Leopard Time Machine

Apple’s new OS, 10.5 or Leopard has some interesting new features. Time Machine stores an up-to-date copy of all your Mac’s files on an external hard drive, personal file sharing volume, or Mac OS X Server. That includes system files, applications, accounts, preferences, music, photos, movies, and documents.

That would be everything, right down to the way your desktop looked at a given time. It is possible to restore any backup, from any particular time, or be selective and just restore a single file or photo, or whatever you wish.

You don’t even have to do any work. The first time you plug an external drive in to your computer, Leopard asks if you want to use that as a backup, hit “Yes” and it’s taken care of automatically.

You can literally go back in time and see how your computer looked on a given date, and the user interface is possibly the coolest looking piece of software I have seen. Looking down a tunnel into the past, you can pick which version to look at, scroll through the items on the desktop or stored in the hard drive, pick what you want and restore, or not. Here’s a screen shot of Time Machine in action.

I love it. In fact, it almost makes up for the insane amount of time I had to waste installing Leopard in the first place. Pity I can’t go back in time and change that….….Or maybe I can.