is it worth it to get a .Mac account?

I haven't been a (exclusive/home use/it's my main machine) mac user for long enough to have ever wondered about getting a .Mac account or even what one does, but in answer to an idle question I just asked my boss about accessing my home machine remotely, I was treated to a full tour of the AMAZING AMAZING SHIT that comes with a .Mac account! I just got a full demo of PICTURES ON THE INTERNET! And an IMAP account! Oh goody!

Why isn't this free when you buy a mac? I mean, even then I probably wouldn't use it much, but apart from just myself, who pays $100 a year for something roughly analogous to the incredible technological breakthrough of indoor plumbing?

i can't even imagine who pays for this shit

aren't mac users supposed to be informed & enlightened or something

Funny, my boss totally thinks she is!

I pay for the branding and the photo stuff. Don't you pay for flickr? Some of it at least? Anyway, I'm lazy and have money to throw around.

As a web hosting service, it truly sucks. For the same cash, you can get approximately 400x the features from another service. As a synchronization service, it's worth maybe $50/year. I have a few Macs, so I gotta say that I've certainly been tempted, however. Manually synching address book, bookmarks, etc., is tedious at best.

xpost I do pay for server space -- not flickr per se, but it comes out in the wash. I got me a cheapie Dreamhost account that's actually in service about 85% of the time, believe it or not, and with that I get a place to play with internets things and break stuff and see if I can fix it and on a good day feel all impressed with my mighty web-fu. But that's not a universal need. What can't you get for free or near it now? And besides even that, you can read the list of (lol 1998) features and tell they aren't exactly pouring money into developing their .Mac services. A hindred bucks a year? That's balls.

Just as a postscript to that, Plaxo supposedly does much of .Mac sync for free. (xp)

I can't imagine paying for a webhost where I didn't have shell access, let alone common CGI.

I pay for the branding and the photo stuff. Don't you pay for flickr? Some of it at least? Anyway, I'm lazy and have money to throw around.

-- gabbneb, Friday, March 28, 2008 7:32 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

what's the branding stuff?

It's the generic .Mac-hosted frame for yr pix, etc., so that everyone knows you use a Mac.

.Mac nearly got me for its ability to synchronize keychains across multiple machines (!) as well as the VNC-like feature, whatever that was called. But no.

I might actually have to pay for Back to yr Mac, if it actually has the ability to host sessions and thus [cough cough] "avoid" firewall "issues".

This starry-eyed young optimist doesn't think .Mac is near done. Hmmm.

Basic .Mac services will not only become free, but they may be required in order to take full advantage of future functionalities.

That is not amazing, duder.

In sum, .Mac will become your secure Home directory. Or, more properly, it becomes the master copy from which all your hardware, hard drives, and flash media will in some fashion be synced.

All your mac are etc etc

I for one am gasping with excitement at the thought of all my media being on the internet somewhere at all times. Because of course it's all 1000% legal.

The whole thing sounds like a massive bottleneck in the making though.

It's the generic .Mac-hosted frame for yr pix, etc., so that everyone knows you use a Mac.

-- libcrypt, Friday, March 28, 2008 7:49 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

that's DESIRABLE??

I pay for a sub-googplex email domain for use that isn't professional in nature but neither is merely lol, internets.

to be fair, i might have fallen for that angle myself a few years ago, which is probably when a whole lot of people signed up for their .mac account and got cozy enough with the integration with their machine that they just kept writing checks. It happens.

xpost, i meant the "looks like a mac" aspect.

someone want to recommend me a good & cheap hosting service for me to back up 50mb or so worth of documents

Ppl have been saying .Mac "isn't finished yet" since it launched. It hasn't really changed in any meaningful way since. Still, they might have to, since now the iPhone will be best when used with an Exchange server, which has to be a bit embarrassing.

xpost If that's all you need, you can just go nuts.

ya, i dont know that i trust shit i just find on google, hence a recommendation

that's DESIRABLE??

No, just making a lol there. 1. generic = bad, 2. .Mac frames = kinda ass.

xpost, well, define "trust." I've heard of very few hosting services totally losing your data -- doesn't mean it never happens, I'm sure, but that's way beyond the kind of problem you'd be wise to expect for even $5. If you're not too worried about downtimes late at night on a regular basis, or speed, or script support, or tech support, if you just need a repository for 50mb of stuff -- well honestly, you probably don't need wen hosting at all, if that's the case.

weB

I've come full circle -- this is what made me ask about the .Mac "Back to My Mac" to begin with. I left a flash drive full of good stuff in my machine, and I can't very well take two hours to go get it and come back, and it would be so nice to just GET that stuff. But I realized two minutes later that it's my own stupid fault, because I have a linux box all nicely networked with my mac, and they're both sitting at home having wonderful dreams, and meanwhile I have so far been too lazy to take ten minutes to read this page. Next time. :(

Too bad using SSH costs $100 a year.

SSL, surely.

sounds like the makings of the shortest ilx t/s thread ever. Do not operate heavy machinery.

xpost, well, define "trust." I've heard of very few hosting services totally losing your data -- doesn't mean it never happens, I'm sure, but that's way beyond the kind of problem you'd be wise to expect for even $5. If you're not too worried about downtimes late at night on a regular basis, or speed, or script support, or tech support, if you just need a repository for 50mb of stuff -- well honestly, you probably don't need wen hosting at all, if that's the case.

im not particularly worried about data loss, more about privacy--i ask abt web hosting cause id liek to be able to access stuff from anywhere and because ive had external hard drives fail on me before and web hosting tends to be way more reliable. most of my stuff is already backed up, id just like some important documents to be somewhere pretty safe and easily accessible

if you have more than one mac, the syncing features of .mac are kind of indispensable

I have more than one mac and totally dispensed with them.

Man has a point tho.

Even if it's a very aspie point. And it's on his head.

Two things, max, and please forgive any snark that comes across, because I don't mean it like that. First, are you sure you mean 50 megabytes? Because that's such a small amount of data, you could store a copy in every room of your house. You can get a $15 flash drive that holds a gig. Pick up a couple-three of those, put one on a string around your neck, and you're backed up, as well. :)

Secondly -- and believe me, this statement applies to millions of people apart from you -- if you have things that you don't want other people to see, don't put them on the internet. I will say no more than that.

Also, don't take precious valuables with you on vacation. :)

Guaranteed that if you put secrets up anywhere sysadmins can get at them, they WILL look at 'em.

This from a guy who's been observing sysadmins since 1996.

yeah ur point is taken kenan, web hosting is just nice cause i have to sometimes use machines w/ no usb drives or inaccessible ones.

xpost "observing"

User-agent: libcrypt

Disallow: /

100% honesty time: I have never even looked at another person's mail, but I have caught sysadmins grepping swap for juicy bits.

oh that could be a lot worse. Bits are never as juicy as you hope. But passwords...