etc: Apple was granted a patent for eSATA Target Disk mode today (among nine others). Looks like it will have an alternate to FireWire if it decides to ditch it in future Macs.
Apple was granted a patent for eSATA Target Disk mode today (among nine others). Looks like it will have an alternate to FireWire if it decides to ditch it in future Macs.
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Patently Apple, previous Ars coverage
Apple Kicks HDD Marketing Debate Into High Gear
quacking duck writes “With the release of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Apple has updated a support document describing how their new operating system reports capacities of hard drives and other media. It has sided with hard drive makers, who for years have advertised capacities as ‘1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes’ instead of the traditional computer science definition, and in so doing has kicked the debate between marketing and computer science into high gear. Binary prefixes for binary units (e.g. GiB for ‘gibibyte’) have been promoted by the International Electrotechnical Commission and endorsed by IEEE and other standards organizations, but to date there’s been limited acceptance (though manufacturers have wholeheartedly accepted the ‘new’ definitions for GB and TB). Is Apple’s move the first major step in forcing computer science to adopt the more awkward binary prefixes, breaking decades of accepted (if technically inaccurate) usage of SI prefixes?”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
ExpanDrive 2.0 expands to Amazon S3
Filed under: Software, Developer
I had to do some extensive testing before I got too excited, but after a conversation with the developers I’m pleased to announce that ExpanDrive 2.0 is out. We’ve mentioned it before, but to recap: ExpanDrive allows you to mount remote servers as drives directly accessible in Finder. With a completely rewritten (again) SFTP layer, the existing FTP support and new Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Solution) support, it’s even more useful than the last time we mentioned it. One of the developers, Jeff Mancuso, mentioned to me back at the last WWDC that the S3 support was in the works; it’s great to see it come to fruition.
In my testing, I found that a previously-existing S3 option, JungleDisk, can cause conflicts with ExpanDrive’s S3 support. JungleDisk users should note that there are some issues, but they seem to clear up if you create vanilla buckets in your account and use those with ExpanDrive. I personally found that I was willing to give up JungleDisk entirely at this point, preferring this direct-mount with all of the perks, including a contextual menu in Finder for quickly setting public read/write permissions.
I can attest to the fact that it’s faster, and that the S3 support is working (wonderfully, without JungleDisk). ExpanDrive 2.0 is a $39.95 purchase (well worth it if you deal with remote UNIX systems or S3), and a $19.95 upgrade for existing users. There’s a free trial available.
TUAWExpanDrive 2.0 expands to Amazon S3 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Cloud file sharing on the iPhone, four ways
Filed under: Cool tools, Internet Tools, iPhone, App Store
Among the crowded field of cloud sharing and file synchronization services, there are plenty of interesting options (we’ve been partial to Dropbox around here, but check around for more), but when you add ‘must work well with iPhone’ to the requirements list, the choices narrow a bit. I’ve been testing out two business-focused options in Readdle Docs and box.net, and two other iPhone-friendly options (ZumoDrive and Drop.io) have just poked above the horizon.
Readdle Docs may be on the pricey side for the App Store at $9.99US, but there’s a lot of functionality bundled into that ten bucks. In addition to turning your iPhone or iPod touch into a WebDAV file server — accessible easily and securely in the Finder, Windows Explorer, or via clients like Transmit — Readdle lets you access hosted storage on your MobileMe account or other WebDAV services.
Once you get the files onto your device, it’s easy to view all iPhone-friendly formats, or forward documents and images by email. I’m particularly fond of the full-screen PDF and PPT viewers in the app. Of course, it’s no Documents to Go, but it’s a good start (and for those waiting eagerly for D2G to arrive on the iPhone, word from DataViz is that the app is on track for a Q2 release).
