Going Deeper with SugarSync

So as the readers know, I’ve been obsessing over synchronizing files lately. I had a pretty good solution figured out using my .Mac iDisk and even made a nifty little Applescript to deal with that pesky Bento.
For the last week however, I’ve been trying a new online synching service called SugarSync. I’ve even been talking about it on some of the various podcasts. SugarSync gives you a local client (either PC or Mac) in which you plug in your account information and tell it what data gets Synched. I’ve got big chunks of my Documents folder going up along with my OmniFocus datafile, Bento database, and several other items I want to have everywhere. I then log in on the other computers and tell them what parts I want synched locally (you can also leave them in the cloud). Once that is done, you are good to go. If I make a change to that little text file that keeps my grocery list, it goes up to SugarSync and then back down to my other Synched computers lickity split. I even have the PC version loaded at work and keep some of my forms synched. I haven’t got to the point where I feel comfortable sending client files up into the interweb.
In summary SugarSync does a few things the iDisk solution doesn’t:

1. It is faster, much faster.

My iDisk solution involved a second step that included a Chronosync pass. Put simply I was afraid that if the iDisk went nuclear, so would my data. With SugarSync it is not necessary to add that extra step but even if I skipped that and just used the iDisk solution, it still can’t keep up with SugarSync. I can close out OmniFocus and then walk ten feet to the other computer and open OmniFocus. By that time it will have already grabbed the database file from SugarSync.

2. It is Multiplatform.

The PC Sync works. This makes it really easy for keeping things working between the Mac and PC. My PC sync is very limited but it works just fine.

3. It works on your Phone.

They have Windows mobile and Blackberry software. They also have an iPhone friendly site that allows you to see all of your files. You can access some of the files directly and email just about all of them from your iPhone.

My Concerns

SugarSync has some nice benefits but comes at a price. The revised pricing plan is 30 gigs for $5 a month. The price just doesn’t come from your wallet. It also costs a few clock cycles. As I sit here working on my MacBook Air with 7 applications open, SugarSync is using .1%. I’ve seen it higher though. Earlier it was at 7% and when it is actually syncing it ramps up higher.

My other two big concerns are security and reliability. The developer explains that the transmissions are all done on a secure connection and the data is also kept secure on the SugarSync servers. I need to investigate further to see exactly what that means. I frankly don’t care if someone figures out how to access my grocery list or MacSparky ramblings. Client documents are, obviously, a different question.
Likewise stability is critical. Last week David Pogue and Walt Mossberg gave SugarSync positive reviews and their servers were understandably slammed. Regardless the system was down so it was pretty much useless for a day. If that trend were to continue, I’d lose interest pretty quickly. They have a free 45 trial so if you are interested, head over and try for yourself.

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Leap Review

Now I know us old guys frequently like to ramble on about how much things have changed since we first started computing with cassette tape backups and old televisions for monitors. However, there are a few things that haven’t changed at all. Remarkably, one of those is the way we organize files. The step from MS-DOS to the original Mac graphical user interface was revolutionary. Well that was a long time ago and things really haven’t changed much since then. If I could go back in time to 1987 and stick my MacBook in front of an original Mac user, he or she would probably be right at home finding my various applications, folders, and documents.
So the question becomes whether we have not really changed much because the system is perfect, or because we are not really trying. Well Ironic Software’s “Leap” is a finder replacement that looks to cause that type of paradigm shift.
When you fist open the Leap window, it looks more like iTunes than a finder. Gone are the hierarchical directories and in its place are a series of filters based on tags and file types.
For instance I can tell Leap I want to see document files tagged with “form” and “contract” and Leap will go and fetch. It will search through my thousands of document files and returning the few that match that criteria. You can then use the loupe tool to scan over the documents or invoke quicklook to find exactly the file you are looking for. You can then copy, move, delete or open the selected files. You can even save the searches to Leap’s toolbar for future access
It doesn’t matter that those forms may be spread out over 15 different folders. Leap doesn’t care where you keep files, it is more interested in what the files are and what reference you’ve given them. In other words, Leap embraces the anarchy of your cluttered drive.
Leap doesn’t just let you search tags, it also lets you create them. Rather than using its own proprietary tagging system, Leap just applies them as spotlight comments. This way the tags are good in any self-respecting OS X engine. Specifically, it works hand-in-glove with Default Folders X. Why doesn’t everybody do this?
In addition to acting as a potential finder replacement, it also can give you a better method of doing spotlight searches.
I’ve been using Leap for a month now and while sometimes I find it very useful, I still find myself going to Quicksilver or the Finder. The problem with tagging is that you must create the tags. Ironic Software is doing a good job of simplifying this process but it still takes work and you can’t get all of the benefits of tagging until it is in place. So at some point you have to excercise some discipline. I will be very interested to see how the folks at Ironic help us to get our tags set up quickly and easily so we can better take advantage of Leap. I think if you are a “tagger” or contemplating becoming a “tagger”, Leap may be just the tool you need. You can get it at IronicSoftware.com and a license will cost $59. If you decide to buy it, I also recommend Ironic’s very useful PDF organizer, “Yep” which costs only $10 when packaged with Leap.

