Music services geared toward untethered listening are enjoying increasing popularity thanks to the fact that cell phones are swiftly replacing standalone MP3 players for many people. MP3tunes is one of many solutions that has cropped up as a solution for on-the-go listening. The company offers a music cloud service that lets you upload up to 2GB of music for free and access it from any Internet-connected computer as well as a variety of handheld devices.

The first step to using MP3tunes is to download the teeny, tiny LockerSync uploader tool, which lets the service analyze your library and add it to the cloud. MP3tunes accepts both audio and video files in a variety of formats including MP3, AAC, WMA, OGG, FLV, MP4, and M4A. It also recognizes iTunes playlists, which is a nice feature. Unsurprisingly, DRM-protected tracks are not supported.

Once your music is in the cloud, there are a variety of ways to access it. The first is via the Web player at MP3tunes.com. Here, you'll find a well-organized interface with a visually pleasing playback box that displays album art. It's easy to browse tracks by album, artist, or playlist. Several in-home and portable hardware devices are also compatible with the service, including the iPhone, Android phones, Roku boxes, and even through your TV if you have TiVo.

MP3tunes performed admirably during our testing. There were no notable hiccups with playback, and audio quality is about on par with any other streaming-audio service. That is, it won't be audiophile-approved (especially since lossless formats aren't supported), but music sounds pleasant enough for the mainstream listener.

As noted, you can store up to 2GB of media in your locker at no charge. If you need more space, MP3tunes offers 50GB of storage for a monthly fee of $4.99.

Can I be brutally honest? Much as I like my iPad, I'm just not using it much. (No, you can't have it.) Turns out my iPhone is still my go-to device for e-mail, e-books, games, and other day-to-day stuff.

Needless to say, it troubles me to see that beautiful (and expensive) screen just sitting there going to waste. Well, waste no more! MaxiVista turns an iPad into a second monitor.

If this sounds familiar, you're probably thinking of a similar utility: Air Display. However, that popular app works only with Macs. MaxiVista is the first such option for Windows users.

It costs $9.99, same as Air Display. The required Windows utility (scroll down to the bottom) is free. The latter taps your home Wi-Fi network to extend your Windows desktop to your iPad. Take a look:

So, what can you put inside a smallish second monitor? The possibilities are fairly endless. Maybe there's a spreadsheet or Word document you frequently refer to throughout the day. Or a stock-market or sports site you like to monitor. Personally, I think the iPad would make an awesome holding tank for Windows gadgets.

That said, ask yourself if you really need to extend your desktop at all. As Scott Stein notes in his review of Air Display: "We're not sure an iPad even needs to be used as second monitor in this respect. You can use your iPad as a 'second display' without physically linking it to a computer--as a dedicated e-mail window, or a Web browser, or for information such as weather or stock prices. Air Display is really best considered a way to extend a workspace that might need instantly connected applications, such as multiple Word docs."

You tell me: How would you use MaxiVista? Whatever you decide, you'll need a good stand for your iPad. Here's a roundup of five cheap ones.

One last note: In case you're interested, MaxiVista can also turn an extra PC into a second monitor.

Originally posted at iPad Atlas

If you own an Android phone, you already know how to use Vlingo's SuperDialer, a beta feature that expands the app's vocally triggered "call" command to search not just your personal phone book, but also a wider directory of businesses.

Tap Vlingo's home screen widget and speak out the name of the business or category of business you'd like to call, for example "Call Little Star Pizza" or "call pizza." (Omitting the "call" command will trigger the default Google search, but not the SuperDialer's business listings.)

Vlingo then returns a list of results from your phone book and from its own directory. You'll press the green icon of a phone to directly dial the business. Or, you'll tap the business name to get an aggregated summary page with reviews, the address, and tabs to call the business, view it on a map, navigate, or look up its Web site, if available.

At first, Vlingo's SuperDialer sounds like a redundancy of Google's voice search, which comes preinstalled with most of today's Android phones.

