Archive for the ‘releases’ Category

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iPhotoSync beta 15 is out!

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

Compared to beta 10, this release of iPhotoSync is much better about finding and ignoring duplicates. Specifically, it won’t retrieve a photo from the other computer if it has (as its original or modified photo) the other computer’s original or modified version of that photo. Also, for JPEGs it only considers the image data in determining duplicates; it skips the “metadata” including the “ColorSync profile” that iPhoto likes to embed when it imports.

It also has an “Ignore” feature so you can ignore some of the other computer’s photos instead of having to import them and then delete them.

To get the latest release you can pick “Check for Updates” from the iPhotoSync menu (if you’ve already installed it) or download it from here: http://www.haystacksoftware.com/iphotosync/iPhotoSync.zip.

The full release notes are available here: http://www.haystacksoftware.com/iphotosync/ips_release_notes.html

Posted in iPhotoSync, releases | No Comments »

iPhotoSync beta 10 is out!

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

iPhotoSync beta 10 is finally available!

Feature Additions

  • Password protection: Set a password in the Preferences and other computers will have to type it in to gain access to your photos.
  • For JPEG photos, compare image data only to detect duplicates. This means photos that look exactly the same but have slightly different metadata (such as embedded ColorSync profiles that iPhoto adds) will be treated as the same photo by iPhotoSync.

Fixed Bugs

  • Much less memory usage (still some work to do here).
  • Rewrote a significant portion of the code.

Get It

Pick “Check for Updates” from the iPhotoSync menu to update to the new version, or download it from here.

If you have feedback or questions, please email me at support@haystacksoftware.com. I would love to hear from you!

- Stefan

Posted in iPhotoSync, releases | No Comments »

Arq 1.5 is out!

Friday, July 16th, 2010

I’m really excited to ship Arq 1.5!

It includes scheduling options like once-per-day backups and manual-only (one of the most requested features) as well as Pause/Resume and Back Up Now functions. It also includes a whole bunch of refinements and bug fixes.

To get it, pick “Check for Updates” from the menu in Arq, or download it from the product page.

Here are the details:

Feature Additions

  • Configurable backup schedule: hourly, once/day at a certain time of day, or manually.
  • Back Up Now feature.
  • Pause backups for an amount of time you choose. Resume early if you wish. (‘Pause’ is better than ‘stop’ because you won’t have to remember to start it again).
  • Progress indicator next to the “Other Computers” heading in the source list (on the left side of the window) so you can tell when Arq is still scanning for other computers’ backups in the S3 data.
  • More informative status messages such as “Calculating upload size” and “Finishing backup” instead of just “Backing up …”
  • Better communication of error and warning conditions.
  • Estimated backup time is now calculated based on start of backup, not start of calculating upload size.
  • More accurate progress bar in 2 scenarios — when saving the “packs” of small files, and when re-doing an initial backup that was aborted.
  • More useful logging output when log level is set to Info.
  • Much faster loading when browsing backups.

Bug Fixes

  • More efficient caching of the set of objects in S3.
  • Fixed an issue where calculating the upload size for a backup was incomplete when a permission error was encountered.
  • Fixed issues with high memory usage in both Arq and Arq Agent.
  • Fixed an issue that was preventing the “Start at Login” preference from persisting.
  • Fixed 2 issues where packs weren’t being read correctly, leading to “object not found” errors.
  • Fixed regression bug in restoring file permissions correctly for root-owned files.
  • Fixed an issue where the folder’s progress bar was occasionally disappearing.
  • Fixed an issue with trying to read extended attributes on files that don’t support extended attributes.

Enjoy! If you have any feedback or questions I’d love to hear from you! Just email support@haystacksoftware.com. Thanks!

- Stefan

Posted in amazon, arq, releases, s3 | 7 Comments »

Arq 1.4.4 is out!

Friday, June 18th, 2010

This release fixes a bug that causes high CPU usage after Arq Agent has been running for many hours and there are backup errors (e.g. folder to be backed up isn’t available).

Pick “Check for Updates” from the Arq menu to automatically update to 1.4.4. Or download Arq here.

Posted in amazon, arq, releases, s3 | 5 Comments »

Arq 1.4.2 is out!

Friday, June 4th, 2010

This release fixes a few bugs:

Bug Fixes

  • Added a scroll view around the excludes list when it gets too long to fit on the screen.
  • Fixed ‘Signapore’ typo.
  • Fixed packaging to use symbolic links and remove header files (resulting in smaller app bundle size).

Pick “Check for Updates” from the Arq menu to automatically update to 1.4.2. Or download Arq here.

Posted in amazon, arq, releases, s3 | No Comments »

S3 storage now 33% cheaper!

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

Great news!

Amazon just announced “Reduced Redundancy Storage” (RRS) for S3. Objects stored with the RRS “storage class” are “99.99% durable over a given year,” whereas “standard” storage is 99.999999999% durable (overkill for backup for most people). Objects stored with RRS are only $.10/GB per month ($.11 in the Northern California region — see pricing) — a 33% savings!

