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Networking (Apple) Businesses Software Utilities (Apple) Apple Hardware

.Mac Alternatives? 83

Posted by Cliff from the finding-a-better-price-point dept.
peel asks: "In the endless effort to get organized I'm looking for an alternative to signing up for a .Mac account that allows me to sync iCal and the Address Book between multiple computers (mainly work and home). I found iSyncCal to let me sync calendars, I can also publish them using my personal server setup with WebDav. I haven't found any such utilities for addresses. What I really want is something that works more like .Mac but that I can run at home on my server without paying the monthly .Mac fees. What are some solutions people are using for syncing contact info for people stored in multiple places (Palm, cell, work computer, home computer, laptop)?" There was a similar discussion over on MacInTouch, although the alternatives offered cover more basic needs, the information may still prove useful for those looking for "a cheaper .Mac".
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.Mac Alternatives? More

.Mac Alternatives?

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  • Third Device (Score:4, Insightful)

    by raverbuzzy ( 603708 ) on Thursday May 08, 2003 @11:40AM (#5911117)
    I would sync to a third portable device like a palm or a cell phone and use that to transfer the data.

  • Another "how-to" article (Score:5, Informative)

    by awtbfb ( 586638 ) on Thursday May 08, 2003 @11:42AM (#5911128)

    "Six Great Tips for Homemade Dot Mac Servers" [macdevcenter.com]

  • Monthly Fees? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gamgee5273 ( 410326 ) on Thursday May 08, 2003 @12:11PM (#5911353) Journal
    What monthly fees? I've been a .Mac member from the outset (and, I will admit, a happy one) and there has yet to be any "monthly" fees.

    I agree with the translation above...there's no reason to go and gerryrig a pseudo-.Mac when this one works and is integrated already. You will end up spending more than $99/year between labor, etc.

    • I concur. I was a former iTools user, and I use .Mac heavily. There is no monthly fee, only annual fees. $99 for my primary mailbox, and a small fee for an e-mail only mailbox.
    • The problem here is that .Mac is lacking in other departments. I want to be able to use Java server-side scripting, or at least some for of server-side scripting. And I want the ability to talk to a DB. I can get this other places for less than .Mac, so if I could get some syncing going I wouldn't have to pay for both.

  • price Vs convenience (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 08, 2003 @12:16PM (#5911404)
    You really need to look at what this is worth, if you have to maintain a server and spend time setting it up, and if it doesn't work 100% is that worth it?

    How much money do you make per hour at your current job, i always put it that way to see if something is worth the time. Of course if its a fun hack to do, then its priceless right?

    In the end you may see that $99 (sometimes cheaper) is worth what .Mac offers. Its not that much to pay to get rid of headaches. I only use mine for addresses, iSync, and iPhoto uploads. But for me, its worth it. But what do i know, i paid the $50 deal when it came out, heheh.
    • Did you ever thing he was perhaps doing this for fun?

      How much money do you make per hour at your current job?

      It's funny you ask that. It seems the longer I work the less I make per hour... I also don't make any more or less overall if I spend time away from work on crazy schemes to avoid spending $100.

      Try using enjoyment instead of dollars when measuring the value of what to do with your free time. You may find you'll be happier.
    • -How much money do you make per hour at your current job?- ::looks at pay stub:: well according to this my free time is worthless. looks like ill be setting up that WebDAV server myself!

  • Hmm, opportunity! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 2nd Post! ( 213333 ) <gundbear@p[ ]ell.net ['acb' in gap]> on Thursday May 08, 2003 @01:00PM (#5911802) Homepage
    It seems there is an opportunity for a third party to establish a competitor to .Mac

    Maybe 80% of the features at 70% of the price? $69 a year, or $5.99 a month, for an email, synching, calendaring, etc?
    • It seems there is an opportunity for a third party to establish a competitor to .Mac

      Hardly. Remember that Apple does not give away iTunes, iPhoto, iSync and iOther iStuff for free because it's such a nice company. Basically they do it to promote their products, including dot Mac. If you launch this kind of "competition", Apple will sue your shoes off. And I think they'd be right about it.

      • Re:Hmm, opportunity! (Score:3, Interesting)

        by 2nd Post! ( 213333 )
        Right about what?

        You mean no one else can offer webDAV?

