A couple weeks ago, I finally pulled the trigger and upgraded to Lion.

One of the best parts about Lion is FileVault 2.  This has completely eliminated the need for my (hacky and unsupported), prior backup encryption method.

Encrypting your backup drives is now not only fully supported, but is downright easy.  When you plug in a drive to set up Time Machine for the first time, it simply asks you if you’d like to encrypt it.  Bam!  Done.

There has been a security exploit, unfortunately, but it’s easy to mitigate.  Good enough for my uses anyway.

Update for Lion (10.7+), please read!

I use Time Machine.

It’s not perfect¹, but it’s automatic. Set it, forget it, and you have incremental backups. As I’m very serious about backing up, it is only one prong in a multi-tiered backup strategy—albeit, one of the easiest prongs.

In my office, I have an internal hard disk plugged into a Rosewill USB dock². This works great, but I worry about one thing: it would be very easy to walk away with.

By default, Time Machine backups are not encrypted. The only Apple Supported method of having an encrypted Time Machine backup is to use FileVault to encrypt your home directory. Unfortunately, this has a serious downside—you must be logged out to back up. Since this defeats the purpose of set it and forget it, I tried to figure out another way to accomplish this. This is the method I have found through a variety of sources³. Note, as of writing this I have only done this under 10.6 (Snow Leopard). There are slightly different steps for Leopard.

Disclaimer: This method is unsupported by Apple. It’s working fine for me, but you do so at your own risk!

Starting a Fake Time Machine Backup

You will need access to a writeable AFP shared folder on another computer. This is easy if the other computer is also a Mac, but it can be accomplished in Linux too⁴. There might be a way to get this to work using a single computer, but as I have access to more than one Mac, I didn’t bother to attempt it. This process will go much faster if this other computer is on your local network. Below, I will use “computer two” to refer to this other computer.

1. On computer two, set up a shared folder and give yourself write permissions.
2. Back on computer one, mount the shared folder.
3. Go into the Time Machine settings and set that mount as your backup disk.
4. Go to the Time Machine menu item or Dock icon and select “Back Up Now.” Time Machine will start running and the status bar will say “Preparing…” for a bit. Do not cancel it until it switches from saying “Preparing…” to “Backing up [X] items.”
5. Once it switches to saying “Backing up [X] items,” stop the backup. Time Machine will take a minute to cleanly finish. Once it is done, use the Time Machine preferences to turn Time Machine off (just to prevent it from trying to backup before we are ready).
6. In the mounted shared folder on computer two, there will now be a file called [Computer Name].sparsebundle (where [Computer Name] is your computer’s name). Copy this to your computer somewhere temporary. You can now disconnect from computer two (and don’t forget to clean up and remove the shared folder if you created it just for this task).

Creating the Sparsebundle

7. Fire up Disk Utility, and go to File > New > Blank Disk Image.
8. In the Save As field, enter the same [Computer Name].sparsebundle that Time Machine created above, however save this to top level of your external hard drive.
9. In the Name field, enter “Time Machine Backups”.
10. In Size, go to “Custom…”. Here, enter the max size you would like to the Time Machine Backup to take. Ideally this should be at least twice the size of your primary volume and can be as big as your external drive. If you want to just set it to the size if your external drive, you can simply set it to something bigger than the external drive (e.g., 2TB if it’s a 1TB drive). Disk Utility will automatically scale it to the max size.
11. In Format, select “Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled).”
12. In Encryption, select “256-bit AES encryption (more secure, but slower).”
13. In Partitions, select “Single partition – GUID Partition Map.”
14. In Image Format, select “sparse bundle disk image.”
15. Hit “Create”. It will then prompt you to create a password. Make it a good strong password, but also make sure you have it saved somewhere! If you lose this password, your backup will be unusable. Let Disk Utility finish creating the bundle. Once it completes, it will automatically mount the new disk image. Eject the disk image and then you can quit Disk Utility.
16. Navigate to both disk images—the one Time Machine created and the one you created. On both, right-click (or ctrl-click) and go to “Show Package Contents.” In the disk image Time Machine created, there is a file called “com.apple.TimeMachine.MachineID.plist”—copy this file to the disk image you just created.

