.Mac

There is a lot of talk about whether .Mac is still relevant and a lot of people are not going to renew.  There is even a viral feedback petition to Apple.  Our .Mac membership doesn't expire until March.  I am not sure if we will renew it.  Some of the features we don't use, while others we do:

Use:

• Mail/Keychain Sync - Is use this to synchronize my mail settings, keychain between different macs


• HomePage - This is a very easy way to create a web pages, especially to share movies.  (Google Page Creator may be a reasonable replacement)


• iDisk - I only use iDisk for storing videos for iDisk.  We could just as easily use our web server with the WebDAV module.


• Backup - This is an easy way to have automatic offsite incremental backups.  (I think that this alone may justify the membership)

Don't Use:

• Bookmark Sync - Since I use Firefox, Google Browser Sync is use to synchronize bookmarks.  One reason that this is better that .Mac is that it works cross platform.


• .Mac mail - Gmail is a better implementation of webmail and POP based mail.


• Secure iChat - This is not that useful, as it you can only send encrypted messages to other .Mac users


• s/mime email - Unfortunately most people are not able to verify signatures or encrypt/decrypt messages.


• iWeb - So far HomePage has worked for us, so I haven't even launched the program.


• Groups - If we needed to use this, we could use Google Groups.


• iCards - I believe that you don't need to be a .Mac member to send an iCard.


• Online iCal - Google Calendar implements online calendars better than .Mac

Technorati Tags: .Mac, Backup, Gmail, Google Browser Sync, Google Groups, Google Page Creator, iCard, iChat, iDisk, iSync, Mac OS X, mime