Is it me of the .mac homepage feature blow

[sarlacc2]

Has anyone else tried to use the new .mac homepage. its basically for online photo albums. i had been considering moving my website there, but hells no i aint paing 100 bucks for crap. you cant do anything with it, its very non user friendly to boot. anyway, just my 2 cents.

[Pin-Fisher]

Its you ..its definately you.. :D

[pnkfelix]

On the one hand, I agree that the Apple homepage development tools are a bit... limited.

But considering their target market, that's not surprising.

You can still create your own html pages and put them on your homepage site manually (by copying them into the appropriate spot on your iDisk)

However, I will say that once Homepage became a premium service, it behooved Apple to make it substantially better.

Then again, I also thought it behooved them to allow passwords longer than 8 characters. But they don't seem to listen...

[cleo]

Homepage is just for fast image gallery hosting, yes. But you can put whatever you want in your iDisk Sites folder - .mac gives you 100 MB of hosting, and you can write your own html pages, no problem.

So quit yer b!tching.

[menoinjun]

I actually consider .Mac to be a pretty good deal. Consider this:

Norton Antivirus costs $80. You get Virex for LIFE with free updates with .Mac.

iDisk is tremedously useful. I am using mine more and more. To buy that kind of EASY Finder disk access is hard if not impossible.

iCal will use iDisk and to edit and upload your personal calerders from places away from your mac.

The backup software that comes with it is very easy to use and works great. You can backup your important files to you iDisk or to CD/DVD.

The homepage feature is cool, but not too important considering the webpage hosting options on the web.

I need my .mac email address, and having webmail is great.

So bascially if you use it, $99 a year isn't too bad of a deal.

-Pete

[LimeiBook86]

Originally posted by ptrauber
I actually consider .Mac to be a pretty good deal. Consider this:

Norton Antivirus costs $80. You get Virex for LIFE with free updates with .Mac.

iDisk is tremedously useful. I am using mine more and more. To buy that kind of EASY Finder disk access is hard if not impossible.

iCal will use iDisk and to edit and upload your personal calerders from places away from your mac.

The backup software that comes with it is very easy to use and works great. You can backup your important files to you iDisk or to CD/DVD.

The homepage feature is cool, but not too important considering the webpage hosting options on the web.

I need my .mac email address, and having webmail is great.

So bascially if you use it, $99 a year isn't too bad of a deal.

-Pete

I agree! I won't mind paying 99 bucks a year! It's not like your paying $99 a month, that would be horrible. I wish I had money though... :D

[kaltsasa]

I belive that .mac has it's place for some users, and its a good deal no doubt. And for other users, well they might just be better off using other services at for the current time being. While there still arn't that many mac viruses, wiht a unix based os(and a slightly growing market share) OS X is prime to be hit with a boat load of viruses, can't hurt to be protected. I do wish there was a monthly payment option, 8 bucks a month is easier to swallow when your a poor collage student then 99 smackers at one time.

[jelloshotsrule]

i agree.. though i didn't use my .mac email account at all, and only sometimes used my idisk... i think that the total package is worth the money. however, i do think there should be the lower price/free email only thing.

ical isn't out yet right?

how does backup work? seems weird that you can only use it if you have a .mac account.... but anyhoo

[kaltsasa]

I downloaded backup from my trial account, you can only use backup when it is connected to an itools account, i tried using it on a computer that wasn't connected to the net and it doesn't allow you to use the program.

[sarlacc2]

JESUS you guys waste no time replying.
im not downing all of .mac and yes i believe it has its use for some people.
i was only talking about the homepage feature, and it sucks for homepage design, and i didnt know about the whole posting html through idisk.

but when all is said and done .mac homepage is still bobo :D

[Dignan]

Im wondering if its worth it for the space...because, I used tons of itools accounts (It is probably my fault that I made them see the errors of there free-web-space-giving ways) But I dunno if its worth it...It might be. I really liked the ease of putting stuff up on a site. Sometimes I can send files through AIM because of firewalls, and it was nice to quickly throw up movies or pictures

[bunton]

Yeah it is easy to use but cost 90 bucks, is there a warranty, will apple give us a receipt? I got the care protection plan and now this and what the hell.

Oh by the way the New 17inch imacs dont shp with the mouse, that is 10 bucks a year extra because when you make your own windows pc or a dell you got to pick your mouse.

