MacFUSE: Mount remote server dirs over SSH protocol on MacOS X

July 19, 2008December 16, 2012 marco Leave a comment

I just installed a program and kernel extension which allows me to mount a remote server over SSH as a “normal drive” under MacOS X. Nothing brand new, but I did some research and thought I share what I found out to speed up other people who might need this.

Here is a description of the project and what you can do with it from the project’s page:

MacFUSE implements a mechanism that makes it possible to implement a fully functional file system in a user-space program on Mac OS X (10.4 and above). It aims to be API-compliant with the FUSE (File-system in USErspace) mechanism that originated on Linux. Therefore, many existing FUSE file systems become readily usable on Mac OS X. That said, MacFUSE has numerous user- and developer-visible interfaces that are specific to Mac OS X. The core of MacFUSE is in a dynamically loadable kernel extension.

Although MacFUSE has a completely different kernel-level implementation from Linux FUSE, it supports the FUSE specification well enough that many popular FUSE file systems can be easily compiled and made to work on Mac OS X–often out of the box. Examples of file systems that are known to work and were once tested (to varying degrees) include sshfs, ntfs-3g (read/write NTFS), ftpfs (read/write FTP), wdfs (WebDAV), cryptofs, encfs, bindfs, unionfs, beaglefs (yes, including the entire Beagle paraphernalia), and so on.

Do get you going you need to get three things: MacFUSE, SSHfs (to mount an external server over SSH) and the GUI for MacFUSE called MacFusion.

What is MacFusion?

MacFusion brings all sorts of information to your Mac in the form of files and folders displayed as just another “Volume” on your Mac desktop. Right now you can use this software to 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!

First you have to grab the installer and the SSHfs from from the Googe code page at: http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/ , actually this page.

After installing MacFUSE and SSHfs all you need is the GUI called MacFusion from here and you are all set.

There is a newer version of MacFusion under development (at the time of the publication of this post still beta!):

Macfusion2 project

Some other resources are:

FUSE and sshfs in OS X
Antoher GUI is called SecureRemoteDisk
Lifehacker – Geek to Live: Mount a file system on your Mac over SSH
Encrypted FS and file voult: encfsvault, ikrypt

feedalizr: micro-blogging & read updates from friends – Adobe Air app

July 13, 2008December 16, 2012 marco Leave a comment

In my previous post I wrote about ping.fm and their service to send notifications out to many social and business network/apps.

Feedalizr Screenshot A different approach is used by the Adobe Air based app called Feedalizr. It lets you share your texts, photos, videos, etc. as well, but also allows to read and interact with posts from friends. All of this on your local desktop, no web browser required (although you need to have Adobe Air installed on yout computer.)

This is a very interesting approach and they try to be your central application to post AND read (and interact), resulting in less application switching between your different websites and services. They currently support Twitter, FriendFeed, Flickr and Jaiku.

The software just came out off public alpha and is now available as a beta version. Go, check it out and respond in the comments if you use the app or know of other cool apps helping you with keeping up with your social network buzz.

Ping.fm: Keeping your social networks in sync

July 12, 2008December 16, 2012 marco 3 Comments

Ping.fm is currenly in beta and trying to help you with kepping ALL your friends, followers, business contact (etc., etc.,…) up-to-date!
On the website the services describes itself as:

Ping.fm is a simple service that makes updating your social networks a snap.

Use AIM, GTalk, iGoogle, WAP, iPhone/iPod Touch, SMS or E-mail and let Ping.fm relay your message to a multitude of social networking sites.

Available social networks and services are: Twitter, jaiku, Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, Tumblr, Pownce, Brightkite, Xanga, Plurk, Plaxo, Linkedin, Mashable, identi.ca, more coming…

The latest additions of supported services and functionality are mentioned in their recent blog entry entitled More Features, More Awesomeness:

Alas, we bring more gifts from the Ping.fm laboratory. We have added a Yahoo! Messenger bot to our bot arsenal. So, for those Yahoo! users who were without GTalk and AIM, you now have the power of Ping!

Also, we’re proud to announce our custom URL posting capability. Now you can have ping messages delivered directly to your website! This will encourage developers to write incoming-bound scripts that will do cool stuff with your Ping messages. Just another way we’ve put the power in your hands.

Last but not least, we’ve enabled support for picture uploading.

Check them out! Use this beta code to get in: pingbewithyou
Leave a comment if you need a (current) beta code and I will update the post with the latest one.

