• Articles and Books,  iPhone,  Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security

    A New Mobile Device Theme Too

    Last night, I made the site much simpler. Tonight, I modernized the feel as well for mobile devices as well. No more of that iOS 3 lookin’ interface. Now, it looks pretty similar to what the main look and feel is, just without the sidebar and squished into a more trim number of pixels. Hope you enjoy, if you’re the type that reads my stuff on a train from your phone. Not that I’m being presumptuous that people actually read what I have to say…

  • iPhone,  Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment,  Network Infrastructure

    The New Caching Service In OS X Server

    These days, new services get introduced in OS X Server during point releases. OS X now has a Software Caching server built to make updates faster. This doesn’t replace Apple’s Software Update Server mind you, it supplements. And, it’s very cool technology. “What makes it so cool” you might ask, given that Software Update Server has been around for awhile. Namely, the way that clients perform software update service location and distribution with absolutely no need (or ability) for centralized administration. Let’s say that you have 200 users with Mac Minis and an update is released. That’s 200 of the same update those devices are going to download over your…

  • Articles and Books,  Business,  cloud,  iPhone,  Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment

    Apple's Customer Facing SystemStatus

    Apple now has a new system status page for their services, available at http://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus. This site goes through many of Apple’s services and shows an indicator light for when they are up. Additionally, you can scroll down to the detailed timeline and see a historical account of what services are online. This is yet another step in Apple’s continued progress at providing more and more information to the community on, well, everything. This includes seeing Apple popping up at conferences here and there, most notably at Black Hat this year, publishing more kbase articles that detail problems and allowing more community involvement from some employees. A more open Apple is a…

  • iPhone

    SimpleMDM Now With Apps

    SimpleMDM has updated their Mobile Device Management solution (my original writeup is here) to now include the ability to manage apps. The apps functionality really comes in two flavors. The first is the ability to load up an app. This is handled handed by clicking on Settings in the right hand navigation bar and then at the Settings pop-over, clicking on Apps. Here, you can load up an internal, enterprise app or an App Store app. Once you’ve loaded an app you can deploy it to devices by clicking on a group and then using the contextual menu to “Assign Apps.” Simple, as the name implies. The second aspect of…

  • certifications,  iPhone,  Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment,  public speaking

    Penn State MacAdmins Back for 2013

    Last year, I had a great time at the Penn State MacAdmins conference. There were tons of smart people to mingle with and everyone had plenty to discuss when it came to managing the Mac. There were a lot of people from education but also plenty from companies. The talks were well run and the conference location, the Penn Stater, was awesome. I love how it’s like a big winding maze. Having gone to school in a town like State College (Athens, GA), I’ve always had a warm spot for cute college towns. And State College is clearly a special place. I’d recommend a trip there to anyone that loves…

  • iPhone,  Mac OS X,  public speaking

    MacIT Is Coming

    If you haven’t signed up for MacWorld/MacIT, then now is the time to do it. The MacIT site is now flush with speakers, many of which are welcomed new faces to the community! Who would have thought back when Apple introduced iTunes as the tool to manage your click wheel iPod that iTunes would eventually be listed on an actual IT conference page in the same bullet as the word Enterprise? Back then we were all still trying to figure out why Metallica hated Napster. But with the advent of iOS a shift has occurred in our community and I think that the MacIT conference overview gives that shift as…

  • iPhone

    Restricting Access To Sites On iOS Devices

    One of the more common requests we get for iOS devices is to restrict what sites on the web that a device can access. This can be done in a number of ways. The best, in my experience, has been using a proxy. In Apple Configurator 1.2 there’s an option for a Global HTTP Proxy for Supervised devices. This allows you to have a proxy for HTTP traffic that is persistent across apps. Each Wi-Fi network that you push to devices also has the ability to have a proxy associated as well. This is supported by pretty much every MDM solution, with screens similar to the following, which is how…

  • iPhone,  Mass Deployment

    JAMF Nation User Conference 2012

    I mentioned the JAMF Nation User Conference on the site before, but now I need to mention it again. Mostly because I’ll now be doing a presentation now. I know, I said I wasn’t going to be doing much public speaking. But the only conference I’ve been to in the last decade that I wasn’t speaking at has been the JAMF Nation User Conference. Sooo, how could I not, when the conference is, after all, in the city I live in! Anyway, my session has been added to the sessions page: http://www.jamfsoftware.com/events/user-conferences/jamf-nation-user-conference-2012/sessions Hope to see you there!

  • iPhone

    Volume Purchasing Program Now Available In More Countries

    The Volume Purchasing Program is a program from Apple that allows you to buy gift codes en masse for distribution to users, either by mail merging them and sending them out or using a special tool for distribution, such as Apple Configurator or an MDM solution. If you’re in the United States and work with iOS, you’ve likely been using the Volume Purchasing Program for awhile. But for users in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom, the Volume Purchasing Program is new and probably being well received. The Volume Purchasing Program allows users to receive the codes and install/purchase software without being gifted money…