Time Machine

Leopard's dead-simple backup utility, Time Machine, probably has more people backing up their Mac than ever before precisely because there are so few configuration options. But if you're determined to stretch Time Machine beyond its default behavior, there are two ways to do so:

Customize Time Machine's backup schedule with TimeMachineScheduler. If Time Machine's hourly hard drive spin-up is slowing down your Mac or just seems too frequent to you, customize the schedule using freeware TimeMachineScheduler. TimeMachineScheduler's interval slider lets you set Time Machine's default backup time from 1 hour to up to 12 hours apart.

Enable Airport disk destinations with iTimeMachine. New freeware iTimeMachine lets you set network disks as Time Machine's backup destination—great if you've got other Macs in the house but no FireWire drive. Warning: We haven't tested iTimeMachine's support for network disks, which Apple marks as "unsupported"—so do proceed with caution when it comes to critical data using this software.