        No one can reverse engineer protocols?

        I think Apple would be right to respond by increasing their value, whether it be via quality, reliability, service, price, or features.

        Suing a competitor is hardly 'right'

        That's hardly better than muscling out the competition through legal contracts and price structure schemes.
        • I think Apple would be right to respond by increasing their value, whether it be via quality, reliability, service, price, or features.

          So they would have to develop iSync (et al) for peanuts, and you would just "compete" by offering a cheaper WebDAV service? Do you think this would be a fair deal?
          • Sure. Since you can't offer the MB that Apple can, you can't offer backup. You can offer iPhoto/homepage integration. You can offer the same homepage templates. You can't offer the Freeplay Music service.

            I use and love .Mac

            I think competition is a good thing

            Apple should offer exactly what they are good at: Integration, ease of use, usability, service.

            If someone can do something better than Apple, it's in Apple's service to *work* with them so everyone wins, not to sue them out of existence.

            To use a dif
            • Apple should offer exactly what they are good at: Integration, ease of use, usability, service. (...) I can't sell apples, but at least I get my oranges sold.

              I can drink to that. But this is a slightly different topic - dot Mac is all about integration and ease of use. So if you just want to launch any WebDAV server, I don't hold anything against that. I'll just say that you're not offering "dot Mac alternative", you just offer some storage space by WebDAV.
      • I doubt that they would
        1. prevail in court
        2. go into such a suit just for the hell of it
        or
        3. ever launch such a silly suit in the first place

        A simple application that changes your local dns to point to apple's .mac service or your own homegrown .mac competitor is all that's necessary for isync/ical sync/publish. Disk space via webdav is trivial and you can swap out icons to make them distinctive and avoid lawsuit.

        In reality what I can see this used for is a bonus for people to sign up to for-pay mac group

  • Why alternatives? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ross_winn ( 610552 ) <ross.winn@gmaCOUGARil.com minus cat> on Thursday May 08, 2003 @01:16PM (#5911965)
    I get what I consider to be an incredible amount of value from .mac subscription. I get antivirus, some free games, a great webmail and email service, and things keep getting added. What exactly do you expect for USD$100 per year, and what makes alternative more efficient for you?
    • I must say that I agree, and I don't even use all the .Mac features - I DO use, Virex, Backup, email, homepage (for photos) and iDisk, but I've neglected iCal and iSync thus far...

      cost me £33 for a year - I make that in about an hour and a half, it's about the same price as a tank of fuel for me!

    • Re:Why alternatives? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Rommel ( 33210 )
      I'm willing to pay more for some features *not* available.

      The biggest thing I'd like to add is the ability to use a different domain name. I've been using a personal domain for a long time now, and don't want to train my visitors to go to a different address.
      • I use both and forward my email and use reply to. I also have pointers for my website. YMMV.
      • Depending on where you have your domain registered, they may be able to redirect web traffic and email to your .Mac website and email address. I've been using BuyDomains.com [buydomains.com] for a few years and I've been pretty happy with their service. Web visitors get "frame forwarded", so the illusion of my domain stays pretty much intact, and email forwarding is even simpler. The only real catch I've found is that Google will often index the true underlying address of web pages, and those links may break if I pull up st
      • Run your domain through a free online DynDNS service to your G4, then use Apache to proxypass it to .Mac. Then you get the automatic page design and such at the click of a button, and get to use your own domain.

  • syncML (Score:3, Informative)

    by xj9000 ( 598397 ) on Thursday May 08, 2003 @01:20PM (#5912008)
    Most of the fancy devices use syncML which is the XML schema for transfering all your contacts and addressbook information. on sourceforge there is a program called Sync4J which is a java program you can connect to from your devices over the web and transfer/sync all your data http://sourceforge.net/projects/sync4j/

  • How much is your time worth?` (Score:5, Insightful)

    by amichalo ( 132545 ) on Thursday May 08, 2003 @01:42PM (#5912195)
    I know this is /. and all but presumiung you already have any hardware needed and the software is all free (beer), I still question the value of a homebrewed .Mac solution:

    Setup & maintain IMAP mail

    Setup & maintain sync to iCal

    Setup & maintain sync to address book

    Setup & maintain 100mb DAV

    Setup & maintain CD/DVD/on-line integrated backup

    Setup & maintain template driven web hosting

    Setup & maintain iPhoto image publishing

    Setup & maintain iCards

    Substitute anti-virus software

    Substitute access to "members only" support

    Since a .Mac account is $99.year, if you spend ONE HOUR doing each of the above each year, and your time were worth $10/hr you would LOOSE $1 a year!!! (Presuming no hardware or software costs, just time.)

