Two words: TIME MACHINE.
Time Machine is the very best single reason for a Mac user to buy and install Leopard . . . and of you are a Windows user, the very best reason to go get a new Mac. Time Machine is a backup and restore utility. In a word, you can, at need, "go back in time" and restore your entire system or even a single file from any 1-hr increment in the last day, any day in the last month and any month thereafter. So, if in the middle of writing your master's thesis your MacBook Pro's internal HD packs it in, if you have TM and an external hard disk, you can restore the last backup (not to mention OS X, all your preferewnces, email, etc) of your thesis once the hard disk is replaced, and on you go.
You can restore a single file, your whole iTunes Library or thw whole fscking startup partition. No more need to use Target Disk Mode and another Mac. No more "log in as root, drag and drop your Home folder (c:\Documents and settings\yourname for you windows users) and HOPE you got it right." For some users, enabling the OS X "root" account is like handing a drunk with Tourette's Syndrome a greased grenade . . . only "sudo rm -R /* is capable of more damage in less time (think dropping to DOS, cd c:, then del *.*). No more Retrospect, .Mac backup 3.x (not a bad program, but it's about as intuitive as brain surgery when compared to TM) or needing to rely on a non-Apple solution.
Best of all, TM does this silently and automaticly..
Windows, by comparison, has "system restore" which is great for restoring Windows system files . . . but it does nto do jack about your master's thesis or your email, pics, music, videos or porn.
I had been looking forward to buying a new external hard drive to try this feature out once my finances allowed for it. Fortunately for me, I won a nice 250 gigabyte USB 2.0 drive today for quarterly sales performance. This is plenty of space to allow me to back up the 100 GB drive in my MacBook (currently about 40 gigs free). I'm going to put at least three partitions on the disk: one OS X for TM (I'm going to names it "HD Welles"), one also OS X (one just big enough to serve as a 10.5 startup disk, probably named "DaVinci" -- as in Leo-nardo) to install Leopard so I can boot off this drive at need and one formatted for FAT32 (Disk Utility does not speak Windows NTFS) so my good friends Michelle and David can back up their docs/music/pics/etc/omg/wtf/bbq.
Since the disk will be partitioned three ways, I think I'll call it "Gaul." Of course, people will look at me funny (not that they don't do that already . . .).
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Listening to:
Styx - Suite Madame Bluevia FoxyTunes
