The good folks at Amsys have built a nice little app called Services Test for verifying outbound connectivity to critical services to make iOS devices work. If you are having problems connecting to these services or activating devices, simply open the App and tap on the play button in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Click on the Info button to see what each of these servers do during the activation and management process. The app can also test a few common server services, including connecting to an OS X Server, Casper and AirWatch. These are typical services used in an iOS and Mac environment. Overall, this is…
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10 Things To Know Before Buying A Pebble Watch
At first I didn’t think that I was going to write a review of my Pebble. Then, I realized that my perspective is probably different than most, so I changed my mind and decided to jot down 10 things to know about the Pebble. Before I get into that though, I’m one of those weird people that still wears a watch. Yes, I know, how very dated I must look. But hey, I really don’t care so I keep wearing it. Therefore, a different device on that wrist really doesn’t move the needle, it’s just a device that isn’t the other one that I wore for 20 years… I have…
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Integrate WeMo with IFTTT
Part II. In Part I we setup those little WeMo units you just got. Now, we’re gonna’ connect our WeMo devices to IFTTT. Short for If This Then That, IFTTT allows you to connect lots of different services to other services so that you can trigger events between services. For example, you can connect WeMo to Facebook so when you come home from work the motion sensor posts to Facebook. I don’t recommend that, but it’s an example. A better example is to trigger a change in the weather from your thermostat. Wait, I mean, change the thermostat based on the weather… Anyway, the more things you connect to IFTTT…
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Quick and Easy Home Automation For Christmas Lights
OK, if you’ve been following this site for awhile you probably know that I’m a huge z-wave nerd. But I’m open minded and I like to experiment with new systems. So I bought some Belkin WeMo stuff. I am mostly pretty happy with it. To start, it came in a cute little box. You can just get the light switch, but I splurged the extra $5 and got the little motion sensor, which is well worth $5. I got mine at Best Buy who has a couple of WeMo products in stock at the stores around my house. First up, install the WeMo app on your iOS device from the…
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Upgrade to iOS 7 from an iOS Device.
Most of my readers have already upgraded from iOS 6 to iOS 7. But, you might need to write some technical documentation on how to do so for your end users. If you find yourself in such a situation, you can just cut-copy-paste this article into your own documentation. Preflight First, backup the device. When I did this upgrade I was flying without a net and didn’t bother to back the device I was upgrading up. Having said that, I also don’t keep any data on my device, so I would strongly recommend backing up before you do your upgrade if you do have content you want to make sure…
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10 Advances In Wearable Technology Available Today
First came food, shelter and clothing. Then came technology, innovating all three for thousands of years. But innovation in clothing stalled at some point. Once upon a time man make thicker clothing out of animals with thicker hides, better shoes and then armor. These helped to expand where we could go, when we could go there and how safe we were once we got there. But mankind has long sought using technology that is worn to make life better, from false teeth to eyeglasses. Moving into the somewhat more modern era, let’s look at 10 advances that, while more recent than throwing the hide of an animal that might have…
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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…
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Keynote From JAMF Nation
In case you were there and would like a copy, here’s the slides from the presentation I did this week at the JAMF Nation User Conference 2012. If you weren’t there, then perhaps they will help you in some way. JNUC2012 The session was recorded so I’ll try and post when it becomes available for download.
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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…
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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…