Google Music Beta

[DJKOR]

The upload is so painful! 14,000 tracks in 12 days so only a few more days to go before my entire collection is up... but I've already been loving it even before all tracks are available ;)

Google away!

When I decide to cross that bridge, I am going to connect my laptop with external drive to the Marriott network (shhhhhh)... 50 Mbps synchronous EOC line FTW.

[SteveAndBelle]

... I am going to connect my laptop with external drive to the Marriott network (shhhhhh)... 50 Mbps synchronous EOC line FTW.

Yeah, I'm in the IT Dept. and had similar thoughts about using my works external link (a pure unrestricted 100Mb pipe) but was a good boy & decided against it. Oh well, nearly there...

[SteveAndBelle]

Ahhh, just under 19,000 tracks all done... 16 days later!

Very happy chappy :)

[Guest]

something else fun if you want to exploit a VPN or SSH is pandora, if you use android all you need is SSH Tunnel and the pandora app :)

[SteveAndBelle]

something else fun if you want to exploit a VPN or SSH is pandora, if you use android all you need is SSH Tunnel and the pandora app :)

Yeah, I've had Pandora, Rhapsody & Sirius running through the SONOS. Great services indeed.

[SteveAndBelle]

Righto, I just realised my original activation instructions no longer work :( It seems they've updated HotSpot and the new version no longer seems to work the way it used to however I just managed to successfully activate two more invites via a different method. Here's how:

Please note, proceed at your own risk!! These instructions are compiled & provided by myself in good faith and to spread the 'Google Love' around to as many as possible (ew). Although I have tested the following process and haven't had any problems, myself & TOC are not responsible for any issues that may arise with your accounts, software or hardware. Enjoy... but always be careful online.

Righto, you've received a Google Music invite in your Gmail and you want to start uploading all your legally obtained music but when you try you're told that it's "currently only available in the United States". Sorry Google, that just isn't good enough... so here's an easy work-around (tested with Win7 & Internet Explorer only but should work with other OSs & browsers too):

1. Click on this link: http://proxpn.com/download.php to download proXPN V2.4.9 and follow the setup instructions provided.

2. When creating your new free proXPN account be sure to click the 'No thanks, I want a proXPN Basic account' link up the top right-hand corner of the page otherwise you'll need to pay to setup a 'Premium' account which is not required for our purposes here.

3. Once you've activated your proXPN account, log into it and let it connect. Note: Your browsing will slow down from this point but this is normal.

4. Open up a new Internet Explorer session, simply type http://mail.google.com into the address bar and log into your Gmail account.

5. Open up your Google Music invitation email and click the 'Get Started' button.

6. The next page you see appear is the beginning of your Google Music setup. Click 'Next' and follow your nose...

BUT WAIT, THERE's MORE...

7. Once you've finished setting up Google Music you'll never have to make it think you're in America again so it's a very good idea to disconnect, exit & uninstall proXPN ASAP. This will also get your browsing speeds back to normal too.

That's it! You're now a part of Google Music Beta. 'Beta' because this is just the tip of the iceberg so the future looks pretty bright indeed. Look for the dedicated Google Music Android app in the Market but if you can't find it simply download the APK file from here: http://www.multiupload.com/KIM5LQDL0K and run it on your phone, it'll know what to do from there.

Before going too crazy uploading your 20,000 tracks just make sure your ISP doesn't include uploads in your monthly total. 20,000 x 192K MP3s equates to about 100-120Gb so if your ISP includes uploads in your total then you could be up for hundreds if not thousands of dollars of extra charges. Once you know all is OK then go for it but don't expect it to be quick. I'm on TPG ADSL2+ and it took 16 days to upload about 19,000 tracks from my NAS so be prepared for a long wait however also note that you can play tracks as soon as they've been uploaded so it's not as though you need to wait until it's all done before starting the fun.

... and of course, once you're up and running with it you can also hand out invites to others to do the same but please remember your roots and keep a couple for other TOC members here OK. An upsidedown Pyramid scheme, I like it :)

[Guest]

http://www.aliexpress.com/product-gs/497299490-7-inch-Android-2-3-OS-2-din-car-pc-DVD-Radio-Bluetooth-wholesalers.html

might be interesting to you ;)

[SteveAndBelle]

New version of Google Music Beta is out (V4.0.1) and is already leaps & bounds better than the original. Much nicer UI and quite few more features... and it's still a Beta!

You can download it from here: http://www.multiupload.com/HDU1GPTDXM

Note: If you already have the previous version it's advised to uninstall it before installing this newer version. Also, there is a risk that you will lose your Playlists & Instant Mixes but I can't confirm that sorry. Upgrade at your own risk!!

[playwme]

What kind of data plan do you have on your phone? My non-tech savvy sister got a new iphone and downloaded the tunein radio app to play her favourite radio station on an ipod dock at work every day. After 2 months and $4000 worth of phone bills I eventually figured out what she was doing.