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Looking at the Aperture/Noise Ninja Marriage

So I have this running battle with my flash. Specifically, I cringe every time I use it (particularly indoors). I’m just never happy with indoor flash shots. Anyway, as a result, I am reckless with my ISO often cranking it up 800 and even 1600 to avoid using the flash. The problem is at 1600 ISO, the Rebel can get pretty noisy.
As a result, I’ve been thinking about buying Noise Ninja to give me a hand cleaning up some of these photos but with the release of Aperture 2.1 it now appears the Noise Ninja developers are going to release an Aperture version as early as May. Needless to say I’m going to wait and see how this all shakes out. Noise removal seems to make more sense to me in Aperture than Photoshop so I’m crossing my fingers.

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WordPress Upgrade Complete – Nothing Blew Up!

Wordpress is getting better about upgrades. The last one I did resulted in about 4 hours of down time and more than a little frustration on my behalf. Tonight I updated to version 2.5 in about 10 minutes and everything worked great.

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Mac OS X – Quickly Delete Widgets

Some times I figure interesting tips entirely by mistake. Tonight I was moving some widgets and accidently discovered a very cool tip.
If you hold the “Option” key while over a widget, OS X gives you the option to delete it. This is much faster than clicking the big plus sign below to “manage widgets”.

So there you have it. To quickly remove a widget, press the option key.

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Book Review – Temeraire Series

I am going to stray a bit with this post so if you are not interested in science fiction/fantasy books, feel free to let your mind wonder.
One of my favorite subjects to talk about with my friend, Steve Stanger, is books. I recently turned him on to a good series (that will get another review another day) and asked him if he had anything interesting. Steve told me about the Temeraire Series by Naomi Novik. These books are set during the Napoleonic wars with one wrinkle: there are dragons. Each country has its own aerial corps of dragons and these books follow the adventures of one such reluctant captain and dragon companion, Temeraire. I don’t want to say much more and spoil the fun but I’ve now finished book 4 of the series (all that are published at the moment) and highly recommend them. Upon further investigation, I discovered that the author was partially inspired by Patrick O’Brian’s Aubry/Maturin novels, the source for Russell Crowe’s “Master and Commander” movie a few years back.*
Anyway, I’ve never been particularly enthralled with dragon novels but these are outstanding books with engaging characters. If you are looking for an entertaining read, pick them up. The first book in the series is “His Majesty’s Dragon.”
* This partially explains why I loved the Temeraire series so much because Patrick O’Brian’s novels (which spanned over 20 books) were an obsession of mine a few years back. I read them all but never was able to convince a single person to read them.

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The Big Switch

Okay … I’ve had it. It is driving me nuts that it is so easy for everyone to make presentations in Keynote. It just isn’t right that I can run a home movie production house, photography lab, and music studio off one laptop. I’ve thought long and hard about it and decided the only answer is regression. I’m switching to Dell.
Oh .. and by the way … Happy April Fool’s Day.

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SugarSync Initial Impressions

So this morning I got a real simple email from reader Seth which basically said, “Check out SugarSync”. This is really an interesting service. At first glance it looks like another offsite backup plan but it really isn’t. It is much more aimed at syncing files between computers. Any types of computers: Macs, windows, iPhones, and Blackberries. SugarSync doesn’t care. I played with it for about an hour today and installed it on the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. The cross platform sync is faster that doing it through iDisk for certain. I can access my documents from either computer, my iPhone and presumably my office PC. I haven’t used it enough yet to figure out where the kinks are (one is definitely security) and I’m not sure I want to pay another monthly fee but this is interesting.
Take a look and let me know your thoughts.

