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Mac 101: Dealing without iCards
Apple has posted a nifty tip for Mail users who miss the discontinued iCards feature from .Mac: You can use Mail stationery to create an attractive card-like message with your own photos. In a post on the Mobile Me blog (hey, it's not dead!), Apple says "...it's like the old Make Your Own iCards feature on steroids, and a whole lot easier to use in the bargain." For Leopard users, Mail comes with 30 email templates you can customize in lieu of sending an iCard. Personally, I think an email is better than an iCard anyway, what with all the greeting card spam that goes on. You can use photos that you take with Photo Booth, for example, or pictures from iPhoto. Customize it with a clever note, and away you go. If you don't have Leopard or still want to use an online greeting card site, there are plenty to choose from. (And if you like our series for beginners, Mac 101, there's much more to learn.)
Saying "goodbye" to .Mac
Tonight, we will all say "goodbye" to .Mac, a service that has been a small part of Apple for almost 8 years. iTools, .Mac's predecessor, was launched on January 5, 2000 at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco and was a free service that included a HomePage, iCards and the much coveted @mac.com e-mail address that is commonplace today (as well as the forgotten 'KidSafe,' which was a database of kid friendly websites Apple compiled so you could make sure your children weren't up to no good on your Mac). As more users came to the service and the cost of bandwidth went up, Apple began charging for the service and called it .Mac. The name ".Mac" was born at the Macworld Expo in New York on July 17, 2002 and provided several new services including: a beefed up iDisk (with a dizzying 100 megs of space), Backup, and a free copy of Virex. On September 17, 2002, Apple announced that it would discontinue the free iTools service in favor for .Mac. That brings us to, well, tonight. Apple is scheduled to take down .Mac and replace it with a newer, rebranded service named "MobileMe." While some scoff at the name, TUAW can't help but see the other side of the picture: look how far iTools has evolved over the past 8 years. So, join us in saying, "So long old friend, we hardly knew ye." Do you have a favorite story to tell about iTools or .Mac? Be sure to mention it in the comments below! Apple is scheduled to take down the .Mac service between 6 p.m. and 12 a.m. pacific time.
What isn't making the cut from .Mac to MobileMe
On the surface MobileMe looks like a much better way to spend $99 than .Mac ever was, but there are a few .Mac features that are going to be discontinued. Say farewell to the following .Mac highlights: iCards: I don't remember the last time I sent an iCard, but I always liked the fact that I could. Web access to Bookmarks: you'll still be able to sync bookmarks across machines, but you will no longer be able to access them from a web browser (in case you wanted to check your bookmarks on some random machine). Panther support: this one isn't that big of a shock. .Mac slides: I'm not even sure what .Mac slides are, so I don't think I'll miss this feature much Any .Mac subscribers out there angered by this list? Let us know in the comments.
