OS X Leopard includes a wonderful backup tool, Time Machine, that allows anyone to quickly backup their entire system on an external hard drive or Time Capsule.

In addition to allowing individuals to backup and restore from their own system, Time Machine also allows you to “Browse Other Time Machine Disks”. This built in feature allows you to connect to any available Time Machine drive on your network and pull off any version of the file you’re looking for.

To Browse Other Time Machine Disks:

1. Be sure that you are connected to the Other Time Machine disk. To do this you may need to connect to the computer the drive is connected to and login with user credentials or mount the drive by connecting to the computer (command+K in Finder) with its IP address and mounting the drive.
2. After your computer has connected to the Other Time Machine disk, right click (command+click) the Time Machine icon in the dock
3. Select the Other Time Machine disk from the selection window and click Use Selected Disk

After following the steps above, Time Machine should launch and display contents of the backed up data on the Other Time Machine disk.

Browse through the files to find what you’re looking for, select those files, and then click restore. Time Machine will ask you where you’d like to restore the files to on your current computer. Select the location and let the file restoration begin.

Now that we’ve explained how to setup Windows to run on OS X in its own Space by using Parallels its time we explain the quickest and easiest way to launch your Windows applications when you’re working in OS X.

Once you have Windows installed using a Parallels Virtual Machine and you’ve launched some of your Windows’ applications getting back to them from OS X is as easy as searching in Spotlight.

For example, say you’d like to open Microsoft Word 2003 to create a new document based on the news article you just read in Safari.

Instead of switching to your Windows Space and launching Word 2003 from the Start menu you can pull up Spotlight with its keyboard shortcut (command + spacebar), type in Word, select Word 2003 from the populated list and hit enter.

Your screen will automatically move to the correct Space and spotlight will open up your Windows application.

NOTE: You must have previously opened the Windows Application for Safari to have it indexed.

We’ve mentioned previously how wonderful the new Automator is and have decided that to feature a weekly workflow that may make some of your tasks easier.

The Automator Tip of the Week is Picture File Conversion.

It is amazing the number of different picture file formats for the modern computer. Many people use jpegs but at the same time tiffs are still common amongst Mac users.

Additionally, web picture formats include gif, png, and many others. But amongst all these different file formats you may find yourself in need of a way to quickly convert pictures from one format to another. Opening each picture and saving it as a different format can be very time consuming. Unless, of course, you setup an automator task to do the work for you.

Change Picture File Type With Automator

The following Automator steps will help you batch convert the file extension of your pictures. For a point of reference I’ll reference this as if you were changing png images to jpeg:

1. Find Finder Items - Do a search to select all the .png images you want to transfer to jpeg
2. Get Selected Finder Items
3. Copy Finder Items - This will make sure you keep an original copy of all your .png images should anything go wrong.
4. Change Type of Images - select the image type you’d like to change to.

Run this automator process and you’ll be set with a backup copy of your images and the new images in your desired file format. The process that use to take you forever was completed in seconds.

If you need any help with an Automator process please let us know by leaving a comment.

Now that you know how to sync your Safari bookmarks between your iPhone/iPod Touch and your Apple Computer we imagine that you’d also be interested in learning how to clear out some personal information from your iPhone.

To clear out your Cookies, History, and Cache on your iPhone or iPod Touch:

1. Select Settings
2. Select Safari
3. Scroll down and select Clear Cookies
4. Confirm the deletion of Cookies

Do the same for History and Cache. All your iPhone browsing behavior is now whipped clean and you can let your friends and family experience the Safari Mobile Browsing Experience without fear of them accessing information they shouldn’t.

- Thanks TUAW!

The traffic to Maciverse.com has increased significantly over the past few weeks. Incase you didn’t catch all of these posts, here are the ones that have gained the most attention:

1. 10 Ways to Enhance your Safari Browsing Experience - This article shows a number of ways to get the most out of Safari. It includes a number of tips and hints as well as some less use features that make Safari one of the fastest and most enjoyable web browsers.




2. Import Your iWeb Blog to Wordpress - Many new Mac users start their first weblog using the built in iWeb software included with each new Apple Computer. Unfortunately, iWeb lacks some of the capabilities that many users want in their blog. Wordpress, a free and powerful bloging software allows for some additional customization to your blog. Use this guide to move all your iWeb posts to your new Wordpress blog.




3. OS X 10.5 Screen Sharing - One of the great additions to OS X Leopard is the ability to quickly share screens with other computers in your network or over iChat. This post will walk you through how to do each




4. Macbook Air Passes Airport Security - I brought my Macbook Air on a recent trip to test out how Airport Security would react to the thin and wonderful device.




5. MacWiiTv - Follow the instructions in this post to connect your Mac, your Nintendo Wii, and your HDTV to gain one amazing Media Center. Use your Wiimote as your mouse and launch FrontRow with a single “A” button click.

Another interesting article to check out is 4 Steps to Turn RSS Feeds into Audio Files. Use this to pull your favorite RSS feeds from the web, convert them to mp3s and load them onto your iPod for the go.

Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed so that you don’t miss any Maciverse.com article. We’re also interested in anything you have to see. Leave us comments and we’ll be sure reply!