11.2. Burning CDs and DVDs
Who misses the floppy drive anymore? A blank CD holds at least 450 times as many
files, and a blank DVD holds about 3,250 times as many!
You can buy blank CDs incredibly cheaply in bulk—$20for100discs, for example—via
the Web. (To find the best prices, visit www.shopper.com
or www.buy.com and search
for blank CD-R.) Blank DVDs are only slightly more expensive—about $30 for 100.
Burning a CD or DVD is great for backing stuff up, transferring stuff to another computer
(even a Windows PC), mailing to somebody, or offloading (archiving) older files to free
up hard drive space.
You can burn a disc in either of two ways: with the blank disc inserted or without.
11.2.1. Burn Folders: Without the Disc
The burn folder is a special folder that you fill up by dragging file and folder icons to it.
Then, when you're ready to burn, you just insert the blank disc and go.
UP TO SPEED
Mac OS Extended Formatting
Whether you use Disk Utility to erase a disk (or when you first install Mac OS
X and elect to erase the hard drive in the process), you'll be confronted with a
choice between formatting options called Mac OS Extended and UNIX File
System (UFS). (Depending on the kind of disk, you may also see an option to
create a DOS-formatted disk for use in Windows machines.)
Mac OS Extended or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) refers to the HFS Plus
filing system, a disk format that has been proudly maximizing disk space for
Mac fans since Mac OS 8.1. (For a definition of journaling, see Section A.6.)
Mac OS X still accepts disks that were prepared using the older, Mac OS
Standard formatting—the ancient HFS (hierarchical filing system) format—but
you can't use one as your startup disk, and any file names longer than 31
characters will appear chopped-off.
As for the UNIX File System option, it's exclusively for use on computers that
run Unix (the pure variety, not the dressed-up version that is Mac OS X).


).
2. Rename it.
Its name is highlighted, so you can just start typing to rename it. Press Enter when
you're finished.
3. Load up the folder by dragging files and folders onto it.
If you double-click the burn folder to open its window (Figure 11-3), you'll notice
that you're not actually copying huge files. You're simply making a list of aliases.

Tip: To check how many megabytes' worth of stuff you've added so far—so you
don't overflow your CD or DVD—click the Burn button in the upper-right corner
of the burn folder's window. The resulting message, shown at bottom in Figure 11-
3, tells you the current total. (Hit the Enter key, or click Cancel, to close the dialog
box.)

4. Decorate the window, if you like.
You can choose list view or icon view; you can drag the icons into an arrangement
that you like; you can change the background color of the window; and so on. One
nice feature of the Mac (which is not available on The Other OS) is that the look
of a window is preserved when you burn it to CD.
5. Click the Burn button in the upper-right corner of the window, or choose File
Burn Disc.
Figure 11-3. Top: A burn folder looks like any ordinary folder—except that it
has that radioactive logo on it. You can drag files and folders right into its
window; Mac OS X displays only aliases for now, but when you burn the disc,
the actual files and folders will be there.
If you open the burn folder, you find an unusual strip across the top. Its most
important feature is the Burn button at the right.
Bottom: Ready to proceed, Captain.

6. Insert a blank disc.

If you choose Open Finder, you'll see the disc's icon appear on the desktop after a
moment; its icon also appears in the Sidebar, complete with a round Burn symbol that
looks like a radioactivity logo.
At this point, you can begin dragging files and folders onto the disc's icon, or (if you
double-click the icon) into its window. You can add, remove, reorganize, and rename the
files on it just as you would in any standard Finder window. All you're really doing is
dragging aliases around; the real files are left untouched on your hard drive. You can also
rename the CD or DVD itself just as you would a file or folder (Section 2.2
).

Tip: The status bar at the bottom of the window gives you a running tally of the disk
space you've filled up so far. (It may say, for example, "223.2 MB of 702.8 used on
disc.") At last, you have an effortless way to exploit the blank disc's capacity with
precision.

When the disk contains the files and folders you want to immortalize, do one of these
things:
•
Choose File Burn Disc.
•
Click the Burn button next to the disc's name in the Sidebar.
•
Drag the disc's icon toward the Trash icon in the Dock. As soon as you begin to
drag, the Trash icon turns into that yellow fallout-shelter logo. Drop the disc's icon
onto it.
(For some reason, the Burn Disc command no longer appears in the shortcut menu when
you Control-click or right-click the disc's icon—at least not in 10.5.1.)
In any case, the dialog box shown at bottom left in Figure 11-4
now appears. Click Burn.
When the recording process is over, you'll have yourself a DVD or CD that works in any