Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I wrote a review for the 3.5 version of .Mac here on Amazon discussing alternatives to the service. Many of my complaints are still valid: the service is unacceptably slow and the online feaures are rather weak. Rather than rehash those points, below is a revised chart for how to replace .Mac for free (in most cases): Webmail/Email: Gmail. You'll gain address autocomplete, cell phone access, among other features. Plus, you can still have offline copies in Mac OS X Mail by using POP access (tip 1: set up a rule in Mac Mail to mark every message as read and use the Gmail online interface, or go POP-only if you prefer the desktop client; tip 2: try the Gmail Notifier program for handier integration of Gmail on your Mac.) Free. Picture Sharing: Kodak EasyShare Gallery. The free Cocoa Kodak EasyShare program allows you to import photos from your digital camera, edit and organize them, and upload them to web for sharing with family and friends (no need to upgrade iPhoto as part of iLife every year for $70). Online albums can sync automatically with your Mac. Free (buying prints costs extra). Calendar sharing: iCalX. This service is very easy to set up, and you don't need a special utility to use it with iCal. Also, you can have password-protected private calendars with iCalX unlike with .Mac. Free. (Google Calendar might also be an option for you.) Sync: Plaxo works very well for address book synchronization (and it works with Thunderbird as well as the Mac OS X Address Book). You might also want to consider Del.icio.us for online bookmarks. Both Free. Groups: There are many: Yahoo! Groups, Google Groups, Writeboard, Blogger... All Free. Photocasting/Blogging (iWeb): Both are available easy-to-use and pretty at Blogger. Or, try the new Google Pages service. Both Free. RapidWeaver is a simple program for making websites. Mac OS X has built-in web hosting capability, you could try DynDNS (free) for hosting web pages on your own computer. Backup (to disk): Silverkeeper by LaCie. Free. (Also see iDisk alternatives below for online backup options.) iDisk: If you still need online storage you may want to invest in a hosting company that offers sFTP access. I recommend Yummy FTP as a great FTP client for Mac. Or, you can use Transmit by Panic and Automator actions (for Mac OS 10.4) for online file operations (Yummy FTP can also do automated sync). Alternatively, your internet service provider might already inlcude webspace with your account. Finally, Google is rumored to soon offer a Gdrive online file storage service as part of Gmail.