• Articles and Books

    Ways to work together with your employees to help keep their skills sharp

    My latest inc.com piece is available at https://www.inc.com/charles-edge/your-employees-want-extra-training-but-youre-going-to-have-to-help-them-get-star.html. It starts off like this, if it’s your kinda’ thing: Employee engagement is dipping, according to a new study by human resources consultancy Aon Hewitt, but as an manager, you can make the workplace more appealing through positive initiatives such as employee training and development. Indeed, I’ve often had people I manage ask for more training. My answer is always an emphatic “yes.” But then something funny often happens: nothing. Giving staff approval for trainingdoesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll do it unless you follow up methodically and even micromanage the process. Why does this happen and what does it show about how employers…

  • Apple TV

    View Logs On Apple TV

    When applying management profiles, it helps to be able to look at the logs and troubleshoot why any settings aren’t applied. To view logs on an Apple TV, open Xcode and then click on an Apple TV. From the Apple TV screen, click on View Device Logs. The logs will appear in the app. Click Done when you’re finished reviewing the logs.

  • Apple Configurator,  iPhone

    Online Guide To Apple Configurator

    You may have noticed a few new articles on Apple Configurator 1 recently (which isn’t assuming anyone actually notices what I’m writing about). While preparing for the massive change that is Apple Configurator 2, I’ve taken the liberty to put a page up compiling many of my articles that align into a guide on Apple Configurator 1, to offer up an outline for what I’ll be working on for Apple Configurator 2. This guide is now available at https://krypted.com//guides/apple-configurator/.

  • Apple Configurator

    Install Apple Configurator

    Apple Configurator is a great tool to manage iOS devices. It’s also a pretty decent tool when you need to create profiles for use on Macs. Apple Configurator is easily installed using the Mac App Store. This involves 3 workflows: Prepare: Setup a device initially. Supervise: Manage a device using Apple Configurator long-term. Assign: Manage content on devices using Apple Configurator. However you plan on using Apple Configurator, the first step to use the product is to download it for free and install it on an OS X computer. To install Apple Configurator, first open the App Store and search for Apple Configurator. When listed, click on Apple Configurator. Then click on…

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

    OS X Yosemite Server and dnsconfig

    DNS is DNS. And named is named. Except in OS X Server. The configuration files for the DNS services in OS X Server are stored in /Library/Server/named. This represents a faux root of named configuration data, similar to how that configuration data is stored in /var/named on most other platforms. Having the data in /Library/Server/named makes it more portable across Mac DNS Servers. Traditionally, you would edit this configuration data by simply editing the configuration files, and that’s absolutely still an option. In Yosemite Server, a command is available at /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DNSManager.framework called dnsconfig, introduced back in Mavericks. The dnsconfig command appears simple at first. However, the options available are actually…

  • Windows Server

    Ports to Open When Doing Citrix Deployments

    When deploying XenApp, there are a few ports that typically need to be open for the solution to work properly. The most common of these are 1603 and 1604, but you may also need to open 1494 and 2598 as well. And of course, 443 and 80 if you’re doing web stuff. So here’s the list and what they do: Admin: 135 Access Gateway Deployment: 443 App Streaming: 445 Citrix ICA thin client protocol: 1494 Citrix ICAbrowser: 1604 Independent Management Architecture: 2512 Management Console: 2513 Citrix Session Reliability Service: 2598 There are also a number of ports that communicate back into your infrastructure, such as LDAP (can be a RODC),…

  • Mac OS X Server

    Setting Up And Using Web Services in OS X Mavericks Server

    Web Services in Mac OS X, Mac OS X Server, Linux and most versions of Unix are provided by Apache, an Open Source project that much of the Internet owes its origins to. Apache owes its name to the fact that it’s “a patchy” service. These patches are often mods, or modules. Configuring web services is as easy in OS X Mavericks Server (10.9) as it has ever been. To set up the default web portal, simply open the Server app, click on the Websites service and click on the ON button. After a time, the service will start. Once running, click on the View Server Website link at the bottom…

  • iPhone

    Free Hosted Mobile Device Management for iOS

    SimpleMDM is a newish Mobile Device Management service that is free, from MJVLabs, the makers of Presense. Now, it’s newish and currently completely free, so there are specific cases where it’s appropriate. Currently, SimpleMDM can be used to: Setup very specific mail Setup SSIDs and passwords (those are the only two options) Disable the App Store or require a password to access the app store Configure Basic, Strong or Very Secure password requirements Restrict content Disable Camera &/or FaceTime Disable Safari Disable iCloud Disable YouTube Disable Multiplayer Gaming The solution is simple to use. Just visit the website at simplemdm.com, click on Create New Account, enter your information and click…