Arq with RRS Support

Arq 1.4 is out with support for RRS! Pick “Check for Updates” in the Arq menu to automatically update, or download it from the Arq product page.

For new users of Arq the default is to use RRS. For current users Arq continues to use Standard storage (I didn’t want to assume everyone would want to make the switch).

Migrating to RRS

If you’re a current user, just install the update as described above, then go to the Budget tab of Preferences and check ”Use Reduced Redundancy storage class for new objects”:

Screen shot 2010-05-20 at 11.13.20 AM.png

If you want to convert your existing S3 objects to RRS, click the button “Update Storage Class of Existing Objects.” Arq will determine which storage class each object is in:

Picture 2.png

Click “Convert” to migrate:

Picture 3 copy.png

Enjoy the savings!

- Stefan

Posted in amazon, arq, releases, s3 | No Comments »

False alarm, and Arq 1.3.15

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

Sorry about that last blog post folks.

False Alarm

Turns out Arq 1.3.14 works fine. A customer had reported that his backups were gone right after he updated, and I thought I reproduced the problem, but it turns out I didn’t reproduce the problem, and furthermore it wasn’t actually a problem!

The customer had pushed the “Change Region” button in the Advanced section of the Preferences, and had chosen a different S3 region. When you choose a different region, Arq actually has to create a different S3 “bucket” (you can’t move an S3 bucket from one region to another). Arq doesn’t copy the configuration and data to the new bucket. It even says so on the “Change Region” dialog:

Screen shot 2010-05-13 at 4.10.07 PM.png

After a lot of emails back and forth I finally figured out that’s what happened. He neglected to mention that he had changed his S3 region.

My initial reaction was that this was a data-loss bug, and others should be warned so that others can avoid data loss. I’m not sure if I reacted correctly in this situation, and I apologize for the false alarm. I guess I need to relax and get all the facts before announcing to everybody that there’s a problem!

Arq 1.3.15

Another customer did uncover a legitimate bug however: in “30-day trial” mode, Arq acted as if the trial was expired, whether it was past 30 days or not.

Arq 1.3.15 fixes that bug.

Pick “Check for Updates” from the Arq menu to automatically update to 1.3.15, or download it from the web.

Posted in arq, backup, releases | No Comments »

Arq 1.3.14 problem

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

[UPDATE: Ignore this post. It was a false alarm. See the following post for details.]

The version of Arq that I just shipped has a bug which may cause it to drop old backup versions.

To everyone who already downloaded it, I sincerely apologize, and I’m working nonstop to fix it. I recommend you re-install version 1.3.11 by downloading it from here: http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/Arq_1.3.11.zip

You’ll need to stop Arq and Arq Agent, unzip the zip file and overwrite your Arq.app.

I reverted the main download link on the web site to point to 1.3.11 for the time being.

Again, I apologize, and I’ll write more as soon as it’s fixed.

- Stefan

Posted in arq, backup, releases | No Comments »

Arq 1.3.14 is out!

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

This release adds support for the Asia Pacific S3 bucket region “ap-southeast-1″ and fixes a number of bugs, including excessive memory usage and occasional temporary not-found errors on restore.

Feature Additions

  • “ap-southeast-1″ bucket region support.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed an issue where changes to folders on remote volumes sometimes weren’t detected.
  • Fixed the frantic behavior on agent startup when a folder is missing.
  • Fixed the frantic behavior on agent startup when the 30-day trial is over and Arq doesn’t have a valid license yet.
  • Allow 0 for a budget number. If budget is 0 (or any number less than the minimum space required for 1 backup of each folder), Arq keeps just 1 backup for each folder.
  • Show correct pricing numbers in budget preferences, using pricing of selected bucket region.
  • Fixed long-term memory usage issues in Arq Agent.
  • Log the error code and description when SecKeychainItemCreateFromContent fails (rare).
  • Fixed an issue that was causing occasional temporary “not found” errors on restore: When Arq backs up, it stores small files in “packs”. When a pack reaches 10MB, Arq saves it to S3. When it’s done backing up it saves the last pack in S3 too. The next time it backs up, it starts with that last pack and adds to it until it reaches 10MB, at which point it replaces that last pack with the new full-size pack. The restore process was trying to read from the pack that the backup process deleted (replaced with a different pack). If you restarted Arq and tried restoring again, it found the new pack and worked fine.

Pick “Check for Updates” from the Arq menu to automatically update to 1.3.14, or download it from the web.

Posted in arq, releases, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Arq 1.3.10 is out!

Monday, March 29th, 2010

This release fixes several bugs:

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed an issue with superceded packs not being deleted properly, causing “pack not found” errors.
  • Preserve selection when “OTHER COMPUTERS” node is added to the source list.
  • Fixed an issue with backup folder names that contain characters other than letters and numbers.
  • Remember the position of the main split view’s divider.

Pick “Check for Updates” from the Arq menu to automatically update to 1.3.10. Or download Arq here.

Posted in arq, releases | No Comments »

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