Another sneak peek: Backup Notification with Growl!

[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