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My Dad, the Switcher: Day 140
Yesterday, Robert talked about setting up a new Mac Pro for his switcher Dad. Today, setting up Windows proves to be a bit of a headache. When I mentioned to my best buddy Cameron that Dad was getting a Mac Pro to replace his just-months-old Mac mini, he said "Wow. He sure moves quickly when it comes to toys!" That he does. Just three or four months ago, he had bought his Mac mini. Now here we were, installing Windows on his tricked-out refurb Mac Pro. This was proving to be a problem. For me, mostly. He wanted to install Windows XP Service Pack 2, which, as far as we knew, would work fine. We started Boot Camp Assistant, and printed out the instructions. We had a whole 750GB hard disk to give to Windows, so we chose it and were restarting into that purgatory of Windows Setup in DOSville. After loading its various components ("Human Interface Parser" was our favorite), Windows Setup displayed the volumes available to install Windows, but our newly-created Boot Camp partition wasn't listed. Uh oh.
MacFUSE updated to 2.0 now includes 64-bit and Snow Leopard support
MacFUSE is awesome. It allows you to mount a remote server's filesystem, view your iTunes library in Finder, read from and write to NTFS hard drives, and much more! With all of this functionality crammed into a free product one would think it could not get any better. Amazingly, it has.The latest version of MacFUSE was released yesterday and with it comes several new features, including 64-bit support for Leopard systems with 64-bit processors, experimental support for the impending release of Mac OS X 10.6 (AKA Snow Leopard), and even a new preference pane that eases the installation and upgrade procedure of MacFUSE. The preference pane is a GUI for the Install/Update Engine introduced in version 1.7 for the purpose of providing developers a simpler mechanism for distributing MacFUSE with their FUSE filesystem packages. More information about what is included can be found in the project's changelog.MacFUSE is a free download and, unlike the previous release, includes support for 10.4 and 10.5 in the same package.[via Lifehacker]
ExpanDrive 1.3 adds FTP support
It's been a while since we heard from the developers at Magnetk, but they've just released version 1.3 of Expandrive with some new functionality. They're calling it a beta to be safe, but it seems to just be cautious labeling; 1.3 has been very stable for me thus far. As a quick review, Expandrive allows remote SFTP volumes to be mounted in the local filesystem (similar to what's possible with MacFUSE, but with several stability and speed improvements). The biggest change in version 1.3 is probably the inclusion of FTP and FTPS as an addition to the SFTP capabilities. While it may seem strange to some, there are certainly still circumstances where this could prove very useful. UPDATE: the developers have clarified for me that the 1.3 release is not in beta, only the FTP/FTPS capability. Among the other features the developers are excited about is a new system for testing network state. One of the things I like about Expandrive is its ability to seamlessly maintain a connection on my laptop when I shut it, move it and change wireless networks. Well, that capability has been improved at the system level to better detect network availability, IP address and sleep state, and I'm seeing really stable performance with it. A second appcast has been added to support beta releases (Magnetk says they have a lot of new stuff coming up), and users can switch to it in the Updates section of the preferences. Version 1.3 resets the 30 day trial period, so if you've previously tried it and passed, you'll be able to take the new version for a 30-day spin. The trial version is available for download ($29USD to register), and the upgrade is free for current users. Release notes are available here.
ExpanDrive gets AppleScript support
Version 1.1 of ExpanDrive, the utility we reported on earlier that gives you SSH/SFTP server access that's transparent to the OS, hit the streets today. In addition to features like "Reconnect at Login" and several interface/usability tweaks, it now supports AppleScript. The AppleScript library is simple, providing identity elements for each drive, and 2 commands: connect and eject. Nothing earth-shattering, but it's even better at workflow integration and automation now. A little code, and... tell application "ExpanDrive"repeat with aDrive in drivesconnect aDrivedisplay dialog "Connected: " & server of aDriveend repeatend tell Set it up with ThisService and you've got hotkey mountable/unmountable servers! If you haven't checked it out yet, grab the free demo ($29 to purchase).
ExpanDrive: transparent remote file access
I just got finished putting ExpanDrive by Magnetk through its paces. In fact, I've been using it all morning and I'm duly impressed. It's an application that allows you to mount SFTP filesystems as local drives. I've used other MacFUSE-based systems in the past and I'm pleasantly surprised to find that ExpanDrive is more responsive and provides nearly seamless transparent access to my remote SFTP servers. Aside from creating .DS_Store files on my remote volumes, it's a very fluid way to access remote files. It works with Subversion (and other versioning schemes, I assume), allowing apps like TextMate with support for Subversion to work as though you had the repository set up locally. TextMate creator Allan Odgaard even offers his endorsement. And it has great connection recovery that even allows you to take a laptop to another network and never notice a change in the status of the mounted servers. With labeling, Spotlight comments and full transparency, workflow integration is about as easy as my (possibly limited) imagination can fathom. ExpanDrive has an introductory price of $29, with a demo available. [via Daring Fireball] Update: I'm told by the developers that the .DS_Store issue has been cured. That and several UI improvements will be available in the next version, scheduled for release by tomorrow.
iTunesFS: your music in Finder
iTunesFS is a MacFUSE filesystem, written by Marcus Müller, that lets you browse your iTunes music library and playlists from the finder. It's a great example of MacFUSE being put to use, and the source code is available (via Subversion) for others to learn from. iTunesFS allows you to manage the songs in your library directly. "But I can drag and drop files right from iTunes," you say. Not from your iPod(s), you can't. iTunesFS detects iPods, and allows for direct control over the music contents. It also offers a view of your playlists with sequentially numbered filenames to preserve playlist order. If you're handy with Terminal, it's a simple task to customize the formatting of the naming scheme as well. iTunesFS requires MacFUSE, available at Google Code.
