6 ms·

How do you copy a bunch of documents and pictures from and to a USB drive without a filesystem?

by sid0 15y ago

adriand 15y ago
Well, the iOS way would be that documents would end up in a place that is shown when you open a word processor, and that pictures would end up in a place that is shown when you open up an image navigator.
- sid0 15y ago
  You still haven't answered my question. I have a set of documents, a subset of which I'd like to copy onto my USB drive. I also have a set of pictures, a subset of which I'd like to copy onto my USB drive. My USB drive already has a set of documents and a set of pictures, and I'd like to get a subset of the documents and a subset of the pictures onto internal storage so that I can plug out my USB drive afterwards and still access them. Can you come up with a way of doing all that that doesn't involve a filesystem or a poor imitation of it?
  - sunchild 15y ago
    I'm not sure what type of "documents" you're referring to, but the images could be handled as with any other media import upon attaching the drive – i.e., within the image browsing app. As for moving images to the USB drive, that's an export from the image browsing app.
    - sid0 15y ago
      I'm not sure what type of "documents" you're referring to Aha, therein lies the rub. These documents could be essentially arbitrary files, and there's no substitute to a general purpose file manager for them. Writing an app for every single file format that could be present on the USB drive is highly inefficient compared to the usual file manager. My basic point is that filesystems are a well-established standard, and practically everything on your computer supports them. If you'd like to deviate from such a standard, you'd better have a very good reason for doing so.
      - scott_s 15y ago
        I think the point you're missing is that most people only manipulate data that clearly belongs to some application. So, for most people, the relevant application managing their data and abstracting away the underlying file system is a valid option. If that doesn't work for you, then okay. You're not most people.
        kenjackson 15y ago
        Oddly, Microsoft used to be app centric and moved to being file centric with Windows 95. The idea being that you cared less about the app and more about the document you were using. Apple is going back and saying you care about the app as the dominant focus. This is interesting. For example, my mom knows the document she wants to open is her 2009 tax return document. The fact that it is a PDF or she reads it with Adobe Reader -- I'm fairly certain she doesn't know. If I were to layout every application she has installed and told her to find the one to open to access her tax documents I honestly don't think she'd have a clue. She'd probably try Word. I suspect she's not alone on this.
        sunchild 15y ago
        I'd bet that nine times out of ten, she's going to open that PDF as an email attachment. Then it's up to the OS to match the file with the app. I often think that email is the real file system today.
        danssig 15y ago
        The tool drives the user. Your mom works this way because, as you said, windows 95 is file oriented. If it were app oriented as Mac OS X is, I bet she would have the opposite behavior.
      - sunchild 15y ago
        If the file type is arbitrary, and doesn't correspond to an app, then you're using your internal hard disk as a file store. There are better solutions for that.
    - shriphani 15y ago
      Ok, didn't expect I had to do this on HN but here goes: -> Write code, -> Dump logs to app.log, app.err -> Is there an err browsing app you're aware of ? If that ever happened to someone on HN, the consequences: -> If apple implemented something so broken, some nutter would explain to me what extension to use. -> If MS implemented it, there would be a #1 post on HN with the title "MS file management is broken beyond repair and company is irrelevant" I expect to be downvoted for this but it is impossible to have a fair discussion about Microsoft products.
      - benaston 15y ago
        "...write code..." Congratulations, you are part of the less than one percent of the world workforce that are developers. As a developer, even I only need full filesystem access when I am developing, which is a fraction of my time. Having full filesystem access is an important use case, you can have it. For the rest of the world, it is a usability barrier.
  - jad 15y ago
    I think others have explained this, but I'll give it a try anyway. Plug an SD card with photos on it into the iPad camera connection kit, and plug that into the iPad. The Photos app opens, you tap the photos you want to import, and you're done. Your other cases are simple extensions of this example. The fact that an iPad can't do this right now with more file types or with a USB drive is not an inherent limitation of the approach.
    - sid0 15y ago