[vitruvius]

Originally posted by bunton
Oh by the way the New 17inch imacs dont shp with the mouse, that is 10 bucks a year extra because when you make your own windows pc or a dell you got to pick your mouse. [/B]

Who said that?

in Apple Store is incluided

[Moonlight]

Originally posted by bunton
Yeah it is easy to use but cost 90 bucks, is there a warranty, will apple give us a receipt? I got the care protection plan and now this and what the hell.

Oh by the way the New 17inch imacs dont shp with the mouse, that is 10 bucks a year extra because when you make your own windows pc or a dell you got to pick your mouse.

I don't understand a thing you are saying ?? a warranty for .Mac ?? 10 bucks a year for a mouse ? :confused: :confused:

[SilvorX]

doesnt sound right that a mouse isnt included with a computer now days... :S

[Hemingray]

Originally posted by ptrauber
You get Virex for LIFE with free updates with .Mac.

Well this is ironic, isn't it... :D Remind me to quote you on that one again in five years when .Mac evolves into something else and they find some way to get out of it. I've got one word to say about that: Performas. :p

[jaykk]

Slashdot.com has a got a good news item on .Mac vs .Net..
"Apple achieved in one stroke everything MS is trying to achieve with .NET, by announcing iCal [apple.com] and iSync"
"Microsoft spent two years talking about Web services and technologies, Apple quietly went about actually building them into a program its users will want to use. "


Another reason to pay $99 for Apple..

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=36731&cid=3951928

[Huskerflute]

pnkfelix & cleo (or anyone else): I would consider staying with .Mac if I could use HTML in my homepage & have a bit more freedom in how I design my pages. I never knew you could do this, and you seem to know how. Can you go into a bit more detail on this subject? I thought you had to choose one of their cute page layouts and then insert things from your iDisk into the allowed spaces in their layouts. The thought of using HTML has me all excited! If you know of other discussion on this, feel free to give me the links.

Thanks!

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by Huskerflute
pnkfelix & cleo (or anyone else): I would consider staying with .Mac if I could use HTML in my homepage & have a bit more freedom in how I design my pages. I never knew you could do this, and you seem to know how. Can you go into a bit more detail on this subject? I thought you had to choose one of their cute page layouts and then insert things from your iDisk into the allowed spaces in their layouts. The thought of using HTML has me all excited! If you know of other discussion on this, feel free to give me the links.

Thanks!
It's simple, build your site then copy all the files into the "Sites" folder on your iDisk. That all there is to it.
Quick, simple and powerfull....hell, it's Apple in a nutshell :D

[Huskerflute]

Well hell, I always wondered what I could do with that folder. *excuse me while I blush in embarrassment*

So, I'm assuming you can mix and match pages as well? (use some of Apple's layout pages and your own?)

Why doesn't Apple promote this about their homepage more in their advertising? Or do they, and I just haven't seen it? I bet if a lot more (dumb) people like myself knew about this, we wouldn't be so quick to complain about the new .Mac. Overall, I think Apple's advertising could improve, and that would help them a lot. They HAVE gotten better with that though in the past few months. LOTS better. Like you actually see an ad or two on TV now! There's a concept!
:D

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by Huskerflute
Like you actually see an ad or two on TV now! There's a concept!
:D
Not here in the UK, Apple advertising is very weak, they're gonna have to do much more if they have any interest in a larger market share in the UK.

[Digidesign]

.Mac blows because of the following:

1. does not allow DNS. You can't have your domain (i.e., www.company.com) point to your .Mac page without a redirect which would end up at homepage.mac.com/etc. In that sense it is no better than geocities.

2. No FTP access to iDisk. I can't stand using Finder, and having it subsequently slow to a crawl, to access my storage area.

So in essense you're paying ~$8.30 a month for proprietary web hosting. I'd rather have them charge $10 a month for true web hosting, including a decent bandwith, scripts, secure access etc.

[Huskerflute]

Okay, so the main reason I'm upset with Apple is it has made me have to choose between staying with them and believing they are still going to take good care of me, their mega-loyal user...or go to www.Powweb.com and buy my own domain name, get 250 free e-mail accounts (which would be great for my flute studio--each student could have their own e-mail through the site, etc.), much more freedom to do what I please with my site, FTP access, and everything Digidesign stated, and more. BUT...if I do that, then I risk giving up the chance to be part of all of Apple's intuitive ideas that WILL only be available for .Mac users. I will feel "out of the club". Apple is putting its loyal users to the test. It's easy to be loyal when it's free (or if you've got the money to spare). I've been struggling with the decision since .Mac came out. I feel like a little kid in a toy store trying to pick a toy. i've heard there is a thread out there that discusses powweb, but I can't find it to check it out. Anyone out there using powweb who can give me the pros/cons and tell me if it would be worth giving up .Mac for? How's the e-mail that comes with powweb? I wish I had the money, I'd keep .Mac for all of its perks AND buy my domain name from powweb. See what WOULD be cool is if Apple WOULD host your domain name. Now THAT would be worth the money!! (in a perfect world:)

