If you have just bought a new mac or you have upgraded to leopard and are needing a back up solution look no further than Apple for the answer. 

You may have noticed when you installed leopard or started your new machine there was/still is an application called “Time Machine” placed in your dock.

Ever wondered what this was ?

Well it’s the client interface for Apple’s personal back up system. Here is a little explanation about how it works.

First you will need to purchase an external back up device. For example the Apple solution is the “Time Capsule” (pictured above). Then all you need to do is go into your system preferences. click “Time Machine” and select the back up drive. 

From then on Time Machine will do an incremental back up every hour.
It will also store daily backups for a month and Weekly backups until the disk is full.

From then on if you misplace or delete a file just click the time machine icon in your dock and the following screen will open.

 

Simply use the arrows to view the history of your files. When you have found the time you wish to restore. Just click the restore button and the file and folders will be revert to that point in time.

Note: Time Machine backups can also be used to restore your machine from a fresh install of leopard.