      You really think we should write an app for every file type? As a developer who believes in abstracting common code out, I find the notion frankly idiotic.
martingordon 15y ago
I'm not saying you don't need a filesystem. There are other ways to interact with data besides a file browser. On the iPad, I can use the official Photos app (or any of the other photo apps) to get my photos where they need to go, whether that's a phone, computer, website or printer. I don't read my email by going into the "My Emails" folder on my C:\ drive, I access my email through a UI specifically made for accessing email. I don't manage individual contact files, I access my contacts through an address book app. I don't manage individual music files, I use iTunes. Most operating systems already encourage separating files by type, I'm taking it a step further by suggesting that 90% of users would be better served by many type-specific file browsers than a single general purpose one.
- sid0 15y ago
  And what happens if there's a file type the OS doesn't support? In my case that often happens with mkv files. How do I tell iTunes (or any other music player) to import some of the music on my USB drive? iTunes doesn't even allow you to do that with iPods...
  - martingordon 15y ago
    I would say you're out of luck then. What good are those mkv files if you don't have an app to read them? There are a lot of things I'm used to doing on a computer that I can't do on an iPad. Everyone has their examples of things that make X inferior to Y. Apple has shown that they can be successful by offering less of "business as usual" while slowly introducing new ways of doing things. The only way to advance the state of the art is to let go of a lot of the notions of what we think a computer should be. Is rearranging toolbar buttons really going to bring delight to people around the world? How does this help the guy who is miserable at his job because he's forced to use a 10 year old PC running Windows XP? How does it help the person who lost all of their vacation photos because they downloaded a photo editing app that turned out to be a virus? How does it help a four year old that's learning to read?
    - sid0 15y ago
      I would say you're out of luck then. What good are those mkv files if you don't have an app to read them? I have a really nice app to read them called Media Player Classic -- I just don't have an app to manage them. Writing apps to manage every single file type I have is very inefficient compared to using a general purpose file manager. You abstract out often-used code rather than copy-pasting it all over the place, don't you? The only way to advance the state of the art is to let go of a lot of the notions of what we think a computer should be. The fundamental definition/theorem/axiom/whatever of computer science is the Church-Turing thesis. We haven't come up with a practical notion of computability more general than that, so it is by default the state of the art. Following from that, I think a computer should be a real-life manifestation of a universal Turing machine -- something that can run anything computable (taking into account resource bounds but also providing all the resources it can) without being beholden to another entity. Anything less is an appliance, a toy, and is not fit to be called a computer.
technoslut 15y ago
I would imagine that Apple's envisions a world of these things being done wirelessly. What is interesting is that Apple and MS have two totally opposed philosophies in handling the issue of the user not understanding the file system.
- sid0 15y ago
  Well, yes, Apple designs products for rich people in the first world who have always-on fast internet (have you seen the sheer size of Apple point updates?!). Microsoft designs far more inclusive products.
  - revscat 15y ago
    Lion 10.7.1 was a whopping 79.3MB. That's nothing, especially for an OS point release. And judging by the popular success of the iPad I have to disagree with the suggestion that Apple is less inclusive.
    - sid0 15y ago
      Lion 10.7.1 was a whopping 79.3MB. Well, they might have fixed it then. All I know is that I balked at the 1GB OS X update waiting for me. And judging by the popular success of the iPad I have to disagree with the suggestion that Apple is less inclusive. The iPad is only popular in rich first world countries. You will find tons of PCs running Windows in not-so-rich countries, orders of magnitude more. That is exactly my point.
      - revscat 15y ago
        The iPad is only popular in rich first world countries. You will find tons of PCs running Windows in not-so-rich countries, orders of magnitude more. That is exactly my point. New technologies tend to be adapted by first world countries first. This was as true of the original IBM PC as it is today for the iPad.
        15y ago

How do you copy a bunch of documents and pictures from and to a USB drive without a filesystem?

by sid0 15y ago

How do you copy a bunch of documents and pictures from and to a USB drive without a filesystem?