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OmniGraffle 5 Review

I think all reviews I do of Omni products should come with a disclaimer. I don’t hold stock in the company or anything like that. Omni does, however, manage to make tools that I find extremely useful in my day job and I’ve come to rely on their releases to make my life easier.
I reviewed OmniGraffle almost a year ago. Since then I’ve used it to make countless charts and diagrams. I was quite pleased with version 4 so the question becomes, should I upgrade to the version 5. After having participated in the Beta and used the final release for a month, the answer is “yes.”
For those of you who missed the original review, OmniGraffle gives you a set of tools to quickly and easily make diagrams, charts, and other things visual. If you talk Microspeak, it is similar to Visio. Using the application’s built in stencil library, it becomes stupid-easy to quickly assemble very attractive charts and diagrams that can be used on their own or exported into documents and presentations.
The new version 5 has a new interface that feels better to me. It is more consistent with the general interface guidelines you see in Leopard applications and gets rid of the drawer that was in Version 4.
Version 5 uses the new “Graphviz layout engine”. Once you set aside the marketing techno-jargon, that means several things as a user. It is faster, more powerful, and easier. Bezier curves are a snap and connecting objects is easier than ever. This is really helpful when you start moving things around.
The toolbars also got some love and now it is much easier to access the most commonly used tasks. An excellent OmniGraffle website that still sits on my RSS list is Graffletopia.com which acts as a clearinghouse for user created stencils. Apparently the folks at Omni are impressed too because you can now pull stencils down from Grafeltopiea from right inside OmniGraffle. One little improvement that I use often is support for Leopard’s “quick look.” I’ve collected quite a few diagrams and this makes searching through them very easy. Exporting is still a breeze and it is quite easy to incorporate the diagrams into your workflow.
OmniGraffle still comes in two flavors. The standard edition and the Professional edition which features better Visio support and other bells and whistles like subgraphs (which allow you to collapse portions of complex diagrams) and shared layers. One of the “Professional” features I’m very interested in is the notes inspector which should, if I understand correctly, allow me to applescript data or spotlight search right out of my file. I’m still working my way through applescript so I’ll have to get back to you on that one.
A lot of the new graphical bells and whistles rely on underlying Leopard technology so if you are still on Tiger, you are going to have to stick with version 4. In addition to a feature bump, OmniGraffle got a price bump. The basic version is $100 and the Professional version is $200. Upgrades from version 4 are $40. You can download a 30 day trial directly from The Omni Group. A lot of time went into making OmniGraffle intuitive and it shows. The only other applications that I think could get results like this are Visio (which does not exist in OS X) and Adobe Illustrator. Both more expensive and, in my opinion, more difficult to use.
The thing that sets OmniGraffle apart in my opinion is the shallow learning curve to quick, professional looking diagrams. The new version with a better graphics engine and a streamlined interface simply puts and exclamation point to an already useful application.

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Bento Syncing with Applescript

As I continue my attempts to synchronize using two Macs I have run into a wrinkle. My database application, Bento, does not sync. Since I’m only using one machine at a time, and the address and iCal data is already synced, it works fine if I just copy the database file between computers when switching. The trouble is that Bento insists the database be located in my Application Preferences/Bento folder so it is a pain to drill to it and copy it over to my iDisk. This seemed the perfect excuse to try my Applescript chops. So here is the script:
set SendOrReceive to button returned of (display dialog “Hey Sparky, Sending or Receiving?” buttons {“Sending”, “Recieving”} default button 2 with icon caution)
set LocalBentoFile to POSIX file “Users/david/Library/Application Support/Bento/bento.bentodb”
set iDiskBentoFile to POSIX file “/Volumes/iDisk/Documents/Bento Data/bento.bentodb”
set LocalBentoFolder to POSIX file “Users/david/Library/Application Support/Bento/”
set iDiskBentoFolder to POSIX file “/Volumes/iDisk/Documents/Bento Data/”
tell application “Finder”
if SendOrReceive = “Sending” then
duplicate LocalBentoFile to the folder iDiskBentoFolder with replacing
else
duplicate iDiskBentoFile to the folder LocalBentoFolder with replacing
end if
end tell
This script asks if I’m sending (to iDisk) or receiving (from iDisk) and then copies the file in the right direction. I thought about making it more automatic by comparing dates and duplicating the newest version in both places, but decided I want to have control over what direction the sync is going.
If anyone out there has any ideas for improving it, let me know or leave a comment.

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