Dropbox, SSH, and iPhone

Mrs. Murphy called and said she wanted to download a file from a Mac back home to her Macbook Air on the road. Away from the house I thought for a second about the easiest way to send her the file. I flicked through my iPhone apps and saw a simple solution.

My iPhone has both TouchTerm and Dropbox (syncs a local folder to the cloud) installed. TouchTerm let me ssh into the Mac at the house which was awake and recording a television show. From there a simple copy command let me copy the file into my Dropbox public folder. That was the hardest part.

Once the file copied over I launched the Dropbox app on the iPhone. The file was listed in my Dropbox public folder - allowing me to use the mail-a-link function in the app. Mrs. Murphy got the email, clicked the link to download her file - and she was all set.

Back when Murphy had more time to tinker he came up with far crazier solutions, like Retrieve a File on Your Mac by Email. Which is still great if you’re up against certain firewall restrictions or other obstacles. Better yet, that solution would have worked as soon as the Mac woke up, had it been asleep.

But this solution required far less preparation. I had ssh running on the remote Mac, and Dropbox was installed on both the Mac and my iPhone. That’s it. I could have used the Dropbox web interface instead of the app.

I realize there are other solutions Mrs. Murphy could have used. Logmein. FTP. VNC. Etc. Everyone has their preference, but I found this direct and efficient.

What do you think?

Create an openssl Function

This is a quick way to make encrypting files using the terminal fast and convenient. Murphy posted instructions on making an interactive shell script to do essentially the same thing. This is a slightly different spin. Skip ahead to the screencast to see how easy file encryption can be. The openssl command we’re using is included with OS X.

Like other things we’ve covered - the specific example might not apply to you - but for people who’ve never used a function it might be helpful. Functions can make complicated Terminal commands more convenient to use.

To create the function just add this line to the .bash_profile file in your home directory:

des3() { openssl des3 -salt -in "$1" -out "$2"; }


Note that there’s a space after the opening curly bracket and a space before the closing curly bracket. All we need to remember is the function name, and to provide two file names: one to encrypt and one to be the output file.

The breakdown on the command: the first des3 is what we named the function. We can name it anything but des3 is what Murphy chose. The name of the function is what you’ll type whenever you use it.

The stuff in the curly brackets is what happens when we invoke the function. See this post for more on the openssl command.

The des3 following the openssl command is the type of encryption we’re using. It’s part of the openssl command syntax. We added $1 and $2 after the in and out respectively because they’re the two pieces of information we need when we invoke our function.

The $1 and $2 will be replaced with the paths we type into Terminal. In the screencast Murphy shows how to invoke the function. Instead of typing the paths he drags the file to be encrypted into the window - which saves us the typing. He also names the output file with a des3 extension to remind himself how he encrypted the input file.

As always, be careful with the Terminal if you’re not familiar with it. See Murphy’s warning about the dangerous possibilities.

iTunes Overhaul?

This post started as a simple screencast reveling in the simplicity that was early iTunes. Remember the multi-button? Click on a CD and the button became an Importer. Click on a playlist and it was a Burner. The interface was fantastically simple and surely helped iPod mania spread like wildfire.

That interface element is long gone. In its place Apple has added new innovations including DJ, Genius, remote speakers, and of course - video. It’s come a long way - so far that it’s hard to believe folders for organizing our playlists were once on the still-not-there list.

Now on the brink of iTunes 9 the murmurs have begun about what to expect. Topping the list is social networking. Also likely: The ability to arrange your iPhone / iPod touch icons on your computer instead of playing the tile game on your iPhone. Far less likely: DVD ripping.

