Finders Keepers

For people who run Web sites, one of the most important applications that you use on a daily basis is an FTP client. I’ve written about Filezilla in the past on this weblog, about how it’s a great (and free) FTP client. Filezilla 3, the latest version of the client, is multi-platform — it works on Windows, Linux as well as OS X.

Filezilla 3 works really well, but looks — let’s be honest here — quite unpleasant. The default icon set, progress bars, etc. are terrible. But that’s not really a big deal for Windows and Linux users, as they can change the default icon set easily. I haven’t really found a good way to do the same for Filezilla on OS X.

As far as free, open-source FTP clients for OS X go, Cyberduck seems to be a popular choice. I’ve been using Cyberduck for a while now, and barring the occasional crash while transferring large files, it’s quite a good client. Transmit seems to be the best, most reliable, and most popular client amongst Mac OS X users — and for good reason. It sports a rather slick, usable interface, and lets you get your work done quickly and without any fuss. It is also, I think, the only FTP client for OS X that supports browsing files using the column view — very cool. Transmit costs $29.95 — totally worth the price — but if you wouldn’t like to spend money on an FTP client, then it’s (obviously) not for you.

A couple of days ago, I just stumbled on probably the best FTP client for OS X users. It’s totally free, has the best (in terms of both, looks as well as usability) interface amongst all FTP clients, and is blazing fast. And you don’t even need to install anything. Sound too good to be true?

Hold that thought.

I’m talking about The Finder, of course — the default file manager that comes with Mac OS X. Most long-time Mac users probably know about this functionality, but I was surprised that people don’t really talk about it that much. I mean, I’m using OS X Leopard, and I was able to connect to my FTP server (which was mounted as a network share in The Finder). I was able to browse files using column view (nearly as fast as browsing my local files) and also using Cover Flow. I was able to preview all files on my FTP server using Quick Look. Did I mention browsing files was really, really fast?

I mean, really, I was surprised that people don’t use or talk that much about The Finder as an FTP client.

And then I found out that it doesn’t support uploading files to your server.

Talk about being a spoilsport. Gah. It only supports downloading files from your FTP server, i.e. read-only access. Why would they not support writing to an FTP server? What the hell?

Here is a little bit of a screenshot tour of connecting to an FTP client using The Finder, if you’re interested. Read-only access has never looked better.

By the way, in case you were wondering, this post is missing something important. You know, that thing that people look for at the end of a long, rambling blog post. What’s the term… oh, yeah. A point. There isn’t really a point to this post. Thanks for reading, though.

But while you’re here, I’d love to know what FTP clients you guys use on your OS/platform. I know that some of you like using a combination of a text editor and FTP client — Kate/Konqueror, Coda/Transmit, Smultron/Cyberduck, etc. What do you use?

Note: Linux users can avail of the same functionality present in The Finder. They can connect to a remote server using their file manager (Nautilus, Konqueror), and it works very well. The only difference is, with Linux, you can upload as well as download files. So, not really the same functionality, I guess.

No, I’m not bitter. Just saying.

Filezilla 3 for Linux

Filezilla is, without a doubt, one of the best free FTP clients available. Until a couple months ago, it was only available for Windows. When I switched to Linux, it was one of the few Windows applications I missed. I tried various FTP clients for Linux, such as KFTPGrabber and Konqueror (on KDE) and gFTP (on GNOME), but they just didn’t seem to measure up to Filezilla.

I just discovered the other day that with version 3, Filezilla has been re-written from the ground up and is now a multi-platform FTP client. The current version, 3.0.1, is quite stable, and is now available for Windows, OS X and Linux.

If you’re a Ubuntu user, you can easily install Filezilla from Applications > Add/Remove. Just a warning: the default icons for Filezilla 3 are quite ugly, and you’ll want to get rid of them soon. I suggest that you download this Tango icon pack for Filezilla, log in as root and simply replace the icons in your /usr/share/filezilla/resources/16×16/ directory with the new ones. You might want to back up the default icons before replacing them.

