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Apple to Discontinue .Mac HomePage and Groups

MacFly123 said:
No kidding. What is with the whining in here? Nobody ever used those things and it was nice to have them leave them hanging around this long to give people a transition. Honestly who cares? .mac is OLD, move on people! :rolleyes:
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MobileMe still doesn't have all the same features as dot Mac. Bookmarks and postcards were the first features taken away, now Groups and Homepage. While I mostly use the MobileMe Gallery, just because it's easier, I liked the themes (such as Baby, Road Trip, etc) of dot Mac better.
 
I put up MobileMe Galleries but Windows users couldn't see half of it (specifically, the movies) so I reverted back to iWeb. :rolleyes:
 
Maybe, Apple should lower the Mobile Me price? Instead of $99 how about $49?

There cutting features anyway, so cut the price too! :)
 
Sun Baked said:
Maybe Apple should also replace USB2 with USB1.1 or a serial port when they delete the FW800 ports and replace them with FW400.
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I sense your sarcasm but Apple's juggling with firewire has seriously pissed people off and led to some stressful situations.

Easy example: last week, someone I know calls asking if I have an 800 to 400 firewire cord. I say no. Their new Macbook Pro was crashing and they needed to back up, pronto. So they wanted to transfer their files to a friend's Macbook in the meantime using target disk mode. Problem was, everyone they and I know have 400 to 400 firewire cords. Luckily they even had a Macbook still containing firewire.

They call up Apple and are put on hold for an hour as the customer support guy calls local and not so local businesses in this area until he finally finds someone who carries a firewire 800 to 400 cord in the store. It was an hour's drive away for them to purchase it, just to connect these two computers. Meanwhile, every electronic store in the area easily carries 400 to 400 cords.

But, thanks to Apple looking to the future, abruptly cutting out peripherals ****s people over. Good job. And good job for encouraging such behavior.
 
FrankieTDouglas said:
They call up Apple and are put on hold for an hour as the customer support guy calls local and not so local businesses in this area until he finally finds someone who carries a firewire 800 to 400 cord in the store. It was an hour's drive away for them to purchase it, just to connect these two computers. Meanwhile, every electronic store in the area easily carries 400 to 400 cords.
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Really? An AppleCare Rep actually called your friend's local electronic stores to track down a firewire cable. And for an hour? Now, that's superior service.

Why didn't your friend just use an external hard drive?
 
Migration?

So what's the easiest way to migrate some old *.html web pages and photos from my .Mac Public directory to the "replacement"?
 
$100 for glorified email and file server = rip-off.
$100 for glorified email, file server, and web hosting = good deal.

Seriously. I have two Macs and an iPod Touch, and I still don't see how it's worth that much money. If I could ditch my web hosting plan in favour of Mobile Me, I would. Otherwise... well, yet another of Apple's overpriced frills and gimmicks. Just give me a Mac and go home.

Oh yeah, and it goes without saying that any web host would need PHP/MySQL support at a minimum.
 
Does anyone know of a good sync alternative to MobileMe?

Sync should include contacts, addresses, keychains, etc?

Any thoughts appreciated.

Dante
 
turtlebud said:
sure, they replaced .mac with mobileme, but they're taking away .mac groups and not replacing it with anything. a shame, that was one of the few things that I used in my .mac account. guess i'm in the minority though.
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I hope they plan on coming out with a Windows version of iWeb then if they want me to keep subscribing. Some of us want to be able to change things when we're NOT sitting down at a Mac.

Apple must think their platform is more popular than it is.
 
I first got my .Mac account because I needed web hosting, but didn't have a credit card. Buying a .Mac box was the easy way for me. I was aware that I was paying too much, but $99 for a year is not the end of the world...

As for all the "free web hosting" sites, they all have some limitations (there's no such thing as free lunch) such as embedding ads in pages (which I didn't want) and forbidding "hot-linking" and other crippling stuff like that.

I'm sure I'll get ridiculed by all the .mac/MobileMe bashers roaming around this thread, but here's the feedback I sent to Apple:

Hello,

I'm extremely displeased by the planned phasing out of homepage.mac.com pages after July 7 2009.

