You can pre-order music and movies from the iTunes Store prior to their public release date. Pre-ordered items will download when they become available.
| Read more »
You can pre-order music and movies from the iTunes Store prior to their public release date. Pre-ordered items will download when they become available.
| Read more »I can't find a hint for this on the site, and it's probably not new, but I only just stumbled on this. The Finder toolbar, by default, has Previous and Next buttons that let you navigate back and forth in folders. If you click the Previous button, you'll go back, one window at a time, to all the folders you've visited in that Finder window. But if you click and hold that button, you'll see a list of all the folders you've visited, and can jump to any of them by selecting one. This is a good way to get to a folder you've used but that's far from where you are in the file system.
| Read more »XenSource has some pretty good GUI tools. There’s XenCenter and the xsconsole, both of which are pretty adequate in a free sense and get pretty darn interesting when you actually pay Citrix. But today I want to take a little look under the hood of XenSource. I had previously written about Xen. But note that this is a different beast.
Before I get started talking about how to do some tasks in XenSource, I first want to throw out there a few terms. The first, is virtual machine. This is exactly what it sounds like, an operating system that runs on a virtual host rather than a physical hosts. So take that Dell PowerEdge that’s about 9 years old that you just use to access your Golden Girls collection on the NT server you used napster to steal it on and virtualize it. Sweet, now your mp3s can still run too!
The next term is hypervisor. This is just a really, really dumb physical machine that is super beefy and... | Read more »
Let’s face it, OS X makes a great stable client platform but the server components do not scale well. That is probably why most big companies rely on some other component to have the infrastructure and then us, the Mac admins, spend a lot of time on the integration. For those with Linux servers here is a quick guide on how to serve files using the afp protocol from a Linux box. For this guide I’ll be using the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) rebuild CentOS.Last year the guys from the netatalk project released the 3.0 version of their AFP server. This third version came out with support for AppleDouble metadata, removed support for AppleTalk and made the configuration process much easier. Needless to say that this version is still AFP 3.3 compliant, so your OS X clients won’t feel the difference.Usually you would need to download the source and compile it, but for RHEL-based distros you can use the rpm I created. You can... | Read more »
Memory can make a computer run slow, cause kernel panics and in general drain productivity. Bad memory can compound these issues by increasing the frequency of these issues. As such, testing memory every now and then will help to make your life better.
Memtest is a great little tool for troubleshooting memory problems across a variety of platforms. The tool can be installed pretty easily on clients using this little package that was posted awhile ago, but is still functional. Once you’ve installed the package installer, you can run memtest and have it check memory. To do so, just run memtest all and it will test all of your memory:
memtest all
You can also be a bit more specific about how you’re testing memory. You can define the amount of memory to test as well as the number of iterations to test through. The following command shows the first position being the amount of memory and the second position... | Read more »
I've just moved from a country where I had unlimited (really) data on my iPhone contract to one where data plans are metered and expensive. So this recent article by David Chartier, on the Finer Things in Tech web site, comes at the right time. It points out the simple setting in iOS to turn off automatic loading of images in Mail. As with Mail on OS X, you can load images later, but you won't need to load them for every message, saving download time and bandwidth.
To change this setting, go to Settings > Mail, Contacts & Calendars, and toggle Load Remote Images to OFF. If you get an email with images, and want to see them, just tap on Load All Images in the message.
This setting would make more sense if it only affected image downloads when using cellular data. But it's an all-or-nothing choice, so even when you connect via Wi-Fi, you'll need to... | Read more »
In Celebration of *Day Against DRM* Save 50% on 5000+ Ebooks & Videos at O’Reilly (including mine). And save 60% on orders over $100, so feel free to order multiple copies of my book!
Having the ability to download files at your convenience, store them on all your devices, or share them with a friend or colleague as you would a print book is liberating, and is how it should be. This is a critical moment in the fight against DRM. A proposal currently being considered by the W3C would weave DRM into HTML5 — in other words, into the very fabric of the Web.
Ebooks from oreilly.com are DRM-free. You get free lifetime access, multiple file formats, free updates.
Use discount code: DRM2013 – Deal expires May 3, 2012 at 11:59pm PT and cannot be combined with other offers. Similar Articles:
Some users have issues displaying PDFs in their web browsers. In some cases, when clicking on a link to a PDF, they get a blank black or white page. These issues can be caused by certain PDF browser plug-ins.
Michael Cohen has written an article for TidBITS discussing this issue, and explaining which plug-ins to remove.
I haven't seen this issue myself, but for those having problems, this is a simple fix. It's worth noting that, over time, you may have browser plug-ins that you don't need, so it's worth having a look in ~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins and /Library/Internet Plug-Ins to see what's there.
| Read more »After hearing about these new certifications for a good 3 or 4 years, I’m stoked that Tech2000 has now made the new Advanced OS X Certification exams available. Currently, there are three exams:
These exams are a more modern rendition of what Apple Training would be providing if they still did any courses beyond the OS X Server ACTC. Basically, you can think of it as though the previous Security or Xsan exams were swapped out with Mobile Devices, which makes sense given the changing climate of things.
