Shirt Pocket Watch

It seems I always have to do one of these hey we released a new update and here are the two or three problems users have run into posts, no matter how long we test for, or how clean we think the build is.

Wouldn't want to break with tradition. That would be wrong.

So, hey—we released a new update yesterday: SuperDuper! v2.6. Perhaps you've heard of it? Well, there are a few problems users are having with the build, so here are some quick mentions of what we know about and our plans.

Problems enabling permissions/checking ACLs under 10.4.11

This is probably the weirdest one of all, because it doesn't happen on any of our 10.4 test machines (see the Cry of the Developer novel, coming to a technical bookstore near you).

We use the fsaclctl command-line tool to check the state of ACLs under Tiger and Leopard (although not under Snow Leopard, since it was removed when ACLs were permanently turned on). We did this in v2.5 as well, although there was a logic problem that caused us to not turn ACLs off on a destination if they were off on the source.

Well, curiously, fsaclctl, when used to turn ACLs off under Tiger on some systems, actually generates a low-level I/O error and fails. The curious and Tiger-y can try this with:

sudo fsaclctl -p /Volumes/some-volume -d

and some of you will see that it gives an error. Of course, only some, and all of you have already contacted me, it seems.

Anyway, since we can't really fix fsaclctl, we're working a fix-by-optimizing: we will no longer re-disable ACLs if they're already disabled and vice-versa. If you're using v10.4.11 and you're running into problems, you can use SuperDuper! v2.5 until we get the fix out (which shouldn't take too long).

Those damnable quotes

Ah, we fixed a quoting problem very early in v2.6's development cycle and—all smug like—patted ourselves on the back and moved on.

Alas, while we were moving on, we were scattering new quoting issues throughout some new parts of the code... and somehow missed them. But our users with volumes with quotes in them didn't!

The temporary fix for this is to rename your volumes and remove the quotes. You can put them back when the next version is released, so keep them safe.

Schedule recreation required

Although I put this in the release notes and in a FAQ, many missed it: to get the benefits of the new scheduling features, and to ensure compatibility with v2.6, your scheduled copies should be deleted and recreated.

Frankly, we'd love to do this for you. But we're concerned that users who have customized their schedule driver would end up losing data if we updated the internals "automatically"...

Very infrequent and bizarre ownership issue on Leopard

We've had two or three people who have been unable to get v2.6 to acknowledge ownership is enabled on Leopard.

We reworked ownership checks back during Snow Leopard's development when they removed the vsdbutil tool that we used to use, and decided to use AppleScript instead, asking System Events to get and set "ignore ownership" for the volume.

During testing, we found that System Events needed root permission to actually set ignore ownership, even though we were running an authenticated task, and would prompt non-Admins when it needed to be changed. At around this same time, Apple decided to put vsdbutil back into Snow Leopard, and so we moved to using it to set ownership, and scripting to check.

This went great during testing, but in the field, the scripting check isn't working for a few users. We have no idea why, but we're going to move back to a full vsdbutil-based approach (as was the case from v1.0 -> v2.5) until we can determine what's going on, or we come up with a better solution.

We kant spel

Yeah, the very last build renamed a button (from "Reboot Now" or something like that to "Restart Now"), which got fumblefingered to "Restar Nowt", because we're clever, detail conscious geniuses who were attempting an obscure and inaccurate reference to The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai and blew it. We've corrected this to "Restarté Nowté" as was always intended.

Not really. Just a typo. Fixed.

That's about it!

I think that covers what's happened so far. We've got these issues fixed in house, and I think we're going to wait just a bit more time to make sure that nothing else serious is reported while we're feeling like we've got a handle on everything that's wrong.

Thanks for your patience and support, as always. One of these days we're going to release something and it'll be perfect, and then someone will send me a unicorn, and I'll ride off on a rainbow road to the land of chocolate and ice cream. I just know it.

Until then.

SUMMARY: Shirt Pocket announces the immediate availability of SuperDuper! 2.6 - improved and now compatible with Snow Leopard

Shirt Pocket is happy to announce that SuperDuper 2.6 is now available as a free update for all users. The new version includes full Snow Leopard support as well as many other new features, such as "Backup on connect", which, when configured, automatically backups up to a drive when it's connected to the Macintosh.

