Since I started using my mac, I decided to try most of the apps that come pre-installed, and I also decided not to pay for a .mac account. Some may say that I'm losing the capabilities of synchronization or else, but I have a backup in a external hard drive (Ok, I have to make it more frequently, but that's not the point).
I decided not to use .mac just because I already have lots of services for free. I use a lot of Google services just with one account:
I decided not to use .mac just because I already have lots of services for free. I use a lot of Google services just with one account:
- Gmail, with almost 3 Gb storage space. And I set up Mail to download my two gmail accounts. Working just fine.
- Picasa Web Albums, now 1 Gb storage space for photos. And you can use the Picasa App for Mac or the Picasa plug-in for iPhoto. And works with my Blogger account, too. Works great.
- Google Calendar. Not as neat as the iCal but I need just to keep track on birthdays there. For my personal to do's i use iCal, I just need it at home.
- Google Reader for RSS subscriptions and you have a plug-in for Firefox to notify you as you open the browser.
- YouTube for my family videos.
The items above just count for the Google services I use but for example, you can use Google Browser Sync for Firefox to keep your bookmarks, cookies and history synchronized between two computers, and you also have del.icio.us but I haven't tried this one yet. For the newly added .mac feature called Groups, you have Google Groups. If you are interested in turning your gmail account in a storage device maybe you are interested in gDisk, donation ware. For backing up, if you search in Google, you will found a lot of alternatives.
And more, I registered my gmail in Microsoft .Net Passport, so I can still use the same email to sign in in MS Messenger (so bad they don't plan to further develop the mac version, one thing I miss is the voice, video and Remote Assistance from the windows version). Not a lot of my people have macs so iChat is out of the question, but for video and voice I use Skype for Mac.
For my personal website, I use iWeb's Publish to Folder and a free host (with a domain bought from doteasy). I agree that it's not very nice when FTP uploading the newly published site but I've already found a way to avoid not changed files. But I'll write about it in a future post. But using iWeb I can link my picasa albums here, as well as my youtube videos, and with iComment (license: 7 euros) you can use the free Haloscan comment service and the free StatCounter service. I'm only waiting to get my hands on iWeb'08 to revamp the site, insert some code and embed the photos (from my PicasaWeb, Flickr or Skitch) and the videos in the site.
And FYI, i know there is one service that works a lot like the .mac but it's a german site (so all in german). Anyway, if you're interested here it is Macbay. As for a free hosting service you can try the one I tried, Hostistry (UPDATE: This hosting service has died). I tried others but site never appeared on any browser on any computer.
And more, I registered my gmail in Microsoft .Net Passport, so I can still use the same email to sign in in MS Messenger (so bad they don't plan to further develop the mac version, one thing I miss is the voice, video and Remote Assistance from the windows version). Not a lot of my people have macs so iChat is out of the question, but for video and voice I use Skype for Mac.
For my personal website, I use iWeb's Publish to Folder and a free host (with a domain bought from doteasy). I agree that it's not very nice when FTP uploading the newly published site but I've already found a way to avoid not changed files. But I'll write about it in a future post. But using iWeb I can link my picasa albums here, as well as my youtube videos, and with iComment (license: 7 euros) you can use the free Haloscan comment service and the free StatCounter service. I'm only waiting to get my hands on iWeb'08 to revamp the site, insert some code and embed the photos (from my PicasaWeb, Flickr or Skitch) and the videos in the site.
And FYI, i know there is one service that works a lot like the .mac but it's a german site (so all in german). Anyway, if you're interested here it is Macbay. As for a free hosting service you can try the one I tried, Hostistry (UPDATE: This hosting service has died). I tried others but site never appeared on any browser on any computer.
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