TUAW Tip: Put iPhone's File System onto your Desktop with sshfs
TUAW has talked before about sshfs, the secure shell file system, and MacFUSE, the OS X implementation of FUSE (File-system in USErspace). So it's not huge news that you can use MacFUSE/sshfs to access the files on your iPhone but it might be an option that you've overlooked. It's certainly convenient. You can open a Finder window and treat your iPhone as another disk drive. To make this happen, you must first enable ssh on your iPhone. Then, install MacFUSE and run sshfs, which will prompt you for the Server name (enter the iPhone's IP address) and Username (use "root"). Authenticate and, boom, you're good to go. The iPhone appears in your Finder source list as a new connected device.
Parallels using MacFUSE to access NTFS
As soon as Parallels 3.0 introduced the Explorer tool, letting you get inside your virtual drive images without running the installed virtual OS, I began to wonder: exactly how are they doing that? A few forum threads and a couple of serendipitous error screenshots later, I have an answer -- Parallels 3 includes a build of the MacFUSE project, Google's open source version of the Linux FUSE filesystem extension libraries. With MacFUSE (and the GUI version, MacFusion) you can quickly mount 'disks' that read from SSH, FTP, Spotlight queries, or even files stashed in the quirky gmailfs Gmail storage hack. Very nice to see the efforts of the Google coders making it into a high-profile commercial app.Here's the teensy little problem: Parallels is using version 0.3 of the MacFUSE libraries, and the current version is 0.4, so anyone who has installed the latest build of MacFUSE and tries to upgrade to Parallels 3 is going to run into the troubles. While the speed coders at SWsoft's offices are undoubtedly going to upgrade to the latest tools sooner rather than later, your best bet is to uninstall MacFUSE if you plan to use Parallels until the incompatibility is cleared up.Thanks Rich & Aron
MacFusion: a GUI for MacFUSE
We mentioned MacFUSE many times here on TUAW. It's a very cool utility (from Amit Singh at Google) which brings the Linux FUSE project to the Mac for easily expanding file system support (for more background on Singh and MacFUSE check out this interview at IT Conversation). Unfortunately, however, MacFUSE is a rather geeky project that requires some command line chops to get things going. That's where MacFusion comes in, as a GUI front-end for MacFUSE that puts easy access to MacFUSE network mounts in your menubar. It's still early in development but it will already "show a Secure Shell or Secure FTP share from another computer on your macs desktop, letting you manipulate the files on it as if they were on your own computer. MacFusion can also do the same for any File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server, giving read/write FTP in the finder for the first time!"Of course you'll need to install MacFUSE first, then download MacFusion and install it as a normal application. MacFusion is free and open source.[via Daring Fireball]
SpotlightFS: MacFUSE based Smart Folders
We've posted several times about the coolness that is MacFUSE from the Mac group over at Google. Well now comes yet another cool application of the basic technology: SpotlightFS which unites Spotlight and MacFUSE to create genuine smart folders, whose content changes based on search criteria. Unlike OS X's built-in Smart Folders which "are really plist files with a .savedSearch file extension," SpotlightFS produces true folders which "can be used from anywhere--including the command line." Given the recent resurgence of interest in Smart Folders, this looks like an even better way to do it.SpotlightFS is a free download from Google and requires MacFUSE.[via Official Google Mac Blog]
How to use MacFUSE
Remember MacFUSE? The filesystem that Google's Amit Singh ported over to OS X? Yes, that's the one. Sure, you read about it here on TUAW and thought to yourself, 'That sounds cool but I have no idea why I should care or how I would go about using it.' Fear not, loyal TUAW reader, Jay Savage at Download Squad has got you covered.Jay wrote up a lengthy How To on getting started with MacFUSE. Be warned, if delving into the Terminal frightens you this tutorial is not for you.
Macfuse: FUSE File System for the Mac
This one is for the real Mac geeks out there. Amit Singh, author or Mac OS X Internals: A Systems Approach, is widely recognized as an über Mac-geek and possibly the person outside of Apple that knows the most about Mac OS X. He is now employed by Google as their Mac Engineering Manager. As he just announced on the Official Google Mac Blog, he used part of his "20 percent time" to implement the "FUSE (File System in User Space) mechanism" for OS X (it was originally developed for Linux). He explains, "FUSE makes it possible to implement a very functional file system in a normal program rather than requiring a complex addition to the operating system." He links to the FUSE project wiki listing of applications. While this won't have an immediate impact on most of us users, it has a lot of potential. As pointed out on MacSlash this may eventually bring full read/write support for Windows NTFS formatted disks to OS X (Mac OS X can read, but not write to, NTFS disks) or even "filesystems which run over ssh and gmail."[Via the Official Google Mac Blog]
