Well, I know that there are some requests for features in Toucan, so I thought I'd group them all here so that I don't lose any. Oh and yes I know that 1.0 isn't out yet, I sent John an e-mail about that yesterday so hopefully that should get moving. Currently I have the following additions for 1.1:
- A job manager
- The ability to retain folder timestamps
- An inbuilt updater
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How can I know what the features for 1.0 are?
What I need may already be there.
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Life is about the journey not the destination!
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The Kazoo Spartan
Life is about the journey not the destination!
The Kazoo Spartan
they are the same as the PUSS 2.0 RC2, but with all the known bugs fixed.
Yours
Steve Lamerton
My Blog
When is Toucan hoping to be released for? I thought PUSS was brilliant and i am waiting for toucan to come out.
I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.-Stephen Hawking
Been away for awhile doing coursework.
Toucan would be complete for me if it had 2. above and 4.
4. The option to show a preview pane of what the current Sync or Backup job is going to do with check boxes down the side so you can alter it at the last minute (similar to WinSynch/Syncronize It!).
To have the ability to see what the prog is going to do before it actually does it is a massive confidence booster (and can help testing during development). It also allows one to check that one has set any filters or excludes correctly.
ok, that is a good idea, that'll go in as well.
Yours
Steve Lamerton
My Blog
I sent John an e-mail about that yesterday so hopefully that should get moving
Some how, I doubt that very much. You know what John's like with email
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Ryan McCue.
Blog.
So all that Airbus-delay trouble over here in Europe is because of YOU!
Simeon.
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
I know I haven't had any mail from him in about a month.
Yours
Steve Lamerton
My Blog
Hi Steve
Thank you very much for this great app!
While playing around with the security features I discovered some bug. Let me explain what I did:
1. Added a folder for testing purposes (works with any folder name)
2. Added a new text document in this folder using windows xp's context menu
3. Added a new bitmap file in this folder using windows xp's context menu
4. Opened PUSS 2.0 RC2 -> Security Tab
5. Choose the testing folder (step 1) to encrypt
6. Choose password "12345678"
7. Klicked "OK"
8. The bitmap file was deleted!!
I don't know if this bug (is it really one?) has already been reported.
Another thing:
Is it possible to "autostart" the PUSS decryption dialog on inserting the USB drive?
It seems to be a bug, however this is because the files are registered on the systems as having a 0 byte size. If you put some data in the files you should find that they encrypt fine. I'll add this as a known issue to the FAQ page of Toucan. Thanks for finding it!!!
Yours
Steve Lamerton
My Blog
is anyone interested in a system tray entry?
Yours
Steve Lamerton
My Blog
but I don't think it is necessary because neither encryption nor backup nor sync is something you would do permanently and so IMHO it is not necessary. But if the effort isn't too big, why not.
"There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you 'play' with them!" - Richard Feynman
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
Not necessary, like Simeon said, but I would like that. I prefer most of my apps to go into the system tray.
"If there was a Genesis Flood, you would find billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth. What do you find? Billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth."
Ken Ham
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rick Cook
I guess this is really a buglet in PUSS 2.0 but I would love it be fixed for Toucan 1.1.
All my Compact Flash cards, SD cards, USB flash drives and portable HDDs, in addition to an identifying Volume name, have a zero byte sized file in root with a longer more meaningful name:
e.g ~ M05 16MB CF BOOT UFD ~, ~ M23 1GB SD+USB ~, ~ M54 6G HDD ~
The zero byte size thing stems from days with the HP200LX & DOS when size really did matter!
Anyway I've checked that you can add a zero byte file to a 7z archive, and of course you can copy and paste a zero byte file in Windows Explorer, so I guess it's a PUSS problem
it just didn't encrypt 0 byte files?
Yours
Steve Lamerton
My Blog
Why would you want to exclude 0 byte files from an encrypted set? There is obviously no contents to encrypt
but they should exist as zero byte files. My Cryptainer PE vaults handle them ok.
Hi Steve.
If you don't already cover directory timestamps you probably don't already have synching/backing-up of directory attributes as well. Doing that will allow XP directories to retain their customized icons look in Explorer.
Steve and John, what is the status of Toucan? Is it going to be released soon?
I'll put Prerelease 1 up on Ryans server today or tomorrow as John is going through one of his ignore Steve phases
Yours
Steve Lamerton
My Blog
me the translation file or isn't there anything new to translate???
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts” - Richard P. Feynman
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
going to wait for the 1.0 Final as there might be a couple more string changes coming, but I'll send it along anyway.
Yours
Steve Lamerton
My Blog
Send it but I will only translate it for my own testing purposes and not send it back till the final thing is out, OK?
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts” - Richard P. Feynman
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
it'll be tomorrow, the coding it mostly done but I need to do some more testing and update the manual.
Yours
Steve Lamerton
My Blog
Yes! This is, like, the next PAM version! (I'm such a nerd :wink:)
"America has never been an empire. We may be the only great power in history that had the chance, and refused – preferring greatness to power and justice to glory."
George W. Bush
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rick Cook
If you get it up on the server, make sure and post a link!
I wouldn't post it and then wait for you to find it!
Yours
Steve Lamerton
My Blog
Found It
Hi, how do I translate Toucan? Have you already got a Spanish translation?
The Toucan support page said to proceed to the SF download page, but I couldn't find anything there. (Well... I found the source code in the SVN, but isn't there a faster way than reading the sources?)
Also, a great feature would be a scheduler, so that once you have saved a job, you can schedule it to be done daily, weekly, on a certain date and time, etc.
