Profile Manager allows you to leave certain fields that are user-centric blank and it will prompt at the time that the profile is installed for the blank information. These are usually user-centric fields, such as short name and password. You can also create a profile in Profile Manager for each user you want to setup mail, Exchange, iCal, Address Book and other services that are tied to a specific user. You can enter the username for each and leave the password blank and the user will be prompted for the password but have the username filled in. And then there are payload variables. Note: Before we get started on Payload…
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Managing iOS Devices with Apple Configurator
My traditional interpretation of Apple’s vision on how iOS devices are used is that everyone has an AppleID. That AppleID enables them to access their apps from any iOS device they own or Mac that they own. That AppleID enables them to access mail, contacts, calendars and even files through iCloud. That AppleID also allows users to remotely wipe their device through Find iPhone and track their friends iOS devices (as in social networking via breadcrumb tracking) through Find Friends. All of this “Just Works” in a consumer sense. And it even allows for a little sharing of content across devices you own. However, larger organizations need more. They need…
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2012 Penn State MacAdmins Conference
Don’t let the theft of the Paternoville sign fool ya’, State College is as safe as ever. That is, until a bunch of Mac guys descend on the Nittany Lion Shrine. Yes, it’s that time of the year again when Mac guys from around the world (and yes, all of the speakers are male) descend upon Pennsylvania State University from throughout the Big 10 and beyond to discuss the Penn State mascot, the Nittany Lion. Actually, it’s a mountain lion, so we can’t discuss it quite yet at that point, but we can talk about a slightly bigger cat: Lion. Lion deployment, scripted tools, Munki, InstaDMG, Puppet, migrations, “postPC,” PSU…
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iOS Device Sales Outpace All Macs Ever (in 2011 alone)
In search of the American Dream? Apple has sold approximately 122 million Macs over the course of 28 years. They have sold 55 million iPads since those were released in April 2010 (in less than 2 years) and sold 156 million iOS Devices for 2011 alone, bringing the total of iOS devices to 316 million. The handset market is set to increase by around 33 percent and there’s really no telling where the tablet market is set to go over the course of the next few years. What does all of this mean? It means that iOS is continuing to increase in visibility, that App Store sales will continue to rise…
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Link Baiting 101
I almost called this article “Aliens Can Listen To Calls on Your iPhone” or “How To Hack Into Every iPhone Ever (Even When They’re Powered Off)”. But then I thought that maybe it would be a bit too much. I’ve been a little melodramatic at times, but that’s when I was younger and needed the rupees. But TechTarget isn’t young (although I don’t know if they need the rupees). I’d like to point out two recent articles of theirs: Zaphod wrote this chapter just to mess with you: Apple iOS Security Attacks A Matter Of When, Not If, IT Pros Say The Salmon of Doubt would be a much better title…
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5 Free Network Troubleshooting Tools for iPhone and iPod Touch (and iPad of course)
There are a number of ways to troubleshoot network connections on (or using) an iOS device. These can be common troubleshooting steps that you might run from the command line or a third party app on a desktop computer or they could be specific to testing the network environment for an iOS device. Some of these apps are even free. Ping Lite One of the most common tasks that most administrators routinely do to test both DNS resolution and connectivity is pinging something. Ping Lite comes with a function to show your IP, a ping tool, a tool to ping the subnet, the ability to run trace routes and for…
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Free MacWorld Exhibit Code and iFan Pass Savings
As usual, there are a lot of great events going on at MacWorld | iWorld. If you’re interested in joining us in a couple of weeks in San Francisco for what I’m sure will be a great conference, then you can use my speaker codes to do so. To do so, during the registration process enter a PRIORITY CODE of: BNB35106 This will give 100 FREE Exhibit Only Passes OR $15.00 OFF an iFan Pass. This code is unique to me, so other speakers have codes as well. The code will stop offering free exhibit passes once the 100th person registers for this. The $15.00 savings off an iFan pass…
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MacSysAdmin Videos Available
I really had a great time at MacSysAdmin 2011 in Gothenburg, Sweden. The videos of the sessions are now available at http://documentation.macsysadmin.se. The Swedes, Danes, Norwegians and even the Finns are great hosts. And getting to meet people from so many countries in one spot is always fun. Tycho and his cohorts at Apoio just do such a great job planning and thinking every detail through. Since my demos were a fail (note: you need Internet access to restore iOS devices), I’ll be publishing an article that outlines each of my demos that weren’t able to be delivered at some point in the near future. Also, congrats to all the…
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Review of My iOS in the Enterprise Book
There is a nice review of my iOS in the Enterprise book up on MacDirectory. It is available at: http://www.macdirectory.com/component/option,com_reviews/task,viewDetail/review_id,504 Overall the review was good. I understand not liking the font choice for the book. Luckily this type of thing isn’t something we authors have a choice about, so I take it as an overall good review!
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Securing iOS Based Devices Paper
The CIRCL (Computer Incident Response Center Luxembourg) has cited my Enterprise iOS book in a paper title Security of iOS Based Devices. It’s only a few pages so a pretty quick read. But what is interesting about it is that in the second edition of the book I’ve already started to replace the Applications chapter (which I wasn’t really happy with in the first place) with a chapter on securing the devices. These days, with a two year old around, I’ve been thinking about adding something on physical security, but I think that might just be superfluous (and ever changing)… Also, in preparation for 2nd edition, I would like to…