dot mac vs Google (and friends)

For the past several years I have used dot mac for email, bookmark syncing, calendar syncing, address book syncing, web-hosting, backup (local and online), and personal file transfers. Instead of trying to cut the cord to dot mac all at once when my account finally comes up for renewal 1x days from now I thought I would see if I could actually replace all the web-services provided with dot mac with free-alternatives.

Personal File Transfer

Right now I use my iDisk space to transfer important files from home and work. Although the iDisk suffers from slow transfers, occasional syncing problems, and limited capacity it has gotten the job done for me, and allows me the flexibility of having access to key files on any internet enabled computer.

However, due to the limited storage of iDisk over the past year I have begun to depend more and more on direct SSH access to my home machine from work for file transfers. Thus iDisk will not be sorely missed. Perhaps I will even pick-up a USB keychain, which are super cheap now and offer larger capacities and faster transfer rates than dot mac's iDisk.

Backup

Unix tools, BASH scripts and launchd. Backup really is a solved problems these days. Although I'll miss the pretty GUI of Backup 3.0, I will not be missing any of it's functionality. Besides Mac OS X Leopard will be here soon enough and then I'll be using Time Machine.

Web-hosting

Last year I moved away from dot mac and onto Blogger. This move was instigated by Apple's complete lack of interest in making a decent blogging platform for dot mac users. Thus my iDisk hosting space has been mostly used as a storage location for old-sites and media files.

To replace these features I am going to take a multi-pronged approach. For general hosting I am going to use the webspace my ISP provides me. In other cases I am going to use Google video for hosting videos and Flickr / Blogger (Google) for photos. I have already gone through several of my old blog posts and replaced any links to photos with Blogger hosted versions.

Recently I have not been posting as many photos online as I used to. If I find that my photo-posting habit picks up again, I'll sign up for a full-fledged Flickr account for $24.95 a year.

Bookmark Syncing

Bookmark syncing with dot mac has been giving me a lot of pain lately. A lot. It's annoying when a paid service doesn't work like it is supposed to. To replace bookmark syncing I will be using Firefox and Google's Browser Syncing extension. Which is offered for free, and seems to work fine.

Calendar Syncing

Google calendar. For the amount I use iCal, Google Calendar is totally fine.

Email / Address Book Syncing

This was huge for me. I love having dot mac's IMAP email. It let's me keep all of my email online, so it's accessible from any computer on the internet, while also being able to access my email from the luscious GUI of Mail.app.

The obvious alternative? Google's Gmail. Gmail offers more space than dot mac (2.7 GB) versus (1 GB Max), but I was still reticent to start using my Gmail account full time.

In the past I have loathed web mail clients. Even dot mac's web mail interface is hideous to work with. But I thought I'd give Gmail a real honest attempt, and what I have found is the best email system I have ever had the pleasure of using. With labels (user-specified meta-data), robust filters, Google search (blows Spotlight away), keyboard shortcuts, and a clean, responsive interface Gmail stands up and in some cases exceeds Mail.app. Gmail certainly is not as pretty as Mail.app, but it's just as functional and in some cases more-so.

For example, after using Gmail for the past week or so I have really gotten to love the way Gmail organizes email threads, and archives mail in an intelligent manner. In the era of Google search and meta-data do email folders make sense? I think not.

Gmail also allows users to send emails that look like they have originated from another account, so that I can manage all my email with Gmail and still trick people into thinking that I am responding from my UVic account when managing school related messages. On-top of that Google has enabled POP3 access to Gmail so I can also make local backups of all my received and sent messages. That means that even if Gmail goes away one day, my email will continue to stay with me.

Perhaps that is not important to some people, but I do enjoy strolling through past messages to friends and family from time to time. Some of the things I write are extremely important to me and I would hate to lose that.

Gmail also includes an online address book, so I'm covered there as well.

Conclusion

It turns out that the paid-services offered through dot mac can be easily replaced with free-services from Google and a little technical savvy. It was fun dot-mac but pretty GUIs and Apple's polish alone, is not worth $160 a year.