Here’s a collection of tips for using Time Machine, the backup software built into Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard.” These are random tips, which answer questions that I had, or which people asked me. I found the answers from by trial-and-error, searching Apple’s limited documentation, or finding other stuff on the Internet.

1. When you set up a Time Machine (TM) disk for the time time, be prepared for it to take a long time to do its backup. You can reduce this time considerably by adding the TM disk to Spotlight’s exclusions list using System Preference -> Spotlight -> Privacy

2. You can also speed up the initial backup time by turning off your virus-checking software temporarily. Close all your browser and e-mail software, and turn off the virus checker. Be sure to turn it all back on again when the initial backup is complete.

3. Reduce the amount of space that you’re using for backups by excluding the TM disk from its own backups using System Preferences -> Time Machine -> Options. Mac OS X might do that automatically – but why take a chance?

4. If you use iDisk, and keep a local copy of it on your hard drive, tell Time Machine not to back it up. Otherwise, TM will keep backing the entire disk image up every time there’s a single change, which wastes a lot of space. Exclude this directory from your backups: ~/Library/FileSync.

5. If you find that there is some data that you backed up that you wish you hadn’t – perhaps it’s from a directory that you excluded – you can delete it from all TM backups. To do this, first make sure you have the Action icon in your finder window toolbar. Double-click any folder. Do you see a gear at the top of the window? If not, right-click near the top of the window, select Customize Toolbar, and then add the Action item to it.

Once that’s done, here’s how you delete something from a TM backup: Start TM in regular mode (that is, with the Finder selected, not Mail or Address Book). Highlight the item(s) you’d like to delete – they can be folders or files. Then, from the Action menu, select “Delete all backups of xxxx”

6. You can use one large TM disk to backup more than one computer, either over the network or by connecting the TM disk to each computer via USB or Firewire. Each computer’s backups are stored separately, by machine name, within the Backups.bckupd folder. Note that if you rename a machine, Time Machine will not associate its previous backup set with that machine any more.

7. If your TM disk has more than one computer’s backup on it, you can use TM to browse the other machine’s backups. Hold down the Alt/Option key and select the TM icon in the menubar. The “Enter Time Machine” menu choice is replaced by “Browse Other Time Machine Disks.” Make sure each computer’s name doesn’t contain non-alphanumeric characters; TM crashes if it does.

8. You can store non-backup data in the Time Machine disk, but be careful. Do not change, move, rename or delete any of the contents of the Backups.backupd folder, or you’ll risk corrupting the backups. Personally, I prefer dedicating an external hard drive to TM.

9. There is a known bug that if you have multiple monitors, on some machines the starry space background for the Time Machine application won’t show up. TM works properly, though. (This one drove me crazy until I figured it out.)

Do you have other TM tips? Please share them!

In early December, we launched a social network for former employees of Miller Freeman. That is, everyone who had worked at Miller Freeman Publications or Miller Freeman Inc. (including companies that merged into it, like Gralla) up through Miller Freeman’s absorption into CMP in mid-1999.

Like the universe after the Big Bang, growth was astronomical at first, and then began slowing. Within a week, the afterMillerFreeman social network passed 200 people; after three weeks, it was up to 350. And now, 3 1/2 months later, we’ve just passed 500 members. (The story can be found in a Dec. 19 post, “How social networking destroyed one person-year of productivity in a mere two days.”

If you’re a former Miller Freeman employee, and you’d like to join our social network, you can sign up at http://aftermfi.ning.com.

We stumbled across Spiegel im Spiegel a few days ago… we were listening to KDFC, our local classical music station, when this beautiful, repetitive, hypnotic piano-and-violin piece came on.

We were entranced.

It was like listening to the Pachelbel Canon for the first time, only even more relaxing.

That’s where KDFC’s “What Was That Piece” music search feature is great… knowing the date and time, we could learn that it was Spiegel im Spiegel by Arvo Pärt, as performed by Malter and Spivakov on the album “Alina.”

Pärt is an Estonian composer, who according to Wikipedia is associated with the school of minimalism. This piece certainly fits that description. Wikipedia describes the 1978 composition as:

The piece is in F major in 6/4 time, with the piano playing rising crotchet triads and the second instrument playing slow scales, alternately rising and falling, of increasing length, which all end on the note A (the mediant of F). The piano’s left hand also plays notes, syncopated with the violin (or other instrument).