A Few Final Steps

17. Open Keychain Access. Search for [Computer Name].sparsebundle that you created. Right-click (or ctrl-click) that key and go to ‘Copy “[Computer Name].sparsebundle”.’ Then go to the “System” keychain, and right-click (or ctrl-click) in the right pane and go to ‘Paste “[Computer Name].sparsebundle”.’ You’ll probably need to enter an admin password.
18. Finally, go back into Time Machine preferences and select your external hard drive as your backup disk. Turn Time Machine back on. You can also trash the sparse bundle that Time Machine created at the beginning of this process.

If you have followed all of these steps, you should now be backing up to an encrypted sparse bundle. To determine if it’s backing up right, when Time Machine backs up, there should be another mounted drive on your computer (other than the external drive) called “Time Machine Backups.”

Note, that due to a bug in Time Machine, you will no longer be able to go to “Enter Time Machine” to browse your backups using the slick Time Machine UI. If you want to get around this, mount the sparse bundle. Once it is mounted, go to the Time Machine menu item and hold the option key. This will make an option appear called “Browse Other Time Machine Disks.” Click it (while holding option). A menu will pop up that allows you to enter the Time Machine interface.

Bruce Schneier:

Self-enforcing protocols are safer than other types because participants don’t gain an advantage from cheating. Modern voting systems are rife with the potential for cheating, but an open show of hands in a room — one that everyone in the room can count for himself — is self-enforcing.

This is exactly why I believe Vermont’s ‘town meeting day’ style of democracy is so successful. People are far less corrupt when they are held accountable by their peers/neighbors.

(via daring fireball)

3:43:08 PM man, you went after her like she was made of bacon!

My friend Ray commenting on this video.

Thanks to Ryan for making it!

Choosy v1.0 has finally come out! You may recall I’ve mentioned my need for a hyperlink manager tool before.¹

I’ve been using Choosy for over 6 months at this point and it has become an indispensable part of my workflow. Especially since George has added functionality for advanced rules.

My setup is as follows: I use Safari as my primary browser, however, my company has a number of internal web apps that have been built with Firefox in mind. This means at work I leave Firefox open all the time. So, using Choosy, I’ve set up some advanced rules for the web apps that make their URLs automatically route to Firefox.

I also have a few SSB instances in Fluid (Gmail, Fever, and others) and so I can direct links meant for these apps directly to them.

Everything else asks from the list of open browsers, defaulting to Safari when no browsers are open or if it’s the only open browser.

It’s fast, elegant, optimized for either mouse or keyboard users. The best part? It’s only $12.

Well done and congrats George!

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1. Hyperlink Manager
Hyperlink Manager Followup: 2 Options

Hulu Blog: Doing hard things.

Our content providers requested that we turn off access to our content via the Boxee product, and we are respecting their wishes. While we stubbornly believe in this brave new world of media convergence — bumps and all — we are also steadfast in our belief that the best way to achieve our ambitious, never-ending mission of making media easier for users is to work hand in hand with content owners. Without their content, none of what Hulu does would be possible, including providing you content via Hulu.com and our many distribution partner websites.

Apparently doing the right thing in this situation is simple: screw the users.

Wrong

The right thing to do here is keep the users happy while working out the hard details. Ads are still being shown; revenue is still being generated.

When will these content producers realize that they can’t possibly “own” any content—without an audience to watch it? Keep screwing customers, but don’t come crying when they are compelled to steal the content instead.

Any company that feels safe enough to screw their customers rather than innovate deserves to lose.

An important comment about the concept of a website “redesign,” from #3 on this list:

Because corporate websites are under-resourced, they are often neglected for long periods of time. They slowly become out of date with their content, design and technology.

Eventually, the website becomes such an embarrassment that management steps in and demands that it be sorted. This inevitably leads to a complete redesign at considerable expense.

This concept of investing considerable money to “reshape” as things get “stale” is a hold-out from two prior models: 1) the distributed, desktop software model from the IT perspective, and 2) the brochure model from a marketing perspective.

The truth is that websites defy the rigidity of both of these models. A website can change organically—that is, many slight changes over time—without the need for new distribution, packaging, etc. This is a more natural approach for users and allows the website to better adapt to the changing needs of the marketplace—without ever having an overbearing and costly “redesign.”

Read more from the list here:
10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Websites | How-To | Smashing Magazine.

In a recent post, Hyperlink Manager, I discussed a hypothetical software tool I’d like to see. The goal is to have a better way to select the browser a link should be opened in.

Since that time, two solutions for Mac have popped up: Choosy and Highbrow.

