Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

bbales · Oct 1, 2003, 10:29 AM

I posted this in the web development forum, but after searching, found a number of "is .mac worth it" postings on this site.

I have a simple question: for simple web page development (kids who want to design a page for themselves), is .mac the way to go? I don't even know how to go about finding a web hosting site, or what a good price is. But if you pay 8 bucks a month to a site holder, or whatever the heck you call them, that's $96 a year and that's very, very close to the cost of the .mac membership. I use Entourage, so probably won't take advantage of the e-mail stuff, but isync looks intriguing for trying to keep my desktop and PB in tune. It sounds like the .mac home page might be easy for my daughter to learn and use.

ANy opinions, anyone? (Like I don't think people out here have them!)

Thanks in advance.

JKT · Oct 1, 2003, 10:41 AM

A combination of iPhoto and .Mac Homepage is extremely easy to use for the production of simple, clean websites. You can get a sixty day demo of .Mac which will let you try it out. From the Apple .Mac FAQ:

Q: What does the free 60-day .Mac trial account include?

The free 60-day .Mac trial account includes limited versions of many of the key features of a .Mac paid membership:

HomePage for hosting web sites and publishing web pages and photo albums from iPhoto
A .Mac Mail account with 5MB of storage (vs. 15MB for full membership)
Trial version of Apple's new Backup software to back up files to iDisk (backup to CD or DVD requires full membership)
20MB of iDisk storage (vs. 100MB with full membership)
iDisk Utility software to set read/write access to and password protect the iDisk Public Folder (great for group sharing of files)
Web-based access to email , your address book, and favorite bookmarks
.Mac Slides Publisher for turning your photos into slideshow screensavers
Additional .Mac-only functionality for Apple's iCal and iSync software
Instant messaging with .Mac account name and iChat

NOTE: Trial memberships do not include Virex virus protection software or access to .Mac Support discussion boards.

Easiest way for you to see if it is worth it.

Personally, the asking price is high IMO, but iSync and the iApp integration for production of websites, online calendars, address book etc does in the end make it worthwhile. One way to look at it, the more features Apple adds over time, the more it'll be worth the asking price.

gorickey · Oct 1, 2003, 11:18 AM

I like to consider myself pretty technical and have alot of knowledge/experience with HTML and making Web-sites; however, I would not function correctly without my .Mac Web-pages from iPhoto and whatnot, they are awesome and save so much time from making it from scratch. Perfect not just for students/kids, but for adults as well...

Moonray · Oct 1, 2003, 01:48 PM

You should know that you can get good webhosting with more space and more email abilities for maybe half the price, of course without the special Apple stuff (ask yourself if you really need it), but you have to be willing to look yourself and compare first.

And if you ask people with this slightly overpriced .Mac account no one will admit it's not worth the money they pay.

-

blackbird_1.0 · Oct 1, 2003, 08:01 PM

can't you upload your own custom pages as well?

MacGorilla · Oct 1, 2003, 08:07 PM

Originally posted by blackbird_1.0:
can't you upload your own custom pages as well?

Yes.

rlmorel · Oct 1, 2003, 08:42 PM

I love .mac. I am an IT guy, but I just don't have the time to do my own web pages to share stuff with family and friends...

.mac does that for me-I think it is well worth it!

http://homepage.mac.com/rlmorel

Nawus · Oct 1, 2003, 10:20 PM

.mac works great but too costly for what it is.

Moonray · Oct 2, 2003, 01:47 AM

These .Mac photo albums leave not much room for individuality though. But if all you want is to show photos and don't care about the money it's one of the easiest ways.

-

[APi]TheMan · Oct 2, 2003, 02:42 AM

I'm as good as reeled into .Mac now... Yikes. It's time to renew in a few days here and I hardly feel justified paying the $107 (after tax), but I really don't want to re-create my fifteen or so photo albums (complete with cool comments). .Mac's, unfortunately, got my money.

.Mac makes it very easy to upload pictures. I love the @mac.com e-mail and the webspace is wonderful. It's a bummer it's not 1) Free. and 2) still $50. If it goes up I'll probably sue Apple.

Xeo · Oct 2, 2003, 05:44 AM

If web hosting is all you want, you can get a much better deal by going with someone else. You can get 1 GB of space and 50 GB monthly transfer for $7.50/month (globat.com). But if you REALLY want to go cheap, you can get very inexpensive plans for under $5 a year. Go to findmyhosting.com and search for the cheapy plans. They aren't much, but for simple, low traffic web hosting, you can't beat $0.40/month.

Boondoggle · Oct 2, 2003, 06:35 AM

Dot Mac is not just web hosting. It is worth more than the sum of it's parts.

It is worth the money if you use all the features.

including iSynch, etc.

I love it.

Parky · Oct 2, 2003, 07:23 AM

.mac work for me, due to it's speed and ease of use.

