Re: On Yojimbo and Time Machine
On 2/18/08, Dennis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm sure Bare Bones has considered this option for Yojimbo. But I suspect there's greater complexity here than meets the eye. Perhaps there are tradeoffs having to do with record encryption or .Mac sync. Would we be willing to sacrifice those features for individual file storage? Most times I've heard the database vs individual files decision explained in terms of performance. Generally speaking a DB will be much faster, if I recall correctly. Encryption can be done on any file, so that's a non-issue. .Mac sync isn't working for me anyway. I'd trade reliable syncing for just about anything ATM. TjL -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's working correctly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: On Yojimbo and Time Machine
On Feb 15, 2008, at 3:30 AM, Rhet Turnbull wrote: If Yojimbo stored records as separate files and kept metadata and/or index data in smaller DBs then the backup regime would only have to backup those files that had changed instead of the entire xxxMB sqllite file that Yojimbo uses now. I believe that would decrease the risk of inconsistency as opposed to the case now, where Yojimbo could write the the large database file while the backup is trying to copy it. I'm sure Bare Bones has considered this option for Yojimbo. But I suspect there's greater complexity here than meets the eye. Perhaps there are tradeoffs having to do with record encryption or .Mac sync. Would we be willing to sacrifice those features for individual file storage? -Dennis -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's working correctly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: On Yojimbo and Time Machine
Coming to think of it, there would be a way to back up Yojimbo with Time Machine: you just need to create a sparse bundle disk image with Disk Utility, put your Yj DB on that and make the Yojimbo folder in ~/Library/Application Support/ an alias to the mountpoint of the image in /Volumes. Finally, write a little Automator script to mount the image, e.g. at startup, and start Yojimbo through the script after mounting the image. Time Machine can back up the Yj DB in pieces of 8 MB, because you chose sparse bundle disk image!. Basically, it is much the same as you might have already for Mail - e.g., I use an encrypted sparse bundle disk image for my mail folder, which I mount before starting mail, requesting the password and then starting Mail - and a nice way to safely store your e-mail, too. -Florian On 15.02.2008, at 7:37, Jan Erik Moström wrote: Rhet Turnbull [EMAIL PROTECTED] 08-02-14 15.58 I would never use a backup solution that didn't run on live data. Thankfully the days of they system is down for backup are long gone. Whether I use Time Machine or I use Super Duper or Chronosync or something else, I'm certainly not about to take my machine offline or logout to do the backup. Your misunderstanding me, if you run a backup on a programs data file (without the applications talking to each other) you always run the risk of inconsistent data (unless you have a filesystem that does some fancy stuff). For example, if you have an application with several files that in some way depend on each other - for example a database that store data as individual files and then have an index file to keep track of them - there is always the chance that the backup is done between the modification of the individual files which would make the data in the backup inconsistent. So while I'm running TM for my whole disk, I'm also running a second program for applications that is constantly running like my email program. jem -- Jan Erik Moström, www.mostrom.pp.se -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's working correctly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's working correctly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: On Yojimbo and Time Machine
This is getting offtopic for Yojimbo so I won't continue past this email. I appreciate your comments Jan and I do understand the issue of data of data consistency. The only way to completely avoid that is to take the system completely down for backup and either run the backup in single user mode or better yet, run the backup in target disk mode without even the OS running. But I won't do that because of convenience nor will most other users. I don't ever close applications or log off my machine unless a software update forces me to and I suspect there are many more like me. Most people don't backup because it's inconvenient which is one of the main things that Apple was trying to address with Time Machine. Time Machine also has the added advantage of provided checkpoints throughout the day that you can roll-back to (at least for specific files). I'd much rather take the very small chance of data inconsistency than accept the inconvenience of offline backups. Now to get it back to Yojimbo so we're not completely off topic ;-) If Yojimbo stored records as separate files and kept metadata and/or index data in smaller DBs then the backup regime would only have to backup those files that had changed instead of the entire xxxMB sqllite file that Yojimbo uses now. I believe that would decrease the risk of inconsistency as opposed to the case now, where Yojimbo could write the the large database file while the backup is trying to copy it. And finally, once users get used to the power of Time Machine's rollback capability, they'll demand it. There are several times I wish I could have rolled back a Yojimbo record (this is exacerbated by Yojimbo's lack of read-only records which has allowed me to accidentally edit Yojimbo data that I didn't intend to). Cheers, Rhet On 2/15/08, Jan Erik Moström [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Rhet Turnbull [EMAIL PROTECTED] 08-02-14 15.58 I would never use a backup solution that didn't run on live data. Thankfully the days of they system is down for backup are long gone. Whether I use Time Machine or I use Super Duper or Chronosync or something else, I'm certainly not about to take my machine offline or logout to do the backup. Your misunderstanding me, if you run a backup on a programs data file (without the applications talking to each other) you always run the risk of inconsistent data (unless you have a filesystem that does some fancy stuff). For example, if you have an application with several files that in some way depend on each other - for example a database that store data as individual files and then have an index file to keep track of them - there is always the chance that the backup is done between the modification of the individual files which would make the data in the backup inconsistent. So while I'm running TM for my whole disk, I'm also running a second program for applications that is constantly running like my email program. jem -- Jan Erik Moström, www.mostrom.pp.se -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's working correctly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's working correctly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: On Yojimbo and Time Machine
