Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.

On My Blog Menu:

InstaPundit
USS Clueless
James Lileks
Little Green Footballs
As the Apple Turns
Entropicana
Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
Red Letter Day
Eric S. Raymond
Tal G in Jerusalem
Secular Islam
Aziz Poonawalla
Corsair the Rational Pirate
.clue

« ? Blogging Brians # »

Book Plug:

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BSD Mall

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12/24/2001 - 12/30/2001
12/17/2001 - 12/23/2001

Wednesday, November 20, 2002
01:56 - More Mac-ish Musings	(top)
Just a couple, before I turn in. Lileks pointed me towards the newly Cocoa-ified Transmit 2, an FTP program that I'd never noticed before now-- which is a shame, considering that it's by Panic, the company that writes such buffed-with-a-diaper-till-it-gleams specimens as Audion. Audion is an MP3-player app that I haven't had much use for since iTunes came along; it's the "traditional" style of MP3 player, in the sense that it's skinnable (Quartz transparency is something to behold in these skins!), has support for things like album art and liner notes, and it plays MP3s in filesystem order or by manually defined playlists (which seems hopelessly primitive now that I'm used to iTunes' means of navigation). But the program itself is superb, and its presentation is polished within an inch of its life, which is why I've continued to support Panic with registrations for each new version of Audion that they've released. These guys deserve plaudits for what they've made into a business and a labor of love. But anyway, I was talking about Transmit 2. This is one slick little app. It's based on the ncftp core, which is widely used; and the interface is both playful (with local and remote file listings labeled "your stuff" and "their stuff") and practical (it opens directly into exactly the screen you need, with your favorites ready to hand, and all options easily accessible). It supports SFTP by a single selection in the main login screen. It has a live-resizeable preview drawer for all recognized file types. It even has a mirroring function and a remote text file editor. All the functions and layout elements have the feel of a no-nonsense checklist, ruled by algebraic symmetry and space-saving aesthetics: "This pane goes here. This progress bar goes here. Here are the input fields you need to set up a session. Every button label is a verb. Destructive action buttons are separated spatially from the other buttons." The strict adherence to this kind of austerity of design leads to a reassuring, pleasing workflow that the user immediately understands without having to meander around timidly clicking random buttons until something happens. Everything here makes sense, everything does what you expect it to, and in using each function, it seems like folly to imagine it being done any other way. "FTP That Gives Mac OS X A Great Big Hug." I tell you, it's impossible to stay in a bad mood when you're using software like this. Incidentally-- today I was burning some ISO images of FreeBSD 5.0 DP2, and I had the opportunity to see how Disk Copy worked. The answer is very well indeed, thank you. Go to "File->Burn Image..." and select the .iso file when prompted. The machine sticks out its tongue, you drop in a CD. It sucks it in, burns it, and spits it out. You take a drink, sit there with your chin in your hand, and plot how to manage eloping with a computer.