.Mac update imminent?

[m-dogg]

I would love to be able to back up my entire iPhoto library onto .Mac - Currently it's about 5.5 gigs, so I doubt that would ever happen right now.

Too bad they couldn't do something like 250 mb of storage space + complete backup of your iPhoto library (regardless of size).

I back up my music collection on my ipod regularly, but there isn't any good backup for my photo collection. I do back up to CD/DVD from tme to time, but that's a pain. I try to stay up-to-date, but if my hard drive was to crash at any time, there's a good chance I might lose at least a portion of pics. And even if I didn't it would take forever to pop in each disc with various pics to rebuild my library...it would be much smoother & cleaner to automaticaly have my entire iphoto library, folders & settings all preserved on .mac!

 

[eva01]

I would love to be able to back up my entire iPhoto library onto .Mac - Currently it's about 5.5 gigs, so I doubt that would ever happen right now.

Too bad they couldn't do something like 250 mb of storage space + complete backup of your iPhoto library (regardless of size).

I back up my music collection on my ipod regularly, but there isn't any good backup for my photo collection. I do back up to CD/DVD from tme to time, but that's a pain. I try to stay up-to-date, but if my hard drive was to crash at any time, there's a good chance I might lose at least a portion of pics. And even if I didn't it would take forever to pop in each disc with various pics to rebuild my library...it would be much smoother & cleaner to automaticaly have my entire iphoto library, folders & settings all preserved on .mac!

didn't they make the iPod Photo/Color just for you :/ since that is exactly what it is used for to backup photos.

 

[wdlove]

They would have themselves an incredibly popular service if they did the following:

- new homepage templates
- sub-domains
- 1 GB idisk
- tighter integration of ical into the website
- change albums within iPhoto
- send iCards from within mail
- integrate iTunes into .mac
- more sync options for Apple software
- faster idisk
- better backup

Ok they are doing one of those. That's a start I guess. 🙄

Which one have they done already. The most important to me would be the 1 GB iDisk. My wife has been forced to pay extra for additional space.

 

[Diatribe]

Which one have they done already. The most important to me would be the 1 GB iDisk. My wife has been forced to pay extra for additional space.

They are improving Backup according to this article. It's one of the more needed upgrades but I agree with you, speed and size are the most important ones.
It could be such an awesome service but as of now it really sucks. If I didn't like synching and the .mac email that much I'd cancel it.

 

[hob]

Or you could get a flickr account for free. But hey, its from Apple. It must be good, right?

Beat me to it. Flickr is an awesome service. I'm a pro user, but that's only because there was a special offer. For free you can put up, i think, as many photos as you want - it's just how much bandwidth you use. They don't mind about storage!

It seems to have been snapped up by Yahoo! but they haven't messed around with it, except for the login process (you can now use a Yahoo ID).

If you want to see my account, it's not too special - click on "photos" in my sig.

If I was just needing photo storage I wouldn't use .Mac - there's nowhere near enough capacity!! I like .Mac because of the sync stuff, but I'm going to have to really evaluate how much it's worth to me...

But I love the fact I can go up to a mac, create a new account (for security reasons), enter all my .Mac details and bam! I have all my email, safari is bookmarked the way I like it (with a big bookmark bar) my calendar is right there, all my addresses etc. then when I'm done at that mac I can just delete the account and walk off!

Huzzah!

 

[m-dogg]

didn't they make the iPod Photo/Color just for you :/ since that is exactly what it is used for to backup photos.

I guess, but my 30gb non-color ipod is doing just fine right now, so I'm not ready to upgrade. and there isn't any space on that to add my pics to it...not even all of my music for that matter...

I think that would be a nice extra for .mac. Sure there are other options, but they could market that well I think. While there are a lot of huge iphoto libraries, there are even more small ones I think, so it would would be balanced out across all of apple's .mac membership.

 

[kalisphoenix]

...can you sync up your home computer, you're laptop and 2 work computers? Linux can't do it. Windows sure can't.

I think the developers and users of rsync would be dismayed to discover this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rsync
http://rsync.samba.org/

Available for Linux, Windows, and damn near every other OS out there for several years now and used more widely than Paris Hilton.

"A UNIX is a terrible thing to waste." -- Me.

 

[hob]

I guess, but my 30gb non-color ipod is doing just fine right now, so I'm not ready to upgrade. and there isn't any space on that to add my pics to it...not even all of my music for that matter...

I think that would be a nice extra for .mac. Sure there are other options, but they could market that well I think. While there are a lot of huge iphoto libraries, there are even more small ones I think, so it would would be balanced out across all of apple's .mac membership.

I'd need a 100GB iPod to backup all my music and photos...!

 

[m-dogg]

I'd need a 100GB iPod to backup all my music and photos...!

I hear ya - I've decided a while back that unless my ipod breaks and I'm forced to get a new one, I will wait until they get to at least 80 gigs. 100 or more would be better so that I have more room to grow.

 

[tjwett]

I guess that the .mac marketing team still believes that we are in 2001 and that 40GB hard drives are $299 each, I mean $99 for 250MB and a bunch of services/products that anyone can get for free or for the fraction of that price everywhere else is a joke, they'll have to offer MUCH more space and better (quality products better than and ancient antivirus which BTW are all useless on a Mac)...(in fact they gave 15 months for $25 to previous users)

while i agree that 250MB is useless, the anti-virus software is not. yes, your Mac cannot get a virus, but it can still hold viruses and pass them on to others on a network, via email attachments etc. unfortunately Virex in particular is useless, on Tiger anyway. 🙄

 

[Fotek2001]

They'll have to seriously beef up the service if they expect me to renew in October. The only thing that's keeping me hanging in there at the moment is syncing but I'm starting to think that even that's not really worth paying for...

