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.Mac adds VersionTracker and iBlog to the benefits
MacMerc.com writes "Today, .Mac users will see that a free VersionTracker Plus subscription, a discount of half off VersionTracker Pro subscription and software, free iBlog Blogging Software, and a discount on SmartDisk FireWire Drives have been added to their Member Benefits."
Apple has looked for -and seemingly found- which websites, tools and goodies its users actually use, even if they do not come from Apple, a big-name VAR or software company.
Then, if the deals themselves are good or not is a matter of debate. I am a .Mac subscriber and I am right now debating wheter to renew my subscription, as thousands of Mac users are doing as well. These benefits might tip the balance... Paid web services are still on shaky ground, I think Apple any many others are still getting the hang of it (users too).
My two eurocents...
dani++
And now they're throwing in a site with troubleshooting information! Look out, Hotmail and Geocities! And now, with Version Tracker, you have access to all kinds of technical information that PC users already get free, as part of your .mac subscription--woohoo!
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
hey, don't get me wrong, I'm a die-hard mac user, but the .mac services just aren't worth it. $100 for a wimpy little email and website and a few other bells and whistles is a little steep when I'm not quite sure how I'm going to pay for tuition next semester.
"Procrasination is the key to world peace." ~Some girl in California
~~~
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
It's not just email and a website. They also give you virex, backup software to backup to an iDisk, DVD-R, what have you. Now you also get a subscription to VT+, which is really useful, and iBlog, so for $100 a year you also get a blog with a good server.
I think it's worth it.
- Sherman
I'm a .mac user and I think it is great for auto-backup and email in general. I very like the iSync feature when I can add things in my address book anywhere and sync it with my home computer. Bookmark syncing is great also.
But I have to admit that free software available for mac user is uselly fraud. Sticky Brain 2 is awful and puts stuff everywhere. Each time you start it, it ask for buying stupid software. This is nothing more than a sharewhere.
I won't even install iBlog because I think it is just the same and I don't wan't it to install stupid services in safari or other OS X apps.
And version tracker, this plus subscription is useless: you cannot use the software with it, everything must be edit by hand and I'm sure I will receive full of their adv emails that I of courses did not agree with. .mac member benefit are nothing more than cheap promotional adv.
What does Father O'Day think of this enhancement?
Yes, you can, very easily too. Goto System Prefrences -> Sharing (under Internet and Network) -> Internet Tab -> Start. And you can setup what you want to let through. Im not sure if you can forward ports this way (for a web server on a different machine) but, it will share the internet.
Jisho - A Japanese English German Russian French Dictionary for the rest of us.
go to http://kbase.info.apple.com/ and search for "software base station" - there's a list of apple's knowledge base articles about just what you need. apple also have an area at http://discussions.info.apple.com/ which has forums. http://www.macnn.com/ has forums too, which has a variety of mac users.
I'd suggest avoiding http://www.applefritter.com/ . I went in there asking the exact same question about software base stations and was flamed for asking such stupid questions and given all kinds of reasons why it was impossible, only hours before I came across the kbase information.
It's incredibly easy. Just go to System Preferences, Sharing Panel, Internet Tab, and Click on "Start" for "Internet Sharing". It'll share your primary internet connection over the other connections (I think it may even work airport->ethernet also).
Others have suggested ways of doing it through the gui, and that will work as a simple base station, certainly sufficient for most purposes.
If you like to tweak things a little more, play around direct with the firewall options in ipfw.
`sudo ipfw show` will show your ipfw rules, check them after each gui firewall option you change for an idea how they work, and go from there. After that, man and google are your friend.
Won't work. 802.11 cards can either talk one on one to a basestation, or one on one to another 802.11 card in "ad hoc mode". There's no facility in these cards to allow multiple connections from other 802.11x or airport cards to itself.
I have a cheap dlink base station that serves my purposes well.
I really don't understand why you all are complaining about the price. I picked up this freelance gig to copy a 17 meg file from one folder to another folder. It took all of 20 minutes, and more than covered the cost of a .Mac subscription.
I, like virtually every Mac user, was shocked and disappointed to hear that iTools was making the move to .Mac and coming with a nice hefty fee. I figured I'd use it for a year, and in that time start using my alternate email account for everything.
