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New .Mac iDisk sizes gobble up drive space for those who sync
When Steve Jobs announced a ten-fold leap in .Mac storage space, most of us were generally happy to hear it; I know I was. For those of us, including myself, who have been synching their iDisk to use it more or less as an online backup drive however, this good news had an unfortunate side effect in the form of lost local storage space. Because of the way iDisk synching works (a setting you must enable in the .Mac System Preferences pane), the amount of free space on your local hard drive will diminish according to the size of your iDisk. This is because your Mac keeps a disk image that serves as a constant backup of everything in your iDisk - that's part of the advantage of enabling the synching feature because you can retain a copy of everything in your iDisk even when offline, and sync any changes you make once you get connected again.Before the upgrade, .Mac offered 1GB of total storage between .Mac email and iDisk storage, so synching one's iDisk like this didn't gobble up too much space. Now that this total storage has been raised to 10GB, the tables have turned a bit for us synchers, and especially for me since about a month ago I paid for the next tier of storage (I know - I've been bit by the Apple update bug again); imagine my surprise when my iDisk instantly went from about 1.5GB in size to 19GB. But how can we solve this problem? There are a few solutions, so you can play with these and see which fits best with the way you work.The first solution is perhaps the more obvious: log into your .Mac account online, go to your account management page and readjust the balance of storage between .Mac mail and iDisk storage. You can knock your iDisk storage as low as you want and perhaps gradually increase it if your iDisk activity grows in the future. There's room to play there, but you get the idea.The next solution, the one I originally opted for but have since double-backed on, is to turn synching off. You can still quickly mount your iDisk anytime you need it - assuming you're online - via the Go > iDisk > My iDisk command in the Finder (or cmd-shift-I). If you're mounting it for the first time after a fresh restart or login you'll experience a slight lag, but after that your iDisk should act almost as snappy as it did when you kept it synching. The only problem here, and the reason I'm rethinking this, is the catch with being offline: I'm not offline very often, but when I am, I still need my iDisk, so I just downsized the amount of iDisk storage I have allotted and I'm re-synching as I write this. For those who work differently however, turning off synching is still a viable option: if you're always connected or you simply don't need iDisk files both large and small always available at your fingertips, shutting off synching altogether could solve your storage issues.The final solution I have is to simply start using your iDisk to store more stuff. After all, with a ton of extra space now you can really let loose and keep a lot more stuff in there, making it online, backed up, sharable by moving to your iDisk's Public folder and accessible via a browser on any web-connected computer in the world. That's a darn handy tool when you think about the possibilities. I'm moving more folders of documents and other files to my iDisk since it is now a pretty spacious and effortless way to store files, share them between Macs that keep my iDisk synched and back them up online all in on fell swoop.No matter what solution you come up with, I'm not sure how much Apple can do about this considering how the iDisk seems to fundamentally work right now. It sure would be nice if the iDisk could simply expand automatically as you add files to it instead of taking a massive bite out of your hard drive, and who knows, maybe that's something we could see in the upcoming Mac OS X Leopard or beyond. For now, if your iDisk is cramping up your hard drive, it looks like you'll have to get a little creative.thanks Mr. Gaskell
iPhones ready for web gallery now
Well, here's something interesting. This morning, I had three options when working with photos on my iPhone: "Use as Wallpaper," "Email Photo" and "Assign to Contact." Well, I turned my phone on a minute ago (about 4:15 PM Eastern), and a fourth option has appeared: "Send to Web Gallery." No sync, no connection to my computer, it's just there. If you haven't restarted your iPhone today, do it now. A surprise may be waiting for you. Thanks, Kit! Update: It looks like you must have a .Mac email account set up on your phone for this to work. Also, attempts to send a photo to a gallery result in a prompt to configure .Mac. However, that option is not available on the .Mac hompage. Perhaps iLife '08 must be installed.
Check out a .Mac web gallery
While examining iLife '08 this afternoon, one of our Twitter buddies posted this link to a live .Mac web gallery. It's very slick indeed. Drag your cursor over a gallery to "flip" through its photos, and click anyone to view. Once you've entered a gallery (Apple is still rather reflection crazy), you've got several options. Choose a grid, carousel or mosaic layout (the carousel is impressive), or simply start a slideshow. You may also change the background's color and resize any photo. Finally, you can subscribe to an album's RSS feed, send to a friend or add photos (if you've got permission to do so). Play any movie with a click, and select desired size. From there, you can easily send it to a friend of download for safe keeping.
