Fraser Speirs Cocoa and Photos

Two Macs: Fail.

An experiment I’ve been running for more than two years now is over: running two Macs is more hassle than it’s worth. I write not to praise synchronisation technology, but to bury it.

In 2006 I acquired a Mac Pro which was my first desktop Mac since the beige G3/266 desktop I owned in 1997. It’s very fast and has two very big displays connected to it. It’s got space for hard drives out the wazoo and you can do a whole lot with it. At the same time I had a laptop - first a Core Duo 17″ MacBook Pro and, this year, a MacBook Air.

It’s also a world of pain, and I’m done with it.

It’s a world of pain because, whilst sync technology is definitely better than it was two years ago, I have never reached the point where I just don’t have to think about where my information is.

I’ve been using a combination of MobileMe and Dropbox to get stuff between my desktop and laptop. Dropbox is undoubtedly a great leap forward in internet-based file syncing technology. It achieves the level of integration that iDisk, being produced by the platform vendor, should have had from the start. Dropbox is great, but it doesn’t sync that area of non-file data that MobileMe attempts to address: Address Book, iCal, Mail, etc.

Once the well-known launch problems with MobileMe were ironed out, I found it was working relatively well for Apple applications. I found consistent problems trying to sync any third-party application. The three that I mostly wanted to sync were Yojimbo, Transmit and TextExpander. With the amount of PDF data I kept in Yojimbo, I found MobileMe consistently choked up and, in all the time I’ve been using it, I never once achieved a complete sync. In the end, I moved that PDF content over to Evernote, where it has synced pretty consistently since day one.

I also recently stopped using MobileMe for calendar syncing, since I couldn’t share a calendar editably with another person. Instead I used Google Calendar and Busy Sync. For RSS, I’m using NetNewsWire syncing through NewsGator and OmniFocus syncs through my BingoDisk WebDAV share.

But look where I am: MobileMe, Dropbox, Evernote, NetNewsWire/NewsGator and Google Calendar/BusySync and OmniFocus/BingoDisk. Complex? Just a bit. Six services all of which work a little differently, any of which may develop a security hole and some of which cost good money and I’m still not really anywhere near a complete solution.

Don’t even get me started on iPhone syncing. I am so done with this.

Storage

Storage was always the #1 thing that pushed me into the two-machine world. A couple of years ago, laptops were lagging behind desktop drives in capacity and remember how hard it was to swap a hard drive back then? Only the 17″ MacBook Pro was easy. iBooks were likely to be permanently damaged and 15″ MacBook Pros would survive but never quite be the same again.

When Apple recently introduced the new portables, I appreciated their design but remained unmoved at the 320GB drives. Just not enough for my only machine. Then I discovered that Western Digital had released a 500GB drive in a 9.5mm-height form factor.

Today I ordered a new MacBook Pro and threw my current Mac Pro and MacBook Air up for sale on Twitter (interested? Specs and prices.). Because this laptop is going to be my one and only machine, I went beefy: 2.8GHz, 512MB on the graphics. I downgraded the hard drive from 320GB to 250GB because I’m going to throw it away on day one in favour of a WD 500GB drive.

I’m also hoping that, in the not too distant future, MCE Technologies will update their OptiBay unit for the new laptops. OptiBay is a dummy optical drive replacement with a cut-out for a second hard drive. The possibility of having 1TB of internal storage in a laptop is just crazy, given where we were a couple of years back.

iTunes, Aperture and Secondary Storage

There are two parts of my digital life that crave storage: iTunes and Aperture. My iTunes library is pushing 300GB and my Aperture library is nearly 250GB. I’ll be using the new machine with my FireWire Drobo (thanks for keeping FW800, Apple!) as offline storage and backup.

Aperture makes this kind of model easy. You can choose whether to have the master files inside the Aperture library or referenced on external storage. My approach will be to have recent master files within the Aperture library and, thus, available for editing and export at all times and to migrate older masters off to the Drobo as I finish with them. Aperture’s architecture is so elegant that I can still have JPEG previews with me on the laptop for viewing and slideshows and the larger masters off the main disk and at home on the Drobo. You can also do some nice things like limit the size of the previews to the size of the computer’s display, so that you don’t retain more data than you need. Finally, the door swings both ways: if an older project becomes current again, you can pull the masters back into the Aperture Library for a while then push them out to secondary storage again.

To put some numbers to this: I have 195GB of master files and the Aperture Library that contains JPEG previews of all of these is just 38GB. Epic win.

iTunes, by contrast, is showing its age in this area. You have two choices when you add a file to your library: reference it in its current location, or copy it into the iTunes library folder. Unlike Aperture, this is a global preference - you can’t choose on the fly as you import. Even worse, if you want to move a file out of your iTunes library folder to secondary storage, you have to remove it from the iTunes library and re-add it with the opposite setting selected.

