Appletell

After a recent Firmware Update causing Time Machine preferences to see Hard Disks attached to Airport Extreme Base Stations, many AEBS owners were ecstatic over the Time Capsule-like ability to do wireless backups. But as I personally found out when the Disk refused to mount on the fifth backup, this solution is not fully baked and Apple recently announced that it is not supported at all.

With the announcement of Leopard, Apple said that backing up to AirDisks was supported. Then they pulled the feature, leaving those who had bought External Drives solely for this purpose in the lurch. Then they introduced Time Capsule, severely hindering hope of having the AirDisk feature replaced. This increased the anger, many feeling that Apple was trying to make a fast dollar off of them by forcing them to buy the new product. When Apple released the Update allowing Time Machine to see AirDisks, many thought Apple had listened to it’s customers. As backups start failing all over the place though, anger will grow.

A word to Apple: you need to get this fixed. It is already overdue, and you have many seething customers over this issue. While it may result in some loss in Time Capsule sales, those who want a seamless integrated backup will still buy Time Capsule, and you will retain your current Airport Extreme customers. You’re working on borrowed time here.

Sound off in the comments below if you are one of these customers, or you have had your backups fail.

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Apple today rolled out a Time Machine and Airport combo update. It’s fixes some stuff, blah blah blah. But as soon as I saw “Firmware Updates,“ I had a gut feeling that Apple had restored a long lost feature: backing up to Hard Drives attached to the Airport Extreme Base Station.

It turns out my gut feeling might have been right. TUAW is reporting that reader Peder was pleasantly astonished to find that “after downloading the latest Airport-update I checked for updates for my AirPort Extreme. After upgrading to version 7.3.1, Time Machine recognized the attached USB-drive.“

This means that those of you who rushed out to buy an external drive for wireless backups only to get shortchanged when Apple pulled the feature can now use that drive.

Please sound off in the comments with your results. Here’s hoping that this works for everyone!

Read [TUAW]

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• A good old fashioned way to keep your files safe

Afraid of loosing your iTunes library? Bandwagon aims to automagically backup your media to the web should the worst happen to your computer. At just $2 a month, the service stores your data on either Amazon’s S3, FTP or Omnidrive.

I think the most powerful feature that Bandwagon provides is the ability to backup, sync and restore across an unlimited number of computers.The entire process is pretty much invisible, though the menubar contains lots of options to control it. You can set the upload speeds, see which files are being transferred, etc.

It’s currently only available for the Mac (sorry Windows users). What’s more, The Apple Blog is having a little promotion where the first 25 people who send an email to tab@ridethebandwagon.com will get the backup service free for an entire year (a savings of $24).

Product Page [Bandwagon]

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