The hostinfo command displays information about your host; namely your kernel version, the number of processors the kernel is configured for, the number of physical processors active, the number of logical processors active, the type of those processors, which ones are active, the amount of memory available, tasks, threads, and average load. Run hosting without any arguments or options: hostinfo The output would be as follows (ymmv per system): Mach kernel version: Darwin Kernel Version 15.0.0: Wed Aug 26 19:41:34 PDT 2015; root:xnu-3247.1.106~5/RELEASE_X86_64 Kernel configured for up to 4 processors. 2 processors are physically available. 4 processors are logically available. Processor type: x86_64h (Intel x86-64h Haswell) Processors active: 0 1…
-
-
Repair Permissions Using The Command Line In El Capitan
Repair permissions was unceremoniously removed from OS X in El Capitan. This staple of the Mac gurus toolkit disappeared. There was no 21 gun salute, there was no flaming casket sent out to sea and there was no sweet, sweet wake to get drunk at. Instead, there was pain. There was pain, because when the button disappeared, the need did not. Need proof? If you haven’t yet run it, let’s check your system to verify the permissions of the standard packages: sudo /usr/libexec/repair_packages --verify --standard-pkgs --volume / In the above command, we used the repair_packages binary, which has not changed in awhile. We then feed that the –verify option and the…
-
Recruiting Good Mac Talent
When I was doing a lot of hiring, the pool of Mac Admins was smaller. And it was in a way easier for me to recruit people, because I knew a lot of them. As the pool has grown and a lot of the talent has matured, keeping your finger on the pulse of the hiring market around Apple has become much more challenging. Also, I’ve recruited far more developers and marketing professionals than Apple engineers in the past couple of years. But, there are still a number of places that you can look to find good Mac and iOS engineers looking for a gig. Here’s a quick and dirty…
-
Change Banner Times For Notifications In OS X
You know how in Notification Center, how you see a banner for awhile? You can customize how long that lasts. To do so, use defaults to write a bannerTime key into com.apple.notificationcenterui. They should be an integer that shows the number of seconds for the banner to display, For example, to set the banner to 10 seconds: defaults write com.apple.notificationcenterui bannerTime 10 Or 2 seconds: defaults write com.apple.notificationcenterui bannerTime 2 Once you set the time, log out and log back in (or reboot) for the change to take effect. Enjoy
- 318, Apps, Articles and Books, Bushel, Business, certifications, Mac OS X, Mac OS X Server, Mac Security, Mass Deployment, Microsoft Exchange Server, Minneapolis
My 3,000th Post On Krypted
This is my 3,000th post on Krypted.com. The past 3,000 posts have primarily been about OS X Server, Mac automation, Mac deployment, scripting, iOS deployments, troubleshooting, Xsan, Windows Servers, Exchange Server, Powershell, security, and other technical things that I have done in my career. I started the site in response to a request from my first publisher. But it took on a mind of its own. And I’m happy with the way it’s turned out. My life has changed a lot over these past 11 years. I got married and then I got divorced. I now have a wonderful daughter. I became a partner and the Chief Technology Officer of 318 and helped to shape it into…
-
Using Apple Configurator 2 Blueprints to Manage iOS Devices
Blueprints are a new option in Apple Configurator 2. Blueprints allow you setup a template of settings, options, apps, and restore data, and then apply those Blueprints on iOS devices. For example, if you have 1,000 iOS devices, you can create a Blueprint with a restore item, an enrollment profile, a default wallpaper, skip all of the activation steps, install 4 apps, and then enabling encrypted backups. The Blueprint will provide all of these features to any device that the Blueprint is applied to. But then why not call it a group? Why call it a Blueprint? Because the word template is boring. And you’re not dynamically making changes to devices over…
-
Programmatically Obtain Recent Wi-Fi Networks On A Mac
When you join a wireless network on a Mac, the information for that network is cached into the com.apple.airport.preferences property list. You can access this information using the following command, constraining output to the LastConnected field and the next 7 lines: defaults read /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.airport.preferences | grep LastConnected -A 7
-
Goodbye Certified Apple Server Training!
I remember way back, long ago, before the iPad, and before the iPhone, Apple had official certification training for OS X Server. I think I got my first certification around 10.3. Over time, additional courses appeared. There was an Xsan course, there was an OS X Server course, and there were plans for more. At the height of the Apple certification program, you could get the following for a full on systems administration plethora of acronyms, including ACDT, ACTC, ACSA, and ACMA: Mac OS X Support Essentials v10.6: Prometric #9L0-403, removed on May 31, 2012 Mac OS X Server Essentials v10.6: Prometric #9L0-510, removed on May 31, 2012 Mac OS X…
-
Make Your Bash Prompt Into A Smiling Pile Of Poo (💩) For Halloween
Did you know that bash supports emojis? So do SSIDs. Let’s run a quick and easy command so that bash can enjoy the same holiday that you’re enjoying. Let’s say the name of an emoji. To do so, open the Terminal.app and paste this command in: say 💩 You can also easily edit your .bash_profile. To do so, run the `vi .bash_profile` command and paste this line in: PS1="💩 $" Note that I put a few spaces here, after the smiling pile of poo (which I really just like to type and verbalize while sitting next to people on airplanes). The reason for the spaces is that otherwise your text might…
-
Mac@IBM Presentation from JNUC
Two weeks ago, Fletcher Previn from IBM gave a great presentation at JNUC all about the Mac@IBM program. This is a great story that highlights the advantages of the Apple platform: user preference, easier deployment, and lower support costs. And they love the combination of IBM + Apple + JAMF so much that they decided to come to JNUC and make national tech news out of their deployment. Watch their video here! And keep in mind that they can transform your organization as well. Find out more about their Mac@Work MobileFirst offering here.