Video blogging: Kyte vs Qik vs Flixwagon and Viif

June 29, 2008December 16, 2012 marco 1 Comment

There are many posts out the in the blogosphere talking about the superior service/application from kyte.tv, comparing them to Qik.com or Flixwagon.com. See the Techcrunch post from Robert Scoble: why-kytetv-will-kill-qik-and-flixwagon-in-cell-phone-video-space

That led me to this post. Here’s why I think Kyte will dominate over Qik and Flixwagon:

The distribution system that Kyte has built is much better than either Qik or Flixwagon. Translation: the embeddable player that Kyte.tv has is much better than Qik or Flixwagon, more on that in a second.

The chat room that Kyte has built is much better than Qik or Flixwagon and can be participated in from other cell phones, something that Qik and Flixwagon can’t do.

The ability to mix videos from your webcam, live videos streaming from your web cam, recorded videos from camcorders, or from places like YouTube, along with both recorded and streamed videos from your cell phone goes way beyond what Qik and Flixwagon have done today.

Kyte.tv can play videos on an iPhone today. Neither Qik or Flixwagon can do that.

Kyte.tv can play videos on a Nokia today. Both from your recordings and other people’s. Neither Qik or Flixwagon can do that.

Kyte.tv is partially funded and supported by Nokia. That might not sound like a big deal, but it is. Nokia is using Kyte’s service internally too, and I’m sure Nokia is giving Kyte better engineering support than it’s giving Qik or Flixwagon.

Kyte.tv is way ahead of Qik and Kyte in getting real mainstream celebrities like 50 cent on its service, which means its growth is way stronger.

and Oliver wrote about them, too:

The only thing we need are mobile phone internet flatrates and I hope that the carriers are seeing in the iPhone that a flatrate helps. I don’t believe the increased usage comes form the iPhone only, but for a large part from not having to think about being online or not. When you have to think in terms of MB used or something, you do start to think and you use stuff less.

All services have in common that you have to download an application to your phone to use either service. This is a big advantage in terms of control and usability of the app. But still you need to download an application in the first place. The iPhone might leed the way as people are used to buy (select) e.g. mp3’s from iTunes and have them transfered (downloaded) onto their device. We will see if Apple is leading the way, once more.

Wanted to add my 2 cents to this discussion and throw in an approach which is a little different than the one taken by the previously mentioned companies:

What do you think about the German start-up in Berlin called Viif (site mostly available in German only, sorry)? Their application enables every 3G cell phone (with video call capability) to record live video, which gets recorded from the Viif video server and than publish to your blog. The service is not allowing love video blogging for now but they could very easily make this into one without the need to download an application!
I don’t want to keep quiet about the little disadvantage you have: No 3G signal = no video call. A local application might be able to record on the internal memory of your phone and upload the content after your signal gets better (is back at full 3G).

Leave a comment if you know of other mobile video applications out there or want to chip in with your commentary! Thanks!

Mashup Editors Everywhere – Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Intel

June 15, 2008December 16, 2012 marco 3 Comments

Google is now also in the game of mashup editors with their very own Google Mashup Editor. The editor is still in beta and access is limit to developers who have received an invite. You can request an invite via the mashup front page. Currently it’s not taking long (~few days) to get access to the editor and I am sure Google will fully open up access soon.

Google says about the editor:

Take some AJAX UI components, data from your users and Google services like Google Base and Google Maps or external feeds and mash them all together using our simple framework. We make it easy with the Google Mashup Editor.

Google Mashup Editor - Screenshot

Google provides a lot of example “mashup code” to get you started and you can find more information at: Getting started doc. Check out the mashups published from other developers listed in the Mashups Gallery.

If you want to ask a question go to the Google Groups page, you can also vote for features there. Another good source to take a first look at how things work are the screencasts. If you want to get a full overview of the Mashup API and/or want to use it for a different mashup project of your own: JS API.

The editor is very easy to use and also has code coloring. Even a mashup with several pages is easily to handle in it. Go, make your own Mashup!

Other Mashup Editors you might find interesting to check out are briefly listed below. I plan to check them out in more detail and will make follow up posts to this one.

Yahoo! pipes: Yahoo! launched pipes several month back and it was an instant hit. Google might have been thinking: Something this clever should come from us! (And they came up with the Mashup Editor.) Yahoo says about pipes:

Pipes is a powerful composition tool to aggregate, manipulate, and mashup content from around the web.

Microsoft Popfly: MS is trying to hit it big. Not only can you create Mashups, but also Game, Web pages and more!

