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Central Oregon Macintosh User Group COMUG BRIEF COMUG BRIEF January, 2008 COMUG Website (January) User ID: comug
Password: 011608 SKYVIEW MIDDLE SCHOOL January 16 Time: 7:00 pm Place: Sky View Middle School MacBook Air's tradeoffs by Dan Frakes For those of us who’ve been waiting— far too long, it seems—for a smaller,
lighter laptop from Apple, Tuesday’s
announcement of the MacBook Air was
a welcome one. I, for one, have been
wanting a smaller version of the MacBook
Pro since…well, since the MacBook Pro
replaced the PowerBook G4 line, sans the
12-inch model. But subnotebooks—laptops designed to be smaller and lighter than traditional
models—generally involve many tradeoffs.
For the reduction in size and weight, many
smaller notebooks compromise on such
attributes as the size of the display and
keyboard, processor speed, battery life, and
included features. Most also cost more than
a comparably-featured larger model. The
MacBook Air is no exception, Steve Jobs’
claims to the contrary notwithstanding.
What makes the MacBook Air unique is
that Apple has chosen to make different
compromises than those found in most other
subnotebooks. The company has essentially
said, “It has tradeoffs and limitations, but
we think our tradeoffs and limitations are
better than the competition’s.” Where it shines Before getting to those tradeoffs, consider the areas in which the MacBook
Air stands out. Unlike many subnotebooks,
it includes a generously-sized 13.3-inch,
1280- by 800-pixel, glossy LED screen—
only slightly smaller than the display in
the MacBook (at the same resolution) and using the same LED technology found in
the MacBook Pro. You also get a full-size
keyboard nearly identical to the one found
on the MacBook. In this respect, the MacBook Air is just as usable as a MacBook for general computing,
which is to say much more usable than a
typical subnotebook. Of course, because of
these full-size components, the MacBook
Air’s footprint is considerably larger than
that of many subnotebooks on the market;
in fact, the Air’s 12.8-inch width and 8.94-
inch depth are each 0.02 inches longer
than the corresponding dimensions of the
MacBook. It’s in weight and thickness—or, if you will, thinness—that the MacBook Air shines.
Whereas the MacBook and MacBook Pro
are each around 1 inch thick, the MacBook
Air is essentially three-quarters of an inch
thick at the thickest point, and less than a
fifth of an inch thick at the thinnest. And at
only 3 pounds, the Air is 2 pounds lighter
than the next-lightest Apple notebook. Other impressive features include the Air’s battery life (according to Apple, five
hours with WiFi and Bluetooth active); a
built-in iSight camera and microphone;
video output that supports extended
desktop with an external display; an
ambient light sensor and backlit keyboard;
and a large, multi-touch trackpad. Where it compromises But to squeeze into such a svelte package, the MacBook Air is missing a
number of features, and other features are
scaled back. The most obvious omission— one common to subnotebooks—is an
optical drive. If you want to install new
software, rip CDs to iTunes, watch DVDs,
or burn data to disc, you need to either
purchase the $99 Apple MacBook Air
SuperDrive, which connects via USB, or use
the new Remote Disk feature to “borrow”
the optical drive of another computer on
your network. You also lose ports and expansion options. Unlike the MacBook Pro, the
MacBook Air has no ExpressCard slot, and
unlike both other Apple laptop lines, the Air
doesn’t include FireWire, Ethernet, multiple
USB ports, audio input, and optical audio
output. The only ports on the MacBook Air
are a single USB slot, an analog headphone/
speaker output, and a new Micro-DVI video
output. (You can add Ethernet via Apple’s
$29 USB Ethernet adapter.) Thanks to heat and space concerns, the Air also isn’t as speedy as its larger
siblings. Instead of the 2.0GHz to 2.4GHz
processors available in the current MacBook
and MacBook Pro models, the MacBook Air
comes standard with a 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo
or, for $300 more, a 1.8GHz chip. (During
his keynote on Tuesday, Jobs said that Intel
had to create a new, smaller version of the
Core 2 Duo to fit inside the MacBook Air.)
