[Macpartners] alternatives to MobileMe ???

[Felix Kreisel]

MobileMe, a useful product you will hate. Here is the reason:

No phone support. Web support does not work. Their server sends you  
the password, but it does not let you see both the account name and  
the password. I don't know my account name, and I tried different  
possibilities, which did not work.

So now, I have two months to go on my subscription, but the service is  
not accessible. There is nobody to complain to. I tried complaining  
two years ago, and spent time futilely on the phone, and even at the  
Apple store.

I have signed up for .Mac three years ago, got frustrated with it and  
tried to live without it, then decided to cave in to Apple and  
restored it. In the three years I probably spent 10 hours on the phone  
and the Web trying to get help or to get it to work. I even went to  
see the "geniuses" at the Apple store, but they have nothing to do  
with MobileMe.

Here is the last straw:

This morning, I noticed that my laptop login Keychain was messed up:  
it could not find items, which were clearly in it.
I decided to erase it and sync it with my desktop Keychain, which  
worked fine. Just to make sure, I logged into MobileMe on my desktop  
to check that I could access my account. Then, I synced from my  
desktop to the "cloud".

So, I erase the login Keychain, and try to sync from the MobileMe  
"cloud" to my laptop. Cannot log in. Check my preferences, try again.  
Try to log into my MobileMe account, and now I cannot. I tried  
requesting a new password, and was sent it, but it did not work. Maybe  
I have the wrong account? What is my account? I ask the web, and still  
cannot get an answer.

I went around and around trying to get out of this Catch 22.

So, now I am trying to find ways to sync without MobileMe. Here is a  
way to sync your login Keychain: just copy the ~/Library/Keychains/

I have not found out how to sync the iCal data yet, so if someone  
knows, please help. Ideally, I want a little program that lets you  
copy the necessary files to a flash disk, then from the flash disk to  
the other Mac, then erase these files on the flash disk for security.  
Can a genius write such a program?

Pretty please with sugar on top.

Felix

On Aug 5, 2010, at 3:05 PM, Joanne W Larrabee wrote:

> Hi, Felix:
>
> Can you say a little more about ways in which MobileMe has been  
> frustrating? It may save some time for others (like me) who've  
> considered taking it for a spin.
>
> Joanne Larrabee
>

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