If you watched the screencast and you appreciate a good interface you have to wonder what happened to iTunes. It’s become somewhat scattered. And you have to wonder at what point Apple realized TV Shows and Movies would reside in the iTunes Library.

iTunes could improve in a few areas:

• Why can’t I search Movies, Music, and TV Shows at once? Clicking the node seems a wasted step, especially when search results could easily be grouped by container.
• Adding information for imported video, like episode information, is messy. This is one of the places where iTunes shows it wasn’t built for video.
• Why isn’t there something like the Migration Assistant to help someone move iTunes to a new computer? I would never expect anyone to be able to accomplish this feat without help from someone who reads stuff like this.
• Why can’t I remove a watched episode from a playlist from my Apple TV? Or my iPhone? So it doesn’t come back on the next sync.
• Why does syncing my first generation iPod touch take twenty-five minutes?

I’m not saying iTunes is a disaster. Some of the features are great. I use an Apple TV, an EyeTV, an iPhone, and an Airport Express. I remote control iTunes from the iPhone. I stream from the Apple TV directly to the Airport Express. It’s all good - and they could take it further. How about Starbucks running iTunes in DJ mode and letting customers vote songs up the queue with their iPhones?

But at some point iTunes needs an overhaul. Apple should take a look at tools like PowerTunes and the massive AppleScript library at Doug’s Scripts. They’ll find functions that should be built into iTunes. Maybe they can give it a better name too.  The screencast is short, take a look.

Snow Leopard Unboxing

Just kidding, Murph doesn’t unbox.

But Snow Leopard did arrive today.  And while I was pleased last month that it seemed Apple was keeping to its word — it’s not about shiny new features —  I kind of wished there were a few more today.  That said, I admire the goal Apple set for itself here, and I hope Snow Leopard proves itself with increased stability and performance.

Here are a handful of observations:

• My in-place install took 40 minutes.
• I reclaimed 20GB of space.
• The text replacement feature doesn’t apply to Terminal.
• Screenshots are now named with a date-time stamp.
• The new Expose stuff is nice.  Hover the mouse over a window and tap the spacebar to zoom in.
• I’ve never really used Stacks, but I’ll give it another shot with Snow Leopard.

And that’s about as far as I got.

I had two issues with applications.  I’m a big fan of 1Password.  There’s a slightly unusual situation there. They have a beta that’s compatible with Snow Leopard, jumping the product to version 3. That product is still in beta but available now with reduced pricing.  Working fine for Murphy so far.  If you stick with version 2 you’ll need to run Safari in 32bit mode, which can be done by selecting Safari in Finder and bringing up its Get Info panel.

The other issue was with Airfoil.  Same thing:  I had to run Safari in 32bit mode to make it work with Snow Leopard.

That’s about all I’ve gotten to so far.

Stuff I’d Like to See in iPhone 3.1…..But Won’t.

Unfortunately, none of our senior staff expect any of these items to reach the iPhone 3.1 update, rumored to be on schedule for a September release. Still - here’s what we’d like to see:

More Voice Commands
Specifically: Navigate Voicemail. Launch Apps. Open a Safari bookmark.
The Voice commands work better than expected. It would be nice to extend them to a few more functions. The Google Mobile app is a great example of voice working well.

Wifi OFF button on Available Networks List
It makes perfect sense. When the iPhone offers a list of wifi network to choose from there should be an OFF button. Otherwise a series of taps is required to turn it off.
Why it won’t happen? There has to be a nefarious reason it hasn’t been added since people realized how helpful it would be back in June 07. My guess: Apple is appeasing AT&T. Omit a super-convenient way to turn Wifi off and users are less likely to burden AT&T’s network.

Camera Shutter Release
Make the physical volume buttons a shutter release for the camera. Please.

Conventional Speed Dialing
Press and hold a digit on the numeric keypad. You could assign a speed-dial number to entries inside your Favorites. Single digits can be easier to spot and tap if you’re running or holding a puppy or something.

Non-destructive Video Editing.
Heard this is on the way. They should add non-destructive photo cropping while they’re at it.

Stacks
I don’t have tons of pages of apps, but some people do and this would be useful. A folder icon full of apps on the home screen that reveals its contents when held. Some users would find stacks a more convenient way to store Safari bookmarks. Like Murphy.

Overall, the iPhone 3GS exceeds my expectations. But we always want more. Right?