Posts Tagged ‘offline’

Keybase and FUSE on macOS

I like the concept of Keybase, have had an account there for sometime (https://keybase.io/bytebot). I also installed the Keybase app on macOS which has kbfs, the FUSE-based filesystem for Keybase users to share files with encryption (read more).

However, I also tend to spend time offline, and sometimes on restricted networks where I use TripMode. I realised very quickly that a simple ls or df could take some 20 seconds to complete (timeouts at work).

After poking around I realised it was Keybase. So this is what I do now:

keybase ctl stop
pkill Keybase

I used to have to also unmount the /keybase directory but this seems to be taken care of by newer clients. A macOS annoyance. I can’t always just have it running. There is a github issue #971. I think their iOS app is quite well done and have no complaints thus far.

HTML5 app cache

On my Nexus 7 today, I got this message from the FT app: FT could not be opened because it is not connected to the Internet. This is an odd error message.

The best way to fix this? Clear the cache in Android (just for the application). Or you can Force Stop the application afterwards and it should restart just fine.

Why? There are issues with HTML5 app cache. Some resources: Debugging HTML5 Offline Application Cache, Fixing app cache from the FT themselves, and some sensible comments at Stack Overflow.

Offline GMail via Google Gears

I use Thunderbird (current mail client du jour – pine, Evolution, Thunderbird, with maybe a smattering of Pegasus Mail in there for a short span of time) daily. Though I’m tiring of it for my great amounts of personal mail, and have been using GMail, because I can read it on the Web, via Thunderbird, on my phone, or at a public terminal. In fact, GMail rocks so hard, I’m moving more and more of my email to Google’s Hosted Apps service.

Today, Google has made things sweeter – with the announcement of Offline GMail as a Labs feature.

This means I can now use a site-specific browser like Fluid or Prism to read my mail. Because, now its now a real desktop application – even when I’m offline, I can read and reply to emails. This has been a much-requested for feature, for years. Its already enabled in Google Reader (which I use, with a SSB) as well as Google Docs (also, in a SSB for me).

Reminds me of what I used to do successfully over ten years ago on my Palm IIIx PDA (POP had its benefits… IMAP when offline, tends to act weird when brought online – read messages appearing unread, etc. – don’t know if this is a Thunderbird issue, per se)

Unfortunately, none of my GMail accounts have it enabled yet (even the ones with Google Apps hosted domains) :-( Time to wait for yet another killer feature – bringing the cloud to the (portable) desktop.


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