Grr! How can we plan for leopard if release date is unknown?

[RedTomato]

Hiya,

I work with a small charity where everyone uses iBooks. I'm having problems with getting backups sorted out properly, as everyone is part-time, in and out of the office, and generally not very techie about backups.

Time Machine looks like it could be the answer, as everyone could back up to a central external HD disk plugged into the router. (we don't actually have a central server, we're too small!)

However, I do need to plan and budget for buying Leopard for the company, and it's very frustrating as Apple won't say when it's coming out or how much it will cost!

If it won't come out till Summer, ok fine, I'll get something else (what do you recommend?) and set it up and train people how to use it.

But if Leopard is coming out soon, I'd rather wait, as it's disruptive to our work to be changing things around all the time, also it's an expensive waste of my time to buy and set up a third party backup, then junk it for Time Machine a few weeks later :(

Suggestions?

[heehee]

Acoording to apple.com, they are releasing it "Spring 2007". That's 8 weeks away at the earliest.

[clevin]

for now, train your ppl to use copy and paste.

[bartelby]

Couldn't you just budget for future purchases?
For the last few OS X upgrades pricing has been fairly stable at around £80 for one and £130 for family liecenses.

[Queso]

The Apple site now says mid-2007. Stick Leopard in the budget for July. In the meantime, buy the hardware, create a top-level directory for each user and use one of the freebie backup programs to backup chosen folders or the entire iBook drive to their target directory. The first time takes ages, but from that point on you can set it to only backup the changes. Speeds it up no end.

I use Silverkeeper (http://www.lacie.com/silverkeeper/) from Lacie. it's free, and once you set it up it's just a case of hitting the Go button whenever you want to backup. you can also schedule backups, but in your circumstances that's less useful.

Of course, this system won't give you the same funcitonality as Time Machine (multiple versions of files, etc.), but it's better than nothing in the meantime.

[oceanmonster]

Purchase a .mac account and download apple's backup utility. A utility that comes with the membership. www.mac.com and http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=E5E48A4D&nplm=MA361Z%2FA

[Scarlet Fever]

If Apple repeats history, Leopard will be $US129

[Cassie]

OR just stick with Tiger.