I’m a Apple fanboy through and through. This I admit freely. But I’m also man enough to admit that not everything Apple does is perfect.
Time Machine, Apple’s default back up program, is one of those not so perfect things.
My biggest problem with Time Machine is the inability to customize just when Time Machine backs up. The only time management setting offered by Time Machine is on or off. When it’s on it backs up everything on your Mac, every hour. I find this to be a major nuisance as it seems my iMac is always backing itself up and it’s usually suffering some performance when doing so. This becomes even more of an issue when I’ve been busy on my iMac over the previous hour because it leaves Time Machine with a large amount of work to do.
Thankfully, while listening to a recent podcast from the Mac Observer, I recently discovered a great freeware utility that allows the user to set a real schedule for just when Time Machine goes to work.
Time Machine Editor is a simple program that once installed gives you complete control over when your back ups occur. You can set daily, weekly, or monthly back up and even specify the time that the back ups are done.
With Time Machine Editor I feel like I’ve gained a little bit more of the power of my iMac back.
You can learn more about this free application on the developer’s website.