[TETENAL]

We don't need a topic every time .Mac is down, but I see nothing wrong with a thread about the (somewhat majorly) new features of .Mac.

Backup 3

Backup 3 hopefully and finally now fully works with Tiger. It also supports incremental backups and has a nicer user interface. Seems to be a good update.

1 GB iDisk

That's nice for backups.

.Mac Groups

I haven't seen such a group yet, and I'm not completely sure what this is even.

[Randman]

The other thread WAS about the upgrades.

[turtle777]

Wrong farkin forum.

-t

[ajprice]

There was nothing wrong with the other thread, just that the title said '.mac down', maybe. Could have just seen the title and got the lockinator out on it.

Anyway, .mac looks like a good upgrade, I'll look a bit further into Groups tonight to see what it actually does, but it looks like a kind of shared homepage/address book/blog, maybe intended for use by a family, a club, bunch of mates etc.

[Randman]

Though the mod could have as easily edited the headline but from the last response, I don't think any of the comments were read.

Anyway, I'd still like to see sub-domains, though a little less now that I have my own domain and forward it to to the home page.

[JHromadka]

Yeah http://forums.macnn.com/89/macnn-lounge/270254/mac-down/ was the original topic on the new features, but tooki chose to close it without reading the discussion or changing the title.

Anyway, the Groups feature seems interesting. Will have to play with it more to see how the calendar for it works. Would be cool if multiple people could update the calendar instead of hosting it with one person.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

unless they cut the price by 50% I am not renewing.

[lavar78]

You can get it at least 20% cheaper online.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally Posted by lavar78

You can get it at least 20% cheaper online.

20% if a far way off from 50%.

For what I use it for it just isn't worth it for that cost. I have my own domain with enough storage for less than .Mac.

[parsec_kadets]

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

unless they cut the price by 50% I am not renewing.

Fine, then don't get it. Are you really so bitter about the cost of .Mac that you're still griping about this many YEARS later? Meanwhile I'll enjoy the upgrades, backing up 99% of the files in my Documents folder to iDisk now (only one that's not getting backed up is my 4GB VPC image). Has anyone tried backing up to a samba drive? Backup 2 wasn't very good at this.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

unless they cut the price by 50% I am not renewing.

Yeah, I am letting my subscription expire. I just bought my own domain www.dcmacdaddy.net and should have my own site up by the end of the year.

[Mastrap]

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy

Yeah, I am letting my subscription expire. I just bought my own domain www.dcmacdaddy.net and should have my own site up by the end of the year.

Apparently you have an interest in escorts from the Chicago area? Because that's what your ISP is advertising on your domain. I'd put a stop to that if I were you.

[SunSeeker]

While I begrudge it a bit, I think the extra features are worth it and I will be paying more than I do now to switch to the family pack.
I already have 4 additional accounts and I have just bought my 3 daughters an imac600 each, so timing is perfect. They will really enjoy having their own space for email, backup and photo sharing.

[wataru]

Originally Posted by lavar78

You can get it at least 20% cheaper online.

Where might that be? My .Mac is expiring in less than a month, and I can't ditch it yet because I'm still tied to the email.

[SunSeeker]

Originally Posted by lavar78
You can get it at least 20% cheaper online.

Please Tell

[wdlove]

I'm very pleased about the update. It seems that Apple was listening. The 1 GB will be nice. The family pack is also more appealing with 2 GB.

[legacyb4]

Ha ha, that's pretty sad...

I'd be mighty pissed at my provider if that happened!

Originally Posted by Mastrap

Apparently you have an interest in escorts from the Chicago area? Because that's what your ISP is advertising on your domain. I'd put a stop to that if I were you.

[angelmb]

I am getting 512 MB as my new whole space available *confused*

[Adam Betts]

I'm enjoying the new .mac exclusive widgets.

Oh wait I don't have them

1GB upgrade and Groups are hot! Didn't care for Backup 3 though.

Definitely renewing this year

[ajprice]

OK, people seeing 512Mb, thats because the 1 gig is split between email and webspace, 512Mb each.