I’ve been using Choosy for about a month now. While it doesn’t do everything I described, it does a very elegant job of what I need.

Here is how I have it set up. On clicking a link:

• If I have no browsers running, it uses my default browser.
• If I have one web browser running, it uses the one that is running.
• If I have more than one browser running, it gives a little selection popup.

The only enhancement I’d really like to see is automated rules based on the URL.

Choosy is currently in beta and will be released as shareware eventually.

Highbrow came out right about the same time as choosy as a full-fledged 1.0 release. It costs $12. I haven’t used it, but it appears to be quite similar in function.

Know of any others or solutions for other platforms (Windows or Linux)? Let me know!

This is another tool I have not been able to find and would like to see out there. Know of something that accomplishes exactly what I’m looking for? Post a comment!

The problem

The default browser of my system is not always the browser I need to open a site in.

On my computer, my default browser is Camino. This is the browser that I do my day-to-day general browsing in, however some sites explicitly block Camino since their developers have probably never heard of it and are unaware that their site probably works just fine as long as they are testing in Firefox. In these cases, I use Safari instead since it is more widely supported.

While working, I keep Firefox open as it is our defacto supported browser for our internal applications. At my prior company, all internal applications were developed for IE6–a completely different environment, but the exact same challenge arises. Also, before putting the argument out there that I should just use Firefox as my default browser–I like my sub one-second launch time. Firefox (especially on Mac) is a beast.

Thus the challenge is when links are sent around, via email or IM. I want to be able to just click a link and have it open in the desired browser. Currently, I must copy/paste the URL from IM. Even worse, since Entourage (Microsoft’s very sub-par Mac equivalent for Outlook) doesn’t have a “copy link” contextual menu option, I must click the link, let it try to open in Camino, then copy the URL from the address bar!

This problem is especially magnified with the adoption of SSBs.

There is a nice Firefox plug-in for Windows users to solve this problem: IE Tab. This extension allows exactly what I mention about specifying URLs to render with IE, all from right within the Firefox window. This is neat, but still doesn’t account for SSBs nor does it help us Mac using folks.

The ideal solution

The best way to solve for this would be to have an extremely lightweight application or script that is set to the default browser (instead of a “real” browser). Making the script or application fast is the absolute most important criteria.

This application or script has one job only: to “listen” for URLs, parse them, decide what browser is appropriate, and send them on their merry way. Thanks to SSBs, it needs the ability to set a different browser for each URL type. For ease-of-use, it should allow a user to just enter a domain (for example “”) but for power users it would be great to accept a regular expression. This would allow some more advanced uses such as sending a link to media to a specific media player.

Conclusion

Though it has a niche user-base, there are plenty of people–power users–that would adopt it if it were free or very inexpensive. I doubt people would pay more than $10-15 for this functionality (if anything), but it might make decent donationware. I would certainly pay a modest fee for it.

This is an idea that has been scratching at me for quite some time. The biggest reason: I need to find something like this!

The problem

Everybody has growing file collections. Some of us definitely have more than others—my photo collection alone is reaching 80 GB! A single recording session can easily reach 20 GB. Acquired media aside (purchased/downloaded music, movies, etc—as it’s replaceable), everyone has a need for an elegant solution to back up this data.

There are a number of products and services popping up that attempt a solution to this problem, but none do it quite right. I have to give Apple a lot of credit here—they figured out a way to make backup so simple, the masses can finally do the right thing! Time Machine is not perfect for everyone, but it’s a huge step in the right direction.

The purpose of this post is not to discuss software solutions, but rather the hardware that accompanies it. While the right software is what gets people backing up, it always requires the right hardware¹ to make it work.

The current solutions

Online

Online services (aka “cloud” storage) allow users to upload their data to online servers. Some of these include backup software and all tout the benefits of being failure-safe and secure.

Pros

• Safe: Redundantly hosted on large server farms so the data itself is safe and secure.
• Portable: You can usually access your data anywhere you have a net connection.
• Sharing: Many of these services let you share certain folders with colleagues, friends, etc.
• Flexible/Scaleable: If the service has storage limits (some are unlimited), you can scale your costs with your direct backup needs.

Cons

• Speed: Backing up a lot of data online is constrained to internet speeds, and residential upload speeds are typically 2Mbps or less. This makes it very poor for users with large data needs and any time a user needs to access some of the data there is a big lag time.
• Software: A number of these solutions lock you into using their software. Often, their software is limited in big ways, e.g. not being able to backup external hard drives (unless they remain attached all the time).

