• Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server

    Mac OS X Server: Spotlight

    When client systems need to search the server quickly you can enable Spotlight on the Share Points.  To enable this, open Server Admin -> File Sharing -> Share Points -> Click the Share Point in question -> Click Share Point -> Check the box for Enable Spotlight -> Click Save. Then have a nice long steak dinner.

  • Mac OS X Server

    Mac OS X Server: Minimum Requirements

    Banging your head against the keyboard trying to figure out why you can’t get this install to complete…  It’s a headless server, but that shouldn’t matter…  Hmmmm…  Well, before trying to install a system remotely, be sure the server includes 1 GB or more of memory, a G5 processor or 867 MHz or faster G4 processor (or an Intel of course).  But what was killing me on this server upgrade?  The 20GB hard drive requirement.  OMG – is it really possible that the server had previously blown out the drive that came with it and gotten one of those old Quantum Fireballs from back in the day?  Really?  Who’d a thunk…

  • Mac OS X Server

    Mac OS X Server: Hiding Stuff

    Keeping a log of everything done to a machine is kind of important. I often will keep a duplicate of said log on the machine itself. Problem is, people keep deleting them. So, maybe we’ll just hide ’em. What makes that nice and easy is the fact that Server comes with SetFile installed in the /System/Library/ServerSetup directory. For general OS X stuff you’ll just need to go grab it off the Developer Tools. Let’s go ahead and touch a file to the desktop called MyLog.txt: touch /Users/cedge/Desktop/MyLog.txt Now let’s mark it as invisible using the following: ./SetFile -a V /Users/cedge/Desktop/MyLog.txt Other attributes that can be used with -a: A Alias…

  • Interviewing

    Interview Tips – April 2008

    Business vs. technology.  Most employers these days are looking for candidates who can provide value.  This may be value to customers, value to the organization, value to end users, etc.  Most interviewers will give you the opportunity to add comments about items they haven’t asked about.  If they don’t ask you about how you have provided a business value to your organization then this is a great opportunity to do so.  Remember, reducing total cost of ownership is only one way to create value.  The ability to increase an organizations return on investment, which may cost the organization more on a technology level, can often end up increasing revenue or…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security

    Filing a bug with Apple

    If you have something that is a legitimate bug with Mac OS X then you can file it here. However, please try to keep in mind that if the issue is something like, you cannot print to that LaserWriter using the Serial to USB adapter you bought that this is probably not the best forum – legitimate bugs. 😉

  • Mac OS X

    Mac OS X: Data Detectors in iChat

    If you’ve used Mail.app then you’ve seen the little box around phone numbers and addresses occasionally. If you right-click on it then you’ll see something similar to the following:   This is called a Data Detector and is one of the 300 new features that were put into Mac OS X 10.5. The concept of the Data Detector can be extended to include other applications provided they are capable of using them. For example, iChat. iChat does not make use of Data Detectors by default, but you can enable them by running the following command: defaults write com.apple.iChat EnableDataDetectors 1

  • Mac OS X

    Mac OS X: Command-Tab

    The other day I was sitting at a computer and I hit Command-Tab to shift between applications. Someone from the Windows side of the fence was peeking over my shoulder and was astonished that Mac OS X had that functionality. So I went on to show what else Command-Tab can do. For example, press Command-Tab and hold the Command key and you’ll keep the Application Picker window open. Then press the Tab key again and it will move to the next application or continue pressing it and it will cycle through all of the open applications until coming back to your current application. Press the Command-Shift-Tab and it will back…