SpiderOak provides online backup, unlimited public file share and differential backup (only changed parts of files). Cost $10/month but limited to 20 GB. Requires a proprietary client.
Interesting, but I don't trust their software enough to expose my machine to it. I'll keep an eye on them though, maybe when they've been around a while ...
It's a bit odd that they don't tell you how to sign up for their free 2GB service. I suspect it's done through the client but they might mention that. I suspect they'll clarify that omission pretty soon.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Microsoft LifeCam software progress: now the blue screen can't be read
I bought a Microsoft LifeCam VX-6000 over a year ago. That was before I realized the quality consumer desktop videoconferencing market was dead on Windows. (Ok, there may be an rare exception.)
At the time it installed without a problem on my home XP machine, but on my Dell Latitude D620 it was another story:
Gordon's Tech: Microsoft LifeCam VX-6000 - personal impressions
... On my pure, clean, office laptop however, it produced the XP Blue Screen of Death (STOP error) on launch. I don't remember ever seeing the XP BSOD. I think it's produced by an 'inner ring' memory error, something that only device drivers can do...This is what one sees in white on blue text:
A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer ...
STOP: VX6000xp.sys
kmixer.sysHappens every time on launch of LifeCam (is it doing some kind of dynamic device driver hack?). When you get these errors, btw, you get to file a special bug report with Microsoft on system restart.
I restored the system to health per Microsoft troubleshooting recommendations:
System restore: restored to the point set by the LifeCam install.I'll try again in September when Microsoft says they'll put the installer files online.
sfc /scanonce: ran sfc.exe to verify core XP files were intact. See xp resource kit, system file tools
Well, I didn't get back to it in September 2007, but I tried again today, 13 months later. I downloaded the latest XP SP 2 LC 1.4 installer.
I'm pleased to report that Microsoft has made a lot of progress in the past year. Now the blue screen vanishes so quickly it can't be read, and the system doesn't let me generate a bug report on restart.
I think there's something buggy with the video in my Dell laptop. Once again I miss my Macs.
I wonder if Microsoft is going to decide they need to buy Dell and emulate Apple ...
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Windows Live Writer is out of beta
The best blogging tool on any platform is now out of beta:
Free, too. I use it extensively with Blogger and Sharepoint 2007.
Don't miss the Firefox integration. (Unsurprisingly that doesn't appear on the Live.com page, but surprisingly it does exist.)
Finally Final! « whateverblogIt's an excellent product. Ecto 3 beta is probably the closest OS X alternative, and it's much less robust than WLW (editor is buggy, it doesn't download a full tag set, etc).
We’re thrilled to bring you the final version of Windows Live Writer 2008–our first non-beta release!
Free, too. I use it extensively with Blogger and Sharepoint 2007.
Don't miss the Firefox integration. (Unsurprisingly that doesn't appear on the Live.com page, but surprisingly it does exist.)
OS X 10.5 Leopard firewall really is broken
I thought the early reports might be exaggerated, but it really is broken:
TidBITS Safe Computing: Leopard Firewall Takes One Step Forward, Three Steps Back
...These are all problems Apple is perfectly capable of fixing and I'll be surprised if they don't address them sooner rather than later. Until then, I still recommend you activate the firewall in Block All Incoming Connections mode so you don't break applications. If you need to enable file sharing or other remote access, you'll need to either select the Set Access method, or turn your firewall off. One last option is to use ipfw and manually configure firewall rules, or use a GUI tool like the free WaterRoof, and skip the Leopard firewall completely. In WaterRoof, just click Rules Sets to pick your rules, and then go to Tools > Startup Script and install a startup script to run those rules when you reboot.
I originally thought I'd go to Leopard with 10.5.1, but now I'm settling in for a significantly longer wait. Maybe 10.5.3. It looks like I was right last February when I guessed they were a year away from ready.
Monday, November 05, 2007
iPhoto 7.1 (iLife 2008): better except for the red eye
After a few months of intermittent use and two weeks of regular use, I think iPhoto 7.1 is quite a nice upgrade. Apple fixed a lot of iPhoto annoyances, though they again decided not to support Library merges.
There's one odd regression however. Red eye correction in previous versions of iPhoto was great -- significantly better than Aperture in my hands.
