ExpanDrive

For me, one the biggest disappointments about the original iPhone was the lack of a mountable file system. Not that the iPhone needed any more hype, but how sweet would it have been to tack on “portable drive” to its laundry list of features? Well, thanks to ExpanDrive, now you can.

All of a week after the release of the iPhone 3g, the iphone dev team released its pwnage tool, allowing you to jailbreak your phone. There’s a pretty exhaustive step-by-step of how to use the 3g pwnage tool here; the only thing I’d add to it is this bit about how to fix a DFU mode bug:

The error that everyone has been googling since the tool was released: “Failed to enter DFU mode”

The fix for this was difficult to find. There are hundreds of posts out there from people trying to find answers, but very few useful solutions. However, the solution is a simple one:

Fire up Terminal on your Mac and fire of these two commands:

cd ~/Library/iTunes
mkdir “Device Support”

If the Terminal is scary, you can do the same thing by going to your Home folder, opening “Library”, opening the iTunes folder inside Library, and then creating a new folder called “Device Support” in that iTunes folder.

Jailbreaking the phone does lots of fun things for you. But the ones that matter for this article are enabling root access and SSH support. After the jaibreak is complete and the phone has rebooted, open the Cydia app that has just been installed on your phone.  Scroll down to “OpenSSH Access How-To” and follow the the directions there.

After the last step, and while still in the terminal window, type “passwd root” and enter a different password, one hopefully hard to crack than the default, which is “alpine”.  This will prevent people from messing with your phone while you poach their wireless networks.

Once all that’s done, go over to Expandrive and enter whatever IP address you just typed into the Terminal, along with the username “root” and the new, secure root password I just told you to make. The drive should pop right up on your desktop. Open it, and it should look something like this:

You can drag and drop stuff onto and off of that as you would any other ExpanDrive-mounted disk. Unfortunately, it only works over the Wi-Fi connection, so it’s still not as fast as a disk-use iPod, and I still haven’t figured out how to add and delete media and apps this way.  I’d also be careful filling the drive to capacity, since it seems to have no idea how large it really is.

ExpanDrive 1.2.9 is out now and available for download [release notes]. There are three major features of this release, apart from a host of small bug fixes and tweaks that we’ve put in the program in response to user input. New icons, MacFUSE 1.7, and new packaging/installation.

Long overdue, ExpanDrive has a new application icon and menu bar icon. They’re pretty hot. Many thanks to Jordan Langille over at OneToad Design who tirelessly worked with us through quite a number of revisions.

The second major change to ExpanDrive 1.2.9 comes with the addition of MacFUSE 1.7 [see CHANGELOG]. This removes a variety of small incompatabilities and addresses some major issues with certain applications saving after upgrading to OS X 10.5.3.

Again, long overdue - we’ve performed a complete overhaul of our installation technique. We’ve ditched of a PackageMaker in favor of a simple ZIP based distribution. MacFUSE will be magically installed or upgraded [with your permission] upon launch.

If you watch tv, then you’ve no doubt noticed the complete absence of new content which infests the summer months. For a little reprieve, check out Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, a 15 minute, low-budget side project by Joss Whedon (the creator of “Firefly” and the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, and writer of the under-rated movie with the same name).

New episodes on Thursday and Saturday. Free until Sunday.

I’m no idiot. I realize that relentless pursuit of the counter-intuitive is the implicit goal of every snooty, left-leaning publication in existence—the latest New Yorker cover ought to assuage any doubts about that—but for crying out loud, I wish the highbrow media would just get over itself about the iPhone.

Don’t mistake me for a slobbering Apple fanboy.  Back when Jobs announced the thing last year, there was a definite need to reign in expectations.  It should have been obvious how bad EDGE would suck. Triangulated GPS was clearly going to be imprecise. And for those insecure enough to demand a GWAM of 70 or higher at all times, a Crackberry will always be the mobile of choice. Verily I say unto thee, speedtexter, you have your reward in full.

But a year after the shortcomings became clear, magazines and web pages still as full of iFap as ever.  This piece at Puffington Host yesterday stated with alarm that “Hundreds of iPhones have cracked and have had to be replaced because of the glass screen”. Hundreds?  Out of 4 million sold?  Good lord, that could mean a failure rate as high as .024%!  Look, I’m as klutzy as the next guy,  but the iPhone isn’t fragile,  and repairing it ain’t exactly rocket surgery.

It’s not so much the inanity of the counterarguments that gets to me, though—it’s the presence of the comparison itself. Slate’s PauI Boutin wasn’t quite direct enough last year when he termed iPhone “less a phone packed with extras than a full-fledged computer for your pocket”. The iPhone is a full-fledged computer you can put in your pocket.

People who bemoan the lack of AD2P in the iPhone 3g seem to have forgotten that until OS 10.5 came out, no Apple product had AD2P compatibility. It was a feature added by a software fix; the same sort of software fix hackers, and latter Apple, employed to open up the iPhone to “third-party apps”, or, as most people would call them, “programs”.