I invested in creating my webpage using .Mac, having my website address published all over the internet on many other sites, thinking that it would be a sure and safe way to ensure that my webpage would be accessible AND updatable through many years to come, since I trust(ed) Apple and know it will still be there for a long time, as opposed to superwebhosting.com and whatnot.

I don't use the "Homepage" web tool to manage my pages, so its disappearance doesn't bother me. I'm managing/updating my web page directly by accessing the "Sites" folder on my iDisk.

What I don't understand is that according to your FAQ and an Apple representative I chatted with, is that while the pages will still be accessible at the same URL after July 7, and the "Sites" folder will still exist on my iDisk, I will only be allowed to delete files, but not update content manually simply by dragging .html pages into my iDisk "Sites" folder.

While I do use my MobileMe email account, I mainly bought and renewed my .Mac/MobileMe account to host my webpage.

Using iWeb would not fix my main problem with this transition, which is losing the ability to update my Webpage at its current address. Using redirection to the iWeb page will be not only confusing, but will also destroy all my Google rankings.

I'm a long time Mac/Apple user, and I've been very satisfied with every product I've owned from your company, but my webpage is something very important to me, and while I understand that the homepage.mac.com addresses may not have been used by many customers, I'm angry that you don't leave the ability to manually edit the content of the "Sites" folder to the few of us that choose to use it.
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The .Mac HomePage FAQ is pretty confusing about the whole thing: "You will still be able to manually delete your pages after July 7, but you will no longer be able to make any changes using the HomePage application."

Well I don't use the HomePage application, I do my changes directly in the "Sites" folder... But according to the Apple rep I chatted with, I won't be able to do so after July 7.

So, the whole "costly" infrastructure will remain there (pages will remain accessible at the same url), except that they'll prevent users from modifying the content of the "Sites" folder on their iDisk (this folder is the one mirrored by the http://homepage.mac.com/username/ url), aside from deleting stuff.
 
Yay, more Apple abandonware. "Heyyyy there DotMac Homepage, thanks for coming...meet Final Cut Express, Cyberdog, OpenDoc, WebObjects, KidSafe, HyperCard, Carbon, QuickDraw 3D, Newton OS, and all these other guys..."
 
Mykbibby said:
Really? Page 1? This seems more like Page 2 to me.

Nevertheless, I think its good. The more Apple focuses on the present, the better for me.
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You may have a point there; but there were a few of us that liked the "old school" in the .mac days.

I realize that times marches on; but if you is paying to be a part of a "service" - then maybe legacy needs trump the update.

whynot83706 said:
$99 per year it was a good deal having those two features.
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I seem to remember in the past the cost was $79.... I maybe wrong....

But so far in my years with .MAC and now with MobileMe accounts - I never used then them to to point that Apple needed to go this far.

Just seems to be less for more...

MNTwinsFan said:
Maybe, Apple should lower the Mobile Me price? Instead of $99 how about $49?

There cutting features anyway, so cut the price too! :)
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Amen to that... I hung on so far just for continuity.... and features that took away over the years.....

BlueRevolution said:
$100 for glorified email and file server = rip-off.
$100 for glorified email, file server, and web hosting = good deal.

Seriously. I have two Macs and an iPod Touch, and I still don't see how it's worth that much money. If I could ditch my web hosting plan in favour of Mobile Me, I would. Otherwise... well, yet another of Apple's overpriced frills and gimmicks. Just give me a Mac and go home.

Oh yeah, and it goes without saying that any web host would need PHP/MySQL support at a minimum.
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Amen there!

gMail or Yahoo here I come!
 
I'm annoyed.....

I'm not sure why the .mac service is being so criticised here. I use it, have done so for five years, and I publish my web page using a program called "PageSpinner". I am 62 years old, and I am not a computer geek - it's taken me some time to learn how to use the .mac. I find it convenient, I think I know what I'm doing, and I am at a loss to understand why Apple has withdrawn support for this service. I had no inkling they would. It's very, very annoying.

I have hundreds of pages on my .mac account.

