ExpanDrive

Also, don’t miss the making of.

Today Apple released a new 27″ iMac with impressive specs, a unibody design and an impressive LED backlit display. Somewhat hidden in the announcement is a small but important feature – the DisplayPort connection on the back of the 27″ iMacs operates both as a jack for an external monitor and also as an input for an external computer if you want to use your 27″ iMac as a monitor.

The 27″ iMac [starting at $1699] has the same modern LED screen as Apple’s 24″ LED Cinema Display[$899] – noticably higher quality than Apple’s dated 30″ Cinema display [$1799]. It is of comparable size and weight, nearly the same resolution [2560x1440 vs 2560x1600] – $100 cheaper, and comes with a free Mac – namely a 3Ghz Core2 Duo with 4 Gigs of RAM and a 1TB hard drive in the base configuration.

30″ Cinema display – $1799               27″ iMac – $1699
          

I’ve had Dell’s 3008WFP 30″ monitor [MSRP $1699] sitting on order for a few days now – which I just canceled in favor of Apple’s 27″ LED version, which comes with the free Mac.

A Typophile user named miha has done some amazing pixel art that exploits subpixel antialiasing. In his first post he reworked the YouTube favicon from a pink mess into something that looks sharp and legible.

His second post debuts a draft of a completely legible typeface with an x-height of 3 pixels. The picture above (taken from miha’s comment on the post) shows the word “ipsum dolor” at 16× magnification. The original size text, so small you might not notice it, is in the lower right corner.

Subpixel antialiasing is some magic stuff. As he said in his YouTube post “If you want to be suprised: white text on red is not really white, it is purple & yellow! There is no spoon.” I’d love to see a 9× mockup of what it looks like after antialiasing is applied.

(Mac users can open Digital ColorMeter, in Applications -> Utilities, for a quick way to zoom in on the pixel art.)

ExpanDrive for Mac v2.0.5 [release notes] adds support for Snow Leopard in 32-bit mode. ExpanDrive on Snow Leopard running with a 64-bit kernel won’t be available until MacFUSE, a software library ExpanDrive depends on, is updated to run in 64-bit mode.

ExpanDrive for Mac v2.0.5 is available for download here and is available via the auto updater.

As you’ve already heard, ExpanDrive has bought Strongspace and BingoDisk from Joyent and is going to be deploying a new and improved service. First, we’d like to provide a bit of info about ourselves for those of you who are on this blog for the first time.

ExpanDrive is a software company based in Boston, MA and is in the business of making awesome software that enables ridiculously simple and secure access to remote storage. Our main product is a SFTP/FTP/S3 client for Mac and Windows [previously known as SftpDrive] which allows you to turn your remote storage into a network drive. Many Strongspace customers are owners of the ExpanDrive and use it daily. ExpanDrive’s software provides an unsurpassed experience in connecting to online storage which we’re tightly integrating into Strongspace. BingoDisk users will be treated to drive-based access to their storage that works reliably on both Mac and Windows when they transition to Strongspace.

We have big plans for Strongspace and will be actively supporting and developing the service. Strongspace still runs on top of hardened Joyent Accelerators with ZFS. With the help of Joyent’s expert team we’ve heavily audited the security of every aspect of Strongspace to ensure the continued safety of your data.

Strongspace’s web application has been rebuilt from the ground up and deployed onto a much speedier infrastructure. In addition, you can continue expect to a deep commitment to customer support and experience going forward. ExpanDrive is making Strongspace a disk in the cloud that you’ll love to use – connecting you to your storage like a USB drive plugged into your laptop.

We’re excited to be taking over these services from Joyent and wanted to provide you with some details of our plans. Currently we’re finishing up private testing of the new Strongspace service and will be soon emailing Joyent’s lifetime customers with instructions on how they can migrate their data over to ExpanDrive. Following the initial migration of the lifetime customers we will be sending emails to the rest of the Strongspace account holders with instructions on how to set up new accounts.

Follow @strongspace and @expandrive on Twitter and this blog for continuing updates. Feel free to email us with any questions you have. Thanks!

Hot on the heels of ExpanDrive v2.0.3 comes ExpanDrive v2.0.4 [release notes].

ExpanDrive v2.0.4 provides two major enhancements. First – it allows you to set file permissions within Finder’s standard “Get Info” panel on Tiger and Snow Leopard. Unfortunately Leopard will not play nicely with this feature.

It also provides a “fix” for problem that a we’ve had reported with CSSEdit. In some rare circumstances, CSSEdit report that a file could not be saved (due to a server bug), but then delete the original file. With help from our very dedicated users, we have isolated this issue to a bug in older versions of the OpenSSH server. These servers cannot correctly perform a rename when the filename contains path components which do not all reside on the same filesystem – such as nested ZFS/NFS mounts inside your home directory. However, this problem was fixed ages ago and is therefore rarely seen. Most people don’t use the 4.5 line of of OpenSSH, with the big exception being SunSSH – still based off OpenSSH v3.5p1. Ugh.

