Leopard Previewed

[jholzner]

Time Machine won't mean much when the HD fails. Back that azz up!

I keep reading stuff like this. I don't think Time Machine works with the reagular harddrive. You have to use it with an external drive.

 

[Tomaz]

They way I understand it, Time Machine is SUPPOSED to be used with an external...the page on the Leopard site even has an icon of an iMac connected to an External. I'm sure you can use your Internal drive if you want, but I don't see the point of that.

So how about the MacBooks?? I don't carry around an external HD all the time. So when I do changes to a document on a flight, there's no TimeMachine backup?? Cool whould be, if the programm did backups to an external HD when available and locally when there's no external HD. But as soon as one connects the extrenal HD again, those local backups should be automatically moved to the extrenal to save space on the internal HD. That would eliminate the need for an additional external backup.

 

[icookbook]

let me get this straight...

So, the time machine will allow you to selectively restore files which have been deleted, yet as of present the trash can will not allow you to selectively undelete a file?

Might as well just delete the file, then restore it with the time machine!!!!

... I have a feeling the trash can may see some changes, ha

 

[70355]

Innovation isn't creating new ideas, but improving them.

I guess. If we're allowed to make up our own definitions for words.

If not, Merriam-Webster considers "innovation" to be "the introduction of something new".

 

[chasemac]

I keep reading stuff like this. I don't think Time Machine works with the reagular harddrive. You have to use it with an external drive.

Yes, I was wondering the same because it wouldn't make much sense would it.🙂

 

[Tomaz]

Innovation isn't creating new ideas, but improving them.

For instance, Spotlight searching wasn't new. BeOS had something similar. But Apple improved it and integrated it into their OS.

See, I have Virtue desktops. I've tried Desktop Manager, You Control: Desktops. But they're all just hacks. Spaces looks mcuh cleaner, simpler and elegant than any of those. That's what I expect from Apple, and they did not let me down.

As for Time Machine, no the idea is not new, even for Microsoft. But Apple is making it simple. Easy enough for mom and dad to use. Personally I think having a wormhole-space interface is kickass.

Ok my last post on this topic before I'm getting on peoples nerves: Copying, improving and whatever you wanna call it is ok, I don't care where an idea came from as long as the outcome is good. But Apple always presents their innovations as their inventions and claims that everyone else copies. In todays keynote they even made a big deal out of how MS copies Apple (banner, on stage), and afterwards they introduced only stuff that they copied (and maybe improved) from MS, Linux... that's just not very sympathetic!

 

[ckent]

Time Machine search Address Book for: Rose

Haha! Did you see the video for Time Machine on the Apple website?

They're doing a "search for old friends", with the name "Rose" !!

That can't be a coincidence 🙂

CK.

 

[jackc]

I keep reading stuff like this. I don't think Time Machine works with the reagular harddrive. You have to use it with an external drive.

Yes, I was wondering the same because it wouldn't make much sense would it.🙂

It seems to me it would make some older versions available on your HD, but then you would want to make a copy to an external HD for space reasons and for backup in case of failure. But I'm just speculating of course

 

[ChrisA]

Finally after 20+ years we get this back.

I wonder how "Time Machine" is implemented. I miss having a feature like this. I used VAX/VMS back in the early 1980's (before UNIX became popular) and of course VMS keept histories of files. So if I was editing a file and saved it I could always get any of the old versions back. It was great. The feature was built into the file system and of course all the applications used the file system. Finally now 20+ years later we get this feature. From experiance I can say the for certain, _everyone_ will like this and come to depend on it. The second part "come to depend on it" will be more true than many of you now think.

 

[tortoise]

Why not just improve the Backup program that comes with .Mac or include it for free? Do we really need another interface? To me it looks like form over function.

You are out of your mind. A true versioning file system is insanely useful, and has been a Holy Grail file system feature that has not existed largely because it requires some significant unused disk space and disk performance to use it -- it is not a cheap feature to implement. Once you have it and applications start to use its functionality it will be like the internet: you will wonder how you got on in the computer world without it.

I do not care how they presented it, if it works as advertised then it is a "killer app" that will cause many people to part with their hard-earned money (myself included).

 

[blvdeast]

hey, i got it.
lets say you have a folder on the dock, and you open it, it opens in the dok itself. and you can scroll left and right to pass through like iphoto speed. and you can have more then one dock and they would like stack on top/side of each other to have several "folder" open, and you do a shortcut and your dock goes normal. i know my idea sounds like a mess but i'm sure apple can polish it up
Cause you can only have so many folder icons in a folder window so i'm sure that it would be about the same.