Of course, we didn't stop there. Version 2.6 improves over a hundred aspects of our 2005 and 2006 Macworld Eddy-award winning application, improving nearly every part of the program, from performance improvements and additional AppleScript capabilities to additional features like "Eject on successful completion" and support for the Sparse Bundle image type.

"SuperDuper! 2.6 isn't just a compatibility release for Snow Leopard" said David Nanian, owner of Shirt Pocket, talking to himself and feeling a bit Bob Doleish as he wrote the press release. "We've added many high-value features that our users are going to love, and it's an even better complement to Time Machine—all without any increase in complexity. With SuperDuper!, recovery from a disk crash is just a matter of rebooting from the backup!"

SuperDuper continues to support both Intel and Power PC Macs running Mac OS X 10.4 or later, including the latest 10.6 release, and is a free update for existing users. The unregistered version will perform full backups for free, and never expires. Registration costs $27.95 and includes many additional timesaving features, including Smart Update for faster backups, Scheduling, and others.

More information, as well as a download link, can be found at http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper.

About Shirt Pocket

Shirt Pocket, based in Weston, Massachusetts, was formed in late 2000 as a Macintosh-only shareware creator and publisher. Shirt Pocket's first product, the 2004 Eddy Award winning netTunes, lets customers control iTunes on one Mac from any other Mac on the network with iTunes own intuitive user interface. launchTunes, Shirt Pocket's second product, made iTunes' playlist sharing practical by automatically launching iTunes on remote servers when needed. SuperDuper!, the 2005 and 2006 Eddy Award winning disk copying program that allows mere mortals to back up and restore their systems accurately and confidently, was released in January 2004.

Shirt Pocket was started by David Nanian, co-founder of UnderWare, Inc, and one of the original authors of the BRIEF programmer's editor and Track Record bug tracking system.

We've received some independent confirmation that the version of Snow Leopard we've been testing with these past few weeks is, indeed, the version that's shipping to users. So, at present, and as promised given those circumstances, I expect v2.6 of SuperDuper!, which is fully Snow Leopard compatible, to be released Friday, day and date with Snow Leopard.

SuperDuper! itself will detect and download the new version (unless you have that preference turned off), and you'll be able to download it from the usual links as well, when released.

Although the testing is not quite complete, I want to take a moment to thank all of the external testers who have been working with various builds of v2.6 since over a year ago, when the first external beta was released: without your efforts, we wouldn't be able to get the kind of coverage needed to help certify a release, nor the kind of feedback we need to confirm we're on the right track.

So, barring any last minute disaster, it won't be long now...

Yeah, it's a gigantic, multi-day blast of blogging here at Shirt Pocket World Headquarters and LEGO Assembly Center.

I'm going through the revision history for the betas as I try to determine what's best to highlight, and there are a lot of behind-the-scenes changes in this version. A few more fun new features:

1. PGP Whole Disk Encryption (PGPWDE) now supported for source and destination
   This is not one of those things that'll thrill the world, but many users want a bootable, fully encrypted source and destination. SuperDuper! v2.6 understands how PGPWDE stores its data, and supports encrypted sources and destinations, so the notes from your mom and lists/photos of assembled and painted Gundam models are secure!

2. (Much) Faster Disk Image mounting
   Back in Tigerdays, a security update changed image mounting to scan the image before mounting it, in case it's damaged in a way that can cause a security problem. But with an image that you're using for your backups, the scan doesn't really help, since you didn't get the image from a 3rd party. We've used a new "don't scan" option where supported... which makes image backups much faster.

3. Countdown to completion actions
   If you tell SuperDuper! to Sleep, Restart or Shutdown when it's done, but you're using the Mac, there's was previously no way to stop it: at the end of the backup, it was time to go sleepy-bye (or whatever), with no arguments or stalling. We now put up a sheet that allows you to cancel this after-copy action if desired. If only life were so simple.

4. Sparse Bundle support
   For Leopard and Snow Leopard (10.5 and later) users, we now directly support the Sparse Bundle image type, which further speeds up network and other image-based backups.

