Leopard is the next version of OSX due for release mid-next year. When first introduced to Mac developers a number of significant Leopard features were purposefully kept 'secret'. Perhaps one feature hinted at that is now beginning to appear in the latest development builds is support for the ZFS filesystem.

ZFS is a fantastic file-system developed by Sun Microsystems for use initially in their Solaris operating system. ZFS is arguably the most advanced, generally available file-system which supports massive disk sizes, unlimited file attributes, sophisticated volume management (including snapshots) and great RAID support. If these reports are true then it maybe an indication of how Leopard's Time Machine functionality maybe finally implemented. ZFS would provide a fast and efficient snapshot mechanism that would work far more efficiently compared to creating multiple standard backups or even incremental backups as what would be required using a conventional file-system.

Even if ZFS is not used in Time Machine it is still great to see such a file system will be available for OSX especially at the server level where the majority of ZFS features are targeted. Hopefully in the future we will see ZFS take the role of OSX's default operating system allowing the venerable HFS+ format to be finally retired.

In their efforts to 'innovate' (a.k.a. make it harder for people to use non-Microsoft products) it would appear that connecting to a Samba file server in Vista is not as easy as in prior versions of Windows. This BuilderAu post describes how to enable LM and NTLM authentication methods supported by Samba but disabled in Vista by default. It sounds like the Samba team are moving fast on getting Samba fully Vista compatible, unfortunately issues like this will effect NAS devices and servers not running the latest versions of Samba for a long time to come.

For the longest time finding a decent project management tool for OSX has been difficult, if not impossible depending on the features you require. Unfortunately even in the Windows world finding an alternative to the powerful but very expensive Microsoft Project is challenging. This is primarily because Microsoft Project pretty much owns the project management space in terms of the functionality provided and the level of lock-in demanded. Consequently with Microsoft not porting their application to OSX and alternatives lacking when it comes to functionality, usability and interoperability there is large void when it comes to the applicability of OSX to certain businesses. Fortunately the Omni Group have set out to change this fact with their first release of OmniPlan.

The Omni Group have a long history of making great OSX software, in fact they started out developing software for the NEXTSTEP operating system - the forerunner of OSX. Without their OmniGraffle diagram/vector drawing package my life would be a whole lot harder. Omni Group software consistently gets even die hard Windows users drooling because of its ease of use, looks and depth of functionality. The reason why the Omni Group make excellent OSX software is because their products are designed specifically for the graphical and interface conventions of OSX. As their software is not simply a port of a Windows version or designed from the outset to run on multiple platforms the applications always look fantastic, integrate extensively with other OSX services and run as smooth as silk. I have been playing with OmniPlan and at this early stage it looks like the Omni Group have managed to maintain their high standards when it comes to functionality, usability and aesthetics.

I have updated the Webmin theme to version 1.82 today. This release addresses issues with running Webmin behind an Apache (or similar) proxy.

There were a few instances in the theme were absolute hyperlinks were used instead of referencing the Webmin subdirectory parameter. If you are not running Webmin behind a proxy then this update will not effect you, however as this update may resolve proxy and VirutalMin related issues it is probably worthwhile updating if you are experiencing the occasional weird error.

Download from here: http://www.stress-free.co.nz/sites/default/files/theme-stressfree.tar.gz

I stream music and podcasts from the computers in the office into kitchen using an Airport Express unit. Whilst the Airport Express units are little pricey they are very versitile, the only problem being they do not come with any remote which results in a lot of trips backwards and forwards to adjust the volume and what is playing. I finally got sick of this and ordered an Keyspan Express Remote from TotallyMac.com. It turns out that the New Zealand office of TotallyMac.com is in Wellington and within a couple of hours of placing the order I had the remote in my hands (which was fantastic service).

Setting up the remote was a piece of cake as it plugs into the Airport Express via USB and sets itself up to work with iTunes automatically. The remote looks okay although it would have been much better if it had a more stylish look and feel similar to the Apple remote. However this is only a minor drawback considering the price and functionality delivered. If you own an Airport Express (or are thinking of getting one) I definitely recommend picking up one of these remotes in order to complete the experience.