ExpanDrive v2.0.4 provides a safety mechanism which ensures the original data is preserved, even if the rename incorrectly fails. If you see CSSEdit fail to save please lobby your admin to upgrade to a modern SSH server.

There’s an amazing thread on Stack Overflow titled “What is your best programmer joke?” The whole first page is full of good ones that I hadn’t heard before, but the top post is really priceless:

A man flying in a hot air balloon suddenly realizes he’s lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts to get directions, “Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?”

The man below says: “Yes, you’re in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field.”

“You must work in Information Technology,” says the balloonist.

“I do” replies the man. “How did you know?”

“Well,” says the balloonist, “everything you have told me is technically correct, but It’s of no use to anyone.”

The man below replies, “You must work in management.”

“I do” replies the balloonist, “But how’d you know?”

“Well”, says the man, “you don’t know where you are, or where you’re going, you expect me to be able to help. You’re in the same position you were before we met, but now it’s my fault.”

One of the most common questions we get at ExpanDrive headquarters is “How much space do I get when I buy ExpanDrive?” This is an awkward question for us for a couple reasons. First, it shows that we haven’t done a great job at getting people to understand what ExpanDrive actually does (take files from your own server and puts them on your desktop).

Second, that question told us that there were a lot of users out there that want something that ExpanDrive can almost give to them. They want to use ExpanDrive, and we want them to use it, but we didn’t have a server for them to us. We think that ExpanDrive is the best file transfer client in the world, but if you don’t have access to an SFTP server of your own then it doesn’t do you a whole lot of good.

That’s why I’m thrilled to announce today that ExpanDrive has acquired Strongspace and BingoDisk from Joyent. With this acquisition ExpanDrive will provide an online storage service with unsurpassed quality of service and user experience.

Strongspace was originally launched by Joyent in 2005 as an online storage service which allows users to securely store and access data using industry standard protocols such as SFTP and rsync. We are taking StrongSpace to the next level. While still built on the same Solaris and ZFS technology that Joyent pioneered, Strongspace has been completely re-written and re-architected to be faster, more reliable, and more powerful.

In addition, the Strongspace service has been designed from the ground up to be the perfect companion to the ExpanDrive client. We’ve been working hard to couple the two with great extensions built into both the client and the server.

Strongspace is currently invitation only while we transition existing customers and will be available to everyone shortly.

ExpanDrive 2.0.3 for Mac is now available for download and via the auto updater. It fixes a variety of issues such as PowerPC support on SFTP and a inconsistency that could crop up with our internal data cache. It also adds a few small features such as listing the drive type in the menu bar drop down.

ExpanDrive v2.0.3 also adds preliminary Snow Leopard support, which we’d love some feedback on.

Due to the nature of the fixes we highly recommend you upgrade.

For many people two numbers is a reality. And while some people might be okay with one number which serves both for work and personal – I am not. Up until Google Voice, this basically meant two handsets. Two handsets suck unless you’re one of those goofballs toating around a man-purse. Even then it sucks.

Google Voice on the iPhone, with an application that lets you dial – like GV Mobile by Sean Kovaks, lets you accomplish the impossible: you can stop carrying both a personal cell phone and a work cell phone. It’s now possible to have one GSM phone with two numbers, two voice mailboxes and the ability to dial out or text from either number.

About 8 months ago I transitioned my business number over to a Google Voice account. Google Voice includes an important feature which lets you choose if the caller id sent to your handset is your Google Voice number or that of the caller.

now all incoming calls on the Google Voice account ring as “ExpanDrive – mobile” on my iPhone.

This allows me to filter calls based on availability – but perhaps more importantly, answer with the appropriate greeting. It’s lame to always answer with a business greeting for any unknown number – and you can’t just answer a work number with “Hello?” Additionally, Google Voice gives you the luxury of two voice mailboxes. When you don’t pick up, calls that came in on your Google Voice number go to your Google Voice inbox – and your personal to your AT&T inbox.

What really makes this a feasible solution for fulltime use is a dialing application. Without this the ability to dial out on either number, you always dial from your personal number. You can receive calls on your business number, but you can’t make them. Customers or partners with whom you’re trying to develop a relationship will always have your personal number. That is a recipe for disaster.

GV Mobile lets you dial from Google Voice number directly from your handset. If you’re not familiar – it goes like this. You open GV Mobile and thumb through your contacts or enter a number – hit call. GV Mobile initiates a Google Voice call – which rings your handset – you pick up. As you pick up it dials the other party, showing them your Google Voice number on their caller ID. It is awesome.

As you might imagine, I’m fairly dismayed that Apple is pulling all Google Voice apps out of the app store. While I am sure that somebody, if not Google, will create a web-based dialer that serves the same purpose, it is quite unsettling that Apple is pulling all of these apps off the market – because they mean a lot to guys like me.