The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) http://www.tuaw.com The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) http://www.tuaw.com/media/feedlogo.gif The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) http://www.tuaw.com en-us Copyright 2008 Blogsmith, LLC. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/Back to My Mac saves a stolen laptophttp://www.tuaw.com/2008/05/09/back-to-my-mac-saves-a-stolen-laptop/http://www.tuaw.com/2008/05/09/back-to-my-mac-saves-a-stolen-laptop/http://www.tuaw.com/2008/05/09/back-to-my-mac-saves-a-stolen-laptop/#commentsFiled under: ,

A clever Mac user helped police recover a stolen laptop using Back to My Mac's screen-sharing feature.

After her apartment was burglarized, the victim received a call from a friend while she was at work (conveniently enough, at the Apple Store in Westchester, NY). The friend noticed her stolen computer was online. The victim then quickly used another Mac to connect to the stolen laptop.

The article doesn't mention the technical details, but I reckon she activated screen sharing, and started Photo Booth (or another app that activates the laptop's built-in iSight camera). After a while, the perps showed up, and the victim's roommate recognized one of them as an acquaintance who had attended a party at their apartment some weeks before.

Armed with names and photos of the alleged thieves, police quickly arrested two men, who were in possession of most of the property stolen in the burglary.

If that isn't worth her year's subscription to .Mac, I don't know what is.

(Update: The New York Times has a story with some more details. She used Photo Booth, too. Who called it, baby?)

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

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]]>.Macb2mmisightstolentweet-thisRobert Palmer2008-05-09T15:00:00+00:00Rumor: .Mac relaunch to coincide with iPhone 2.0?http://www.tuaw.com/2008/05/08/rumor-mac-relaunch-to-coincide-with-iphone-2-0/http://www.tuaw.com/2008/05/08/rumor-mac-relaunch-to-coincide-with-iphone-2-0/http://www.tuaw.com/2008/05/08/rumor-mac-relaunch-to-coincide-with-iphone-2-0/#commentsFiled under: , ,

A little birdy told us about some unusual happenings at Apple. According to our anonymous tipster, .Mac will undergo a complete revamp that will coincide with the iPhone 2.0 launch (which everyone expects to occur at WWDC 08). We posted about the .Mac push e-mail coming to iPhone 2.0 last night, but according to our tip, that's not all .Mac users are going to get.

According to our little birdy, .Mac could undergo the following changes as soon as next month:
  • Full over-the-air syncing including calendars, contacts, and email (similar to Exchange)
  • .Mac syncing on Windows
This makes sense, since why would Apple make using an iPhone with Exchange a better experience than when it is paired with .Mac? If these rumors turn out to be true, then the $99 price tag on .Mac could seem a whole lot more worthwhile in the coming months.
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]]>.Maccross platformCrossPlatformMicrosoft WindowsMicrosoftWindowsOver the airOverTheAirsyncingtweet-thisCory Bohon2008-05-08T16:30:00+00:00.Mac push e-mail coming to iPhone 2.0?http://www.tuaw.com/2008/05/07/mac-push-e-mail-coming-to-iphone-2-0/http://www.tuaw.com/2008/05/07/mac-push-e-mail-coming-to-iphone-2-0/http://www.tuaw.com/2008/05/07/mac-push-e-mail-coming-to-iphone-2-0/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

Sometimes, we at TUAW get awesome tips from our readers -- this is proof. A certain, unnamed individual sent us some pictures of the latest build of the iPhone firmware showing .Mac push e-mail. The picture shows the main Settings page with a new button: "Fetch new data." When you click the button, you are taken to a list of your mail accounts, where you can choose between either "fetch" or "push."

According to Mr. Anonymous, while .Mac is offering push e-mail, you are currently not able to do contact or calendar syncing. You can see the iPhone screenshots in the gallery.

%Gallery-22363%
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]]>.MaciPhoneiPhone 2.0Iphone2.0push emailPushEmailSDKCory Bohon2008-05-07T21:30:00+00:00.Mac syncing coming to iPhone 2.0?http://www.tuaw.com/2008/03/28/mac-syncing-coming-to-iphone-2-0/http://www.tuaw.com/2008/03/28/mac-syncing-coming-to-iphone-2-0/http://www.tuaw.com/2008/03/28/mac-syncing-coming-to-iphone-2-0/#commentsFiled under: , ,

One of the biggest questions that I had following the iPhone SDK event was how we non-Enterprise users were going to get the cool new wireless syncing features promised to ActiveSync Exchange users. My first guess was that Apple was planning to fold something like that into .Mac, and now iPhone Alley has unearthed something to suggest this might be right.