What am I supposed to do now? Apple's own explanation is confusing and contradictory. How do I transfer all my pages, and how do I redirect people visiting my site to any new one? It seems like a lot of extra work for nothing. I don't have a program called iWeb, and if I did, I suspect transferring my present web site could be fraught with all sorts of problems.

I am so cross I am thinking I'll let my .mac (Mobile Me - what a stupid title) lapse and find some other way of publishing my pages. I understand Google run a free service, but of course it'll probably be saturated with ads etc, which I really hate.

Any suggestions?

My homepage is http://homepage.mac.com/j.monro

Thanks.
 
linking photos

I used mac.com very often for hosting pictures I wanted to post on message boards. Will this still be possible? (so I would post a picture of my head or something on mac.com page, then open the image, then open the image in a new window and copy the URL, then past the url within a thingee)

I just tried a test run and it seems so far like I can't do this with iWeb, it seems to turn the photos into some kind of flash thing. Please tell me I'm wrong.

Anybody? Thanks!
 
Casiotone said:
The .Mac HomePage FAQ is pretty confusing about the whole thing: "You will still be able to manually delete your pages after July 7, but you will no longer be able to make any changes using the HomePage application."

Well I don't use the HomePage application, I do my changes directly in the "Sites" folder... But according to the Apple rep I chatted with, I won't be able to do so after July 7.

So, the whole "costly" infrastructure will remain there (pages will remain accessible at the same url), except that they'll prevent users from modifying the content of the "Sites" folder on their iDisk (this folder is the one mirrored by the http://homepage.mac.com/username/ url), aside from deleting stuff.
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Dude, chill the **** out. Jeebus.

First of all, all the FAQs and documents I've read seem to indicate that you will not be able to change your sites via the *HomePage web app*, not that they'll restrict manual modification of the webpages. Despite the fact that your rep said that the Sites folder will be made read-only, I remain skeptical since the e-mail was sent out only 24 hours ago.

Despite that, even if the Sites folder is restricted, the "Web" folder will not. iWeb uses that folder, and it will have to allow write access to that folder in order to publish websites.

Just like the Sites folder, you can manually put your web sites in the Web folder and have access to them from the web. If you put a file at /<your iDisk>/Web/Sites/test.html , anybody can see the website by visiting http://web.mac.com/<your MobileMe member name>/test.html, just like they can with existing sites in the Sites folder from the homepage.mac.com URL.

You will *still* be able to host manually-created websites on your iDisk regardless of what happens to the Sites folder.

Seriously, calm down.
 
jockmoron said:
I'm not sure why the .mac service is being so criticised here. I use it, have done so for five years, and I publish my web page using a program called "PageSpinner". I am 62 years old, and I am not a computer geek - it's taken me some time to learn how to use the .mac. I find it convenient, I think I know what I'm doing, and I am at a loss to understand why Apple has withdrawn support for this service. I had no inkling they would. It's very, very annoying.

I have hundreds of pages on my .mac account.

What am I supposed to do now? Apple's own explanation is confusing and contradictory. How do I transfer all my pages, and how do I redirect people visiting my site to any new one? It seems like a lot of extra work for nothing. I don't have a program called iWeb, and if I did, I suspect transferring my present web site could be fraught with all sorts of problems.

I am so cross I am thinking I'll let my .mac (Mobile Me - what a stupid title) lapse and find some other way of publishing my pages. I understand Google run a free service, but of course it'll probably be saturated with ads etc, which I really hate.

Any suggestions?

My homepage is http://homepage.mac.com/j.monro

Thanks.
Click to expand...

uhm... maybe you should.. protect your "family section" better as both user ID and password is spelled out in your source code?
A real webhost,.. like one.com would provide you with online webdesign tools in 3 steps and proper loginforms.
 
scooterbaga said:
I miss bookmarks. That was damn handy.
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Me too, I ended using the firefox plugin called "xmarks" (used to be called foxmarks).

I sync my bookmarks between my computers, works for firefox, safari and ie.

and I can access my bookmarks via their site. (for free)

I use google for my contacts/calendar and email now also. I only keep MobileMe right now for the people who still use my old address, and I get it off ebay cheap so I can't complain too much :D
 
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