To be fair, the Air’s processors are near
the middle of the pack for subnotebooks,
which range in speed from roughly 1.2GHz
to 2.2GHz. Space and heat issues also limit the MacBook Air’s storage options. Because the
laptop is so thin, it appears that only single-
platter, 1.8-inch hard drives—the same
type found in the 80GB iPod classic—fit;
even a dual-platter, 1.8-inch drive, like the
one used in the 160GB iPod classic, is too
thick. These drives are also slower than a
typical laptop drive, at 4200rpm compared
to 5400rpm, and are ATA rather than the now-common SATA. The only alternative
here, performance-wise, is the optional
64GB solid-state drive, although the high
prices for such drives adds $999 to your
tab; it’s likely to be another year or two
before such drives are inexpensive enough
to be standard features. Perhaps the most controversial compromise Apple has made will turn
out to be that, unlike nearly every other
subnotebook, the MacBook Air uses an
integrated battery that can’t be easily
removed. The apparent reason for such
a design is that, as with the iPhone and
iPod, the battery had to be shaped to
fit within the Air’s unusually-thin profile;
making the battery removable would
have added considerable thickness, as the
enclosure would have had to be redesigned
to accommodate a more-traditional battery
compartment. Finally, the MacBook Air adheres to the general rule that you pay more for smaller
size. Even though it isn’t as full-featured as
the MacBook, it costs $300 to $700 more
than Apple’s consumer-level notebook, and
for only $200 more you can get a much
more capable—but larger and heavier—
Mac Book Pro. So who wants one? Which raises the obvious question: Who, exactly, is this product for? Over
the past couple days, I’ve heard quite a
bit of criticism of the MacBook Air for
its limitations. But I think many of these
criticisms miss the larger goal of Apple’s
latest laptop: Unlike the MacBook and
MacBook Pro, the Air isn’t designed to be
a general-purpose computer; it has, by
design, limitations that will be unacceptable
for many people. But for a particular market—people who value light weight and are willing to give up
other features to get it—it’s an interesting
machine. And if you’ve already got another
Mac at home, the MacBook Air may be
an appealing on-the-go complement, with
many of its limitations able to be overcome
through the use of clever software features
such as Remote Disk and Back To My Mac. As for me, although it’s not exactly what I was hoping for, it’s close enough
that I’m considering buying one to replace
my aging—and heavy—original MacBook
Pro. I’m also impressed by the MacBook
Air for what it stands for: After years of
Apple keeping its product line lean and
tightly focused, the Air shows that the
company feels its market is big enough
to expand into niche products. In that
respect, even if the MacBook Air isn’t for
you—and I suspect that will be the case for
most people—it’s something all Mac users
should welcome. MacBook Air: Holding my breath by Rob Griffiths Like most everyone else, I suspect, I was blown away by the MacBook Air’s reveal
Tuesday. As a long-time fan of ultra-small
notebooks (we still own and use a 12-inch
PowerBook G4 in the Griffiths household),
my initial reactions involved reaching
for my credit card and loading Apple’s
store in my browser. These feelings were
reinforced even more by a visit to the Apple
booth, where picking up the little machine
probably doesn’t even count as exercise.
There’s no denying that the design—curves
everywhere, with nary a straight corner
to be found—and lack of weight in this
machine are truly amazing. It makes my
15-inch MacBook Pro look and feel like a
lead paperweight by comparison. But then—rare, for me—reason intervened and started posing questions
that I should answer before purchasing
the machine. “So what happens, Rob,
when the hard drive has an error and you
have to reinstall OS X?” OK, that seems
easy enough. I’ll just boot off the Leopard
DVD…oh wait, no, I won’t do that unless I
fork over the extra $99 for the USB-powered
SuperDrive. OK, so I’ll use FireWire Target
Disk Mode…nope, won’t do that either, as
there’s no FireWire port (and I confirmed
with an Apple representative that there’s
no “USB Target Disk Mode” option.) And
I won’t be able to use that cool and oh-
so-handy “borrow a drive from another
Mac” feature, as the hard drive won’t be
bootable. So barring the extra $99 for the
SuperDrive, the only solution will be to
boot from a USB2 hard drive that’s been
prepared with a disk-based version of the
OS X installer. But really, how often does a hard drive get an error like this? Not so often, and
$99 is a small price to pay for insurance, so
the SuperDrive solves that problem. Time
to order! “Not so fast, Griff! What about
the hard drive space? 80GB isn’t much
by today’s standards.” While that’s true,
in a small ultra-mobile Mac, I’m willing
to take the tradeoff in drive space. Even
on my MacBook Pro, I’m only using 85GB
of the 120GB space I have available. So
really, this isn’t a major issue—besides, I
fully expect that some enterprising soul
will demonstrate that Toshiba’s new 160GB
1.8-inch hard drive works just fine in the
MacBook Air, and they’ll probably do so
within a day or two of the machine’s
availability in two weeks. So it’s time to order, right? I’ve been waiting for years, after all! “Well, just hang
on a sec. There’s One More Thing you need
to think about. You do realize, don’t you,
that the battery isn’t removable?” What?
