I've had this blog for the past 13 years in some form or another. Its
lived under a few different domains (crackmac.com, uphonic.com,
kevinduane.com) and it's fun to look back at some of the old and out of
date posts like the very first in 2003 on setting up an OSX server from scratch \<http://mostlycopyandpaste.com/2003/07/01/setting-up-a-os-x-system-from-scratch/\>__.
I haven't had much time the past 5 years since joining the Disney
Systems
Engineering
group and raising a young family but it's time to start some new
habits.
I was 16 years old in 1983 when my high school physics teacher, Rocky
Trembly, carried a little
white box into the
classroom. He fired it up and the dark screen lit up and said,
"Hello." I didn't know it at the time but that moment turned out to
be the cornerstone to a lifetime of exploration and discovery.
Throughout my life I've earned a living as a art director, writer,
technology manager, web master and systems engineer and none of it would
have been possible or probable without that single moment. Now as the
screen goes dark I'd like to say thank you to Steve (and Rocky) for
making my world and the whole world a better more different place.
"Goodbye"
The latest Java
update
from Apple broke JMeter... not sure why but JMeter needs Java 1.5. Add
this line near the top of your jakarta-jmeter-2.X.X/bin/jmeter file
using your handy dandy text editor. I like
TextWrangler.
Finally a way to flush the DNS cache on Mac OS 10.5 "dscacheutil
-flushcache". PC users have always had a way to do this with "ipconfig
/flushdns" but Mac users usually had to restart. In Mac OS 10.4 there
was "lookupd -flushcache" but that never quite worked 100% of the
time. Here's a bit of the MAN page and a link to the complete page via
developer.apple.com.
dscacheutil -- gather information, statistics and initiate queries to
the Directory Service cache.
| Mac Automation: Quickly add to-dos/events to iCal- The Unofficial
Apple Weblog TUAW
| How many times have you been watching TV and wanted to quickly add a
to-do or event maybe both to iCal? In this Mac Automation post, Im
going to show you how to create both a to-do and an iCal event from
within Automator. You will be able to add new items to iCal without
ever having to open it. Lets begin.
| Apple - Support - Security Configuration
Guides
| The Security Configuration Guides provide an overview of features in
Mac OS X that can be used to enhance security, known as hardening your
computer.
The guides are designed to give instructions and recommendations for
securing Mac OS X and for maintaining a secure computer.
To use these guides, you should be an experienced Mac OS X user, be
familiar with the Mac OS X user interface, and have at least some
experience using the Terminal application’s command-line interface. You
should also be familiar with basic networking concepts.
| macosxhints.com - Customize the iDVD background Apple
Logo
| As you may know, iDVD includes (by default) the Apple logo watermark
on your DVD. You can disable this in the General section of iDVD's
preferences. In my case, however, I wanted the watermark, but I
didn't want it to be the Apple logo. Here's how to change it
(you'll need the Developer Tools installed to do this):
| 1. Quit iDVD if it's running, then make a backup of the iDVD.app
program.
| 2. Control-click on iDVD.app in the Finder, and choose Show Package
Contents from the pop-up menu.
| 3. Navigate into Contents/Resources.
| 4. Edit the file watermark.tif to your satisfaction, retaining the
pretty translucency.
| 5. Open Watermark.qtz by double-clicking on the file; it should open
in Quartz Composer.
| 6. Click on the patch that says Watermark.
| 7. Click on Patch Inspector in the Toolbar, then choose Settings.
| 8. Import the watermark.tif file you just edited.
| 9. Save the file and restart iDVD.
| Lessons Learned: Mac mini dual monitors using
DualHead2Go
| When we first set up the office here in NYC, we made an early decision
to go with Apple products for development. Now don't get me wrong, I
love Apple, indeed I am a recent inductee into the Apple Fan Club.
However, I have noticed a few... insufficiencies with the platform,
many of which have little to do with the company itself. For example,
the lack of a good time management system (apologies to iBiz).
FlickrFan is a new kind of RSS reader for the
Macintosh. You subscribe to feeds of cool pictures and show them on
the screen of your laptop, desktop or best of all, a big screen high-def
TV in your den, office or living room!
