• Apple Configurator

    Copy OS Updates Between Apple Configurator Machines

    One of the things that is awesome and sometimes frustrating about Apple Configurator is that when you do certain tasks, you end up updating the OS on devices. The reason this is awesome is that it allows you to centralize operations. The reason this can be frustrating is that if you’re on a limited bandwidth connection, you may find that you can’t do very basic tasks before downloading a large OS update. And if you’ve got a bunch of Apple Configurator workstations, and you are running a training session, this can get infinitely more annoying. In these types of lab environments, you’re in luck. If you have an ipsw (the iOS…

  • Mac OS X

    The Cut, Copy & Paste Daemon in OS X

    Ever seen com.apple.pboard in a launchctl list?  Wondered what it did?  This is the infamous clipboard (aka – pasteboard, or on the iPhone the NSPasteboard server).  If you unload the pboard entry in launchctl then you will no longer be able to cut, copy and paste.  pboard relies on the existence of and the accessibility to the user that initiated pboard (ie – root) to have access to the /tmp folder.  Therefore, pboard will be wonky without /tmp and without pboard you won’t be able to paste things.  So, when troubleshooting cut, copy and paste issues, first verify that /tmp exists and then verify that pboard is running using the…