While you can use Readdle with iDisk or any WebDAV-enabled storage service, you also get a bonus account on the Readdle servers with 512 MB of storage (yes, not much, but it’s handy). Upgrades to the Readdle storage start at $5/month for 2 GB. On the other hand, if you need the cloud access but not the onboard server, you can save $2 and get Readdle’s OneDisk product for $7.99. Per Michael’s question in the comments, the Readdle team does have OneDisk working with JungleDisk and Amazon S3, and it should work in the same fashion with Docs.
Though box.net is focused on enterprise users, it’s plenty functional for personal use; with a free 1GB storage account that permits 5 collaboration folders and files up to 25 MB in size, you’ve got some room to maneuver (paid plans start at $7.95/mo). The companion iPhone app, also free, lets you upload images from your photo library or camera, view a list of recently modified files, and open up any of your files for viewing (unfortunately the new box.net webdoc format reads in as raw HTML, which is a drag). You can also forward sharing links to your colleagues directly from the iPhone app, which can be extremely helpful in the midst of a collaborative project.
The box.net app is more streamlined than Readdle Docs, but offers a lot less of the bidirectional functionality, and the viewer isn’t fullscreen or landscape enabled; it also doesn’t appear to cache large documents locally as Readdle does, and it’s crashed on me once or twice while downloading large PDFs. Still, if you’re already using box.net or you don’t have a WebDAV-enabled storage option for use with Readdle, it’s a fine app to try.
Details of the two new kids on the block, in the 2nd half of the post.
Continue reading Cloud file sharing on the iPhone, four ways
TUAWCloud file sharing on the iPhone, four ways originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 28 Feb 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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240GB of iPod Storage, But Not From Apple
If you’re feeling cramped by the iPod Classic’s 120GB of storage space, and you’re willing to either get your hands dirty or let others do the work and reward them handsomely for it, then you can double that capacity and get an iPod with 240 gigs of music and video holding goodness. There is another catch, though. You have to have held on to an older model iPod Video to get this to work, which means I’m glad I resisted the urge to sell mine when I bought my 1G iPod Touch.
There is yet another catch. You’ll need to fork over nearly $300 for a new 1.8″ Toshiba hard drive, which makes it essentially like buying a brand new iPod. Still, it was an intriguing prospect, and I always like to try to refurbish or repurpose old hardware rather than throw it out or let it lie idle. The mod, offered by Rapid Repair, does involve some prodding and prying, though, something which I’m not often keen to take on myself, being all thumbs.
Adding the Rapid Repair installation option to the order didn’t seem to change the price, although I didn’t actually complete the purchase, so I can’t be sure that some kind of cost isn’t incurred. The drive actually comes with a free iPod disassembly tool, although I would have to pay an extra $10.00 to get the thicker backing, since my iPod Video is only a 30GB model. Rapid Repair plans to extend the mod to newer iPod Classic models as well.
If you’re a braver man or woman than me, and are planning on trying this, let us here at TAB know how things went.
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Woz joins server storage firm Fusion-io as chief scientist
Steve Wozniak, the semi-retired cofounder of Apple, is heading back to full-time work. Instead of revolutionizing the personal computer or designing a highly efficient floppy drive controller, though, the consummate electrical engineer will be designing highly efficient, high-speed storage modules for server applications for Fusion-io.
Most recently, Woz was spotted at Axiotron’s Macworld Expo ‘09 booth, demonstrating the company’s Kopernikus technology. Woz serves on Axiotron’s advisory board and is helping shape how that software works. He has also been serving on Fusion-io’s advisory board before deciding to jump into the role of chief scientist. “I have a pretty quiet life, and I like to watch technology evolve,” Woz told The New York Times in an interview. “In this case, I like the people and the product, and said I would like some greater involvement.”
Though Woz still uses Apple technology (including a MacBook Pro and a jailbroken iPhone) and he often outfits schools with Mac-based computer labs, he hasn’t been directly involved with Apple for many years. He told the Times he would consider joining the board at Apple if he were asked. But, he said, “I think I have a better place at smaller companies looking at new ideas.” Godspeed, good sir.