Hardware

Hardware solutions consist of external hard-drives, file servers, and more intelligent products such as the Drobo (which is extremely cool).

Pros

• Fast: Accessing your data through a wired connection—or over a local wireless network—is much faster than through the internet. This makes it ideal for large amounts of data and all around much more accessible.
• Secure: You have absolute control of the security settings, so it’s as secure as you want to make it.

Cons

• Redundancy: Unless you are savvy enough to be able set up a RAID solution, or shell out for a Drobo, making external hard-drives redundant is a real pain.
• Flexibility/Scaleability: With the exception of the Drobo none of these solutions making scaling very easy.
• Physical Security: External hard drives, file-servers, and the like can all be easily stolen if you ever experience a break-in. Server farms often have very tight security: id badges, fingerprint/retina scanners, armed escorts, and all kinds of crazy cool precautions.
• Disaster:² Electronics are extremely susceptible to everything that comes with a house fire: heat, smoke, water, and chemicals. Backing up off-site is always a good idea.

Summary

The cons of both online and hardware solutions exclude any one solution from being ideal for me. I am a heavy data user that wants fast access and redundant, off-site backup. There is nothing that easily and elegantly fills this need. Sure, I could purchase “cloud” storage and manually back things up, but that requires quite a lot of time. I want something I can set and forget in the Time Machine sense.

The ideal solution

This leads me to what I think is the ideal solution to meet all of these needs. There would definitely be challenges in doing it right, but I think the need would make the investment worthwhile.

The Hardware

First, there is a hardware device that acts as the primary solution. This hardware device needs to redundant, easy to use, and smart.

• Like the Drobo³, it must be easy to scale with hot-swappable drive bays and it needs to “take care” of making the data redundant.
• It needs a variety of physical access methods: USB 2, FireWire 400/800+, eSATA, and Gigabit Ethernet.
• It must be cross-platform and therefore accept a variety of protocols such as AFP, Samba, and NFS, and advertise itself using Bonjour and Avahi. Along the same lines, it must be compatible with any file-system thrown at it, such as NTFS, HFS+, and ext3, or even ZFS, WinFS, and ext4.⁴
• It requires an easy-to-use and cross-platform compatible user-interface. A small web application would probably be best.
• Finally, it needs rsync set up as a nightly process.

The Cloud

Behind the hardware device, sits the ever-present protection of an online backup solution. It’s only for the event of a truly catastrophic event.

• It must be inexpensive. It doesn’t need lots of sharing features (though they are nice) and it needs to be priced in such a way that the user is ok with the on-going expense. Probably no more than $10/month, if that.
• It must be scaleable. Since the hardware component must be easy to scale, the online service must be able to keep up, with little or no direct effort from the user.
• It must be absolutely secure. When it comes to security, perhaps nothing is truly absolute, but it must be as secure as possible so that people can trust it. In addition, the data must be physically secure: it should be stored in more than one geographic location so it is impervious to natural disasters.
• It can’t have weird limitations such as a maximum file size of 5 GB That said, perhaps a little intelligence on the hardware side could get around a limitation like that…
• It must be stable and have very limited downtime.

Wrap-up

A solution like this—done correctly—would solve backup problems for some time to come. It gives users access to data quickly, redundant local backup, and off-site protection. The beauty is that the software is irrelevent: users can use any software solution they like, e.g. Time Machine, SuperDuper!, Retrospect, FlyBack, or anything else.

It might not be a product that everyone in the world would need, but it would be great for power users, professional or prosumer photographers, and just about anyone else that doesn’t have needs quite as high as video editor. Most importantly for me, I would buy one.

¹ In this case, “hardware” can mean online backup services as well.
² As someone that has woken up in the middle of a house fire and lived to tell about it, this is a bit of an ever-present threat in the back of my mind. A fire is a terrible thing, but losing all of your photos on top of it is icing on the suck cake. Plus, you never, ever, want to worry about grabbing things like that when evacuating. We are fortunate we live in a time where we can store things like photos off-site and still have access to them!
³ I swear, I’m not being paid for this. That said, offers are always welcome.
⁴ Obviously, it should be as forward-looking as possible. That said, if any potential future file-systems have specific hardware requirements that are unrealistic, they would have to be considered on a case-by-case basis.