Hello- On Feb 14, 2008, at 4:24 PM, Jan Erik Moström wrote: Rhet Turnbull [EMAIL PROTECTED] 08-02-14 15.09 Then again, Yojimbo's habit of storing everything in a monolithic database has been one of my (few) critiques since Yojimbo was released. Curious, why is this bad? In the case of a backup the monolithic solution is extremely annoying. As a good analogue, consider Apple Mail. Each email is its own document. When my system backs itself up, each new message is backed up cleanly with a very small upload. In the case of Yojimbo, instead of pushing only those files that have changed, the backup takes much longer since the entire file needs to be copied repeatedly even if only a small change/addition occurred. I hope that BareBones and/or Apple gets this fixed soon. Requiring the user to have two separate backup plans is unacceptable. Hmmm, I would always be skeptical of a backup solution that runs on live data. By having individual files, the problem you rightly note above becomes less pronounced since the vast majority of the backup would happen to files that are closed. Obviously some sort of main db file which organizes these smaller files would still suffer from the problem, however in most cases these sorts of files could be rebuilt anyway since the important data (ie: the individual files) would be available. I use LifeAgent as my backup solution since it seems to work pretty well over wireless NAS (such as Airport extreme) and it tracks changing files in ~real time. For a laptop, it seems to work pretty well. Unfortunately though, my nightly backup over a wireless often consists of a the huge Yojimbo databasewaiting...waiting...you get the picture. -Lance -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's working correctly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: On Yojimbo and Time Machine
Niels Kobschaetzki [EMAIL PROTECTED] sez: On Oct 31, 2007 5:03 PM, Steve Kalkwarf [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Before things get too far out of control, I want to clarify some facts about how Time Machine and Yojimbo. Yojimbo is built on CoreData, the same underlying technology as Aperture, and several other products. Because of issues related to how Time Machine and CoreData manage files on disk, Apple recommends excluding Aperture data from Time Machine backups, and managing Aperture backups independently: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306853 For the moment, we are recommending the same thing. The document states now that the problems are fixed with 10.5.2 for Aperture -- does this apply to Yojimbo as well? The cited change in 10.5.2 only resolves this issue for Aperture; I regret it does not affect other applications which use CoreData nor our prior guidance related to Yojimbo. Regards, Patrick Woolsey == Bare Bones Software, Inc.http://www.barebones.com P.O. Box 1048, Bedford, MA 01730-1048 -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's working correctly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: On Yojimbo and Time Machine
I was unaware of the restriction regarding Yojimbo and Time Machine. Fortunately I haven't upgraded to Leopard yet (but had planned to do so now that the 10.5.2 update is out and in fact have the Leopard box sitting on my shelf). Time Machine was one of the driving reasons for me to upgrade to Leopard but Yj is an app I use everyday so this is an unacceptable situation. It is very regrettable that Apple would adopt a standard like CoreData only to make it incompatible with one of their flagship features. Then again, Yojimbo's habit of storing everything in a monolithic database has been one of my (few) critiques since Yojimbo was released. I hope that BareBones and/or Apple gets this fixed soon. Requiring the user to have two separate backup plans is unacceptable. Cheers, Rhet On 2/14/08, Patrick Woolsey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Niels Kobschaetzki [EMAIL PROTECTED] sez: On Oct 31, 2007 5:03 PM, Steve Kalkwarf [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Before things get too far out of control, I want to clarify some facts about how Time Machine and Yojimbo. Yojimbo is built on CoreData, the same underlying technology as Aperture, and several other products. Because of issues related to how Time Machine and CoreData manage files on disk, Apple recommends excluding Aperture data from Time Machine backups, and managing Aperture backups independently: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306853 For the moment, we are recommending the same thing. The document states now that the problems are fixed with 10.5.2 for Aperture -- does this apply to Yojimbo as well? The cited change in 10.5.2 only resolves this issue for Aperture; I regret it does not affect other applications which use CoreData nor our prior guidance related to Yojimbo. Regards, Patrick Woolsey == Bare Bones Software, Inc.http://www.barebones.com P.O. Box 1048, Bedford, MA 01730-1048 -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's working correctly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's working correctly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: On Yojimbo and Time Machine