Mac.com updates with more storage, new tips on using iLife '08
Attention all those waiting for .Mac to receive some much-needed attention, your wish (or at least some of your wishes) have been granted. Apple's press event is still wrapping up as I write this, but the mac.com site has already updated with the changes Steve Jobs announced today, along with some tips on how to use a few of iLife '08's new features (as of this writing, however, the iLife site has not updated yet). One of the biggest changes to .Mac is a 10x storage increase for individual accounts from 1GB total for .Mac mail, iDisk and websites to a whopping 10GB. While total monthly bandwidth transfer was previously at 250GB, I haven't seen any details on whether that has increased (though I assume - or at least hope - it has). As a nice bonus, the attachment size limit on inbound/outbound .Mac email messages has doubled from 10MB to 20, bringing it up to par with Gmail and other services.[Update: Woops, my bad. Previously, .Mac members had 25GB of monthly transfer, which has now been raised to 100GB.][Update 2: I just signed into my .Mac account online to see the new storage is already available to me. Since I previously paid for extra storage, I now have 20 GB available to split between Mail and my iDisk. At least one commenter has confirmed this as well, but users might still see this get rolled out slowly until the 14th like Apple originally specified.]While iLife '08 is shipping today (though no word yet on availability in brick and mortar stores), .Mac storage will be increased for all users by August 14th. Until then, you can enjoy some of the new tips being published on how to leverage the new iLife and .Mac features, such as publishing iWeb sites to your own personal domain and publishing photos from the new iPhoto to the hot new Web Galleries. You can be sure we're all getting our hands on copies of iLife '08 as soon as possible, and reviews of all the new features will be coming as fast as we can write them.
Appleology: Six things Apple needs to fix
Appleology has come up with a list of "Six things Apple needs to fix by 2008." Specifically, they're requesting some obvious upgrades to the Apple TV (cheaper, more storage space, etc.) and updates for iLife and iWork (we're pretty sure this will happen when Leopard is released in October).They also call for Apple to either upgrade .Mac significantly or ditch it all together (we've heard this request a million times by now), and an iPod that's basically an iPhone that doesn't do phone calls. It's probably safe to assume that future iPods will have a UI similar to the iPhone, but not in 2008. They want to sell iPhones, after all!Finally, Appleology requests UI improvements to OS X (which we've seen) and low-cost Macs. I think Macs will always be more expensive than most of their competitors, so that's something we have to get used to.Is there anything you'd like to see Apple do with the latter half of 2008? Call me easy to please, but I'd be happy with Leopard and an iPhone.
Software Update: iChat Update 1.0 for Tiger
Apple just rolled out iChat Update 1.0 for Tiger on both Intel and PPC platforms.Apple says: "This update renews the .Mac certificate required by iChat for encrypting text, audio and video conferences. For detailed information on this update, please visit this website: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304899."Obvious enough, but I like to be thorough so I visited that website, as Apple suggested, to see if there was more to learn. Nope, nothing there yet. That page says "This update renews the .Mac certificate required by iChat for encrypting text, audio, and video conferences. This document will be updated as more information becomes available." Hmmm... Ok then. I can take a hint.UPDATE: I was remiss in not warning you all that a restart is required after this update. Why? I have no idea. I generally just force-quit Software Update and continue on with my business until it's convenient for me to restart...Thanks, nevrozel and everyone else who sent this in!
The notMac Challenge - make a free .Mac replacement, earn lots of cash
This is interesting. It's a challenge to produce a replacement for Apple's .Mac online services inspired by the contest earlier this year to boot Windows on the first Intel Macs (this was before Boot Camp for those of you who weren't around then). Apparently this guy Kent has decided that enough is enough; he wants a functional replica of .Mac and is willing to pay to get it. He's offering to match up to $10,000 in contributions to his site with the prize going to anyone who can:create a free replacement to dotMac's client-based services that's easy enough for a first-time Mac user to install and so fully and transparently integrated that a long-time dotMac user wouldn't notice the difference.Now there are several ways to get some of the .Mac services for free, from the geeky (and difficult) way, to the relatively easy way (MySync), to the Google-way. (The full rules to the challenge are here). Nonetheless, if this panned out it would be pretty cool for those of us with access to a WebDAV server (which would be necessary to duplicate the server-side functions). As someone who ditched his mac.com email address when Apple replaced the free iTools with the for-pay .mac I applaud this challenge. On the other hand, the $10,000 matching sounds a bit fishy to me. Kent claims that "to make it more interesting and give the prize a running start, [Kent's uncle agreed to] throw $10,000 into the prize pool." The fact that I can't even find Kent's last name on the site also sets my antennae twitching. What do you guys think?[Via MacDevCenter][Edit: HS provides a link to a Macworld article with a bit more info on the guy behind the challenge]
Apple testing new Backup update
We got word from a tipster that Apple is about to seed a software update for their Backup application to select users, who are being notified by invitation-only to participate in the super-exclusive AppleSeed program. No word yet on what improvements or enhancements are being tested, but we'll let you know as soon as our mole gets back to us. We're guessing it has something to do with making Backup's .Mac features not suck so much and having it work more than 40% of the time. At least that's what we're hoping for.
