| Your first steps to start using .Mac are to obtain a .Mac account and then configure your Mac to access that account. The following sections give you a quick overview of these steps; however, if you already have a .Mac account, you can skip to the section titled "Working with Your .Mac Email Account." Obtaining a .Mac Account Before you can access .Mac services, you need to obtain a .Mac account. At press time, the cost of a .Mac account was $99.95 per year. However, you can obtain and use a trial .Mac account that provides access to most of the .Mac services free for 60 days. Obtaining a .Mac account is pretty straightforward. When you installed Mac OS X, you were prompted to enter your existing .Mac account information or to create a .Mac account. If you entered your .Mac account information or created a .Mac account at that time, you are all set and can skip to the next section. To obtain a .Mac account manually, do the following: 1. | Open the System Preferences application and click the .Mac icon to open the .Mac pane.
| 2. | Open the Account tab and click the Learn More button. Your default web browser will open and you will move to the .Mac home page (see Figure 17.1).
Figure 17.1. The .Mac website enables you to obtain a .Mac account and to use .Mac services. 
TIP You can also move to the .Mac website by going to www.apple.com and clicking the .Mac tab. | 3. | Click the Join Now button.
| 4. | Follow the onscreen instructions to create your .Mac account. You will have to provide personal information and accept a license agreement. As part of the process, you create a member name and password for your account. You can choose to create a free trial account, or you can pay for a full account. If you create a full account, you must provide payment information, such as a credit card.
One step in the process is to create your .Mac member name. You should put some thought into this step. The member name you choose will be part of your .Mac email address (which will be membername@mac.com), and it will also be part of the URL to your .Mac website. Typically, you should choose some variation of your name so people can remember your email address and URL and can easily associate both with you. Your member name has to be at least 3 characters long and can't be longer than 20 characters. Again, you should keep your member name fairly short to make it easier for other people to work with.
When you have successfully created an account, you will see a page that displays your member name, password, email address, and email server information. You should print this page so you will have the information if you need to retrieve it at a later time.
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Configuring Your .Mac Account After you have obtained a .Mac account, you configure Mac OS X to access its services: 1. | Open the Account tab of the .Mac pane of the System Preferences application.
| 2. | Enter your .Mac member name and password in the pane.
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By completing these simple steps, your Mac will be able to access your .Mac account automatically. NOTE Each user account on your Mac can have its own .Mac account. The settings in the .Mac pane of the System Preferences application of one account do not affect the other accounts. The steps to work with other .Mac accounts are exactly the same as those to work with the first one you create.
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