Get more use out of your MP3 player!

[Sup3rkirby]

Some of you may already know of this, but I'm sure most people don't, so I am here to spread the word.

If you have an MP3 player, you probably use it to play all your favorite songs and possibly watch some short movies or videos too.  And of course if you can watch videos, you might store some pictures on there as well to look at.

But for the most part, that is about all you will use that MP3 player for.


Well, since there are plenty of people out in the world who not only spend hours of their day becoming programmers of all types, but there are even those who like to find ways to alter products of their own.  Thanks to many programmers and reverse engineers and open source development, something has been created that turns your MP3 player into a heck of a lot more.

I would like to introduce You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login.  What does it do exactly?  Well with a name like 'RockBox' it deffinitely plays all your music(with more codecs than any other mp3 player).  Here is a quick list of some of the things it allows your mp3 player to do:

• Play virtually any music file type
• Customize the look of your menus and player
• Play your videos(mpeg)
• Listen to the radio
• Play numerous games
• Use several applications
• Use a screen saver
• And More

RockBox does quite a bit.  You can even create your own styles. There are many ways to customize the way your MP3 player works and functions, including voice menus(for blind users, or just for your everyday use).

The games are my favorite part, since you get quite a few games preinstalled like Tetris, Bejeweled, Snake, Astroids, etc.  Plus with a few simple downloads you can even play Doom, a 3D first person shooter.  Plus there is a download for pacman as well.  And the most impressive part of the games is 'RockBoy', a preinstalled GameBoy emulator, allowing you to run ANY gameboy or gameboy color game on your mp3 player.

The very best part of the whole thing is not that it is FREE, but that the whole design is temporary.  Not in the way that everything is gone when you start up your MP3 player again, but that you can still use your old firmware so your MP3 player works just as it did.  RockBox essentially creates a dual-boot for your MP3 player, allowing it to start up with RockBox, but you can still start up with the original firmware if you like.

So why not give it a try, there is really nothing to lose. It is easy to remove, if for some reason you don't like it, even though you don't have to remove it to use your MP3 player normally.  RockBox supports quite a few MP3 players already, including most iPods and the SanDisk Sansa e200 series as well as some iRiver MP3 players.  So check out the site and if you have a supported MP3 player, I suggest you install it and just give it a try.

You can always PM me or send me an email if you need help installing it on any MP3 player.  I have the Sansa e260, but I can still help with most other models.  I am also willing to help with any issues you may have to the best of my knowledge, although there is a forum for RockBox.