I never realized .Mac was so useful!

[livingfortoday]

Ok, I just wanted to say that .Mac is incredible. I had tried it out about a year ago, and wasn't too impressed. Seemed too expensive for what I needed.

Well, today I started using the syncing abilities and the iDisk and whatnot... my god! This thing is GREAT!

Sorry, just had to profess my newfound love for .Mac! I can sync my iCal events from my Powerbook on campus with my desktop at home! On the go! I can access home files anywhere! Damn!

i really recommend it to anyone who's on the fence about this. On the surface it doesn't seem like much, but there's sooo much it has to offer!

That is all.

 

[Dr. Dastardly]

If you actually use all the features, the $100 seems like a very fair trade off for the convience of it all.

Mostly the syncing for me makes it worth it.

 

[mad jew]

Well, since I'm on the fence, thanks very much for the advice.

Just out of interest, how far does the compatibility go with PCs? Will it sync everything on the PC too, such as email? Does it sync through the browser, Outlook Express or something else?

 

[livingfortoday]

Well, since I'm on the fence, thanks very much for the advice.

Just out of interest, how far does the compatibility go with PCs? Will it sync everything on the PC too, such as email? Does it sync through the browser, Outlook Express or something else?

I'm syncing it through the built-in iSync in Tiger. It says you can sync with PC's, but that seems rather limited. I'm using it with iCal, Address Book, Mail, Safari (my bookmarks), and the iDisk.

here's a good overview of its features, including syncing abilities:
http://www.apple.com/dotmac/features.html

They have a little video that kinda goes over it, but it just talks about the syncing between Macs. Everything you sync up including calendars, mail and bookmarks is available online too, though, from any computer you use.

 

[26139]

Uhhh...

Well, since I'm on the fence, thanks very much for the advice.

Just out of interest, how far does the compatibility go with PCs? Will it sync everything on the PC too, such as email? Does it sync through the browser, Outlook Express or something else?

Not to be rude, but you are joking, right?

.Mac is called .Mac for a reason. It works for Macintosh computers with Apple software. Never, ever will it be released for anything other than an Apple product.

 

[mad jew]

Everything you sync up including calendars, mail and bookmarks is available online too, though, from any computer you use.

That's it, thanks. Yeah, I've been around the .Mac site countless times but there's not much info about how well PCs sync. I don't use PCs much, but it'd be nice to be able to access all my data from anywhere.

On the PCs, you get to it all through the browser, right? Or is there a .Mac program?

 

[Lacero]

Not to be rude, but you are joking, right?

Heh. I thought the OP title smacked of sarcasm. Because it seems so far-fetched. I still have my reservations.

 

[livingfortoday]

On the PCs, you get to it all through the browser, right? Or is there a .Mac program?

Yeah, you get it all through the browser. You'd just go to www.mac.com and log in, and it's all accessible from there. They have some videos up if you wanna see it in action. It's rather nifty.

 

[mad jew]

Not to be rude, but you are joking, right?

.Mac is called .Mac for a reason. It works for Macintosh computers with Apple software. Never, ever will it be released for anything other than an Apple product.

That's okay, you're not being rude. I'm not joking though. I just wanted to know how easy it is to access the files from my Macs from PCs.

Thanks livingfortoday. That's all I need. I'll look into it when I get my credit card back (damn pick pockets! ).

 

[gammamonk]

Not to be rude, but you are joking, right?

.Mac is called .Mac for a reason. It works for Macintosh computers with Apple software. Never, ever will it be released for anything other than an Apple product.

I thought you could access your iDisk from a PC. Am I wrong? I've never used it.

 

[livingfortoday]

Heh. I thought the OP title smacked of sarcasm. Because it seems so far-fetched. I still have my reservations.

Well, I recommend trying out the free 60-day trial. It limits your iDisk to 25MB from 1GB, but most other things seem to work alright, and it's been a great experience... and I've had it two hours now.

