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.

As you may recall the notMac Challenge was a contest to produce a free method to duplicate most of the functionality of Apple's .mac, with the winner receiving upwards of $8k from various contributors. A few days ago we mentioned that Ben Spinks had posted a possible solution and that it had been released for testing. Yesterday the Challenge sponsor declared that the Ben had in fact won the challenge and would be receiving the prize. As per the rules of the contest Ben's solution, based on his commercial cross-platform CrushFTP product, will be released as open source freeware. A SourceForge repository has already been set up, and the notMac binary is available for download (dmg link).

Some loose ends still remain to be tidied up (particularly in documentation and installation), but Ben's solution "appears to be functioning perfectly for most users." So if you have a spare Mac to run as a server, this looks like it could be a great way to get most of the .mac functionality without forking over the cash to Apple.

Thanks ed!

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.