These days, almost every aspect of our life could be digitized and stored as data. From contact list to office works, from private poems to family vacation videos; all has been turned into sets of binary codes. We even move our social life to the virtual world.

That’s why modern people can afford to lose their computers but not the data inside. That’s also why the necessity of backing up your data is unquestionable.

Disc Burning in Mac OS X

One of today’s most popular and practical method of data back up is disc burning, and there are two popular disc formats used by the masses: CD (up to 700 MB worth of data) and DVD (up to 4.7 GB worth of data).

Mac OS X comes with its own built-in disc burning feature and users have several ways to access it. I’ll show you how to use native Mac apps to burn CDs and DVDs for free without installing anything.

1. From the iLife Suite

Mac users can burn their music, photo and movie collection directly from the respective iLife applications. There’s a “Burn Disc” button in iTunes, The “Share –> Burn” menu in iPhoto, And the burn button in iDVD.

2. From Finder

You can create a Burn Folder in Finder by choosing “File –> New Burn Folder” menu or by using “Command + Shift + B” key combination. Give name to the folder and then drag and drop the files and folders that you want to backup.

After everything is in place, open the burn folder and click the “Burn” button on the top right corner of the window.

3. From Disk Utility

Open Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app) and you can see that there’s the Burn button in the main window. Please note that Disk Utility can only burn from an image file. So, the first thing to do is to choose or create an image file. (You can create an image file by clicking the “New Image” button.)

The advantage of using Disk Utility is that you can create multisession disc. Just make sure you tick the “Leave Disc appendable” box before you start burning.

4. Burn Baby, Burn!

Mac OS X built-in disc burning feature has some limitations. The main one is that users should use different apps to create different kind of discs, and the kinds of disc that can be created is limited. That’s why there are still so many users who use third party disc burning application. We mentioned some of them in the article about free alternatives to Nero CD / DVD burner.

One good and free alternative of such app is Burn. This is an all-in-one, easy to use disc-burning software for Mac that has the ability to burn different kinds of discs with only a few clicks.

To use Burn, choose the type of disc you want to create from one of the tabs on the upper part of the window. There are three main types of disc available: Data, Audio, Video, with an additional ability to Copy disc.

The next step is to drag and drop the files you want to burn into the main window. Then, give the disc a name and click “Burn”. That’s it. No more complicated processes necessary.

There’s a list of adjustable sub-types of disc next to the name field. Other settings can be changed from the Preferences menu.

To create a multisession disc, be sure to check to the “Allow more sessions” box. And if you use CD-RW or DVD-RW, there’s the option to erase the disc before burning.

Burn is by far the easiest disc burning software that I’ve come across. I also think that this one is better than most of the paid competitors.

Have you tried Burn? Do you know other alternatives to burn CDs and DVDs for free? Share your burning experiences in the comment below.

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If you tried out the technique we shared earlier this week for easy homemade bread and want to bolster your baking chops, you'll definitely want to check out this detailed guide to homemade sourdough bread.

Laura and Barb, the two sisters behind the culinary blog My Sister's Kitchen, post an excellent and detailed tutorial on homemade sourdough. It isn't as simple as some of the other bread recipes and bread baking techniques we've shared in the past, like the aforementioned easy homemade bread, or five-minute quickbread, but based on the rave reviews their technique has received, we think you'll find it worth the extra effort. While it's a bit more intensive than some of the other methods we've covered, it's still quite economical:

A very important detail to note is that this method makes extra large loaves that are approximately 4.5 pounds each. Each loaf costs only $0.68 to make. That is sixty-eight cents. I buy flour and yeast in bulk, so it's possible that if you buy your ingredients at a regular grocery store, your loaf might cost twice that....a whopping $1.36! As you'll see, that's for a loaf that's about 3 times the size of a loaf of grocery store bread.

They have a step by step tutorial on Instructables, linked below, and then a companion post on their blog with additional information about sourdough, creating your own sourdough starter, and various recipes. If you bake your own sourdough bread, due either to thrift or refined taste, we want to hear about it in the comments below.

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