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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Tiger Feature of the Day: Burn Folders

On Friday, April 29, 2005, Apple Computer will unveil its latest operating system, Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger." Apple trumpets the "200 innovative new features" in Tiger, but while writing my Tiger review for the SuperSite for Windows, I found that only two of them--Spotlight and Dashboard--were major. That doesn't mean the other new features aren't worth discussing, however. So today, here's my first "Tiger Feature of the Day," Burn Folders.

A Burn Folder is a special Finder folder (like a Smart Folder) that contains shortcuts to files or folders you might regularly burn to CD or DVD. I call it a special folder because it doesn't actually contain files and folders. Instead, it contains shortcuts (or aliases, in Mac-speak) to files and folders that exist elsewhere on the Mac.

There are two ways to create a Burn Folder. First, you can switch to the Finder, choose File, and then New Burn Folder. This will create a new Burn Folder directly on your desktop, which is the most obvious place to store such a folder. If you'd like to create a Burn Folder elsewhere in your system, navigate to that location with the Finder, right-click an empty area of the current window, and select New Burn Folder.

Once the Burn Folder is created, you can drag and drop files (including applications and documents and other data files) and folders to it normally. An alias will appear in the folder, representing each file and folder you will eventually burn to disk.

To burn the contents of a Burn Folder to disk, right-click the Burn Folder and choose Burn Disk. Or, open the Burn Folder and click the handy Burn button. If a blank CD or DVD is not inserted into your Mac's Super Drive, a dialog will appear, alerting you to how much space you need on the backup media.

If you delete a Burn Folder, the files to which it points are not deleted. Only the Burn Folder is deleted.

Though handy, Burn Folders isn't perfect. When you open the Burn Folder, there is nothing indicating how much disk space the current contents will require when backed up. And unlike with Windows XP, there is no Send To menu (or equivalent) in Tiger, so you can't just right-click on a file, folder, or group of files and folders, right-click, and choose Send To Burn Folder. Instead, you have to manually ensure that the Burn Folder is visible on the desktop, or available in another open folder. Or, as one reader points out, you can use the Expose F11 key command to reveal the desktop and copy from there.

Hey, it's a 1.0 feature. I'm sure Burn Folders will improve over time. In the meantime, it works fine as-is and is a welcome addition to Mac OS X.

[ Posted at 9:23 PM | Permalink ]