Curious, why is this bad? 1. Backup...the entire DB file (mine is hundreds of MB) needs to be backed up. I backup everyday, both to external drive and offsite. That means the large Yojimbo file needs to be backed up every day, taking up unnecessary bandwidth and disk space. 2. Data integrity...if the database file gets corrupted, you could lose all your data instead of only 1 item. The Yojimbo competitor Together (http://reinventedsoftware.com/together/) does it this way, storing each record in a separate file. 3. Time Machine...this breaks things like time machine which offers roll-back capability. Contrast the way that Microsoft Outlook (not sure about Entourage) and Mail.app store mail messages. Outlook puts everything in a single database file. Mail.app stores each message in a separate file (but utilizes a database file for indexing). I have 3GB of email which means that Outlook would require backing up a 3GB file wheres for Mail.app, I only need to backup the new message files and the small index file. Hmmm, I would always be skeptical of a backup solution that runs on live data. I would never use a backup solution that didn't run on live data. Thankfully the days of they system is down for backup are long gone. Whether I use Time Machine or I use Super Duper or Chronosync or something else, I'm certainly not about to take my machine offline or logout to do the backup. Cheers, Rhet On 2/14/08, Jan Erik Moström [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Rhet Turnbull [EMAIL PROTECTED] 08-02-14 15.09 Then again, Yojimbo's habit of storing everything in a monolithic database has been one of my (few) critiques since Yojimbo was released. Curious, why is this bad? I hope that BareBones and/or Apple gets this fixed soon. Requiring the user to have two separate backup plans is unacceptable. Hmmm, I would always be skeptical of a backup solution that runs on live data. jem -- Jan Erik Moström, www.mostrom.pp.se -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's working correctly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's working correctly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: On Yojimbo and Time Machine
On Feb 14, 2008, at 4:09 PM, Rhet Turnbull wrote: I hope that BareBones and/or Apple gets this fixed soon. Requiring the user to have two separate backup plans is unacceptable. For me it hasn't been that big of a deal. 1) I excluded my Yojimbo DB from my time machine backups 2) I set up a folder form my Yojimbo backups on the same drive as my Time Machine backup. 3) I have ChronoSync http://tinyurl.com/36yy9 backup my Yojimbo DB daily, and save the most recent 5 backups. -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's working correctly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: On Yojimbo and Time Machine
On 2/14/08, Rhet Turnbull [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Curious, why is this bad? 1. Backup...the entire DB file (mine is hundreds of MB) needs to be backed up. I backup everyday, both to external drive and offsite. That means the large Yojimbo file needs to be backed up every day, taking up unnecessary bandwidth and disk space. 2. Data integrity...if the database file gets corrupted, you could lose all your data instead of only 1 item. The Yojimbo competitor Together (http://reinventedsoftware.com/together/) does it this way, storing each record in a separate file. It also, I would assume, is why .Mac fails to sync Yojimbo so often. Instead of syncing 1,000 small files, it is trying to sync one monolithic DB. I can't get it to work with .Mac or SyncTogether's latest beta. Contrast the way that Microsoft Outlook (not sure about Entourage) and Mail.app store mail messages. Outlook puts everything in a single database file. Mail.app stores each message in a separate file (but utilizes a database file for indexing). I have 3GB of email which means that Outlook would require backing up a 3GB file wheres for Mail.app, I only need to backup the new message files and the small index file. Um... are you sure about Outlook? I know it didn't used to be that way, as I would routinely have to make sure that the Outlook PST stayed below 2gb. Entourage doesn't store a single email per file. It too uses the same Huge Database Concept. Hmmm, I would always be skeptical of a backup solution that runs on live data. I would never use a backup solution that didn't run on live data. Thankfully the days of they system is down for backup are long gone. Whether I use Time Machine or I use Super Duper or Chronosync or something else, I'm certainly not about to take my machine offline or logout to do the backup. I certainly wouldn't be using Yojimbo or any other DB app while SuperDuper et al are running. Sure it might not throw an error but you still risk problems. I run SuperDuper at night when I go to bed and then have it shutdown/sleep the computer. I quit all my running apps except SD! TjL -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's working correctly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: On Yojimbo and Time Machine
TjL [EMAIL PROTECTED] sez: It also, I would assume, is why .Mac fails to sync Yojimbo so often. Instead of syncing 1,000 small files, it is trying to sync one monolithic DB. [...] That's not the case; although .Mac must ultimately contain your whole data set before syncing between machines can take place, all data transfer takes place incrementally. Regards, Patrick Woolsey == Bare Bones Software, Inc.http://www.barebones.com P.O. Box 1048, Bedford, MA 01730-1048 -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's working correctly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: On Yojimbo and Time Machine
On 2/14/08, Patrick Woolsey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: TjL [EMAIL PROTECTED] sez: It also, I would assume, is why .Mac fails to sync Yojimbo so often. Instead of syncing 1,000 small files, it is trying to sync one monolithic DB. [...] That's not the case; although .Mac must ultimately contain your whole data set before syncing between machines can take place, all data transfer takes place incrementally. Well then I wish I could figure out why it never works. No error messages in the dot-mac sync log that I can see, but I've got 8-9 more Yojimbo entries on one computer than the other, even after resetting sync data on both and choosing Merge *shrug* TjL -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's working correctly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: On Yojimbo and Time Machine
On Oct 31, 2007 5:03 PM, Steve Kalkwarf [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Before things get too far out of control, I want to clarify some facts about how Time Machine and Yojimbo. Yojimbo is built on CoreData, the same underlying technology as Aperture, and several other products. Because of issues related to how Time Machine and CoreData manage files on disk, Apple recommends excluding Aperture data from Time Machine backups, and managing Aperture backups independently: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306853 For the moment, we are recommending the same thing. The document states now that the problems are fixed with 10.5.2 for Aperture -- does this apply to Yojimbo as well? Niels -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's working correctly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
