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Welcome
Thanks for checking out my blog. There's a good chance you're here because you had a class with me or met me at a tradeshow. I'm an Apple- and Adobe-certified instructor from Boston, and a full-time trainer for Future Media Concepts.
Feel free to take off your shoes, get comfortable, and have a look around. All of my previous posts can be searched by the keywords along the left side of the page, my resume can be found on the right, and if you care to write me with a question, my address there, too. Please, don't hesitate- your questions give me material to write about (and improve my classes).
And YES, I am available for consulting!
It is by no means thorough or all-inclusive but it's a good start.
files.me.com/overstim/
If you don't ave Keynote, you can still view these slides in Leopard with QuickLook, or import them into PowerPoint.
Fully 64-bit, CoreCL for GPU processing, GrandCentral will make it easier for developers to take advantage of multiple processors and multiple cores, and Quicktime X has been re-written from the ground up. Shipping in September, the upgrade will be just $29, and only $10 for people who buy a Mac between now and then. Exciting stuff.
Oh, and INTEL-ONLY.
Yes, that's right, Snow Leopard will not run on G5's or G4's. Nor will Snow Leopard Server, of course.
As always, we at FMC don't have any details on new books or courses until they are pblished, which should be shortly after Snow Leopard is shipping. We do know that if you are an Apple Certified Support professional, Technical Coordinator or Server Administrator, you will only need to take ONE re-certification test, not 5, so that's good news.
Keep an eye on http://www.fmctraining.com for more info when classes become available.
Has a couple interesting events to check out:
Integrating Macs in the Enterprise: A Networking Event in Reston, Virginia
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 5:30-7:30 pm ET @ Learning Tree in Reston, VAClick the link to find out more and register. And for those of you who arent near VA right now,
On-Demand Webinar: Managing Macs in a Windows Environment
Learn how the Enterprise Desktop Alliance solutions leverage Windows-based administration tools and procedures to manage Macs in enterprise environments.Click the link to register, and watch online.
http://web.mit.edu/Kerberos/dialogue.htm
Honestly, though, it really is pretty entertaining, and it does a great job of explaining what is going on in a step-by-step way... and why all of it is going on. A good, short read.
Here is an Apple-produced video that shows all of this behavior graphically: files.me.com/overstim/
http://macosxtips.co.uk/index_files/ter
- Build a Mac OS X Server and call it yoursus. We used a headless Mac mini to do the job.
- You must use external DNS servers on this server (so it won't check itself for updates).
- Add a record for your server on your internal DNS, so yoursus.yourdomain.com resolves to your SUS's IP.
- Start Software Update Server (SUS). It may take some time to cache all updates -- our /usr/share/swupd/html/ folder now has almost 9GB of files in it!
- Start Web Service, and add following redirect (Server Admin » Web » Sites » default » Edit » Aliases » URL Aliases and Redirects » Add » Redirect):
- Pattern: /content/catalogs/index-1.sucatalog
- Path: http://yoursus.yourdomain.com:8088/index.s
ucatalog
- Add a zone in your internal DNS, called swscan.apple.com, and point the whole subdomain to the IP of your SUS.
- Flush your DNS cache on the clients: lookupd -flushcache
Now just run Software Update on the clients, and enjoy the speed of downloads!
The only downside of this setup is the mini complaining in system.log that it has no reverse DNS entry for itself. To be honest, I didn't have much time to think how to set it up without extra hardware; I just happened to have a spare mini for this purpose. Maybe there's a way to have the DNS and SUS running on one server, perhaps via two IP addresses and tweaking of config files. I also didn't test it much with Panther clients; it possibly needs different redirects for that. Comments welcomed. Happy updating!
Warning: I emphasized using internal DNS so you won't propagate Apple's own zone to the outside world.
Keep an eye out for another post coming soon, where I show how to do this in the Terminal. But I find this method a bit safer- if you're running your own Software Update server, its not that hard to also run your own Web and DNS.
Keychain Minder
Essentially this app checks to see if the default keychain, which is usually the login keychain, was unlocked during the login process. If it was unlocked the app does not show in the dock or display anything it just quickly quits. The idea is that a user won't even notice this is going on if everything works out well.
If the keychain is not unlocked it will display a dialog box prompting the user to put in the old and new passwords. It will then attempt to reset the default keychain. If successful this will also cause the keychain to be unlocked and usable by any apps on the machine.
If the user has forgotten their old password, they can create a new keychain with their new password and backup the old one.
Also, when entering in their password Keychain Minder checks to make sure it is in fact their login password. This way there is no chance of them mistyping the password.
The app also creates a pref file, com.afp548.KeychainMinder.plist, with one entry. Set this to NO if you don't want the app to check at login. This is useful for when you set this application as a login item through managed preferences but some users want to have a unique login keychain password.
How do I use this?
Run this as a login item for your users. You configure that in the Accounts preference pane of the System Preferences.
Why do this?
The primary function of this application to keep the users from getting confused when they've changed their password through a web interface or from the PC. When logging back into OS X their login password no longer matches their login keychain password so things like Safari start yelling about a locked keychain. This is all rather cryptic and confusing for the user, so this app hopes to help smooth things out.
Essentially this app checks to see if the default keychain, which is usually the login keychain, was unlocked during the login process. If it was unlocked the app does not show in the dock or display anything it just quickly quits. The idea is that a user won't even notice this is going on if everything works out well.
If the keychain is not unlocked it will display a dialog box prompting the user to put in the old and new passwords. It will then attempt to reset the default keychain. If successful this will also cause the keychain to be unlocked and usable by any apps on the machine.
