Time Machine Doc and Pic Only

All I want to save on my Free Agent GoFlex 1T portable hard drive is my pictures and my documents.

Can I set up the Time Machine to only back up all my pics, documents and pic's on
I-photo? Any reason not to run time machine this way? I only care about my documents and pic's, the rest of the stuff on the Mac I don't care if I lose as I can just reboot with DVD and start fresh.

I want to just save the stuff in (not sure what its called but I get to it by going to)
Finder<
Places<
Icon of a House and its Name (that I named)
in there is all my folders with pic's



Did some playing with Exclusions and removed everything but
Apps < I-Photo and PhotoBooth
User< (the file I named)
and 2 other files that I use.

Is this the correct way to save only data and pics/docs?

and

Finder<
Places<
Documents

I have run Time Machine with no exclusions.

I am going to reboot the Mac with the Leopard DVD that came with the Mac.
I have OS X 10.5.8

I am not too Mac proficient (as you may tell) and have read about "exclusions" to Time Machine but not sure what to exclude so I only get my Pic's, Doc's and I-Photo's saved.

I played with Exclusions and excluded everything but:
User
Apps<IPhoto
and a couple files I use.

Is this going to be enough to save my Data, Pics, IPhoto's pics?

Looking at the Apps<IPhoto there is no pic's there.
Where is the IPhoto folder? Can it be saved to Time Machine?

The iPhoto library which holds all your photos is located here:

MacIntosh HD/your user name/pictures/iPhoto Library

Don't exclude your user profile account from Time Machine or you will lose photos, documents, and all your personal settings.

When running Time Machine I find all my data and files in the latest save so will what I see saved will be there when I reboot the system and hook up the Time Machine?

You're referring to doing a restore.... yes, if you can view all your data when you open Time Machine from System Preferences, it will be restored just as you see it.

Back Up

I have a question - hope this is the correct thread:

I have been a PC owner and happily now am a MAC.

1. Why do I want to backup a mac?
2. If I do what do I want to back up?
3. How often do I backup?
4. I have Snow Leopard, should I back up before going to Mountain Lion?
5. My Mac is a 500 GB, I am only using 60 GB what type of an external drive should I purchase?

Any other informatioon would be helpful.

I Love my Mac and want to keep it "safe".

SweetPea

Welcome to life as a Mac owner. Let's take these questions one at a time. Hopefully I can provide some answers.

1. Back up your Mac to keep from loosing valuable/important data. Mac's are machines and sometimes machines fail. Humans are, well. human and sometimes delete stuff they wish they had back.

2. There are two option really. Backing up your data only or backing up data and the operating system. Copying "cloning" the entire system properly can get you back up and running quickly in the even of a disaster.

3. How often you back up really depends upon your needs and how big a risk you are willing to take with the prospect of loosing data. Apple's Time Machine program makes it easy to back up changed files hour;y.

4. I didn't back up when moving from Snow Leopard to Lion but it is always a good idea to do so.