Now it closely resembles Aperture's red eye correction -- and I don't like it. Pupils are showing odd dark gray blobs rather than a reasonable facsimile of their true form and color.
Ouch. That's a heck of a regression.
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Reasons to wait for OS X Leopard 10.5.3
Rob Griffith has five reasons to install Leopard now and 5 reasons to wait. He works in the Mac business, so he's obliged to pretend it's an even proposition.
He's not trying too hard though. It's clear that the scale tips to waiting, and he didn't even mention the inevitable OS bugs that we're only starting to discover (see update 10/5/07). Indeed, reading his review, I'm thinking 10.5.3 sounds pretty good. That would probably be the summer of 2008.
I was familiar with most of his list, but surprised by some of the loss of customization he describes (emphases mine):
The inability to adjust font sizes particularly bothers me. Every year there are more decrepit boomers with crummier vision, and more LCDs with finer dot pitch. We need as much font adjustment as we can get. It looks like we're still at least a year away from resolution independent UIs in OS X, so Apple shouldn't be locking their font sizes.
I'll add yet another 10.5.3 motivator to the list. Tiger has long had marginal support for Windows file shares. The UI for specifying a workgroup is very obscure [1] and the SMB browser often fails [2]. OS X 10.5 was supposed to do much better, but in 10.5.0 it's about the same:
Now I do really want the 10.5 screen control features, but I've noticed that nobody boasts about how fast and elegant this is, and nobody compares this to Microsoft's superb Remote Desktop Protocol. That tells me the performance is as crummy as every other VNC implementation I've seen. VNC is a joke compared to RDP [3]. So it's still going to be very good for maintaining my mother's Mac Mini, but it's not absolutely compelling (yet).
Now I think 10.5 will be a terrific OS, but 10.4.10 is pretty darned good. Unless Apple does something amazing with iPhone-specific features in 10.5 I'll keep moving my upgrade date further into 2008.
Footnotes.
[1] Utility:Directory Access application
[2] You have to hit Cmd-K in Finder and create an SMB shortcut: smb://abaton;jfaughnan@montreal/c$ is the shortcut for accessing my C: drive in Workgroup "abaton" machine "montreal" with username "jfaughnan" - keychain remembers the password but you can also add it cleartext in the shortcut.
[3] I think there's some relationship to Citrix code in there somewhere. Citrix/RDP are two areas in which the Windows world spanks OS X. Windows has some other advantages: speech recognition software and server virtualization. That's about the end of the Windows advantage list however.
Update 10/5/07: Speaking of bugs to be discovered:
Yep. 10.5.3.
Update 10/6/07: Macintouch has more details on the move bug. They'd found a similar bug in a version of OS X 10.1. Hmm. 10.5.4?
He's not trying too hard though. It's clear that the scale tips to waiting, and he didn't even mention the inevitable OS bugs that we're only starting to discover (see update 10/5/07). Indeed, reading his review, I'm thinking 10.5.3 sounds pretty good. That would probably be the summer of 2008.
I was familiar with most of his list, but surprised by some of the loss of customization he describes (emphases mine):
Macworld: Editors' Notes: Upgrade or not?When 10.5 was delayed from Feb 2007 I was pretty darned sure it wasn't going to be ready until Feb 2008. When a project that big slips, it usually slips by at least a year. So I was very surprised when 10.5 shipped in October 2007 -- as predicted and to pretty good reviews. Apple's developers must have busted three guts to hit that date. I'm hoping the missing user options is a sign of smart engineers throwing everything non-essential overboard, rather than deluded product management. If it's indeed a measure of informed desperation we will see better user support by 10.5.3.
... More so than any other OS X release, OS X 10.5 controls the users’ ability to customize their environment. Consider many of the interface elements I’ve listed above. Given that some of these are polarizing features, it would be nice if users had control over them. But they don’t. Don’t like the 3-D dock? Sorry, you’re stuck with it, unless you move your dock to the side, where it morphs into a 2-D dock....
