18.6. .Mac Services In January 2000, Apple CEO

18.6. .Mac Services In January 2000, Apple CEO Steve Jobs explained to the Macworld Expo crowds that he and his team had had a mighty brainstorm: Apple controls both ends of the connection between a Mac and the Apple Web site. As a result
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18.6. .Mac Services In January 2000, Apple CEO 18.6. .Mac ServicesIn January 2000, Apple CEO Steve Jobs explained to the Macworld Expo crowds that heand his team had had a mighty brainstorm: Apple controls both ends of the connectionbetween a Mac and the Apple Web site. As a result, Apple should be able to create somepretty clever Internet-based features as a reward to loyal Mac fans. Later that same day,the Apple Web site offered a suite of free services called iTools. POWER USERS CLINIC Internet Sharing as a Bridge Ordinarily, only one Mac has Internet Sharing turned on: the one thats connected directly to the Internet. But sometimes, you might want another Mac downstream to have it on, too. Thats when you want to bridge two networks. Consider the setup shown here: There are really two networks: one that uses AirPort, and another con-nected to an Ethernet hub. If you play your cards right, all of these Macs can get online simultaneously, using a single Internet connection. Set up the gateway Mac so that its an AirPort base station, exactly as described on these pages. Start setting up the bridge Mac the way youd set up the other AirPort Macs— with AirPort selected as the primary connection method, and Using DHCP turned on in the Network panel. Then visit the bridge Macs Sharing panel. Turn on Internet Sharing here, too, but this time select To computers using: Built-in Ethernet. The bridge Mac is now on both networks. It uses the AirPort connection as a bridge to the gateway Mac and the Internet—and its Ethernet connection to share that happiness with the wired Macs in its own neighborhood.Then the technology bubble burst.These days, .Mac subscriptions (as theyre now called) cost $100 per year. For a fulldescription, see Figure 18-10. Figure 18-10. The .Mac features appear as buttons on the .Mac Web site. For example, iCards are attractively designed electronic greeting cards that you can send by email. Backup is a basic backup program that you can download from thissite. Webmail, HomePage, an antivirus program, and features that synchronize youriCal and iSync data with other computers are the other secondtier features. The best feature, however, is iDisk.18.6.1. Signing Up for .MacOpen System Preferences and click the .Mac icon. Click Learn More. You now goonline,where your Web browser has opened up to the.Macsign-upscreen.Fill in yourname and address, make up an account name and password, turn off the checkbox thatinvites you to get junk mail, and so on.The final step is to return to the .Mac pane of System Preferences. Fill in the accountname and password you just composed, if necessary. Youre ready to use .Mac.18.6.2. iDiskThe iDisk is an Internet-based hard-drive icon on your desktop, holding up to 10gigabytes of files. (Your .Mac account comes with 10 gigabytes of storage. In youraccount settings at www.mac.com, you can decide how to divide up that storage betweenyour iDisk and the other .Mac stuff, like mail and your Web sites. And, of course, youcan pay more money for more storage.)Anything you drag into the folders inside this iDisk icon gets copied to Apples secureservers on the Internet. Meanwhile, on your end, it appears to work just like a harddrive.In other words, iDisk can be a handy pseudo-hard drive. When youre saving a documentfrom within a program, you can save it directly onto your iDisk. And becausethis backup disk is offsite, if a fire or thief destroys your office and your backup disks,your iDisk is still safe.Furthermore,you can pull the iDisk onto any computers screen—MacorWindows—atyour office, at your home, at your friends house, so you dont need to carry around aphysical disk to transport important files.18.6.2.1. Pulling it onto your screenApple must really love the iDisk concept, because it has devised about 300 different waysto pull the iDisk icon onto your screen (Figure 18-11): • Choose Go iDisk My iDisk (or press Shift- -I). • Click the iDisk icon in the Sidebar (ofa Finder window or a Save or Open dialog box). • Choose Go Connect to Server. At the bottom of the resulting dialog box, type http://idisk.mac.com/casey(substitute your actual account name for casey). Press Enter. Type your .Mac name and password, if necessary, and then click Connect. (This is the quickest approach if youre using somebody elses Mac.) Figure 18-11. Choose GoGo iDiskGo My iDisk (top) or click the iDisk icon in your Sidebar. When the iDisk finally appears (bottom right), double- click it—and wait—to see its contents (bottom left). Note that you cant create your own folders on this special disk; you must drag ...