 

[DickArmAndHarT]

.Mac membership really needs to get a boost in features for it to be worthwile. For example the 250 MB iDisk is to small for home created movies and other large files, which people want to share.

250 MB is PLENTY of space from home movies, and I dont know what your trying to share as "other large files" Ive created several films and they have to be compressed to such tiny sizes (under 20 megs) depends on the length. Putting a large quicktime file will just make it almost unusable for anyone trying to view it.


the website dotmac.info was my reason to renew, plus occassionaly using the other features

Its an amazing site for sharing your films and pictures and getting advice and help from. Anyone can view, but you hasve to be a .mac member to post, and comment.

 

[FriarTuck]

I'm sure the iSync makes it worthwhile for some folks, but I don't use it.

Also, I need full access to my e-mail from the web, and both Yahoo! mail and GMail do that better and infinitely faster than .mac does.

So, after starting with iTools from day 1, I'm not renewing this year.

My photos and videos will be shifted to SmugMug.com for half the price and more reliable service.

 

[iDrinkKoolAid]

I'm hoping they upgrade Virex for use with Tigger.

The older version of Virex (7.2?) works with Tiger.

 

[iMe]

anyone who woujld buy .mac now anyways? can i refer you?

hi all

should there be anyone interested to buy .mac, please let me know as i would like to refer you....

it doesn´t cost you anything... but i save money.. 🙂 should someone here not mind if i do, please contact me: dotmac@enno.net

thanks,

iMe

 

[cgmpowers]

student pricing

Apple does offer .Mac account on a student discount, I think its $79...

and .mac still is not worth this college student's $99.

in fact even if I had the money I say it is not worth my money.


Let's move on to the music event next week (iPhone, iPod Video, color minis, iTunes 5.0) and Paris on the 20th (Powerbooks HD)

 

[elo]

I've had .mac since it forst came out. I have three computers that i don't have to worry about syncing (i just add contacts / mail folders / calandar items, etc. on any computer without worry.) I have three websites hosted on .mac (one business). My sister and i share files over the public folder. Insanely easy to share photos with iPhoto. Important work files (Quickbooks etc.) backed up daily automatically. Access to all my bookmarks at ANY (connected to internet) computer, Access to all my contacts and calenadrs on ANY computer. All this for $99 a year. I'm not quite understanding why this serrvice is universally panned. Do others not need this? are they doing the same things just as easily, but for free with a combination of other utilites? What am i missing?

You can do all of this more easily by purchasing a hosting package, and it's way less money. You can do the vast majority of this stuff just as easily through free utilities on the web.

 

[eva01]

There are only three reasons why i have my .Mac account. I LOVE my @mac.com email address it is lovely. I use Backup a lot, and i sync my computers

 

[YEMandy]

Need more space!

We need more space apple! 250MB is weak as hell!! I back up more data on my gmail account than I do on my .mac account! Get with it!

 

[Doctor Q]

I came this -->| |<--- close to trying .Mac when I bought my wife her iMac. I have other ways to do backups and post to a web site, I have plenty of disk space, and I have no need for shared calendars and contact syncing, so it never seemed worth it. But it said a free trial came with the iMac, so why not try it?

But I should have paid closer attention. It turns out that the free trial period started when I registered the iMac, not when we first tried to use .Mac, so the 30 days had already expired the first time we tried to use it. I don't need to say that I was less than impressed with my free trial! I could sign up again, but I'm back to thinking "why bother?"

 

[~Shard~]

We need more space apple! 250MB is weak as hell!! I back up more data on my gmail account than I do on my .mac account! Get with it!

Yes, my coworker can back up more data on his 512 MB iPod shuffle, so there's just something wrong with that. Plus, nowadays, who only has 256 MB's worth of stuff to back-up anyway? Seems like such a small amount... although I suppose it's all relative when I think back to my Apple //e having 64k of memory and such... 😉

 

[Yvan256]

Three Macs all synced in beautiful harmony = worth $99.00 to this cowboy.


It's all I use it for.

I still don't see why I'd need to pay for a .mac account only to sync computers. I don't want the emails, storage space, etc. I just want to sync my Mac mini and Powerbook... 🙁

 

[Yvan256]

It turns out that the free trial period started when I registered the iMac, not when we first tried to use .Mac, so the 30 days had already expired the first time we tried to use it. I don't need to say that I was less than impressed with my free trial! I could sign up again, but I'm back to thinking "why bother?"

Same thing happened to me with my Mac mini. "What do you mean my trial is over, I never even logged on!"

Oh well. If anyone has a free way to sync multiple macs, please tell me.

 

[capvideo]

I think the developers and users of rsync would be dismayed to discover this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rsync
http://rsync.samba.org/

Rsync is great; I use it all the time. But it has little to do with the kind of synchronization people are using .Mac for: synchronizing calendars, bookmarks, and other items that are generally stored within single files. Rsync will copy entire files, but it will not ensure that no calendar loses data by being overwritten; the same with bookmarks. Rsync will have to either overwrite one set of bookmarks or refuse to synchronize that file at all. It will not ensure both that synchronization occurs and that no bookmarks are lost.

I don't have .Mac, but the synchronization features are the one reason I keep thinking I should.

Jerry

 

[schatten]

How to get .Mac for free...

...If you work for an Apple Authorized Reseller (or know someone who does) you can get a .Mac account for free by taking some of Apple online sales training courses. That's what I do. I've have .Mac every year since inception & have never paid for it. Mine expires today, but I have my code for another year of free service. (yay!)