That part got left out of Tuesday’s keynote. While Steve Jobs did point out that ultra-
portables from other manufacturers involve
tradeoffs (processor speed, disk space,
screen size), he very conveniently neglected
to mention the single biggest tradeoff with
the MacBook Air: like the iPod, iPhone, and
iPod touch, the battery in a MacBook Air
isn’t user-replaceable. Even Apple’s tech specs page doesn’t go out of its way to clearly explain this fact.
Instead, the battery is merely described
as an “integrated 37-watt-hour lithium-
polymer battery.” The key word in that
sentence would be “integrated,” indicating
that the battery is in fact, part of the
system. So with a five-hour battery life, you’ll be resting quietly for the last seven hours
of a San Francisco to London flight, or
even an hour or so on a cross-country
flight. And that’s assuming you get the full
five hours out of the battery; it remains to
be seen how it will hold up during movie
playback or number crunching in Excel, for
instance. With other Mac laptops, this isn’t an issue—just pack a spare battery, and swap
it out (thanks, safe sleep!) during the flight.
With the MacBook Air, though, you’d best
hope you’ve got a power jack at your seat,
or you’ll be using your Air as a paperweight
for much of longer flights. The other issue is the battery’s natural degradation over time. According to
Wikipedia’s entry on lithium polymer
batteries, the life expectancy of such
batteries is 24 to 36 months, with a claimed
80-percent capacity retention after 500 full
charge/discharge cycles. Again, we won’t
know how the MacBook Air’s battery holds
up until its been in the field for a while,
but it will definitely provide less than a
five-hour charge as it ages. With Apple’s
other laptops, this isn’t an issue as you
can simply purchase a new battery and
install it yourself. But what will one do with
the MacBook Air? Will you have to send
it to Apple to replace the battery? Will
it be something that can be done while
you wait at the local Genius Bar? Nobody
knows, but clearly, it’s not something the
consumer will be able to do at home. And, for me, the battery issue is the one that pushed the “yes” lever over to “no.” I
can live with the other tradeoffs. And I can
even live with non-replaceable batteries in
the iPhone and iPod—but those devices
have sufficient battery life to get through
even the longest flight or day in the field.
The other big difference is the expected
“useful life” of such devices. The iPhone
is my third or fourth cell phone in the last
five or so years, and I’m on my fourth iPod
in that timeframe as well. So battery drain
over time isn’t a big problem with these
things, as the device itself tends to get replaced before it becomes an issue. As noted earlier, however, I still have my four-year-old PowerBook G4, and my
MacBook Pro will still be in service for at
least that long. When something costs
$2,000 or so, I expect that I’ll be able to
use it for a number of years, and that I
shouldn’t have to send it back to Apple for
the equivalent of routine maintenance a
couple times during that period. I think I understand why Apple made the battery non-replaceable—with the
profile of this machine, there simply wasn’t
room for a battery case in the frame, so the
raw battery pack is directly attached to the
innards of the MacBook Air. (The need for a
battery in a case, and some way of inserting
and removing it, probably explains why
some of the competing machines are much
thicker than the MacBook Air.) Unfortunately, this is one time where Apple’s penchant for stunning design has
had a really bad impact on the usability of
the product. Although I don’t often need
more than five hours (ideal) of battery life,
I do need the ability to at least be present in
the machine. Sadly, that’s not the case with
the MacBook Air. So as much as I love this machine—I think it’s a truly stunning design, and it’s
more than fast enough for typical use,
and the weight is just…not there—I won’t
be buying one, at least not in its first
generation form. But if battery technology
continues to progress, and we get a 10-
hour battery life in generation two, three,
or four…well, I’ll probably be the first in
line at that point. Mac security program tries to scare users into buying by Jeremy Kirk Some Macintosh users have encountered a security program whose function and
Web site have the tell-tale signs of a scam. Visitors to the Web site selling the program, called MacSweeper, are offered
a free security scan of their computers.
The scan, which only works on Macs,
highlights supposed security problems with
the computers. It offers to remove the
problems with the purchase of a $39.99
lifetime subscription. But the awkward English on the program’s Web site, and the way the
program operates, have raised doubts over
its legitimacy, users and security researchers
say. “The imbibed set of features locates all the junk and useless data on your
computer and deletes them to reclaim the
wasted space,” according to the pitch on
MacSweeper’s home page. Security company F-Secure wrote on Tuesday that the program may be the first rogue application for Macs. Windows machines have been more frequently targeted by similar software,
sometimes labeled “scareware” since users
are warned their computers will be in
danger unless they purchase the software.
