I'm using Kubuntu as well.
I use LuckyBackup which I was able to install using the repository, it's pretty
intuitive and there's a great tutorial on UbuntuDocumentation for it. Right now
all I'm doing is a manual backup once a month, first to another place on the
local hard drive and then from that backup to a USB drive.
I'd really like, however, to get a more automagic Rsync solution that I haven't
been able to find yet.

I have seen tutorials on the web detailing how to put the appropriate rsync
backup commands into a script and setting it to run at regular intervals via
cron or some such. So why not just use that? Seems fairly automagical... But
maybe i don't understand what you want.