Journey of Fulfilment

I recently received the following question from a relatively new Mac convert:

“Does Time Machine back up to a physical disc or is it to back up to the .mac account?”

Great question!

For those in a hurry …

The official (Apple supported) answer is that Time Machine will not back up to a .Mac account, but will back up to any FireWire or USB external drive directly connected to your Mac. Until the recently, drives connected over a wireless network were not supported either (the introduction of Time Capsule changes this).

For those who are not familiar with Time Machine, check out my previous post for a brief overview.

For those more curious …

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written by Warren Denley

Time Machine is a true one-click backup solution built into the latest incarnation of Apple’s Mac OS X (10.5), commonly known as Leopard. Literally all you need to do is turn it on and point it to the drive you want to use for backups - Time Machine then takes care of the rest (you don't even need to decide which files to back up).

When you first activate Time Machine, it will make a full backup of your whole hard drive - including your system files. Depending on the size of your drive this could take a while, so it is best left running overnight. From then on, Time Machine will regularly back up any the files that change - in the background and without any further interaction required.

Since all files are backed up, not only are your files safe, but so are those system and application preferences that you spent so long setting up. Even if your drive died completely, you could quickly and easily restore your Mac to exactly the state it was before the catastrophe.

The file recovery interface in Time Machine has to be seen to be believed!

You literally flip back through time to find the file you are missing. Or you can use the integrated Spotlight search to find the file for you.

Check out the Time Machine site for further information. If you still have questions, let me know in a comment.

written by Warren Denley

It looks like we have the first finalists for this year's Darwin Awards (if you don’t know what these are, check out wikipedia, or read about some of the previous winners at darwinawards.com).

Yesterday, 2 Sydney teenagers died after they climbed into a storm water drain to spray graffiti on the inside. Not a particularly smart move when you consider that there had been quite a bit of rain over the last few days, and there was more forecast.

What is even more scary is that a 27 year old narrowly escaped the same situation. 27 Years Old. You would think by that age he would have developed just a few more brain cells. And, you would think he would have kicked the graffiti habit by now.

Even more interestingly, the news article included a demand from a "local resident" that the authorities take more steps to ensure people could not get into the drain. What ever happened to parents taking responsibility for teaching their kids that this is not a safe practice?

Besides, what is the use of putting a lock on the drain entry? Those who are serious will either find another entrance, or simply bust the lock off.

If you ask me, the gene pool could use an extra dose of chlorine anyway.

written by Warren Denley

Picture this …

You arrive at the movies and the line for tickets is huge (and barely moving). You have limited time before the start of the movie, and you want to get dinner in as well.

Technology to the rescue …

We skipped the line and went straight to dinner. While we waited for the food to arrive, we whipped out our laptop (a Mac of course), plugged in the wireless broadband internet card, and jumped on to the cinema website. Two minutes later we had purchased our tickets, in seats that we were able to select ourselves. A short walk to the multipurpose ATM at the ticket counter (bypassing the line) and plugging in my credit card and I had the tickets in my hands.

We had our tickets before dinner arrived, and before the line had moved more than about 3 people.

Talk about cool uses of technology!

written by Warren Denley