How to: sign-up and access Google Music for PC and Android from outside the US, easily

Guides

  • November 20, 2011 at 9:19 am

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Google Music

I’m sure you’ve read about Google’s online music service, appropriately titled Google Music. If you haven’t, it’s Google’s online music store and it’s also a free service which allows you to upload up to 20,000 of your own music files to Google’s cloud. Then, it allows you to listen to both purchased and uploaded songs from any browser (Windows or Mac PC) or through the Google Music app on Android devices. It’s Google’s answer to Apple’s iCloud and Amazon’s Cloud Player.

Unfortunately the service is currently only available within the US, and although Google will successively begin offering the service to other countries, if you reside outside the United States you will be out of luck for a while. Nevertheless there is a very easy way to sign-up and use the service from anywhere in the world, if you are willing to jump a couple of hoops. Note you still won’t be able to buy any music through the service, but you will have access to the free storage and streaming service for you own songs.
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What do all the new cloud icons in iTunes mean about iTunes Match and your iCloud library and how-to troubleshoot errors

Guides

  • November 15, 2011 at 7:54 am

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iTunes Match subscription email

If, like us, you were anxious to try out the new iTunes Match service offered by Apple, you’ve downloaded the latest version of iTunes, and subscribed to the $25/month service — more info on that here. You’ve run iTunes Match and your library is now fully accessible from iCloud. Note that running iTunes Match does not affect your locally stored files, also if you’ve painstakingly edited the meta data (i.e. Artist name, Album etc.) of your files, these will be transferred to the iCloud copies, even if the files are just matched and not uploaded.

So now you could be presented with a new set of icons in iTunes which show the status of each song in iTunes Match and iCloud. Apple has created a handy table to guide you through these cryptic new cloud figures, which however tell you a lot about the status of your library:
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iTunes Match is finally here, access your music from the cloud in high quality, US only for now

News

  • November 14, 2011 at 1:46 pm

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Apple iTunes Match

Although Apple missed its own end-October deadline for the release of iTunes Match, the $25 per year service is now available as a public beta for people living and breathing in the US.

The service basically uses iTunes to scan your music collection and gives you access to the same songs in high quality 256Kbps AAC on Apple’s servers. That is, unlike other cloud services, you don’t need to upload your files directly. It’s a neat idea since, it saves you the time and effort to upload files and gives you access to better quality rips, irrespective on the quality of your own files, accessible from all your iOS 5 devices. Of course if a file is not matched with one in Apple’s servers then it will be uploaded the old-fashioned way.

Because iTunes Match is in beta you get three free extra months on the annual subscription. Be warned that demand has been so high initially that Apple has suspended sign-ups temporarily. Those from other countries will have to wait unfortunately as Apple is still negotiating licensing deals outside the US.

To get started you need to download the latest version of iTunes (link after the break) 10.5.1 on your Mac or Windows PC. After installing, you can subscribe to the iTunes Match service from inside the iTunes Music Store — a link with iTunes Match will be highlighted on the right side of the main store page. After you sign-up and scanning and syncing is complete, on your iOS 5 device, go to ‘Settings’ > ‘Music’ and slide the iTunes Match switch to On.
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How to stream your music around the house on a budget: Logitech S715i speaker and Audiogalaxy app review

FeaturedGuidesReviews

  • July 31, 2011 at 3:21 pm

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Logitech S715i Speaker and Audiogalaxy app

There are as many options for streaming music around the house as there are combinations of portable speakers, speaker docks, network players and portable device apps — and that’s a whole lot.

Here I’m going to go over just one of these combinations, which was the result of my search for a cost efficient, convenient, and aurally pleasing way to stream and listen to my locally stored music around the house and in the garden.
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