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

    Add Your VPP Token To Profile Manager Running on Yosemite (OS X Server)

    Apple began rolling out new features with the new Volume Purchasing Program (VPP) program last year. There are lots of good things to know, here. First, the old way should still work. You’re not loosing the stuff you already invested in such as Configurator with those codes you might have used last year with supervision. However, you will need an MDM solution (Profile Manager, Casper, Absolute, FileWave, etc) to use the new tools. Also, the new token options are for one to one (1:1) environments. This isn’t for multi-tenant environments. You can only use these codes and options for iOS 7 and OS X 10.9 and 10.10. Also, if you install…

  • Mac OS X Server

    Obtain Information About OS X Server Using serverinfo in Yosemite Server

    OS X Yosemite running the Server comes with the /usr/sbin/serverinfo command (introduced in Mountain Lion Server). The serverinfo command is useful when programmatically obtaining information about the very basic state of an Apple Server. The first option indicates whether the Server app has been downloaded from the app store, which is the –software option: serverinfo --software When used, this option reports the following if the Server.app can be found: This system has server software installed. Or if the software cannot be found, the following is indicated: This system does NOT have server software installed. The –productname option determines the name of the software app: serverinfo --productname If you change the…

  • Product Management,  Programming

    Product Management :: Using Azure for Mobile Prototyping

    I’m not going to lie to you, I’m a really crappy developer. And I have traditionally used OmniGraffle for prototyping web and mobile apps. But I recently found a cool little tool called Axure. The process of learning Azure was going pretty well. But there were a few things I couldn’t nail down exactly; so I got this handy little book called “Mobile Prototyping with Axure 7“. Designing for mobile apps is different than web apps or even something like FileMaker, which is why prototyping instead of just building flat diagrams with a tool like OmniGraffle is so important. This book took me through Axure with an example-led, hands-on approach that…

  • public speaking

    MacTech Conference 2014

    Some info about MacTech Conference 2014, from the organizers. I hope to see ya’ there, so go get a ticket already! MacTech Conference 2014 is our 5th MacTech Conference! Awesome Venue. We’re really excited about our venue: The Manhattan Beach Marriott. It’s a beautiful venue, close to LAX, overlooks a golf course, and is a great deal on guest rooms. As it did the last few years, the discounted guest room block is expected to sell out — so we want to encourage people to jump on getting registered now. See http://www.mactech.com/conference/hotel Expanded Schedule. The main conference event is three full days of awesome sessions, incredible speakers, useful labs, fun activities, and food! See http://www.mactech.com/conference/schedule Pre-Conference Workshops. As extension of last year’s newly added workshops, there’s an expanded…

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

    MacAdmins 2015

    I was super-bummed that I missed the MacAdmins conference at Penn State University. But, all is not lost as MacAdmins will be held July 8-10 in 2015 at the Penn Stater Conference Center and I’ll be able to see all those awesome people there next year! In the meantime, something fun and new is the 2014 MacAdmins Playlist to maybe get exposed to some new stuff: http://spoti.fi/VTdxLX. As an aside, here’s a fun pic of @derflounder and I (and others) doing a round table from a few years ago on the Penn State site:  

  • Mac OS X Server

    Obtain Old Versions of OS X Server

    With Yosemite in beta, it’s worth mentioning that older versions of OS X Server are still available on the app store, if you just know where to look. You can access and purchase other versions using these links: Server 4: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/os-x-server/id883878097?mt=12 Server 3: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/os-x-server-3.2.2/id714547929?mt=12 Server 2: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/os-x-server-2.2.5/id537441259?mt=12 Server 1: If you already own OS X Lion Server from the app store then you can still access it under Purchases.      

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

    Redirect Logs To A Syslog Server In OS X

    I could have sworn that I’ve written this up before, but I just tried to link it into the article for tomorrow and it’s not on my site, so here goes. To redirect logs in OS X to a syslog server, open /etc/syslog.conf and add the following line (assuming an IP of 10.10.10.92 – replace that with the IP of your syslog box): *.*                                       @10.10.10.92 To customize the port number (e.g. 9200) use @10.10.10.92:9200 instead. This should be instant but you can always use launchctl to unload and reload syslog if for…

  • iPhone,  Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment,  Microsoft Exchange Server,  Network Infrastructure,  Ubuntu,  Unix,  VMware

    Quick nmap Hacks

    The nmap application is a pretty easy-to-use tool that can be used to port scan objects in a network environment. To obtain mmap in an easy-to-use package installer, for OS X check out the download page at http://nmap.org/download.html#macosx (use the same page to grab it for Windows or *nix as well). Once downloaded run the package/rpm/whatever. Before I scan a system, I like to pull the routing table and eth info to determine how scans are being run, which can be run by using the mmap command anong with the —iflist option: nmap —iflist Basic Scanning To then scan a computer, just use the mmap command followed by the host…