Hello and welcome to Computer Fitness’ Blog! My name is Josh. You may know me from the Internet Beacon. We have a pretty cool blog over there. If you’re new to our sites, do check it out; there’s plenty more awesome over there. Computer Fitness is a tech support firm in Finksburg, MD. Our areas of expertise run the gamut from desktop repair to server maintenance.
Mac Owners
Not to sound biased, but I love the Mac OS. Okay, that sounds a little biased. Anyway, Mac users have it easy in a lot of areas and this is one of them. If you are using an Apple computer with Mac OS 10.5 or later, which is Leopard/Snow Leopard, then you have a nifty tool called Time Machine.
Similar to the way a real time machine works, you can revisit the past status of your hard drive with this device. It is installed on your system automatically and can be accessed by going to your system settings and clicking the link for Time Machine. All you need is an external hard drive that is at least as big as your computer’s hard drive. You tell it to enable Time Machine, select the drive you want to use, and it will begin the backup. Bear in mind, this will take a while to complete, so don’t turn off your computer or unplug the external hard drive. You are free to use your computer while this goes on, but you might see a dip in performance.
PC Users
Sorry to break it to you, PCs, but this process is a bit trickier for you. Your version of Windows may have this installed already, but if you are a home user, odds are it does not. Below is a link to the Microsoft site on backups in Windows. If your version of Windows does not have this feature installed, you will have to install software on your own to get this functionality. You can get this at your local computer store, like Best Buy. The processes will vary by manufacturer and so are too much for one blog post.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/backup.aspx
That’s all I’ve got for this week! If you own a Mac, you have no excuse to miss out on this feature!
-Josh
Computer Fitness
Onsite and Remote Tech Support
Tags: backup, mac, pc, time machine