What can FlickrFan do?
View photos from your Flickr account, selected contacts, tags and
high-res AP wire photos.
Pictures can be transferred to the Mac screen saver or viewed in the
browser.
Upload pictures you drop in a special folder.
Automatically back up all the pictures in your Flickr account on a
local disk.
Archive or delete old pictures, keeping the content of your screen
saver fresh.
| Chris Hanson - launchd: Better than sliced
bread
| Simply put, launchd is what makes it easy to get tasks launched
on-demand on Mac OS X 10.4 and later. It obviates lots of different
archaic Unix infrastructure — init.d, cron, inetd — in favor of a
single self-consistent and easy to use mechanism. Dave Zarzycki’s post
Where to begin? describes the
launchd design philosophy in some depth.
Processes launched at startup on Mac OS X are managed by launchd.
There’s no careful balancing of init.d or SystemStarter scripts on
modern releases of the operating system. Instead, launchd jobs have
property list entries in the LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons directories
in the system and local domains. Some specify that launchd should keep
them alive indefinitely, others simply provide conditions under which
they should be launched.
| Mac Mojo : Get
converted
| This is a stand-alone Macintosh application that converts .docx
documents - that is, documents saved by Word 2007 for Windows in the
Office Open XML file format - into rich text format RTF documents so
that they can be automatically opened in either Word 2004 or Word v.X
for Mac OS X.
With this free converter we passionately want to get you up and reading
the new documents you are receiving. We do not, however, want to see you
inadvertently mess up any critical documents you are working with. For
that reason, only one-way read only conversion is supported in this
beta. When sending documents back to colleagues and contacts, we
recommend saving to the default .doc format from Mac Word listed as
"Word document" in the save dialog. Similarly, we continue to
recommend that you advise friends and colleagues who use Office 2007 and
collaborate regularly with Mac users to save their documents as a
"Word/Excel/PowerPoint 97-2003 Document" .doc, .xls, .ppt to ensure
that the files can be robustly shared across platforms while waiting for
final availability of Office 2008 for Mac.
It seems like Ive been interested in security since I started playing
with computers. It was always about trying to push the limits of what
could be done. As I moved through the various phases of an IT career my
interest just grew. At the University of Georgia and then in enterprise
environments that I worked at when I first got out of school there was a
lot of infrastructure being built out, but not a lot of interest in
security. This is about the time that I found Def Con, 2600 and Black
Hat, and became part of that community. Once I got a little involved in
those the interest seemed to grow exponentially. Then, when I got
involved in networking Macs in the Entertainment Industry, these
interests came together. Now I see the hacker community somewhat of a
protector, finding flaws so they arent discovered by people with bad
intentions and helping to make systems more secure for everyone.
Ever since the Newton came—and went—in the 1990s, a small but vocal
group of Mac users have clamored for a tablet Mac. At least to this
point, Apple has shown no interest in getting into the tablet business.
So it’s up to third parties to come up with a product that may finally
determine the level of demand for a Mac tablet computer.
| Installing the W3C HTML Validator on Mac OS
X
| Building a website is a complicated process, and testing your finished
product
| on every possible browser can be even more daunting. However, because
modern
| browsers such as Safari, Mozilla, and Internet Explorer 6 are
compliant with the
| World Wide Web Consortiums W3C standards, testing your pages with the
W3C
| Validation Tool is a great way to ensure that your pages work with
modern
| browsers. The W3C Validator provides a line-by-line level of feedback,
such as
| error information with references to the standards, on any URL you
submit or
| HTML file you upload.
Adobe Illustrator CS2 crashes on an Intel Mac Pro running Mac OS 10.4.8
when a designer tries to use a tool on the pathfinder palette. This only
happens when a circular path is involved. For example you want to Unite
a round/circular path and a square path. Yo highlight both paths and
select Unite from the Pathfinder palette. The program will crash.
Java Studio Creator is an easy-to-use visual tool for developing Web
applications with Java. Designed for the corporate developer who needs
to be productive and doesnt have the time to learn the details of Java
technologies, the product combines the Java integrated development
environment IDE with a rapid visual designer, a smart code editor,
synchronized editing, and easy deployment resulting in rapid iterative
development of Web applications and Portlets.
