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View Poll Results: Growl notification useful to you?
I'm purring like a kitten. 35 83.33%
Your attempt at notification has become tiresome. 7 16.67%
Voters: 42. You may not vote on this poll

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  #16  
Old 07-13-2006, 06:48 PM
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dnanian dnanian is offline
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Thanks for your feedback, Michael.

I really don't know what you mean by "can't choose scripts". The script can be picked in the 3rd pop up. You need not confirm it in WGTH? -- it's right there in the pop-up.

Perhaps I don't understand what you mean.
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  #17  
Old 07-27-2006, 01:04 PM
kbradnam kbradnam is offline
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Logging, emailing, and Growl

Hi David,

I've installed Growl but I still can't see an easy way to have reports emailed to me (or just whether the backup was successful or not). Should I be able to set this up via the Growl system preferences?

Thanks,

Keith

P.S. I tried searching the SuperDuper help but there was no mention of Growl
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  #18  
Old 07-27-2006, 01:13 PM
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Hi, Keith. No, it only tells you if the backup worked or not. There's no option to mail a report at present.

(And, you're right, I haven't updated the manual to talk about Growl yet -- will hopefully get to it next big dot-release.)
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  #19  
Old 07-28-2006, 10:38 PM
edoates edoates is offline
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What I did prior to growl (which can not only put something on the screen or send email, but can append to a log of your choosing), was to include logging in all of my scripts: I just appended lines to a plain text file so it looked like this:

2006-07-28 19:13:47 Script A started
2006-07-28 19:13:48 Volume x mounted
2006-07-28 19:13:49 SuperDuper Started
2006-07-28 19:14:32 SuperDuper completed with no error
2006-07-28 19:14:33 Volume x unmounted
<>

Each log series ended with an extra line for readability; on errors, the "completed" entry was had ***** appended clueing me to examine the SD logs.

Now, I use Growl logging (and mailme) to accomplish the same goal which is satisfactory for me. A Growl log entry looks like this:

2006-07-28 01:30:03 -0700 SuperDuper! registered
2006-07-28 01:30:03 -0700 Growl: Application re-registered (SuperDuper! registered) - Priority 0
2006-07-28 01:40:15 -0700 SuperDuper!: SuperDuper! Copy Succeeded (Copy of Eds Office to Eds Office Backups was successful.) - Priority 0

Ed
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  #20  
Old 08-15-2006, 10:06 AM
essexhill essexhill is offline
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Too many unpredictables...

Quote:
Originally Posted by msadesign
David,

No, I won't get what I need, or what anybody serious about backing up needs, and here is why:

This product is one of two, really, that give you a clone-backup. As such, the product has a natural home in the front line of data management, and I think depending on a third party for a simple logging function is second-rate, at best.

SuperDuper is a very robust application. It has a clever interface that has made some of the maddening choices involving backups really very simple.

It has a few seriou rough edges, mostly, in my view, from apparent developer-desire to make the thing friendlier, but sometimes an experienced manager will be left wondering exactly what it is doing.

An example of this is the default window, from which one can select the source and target, but from which cannot select scripts. Another example is the fact that you can tell SD to do something that is exactly the same thing as a pre-defined script, but you are not alerted to this fact. Taken together, these two user experiences mean that every time I use the app I have to re-read What's Going to Happen, making sure I am running my script; and I also have to re-confirm the choices. This is a waste of time and more significantly it introduces a possiblity of error. Error is not allowed.

Additionally, every time I start the app I wonder to myself: has the most recent script run? have all of the scripts run? And there is no way to tell. The default Log is far too verbose for this simple and essential function. It needs a summary of each thing that SD is doing.

And now, with the Growl solution, I need more window clutter to tell me- what? " SD Copy Succeeded- Copy of A to B was successful" is what Growl says. What does this mean in a serious environment where scripts are thoughtfully crafted? nothing.

What is needed is: 'Script A was completed at 5 PM today'. This must be in the SD Log window. It needs to identify the script that I made because then I know it did what I need: it backed up my data.

And I definately do not want Growl windows cluttering things, with the chance of an errant click dismissing an important message. All Growl does is add a convenient but untrustworty notification. And what if there is a problem with Growl, or with the mechanism that SD uses to talk to Growl? How will I know what has happened?

I use the software. I paid for the software. I recommend the software. I just don't fully trust it, for the above UI reasons. Call me crazy. But we back up stuff to be absolutely sure, right?

Respectfully,

Michael
I'm with Michael on this one. Surely it could easily appear in the drop down menu that tells SD what to do once is has finished. Personally I want only to receive an email telling me what happened and when. What I don't want is to have to use another piece of software to do this. SD needs to be confident enough to give this information all by itself, with no other 3rd party hand-holding. It is tricky enough hoping/relying on clients not to tit about with these things whilst you are not sitting at their desks!

ceh
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  #21  
Old 08-15-2006, 10:20 AM
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Thank you for your suggestion and feedback.
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  #22  
Old 08-17-2006, 10:13 PM
jonathanpberger jonathanpberger is offline
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SD is for Back-Ups, not notifications

Growl is a robust notification system that's used by a large number of Mac power users. There's every reason to expect that 1) it'll continue to be dvlped and supported, and 2) many if not most SD users already employ Growl.