Sexy, smooth fonts on (K)Ubuntu

One of the things that we take for granted when we work on computers is the way text looks. Fonts are just “supposed” to look good, irrespective of what operating system you’re using. There’s been a lot of debate of late about Windows and OS X font rendering and which is better. There are some basic differences in the way fonts are rendered on both the platforms, and there isn’t really any ‘absolute’ better technique — it all comes down to personal preference. Some people prefer Microsoft’s ClearType font rendering (or no anti-aliasing at all), and others prefer OS X’s smoothly-rendered fonts.

A lot of people seem to think that font rendering on Linux is crappy. And judging from some of the screenshots you see online, I wouldn’t blame them. My first encounter with Linux was about three years ago, when I installed openSUSE. The way fonts were rendered on that was terrible, and that made for a really bad user experience. I hated opening Web sites or a text document on openSUSE. Needless to say, I got rid of it quite soon, and decided that I wasn’t going to touch Linux again for a long time, especially if the font rendering, something which is (and should be) taken for granted, was that bad.

After a while I started using Kubuntu. The installation was extremely painless (as opposed to the five-CD install of openSUSE), I was able to set up a dual-boot system within 15 minutes (I’m not kidding, and I usually manage to screw up these things). The default font rendering on Kubuntu wasn’t great either, but then I started looking for ways to make it better. That’s the thing about Linux — if you don’t like something, anything, you can change it. I was quickly able to find some tutorials online that helped me fine tune the font rendering, and now text looks excellent. Arial has never looked so good.

Here are some screenshots so you can see for yourself:

- PCWorld.com on Windows XP
- PCWorld.com on OS X
- PCWorld.com on Kubuntu

As you can see, the font rendering on OS X and Kubuntu is similar, but I prefer Kubuntu’s font rendering slightly more. But again, that depends on your personal preference. It was quite easy for me to tweak the settings and make fonts look that good.

If you’re using Kubuntu, or its GNOME counterpart Ubuntu, and if you want your fonts to look that good, I’m going to make it really simple for you. I am offering my font configuration file for you to use for free. You can download the text file by right-clicking on the image below (Save Link As, fontsconf.txt).

Once you’ve downloaded the file, do the following:

1. Move the file to your user home directory (/home/user/). For example, if your username is ‘joe’, copy or move the file to the /home/joe/ directory.

2. Rename the file (through the right click menu, or press F2) from ‘fontsconf.txt’ to ‘.fonts.conf’ (note the period at the beginning).

3. Restart X (press Ctrl + Alt + Backspace).

Now when you log in again, you should be looking at super-smooth, great-looking fonts. It’s that simple. If you do download the file and use it, please post a comment here and tell me what you think.

Edit: Alex has posted a Spanish version of this guide on his blog. You can find the translated guide here.

This technique should work on other Debian-based distributions as well, but I haven’t tested it properly. I have only tested it on Kubuntu and Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn). If you’d like to test it on other Debian-based systems, please go ahead and tell me whether it works.

Windows Server 2003 on Linux.com

Bulletproof reliability connects 400,000 gamers worldwide
“Windows Server 2003 provided not only reliability … but also productivity in a 64-bit environment, and cost efficiency. It was an easy choice to make,” says NCsoft director Kwak, Soon-wook. Story continues.

I just saw that advertisement for Windows Server 2003 on Linux.com, a Web site that prides itself on being “everything Linux and Open Source”. Funny. And slightly weird. Check out this screenshot and see for yourself.

Feisty Fawn: The best Kubuntu yet

I just upgraded to Kubuntu v7.04 (a.k.a. ‘Feisty Fawn’) yesterday, and I have to say this is by far the best version of Kubuntu yet. I totally love it. I love launching applications using Katapult, I love the cool transition effects, I love the new default styles. Most of this stuff was there in Edgy as well, but Feisty Fawn just seems to be so much smoother. Also, there are some better features for system, network and printer management.

I’ve also installed PHP, MySQL, PHPMyAdmin and Apache server on the machine, and I’m learning to build (from scratch) database-driven Web applications using PHP and MySQL. Any tips?

Word of advice: If you’re using Kubuntu 6.10 (’Edgy Eft’) right now and want to upgrade, do not use the upgrading method that’s mentioned on the Ubuntu Web site. I tried upgrading using the built-in upgrading tool in Edgy, and it screwed up my system. The best way is to back up your ‘home’ directory, and re-install from a CD. You can download Kubuntu for free over here.

Kubuntu CD photograph courtesy Basajaun.