    I COULD change my own oil, but to me, it isn't worth $20 every 3,000 miles to do it.

    • Well, it costs more than $99/year if you want to have 500+MB of mail in your IMAP folders (like I do at home), or if you want to have more control over your website (cgi, or zope...), or if you want to host your site at a certain domain name. Plus, doing the work yourself teaches you skills which may increase your employability...
      • Excellent points you bring up. I think that the most important of those is that it is an opportunity to not just read about technology, but to use it. That experience may help you increase your employability, but only if your career requires those skills, or similar ones, to advance.

        CAUTION: Contents may be extremely hot!
    • The main thing for me would be having control of my own mail. If they decide that .mac isn't worth it, or is taking too much $, or something, they can shut it down, and people like you, with their primary email being @mac.com are hooped. I'd rather take the time to set up my own email domain and set up and be assured that it won't be grabbed out from under my feet someday. The other stuff mentioned is nice to have, and wonderfully integrated as only SJ can do, but not as important as the email IMHO.

  • It's not cost-effective to roll your own. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Duck_Taffy ( 551144 ) <cheneyhoNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Thursday May 08, 2003 @02:00PM (#5912326)
    How much time per month are you going to spend maintaining your own server? What's it going to cost in terms of bandwidth? What will the electricity cost you? If you value your time at all, get .mac, because it works out to only $8.33 per month, and you're quite likely to spend more than an hour per month working on your sever, and quite likely won't have the reliability of the real .mac, which also backs up your data to backup servers nightly.

    For example, look at the scenario of what if a hard drive dies. If it dies in your server, you go out and spend $100 on a new hard drive, and possibly lose months of information, and may have days of downtime while you reconfigure everything. If it dies in a .mac server, you don't pay a dime, and at most, you lose one day's data, and experience no or very little downtime.
    • If I had to upload all my new data for the day to Apple, the upload wouldn't finish in time for my next day's upload to start.

      Oh, I can use .mac to make a CD backup? I can do that for free now. All I need to do is search for files that have changed since a certain date and OS X's Finder makes that trivial.

      The only reason a lot of people signed up for .mac was to keep their email address. Great for them, but an email address that shows the world that I "Think Different"© isn't worth $8.33 a month to
      • What I meant by the data backup is that they have redundant backups of their servers, which are performed nightly, so if a server crashes, your data doesn't go with it, and it's back online in almost no time.

        And yes, I have known mac users who've gotten viruses. Recently. I'm not talking about "I know a guy who had nVir on his Classic 12 years ago.", I'm talking about something recently came into email, and caused us to buy Norton AV for an entire department of mac users.

        If you don't use the other servi
    • Yeah, but you have to deal with the limits that Apple gives you. What if you want ssh access? What if you want more than 500MB of space to store stuff? What if you want to upgrade the hard drive in the server? What if you like running your own servers and you don't really need the silly iDisk? .Mac makes a lot of sense for a lot of people, but for some of us, it's not the right answer, and that's ok. The fact that Apple's using open standards is enough for me, anyway.
      • Well, you can buy up to 1 GB of space, if you want it. But if you want a different set of services, then it's probably not for you. However, the question was regarding server products to take the place of .mac, with the same services.

        With .mac, you're paying for someone else to administer a server, so you can just upload your stuff and forget about it. In this scenario, you don't need SSH access, because you're not the administrator.

        You get a resonable price for drag-and-drop web publishing, without ha
        • while your in the finder, you can hit command-k for connect to server. All of your apple share volumes will show up in the window on the top, but if you go to the bottom where you put the address in manually, you can ftp in the format: ftp://192.168.1.1 or what ever the ftp server address is. The ftp server will be mounted on your desktop as a shared volume. you can even use ftp://login@pass:192.168.1.1 to login if you have an account.
          • Yes, and I've used it like that. However, with my non-.mac server, I get logged into the root directory, and have to navigate to my home directory. When I get there, for some reason, the Finder doesn't see that I have write privileges, and won't allow me to upload anything there. I suspect I'm not the only person in this situation.
            • However, with my non-.mac server, I get logged into the root directory, and have to navigate to my home directory. When I get there, for some reason, the Finder doesn't see that I have write privileges, and won't allow me to upload anything there. I suspect I'm not the only person in this situation.

