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

    Migrating Objects From Active Directory To Apple School Manager

    Apple School Manager is a portal used to create classes, import students, manage Managed Apple IDs, and link all these things together. You can use a Student Information System (SIS) to create these classes, import students, etc. But, only if you have a SIS with an API that Apple links to. If you don’t, you’ll need to import data using csv files. And you’ll need to import four csv files: Classes, Instructors, Staff, and of course Students. Many schools will already have this data in Active Directory or another LDAP-based solution. Here, we’ll look at getting the information out of Active Directory and into csv. The LDIFDE utility exports and imports objects from…

  • Apple Configurator,  iPhone

    Enable Apple Configurator Debug Logs

    Apple Configurator 2 is a great tool. But you need to debug things from time to time. This might mean that a profile is misconfigured and not installing, or that a device can’t perform a task you are sending it to be performed. This is about the time that you need to enable some debug logs. To do so, quit Apple Configurator and then write a string of ALL into the ACULogLevel key in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.configurator.ui/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.configurator.ui.plist: defaults write ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.configurator.ui/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.configurator.ui.plist ACULogLevel -string ALL To disable, quit Apple Configurator and then delete that ACULogLevel key: defaults delete ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.configurator.ui/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.configurator.ui.plist ACULogLevel

  • iPhone,  JAMF,  Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment

    Casper 9.9 Now Available, Unlocking All The New Awesomeness In iOS 9.3

    Casper 9.9 has shipped! After the most thorough of testing and field enablement, JAMF has shipped Casper 9.9, with tons of new awesomeness for iOS 9.3. You now have the ability to do Lost Mode, which allows you to see where a lost device is, and allows your users the peace of mind that their privacy is protected by informing them that administrators looked at the location of a device (and you can assign a custom Lost Mode message, for example providing a reward for the return of a lost device). You can also manage a number of Notification Center features. You now have the ability to use the Classroom App…

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

    Contributing To The New MacAdmins Podcast: Episode 1 is out!

    When I was speaking at MacADUK, I asked Tom Bridge about starting a podcast. He’s got a great voice, and I thought he’d be a great co-host. Before we were able to get to that when we got home, Adam Codega, independently of the conversation I’d had with Tom, dropped a note on Twitter to see who else might be interested in doing a Podcast. A few people responded that they’d be interested in also jumping in on a new Podcast. Over the next few weeks, decisions were made that the podcast would be hosted as a part of MacAdmins.org, the format, the hosting location, and lots of other really cool stuff.…

  • Apps,  cloud,  iPhone,  Mac OS X

    10 Cool Things You Might Not Know You Can Do With Dropbox Article On Huffington Post

    My latest Huffington Post article is up; this one on 10 Cool Things You Might Not Know You Can Do With Dropbox. A sample of the article: You lіvе in an аgе whеn you wаnt (and ѕоmеtіmеѕ nееd) tо access іnfоrmаtіоn аt аll tіmеѕ. Thіѕ іnсludеѕ yоur оwn dаtа аnd fіlеѕ — text dосumеntѕ, рhоtоgrарhѕ, vіdеоѕ, music and mоrе. Thаt’ѕ whу ѕеrvісеѕ lіkе Drорbоx is so popular wіth thе соnnесtеd gеnеrаtіоn. Free оf сhаrgе (wіth a раіd uрgrаdе орtіоn), Dropbox lеtѕ уоu uрlоаd уоur files tо fоldеrѕ ассеѕѕіblе аnуwhеrе thеrе’ѕ аn Intеrnеt connection. It еlіmіnаtеѕ thе hаѕѕlе of еmаіlіng уоurѕеlf attachments аnd runnіng іntо size limits. People can use Dropbox…

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

    iOS 9.3 Update Now Available

    iOS 9.3 is out, with lots of new, cool features. For a list of them: With this update your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch gain improvements to Notes, News, Health, Apple Music and a new feature called Night Shift that may even help you get a better night’s sleep by shifting the colors in your display to the warmer end of the spectrum at night. New features, improvements, and bug fixes include: Night Shift When enabled, Night Shift uses your iOS device’s clock and geolocation to determine when it’s sunset in your location, then it automatically shifts the colors in your display to the warmer end of the spectrum and may even help you get a better night’s sleep. Notes improvements Protect notes…

  • iPhone

    Activation Lock Status At Apple

    Thanks to Josh for pointing this out. Apple has a page that lets you look up whether your device has Activation Lock enabled. This way, even if you don’t have it, you can confirm that it’s locked after you, for example, remotely wipe it. The page is available at https://www.icloud.com/activationlock/.

  • iPhone,  JAMF,  Mass Deployment

    AppConfig.org, A Standardization Community For MDMs

    When building an MDM, you look for a lot of workflows to make the lives of end users easier. One of those is Managed App Config, which is a technology from Apple that allows an MDM to inject information into an app when the app is sent to a device. Because all apps are different, it’s up to the application developer to build in support both for the feature itself, as well as for any variables they’d like to make possible for an MDM to send to an app. For example, an app might make server and username available, so that when a user opens the app, they need only…

  • Apple Configurator,  iPhone,  Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security

    Mac-Only MDM Profile Keys

    Below is a listing of all the profile payloads that you see listed when using the Profile Manager web interface as well as their corresponding keys in the mobileconfig files. You can use these to generate profile keys programmatically: Distribution Type: Automatic Push Manual Download Organization: PayloadOrganization Description: PayloadDisplayName Automatically Remove Profile: PayloadRemovalDisallowed Payload scope: User or computer —— Identification User Display Name: Email address: EmailAddress User Name: FullName Password: Password User Enters Password: AuthMethod Prompt: Prompt Prompt Message: PromptMessage ——— Restrictions (com.apple.applicationaccess.new) Preferences tab: Restrict Items in System Preferences: familyControlsEnabled Allow array: EnabledPreferencePanes with each identified in a string for its domain: EnabledPreferencePanes com.apple.preferences.users com.apple.preference.general com.apple.preference.universalaccess com.apple.preferences.appstore com.apple.preferences.softwareupdate com.apple.preferences.Bluetooth…