Chapter 18: Using .Mac Internet Services Suite


Overview

At the July 2002 MacWorld Expo in New York, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that the free suite of Mac-only Internet-based applications and services previously known as iTools would now be fee-based, and its name would be changed to .Mac (Pronounced “dot Mac”).

The .Mac services greatly expand on iTools, and have evolved into a remarkably powerful combination of software and services that help you easily store, share, and protect your files as well as communicate in text, voice, or video. As a result, the number of users willing to pay $99 for .Mac is steadily growing.

Mac OS X 10.2 was designed to work with the .Mac service, and provided a tab in the Internet System Preference pane to configure it. Mac OS X 10.3 integrates .Mac further, by now providing a separate .Mac System Preference pane, as well as including in its installation package several applications that can take advantage of .Mac services.

In this Chapter, you find out about the Internet services .Mac has to offer, including .Mac mail, iCards, and the HomePage service. We discuss the applications included with Mac OS X 10.3 that interoperate with each other and the .Mac service, but can also be used without it: Address Book, iCal, iChat AV, and iSync. You also explore the main utilities you can download as part of your .Mac membership: Backup, Slides Publisher, and Virex.

Figure 18-1 shows the .Mac welcome Web page.

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Figure 18-1: Apple’s .Mac welcome page. (Web page courtesy of Apple Computer, Inc.)




Mac OS X Bible, Panther Edition
Mac OS X Bible, Panther Edition
ISBN: 0764543997
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 290

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