              Well, now that you mention it..
              I ended up just installing gftp via fink and then used that in the meantime. It is rather odd though.

  • .Mac - it's worth it! (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    For a Franklin per YEAR (not month), what .Mac offers really is a deal. Antivirus, tech support, email, server space (web and FTP), and the seamless integration. Is it really that much to pay?

  • Not just for Macintosh... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by stefanlasiewski ( 63134 ) * <slashdot AT stefanco DOT com> on Thursday May 08, 2003 @02:58PM (#5913029) Homepage Journal
    As a non-mac owner, I'd love to have access to a .MAC-like service which works for non-Mac users.

    Seems that many of the .MAC services will work with any computer, as long as you have an iCal, LDAP & IMAP client. But that is probalby only 50% of the services.

    On a local box at my house, I've considered setting up Apache+WebDAV, IMAP, LDAP & iCal servers; all available via a password-protected/SSL website, or via their normal protocol (with encryption, if possible).

    But the devil is the integration of these services. I'm not sure where to start.

  • An idea (Score:2, Informative)

    by fordgj ( 522469 )
    The proprietary part of .Mac really is just a virtual device that iSync connects to over WebDAV (I think it is the encryption/authentication that closes the interface, not really a new protocol). The problem is, as I said, that it is proprietary and thus there is no open way to simply create a service on your own computer that iSync can connect to and stores the same information as .Mac.

    I do remember seeing one person that had sniffed the communications to .Mac and created a dummy server. The problem was

  • Maybe it's not about money, but about convenience (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fluf ( 649368 ) on Thursday May 08, 2003 @04:05PM (#5913725) Homepage

    I think it's kinda funny how all these comments center around the fact that .mac 'is only 8 dollars a month'.

    I'm not interested in saving money (I'd just get an el cheapo x86 machine instead of a Mac to really save money... :p as if), I'm interested in really sharing my information between my different machines.

    Just look at my setup: at home I've got a G3 powerMac and an Ibook, at work it's a powermac G4 and the aforementioned iBook. I'm just looking at an easy (or maybe better 'straightforward') way to share Jaguar's address book and calendar between the three.

    I could do this via .Mac, but only if I have an internet connection. Now, having an internet connection isn't a problem in itself (i've got cable at home and dsl at work), the stupid thing about this imho is that, since the machines are networked anyway (through ethernet, in a powermac to ibook type of deal both at work and at home), why do I even need to go via .Mac? I just want to be able to sync locally.

    The current workaround I've got is using my T68i bluetooth phone. It works pretty well, but I think it's a shame I have to use this workaround...

    IMHO, apple should support local sync without .Mac.

    So for some, it might not be about money.

    Cheers.

    • Well, you might want to look up OpenDirectory and implement that if address sync interests you. Also you could do webdav calendar sharing as well without .mac

      The easy way to go would be mac OS X server but at $500 that's a bit pricey just to bring things in hosue for a few computers.
    • Example of somebody who would like to use .Mac, and can afford it, but doesn't. High end retail stores that can't expose their customer lists (shopping lists for criminals)
    • Right on.

      It's about independance. If Apple should ever decide to kill the .mac service, who do you turn to?

      What if you want to emulate the .mac goodness in your closed shop, and keep the traffic in the intranet?

      It's these little things that Apple needs to address. I'd love to use a .mac setup to replace our Lotus Domino servers, but that's because I'm the lone Machead in a company full of Microsoft certified types.

      Sigh...
      • Man, I wish I had some mod points for the parent comment.

        Saint Fnordius said:
        If Apple should ever decide to kill the .mac service, who do you turn to?

        What, like they killed off Hypercard (or HC 4.0 in QT), mklinux, Newton or OpenDoc? One of the things that pisses me off about Apple is that when they decide to kill off a project they make sure it's dead. Port hypercard to Carbon or release the source code: forget it.