After having used .Mac for this long, I have to say I don't know that I could do without it. Having 100mb of webspace is a nice feature- it's a great fileserver for images and text and the like, although the lack of server-side support for things like PHP makes it somewhat less useful for actual site hosting. iSync is wonderful, and saved me just today when I had to format my System partition due to some strange and unfixable corruption. The email is great as well, giving you plenty of space and access to your email from any computer running a modern OS via webmail. That alone may be worth the $100 a year; however, that fails to account for many other oft-overlooked features of .Mac.
The freebies, while put down frequently by .Mac subscribers and non-subscribers alike, are a nice way of showing that Apple cares- think of them as gifts. You don't expect them, you don't buy .Mac for them, but they come to you anyway, and if even one is useful a single time, you've gained something extra from them. The VT+ subscription is very cool; any Mac user should know that VT is an extremely useful tool even without +/Pro access. Also, the $20 off coupon for resubscribing, while not as nice as the $50 off for iTools members the first year, is certainly nice. If you want The Sims or Everquest for some odd reason, you can get those instead.
.Mac is great, and these new offers make me even more glad I shelled out the $8.33 a month for it.
It looks as if Apple is trying its hardest to sell some .Mac memberships. My guess is that these types of benefits will extend themselves to future Apple software releases and OS updates. I wonder if Apple will eventually start charging non-.Mac users for future software releases along the lines of iPhoto and iCal. I am not a .Mac member but am considering purchasing a membership.
dealmac.com
my kindgom for a mod point.
How's that freelance gig going?
These new extras seem a little pointless, I think. The rest of .Mac, the mail, webspace, online volume and backup are useful and if someone is willing to pay $100 per year for that, all the power to them. But I think that as soon as one moves into a slightly more astute level, where one can implement many of those features oneself on a normal hosting service, the appeal of .Mac goes away.
Added to this, it seemed on the Mac forums that the service is often down, which would be irritating if one depends on it for some thing.
make me embarassed to be a heterosexual. Go back to jerking off in your parents basement to pictures of girls you'll never have the fortune to be spit upon by...Bitch.
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Applefritter is full of the most inane arrogant moderators I've ever seen. Clueless types who are all too willing to shout others down and close off threads where they believe they've solved a problem but just abused someone instead. If you can get past that, the rest of the population is a good help.
In the SPIRIT of expressing WORTHLESS PERSONAL OPINION, I have to say THAT .mac has BEEN incredibly USEFUL TO me over THE LAST year. I have NO INTEREST in rehashing ITS strong points, other THAN to SAY that all of the services (MAIL, drag and DROP WEBSITE hosting via iDISK, Address BOOK/calendar/BOOKMARK SYNCING, remote BACK-UP) have WORKED for me FLAWLESSLY.
AND the LONGEST I ever licked SJ's BUTT was for about three minutes...
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Won't work
awww, poor little idiot is too stupid to figure it out.
Won't work hey? Like to explain how my pismo, iMac and eMac are all connected then? the only machine wired to my DSL connection is another iMac sharing via Airport.
I have to agree on that sticky brain issue. What a mess, good grief charlie brown I didn't want to read another UNIX manual to figure out how to use some software. I'm 'sticking' to the good ole fashion 'stickies' that come with OS X. I really like how simple stickies are to use and close them out it automatically saves what you have on your sticky. Ah sure you windows or linux peeps have had them before but not installed default with your OS like your Solitaire so go back and flip your cards.
You're describing something that is technically impossible. It just can't happen. I'd suggest you check your bandwidth use as you're most certainly connecting to a network outside your own with a dedicated base station, probably a neighbour above or below you.
Apple's long time "OS foe", Microsoft, has meanwhile announced plans of its own to enter the Blog hosting market. "Hey, it's all in that book that I had those guys write for me" said Microsoft founder Bill Gates. "Ya'know, it's not just about 'where do you want to go today?' anymore" he continued, "but 'what do you want to remember tomorrow?', too. Steve--what? uh no, Balmer, not Jobs--has been doing a really good job--what? NO! I said Balmer--on this one." Mr Gates showed a demo of i've-Been-Online-Recording-my-Goodies. When queried about a possible release date for i.B.O.R.G., Bill just smiled and said "watch my Blog"
One man's pink plane is another man's blue plane.
IINM, free versiontracker subscription is for new members, or for members who renew, not for current members.
This is relevant to me, because my subscription expires in a few days and I do not intend to renew, and so the offer does not apply to me - even though I am still a member.
The iBlog offer applies to me, so I have that, but not the versiontracker one...that is purely an incentive, not a benefit.
Anyway...small point, but worth making.
Max.
It's called 'Paying for Software'. I'm aware that Slashdot readers have some serious problems wrapping their minds around this concept, but there are a few people out there who have figured it out.
