web page? .mac?

[emilyf]

I've been thinking of setting up a webpage to share photos and video with family and friends. I was thinking of signing up for a .mac account for this purpose (I have an ibook) but conventional wisdom seems to be that they are a ripoff-I probably wouldn't use it for email. Is there somewhere else to make a webpage this easily? Anyone have a .mac account?
Emily
mom to Charlie and Zoe

[caheinz]

I have .mac, and use enough of it that I don't find it to be a ripoff at all.

First off, keep an eye on smalldog.com. They sell the boxed version for as low as $70 or $80, and that's good for either a new account or a renewal. (So you don't ever have to pay the full price.)

I use the email address as a home address. One nice touch: aliases. I have one that I use for shopping. If it gets overrun with spam, I can delete it, but keep my main account, losing the spam without changing email addresses.

I use the backup program that it comes with. Backs up my hard drive to an external drive (good thing -- my powerbook is in the shop right now, and it's nice to know that I have a backup just in case). And, with .mac, it backs up all of my personal settings (bookmarks, contacts, calendar) to .mac daily. Again, even if my hard drive is toast (I don't know what went wrong yet), all I have to do is connect to the internet and all my personal settings are restored.

I love homepage -- I use it for photo albums. Takes me minutes to set up a nice looking page of pictures. Yeah, I could use GoLive to do it, but it would take more than a few minutes. I also use it to host my avatars, and any pictures I post. Easy peasy... and I have full control over the pics.

There are also other freebies that come along from time to time. Games, software, training, etc.

The ease of use is worth some money to me. A backup program would cost at least $40-50. The web space and email account are completely ad-free, not true with most free sites. Worth every penny to me...

[ilovetivo]

The Apple Store online has it on sale today only (maybe in the store too) for $69

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/7200201/wo/Dm1OX5eWGOac2N0rym6y7AAVhHy/0.SLID?mco=B07714CF&nclm=OneDaySavings

We use for all the things the pp said...and DH and I have separate calendars on our computers, but w/ .mac we can sych them together so we can see each other's calendars (you just mark dh stuff w/ 1 color and yours w/ anothers, dc's w/ another etc.

If you want to see our web page, let me now and I'll email you the link. We did pics, film clips of dd and my pregnancy too.

[emilyf]

Thanks to both of you-I saw the sale it's what got me thinking about it again. I think I'll do it-it seems like the backups are worth it and I need a webpage that is EASY or I won't do it-
Emily mom of Charlie born 11/02 and Zoe born 9/05