During the day I work with images, videos and other largish files, many of which get deleted and need no local backup. I let this slide earlier, thinking Steve J's keep-it-simple strategy made sense. But now I yearn for a backup program that at least lets me set blackout times (say, my usual working hours) where I don't have to deal with manually shutting down an in-progress backup. Or worse, having to reboot everything because the slow-down didn't go away. Before I try this Lifehacker freeware Time Machine tip that Chen has graciously bestowed upon me, I have to ask, am I the only one who feels this way? Or...

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We've actually set up the Time Capsule several different ways already, as the only router in the network, and as an Ethernet-linked node on an existing wireless network. The start-up wizard in AirPort Utility asks you plainly what you want to do, in increasing steps like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book. I know some of you don't need that kind of child's play, but this kind of thing will even help you when you tell your mom to get one of these and realize you won't have to do tech support too.
Once you've got it set up, either as your router or a node on your network, you can just pop into Time Machine and see it listed as a drive. If that's all you want, select the drive and you're as good as done. That first dump can be a real doozy though, so keep some things in mind:
• Set aside an entire night to get it done.
• Consider connecting via Ethernet, especially if you have an 802.11b/g Mac. (Time Capsule has Gigabit 10/100/1000Base-T wired connectivity.)
• Try not to interrupt the first dump, as the subsequent file-integrity check will take a long time too.

But say you buy the 500GB Time Capsule, and want to use an external 1TB drive to do all your serious backing up. When you connect it via USB, it is automatically visible in both the AirPort Utility and the Time Machine on your Mac. What you can't do is merge the two to make one massive 1.5TB volume, though. You have to choose one or the other.In some cases, you may want to connect the USB drive you already use for Time Machine to the Time Capsule, to simply make the process wireless. Bear in mind that if you do that, you still have to make the massive initial dump: Time Capsule won't recognize that drive as your previous Time Machine drive, but just as new storage that you can use.

The internal drive and any external drives can be seen as standard network drives, too, across both Mac and PC platforms—checking the guest friendly option in AirPort Utility's disk settings is helpful there. Speaking of PC compatibility, Apple appears to be promoting Time Capsule, at least by word of mouth and in all the support literature, as a dual-platform product, even though its core Time Machine software is not available to Windows users. You can use third-party backup software and select Time Capsule as the target drive, though there are certainly many competing products that will let you do this for cheaper.

The only significant problem I've run into is the networked printer. I connected a printer to Time Capsule that I had set up for local use on my Mac. Time Capsule recognized it immediately, and the printer selection on the Mac itself showed it just fine, but when I went to actually send over a print job, I got an error that the printer was offline. (Eddie Izzard fans would've appreciated the ensuing angry outburst: "Not offline! No. Online. Control-P Print!!") I don't blame Time Capsule yet. I'm going to try it with some other printers soon, and will get to the root of it.

We will continue to test this and alert you to any issues, but in the meantime it's safe to say that this is a worthwhile product for people who have the money and want the convenience. How often do you refuse to connect the USB to your backup drive because it would hamper your style? How often are you afraid, after a long period of not backing up, of the time it may take you to perform a backup. Those issues go away with Time Capsule.

But there's a cost, particularly at the 1TB model, which is $200 more than the $300 500GB model. When we ask about this, all we get back is that these are "server grade" drives. Great, thanks, but we're gonna recommend the 500GB version. If you have 300GB of backup or less you're covered, and if you have 1TB of backup or more, you're better off scoring some massive drive or drive array at discount, and plugging it in via USB. Now go back the #&#;$% up!!! [Time Capsule on Giz]

The Bare Facts:
• After setup, all Macs on network are automatically backed up wirelessly and constantly.
• USB port is so it can act as print server; no word on whether you can attach addional USB disks.
• No hidden bricks: The sleek design includes a built-in power supply.
• Full three-port Gigabit Ethernet router (fourth port is for WAN); 802.11n network supports up to 50 users.

Official Press Release:

Apple Announces Time Capsule

Wireless Backup for all Your Macs

MACWORLD SAN FRANCISCO—January 15, 2008—Apple® today introduced Time Capsule, a backup appliance that automatically and wirelessly backs up everything on one or more Macs running Leopard™, the latest release of Apple's Mac OS® X operating system including the amazing Time Machine™ automatic backup software. Time Capsule combines an 802.11n base station with a server grade hard disk in one small package. Simply plug it in, then easily set up automatic wireless backup for every Mac® in your house to a single Time Capsule with just a few clicks. Time Capsule offers the benefits of a full-featured 802.11n Wi-Fi base station, and comes in two models: a 500 gigabyte model for just $299 and a 1 terabyte model for just $499.

"Bring Time Capsule home, plug it in, click a few buttons on your Macs and voila—all the Macs in your house are being backed up automatically, every hour of every day," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "With Time Capsule and Time Machine, all your irreplaceable photos, movies and documents are automatically protected and incredibly easy to retrieve if they are ever lost."

Built to work seamlessly with Time Machine, Time Capsule lets users wirelessly back up all of the data on their Macs, find lost files and even restore all of their software. In the event a file is lost, users can wirelessly search back through time to find deleted files, applications, photos and other digital media and then instantly restore the file. If it's ever necessary, Leopard can also easily restore an entire system from the Time Machine backup on Time Capsule.