If the user has forgotten their old password, they can create a new keychain with their new password and backup the old one.
Also, when entering in their password Keychain Minder checks to make sure it is in fact their login password. This way there is no chance of them mistyping the password.
The app also creates a pref file, com.afp548.KeychainMinder.plist, with one entry. Set this to NO if you don't want the app to check at login. This is useful for when you set this application as a login item through managed preferences but some users want to have a unique login keychain password.
How do I use this?
Run this as a login item for your users. You configure that in the Accounts preference pane of the System Preferences.
Why do this?
The primary function of this application to keep the users from getting confused when they've changed their password through a web interface or from the PC. When logging back into OS X their login password no longer matches their login keychain password so things like Safari start yelling about a locked keychain. This is all rather cryptic and confusing for the user, so this app hopes to help smooth things out.
Get more info and the download here: http://www.afp548.com/article.php?story=2
The seminars will be held on: Thursday, March 19th and Friday, March 27th. Each day the available time slots will be at 11am, 3pm and 6pm. Seminars will run approximately 45min long. Please call now 212-233-3500 to register for this event.
Due to overwhelming demand, space is limited. NO WALK-INS ACCEPTED. Applicants must be NY residents and make under $56K to qualify. All information as to how you can apply for a training grant will be discussed in these free seminars so reserve your seat!
Contact Aneish Lewin with any questions or for help with registration.
Phone: 212-233-3500 E-mail: AneishL@fmctraining.com
299 Broadway, Suite 1510 | New York, NY 10007 Copyright © 2009 Future Media Concepts
If you try to log into an OD server via AFP, and standard authentication works but Kerberos produces an error -5002, your Kerberos principal is probably corrupt.
On your server, look in /Library/Preferences/com.AppleFileServer.p
<key>kerberosPrincipal</key> <string>afpserver/machine/domain.com@MACHINE.DOMAIN.COM</string>
if it looks more like this…
<key>kerberosPrincipal</key> <string>afpserver/LKDC:SHA1.C4F4D444F403E645 6C75B96F80E8E2A8F12DA2EE@LKDC:SHA1.C4F4D444F403E64 56C75B96F80E8E2A8F12DA2EE </string>…Then you have a problem.
Try this fix, courtesy of Laurent Pertois. Stop AFP, then in the Terminal:
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.AppleFileServer kerberosPrincipal "afpserver/myserver.mydomain.mytld@MYSERVER.MYDOMAIN.MYTLD"Note the quotes, and all on one line in case it doesn't display that way in your browser. There's a space before and after kerberosPrincipal. Then restart the AFP service, delete any tickets on your client, and try to log in.
Apple Discussions
CreativeCow
Click here to go to CreativeCow
http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/200
CS4: What's in it for Photographers?
Personally, I'm most excited for the improved panoramas, content-aware scaling, and the new adjustments panel:
- No date seems set yet, or none that I can find. Amazon lists various dates between November 7-14
- The suites are the same: Design, Design Premium, Web, Web Prem, Production Prem, Master
- Prices have not gone down from CS3, but they dont seem to have gone up, either.
- The video apps are Intel-only, but the design & web suite are still Universal.
- There will be a 64-bit version for Windows, but Mac users will have to wait until at least CS5
You MUST run the ProApps update before updating to the latest FCServer. Also, you must update Java... and the latest Java update is not available to PowerPC Macs. We have experienced some major issues trying to run Final Cut Server on a PowerPC Mac... Until things get ironed out, I would advise against upgrading to the latest version if you are running on PPC hardware. You probably shouldnt be running FCServer on PPC hardware, anyway.
So far, running the client app on Intel or PPC both seem fine.
Atempo just announced their support specifically for Final Cut Server with the new Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) for Mac:
http://www.atempo.com/
Excerpts:
• The introduction of Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) for Mac marks the first dedicated file archiving software to deliver enterprise-class archiving capabilities to the Mac platform.
• Atempo also furthered its commitment to serving Mac-intensive vertical markets with the integration of Apple Final Cut Server with ADA, ensuring long-term storage for media assets created in data-intensive industries.
ADA’s integration with Final Cut Server also marks an important step in serving data-intensive media and entertainment markets. The media asset management and workflow automation software is widely-used in this Mac-heavy industry, but by itself can only archive data to a very limited set of disk devices. With its integration with ADA, users can enable the storage of fixed-content media assets stored in Final Cut Server into a wide number of long-term storage devices. The archived assets are displayed in Final Cut Server and marked with a specific icon to ensure easy retrieval and quick restoration.
Also related to this is a piece of hardware from Quantum.
http://images.apple.com/
Open XML Converter allows you to convert Open XML files that were created in Office 2008 for Mac or Office 2007 for Windows so that you can open, edit, and save them in earlier versions of Office for Mac. Open XML Converter can convert Word documents, Excel workbooks, and PowerPoint presentations that are in the Open XML Format so that you can open and edit the files in Office 2004 for Mac and Office v. X for Mac. You can choose to convert and open one file, or convert a large number of files.
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?stor
Turn off Bonjour:
http://tech.karbassi.com/2007/11/06/leop
Turn on debug mode in Dashboard, and leave widgets on your desktop:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?s
Skin your dock:
http://leoparddocks.com/index.php
Add more backgrounds & effects to iChat:
http://www.scottkellam.com/os-x-software/m
Hidden bonus screensavers!
http://www.brighthub.com/Computing/Mac-P
Use a screensaver as your desktop background (check the comments for the terminal command)
http://osxdaily.com/2006/12/02/backlight-s
Enable hidden features in screen sharing:
http://www.macworld.com/article/131094/2
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