Perhaps a device like this will solve the backup conundrum:
These are external hard drives that automatically sync a portion your backup to a server on their network. This provides easy offsite storage with the convenience of having a backup drive on your desk. The speed and reliability of the service remains to be seen, but this is a step in the right direction.
Mac users who upgrade to OS X 10.5 have a similarly streamlined tool called Time Machine. This software automatically does incremental backups every hour, day and week. You can set the destination to an external drive or to an Apple Xserve server. I took a look at the Apple website but saw no indication that this software works with their .Mac network storage service. Perhaps in future versions Time Machine will allow mirrored backups to external disk and an internet-based network storage service…