Making the rounds: roll your own .Mac

I could have sworn we've covered this before, but I came up empty handed when searching our archives. Since .Mac and its price are such heated topics around these parts, I figured this How I created my own .Mac replacement story by Matt Simerson (heating up the digg charts, again) was worth a redux, especially since it's one of the most thorough I've ever seen. Matt doesn't just show you how to set up WebDAV to get an iDisk look-alike – he gets down and dirty with setting up a true iDisk replacement, right down to tricking the .Mac System Preferences panel into reading the new disk's storage space as opposed to .Mac's. Matt doesn't stop at the iDisk, however, he gets iCal publishing and even Backup in on the fun.

However, Matt's tutorial isn't for the faint of heart. We're not talking about a download and a one-click install; he's digging around in and replacing a lot code, so be ready for a ride through the innards of Mac OS X's .Mac software if you take a stab at rolling your own.