To become a genius, take advantage of the Apple MobileMe services to expand your MacBook to encompass (literally) the Internet. With MobileMe, you aren't just an Internet consumer; the Internet becomes an extension of your MacBook's desktop. A MobileMe account provides a number of great features that I think you'll find indispensable: iDisk, data synchronization, and email, for example. In order to access these features, you need to have a MobileMe account, which you can easily and inexpensively obtain and configure on your MacBook in just a few minutes.
Obtaining a MobileMe Account
Working with iDisks
Synchronizing Data
Using MobileMe Web Applications
To use MobileMe, you must have a MobileMe account. A MobileMe account includes, by default, 20GB of storage space on Apple servers, an email account, space for online galleries of your photos, and more. You can also purchase a family account that provides several user accounts under a single MobileMe account (for distinct email addresses and iDisks). At the time of this writing, the cost of an individual MobileMe account is $99 per year, while the cost of a family account is $149 per year. You can also upgrade accounts by adding disk space.
Note
The disk space included with a MobileMe account is used for two purposes: iDisk and email storage space. The total space included with a MobileMe account is the total space for both kinds of data; you can choose how this space is allocated.
To get your MobileMe account, perform the following steps:
Open the System Preferences application.
Click the MobileMe icon. The MobileMe pane appears (see figure 5.1).
Click Learn More. Your Web browser opens and moves to the MobileMe Web site.
Click Free Trial. The first page of a two-step form appears.
Fill out the information on this page.
Click Continue.
In a similar way, complete the second page of the form. The information you must provide includes a credit or debit card, but your card is not charged until the trial period ends or you choose to convert the free trial account into a full (paid) account. When your account is created, the Welcome to MobileMe screen appears and provides information that you need to use your MobileMe account, namely your member name and password.
Note
All free trial accounts are individual accounts. To create a family account, you must convert your trial account into a paid account (this happens automatically when the trial period ends unless you cancel your account) and then upgrade from the individual account to a family account.
After you have a MobileMe account, configure its information in the System Preferences application so that you can automatically access your iDisk from the desktop and so the MobileMe email account is configured in the Mail application for you.
Open the System Preferences application.
Click the MobileMe icon.
Type your member name.
Type your password.
Click Sign In. Your account information is configured on your MacBook and you can access MobileMe services from your desktop (see figure 5.2).
In addition to working with MobileMe on your MacBook, you have access to your own MobileMe Web site that provides Web applications for email, contacts, calendars, iDisk access and file sharing, and photo and video sharing that you can use through a Web browser on any computer; the supported browsers are Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer (Windows PCs only).
You also manage your MobileMe account from your Web site. For example, you might want to convert a trial account to be a full account or you might upgrade your disk space. To log in to your Web site and manage your account or use one of the MobileMe Web applications, follow these steps:
Open a supported Web browser and move to
www.me.com.Type your member name and password.
If you are using a secure computer, select the Keep me logged in for two weeks check box. This keeps you logged in to your MobileMe Web site for a period of up to two weeks, even if you move away from the Web site or stop and then restart your Web browser.
Click Log In. Your Web site opens. In the toolbar at the top of the window, you see the buttons you click to access the various applications, which are (from left to right) Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Gallery, iDisk, and Account Settings (see figure 5.3). The active application is marked with an upward-facing triangle and you see its tools in the lower part of the browser window.
Click the Account Settings button.
Type your MobileMe password and click Continue. You are prompted to provide your password any time you access your account settings. (Also, unlike the other MobileMe Web applications, you are logged out of MobileMe when the Application Settings application is open but there is no activity for a period of 15 minutes.) You move to the Account Settings Web page. The Summary page shows information about your account, such as its type, your email address, and how much disk space you have. Along the left side of the window are tabs you use to configure different aspects of your account (see figure 5.4).
To make changes in any of these areas, click the appropriate tab, make the changes on the resulting Web form, and click Save. The changes you make take effect immediately.
An iDisk provides you with disk space on the MobileMe servers that you access over the Internet. An iDisk is a great way to store files because you can easily access the same files from multiple computers, such as from your MacBook and from an iMac. You can also easily share files on your iDisk and even provide a place for people to store files they want to share with you. Finally, because your iDisk is stored remotely, it's a great way to protect critical files because even if something really bad happens to your MacBook, the files continue to be available on your iDisk. Your iDisk is remote so it works a bit differently than the hard drive in your MacBook or an external hard drive to which the MacBook is connected, but the tools you need to work with it are built in to Mac OS X. You can also access your iDisk through the iDisk application in your MobileMe Web site.