In the just released SDK beta 2, iPhone Alley found a string within a preference bundle that reads: "Syncing with this Dot Mac account will turn off syncing for other Dot Mac accounts and delete any existing synced data." This suggests the possibility of wireless syncing for non-Exchange users. Frankly, this would make a lot of sense. It would add considerably to the (presently somewhat questionable) value of .Mac and give us consumer types access to some of iPhone 2.0's neatest features.
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]]>.macdot macdotmaciphone 2.0Iphone2.0syncsyncingtweet-thisMat Lu2008-03-28T23:00:00+00:00File Action: a free, light-weight alternative to Hazelhttp://www.tuaw.com/2008/01/29/file-action-a-free-light-weight-alternative-to-hazel/http://www.tuaw.com/2008/01/29/file-action-a-free-light-weight-alternative-to-hazel/http://www.tuaw.com/2008/01/29/file-action-a-free-light-weight-alternative-to-hazel/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Many of us here around the TUAW home office love Hazel ($21.95), the great folder-based automation utility that you can set up to run various rules to process (e.g. move, copy, sort) your files. However, we also like free, and so I was intrigued by a new application called File Action that is basically a kind of Hazel-light.

File Action concentrates on only one task -- moving files -- but like Hazel you can set it up to move those files on the basis of various rules. While less sophisticated than Hazel it can definitely handle useful tasks like sorting your downloads folder on the basis of file extensions, etc.

While I wouldn't give up the power of Hazel, if your file sorting needs are basic (and your wallet light), File Action is worth a look. It's a free download from Tom Hancocks.
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]]>File ActionFile-ActionFileActionHazelMat Lu2008-01-29T21:00:00+00:00Keep your bookmarks in sync with BookIthttp://www.tuaw.com/2008/01/28/keep-your-bookmarks-in-sync-with-bookit/http://www.tuaw.com/2008/01/28/keep-your-bookmarks-in-sync-with-bookit/http://www.tuaw.com/2008/01/28/keep-your-bookmarks-in-sync-with-bookit/#commentsFiled under: ,

I have an admission to make: I change browsers on a fairly regular basis (normally, I'm found swapping between Camino and Safari in short succession as I struggle to find a nirvana between the two of them). But what to do with my favourites? Some people I know like to keep browser favourites separate, but I can't stand that. If anything, I've yearned to be able to simply use the same bookmarks (and keyboard shortcuts for Bookmark-bar items) on all the browsers I possibly can.

That's where Bookit comes in handy. There's three options: Manage, Migrate or Restore. You can manually edit bookmarks, and compare them to a 'master' set (in my case, Camino); Migrate will allow you to take a browser's bookmarks, and completely over-write existing bookmarks on any other browser (or overwrite a synchronised copy of your Bookit bookmarks on .Mac), while Restore will allow you to retrieve a previous configuration. With only Safari able to synchronise bookmarks via .Mac, the ability to do so with Camino and Firefox is a welcome relief for those of use who don't (always) use the default OS X browser.

I've used Bookit on three of my Macs around the home and office, with the application working perfectly in bringing my bookmarks across to all of them. Given that the application costs just $12, if you're working with multiple browsers, favourites and machines, I'd highly recommend Bookit.
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]]>.macbookmarksbrowserbrowser-synccaminodatafirefoxsafarisyncsynchronizationNik Fletcher2008-01-28T14:30:00+00:00.Mac calling in sick todayhttp://www.tuaw.com/2007/11/01/mac-calling-in-sick-today/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/11/01/mac-calling-in-sick-today/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/11/01/mac-calling-in-sick-today/#commentsFiled under:

In what appears to be a clear case of "Mental Health Day Syndrome," the .Mac website has been down for much of the afternoon. Email and Homepage/iWeb services appear to be up, though, and I'm able to connect to my iDisk, so the plumbing is still operational.

