  They could make you order something, and then have the access code printed on your receipt. It has been done before. But no, they offer it free of charge. They’ll even pay the electric bill for charging your device up while your there, and offer you heat in the winter, and air conditioner during the summer. So they become the nice guy, providing everything you need to be comfortable while surfing the web, and it’s FREE!

So what are some of the reasons that people actually go to these places? I feel that there are at least three main reasons why a customer will come and use the wifi.

Welcomed Homey Feel
Fist off is whole feeling of being welcomed in, and accepted, while keeping a homey feel. For instance a new McDonald’s has been built in my hometown, and I’ve already visited it. I love the design and layout of the place. They are definitely catering to people who will be coming in and staying for awhile working on homework, work, or personal projects. Also places like Panera Bread, Barnes & Noble, Starbucks, and more now offer lounge areas for people to just sit and enjoy themselves. It gives a very homey feel that people tend to enjoy. Comfortable cushions and table spots. Plenty of outlets, and even a few bar stools. Walking in give the message “Come on in, and stay awhile!”
So for a lot of these businesses, they keep the place up so that people get a good reception when they come in.

Easy Access.
Personally I know that if I need to get in the internet really quick, maybe to upload something, or email a friend, I can easily look for the nearest McDonald’s or other convenient wifi hotspot and get instant internet access. This means whether or not you own a smartphone, you can still get internet just about anywhere in the states. The internet is always there and easy to get access. No special hoops to jump through, no crazy security locks that keep people away. Just free easy wifi for all within range. Why go home, when you can get your internet anywhere else? I’ve counted over 25 hotspot businesses that I pass on the way to and from work. My favorite happens to be McDonald’s in which there are several in my town.
Now I never have to go straight home to access my internet. Sure may be able to get peace and quiet there, but with everything happening around the local businesses, it’s too much entertainment not to go out. Even when I’m actually there to grab a quick bite, I can still pull out my tablet and do some things over the internet.

Social Lounge
Earlier this week, I ventured into a local Hardee’s Restaurant to work on a post for this blog. While I was there, several other people came in to lounge around and do whatever entertains them. For instance, one man was reading the local news paper, while another was watching the TV that was mounted on the wall, one other was on his laptop, while the last was simply eating with his phone out, obviously texting away. But it wasn’t long before we all were conversing with each other talking about many topics, including the end of the world, politics, Apple and Microsoft, tablets and laptops, and much more. In fact the manager of the place stopped by and mentioned that he had never heard so many interesting topics in his restaurant before, and then joined in the conversation. It reminded me of the old barbershop meetings, where all the men would lounge around the barbershop to hear the top news, and put in their two cents. It truly was awesome, and something that I would not normally get at just any restaurant, nor from my own house. It was a very pleasant conversation between several people. Some had to leave, while others joined in. I hated to leave when I had to. I was enjoying myself so much in word and conversation.

Even though offering wifi may be a gimmick to get more business, it does provide an outlet for those who want to surf the web comfortably. And since people are generally responding really well to places that offer wifi, it is a legitimate source for more customers and business.

There are a lot of music player apps on the android market today. Today I will list all of the top ones that I tested, and will give you my favorite features as to each. These are not in any particular order, each one functions just a little bit differently, so they each have their strengthens and weaknesses.

The first is the default Android Music Player. This app is not on my favorite list, and if you own an Android phone, then you know what I mean. The player isn’t the best designed music player, and is not as user friendly as other players. Just about everyone that I talk to that has an Android phone, hate their default music player. It does have tabs to access different categories of music like genres, albums, songs, and playlists. But once you start the song, it really isn’t as easy to access the view of the album and look at other songs. My guess is that the app was quickly built so the functionality isn’t as great.

WinAMP

Next is Winamp. This app is my absolute favorite free music app if I have music files loaded on my phone. The player is very sleek and user friendly. Personally I think it kills the iPod app for the iPhone. It runs smoothly and very efficiently. The ability to make and edit your playlist is the best of all the music apps I’ve tried. It also has lock screen buttons enabled so that you can access the media buttons without unlocking the screen. This allows the user to quickly pause or skip sons without actually unlocking the screen and opening the app. Full equalizer, and so much more! So this app is the absolute best if you have the mp3 files on your phone.

Doubletwist

Next is Doubletwist. This is the Android’s best app that mimics the iPod app. You can choose to download the doubletwist player for you computer (like iTunes) host your songs and make your playlists via the computer program, or it will even scan your iTunes library for songs and playlists. It then syncs to your phone so that you have your songs in sync with your computer, just like how the iPhone can sync to your iTunes. This is the best feature for this app. The player also supports lockscreen buttons that allow you to play, pause, and seek forward and backwards while the screen is still locked. The user interface is nice and smooth, it is even very similar to Winamp, but not as good. Winamp still beat Doubletwist for having a player to play your songs and such. However Doubletwist is best if you want to sync your music with your computer, as winamp can’t really do that very well.

