• Active Directory

    Export AD Objects Into LDIF On Windows Server

    The LDIFDE utility exports and imports objects from and to Active Directory using the ldif format, which is kinda’ like csv when it gets really drunk and can’t stay on one line. Luckily, ldif can’t drive. Actually, each attribute/field is on a line (which allows for arrays) and an empty line starts the next record. Which can make for a pretty messy looking file the first time you look at one. The csvde command can be used to export data into the csv format instead. In it’s simplest form the ldifde command can be used to export AD objects just using a -f option to specify the location (the working…

  • public speaking

    Get To Know Your Aces Conference Speakers

    The excellent organizers from ACES did videos on getting to know their speakers. You should check them out, as it’s pretty fun to see all the people talk about what they’ll be talking about, and Austin, and all the things! 🙂 From the blog, just browse to the other recent articles, or from the YouTube channel: https://acesconf.com/get-to-know-our-speakers-charles-edge/

  • SQL

    SQL TOP

    No, SQL top doesn’t look at the status of a database the way the TOP command in bash does. It looks at the top number of records returned in a query, so a bit more like head. This makes SELECT TOP useful with larger tables where this will be millions of records getting loaded into memory during a query. In this article, we’ll use the same “Customers” table from our first articles to test out TOP: ID Site Contact Address City Zip Country 1 Krypted Charles Edge my house Minneapolis 55418 US 2 Apple Tim Cook spaceship Cupertino 95014 US 3 Microsoft Satya Nadella campus Redmond 98053 US 4 Facebook…

  • SQL

    Reset A Lost MySQL Password

    The first step to reset a password is to stop the MySQL daemon. This will cause mysqld to accept no new connections and terminate existing connections. But this can all be done in a matter of seconds, usually. To stop MySQL on Mac, use the System Preference pane or launchctl. To stop on Linux, use init.d: sudo /etc/init.d/mysql stop Or if it’s mysqld instead: sudo /etc/init.d/mysqld stop Then start the SQL daemon using the –skip-grant-tables option: sudo mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables & Next, login to mysql, which won’t require a password running in this mode: mysql -u root And use the UPDATE USER statement to set a new password: UPDATE USER set…

  • SQL

    Create A SQL Database

    So you’re ready to write some software? Or test some cool stuff. Or build something awesome. You can use the CREATE DATABASE statement to get started, by creating a database. To do so is pretty easy, simply run that statement followed by a name for the database (called Customers): CREATE DATABASE Customers; Once you’ve created a database, it’s time to create tables, which can be done using the CREATE TABLE statement. The Syntax of that statement looks something like this, defining a set of columns, their data type and the size of the column (in the form of a maximum length), all wrapped in parenthesis with each column separated by…

  • SQL

    Query SQL Data In A Range Using The BETWEEN Operator

    Sometimes you’re looking for IDs, prices, zip codes and the like in a range. You can use the BETWEEN operator to select integers, text, or dates within a range of items. The syntax when using the BETWEEN operator would look similar to the following: SELECT column(s) FROM table WHERE column_name BETWEEN value AND value; In this article, we’ll use the same “Customers” table from our first articles: ID Site Contact Address City Zip Country 1 Krypted Charles Edge my house Minneapolis 55418 US 2 Apple Tim Cook spaceship Cupertino 95014 US 3 Microsoft Satya Nadella campus Redmond 98053 US 4 Facebook Mark Zuckerberg foodhall Menlo Park 94025 US 5 JAMF Dean Hager…

  • SQL

    Moar About SQL Wildcards

    Previously we looked at using wildcards in conjunction with the SQL LIKE operator. Wildcards allow you to search for data in a defined table. Think of them as text globbing for SQL. The wildcards available include the following: [list]: Define a ranges of characters for pattern matching [!charlist]: Matches only a character NOT specified within the brackets %: Require a single character/object in a pattern _: Allow any single character in a pattern In this article, we’ll use the same “Customers” table from our first articles: ID Site Contact Address City Zip Country 1 Krypted Charles Edge my house Minneapolis 55418 US 2 Apple Tim Cook spaceship Cupertino 95014 US 3 Microsoft Satya Nadella…

  • SQL

    Constrain SQL Queries Using WHERE and LIKE

    Previously, we covered the SQL SELECT Statement, to pull data from a SQL database. Here, we’ll constrain our search for items that match a given string, or pattern using the WHERE clause to filter search results, rather than getting all of the records and parsing the output. The WHERE clause extracts records that fulfill a specified string and follows the general syntax as follows, replacing the word column with the name of the column in one of your tables and the word table with the name of a table that you’d like to search within: SQL WHERE Syntax SELECT column,column FROM table WHERE column operator value; Below is a selection…

  • SQL

    The SQL SELECT Statement

    Most tasks you will execute against a database are done with SQL statements. Think of statements as a query, an insert, a change, or a delete operating. For example, to see all of your data, you would select all of the records from a database using the SELECT statement. Then we’ll ask for all, or *, and tell the command to show us where the data is coming from, which is the Customers table. Finally, we’ll be nice and tidy and put a semi-colon at the end; although if you forget, you can always do so after you hit return: SELECT * FROM Customers; As can be seen above, the…

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

    My 16 Mac Security Advances Article On TechCrunch

    Ever since the kids from Silicon Valley went to TechCrunch, I’ve been thinking that at some point I’d want to put a piece there. Luckily, I recently got the chance. Today, 16 Apple Security Advances To Take Note Of In 2016 went up on TechCrunch. You can access the article here. The original article actually listed the year that each was introduced in order. It was a lot of work to go back in time and piece the timeline together, so since the years didn’t make it through editorial, I list them here (not that anyone actually cares): 2002: Managed Preferences 2003: FileVault 2004: Require all software installers that need system resources…