For a tech writer this guy sure uses term in a sloppy manner. Networked backups work just fine, even over WiFi. What he should have said was that drives connected directly to AirPorts do not work for TM. That is a huge difference.

Taking a portable external drive isn't that big of a deal anyways. They just want to post something so they nit pick at every little thing. Airport drive will most likely get fixed in 10.5.1 update if not sooner. Just have the feeling.

I have installed Leopard and TM to play with, but until my CAD software catches up, I still work on another partition in Tiger. I did install TM on a third partition on my iMac's internal drive, and it works just fine.

Macbook and MB Pro users could do the same, then clone the TM partition to an external when they get back to wherever "Base" is.

I haven't used Leopard yet, but I've heard that Time Machine gracefully works with drives being connected and disconnected. So you could set it up with an external drive at home, and hook it up once a day (or week, or whenever is convenient) and let Time Machine do its thing then. It's not quite the same as having it available all the time, but it's still an easy, automatic backup routine.

I have an external drive connected to my iMac that I'm using for Time Machine. I also have a new MB Pro. It took a little bit of hassle at the beginning, but now I've got the laptop backing up to the same drive when I'm connected to my home wireless network in the evenings. During the day, when I'm in the office, Time Machine just sits quietly, biding its time. There have been a few hiccups along the way, but you certainly *can* use TM over a network. No weird hacks required, either.

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Guest wrote:
There have been a few hiccups along the way, but you certainly *can* use TM over a network. No weird hacks required, either.

What you can't do (yet) is use Time Machine with an USB drive directly connected to an Airport Extreme base station. I don't know if you can use it with a drive that's connected via Ethernet.