“Spiegel im Spiegel” in German literally can mean both “mirror in the mirror” as well as “mirrors in the mirror,” referring to the infinity of images produced by parallel plane mirrors: the tonic triads are endlessly repeated with small variations as if reflected back and forth. Perhaps the best translation of the title is “Parallel mirrors.”

Needless to say, an Amazon purchase followed immediately thereafter, and we’ve been enjoying it ever since.

If you like meditative music to play in the background, or to fall asleep to on an airplane, you’ll love this. It’s sooooo relaxing.

Every quarter, the Eclipse Foundation has a Member Meeting. This quarter’s meeting took place at EclipseCon on Monday, from 1:30-6:00 pm.

The most eagerly anticipated presentation of the member meeting is the report from the Foundation’s director, Mike Milinkovich. As usual, Mike didn’t disappoint.

Mike (pictured in photo from anniejay) highlighted the continued growth of the Foundation. it’s up to 179 Members (that is, companies that have signed on the bottom line that they’ll support Eclipse), of which 21 are Strategic Members (that is, companies that pay big bucks to have more influence). The goal is to end the year with more than 200 members.

Meanwhile, the organization has 942 Committers (that is, active developers who have read/write access to the source code repository).

According to Mike, new growth in membership will come from outside Eclipse’s traditional ISV base, through a new group of “Corporate” Members. To that end, the Foundation is shortly going to propose a new membership category for large financial institutions, large healthcare companies, manufacturers and other companies like that.

These non-ISV companies are extremely committed to Eclipse, and wish to participate. However, unlike traditional ISV members, they have no intention of releasing products based on Eclipse, because they don’t sell software. (The current bylaws require that members commit to release Eclipse-based products.) Even so, they wish to be “inside the tent,” and will contribute to Eclipse’s success and code base by participating in projects.

The benefits to those companies for joining the Eclipse Foundation are clear: greater influence, and more opportunity to help leverage Eclipse for their internal software development efforts. Being part of Eclipse will also provide those big companies with frameworks for industry-specific projects, using the Foundation’s license and intellectual-property vetting system to foster collaboration.

The benefits to the Foundation are equally clear, said Mike. Bringing those vertical-industry companies into the Foundation will provide more resources for supporting projects. It will, also, increase funding for the Foundation, which will drive new services. It also, he added, help protect the health of the ecosystem, because those new members might be insulated from market conditions that could affect ISVs.

Corporate members will be charged, of course, for participation. Mike suggested that the fee would be $125,000 per annum. If that sounds high, it’s not. If a huge bank or insurance company with thousands of developers saved merely the equivalent of two developers-years by leveraging the Eclipse code base or by getting Eclipse projects to better support their requirements, they’ve more than repaid that investment.

Corporate membership seems like a great idea, and could help offset one of the potential weaknesses of the Eclipse Foundation. Because nearly all its most active members are software companies, new projects tend to be focused on supporting the competitive needs of those same software vendors. By bringing more consumers of Eclipse’s technology into the tent, Eclipse’s projects may become more democratic, more customer-driven and less vendor-centric. That is unquestionably a Good Thing.

Think Services — the publishing company that puts out Dr. Dobb’s Journal — is taking the magazine to the next level. Last year, DDJ extended into Second Life. Now, it’s becoming a video game.

With this new initiative, DDJ is continuing its tight marketing relationship with Microsoft. The game is being done in conjunction with Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2008 team.

As they say on the special Web site, “The Dobbs Challenge“:

Welcome to the first ever Dobbs Challenge, a special game competition brought to you in association with the world-renowned Dr. Dobb’s Journal for software developers and Microsoft.

– Firstly download our specially created “Dr. Dobb’s Challenge’ games for either Windows and Windows Mobile.

– Then you can win from a prize pool of $10,000 by modifying the games using a trial version of Visual Studio 2008.

The games star the first-ever personification of Dr. Dobbs, alongside the characters from Microsoft’s famous ‘Defy All Challenges’ machinima videos, as you battle to collect Visual Studio icons and complete the levels.

Full source code and art for the games are freely provided for programmers to ‘mod’ the results and win prizes.

DDJ is doing a great job serving hobbyist/enthusiast programmers. As for me, I’ll skip the contest.

My Z Trek blog is a “business blog,” because it’s (sometimes) involved with what I do for a living, and because I (sometimes) do my blogging during working hours.