Note
If you have an iPhone or iPod touch, you can install the iDisk application on it. Using this application, you can access your iDisk from your iPhone to view files, share them, and so on.
There are two basic modes for an iDisk: unsynced or synced.
In the unsynced mode, you access the iDisk online, meaning that any files you move to or from the iDisk move across the Internet immediately. The benefit of this approach is that the iDisk doesn't take up any space on your MacBook's hard drive. The downside is that you have to be connected to the Internet to be able to access the iDisk, so if you are someplace where net access isn't available, you can't get to the files on your iDisk. If you want to store files there, you have to wait until you can connect and then manually move the files to the iDisk.
In the synced mode, a local copy of the iDisk resides on your MacBook's desktop. You move files to and from this local copy of the iDisk; the files aren't actually moved onto the online iDisk until it is synced with the local version (this can be done manually or automatically). This approach has a couple of benefits. One is that you can access the iDisk at any time because the local copy is always available. Another is that the speed of the iDisk is much faster because you are really just using your MacBook's hard drive instead of working over the Internet (the sync process takes place in the background so it doesn't interfere with your other tasks). The downside of this approach is that you also have to store all the files on the iDisk on your MacBook's hard drive. If you have plenty of hard drive space, this isn't a problem, but if you have a lot of large files on your iDisk and the space on your MacBook's hard drive is limited, you might not have enough space to have a local copy.
Your iDisk includes a Public folder, which is great for sharing files with other people. In addition to choosing the mode for your iDisk, you need to configure how the Public folder on your iDisk can be accessed. You can determine if other people can only read (copy) files from your Public folder or if they can read files from and write files to the Public folder. You can also determine if a password is needed to be able to access your Public folder.
You configure and manage your iDisk from the MobileMe pane of the System Preferences application as the following steps demonstrate:
Open the MobileMe pane of the System Preferences application.
Click the iDisk tab. At the top of the pane, you see a gauge showing how much of your iDisk space you are currently using; the green part of the bar represents the space being used. Immediately under the gauge, you see the total size of the iDisk, how much is being used, and how much is available (see figure 5.5).
If you want people who access your iDisk to be able to store files in your Public folder, select the Allow others to write files in your public folder check box.
Warning
You should protect your Public folder with a password, especially if you allow others to write files to the disk. If you don't require a password and allow others to store files there, anyone who stumbles across your iDisk can store files there. That's not a good idea for a number of reasons, the most obvious of which is that you are paying for the space and want to keep control of the files posted there.
To put a password on your Public folder, select the Password-protect your public folder check box. The Password sheet appears.
Type a password for the folder in the Password and Confirm fields. Passwords must be between six and eight characters long and can't be the same as the password for your MobileMe account.
Click OK.
To use your iDisk in the synced mode, click Start in the iDisk Sync section of the pane; if you don't want to sync your iDisk, skip the rest of these steps. When you start the sync, a copy of your iDisk is made on your MacBook's hard drive.
If you want the sync process to happen automatically, choose Automatically on the Update pop-up menu; if you want to manually sync the iDisk, choose Manually.
To always have the most recent version of a file synced, select the Always keep the most recent version of a file check box. When your online and local iDisks are synced, selecting this option ensures that the newest version of a file is the one that is synced. If you don't select this option and the same file has more than one version, you're prompted to choose the version to keep. Your iDisk is ready to use.
Note
If the usage gauge shows that your iDisk is full or getting close to being full, move to the iDisk and delete files from it to free up more space. However, make sure you don't delete files that you use on your Web sites because removing files might have consequences you didn't intend. If you can't find files to remove and the disk is full, click Upgrade Storage on the Account Settings page to add more space to your iDisk.
Working with an iDisk is similar to using the hard drive in your MacBook. You can open it in any of the following ways:
Open a Finder window and click iDisk in the DEVICES section of the sidebar.