As for the new features, I love them and can't wait to use it, but it is easy to see where Apple gets its inspiration from

Time Machine- Just an easy and fancy backup program

iChat Share Screen- Its like a VNC connection. I do it all the time between my linux desktop and ibook all the time. If you can have both screens at the same time and drag files in between to download would be awesome

Tabbed Chat Windows- Open source has been all over this for a while

Spaces- Virtual Desktops. Probably inspired by linux, and perfected

I mean its great updates and improvements, but I'm still waiting for innovation. Like expose. I want a feature to improve the use of my computer, not just awesome features

 

[ChrisA]

It seems to me it would make some older versions available on your HD, but then you would want to make a copy to an external HD for space reasons and for backup in case of failure. But I'm just speculating of course

I suspect what happens is you get to specifiy _where_ the backup copies are kept. I hear Steve say that it "could be either an external disk or a server". The "Or a server" part is the most interresting. That server could be in another building or even across the Internet. and then how is that server backed up???? I can imagine a small home system would use an external disk but a network of computers would share 2 or 3 backup servers with at least on of the backup servers in a remote location.

Here in the office our big file server is kept sync'd of to two other servers that are each several hundred miles away. This protects against an Earthquake or building fire. This type of automated backup was not invented by Apple. It's been done for decades but it appears Apple has made is easy, cheap and universal.

"Tinme Machine" would also have value even if there was only one disk on say a notebook. It would alow you to recover from the common problem where to make a bad edit and then saved your work and then the next day want to recover the version you maked four days ago. Now I simply make multiple copies that clutter of the folder but now Mac OSX would in effect back these for you. Then if you add an extrnal disk you are protected from a disk fairue then if you add a remote server you are protected from a house fire or theft of the system. I think it will be very configurable but have a reasonable out of the box configuration.

Next I want to see if this is integrated with software RAID

 

[Ladybug]

If you were picking on Mail.app's Stationery I'd probably agree with you.

None of the things that Time Machine have been compared to seem even close to what they are planning to do. Including my own VMS file versioning analogies. System Restore is not capable of restoring a single file, and particularly not within a running application. It seems kind of more like a system wide undo function when it comes to files...

B

Norton's GoBack, which was purchased from some other company, has a similar feature for restoring single files. This isn't quite the same thing, but the whole concept isn't entirely new. GoBack was introduced well before Microsoft came out with System Restore... That said, I think its a great feature to include and I'm sure I'll find many uses for it.

 

[swingerofbirch]

http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/accessibility.html

From this site:

Closed captioning
QuickTime currently supports closed captioning by including a text track alongside audio and video content. But improved QuickTime support will automatically display the CEA-608 closed captioning text standard in analog broadcasts in the U.S.

-----

Anyone think this means support for Closed Captioning in iTunes video downloads? As a hearing-impaired Mac-User, the lack of subtitles/captions in the TV shows is the one thing keeping me from buying a bunch of them. I hope they address this issue soon...

I am not hearing impaired, but I often watch TV and movies with the closed captioning on. I cannot really say what about it makes it more enjoyable to me--no one has ever understood why I do it, maybe it has to do with how I process information (I do have trouble listening in lecture classes, maybe a learning disability etc.), but my point is to say that I am also interested in getting closed captioning on iTunes shows.

I wrote to Apple on the feedback part of their web-site about this. I was wondering if you might know better what the law is about closed captioning. I always assumed it was required for network television shows. Is it not for network shows that appear online?

Anyhow, it's functionality I would definitely like to see.

 

[tortoise]

I wonder how "Time Machine" is implemented.

Probably the same way it is in scalable transactional databases that use multi-versioning concurrency protocols (e.g. PostgreSQL and Oracle). No data is over-written, and every "update" actually creates a new record version. The concept is virtually identical, except that in databases the default behavior is to delete old versions that no transaction is using any more. Such file systems are often implemented now as MVCC-style databases with file system semantics.

In fact, PostgreSQL used to have a feature many years ago called "time travel" that would let you query a consistent view of the database at any point in its past.

 

[ChrisA]

I keep reading stuff like this. I don't think Time Machine works with the reagular harddrive. You have to use it with an external drive.

Depends on what threat you want to protect yourself from. On Tiger the trash can protects against acidental deletes and does a usfull job. Time Machine on one drive would act like a nicer, automated trash can and might even replace the trash can. In fact I don't se a need for the trash anymore.

If a user adds a second drive he still gets the effect of the automatic trash can but now can survie a disk smoking. Wat reains to be seen is how configurable this thing is. Can he backup to a server over the Internet AND to his external drive at the same time. What if you are using a RAID? can you back that up to a second RAID? Who backs up the backup server? What is to prevent a "backup cycle" so where one small change fills up every disk on the network? That would be if "A" backed or "B" and "B" backed up "A". Does the system detect longer cycles?? How?

 

[SWC]

heh... they give MS so much crap for photocopying, but if anything, this is more or less taking a page out of MS's book with System Restore. Granted, it looks like it will be better, but still, MS had this kind of thing first.

This only restores system files doesn't restore documents, pictures etc.


Apple has never (as far as I am aware) held features back in their presentation before. I think they just weren't ready to be shown off yet which is no biggie it gives them some steam for macworld 07.