However, many of my favorite bloggers do so on their own time, to talk about their non-commercial interests. Let’s say that their blogs generate a fair amount of traffic. Should they attempt to monetize that through advertising?

According to Eugene Volokh, you might not want to commercialize a personal-interest blog.

In his post, “Don’t sell ads on your blog,” Eugene writes that, “Many homeowner’s insurance policies cover you for libel, invasion of privacy, and the like, including for the costs of defending the lawsuits. But they generally expressly exempt liability that’s based on your “business pursuits,” which may include even those pursuits on which you make a pittance.”

Interesting topic, and one I’d never thought about.

I thought we’d see some SCOs, some Microsofts, some Oracles, maybe even an IBM, a Red Hat, a Free Software Foundation, an Apple. Nope.

Not a single nomination in the SD Times’ newest award, THE WORST OF 2007. Lots of clicks on the nomination form, but nobody submitted.

What a disappointment!

Are all of your computers, applications and devices ready for tonight’s Daylight Savings Time changeover? If you’re in the United States, the answer probably is “no.”

In its infinite wisdom, the U.S. government changed the rules for Daylight Savings Time in 2005, to take effect in 2007. Most modern software systems have been updated, but not everything has been.

Here are the rules for this year and next, for those U.S. states which observe DST:

Standard Time begins each year at 2:00 a.m. (local time) on the first Sunday of November.

Move your clocks back one hour at the resumption of Standard Time.

In 2008, DST is from 2:00 a.m. (local time) on March 9th until 2:00 a.m. (local time) on November 2nd.

In 2009, DST is from 2:00 a.m. (local time) on March 8th until 2:00 a.m. (local time) on November 1st.

Before the 2005 legislation, DST begin on the first Sunday in April, and ended on the last Sunday in October. So, there’s a good chance that for the next few weeks, your home or office will have some devices or applications that won’t pick up the DST change, and thus they’ll display the wrong time for nearly a full month, from March 9 through April 6.

Don’t forget: Tonight, at 2:00am on Sunday, change all your clocks forward to 3:00am.

Stefan Klein wrote a nice piece about Daylight Savings Time in the New York Times.

I can only imagine the headache that Ziff Davis Media’s announcement of bankruptcy is causing for Ziff Davis Enterprise — an entirely different company.

Ziff Davis Media, whose bankruptcy I noted last week, publishes PC Magazine and several other magazines and Web sites. Ziff Davis Media is a subsidiary of Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings, which put Ziff Davis Media into bankruptcy to dump debt.

Ziff Davis Enterprise, which publishes eWeek, Baseline and a whole bunch of other magazines and Web sites, is not bankrupt. This company is not related to Ziff Davis Media, and is owned by Insight Venture Partners.

Confused? A lot of people probably are. That’s why Steve Weitzner, CEO of Ziff Davis Enterprise, put out a clarification about this last week. I don’t blame him!

Jon Erickson, editor-in-chief of Dr. Dobb’s Journal, totally stumped me yesterday. He asked me how many companies had published DDJ, and I guessed four. The correct answer is five.

Dr. Dobb’s was founded by

1. People’s Computing Company (PCC)

which sold DDJ to

2. M&T Publishing, the U.S. subsidiary of the German media giant Markt und Technik Verlag AG.

M&T Publishing was then sold to

3. Miller Freeman Inc. (MFI), a subsidiary of United News & Media (now United Business Media).

UBM then merged MFI into another division, the newly purchased

4. CMP Media LLC

which last week split up, retiring the CMP name, with DDJ going into the new business unit called

5. Think Services.

I flat-out forgot about PCC.

Here’s a great article on the earliest history of DDJ, which was founded as a newsletter to distribute technical information about Tiny BASIC, a language designed for 1970s-era microcomputers like the MITS Altair.

Over time, and under the editorial leadership of Michael Swaine (1984-1987), Tyler Sperry (1987-1988) and Jon Erickson (1988-), DDJ expanded its coverage to become a beloved hobbyist/enthusiast publication like Byte. CMP Media ceased publishing Byte a decade ago, in 1998. I’m glad that DDJ is still around.

Everyone at BZ Media is amped for the launch of Systems Management News, which will debut on April 15.

Systems Management News (SMN) is a newspaper very similar to SD Times in format and appearance. Its will provide timely news and analysis to IT systems managers — your colleagues who manage data centers, database administrators, network administrators, and so-on. You can subscribe online at http://www.sysmannews.com.