I was interested to see a call by Tom of New Rowley for a home-orientated Mac server for storing all the digital music, video and photographs people are collecting. The product described by this post was very similar to the one I described as ideal for the small business sector a while back. It is nice to see that I am not completely crazy and that such a product would satisfy a couple of juicy markets. Whilst I do not think I would buy one for my house I am pretty sure an iServe for the home would be a lot better than the current crop of large external storage devices available for the average consumer.

Over the weekend I went away for a few days and halfway through the mini-holiday the web server decided to stop working, resulting in a couple of days downtime until I returned to Wellington. After this little incident I decided it was best to bite the bullet, pay the extra money and rent a hosted server. I had heard of Media Temple's GS product from a TechCrunch posting and it sounded very interesting. Rather than purchasing space on a server or operating a dedicated box your money bought you processing cycles on a grid-based server farm. This means that if things start to get busy the website does not stop, which can happen on a shared host environment if one site gets Dugg or Slashdotted.

Today the website was migrated to a Media Temple GS hosting account. For the next day or two things maybe a little unstable as the DNS changes get propagated.

The buzz around Web 2.0 may have only started in the last year or so but already industry commentators are putting their opinions in the hat for what will constitute Web 3.0? Such talk strikes me as more than a little premature and what is being discussed appears to be a regurgitation of the technologies proposed during the dot-com boom of the mid-nineties rather than original ideas on how to take what we have learned from the previous two incarnations of the Web.

Discussing Web 3.0 is premature because no one has come to grips with what exactly what the concept of Web 2.0 is right now. There are loose ideas of community, interaction and the writeable Web but no simple, easy to understand description has yet crystallised. Until this occurs its hard to tell where one set of conceptual ideas finishes and another begins. The bursting of the dot-com bubble signaled the end of one distinct period of Web development much like the K-T boundary marked the end of the dinosaurs (mostly). This intense moment of destruction followed by relative calm gave those on the Web time to pause, disseminate what came before and evaluate the best way forward.

To make matters worse discussion about what Web 3.0 could be appears to be centered around the relatively old concepts of the Semantic Web. Whilst a nice idea such arguments ignore the fact that Semantic Web ideas existed well before Web 2.0 concepts and in terms of realising these grand ideas not a great deal has changed. From a technical perspective the enabling technologies are still overly complicated and at a practical level no clear upgrade path exists from our current dumb Web to this idealised space (apart from millions of hours of painful, manual classification). Of greatest significance the Semantic Web relies on our ability to generate classification systems for many different forms of data. Given that a single office document standard cannot be agreed to and development of in-depth, domain specific semantic languages such as Industry Foundation Classes are stalled such a proposition seems far off.

Novell has officially ended development of Hula, its open source email server stack. For those involved in the Hula community the news was not unexpected but it will be a shame to see go what once promised to bring a breath of fresh air into the rather staid life of open source email and webmail services.

History

In its prior, closed source life Hula was named NetMail and was sold as a lite alternative to GroupWise for webmail users. Back in early 2005 Novell open sourced Hula to great fanfare and pitched the project as a concise and up to date alternative to the postfix/imapd/Squirrelmail stack dominant amongst most Linux email solutions. The idea was a good one, the existing stack is a pain to configure, disjointed and the Squirrelmail component is really showing its age. Hula offered a complete, concise and functional alternative that was well tested and had an exciting development path plotted out.

Unfortunately for Hula problems began to rise very quickly. The underlying mail storage engine had significant problems requiring a complete rewrite and the 'Web 2.0' style interface which promised to blow people away took forever to emerge. The consequences of these problems set the project back significantly. The rewritten engine whilst significantly improved lacked a stable migration path for existing Hula users, trapping many in older versions and causing others to think twice before deploying or even testing the system. Delays in the interface put Hula significantly behind in terms of user experience when compared to its competitors like GMail, Yahoo Mail, Zimbra, Scalix and RoundCube.