Ahem... tap tap tap... Is this thing on?

Hi,
I would like to introduce a little creation of mine called Bvckup.

In short, it is a folder cloning utility. One points it at a pair of folders and it makes sure the second folder is exactly like the first one.
Do I see a puzzled expression on your face? Not a rocket science, you say? Just give me a minute

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First
Bvckup's default mode of operation is to constantly monitor for changes. Once the changes are detected, it propagates them to the destination. This makes Bvckup a real-time backup utility.

Second
Its default copying mode is delta copying. Which is a fancy way of saying that it copies only changed parts of the file. This makes Bvckup fast, really fast. Lots more details on why and how along, mind you, with the list of drawbacks of this particular approach is available here - Delta copying, explained.

Third
Bvckup is not a two-way sync utility, it's a backup utility and it makes full use of the core difference. By default it assumes that the destination copy does not change between the backups. This allows it to not scan the destination directory to detect what changed, but rather rely on a locally saved summary from the last backup.

I hear you say "bah, so what?". Two words - NAS backups. Not needing to scan the destination directory eliminates a lot of network traffic, and it removes the need for spinning up otherwise idle disks on NAS devices. This adds up to some major time savings, on top of those delivered by delta copying.

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Still with me? A bit more perhaps?

Fourth
The user interface. It is not about utilizing all 16 million colors in a single toolbar icon. Verbosity is not a feature, multitude of options is not a convenience. Properly designed user interface is all about simplicity and unobtrusiveness of the day-to-day interaction flow. A small example would probably go a long way here - Bvckup toolbar - but the only sure way to appreciate the UI polish is to take the app for a spin.

In fact Bvckup is as much about the UI design as it is about technical features. This bit explains how tightly these two are intertwined in case of Bvckup and how they shaped the design of the app - Short history of Bvckup.

Fifth
It is small and very lean. The installation package is about 480 KB. That's as much as a splash screen logo of some other backup products The app is written in C++ but without any extensive use of ++ features. It's much more like C with Classes... just like Bjarne envisioned before they sucked them into the design committee... but I digress.

Sixth
It is technically sophisticated. It doesn't copy just the file contents and the attributes, but also the timestamps, NTFS security and ownership information. If it finds a file that it cannot copy (locked, open, etc), it will try and use Volume Shadow Copying to work around the problem. If it is running under stripped-down administrator account on Vista or W7, it will prompt and offer to elevate itself to full admin privileges.

Also, and it's for true Windows connoisseurs only - it can run in elevated and filtered modes using the same executable. In fact, the even more amazing feat is that the very same executable can interact with Shadow Copying service on both XP and Vista; even though Microsoft explicitly requires linking to two different VSS libraries for these two platforms. Took a while to figure this one out, I can tell you that

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A bit more...
Assorted bits and pieces of some interest - built-in software updates, linear regression ETA estimator, the built-in interactive Mini Guide shown on the first run, a bit of a logo and web design goodness and a bit about myself.

And lastly...
All beta versions are free, with some tasty perks in store for the beta users.

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So that's about it. I hope you got the feel for what this program is about, and what the design approach behind it is.

Here is the URL - http://bvckup.com - check it out, let me know what you think.

Thanks,
Alex

New DC member Daniel writes about the Ripple project:

"I've been involved with the Ripple project and I think it would make a great addition to DonationCoder. You can read the basics at the online payment portal (https://ripplepay.com/), and you can sign up for an account for free.

Ripple lets you use personal credit to make donations or other payments among each other. It can work with traditional currencies as well as other value units such as DonationCredits.

I believe that adding Ripple to DonationCoder would make it more fun and useful, and you can also expand your use of Ripple to other areas.

Give it a whirl, you can connect to anybody you already know, and if you want to test out a new connection or if you have any questions, you can contact me at [email redacted to avoid spam spiders; please send personal message via forum to contact or visit web page]."

Since Oracle acquired Sun, it's shown aggressive hostility toward open source software by flooding the software landscape with patent lawsuits. With the acquisition of Sun came its more overt corporate control of OpenOffice. Not content to have a corporation control such a large open source project, the Document Foundation has forked OpenOffice into LibreOffice, which is "a better match to the values of our contributors, users, and supporters, and will enable a more effective, efficient, transparent, and inclusive Community." Among other things, their first goal is to clean the kludge in the code and improve its auto-update feature.

Linux distros are already updating their repositories with the LibreOffice beta, and it's only a matter of time before OpenOffice dies a well-deserved death.

http://www.libreoffice.org

Nice summary of (and links to) some recent contrarian debates about simplicity in user interface design by Don Norman.

It’s cruel, really – companies are told over and over that “we want simple CMS.”  Yet, when this is built, no one buys it because it doesn’t have enough features.  Not only do they not buy it, they actively disdain it and are perhaps even a little insulted by its arrogance in thinking something that simple could handle their sophisticated needs.  (Even if it could.)

As a bonus to all this, Norman got into a streetfight with the guys over at 37signals about this.  They, of course, believe in ruthlessly stripping away features.  They took exception, and Norman proceeds to eviscerate them (rightly or wrongly)..

http://www.gadgetopia.com/post/7131

So I just finished reading Eric Raymond's short collection of influential essays on Open Source software, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar".