Well, the iOS way would be that documents would end up in a place that is shown when you open a word processor, and that pictures would end up in a place that is shown when you open up an image navigator.

sid0 15y ago
You still haven't answered my question. I have a set of documents, a subset of which I'd like to copy onto my USB drive. I also have a set of pictures, a subset of which I'd like to copy onto my USB drive. My USB drive already has a set of documents and a set of pictures, and I'd like to get a subset of the documents and a subset of the pictures onto internal storage so that I can plug out my USB drive afterwards and still access them. Can you come up with a way of doing all that that doesn't involve a filesystem or a poor imitation of it?
- sunchild 15y ago
  I'm not sure what type of "documents" you're referring to, but the images could be handled as with any other media import upon attaching the drive – i.e., within the image browsing app. As for moving images to the USB drive, that's an export from the image browsing app.
  - sid0 15y ago
    I'm not sure what type of "documents" you're referring to Aha, therein lies the rub. These documents could be essentially arbitrary files, and there's no substitute to a general purpose file manager for them. Writing an app for every single file format that could be present on the USB drive is highly inefficient compared to the usual file manager. My basic point is that filesystems are a well-established standard, and practically everything on your computer supports them. If you'd like to deviate from such a standard, you'd better have a very good reason for doing so.
    - scott_s 15y ago
      I think the point you're missing is that most people only manipulate data that clearly belongs to some application. So, for most people, the relevant application managing their data and abstracting away the underlying file system is a valid option. If that doesn't work for you, then okay. You're not most people.
      - kenjackson 15y ago
        Oddly, Microsoft used to be app centric and moved to being file centric with Windows 95. The idea being that you cared less about the app and more about the document you were using. Apple is going back and saying you care about the app as the dominant focus. This is interesting. For example, my mom knows the document she wants to open is her 2009 tax return document. The fact that it is a PDF or she reads it with Adobe Reader -- I'm fairly certain she doesn't know. If I were to layout every application she has installed and told her to find the one to open to access her tax documents I honestly don't think she'd have a clue. She'd probably try Word. I suspect she's not alone on this.
        sunchild 15y ago
        I'd bet that nine times out of ten, she's going to open that PDF as an email attachment. Then it's up to the OS to match the file with the app. I often think that email is the real file system today.
        danssig 15y ago
        The tool drives the user. Your mom works this way because, as you said, windows 95 is file oriented. If it were app oriented as Mac OS X is, I bet she would have the opposite behavior.
    - sunchild 15y ago
      If the file type is arbitrary, and doesn't correspond to an app, then you're using your internal hard disk as a file store. There are better solutions for that.
  - shriphani 15y ago
    Ok, didn't expect I had to do this on HN but here goes: -> Write code, -> Dump logs to app.log, app.err -> Is there an err browsing app you're aware of ? If that ever happened to someone on HN, the consequences: -> If apple implemented something so broken, some nutter would explain to me what extension to use. -> If MS implemented it, there would be a #1 post on HN with the title "MS file management is broken beyond repair and company is irrelevant" I expect to be downvoted for this but it is impossible to have a fair discussion about Microsoft products.
    - benaston 15y ago
      "...write code..." Congratulations, you are part of the less than one percent of the world workforce that are developers. As a developer, even I only need full filesystem access when I am developing, which is a fraction of my time. Having full filesystem access is an important use case, you can have it. For the rest of the world, it is a usability barrier.
- jad 15y ago
  I think others have explained this, but I'll give it a try anyway. Plug an SD card with photos on it into the iPad camera connection kit, and plug that into the iPad. The Photos app opens, you tap the photos you want to import, and you're done. Your other cases are simple extensions of this example. The fact that an iPad can't do this right now with more file types or with a USB drive is not an inherent limitation of the approach.
  - sid0 15y ago
    You really think we should write an app for every file type? As a developer who believes in abstracting common code out, I find the notion frankly idiotic.