[Update: Jose Marques pointed out that you don't have to visit iTunes' preferences to change this option - it can be reversed by holding down Cmd-Option as you drag into the iTunes window. You still have to remove and re-add the file, though.]

In these days of buying whole seasons of TV from iTunes, it seems obvious to me that having the ability to move batches of files into and out of the iTunes library folder - independent of their entry in the iTunes database itself - is becoming a necessity. If I’m re-watching all seven seasons of The West Wing, I’d like to be able to shuffle a season at a time onto the internal drive and keep the rest on the Drobo. If you agree and are the type to file bugs with Apple, you might care to dupe my bug #6320268 (”Provide Aperture-style referenced file management in iTunes”) on the subject.

Glossy Controversy

Much has been written about Apple’s decision to go all-glossy with the MacBook Pro. I have criticised glossy displays in the past but, if you take anything away from this post, you have to understand this: there is no comparison between a glossy display with a CCFL backlight and a glossy display with an LED backlight. None.

I had one of the first MacBooks with the glossy display and it sucked seven different ways. The CCFL backlight wasn’t bright enough to overpower the reflections caused by ambient light, and the LCD panels themselves had extremely poor colour consistency across the viewing angle.

The current crop of glossy/LED displays are wholly different. The backlight is bright enough to compensate for most ambient reflections although I agree that, if you’re watching a Batman movie, you’ll be looking at a lot of shiny black. The panels are also much better, with less colour shifting as you move across the viewing angle. One thing I wish they had left out is the glossy black border. That’s always going to reflect some light. The MacBook Air has an aluminium display bezel and I definitely prefer it to my wife’s 20″ Aluminium iMac with the glossy black bezel.

DisplayPort

Display adapters have been a fact of Mac-owning life for a long time. I no longer care what Apple puts on the side of the box, I’m just assuming I’ll have an adapter to some other connector. If DisplayPort is the way of the future, so be it.

Interestingly, I don’t see Apple providing a simple socket adapter to go from their Mini-DisplayPort connector to a full-size DisplayPort connector. You can go Mini-DP-to-DVI, Mini-DP-to-Dual-Link-DVI and Mini-DP-to-VGA, but you can’t go Mini-DP-to-DP. I wonder if that’s a gentle push towards buying Apple’s new LED Cinema Display with a Mini-DisplayPort connector instead of, say, a Dell display with a full-size DisplayPort connector. No doubt such an adapter will appear in time from a third party.

Atlanticists, rejoice!

I like the US keyboard layout better than the UK layout. Several keyboard shortcuts make a lot more sense when you see where they’re placed on the US-English keyboard. Two examples:

Cycling through windows within one application is Cmd - ~. On a UK keyboard layout, where ~ is between the Z key and the left Shift key, this choice is seemingly arbitrary. In the US layout, ~ is immediately above Tab. Cmd-Tab cycles through open applications, so Cmd - ~ is by obvious analogy.

In Aperture, you can filter the viewed images according to their star ratings by hitting Ctrl-{1-5} for those numbers of stars. I was always confused as to why the filter level that is notionally below one star (the “Unrated or Better” level) was Ctrl-`. On the US keyboard it’s obvious, because the backtick key is to the immediate left of the 1 key.

It has previously not been possible to configure an Apple laptop from the UK store to have a US-English keyboard layout. You could get a French keyboard if you wanted (strange, considering our reputation as a nation of monoglots), or a British keyboard and a set of user manuals in French, but not a US-English keyboard. That has changed with the introduction of the new machines: you can now get a US-English keyboard on the MacBook, Air and Pro from the UK store as a zero-cost CTO option. Nice.

[Update: Paul Mison pointed out that Apple started offering US-layout keyboards sometime around June with the last-generation laptops.]

The Sad State of Sync

Reliable, robust, two-way data synchronisation, like flying cars, has been just around the corner for so long now, it’s tempting to hail things like DropBox as The Solution. In reality, we’re just finally getting to How It Should Have Been Done In The First Place for one specific kind of data - files. The rest either flies, jury-rigged together from multiple systems or falls in a twisted heap of smoking wreckage.

I suppose I should count myself fortunate that I never had a catastrophic data loss incident arising from syncing technology. That’s like being grateful your child didn’t lose an eye when you gave her that badly-manufactured Chinese toy. Only OmniFocus and NetNewsWire have truly, consistently worked well for me. It leaves me a bit glum that we, as an industry, have pushed on this for so long and are still hurting users daily with complexity and failure.

To add an item to itunes by reference when itunes is configured to copy just hold down Option+Command as you drag the file into the library.

