.mac backup?

I am a little sad (yes, sad) by all the things that happened in the forums today.

This may come out as a little stupid and kid-dish, but one of the things that make me wear "I LOVE MAC and NOT MACDONALD'S, STUPID" T-shirt with pride is that since the first day I got my 6100, is that the Mac community is something I am very proud of. From anywhere in the world, Mac users tend to unite and stick together like some minority race being bullied all the time.

Now, I see bans, mod challenging, etc in Mac forums... it just makes me sad. I am an admin in a gaming server (PC dominated) and I only see these things happening there and therefore I am used to these bashing and challenges, but seeing happening in a Mac forums, that is heart breaking...

Thanks Ed, for cleaning shop.

And I am glad to have met a few nice peeps who quickly correct me when I got my information wrong, update me on things or merely make me laugh... thanks everyone.

And allowing me to the Ronald MACintosh here... ha ha ha....

Back to the topic : I am disappointed with this lame attempt from Apple for the "backup services" but another part of me thinks that this service might be helpful for those newbies who have just switched to Apple. To me, back up is part of a library style system which I have developed and get used to. I don't think I want to spend more money on something that I don't really need.
 
This may come out as a little stupid and kid-dish, but one of the things that make me wear "I LOVE MAC and NOT MACDONALD'S, STUPID" T-shirt with pride is that since the first day I got my 6100, is that the Mac community is something I am very proud of
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[wipes tear from eye] I'm with you brother!

I also don't know what's been going on here lately. When I started posting here, nothing like that ever happened. Well it'll all go back to normal soon enough, I guess we're just going through a bad spot of trolling.
 
Plastic -
I agree with you on your views of the mac community. Seems with all this "switching", we've gained some not-so-cool members, who are used to the type of forums you mention. Ah well. We still have a strong community.

The folks who cause trouble usually have a short attention span, meaning tomorrow they'll be on another board talking trash. Usually, once we stop honoring them with a response, they get bored and go away.

And back on track - I've posted a link to this thread in the programming forum. Hopefully we'll be able to get this thing going! I'd also love to get a real open source team together, to produce other os x apps as well, so if anyone has ideas of something they'd like to see, let it be known!

Snowball - I'll email you if that's ok. I'm looking around sourceforge to see what it takes to start a project. I'll let you know.

j5
 
Let me just point out a couple things:

1. You're not paying $99 dollars for a backup program. You're paying for bandwidth (which ain't cheap), you're paying for the new webmail interface, you're paying for anti-virus software, and you're paying for limited remote backup.

2. I want one service that provides you with a less than $99 way to backup 30 gigs of stuff (mp3s, pr0n, whatever) to a remote server? That's right, it doesn't exists, because it would cost a ton of money. Plus, it's not just every month you send 30 gigs of info (how long would that take to upload?), but everytime you access your iDisk account to view a backup and upload new data. I need backup for important documents, and this program fits the bill perfectly. It doesn't work for you, so use something else. Heck, macs only work for 5% of the population anyway, right? I guess that fits into their pattern of being a nieche market.

3. If you're unhappy with .Mac, don't buy it. There's plenty of free email accounts and freeware/shareware/backup solutions. It's not that hard, really. It just seems this whole thread is bash .Mac thread. If its too expensive, don't pay for it and let the market take care of it.

4. Let me re-emphaisze: bandwidth is not free. In fact, as of late, bandwidth costs have been going up - its a decision of economics, as it was no longer possible to provide online storage for free to so many users. If you don't agree, don't use it.

5. .Mac is a network service and backing up to local media doesn't really fit well into that paradigm, so that can partially explain why that isn't included in .Mac.

Just my thoughts.

I could help work on such a backup utility if you like, I have 2 years of Cocoa experience.

Matt Fahrenbacher
 
I guess in some ways we were looking at the average cost for a student. This is why the basing starts because $99 for an average student from an average family seems like an awful lot of money, given the unemployment rate and family income has been reduced because of the slowing economy. In Asia, the situation is even much worse as compared to America. So I guess this is how the bashing began. Apple might want to look at special packages that is more affordable for students or modify their marketing strategy. That would help lots and win hearts back.
 
