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Not a real Time Machine – but the backup software on Apple’s OS 10.5 Leopard. I did some tests with using it to backup to my Linux server’s Samba share.

Google TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes and use at your own risk!

Anyway, it works great. However the Linux server only has a 80GB drive, so rather than fit the 400GB IDE I had lying around to the Linux server, I ordered an external Firewire/USB2/IDE enclosure on Friday lunchtime (From RPM Systems via Amazon.co.uk). Surprisingly, it arrived on Saturday morning, and within 20 minutes of dragging myself out of bed Time Machine was syncing with the new drive. Groovy.

As a result, I spent the rest of the afternoon transferring my music & photo library to the iMac from my Powerbook (10.3) – it’s just that good. iPhoto ’08 helped seal the deal. The Powerbook was previously backed up to my iPod using Chronosync – the problem was when going anywhere I had both the iPod and Powerbook. Doh!

It’s not good the rate at which G4 PowerPC users have been left behind. The 1.33GHz Powerbook with 10.3 is only 3 years old, and now it’s at the very bottom of the supported systems for Leopard, with the good stuff not working on non-Intel systems. Imagine you had a one year old PowerMac G5 that cost over £3000… I seem to remember a similar story when the 68k was being exterminated.

A final irritation: Apple resellers are no longer able to sell Tiger upgrades. Say what you want about Microsoft, but (back in the day) I was installing Windows 95 SE on 5 year old machines without any problems.

Last week, on holiday in Florida, we took advantage of the 2:1 exchange rate to get Catherine a new 8GB iPod Nano (Yes, the red one!). Works out about £35 cheaper than it costs in the UK. However, our 4 year old iMac is not USB2, so transfers would be a bit slow, but so what.

Well, it seems the good people at Apple decided that the iPod really needs updated contact and calendar syncronisation, and so used OS X Tiger specific code in there. Our old iMac is only running Panther. No worries, I’ll just order Tiger – no longer available as Leopard has shipped. The iMac should run Leopard if the RAM was increased, but I get the feeling Leopard is really designed for Intel Macs, and the G4/G5 support is just there “because”.

Anyway, long story short, the new 20″ iMac (with Leopard, and Core Duo) will be here on Thursday. Steve Jobs wins again!
I suppose I could have found a legitimate copy of Tiger on ebay. Doh!