From connecting a camera to publishing a professional webpage takes less than 5 minutes.

All the other things that come with .Mac also make it great value, but more importantly they all work seamlessley with the OS, and even more so under 10.3

I use all the following from .Mac

2 really good email addresses for me and my mother, easy to remember.
100MB of Web Space, usually 70% full
Integtration with iPhoto and Homepage, really simple and quick.
Backup
iBlog (new free software)
Loads of free games over the last year
iSync between my Powerbook and iMac
Publishing of iCal calendars
Access to the bookmarks I use on my iMac / powerbook, even when I'm on a windows machine at work.
Web mail with access to the Address Book just as it is on my iMac / Powerbook
Virus checker, not a great deal of use, but there just in case
Access to the support forums, that has been very useful
Great online training, learned a few nuggets by using them

Nobody else offers this as a total package, with such great ease of use and integration.

With the new faetures coming in 10.3 (iDisk improvements) and future additions, it seems like good value to me.

The simple rule is, if it looks good and you are happy to pay for it, then go ahead, if not leave it alone and do your own thing.

Don't berate people for making a free choice.

bbales · Oct 2, 2003, 11:35 AM

Thanks to all for the responses. You've given me much to think about. I'll probably try the 60-day demo to see how that works and how my daughter likes it, and then continue to investigate cheaper alternatives on the web hosting. I'm a little concerned about lack of indiviudality on the web pages, but the 60-day tryout will give me time to investigate. Then, I'll also have time to see if I use the other features, as well. Isync is particularly intriguing, as I'm always trying to keep the PB and desktop somewhat in sync. Sure wish it was only 50 bucks -- I probalby wouldn't hesitate!

Thanks again.

LeeG · Oct 2, 2003, 07:50 PM

Originally posted by Parky:

2 really good email addresses for me and my mother, easy to remember.
100MB of Web Space, usually 70% full
Integtration with iPhoto and Homepage, really simple and quick.
Backup
iBlog (new free software)
Loads of free games over the last year
iSync between my Powerbook and iMac
Publishing of iCal calendars
Access to the bookmarks I use on my iMac / powerbook, even when I'm on a windows machine at work.
Web mail with access to the Address Book just as it is on my iMac / Powerbook
Virus checker, not a great deal of use, but there just in case
Access to the support forums, that has been very useful
Great online training, learned a few nuggets by using them

I use quite a few of these also, I really like .mac right now.

Is it cheap? No. There should be a REALLY discounted student version. But I have the luxury of employment, and 100 bucks in a year is not much at all.

It is terrible if you look at .mac as web hosting. Yes its EXPENSIVE web hosting. I find the actual 'hosting' to be secondary - its the OS integration I love-

1) iPhoto--> homepage = too easy. I love this. Plug in the camera, select the album, publish the page. In seconds I have pics up on the web.

2) iSync --> I have a bluetooth phone, and use multiple macs so synching my ical, bookmarks, address book has become vital - and it works great.

3) Backup --> I admit I am bad at backing up stuff. So though its by no means an exhaustive backup, I know word docs, filemaker docs etc in my home folder WILL be backed up each night. When backup2 is final, I plan to buy a new firewire hardrive and back up to it nightly.

These features alone make it well worth it to me, but I think Apple should have a discount for students, $100 is steep in college/high school.

Lee

G-Force · Oct 3, 2003, 08:23 PM

Originally posted by bbales:
Thanks to all for the responses. You've given me much to think about. I'll probably try the 60-day demo to see how that works and how my daughter likes it, and then continue to investigate cheaper alternatives on the web hosting. I'm a little concerned about lack of indiviudality on the web pages, but the 60-day tryout will give me time to investigate. Then, I'll also have time to see if I use the other features, as well. Isync is particularly intriguing, as I'm always trying to keep the PB and desktop somewhat in sync. Sure wish it was only 50 bucks -- I probalby wouldn't hesitate!

Thanks again.

If you are concerned about the lack of individuality, you can create your own homepage with an HTML editor and use that.

Also, in response to your original post, you can use Entourage with .Mac for checking your email, just not address book sync.

Cadaver · Oct 4, 2003, 06:54 PM

While .mac isn't the cheapest, I don't mind paying for what I get: Very functional iSync, iCal publishing (very useful for me), the mac.com email (I bought 3 extra email address plus extra space for my main address - IMAP will fill up quickly), iDisk space (100MB nearly full, may buy more), the easy-to-build photo web pages & other pages, public iDisk space, the iPhoto integration, the address book & webmail integration (also very handy when on the road or away from my Mac), Backup... I could go on.

I make use of all the .mac features. If you use them all together, I don't think you could find a similar suite of interconnected tools for Mac or PC. For me, it's easily worth it. If all you want is email or empty webspace, then .mac isn't for you.