I think that's part of the reason why the dropped the price to $49 (at least for this year). People complained and the market took care of the situation. I believe they will be integrating more technologies into it in the future, like iCal and whatever big thing is next. No, think about this one:

$99/year = $8.25 a month. That less than most IPs charge you for a 56k modem connection per month. Add in that there's plenty of people that will be connecting to the their .Mac account over broundband, and suddenly $8.25 a month isn't too bad. Really, that's just one hour of work for me (I make $8.40 an hour), and at worst two hours of work at atny other college job. If you really want a .Mac account, I really can't see it as being such an economic hinderance.

I'm a college student too, but this $8.25 a month is a lot less than what I'm paying off my iBook loan per month and what I'll have to be paying my student loans with.

Oh, and one more thing - if all you want is an email account, just find like 4 other people on campus that want one and buy one .Mac account. I'm pretty sure it supports up to 5 email accounts. $8.25/5 = $1.65 per month, or about the cost of a bag of chips and a 20 iz drink.

Matt Fahrenbacher
 
To be honest.. I don't want a .mac account. I'm not a student either. My complaint is that something like "backup" should have been a part of Jaguar. The ability to backup to an idisk would be a feature of .mac. The money isn't the issue, it's the fact that you never finish paying for it (vs paying off your ibook loan). Backup is the first thing I've seen in .mac that I want, but I don't see why I'd need an internet service to burn cd's, other than pure economics.

I got the sourceforge approval for "opendotmac" today. It sais it will take a few days for the dns to get going. I'll put up the list of features I've started once the dns's are working.

j5
 
They don't burn CDs, they just keep a duplicate of your info on their servers in Cupertino or where-ever. Not all backup has to be on CDs or other types of removeable media.

Lots of other things aren't ever paid off, like utilities, property tax, food, etc. The fact that you keep using Apple's resources (aka bandwidth) justifies a monthly fee. They don't charge me forever for my iBook because if I keep using it, it won't cost Apple a dime more.

There's nothing wrong with providing a backup alternative that fits your needs better than what apple is providing, but I sense way too much venom in this discusision. Apple can't make everyone happy, and when they try, they end up with Watson-esque fiascos. Should people be outraged if Apple incorporates an idea that other third party developers have been working on for some time? They're screwed no matter what they do.

You can argue that it probably would have been a good idea to include, but I think I could argue successfully that more people are going to use the anti-virus feature of .Mac than any backup feature we're talking about. That's not to say it isn't a good idea, just it wasn't a priority. And what ever whole apple leaves open, the market place should rush to fill, like you're attempting to do.

Matt Fahrenbacher
 
Originally posted by Ghoser777
They don't burn CDs, they just keep a duplicate of your info on their servers in Cupertino or where-ever. Not all backup has to be on CDs or other types of removeable media.
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Nobody ever said that Apple would burn CDs for you. But what they did say is that if you want to burn your own Backup CDs and DVDs with your own CD/DVD burner, why should you need to be connected to the internet and paying for an internet service package?

Of course, I can't answer that question, so I would like to see a third party Backup style application.
 
I thought that was what J5 was getting at, but I guess not. Anyway, .Mac is an internet service, so its no suprise that the backup feature built into .Mac is an internet service.

So, this idea that apple bundling an internet backup solution with an internet package is somehow a bad thing is beyond me. Should they have made one that lets you do local backups? Sure. Oh well. Maybe they should make a defragger to, and every other application that a third party makes right now. There's no reason why they have to implement every solution possible, they just need to provide several attractive ones. And I'm sorry, backup to CDs isn't probably making everyone all giddish when they buy a new mac. iMovie and other digital hub apps will. That's where there priorities are.

Plus, does everyone realize there are already a couple back up apps for OS X? Search on vt and u'll find several, such as:

Synchronize Pro
Dantz Retrospect
FoldersSynchronizer
and many more

So if you want a free solution, that's fine. I'm just trying to calm people down - this isn't a huge Apple blunder by any means.
 
