idisk
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Super easy access to your iDisk's public folder
The official .Mac blog has an article describing a super simple method of accessing a subscriber's iDisk public folder. Simply point your browser to "idisk.mac.com/membername-Public" (where "membername" is, well, your .Mac member name). Also, depending on how that folder's owner has permissions set up, a visitor can even upload a file via the generated web page. Very nice indeed.Thanks, Lee!
Share your .Mac stories
The official .Mac blog has posted a few stories written by .Mac subscribers, describing just how they use .Mac services in their day-to-day lives. A pro chef, a dance studio owner and a professor each share their tales. The stories are pretty interesting, especially the professor who used his iDisk to save precious data while under the threat of hurricane Katrina. The best part is that Apple is currently looking for users to be the subjects of future articles. If you'd like to share your story, fill out the form found here. Good luck!
Backup files to Backpack with Automator
Non Stop Mac has put together an ingenious how-to on creating an Automator action to backup files to Backpack. It's a simple process that uses the genius of Backpack's page-specific email addresses to email files that are sitting in a specific folder. Head over and check out their post for the full details, as it really isn't difficult to create a system for keeping your stuff backed up, online and accessible. However, don't forget: free Backpack accounts (to my knowledge) don't allow for hosting files or images.I actually have an amendment to offer up for Non Stop Mac's Backpack backup process. While I haven't tested this out yet, it should work in theory: instead of saving this system out as an Automator action, I bet you could save it as a folder action, then simply attach it to a folder of stuff you want to back up. In a sense, this might be a basic, one-way iDisk: you could (theoretically) save items to this folder, which would then automatically be emailed to Backpack. If you try any of this out, feel free to share your thoughts on the experience.[via Backpack blog]
Possible trick for syncing Firefox bookmarks via iDisk
In the grand quest for methods of syncing Firefox bookmarks between machines (a la .Mac syncing of Safari bookmarks), a friend of mine passed along a tip he found at a friend's blog. The tip involves creating a user.js file in your Firefox profile directory, then creating a Firefox folder in your iDisk/Documents directory. The tip is simple enough, but there's just one catch: I can't get it to work yet, so I thought I'd post it to see if any of you enterprising TUAW readers will have better luck.Playing with this tip inspired me to try a trick of my own which didn't seem to work either: placing Firefox's bookmarks.bak and bookmarks.html files in my iDisk, and then simply point at those files with aliases from within Firefox's profile directory. Again, no luck. While I don't necessarily mean to be posting tips that don't work, I thought these might be good ideas that could get us somewhere, without the need for installing extra software like Foxmarks. Although, to its credit, Foxmarks does get the job done fairly well; I'm just interested in the possibility of a .Mac Firefox bookmark syncing solution, devoid of extras or plugins.Anyone get something like this to work?
Dialog box delays with iDisk
I'm sure we've all experienced that annoying delay that sometimes occurs when we've got a CD or DVD sitting in our Mac's media drive. Call up an Open or Save dialog box and you have to wait while the disc spins up. Keith at MacIT.org noticed a similar delay that seems to have been caused by the local copy of his iDisk that he kept mounted on his desktop. He writes:"I turned iDisk Syncing Off in the .Mac System Preferences, which turns the local copy of your iDisk into a disk image file and un-mounts the volume, and the Open - Save dialog delays have disappeared."I've tried turning off my local iDisk as well, to see if I get similar results over the next week or so (as Keith notes, Transmit is much quicker with iDisk file management anyway). Has anyone else experienced this?
