Tao Effect

My favorite Twitter client is EventBox by The Cosmic Machine. And while it has a million great features like support for Instapaper and a great interface, it’s missing one critical piece of functionality and that is support for multiple profiles. However, it’s still possible to use EventBox with multiple profiles, but perhaps not at the same time.

One solution is a great little program called rooSwitch. It can be used with EventBox to give you the ability to switch between different isolated profiles, each with its own settings. You could configure rooSwitch with multiple EventBox profiles, say for example one for each Twitter account that you use:

While rooSwitch is great, I don’t have much use for it besides switching EventBox profiles, and I’m a terminal fiend anyway, so I wrote a simple newLISP script called ebswitch that does this for me. Here’s an example session:

$ ebswitch
ebswitch version 0.2
Usage: /usr/local/bin/ebswitch twitter_profile_name
$ ebswitch espionageapp
taoeffect => espionageapp
Creating fresh account for: espionageapp
Successfully switched to profile: espionageapp
    ... EventBox opens, enter 'espionageapp' login information ...
$ ebswitch taoeffect
Quit EventBox? [y|n]: y
espionageapp => taoeffect
Successfully switched to profile: taoeffect

Installing ebswitch

ebswitch is a newLISP script, so to use it you’ll need to make sure that newLISP is installed (Intel/PPC), and don’t worry, one of the great things about newLISP is how small it is. Then, after downloading ebswitch to your Desktop, install it into your /usr/local/bin (or /usr/bin) like so:

$ cd ~/Desktop
$ sudo install ebswitch.lsp /usr/local/bin/ebswitch
Password: enter admin password

Enjoy!

Update: ebswitch 0.2 adds more intelligence and can now quit EventBox for you.

Espionage 2.0.8 is primarily a bugfix update to 2.0.7:

• FIXED: Issue relating to ACLs and “fixing folders” introduced in 2.0.7
• FIXED: Issue where help for application associations would require an internet connection
• IMPROVED: Address Book template sets AddressBook folder to autounlock by default
• IMPROVED: Changed Adium template to encrypt entire app support folder (fixes issue w/its auto-update)

One note worth mentioning is that if you’ve encrypted Adium with Espionage, you may want to re-encrypt it using the new version, as the new version now encrypts the entire Adium 2.0 folder as opposed to just the Users folder, and this may fix an issue that could arise with Adium’s auto-update.

Since they were released so close to one another, you may wish to read what’s new in 2.0.7 if you haven’t yet.

Update: Cloak 1.1! + Artists: Win an Espionage license!

The other day we received a nice email from Nenette asking us whether Espionage could hide its encrypted folders. While Espionage does not have this capability, the desired effect is achievable by placing the Espionage’d folder inside of a hidden folder.

There are two main methods of making a file or folder invisible in Mac OS X:

I began a search to find a program that I could recommend to accomplish this task, but wasn’t able to find one to my liking. Racing against our self-imposed 24-hour support-response time limit, I managed to whip out Cloak¹:

The application itself should hopefully be intuitive enough as to be self-explanatory, although one tip is that you can open a file or folder by double-clicking on it.

With regards to Espionage, it should be noted that hiding an encrypted folder is not necessary, as without the password to the folder (or the master password) its contents are not visible, nor can they be accessed. Still, maybe someone will find this application useful.

Enjoy!

¹Originally it was called “Invisinator”, but my good friend Lizzy suggested Cloak, a far less stupid sounding name.

Espionage 2.0.7 is finally here, and for a “minor” update, it packs decent punch. If you’ve been waiting to update, you should do so now as 2.0.7 adds many improvements and important fixes:

• NEW: Added app templates for The Hit List, OmniFocus, and Bento
• NEW: You can lock a folder simply by ejecting it (convenient for Path Finder users)
• NEW: Templates have preliminary support for dependencies (ex: Address Book data -> Mail)
• NEW: Templates now automatically disable Spotlight for folders that don’t need it
• NEW: Initial appearance of status menu item. Currently only “Backup Now” available, more to come
• FIXED: Possibly fixed a situation where helper could hang if there were too many items to autounlock
• FIXED: Situation on some machines preventing the encryption of folders in Home folder like Documents (thanks Pol!)
• FIXED: Added Mail Downloads folder to Mail association template (thanks Pol!)
• FIXED: Removed logging of unnecessary error message related to custom icons
• FIXED: Bug preventing custom icon from showing while folder is locked
• FIXED: Situation that could prevent external disks from unmounting
• FIXED: Situation in which settings for the wrong folder are shown after a folder is removed from Espionage
• FIXED: Table view not being key after an operation completed
• FIXED: Situation that could prevent proper uninstall on expired trial using separate keychain
• FIXED: Issue relating to helper stop/start preference not being set correctly
• FIXED: Issue relating to start/stopping helper where folders would be incorrectly displayed as being unlocked
• FIXED: Issue related to opening an association during the opening of another one
• IMPROVED: Added built-in check for Logitech Control Center
• IMPROVED: Improved aesthetics of some alerts
• IMPROVED: Modified File menu for clarity
• IMPROVED: Removed auto-backup on mount, use status menu “Backup Now” instead
• IMPROVED: Added ACLs to protect folders while they’re disabled (hopefully preventing some “Saved Folder” situations)
• IMPROVED: Added extra warning to prevent users from removing suggested associations from new folder sheet
• IMPROVED: Behavior when logging out
• IMPROVED: Compatibility with MobileMe sync (though syncing manually and maintaining backups are strongly recommend)
• IMPROVED: Compatibility with ExpanDrive

Overview of Significant Changes

Removed auto-backup on mount

Perhaps a great example of how taking a step backward can be a step forward, we’ve removed the ‘auto-backup on mount’ feature that was introduced in 2.0.4. While convenient, it wasn’t a very good idea, as it could potentially lead to a good backup being inadvertently overwritten with a bad one.

Instead, Espionage now has a status menu item for this purpose:

Note: “Backup Now” will be disabled if the backup destination isn’t available, and as hinted by the menu itself, we plan on adding much more to it in a future update.

Eject to lock

Espionage will now also detect if a folder is ejected (as opposed to locked via the “Lock” contextual menu). This can be useful for Path Finder users who can choose to view Espionage’s unlocked folders in the sidebar:

MobileMe compatibility

Previous versions of Espionage could run into problems with MobileMe sync, this update should hopefully address those issues. If you use MobileMe Sync, we still strongly recommend that you make sure that you use Espionage’s backups to backup your data. If you still experience issues with MobileMe Sync and Espionage, then switch to manual sync and only sync when Espionage isn’t locking or unlocking data.

Template support for dependencies

Some application data is used by programs other than the application itself. A great example of this is Address Book, whose data is accessed by applications such as Mail, iCal, iChat, and others. We’ve therefore added these dependencies to the Address Book template as application associations to ensure that Address Book’s data is unlocked before any of these applications try to use it.

This means that if you encrypt Address Book using the template, Espionage will prompt you for the password when launching Mail, iCal, or iChat if the Address Book data is locked. You may therefore wish to set it to auto-unlock at login.

Spotlight disabled for folders that don’t need it

Some applications store their data in many folders, and not all of these folders need to have a Spotlight index. Therefore the templates now disable Spotlight for folders that don’t need it, improving performance when opening Espionage’d applications that store their data in many folders.

We will add a checkbox to toggle Spotlight support on a per-folder basis soon, but for now you can easily disable Spotlight for any Espionage’d folder by following these steps.

Enjoy!

P.S. Espionage is on twitter now, follow for Espionage related news.