Why chuck the 250 GB drive when you take it out of the new machine? Given the amount you are splashing out for the new machine, why not drop another 15GBP or so an get a portable drive enclosure. That is what I do whenever I upgrade the drive in my laptop (and yes, I upgraded my 1st gen MBP and it suffered not at all from the process).

Interesting post, I’ve been finding Dropbox to provide the main syncing / offsite backup that I’ve been looking for, especially with an interface that doesn’t suck badly!

I’ve just filed a bug / enhancement request along the lines of yours, it certainly does makes sense that you should be able to manage files in iTunes with a lot more grace than you can just now.

Very interesting Fraser - I’ve often wondered how you coped with the big beastie at home and the laptop syncs.

I have a similar setup regarding application data, ie ical busysync gcal, with MobileMe syncing so I can get push calendar/addressbook data onto my iPhone. Partly this is because I won’t use Exchange as our University won’t split the calendar functionality from the email part - and I like Mail.app (Mail Act-On and MailTags are essential for me). Recently Google announced CalDAV support so maybe BusySync is on its way out. Pity, it works so much better than SpanningSync.

Thiing is, I hadn’t realised how Heath Robinson (Rube Goldberg for our American cousins!) this had become. Maybe its time for a reset…

Ooh, just realised I’d put angle brackets around the google link, and it got eaten.

Here’s the link to CalDAV: http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=99355

Not that it matters much, but the Apple Store has been offering US keyboards in the UK Store since at least June, but it took until a couple of weeks ago - just before the MacBook redesign launch- to write a post about it:

http://blech.vox.com/library/post/apple-keyboards-us-vs-uk.html

Funnily enough, I mention Cmd ~ as one of the main reasons I prefer a US layout as well.

Same experiment here, same failure. So I’m going to buy a new MacBook. However since the lack of the FW port on the new MacBook I was considerening a NAS as the external storage. Have you ever evaluated this kind of devices as your external storage?

Andrea, I haven’t looked at any kind of NAS device for serious storage. I have a Time Capsule, which works well enough for backup, but everything else is directly attached.

iBooks + phyically accessing disks - yeah, it’s painful. I sometimes think Apple reached the zenith of inaccessibility with iBooks. Having said that, I’ve opened up my iBook twice (to take a disk backup both times my motherboard failed) and not had too many issues.

NAS - I’ve been using a D-Link DNS323 with two 500GB disks in RAID-1 configuration and I find it excellent for backing up, mainly because I don’t have to think about dragging it out of where it’s stored and physically connecting it to my iBook. I’ve only got about 14GB of data on my iBook that gets backed up to it. That takes about a minute to sync (with rsync) plus whatever time it takes to copy new items to the NAS drive. That’s limited by 802.11g wireless (iBook to router) - it’ll scale with the slowest network speed from laptop to NAS drive.

I recently seen the bigger brother of my NAS drive - the D-Link DNS343. Takes 4 disks, so RAID 5 is an option. With my experience of the DNS323 (utterly reliable and performs very well), I’d get one in a flash if I had the need.

I’ve had the same problem, but between my wifes macbook and mine. I’d love to sync itunes and iphoto (or aperture - if I knew it’d do it, I’d drop the cash in a flash). But I’ve never found a solution. We both backup to a time capsule, and just copy music between the two machines as needed. It’s messy. The TC is good otherwise tho.

As for the keyboard thing - we have US layout (bought them in San Francisco), and they needed fixing (we live in London). No problems getting the keyboard replaced with a new US one, so it MAY be that if you have an old macbook (or pro, I guess?) you could ask them to just replace the top bit when you buy it….?

I’m right there with you with regard to sync.

My iPhone has contacts who have little boxes that look sort of like this: [] in them. I blame SpanningSync for screwing it up when I attempted to sync to my Google Contacts — only to realize “Wait, other than auto-completion (which already works in Gmail) I never need my contacts list in Gmail”.

I haven’t been able to get it right since. I’ve fixed it, only to see the problem re-emerge, and now both my iMac and MacBook fail to sync contacts due to “inconsistent data”.

NetNewsWire has also not worked reliably for me. I seem to always be ended up with old old old unread articles on my iMac that I know I’ve read before.

OmniFocus seems to sync flawlessly, via .Mac.

My calendars seem to sync flawlessly, via .Mac (not to Google).

iDisk? Pffft. Apple has gotten totally “schooled” on that my Dropbox. I’ve got 20GB of space on iDisk that I will NEVER use but am seriously considering signing up for 50GB on Dropbox.

Yojimbo sync has been a failure for a long time. I need to go through and purge what I no longer need, move PDFs to Dropbox, and the rest to Evernote, but I haven’t had the time.

