Chances are when you pick up your Android phone/smartphone/superphone, you're gonna be doing some texting or picture messaging.  If you're still using the stock Messaging app, it's time for an upgrade to Handcent SMS and if you're new to Android, this is the number one app I recommend you download right when you get your phone.  The amount of customization, personalization, and settings options this app offers is staggering.  Some might take a look at all the options and faint, but not to worry.  I'll take you through the ins and outs of Handcent in an attempt to demystify some things and make it easy for you to set it up how you like.  Oh, and I should mention that it's available for free in the Android Market.

Here's a brief list of all the power you can harness with Handcent SMS:

• Full SMS and MMS support
• A multitude of different languages
• Emoji support (with additional plug-in download)
• Custom theming, fonts, skins, etc.
• Widget support, icon and preview
• Group sending options
• Messaging pop-up with quick text
• Individual notification options for different contacts
• Speech-to-text recognition
• Security and lock options
• Spellchecker
• Online backup and restore of SMS/MMS, Handcent settings
• Auto split 160 characters for CDMA networks
• and the list goes on...

You're gonna want to follow me after the break as I delve into the multitude of options Handcent SMS offers.

SMS, or Short Message Service, is your basic means of texting and Handcent has you covered in more ways than you could ask for.  First off, if you choose to use Handcent as your primary messaging app, you'll want to disable the notifications in the stock messaging app (so you aren't doubly notified when a message arrives).  To do this, open up Messaging and go to menu > settings > ??????.

Once that's taken care of, it's time to go into Handcent and start playing around with some settings to get it setup to your liking.

Half the fun of having an Android device is the wide selection of amazing applications which are available in the Android market. But half the battle is trying to find ones that you want, or that serve the purpose you need, but as you know we love our readers, so each week we bring you some of our personal favorites. Hit the break and let's take a look at what we got for you all this week!

If you're still searching for the most detailed weather app in the Market, I introduce you to WeatherPro by MeteoGroup. WeatherPro is both an aesthetically appealing app that's just rife with anything you could need to know about the weather in your area.

WeatherPro offers a full weekly forecast as well as breakdowns of each day in three hour intervals. It also gives you important information like wind direction and speed, chance for precipitation, and air pressure. If you're so inclined, you can also find sunrise and sunset times in the app as well.

MeteoGroup gives you not only the opportunity to pick a city from a list of popular destinations, but also lets you search for a city by name to get weather information about. I was definitely curious how Austin only felt like 50 degrees, but when I added the state, bingo, right up in the triple digits where we belong.

WeatherPro is packing both radar and satellite view, which, after loading, animate for you on screen. Your selected city is shown as a red dot. It's a really cool feature, especially if you want to see a storm's position in relation to your location.

Perhaps the most advanced part of the app (and the part that'll make you feel like a meteorologist) are the graphs that show your weekly forecast in line and bar graph form. The graphs include temperature, precipitation risk, pressure, sunshine duration, humidity, and wind conditions. They're pretty wild to look at, and once you've mastered reading them, you can appreciate how amazing it is that things of this caliber are included in an app.

The settings menu lets you pick your measurement system of choice, so people around the world can get the weather in their preferred system. There are also three widgets included, so you can always be up-to-date without opening the app.

WeatherPro weighs in at around $3.58, but if you like what you see, it's definitely a worthy investment. Download links and more pictures are after the break.

If anyone happens to remember October of last year, a new streaming video app appeared in the Android Market called Crackle. It was a subscription based service which offered some video for free but the premium videos were to cost you $4.99/month. It ended up being there for quite some time and then it all of a sudden it disappeared. We're not exactly sure as to why but we are glad to see it come back and this time around it's totally free for end users.

You'll need a device running at least Android 2.2 and Flash in order to watch the full-length TV shows and movies offered by Crackle but if you live in US, Canada, United Kingdom or Australia you're pretty much good to go. The only other caveat to the app right now is the fact it's not suited for tablets as of yet but we're hoping that will be addressed in a future update. Hit the break for the download link -- once you're up and running watching Ghostbusters, it'll all be worth it.

I think everyone can agree there's a soft spot for ninjas in their heart, and if you can relate to this sentiment, Ninja Rush is a game you should consider checking out. It's one of those "run until you fall and die" games, but the graphics are nice, the gameplay is fun, and you're a ninja.

Ninja Rush definitely bears a resemblance to Robot Unicorn Attack, but I think any game in this genre would. Ninja rush does offer a few modifications on the stock "don't fall and dodge bad guys" formula commonly seen, though.

For starters, you don't need to just dodge enemies, as you're armed with an unlimited amount of shuriken to throw. You can actually amass a pretty large wall of pain in front of your ninja if you've got a quick thumb, and can switch between jumping and throwing shuriken without falling. There's also a Spider-Man-esque dynamic where, when the ground falls out from underneath you, tapping the screen doesn't jump, but tosses a rope up and swings your ninja from the ceiling.

Yes, there's still double jumping, but instead of a limited dash, swiping right on the screen has the ninja dash forward indefinitely, ramping up both the risk and the difficulty. Swiping left on the screen returns the ninja to his original running speed.

Perhaps one of the coolest aspects of the game is what I'm deeming the Super Ninja Shuriken Super Move. The SNSSM is activated when you pick up three of these floating shuriken icons over the course of your gameplay. Doing so turns the ninja into a full-body shuriken and dashes him forward, floating over all chasms and destroying all bad guys in his wake.

At the price of "completely free," the game does have a fairly unobtrusive ad in the top right corner, but that's a small price to pay, especially considering none of the action is happening where the ad is, so you're not even forced to navigate around it.

Download links and more pictures are after the break, and no, the screen doesn't tear like that when you're playing it.

Another quick update for Google Maps has rolled out today putting it at v5.6.0. The latest update just simply adds the option to rate a restaurant as "Best ever" plus, adds restaurant awards to their Places page if they have one set up. Nothing major -- but least now if you really dig that burger joint down the road you can proudly proclaim it as the best ever! Download link after the break, folks.

Thanks, Shayne!