When I bought my Macbook Pro last April of this year, I was prompted to make a MobileME account. It was at first a trial account and as months went by, I already forgot all about it. Then just this month I was surprised to see a Dhs 385 charged in my credit card bill from Apple. It turned out that my trial account already expired and I was automatically charged for a regular account. I was so furious of myself that I forgot about it. Now, I am again richer in debt and I thought what the heck would I do about this extra, unnecessary online account?

The only advantage I can see with this account is that I can use the emerging technology called Cloud Computing. It is a style of computing in which IT-related capabilities are provided as a service, allowing users to access technology-enabled services from the Internet (“in the cloud”) without knowledge of, expertise with, or control over the technology infrastructure that supports them. Aside from MobileME, another example of this service is Google Apps, which provides common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.

Now, let’s go back to MobileME. For everybody’s information, it is a service that helps keep all of your information in an online server, or “cloud.” So no matter where you go or what device you use, everything is in sync. And you can manage it all from anywhere using web applications at me.com. MobileMe stores all your email, contacts, and calendars in the cloud and sends updates instantly to your iPhone or iPod touch. New mail arrives right away on your iPhone. Changes you make to contacts and calendars at Me.com are updated on your device in seconds, and vice versa. So you’ll always have the latest information in your pocket and on the web. Since MobileMe syncs everything over the air, there’s no dock required. MobileMe works with the native applications you already use on your iPhone and iPod touch (Mail, Contacts, and Calendar), on your Mac (Mail, Address Book, and iCal), and on your PC (Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, and Windows Contacts). MobileMe automatically syncs your Mac and PC applications with Me.com every 15 minutes. Or you can sync on demand with a click.

The account also allows you to have access at Me.com. At Me.com, you can check your email, change your calendar, and edit your contacts. You can also share photos and documents. Accessible anywhere, me.com is an ad-free suite of web applications — Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Gallery, and iDisk that are elegant and easy to use. You can drag and drop, click and drag, use keyboard shortcuts, and even switch between applications with a single click. Me.com is such a great web experience, it seems as though you’re using desktop software.

As good as the technology may sounded, it’s already a bit redundant actually. I already have 3 hosting packages for the 3 domain names that I own and I also have a Pro account at Flickr.com. The only nice thing about MobileME is the syncing of all the information that I always need. I already have an iPhone and a Macbook, and now syncing is now a breeze. I’ll play around it for awhile and I’ll try to write something about my experiences as I go about it.