Google Music

My favorite music player is Google Music. They allow me to upload up to 20,000 of my songs to their cloud. I then have access to my music anywhere there is an internet connection. This is really great for songs that I don’t listen to very often, but still want them accessible quickly when needed. They even make it where you can have your favorite music offline. Such a feature allows a person to access the music without a using the data. The user interface is nice, but not as nice as winamp or doubletwist. They don’t even allow for media player buttons on the lock screen. You have to unlock the screen first and then access the song player to pause. That because annoying a lot of times, but despite its many cons it does host all my music for free on the Google cloud. That is the sole feature I absolutely love.

Amazon MP3

Amazon MP3 is more of a mp3 store than it is a player, but they do have a built in player for any music on their cloud. If you purchase any music from Amazon it can be hosted on their cloud for free. They offer paid services to host you own personal music on their cloud as well. But as for their app, the style and design is not as good as Google Music.

REAL Player

Real Player, the only player on the list that does not come from a top developer. The company makes a really great music player for the pc, so I thought I’d give the android app a try. Although the app is still in Beta (and has been since I first got my android phone over a year ago) it  is still really sleek and well designed. The app is more of a media center than just a music player. It will scan you songs, videos, and pictures, and will load them to be played or viewed. The music part is the main reason for downloading so I will keep the review to that. It has a basic feel to it. The songs and albums load in list format just as any other media player would do. The functionality is basic while the design is sleak and nice. It has a nice feel to it, but it still doesn’t compare to Doubletwist and Winamp. However it does provide an upgrade compared to the default android music player, and it does effectively combine all media, pictures and music and video, into one well designed app.

PowerAMP

Equalizer for PowerAMP

Power Amp, the only one on the list that costs. The app is truly amazing. Supports both big screen tablets as well as phones. It comes with a really cool equalizer, and sound settings. It has separate Bass and Treble adjustment. They even have some presets you can browse through, or make your own custom presets. It has a customizable lock screen. The developer really did a great job on this, because it comes with swipe motions to make it more to advance to the next song or rewind. You can also use the onscreen buttons as well. You can longpress on the back or forward buttons to rewind or fast forward through a song respectively. Swipe the screen up and down to choose albums and such.
This app is really cool! I has a lot of advanced features that are awesome. It has the highest level of customization than any other music app I’ve ever seen. It supports lyrics for singing along. The design is sleek and stylish. It comes with 4 configurable widget types. It has headset support that can (it’s optional) auto play/pause when disconnected and reconnected by headset or Bluetooth. They have great support, and even a q/a section in the app description on the Market. If the app didn’t cost, I’d use it for good. You can download a 2 week trial for free, but the full app costs $4.99. This app surpasses all music apps by far, just using it once will convince anyone.

So in conclusion, currently I only use Google Music because it hosts all my music online, and I don’t have to keep any on the drive. If i had the music on my phone, then I would probably be really tempted to buy Power Amp, as it is by far the best music app I’ve ever tried. But knowing that $5 is hard to justify just for a music player, I’d use winamp instead. I may download doubletwist for movies, since it has a great movie player, but I really wouldn’t use it at all for music. Although the Real Player app is a great idea, it really hasn’t been developed well enough to use it seriously. I use Amazon MP3 mainly just for downloading new songs, and rarely ever use the music player that’s built in. And last of all, I will never use the default android music player for any of my songs as I absolutely detest it.

It is already the year 2012, and time has really flown by. This year a lot has happened. Especially in the last few months.

School has been really crazy lately. I can’t wait to graduate and head on out to Rolla, MO to finish at MO S&T. I am really excited. The last few weeks I had to work on a formal report in a group. The report had to be at least 25 pages long with a minimum of 20 sources, 6 of which had to be primary interviews. My group was given the hardest topic, “How the occupy movement affects Springfield, MO”. My group pulled through it, regardless of the 2 week deadline, with an oral report (and power-point presentation) at the end. We got an A on the whole project, which was the biggest stress reliever all month.

Are you ready for 2012?

I’ve still been busy with church events as well. I volunteered to direct the children’s Christmas play this year. It was a really fun experience. We simply did the whole Christmas story, which had not been done for a while. The kids did a great job, and the play went well. The only thing I noticed was that the kids sang a lot louder during practice than they did when it came to to actually perform the play. Overall it was a really good play. I had a lot of help from other teachers, and even had a friend work on all the costumes. She did a wonderful job, as the costumes were awesome! We had more kids participate this year than ever before, so it was a little bit more difficult to direct them all.

I’ve been working on building android apps lately. I am still in the middle of learning to program them. I following a book that leads you through each step, learning new skills and concepts n each chapter. Throughout the process of the book, you build a game app. It really has been going very well, but I’ve only been averaging a chapter a day, and the book has 24 chapter.