I'm not entirely convinced on this concept. Needing phone reception to access your music is a bit of a PITA, using up your battery power on the phone isn't great either. It's not like a 160GB Ipod or generic name brand player costs that much or is hard to remember to take with you. I have a multitude of little players that while they may not store the entire collection it's not hard to just change the selection every now and again. I have a nice little titanium Sony unit that I left playing once. It went for close to 90 hrs on a single charge and that's a unit that will fit inside a closed fist.

How does the upload work? Does each user have 150gb of storage space or something. With the apple cloud I was led to understand that they kept one copy of all songs and your account showed which songs you were entitled to access. If during the setup procedure it finds that your song isn't available then it uploads it from you to the cloud for storage. There is no redundant data though. Can anyone confirm this?

[SteveAndBelle]

What kind of data plan do you have on your phone? How does the upload work? Does each user have 150gb of storage space or something. There is no redundant data though. Can anyone confirm this?

Hi Playwme. All good questions and reasons Google Music isn't for everyone but fits the bill perfectly for some.

I have a 3Gb plan with TPG and don't use Google Music all day every day so I never get close to that anyway. Helps that when I'm at home or work or friends/relatives houses I connect via Wifi too. The upload process is simple, you point the small Google Music installable at your music collection and away it (slowly) goes. Don't know of any Gb limits but it's limited to 20,000 tracks at this stage however there are no sample rate limitations from what I can tell. No redundancy capabilities to my knowledge either however I already have my collection stored in two formats and on two separate NAS boxes because I'm super-paranoid. There's no way I'm going to re-rip thousands of CDs again. I've already done it three times over the last 10 years as formats & sample rates got better & storage became cheaper. Never again, worst job ever ;)

I personally like it because I can access my music collection and most importantly my Playlists via multiple devices in different places (inc. the car) but being able to edit those Playlists in realtime is probably the best part of all for me. I couldn't wait to get the 'ball & chain' 160Gb iPod Classic out of the car and I thankfully no longer have any Apple devices and therefore no super-slow & limiting iTunes middle-man in my life. Each to their own though of course, I know many people who actually like iTunes & so be it.

I'm really enjoying Google Music as is but it's got plenty of room for improvement too. I'd love it to send ID3 Tag data via Bluetooth but don't even know if that's technically possible. SONOS integration would be amazing for listening throughout the house but I think I may have to wait a while for that ;) Then there's the whole Google Music Shop side soon to come including rumours of being able to lend/borrow tracks with friends with the option to purchase after a set time or number of plays.

Don't forget that Google Music is still a Beta release so this is only the tip of the iceberg. Who knows what may be available in the near future, the potential possibilities are exciting when you start thinking about it all but of course who knows if it will even be around in 6 months too!

That's life and we'll just have to wait & see how it turns out.

[DJKOR]

So guys... Google Music has now moved on from its Beta phase and is now open to anyone in the United States. So basically everything above with regards to a VPN etc apply, however you no longer need an invite to join in on it.

There is no redundant data though.

No redundancy capabilities to my knowledge either...

It may not be a 'feature' as such, but remember that nearly everything you load onto Google is bound to be backed up in some form of an array, so even though I wouldn't completely trust it as such, you can be reasonably sure that your data isn't going to disappear on you that easily.

I'm not entirely convinced on this concept. Needing phone reception to access your music is a bit of a PITA, using up your battery power on the phone isn't great either.

Like SteveAndBelle said, this isn't entirely for everyone but you have to remember that it isn't just limited in use to your portable audio devices. Just think of the convenience of having your entire music collection anywhere that has internet access. For example, you turn up to a friend's place. You want to listen to your music there. Without bringing anything with you, you can simply go to their computer and access your collection.

[Guest]

I would much prefer to use a 'private cloud' solution than to dump all of the music i 'own' on to google's servers.

I definitely like the concept though.

[SteveAndBelle]

The first non-Beta version of the Google Music Android app is out (V4.0.9) but doesn't look any different from V4.0.1 above. You can download it from here: http://www.uploadking.com/WDP4JITQSG You will probably need to uninstall any previous versions you may have installed (I had to) but as soon as the new version was installed my old Playlists were available within a few seconds so no probs there.

Logged onto Google Music via ProXPN (instructions above) and accessed the Google Music Shop. Had a look around and noticed that you can buy stuff and then listen to it instantly via the Google Music cloud and also download the MP3 if need be. Here's hoping for extreme sample rates and absolutely no DRM for the downloads! I then decided to give it a go by purchasing the latest album from Coldplay (for the wife of course). Tracks are US$0.99 but the entire album was only US$4.99 so I assume that's some kind of intro price... or maybe it's a rebate from the artist for making you listen to yet another dozen tracks that sound the same :P Clicked the 'Buy' button but after a few seconds a window appeared asking me to enter the details of my 'US Credit Card'. Dead end :(

Ah well, Coldplay will have to wait however all is looking good for the Shop so far. No timeframe for the release to the rest of the world but here's hoping it'll come sooner rather than later.