• Mac OS X Server,  Uncategorized

    @bynkii Let the Cat Out Of the Bag – Next Book

    No, not another Snow Leopard post. Well, I suppose it kindof is actually. It’s a pseudo-official announcement that John Welch, Chris Barker and I will be teaming up to write a book on Snow Leopard Server. The book has been posted to Amazon.com and will hopefully be out by Valentines Day. That’s not to say that we will be responsible in any way shape or form for the results if you give your significant other this book for Valentines Day…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server

    64 bit?

    Are you running Snow Leopard at 64 bits? If you run uname -v or uname -m does it say 386 or x64 (or the odd occasional 486 even)? x64 are the only ones running as fully 64 bit, which is mostly the latest Xserve’s. There have been some reports that you can boot holding down the 6 and 4 number keys to get into a 64 bit kernel but I haven’t been able to reproduce this in the various machinery running in my lab yet.

  • Active Directory,  Mac OS X

    Snow Leopard + SkyHook = Kerb Problems?

    In the Date and Time System Preference pane there is now an option to enable “Set time zone automatically using current location”. Assuming you have a Mac OS X computer with Wi-Fi and you use this option (which is not enabled by default) then your portable looks up your location automatically using the wireless access points surrounding you, which can then be looked up against the Skyhook database API and then changes your time zone based on your physical location. However, if your system looks back to the IP address of the KDC and sees a time offset that is greater than 5 minutes a few people have asked me…

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

    Snow Leopard Certifications

    Apple has released the Snow Leopard certification information and site. To make a long story short, for those who are ACSA inclined, you basically have the Apple Certified Support Professional, which is just one exam based on the Snow 101 course. You then have the Apple Certified Technical Coordinator (ACTC), which is the Support Essentials Exam along with the Server Essentials Exam, based on the Snow 201 course. Now for where the changes come into play. First and foremost security has returned, although it’s been lumped in with mobility, likely to focus the syllabus on settings through managed client (ie – automated FileVaulting). Therefore, I guess the SANS course will…

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

    Snow Leopard & Directory.app

    If you grew accustomed to using Directory.app in Leopard and you’re thinking about an upgrade to Snow Leopard then you might want to pause, if only for a moment. You see, there is no Directory.app in Snow Leopard. If you were using Directory.app to allow users to create Blogs and Wikis, then check out the new web interface and see if the specific functionality you seek is there; otherwise look into SACLs and consider pushing out Workgroup Manager. If you were using it to hook into LDAP and allow for looking up contact information then check out Address Book Server, included in 10.6 Server…

  • Active Directory,  Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mass Deployment

    Directory Utility in Snow Leopard

    In Leopard, the Kerberos application got mad because the other utilities were making fun of him. So he went and hid in /System/Library/CoreServices and became an application that was summoned by other applications (ie – Keychain Utility) when they couldn’t do their own work and needed him. Directory Utility saw this and decided it looked like a pretty darn appealing way to go. So Directory Utility has now moved into /System/Library/CoreServices. Not that you will always need to use her. You see, if you open the Accounts System Preference pane and click on Login Options you’ll see Network Account Server. Here you can click on Join. With more space in…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server

    Using Podcast Composer in Podcast Producer 2

    In Snow Leopard Server, Apple has introduced a whole new way to make Podcast workflows. It’s now simple to use, but still with amazing and powerful new automations that give Podcast Producer admins the ability to configure a host of new options quickly and easily. To get started, first setup Podcast Producer. Then, fire up Podcast Composer and go through 7 quick steps. First, provide a default name, author name and title for your workflow, then click on step 2. In step two you’re going to configure the source of the video and audio. For each of the three options, Single Source, Dual Source and Montage, you’ll have an i…