Our tipsters note that the site was down for quite a while before the 'maintenance' page went up, so it's possible that this is not a planned outage. If we hear anything else we'll pass it along.

Update: Although I personally can get to the services noted above, comments point out that the .Mac service page is showing red lights across the board except for some users able to get mail.

Update 2: As of 5:05pm ET it looks like everything is green again, with the exception of .Mac Sync still showing issues for some users.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
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]]>.macdotmacMichael Rose2007-11-01T16:15:00+00:00Pomoto 1.0.1 plays better with iPhotohttp://www.tuaw.com/2007/10/22/pomoto-1-0-1-plays-better-with-iphoto/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/10/22/pomoto-1-0-1-plays-better-with-iphoto/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/10/22/pomoto-1-0-1-plays-better-with-iphoto/#commentsFiled under: , , ,


Pomoto is basically a replacement for iPhoto's .Mac web albums, designed to take your iPhoto collection and put it on the web with as little trouble as possible. Like FlickrExport (although this is a separate app, of course, not a plugin), it looks like a pretty smooth way to get all the cool stuff in iPhoto out where everyone else can see it.

The latest version, 1.0.1, includes support for iPhoto 7 Smart Albums and Events, better "privatization" of private Albums, and "more robust photo loading," which I'll leave up to you to decide. Since Pomoto publishes your photos for you, it's really an app tagged into a subscription service, so it costs either $3 a month or $30 a year. If you really like the .Mac photo publishing features, but don't need all of .Mac, it's definitely worth checking out.
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]]>.maciphotophotospomotoreplacementsubscriptionMike Schramm2007-10-22T21:00:00+00:00Apple posts Back to My Mac informationhttp://www.tuaw.com/2007/10/16/apple-posts-back-to-my-mac-information/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/10/16/apple-posts-back-to-my-mac-information/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/10/16/apple-posts-back-to-my-mac-information/#commentsFiled under: ,



It looks like .Mac subscribers are going to get a little more out of Leopard than the rest of us. .Mac's Back to My Mac feature is new in Leopard, and is pretty neat. Basically, it allows you to connect to a remote Mac over the Internet and access files or log into the Mac remotely. I imagine this is being done with some sort of dynamic DNS (.Mac keeps track of your remote Mac's IP address and allows you to connect to it).

There is a video demoing the feature on its .Mac page, so go check it out.
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]]>back to my macback-to-my-macBackToMyMacleopardScott McNulty2007-10-16T14:45:00+00:00How do you sync multiple Macs?http://www.tuaw.com/2007/10/12/how-do-you-sync-multiple-macs/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/10/12/how-do-you-sync-multiple-macs/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/10/12/how-do-you-sync-multiple-macs/#commentsFiled under:

Merlin Mann at 43Folders wants to know how you keep your Macs in sync (other than dot Mac, of course. That's the obvious choice).

Are you using a custom-built solution, commercial products or a combination? I use this combination:
  1. iDisk for files. Any "reference" material I may want access to - documents for a project, receipts, confirmation emails, etc. - live on my iDisk. I've created a folder called "Reference," which in turn contains 26 sub-folders, labeled "A" through "Z" for simple alphabetical filing.
  2. Google Firefox browser sync handles my web bookmark synchronization. It's worked flawlessly since day one, which is a lot more than I can say for .Mac bookmark sync. All that's required is Firefox and a few minutes time for the initial upload to Google's servers.
  3. Highrise by 37signals manages my contact information, as well as conversations I want to save or that need follow-up. It's a terrific tool.
How about you? Share your answers with Merlin and your fellow TUAW readers. Because sharing is caring.
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]]>dot-macsyncDave Caolo2007-10-12T15:30:00+00:00Embed .Mac Web Gallery thumbnails in RapidWeaver pageshttp://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/25/integrate-mac-web-gallery-thumbnails-rapidweaver/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/25/integrate-mac-web-gallery-thumbnails-rapidweaver/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/25/integrate-mac-web-gallery-thumbnails-rapidweaver/#commentsFiled under: , , , , ,

The new .Mac Web Galleries are great, but they unfortunately can only be built by iPhoto '08 and integrated into iWeb pages. Thanks to this RapidWeaver forum post from Günter, however, RW users have a trick for embedding those slick scrolling .Mac Web Gallery thumbnails into their pages. The trick more or less involves creating at least one or more .Mac Web Galleries, opening iWeb and using its new widgets feature to embed one of your galleries in an iWeb page, publishing to a folder and copying the specific piece of .Mac Web Gallery code out of that iWeb page and into a RapidWeaver Blocks page.