To remind people again, since it's a question I get asked all the time, and as has been true since v1.0 of SuperDuper! was released back in—what—2004 or something, it'll be another free update.

Hopefully that's enough to further whet your appetite; back to cooking.

Hey, everyone! So, as promised in my previous post, we're working hard on getting v2.6 out, which will include full Snow Leopard support.

Over 140 people are currently testing the current Beta, and save for a few relatively minor problems things have been going very well.

I had based our general schedule on the typical "shipping in September means September 32nd" Apple schedule, but it seems that this time Apple's decided that "shipping in September" means "shipping in August". Go figure.

We're working as fast as we can to get our testing done so we can get the new version out to you. And it doesn't just have Snow Leopard support in it. A few things we've added:

1. Backup on connect
   When you click Schedule..., you can either schedule a timed backup, or tell SuperDuper! to back up when a given drive is connected to your Macintosh, or both.
2. Eject after copy
   You can now set an "On successful completion" action to eject the destination drive after the copy has been completed.

By combining those two options, you can set it so that SuperDuper! backs up a drive when you connect it, and then ejects it when done. Pretty convenient!

Of course, we didn't stop there... more later! Back to testing!

(Sorry that I've turned comments off for this post. Last time we released an update around the time of an OS release, my server got totally overloaded/whacked sending out blog responses to everyone who commented. It's not that I don't want to hear from you—feel free to head to the forums or send email.)

I've recently been getting a lot of questions about SuperDuper! and Snow Leopard compatibility, so I thought I'd put an "official statement" (oooh!) up here on the blog.

Remember: Snow Leopard is under Non-Disclosure. I can't really say anything about it until it's released. So, please, don't ask. You'll get mad at me for being vague, and I'll get tired of it too: it's a lose-lose.

We will be supporting Snow Leopard as soon as we possibly can, and we're already working on it (of course). If Apple releases the "production bits" to developers before they release them to the public, we should be able to do our final testing before release.

I do not anticipate or expect a Leopard-style struggle to get our Snow Leopard support finalized. This will disappoint no one, especially not me.

And, no, SuperDuper! under Snow Leopard is not going to be 64-bit: it doesn't make any sense for this type of application.

For those who might be using Snow Leopard now, and are getting an error referencing fsaclctl: you can copy fsaclctl to Snow Leopard from Leopard (it's in /usr/sbin/fsaclctl) for now.

Everyone clear? Good!

I'm not going to make a commitment to blogging more this year, although perhaps I should, because I've been remiss (and busy). I am up on Twitter as dnanian, though, so feel free to follow me there for the occasional self-serving and usually uninteresting bit of blather.

The New Year is starting off well with a great episode of MacMerc TV featuring SuperDuper!—big thanks to Rick Yaeger and his crew for the cool video!

And—just noticed—it looks like we're featured on the New York Times Podcast, too. Nice!

Anyway, I just wanted to wish our customers and friends a very Happy New Year - you're appreciated more than my relative blogging silence indicates.

Thanks, everyone!

I think the last time I wrote about the Squeezebox was in 2005 (yikes!), but it's time to virtually attaboy again: the Slim Devices folks have recently released the Squeezebox Boom, and it's pretty darn great. (I might be a little biased because I wrote their Mac-native support years ago, but really, no sense bragging on something I don't like.)

There's a surprising amount of competition out there in the "networked audio player" market, but Slim Devices (now part of Logitech) has been around a while, and their open source solution is one of the very best. The Boom mates a Squeezebox with a rather nice set of stereo speakers to create a pretty ideal stand-alone player/clock radio: something I've been looking for over the past few years.

This'll work with virtual all unprotected audio files you might have (including AAC, ALC, FLAC, OGG, MP3, MPA, WAV, AIFF), and includes support for Rhapsody, Pandora, Sirius... the list kind of goes on and on.

Minor downsides: awkward external power wall wart (boo!), no battery support for those times you might want to take it out on the porch, some minor control placement issues (all personal taste), and—like all Squeezeboxen—it requires that you have the SqueezeCenter server running on something (which can even be an Infrant NAS -- it ships with the SqueezeCenter built right in)... but those are decidedly minor.

Highly recommended, and a big congratulations to Dean Blackketter and the rest of the Slim Devices team.