.Mac, and now if you want Apple's branded backup software, you pay them for it! Wow!
You see, Apple decided that their backup program would only be available to people who PAID them for it, and decided that this subscription service was a good way to implement that without adding the overhead of an additional product to the company. So they rolled the software in with
See? It's not THAT hard to understand, even for a dumb PC user.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
If you interpreted my 'rant' as being against AC's then you are truly an idiot...I take offense to those who hide behind anonymity while spouting off rude and offensive epithets. Such remarks made in person would recieve a swift kick in the teeth. If you really believe in the value of bigoted foolish remarks and want to defend them, be my guest, however, I notice you don't have the 'balls' to even do so with a user name...no matter how unaccountable it may be, posting under a registered account at least shows that your avatar stands behind your remarks.
Additionally, I don't think I am a better person than the average sensible guy, however, I definitely think I am a better person than any homophobic/racist/sexist idiot and would gladly kick the shite out of, I mean enlighten, those lesser folk. Does that make me self-rightous... hell yeah! Does that make me an 'Apple apologist'? Whatever...
Don't waste your time defending idiots. Unless you are one of those idiots as well.
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Oh, so Mac users like subscription software, rather than just paying once. And I thought PC users were dumb!
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
The software continues to function even if you don't renew your .Mac subscription. Think of it as the software equivalent of eMusic.com. Except you don't choose the software and it's an add-on to the main package, rather than being the mean reason for it existing.
If that's the case, I have no beef with it--I was under the impression that to continue to be able to backup to CDR or DVD-R, one had to continue the .mac subscription to keep that ability from "expiring."
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Fair enough...I retract all my observations regarding anonymity and simply state that I don't like homophobes/racists/sexists/etc... :) I am simply fighting the good fight...and have no qualms about people knowing that I am EK -- though I do think /.'ers tend to be exponentially rude, rather than insightful, when they are AC's -- which was kinda my point to begin with, but you sir, are an exception ;)
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Classy and funny :)
I look forward to reading you as well...
...I love you 'AC'...
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Ah, I thought you were referring to all the .Mac software. I think Backup might be tied to the subscription, sadly. The rest of the software will keep working without it though.
It's not impossible, in this case the Mac laptop (or was it a desktop?) is hooked up to the cable modem via an ethernet. Then one of two things can be done:
I have a sneaking suspicion that offering to share the network (through the GUI) makes an ad hoc network. So you will use slightly more power (infrastructure mode lets the access point tell the other devices when they need to listen, so they can be powered down part of the time and still get all their traffic). For the most part that won't make any difference.
As far as the hardware goes, there is nothing that should be able to prevent one 802.11 card from being on multiple 802.11 networks at once, but I don't know of any software that attempts to do it, and given how the cards operate they might all have to be on the same channel. As far as hardware and software go there should be nothing preventing one host from having more then one 802.11 card and either routing across them, or bridging. In fact I have done that.
That's simply not true. My home setup includes a PowerMac G4 hooked up to a cable modem. I have a PowerBook, and iBook, and an HP PC, all communicating wirelessly, using the G4 as the base station.
There are no tiger attacks in my area and it's all because this rock I'm holding keeps the tigers away.
OK, I really don't understand. A simple criticism of .mac like "It isn't worth the money" automatically gets modded to flamebait?
.mac subscription when Apple started charging. I personally kept mine only as long as it was free (Apple gave me a year of .mac as part of one of their sales programs - I work for an Apple dealer.)
.mac accounts, and I've never had anyone express interest beyond a "what's that?" in reference to some menu items. When I explain it, they generally say "that's neat, how do I get it?", when I tell them it's $100/year, they say "forget it".
I think that for most people, it really isn't worth the money. I set up a large number of iTools accounts when it was free, and of those, only 2 actually paid for the
Since it went to a pay service, I've sold zero
Now, most of my customers already have their own domains, so the web hosting and email are pretty pointless for them, and the "extras" usually don't matter to them at all.
So, I'd say that for most business customers and most geeks the service is fairly worthless.
For the 2 users who did keep it? It probably wasn't worth the money - except that they would have had to have business cards re-printed, and it was cheaper to keep it than print new cards - and so they were forced to pay for a service that they understood was free with their new computer.
Been there done that, got the network.
The only negative was that sharing network over IP precludes using appletalk, so I still needed to get an external router to bring my legacy macs online.
And you, madam, are very ugly. In the morning, I shall be sober.