It isn't exactly pretty, but I think I know of a way to simplify this process, at least for some of you. The way I figure it, if you're already publishing an iWeb page to your .Mac account with your galleries embedded in them, you can just open your iDisk and drill down to Web/Sites, find the page you published with that gallery code and simply grab it from there. No publishing to a folder and creating more junk to manage and delete, since you're already publishing those pages and code somewhere.

As far as looking at the code on those pages, you can of course simply open them in a browser and use the View Source command, or you can find a text editor like TUAW favorite TextMate or even the free Taco HTML. For more questions on this you can try in the comments here since I know a good number of TUAW readers are also RapidWeaver lovers, but the original RapidWeaver support thread where I found this tip might be a better place if you want to get more thorough answers faster.
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]]>.Mac Web Gallery.macWebGalleryBlocksgallerieshtmlRapidWeavertacoTextMateDavid Chartier2007-08-25T15:00:00+00:00TUAW Tip: How to manually delete a .Mac Web Galleryhttp://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/15/tuaw-tip-how-to-manually-delete-a-mac-web-gallery/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/15/tuaw-tip-how-to-manually-delete-a-mac-web-gallery/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/15/tuaw-tip-how-to-manually-delete-a-mac-web-gallery/#commentsFiled under: , , , , ,

The new .Mac Web Galleries sure are pretty slick, but their dependency on iPhoto '08 can have some unfortunate side effects. When I first installed iLife '08, I moved my original iPhoto library so I could tinker around with the new version using a few pics I had lying around on my Mac. I then created a Web Gallery with these images just to see how things looked. After deeming it safe to proceed, I replaced my original library to actually begin using the new iPhoto features - the only problem is that, somehow, the .Mac Web Galleries you create seem to be library-specific. In other words: when I created a gallery with my test library and then swapped it out for my true library, the .Mac Web Gallery listing in iPhoto's sidebar was no longer there. I couldn't find any kind of web admin panel at the .Mac site for managing these galleries either, so I quickly found myself in a predicament.

Fortunately, I'm not alone here, and I found this thread in the Apple Discussions forums that describes a method for deleting a gallery manually if it no longer appears in iPhoto's sidebar. The solution basically involves logging into your iDisk from the web (http://idisk.mac.com/UserName) and browsing to the directory that houses your galleries, then manually deleting it from there. For some odd reason, this folder doesn't appear in your iDisk on your Desktop like your other .Mac website files, even with hidden files turned on (I used the Show-Hide widget to quickly toggle hidden files. As far as I can tell, Apple simply doesn't sync this folder down to your Mac or give you access to it with the iDisk). The only problem I had with the solution as it is described in that forum thread is that I didn't find the _gallery folder where the forum poster said I should; instead, it's in iDisk > Web > Sites. Each gallery you have created is stored in its own directory under that folder, so you should be able to delete just the ones you want without affecting the others.

[Update 2: Matt Ronge, developer of upcoming Mac OS X email client Kiwi, enlightened me in the comments with an even easier solution to this problem: simply go to iPhoto's Web Gallery pane in preferences, and simply click Check Now to cause iPhoto to check your .Mac account for any new photos. This should also cause it to catch any galleries not already listed in iPhoto's sidebar, ultimately allowing you to manage and delete them from the comforts of iPhoto.]

[Update: Some commenters are reporting that the _gallery folder in question does actually appear in their iDisk when viewed in the Finder. I don't know why only some of us see it, but you could be one of the lucky few.]

