Just last week Apple rolled out their MobileMe service, which takes the place of their .Mac service. MobileMe is Exchange for those of us without Exchange server. MobileMe introduces "push" email, calendar, and contacts between your computer (doesn't have to be a Mac, works with PCs also!) and your mobile iPhone device.
Apple also introduced a brand new AJAX interface for the web based version of MobileMe. You can drag and drop, do "live updates" and more with your email, calendar, and contacts. You can also have multiple calendars. You may want a calendar for your business, one for personal, and seperate calendars for other aspects of your life. One click allows you to enable or disable each calendar - and each seperate calendar can have it's own color, which makes it easy to seperate your calendar entries.
So what is "push technology"?
Traditional email works by fetching mail (pull). Periodically your email client will connect to the mail server and download any new messages or changes. Calendar and contact entries are usually not replicated to the server. The only exception is with Microsoft Exchange - which is an expensive solution which, like most Microsoft products, can be very buggy and require a lot of time to manage it.
So, in comes MobileMe which allows us "ordinary folk" to have Exchange like email - but without all of the buggy software and overhead to manage it. Push technology is built in to the iPhone 2.0 firmware as well as Mac Leopard (added through a patch from Software Update), there is nothing else to install. However, for your Windows PC you'll need to download and install a small application which will handle the push functionality.
SCREENSHOTS
When using MobileMe, your contacts, mail, and calendar are always the same no matter which device you are using - your PC, Mac, iPhone, or webmail! If you update or add a new contact in one place, it will automatically "push" out to the other devices - almost instantly! If you read an email on your iPhone, it will update the other locations to show that the email has been read... no more having to mark emails read in seperate locations or re-reading emails.
How does this help my business?
It should be abundantly clear! Being up to date in all locations is more productive! You can be anywhere and make changes which will update all locations - it cuts down on work. It also allows you to have access to all of your data no matter where you are at.
Aliases
Not everyone may be aware of the "aliases" function of MobileMe, but once you learn about it, you will be using it! MobileMe allows you to setup aliases, which are simply additional email addresses which deliver mail into your normal inbox. Here is an example: your main account is
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
, you can setup a alias with the address of
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
- when you browse online and register for different sites, use your alias. If you start receiving spam emails, you simply delete the alias, and your main account is not touched and is safe from the spammers!
iDisk
Storage space online! This space can be used for anything, such as uploading files which you can allow customers to download, etc. But the most important use should be to back up your data! You can backup important files and documents to your iDisk, and rest easy knowing you have a backup. Your iDisk storage can be mounted as a drive in Windows and on your Mac, so you can browse and open documents directly from iDisk!
So - go get it!
The cost is $99.00 per year for one account and 20gb of storage, which is nothing for the features you are receiving. There is also a Family Pack which allows up to 5 accounts and 40gb of storage for $149.00. With the Family Pack, you can give MobileMe to your entire family or up to five of your employees! For more information, or to signup for MobileMe - go to http://www.me.com today! Be sure to check out the MobileMe Gallery, which we didn't cover here, but you will surely be impressed with!
I heard they had a rough start but everything is working now. I've used the service and just having everything in one place is worth the money! No matter where I go I can login and get access to contacts and calendar, not to mention my mail. Thanks for the article!
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