As part of the launch effort, several members of SD Times‘ editorial team are moving over to SMN: David Rubinstein, editor-in-chief; Mara Leonardi, art director; Alex Handy, senior editor; and Jeff Feinman, assistant editor. I’d like to thank them for their tremendous contributions to SD Times. Dave was part of the launch team for SD Times, back in 1999, Mara came on for our third issue in early 2000, Alex joined us in 2005, and and Jeff signed on in 2006.

By the way, you’ll still see their contributions in SD Times now and again — we have a lot of joint projects planned.

So, where does that leave the SD Times editorial team? In short, strong. I’m putting the chief editor hat back on; I’d worn it from our launch until handing it over to Dave a few years ago. Erin Broadhurst, with SD Times since 2006, is promoted to art director.

P.J. Connolly remains SD Times’ executive editor, and has day-to-day responsibility for writing and reporting. David Worthington, who came to us in 2007 as associate editor, was joined last week by Robert Mullins, our new senior editor. The back-end production of SD Times will continue to be the responsibility of Greg Lupion, managing editor, and Adam LoBelia, associate copy editor.

You know, very few media companies are starting new projects — and even fewer are starting new print publications, like we’re doing with Systems Management News. The trend has been to shut down or de-emphasize newspapers and magazines, and focus on Web sites.

While we certainly believe in the Web — we’ve invested a lot in SDTimes.com — we also believe in the value of hard-copy publications like SD Times, Systems Management News and Software Test & Performance. We know you do too.

Thank you for your support.

Talk about weird: On the recommendation of a friend, we rented The Fifth Element from Netflix, and watched it last night.

What a bizarre movie! It’s a 1997 sci-fi action/comedy, starring Bruce Willis as a 23rd-century flying taxi driver, Gary Oldman as a corrupt businessman, Ian Holm as a priest, Chris Tucker as a talk-show host, and Milla Jovovich as an orange-haired “perfect being.”

The non-stop action is a bizarre mixture of Stargate (1994), Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones (2002), Die Hard (1988) and Rush Hour (1998).

The Fifth Element’s story is hard to follow, and the characters are 100% strange. It’s worth renting, if you’re in the mood for something different. Very different.

“Which development environment do you use?“

That’s one of the most eagerly awaited questions in BZ Research’s annual study into the use of Java within the enterprise and at ISVs.

The top development environments, according to the December 2007, study are:

Eclipse 62.7%
Sun NetBeans 24.4%
Oracle JDeveloper 20.4%
IBM Rational Application Developer 19.4%
IBM WebSphere Studio Application Developer 18.7%

Macromedia Dreamweaver 14.2%
Sun Java Studio Enterprise 13.6%
Sun Java Studio Creator 10.5%
BEA WebLogic Workshop 9.3%
JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA 9.2%

Emacs or related editor 8.3%
In-house-developed IDE 6.6%
Borland Enterprise Studio for Java 5.3%
SlickEdit Visual SlickEdit 5.0%
Sybase PowerBuilder 4.9%

Borland/TogetherSoft Control Center 3.9%
Apple Xcode 3.2%
CodeGear JBuilder 3.2%
Compuware DevPartner 2.3%
Compuware OptimalJ 1.7%

While Eclipse continues to completely dominate the field, the “pure Eclipse” score did slip back a little from 2006, where it had 69.6%. Given the platform’s strong position, and that just about every competitor is gunning for Eclipse, it’s not surprising that it took some hits. In fact, that statistic might be a bit misleading.

Why? Companies that use Eclipse as their foundation, like IBM or CodeGear, aggressively market their Eclipse-based JBuilder against “plain old” Eclipse. So, every time one of those products gains another user, it appears to be a blow against Eclipse, but in actual fact, it’s either neutral or a net gain for Eclipse.

Meanwhile, we saw some growth in NetBeans (23.3% in 2006) and Oracle JDeveloper (19.0% in 2006). The NetBeans-based Sun Java Studio Enterprise also took a leap (from 9.5% in 2006).

The most surprising change, to me, was the number of people who say they are using an in-house-developed IDE. That jumped up from 2.8% in 2006.

Copies of the full study are available for sale from BZ Research. It contains comparative records back to 2002, as well as data about app servers, Java APIs and a lot more.