Considering that your Sites (for the old homepage.mac.com pages) and Web folders are synchronized and fully available in your iDisk, I hope that this strange gallery behavior is simply the result of an oversight. While I understand Apple's desire to use software to manage this stuff instead of forcing users to dig around in folders, having manual access to this directory will be useful in a pinch, especially for users who, for example, buy a new Mac or need to have a sick Mac restored.
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]]>.Mac.Mac Web Galleries.macWebGalleriesdot MacDotMacgalleriesimagesphotospicturesWeb GalleryWebGalleryDavid Chartier2007-08-15T09:00:00+00:00New .Mac iDisk sizes gobble up drive space for those who synchttp://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/12/new-mac-idisk-sizes-gobble-up-drive-space-for-those-who-sync/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/12/new-mac-idisk-sizes-gobble-up-drive-space-for-those-who-sync/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/12/new-mac-idisk-sizes-gobble-up-drive-space-for-those-who-sync/#commentsFiled under: , , , , ,

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
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]]>.Macdot macDotMachard drivesHardDrivesiDiskstorage spaceStorageSpaceDavid Chartier2007-08-12T09:37:00+00:00New .Mac galleries leverage open source frameworkshttp://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/07/new-mac-galleries-based-on-open-source-framework/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/07/new-mac-galleries-based-on-open-source-framework/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/07/new-mac-galleries-based-on-open-source-framework/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

The .Mac galleries got a lot of time today in Steve's presentation, and for good reason. Though I won't be dropping Flickr any time soon, the .Mac galleries are very cool looking and have some very nice features (the 'photo skimming' is a nice touch). It would seem that Apple leveraged some Open Source goodness in order to get these galleries up and running. According to the SproutIt blog Apple is using the SproutCore application framework, and has contributed back a number of enhancements to the project.

A quick peek at the code of a gallery confirms that Apple is using SproutCore (just search for sproutcore.js) as well as script.aculo.us (a set of open source javascript libraries that handle things like animation). If that's isn't Web 2.0 enough for you, I don't know what is.
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]]>.macapplejavascriptopensouresproutcoresproutitScott McNulty2007-08-07T18:30:00+00:00.Mac webmail now does server-side spam filteringhttp://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/07/mac-webmail-now-does-server-side-spam-filtering/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/07/mac-webmail-now-does-server-side-spam-filtering/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/07/mac-webmail-now-does-server-side-spam-filtering/#commentsFiled under: , , ,



As with most big Apple announcements, at least a few features slip through the cracks. Thanks to TUAW reader Brandon Werner, we caught one that answers a long-time complaint of .Mac users and critics: server-side spam filtering. Until today (or at least recently; we've never noticed this before), checking your mail at the .Mac site would subject you to any and all spam you receive, since the webmail didn't filter anything out; Apple leaves that up to Mail (or your other client of choice). Now, finally, .Mac webmail offers this option to filter out junk mail right on the server, giving you at least some sort of a break from the stream of junk you might inevitably encounter. Be sure to check out the support document linked at this option, as it outlines a few steps to take to ensure that your email client and .Mac webmail keep in step regarding the messages that actually get filed into the junk mail folder. This will allow you to review those messages either from the webmail client or your desktop client, making it easy to pick out the few genuine messages that get swept away with the actual garbage.
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]]>.Macdotmacjunkjunk filteringjunk mailJunkFilteringJunkMailwebmailDavid Chartier2007-08-07T16:45:00+00:00iWeb '08http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/07/iweb-08/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/07/iweb-08/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/07/iweb-08/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,



I need to come right out and say it: I am really, really excited for iWeb and all the new .Mac changes. With the first version of iWeb, Apple didn't seem to quite 'get it' yet; everything you could build into your pages had to more or less come from your Mac desktop. In a web 2.0 world though, that just doesn't cut it for so many aspiring iWeb users. Many of us have Twitter accounts, pictures on Flickr and stuff we create at zillion of other sites that we'd like to integrate into a personal website, and iWeb 2.0 reveals that Apple finally understands this.

Web Widgets

Finally melding the power and ease iWeb brings to publishing your Mac's media with the rest of the internet is iWeb's arguably biggest new feature: Web Widgets. While this page is a little skimpy on details, we can now embed code snippets from the endless community sites cropping up on the web into our iWeb pages. As an awesome bonus I can't wait to see in action, iWeb also offers a live preview mode that will include these widgets, so you can see your site in action and be sure everything gels before publishing.