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by Adam Betts

Didn't care for Backup 3 though.

Backup 2 couldn't backup to CDs/DVDs on Tiger and this version seems a lot nicer. So Backup 3 is a huge thing!

[Adam Betts]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

Backup 2 couldn't backup to CDs/DVDs on Tiger and this version seems a lot nicer. So Backup 3 is a huge thing!

Actually now that I took another look at Backup 3 I think it may be useful for me. I'm especially curious about incremental backups feature. Will it work accurately every time? I do manual backup files every time because there's no backup software that does incremental backups intelligently.

btw, the overly saturated orange tone they picked for updated umbrella icon is downright horrible. Anyone got a copy of old umbrella icon?

[lavar78]

.Mac is $77.99 on Amazon. With the A9 discount, I received $1.22 off.

[Mac Write]

I was thinking of upgrading my mom and I to Family Pack (since we do OS and iLife Family Pack), but it is 1GB+250MB for each of the 4 sub accounts none upgradable space on sub accounts.

[beverson]

Originally Posted by budster101

I mean what is the maximum file size for an attachement. Is it still 10mb?

I'd like to see more on that end

This was posted in the topic that was stupidly locked. Anyway, I agree it would be nice if the attachment size was larger than 10 MB (apparently it's not), but check out this app: FileChute.

FileChute is an easy-to-use app that turns sending multi-megabyte files from a pain to a simple drag-and-drop.

FileChute even lets you send multiple files or folders in one single step. Just drop them in the chute and off it goes - automatically creating your choice of a dmg, zip or tar on the fly.

Your recipient simply clicks on the link to retrieve the file. Since no special software is required on the receiving end, it doesn't matter whether she uses a Mac or a Windows PC.

Works with FTP servers too, so you don't have to have .Mac to use it.

[budster101]

Hey, thanks for that beverson.

Props.

----

To anyone who doesn't want .mac (Don't buy it, but you don't have to post how you will only buy it if they drop it by 50% because enough people are buying it to not warrant your request...

[Randman]

Wataru, if you have any mugs sites you visit, check with them. Many people get .Mac then sell it off. I was able to get three for the price of 1. I renewed my membership and sold one off (at 50%) to someone on this site.

[JoshuaZ]

I want my .Mac widgets! Darn it!

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by ajprice

OK, people seeing 512Mb, thats because the 1 gig is split between email and webspace, 512Mb each.

Yes, happened that I confused the iDisk panel in System Preferences thinking about it as the whole amount of space available.

Thanks.

Cool signature BTW

[mdc]

i'll be siging up with it this week, since my trial just ended.
the ability for my powerbook and imac to share passwords, and bookmarks is worth the money.

question. would this be possible with the new back up software?
i plan making a digital picture frame with a dell 20" monitor and a mac mini. my iphoto library is on my imac. every night i want the iphoto library to be pushed to the mac mini. could i set up a nightly backup to "backup" the iphoto library to the mac mini's iphoto library folder?

[Randman]

Have to check with Backup3 but you might be able to do that. At the very least, you could do it with Backup and Automator.

[TETENAL]

No, you can not do that with Backup. Backup backs up into a .backup file with is a bundle containing a disk image with the contents to backup. You can not use it to synchronize contents of two volumes.

You should be able to do what you want with a Automator action (and easiest way to schedule this is with iCal).

[Randman]

Backup lets you save to more than your iDisk. You can save to a volume and you can recover from a volume.

Also, with Backup 3, you can create specialized and multiple backup plans, including incremental and timed backups.

You can create a plan and backup the iPhoto library to an external hard drive at a given time. Then you can create a new plan on the second Mac and have it recover and restore the iPhoto library at a given time (say 30 minutes later).

Tetenal is quite wrong.

[Randman]

Though it would be easier just to have 1 library. Have the two Macs connected via FireWire and use Bonjour to share the iMac's photo library with the Mac mini. Less fuss.

[production_coordinator]

IMHO, it's starting to look like something I would pay $100 for, but I still don't think it's there. Up until now, I wouldn't even consider it.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

20% if a far way off from 50%.

