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Parental Controls in Mac OS X
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Hackintosh on EFI-X
Considering building a Hackintosh? There are a number of methods out there that I can’t say I’m in love with. But one method I do like is using EFI-X, provided you’re happy with the supported motherboards, mostly from Gigabyte. EFI-X is a hardware based EFI emulator, which allows you to run more natively as a Mac OS X computer. Oh, and if you build a Hackintosh, don’t forget to buy a legitimate copy of Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server to run it on.
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Creating Accounts in OS X Server with serversetup
I usually create users by dropping a couple of files or by using a dscl script. But in Mac OS X Server it’s even easier than that. You can use the serversetup command, by default located in /System/Library/ServerSetup to do so with the -createUserWithID option. Following the -createUserWithID option, use the long name, then the short name, then the password and finally the UID of the intended user (that’s position 1 = long name, position 2= short name, position 3 = password and position 4 = UID). Therefore, if /System/Library/ServerSetup is your working directory then the following command can be used to create a user with a full name of Charles,…
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Automating NTP Setup on Mac OS X
The two primary aspects of time setup are typically setting the time zone and setting the Network Time Protocol (NTP) server. The systemsetup command can be used to set both of these date and time options for Mac OS X computers. To see a listing of the available time zones in Mac OS X use the systemsetup with the -listtimezones option as follows: systemsetup -listtimezones Once you have the time zones you can then use systemsetup with the -settimezone option to configure the time zone on your system. It is often easiest to simply paste the time zone into the command. So to set the time zone to Detroit for…
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Making Windows 7 Look Like Mac OS X
Not sure if it is kosher to actually distribute a theme pack for Windows 7 that makes it look like Mac OS X. But in lieu of doing so I can explain how it is done. Basically, take your images from the icons of Mac OS X and copy them into files, copy them to Windows and assign them as icons. Once you’re done, set the background to one from, let’s say, Mac OS X and make your icon placement similar. Then, export your theme pack by going to the Appearance & Personalization Control Panel for Windows 7 and clicking on Personalization. Under My Themes, right-click on the theme and…
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Rerunning the Setup Assistant
Often times you will want the Mac OS X Setup Assistant to run post the initial installation or imaging. Perhaps you bake an image into machines at a retail store, installing a number of software packages, or maybe you just want a shot at entering your credit card information because you used Command-Q to quit the Setup Assistant when you first unboxed your boxen. Either way, it’s a fairly straight forward task. Simply delete the .AppleSetupDone, stored in the /var/db directory. Note that this file is hidden and owned by root, so use the following command to remove it: sudo rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone It’s also worth noting that when doing a…
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Changing Time Machine Backup Frequency
Time Machine just does what it does and there’s not much controlin’ it aside from what’s in the System Preference pane. Or is there? Earlier, I covered how to disable the disk check feature, now let’s look at how to change the frequency of when backups occur. Backups are initiated by com.apple.backupd-auto.plist, stored in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons. The contents of this file are, by default: <?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC “-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN” “http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd”> <plist version=”1.0″> <dict> <key>Label</key> <string>com.apple.backupd-auto</string> <key>ProgramArguments</key> <array> <string>/System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/backupd-helper</string> <string>-auto</string> </array> <key>StartInterval</key> <integer>3600</integer> <key>RunAtLoad</key> <false/> <key>KeepAlive</key> <false/> </dict> </plist> The StartInterval integer controls the frequency with which backups occur, in seconds. You can customize this by altering the…
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Disable Disk Arbitration
In Mac OS X, diskarbitrationd is the process that handles mounting disks when they are inserted into the computer (eg – firewire, USB, etc). Diskarbitrationd runs in the background, is always on by default and is started by launchd. New disks inserted into the computer are automatically mounted, which you might not want to happen (for example, if you are forensically imaging a system, investigating malware on a device, attempting to fix corruption, simply trying to keep users that don’t know how to manually mount a disk from accessing one, etc). There are number of ways to stop diskarbitrationd. One of the easiest (and least intrusive since it doesn’t require…
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How to Crack a DMG Password
A dmg file is a compressed file structure, capable of containing folders, files, etc. Dmg files can be used for a variety of purposes, from encrypting a home directory (ie – FileVault) to encrypting a file structure manually. A dmg file can be encrypted fairly simply. From Disk Utility, create a dmg file by clicking on the File menu and selecting New and then Blank Disk Image. This will bring up a screen where you can provide a name for your home folder and a size, then select either AES 128 or AES 256, which is a bit slower. Go ahead and click on Create and then at the resultant…