[jeff25624]

Alright ladies and gentlemen here's the situation,
I have a friend who picked up a year subscription to .Mac during the firesale that was the closing of our local CompUSA. I've avoided .Mac for a while now, just because I was not sure of its worth. 100 dollars is not exactly chump change. Well, this close and personal friend is willing to sell me the subscription, for 80 bucks. Here's the simple question; is it worth it? Ever since I've purchased a digital camera I've been using it like mad, so the photocasting options seem handy, as does the iLife integration in general. Not a podcaster yet, though that might change in a few months. But even with these particular interests, would you say it is indeed worth my hard earned money?

[MacosNerd]

Is it worth it? Well that's a subjective question that no one really can answer but you.

The consensus here is that is not worth it and you can find cheaper alternatives that do more for less.

My take on this is, that nothing integrates into OSX as well as .mac and while you can find cheaper alternatives, you won't that work so seamlessly with osx. There's also the desire of having a .mac email address and various other advantages that apple brings to the table.

[voodoo]

It isn't worth it. All in all the worth of .Mac is around $5. Try it, subscribe for a couple of years. It is pretty lame.

V

[TETENAL]

.Mac is worth more than $5. E-mail alone is worth $12 per year.

How much .Mac is worth depends on

a) how much time your are willing to invest in finding and learning cheaper alternatives. The more, the less .Mac is worth.

b) how much flexibility you need. The more, the less .Mac is worth.

I would say that most people should be able to find better offers for $80 annually within a reasonable time. But for some the ease of use of .Mac makes it worth the money. Get a ,Mac trial and see for yourself. The litmus-test is the following question: if you think you are paying annually for the service for all eternity, do you think you will want to do it? If yes, then get .Mac. If no, then search for an alternative right from the beginning.

[jasong]

I use it, I like it, worth it for me.

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

.Mac is worth more than $5. E-mail alone is worth $12 per year.

Peh, POP/IMAP is free for anyone who cares. It is worth nothing.

V

[TETENAL]

POP3 can can be had for free. IMAP not.

If you know a free IMAP mail-service please let me know.

[Don Pickett]

Has anyone noted this should be the 68K question?

Anyone?

[Cipher13]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

Has anyone noted this should be the 68K question?

Anyone?

[JKT]

Indeed voodoo, if you know how you can get an IMAP account for free, please do tell. POP for that matter as well (and please don't tell me GMail - it is most definitely is not free if you value your privacy in any shape or form).

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by JKT 

Indeed voodoo, if you know how you can get an IMAP account for free, please do tell. POP for that matter as well (and please don't tell me GMail - it is most definitely is not free if you value your privacy in any shape or form).

As if Apple values privacy any more than the next capitalist company. Look, they will use whatever information they can gather from their servers, from your account, from your email if they need to.

Paying money for email is no guarantee for privacy. At least I'm not naive. Nor too willing to part with my money for worthless service.

V

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

POP3 can can be had for free. IMAP not.

If you know a free IMAP mail-service please let me know.

Yes it can. That's what I said before, because it can. I have it. I pay nothing for it. Can your simple Prussian mind wrap around that?

V

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by voodoo 

I have it.

Would you mind posting a link so that we can all benefit, or is this a secret?

[ginoledesma]

I have the .Mac family pack subscription as I share it with others. With the upcoming "Back to my Mac" feature in Leopard, that's one thing that will potentially pay for its worth (both Leopard and .Mac). I'm the "tech guy" in the family, so the more seamless it is to others, the better.

I don't use .Mac for email (I must be one of the few ones), but I do use iWeb, iDisk, Backup, and stuff a lot. The automated backup is a little insurance that's paid off a number of times now for those in my sub-accounts. It can't backup an entire lot, but for the things it can, it's been priceless.

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

Would you mind posting a link so that we can all benefit, or is this a secret?

I think this is only a secret for you. Everybody else is kinda in on it.

V

[GuillaumeB]

Funny enough I have been investing the question those past two weeks.

People claiming that there are free alternatives are just plain wrong.

Just for the iDisk you will not find any online storage solutions that provides BOTH a back up tool + web access interface.

The closest option is Amazon S3 + JungleDisk + S3Browse.com/S3interface.com. However the web interface are clearly unusable for the simple reason that there are no folders, just files listed with their string. There is however a Firefox extension but then again you wont be able to access your files from another computer. The other solution is to install the Jungledisk client on a portable device.
Other online storage alternatives like Box.net, Omnidrive or Mozy.com do not offer both backup tool + web interface to download files remotely. Also some alternatives simply do not provide tools for MacOSX, Carbonite for example
For more information about .Mac alternative solutions, read the articles that I wrote this week: Article One and Article 2

When it comes to email. I believe FastMail.fm provides IMAP for free but the storage limit is ridiculous, 10MB (WTF?) so you will definitely need to set it up thru a client.

The main problem with .Mac is the storage space. 1 GB really is not enough. Now if this is not an issue for you then also consider the extra tools and the unmatched OS integration.

Right now i'm torn between Omnidrive and .Mac. I just wish Apple would give us more storage. I'm still waiting for any bits of news concerning an eventual .Mac upgrade and/or Partnership with Google

[jtrwallace]

.Mac is worth it to me. I initially got it because i desired a .mac e-mail address immensely. Every time I give someone my e-mail address they are like oh, like the computer? And I say yes and it makes that 100 dollars that much more worth it. But, the real awesomeness is the IMAP. It really does make it stress free to go online and delete a new message from, say, work and then go home to your mac and see the message in your trash on your computer, not online.

I used to also be into putting music on MySpace and with the iDisk's public functionality I was able to host my own music and picture files so that I didn't have to go to one of those ad-ridden free upload sites that would make the music choppy.

I tried out iWeb and its pretty cool. But, I am learning web programming myself and iWeb is not nearly as cool as it could be. However, you can really impress some non-techie friends with an iWebsite. I have a few friends who keep blog things up-to-date and have videos and lots of pictures and it looks pretty good.

Now, the syncing is very worth it. All my bookmarks and contacts and e-mail are on the server to access wherever I want and to edit wherever I want and I know that it will change on my home computer. Just one thing. If you ever try to change the short name of your user account on your main computer, syncing will never work again. I learned this the hard way.

Overall, I pay 110/year because I reserved another e-mail address in case I ever want to use it in the future. The trick is, though, to get a friend that works at the Apple Store... then its not quite 110 bucks haha.

[JKT]

Originally Posted by voodoo 

As if Apple values privacy any more than the next capitalist company. Look, they will use whatever information they can gather from their servers, from your account, from your email if they need to.

If they do then they are breaking the law, especially here in the UK, and I have the right to pursue them in the courts. Am I naive enough to believe that they don't do this anyway? No I am not, but at least I have a legal right to take action if I or some other party discovers that they do.

By signing up for a GMail account you give Google express permission to scan the content of every single e-mail that passes through your account and use the data they obtain from it. You have no legal recourse for complaint if you object to this practice.

If you don't know the difference then you truly are as stupid as you appear to be.

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by JKT 

If they do then they are breaking the law

Oh no.. a company breaking the law (at least in the UK!!).. How could they?!!

Looks like your naivity is only matched by your stupidity. Which is saying something.

V

[JKT]