Permissions on the backup
 

I back up my PB to an external hard drive. When I connect that hard drive to my desktop Mac and try to access files from the backup, I find that the files in my user partition (e.g., my Documents folder) are inaccessible. To access these files I have to change permissions.

Can SD have an option to set these files to Read & Write for Everyone? Is there a way to set the permissions on my PB so that files from the backup will be accessible on my desktop Mac without having to change permissions each time?

That's the way ownership works, wjshack. It's likely your UIDs are different on the two Macs.

If you want to be able to access all the files on the drive without having the same UID, try turning ownership off for the drive when you attach it using "Get Info" for the volume.