Apple MobileMe

   Apple MobileMe

Information about Apple's MobileMe (formerly .Mac / dot Mac) service for Mac OS X. Goto www.me.com to access existing account.

About MobileMe
MobileMe is an online service from Apple which offers web space, email accounts plus storage and syncing of Mac OS X services. You get 20gb Storage for each account, plus additional 5gb for each Family Pack (5) account.

Backup
You get 20gb of space (with more easily purchased), and use of an application called Backup. You decide what you want backed up and when. It does the rest. Incremental or full. And seems to be really simple to restore. Worth half the subscription fee just for this!

Email
You get a free Email account (your.username@me.com) with Imap and Webmail access. Web interface is almost identical to Apple Mail so quite straightforward. Defo rate this. Only catch is you can't use your own email address.

Groups
Can create groups and join groups. Would be great but limited to other .Mac members so not really suitable for real world groups.

Sync
Can synchronise a wide range of Apple settings. Great if you only use Mac software, but once you want to sync with non-Apple products it falls flat.

Syncing Apple Address Book Contacts
Still working on this one.

Syncing Safari Bookmarks
If you use only use Safari, then it's a breeze, just use System Preferences to sync your Bookmarks to your MobileMe account and then click sync. It works out all the rest with the different computers you use.

iDisk
Online hard drive that works just like it's a regular Mac folder, with advantage of being accessible anywhere.

Web Gallery & Website Hosting
This is pants. Really ugly and way old fashioned flat HTML publishing structure. So 1990s.

notMac
The notMac Challenge.com is a project to 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.