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MobileMe, the successor to Apple's lackluster .Mac service, is poised to bring subscribers into the realm of "cloud computing," one of those nauseating phrases that's been around for a while, but nobody has a better term for.

MobileMe provides email, calendaring, contact management, photo sharing, and online file storage to Windows, Mac, iPhone, and iPod touch users for $99. A family pack subscription is also available for $149, which adds four 5GB accounts to a standard-sized 20GB account (making 40GB of storage total).

Users can also add 20GB or 40GB of storage to their account for $49 and $99, respectively.

MobileMe got off to a really rough start last week, but we still don't know exactly where the hangup was during the transition. I know I'm interested to know what happened, but for now, let's just all be glad that it's working, and have us a look-see at what's new.

After the jump, join me for an in-depth look at MobileMe's features, and how they compare to .Mac and other free services available elsewhere on the web.

Continue reading “TUAW Review: MobileMe”

ICANN, the ruling body for Internet domain naming, has voted to relax a few rules that will supposedly open up a whole slew of top-level domain names, multiple news sources are reporting. They haven't exactly said why they're doing this, only that it will "preserve the security, stability, and global interoperability of the Internet." Which seems like a good reason, we guess. But whatever the reason, it's good news for people who don't want to use the old standbys of .com or .org -- now, bidding can start for .sex, .xxx, .post, or any other combination of letters.

Like, for example, .mac. Yes, for the first time in the history of the Internet, Apple would have been able to make good on its .Mac brand -- except that, as you know, they decided just a few weeks ago to change that brand to Mobile Me. Though we supposed mobile.me is probably out there somewhere.

Of course, as we've speculated before, the change to Mobile Me wasn't so much about domain names as it was about just getting away from the Apple brand, and creating a service that both Mac and PC users would be interested in. So odds are that Apple wasn't waiting for .mac anyway. But it is interesting that even though they can finally have it, they don't actually need it any more.

Thanks, Darcy L!

Back to my Mac is one of the much-touted features that .Mac subscribers gained with Leopard. Basically, it lets you enjoy screen sharing between two appropriately configured Macs. The main drawback for many is the required .Mac subscription.

If that's you, check out ShareTool. This $20US utility lets users access all of the Bonjour services on their home network, like iTunes music sharing, screen sharing and file sharing from anywhere.

It requires routers that support NAT-PMP or UPnP and Mac OS 10.3.9 (that's right, Leopard is not required). The folks at Bains Software claim that everything is properly encrypted, but we haven't tested this. You can try it out for 15 minutes for free.

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:

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.
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.
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.

Late last year we mentioned the notMac Challenge. Basically they were offering a largish sum of money (now upwards of 8 grand) for anyone who could duplicate the functionality of .mac for free. Now finally Ben Spink of CrushFTP has stepped to the plate with a possible solution, and they're calling for testers. The initial reports (including from one of our tipsters) seem promising, but more real-world testing is needed to assure that Ben has met the challenge conditions (with slight modification). So if you need .mac functionality, but balk at the price, this may very well be worth checking out.

The file for testing is available (dmg link) from Ben's server. Be sure to check out the discussion thread first, however.

Just for the record, Mark/Space offers a similar commercial product SyncTogether, but it sells for $49.95.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

This is interesting. It's a challenge to produce a replacement for Apple's .Mac online services inspired by the contest earlier this year to boot Windows on the first Intel Macs (this was before Boot Camp for those of you who weren't around then). Apparently this guy Kent has decided that enough is enough; he wants a functional replica of .Mac and is willing to pay to get it. He's offering to match up to $10,000 in contributions to his site with the prize going to anyone who can:

create a free replacement to dotMac's client-based services that's easy enough for a first-time Mac user to install and so fully and transparently integrated that a long-time dotMac user wouldn't notice the difference.

Now there are several ways to get some of the .Mac services for free, from the geeky (and difficult) way, to the relatively easy way (MySync), to the Google-way. (The full rules to the challenge are here). Nonetheless, if this panned out it would be pretty cool for those of us with access to a WebDAV server (which would be necessary to duplicate the server-side functions). As someone who ditched his mac.com email address when Apple replaced the free iTools with the for-pay .mac I applaud this challenge. On the other hand, the $10,000 matching sounds a bit fishy to me. Kent claims that "to make it more interesting and give the prize a running start, [Kent's uncle agreed to] throw $10,000 into the prize pool." The fact that I can't even find Kent's last name on the site also sets my antennae twitching. What do you guys think?

[Via MacDevCenter]

[Edit: HS provides a link to a Macworld article with a bit more info on the guy behind the challenge]

#	Blogger	Posts	Cmts
1	Steven Sande	44	3
2	Dave Caolo	35	4
3	Mel Martin	31	0
4	Mike Schramm	28	0
5	Michael Rose	18	26
6	Josh Carr	18	24
7	Victor Agreda, Jr.	17	6
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16	Megan Lavey	7	9
17	John Burke	6	3
18	Brett Terpstra	4	5
19	Lauren Hirsch	4	0
20	Mat Lu	3	0

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

dot-mac posts

TUAW Review: MobileMe

The real .mac opens up with new regulations

ShareTool offers a Back to my Mac alternative

How do you sync multiple Macs?

Possible Solution to the notMac Challenge

The notMac Challenge - make a free .Mac replacement, earn lots of cash

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