Time machine: a fancy front end to the type of backup that people have been doing for years. Mirra with less features?
Mail: hello outlook light
spotlight: Microsoft did it before you, you just had it integrated in the os first.
spaces: virtuedesktops but a tad fancier in presentation
dashboard: konfabulator + active desktop light
64 bit: yawn...xp 64
ical: exchange calendaring
accessibility: bleh nothing revolutionary here
ichat keynote and core animation are the only two truly unique features they introduced.

Sure it’s nice to have them all bundled neatly into the OS but for a company to base almost their entire signage around someone else copying them, there sure is a lot of prior art showing their innovation. I admit they do it in a very well integrated and visually appealing way and they even add tons of nice touches here and there but they aren't always first.
I am a Mac user, but not blind to the real world like some. Apple is like George Clooney in the smug episode of south park.

 

[Cameront9]

I am not hearing impaired, but I often watch TV and movies with the closed captioning on. I cannot really say what about it makes it more enjoyable to me--no one has ever understood why I do it, maybe it has to do with how I process information (I do have trouble listening in lecture classes, maybe a learning disability etc.), but my point is to say that I am also interested in getting closed captioning on iTunes shows.

I wrote to Apple on the feedback part of their web-site about this. I was wondering if you might know better what the law is about closed captioning. I always assumed it was required for network television shows. Is it not for network shows that appear online?

Anyhow, it's functionality I would definitely like to see.

Online is a grey area because it's new...

I'm not completely familiar with Closed Captioning laws. I believe all new TVs are required to have a Closed-Captioning decoder, and I think that all Network shows (and maybe cable-based, too) have to be captioned.

A quick Google gives this:
http://www.captions.org/caplaw.cfm

Which explains in more detail...

Regardless, I have seen a number of hearing-impaired users comment on the issue before. It would be so simple to implement, after all...

 

[tobio]

I went for enhanced mail, specifically because of the system wide todo's and notes. All the other stuff is nice, but those features are actually going to make my working life better (I use my mac for my actual work wherever possible). The system wide features of the OS are what truly makes it great for me. The sort of things that you use every day without even noticing them (until you try to do them in windows).

 

[balamw]

Norton's GoBack, which was purchased from some other company

Yeah, I recommended GoBack to a number of users back in the day (I think it was Adaptec that owned it at one point). No-one seemed to like it at the time.

As I and others reminisce it's a feature that has been around for well over 20 years in VMS. It's only relatively new to personal computers.

B

 

[SWC]

1) When I did a system restore at work, it restored everything back on the date. I lost all my work since the date.

You did something wrong then, System restore only rolls back the OS/install programs it doesn't touch user created data files.

 

[ChrisA]

Probably the same way it is in scalable transactional databases that use multi-versioning concurrency protocols (e.g. PostgreSQL and Oracle). No data is over-written, and every "update" actually creates a new record version.

Lots of ways it COULD be implemented. Looks at Suns new file system ZFS. It is basically "Copy on Write". With a file system you can do things even fancier then with a DBMS. For example a "block" (i-node) exists physicaly on the disk only once but it could be maped into any numbr of files. If a file in only an orderd set of block numbers then to copy a copy all you need to copy is the set of numbers which is on the order of 1000 times shorter then the data itself.

But on the other hand you _want_ the data to be physically copied if it is to be backed up to an external drive.

Some time ago Apple was talking with Sun about using ZFS in OSX but I don't think anything came out of it. I suspect Apple wrote this themselves

The problem is not that I can't figure out how Apple did this but that I can think of about a half dozen ways they could have done this.

 

[tobio]

The time machine features are just like salvage files on our old netware servers (before we "upgraded" to win2k3 with the quite embarressingly bad volume shadow copies). Obviously time machine is prettier, but the way it worked on netware was that all files whenever they are overwritten or deleted sit inbetween space. You can go into filer or use the right click menu to go back to previous versions of files unless you have purged them. This feature would turn off when you get down to 10% free space remaining.

If time machine lets you preview the contents of documents before you restore them, instead of going restore... is it that one? nope, try this one? nope... ah here we go found it. then hot damm thats a slick new feature

 

[lieb39]

The new time machine feature looks really cool - and I'm sure that a option for 'secure delete' will be there - so it's not stored in the Time Machine..

Not much chatter about the preview of Leopard Server - Sneak Preview here - Just supporting the new Leopard..

This is interesting; how do they figure that they can get the service to a mobile phone?

http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/leopard/podcastproducer.html

Discuss!

Cheers.

 

[lieb39]

...

If time machine lets you preview the contents of documents before you restore them, instead of going restore... is it that one? nope, try this one? nope... ah here we go found it. then hot damm thats a slick new feature

Well it looked like just a normal finder window in the Quicktime on the Apple site, so I'm sure you could open it, explore it, all that, before restoring..

Cheers!