Now, these are not Apple exams. But I don’t really think it matters too much whether there’s an Apple logo on them or not. At the end of the day if you do this kind of stuff then it’s nice to have a 3rd party option available if you so choose to go down that route!
The... | Read more »
JAMF Software just recently released Casper Suite 8.7 along with their new education-aimed tool Casper Focus. I had a chance to play around with it and test it out the past two days, so you can decide if this is something worth pursuing for yourselves.What does it do?To put it simply, Casper Focus allows a teacher to force specific supervised devices to all lock into a specific app. The teacher can select any app that’s in the Mobile App Catalog (even if it isn’t installed on the teacher’s iPad, or the specific student iPads, or wasn’t deployed via JSS / Self-service). The teacher can enable / disable this lock to a specific app with the push of a button (or two), and it’s a very simple interface.There’s also the ability to clear the passcodes if the student puts on a passcode lock and forgets it, but that’s probably not the main feature people care about.What does it look like?When first launched,... | Read more »
Google has added Google Now to its Google Search app for iOS. This provides local traffic information, weather data and more. Unfortunately, this also keeps GPS on permanently on an iOS device, depleting its battery.
After installing the new Google Search app, I had noticed that my iPhone's Location Services icon was on permanently. I quit all apps that could be using GPS or location services, but it was still visible. I restarted the phone, and it was still visible. It turns out that it was Google Now, and I resolved the issue by deleting the Google Search app.
You can also just turn off Google Now, in the Google Search app's settings. (See this screenshot by Dave Hamilton.) If you want to use Google Now, be aware that it will drain your battery, and remember to turn it off when you don't need it.
...... | Read more »
Installing printers via lpadmin on OS X can be a pain, especially if you do not know the names of the specific options you need for the printer (Duplex, Finisher, etc). You can dig through the .ppd if you’d like, but this is not as helpful as you might hope. Joel Bruner has a post that outlines how to get the available options for your printer using the lpoptions command.About Nate WalckNate is a Macintosh Systems Engineer at Tamman Technologies, Inc in Philadelphia, PA. He is the managing editor for afp548.com and one of the founding members of the ##osx-server IRC channel on freenode.net. He loves being involved in the Mac Admin community and using Open Source projects whenever possible, especially Munki and The Luggage.... | Read more »
ASR has some hidden documentation that reveals a few command line options which were previously unknown to most.A post on jamfnation led to some discussion on ##osx-server about an undocumented ASR command. Rich Trouton blogged about how to view these commands using a very interesting method. If you discover what some of these new-to-us commands do, feel free to comment here or over on Rich’s blog with what you discover.Thanks goes to the great bunch of admins on ##osx-server for this discovery.About Nate WalckNate is a Macintosh Systems Engineer at Tamman Technologies, Inc in Philadelphia, PA. He is the managing editor for afp548.com and... | Read more »
As usual with all things FileVault related, Rich Trouton has the details on a new .app for setting up FileVault 2. FileVault Setup.app is a standalone app that provides a pretty interface for end users to configure File Vault 2 with during first login. This is a interesting way to get FV2 setup and is definitely worth a look if you use FileVault 2.About Nate WalckNate is a Macintosh Systems Engineer at Tamman Technologies, Inc in Philadelphia, PA. He is the managing editor for afp548.com and one of the founding members of the ##osx-server IRC channel on freenode.net. He loves being involved in the Mac Admin community and using Open Source projects whenever possible, especially Munki and The Luggage.... | Read more »
BitTorrent Labs has released BitTorrent Sync, a tool for syncing files across computers, using the BitTorrent peer-to-peer protocol. This app lets you choose a specific folder (or folders) to sync, and have it automatically synced on one or several computers. It runs on OS X, Windows and Linux.
I find this an interesting tool. While I use Dropbox regularly, and depend on it for collaboration, and to sync a number of files between my two Macs, there is a limit in the amount of space available. (With the free version, it's 2 GB; paid subscriptions are available if you want more storage.) But also, Dropbox requires that anything you sync be put in its own folder. You can use symbolic links in a Dropbox folder, but if you want to sync the contents of a specific folder on your Mac to another Mac, this gets a bit complicated.... | Read more »
Noel Alonso has a post outlining one way you could easily delete a machine out of Active Directory using ldapsearch and ldapdelete.This script could easily be modified and changed to do various other things, such as passing the hostname in as an argument or doing a different action upon the machine. Check it out over on his blog.About Nate WalckNate is a Macintosh Systems Engineer at Tamman Technologies, Inc in Philadelphia, PA. He is the managing editor for afp548.com and one of the founding members of the ##osx-server IRC channel on freenode.net. He loves being involved in the Mac Admin community and using Open Source projects whenever possible, especially Munki and The Luggage.... | Read more »
Casper Suite 8.7 has been released. It contains some bugfixes as well as some new features. The biggest change in Casper Suite 8.7 is the addition of a new app called Casper Focus. Casper Focus allows a Teacher or other staff to lock an iOS device into using a specific application without needing an Administrator to do it for them.There are also a few bug fixes in 8.7 for the JAMF Software Server as well as the jamf binary. Be sure to review the list of deprecated features that will be removed or replaced in version 9.0 if you missed them in prior release notes. For the full Casper Suite 8.7 documentation of changes, check out the product documentation page, specifically the release notes for 8.7.About... | Read more »
CrashPlan caches resolutions between hostnames and IP addresses. Recently I ran into an issue where a CrashPlan server was moved and we needed to decrease that cache time. In /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.crashplan.engine.plist I found the Java attribute for sun.net.inetaddr.ttl. The default setting for this is 300 seconds. It can be reduced by altering the Dnetworkaddress.cache.ttl string in the ProgramArguments array.