Among the more notorious scareware for
PCs is Winfixer, also known by the aliases
ErrorSafe, WinAntiVirus and DriveCleaner. The MacSweeper Web page is hosted on a server in Kiev, Ukraine, said Patrik Runald,
security response manager for F-Secure,
who is based in Malaysia. Information on
the site about MacSweeper’s company,
Kiwi Software, has been plagiarized from
Symantec’s Web page, Runald said. “They just ripped that information straight off there,” Runald said. The same text is also used on Cleanator. com, which sells a Windows-compatible
version of the same kind of program,
Runald said. Another security vendor,
Sophos, classifies Cleanator as a “potentially
unwanted program.” Once MacSweeper is running on a Mac it will often pick odd items, such as
language files, and label them as being a
privacy risk, Runald said. In at least one instance an F-Secure researcher visited the MacSweeper site and
clicked a button labeled “Free scan.” The
scan highlighted Mac-related problems,
even though the researcher was using a
PC. MacSweeper doesn’t use any tricks to get onto a machine other than trying to
persuade users to download it, Runald
said. Nonetheless, F-Secure typically
contacts Finland’s Computer Emergency
Response Team when it finds scams such as
MacSweeper, Runald said. A user on one of Apple’s discussion boards wrote that their Safari browser kept
redirecting to the MacSweeper site, a sign
that malicious scripts may be involved. “If I click on anything it’ll try downloading the software,” the person
wrote. “How do i get rid of this? It’s really
annoying. I don’t want it, and I’d wish it
would leave me alone.” Photoshop Elements 6.0 by Lesa Snider Patience can indeed have its rewards, and when it comes to the newly unveiled
Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 the payoff
promises to be big. Adobe announced the latest version of its consumer-level image editor, the first
update to the Mac edition of Elements in
two years. (In fact, it’s been so long since
Adobe has come out with a Mac release
that Elements skips version 5 entirely on
this platform, going from 4.0 to 6.0.) For the past week I’ve had the pleasure of playing with a beta of this long- awaited update and the enhancements
to Photoshop Elements are nothing short
of amazing. Adobe incorporated more
functionality from big brother Photoshop
CS3, plus added some features Photoshop
wishes it had. The $90 Photoshop Elements 6.0 ($70, if you’re upgrading) won’t ship until March.
But here’s what to expect when the final
version of the software appears. A quick start and a new look Version 6 introduces a new interface, but, quite honestly, the first thing you’ll
likely notice is the program’s zippier launch.
In informal testing on my 2GHz MacBook
Pro Core Duo, Elements 6.0 opened three
times faster than the last Mac version of
Elements. That’s because this new version
runs natively on both PowerPC- and Intel-
based Macs; you’ll need OS X 10.4 or OS X
10.5 to run Photoshop Elements 6.0. Once open, you’ll notice a dark gray interface, similar to that of Adobe
Photoshop Lightroom. Though it is easier
on the eyes and certainly make photos
“pop” onscreen, it may take a little getting
used to. I found some dialog settings
slightly harder to read. Elements is aimed at amateur photographers, and it’s clear that Adobe
put a lot of thought who uses the program.
Hence, Elements 6.0’s new interface features
three workspaces: Edit, Create, and Share,
resulting in a user experience suited to the
intrepid novice and seasoned guru alike. Let’s start with the Edit workspace. (We’ll discuss the other two below.) It
lets you choose between Full, Quick, and
Guided modes. Experienced users will feel
at home in the Full “do anything” mode,
though intermediate users may prefer to
do their tweaking with a subsampling of
common editing controls in Quick mode
(the QuickFix mode in previous editions of
Elements). In the all-new Guided mode—pictured below—users see a list of task-based
questions. Depending on your answers,
Elements selects the appropriate tool
in the right sequence (thou shalt color
correct before sharpening!), complete with
a description of how and why you’re
supposed to use that particular tool. This mode is very explanatory and rather like having a friendly teacher parked
by your side. A handy before-and-after
preview is also available in the Guided
mode as well as the Quick mode. Editing tools When it comes to editing your images, Elements offers new tools and features
throughout the application. The Enhance
menu now includes a Convert to Black
and White tool, offering six conversion perhaps a smile from yet another, and so
on. Elements uses your scribbles as a go-by
and automatically figures out how much of
the photo to clone in order to blend them
seamlessly. PhotoMerge Faces works in a similar manner, creating a single face from the
pieces and parts of many. Create and Share workspaces Once your photos are edited, enter the Create workspace to present them in a
better, easier manner. In Project mode you
can work with multiple pages in a single
document, allowing you to easily create
a photo book (which you can order from
within Elements), collage, web gallery, or
PDF slideshow. You can begin any project
with a Project Bin full of photos (called
Photo Bin in previous versions), or create
a custom layout and pop the photos in
later. Artwork mode houses a plethora
of backgrounds, frames, graphics, shapes,
text, and themes; you’ll be able to add your
own as well. The new Share workspace will help you export a web gallery, e-mail a photo as an
attachment, order prints, or burn photos to
a CD or DVD. First impressions All in all, it looks like Adobe has hit the mark of making photo editing easier than
ever. Elements 6.0 seems to be the perfect
“next step” choice for anyone wanting to
do more with their photos, while giving
them plenty of room to grow. The most challenging part for many users will be
waiting for that March ship date. Inside the Moscone West hall on Tuesday, Steve Jobs basked in the cheers
of both the marquee announcements that
made up his Macworld Expo keynote.
