Mac 101: Dealing without iCards

Apple has posted a nifty tip for Mail users who miss the discontinued iCards feature from .Mac: You can use Mail stationery to create an attractive card-like message with your own photos.

In a post on the Mobile Me blog (hey, it’s not dead!), Apple says “…it’s like the old Make Your Own iCards feature on steroids, and a whole lot easier to use in the bargain.”

For Leopard users, Mail comes with 30 email templates you can customize in lieu of sending an iCard. Personally, I think an email is better than an iCard anyway, what with all the greeting card spam that goes on.

You can use photos that you take with Photo Booth, for example, or pictures from iPhoto. Customize it with a clever note, and away you go.

If you don’t have Leopard or still want to use an online greeting card site, there are plenty to choose from.

(And if you like our series for beginners, Mac 101, there’s much more to learn.)

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Apple Admits MobileMe Snags, Gives Free 30 Days Membership Extension

Apple’s MobileMe service hit so many snags during its launch period that Apple have just issued an apology. Saying “The transition from .Mac to MobileMe was a lot rockier than we had hoped,” Apple’s apologizing with a 30-day membership extension for free to anyone who was a .Mac member with an active account as of July 9, 2008 and new MobileMe members who created accounts on or before July 15, 7:00 PM PDT. Details can be found on the Apple support page here. The email also apologizes for the controversy over the speediness of “push” services, and says that Apple’s not using the term until it really is “near-instant on PCs and Macs, too.”[Apple]
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MobileMe: A First look

We’ve all awaited the .Mac to MobileMe switch for a while now (some more than others). However, Apple’s 6 hour time table for upgrading to MobileMe turned awry and led into an almost 24 hour up, down, up, up, down cycle.

If you’re like most users experiencing the 24 outage, then you haven’t been able to login and experience MobileMe first hand. So why not take a look at our gallery? We’ve got pictures of the entire MobileMe suite of web applications and user preferences: from the login screen to storage partitioning.
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MobileMe now live, ready for you

Hello MobileMe, goodbye .Mac (and good riddance). Apple’s synchronization and web application solution for your Macs, PCs, iPod touch or iPhone is now live. Push eMail, push contacts, and push calendar and a new suite of web applications are now yours for the taking. You know, after you hand over $99 for the first year or $149 for a one-year family subscription.

P.S. Things are loading slowly at the moment as the service comes up.

Update: As noted in the comments, the site is now down for most people.

Update 2: It’s coming up again but it’s still flaky as hell. We’ve managed to get to our calendar, contacts, and settings but Mail is still a no, no.

Update 3: And… it’s down again. Nice going. [Thanks, Tim]

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MobileMe launch pushed back two hours

Yesterday, we noticed that the .Mac status page listed a MobileMe launch date and time of July 9th between 6 p.m. until 12 a.m. PT. Tonight, there seems to have been a change.

As of this writing, the .Mac status page says, “MobileMe Launch: 7/9/2008, 8pm-2am PT — As part of the MobileMe launch, www.mac.com will be taken offline at 8pm PT on Wednesday, July 9th.”

So, we’ve got to wait two more hours? Oh, no! Actually, we’d rather the folks at Apple take the time necessary to do things right. Oh, who are we kidding … we want MobileMe!

Stay tuned here for the latest information on this transition. Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

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