HTC EVO 3D and View 4G Preorders Are Go!

Are you looking for your next Sprint upgrade? Just have an affinity for 3D screens? Or do you love HTC so much you need their tablet? Good news then. Sprint is now officially accepting pre-orders for both the HTC EVO 3D and the HTC Flier 4G. Strangely, RadioShack and Target Mobile beat them to the punch on the EVO 3D preorders, but all three places will take just $50 of your pocket money for the guarantee of getting a device on Day One. Problem is, no one knows when Day One for either device is. Or how much they will actually cost come Day One. But no matter when and for how much, you'll get one that day, and the $50 is put towards the purchase price.

To recap, the HTC EVO 3D is the US' first 3D phone, with a 4.3" qHD screen similar to the 3DS. No glasses required. You also have a 1.2GHz dual-core processor to help handle the dual 5 megapixel cameras on the back for 3D pictures and video. It will run HTC's newest version of Sense on top of Android 2.3. The Flyer is HTC's first tablet, rocking a 7" screen and Android. What sets this one apart is that you can also buy a special stylus for input, making it very easy to draw and write notes.

So who's getting one?

Review: Google Music Beta

Google's cloud-based music service was announced at this year's I/O conference to much fanfare and no surprise. While rumors of a music store had been rampant for quite some time, that wasn't quite what we got. Yet. But enough talk about what is not present, here's a quick sneak peak into Google Music Beta!

Before I get into this review, I'd like to make 2 disclaimers. The first and most important is that this entire service is Beta. There are imperfections that will no doubt be addressed. The second is that this is really 2 sneak peaks: One for the webapp and uploader, one for the Android app. Now, the good stuff.

First up is the meat and potatoes: The web interface and uploader. The uploading is incredibly easy. After a quick download and install, the Music Manager will scan your computer for the music. To avoid getting the random sound effects on your computer, you can have it scan through iTunes, Windows Media Player, or specific folders. Everything is done in the background, so you don't need to pay attention to it at all. You can also have it automatically run upon start up, keeping this truly out of sight and out of mind. The average library has a lot of music, mine being about 19.5Gb of tunes. At the time of this writing, I'm at 387 track uploaded after a few hours in, so completing this task will take a long time. The good news is Google promises each user 20,000 songs. My 19.5Gb accounts for roughly 4,000 tracks. The one issue I have is that I use iTunes, which means I don't really keep track of what the files are actually named. Since many tracks have numbers in front, and as far as I can tell the Music Manager uploads in alphabetical order, some albums can't be listened to in full.

The web app will look very familiar if you've used the web version of the Android Market. Everything is very tab-centric, making it incredibly easy to use. On the left side, you have the traditional ways of sorting through your library (Songs, Artists, Albums, Genres). Under that you get to the mixes and playlists. The auto-playlists sort out the songs you've Thumbs Up'd, your recently added stuff, and the free music Google is giving out. There's not a lot of it, and it's mostly a song or two per artist, but it's nice to get free stuff.

There are two kinds of playlists. You have your traditional playlists that you custom make by drag-and-dropping songs. The Music Manager also pulls your playlists from iTunes, which is very cool. You can also create Instant Mixes (a la Genius Mixes from iTunes) from individual songs or albums, adding in similar jams. Along the bottom is the Now Playing bar with the familiar Play/Pause, track navigation, Shuffle, Repeat, and Volume controls. I think the Now Playing bar could be a bit thinner. The width of it and the banners at the top make the song and album lists seem a little cramped. While the overall look isn't as visually impressive as the Zune player, it looks a lot better than iTunes but still has the information that iTunes has. Overall it's a very easy to use service while still looking very nice.

Now the dessert. The Android app is very basic, almost to a fault. First thing's first, it works pretty well. It decided to scare me by force closing the first time I tried to play a song, but every time after it worked well. Songs take very little time to load up on WiFi, though it does take a little bit longer on 3G. Swiping left and right switches through album, artist, etc. views. When on the now playing screen, you see the album cover, Play/Pause, song and artist name. One cool thing is being able to make custom playlists in the Now Playing screen, though it would make more sense to be able to make Instant Mixes from this screen. Maybe we'll get that later. You can also download songs or albums from the Library view and Now Playing screen.

