Your Mac is in all probability one of your more prized possessions. Perhaps you even have more than one – a desktop and a portable, and an iPod touch or an iPhone to complete the line-up.

What’s easy to forget though is that the kit itself is only part of the story. It’s actually your data that’s really valuable. If your Mac breaks down, it can be repaired. But if a hard drive croaks or something is accidentally deleted and it hasn’t been backed up, there’s no way to ever recover it.

For most people, their Mac stores all their data, from bank account information to photo libraries, home movies and email correspondence. It’s fair to say that for many users, their entire life is on their Mac. And yet backing up is sometimes thought of as an inconvenience and something that people only start to do after they’ve already lost some important files.

Since OS X 10.5 Leopard, Apple has offered Time Machine, a straightforward and hassle-free backup utility integrated into the system. It’s so easy to use that there’s no excuse not to be using it regularly. continue reading

I have been a huge fan of Internet radio for a long time. It has introduced me to many bands I’d never have heard of otherwise (whose music I went on to purchase). And network Pandora has taken the Internet radio phenom one step further, adding an excellent social media aspect to their service that helps you customize your own stations. But they also serve up some great genre-specific stations (give me Downtempo any day). continue reading

Short version: Versatile but not particularly compact, the Vandal is a good choice for the hardcore urban biker who needs to fit everything in his backpack, rain or shine.

Features: continue reading

I love anything that has Disney’s Stamp on it, be it their cartoons or amusement parks or their princess gear. It all totally presses all the right buttons with me.

Being a little technology oriented, it makes me happy to see ASUS presenting its 8.9-inch Disney netbook ‘Eee PC MK90H’ for kids during CeBIT 2010. continue reading