To alter the setting, open /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.crashplan.engine.plist in a standard text editor. Once opened, find Dnetworkaddress.cache.ttl and reduce the ttl value. Once complete, unload/reload:
launchctl unload com.crashplan.engine
launchctl load com.crashplan.engineSimilar Articles:
Copyright © 2008 This feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. The use of this feed on other websites breaches copyright. If this content is not in your news reader, it makes the page you... | Read more »
For a long time I’ve been saying that the #1 challenge with regard to using iOS is content distribution. Others have mirrored that by saying that the device is a content aggregator, etc. The challenge is keeping everyone on the same page, with the same content and distributing administration of all of that to those who need it.
Well, our friends at JAMF software are, as usual, right in the middle of resolving the more challenging issues of the day with regard to iOS and OS X. In this case they’ve released a new tool called Casper Focus that enables rudimentary administrative tasks by teachers.
Now, I don’t want anyone to take the word rudimentary to be a bad thing. You see, accessing and remotely controlling devices can be a big challenge. The learning curve can be steep. By only giving delegated administrators a few options that learning curve... | Read more »
If you type a lot, you may find that the letters on the keys of your Mac's keyboard will slowly fade away. In my case, not only do they fade away, but one key - the D key, which, since I use a Dvorak layout, is the E key - actually has some of the plastic worn away. And this is on a wireless Apple keyboard that's only about a year old. (Note that since I touch-type, it really doesn't matter whether I see the keys or not…)
Topher Kessler, writing at CNet, posted an article with some ways to keep the letters from fading. He suggests possibly using a silicone keyboard cover, but I don't think that would be comfortable. But he also recommends using standard cellophane tape, cut into squares that cover the keys.
You probably wouldn't want to do this to all the keys on your keyboard: the most commonly-used ones are those most in need of protection: E ...... | Read more »
Kyle Crawford has an interesting post that covers reloading LaunchAgents while a user is logged in without requiring them to take action (Log out/in, reboot, etc).While somewhat hacky, it is a novel way to ensure that a given LaunchAgent is reloaded without burdening the End User to take action.About Nate WalckNate is a Macintosh Systems Engineer at Tamman Technologies, Inc in Philadelphia, PA. He is the managing editor for afp548.com and one of the founding members of the ##osx-server IRC channel on freenode.net. He loves being involved in the Mac Admin community and using Open Source projects whenever possible, especially Munki and The Luggage.Mail |... | Read more »
Enthusiasm for WWDC 2013 has been incredible, with tickets selling out in record time. For those who can’t join us in San Francisco, you can still take advantage of great WWDC content, as we’ll be posting videos of all our sessions during the conference. We’ll also be hitting the road this fall with Tech Talks in a city near you. Hope to see you there.
| Read more »Enthusiasm for WWDC 2013 has been incredible, with tickets selling out in record time. For those who can’t join us in San Francisco, you can still take advantage of great WWDC content, as we’ll be posting videos of all our sessions during the conference. We’ll also be hitting the road this fall with Tech Talks in a city near you. Hope to see you there.
| Read more »Sometimes clicking the "Show or hide panels" (the top-right icon on right pane for Tools or Comments) in Adobe Acrobat Pro XI v.11.0.2 on OS X 10.8.3 does no work. Clicking it does nothing. Here is the fix:
1. Select View > Read Mode.
2. Select View > Full Screen Mode
3. Press the Escape key
[kirkmc adds: I don’t have Acrobat Pro, so I can’t test this.]
| Read more »Charles Edge and TJ Houston have a new book out on using Apple Configurator. Charles’ technical documentation is top notch and TJ’s articles on Configurator are fantastic as well. This book is a must have if you currently deploy iOS devices or are planning to deploy and manage iOS devices in the future.Instant Apple Configurator How-to is available on Amazon and ships today, so grab a copy!About Nate WalckNate is a Macintosh Systems Engineer at Tamman Technologies, Inc in Philadelphia, PA. He is the managing editor for afp548.com and one of the founding members of the ##osx-server IRC channel on freenode.net. He loves being involved in the Mac Admin community and using Open Source projects whenever possible, especially Munki... | Read more »