This can already be done by using a separate scheduler, and telling it in the command line what job to execute, but it'd be nice to have it integrated. Also, I don't know if this is so in Windows, but in Unix like systems it is regarded as highly unsecure to type passwords in the command line, (for very good reasons) so having an integrated scheduler would be a way of encrypting without having the password go into a shell at any time.
And another little request: it would be nice to have a "Help" button on each tab, and when you hit it, to have the help open on the page about that tab.
no Spanish as yet, if you email me at steve(dot)lamerton(at)gmail(dot)com I can set you up for the translations. I'll look at a scheduler but I'm not sure how it would work portably. As for the passwords it was either that or put it in the job file, which do you think would be better? As for the help button, I'll see what I can do.
Yours
Steve Lamerton
My Blog
Well... I don't know... Sometimes what the do in Linux is use a text file that only says the password, or at most something like:
user=johndoe
password=********
and restrict the permissions on that file, and tell the command to read it from that file. If someone else manages to find out the exact command line used to start that program (relatively easy), it will be useless to him, because when he tries it, it will fail to open the file and override file permissions is a lot more difficult, unless you've got root (ie: admin privileges).
But most USB drives use FAT, so no file permissions... Perhaps in a file encrypted with a master password... but where to store that password?... I don't know...
I guess if the password is stored together with Toucan, no the removable drive, it's just a matter of making it clear to the user that the password is there, and leave it to him or her to take the security precautions deemed necessary (True Crypt, OTFE, encryption with Toucan...)
The scheduler could take the form of an icon in the System Tray. Every time it starts a job, it flags it started in it's "database" and every time it completes a job it flags it completed. So when it starts it can check for started but not completed (ie: interrupted) jobs and for jobs due to start while it was not running and ask the user.
Another great feature would be to be able to program jobs to be done at connection of the USB or at disconnection. (Or at least at start up of Toucan and at shut down). Oh! And a pony! Don't forget the pony!
I'm writing to you about the translation.
I'll put the password in the job file in 1.1 and make it clear that you need to keep is safe in some way. As for the pony, I'll see what I can do
Yours
Steve Lamerton
My Blog
Hi Steve,
it would be a good idea to have auto-backup & auto-synchronize function built in Toucan. Maybe a function to add individual files rather than whole folders and then extracting what is unnecessary?
BTW, would you be interested in having Toucan translated into Polish?
Best regards,
Wichura
the translations, just contact me at the address about and I'll set you up!
Yours
Steve Lamerton
My Blog
Additional Backup types - incremental and differential.
These to produce new archives auto-timestamp-named for those of us that like to keep all versions of files
Did Steve see this? Any chance these might go on the list?
I saw it! I am really just waiting to get 1.0 out the door so that I can be sure the bugs are fixed before moving on, unfortunately John is STILL IGNORING ME.
___
'...and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard...' JFK
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I'm looking forward to the release of 1.0, as presumably you will be releasing the source? I might be able to help in the future if you wish.
actually all up on SVN at the moment:
http://portableapps.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/portableapps/
___
'...and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard...' JFK
My Blog
You/John forgot to tell me we could get SVN access!
Pfft.
----
Ryan McCue.
Blog.
So all that Airbus-delay trouble over here in Europe is because of YOU!
Simeon.
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
not recent, its been there for 2 months or so, that how I know how long ago the last email was
___
'...and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard...' JFK
My Blog
It would be really nice if it would be possible to compress backup with a password. (as far as i know it can be applied to both zip and 7z)
Have you thought about that?
Thanks for "listening"!
Damjan
Accidently set the rsync (mirror) to My Documents, deleted everything in it
Lost my .w3x which I was working on, and my 156 episodes of TTZ.
all is re-receivable, but was annoying
(deleted my forums' backup too, however for security's sake I kept it on a special flash drive hidden in my house).
Can it *not* delete everything that's in the folder that you set it to?
as to how this is coming along? I downloaded 1.0 prerelease 5 and played with it some, but am looking forward to some of the enhancements mentioned earlier; especially a preview pane prior to execution of the sync process.
I use ViceVersa Pro on my home computers, but would like something small and portable like this for my flash drives. Looking forward to the official release.
Regards,
It's basically ready for release, Steve's just waiting for John.
Dunno about those features though.
----
Ryan McCue.
Blog.
So all that Airbus-delay trouble over here in Europe is because of YOU!
Simeon.
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
I'm actually a good way into version 1.1, and you'll see most of the ideas on this page in it, although I am still undecided on the preview pane.
___
'...and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard...' JFK
My Blog
on the preview pane as in whether or not you'll have one? No preview pane would be a deal breaker for me. I'm not comfortable with making wholesale changes to my system without seeing what it's going to do before it does it. I'll look for another alternative if that's the case.
Regards,
I've just realised that because I have completely rewritten the way that Toucan works (a major refactor if ever there was one) it'll actually be pretty easy to add a preview pane. I'll probably only put it in for sync to start off with however.
___
'...and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard...' JFK
My Blog
Why not add the possibility to let the user decide if he want's to see the preview pane or doesn't?
Another thing:
https://portableapps.com/node/5687#comment-41399
That's quite interesting and would be a nice feature to integrate in Toucan. Why not integrate secure deletion if there is already encryption?
be a checkbox so that you can decide, as for secure file deletion that's on the to-do list.
___
'...and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard...' JFK
My Blog
Is it possible to sync specific files into the host computer then upon ejection un-sync the syncronized files. For example i would like to copy some font files into windows font folder and then removed those files from the host when im ready to eject my drive. Is there a way to auto do this every time i start PAM or Toucan?