On the Finder's menu bar, choose Go
Press Shift+
When you open your iDisk, you see its contents in the resulting Finder window, as shown in figure 5.6. These include a set of default folders similar to those in your Home folder, such as Documents, Movies, and Music. Like your Home folder, you can create new folders, move files around, create new files, and so on. In this respect, using an iDisk is just like using your MacBook's hard drive.
If you use the iDisk in the unsynced mode, files you copy to or from the iDisk move across the Internet. This can take some time, so don't expect the kind of response you get from your hard drive. If files are large, you see the Copy progress window on the screen when the file is moving to or from the iDisk; copying works in the background so you can just ignore the window. When the process is complete, the Copy window closes.
Note
The first time you sync an iDisk can take a long time, especially when large amounts of data are on the disk. Subsequent syncs are much faster because only files that have changed are involved. During the sync process, the Sync button rotates, and if the iDisk is selected, you see progress information in the status bar at the bottom of the Finder window.
If you use the iDisk in the synced mode, you see the Sync button next to its icon on the sidebar; you also see the time and date of the last synchronization at the bottom of the Finder window. To manually sync the disk, click the Sync button. Files on the local version are copied to the online version and vice versa until the two versions are duplicates of each other. If you selected the Automatic option, Mac OS X takes care of this for you, but you can manually sync the disks at any time by clicking the Sync button. Because with either option the files you work with are actually stored on your MacBook's hard drive, the speed when using your iDisk is the same as using your hard drive. The sync process happens in the background so you won't even notice it.
One of the best things about an iDisk is that you can use it to share files with people over the Internet. There are three ways to do this: using the iDisk Web application, using your Public folder, and sharing your entire iDisk.
When you share files with someone with the iDisk Web application, the application emails a link to the person with whom you are sharing the file. When the person receives the email, she can click the link to download the file you are sharing. So you can take care of notifying the recipient at the same time that you share the file.
Note
Most email systems have a file attachment size limit, usually 5 or 10MB. Using your iDisk to share files avoids this limitation because the emails people receive contain only a link to the files instead of the files themselves (as an attachment to email would).
To share files with someone via the iDisk Web application, perform the following steps:
Place the file you want to share in the Public folder on your iDisk via either of the following options:
Note
To share more than one file at a time, compress them on the desktop by selecting the files, opening the contextual menu, and choosing the Compress X Items command, where X is the number of files you selected. Then move the resulting ZIP file to your Public folder to share it.
Open your iDisk's Public folder on your desktop and place the file you want to share in it. If your iDisk is set to manually sync, sync the iDisk (which moves the file from your MacBook's hard drive onto your iDisk on your MobileMe Web site).
Log in to your MobileMe Web site and click the iDisk application button (the iDisk icon) to the left of the Account Settings button (see figure 5.7). Select the Public folder on the left pane of the window. Click the Upload button (the upward-facing arrow on the left side of the iDisk toolbar in the top center of the window). Using the resulting Uploads dialog box, click Choose, move to and select the file you want to store in your Public folder, and click Select. The file is uploaded. When the process is complete, click Done.
Log in to your MobileMe Web site and click the iDisk application button.
Select the Public folder.
Select the file you want to share.
Click the Share File button.
In the resulting dialog box, type the email address in the top box; type multiple addresses separated by commas to share the file with more than one person at a time.
Note
If the person with whom you are sharing the file has contact information stored in your MobileMe Web site's Contacts application (more on this later), the application tries to fill in the email address as you type it.
Type a message that is sent along with the file in the lower box.
To set an expiration date on the file (after which the link you send no longer works), select the Link expires after check box, type a number, and choose days, weeks, or months on the pop-up menu. (By default, sharing expires automatically after 30 days.)
If you want to require the recipient to provide a password to download the file, select the Password-protect file check box and type the required password in the box.
Click Share (see figure 5.8). An email containing a link to the shared file and your message is sent to the recipient.
If you protected the file with a password in Step 9, provide the required password to the recipient.
As you learned earlier, the Public folder on your iDisk is also available on the Web; it can also be accessed directly from another Mac's desktop so someone can move files from or to your iDisk to share them. This method of file sharing has the benefit of not requiring a person to click a link for each file because he can open the Public folder and work with the files it contains. It is easier to work with and share multiple files because you are sharing a folder of files instead of sharing files individually.