You will eventually see app reviews, and such on my blog as well. I decided to start reviewing apps that I thing are worthy. I am very picky about my apps. Whenever I am looking for a particular app function, like for instance a twister spinner (in case you lose the one that came with the game) I will download all 8 apps that are on the Market, try each one out, then choose the best one. I did that for a music player once, and had a lot of interesting results, but that is another topic for another post.

Last October I had my 21st birthday. There were so many reasons that I was excited about turning 21. The fact that I can now purchase a handgun is still at the top of that list.

Plans for this coming year include life guarding, moving to Rolla, Summer Camp, and TaeKwonDo instructor certification.

I plan to look for a part time life guarding job this summer. I’ve been really wanting to lifeguard, but was too busy last summer to do so. But this summer I really am going to try for an evening shift. I got my lifeguard certification last year but missed the lifeguard camp that is required for the Public Parks Pools.

Since I plan to go to school at Missouri S&T in Rolla, MO, I will be looking for an apartment this summer. By God’s grace, I already have a job lined up. My current employer is willing to keep me on as a remote employee. I hope to find an affordable studio apartment that I can use. Personally I want it big enough to have room to stretch and work out a little.

For the last two years, I’ve been going to Bible Camp with my church as a counselor. I love it and try to clear my schedule each time. I am planning on going this year, so far. I am excited to get to help the kids get their talent and sports ready. It is something I look forward to each year, and if the Lord allows it, I plan to attend every year that I possibly can.

As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, I am currently a second degree black belt in TaeKwonDo. I am also an instructor trainee. Unfortunately during college, I was unable to attend regularly due to homework and such. However this coming semester I plan to work on obtaining my 3rd degree, and also get my instructor-ship papers. My idea is to then instruct TaeKwondo while attending school in Rolla. This is to keep me healthy and fit, while also keeping the knowledge fresh in my mind.

The year 2011 ended with a lot accomplished, now I await for the events to unfold in 2012.

Last year I had purchased a nook color just for the purpose of hacking it, and installing CyanogenMod 7 on it. CyanogenMod is an aftermarket version of Android, and the 7th version is based off of Gingerbread.

The nook color already had a heavily modified version of android on it, but with limited capabilities and features. Barnes and Noble did a add several of their own features on it. But in all retrospect, the nook color can do soo much more once it has a full version of android running on it.

The process was easy, and in just 10 minutes I had android up and running, with all the apps of my choice including, maps, music, Netflix, Skype, Facebook, and Twitter.

I was really excited when I found out that the nook color could be hacked and a fully functional version of Android could be installed, which includes all the apps in the Android Market. Features that not even the nook color used were unlocked. For instance Bluetooth was found, and actually works on it. So with the Bluetooth working, I could connect a keyboard to be able to type better.

The nook works great. The screen is very high quality, while the controls are very good. The accelerometer works perfect. The design is sleek and comfortable. Being the size of an average reading book, it is a good size to hold, and place in your backpack or purse.

The ironic part is that, I can still access my nook books via the nook app for android. But I can now also access all my kindle books as well, along with Google books, and other book apps. I am no longer limited to reading only nook books. This is a plus for me, especially since I have a few books I’ve purchased via kindle, because it was cheaper, and a few books purchased via googe books, because they are always available online. Kindle also sells most of my school book online should I chose to purchase them.

One of the biggest plus was that I have the full android market running on it. Giving me access the biggest android app store of all time. The apps are cheaper than the ones that you get from nook store, and there’s a whole lot more to chose from. For instance I could buy Angry Birds from Barnes and Noble for around $5, yet I can get it from the Android Market for only $0.99.

At the time that I hacked it, Netflix was just coming out on the Android. So I was able to watch Netflix movies on my nook as well. This was a huge deal for me, since the tablet is soo portable and easy to carry. It had the perfect screen for private viewing. However I will admit, Netflix finally came out on the nook app store as well. But that also makes another point. Not all android apps that are in the market are available on the nook app store. Some take awhile to finally make it, while others never come out for the nook app store.

Facebook, twitter, and Skype all work great on the nook, however there is no voice inputs, nor is there a camera, so no calls or video conferencing via Skype, just IM. Facebook works like it would on a phone since they haven’t made a tablet view for the app yet.

I have my music on the device as well. The tablet has a speaker on the back which makes it work well to listen to any audio. Also there is a headphone jack on the top.

All the hardware features mimic the first iPad. No camera, or microphone inputs, yet still has a speaker and headphone jack. It accesses the android market for all the billions of apps, and will even access other app markets such as the amazon app store (kindle fire apps) and the opera app store.

So in essence, by purchasing a cheap nook color. I paid only $200 for a tablet that will access all my books, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and Google books. It will access just about any app, via the android market and the amazon app store. I can watch movies via YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, and even rent from android movies. I can purchase and listen to my whole music library via Google music and amazon mp3. And I can I can keep up with all my social media via the Facebook app, Twitter app, Skype, Yahoo Messenger, and much much more.

This makes the nook color only worth it, once it’s hacked. All in all, it makes me very happy to be the owner of a nook color running cyanogen mod7.