However, there are differences. Start a voice search for a business name in Google, and in most cases you'll see a Place listing surface, with ratings, a map, and a phone number you can click to call. Search in Vlingo, and you'll get a summary screen that's better integrated with Google Maps Navigation than Google's own search. In fact, you can also ask for directions outright with a "directions" command.

We tested Vlingo's voice search widget side-by-side with Google's similar widget, and as long as there's a Google results summary for the same business, and we remembered to precede our search with the word "call" with Vlingo, it was possible to dial a business using both services in just two taps. We should note that Vlingo does not use Google's search engine to seek out business listings.

The other benefit that Vlingo presents is the rest of the Vlingo app itself, which obeys voice commands to draft a text message, update Facebook or Twitter status, or compose e-mail, in addition to browsing the Web and business directories. It can also launch third-party applications (though not always precisely, in our experience) and read your incoming e-mails and texts while you drive.

Vlingo is a premium product at a limited-time $9.99 one-time fee in the Android Market, and in our view the SuperDialer doesn't best Google's own voice search enough to warrant a purchase on the call command functionality alone. But if you're already a Vlingo user, or want to be, the SuperDialer is certainly a neat expansion of the Vlingo app for U.S. and Canadian residents. Vlingo works on Android phones running 2.0 of the operating system or higher.

Originally posted at Android Atlas

Editors' note: Each day for the next 10 business days, CNET personalities you know and love will publish slideshows of their 10 personal favorite iPhone apps. With each post, you get a chance to vote for your own favorite app. Two weeks from now, we'll collect the full list of 100 apps and announce the 10 that you, our readers, love the most.

Let's review what we all thought we knew about senior associate tech editor Eric Franklin. He manages our West Coast labs. He's a gamer, and he cares deeply about the quality of the monitors he reviews at CNET. (Seriously, he does. Watch the video.) He knows a lot about smartphone screens, among other topics.

But don't think Eric is just a geeky dude whose true loves include only World of Warcraft (WoW) and black boxes. This CNET editor is much more complicated. His favorite iPhone app--of all time--is a Farmville-style game called Sally's Spa. We are not kidding, not even a little bit. Then again, there's at least one WoW app in his pack of 10 favorites:

Once you've seen all of Eric's picks, return to this poll to let us know which app is your favorite, then check back each day on iPhone Atlas to see app choices from the rest of the CNET crew.

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

Cryptography expert Bruce Schneier used to write his passwords down on a slip of paper and keep it in his wallet.

Today, he uses a free Windows password-storage tool called Password Safe that he designed five years ago and released into the open-source community. The desktop application lets users remember only one master password to access their password list.

But Schneier still recommends the paper method for people who don't have their computers with them at all times like he does. "Either write the passwords down and put them in your wallet, or use something like Password Safe," he said in an interview on Wednesday.

PGP creator Phil Zimmermann stores his passwords in an encrypted text file, which he described as a "cumbersome, manually operated password management system."

And crypto cracker Karsten Nohl's method is much simpler yet harder--he stores all his passwords in his brain.

"I use a nontrivial function to diversify passwords for every use," Nohl said. "Disclosing anything about the function would lessen its strength. Security-through-obscurity, but only because I cannot compute any strong ciphers in my head."

An informal survey of a dozen or so security experts reveals that some of them still rely on the paper and pen method. One respondent even admitted to succumbing to the post-it-note under the keyboard clich�! (If you do choose to write the passwords down you should avoid including the Web site or other identifying information, obviously.)

Password management isn't sexy but it's a problem that touches everyone who touches a computer. Not only are people forced to create new passwords at a dizzying level as they join social networks, do e-commerce and deal with frequently expiring passwords at work, but there are new and novel password theft methods all the time. Just this week Mozilla disabled a Firefox add-on that was intercepting login data and sending it on to a remote server.

There are a variety of solutions for people who want to upgrade from the paper-based practice. To cover them all would be an exhaustive and impossible task, but I'll mention a few notables.