@Jose Marques: Excellent tip! I never knew that before, but I still think that the Aperture model would be better.

Oh! The other sync that fails? OmniWeb’s bookmark sync. It routinely blows away changes that I make on one machine and gives me the older version. I’ve disabled sync for that reason.

Two macs win.

At least for me. With some limitations:

I do e-mail (via Mail.app) on the Macbook Pro. I do not touch Mail.app on the Mac Pro.

Apart from that it works wonderfully. The key is to use Unison: http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/

Unison does an amazing job keeping things in sync. Esp. once you spend time to create a custom unison config file (not that hard). You do want to be careful you dont sync stuff that should be unique per machine.

I use .Mac syncing for everything that .Mac will sync (yeah it does burp occasionally) and then Unison for _everything_ else.

The nice thing about using Unison is the machines are effectively clones of each other, Which really gives you more redundancy in case of failure. I really have 4 copies of all my data (machine A & B. time machine backup of A & B).

Unison is extremely fast when syncing day to day (although first run is slow) but of course when you’re syncing large files (iTunes movies etc) you’ll want to hook up via gigabit ethernet.

Excellent post Fraser. I’ve been thinking along these same lines since my Aperture library outgrew my MBP HD. I like the solution you’ve proposed and am seriously considering it.

Please write up how well Aperture works on the Western Digital drive. I was debating on getting the 7,200 rpm drive when I upgraded, but the 500GB option leaves me with a lot more growing room.

I have one iMac in the house with all the mp3’s and movies. Everyone just syncs their iPods with that. All music is purchased and added with that one machine. So there is no sync issue. They are broken down into separate tasks with a separate machine for that task.

I have very little in iTunes on my MBP, but if I want to listen to music there’s pandora. If I want to watch a movie I currently use VMWare to watch netflix streaming (looking forward to the mac client). If I don’t have a net connection then I should get some work done.

Because I hate myself, I actually sync up THREE macs.

In practice, it’s been a little annoying, but for me, necessary.

My main machine is a MBP. I have a Mac Mini at home which keeps my iTunes library and downloads stuff for me. And finally I’ve got my iMac at work. They’re synced up with varying degrees of Google Mail IMAP, MobileMe, and unison.

I really like having a dumb but always-on server type machine at home. It’s like my own personal “cloud”. Plus my iTunes Library is just too large to fit on a laptop anyway (even new ones with big drives) and Apple hasn’t really made it easy to have your content spread out in different locations.

I guess it helps that each computer is for a specific task. I try to keep work stuff at work, but if I do need to bring some things home, I’ll sync my dev folder with unison. My laptop is what I’ll actually use for day-to-day tasks or personal projects. The Mac Mini is basically an iTunes appliance/iPhone sync station.

Role separation has been the key for me. Having two machines fill the same role is still tricky.

I came to the same exact conclusion…put my iMac and MacBook Air up on Ebay and I am typing on my new decked out (2.8 ghz, 320 GB 7200 rpm hard drive) 15.5″ MacBook Pro right now. I can assure you…you made the right choice! And Aperture flies on this machine…especially with the high performance graphics card engaged. You won’t be disappointed!

Interesting post Fraser. I know you’ve posted before on you Aperture workflow but I don’t recall reading about archiving masters off over time. Wondering how exactly you go about that.

Yeah, this drives me crazy!

http://lifeinlists.com/2008/03/file_syncing/

I currently have a PC and a Mac, and I am always buying music and uploading photos to whichever computer is closest (I travel a lot, so sometimes I can only use the laptop).

Point being, why can’t I have everything I put on my laptop always available on my desktop. The desktop is really the main storage area with all the external hard drives, and I don’t need (and physically can’t store) my last 5 year’s worth and 20gb of pictures from my desktop to be accessible on my laptop.

I’m considering buying a mac mini to make that my storage computer.

I just put a 500 GB 5400 RPM drive (a Samsung, though I bought one of the WDs Fraser is referring to for external SuperDuper backups) in my early 2008 MBP: fairly easy swap, and totally worth the space doubling. I’ve never used Aperture on a 7200 RPM internal drive on this hardware, so I have no baseline to compare it to; it’s plenty snappy enough for me, working with Digital Rebel XTi RAWs and full-res JPEGs.

Ha, being relatively new to computing (started at 42, now 50) I thought I was just not getting it somehow, trying to take the laptop to work/school and then working on them on a desktop at home. Now I see I am not alone.

I just bought a 24″ iMac to complement a 17″ MBP. They are going the way of eBay as soon as the new 17″ MBP is ready and I will get the new 24″ monitor. If you have to get your laptop out of its bag to put the files on to the desktop computer you may as well just plug it in to a monitor.