In addition to being the best way to back up a Mac, Time Capsule is also a full-featured Wi-Fi base station with the latest 802.11n technology. Delivering up to five times the performance and twice the range of 802.11g, 802.11n* is built in to Apple's iMac® desktop and the entire Mac notebook line up, including MacBook®, MacBook Pro and the new MacBook Air. Time Capsule features a sleek design with a built-in power supply and connections to print wirelessly to a USB printer. With Time Capsule, it's very easy for users to create a secure, wireless network for up to 50 users and set security restrictions such as Internet access limits for children's computers.

At $299 for a 500GB model and $499 for a 1TB model and a fully integrated 802.11n AirPort Extreme® Base Station, Time Capsule can serve as a backup solution for multiple computers as well as the backbone for a high-speed, 802.11n wireless network, making it effortless and affordable for everyone at home, school or work to protect their digital files.

Additional Time Capsule features include:

dual-band antennas for 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz frequencies;
three Gigabit LAN ports;
one Gigabit Ethernet WAN port;
one USB 2.0 port;
Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA/WPA-2), 128-bit WEP encryption; and
a built-in NAT firewall supporting NAT-PMP for features like Back to My Mac.
Pricing & Availability
Time Capsule will be available in February through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), at Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $299 (US) for a 500GB hard drive and $499 (US) for a 1TB hard drive.

*Time Capsule is based on an IEEE 802.11n draft specification. Actual performance will vary based on range, connection rate, site conditions, size of network and other factors.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

Fond of referring to himself in the third person, Dali probably would have been the first to wear a silly timepiece like this.

He certainly could have afforded its $34.95 price. [Unemployed Philosopher, via Shiny Shiny]

All it does is make Leopard show unsupported drives as a supported drive for Time Machine, but Apple most likely removed support for these drives for reasons such as data loss or data corruption, so be careful if you're going to try this. Just head on over to 9to5Mac and download their aptly named Flux Capacitor automator script and you'll be on your way to network backups in no time. Or, you can just wait for Apple's official release that's sure to come soon. [9to5Mac via MacRumors]

After I upgraded my MacBook Pro to OS X Leopard, the first thing I did was grab a brand-new Maxtor USB drive and format it to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) using Disk Utility, just like I had countless times before. As soon as I erased the disk, Time Machine popped up as promised, and asked if it could use the disk for backup. I said yes, and was on my merry way. Only I wasn't.

Time Machine ran for a bit, and then crapped out after about 10GB. I went into Disk Utility and saw that although the partition was formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled), the volume itself still said FAT32. I clicked Erase to reformat the drive, and got the format failure error you see above.

I tried this with FAT-formatted drives from Seagate, Iomega and HP as well. Each time I saw the same thing. I could reformat the partition to Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and Time Machine would recognize it. Get Info would say that it was formatted correctly. But Disk Utility showed that the volume was formatted for PC. Inevitably, if the Time Machine backup was greater than 10GB, there were problems. Worst of all, if I dared try to format the volume for Mac, I would get the dreaded error, and the disk would be temporarily unmountable.

Not only did I vary drives, but I tested the problem on various systems too. I tried it booting from the Leopard DVD, with the same results. Ditto when I tried it using my wife's Leopard-upgraded MacBook Pro. (Yes, his n' hers MBPs. You can insert your "awwww" here.) The end result was that I couldn't break the FAT grip on these damn drives.

I made some calls, I talked to some people, and eventually here was the solution: you wipe the hell out of the drive by creating new and different partitions. So, do not head to the Erase tab in Disk Utility to prep a PC-formatted drive for Time Machine. Instead:

• Go to the Partition tab. Create two partitions. Under Options, select GUID Partition Table (what you would use to make a Mac OS boot disk) and click OK then Apply.

• Once your partitions are in place, do it again, reverting back to just one partition, but still keeping the GUID Partition Table option. Click OK and Apply again, and at this point you should be cool.

• To be safe, you can then go to Erase and set formatting for Mac OS Extended (Journaled), then format it once and for all. But when you get there, you will probably see that your volume is already formatted in the right way.

UPDATE: Some people have gotten this to work without creating two partitions. If you like, try creating just a single partition, but using the GUID Partition Table option. This may be all it takes to break the chokehold.

Using this method, I have gotten all of the disks to work just fine with Time Machine, and I don't anticipate any problems in the future.

OK, I know, quite a bit of nerdiness, but I wanted to get out there and tell you about the problem I encountered, in case you are having the same troubles, or plan on getting there sooner or later. Also, this solution is actually a workaround of sorts. My hope is that Apple can update Disk Utility with a stronger form of disk erasing that doesn't require so many manual steps, but if I am missing something obvious, I'd love to hear it. Please share any troubles you've had, or any better solutions you've cooked up.

Special thanks to Dorian and Ken!

In Tiger, Mac OS X's previous version, the central theme was its most touted feature: Spotlight. The movie then showed a beam of light picking out the word Welcome in different languages. Here, the Welcomes appear scattered as the camera travels through space.

It may not be authentic, but given the production quality and Time Machine theme, our gut feeling is that this is the Real Thing . [9Rules via New Launches]

So we assembled a list of 10 technologies that we should have ironed out by now, but instead either never showed up, or were only completed in some half-assed, UMPC way. This gallery should need no explanation (except in one instance where only the liger fans in the group will feel our pain).

And when your eyes dry, hit the comments with your own favorite, elusive gadgets.



– Mark Wilson