Too late for this year I guess, but if you like rsync, be sure to look at http://folk.uio.no/johnen/bontmia/

It is essentially a mac "time machine" backup, but written as a shell script, and based on rsync. It even does some magic with hardlinks so you can browse your backed up data at any time without duplicating data.

W. Curtis Preston, at BackupCentral, posted a couple of blog entries dissecting time machine and replacing it with rsync on Mac OS X. Sounds like he's using it on his home network and getting the features he's after. This sequence of blogs is about time machine, about dissecting it and replacing it with rsync, and then some lessons with rsync. Very interesting read. Especially if you're running Mac OS X and want to try something like this.

http://www.backupcentral.com/content/view/280/47/

http://www.backupcentral.com/content/view/282/47/

http://www.backupcentral.com/index.p...=300&Itemid=47