        When the winds change and Steve Jobs decides to get out of the .Mac business you'll

    • Yup. My two biggest concerns about .Mac are security of my data (both in transit and in storage) and not wanting to bother syncing over the Internet if I'm already running a file server in my home.

      Perhaps they'll start offering AirPort base stations with hard drives in them...

      - Ert
  • Sorry, no solutions from me, but I wondered if anyone had a solution to a related problem. I keep a master diary and contacts list on my work PC (Win2K, Exchange) and sync either a Palm Tungsten. I want to over-write the diary and contacts on the Mac with the data from the handheld. Problem is that iSync doesn't allow you to do that - you can only over-write the handheld with the Mac data.

    I'm reluctant to simply delete all the data on the Mac as this will probably delete all or some of the contacts on the

    • Re:one-way sync (Score:2, Informative)

      by fluf ( 649368 )

      Sorry, no solutions from me, but I wondered if anyone had a solution to a related problem. I keep a master diary and contacts list on my work PC (Win2K, Exchange) and sync either a Palm Tungsten. I want to over-write the diary and contacts on the Mac with the data from the handheld. Problem is that iSync doesn't allow you to do that - you can only over-write the handheld with the Mac data.

      If I recall correctly, the first time I performed a sync between my computer and my T68i, I got a dialog box asking

      • However, I think your problem stems from the fact that you're using a Palm device with iSync

        Yes, that's the problem - it's been a couple of weeks and I'd forgotten the details

        I'm not sure either, but it'll most likely be in your user folder somewhere (duh ;) ). Either way, you can manually save and or export both your calendars and your contacts (as separate vcards) to use for backup, and even to use bluetooth file exchange to get them on the Palm. Maybe worth a try?

        Well, the Calendar data turns out

  • It's about the bandwidth (Score:4, Insightful)

    by benwaggoner ( 513209 ) <.ben.waggoner. .at. .microsoft.com.> on Thursday May 08, 2003 @06:47PM (#5915035) Homepage
    I've got .mac. It works fine for lots of stuff, but trying to do a backup over DSL is effectively impossible. And for a lot of corporate stuff, it makes more sense to do things inside the subnet rather than have them on a server out in the world.

    Personlly, I think they should add local .mac services into Mac OS X Server. It'd be a nice value add for workgroups, while still giving stand-alone consumers a reason to pay the big bugs.
    • They need to develope something along the lines of Exchange Server so any XServe can offer these types of .Mac Services to a local user group.

      I love iCal and Address book and would love to see my whole department using it. but I am not about to spend thousands of dollars to get a .Mac account for every individual.

      Apple needs to offer these services on their servers. This would make them much more attractive to small businesses. iCal needs some serious work before larger orgs will adopt but it is suffie
      • This would be a really good app for someone to make, given how well OS X integrates with .Mac. Someone could hook up XServes, and distribute the disk space evenly amongusers. Over a corporate lan, this would work seamlessly. Especialy, if you could have people with priveleges patch things, like adding important dates to the calendar, a unified database for sales rep, etc. Apple really should consider this.
  • I know this is a bit off topic, but I'm looking for a way to sync between Evolution Calendar on the Linux computer at work and iCal on a Powerbook at home, without having to buy a palm device. Does anyone have ideas how to do this?

    Thanks.

  • 1 word: iPod. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by naily ( 672109 ) on Friday May 09, 2003 @05:17AM (#5917337) Homepage
    Think of it as a read-only PDA, with massive storage, that happens to play excellent sound quality music. It's also easy to sync across multiple machines.

  • CVS (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jbrayton ( 589141 )

    CVS is a system specifically designed to (among many other things) keep text files in sync across multiple machines. It can handle binary files also, but not particularly well. If you have a system in which you can set up a CVS server (all the tools are built into Mac OS X + Development Tools) I recommend experimenting with that.

    The iCal calendar files are text files that could be synchronized. Note that I have *not* tested how well this would actually work with iCal.

    The Apple Address Book application

  • Contrary to what I state in my question, money is really not the driving force by any means. It's more about an alternative to what's out there. I generally don't charge myself the astronomical rates I charge everyone else to work on their computers, so for me it's just about doing something on my own. I could have my website hosted for less than $10 a month with e-mail and all sorts of stuff, and it would be cheaper than all of the money I've put into my own server, but where's the fun in that? Thanks for

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