After announcing the availability of movie
rentals through iTunes, Jobs ended his 101-
minute keynote by taking the wraps off the
MacBook Air, a super-slim addition to its
portable lineup. It would be hard to gauge from the cheers during the keynote which of the
two new announcement made the bigger
impression. As for which product will be
bigger for Apple in the weeks and months
following the keynote, that all depends on
who you ask. Meet the MacBook Air Macbook Air The MacBook Air breaks a lot of barriers, ushering Apple into the subnotebook
market. While the competition may be
strong, subnotebooks remain a niche
market because no computer maker has
really delivered that one product that
everyone wants. That is clearly what Apple
hopes to do with the MacBook Air. “It looks like a strong product in an area that Apple hasn’t addressed so far,”
said Van Baker, vice president of research
at IT-research firm Gartner. Baker added
the MacBook Air will appeal to the Apple
faithful for now, but will definitely help
Apple in its efforts to build market share in
all of its products. presets, with the ability to tweak each one
individually by color channel. The update
also adds more powerful sharpening (Smart
Sharpen and Unsharp Mask), along with
the ability to adjust Color Curves, and
Correct Camera Distortion (great for quick
edge vignetting!). Elements gains a pair of features from Photoshop CS3 Quick Selection and Refine
Edge. The former automatically draws a
selection across an image by detecting
defined edges in your picture; the latter lets
you feather selections as well as preview
them against black or white backgrounds
or as a mask. Another enhancement borrowed from the CS3 suite is CS3’s Adobe Bridge
software. This adds organizational,
keywording, and photo preview prowess,
along with increased Raw support, to
Photoshop Elements. Perhaps the biggest advance in simplified editing is the addition of two
new PhotoMerge options. Nestled snugly
in the File -> New menu, you’ll find The
Fantastic Three: PhotoMerge Group Shot,
PhotoMerge Faces (both new in this
version), and the returning PhotoMerge
Panorama. Perhaps the most useful of all is the new PhotoMerge Group Shot, wherein Elements
will create one perfect photo from up to 10
images. It begins with auto-alignment so
that the faces can be blended perfectly.
Next, choose one photo as the “base”
starting point, then use a scribble-like tool
to grab the eyes from another photo, and COMUG Board of Directors Officers Darren Hess – President .......................................dhess@empnet.com Pat O'Rourke – Vice President ..............................porourke@mac.com Steve Knapp – Treasurer .............................................sknapp@uci.net Bob Jensen – Web Master ................................bjensen@bendnet.com Pete Chadwell – Newsletter Editor ............. pandachadwell@mac.com MeMbers At LArge Matt Marsh..................................................mmarsh@bendcable.com Gale Rietmann ........................................ mrietmann@bendcable.com Jack Cooper ................................................ jcooper511@earthlink.net Hafiz Ungku Wolfendens .....................................hafizungku@aol.com Contact The COMUG Board: e-mail: comug@empnet.com website: http://www.comug.org Help… Membership Questions/General Help: Pete Chadwell .........................317-5751 (After 6 pm) Gale Rietmann ...........................389-7889 (9 am - 3 pm ) Or send an E-Mail to: comug@list.empnet.com - Your question will be distributed to all subscribed members. JANUARY MEETING You know, several years ago I thought things were getting a little weird when
the first iMacs came out with no floppy
drives. Of course, I quickly began to see
the wisdom in that as floppies were indeed
becoming useless…even for me. But now
I see they've come out with a paper-thin
laptop, the Macbook "Air". It's impressive,
alright… and it lacks an optical (DVD) drive!
