After doing some research for a while, I’ve decided to focus on Mozy and iDrive as they seem to have the best support for both Mac and Windows.

Here’s the setup at home:
Windows XP machine - Acts as file & media server as well as remote DVR server.
Intel iMac - Primary machine, what we do all the day to day stuff on

All our important files are stored on the XP box, which does not have direct access to the Internet.

I’m backing things up via Backup on the Mac and the Windows Backup in XP, but wanted something offsite as well in case the backup media goes bad, is stolen or the whole house burns down.

Both Mozy and iDrive seem like very good options and here’s some of the things I’ve found during my testing, I’m formatting this as a comparison between the two and this is strictly the residential version of the service, not business (which both provide):

• Both offer a free trial of 2 GB
• Space:
  • Mozy has a pro version with unlimited space
  • iDrive offers pro version with 150GB
• Pricing:
  • Mozy - $4.95 / month or $54.45 a year (one month free)
  • iDrive - $4.95 / month or $49.50 a year (two months free)
• Speed, based on my testing:
  • Mozy I average around 800Kb/s with throttling set to 100% usage, but it drops to 0 frequently
  • iDrive I averaged around 1,500Kb/s with throttling set at 70% usage.
• Convenience:
  • Although you have to pay the fee per computer, Mozy lets you manage them under 1 user account.
  • With iDrive you have to pay the fee per computer, but you also have to create two separate logins as they claim they technically can’t do it under one.

I’m still testing and was leaning toward Mozy because of the unlimited space and the convenience of having them under the same account.

The speed is starting to be an issue for me though, there’s really no point in having unlimited space if you can’t use it because the transfer is too slow.

If anyone have experience with either, or both, please post your results.

I rented the Simpsons movie from iTunes and it actually worked out really well!

The process was really slick.

I rented the movie in iTunes and it downloaded in the background. I had it on my computer for a couple of days before transferring it to my iPhone (just a click of a button in iTunes).

Both iTunes on my Mac, and the iPhone, showed me a display of how many days I had left to watch it.

You can keep the movie for 30 days, but once you start watching it you have 24 hours to watch it (as often as you like).

I watched some of it on my iPhone, then transferred it back to the computer and watched some there, then back to the phone to watch the rest.

At the end of the 24 hour period I got a message on the phone that it expired and the movie deleted itself.

The whole process was really easy and pleasant. The only complaint I have is that I wish the rental period was longer than 24 hours, but I guess it’s better than nothing.

Oh, on a side note… the movie was OK. Not great, no horrible, but it was good enough that I got a few chuckles.