What do u think about SpyMac?

[mooshoo]

I just want some opinions from you guys about what you think of this website, and the free 1 gig of space. I think the site is very slow, especially when accessing the email section. I've tried during all hours of the day, and I have a cable modem.

[mms]

Yeah, the FTP and WebDAV servers are really really slow too. I don't like the site's design either. Overly fancy, which means it takes time to load (not to mention the slow server). I have an account that I use exclusively for the 1GB of backup storage. I FTP files of the current project just in case anything happens. I don't think their community and forums are that great, though, and the only forums I rely on are MacRumors and the Apple Discussions.

[tjwett]

not a big fan. lots o' newbies and Apple fanboys. not much really good nerd stuff going on. the 1GB and hosting is cool but i found it confusing to even set it up. plus the site is way slow. just my opinion.

[mms]

Clarification: it's 1GB of email storage, not 1GB of web space. You get 100MB of web space with WebDAV or FTP access, which IMO is good for a free service, though slow. But I have Gmail :) so I don't need SpyMac email.

[Frisco]

I think Spymac is a poorly designed site. I know it was recently redesigned, but they still have yet to fix many problems with it. It is very slow and in the Forums I can't even perform a Simple Search of the threads. Forums are pretty much useless if you can't search. I get "This feature is currently unavailable."

Spymac in its redesign tried to make things to gaudy, which hurts its performance. That's one of the reasons I like MacRumors, it is simple, quick, and I get professional responses in my questions.

Spymac has a lot of kids of at least a lot of immature people who are just looking for a fight.

[phillymjs]

Spymac was okay before the redesign, back then I visited it about once every day or two. Post-redesign, it frankly sucks and I don't go there much at all. The main page is waaaay too busy and cluttered, and all those additional graphics they slapped on make browsing a slow and irritating experience, even on fast DSL. The previously-mentioned current lack of search capability only adds insult to injury.

With all the extra features they offer now, they're trying to be all things to all people and not doing a particularly good job at any of them, IMHO. Kinda like a certain operating system. ;)

~Philly

[King Cobra]

I hate Spymac. Their underground scene of cigar-piping mental mafia-infiltrates is a personal attack against what I discourage. I strongly discourage smoking of ALL forms (including medicinal smoking), because the mental affects are only determentally negative. (I have been able to determine this from after over a year and a half of self-taught psycho-chemical analysis.) And by signing up at Spymac, that means that I will be surrounding myself with countless icons and logos of cigar-pipers...SICKENING! (Do they still put such an icon for a newbie's avatar?)

I'm tempted to use their free gig service, but immediately turned off for two things: [ 1 ]: It's cigar-mobmail, and [ 2 ] I am satisfied with my 358MB combined free email accounts, and have enough patience to wait until Gmail comes out.

[mms]

I don't know how it was before redesign, but the website sucks. And, considering it was just redesigned, you'd think that it would use at least XHTML Transitional. It uses 4.01 and still relies on tables for design, which is widely considered bad practice. Also, the page has a fixed width, which wasn't designed well. On my 1024*768 screen, the browser window needs to be stretched to fill the entire screen to display the entire screen, which I don't like to do. Considering that there are many people using that size screens, you'd think that they would make the page size dynamic or at least fix it to a size that would be readable in that size screen. The design is definitely bloated. Although the 100MB web space is nice, the fact that they're offering that as well as 1GB email strains their servers and makes it really really slow. Also, as mentioned, the forums aren't much good, since it doesn't have much experienced people in the community. I'd say that the idea behind SpyMac (to create a community site that includes free email and webspace) is good, but poorly implemented.

[mms]

I've also heard that the SpyMac mail servers suck. Though I've never tried them myself, I've heard that mail servers are often down, POP access is patchy, and that it takes hours for a message to be sent. Webmail interface is bad, too. OTOH, GMail does have a great webmail interface, is from a reliable company, and is overall better even though it is still a beta.

[Benjamin]

you don't even want to know what I think of SpyMac since 3.0 :(

[noel4r]

I think its ok, they offer email, web space, ical publishing, albeit slow, for free. Yes, the design could use some improvement. They're forums are cool too, the members are not so uptight and they're not so strict with the forum postings so you can express yourself however you want.

[mooshoo]

Yeah, I'm pretty much aligned with what everyone's saying here. At first I thought it was just me. But it really is slow, and overly complicated. I went to check it out only because a friend referred me to them, and he made it sound like a great deal. Oh well.

[Giaguara]

Painfullly slow. Mails arrive 4 days later in normal cases, I got last week (monday) mail that was sent 26 april. more specificly what I feel about spymac (http://www.livejournal.com/~punk_apple/6530.html).

[redAPPLE]

Yeah, the FTP and WebDAV servers are really really slow too. I don't like the site's design either. Overly fancy, which means it takes time to load (not to mention the slow server). I have an account that I use exclusively for the 1GB of backup storage. I FTP files of the current project just in case anything happens. I don't think their community and forums are that great, though, and the only forums I rely on are MacRumors and the Apple Discussions.

how does one access the 1 gb backup storage space?

[King Cobra]

I think he's talking about the 1GB of mail space he has under his SpyMac account.


more specificly what I feel about spymac (http://www.livejournal.com/~punk_apple/6530.html).
A quick note on the comment: "I don't mean it would have been the first 1 GB email service." SpyMac wasn't the first gig mail site. The first was an italian site, I forget which.

[Chaszmyr]

I think Spymac is a poorly designed site. I know it was recently redesigned, but they still have yet to fix many problems with it.

I actually liked version 2 better than the new version 3

[srobert]

I used to visit amny times a week. I loved to participate in the photoshoped mac concept design and browse other members' galleries.

But now it's too hard, slow and confusing to navigate... bordering painfull. I don't use it anymore. I miss the good-ol spymac.