Apple is constantly making “under-the-hood” improvements to its consumer-oriented MobileMe service. These tweaks include faster and more reliable calendar synchronization, webpage display, and iPhone integration.

For those who haven’t checked out MobileMe in a while, it is Apple’s comprehensive remote services offering for the home user. MobileMe’s core components include:

After six MacBooks arrived at our bench with liquid damage in just one week (and it’s only Wednesday), we thought it was time to write a guide for what to do if this happens to you.

Remember, an ounce of prevention is worth at least $1,000. Try to keep your computer away from wet places like kitchen counters, sinks, and swimming pools. And—this may be the hardest thing of all—make it a habit never to place your beverage container next to your laptop. All it takes is one strategically placed droplet of water to turn your MacBook into a very expensive paperweight. We know this is common sense, but it bears repeating.

Now…what to do when the unthinkable happens?

Today I was confronted with a situation not unlike many I deal with on a regular basis: How can one of my clients use a media file of a particular format, in a specific application that does not inherently support working with files of that format? Working through the solution to the problem reiterated to me the fact that many people are confused about what media files really are, what a codec is, and what a wrapper or container-format is.

Folks use these terms incorrectly, interchangeably, and vaguely, but it’s really not all-too-difficult to understand. I’ll go about trying to explain it to the best of my ability and then I’ll describe how I had to attack the issues of both codec (essence) and wrapper, to address my client’s specific workflow requirement.

- Nick Gold

As I began to write up the next segment of the Storage Primer, discussing external Direct-Attached Storage (DAS) options for the Mac Pro, I realized that I was starting to talk a lot about RAID solutions on the market, without having discussed in more general terms what exactly “RAID” means, and why it’s important. While I have talked about RAID 0 striped volumes and RAID 1 mirrored volumes in past installments, there is quite a bit more to RAID than that, and it really calls for its own article. Please read on to get a more thorough understanding of RAID storage technology!

Keep in mind that some of my explanations here veer toward using layman’s terms, rather than complex technical language, and that is every bit the intent. For more in-depth information, a simple Google search using the term “RAID” will net you more results than you could ever hope to review. With that said, let’s review the various RAID levels, as well as software-based versus hardware-based RAIDs.

- Nick Gold

After having discussed both internal storage options and third-party external Direct-Attached Storage options for Apple’s portable products, it’s time to turn our attention to the desktop Mac Pros. We begin our examination of professional desktop storage by looking at the inside of the Mac Pro tower, and what kind of storage is possible without having to add external hardware of any sort. A number of areas discussed here, namely software-based RAID 0 striped volumes and RAID 1 mirrored volumes, build off of lessons learned in Part 2 of the Storage Primer.

This month’s edition of The Primer will stay on the topic of laptop/portable storage, but this time moving outside the machine itself and examining external storage options of several types that are suitable for laptop use. These kinds of external storage devices, when directly connected to the system, are referred to as “Direct-Attached Storage”, or DAS devices. For anyone doing serious work on a laptop, especially when dealing with high-bandwidth digital media such as digitized audio and video, a DAS device of one kind or another is essentially a necessity due to size and speed issues of the drive your media lives on. Some external storage devices are better than others at such tasks, and there is always the issue of how well-protected the device is from breakdown and data loss. Read on to learn about the primary options available in this space.

Welcome to part one of this primer, which will go into detail about the myriad storage options available for professional laptop and desktop Macintosh systems, including the MacBook Pro and Mac Pro. While some of this information will be relevant to users of iMacs, Mac minis, and MacBooks, the article is really aimed at users of professionally-oriented systems, which have many more storage options available to them.

It is important to remember that while your computer and its hardware is probably a relatively expensive piece of equipment in your setup, if not the most expensive, this collection of parts is worth nothing compared to your data itself. A computer can be fixed by swapping out failed components, but data, once truly lost, cannot be so easily replaced. Your data might comprise financial records, projects for clients, email, office documents, media, and many other things that are either not replaceable at all, or might require tens if not hundreds of hours to reproduce. We at Chesapeake Systems take data integrity very seriously, both our own and of course our clients’, and it’s why we’ve decided to make the Storage Primer a regularly updated part of our web site and newsletter content.

The Storage Primer will be broken into a number of areas:

• Built-in (internal) storage options for professional Mac laptops and desktops

• External Direct-Attached Storage/DAS options (portable and desktop)

• Storage Area Networks/SANs (fibre channel & iSCSI, including volume-locked & file-locked)

• Network-Attached Storage/NAS systems, AKA file servers (using Ethernet connectivity)

We may, in future pieces, delve into non hard-disk storage mediums such as data tape and optical disc (CD/DVD/Blu-ray), and even SSD (solid-state disks). Likewise, future articles may go more into depth on backup systems and methodologies. However, the crux of the initial portions of the storage primer is spinning disk (AKA hard drive) storage for day-to-day use.

With that said, let’s get started!