To get started, place the files you want to share in the Public folder on your iDisk via either of the options described in Step 1 of the previous task.
People with whom you want to share the files can access them in either of the following ways:
Using a Web browser to access the files. The person moves to
public.me.com/membername, where membername is your MobileMe member name. Your Public folder's Web page appears; if you set your Public folder to require a password, the visitor must provide "public" as the username and the password you created for your Public folder and then click OK to access the folder. The contents of the Public folder are shown (see figure 5.9). The visitor can download files by clicking their download buttons. If you configured your Public folder to allow visitors to upload files, the user can click the Upload button and then upload files to your folder. This is a great way to share files with others because anyone with a Web browser using any kind of computer can access the files you share.The person with whom you are sharing files uses a Mac. He can mount your Public folder on his desktop and then access it from there as he would a folder stored on his computer. To so do, he chooses Go
Figure 5.10. Here's the same Public folder as in figure 5.9, but now it is mounted on a Mac's desktop.
You can also share your entire iDisk with someone who uses a Mac. This enables that person to work with your iDisk as easily as you can.
Warning
When you provide access to your iDisk through this method, you must provide the person with whom you are sharing it your member name and password. This means the person has access to your iDisk and all the other resources your MobileMe account provides, including email, calendars, and so on. You should not share your MobileMe account with anyone unless you are positive that person can be trusted with your information.
The person to whom you want to grant access to your iDisk chooses Go
Figure 5.11. When you mount another person's iDisk on your computer, it is labeled with the person's member name.
Note
A better way to share an entire iDisk is to upgrade your MobileMe account to a Family Pack. Then create a Family Member account and share that account's iDisk with the group of people you want to be able to access the same iDisk. This shields your primary MobileMe account while allowing you to share all the functionality an iDisk offers for sharing files. See my book MobileMe for Small Business Portable Genius (Wiley, 2009) for the details of using MobileMe with groups of people.
One of the biggest benefits of MobileMe is that it provides you with a central, accessible location to store information known as the MobileMe cloud. When you store information in this cloud, it is accessible from anywhere via the Internet. This means you can keep various kinds of information synchronized between your MacBook and other devices, such as Macs, Windows PCs, iPhones, and iPod touches, which is very useful. For example, when you add a contact on your iPhone, that contact is automatically copied to the MobileMe cloud. Through the synchronization process, it is also copied to your Address Book on your MacBook.
The basic idea is that the MobileMe cloud becomes the single source where you store data, which can be accessed by multiple devices at the same time. You can also access the information stored in the MobileMe cloud directly through the applications on your MobileMe Web site (more on these later). The synchronization process ensures that each device has access to the same information.
The information you can keep in sync includes the following:
Bookmarks
Calendars
Contacts
Dashboard widgets
Dock items
Keychains
Mail accounts
Mail rules, signatures, and Smart Mailboxes
Notes
Preferences
In addition to selecting the kind of information you want to sync, you can also choose the direction in which information is synced, such as from MobileMe to a computer, from a computer to MobileMe, or in both directions. To configure synchronization, perform the following steps:
Open the MobileMe pane of the System Preferences application and click the Sync tab (see figure 5.12).
Select the Synchronize with MobileMe check box.
On the pop-up menu, choose how you want syncs to occur. Choose Manually to sync manually or choose a time, such as Every Hour, to sync at those times, or Automatically to have syncs performed automatically when data in either location changes.
Select the check box next to each kind of data you want to include in the sync.
Click Sync Now. The information you selected is copied onto MobileMe. If some of the information already exists, you see an alert.
On the resulting dialog box's pop-up menu, choose how you want data to be synced. For example, if you want the data on MobileMe to be merged with the information on your MacBook, choose Merge Information. Or you can choose to replace data on MobileMe with the computer's data or replace the data on the computer with MobileMe's data.
Click Sync. The sync process begins. As changes are made to data, you're notified about what's being done.
Click the Sync button to allow the sync to continue.
Repeat Step 8 at each prompt; you may have to do this several times. When the process is complete, you see the time and date of the last sync at the bottom of the Sync tab.
You can repeat these steps on multiple Macs to synchronize all of them to the same set of data. You can also synchronize data with Windows PCs using the MobileMe control panel and iPhone/iPod touches. (Note that not all the data you can include in a MobileMe sync on a Mac can be synced with Windows PCs or iPhone/iPod touches.)
