Mac OS® X Leopard™ All‐in‐One Desk Reference For Dummies®

Chapter 4. Expanding Your Horizons with iDisk

In This Chapter

• Setting up iDisk

• Using files and folders on your iDisk

• Using public files

If you ask the average Mac owner what's available on the Internet, you likely hear benefits, such as e‐mail, Web surfing, RSS feeds, Google, and instant communication via iChat. What you probably won't hear is, “Convenient, trouble‐free storage for my files and folders.”

You might have tried to use one of the dozens of storage sites on the Internet that allows you to upload and download files from a personal file area via your Web browser. Unfortunately, these Web‐based storage sites are slow in transferring files, lacking in convenience, and typically offer only a small amount of space. As a result, most computer owners decide that the idea of online storage is neat …but impractical.

In this chapter, I show you what real online storage is all about. I'm talking about iDisk, which is the online storage feature that's integrated into the Mac OS X Finder. No jury‐rigged Web site is necessary (although you can use one if you're not on a Mac running Leopard). I admit that online storage doesn't replace the hard drives on your Mac, but with a .Mac subscription, you can easily make use of online storage for backups and sharing files with your friends …from anywhere on the planet!

So how do you actually use iDisk? That's the simple part! To use iDisk within Mac OS X, just do what comes naturally — it works like any other removable volume's Finder window. You ...