MS Popfly - Mashup Design

It was difficult to check out some application listed on the site, as I had to log in to the service to get to the mashup I wanted to see.

But on the other hand you are getting a very powerful tool which enables you to even more than simple mashup. And you can use it for “simple” things like making a nice looking Flickr photo gallery, or dive in deeper and develop your own game etc.

Target group ranking from less experineced developer/experienced “web users” to experienced developers.

Intel Mash Maker: Intel takes a different approach when it comes to mashup editors. They provide a web browser plug-in which you have to install.
This enables Intel to have a lot of control over the capabilities of the editor but might also hurt the adoption of this tool as you have to go through the plug-in installation process. The target group is certainly the less experienced web developer.

If you know of other great editors, feel free to post them in the comments! And if you have first hand experience, let us know in the comments, too!

Google Friend Connect to be announced at Campfire One

May 12, 2008December 16, 2012 marco Leave a comment

UH!

Techcrunch says:

Friend Connect is a new data portability initiative for spreading social connections around the web. It’s the third of such announcements to be made in less than a week; MySpace Data Availability and Facebook Connect are the other two.

To find out more check out the live coverage over at techcrunch. You’ll find a live videostream broadcasting from the event.

Update: Techcrunch shows now the recorded stream from the event.

A blog post by Forrester’s Charlene Li fits quiet well to this announcement from Google. She writes on her blog:

The future of social networks: Social networks will be like air

“I thought about my grade-school kids, who in 10 years will be in the midst of social network engagement. I believe they (and we) will look back to 2008 and think it archaic and quaint that we had to go to a destination like Facebook or LinkedIn to ‘be social.’

This gets interesting now 🙂

Drop.io – Online File Exchange Revisited

May 4, 2008December 16, 2012 marco 2 Comments

Came across a new service called Drop.io which was mentioned on ZDNet: Weekend Gadget Guidance: Send a fax for free — digitally.

Well, no more, folks: Drop.io, a fairly innovative file-sharing service, sends and receives faxes for free.

It works like this: to send a fax, upload a document to Drop.io. Enter the fax number and click “Fax.” Boom — no beeps to haunt you in your sleep.
On the receiving end, Drop.io will generate a cover sheet you then e-mail to the sender. As long as they use your cover page on the fax, it will end up in your Drop.io account as a PDF.

It is true that a free fax service is always good to have 🙂 But on the receiving side for this fax solution to work you need to provide a special cover sheet to receive it in your “drop” and becomes available to download. This makes it not a solution for sensitive data which you don’t intend to share freely (even if you make your drop private…. ).

This is how the site describes its service:

Drop.io enables you to create simple private exchange points called “drops.”

The service has no email signup and no “accounts.” Each drop is private, and only as accessible as you choose to deliberately make it. Create multiple drops, add any type of media, and share or subscribe as you want.

And it gets even better: Drop.io supports different media types, like photos, videos and (text) posts! You also have the option to embed a widget in your blog or social network of choice. This enables visitors to upload and download files to/from your drop. You get 100MB per drop for free and you can add more storage for $10/GB. Embed the files located in your drop in another (e.g. blog) page and add comment to the files. This makes it a truly social app which should attract further users/traffic.

Please leave a comment and provide your feedback if you work with the service or want to test it out @ Drop.io!

Bizak.com: Get the Web 2.0 Valuation of Your Start-up

March 15, 2008December 16, 2012 marco 1 Comment

Check out the new site called bizak – The Web… Quantified.

You go to the website, enter “your biz numbers” and receive and estimate, called The Bizak Estimate. It creates an apples to apples comparison and benchmark that can be used as a starting point for comparative purposes.

The Site is created by Tom O’Keefe, you find further info about him on his site here: tomokeefe.com.

Bizak is a business network which computes the profitability of internet startups and connects entrepreneurs with investors.

Entrepreneurs – compute your business valuation, compare your performance to the industry and connect with investors.

Investors – evaluate the earnings potential of internet startups, compare them to industry benchmarks, and connect with entrepreneurs.

Student Entrepreneurs – are you a student entrepreneur? Bizak can help!

TV Interface/Navigation: neave.tv

December 3, 2007December 16, 2012 marco Leave a comment

Still around and still a really cool idea how to navigate video on the web: www.neave.tv. I did not come back to Neave.TV for some time. But everytime I see the interface and the ease of use I am excited again! The site utilizes video from other video sharing sites (like youtube, blip.tv etc.) and updates itself all the time to keep the videos fresh!

Check it out! Enjoy watching the videos!