Filed under: Leopard
As far as "Back to My Mac" is concerned, Apple presents it as a .Mac-only enhancement. Melvin Rivera pointed us to his blog post showing how to use Back to My Mac with iChat. This technique isn't for the faint of heart. It involves editing system preferences, modifying AppleScript, and causing your computer to always stay awake. Other than that, it's a great way to get around the Back to My Mac limitations and use your computer remotely.
To find out what version of Mac OS you are running, go to the Apple logo in the top left corner, click it and choose About This Mac. From that window you will see the version number, processor, memory and chosen startup disk. Clicking Software Update will check for updates, and More Info... will open up an extensive list of everything on your machine.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Rob said 5:05PM on 11-07-2007
Thank you..This is great and easy.
This is another reason NOT to subscribe to the overpriced .Mac Service. When will Apple get it and offer Mac users .Mac at a a reasonable price.
IMHO .Mac is a big ripoff.
P.S. I wonder if Apple will try to lock this down and FORCE users to subscribe to .Mac for the "Back to my Mac Service".
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iDarbert said 5:23PM on 11-07-2007
I tihnk that the Wide Area Bonjour Support in Leopard is a much better point to begin working on a free Back to My Mac replacement... the problem is no matter how hard I look around no website clearly explains how it works.
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J.G. said 5:24PM on 11-07-2007
I'd be willing to bet that many of the people that say .Mac is a rip off spend $40-$60 a month on ISP, another $40-$80 a month on cable TV, get a new $200-$400 iPod every couple of years. Have a $350/mo car payment.
Yet they bitch about $100/year for a multitude of nice and easy to use services from .Mac? You don't want to pay $100/yr? Then don't.
Also, how does this FORCE users to subscribe to .Mac? You don't want .Mac you don't get Back To My Mac. They're not FORCING you to get an iDisk either, are they?
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Martin Smith said 5:31PM on 11-07-2007
on another note, does back to my mac even work??? I've got a fully UPNP firewall and never get to see the back to my mac section in finder, despite having all 4 of my macs hooked up and registered..
I kinda figured its broken (due to all the sync issues .mac is having), can anyone confirm if they've had any luck with it?
Cheers
M
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DrWho said 5:47PM on 11-07-2007
Or even just pay $79 a year buying it from Amazon....
a mere 22c a day.
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thethirdmoose said 5:50PM on 11-07-2007
Gasp... CHANGING SYSTEM PREFERENCES???? editing APPLESCRIPT??? making my computer ALWAYS STAY AWAKE???
damn... i don't think i can handle this
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thethirdmoose said 5:50PM on 11-07-2007
Gasp... CHANGING SYSTEM PREFERENCES???? editing APPLESCRIPT??? making my computer ALWAYS STAY AWAKE???
damn... i don't think i can handle this
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Johnny said 6:03PM on 11-07-2007
@4: They are obviously having problems getting it to work through most routers. There is a note on the main .Mac support site stating this problem and it's also listed as one of the bug fixes 10.5.1 will try to address. I really want to get it working.
@3: I agree with you. $100 a year is not bad at all for all the features it includes now. If you don't care about photo sharing and don't have multiple macs in multiple locations, then it probably isn't worth it for you. For me, it is a bargain. For someone like my mom (with no computer skills), it's priceless.
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Cycomachead said 6:04PM on 11-07-2007
Or you could just create a remote disk from a Mac no leopard required and there's plenty of guides online - that's what I'm going to do.
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slc flash guy said 6:23PM on 11-07-2007
I posted this on a different TUAW post but....the directions in Melvin Rivera's blog seem unnecessarily complex. I made a simple applescript you can tweak to accept screen share requests from only one specific iChat buddy.
You can check it out at http://www.getstonered.com
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Phil Bridges said 6:58PM on 11-07-2007
Have to say I've been chuffed as nuts with the free version of LOGMEIN on the mac. Works just fab on my PC in the office and no messing about opening up ports either end (through a tight UK Govt dept firewall too!).
I appreciate it's nowhere near as functional as the above but for a simple cross paltform way of screen sharing from a mac to PC or Linux this really is a breeze, especially if you back off the colour settings...
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Rob said 9:16AM on 11-08-2007
I wonder if this approach provides secure encrypted communication during the iChat Screen Sharing Session.
Don't you ONLY get encrypted iCaht communications as a .Mac subscriber?
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Icelander said 9:21AM on 11-08-2007
For a geek like me, who has set up OpenDNS and knows how to configure VNC and AFP over SSH, and has a web host that supports WebDAV, even this tutorial isn't that necessary.
And for backup I just use Mozy, which is only $50 a year and offers unlimited storage.
.Mac isn't competitively priced if you know how to achieve the same thing or more for less money. If .Mac ever gets PHP and MySQL support, then I'll look at it.
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Riscky said 1:12PM on 11-08-2007
@ J.G.
Now be fair about the pricing. Some people may need one or two of the .mac features. Take for instance myself. I don't want the web gallery... picasa works just great for my needs/usage. I don't need web hosting as I have a real hosting provider (php/mysql/ruby and all that jazz)... IMAP mail, sorry I like my gmail which gives me both IMAP, POP3 and web interfaces.... iDisk sorry not for me BTW they did tie that nicely into the system... Groups I don't share my iCal with that many people and those that I do share with tend to use googles calendar.... Backup I have something for that already... I have a total of 100 GiB of back up online storage at my disposal...
So what is someone like me left paying the either 79 or 99 a year for? Back-To-My Mac and Sync. Now for someone like me that is over priced... after all I just have to systems an iMac and my macbook pro. I should have to sync the two via .mac bonjour should be my friend here.. which really leaves me with Back To My Mac isn't worth that much at all.
So remember the value added services don't necessarily have the same value to all.
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xxdesmus said 3:01PM on 11-08-2007
Or you could just use the free version of LogMeIn.com ...it works great.
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