The official .Mac blog wants you
Here's your chance, folks. The official .Mac Blog has put a call out to its readers. Specifically, they want to know what you want covered on the blog. Are you interested in learning about cool and little-known iWeb tricks? iDisk basics? Why .Mac doesn't offer what Google Apps for Your Domain does? Ok, so that last suggestion probably won't fly, but if your suggestion is selected your name will appear with the accompanying post on the blog. Good luck.
.Mac's slow death
Somebody call the ambulance, because .Mac is dying...and Google is the assassin (with a little help from his sidekick Firefox). Now I've been using .Mac since it was free and called "iTools." I was initially lured in by the convenience of iDisk, the mac.com email address and so on. Web bookmark and contact syncing are also super-convenient, and as time passed I made use of some of the other .Mac services, like iCal publishing and so on. Everything was fine. Not free anymore, but fine. Then Google introduced (free) Gmail with oodles more storage than .Mac offers, calendars and so on. To make a long story short, I'm about to give .Mac the boot for good. After the jump, a breakdown of why.
Save money on a .Mac account
We've been running all sorts of posts that offer .Mac workarounds like Jungle Disk (to replace iDisk), and MySync for keeping your Macs up to date with each others' data. But what if you still prefer .Mac - just not its price?There are a few ways to save money off the purchase or renewal of a .Mac account, and the first two on my list are Amazon and Buy.com. That's right boys and girls, the Apple Store isn't the only kid on the block pimping .Mac retail subscriptions. As of this writing, these sites are offering a current .Mac membership (good for either new signups or renewals) for $79.99 and $82.99, respectively, both with free shipping. That's a nice chunk of change off of Apple's rock-steady price of $99 (yes, we know .Mac is sometimes offered at $70 with the purchase of a new Mac). Amazon also offers the .Mac Online Service Family Pack (5 accounts) for $149.99, down from Apple's $179.99. These prices should also hold relatively steady, as I've been purchasing my .Mac renewals for a couple of years now from Amazon, always around the $80 price.While these prices obviously don't match the 'free' price tag of some of the workarounds for one .Mac feature or another, these should help make buying or renewing a .Mac account at least a little more attractive for those who've been on the fence about Apple's much-debated suite of online services.
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!
Is a .Mac update on the way?
Eagle-eyed .Mac users may have noticed the following message on the .Mac main page:"All .Mac web-based services will be down for maintenance from 10:00PM PDT to 1:00AM PDT on 4/27/06, including Mail on the web, Address Book, Bookmarks and HomePage. All other .Mac services are unaffected."Could a nice update be on the way? I know...it must be the exclusive Dashboard widgets! Finally!Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
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!
Handy iWeb tip on the .Mac blog
I believe I've found the perfect use for iWeb. I've used it to create a family site for all of my far-flung relatives. They couldn't care less about trackback pings, comments, validation or any of that stuff. They just want to see cute pictures and videos of the kids, and I want to spend as little time as possible maintaining the "kids' site." iWeb is the perfect answer.Up until now, I've been manually deleting the caption under each new photo that I add (usually something like "IMG003.JPG"). Thanks to this tip from the official .Mac blog, I don't have to do that anymore. Select a photo in an image gallery and open the inspector. A slider appears under the heading "Caption Height." Slide it all the way to the left and the captions are gone. I like it.
Apple releases .Mac-exclusive iChat icon sets
Sure, they aren't the exclusive Dashboard widgets we've heard so much about, but Apple has released 11 sets of iChat icons for .Mac members. Included are the familiar chat bubbles (pictured at right), Japanese stamps, sticky notes, status indicators and illustrations. According to Apple, they're only going to be made available until June 1st. The complete collection of 218 icons can be downloaded as a single 640kb image. So grab them if you can, and spiff up your copy of iChat.
