Gigs of hourly Time Machine backups, how can this be? How do I see exactly.

Good day everyone, this is my first post here. I have been a Microsoft laptop user for 15 years, and just bought a Macbook and just switched to Mac. My wife says that I have "been obsessed" for the last few weeks with Apple Apple Apple, Mac Mac Mac ....
After 2 weeks of switching (tired of constant windows problems), I can honestly say that I am IMPRESSED with the Macbook and Mac OS X. You can see that it's an operating system designed to easily and quickly complete "any task at hand".
*On to my question,* I have Time Machine set up, and basically it does it's magic every hour to an USB Hard Drive. However, recently I have been checking to see by clicking my mouse on the TM icon in the upper right file menu, to see "how much TM is backing up".
Sometimes it says that it's backing up a few megs, and sometimes it says that it is backing up 4 gig. There's a BIG DIFFERENCE.
I am basically using Safari, Mail, iCal, Address Book, XP thru my Parallels virtual partition, and other basic programs like an HTML editor for my houseboat website. http://www.all-about-houseboats.com ( I couldn't help but mention the site)
So my question is:
*I don't see how I can accumulate a 4-6 Gig of changed data in an hour?*
*Is there any way to see exactly the files that TM is backing up every hour?*
I know there's many knowledgeable people here, and I find the Apple/OS X environment totally refreshing compared to the Microsoft Windows world. If anybody here has the same issue, or can direct me to how to see what's being backup, or to a simple software to see where these "gig's" of occasional hourly changes are coming from?
Again, thanks for reading my first post, IAN...

houseboats wrote:
*Is there any way to see exactly the files that TM is backing up every hour?*
Welcome to Apple Discussions
I use the TimeMachine Buddy widget
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/timemachinebuddy.html
Easy to use and just a middle mouse button away
Here is a typical output:
Backup requested by user
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/LaCie_2/Backups.backupdb
No pre-backup thinning needed: 556.5 MB requested (including padding), 152.81 GB available
Copied 643 files (12.1 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 542.0 MB requested (including padding), 152.80 GB available
Copied 372 files (247 bytes) from volume Macintosh HD.
Starting post-backup thinning
No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Backup completed successfully.
Message was edited by: nerowolfe

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MattLat wrote:
Hello -
I am trying to "Enter Time Machine" (which is on a Time Capsule); but when I try this, I am met by the error message "Your Time Machine Backup Disk Can't be Found" with the option given to "Set up My Time Machine".
Needless to say, my Time Machine has been set up for months. When I look in the preferences, it clearly shows the disk I'm connected to (here's a screenshot of the error dialogue alongside my Time Machine preferences: http://cl.ly/1HGk).
Any idea what the best course of action is here.
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If that doesn't help, try a "full reset" of Time Machine, per #A4 there.
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Jane Doubleday wrote:
I've got an Intel mac otherwise I wouldn't have bought Snow Leopard.
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m-avila wrote:
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Message was edited by: David Selevan

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First Aid
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Gigs of hourly Time Machine backups, how can this be? How do I see exactly.

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