I had a dead, clicking hard drive. It would not mount so most repair
utilities and Apple Disk Utility couldn't see the drive to repair it.
Data Rescue II and DiskWarrior (even advanced recovery
mode)
would run for a while but eventually error out.
dd_rescue
(read third comment) is a linux utility that is very powerful and
persistent but wouldn't compile for me in Mac OS 10.4. I finally had
success with a similar linux tool
ddrescue and this
article.
At times, I will run hints here which are pointers to third-party apps
that seem to do interesting things. The decision as to whether to run
such a hint is purely subjective; if it seems like the program does
something interesting, then I'll usually run it. If it's open source,
the odds are even higher, as perhaps someone will learn something by
looking at the source. And almost always, these apps will be from small
one-person shops, who typically have trouble getting the word out about
their programs.
I created the following scripts to mimic the ipconfig /all functionality
found in the Windows NT operating system. In the unix world, all of the
info is available, but not in one place which is where this script comes
in handy. It concatenates all of the various pieces of IP configuration
into one easy-to-read display. The bonus is all of the functions used
are contained in a separate file, which can be sourced into your shell
environment and used individually.
The Mac OS X Server community tends to be an odd one in the larger IT
world. It isn't because of the relative scarcity of our OS, or the
strange hardware, it's because the sysadmins are often not sysadmins.
The people tasked with Mac OS X Server are often educators, video
editors, or bus drivers who have been pressed into service as the Mac OS
X Server sysadmin; often for no reason more than they were reading
MacAddict at lunch. Because of this sysadmin conscription I often find
that the people waging the good fight lack training in the practices of
IT administration. Furthermore they are often not required to conform to
the practices of the organization as a whole since they are running
"Those MAC servers..." and are excluded.
Reports indicate that someone has let loose a "Trojan horse" or worm
for Mac OS X users. The program is hidden within a package that
purportedly contains screenshots of Apple's as-yet unannounced next
major revision to Mac OS X. Whether it's a Trojan horse or worm seems
to vary depending on the source of the information. The code has also
elicited a response from Apple, and a warning to its customers.
At home we have a Windows 2003 Server running as a domain controller and
file server. Whilst this does its job pretty nicely for Windows clients,
I've never been able to connect to it successfully with my Mac running
OS X 10.3 Panther. Browsing the network I have always been able to see
the server, but any attempt to authenticate simply returned a error
along the lines of "the original item cannot be found". Frustrating.
A recent post reminded me of a trick I've been using for the past year
or so with great success, so I figured I'd share. Being a Mac
specialist, I find myself having to do OS installs on a pretty regular
basis. I carry around a couple of 2.5" FireWire hard drives loaded with
installers, diagnostics, and other goodies.
I wanted to be able to install the OS from one of my hard drives, like
in the old days of OS 9, instead of having to boot the the machine from
a CD or DVD. So here's what I did:
Installing Alfresco to create workflows and manage your documents
Alfresco is a fun open source project that I've been playing around
with lately. It's similar to EMC's Documentum, which if you've never
played with allows you to create workflows for documents. It's billed
as a "content management solution" but that term is very overloaded
with all the web CMS systems out there. For those of you still confused,
it allows you to manage all of your documents, such as MS Word files and
such, and create workflows with them.
eb 10 07:07:36 localhost sshd[1078]: Illegal user matt from
210.127.248.158 Feb 10 07:07:38 localhost sshd[1080]: Illegal user
test from 210.127.248.158 Feb 10 07:07:40 sshd[1082]: Illegal user
operator from 210.127.248.158 Feb 10 07:07:42 sshd[1084]: Illegal
user wwwrun from 210.127.248.158 Feb 10 07:07:52 sshd[1096]: Illegal
user apache from 210.127.248.158 Feb 10 07:07:59 sshd[1104]: Failed
password for root from 210.127.248.158 port 58752 ssh2 Feb 10 07:08:01
sshd[1106]: Failed password for root from 210.127.248.158 port 59136
ssh2 Feb 10 07:08:03 sshd[1108]: Failed password for root from
210.127.248.158 port 59176 ssh2 Feb 10 07:08:15 sshd[1122]: Failed
password for root from 210.127.248.158 port 60606 ssh2 .…
The app is small and nonintrusive, but hopefully still has all the
features a Mac user would want. With it you can:
| - view messages without opening a browser
| - open Gmail in your browser without forcing you to log in again
| - make Gmail your default email program
| - even more...
