I recently bought a Time Capsule from Apple. This wondrous device’s basic function is to provide automated incremental wireless backups of all your Macs using Mac OS X Leopard’s Time Machine; it’s a fantastic invention that makes backing up so easy that perhaps now, finally, home computer users will start protecting their data. (Unfortunately people never seem to realise how valuable their information is until they lose all their baby photos or accounts.) It also provides fast wireless-n networking, Gigabit Ethernet on each of its 4 network ports, a USB2 port for wireless printing or wireless Network Attached Storage (NAS), IPv6, amongst several other features, and is generally an remarkable device.

Unfortunately, it’s not all roses. When the backups are working, it’s brilliant ? indeed, it’s backing up my laptop right now: I can just about hear it whirring away and the Time Machine icon in my menu is rotating ?  but when you get the dreaded “Backup Failed” message, that’s when things get interesting?

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