Top 5 Android Apps for Better Sleep

Getting a good night’s sleep can be a problem for most of us some, or all of the time. There’s nothing worse than waking up groggy and foggy from not getting rested up. There are some great apps to help you track your sleep to help fix problems or just help you get a better night’s sleep in general Here are the top 5 Android apps for sleep help.

SleepBot Tracker – Sleep Suite ;

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This is the best one on the market. This app won first place by the US National Institute of Health’s competition for “Going Viral to Improve Health”. This app will log in all of your sleep information, organize it into graphs and charts, and allow you to see the trends, patterns and time stamps of your activity. If you want to figure out your problem times or areas, or just get a better idea of how you sleep this is an essential app.

Lightning Bug – Sleep Clock ;

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Did you have one of those sound makers years ago to help you sleep? Studies show that ambient sound and white noise can help you sleep far easier than in a regular quiet room. When you have every creek and bump to take your attention away from sleeping then you can’t fall asleep nearly as easily. This app will provide you with the ambient noise to help you drift off into a slumber of calmness and relaxation. With over 200 sound loops to choose from you can’t go wrong.

Relax and Sleep ;

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This is another great ap for people who need to hear something as they fall asleep. It also features the ability to fade sounds in and out , have custom presets and use and alarm clock. Choose from an expansive list of over 35 ambient sounds from nature to animals to machinery.

Music Box to Sleep ;

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If you have someone who needs to hear music to fall asleep, whether it’s you or your infant child, this is the app for you. With a number of great lullaby type songs this will have you wandering off to sleep in no time at all. Relaxing background images make it all the more enjoyable as well.

Music Therapy for Sound Sleep ;

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This is a great approach to sleep therapy from a sound perspective. The sounds in this app are made especially to go well with the wavelengths and patterns of the brain to induce and continue sleep. The ability of the creators to sync this app well with actual neurological activity makes this one of the most comprehensive sleep aid apps available. Not only will this app help sleep, but it will put you in a more relaxed and refreshed state.

PopClip: The App Your Mac Needs

The apps in the Mac store are usually of very high quality since they are heavily screened and tested before ever coming close to the marketplace. PopClip is a great app which follows suit with these standards. In principle it is a simple app. When text is selected PopClip springs to action. With any imaginable shortcut you can think of such as copy and paste, autocorrect, sending links or excerpts, and even searches this does anything you could ever want when selecting text.

It really does seem like it’s almost too simple to really have any meaningful impact on your computing experience, but that’s only because you’ve gone so long without it. Once you start using this app you’ll first wonder how it isn’t a default program on the Mac since it works so flawlessly, and then you’ll wonder how you functioned without it for so long.

It takes short cuts and makes them even shorter. The only services it provides it does faster and more efficiently than would be possible without it. I downloaded this app to write this article about and I’ve already used it a number of times in my work day. People who use their Macs to do anything at all will find this incredibly useful from students to professionals.

With seamless integration to other services like EverNote there’s no reason to hold yourself from this app any longer. It really does make my workday go so much easier in places I never even realized I was wasting time. Check it out and you won’t regret it.

Source: PopClip for Mac

[Image Credit: Apple Mac Store]

Lock Screen Plus: Lock Your Mac’s Screen in Style

Locking your computer’s screen is a necessity for anyone who isn’t holed up in a cave for most of their working day. With the introduction of Macs into the normal working inventory it is an even more likely scenario that you’ll need to lock out your screen most of the time. Lock Screen Plus is a really nifty app that allows you to lock your computer’s screen while making the most of a simple scenario.

Lock Screen Plus allows integration with weather services, passwords, internet connection, battery status and image functions so your lock screen isn’t just a regular everyday slideshow of computer generated images, but more of a widget. This is great since it makes the screen far more pleasing to look at while also showing how it is fully locked.

It can be customized in more ways than are worth listing and pops up automatically with whatever your chosen settings were at each inactive time period or sleep. Think of it as every other stock computer lock screen but simply maxed out with all of the extra trimmings.

It comes in a variety of themes to show you how to get the most of whatever style you’re into, but in reality it does exactly what you could ask for from any screen locking app. The only thing that isn’t great about this app is the inactive memory usage which idles at over 100 MB. This is pretty significant for a locking app, but the app itself is still worth it in my opinion.

Source: Loack Screen Plus for Mac

[Image Credit: Apple Mac Store]

Ubuntu Phone Experience for Android

Ubuntu Phone Experience is a new app that allows the Android phone to be used the way it should be in a much cleaner and more straight forward interface than is currently available. Allowing the user to swipe between apps and launch your favorite apps from anywhere is a real treat. Usually in the modern setup of Android phones you have to go about changing apps by closing them out and hitting touch press keys and everything else. With the Ubuntu app the whole layout of the phone is changed in a way that makes much more sense than the clumsy, conventional workings of an Android phone.

The side bar addition to this layout is what separates it from the rest of the pack. Fully customizable and allowing the user to select and bring it up whenever is an amazing treat. The only thing lacking is the choice of where it is positioned. It should be able to be moved somewhere other than the left side of the phone screen for left handed people or those with shorter fingers.

Although this app is amazing and certainly helps improve the functionality of navigating my phone there are a few things left to be improved upon. I have no doubt that the developers will add these and allow this app to become fully utilized in the way it can be. As this app is updated I feel like it has a great chance to stay on top of my other apps as the standard to work through my Android.

Google Play: Ubuntu Phone Experience for Android

[Images Credit: Google Play Store]

Galaxy S2 GT-I9100G finally rolling out for Android Jelly Bean 4.1.2

The latest version of the Android Jelly bean 4.1.2 has started rolling out to Samsung Galaxy S2 – I9100G variant. The Galaxy S2 I9100G variant was released in some European and Asian countries.

The Android Jelly Bean 4.1.2 update brings a lot of new features, a Smart Stay, TouchWiz as seen in the Galaxy S3 & Note 2, Direct Call, Pop-up Play, new notification bar with more notification toggles, new widgets and lock screen.

The Android update is available via OTA and Samsung KIES Tool as well. You can check to see if the latest update is ready to download by checking your system settings.

Official Firmware Details :

-> Android Version: 4.1.2 – Build JZO54K
-> PDA: I9100GXXLSR
-> CSC: I9100GXEFLSR
-> MODEM: I9100GXXLSR

Shiny Groove: The Best New Grooveshark Player for Mac

When you hear about another streaming music app most people simply have the news go in one ear and out the other. With a plethora of streaming music options available on the market there seems like no point in highlighting the newest since it will be overtaken soon anyway. I disagree! A lot of our reader base is not US based. Outside of the US many of the most popular music streaming services aren’t available. The best one for people outside of the US is Grooveshark. The thing is, Grooveshark is only a web based app so using it to stream music on your mac hasn’t been possible up until the release of Shiny Groove, the next best option for streaming music.

The Shiny Groove app is very nicely built and has a common sense interface that any Mac user will instantly be well versed in. It also stays on top of other apps on your Mac, but can be minimized with a click of a button. This means that when you inevitably want to skip a sing or look at the title it will be there just as easily as it will be minimized while you’re doing something more important like checking Facebook or procrastinating.

Although the music library available isn’t the most comprehensive, it is quite good for a non US based app. And, the fact that it’s specialized for Mac makes it an even better option in an even more slim market. Check out Shiny Groove for a nice streaming music experience on your Mac if other services have come up short or aren’t available to your geographic location.

Source: Shiny Groove for Mac

[Image Credit: Shiny Groove Web]