Delicious vs. .Mac bookmark syncing
Dave Chartier and I were talking about Del.icio.us earlier today, in the secret TUAW offices in Reese Witherspoon's guest house. He loves Delicious, and I had never used it. For years now, I've been happily chugging along with .Mac's bookmark syncing feature, and my own organization of the bookmark bar. Yet, at Dave's suggestion, I gave Delicious a try. After installing Delibar and exporting my bookmarks with Safarilicious, I was ready to go.The Delicious Pros First of all, it's very easy to add a bookmark. Just add the droplet to your menubar and give it a click. Next, the tagging is just great. By adding tags to my bookmarks (like "apple," "blog," "daily" or "family") I can easily find the site (or group of sites) I'm looking for. The social aspect is also very appealing. If I want to find sites that other users have tagged as "apple" or "tech," that's a snap. Finally, I have access to my bookmarks from any internet enabled computer, on any operating system. You can't beat that. I can even add bookmarks to my collection from any of those random machines. Sounds great, and it is. But I'm not going to use it. Here's why.The Delicious Cons This may sound petty, but it's huge to me. No "open in tabs." I keep my bookmarks highly organized, and I have several folders that categorize links into "Daily," "Apple," "WIN," etc. The first thing I do each morning is right-click on the "Daily" folder and select "Open in tabs." I then move from tab to tab, closing ones I'm not interested in and keeping the good ones open for more thorough inspection later. While Delibar allows for greater organization than a plain old browser does, it won't allow for my "open in tabs" routine. Plus, it only lets me open one link at a time, and each in a new window! That is totally unacceptable.Also, I'm not going to keep a web page open just because it contains my bookmarks. The bookmark bar was invented to extinguish this annoyance. Now, I understand that I can subscribe to Delicious RSS feeds, and that's great, but I really like to have my sites open in a series of tabs. It's just my preferred way to work.What I Like About .MacWell, several of the Delicious pros are a part of .Mac's bookmark sync. I can access my bookmarks from any internet enabled computer by going to bookmarks.mac.com, and I can add a new link to any of the folders I created on my Mac at home from the computer I happen to be using (be it a Mac, a Windows machine or what have you). Aside from the social aspect of Delicious, this is what's most appealing to me. Speaking of social bookmarking...What .Mac Could Learn from DeliciousNo tagging. Once you've created a bunch of tags, you miss them when they're gone. For highly organized neatnicks like me, creating and utilizing tags upon tags is very satisfying. I just don't get that with Safari. Also, the social aspect of Delicious-that is, the ability to browse other people's bookmarks-is way cool and something that would be a great feature of .Mac. I'd love to see this implemented some day.Conclusion Delicious is fantastic, but it simply doesn't fit my personal style of working. I'm not knocking it in any way, but I just like to be able to "categorize" sites as either "interesting," "follow-up" or "ditch it" on the fly. Plus, aside from the tagging and sharing, .Mac lets me do what I want to do with my bookmarks: Access and add to them from any computer. For now at least, I'm sticking with .Mac.
.Mac family pack upgrade available
Here's an offer from the .Mac team for Mac-wielding famililes. According to the official .Mac Blog, a family upgrade is available. For an additional $80US, you get four additional accounts, each with its own email address and a combined 250MB of storage/email space. Plus, an iDisk folder will be created that is automatically shared among family members. Check it out.
Two free book chapters for .Mac members
Check it out, .Mac subscribers: In the "Members Only" folder of your iDisk (that still makes me think of the jackets), you'll find two chapters of Joe Kissell's book, Take Control of .Mac.The first chapter focuses on using Mail, and is extremely thorough. Discussions include making use of aliases, .Mac webmail vs. an email client, working with attachments and configuring the online preferences. Chapter 2 looks at Groups, a relatively new .Mac feature. Topics include creating a group, managing your members, adding content to your homepage and working with the integrated calendar. Again, I found them very informative, and the best part is that you can use a hyperlink within the PDF itself to get the full book at a 30% discount. This one is recommended.
Backup 3.1 is available
.Mac users: Launch Software Update. Apple has released Backup 3.1, with several changes. According to Apple:"Backup 3.1 delivers added support for some backup destinations and addresses file restoration and other issues. Backup 3.1 is recommended for all users of Backup 3.0. Significant areas addressed are: improved support for iDisk, local hard drives, and some network destinations (Mac OS X Tiger only); new iWeb QuickPick and updated iLife plan; and addresses issues with restoring files."I'm looking forward to checking out the iWeb QuickPick. Grab your copy, and let us know if anything goes wonky.