Yet, for some reason, technology writers continue to whine about trifles like AT&T’s lousy network. Once hackers crack the iPhone 3g open serve up the iPhone’s soft interior on a silver platter, you’ll be able to use whatever network you want, or install any iPhone-compatible program you can find to download.  Your computer doesn’t care if you connect to the internet through Verizon or Comcast, or whether you surf with Firefox or Safari. It’s high time that your phone started thinking the same way.

I’ll be the first to admit that, going by the specs written on the box, iPhone 2.0 doesn’t offer anything more impressive than a 3g chip. But that’s missing the point. This phone runs a computer’s operating system; it can do anything your computer can, within reason (e.g., no Halo). You could even mount its file system like an external drive to bypass the iTunes store, if only iPhoneDisk weren’t so frickin’ buggy.

Anyone out there know a software company that might be into fixing that sort of thing?

We all hate EULAs. We don’t read them, even when the little checkbox that indicates we’ve read and agreed to them won’t go away until we’ve scrolled all the way to the bottom of the 5,000 words of legalese. When some enterprising soul does read one, usually in anticipation of new version of Windows or Mac OS, he’s always shocked at what he finds, and blogs about it to the world. The world blogs back, and blogging deathmatches ensue until the terms of the agreement are lessened. Of course, this has always been a mostly meaningless exercise, since there is already a law in place that governs how we can use software we’ve purchased. 17 USC Section 117(a)(1) tells us that you are free to make a copy to RAM of any software you own (regardless of what the EULA says) provided:

(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner

Seems pretty cut and dry. Even though you don’t own the copyright, if you buy software, you can use it. The copying of it to RAM would seem to technically violate the copyright, but this law explicitly says that it doesn’t. Until yesterday.

In a summary judgement for Blizzard, the Ninth Circuit held in MDY v Blizzard that this section of law does not apply to anybody. Purchasing a copy of software does not make one the “owner” of that copy under section 117. The section of law that applies to this class of people (”licensees”) is section 106, which makes it illegal to make a copy of any work to which you do not hold the copyright. The use of software is only legal if you are given the right by the copyright owner, in this case through the EULA, and therefore if you violate the EULA, you are in fact infringing on the copyright. Unless I am mistaken, the only way to be the “owner” of a copy of software is to be the owner of the copyright itself, making Section 117 redundant. I can’t imagine the law was intended to be interpreted this way.

This ruling also sets a bad precedent for the status of other legally purchased digital property. If this judgement is correct, Fair Use does not exist. While it hasn’t been tested in court, it is generally assumed that one has the right to copy CDs for archival purposes and transfer to a different medium (Section 117(a)(2) seems to say this, as well), but all it would take would be some text printed on the inside of a CD case to explicitly make that use illegal. No contract needs to be signed; the owner of the copyright simply has to make reasonably sure that “licensees” read the agreement. Of course, this amounts to agreeing to a contract you haven’t seen, since no stores will allow to open software boxes or CD cases before purchase, and most won’t allow you to return opened software or CDs should you not agree to the terms. Since breaking the terms of this agreement now makes one a criminal, that is a bigger deal than ever before.

Slate talks about Wall-E today, and they’ve made me angry.

http://www.slate.com/id/2195126/

This is a very bad representation of the movie’s themes. In Wall-E, the environment didn’t collapse because people were fat and lazy. In fact, the movie makes pretty clear that people didn’t get fat until they’d been living in space for hundreds of years. This progression is shown several times (think of the successive captains’ portraits). It’s well-established science that you will get fat and lose bone mass floating around in space. The movie explicitly states that the Axiom’s denizens have grown obese under the effects of micro-gravity (it’s unclear why this would be, since the Axiom appears to have artificial gravity, but it is stated in the dialogue, so we’ll have to take their word for it) and more dramatically, technology. It may be true that some people are genetically predisposed to being obese, but if nobody has to walk anywhere anymore, everybody is going to get fat.

And everybody does get fat, but that’s a symptom, not a cause. The movie’s link between “obesity and environmental collapse” is much more circumspect and thoughtful than the Slate author insists it is when he says “Wall-E tells us that if we don’t change the way we live, we’ll all get really fat and destroy the world”. That chain of events actually happens in the opposite order, so finding the idea that “we gain weight and the Earth suffers” in the movie is bordering on fabrication. The same bad habits caused the environmental catastrophe and the bloating of humanity, but to suggest that the blame is laid at the feet of the genetically obese is a deliberate misreading.

Earth becomes uninhabitable because humans are wasteful, negligent, and encouraged into over-consumption by the giant corporation that also serves as their government, not because they’re fat; we’re even shown that they’re not fat when they leave Earth. No amount of FUD is going to change that very obvious (maybe too obvious) thematic statement from the creators. You can argue with it, but don’t don’t raise straw men and invent themes that just aren’t there in order to more enhance your offense. If you see the movie and come out with the idea that Pixar is decrying compulsive consumerism exclusively because it will make us all fat, then I will suggest you are missing the point entirely. If you come out thinking that Pixar believes obese people are destroying the Earth, I will begin to judge negatively your comprehension skills.

