Omnidrive Mac Client!
Posted on March 20th, 2007 by nik
The Omnidrive Mac Client is finally available, after being in private beta for a while. The Mac Client was one of our projects that was suffering from ‘deadline creep’ so we decided that instead of setting a launch date, we would just release it when it was ready. Thank you to all of those who tested the client for us and reported back bugs and feature requests. This release is a public beta, we will continue to work on and improve the client and we will always consider the Mac platform as important as Windows. Here are the details for the Omnidrive Mac client:
- Download it from: http://web6.omnidrive.com/RegisterUsers/Omnidrive-Install.dmg
- Mount the image by double-clicking on it
- Run the installer contained inside the disk
- Once you have run the installer, you can either run Omnidrive (Applications -> Omnidrive) or you can use the context menu which is available whenever you right-click on a file
March 20th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
[…] Omnidrive, we finally launched our Mac client. You can get the details over on our blog. We have been working hard the past few months and we have a lot of good news and releases/products […]
March 22nd, 2007 at 3:41 am
Ahem… actually, SteekUp.com and SteekR.com had Mac clients out for a few weeks now. Agematis, the company behind the Steek products and my employer, has had Mac clients for their professional online back-up software since long ago.
PS: The French colleague who told me about this post also mentioned something about the rugby world cup, Australians being invited, the taste of French turf, and other stuff that I wouldn’t know what to make out of
March 22nd, 2007 at 5:19 am
[…] Also: Omnidrive Now Beta Testing Mac Client and Adds a Bunch of New Features Omnidrive is one of many web-based remote storage services we […]
March 22nd, 2007 at 7:29 am
hola a todos
March 22nd, 2007 at 4:02 pm
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March 22nd, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Thanks for letting us know Gabriel, always good to know what else is out there.
And tell your mate we’ll be there with bells on
Unfortunately we’re in different pools that don’t meet until the Quarter Finals so some other team might have to give them a taste of their own turf for us (:
March 22nd, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Hmm. I’m a Mac user and just signed up for the free service to test this out. Here are some observations.
1. Lack of “getting started” material. It took half an hour of digging through the Omnidrive site to discover how to even begin copying stuff to the remote location.
2. Confusing reversal of nomenclature: In my 20 years of working with networks, when sending material from a local station to a remote server, the terms have been analogous to “client” and “server” or “host.” When sending files from the client to the host, the term has always been “uploading,” and when retrieving files from the remote server to the local client, the term has always been “downloading.” Why is this reversed for the Omnidrive service? That is extremely confusing.
3. I like the right-click for uploading my files to the remote server.
4. I’m not sure how to download files that I’ve already uploaded from the remote server back to my Desktop. No documentation!
5. I’m not blind and my eyes are in pretty decent shape but it wasn’t until I printed out this page that I discovered that there are more options listed below in extremely low-contrast font color. Don’t you think that ease of use (readability) should take precedence over artistic design? I’m using a 24″ Apple Cinema display and have had no trouble (AFAIK!) reading type on other sites that use less than optimal contrasting colors.
6. It’s misleading to state that you’re the only outfit that provides storage for the Mac crowd. I’m also testing Mozy at this time. Note that Mozy provides 2GB free and unlimited (ha!) space for $60/year. Mozy’s web site also offers an abundance of help getting started, FAQs and other very helpful information for new users. Mozy has a dedicated Mac team who use Macs both for work and pleasure.
7. However, I really do like Omnidrive’s quick and easy means of uploading from my local computer to the remote server. Mozy doesn’t even come close.
8. My personal prejudice here, my not so humble opinion: The web interface is so Windozey and totally lacking in the things that we Mac users take for granted. I know it’s a design issue and you’re providing a service for 10 times more Winders users than Mac users, so I should just shut up about that, huh?
-Tod the very new Omnidrive user
March 22nd, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Another thing: As a new user seeking information, I find the totally off-topic references to some kind of sport and “pools” very off-putting. Things like that should be part of another forum rather than here where people are expecting something more professional.
-Tod
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Hey Tod - thanks a ton for the feedback, much appreciated.
1. We know about this, and we are in the process of updating our support section on this site with information for Mac users, also we are re-organizing the support section a little to make it easier to navigate
2. If it has been reversed in some place, then that must be in error - I haven’t noticed it but where did you see the terms being used in this way, was it within the actual client?
