Retrospect is so aged and unresponsive, after using it for more than 11 years here, that I’m moving away from it for our backups. In 2008 the EMC rep at Macworld said a new version would be out by the fall of ’08. EMC missed that date, not a good sign for its commitment to Mac. Really now: OS X is just another Unix under the covers.

Time Machine gets the vote here for the newer systems (those running Leopard). Yes, it takes a little trick to get a Time Machine drive ready to boot up in case of a crash, but it’s worth it. Mac OSX Hints has the process here. Well worth the time.

As for Retrospect: Yes, as a business we’ve used it, but it takes tinkering. I’ve probably spent the equivalent of 10 hard drives in rewritable CDs and then DVDs staying backed up. It might be worthwhile to have several hundred versions of the InBox from your e-mail program, but I’ve only looked at a handful of these snapshots over a decade. SuperDuper is far superior to keep a current version of your drives backed up. At $29, it’s too cheap to overlook.

Once a week I schedule a Retro backup onto the DVD plastic. I’m not sure why, but there’s all those years of habit.

Offsite storage is good. I use CrashPlan on the newest iMac and BackJack for our Tiger systems. Each is about $45 a year for storage over the Internet to a remote server. The latter is great at telling you what it’s doing, right down to an e-mail verification. It works the way Mozy did here during 2008, until EMC (them again!) spoiled its Mac interface.

Just this morning I read of another method for offsite backup: Find a Mac buddy who you can have coffee with once a week and swap backup hard drives with them. Do a Carbon Copy Clone of your drive before you go have your grande latte. That way you’re at worst only 7 days behind on a backup in case of a fire. Be serious about the relative value of an offsite backup in the aftermath of a fire. A billboard near my office reminds me that more than 4 out of every 5 businesses — small or large — cannot resume operations after a disaster.

At times, Microsoft and Apple have been at each other’s throats during the past 25 years, jousting for the position of Most Innovative Computer supplier. Even though Google has eclipsed both companies in hubris aimed at that title, over the years small business users had to make a hard choice over and over: Windows for inclusion in the big, cluttered clubhouse of computer resources, or Apple for ease of use and a narrower neighborhood.

Many years ago, however, the companies felt like they needed one another. When the business user was choosing personal computers for the first time — and PC didn’t automatically mean Microsoft-based, Intel-driven computers, Apple and Microsoft engaged in a public lovefest.

With the weekend’s amore still in the air, we offer this sentimental look at Steve Jobs and Bill Gates dating in public. Both their companies seemed like eligible bachelors back then, rather than the lifelong mates they’ve become for Mac business users.

Jobs and Gates in 1983

Bill loves Steve, and Steve loves Bill in 1983

By now the business user can have the intimate relationship these two boys swooned over more than a quarter-century ago. Fusion from VMWare as well as Parallels both provide a Windows sandbox to use the tools of the “PC,” as the world has come to call the Wintel systems. Can’t you just feel the love? If nothing else, Fusion and Parallels give the Mac user a way to run Microsoft’s Explorer and see just how awful the Microsoft browser is rendering Web pages for Windows users.

JAMF Software has a new version of an admin tool for creating packages for Mac users across a company. Most small businesses have a single guru to run computing operations, so keeping that person efficient makes everybody happier. Composer 7 saves time and keeps changes to a Mac environment cleaner.

Composer creates packages, the Mac’s method for installing software. As the JAMF knowledge base Web page says,

When software is purchased from manufacturers it must usually be configured or customized to meet the needs of the end users… Using packages allows changes to be made prior to distribution so software arrives configured and ready for usage. This saves valuable engineering time, as well as network bandwidth because you are only distributing what is necessary.

The tool can be had (in an SE version) for as low $99, or part of the Casper Suite of admin tools. It consists of a Composer module to make packages from any files on the Mac (handy for distributing templates plus letterhead, for example) and Composer Admin (to tune a package into delivery configured for end-users).

How does Apple make its profits? First off, we’re glad they’re making them. It keeps a vendor healthy and innovative. But since the Apple Store is the new mecca for Mac users, it’s a good place to spy where the profits are being produced. The latest MacBooks have a $200 example of extra profit: Disk drive upgrades.

A modest bump on Macbooks from 160 GB to 320 GB drives the price up by $200. Paying an extra $200 for a drive that costs under $100 certainly makes the installation sound like it should be expensive and difficult. But upgrading hard drives is easier than it’s ever been for a Mac in the Macbooks. Apple has put the disk drive access under an easy-to-snap-off cover.

Save the money and order a drive from a third party company like Other World Computing. Let the customers who don’t enjoy integrating to save money pay the extra price. As Alan Dang says in the Tom’s Hardware blog,

In general, these [included Macbook drives] are run-of-the-mill notebook drives, and we recommend upgrading to aftermarket drives. Time Machine makes it extremely straightforward to migrate your computer from one drive to another (provided that you have an external drive). One good choice is the Seagate Momentus 7200.4.

If you really must have Apple integrate a bigger drive, consider jumping up to the 2.4 GHz model of the Macbook Aluminum. It’s got 20 percent more horsepower, but the disk drive adds another 90GB of storage. Oh, and that’s an extra $400. You won’t be able to boost the power of the Macbook, but you can always add more storage.