Burn Folder Tip of the Day
This tip is only for those of use who use Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, *roar*. Normally when you want to burn a CD or a DVD you stick it in your disc drive/cup holder and you pop it in and you can just drag some files to it. What you might not realize is what is happening in the background is that it makes a whole extra copy of that black disc on your computer. So say you're burning a DVD, that means it takes up 4.5GB on your hard drive (this is a hidden disc image). So as you are copying everything to the disc, you are really copying everything to your hidden disc image on your hard drive. Then when you are ready to finely burn the disc, it copies that disc image over to the physical plastic disc you stuck in there. As you know, that works, and as you can imagine its not the most efficient way to do stuff since you're really just making copies of all that junk (which takes time and space).
But now, in Tiger there is a better way. This really comes in handy if you don't exactly have 4.5GB of free space on your hard drive, which can be really frustrating when you are trying to archive stuff off your hard drive to make more room for your stuff. Kind of a catch 22, rock and a hard place situation. In comes burn folders to save the day. Go to the "File" menu and select "New Burn Folder". It's pretty much awesome. What that does is make a folder with a little "burn" icon on it. Now one thing to keep in mind is that folders hardly take up any room on your computer, including a burn folder. So that's good. When you drag files to that folder it will automatically make an alias to your original file. Alias, like folders hardly take up any room, now they do take up about twice as much room as a folder, but they are still like under 4KB which is practically nothing. Now a folder full of alias could could freak you out, because you don't want a CD just full of aliases, but Tiger is smarter than that. When you finally click "Burn" it then starts to copy all of your files, yes, the files that those alias point to, directly to the DVD or CD skipping the hidden disc image middle man. The other beauty of a burn folder is that you can make one and keep adding stuff to it over time, you don't even have to have a disc in the drive. Now you can finally listen to that Céline Dion CD you found in the piles of Katrina trash while you are backing of your hard drive.
But now, in Tiger there is a better way. This really comes in handy if you don't exactly have 4.5GB of free space on your hard drive, which can be really frustrating when you are trying to archive stuff off your hard drive to make more room for your stuff. Kind of a catch 22, rock and a hard place situation. In comes burn folders to save the day. Go to the "File" menu and select "New Burn Folder". It's pretty much awesome. What that does is make a folder with a little "burn" icon on it. Now one thing to keep in mind is that folders hardly take up any room on your computer, including a burn folder. So that's good. When you drag files to that folder it will automatically make an alias to your original file. Alias, like folders hardly take up any room, now they do take up about twice as much room as a folder, but they are still like under 4KB which is practically nothing. Now a folder full of alias could could freak you out, because you don't want a CD just full of aliases, but Tiger is smarter than that. When you finally click "Burn" it then starts to copy all of your files, yes, the files that those alias point to, directly to the DVD or CD skipping the hidden disc image middle man. The other beauty of a burn folder is that you can make one and keep adding stuff to it over time, you don't even have to have a disc in the drive. Now you can finally listen to that Céline Dion CD you found in the piles of Katrina trash while you are backing of your hard drive.
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