Whoa! Though I realize that it's designed to
be used within a wireless network where
there is at least one computer around
with an optical drive, I'm taking this as a
foreshadowing of things to come. At COMUG's first meeting of 2008, Darren Hess will be continuing his
demonstration of Leopard to include iCal,
Mail and perhaps a little iPhoto, too. Plus,
Hafiz Ungku has volunteered to present on
some family projects you can do with apps
like Keynote and Comic Life. This month's
raffle will include a wire Mighty Mouse,
i-clear (cleaning kit for your screen), and
i-tunes cards. We will meet at Sky View Middle School at 7:00 PM on Wednesday January 16th.
(That's tonight!) We'll be back in the Library
again this time. I hope you all can be there
and Happy New Year from all of us at
COMUG! That’s a pretty good bet considering the way Apple’s laptop sales have been going
recently. Laptops remain a key part of
Apple’s business—the company sold more
than 1.3 million laptops in its fiscal fourth
quarter, which helped drive a second-
consecutive quarter of record Mac sales. But this is definitely new territory for Apple, with new challenges. Ross Rubin,
director of analysis at market-research firm
NPD, reiterated his pre-keynote observation
that three things have kept the subnotebook
market small—price, battery life and poor
design. Some may agree about MacBook Air’s $1,799 price tag, but with an estimated
five hours of battery life and the design that
Jobs showed off at his keynote, Apple seems
to be off to a good start, analysts say. “It’s a very classic Apple design,” Rubin said. “It [MacBook Air] focuses on areas
that most impact the end users.” The MacBook Air doesn’t come with all of the features you would expect to see on
a full-sized laptop. For instance, it’s missing
an optical drive and many of the ports like
FireWire and Ethernet that we have come
to expect. Apple has taken care of some of those items by offering add-ons. You can buy a
SuperDrive DVD burner for $99, and you
can also buy an Ethernet adapter for $29.
But Apple still makes the case that these
add-ons won’t be needed. “They make a strong case for why those items are not a necessity,” Rubin said. “A lot
of the rationale was spot on, but it really
comes down to installing software.” Obviously installing software is a huge thing, but Apple tackles that issue by having
users temporarily borrow an optical drive
from another Mac or PC over Wi-Fi and use
that to install software. It’s a slick-looking
feature when demoed in person. That said,
mobile users may run into difficulty when
they’re on the road and don’t have access
to another machine. “It [MacBook Air] is designed for highly mobile users that are not tied down to
legacies like wired Ethernet,” Rubin said. Keep an eye on Time Machine by Rob Griffiths Time Machine, the always-there, always- ready backup solution included with OS X
10.5, is generally a wonderful tool. Once
you’ve connected a drive and set up your
backups, Time Machine just works, backing
up your machine every hour of every day.
Even if you never experience drive failure,
Time Machine is also a great tool for
recovering from User Failure—I’ve used it
a number of times to get a file back that I
really didn’t mean to delete when I did. One area that’s a bit weak, in my opinion, is in Time Machine’s reporting to the user. If you’d like to see what Time
Machine is working on, the only GUI
solution is to open up the Time Machine
System Preferences panel, where you’ll see
either the time of the last and next backups,
or if a backup is currently in progress, a
progress bar showing how much backup
work is left to be done. If you’d like more
information than this, though, it appears
you’re out of luck. That’s not entirely true, though. Everything that Time Machine does is
logged to the system log, so it is possible to
get more detailed reports on its activities.
Here are two different ways to use this data
to see what Time Machine has been up to. The simplest way Open Console, in Applications/Utilties, and if you don’t see a two-column window
showing log files in the left-hand panel,
then click the Show Log List button in
the toolbar. Select the All Messages entry
in the left-hand column. The system log
works differently in 10.5; it’s now actually
a database that can be queried for results,
and those results are then displayed in
columns in the All Messages section of
Console. To find the activity for Time Machine, you only need to know that the Time
Machine process is called backupd. Click
in the search box at the top right of the
window (or just press Command-Option-F),
then type backupd. As you type, Console
will filter the results to only show those
entries related to the backupd process. The
filtered output should look something like
this: The results are shown in three columns, as you can see, and it’s the Message column
that’s most useful. The messages reveal
how much data was backed up, what older
backups were removed, and other general
information about the backup run.

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