3. Cool, as I have mentioned in a few places, we are extending desktop integration
4. Hey I am not too sure what process you are describing here - the client will show you all the files that are currently in your Omnidrive, you can use those files just like any others. If you are still having a problem there, give me some more details and I will help you out. We are working on the documentation part of your problem
5. Yes we know, we have been making small changes to our website but there is a whole new site in development. Those menus at the bottom are a bad color, sorry about that - we will darken them up today
6. I consider Mozy to be online backup, like what Carbonite is - a different function to what Omnidrive provides. I think ‘online storage’ is a very vague and generic term. Besides, if you signup for Mozy now it says that it requires Windows and that a Mac client is ‘coming soon’ - so I guess you have a version that hasn’t been released to all users. Apple offer online storage as well with .Mac, so I probably should revise the claim (I don’t usually get into making claims but I got a bit excited - we like to provide a solid service for all users with great support and leave the marketing race to others)
Further to that though, we do have a dedicated Mac team as well - and I am writing this on my Macbook pro. The delay of our Mac client hasn’t been because we aren’t fans of the platform, infact we have said from day 1 that Omnidrive is going to be platform agnostic and we have always tested the web interface in all browsers.
8. There is a Mac skin in the works - it wont take as long to release as the Mac client did, but it will detect if you are logging in with a Mac and show you the appropriate skin. The reason for our ‘default’ skin being windows-like is so that a new user can login, generally be familiar with the design and be able to use it right away without learning to adjust to a totally different way of laying out and managing files.
You shouldn’t have to put up with anything - we are very open to suggestions and a lot of our product development is driven by user suggestions. After all, we didn’t build Omnidrive so that just we could use it
Hope you enjoy Omnidrive Tod, we are still in beta and our 1.0 release will be in May - so we are constantly introducing new features and integrating new applications. As always, feel free to contact us
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Tod: where are these off-topic references? they might be spam messages somewhere here on our blog. Also Tod, we have a user forum here:
http://forum.omnidrive.com/
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Gabriel: I can’t see it live on the site, seems it is in private beta. We have had a Mac client in private beta in one form or another for almost 10 months now
As for the Rugby, I will let that be
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Ahh Tod, I see now what your reference to irrelevant content referred to. Not much I can do about user comments, if I deleted his comment then I would be accusing of censoring a competitor
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:27 pm
I think Tod is referring to my reply to Gabriel re: the rugby, and “pools” being the groups that they sort teams into to play each other.
I apologise if my Aussie sarcasm and references were off putting for some, we’re a friendly, light hearted bunch here who do care about the experience of our users.
Thanks for your feedback Tod, it’s very much appreciated. I don’t know if you’ve found our forums yet, they’re a great place to make suggestions, let us know of any bugs and talk to other people using the Mac client.
March 22nd, 2007 at 11:11 pm
To Nik and Jessica: Thanks for your answers, advice, and generally helpful comments. I’ll definitely check out the suggested forums.
Nik, is there an email address where I can follow up with some of my concerns? You can respond to my email address, which I provided in the registration process.
Regarding the irrelevant commentary, I would be the last person to suggest censoring comments. I just read the stuff about rugby (sorry, I didn’t realize that was the reference - I actually like rugby!) and wished there were more comments about the actual topic at hand. Now that I look back, there are several “comments” that are only quotations of the original post with no added commentary.
Anyway, I’m getting a good feel for OD and I’m liking it more and more (a very easy thing to do!)
-Tod
March 22nd, 2007 at 11:38 pm
Tod, the best place is usually the forums (in terms of suggestions, feedback and support) as other users can help you out as well. We are also always on the forums. If you would like to email us though, we have two addresses:
feedback@omnidrive.com - product feedback and suggestions
support@omnidrive.com - support queries
you can also have a look at our support section on the website:
http://www.omnidrive.com/support
March 23rd, 2007 at 1:23 am
OMG.. Nice!
March 23rd, 2007 at 2:48 am
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March 23rd, 2007 at 11:36 am
nik is clearly the nicest man on the internet. kudos and have a nice day
March 24th, 2007 at 5:38 am
[…] Omnidrive: Free Online Storage, Sharing and Publishing Platform for Desktop and Web Omnidrive is a free and powerful online storage platform that allows you to easily access your files from anywhere. (tags: mac online OSX education AusMacEd) […]
March 25th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
For Tod and anyone else wondering, all the comments you see that look something like number 21 right above, they’re just linkbacks to this post. Basically, when other people post about us on their blogs and link directly to a certain post, we get one of these entries here. They usually start and end with […] and show the relevant part of a post that links back to this post. If you click on the “says” links you can go see what they’ve said.
April 4th, 2007 at 3:13 am
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