Dragon Burn
by
Dennis
Kovich
There are two kinds of computer users, those who have lost data due to system crashes, hard disk crashes, file corruption, etc., and those who WILL lose data. Although the subject of backup is preached over and over again, I still get the complaint that they don't have anything to back up on. Extra hard drives are sometimes too expensive, Zip drives are two small, and floppies are out of the question. So what is one to do?
I'll tell you what I do. Although immediate backup is the preferred method, saved backup works well most of the time. I make a folder on my hard drive labeled "Store". I have different categories in it for different types of files I need to back up. One is called "Communications", one is "Audio Programs", one is "Pictures", you get the idea. When I buy a program online and download it, I put the installer program in one of the folders in Store. When I accumulate 600 Megabytes I put it on a backup CD.
An inexpensive program that burns CDs and DVDs is called Dragon Burn by NTI. It is much cheaper than the competition and it has more capabilities as well.
You start off with a "New Layout" window with three basic categories; audio, data, and video. Each category has three types to choose from. For instance, you can select Audio CD, MP3 CD or Live Audio. Each of these categories and types is an icon in the window so it is very easy to go right to the kind of burning you are looking for.
A lot of the drudgery of burning CDs is the preparation. Finding all your songs you want to burn or finding the pictures that are spread all over the hard drive can be a drag (no pun intended). With Dragon Burn, if you select MP3 CD, you can drag your entire hard drive onto the window and the program will find every MP3 file you have stored. What if you want just the M4A files but not the MP3 files? You just select the filter (drop down menu) you want and the program will discriminate for you. How about iTunes? You can import a whole iTunes playlist right into the program for burning.
This program does more than just audio files. Backing up your documents is a breeze. Select the Data CD icon and drag-n-drop your documents folder onto the window. You can set a filter for selecting only the Microsoft Word documents or just the Appleworks, or even just the Microsoft Excel documents. What if you have 582 documents and it won't fit onto a CD? Don't try matching up files to fit, just select "Enable disc spanning". When one CD is full, it will close it properly and ask you for another disk, then continue burning.
It will do all of the above for the video category also. You can burn your iMovies or make a whole disk with your pictures by drag-n-drop and using a filter to select which ones you want. You can also make a CD that has both audio and data on the same disk. Just think, you could run a Power Point presentation while listening to a speaker or music as the slides go by, and you only need to bring one disk!
This program seems to do it all. If you have four burners attached to your computer, you can burn four CD at once and each one having different data or pictures on them. The device manager keeps track as to what should go onto each CD.
When the CD or DVD is finished burning, you can make a label for it right from the program. No need to worry what kind of labels you have, Dragon Burn lists them all. Just select the kind of label, whether you want the label on the CD itself or the front or back of the jewel case. It will make them all. It also has a selection of background pictures you can use. You can select straight text or curved text to fit the CD and you can even write text vertically!
All in all, this is a fine program that anyone can master in a very short time.