I have long been a fan of the idea of Open Source from an ethical standpoint, and I've released a number of Open Source software packages in the past.

Although I've skimmed through Raymond's famous essay "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" in the past, I'm not sure I read the whole thing until now, and I certainly hadn't read his other releated essays collected in this book ("Homesteading and the Noosphere" and "The Magic Cauldron").

I expected to come out of reading those with a new found appreciation for why I should be Open Sourcing all of my software, and was pretty depressed and shocked to instead come out of those essays pretty depressed about the likely future of Open Source and where we are heading from the perspective of a small coder.

I know this is going to be somewhat controversial so let me elaborate.  First it may help to put some of this in a philosophical/political context.  I am not a fan of capitalism and the culture of "greed is good" -- i think the incentives we've set up for our economic systems favor giant winner-take-all corporations.

Raymond's essays paint a picture of why it's financially beneficial for companies to embrace open source, and an explanation from a largely financial standpoint of why individual hackers benefit from and enjoy open source (to simplify, it builds their reputation which pays off in the future).  Raymond does not argue that that's the only reason people get involved in the open source community, but that's the main thrust of the work.

And Raymond makes, to my ears at least, a very compelling and thorough case for why Open Source is the smarter and more profitable road for corporations to take when working on software that they use in house.  But there's the rub. The entire set of essays is predicated on the foundation that actually making a living from selling software is out of this equation.

Raymond explains that 95% of software is developed for internal use, not for sale.  It is *THIS* internal use software that benefits so greatly and thrives from Open Sourcing.  The other 5%, the software created by individuals or small companies for sale to others, is left off the table and basically acknowledged to be harmed by Open Sourcing.

In other words -- the ultimate end of the march to Open Source is a world where individual authors can no longer expect to have money come in from people who purchase software.  Instead, our software "economy" is heading towards a future where all software is free (and open source), and everyone is LEVERAGING that software in order to make money on people indirectly (ads, locking into service contracts, selling marking data, etc.).

I think we can see analogies of this in the world of music, movies, and books.  If the equivalent philosophy was carried over into these digital mediums, we would find ourselves in a world where the artists (writers, musicians, etc.) no longer can make any money selling music or books to people who listen and read them.  All of those things will be free.  Instead, the money will flow in but through indirect routes -- large companies charging for services and figuring out ways to make real money off of the free work of the artists.

From an ethical standpoint, I think we need to find a path that embraces the wonderful aspect of Open Source / Free software, but doesn't result in a dystopia for the small artists and developers, making it harder and harder for them to be funded by the people who like and benefit from their work.

I think part of the problem may lie in the Open Source community itself.  In an effort to promote and spread the concept of Open Source, the community has embraced the message that corporations can make bigger profits by open sourcing their software.  This may be fine as far as it goes, but I do believe that the consequences of this focus by the open source community has left small independent developers by the wayside.

One possible answer is for the grass roots Open Source community to take much more seriously the plight of small developers who are interested in forming a direct relationship with their users, and are interested in figuring out a way to be paid for their work and do it as a living.  Some of core untouchable definitions of Open Source (like the ability to fork, and the ability to charge to sell distributions of software someone else wrote) make this very difficult.

From my standpoint, the ideal solution would be one where as a community were much more willing to donate to support software we used.  I just don't know if that is realistic.

I don't think anyone believes that the ideal world is one where everything is Open Source, but the only people who can afford to spend time coding are those those doing it as a hobby because they have another paying job, or those who are working for large companies that are figuring out ways to leverage free software to make money indirectly from it, and where we kill off the entire small-developer software community that is trying to make a living directly interacting with their users.

Anyway, those are just some thoughts going through my head.  Please don't take this as an attack on the concept of Open Source, or think that I am hostile towards it.  I think the Open Source movement is a wonderful one.  I'm just trying hard to figure out in my own mind, and draw a little attention to, what seems to me like a serious unfortunate consequence of our *current* thinking about Open Source, and hope that the community can find a way to address this issue and find some kind of solution.

Despite my worries that we are going down this very unfortunate path, I think the opportunity still exists to take a different route that leads us to both an Open Source future, and a future where artists and authors are able to directly connect to their users and fans and be directly funded by them, cutting out the currently dominant role of middle men.  I'm just not sure how to advance us down that path.

The article isn't exactly new, but I went through it today and tried to find the best font (again... 3rd time in the last 2 years...) for coding.

http://www.codeproje...work/FontSurvey.aspx

After a year, I still find Consolas incredible, even at 8pt. Of course, some won't like its clear-type / anti-aliasing...

I admit I sometimes need a  "clear type" break... but, generally I prefer  "clear type" on my laptop LCD.
LCD's are not all the same -- mine has very "sharp" pixels (this could also be due to the graphical adapter I suppose... But I'm far from being an expert in that field).


Other monospaced that I use from time to  time :

Dina 8pt (I love it, but... sometimes my eyes need anti-aliasing. Go figure. It's also a bit wider than Consolas and so doesn't allow me to see long comments as well... )

Proggy Clean with Slashed Zero