Woz joins server storage firm Fusion-io as chief scientist
Steve Wozniak, the semi-retired cofounder of Apple, is heading back to full-time work. Instead of revolutionizing the personal computer or designing a highly efficient floppy drive controller, though, the consummate electrical engineer will be designing highly efficient, high-speed storage modules for server applications for Fusion-io.
Most recently, Woz was spotted at Axiotron’s Macworld Expo ‘09 booth, demonstrating the company’s Kopernikus technology. Woz serves on Axiotron’s advisory board and is helping shape how that software works. He has also been serving on Fusion-io’s advisory board before deciding to jump into the role of chief scientist. “I have a pretty quiet life, and I like to watch technology evolve,” Woz told The New York Times in an interview. “In this case, I like the people and the product, and said I would like some greater involvement.”
Though Woz still uses Apple technology (including a MacBook Pro and a jailbroken iPhone) and he often outfits schools with Mac-based computer labs, he hasn’t been directly involved with Apple for many years. He told the Times he would consider joining the board at Apple if he were asked. But, he said, “I think I have a better place at smaller companies looking at new ideas.” Godspeed, good sir.
Working with a robot: Drobo in action
Filed under: Hardware, Peripherals, Mac OS X Server
We’ve talked about the Data Robotics Drobo storage solution here on TUAW a few times, but there hasn’t been a hands-on review of the device on this blog…until now.
The Drobo is a mass storage solution that takes advantage of RAID — Redundant Array of Independent Disks — to provide a single large volume by combining two to four “naked” (not in an separate enclosure) hard disk drives. Drobo uses a proprietary system called “BeyondRAID” to do this while eliminating a lot of the administrative headaches that are normally associated with setting up RAID arrays.
Drobo uses a combination of RAID 1 (mirroring) and RAID 5 (striping) to provide relatively fast response times and redundancy. If a drive fails, you simply pop it out of the array and pop in a new one. Drobo takes care of rebuilding the new disk while the array is in use. While many traditional RAID solutions require all drives to have exactly the same capacity, you can mix or match drive sizes with Drobo. This makes storage growth quite easy to manage — as new, larger capacity hard drives appear in the future, you just need to pull out a smaller drive or two and replace them with the larger drives. Drobo takes care of integrating the new disk or disks into the array. Click the Read More link for the rest of this post.
Continue reading Working with a robot: Drobo in action
TUAWWorking with a robot: Drobo in action originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 30 Jan 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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My Book Drive “Turbo” Hardly the Case
In early December of last year, the folks at Western Digital released some new USB/Firewire “Turbo” drivers for their My Book line of external storage devices. There was no mention of this news, nor was there a press release issued from the company.
For my own storage purposes, I own a My Book Pro II (1TB) drive. I use it to backup my audio (iTunes) and video (Sony HD Camcorder) content. This drive is connected to my iMac via FireWire 800.
When I stumbled upon the Turbo Drivers a month ago, I decided to take the risk and install them. There is no readme included with the installer, although from the download page, here is the information Western Digital provides:
“This installer - WDMacTurboDrivers.dmg, contained within the WDMacTurboDrivers.zip file installs custom Western Digital performance based Turbo drivers and drive icons for WD USB and FireWire enabled external hard drives under Macintosh computers.”
So what happened after I installed the drivers? Other than the icon changing (see below), I can’t see any performance benefits. After recently performing a search on the Western Digital support site, here is what I found:
Question:
Why is there no performance gain using the WD Macintosh Turbo Drivers for a My Book Premium II, Pro II, or Studio II while connected by FireWire?
Cause:
The My Book Premium II, Pro II, and Studio II Edition hard drives use a Macintosh based performance driver already included in the Macintosh Operating System. This Macintosh based performance driver has the same performance as the WD Macintosh Turbo Drivers.
Resolution:
There is no resolution for this as there is no performance gain or loss due to the usage of either the Macintosh based performance drivers or the WD Macintosh Turbo Drivers.