Ghoser -
I'm having trouble seeing where you're misreading my posts. My point is not that .mac is a bad idea. My point is that I probably won't use it. I'm not as excited about the "digital hub" as Apple's target market of consumers and new internet users. My machines typically see 80% work, and 30% play (yep.. they're giving 110% :))

But I feel like Apple is turning their backs on the people that have kept them alive in the past. Namely the graphic design and audio/video production industries. Both industries already have their share of highly expensive 3rd party software. Being able to save them the cost of a robust backup tool may have sold a few more dp g4's.

Apple has produced a killer backup solution that would have most likely made these folks giddy about, had it not been part of .mac but an integral part of the os. Obviously, I believe backing up to an idisk should be part of .mac, but I don't see the point in needing an internet connection to backup to cd, tape, or whatever your choice of backup media may be. It doesn't make sense except when looked at from a marketing stand-point. They are about making money, as is any company that has lasted as long as they have. I can't hate them for that, but I don't have a problem offering up some competition to persuade them to increase the value of their services. Again.. had backup been a part of the jaguar release, Apple would have made alot of it's long time users happier. At least I wouldn't be complaining in such a public place.

Another point (which may be unique to this one shop)....the last graphic design house I worked at had a couple macs in the basement. They were used strictly for scanning and output. They were purposely not connected to the internet due to the fact that they were manned at night by part-time students and a few interns. Nothing against students/interns, but we found that they were much more productive if they didn't have internet access. But at the same time, with the size/volume of images and print jobs, these machines were backed up much more frequently than the design machines.

Ok.. this post is getting long! Ghoser - you mentioned a few post back that you wouldn't mind helping out on this app. My mail is posted here somewhere, drop me an email and I'll send you the latest list of proposed features if you're still interested.

J5
 
Okay, at this point we're just arguing over whether or not we thing bundling software for backup is really important for OS X. I take one position, you take another, but we'll just call it an argumentative draw.... for now ;)

I'll email you about the app once I find your email address.

Matt Fahrenbacher
 
Look at this image:

member_stagebot2.gif


Hehe, it's an image I get when I login to my .Mac account - I guess it does have an application that lets you backup to DVDs, CDs, OR iDisk. I'm downloading it as we speak... we can still do the project, but it looks like Apple has already made it (al biet for a bundled cost).

That's way too funny. :)

Matt Fahrenbacher
 
Originally posted by Ghoser777
I guess it does have an application that lets you backup to DVDs, CDs, OR iDisk.
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Yes, but I think his point is that you must be connected to the internet to use that feature(CDs or DVDs).
 
Hehe --
Devonferns - that's exactly my point. That and I still don't see it being worth $99 per year to me, as this is so far the only feature in .mac that I want.

Ghoser - sounds good! Glad to see your still interested!

J5
 
I certainly didn't pay $100 dollars for the backup tool. Plus it doesn't stop you from backing up to CD, just download something else. I don't understand your rant. Backing up to iDisk is plain silly. Even with broad-band it would be slow. If you want a backup tool (free) then download SilverKeeper, lets you do incremental backups to any media. The backup tool is only version 1.0 hence why it is so crap. I do backup the occasional file to iDisk, but that just involves dragging and dropping (simple heh!).

I paid so I can host my web-site. Plus before you complain about .mac charges, visit http://wwww.networksolutions.com and see how much they charge for a SINGLE web-page. Plus every additional feature contains a price-tag.

You pay god-knows how many thousands of dollars on a computer and then start complaining over pea-nuts.
regards
John.
 
Well, you don't need an internet connection, accept for downloading the software itself (which for most programs requires an internet connection now a days).

You don't have to be connected to the internet at the time your backing up either. I bet non-.Mac users could us the program too... I'm not sure if it authenticates against .Mac accept for when you download or you want to backup to your iDisk, but I'm not sure about that.

Oh well, we'll start our project anyway
Matt Fahrenbacher
 
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