• iPhone

    Automating iPhone & iPad Deployment

    The iPhone Configuration Utility is used to “image” iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The reason I quoted image was because you aren’t laying bits down as you would in a traditional imaging scenario. Instead, you are sending a profile and possibly some applications to the device. This is done through a configuration profile, which is a property list, prefixed with a .mobileconfig extension. The iPhone Configuration Utility stores its data in the ~/Library/MobileDevice directory. Here, you will find two directories: Devices – Contains the Device data for each device that has been docked to the iPhone Configuration Utility. Configuration Profiles – Contains the profiles that you will assign to devices…

  • Network Infrastructure

    Free Junos

    For some time, Juniper has been agressively trying to win converts from Cisco. Not only in terms of sales, but also the hearts and minds of the engineers who influence purchasing decisions. Aggressively going after engineers has meant that for years, Juniper has made their certifications essentially free for those of us who were certified with Cisco. But now, they’re starting to cast their net a little wider and go after getting anyone and everyone certified for free, provided of course that you can pass the test. Juniper’s Junos is being offered for free for a limited time. If you’re interested in beefing up your security and/or networking skills, this…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mass Deployment

    Connect to Server Name

    When connecting to a server from Mac OS X, what name will your system use when you bring up the Connect to Server dialog box? By default it shows the full name of the user authenticated to a client computer. But, not everyone wants this behavior. Therefore, you can change it by altering the /Library/Preferences/com.apple.NetworkAuthorization.plist file. The first thing you can do is add a key called UseDefaultName, which will tell the system to use a static value to populate the user field. That static value is then put into a string for Default Name. To make the UseDefaultName field true: defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.NetworkAuthorization UseDefaultName -bool YES To then set…

  • Mac OS X Server

    Scrubbing Assets from Podcast Producer

    At some point, you may find that you would like to remove all episodes from Podcast Producer that were brought in using a specific workflow, or based on a specific keyword, a string in the title, a date, or the user that created the episodes. All of these attributes are trapped in the db.sqlite3 database for Podcast Producer. This database is stored in the Server directory of your shared library. Within this database there is a table called episodes. Using that table you can locate all episodes that match the given pattern. To query, you will use the sqlite3 command and identify the database path. A very basic incantation of…

  • Mac OS X Server

    Removing Feeds from Podcast Producer

    Podcast Producer works by publishing video to an RSS feed known as the Podcast Library. There are feeds for workflows, Users, Keywords, Days (the podcasts are stored in day folders within Podcast Producer) and custom feeds. When you’re first getting started with and testing Podcast Producer you are likely to create a lot of test podcasts and feeds. Content is stored in the day folders in the Podcast Producer shared file system, and can be removed based on those days. To see the root of the shared file system (and therefore find the Content folder), you can use the following command (where VOLUMENAME is the name of the volume hosting:…

  • sites,  WordPress

    New https://krypted.com/

    I just can’t help myself. Every now and then I get a bug up my butt to go messing around with Krypted.com. In this case, I was tired of looking at some broken elements from the page and the front end of the site in general (just felt like something I might have built in college). I also needed to upgrade the site to the latest and greatest WordPress and some of the plug-ins that I was using were broken in 3. And thus, the lightest version of the site that I think has ever gone up. The posts are all still there, so no change to the content, but…

  • Active Directory,  iPhone

    Managing Active Directory from iPhone

    AD HelpDesk is a tool that can be used to manage certain aspects of Active Directory user accounts. Using AD HelpDesk, you can configure an iOS based device to connect to Active Directory using an administrative account (or an account that has been delegated administrative access). Using the tool, you can then find a user. Using the user pane, you can unlock accounts, reset their passwords, force the resetting of the password on the next authentication event and optionally send a user their new password via SMS (a really cool little feature, IMO). There are a lot of useful ways to fit this tool into your service desk or network…

  • personal

    Minnebar-b-que

    Regrettably, I’m on my way to the airport, but if you’re in Minneapolis today and looking for something fun to do, check out Minnebar-b-que down in Maple Grove. There is sure to be plenty of brats, some beer and maybe a tablet PC or 4: http://anyvite.com/4atmfqaioc

  • Mac OS X,  VMware

    Headless VMware Fusion

    You can run VMware Fusion 2 in what is commonly referred to as headless mode. This option is not yet available in Fusion 3, but is handy when you do not want to authenticate at the loginwindow of Mac OS X in order to run virtual machines using the vmware-vmx process. To enable headless mode, first run the following command: defaults write com.vmware.fusion fluxCapacitor -bool YES You will then see a Headless option in the View menu. You can toggle it on and off there. If you wish to to then disable headless mode: defaults write com.vmware.fusion fluxCapacitor -bool NO While you are in headless mode, you will find it…

  • Mac OS X,  Mass Deployment

    LANDesk Client In Image

    LANDesk stores its data files in the /Library/Application Support/LANDesk/data directory. However, there is a uuid file for LANDesk that, if you put the LANDesk client in your image will need to be deleted. The uuid is in the /Library/Preferences/com.landesk.uuid.plist property list. If you rm this file as a postflight imaging task then your client can be deployed on your image: rm /Library/Preferences/com.landesk.uuid.plist