Business

Data Storage and Transfer

CD-Rs and DVD-Rs. CD-Rs and DVD-Rs are among the most economical storage media around. If you buy DVD-Rs in bulk, you get a whopping 4.7 GB of storage per disc for less than a buck. And the blazing-fast SuperDrive in all MacBook Pros can burn DVD-Rs and CD-Rs at up to 24x speed.

USB Flash Drive. The humble but reliable USB flash drive is hard to beat for quick, temporary data backup or transport. Like cockroaches, they’re compact, fast, and difficult to kill—and unlike CD-Rs and DVD-Rs, they can be reused (on average, they last for several hundred thousand write/erase cycles). Most flash drives hold 1 GB to 8 GB and fit comfortably on a keychain, but the largest ones can manage up to 64 GB of data. And they come in shapes to suit every taste, from the basic two-inch rectangular “thumb drive” to plastic sushi rolls and small plush animals.

Mobile Hard Drive. These plug-and-play USB or FireWire drives require no driver or software installation and hold 80 to 250 GB. Physical size? Slightly larger than a deck of cards. And at approximately a dollar per gigabyte, there’s no reason not to add one or two to your mobile office for file transfers, backups, and extra elbow room for current projects.

iPod. Before you rush out to buy a new portable hard drive, take a fresh look at an old companion: Your iPod can also act as a USB storage and file transfer device. Just drag files onto your iPod in the Mac Finder to load them. To copy the files to another location, drag them to your desktop, a folder on your computer’s hard drive, or another portable drive. (Note, however, that files stored on your iPod in this way don’t appear in iTunes or on the iPod’s screen. You have to connect to your computer and access them via the OS X Finder.)

iChat: Real-Time Collaboration from Anywhere. Staying in touch with clients and colleagues is a crucial part of doing business, whether in the office or on the road. Current MacBook and MacBook Pro users already have a valuable built-in tool for mobile collaboration: Apple’s iChat instant message application, which lets users conduct real-time text, voice, or video conferences³ with associates around the world.

With the built-in iSight video camera that comes standard on all MacBooks and MacBook Pros, initiating video chats is as simple as clicking a button. A new iChat feature in OS X Leopard enables you to record audio or video files of your conversations for future reference.

iChat is also great for sharing URLs, documents, graphics, and other data. Using iChat to transfer files is faster and more efficient than passing printed meeting notes around a conference table—and easier on the trees. You can collaborate by trading views of each other’s desktops via iChat, or dragging files from one computer to another.

“I use iChat Theater with OsiriX [medical 3D imaging software] to review complex or interesting MRI cases with colleagues,” says Dr. Borelli. “iChat makes it easy to send a document or folder to a colleague immediately.”

“iChat is the fastest way to communicate,” agrees Aguilar of Slopecylcle. “I can share files with colleagues and outside businesses that I work with on a daily basis.” He also uses iChat to collaborate internationally on music projects: “Sharing arrangements through iChat lets your creativity fly unhindered by digital tape, bubble-wrap, and the long line at the post office.”

Some businesses, like Sheffield, England-based design firm Universal Everything, have eliminated the expense of a centralized office altogether. Instead, founder Matt Pyke and his colleagues all work remotely in their own studios around the world, sharing information and ideas via iChat. “iChat enables us to form a virtual studio, with different skills combined according to each project’s needs,” says Pyke. “We video chat for semi-real meetings, saving on travel time and carbon emissions, and share large files over iChat as well.”