• Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Ubuntu,  Unix

    Leveraging The Useful Yet Revisionist Bash History

    Not, this article is not about 1984. Nor do I believe there is anything but a revisionist history. Instead, this article is about the history command in OS X (and *nix). The history command is a funny beast. Viewing the manual page for history in OS X nets you a whole lotta’ nothin’ because it’s just going to show you the standard BSD General Commands Manual. But there’s a lot more there than most people use. Let’s take the simplest invocation of the history command. Simply run the command with no options and you’ll get a list of your previously run bash commands: history This would output something that looks…

  • Xsan

    Restart Xsan Services

    Sometimes you just need to restart the Xsan services on a system. For example, you rm the contents of /Library/Preferences/Xsan and don’t feel like restarting a computer and waiting for all that ProTools boot junk to fire up. So, you can just restart the services: launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.xsan.plist launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.xsan.plist Also, I now always disable Xsan in System Preferences prior to doing the restart of services. Otherwise, I find cruft happens…

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

    Receipts & Bills of Material in 10.8

    When installing a package OS X makes a list of what it installs in /Library/Receipts/InstallHistory.plist. The dictionaries show each package installed, along with the installation date, the name displayed during installation, the version of the package being installed, the identifier of the package and the process name used to install the package. This information, along with the file name of the actual package is stored in corresponding property lists in /private/var/db/receipts. Each bill of material is also stored there, in .bom file. The lsbom command is used to see a list of objects installed by the package. You can also see the options such as the permissions assigned to files…

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

    Who Needs Root When You Can Have Simple Finder

    Here’s the thing: I’m not very good with computers. So to keep me from hurting myself too badly, I need the simplest interface available that allows me to run multiple applications. But most of the command keys shouldn’t work in this interface and I should only have Finder, file and Help menus. Luckily for my poor MacBook Airs, Apple thought of people like me when they wrote the Finder and invented something called Simple Finder which makes OS X even simpler than it is by default to use. To enable Simple Finder, just go to Parental controls, enable controls for a user and then check the box for Simple Finder.…

  • Business,  personal,  public speaking

    Minnebar Presentations Available On YouTube

    I was supposed to give a presentation at MinneBar a few weeks ago, but I ended up having to be out of town. I was pretty bummed as I really wanted to see a few of the presentations. But, lucky me, MinneBar has actually started posting presentations to YouTube. Woohoo, they’re available at http://www.youtube.com/user/MinneStarMedia. The one I think I was most interested in seeing is available right here, and I can embed it into my own site and watch it from here. I will try and make the next one to do the presentation I’d planned on giving. This is a community I am very supportive of and love contributing…

  • Network Infrastructure

    Aerohive Status Color Codes

    Ever wonder what those color codes on on all your devices mean while they’re booting up? In the IT industry we went from having beep tones and green lights to now having all kinds of methods including touch screens on printers that are as nice as my iPhone practically, computers with touch screens that indicate POST status and of course LEDs that change colors. The LEDs that change colors can be extra special, because we assume yellow is bad, green is good, blue is good and red is really bad. Aerohive uses a different color scheme, which can be a little confusing at first. So what do their LEDs mean?…

  • personal

    10 Sleep Patterns of a Migratory Nerd

    Here’s the thing, I’m wrong most of the time. I’ve long held fast that I do my best work after midnight. I’ve long felt that caffeine and sugar would keep me going deep into the night when I really hit my stride. I’ve also maintained that nicotine helped me stay focused because it gave me an excuse to get up and walk away from my computer for a little while and made me more social. Walking away from my computer to grab a smoke seemed like the perfect amount of exearcise too. Finally, I figured if I didn’t eat for 48 hours that it was no big deal. That lifestyle…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac Security

    Using sysdiagnose to Capture Performance Data In OS X

    “My computer sometimes just runs slow,” “the fan on my laptop won’t turn off sometimes,” and “my network connection keeps dropping.” These are amongst the most annoying off problems to solve for our users because they are intermittent. And to exacerbate things, many of these users have these problems at home or at remote locations, making it difficult for systems administrators to see them. There is something I use in these cases, though, that has helped isolate these problems from time to time. Simply tell users to Control-Option-Command-Shift-Period when they have these problems. Doing so will run the sysdiagnose command and then open a Finder window with the output of the…

  • iPhone,  Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server

    Apple ID Bulk Importer

    Some iOS and/or OS X deployments require us to create a boatload of Apple IDs. This could be to redeem VPP codes, to do iOS backups, to configure Messages, now giving the ability for OS X Server users to password reset for themselves, etc. I have sat and manually created Apple IDs for a number of clients. I’ve created dozens at a single sitting and there are some serious annoyances and challenges with doing so manually. For example, you’re gonna’ fat finger something. If you type 10 things in for 50 accounts then it’s hard to imagine you’re not gonna’ mess something up in one of those 500 fields. It’s also…

  • Articles and Books,  iPhone,  Mac OS X

    Instant Apple iBooks Review

    I just finished reading Instant Apple iBooks, by Zeeshan Chawdhary., available at Packt at http://link.packtpub.com/irY6CN. As with mine and TJ’s Instant Apple Configurator book, it’s a nice, quick read. It has very specific recipes for getting your iBook written quickly. The thing I like about this book is that it allowed me to focus on my content rather than thinking so much about how to technically put the words, images and other elements I wanted where I wanted them. I also have to say that while iBooks is pretty easy, using a book like this will get you up to speed much quicker than just knocking around the system hoping to find…