The Apple Watch is just another wearable with a limited feature set. In much the same way that the iPhone is just another phone. But they’re not. They have apps. And the apps are what make these devices so powerful. Installing apps on an Apple Watch is pretty straight forward. But before we do, it’s worth mentioning that there are two types. the first is a glance. This is just another view for an app that is on your iPhone that the Apple Watch talks to. The second is an actual app. These have more functionality and more options. There are also built-in apps that can be shown or hidden. Apps…
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Apple Watch Vs. Pebble DeathMatch (Comparison)
When I started to write this, I had this idea that I’d write an article that looked at the features and the usability of the Pebble and those of the Apple Watch. Both have the ability to load custom apps, both have app stores, both do many of the same other tasks, etc. The problem with that premise for this article is that they simply aren’t even remotely comparable. Let’s look at why: Apps: The Apple Watch can support apps and glances from apps. You can load as many as the thing can take, you can get different types of apps and there are already hundreds (if not thousands –…
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Need A Password? There’s An App For That!
Remember this comic: Regrettably, password policies don’t allow for a few random words at most organization, so a special character, a capital letter and a number are basically required in most passwords these days. However, if you need a quick and dirty generator that includes a phrase and those additional characters, consider MyPhrase from Björn Albers. It’s simple to use, fast and easy. Good luck out there!
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Configuring Alerts in Mavericks Server
Mavericks Server comes with a few new alerting options previously unavailable in versions of OS X. The alerts are sent to administrators via servermgrd and configured in the Server app (Server 3). To configure alerts in Mavericks Server, open the Server app and then click on Alerts in the Server app sidebar. Next, click on the Delivery tab. At the Delivery screen, click on the Edit button for Email Addresses and enter every email address that should receive alerts sent from the server. Then click on the Edit button for Push Notifications. Here, check the box for each administrator of the server. The email address on file for the user…
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Programmatically Disable Notification Center in Mountain Lion (aka My Battery Life Sucks)
There are a few ways I like to extend my battery life on my MacBook Air. These days, it’s increasingly important to conserve battery life as the transition to Mountain Lion (Mac OS X 10.8) has caused my battery life to spiral into so much of a vortex that I am concerned that my laptop must be shooting raw electricity out of the bottom (which would certainly explain why my hair has a tendency to be perpendicular with the ground when I exit a plane). Ever since moving to Mountain Lion (yes, this includes 10.8.2), I’m lucky to get 3 hours of battery life out of the Mac that used…
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Determining .app Executables From a Script
I’ve mentioned the codesign tool in previous articles, but today let’s look at a specific use. I recently needed to generate a report of the executable for around 2000 app bundles. Luckily, codesign displays the executable for an app when run with the –display option: codesign --display /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app The output looks as follows: Executable=/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app/Contents/MacOS/Terminal Another tool that I haven’t written much about is productsign (also in /usr/sbin of Mac OS X 10.8). I’ll look at that one next, as a means of signing packages.
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Cryptix: Encryption Made Easy
Cryptix is a nice little app available on the App Store that allows you to encrypt and decrypt files using a variety of algorithms. However, while an easy to use encryption tool, it’s actually an even better learning tool for figuring out how various types of encryption techniques actually work. When you first open Cryptix, you’ll see a list of supported algorithms for encrypting files and passphrases. That part is simple enough, but click on the Tools icon in the toolbar. Here, you’ll see a number of features along the sidebar, including Checksum, which performs a quick checksum of files dragged on top of the green arrow and tracks hashes,…
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MacTech InDepth In New York
I have been added as a speaker at MacTech InDepth in New York. If you haven’t signed up yet, and you work with Mac OS X Server then you should really check out the sessions that have been planned: The Elephant in the Room: The New Lion OS X is out, now what? There are a lot of differences to contend with between Lion and Snow Leopard. Now with the new Mountain Lion update, what changes can we expect to see? We discuss the differences in advanced services, GUI simplicity, and Apache management GUI’s. We help you understand the updates in the new OS and make the transition easier. We…
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Man Pages Made Easy
Ever since upgrading to Lion I’ve been making a few slight changes in workflow. One such change, which I’m still on the fence about, is to switch from reading man pages in a tiled Terminal screen, to reading them in a browser window. It seems like a small thing, but I spend a lot of time switching between terminal screens or using screen to switch between sessions. Bwana allows you to read a man page from within a browser. Simply load download the Bwana app into your /Applications directory and wait a few seconds. Then open a browser window and look for a man page. For example: man:dsconfigad Now, you…