You saw the commercials and you got it: you are a Mac.  So you went out and bought a Mac. And you love it. You love it so much that maybe you’re even camped out waiting for an iPhone right now. But I doubt it.

Anyway, you’ve got this problem. Your Mac is the same as everyone else’s. And you didn’t scribble all over your Vans or put magenta Deep-Vs on your fixie because you wanted to be the same as everyone else. Not being unique is unspeakably lame. Lamer than Coldplay.

But of course, being new to the Mac, you don’t want to do it wrong. And I get that. Modern fashions are tough. These are dangerous waters we tread, are they not? But don’t worry, bro. I’ve been rocking this look since the days of MacPaint, and I’ve got your back.

• DON’T move all the icons to the left hand side of the screen. You’re a Mac, remember?
• DO put your dock over on the left. Icons on the right, dock on the left. Easy.

• DON’T leave anything on the computer actually named after yourself except your user name. This goes double for shared music.
• DO taunt anyone dumb enough ignore the previous rule (let’s call them Person X) by changing the name of your shared music to “[Person X]’s Music is trite and predictable”
• DON’T use any of the lame default screen savers. Replacing them with pictures of your own still won’t make them cooler.
• DO use a retro screen saver like the Flying Toasters or PongSaver. Trust me, it’s ironic.

DON’T use anything affiliated with AOL in any way. I don’t care how many free minutes you have.

DO use Adium for all your IM needs. If you’re totally baller, learn to customize the interface.

DON’T do something stupid like installing BootCamp.

DO download Deeper and change your folder windows to show paths. This will save you massive amounts of time, headaches, and confusion if you have multiple drives to deal with.

• DON’T overdo it on the widgets.
• DO get iStat menus so you can see how much the widgets are slowing you down.
• DON’T complain about the beachball. Chances are it’s your fault.
• DO max out your RAM. It costs $100 and makes your computer run at least that much better.
• DON’T use Spotlight unless you’re looking for a specific file you rarely use, but know the precise name of.
• DO use Quicksilver for everything else. Even text messages.

If you’re thinking in terms of a couple hundred dollars, your app probably isn’t even going to get listed in the App Store. The App Store isn’t going to be like VersionTracker or MacUpdate, where every piece of junk gets listed as it’s submitted.

-John Gruber, Friday, 27 June 2008

What. The. Fuck? http://xrl.us/kkkdy Productivity?

-John Gruber, Thursday, 10 July 2008

As you’re no doubt aware, a lot of talented, high profile programmers have announced that they’re moving to git for version control. Many of these programmers (for example, yours truly) have promised to post their impressions, their tips and tricks, their how-tos, and their workflows and the internet for the betterment of humanity.

You may have wondered why so few people have followed through with this promise. I’ll tell you: it’s because we still have no clue what we’re doing. We still pour over the cheat sheet and man pages every time we need to do something even remotely outside of our standard workflow (pull, commit -a, push). And when I say “we”, I don’t just mean those of us at Magnetk. Git is fundamentally different than subversion. It’s taking us some time to wrap our heads around it, and we’re all a little gun shy.

Well, not me. I’m not afraid of making mistakes and looking like an idiot.

Say you add git add a file or directory, and then, before you commit, decide “No, no. I did not want to add that file. I’ve changed my mind. Please do not add that file to the repository. I do not even what my coworkers to know that I thought about adding that file to the repository.” What do you do? git reset -- RegretableAdd.tex. The file will still be on disk, but it won’t get added to the repository when you commit.

If you delete or modify a file, and then decide that you want to get it back the way it was in the last commit, you can just do a git checkout fileToBeRestored.sty, and you’ll get it back. But what happens if you git rm it instead?

$ git rm DO_NOT_DELETE
$ # "I did not mean to do that. That was a mistake"
$ git checkout DO_NOT_DELETE
error: pathspec 'DO_NOT_DELETE' did not match any file(s) known to git.
Did you forget to 'git add'?

Probably not what you were hoping for, right? Can you get back DO_NOT_DELETE? In git, you bet you can.

$ git rm DO_NOT_DELETE
$ # "I did not mean to do that. That was a mistake"
$ git reset -- DO_NOT_DELETE
todo.rtf: needs update
$ git checkout DO_NOT_DELETE

And that’s all there is to it. More to come. The git-reset man page, unlike some of the other git man pages, is extremely readable. It contains sample workflows for such situations as “Undo a commit and redo”, “Undo a commit, making it a topic branch”, or “Undo a merge or pull”.

Corrections and additions are welcome.

After a month of work, we just pushed ExpanDrive 1.2.7 out the door. This is a bug fix release - but it’s a good one. Check out the release notes here.

In the past month or two we’ve been heavily dog fooding ExpanDrive, spending an incredible amount of effort trying to identify and polish out the remaining bugs and really take stability to the next level. ExpanDrive aims to be a super-high-quality filesystem that works really well and is easy to use.

We are working closely with our users to identify and fix outstanding issues. There are always more bugs to fix - but 1.2.7 represents a lot of testing and fixing that we don’t want to go unnoticed.

Going forward, we’re going to refocus efforts on new features and protocols. But for now for now, we aim to perfect what is already there.