OK, who isn’t confused by this explanation from Western Digital? What is the value of creating these custom “turbo” drivers, other than changing the icon? Is it just for branding? Why did Western Digital spend the software development cost to implement a useless driver? In these economic times, I would think that Western Digital would be more cost conscious.
By the way, here is the visual change for the disk icon:
Before:
After:
Impressed by the visual change? I would hope not, but then, we all have different aesthetic values.
Overall, I am pretty disappointed by this offering from Western Digital. My expectations were that I would see improved read/write performance from this driver. Instead, and clearly stated from Western Digital, there is none.
For what it’s worth, I didn’t do any formal speed tests comparing the standard Apple FireWire driver vs. the new Western Digital Turbo driver. I mistakenly fell into the marketing trap of “ooh-faster-from-company-must-be-better-than-Apple-nonsense.”
Thankfully, I have neither seen any impact to my overall system stability, nor any negative impact to the My Book Pro II drive itself. If anyone else has tried these drivers, I would love to hear your feedback and see if you have received any benefit from installing them. Otherwise, you can thank me for being your guinea pig.
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Macworld Day 3: Best of Macworld 2009
Wednesday at Macworld Expo marked a distinct change from the hectic activity around the keynote and the open of the show floor. The big news today was the announcement of the Best of Show awards from Macworld. The products recognized this year are…
Best of Macworld 2009
- iPhoto ‘09
- Cisco WebEx Meeting Center
- Things
- Ecamm Network BT-1 Bluetooth Web Cam
- Filemaker Pro 10
- HP MediaSmart Server
- Livescribe Pulse Smartpen
- Daylite Touch
- Sling Media SlingPlayer for iPhone
Our Impressions
iPhoto ‘09 is a great upgrade and worthy of the attention, despite the appearance of Google’s Picassa for Mac as a possible competitor. We love Things around here, and quite a few of us actually use it to try and stay on top of, well, things. We introduced you to the Ecamm Bluetooth Web Cam on Monday. Filemaker Pro 10 is a nice update. I talked to a few developers today that are looking forward to the new scripting features, but the UI overhaul is just something that’s long overdue. Daylite Touch really redefines what an iPhone app is capable of doing. We had a chance to talk with Marketcircle yesterday and will share our impressions of using the app soon. One thing I can let slip now, this is definitely not going to be a $.99 app store purchase. Daylite Touch is a full-featured app that rivals what you can do with a desktop app and you should expect it to be priced accordingly.
The Rest of the Best
The HP MediaSmart Server is a really interesting solution for home users that want to store and share media. SlingPlayer is very cool and something to keep an eye on as soon as it gets released to the app store this quarter. We’ll bring you more info on that announcement soon, along with some details on the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen, and Cisco WebEx Meeting Center.
Other Announcements
If you’ve been wondering what happened to the Xserve RAID team after that product was discontinued, several of them have resurfaced at startup Active Storage. I had a chance to talk with Alex Grossman on Wednesday and I am very impressed with the attention to detail, and the particular attention to the needs of Mac users, that Active Storage has put into their products. If you are looking for high-density storage solutions that you can easily manage from the Mac, you may not need to look any further than Active Storage.
Intelliscanner has a new update to their SoHo and Mini scanners. If one of your New Year’s resolutions was to get organized and catalog stuff around your house, you’ll love this little scanners and the accompanying software.
Axiotron recruited Steve Wozniak to demo their new Modbook Pro this week. The Modbook Pro, as the name suggest, is based on the MacBook Pro system just as the Modbook is based on the Apple MacBook.
Ambrosia, one of my favorite developers, is announcing iToner 2 and WireTap Studio 1.0.7 this week. iToner 2 adds three new features: ClearTone to help get the audio levels right so your ringtones always sound great on the iPhone, cropping tools to edit snippets right in iToner, and 40+ professionally mastered ringtones that you can use right out of the box. WireTap Studio has been updated to improve performance and add some new control schemes .
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