Want larger text in the Finder’s sidebar, because you’ve got a high-dot-pitch screen? Sorry, can’t do that. Do you prefer Tiger’s docked folder behavior over the new Stacks in OS X 10.5? Sorry, not an option. (Hint: if you like the old behavior better, check out DragThing, which lets you easily create hierarchical folders in docks.)
Want Time Machine backups to run more often or less often than hourly? Nope, not easily possible. Want to view more than the Name, Kind, and Date Modified columns in your Spotlight search results? You got it, not possible. Dislike the spacey 3-D interface on Time Machine, and wish you could have something without a flying star field? Get used to hyperspace, as it’s here to stay. Dislike the blue-gray folder icons? You can change them one at a time, as you could in previous OS X releases. But changing the default folders takes much more work and help from a third party. Mail has a cool new notes feature…but if you create a to-do out of something on that note, that entry is then highlighted in a garish orange color. Hopefully you’re a fan of garish orange, too, because you can’t change it. Want to change the size or typeface of the fonts in iChat’s Buddy List window? You got it—nope...
The inability to adjust font sizes particularly bothers me. Every year there are more decrepit boomers with crummier vision, and more LCDs with finer dot pitch. We need as much font adjustment as we can get. It looks like we're still at least a year away from resolution independent UIs in OS X, so Apple shouldn't be locking their font sizes.
I'll add yet another 10.5.3 motivator to the list. Tiger has long had marginal support for Windows file shares. The UI for specifying a workgroup is very obscure [1] and the SMB browser often fails [2]. OS X 10.5 was supposed to do much better, but in 10.5.0 it's about the same:
Special Report: Mac OS X Leopard Cross-Platform Issues:I'll probably have to upgrade FileMaker Pro 8 when I go to 10.5, so it's going to be an expensive proposition. The cost of updating older but perfectly functional apps is another reason to wait for 10.5.3.
Daniel Hoit:
"Samba based services are updated to reflect revisions to the open source Samba project in Leopard, and are not a step backwards. The addition of packet signing alone is a huge and welcome addition. As for the poster's complaints regarding WINS workgroup and Finder browsing, the options are still there in Leopard. You can configure the WINS information in System Preferences/Network/ Advanced/WINS section. Choose a workgroup, and choose a wins server if you have one on your network. The sidebar also has an 'All...' option that should be the equivalent of Tiger's 'Network' browsing option in the Finder. In my experience, network browsing has always been a little iffy. Its almost always been more reliable to access SMB servers through a command-K connect to server dialog, and then bookmark the server for easier access later. YMMV, but in the least Leopard doesn't downgrade anything in the SMB services area....
Now I do really want the 10.5 screen control features, but I've noticed that nobody boasts about how fast and elegant this is, and nobody compares this to Microsoft's superb Remote Desktop Protocol. That tells me the performance is as crummy as every other VNC implementation I've seen. VNC is a joke compared to RDP [3]. So it's still going to be very good for maintaining my mother's Mac Mini, but it's not absolutely compelling (yet).
Now I think 10.5 will be a terrific OS, but 10.4.10 is pretty darned good. Unless Apple does something amazing with iPhone-specific features in 10.5 I'll keep moving my upgrade date further into 2008.
Footnotes.
[1] Utility:Directory Access application
[2] You have to hit Cmd-K in Finder and create an SMB shortcut: smb://abaton;jfaughnan@montreal/c$ is the shortcut for accessing my C: drive in Workgroup "abaton" machine "montreal" with username "jfaughnan" - keychain remembers the password but you can also add it cleartext in the shortcut.
[3] I think there's some relationship to Citrix code in there somewhere. Citrix/RDP are two areas in which the Windows world spanks OS X. Windows has some other advantages: speech recognition software and server virtualization. That's about the end of the Windows advantage list however.
Update 10/5/07: Speaking of bugs to be discovered:
In a quick test here at MacInTouch, we have confirmed a critical data-loss bug in Leopard's Finder.
In our test, we used Command-drag to move several large folders from a MacBook internal drive to an attached FireWire 800 external drive. While the folders were copying, we disconnected the FireWire cable. The folders disappeared from both drives...
This bug was documented by Tom Karpik...
Update 10/6/07: Macintouch has more details on the move bug. They'd found a similar bug in a version of OS X 10.1. Hmm. 10.5.4?
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