PostCage (premiere recording of dharmachakramudra)
rangzen quartet recording of mf
ImprovFriday CD (includes virtual music 2)
wither my iDisk?
From the WWDC keynote today, there was a lot of detail about iCloud. It’s nice that it’s free. And great that it expands a lot of the current functionality of MobileMe. But not so great that, at least from the information presented, one is limited to 5 GB and there is no Web server functionality. Maybe this will change in the fall, when iCloud is released. But as I currently have a 20 GB iDisk, which uses nearly 8 GB for my documents and Web site files, it’s clear that I will have to start thinking about migrating to another Web server. Per Apple’s support document, they are granting continued use of my existing MobileMe account until June 30, 2012. But then, it is all gone. Unless there is something else that wasn’t mentioned today at WWDC, one will not be able to serve Web sites via iCloud.
Presumably, there will be a mechanism by the Fall to migrate up to 5 GB of files + mail (I have 2.2 GB of .mac e-mail) to iCloud. But I am likely to simply purchase a domain and hopefully redirect http://homepage.mac.com/dtoub/dbtmusic.html to that new location. Not the end of the world. But it’s another important lesson. I remember when Steve killed the “free for life” iTools in favor of .mac at $99/year. This was followed by the $99/year MobileMe, which finally wasn’t half bad. Now Steve has killed MobileMe in favor of the free, but lower capacity iCloud. Who knows what will get killed off next time around.
Steve Layton, 
Paul Muller 4:47 pm on Monday, June 6, 2011, 4:47 pm Permalink
FWIW, about a month ago I registered a domain name through WordPress and restyled my site to look something like a netlabel. I even figured out how to make my Bandcamp site a subdomain and I now have a gmail account that also uses the same domain. So everything is consistent – the WordPress template, the Bandcamp download area and email addresses – they all look like they belong to the same site. Plus, I can add other artists at some point, with their own email and webpages. Total cost was $17 – add in the $20/year I have been paying for WordPress to host up to 5 GB of MP3 and pdf files and it is still just $37 annually. I’ve got my music on my laptop, of course, and I back up regularly to a USB hard drive. But worse case, all my finished stuff is in the cloud on WordPress and I have had zero issues with their reliability in over 2 years.
If you are looking for alternatives to your present setup, look further into WordPress. Best value out there as far as I can see…
Tom 5:27 pm on Monday, June 6, 2011, 5:27 pm Permalink
Small point, but at no time did Apple ever say iTools was ‘free for life’.
dtoub 5:30 pm on Monday, June 6, 2011, 5:30 pm Permalink
Thanks Paul. I’m waiting until iCloud comes out this fall to sort it all out.
Tom, I knew someone would call me on that. I’m quite aware of what Steve really said, but he said it in a way that the perception out there was clearly that iTools would be “free for life.” Parsing his words, one could come to a different conclusion, but at the time, we all thought he meant it.
Michael 8:56 am on Tuesday, June 7, 2011, 8:56 am Permalink
There are many of us concerned about our iWeb sites. Losing ‘homepage’ was disappointing as was iTools. But I for one would be happy to pay extra to keep my iWeb site where it is with its current address..especially as I am an educator and many of my published documents cite my iWeb created Site in my biodata.
Steve Layton 10:50 am on Tuesday, June 7, 2011, 10:50 am Permalink
Like I’ve told everyone for quite a while now, #1 buy a domain name! It’s super cheap now, it’s yours for ‘life’ (i.e., as long as you pay the renewal), it follows you no matter where you’re hosted, and all your page & file links and your email will never change even when if & when you shift webhosts. Which is #2, sign on to a large, reputable webhost. For also super cheap, you can have hundreds of GBs, tons of bandwidth and lots of options for whatever tools you’d like to incorporate. If you’re like Paul, it’s totally simple to install & use something like WordPress to create and format your own site, all the while keeping it flexible but organized and tidy up top. It keeps you in control, and keeps your online presence stable year after year.
dtoub 3:42 pm on Tuesday, June 7, 2011, 3:42 pm Permalink
Well sure, but for now, I’m watching to see what Apple does to accommodate the large number of us who have come to rely on our iDisks for serving our sites AND hosting files that we can, when desired, share with others, even from an iPhone. What was nice about all this is it was a single solution-nice to store files and back things up, well-integrated with numerous apps (even Quicken 2007), and serve Web sites if desired. I use WordPress for this blog, of course, which works well, but would move to my own domain and site if and when Apple makes it clear this fall whether or not we can migrate our many gigs of documents from our iDisk to an iCloud-based solution. I have a year, so at least I have some time. Thanks for some great suggestions!