Note
Using the MobileMe synchronization works great for data, but doesn't do anything for documents. However, your iDisk enables you to keep documents on different computers in sync. On each computer, set up your iDisk so that it is synced automatically and so it keeps the latest version of your documents. Store the documents you want to keep in sync on your iDisk. As you make changes to a document, those changes are saved to the iDisk. Because you access the same iDisk and its documents from any Mac, you can easily make sure you are using the same version of the document no matter which computer you use.
Along with the MobileMe cloud, you've seen that your MobileMe account includes a Web site that provides applications you can use to access the information stored in your cloud. You also learned how you can use the iDisk Web application to store, organize, and share files. In this section, you find an overview of the other Web applications, along with some specific tasks to show you how useful these applications can be.
Your MobileMe account includes a full-featured email account that you can use with Mac OS X's Mail or other email application. Your MobileMe email address is [email protected], where membername is your MobileMe member name. Using your MobileMe email with an email application is great, and you'll learn some tricks for the Mail application in Chapter 8. However, your MobileMe email is also easily accessible through the Mail application on your MobileMe Web site, which is great because that means you can work with your email from any computer with Internet access and a supported Web browser (including Windows computers).
Using the MobileMe Mail application is similar to using an email application, especially Mac OS X's Mail application, on a computer. Log in to your MobileMe Web site and click the Mail button. If you have used other email applications, you'll have no problem using the MobileMe Mail application (see figure 5.13).
Figure 5.13. MobileMe's Mail application is similar to Mail on the Mac except you can access it through a Web browser.
While the basics of using MobileMe Web email are pretty straightforward, there are a lot of ways to customize how it works for you using the not-so-obvious preferences. Check them out:
Open the Action pop-up menu (the gear icon) and choose Preferences. The Preferences window opens (see figure 5.14).
Configure the following settings on the General tab:
Appearance. These options enable you to determine the appearance of the Mail page, including the number of panes used and whether all folders are shown when you log in.
Mailboxes. Use these check boxes and pop-up menus to determine how sent and deleted messages are stored. If you want to conserve the space used to store email, deselect the Move deleted messages to check box; when you delete messages, they are removed from your account immediately so that they don't consume disk space.
Junk Mail. You can use the junk mail filter to try to cut back on the amount of spam you have to deal with.
Configure the following settings on the Composing tab:
Composing. If you want the original message to be quoted when you reply, which is always a good idea, select the Quote original message when replying check box. The other important option is to enable spell-checking by selecting the Check spelling before message is sent check box and then choosing the default dictionary you want to use.
Identity. Here you can type the name you want to be shown in the From field on email you send; the default is the name you typed for your MobileMe account. To use a signature, select the Add signature to your mail check box and type the signature you want to use in the text box.
Configure the following settings on the Viewing tab:
Inbox and Folders. Choose how many messages you want to be shown per page and what kind of previews you want to see for each message in the Inbox (Short, Long, or No); if you choose No, you only see the message subjects.
Message Contents. Determine how HTML email is handled and whether long or short headers are shown at the top of messages.
Skip over the Aliases tab for now; you'll learn about that shortly.
Configure the following settings on the Other tab:
External Account. If you have another email account that uses POP (Post Office Protocol, and no, I didn't make that up) and you want to be able to check email from that account using the MobileMe Mail application, select the Check mail from an external POP account check box and type the account's information in the resulting boxes. You can only add one account to the Mail application.
Forwarding. Use these options to forward your MobileMe email. Select the Forward my email to another email account check box and type the address to which you want email forwarded. Select the middle check box if you want to keep forwarded messages in your MobileMe email Inbox. Use the bottom check box and text box to set up an automated reply to an email you receive.
Click Save. The changes take effect immediately.
Note
The Preferences dialog box is sized based on the size of the Web browser window; the Save button is at the very bottom of the dialog box. If you don't see the Save button, make the browser window larger until you do see it.
Email aliases are a great tool in the fight against spam or as a way to create custom email addresses. You can create aliases that point to your real MobileMe email address. When you shop, participate in forums, or do other activity, provide one of your alias addresses. If that address gets spammed, you can simply delete it and create another one. Or, you might want to create an email address for a specific purpose (such as being able to receive email from long-dead historical figures for a book you are writing). For example, if you are writing a book called MacBook Portable Genius, you can create an alias [email protected] to show your preference in computers.
