Now that you've been using Time Machine regularly to back up your computer, you should be fully prepared if your Mac crashes or if you need to move data from one Mac to another. Restoring data from Time Machine is just as easy as backing things up in the first place. Restore a single file or folder If you're just looking for a certain file or folder, start by connecting the external drive you use for Time Machine backups or making sure you can connect to your Time Capsule. Click on the Time Machine item in the menu bar at the top of your screen (it looks like a clock with an arrow running counter-clockwise) and choose Enter Time Machine. Here, all of your saved backups appear in chronological order. Use the visual timeline on the right hand side to scroll through your backups and look for specific items or folders. Older dates are indicated in pink on the timeline; the most up-to-date data on your Mac is indicated in white. (You'll see the word "Now" in bold, white letters on the timeline.) Not sure which backup might hold the last copy of your missing file? Try a Spotlight search in Time Machine based on keywords. You'll see a search field in the corner of each Finder window in the Time Machine view. Type in the file name or keywords from the file, and Spotlight will search through your backups to find the latest copy. Once you think you've found what you're looking for, use OS X's Quick Look to make sure--select the file and then press the spacebar to view the file without having to launch its parent application. Select the file or folder and press the Restore button. The file will automatically be copied to your desktop or to the file's original folder. This may take some time, depending on the size of the transfer. Restore an entire system Sometimes you may want to restore your entire system from a backup, say in event of a crash or when your computer is acting badly and you'd like to dial back the clock to a kinder, gentler time. If that's the case, first connect your Time Machine drive. Then, start up your Mac from the Mountain Lion recovery partition by pressing (and holding down) Command-R at startup. This launches Recovery Mode, which is a portion of your drive that Mountain Lion treats as a separate volume. It includes a few essential utilities for restoring files in case of an issue. For this to work, you must have a complete Time Machine backup that includes all system files. The Mac OS X Utilities window appears. Select Restore From Time Machine Backup. This command will erase the destination drive--your Mac--so only use it if you're restoring an entire volume to its original source or to a replacement drive. (Read the next section for setting up a new Mac or transferring data between Macs). Click Continue until you reach the Select a Backup Source window. Select your Time Machine drive and click Continue. In the Select a Destination window, select your Mac's hard drive. (Using Recovery Mode erases your Mac's hard drive before restoring from Time Machine, but once the process is finished, you'll be able to log in and use your Mac normally). Transfer data between Macs

HTC and Verizon Wireless on Tuesday announced the Droid DNA smartphone, which comes with Android 4.1 and a 5-inch high-definition display that the company said is the most advanced in the market today. The Droid DNA display can show images at a 1920 by 1080 pixel resolution, at 440 pixels by inch (PPI). That beats the iPhone 5, which has a 326 ppi display, and Samsung's Galaxy S III, which has 306 ppi. The display has a Gorilla...

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Nokia debuts Here, cross-platform location service

Nokia plans an ambitious expansion of its mapping and location-based services platform beyond its own smartphones to competing devices running OSes other than Windows Phone 8, it said Tuesday. The move is being backed with the acquisition by Nokia of Earthmine, a California-based provider of street-level 3D imaging data, and will see Nokia going head-to-head with Google, Apple and dedicated mapping companies like TomTom. "We...

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Jaspersoft BI suite gets a new visualization engine

With the commercial release of version 5 of its self-named reporting and analysis suite, Jaspersoft has revamped the software's visualization engine, doing away with an Adobe Flash-based visualization engine in favor of one using HTML5 Web standards. The "HTML5 charting engine allows for more dynamic interaction with the data," said Mike Boyarski, Jaspersoft director of product marketing. The newly released Jaspersoft 5.0...

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SugarSync online storage service releases 2.0 beta

Synchronization service firm SugarSync has dramatically overhauled and simplified its user interface in the new 2.0 release out in a form of software public beta today. The revised software bears little resemblance to the previous version, and adds a number of features in a consolidated, simplified Mac OS X application. Product manager Drew Garcia said, the firm went back "to square one from a design perspective to...

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Microsoft patches critical flaws in Windows 8, Windows RT

Microsoft today patched 19 vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), Excel and the .Net development framework, including four flaws in the just-released Windows 8 and its tablet spin-off Windows RT. Of Tuesday's six security updates, four were labeled "critical," Microsoft's most-severe threat ranking, while the remaining pair were pegged as "important" or "moderate." Of the 19 vulnerabilities patched today, seven...

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Cisco Q1 profit and revenue grew despite weakness in Europe

Cisco Systems posted higher revenue and profit in its fiscal first quarter despite weak orders in Europe, as results in the U.S. were strong, the networking company reported on Tuesday. Revenue hit US$11.9 billion in the quarter, up 6 percent from a year earlier, the company said. Net income rose by almost 18 percent to $2.1 billion, with earnings per share of $0.39. Chairman and CEO John Chambers attributed the company's...

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