[cleo]

I've already posted feedback to Apple and suggest that some of you do the same re: domain parking. I can't imagine that it would be that server-intensive, and I'd even pay a few extra bucks a year to have my domain parked to point to my Homepage site. Also, it would be nice if Apple offered PHP and MySQL... then I'd DEFINITELY move my site... but I don't imagine that that will happen any time soon.

[Huskerflute]

Okay, so I've tried dumping my HTML into the "Sites" folder on my iDisk, and I get nothing. I can't find the stuff once I get into my homepages on my iDisk. Am I missing something here? I don't know what I'm doing obviously. Can someone give me "The Idiot's Guide" to putting HTML on your mac homepage? Verbose101: Help me out here...you make it sound so easy!

Thanks!

[bidge]

Originally posted by Huskerflute
Okay, so I've tried dumping my HTML into the "Sites" folder on my iDisk, and I get nothing. I can't find the stuff once I get into my homepages on my iDisk. Am I missing something here? I don't know what I'm doing obviously. Can someone give me "The Idiot's Guide" to putting HTML on your mac homepage? Verbose101: Help me out here...you make it sound so easy!

Thanks!

Using Another Authoring Tool

You can use any HTML authoring tool to create the pages for your .Mac member site.

Prepare your pages using the tool of your choice, then copy the completed site to the Sites folder on your iDisk. If you have already created another .Mac site, copy the new site to its own folder in your Sites folder.

If you name your start page index.html and place it at the top level of your Sites folder, your site's address is homepage.mac.com/yourmembername/

IMPORTANT: HomePage uses index.html in the Sites folder as the start page for sites it creates. If you use HomePage to create a page, any other index.html you have placed in your Sites folder will be overwritten.

If you give your start page a different name or location, include the name and path in your site's address. For example, if your start page is home.html in a folder named School inside your Sites folder, the address is homepage.mac.com/yourmembername/School/home.html

[aznatari]

.Mac is stupid when ur paying $100 for it every year. Its a total waste when you can just go to yahoo, hotmail, or spymac for free e-mail. Jobs shouldn't of changed iTool to something like .Net. I wouldn't use it because there is so much else you can use instead of it.



atari

[mac15]

its $49 for free hosting, idisk and mail, considering it lasts for 1 year its great

so stope bitching it you don't like it then don't get and don't complain

[bidge]

Only $50 to support Apple. When I invested in my iPod the very first day they came to my country, I knew that I wasn't just paing for the hardware and since then we've had loads of developement in it. I now have a calendar, contacts and everything.

I somehow think this is a ploy for us to use a iPod's more, thus making their life shorter so we have to buy another one sooner.

[LimeiBook86]

I made my HTML in AppleWorks (:)) I just typed it but now that I have Dreamweaver I dont have to type anymore. As for HTML sites. Open your iDisk and drop your file (webpage.html) {NOTE: your file must have ".html" at the end otherwise your iDisk won't know what it is} in to the "Sites" folder and your done. Then just type this on your web browser: http://www.homepage.mac.com/username/webpage.html Ta-Dah!

Now the only bad thing is that you can't edit the HTML file through .Mac's website, the only way to change it is to open the file from your iDisk into your HTML editing program and then save it. Remeber always put ",html" at the end! :D :) :p

[Huskerflute]

Okay, I have been super busy and am just now getting around to messing with this some more, but thanks to LimeiBook86 I think I know what I'm doing now. I have my html pages on geocities right now for free, but I would MUCH rather have it on .mac (no banner ads or popup windows for one thing). Now I know how to do it, so I will experiment with linking my html pages to the galleries in my current .mac homepage, etc., some more before I say how much I really love it. Now if ONLY domain names could be a part of .mac somehow. Even if it only included ONE page of "yourname.com" linking to the current "homepage.mac.com/your name" pages. I'd go for that. Apple could require us to put their web badge on our pages (or insert them for us automatically), and maybe even create a "new" badge to represent that the domain was purchased and hosted by .mac or something. I put their web badges on my current pages anyway just b/c I'm proud to be a mac user. anyway, there's got to be a place for this SOMEwhere in Apple's future. Or else I'm just babbling.....

:p