Articles > Trash or Treasure"
href="http://maczealots.com/articles/hiddenfiles/">MacZealots >
Articles > Trash or Treasure
The idea of a hidden file has changed since the days of the classic Mac
OS, where a file's "hidden" attribute was set in the resource fork of
the file, and wasn't immediately accessible to the user. In OS X (and
UNIX in general), it's much easier. All you have to do is preface the
name of a file with a period ("."), and the file won't show up in the
Finder, as well as Save/Open dialogs, etc. This can be a good way to
hide a confidential file
| MAKE: Blog: HOW TO make Enhanced Podcasts (images, links and more
with
audio)
| Apple's new iTunes 4.9, iPod color, allows you to view (and listen
to) "enhanced podcasts" these are audio files that can have
slideshows, URLs and some cool features we have discovered. Apple's
included documents and a Wiki was all I needed to make our MAKE
enhanced podcasts, but I also wrote a how-to. Here's how to get, make
and all you need to know about enhanced podcasts! As a bonus, we put
together some fun ideas we think many might use...
| Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips | CNET
News.com
| Apple has used IBM's PowerPC processors since 1994, but will begin a
phased transition to Intel's chips, sources familiar with the
situation said. Apple plans to move lower-end computers such as the
Mac Mini to Intel chips in mid-2006 and higher-end models such as the
Power Mac in mid-2007, sources said.
| Install Open-Xchange on OS X
Server
| An introduction and tutorial for the installation of a popular,
versatile open source Groupware program.
| This groupware gives the following function:
portal : the first user page showing last information
webmail : web access to internal messaging system
calendar : let you manage your personnal and pro calendar.
contacts : manage all your contact
tasks : let you manage task for a project and delegate it to a group
or a user
project : groups tasks together to show it as a project
documents and knowledge base : all you documents and elements you want
to share
| From engaget.com
| Yep, everyone's talking about using the Mac mini as a home media
center, and there's
a reason why: its diminutive form factor makes it a good candidate to
fit unobtrusively into an existing audio/video or home theater setup.
It looks more like a consumer electronics device than a computer, so
it won't look out of place in your living room.
| ThanksDave
Taylor
| In a bit of a break from business analysis, I thought it would be fun
to post one of my more technical articles to re-establish my "geek
cred", if you will. This article details the trials and tribulations
of turning a perfectly good Apple PowerBook into a tri-boot system
with Mac OS X, Yellow Dog Linux and Ubuntu Linux. Mac OS X is built of
two components, Darwin, the BSD-based Unix underpinnings, and Aqua,
the beautiful graphical user interface we Mac heads have all grown to
love. However, there are other operating systems and other work
environments that can be installed on an Apple system, based on
popular open source Linux applications. If you’re looking for
Intel-based versions of Linux,... In a bit of a break from business
analysis, I thought it would be fun to post one of my more technical
articles to re-establish my "geek cred", if you will. This article
details the trials and tribulations of turning a perfectly good Apple
PowerBook into a tri-boot system with Mac OS X, Yellow Dog Linux and
Ubuntu Linux.
If you work in network support for Windows, sooner or later it's bound
to happen. You'll be sitting quietly at your desk, and someone will
walk up with a long list of questions about their Apple Macintosh
computer. How do we connect it to the existing network? How will users
access file shares, print, browse the Internet, and use e-mail? What do
you do? You don't know anything about a Mac beyond plugging it into the
wall. In a perfect world, you could plug in any device and go to work.
Unfortunately, it's a little more involved than that. It isn't as hard
as it sounds, though, nor is it as difficult as it used to be. Just
remember that there is more than one way to peel an Apple!