For what I use it for it just isn't worth it for that cost. I have my own domain with enough storage for less than .Mac.

I agree. .mac isn't worth it to me really. Not even in its current form. I had been a subscriber for 2 years and then this august I decided not to continue with it.

Why? Because the mail feature while nice ended as soon as you stopped paying. Gmail and Microsith's Hotmail never do that (obviously because they are free, the point being I don't want my mail to become closed all of a sudden and these providers aren't very likely to do so). And GMail offers 2 GB storage for free.

If your service provider doesn't offer you at least a GB with your internet plan then Spymac offers it for free (I know I know, we're just talking free webspace not professional webhosting).

Their offers (sometimes free sharware apps, sometimes some random offers) aren't all that great and are really bordering on spam sometimes.

Also the .mac website isn't ad free as would be polite of them. There are some neat templates and other stuff that you get with .mac and it is truly idiot proof for setting up simple default homepages.

This is all nice, but only if you have more money than mind.

I'll have my GMail and Hotmail accounts for a long long time I suspect and I, like many others, get web-hosting with my ISP (and yet another email actually)

So I am up to here with email accounts, webspace and offers of this and that coming from all over the web.

I don't feel like paying $100 a year for that. I'd rather just watch some ads. And Apple makes me do that anyway for the hundred bucks.

PS: The really worthwhile features of .mac are Backup and iSync. But for $100 I'll pass, even if they are neat.

cheers

W-Y

[mdc]

Originally Posted by Randman

Though it would be easier just to have 1 library. Have the two Macs connected via FireWire and use Bonjour to share the iMac's photo library with the Mac mini. Less fuss.

randman, firstly, thanks for all the info. much appreciated.

if everything fails it will become this. this is how i have it right now with my powerbook and iMac. the iMac is always on and if i need the photos on my powerbook i open iphoto and it gets them off the iMac.
the only issue is that it is a little slow (through my wireless network) and it requires the iMac to be on all the time.

the reason i want the mac mini to house it's own mirror of the iphoto library is mainly to let the iMac be as free as possible, and just incase i need to turn off the iMac or something.
I won't be able to firewire them together since the mac mini will be downstairs and my iMac is upstairs.

i see this digital picture frame being on constantly.

your idea of a backup to my firewire drive and then restore it with the mac mini could work really well, especially if it is an incremental back up, since it won't have to do much work (after the first time)

[beverson]

Something I noticed the other day — my local iDisk's total capacity in the Finder is 1.02 GB, even though I only have 944 MB allocated to iDisk (the rest to e-mail). The free space in the Finder is correct, though. According to the .Mac system pref pane, the capacity is 944 MB and 109 MB is used.

This isn't bad, just interesting. And maybe an improvement, actually. Before, whenever you changed the allocation between e-mail and iDisk online storage, the Finder (or mirroragent, I guess), had to re-size the local iDisk. This was slow and didn't always work right for me — sometimes required a logout/in to get my iDisk back. It appears now that all local iDisks are the full capacity of your online storage, even if part of that is allocated to e-mail. I wonder if our e-mail files are hidden somewhere on the local or remote versions of our iDisks.

Again, just interesting I thought.

[TimWatt]

I manage a Yahoo group, which working pretty well consider it's free, and causes occasional annoyance like not storing attachments and changing polcies without consulting.

Users need to sign up wit ha Yahoo account, like they will have to sign in with a .Mac account with the new groups whcih they can allow to lapse amd pay nothing to keep using the groups (though I guess they'll get the mail from Apple).

Yahoogroups has had at least three owners in my time using them, the ads. are instrusive but the functionality is great and 200 or so mostly non-technical people use the group the group effectively. At least I don't have to filter out porn spam anymore!

The .mac groups don't have an RSS feed version which is a deal breaker for me right now but I assume this will be fixed. The groups are private unlike Yahoogroups which give a choice and be easily found on the web.

So how are the .Mac groups working so far?

Is it easy to convert from a Yahoo group?

Tim

[Philip J. Fry]

So, has anyone tried the .mac groups yet? Interested in seeing how it is before setting mine up.