SPlog

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.

I had been working with my nook recently when accidentaly erased over 7 gigs off my 8GB card. Here’s how it happened.

I wanted to erase all the contents off my sd card and restore it back to default settings. Since windows has an easy built formatting tool. I opened up “My Computer” and right clicked on the drive, then clicked “format”. It ran through all the contents and reset it back to factory default. Unfortunately the SD card only showed 1gig instead if 8.

It was as if the card was only a 1 gig card. I flipped out. I had spent a good deal of money on that card, and I couldn’t use one that’s only 1 gig. I did everything I could think of to fix my card. I reformatted it again, unplugged it and remounted it, and even restarted my computer and reformatted it. Nothing worked. My laptop somehow turned my 8 gig card into a 1 gig card.

I found out that according to sdcard.org the Windows OS does not have the appropriate software to reformat an SD card. The default formatting software never really suppports SD cards. However there is free software that one can download and use. Once I did download it, I tried it out, and it restored my missing 7 gigs to the card.

So for future reference, windows 7 cannot reformat your camera’s SD card in file explorer. Try these links and get supported software. https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_3/