iLife '04: The Missing Manual

The .Mac Slideshow

iPhoto 4 also gives you perhaps the weirdest and wildest way to share your photos online—and on your network: publish them as a .Mac slideshow.

When you send your photos out into the world as .Mac slides, other Mac OS X users can subscribe to your show, displaying your pictures as their screen saver—without having to manually download any files or launch a Web browser. (They do, of course, need an Internet connection.) In a minute or so, your latest photos can appear as full-screen slides on the Macintosh of a friend, family member, co-worker, or anyone else who knows your .Mac membership name.

Note

Creating and viewing a .Mac slideshow requires Mac OS X 10.2 or later.

Note, too, that if your aim is to turn your photos into a screen saver only on your Mac (and not make them available to the world at large), you don’t need a .Mac account, and you don’t need to follow the steps below. Instead, use the Desktop button (page 226). It’s quicker and cheaper, and it doesn’t require an Internet connection.

Creating a .Mac slideshow

Before any other Mac users can connect to your slideshow pictures, you have to make them available via your .Mac account. (If you don’t have a .Mac account, you’ll be prompted to sign up for one when you attempt to use the .Mac feature. See page 57.) Here are the steps for publishing your slideshow:

1. In iPhoto, select the photos you want to make available as screen saver slides.

   If you don’t select any specific photos, iPhoto creates your .Mac ...