It is true what you say. Thank you.
Now how do I open a sparse bundle and does this provide a back-up of my Mobileme equivalent to the great back-up that the Time Machine gives of my hard disc.
Just when I was getting to trust Time machine for back-up on my Macs I found that I cannot live without Mobileme. I now leave all my working files on there so that I can open them wherever I am. I back-up whenever I remember to one of my terrestial computers, but sometimes I lapse and forget. THis was exactly what Time Machine prevented. Now i find that if perchance something was lost or corrupted on Apple's server or heaven forfend, I mucked up a file I have nothing to go back to. I am not sure that sparse bundle saves me. I am doomed trapped between a rock(TIme Machine) and a virtual place (Mobile me)
A sparsebundle is really just data all rolled up into one big ball. To open a sparsebundle you just double click it and it will open in the same file structure as your iDisk - should you need to...
If you REALLY want to be backed up you should have 3 copies of anything and everything on your Mac (including your iDisk). This would include the original, another copy on a different media type and "off-site"...
This is called the "3-2-1" backup strategy and it protects your data in case of fire, flood etc. I also like to use other backup programs, not just one...
There is nothing better then SuperDuper (paid) for the Mac. Or there is Carbon Copy Cloner (free). Both are good and they can make a bootable copy of your hard drive (including your iDisk). You can be back up and running within an hour or so if the worst happens...
In your case, with your iDisk - IF YOU HAVE LOCAL IDISK TURNED ON - you have a copy locally on your Mac (this would be the sparsebundle). If you are backing up with TimeMachine to a - EXTERNAL HD - this would serve as a backup on a different media type. Your off-site copy is on Apple's servers...
It sounds like to me that you are good to go with your iDisk backup
You might consider using the same method with everything on your Mac. There are many good off-site (cloud based) backup options out there.
OR you might be able to backup to a server at work from home and visa-versa. This would also work for off-site backup...