 

[MacAficionado]

I thought you could access your iDisk from a PC. Am I wrong? I've never used it.

Yes, there is an iDisk for Windows, so it does in fact works with Win, but not in the same way it does on a Mac. Of course.

.Mac, has been awesome for me. but I realize it is not for everybody.

 

[Kobushi]

I was wondering about this....

Always thought $100 just for some storage space and email address was insane. I guess syncing capabilities would save me hours of hunting between computers over the course of a year.

Just might have to try it.

 

[livingfortoday]

That's okay, you're not being rude. I'm not joking though. I just wanted to know how easy it is to access the files from my Macs from PCs.

Thanks livingfortoday. That's all I need. I'll look into it when I get my credit card back (damn pick pockets! ).

You can try it out for free without credit cards for 60 days! That's what I'm doing, they just ask for your name and an email address.

And as far as accessing iDisk online, I know you can set up a public folder for others to access your files and whatnot. I'm gonna try that tonight and see how that goes.

From .Mac about PC's:
To open your iDisk:
If you're using Windows XP, use iDisk Utility for Windows to open your iDisk. To download iDisk Utility for Windows, go to www.mac.com and click .Mac Member Central.


Note: If you use iDisk Utility for Windows and repeatedly get an error message that says the password you entered is incorrect or that iDisk Utility is unable to establish a network connection, you need to use the Add Network Place Wizard in Windows to connect to your iDisk. Choose My Network Places from the Start menu, then choose "Add a network place" in the Network Tasks list. In the Add Network Place Wizard, enter the following as the location to add: http://idisk.mac.com/membername (where "membername" is your .Mac member name). Use your .Mac member name and password for authentication.

If you're using Windows 2000, open My Computer, choose Map Network Drive from the Tools menu, then click "Web folder or FTP site." Enter the following as the location to add: http://idisk.mac.com/membername (where "membername" is your .Mac member name). Use your .Mac member name and password for authentication.

If you're using Windows 98, open My Computer, double-click the Web Folders icon, then double-click Add Web Folder. Enter the following as the location to add: http://idisk.mac.com/membername (where "membername" is your .Mac member name). Use your .Mac member name and password for authentication.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I have used the .Mac public folder as a drop box. It works great. Windows users can access it with a utility that they can download. It's perfect for exchanging large files; it's like ftp, but without any technical knowledge requirements.

 

[mad jew]

livingfortoday, you are awesome. Thanks for that. I signed up for a trial a while ago but from memory it had very limited features. The plan is to make that account active once I get access to my money.

 

[rzacharia]

Is there any way to sync entire folders with .Mac? For example, let's say that I am working some documents on my local Documents folder. Can the documents in this specified folder be automatically synced to my iDkis Documents folder?

I know this can probably be done with the Backup program, but that will only allow me to put files in the read-only backup folder rather than the iDisk Documents folder.

Thanks!

 

[livingfortoday]

Is there any way to sync entire folders with .Mac? For example, let's say that I am working some documents on my local Documents folder. Can the documents in this specified folder be automatically synced to my iDkis Documents folder?

I know this can probably be done with the Backup program, but that will only allow me to put files in the read-only backup folder rather than the iDisk Documents folder.

Thanks!

Well, your iDisk can be set to be always present on your Desktop even when not connected to the internet, so in theory you could just use the documents folder on there to store your information, and it'd be on your computer and synced with your .Mac account. I just tried saving a file directly into it from Word, and it synced up right away.

I don't know how to sync other folders up with .Mac, I'm new to it after all!

 

[Bern]

I was adamant I wasn't going to renew my .Mac account given services like gMail and Yahoo 360, but considering I can create a great web site (using Dreamweaver, Flash, etc), the sync ability, backups and so on I decided I'd be nuts not to.

.Mac is a great tool to have I just haven't worked out the usefulness of .Mac Groups yet..