For nearly two years, I've been using the PC version of the Logitech diNovo Edge keyboard, and I've been quite happy with it.

I've always been a huge fan of the feel of the IBM Selectric typewriter keyboard - perfect keyboards, not too noisy, incredible feel with a definitive release. IBM simulated that with bucking spring technology of the original IBM PC and its follow-ons, and I used those keyboards too, and thought they were the best at the time.

These days there are some similar keyboards for the Mac, and I've tried them all, but never really liked any of them. The feel just wasn't right, and while they had a similar sound, they were just too noisy, or too 'fake' feeling. It's hard to describe, but... they just didn't work for me, and I kept going back to the Apple keyboard.

The diNovo Edge isn't anything like those keyboards. It's more like a very high quality laptop keyboard, but with much better "feel". It's got smooth travel -- and not too short, which is a common failing (see the Apple aluminum keyboard, which I've also tried) -- a good 'release' feel when you make contact (but before you bottom out on key travel, and good layout. (It feels similar to the original IBM Thinkpad keyboards, if you've ever used one of those.)

Unfortunately, while it worked, it wasn't really made for the Mac, and you had to play some games to get it to function. But I liked it enough to recommend it back in November of 2006.

Well, this week, I replaced that keyboard with the new Logitech diNovo Edge Rechargeable Bluetooth Keyboard for Mac. (And it has an awesomely catchy name. Not.) They've reworked the key layout, improved operation, and written Mac drivers that work well and activate various application-specific keys. Plus, it has built-in rechargeable batteries that last about 30 days per charge, and comes with a little dock charger thingy.

No, it doesn't clack. It's not a selectric. But it's got a good feel, nice (adjustable) flat profile, excellent build quality and -- to my hands, and in my opinion -- it's the best modern keyboard out there.

There are times when our inability to truly talk to our animals, to reason with them, can be truly frustrating.

And, alas, truly dangerous.

Last weekend was one of those times. Having successfully negotiated the power-failure/exploding transformer/brushfire disaster of Friday the 13th, in the sense that we lived through it, I looked forward to Saturday as a day of recovery.

It started well, a nice walk with some neighborhood friends, Taiko enjoying some swimming and running around. Followed by a walk up a nice hill, and, a broken "donor" tennis ball in his mouth, a fun game of keep away with his favorite "puppies" -- three girls from up the street.

That's where it went wrong. Some part of the ball started going down Taiko's throat and, activated by the game, he refused to let me catch him. The small piece going down was connected to the rest of the ball -- about 3/4 of a tennis ball -- which curled up and managed to fit. One way.

Oh crap.

Taiko, of course, was very proud.

Off to the local emergency center for some X-Rays which revealed the now-expanded ball sitting nicely in his stomach. Induced vomiting was unproductive, as (unfortunately) expected. Since they didn't have weekend endoscopy, it was time to head down to New England Animal Medical Center in West Bridgewater, where Zabeth is interning.

She's working the overnight shift right now, so she was gently awoken to the news that her dog was headed to surgery. She took the news well, and the team prepped Taiko for the 'scope.

Taiko's bad day continued, though. Zabeth came out with a small piece, but that as much as they could get: the ball was just too big to get back up without squashing it with teeth, as he had done when he swallowed it.

After two healthy, happy, event-free years (he'd just turned two on May 21st), Taiko was going to have to get cut, and in a significant way. And Zabeth was going to do it: a great learning experience for her, and some upside for the downside.

Stupid Taiko, stupid tennis ball... I wish I had been able to tell him to not swallow the thing, catch him, something.

Hours later, I donned a hat and mask and watched as Zabeth closed Taiko's huge incision. Fortunately, the operation had been entirely successful, and while they were in there they performed a gastropexy to prevent any future bloating.

He woke a bit later in recovery, gorked on the drugs but wagging; I drove home at about 2am and slept a few hours. We took him home on Monday and he's spent the time since then in his stylish Elizabethan collar, under mandated greatly reduced activity, healing.

Of course, he has no idea this was due to the tennis ball, and I have no way of connecting the unpleasantness of his present situation to that moment of carefree, playful stupidity.

Oh, Taiko.