For those whose computer is always at hand, password managers stored on the desktop can be a good option. In addition to Password Safe, sources recommended another open-source software called KeePass. For the Macintosh, there's 1Password ($39.95), which my colleague Jason Parker said was "the best in its class for the Mac."

I was curious about the USB-based password managers and gave MyKey ($29.99) a try. I found it worked great but it does have some limitations--it only works on Windows-based PCs with the MyKey software installed. This meant I couldn't use it on my home Mac or on friends' computers I used during a recent vacation, something I wouldn't be able to do with a desktop-based system either.

The Yubikey ($25) is another USB password device, but it differs in that it works on any computer or major operating system platform and requires no client software.

"It's the same thing as putting the passwords in your wallet; it's putting them on something physical that you are securing," Schneier said when asked his opinion of using USB devices for storing passwords. "People can lose their keys or their wallet. Just put the passwords on the one you are less likely to lose."

If you want to use a password manager that is not tethered to a particular computer, there are also hosted services where the passwords are stored in the cloud. This offers convenience the other methods don't, but it means you are at the mercy of the security measures deployed on whatever computer you are using, so be cautious about using Internet kiosks and other public Web-surfing computers. You also have to trust that the company hosting the server holding your passwords won't get hacked or otherwise compromised.

If you are interested in a free online password manager service, CNET Blogger Dennis Reilly wrote about RoboForm Online late last year.

Many people find the saved passwords feature on browsers handy, but they may not realize that attackers who get physical or remote access to the computer can easily see those stored passwords. This CNET TV video shows you how to hide them in Firefox by creating a master password for the browser.

A free extension for Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer called LastPass encrypts passwords and stores them on your hard drive and is beloved by colleagues at CNET News, as well as Download.com and CNET sister site ZDNet. It runs on the major operating systems, syncs data between multiple browsers, and automatically logs you into a site with one mouse click. And if you are using a computer other than the one you normally use you can retrieve your login information from the LastPass Web site.

Regardless of how you manage your passwords, experts say you should be careful to choose ones that have an appropriate level of security for the intended use or Web site. For instance, you can get by with an easy password for a Web site where all you do is log on to read news. But you should choose a much stronger password--meaning it is more difficult to guess or to figure out using a dictionary attack tool--for banking and other sites dealing with sensitive information like credit cards. And use different passwords for the different sites so that if one password is compromised your other sites or accounts aren't at risk.

Schneier has an excellent essay on how to choose more secure passwords, CNET blogger Larry Magid provides tips for creating strong but easy-to-remember passwords here, and I provide additional suggestions in this story.

"Passwords still work, as long as you use them properly," Schneier said.

Originally posted at InSecurity Complex

Mozilla said it hopes to release its second beta version of Firefox 4 "on or about July 22," bringing Mac users a major new user interface that the first beta enabled by default only on Windows.

That feature, called tabs on top, follows the look of Google Chrome and Opera, in which tabs get top billing over the address bar. It's not revolutionary, but it's hard to change the habits of software used by hundreds of millions of people, so Mozilla has made it easy to switch off and has been taking pains to explain its tab rationale.

"Recently modern browsers have been transitioning to placing tops on top, and that decision isn't arbitrary, it isn't about fashion," said Firefox user interface designer Alex Faaborg. "The change to placing tabs on top isn't about one browser versus another browser, it's about the evolution of the Web as a platform."

Not everybody sees things the same way. Apple tried a tabs-on-top approach with the Safari 4 beta more than a year ago, but moved them back to a subordinate position for the final release. It kept that design for Safari 5, too.

According to Mozilla's Firefox planning meeting agenda, also coming in the Firefox 4 second beta are CSS transitions, a newer feature of the Cascading Style Sheets technology used for Web page formatting. Transitions enable visually elaborate changes in a Web page's state, for example, making photos in a slideshow flip out of the way as a person moves from one image to the next.

CSS transitions enable the spiraling arrival and departure of the slides in a demonstration by Mozilla's Paul Rouget at last week's Mozilla Summit 2010.

Originally posted at Deep Tech