The main problem with the app is a visual one. It's just boring. Like really boring. You're given a blurry, boring background picture. There's no animation between screens, nothing. It's just blah. It would have made a lot more sense to keep the color scheme and overall feel of the web app, while tweaking it a bit for smaller screens. The other small problem is that the name of the app is Music. So is the stock music app for Android. While the icons are different, this can be a bit confusing. They should made it Google Music for differentiation.

The biggest problem facing Google Music is the complete lack of a store. Google Music, as it is now, is just cloud storage and streaming. What's weird is that in both the web and Android app, you can "shop for artist", but it just does a Google Shopping search for that artist where you can buy the songs from somewhere else. This may work for now, but it isn't a longterm solution when Amazon is offering very similar services. Google is trying to get the labels to get on board in some fashion, but how long it will take and in what form we'll get the music remains to be seen. I'm hoping for a subscription service, and knowing how Google does things (and a fair amount of rumors supporting this theory), it's very likely that that is what we'll get.

Overall, Google Music is the best solution to having too much music to fit on your phone. While I'm also a big fan of subscription services like Rdio, they just don't have everything I listen to. Amazon's cloud storage is good, but it lacks a well done web player and uploading your stuff is obnoxious. Google nailed the upload and web version for sure. Once they lock in the record deals and make the Android app visually appealing, Google Music may just be the best music solution yet.

Want some Google Music action of your own? Click here to apply for an invite!

Re-Securing Your Passwords

So, a lots happened since I've been gone. Been a crazy time personally and online. The biggest news since last I wrote has been the massive amounts of security breaches. From Epsilon leaking out our email addresses to Sony's Playstation Network disaster, our online logins and passwords have been in the hands of God knows who. But do you really want to trust that some neckbeard in a dark basement to not start buying stuff on Amazon? I don't.

The main problem that people have is using the same password across all of their services. In the past, this was never a big deal. But now, our online identity is so tied in to our daily lives that we can't regard all of our accounts to be on the same level of importance. My solution: The Three Tiered Password System.

Make a list of my most visited sites. Then asked yourself how important each one is. Not sure? Think about how pissed you'd be if someone else got access to that account. My list involved your basics, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Netflix, eBay, Gmail, banking sites, etc. I broke that list into 3 tiers.

Tier 1 consists of non-important things like Hulu, Netflix, forums, and then accounts for apps like Words With Friends. I used my traditional basic password. It's not the most secure, but on this tier, even if my password is guessed, all someone could do is change my Instant Queue and waste a Triple Word Score. This password is memorable and easy to type in.

Tier 2 consists of my social networks mostly and a few other sites that are important, but wouldn't be devastating if someone got into them. That said, I don't want someone breaking into my Facebook and posting obscene things (at least not worse than normal), so I made this password a tad more difficult, but not so difficult that it's a pain to type in every time I want to log in. I suggest adding in numbers along with letters.

Tier 3 is the important stuff. For the most part, it includes things that have your credit card info. Tier 3 should include Amazon, eBay, and your banking sites, but also things that you use on very personal and professional levels, like email addresses. You definitely don't want someone to have access to private emails to friends, family, and professional contacts. For this password, make sure it consists of capital and lower cased letters, numbers, and even symbols. Don't use numbers that are easily associated with you, like your birthday, address, etc.

Now obviously you can use super secure passwords for each tier as well, just make sure you can remember all your new passwords. If you're like me and you've been using the same password across almost all of your services for some time, you may want to have access to those passwords while you're working on memorizing them. The best way: A small piece of paper. While walking around with your passwords isn't the best idea, having them written down in a safe place is the only way to ensure that no online scumbag can get their hands on them. Also, don't hesitate to change your passwords every so often, especially when you hear that one of your services have had their data compromised.

Stay tuned for more stuff, because Tech Made Relevant is BACK!