I'd way rather have David spend his limited resources developing Super Duper as a backup utility, and focusing on keeping my data safe. Duplicating work on notification isn't a good use of his time. Its way better to hook SD into growl, and then let the Growl guys develop the notification utility.
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  #23  
Old 08-29-2006, 03:19 AM
MacMedix MacMedix is offline
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Arrow Logs & Email reports

Growl requires Tiger or higher. I'm on Panther. So Growl is not useful to me at this time. I would very much like to see SuperDuper have a simple log with simple entries such as:

Auto Launched SuperDuper at 11pm,
Script A ran at [time] [date], successful.

or
Manual launch of SuperDuper 3pm
Smart Update of [source] to [target] was successful. Duration 21 minutes.


I have recommended SuperDuper to few hundred people(really!), and I have actively bought or leaned on at least dozen of my clients to buy SuperDuper. I do this because it's very well done, reliable and easy for people to use. I'm especially happy that SD can mount unmounted FW drives to back up to, then put them away. This is wonderful, and keeps people out of trouble.

I REALLY NEED an email notification that their back up was successful or not. So many people don't deal well with backups, and I'm really fighting for their futures. SD is an important tool in that regard. It would be so much more complete with a 1st party email notification built in. I really don't want to depend on anything external. I just want it all in one place. It's too important to farm out.

I would like to bring a really easy email sending tool to your attention. It is freeware and it's very small and very useful!
Check out the mail-framework called pantomime, that supports PLAIN, LOGIN and CRAM-MD5 for authenticated mail sending. You will find an excellent implementation of it built into Julian Mayor's freeware SMARTReporter (606k). I feel certain that he would willingly share his tricks in integrating pantomime into SD!. He was kind enough to change his SMartReporter program to support authenticated sending through my email server of choice, and to also allow sending to multiple email addresses. Both extremely useful features. Julian has done a fantastic job with this, and I think you'll also be impressed with his clean and simple user interface.

Adding a 100% reliable email notification (that works in Panther & above) is my #1 feature request!!!
http://www.collaboration-world.com/pantomime
http://homepage.mac.com/julianmayer/

I hope this helps, and I hope you can add the built in email sending using Pantomime.
Many Thanks!
Dave Nathanson
Mac Medix
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  #24  
Old 08-29-2006, 05:32 PM
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Growl runs on 10.3.9 or higher, Dave.
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  #25  
Old 08-29-2006, 07:52 PM
MacMedix MacMedix is offline
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Email Notification

Quote:
Growl runs on 10.3.9 or higher, Dave
Oh, so it does. That's better. Sorry about that- I thought I remembered it differently. But that doesn't change the rest of my position about needing a robust email notification built into SuperDuper.

From what I read of the docs, Growl is not quite going to be useful for me. Recall that I want to receive email notifications from other non-local Macs to be sure they have been backed up successfully (or not).

After reading the Growl forums & documentation, I can see that we really need something just a little bit more configurable than Growl currently offers. Growl apparently only allows smtp sending via port 25. (an often blocked port). I need authenticated sending, I need a choice of port number, and Ideally the choice of using the internal SMTP server, AppleMessage Framework, or an external smtp server. (Actually I am ok with just an external SMTP server but other people's situation will be different). I am impressed with the capability and clean interface of Julian Mayer's freeware "SMARTReporter" which implements the free mail framework of Pantomime.

I can't trust people not to mess with their AppleMail settings. I want a single place to go to set up the email notification, and I really need it to not be affected by external updates. I feel strongly that the correct place for this is built into SuperDuper. However, if Growl could offer the robust configurablity that the 600k SMARTReporter does, than I would totally consider that as well.

Take a look at these SMARTReporter screen shots below. It's a clean interface and easy to use. There is a "send test email" function. You may send notifications to multiple email addresses. You may configure the report message. (Important for sending to SMS or pagers which truncate). The whole program including this mail sending function is only 600k. Seems like it might be a relatively easy way to implement robust email reporting. Thanks for listening.

I hope this helps.
Best,
Dave Nathanson






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  #26  
Old 09-22-2006, 09:04 PM
bammi bammi is offline
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SD is Growling inconsistently

Thanks for the growl feature. I am using the latest SD, under 10.4.7 both ppc and on an intel with the same odd behavior. If i run SD by hand, i get a email notification from growl, this is consistent (and proves that my setup/configuration is fine). When my scheduled SD run finishes, i get no growl email. I know my scheduled run happened because i can see it in the logs. There has to be a good explaination of this. (i suspect that the scheduled job is running as a different user ID than me).

Wishes
-- growl reports status of job completion
-- growl email contains the last log.

thanks
Jwahar Bammi
________
mac game

Last edited by bammi; 01-20-2011 at 08:46 PM.
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  #27  
Old 09-22-2006, 09:44 PM
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dnanian dnanian is offline
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The Growl feature for scheduled runs was added in the script, so if your schedule was created earlier it won't trigger growls. So, delete and recreate your scheduled copies.

Then, make sure the scheduled copy notifications are turned on (there are separate notifications for scheduled and manual runs).

Hope that helps!
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  #28  
Old 10-16-2006, 05:34 AM
ministry ministry is offline
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Hi!

Still like to see an answer from one of the developers on the posts of Michael and MacMedix about email notification and the 'logfile showing' feature.
thnx!
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  #29  
Old 10-16-2006, 10:35 AM
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We don't preannounce things, ministry, sorry. Not commenting doesn't mean that we either approve or disapprove of the suggestion, though.

I understand that this is something that a small percentage of our users want, though, and appreciate the comments.
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  #30  
Old 10-16-2006, 12:13 PM
ministry ministry is offline
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Don't get me wrong, Still like SD big time! Didn't want an announcement of some kind, just curious to know how you see these things during development or when you are behind the drawing board.
But it's too bad that it is only a small percentage.
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