Publish to a personal domain

This feature doesn't get its own page at the new iWeb site, but hopeful iWeb power users will likely appreciate the fact that you can now publish your sites to personal domains. Details are even slimmer for this one, but it sounds like Apple finally shared some of Mac OS X's built-in FTP abilities with iWeb, allowing us to set up our own personal sites for one-click publishing.

Continue reading iWeb '08

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]]>.Mac Web Galleries.macWebGalleriesAdSensedomainsGoogleiWebthemeswidgetsDavid Chartier2007-08-07T16:15:00+00:00Mac.com updates with more storage, new tips on using iLife '08http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/07/mac-com-updates-with-more-storage-new-tips-on-using-ilife-08/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/07/mac-com-updates-with-more-storage-new-tips-on-using-ilife-08/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/07/mac-com-updates-with-more-storage-new-tips-on-using-ilife-08/#commentsFiled under: , , ,



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.
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]]>.Macdot macDotMaciLifeiPhotoiWebstorageDavid Chartier2007-08-07T14:28:00+00:00Eagle-eyed event goers spot possible new iWork iconhttp://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/07/eagle-eyed-event-goers-spot-possible-new-iwork-icon/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/07/eagle-eyed-event-goers-spot-possible-new-iwork-icon/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/07/eagle-eyed-event-goers-spot-possible-new-iwork-icon/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,



[Update: Looks like assumptions were right! Steve did indeed debut a new member to the iWork family, Numbers, and Erica has the details in a new iWork '08 post.]

Our hat is tipped to MySkitch user Steve for spotting what appears to be a new iWork icon in Steve Jobs' dock during today's Apple press event. Could this be some sort of iSpreadsheet? Possibly a Quicken-killer? We'll just have to wait and see, as Steve is still singing the praises of the new iLife and .Mac.
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]]>iworkDavid Chartier2007-08-07T14:02:00+00:00.Mac updates coming tomorrow morning?http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/06/mac-updates-coming-tomorrow-morning/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/06/mac-updates-coming-tomorrow-morning/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/06/mac-updates-coming-tomorrow-morning/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

Yes, the most recent rumor about Apple's announcement tomorrow has been debunked by commenters and other sites, but this one stems from a scheduled maintenance message Apple has posted on their oft-debated .Mac service page (tip of the hat to reader Jake Coventry). Quoth Apple's message at www.mac.com:

Due to scheduled maintenance, .Mac members might be intermittently unable to access some .Mac services from 10 AM to 12 PM PDT on 08/07/2007. We apologize for any inconvenience.

While this doesn't necessarily guarantee .Mac will be getting any kind of upgrade or new features, it is a bit uncharacteristic for the service to tell its users about such a major downtime before it happens. On top of that, this outage is happening during the day of a big announcement that Apple clearly stated was going to be all about the Mac. Here's hoping for the best.
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]]>.MacdotmacrumorsupgradesDavid Chartier2007-08-06T14:30:00+00:00The .Mac Reader RSS app for iPhone is awesomehttp://www.tuaw.com/2007/07/30/the-mac-reader-rss-app-for-iphone-is-awesome/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/07/30/the-mac-reader-rss-app-for-iphone-is-awesome/http://www.tuaw.com/2007/07/30/the-mac-reader-rss-app-for-iphone-is-awesome/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,



Remember that iPhone-only .Mac RSS reader Apple quietly introduced barely a day before the phone's release? After trying out nearly every iPhone web app launcher that has an RSS reader bolted on and even Newsgator Mobile for iPhone (since I primarily use NetNewsWire on a Mac), I have to say that the .Mac Reader (reader.mac.com) is my hands-down favorite. It's fast and displays RSS headlines in a very Safari RSS-like fashion, and it seems to cache better than most web apps I've seen, as it offers lightning-fast response when moving from an individual article back to the main list of headlines and snippets.

As a bonus, this .Mac Reader app doesn't appear to require you to be a .Mac member to use it, though since I am a member, I would like to hear from non-members on whether this assessment is correct.

If you already have a bunch of RSS headlines in Safari, or you use a trick like the NetNewsWire drag and drop one I just mentioned, the iPhone's one-two punch of Safari bookmark/feed management and the .Mac Reader could be a great way to bring your favorite feeds on the go.
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]]>.mac.mac reader.macReaderdotmacrsssafariDavid Chartier2007-07-30T19:30:00+00:00