martingordon 15y ago

I'm not saying you don't need a filesystem. There are other ways to interact with data besides a file browser. On the iPad, I can use the official Photos app (or any of the other photo apps) to get my photos where they need to go, whether that's a phone, computer, website or printer. I don't read my email by going into the "My Emails" folder on my C:\ drive, I access my email through a UI specifically made for accessing email. I don't manage individual contact files, I access my contacts through an address book app. I don't manage individual music files, I use iTunes. Most operating systems already encourage separating files by type, I'm taking it a step further by suggesting that 90% of users would be better served by many type-specific file browsers than a single general purpose one.

sid0 15y ago
And what happens if there's a file type the OS doesn't support? In my case that often happens with mkv files. How do I tell iTunes (or any other music player) to import some of the music on my USB drive? iTunes doesn't even allow you to do that with iPods...
- martingordon 15y ago
  I would say you're out of luck then. What good are those mkv files if you don't have an app to read them? There are a lot of things I'm used to doing on a computer that I can't do on an iPad. Everyone has their examples of things that make X inferior to Y. Apple has shown that they can be successful by offering less of "business as usual" while slowly introducing new ways of doing things. The only way to advance the state of the art is to let go of a lot of the notions of what we think a computer should be. Is rearranging toolbar buttons really going to bring delight to people around the world? How does this help the guy who is miserable at his job because he's forced to use a 10 year old PC running Windows XP? How does it help the person who lost all of their vacation photos because they downloaded a photo editing app that turned out to be a virus? How does it help a four year old that's learning to read?
  - sid0 15y ago
    I would say you're out of luck then. What good are those mkv files if you don't have an app to read them? I have a really nice app to read them called Media Player Classic -- I just don't have an app to manage them. Writing apps to manage every single file type I have is very inefficient compared to using a general purpose file manager. You abstract out often-used code rather than copy-pasting it all over the place, don't you? The only way to advance the state of the art is to let go of a lot of the notions of what we think a computer should be. The fundamental definition/theorem/axiom/whatever of computer science is the Church-Turing thesis. We haven't come up with a practical notion of computability more general than that, so it is by default the state of the art. Following from that, I think a computer should be a real-life manifestation of a universal Turing machine -- something that can run anything computable (taking into account resource bounds but also providing all the resources it can) without being beholden to another entity. Anything less is an appliance, a toy, and is not fit to be called a computer.

technoslut 15y ago

I would imagine that Apple's envisions a world of these things being done wirelessly. What is interesting is that Apple and MS have two totally opposed philosophies in handling the issue of the user not understanding the file system.

sid0 15y ago
Well, yes, Apple designs products for rich people in the first world who have always-on fast internet (have you seen the sheer size of Apple point updates?!). Microsoft designs far more inclusive products.
- revscat 15y ago
  Lion 10.7.1 was a whopping 79.3MB. That's nothing, especially for an OS point release. And judging by the popular success of the iPad I have to disagree with the suggestion that Apple is less inclusive.
  - sid0 15y ago
    Lion 10.7.1 was a whopping 79.3MB. Well, they might have fixed it then. All I know is that I balked at the 1GB OS X update waiting for me. And judging by the popular success of the iPad I have to disagree with the suggestion that Apple is less inclusive. The iPad is only popular in rich first world countries. You will find tons of PCs running Windows in not-so-rich countries, orders of magnitude more. That is exactly my point.
    - revscat 15y ago
      The iPad is only popular in rich first world countries. You will find tons of PCs running Windows in not-so-rich countries, orders of magnitude more. That is exactly my point. New technologies tend to be adapted by first world countries first. This was as true of the original IBM PC as it is today for the iPad.
      - 15y ago