MediaFour announces MacDrive for Vista
Getting a Windows install up and running under Boot Camp is only half the battle. After you are successfully living in two operating systems you need to solve the problem of how to access your emails, documents and other files easily whichever OS you are using.
One way is to move everything online. Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Documents and the rest of Google’s ever-growing online services seem to offer a platform-independent solution. But it’s not without its problems.
Even if you are not concerned with privacy or control of your data, this path requires that you are always connected to the Internet, and at a fast enough speed to work efficiently. Life at the beach-house is very nice, but dial-up rules out doing any serious work this way.
Another approach is to move all your data onto a flashdrive. Neat and cost-effective these days for a reasonable amount of data, but you probably won’t get your whole 4.5GB iTunes library onto one. If you do chances are you will leave it home or lose it or step on it by mistake.
Enter MacDrive, an amazing piece of software that allows you to use your Mac drives as normal under Windows. Just install it on any computer (or Boot Camped partition) running Windows XP or 2000, Server 2003 (or even Windows ME and 98SE). Your Mac drives will now appear and operate completely transparently in Windows Explorer.
Networked drives are just as accessible. I was amazed how quickly I could log into the Home directory of my MacBook Pro from the XP box that lives in the shed (where it belongs).
It has a few more tricks up its sleeve as well, offering the quick creation of Mac disks, CD or DVDs and the ability to partition and format any drive from its Disk Manager.
It doesn’t work in Vista RTM but Mediafour will be ready when Vista hits the shops. A spokesperson confirmed that it will release a Vista-compatible version “in time for the consumer retail release of Windows Vista” at the end of January. It’s about to release a beta version for private testing.
It’s so elegant and so much better than the two data-sharing solutions mentioned above that it must cost money. And it does. MacDrive costs US$ 49.95 ($64.48) with academic pricing at US$ 34.95 ($45). At 8MB it can easily be downloaded from the developer’s web site.
It’s not cheap. It costs as much as two slabs of beer, but if your time is money, it will soon pay for itself.