Creating email aliases is easy:
Note
You have to be using a full (paid-for) MobileMe account to be able to create aliases.
Click the Aliases tab of the Mail Preferences window.
Click Add New Alias. The alias creation tools appear.
Type the alias, which is everything before the "@" in the email address. The alias must be between 3 and 20 characters and can't have unusual symbols. If you try to use something you can't, you see an error message explaining the problem.
Type the name you want to appear in the From field when you send email using this alias.
Choose the color used to indicate email sent to this alias.
Click Create. The email alias is checked. If it meets the requirements and is not being used already, it is created (see figure 5.15). If not, you have to change it until it does meet the rules and is not being used.
Repeat Steps 1 through 6 until you've created all your aliases. You can have up to five aliases.
Click Save.
Note
Use the Active check box to turn aliases off or on. When active, email sent to the alias is delivered to it. When inactive, email sent to the alias bounces. If you receive some spam at an alias that you don't want to delete, disable it to stop the spam. When you want to use it, make it active and then disable it again when you're done with it.
You can provide an email alias just like you provided your real email address, such as when you are making a purchase or registering on a forum.
You can also send email using the alias:
Create a new email message as usual.
On the Account pop-up menu, choose the alias that you want the message to be from (see figure 5.16).
Complete and send the message. The alias is associated with the message so if the recipient replies to it, the reply is sent to the alias.
The MobileMe Contacts application enables you to access your contacts via a Web browser. This application is similar to using Mac OS X's Address Book application. Contacts appear in groups in the far-left pane (All shows all the contacts you have). When you select a group, you see the contacts it contains in the center pane. You can search for contacts using the Search bar at the top of the window or browse your contacts using the groups. When you select a contact in the center pane, its details appear in the right pane of the window (see figure 5.17).
Figure 5.17. Using the MobileMe Contacts application enables you to access your contact information via the Web.
When a contact's details are in blue, you can click them to take the related action. When you click an email address, a new message is created and addressed to that contact. If you click a URL, a new browser window opens and takes you to that address.
Note
In any of the MobileMe applications, if you can't see all the information on the screen, click the browser window's Maximize button. Scroll bars appear so you can scroll the entire window's contents.
Use the Calendar application to view your own calendars along with those to which you've subscribed in iCal (see Chapter 16). Like other calendar applications, you can view your information by day, week, or month. If you open the Action pop-up menu and choose Show To Dos, you can also track your tasks.
The Gallery enables you to post photos and movies online where they can be viewed via a Web browser. The Gallery application enables you to post photos and create albums for them and to manage the albums you post. You can access your Gallery Web site by clicking its URL, which is shown at the top of the window when you select the Gallery application.
The Gallery is designed to work with iPhoto so that you can easily post your iPhoto photos and albums with a couple of mouse-clicks. In most cases, you won't need to use the Gallery application directly via your MobileMe Web site because iPhoto's tools are more powerful and you have direct access to your photos there. Still, you can use the MobileMe Gallery application to make tweaks to your posted photo sites when you don't have access to your iPhoto application.
Note
For detailed information about using iPhoto with MobileMe, see iPhoto '09 Portable Genius (Wiley, 2009).
While it isn't a specific application, you can use MobileMe to host a Web site that you create with iWeb or other applications. iWeb is designed to work seamlessly with MobileMe so that you can publish and maintain your Web sites easily and quickly.
The URL for your default Web site is: http://web.me.com/membername, where membername is your MobileMe member name. This is pretty good, but if you register your own domain name, you can publish your Web site under your personal domain instead. Here's how:
Move to the Accounts Settings application by logging in to your MobileMe account, clicking the Accounts button, and typing your password.
Click the Personal Domain option.
Click Add Domain.
Type your personal domain in both fields.
Click Continue. Your account is updated to use your personal domain.
Click Done. In the personal domain window, you see the domain you typed.
After you configure your personal domain, it can take a few hours before it becomes active. When it does, visitors can move to your MobileMe Web site by typing your personal domain URL instead of the default MobileMe domain.