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It's worth it to me.  I get e-mail and web hosting.  The 2 things that I care about.  And .mac integrates well with iChat and iPhoto.

I sign up for a trial account every 60 days.

I think the email is great. I use it all the time:

1) POP mail via Entrourage when I'm home so that I can file the emails that I want.
2) Webmail when I'm not home.
3) IMAP on the computers in my lab at school so that I can still retrieve the messages at home.

The iDisk would be great except for one problem.... OS X SUCKS when trying to use the iDisk. Take today for example. I tried to upload something before heading to school. After 15 minutes of spinning rainbow wheels and things not copying correctly I gave up and emailed the stuff. Then I went to school and I needed to update my webpage so I tried again thinking maybe it was my home connection. Well at school I was using a dual 1GHz G4 connected to a super fast LAN and I got the same rainbow wheel. On top of that, when it finally did load I had problems trying to copy items onto the iDisk. For example, I drag an item to the iDisk and the copy window pops up, moves about 1/4 of the way and then closes, never copying anything.

That was very annoying. However, you want to know what was even more annoying than that? I have a Windows 2000 machine right next to it in the lab and so I connected to my iDisk on that and guess what? It was so fast you couldn't even tell you were accessing it over the internet. That pisses me off. There is no way that accessing an iDisk should be faster with Windows than OS X!!!

Later, Frank

I've been debating this myself, I run a Mac User Group and it's often very difficult to figure out just what the options .mac needs to have before it's worth the 100$.

True my account was 50$ after my original account from a year back came to expire, but still it's a new service, and growing.  Apple has for more years than I can count dedicated efforts to bringing the users exactly what they need, and while OS X's "Connect To Server" protocols that are utilized with connecting to an iDisk are very poor [try connecting to an outside FTP] the things they have planned for .mac integration with other programs is very promising.

My wife and I have an Airport network at home, she is on our iBook from the couch and I'm on the Dual Gig G4 in my office, if I make any changes to my address book, or to iCal, it pops up on her screen and she can keep up to date on the constant changing schedule we have by juggling online journalistic duties, running a MUG, and the aggrivation of meeting family for lunch.  .mac in short brings our machines together under one flag, and while it is not worth it yet... I feel in time it will be.

They need to get real with the games they're offering, who gives a damn about bejeweled?  Things like that youc an play for free at pogo.com.  Anyway, they're working to make .mac better, so why not send in your Feedback, they do read it, and if you have enough good pointed comments, they may make those changes.

Mac's are for the users, let the users speak, and we will get the change we want.

Matthew Egan elseplace@mac.com
Chairman - The Hollywood Hopeless
http://www.hollywoodhopeless.net

OS X SUCKS when trying to use the iDisk.

look for Goliath on Version Tracker, now that program has made my iDisk Very usable!

It's worth it to me.  I get e-mail and web hosting.  The 2 things that I care about.  And .mac integrates well with iChat and iPhoto.

If it doesn`t have php mysql and a hell of a lot of bandwidth it`s not worth it for me, i host at home if i didn`t i`d go with powweb . Other then that go with .68k with unlimited bandwidth and free email when the service is out .

OS X SUCKS when trying to use the iDisk. Take today for example. I tried to upload something before heading to school. After 15 minutes of spinning rainbow wheels and things not copying correctly I gave up and emailed the stuff.
Later, Frank

lol... get a bandwith monitor and watch the progress using that. i dont get the wheel of doom unless i'm runing more than 20 apps and using the idisk... perhaps you should get a faster connection? or more ram?
it works just fine for me. (it takes a while, but thats due to the fact that my upload stream is capped at 16KB/sec)

It tells me its trying to connect to mail.mac.com but it always fails! Ive been receiving mail, but i can't send it.
thanks
bennie

The outgoing mail server is smtp.mac.com, not mail.mac.com.

OS X SUCKS when trying to use the iDisk. Take today for example. I tried to upload something before heading to school. After 15 minutes of spinning rainbow wheels and things not copying correctly I gave up and emailed the stuff.
Later, Frank

lol... get a bandwith monitor and watch the progress using that. i dont get the wheel of doom unless i'm runing more than 20 apps and using the idisk... perhaps you should get a faster connection? or more ram?
it works just fine for me. (it takes a while, but thats due to the fact that my upload stream is capped at 16KB/sec)

Well, let's see. How can I prove to you that it was the functionality of iDisk in OS X. First I'll give you some info on the two systems I was trying to use it on:

Home system:
Dual G4 450
1.12GB of RAM (is that enough RAM?)
Cable modem (is that fast enough for home use?)

School system:
Dual G4 1GHz
512MB RAM
School LAN (very fast!)

Now, here's the rub. When I got to school and realized that it wasn't my home computer or connection and it was just as slow at school (upload or download) I decided to connect with the PC next to it that is connected to the same LAN. Well guess what? If you had read my post you would have seen that on the pc, with the same network connection at the same time of day it was instantaneous. I had absolutely no problems and it worked exactly how it should.

Now do you see why I'm a little mad? Shouldn't iDisk (an Apple product) work AT LEAST as well on a Mac as it does on a PC?

Later, Frank

Alright, I check the SSL box in the options for Mail in OSX and it still isnt working. Any advice?

im using the "mail" program that came with OSX