Take Control Books has published the second edition of Joe Kissell's Take Control of .Mac eBook. The new version covers the use of Apple's .Mac service with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and iLife '08, with detailed information about:

• Changes to .Mac in Leopard
• Adding movies and photos to a Web Gallery
• Synchronization of multiple Macs through .Mac
• Configuring an AirPort Extreme for use with Back to My Mac
• ...and much more!

In light of recent news about possible changes to the name and capabilities of .Mac, particularly in terms of iPhone support, it's great that this is an eBook that can be updated almost immediately by the author. If you purchase this $15 ebook now, Glenn Fleishman's upcoming Take Control of Back to My Mac title will be available to you at half-price.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have authored two Take Control eBooks -- but not the Books mentioned in this post.

In the transition from iLife '06 to '08, one of the shifts in iPhoto functionality was the deprecation of photocasts in favor of .Mac web galleries. Sure, your friends and family can still subscribe to an RSS feed of your pictures (and what kind of loving grandparent doesn't want a newsfeed full of Halloween costumes and messy-breakfast snapshots?), but despite the enhanced gallery views in '08, some key features didn't roll forward -- in particular, while '06 photocasts could include original size, full-res picture files for downloaders, '08 web galleries downsized and/or recompressed most photos. Some may not have noticed the degradation in quality, but for the photo purists, including my colleague Jeff L., this was not an improvement.

Today Jeff came by my desk practically jumping for joy. Tucked away in yesterday's iPhoto update to 7.1.2, where you'd least expect it, is a slender button on the web gallery dialog box: "Show Advanced," and we all know that means good things for Jeff and his poor pictures. There are two new options in the Advanced section: a checkbox to hide the title of the gallery on your .Mac galleries page (handy for those who have a photography 'hobby,' nudge nudge say no more), and a choice between optimized and actual-size photos for downloading. Huzzah!

If you've got a web gallery that could benefit from higher-quality download files, try the new setting and let us know your results.

Thanks Jeff

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.

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.

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.