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Information Technology

Yosemite Sam 10.10.3

In September, Apple released OS X 10.10 (Yosemite). September is not a good time to release a new OS from the point of view of a K-8 IT Manager. We need a few months before the school year starts to do testing, and that was not able to happen. In previous years I had waited until the following summer to upgrade. This year with the implementation of Munki at the school, I wanted to roll out 10.10 to staff and students as an optional install after 10.10.3 or 10.10.4 was released. During the Passover break, Apple released 10.10.3, and that release led to a major realization. Apple had patched a… Read More »Yosemite Sam 10.10.3

AutoPKGr

I’ve been using Munki at work for some time. Munki is a system for central management of package installation for OS X computers. It allows end-users to be forced installs from IT, and allows a catalogue of IT-approved installs that end-users can install themselves. It’s really handy. However, to manually add packages all the time, with constant updates from Google, Mozilla, Adobe, Apple, Evernote, and more and more, all my time would be spent searching for updates. Instead I use a command-line tool called AutoPKG which looks for updates from any program you specify (assuming a recipe has been created), and AutoPKG will download it and install it into your… Read More »AutoPKGr

Apple Canadian Settings through MCX

Background I was tired of looking at my end-user’s screens and calling up “Managed Software Center” rather than “Managed Software Centre.” I figured I would enforce both the system-wide language setting, as well as enforce keyboard layouts to include both Canadian English and Hebrew. Those are kept in two files. com.apple.HIToolbox.plist holds the Keyboard settings .GlobalPreferences.plist holds the language settings The leading . means that it’s an invisible file, but you can use the terminal to copy it to another location: cp ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist /PATH/TO/GlobalPreferences.plist If you notice that in the second path, I removed the leading . to make it visible. .Plist setup The keyboard settings file just need to… Read More »Apple Canadian Settings through MCX

Save PDFs with one Click in FileMaker

It suddenly came to me that I could probably automate a process I do every time I purchase something for work. Every time I create a purchase order, I then go to Print and choose “Save as PDF” and then browse to “~/Documents/Purchase Orders/<<Current Fiscal Year Expressed as Hebrew Year>>/<<PO#>> – <<Supplier>>.pdf” I did a quick second of Googling and found this. So I took that and modified it slightly… Set Variable [$year; Value:If(Month ( Purchase Orders::Date ) > 6; Year ( Purchase Orders::Date ) + 3761; Year ( Purchase Orders::Date ) + 3760)] Set Variable [$path; Value:”filemac:/Macintosh HD/Users/<<username>>/Documents/Purchase Orders/” & $year & “/” & Purchase Orders::PO# & ” –… Read More »Save PDFs with one Click in FileMaker

OS X Server Mavericks

Today was supposed to be an easy day. I was telecommuting. I began my day at waking up at the usual time, instead of commuting to work, I went swimming. I got back home for 9 am and got to work. I was a maniac, getting everything I needed done. My to do list was completely checked off by 1:30. So what did I do? I started on tomorrow’s to do list. I had an appointment scheduled that I knew would get in the way of those tasks, so I thought I’d start them. Task 1: Back up both Macintosh servers. Task 2: Install OS X 10.9 Mavericks Task 3:… Read More »OS X Server Mavericks

Onion Paywall version 2.0

It seems 99% of the visitors to my blog are looking for ways to get around the Onion paywall. I posted about it a while ago in this post. Turns out it has changed. Here’s the updated instructions… Once AdBlock is installed, click on the Adblock icon and choose Options. Click Customize, and click edit beside the manual section. Paste the following in and save. theonion.com##div[style*=”background-image”][style*=”width: 100%”] ##img[src=”http://s.ppjol.net/static/fb/fancy_close.png”] ##a[id=”gregbox-signInTab”] ##div[id=”gregbox-outer”] www.theonion.com##IFRAME[id=”ppUI”][src=”https://ui.ppjol.com/lightbox/lightbox_ui.html?start”] www.theonion.com##DIV[id=”pressplusOverlay”] This also resolves an issue I had with Tumblr and “background-image” where it would prevent your browser from rendering Tumblr correctly.

eSATA

Mac Pro eSATA

I recently purchased the 2012 Mac Pro. Not the brand-spankin-new Mac Pro that looks like a subwoofer. The giant Mac Pro which does a poor job at replacing the XServe. I needed eSATA, but sadly the Mac Pro doesn’t have either an eSATA port, or a Thunderbolt port. I could use PCI and get an eSATA card, but that’s pricey. Instead I found NewerTech makes an eSATA extender cable. Basically it takes a spare eSATA port on the board, and makes it external, and it’s only $25. Not bad. The instructions are incredible. It gives you the choice. Pre-2008 Mac Pro, or the 2008 Mac Pro… umm, I have the… Read More »Mac Pro eSATA

Database disk image is malformed

I really like Google Drive. I’ve been using Google Docs for years, and when they modified it to Google Drive, I celebrated. Free syncing, all the features of Docs plus Dropbox… sweet. One of my coworkers started using it intensely, and over the Christmas break it didn’t sync for two weeks. When he got in, Google Drive just plainly didn’t work. He was getting the error message “database disk image is malformed.” Huh? We tested it on another machine, it worked. Reinstalled Google Drive. Disassociated the account, reassociated it. etc etc. Nothing worked. Even deleted the com.google.drive.plist files in the ~/Library/Preferences folder. When I was on the phone with Google… Read More »Database disk image is malformed

The Onion Paywall

Update (2014/04/01):  This doesn’t seem to work anymore, check out this updated post, or see comments…. I’m not a big fan of advertisements. I’m also not a big fan of paywalls. Seeing as I do want companies to make money from their content, I’m a horrible person for finding ways around both these things. I’m worse because I’m sharing. AdBlock for Google Chrome does a great job at removing ads from everything. However, the Onion paywall is still a problem. I’m also worried about how Canadian newspapers are about to begin paywalls. I had a workaround to The Onion’s paywall, that worked well, until a few months ago. With some… Read More »The Onion Paywall

Oh no! iPhone

A few days ago I realized that I haven’t changed my iPhone password since I first purchased the device a year and a half ago. So I did what any normal person would do, I changed my password. After that I spent two days typing in my old password, getting rejected, and putting in the new password. No problem. I’d get used to the password. I was out at the Horseshoe Tavern with two thirds of Daniel, Fred, and Julie, and a friend of Julie’s from Hot Docs1. I was using my phone, I was still entering the wrong password initially and then putting in the right one, and all… Read More »Oh no! iPhone