• Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security

    Programatically Manage Fingerprints in OS X

    Apple recently introduced a laptop with the same fingerprint technology found in an iPhone as well as a T-1 chip to take the sapphire Touch ID sensor information and store it securely, non-reversibly(ish), on the machine. OS X 10.12 now comes with a tool that can manage the fingerprints, stored as keys, on the device. The bioutil command is simple to use, with a few options that are mostly useful for enabling different features of the new technology. Let’s get started by enabling the unlock option, using the -r option to see if Touch ID is enabled for the current user and -s to check the system as well: bioutil…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server

    Configure Alerts In OS X Yosemite Server

    The Server app, when run on OS X Yosemite, comes with a few new alerting options previously unavailable in versions of OS X. The alerts are sent to administrators via servermgrd and configured in the Server app (Server 3.5). To configure alerts in Yosemite Server, open the Server app and then click on Alerts in the Server app sidebar. Next, click on the Delivery tab. At the Delivery screen, click on the Edit button for Email Addresses and enter every email address that should receive alerts sent from the server. Then click on the Edit button for Push Notifications. Here, check the box for each administrator of the server. The…

  • Mac OS X

    Notification Center, Mountain Lion and Me

    I love Notification Center on my phone. I think it’s great to receive a simple list of items that have changed since the last time I looked at the phone.  I can also quickly dismiss the screen so the fact that there’s often 20 or more items in the list when I’ve been sitting at my computer for 10 minutes and not looking at the phone doesn’t really bum me out much. In Mountain Lion, Notification Center comes to the Mac. What I’ve grown to love on the iPhone, I’m not sold on for OS X. You see, the alerts that pop up on the screen are great for a…