Panther Maintenance
Tips
by FranÁois Joseph de Kermadec -- Yes, Mac OS X is incredibly stable,
but here's a comprehensive list of tips to keep it that way for the
duration of your OS install. What? You don't do any maintenance at all?
Well, read on. That might change.
I always thought it might be helpful to use the OS X installation CD not
only for the purpose of installing the OS, but to do some repairs which
can't be done when running from the hard disk. Fortunately, Apple has
made this very easy. The only thing you have to do is to add the
application(s) of your choice to the /Applications -> Utilities folder
of the installation CD/DVD. After that, boot from the copy of the DVD,
and in addition to the usual utilities, (for instance) the Terminal will
appear in the list of commands you can execute if you added it before. I
find that really useful, because if something goes wrong, the underlying
Unix commands are most times able to fix it.
| Affected Software
| Mac OS X 10.3 (all versions through at least 26-Nov-2003)
| Mac OS X Server 10.3 (all versions through at least 26-Nov-2003)
| Mac OS X 10.2 (all versions through at least 26-Nov-2003)
| Mac OS X Server 10.2 (all versions through at least 26-Nov-2003)
| Probably earlier versions of Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server
| Possibly developer seeded copies of future versions of Mac OS X
Homemade Dot-Mac with OS Xby Alan Graham08/09/2002 So, still fuming
about the .Mac annual fee? The question of whether .Mac is worth $100
is a personal matter, but one of the greatest ironies of this situation
is that Mac OS X is packed full of features that make many aspects of
.Mac unnecessary.
| Homemade Dot-Mac with OS X, Part 2
| by Alan Graham
| 09/20/2002
Jaguar has made significant improvements to aspects of Mac OS X. These
features make setting up a home Web server easier and more powerful than
ever, and I'll touch on some of them while digging deeper into the
homemade Dot-Mac project.
| Apple debuts updated PowerBook line | MacNN
News
| Apple today introduced its new 15-inch PowerBook G4, offering a sleek
aluminum design weighing just 5.6 pounds, a 15.2-inch widescreen
display, speeds of up to 1.25GHz, a backlit keyboard, and advanced
connectivity including AirPort Extreme, Bluetooth, FireWire 800, USB
2.0 and Gigabit Ethernet. The new 15-inch PowerBook G4 starts at
$1,999. Apple also updated its other PowerBooks: the new 17-inch
model features a faster 1.33 GHz G4 processor with double the amount
of on-chip level 2 cache and is now available for $2,999, a $300
price reduction. The new 12-inch model features a 1GHz G4 processor
and includes a Digital Video Interface (DVI) port.
| Live Report from MacWorld NY
2003
| Check back for live coverage of Macworld New York 2003. AppleMatters
will be reporting live from the keynote address by Greg Joswiak, Vice
President of Hardware Product Marketing starting at 9:30 am. Bookmark
this page and see you then!
| 7:49 am
| What a difference a lack of Steve makes...I was last at Macworld NY
when Steve Jobs announced the cube in 2000. Then the line was
literally out the door at 7am. This morning, at almost eight o'clock
there are only 20 odd...
| Mac OS X Panther is set to roar onto the scene later this year, and
itís something you donít want to miss. No matter how you use your Mac,
Panther makes better, sporting improvements from head to paws. Learn
more about the future today in this Sneak Preview, and stay tuned for
more news of the future.
| Link
|
| As a super-modern operating system, Mac OS X already combines the
power and stability of Unix with the simplicity and elegance of the
Macintosh. Its gorgeous user interface, Aqua, brings your desktop to
life with expressive icons, vibrant color and fluid motion.
Cutting-edge graphics technologies offer capabilities beyond anything
ever seen in a desktop operating system. At the foundation of Mac OS X
lies an industrial-strength, Unix-based core operating system, called
Darwin, that delivers unprecedented stability and performance. And
only with Mac OS X can you run Microsoft Office, Quark XPress and
Adobe Photoshop, browse a Windows network and use Unix commands ó at
the same time.
{.alignnone
.size-medium .wp-image-389 .aligncenter .alignnone .size-medium
.wp-image-389 .aligncenter width=“300px”
height=“300px”}