The 10.7.2 to 10.7.3 update for Lion Server has introduced a few issues in some environments that I’ve seen. It just so happens that the update corrects a lot of behavior with Lion Server while also introducing new features, so it’s something you’re gonna’ need to do eventually. Therefore, before I update, I would strongly recommend backing up all of your services, your service data and Open Directory. Once you’ve run the 10.7.3 update, there are a few things that I’ve seen happen. The first is that the web server won’t start. If this happens, reset the web server back to factory default: serveradmin command web:command=restoreFactorySettings Once it’s reset, you…
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Working with Postgres from the Command Line in Lion Server
Mac OS X Server 10.7, Lion Server, comes with a few substantial back-end changes. One of these is the move from SQLite3 to PostgreSQL for many of the back-end databases, including Wiki and Podcast Producer (collab), Webmail (roundcubemail), iCal Server and Address Book Server (caldav) and as the back-end to the newest service in Lion Server, Profile Manager (device_management). As such, it’s now important to be able to use PostgreSQL the way we once used SQLite3, when trying to augment the data that these databases contains, as there currently aren’t a lot of options for editing this data (aside from manually of course). Postgres has a number of commands that…
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More Collaboration (Teams) Customizations
The article I did a few weeks ago on customizing the Mac OS X Server Wiki banner seems to have been a little incomplete. I discussed customizing the banner for a full web browser. However, the banner looks differently when viewed from an iPhone. I’ve had a couple of questions about how to customize the banner for iPhone so I figured I’d finish what I started. As I mentioned in the last article, you can simply customize (or replace) the banner-bg.png file located in the /usr/share/collaboration/css/serverhome_static/img directory. This will alter the appearance when viewed from a full web browser. You can also simply edit the following files (same directory) to…
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Customizing the Wiki Banner
One of the best features of Mac OS X Server is the built-in blog and wiki services. While it is not the right solution for every type of environment, it is a very good medium for internally hosted user generated content. Especially if you are using Active Directory or Open Directory. One of the most common requests I get when setting up a blog and wiki server is to customize the portal so that it is branded to the organization that it’s being set up for. One of the easiest ways to do this is to just edit (or more likely replace) the banner-bg.png file located in /usr/share/collaboration/css/serverhome_static/img directory. There are…
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Spots Available in Collaboration Services MacWorld Session
There are still some openings in the session I’ll be doing on February 10th at MacWorld on Collaboration Services. It’s going to be about shared wikis, blogs, calendars, address books and a little Podcast Producer in the end. If you are thinking of deploying this type of solution or have deployed them but would like to know more then check it out: http://www.macworldexpo.com/sessions?s=QEXPOA0000C7
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Cleaning Up Podcast Producer
THIS CAN BE A VERY DANGEROUS COMMAND, USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK. I’ve been seeing Podcast Producer deployed into a number of different types of environments. One of these is into school environments with quarterly turnover cycles. In these environments, all blog posts over a certain number of days old should be deleted routinely (namely when the quarter changes). Because in some environments, there can be hundreds, if not thousands, of posts, removing old content is cumbersome at best. Never fear, the find command can look at just items that have aged a certain number of days. This is accomplished using the -mtime options. The find command can also…
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Moodle 2.0
I’ve been experimenting with some of the new developmental stuff in Moodle 2.0. The first thing that struck me was that the navigation is much better. It’s uniform throughout the pages and it seems like a lot of attention was made to make the menus and how blocks appear and are laid out look and feel much better. There are also a number of new features for managing courses and blocks, including: Tagging Built-in Progress tracking Forced paths through a course Conditional course completion Enhanced testing and grading systems Built-in RSS aggregation Built-in blogging tool A backup program that was actually able to backup my whole Moodle environment Updated wiki…
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Mac OS X Server: Link to Enable Wiki for AD Users
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1619
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Mac OS X Server 10.5: Introduction To Wiki
I originally posted this at http://www.318.com/TechJournal Leopard Server and wiki. It’s cool and it works. But when you’re first looking into it, it might seem a little confusing. So let’s do a simple walkthrough. Here we’re going to enable a wiki in advanced mode for a group called testgroup and we’re going to give a user called testadmin access to edit the wikis and create new ones. To get access to the wiki we’re going to assume a hostname of server.318.com. First, let’s go into Workgroup Manager and create a new group called testgroup. To do this, open Workgroup Manager, authenticate to Open Directory and click on the New Group…
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Defining Web 2.0
I originally posted this at http://www.318.com/TechJournal Chances are, with all of the hubbub surrounding overnight success giants MySpace.com and Flickr, you’ve undoubtedly heard about the second coming of the internet, commonly referred to as “Web 2.0†. Bloggers are frequently commenting on “Wiki†this and “tagging†that. But what is this Web 2.0 phenomenon and how can it improve how we manage our lives and businesses in a digital world? While there may not be a simple answer to these questions, there are a few suppositions that can be made as to what Web 2.0 is shaping up to look like and how its changing the way we exchange information.…