I come before you this month to sing the praises of .Mac (pronounced “dot mac”). If you’re not a Mac user, then, well, you can’t use .Mac. So there. Just another reason to switch.

.Mac is a set of internet-related tools that Apple maintains and packages for $99 per year (yes, that’s only $8.25 per month, which is a little more than a month’s subscription to PC virus definitions). Although many of .Mac’s features are available separately for “free” from other web-based sources, the tightly-knit integration of .Mac and Apple’s Mac OS X operating system and other applications make it, in my mind, a real bargain.

Note that I placed the word “free” in quotes. As my grandpappy used to say, “there’s no free lunch”. Although there are certainly some exceptions to the rule, “free” on the internet most often means “accompanied by advertising”. Lots of it. Any ads in .Mac? Nope. None to be found.

Let’s look at some .Mac features. First, communications. With each .Mac account you get an email address (which is also your AIM chat name), which shares one gigabyte of storage space with your iDisk (which we’ll talk about in just a minute). Since .Mac is not an ISP (Internet Service Provider) like Suscom or Verizon, you’ll need to have an ISP already established. You can send and receive your .Mac email over any ISP that supports POP and SMTP (no time to describe these email protocols, you’ll just have to trust me). You can use an email application like Apple’s Mail, or Entourage, or Eudora, or any web browser (on a Mac or PC) to manage your email. You can also create up to five email aliases, or different email addresses, that all deliver mail to your main address.

Speaking of addresses, with the click of a button you can place your Address Book contacts, Safari web browser bookmarks, and Calendar on your iDisk, and keep multiple Macs synced to the same data. This data is also accessible from any internet-connected computer, Mac or PC.

Your iDisk is web-based storage on Apple’s reliable secure servers. Moving data to/from your iDisk is as easy as dragging and dropping between Folders in the Finder. You can designate “Public” folders accessible to anyone (Mac or PC) who has a browser and knows the address, or create password-protected areas. Your iDisk can also be used to back up your important personal data, either manually or automatically.

Want to share your photos, movies or blogs? Using either Apple’s new iWeb application or a browser-based method, you can create great-looking web pages filled with photo galleries, movies, or your opinions. If you have iPhoto 6 (part of the iLife ’06 suite), you can share your photo albums with others directly from within iPhoto. Apple calls it “Photocasting”. Simply select an album of photos to publish. The photos are uploaded to your iDisk, and you’re invited to announce your new album. An email with all the details is automatically generated, ready for your addresses to be added.

Recipients who also have iPhoto 6 can subscribe to and view your album from within iPhoto. Others with older versions of iPhoto or PCs can view your Photocast via Safari RSS or other RSS-capable browsers and readers. If you make a change to your album, they’ll see the changes next time they view it as well.

As you can imagine, .Mac really requires a broadband internet connection to live up to its full potential. And I’ve really only scratched the surface of what you can do with a .Mac subscription.

So, what are you waiting for?

© 2006 Peter F. Zimowski