t-jacobs@wasatch.utah.edu (Tony Jacobs) (07/13/89)
5.1 Silverlining is out and it has some nice new features. It has a built in defragmenter, it let's you time the data transfer loops to see which is faster, it let you see the boot & driver partitions, it lets you create AUX partitions (there are 7 partition types for unix stuf), it lets you installdifferent drivers, you can have scratch & free space partitions. The defragmenter also works on other drives (even floppies!) and allows you to erase free space. You can convert older versions of Silverlining formated drives, it moves things around and does what it needs to. It freed up about 500k after the conversion. The defragmenting is pretty fast and shows the estimated time to completion. This software works on a number of different drives in case you don't have a LaCie and is the best disk formatter/manager I know of. It can be purchased seperately if you have a Non-LaCie drive. We have a dozen or more LaCie drives here where I work and I have recommended LaCies to a dozen or more friends. I'm also the first one to reccomend LaCie over a year and a half ago here on the net and I still think there one of the best. They use to be the cheapest but now have competition from Ehman and others. Disclamer: I have no connection with LaCie except as a satisfied customer of over 1-1/2 years. -- Tony Jacobs * Center for Engineering Design * UofU * t-jacobs@wasatch.utah.edu
chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (07/13/89)
t-jacobs@wasatch.utah.edu (Tony Jacobs) writes: >5.1 Silverlining is out and it has some nice new features. It has a built in >defragmenter, it let's you time the data transfer loops to see which is faster, >it let you see the boot & driver partitions, it lets you create AUX partitions It's supposed to let you create AUX partitions. We just got a copy in house and it doesn't work. We're talking to them about it. Chuq Von Rospach =|= Editor,OtherRealms =|= Member SFWA/ASFA chuq@apple.com =|= CI$: 73317,635 =|= AppleLink: CHUQ [This is myself speaking. No company can control my thoughts.] You are false data. Therefore I shall ignore you.
macak@lakesys.UUCP (James Macak) (07/13/89)
In article <33106@apple.Apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: >t-jacobs@wasatch.utah.edu (Tony Jacobs) writes: > >>5.1 Silverlining is out and it has some nice new features. It has a built in >It's supposed to let you create AUX partitions. We just got a copy in house >and it doesn't work. We're talking to them about it. Gee, Chuq "just got" the new Silverling and has already found the thing doesn't work as "advertised!" Probably failed the very first time someone tried to create an AUX partition.... Don't software suppliers do _any_ testing of some of this junk that is shipped? Are some of these places completely ignoring an alpha and/or beta testing phase? I'm sure it's a lot cheaper to do it that way, but don't they have any concern for their credibility? Jim -- macak@lakesys.UUCP (James Macak) or lakesys!macak@csd1.milw.wisc.edu
jeff@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Jeffrey M White) (07/13/89)
In article <2179@wasatch.utah.edu> t-jacobs@wasatch.utah.edu (Tony Jacobs) writes: >5.1 Silverlining is out and it has some nice new features. It has a built in >defragmenter, it let's you time the data transfer loops to see which is faster, >it let you see the boot & driver partitions, it lets you create AUX partitions >(there are 7 partition types for unix stuf), it lets you installdifferent >drivers, you can have scratch & free space partitions. Anyone know if there is any type of upgrade for owners of previous versions of Silverlining? Jeff White University of Pennsylvania jeff@eniac.seas.upenn.edu
rterry@hpcupt1.HP.COM (Ray Terry) (07/14/89)
> Anyone know if there is any type of upgrade for owners of previous versions >of Silverlining? I believe it is $5.00, plus your master disk. Ray
eirikur@ddif.dec.com (Eirikur Hallgrimsson) (07/14/89)
MacConnection, the big mailorder outlet, just told me that they have stopped carrying Silverlining. Where can I get it (I have seen it and I like it), and how much should I expect to pay? Eirikur Hallgrimsson eh@ddif.dec.com
t-jacobs@wasatch.utah.edu (Tony Jacobs) (07/14/89)
In article <12826@netnews.upenn.edu> jeff@eniac.seas.upenn.edu.UUCP (Jeffrey M White) writes: > Anyone know if there is any type of upgrade for owners of previous versions >of Silverlining? > > Jeff White > University of Pennsylvania > jeff@eniac.seas.upenn.edu I just spoke with their sales dept. and they said to send $5 & your old disk and they'll send you 5.0 (They said 5.1 isn't out, hum, someone I know has it!) -- Tony Jacobs * Center for Engineering Design * UofU * t-jacobs@wasatch.utah.edu
PFTERRY@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (07/14/89)
Yes. If you return your original disk with $5.00 (I think it is), they will provide you with an update. You can call the customer support number (800/999-0143) to get the specifics. (It might be $10; I'm not sure now. Fred Terry
news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM (news) (07/15/89)
From: garths%glass@Sun.COM (Garth Snyder) Path: glass!garths rterry@hpcupt1.HP.COM (Ray Terry) writes: >> Anyone know if there is any type of upgrade for owners of previous >> versions of Silverlining? >I believe it is $5.00, plus your master disk. I just called LaCie at the telephone number posted here not too long ago and was told that the upgrade price is $39.95. This is definitely an _upgrade_ price, as they mentioned that you must send back the original disk. I bought my LaCie drive about a year and a half ago. Perhaps more recent versions of the software are cheaper to upgrade. -------------------- Garth Snyder Sun Microsystems, mail drop 14-40 ARPA: garths@sun.com 2550 Garcia Avenue ALSO: garth@boulder.colorado.edu Mountain View, CA 94043 --------------------
ts@cup.portal.com (Tim W Smith) (07/15/89)
The company I work for wrote the software that one of the well known Mac drive vendors uses. I don't know if I am allowed to mention who they are, but they are one of the companies that charges a lot for their drives relative to other companies with essentially identical hardware. We wrote the driver and the formatter/installer program. We tested them. We installed them on all our Macs. We used them all the time as part of our normal work. They were fine. We sent them off to the drive vendor. The software at this point was as reliable as at least half of the competing products. For the next several months we would hear from them every few weeks. They would report some minor bug and we would fix it. I would check out each bug on all the competing drivers ( both to see if it might be an Apple bug and to see if anyone else made the same mistakes I did ). All but one of the bugs they reported were present in one or more of the other companies released software. Finally we got all these bugs out and they started shipping their drives with our software. Their testing seemed to work. They've not sent any bug reports since they started shipping, which was a few months ago. Let me give an example of something that many drivers get wrong ( and that I got wrong but was discovered in testing before the software was released ). SE accelerators. Unless the driver is very defensive at boot time, things can fail. Worse, the way things fail can depend on which board you have: a Radius board, for example, will cause a different failure than that caused by a Dove board. I think I understand now why they are able to charge a lot for their drives: they work. Now that I think about it, Apple's software works, and Apple charges a lot for their drives. Note that this is not meant to imply that the less expensive products are not good or that they are not tested. Rather, this is meant as an example that there are products that are well tested. This note should also be taken as a warning that not all Mac disk drivers are created equal. One of the drivers, for example, that would not have passed the testing that my driver passed was the one that many vendors of inexpensive disks are bundling with their drives. Were there any inexpensive drivers that were good? Yes. SilverLining was good. I only have one complaint with it ( see below ). I don't recall it hitting any of the bugs that my driver hit. If I could not use my own driver, I would as fast as possible install SilverLining. My one complaint is that they use their own format for the partition information ( on the version I have; they may have changed ). I've got a NuBus SCSI card in my Mac II whose software wants to understand the partitioning on the disk. It does not know about SilverLining's format. Tim Smith