TIPS & TRICKS: AppleCare Support Page

Been administering Macs for quite some time. In the past, to view all the machines I manage under one Apple ID I used this page:

http://www.apple.com/support/applecare/view

However, today I learned about a tool I had not encountered before:

http://supportprofile.apple.com

This page is different than the page I've used in the past. It also seems to give me more information than than the old page and more ways to manage the information.

One important note to mention is these two sites are two completely different sites. Information on one site does not necessarily show up on the other as I found out in attempting to register a custom MacBook Air with Auto-Enrolled AppleCare that was purchased from an Apple Authorized Reseller. I had to get on the phone with AppleCare Agreement Administration in order to address this disparity. I assume Apple is in a transition between these two sites. Until they get past the transition, I would recommend making sure that the information for all your machines show up in both areas.

Hope this helps you. Happy computing.

TIPS & TRICKS: Free E-Books for Windows Administrators

There's a lot of free information out there. I always figured if I really wanted to learn something, I didn't necessarily need to go to school for it. Don't get me wrong, the structure of school is something that I require to streamline my learning. However, the information can, often times, be found for free in our information age. As a systems administrator, part of my job is to keep learning and staying abreast of the latest technology. As a frugal individual, I strive to find the free stuff that works for me (not all free stuff holds value for me). I did come across this site that has free e-books on topics that are relevant to my role as a systems administrator:

http://4sysops.com/archives/free-e-books-for-windows-administrators/

Hope this helps you too in the quest for free, yet valuable information...

TIPS & TRICKS: Download Dell OS Media

So the other day, I was helping someone reload their Dell machine. The media to reinstall Windows was not available. I contacted Dell to see if they could send another set. They agreed, but I needed to get this machine back up and running sooner. At some point, I thought to myself how great it would be if I could just download the media and create my own bootable media set. Eventually, I found the original set that came with the computer and got it reloaded. However, I came across this site that does allow downloading of software to create bootable media. Fortunately, it's a Dell site, which redirects to Digital River, also a trustworthy site. http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/software-os/w/microsoft_os/1439.02-microsoft-windows-and-microsoft-office-downloads.aspx Hope this helps. Happy Computing.

TIPS & TRICKS: Manually Change Time Machine Backup Schedule

Apple's Time Machine was, by far, the best tool Apple introduced with OS X Leopard (10.5). Backups are always the last thing most users think about. But, it's the first thing people wish they would have had when there's some failure that prevents them from accessing their data. Time Machine's simplicity should have every single person who doesn't already have a backup solution adopt it with fervor.

As great as the tool is for most backup needs, I have discovered a drawback. Time Machine runs a backup once an hour. The constant barrage of data hitting the backup destination can put a toll on the media. In many cases, the media is an external hard drive with physical hard drive. The drives themselves are not nearly as sturdy as they used to be. I've come across users who have had to replace their backup drives inside of 6 months. If you need the once an hour backup interval, then you'll need to put up with this routine maintenance. Think of it as changing the oil filter every time you change your oil in the car.

Fortunately, there is a fix for those people who don't need the backups nearly that frequently. As the saying goes, there's an app for this. However, I am an fan of understanding how the underlying code works. The manual method is this command (all one line):

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto StartInterval -int 14400

The 14400 is the number of seconds in 4 hours. The number you choose should be a factor of 3600 seconds (1 hour). For example if you want to do it once every 7 days, you would use 604800. You can also check the change with this command:

sudo defaults read /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto StartInterval

Hope this helps you out with extending the life of that backup hard drive.

TIPS & TRICKS: iPhone Syncing Error

Syncing my iPhone with iTunes on my workstation yielded an error message that said "The iPhone cannot be synced. An unexpected error occurred (1150)." The only way I could figure out a way around this error was to disable all restrictions on the iPhone itself. I tried disabling individual restrictions, but nothing worked. Only completely disabling all restrictions helped the sync complete.

Oh, it also helps to unplug the sync cable if you have it plugged in after disabling all restrictions. Unplugging and replugging the iPhone to the computer seems to tell iTunes that changes were actually made.

Hope that helps you.

TIPS & TRICKS: Force Facebook to Clear Page Cache

To be clear, this tool really refreshes Facebook's cache of a particular page. In addition, this tool doesn't clear any caches in Facebook pages. Rather, it checks third party pages for updated content.

https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug

I came across this while posting a status update with a link on a Page I manage. The link's preview showed some outdated information, which I knew had been updated already. Using this developer tool helped to update the cache to show the current information on the link preview.

TIPS & TRICKS: Microsoft Group Policy Settings Spreadsheet

Group policy can be daunting. I'm sure I've shared other people's frustrations when just simply looking for a particular setting. There's been countless times when I wished I could just do a search on the whereabouts of a particular setting. At least, these spreadsheets are searchable:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=25250

RANTS & RAVES: Fingerprint Reader Software by UPEK

I have my reservations about fingerprint readers. This article about how the UPEK software stores a users passwords in a very insecure way, serves to make me more wary about anything that stores passwords.

http://blog.crackpassword.com/2012/08/upek-fingerprint-readers-a-huge-security-hole/

Fortunately, the silver lining I'm pulling out of this story rests with the great advantage of using disk encryption such as BitLocker. If the disk is encrypted, then the not so securely stored password for the fingerprint reader turns out the encrypted just by virtue of being stored on the same disk. If you've got multiple drives or volumes, then make sure that the separate drives are encrypted too.

Lesson learned before I get into any trouble.

TIPS & TRICKS: Active Directory Users & Computers Filtering

Handy little LDAP query to filter users who have not changed passwords after a certain date (in this case, September 5th) (all one line):

(&(objectCategory=user)(pwdLastSet>=129913020000000000)(!(userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2)))

Here are the steps to run the filter:

• In ADUC, click on Set Filtering options icon
• click "Create custom", then Customize button
• click on Advanced tab, then enter (or copy/paste) LDAP query:
• (&(objectCategory=user)(pwdLastSet>=129913020000000000)(!(userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2)))
• then click OK button, then OK again to close Filter Options
• In OU list at left, navigate to your OU, which will now show only users who have changed password since cutoff time.
• 129913020000000000 = number of 100 nanosecond intervals since Jan 1, 1601 to 9/5/2012 12:00 AM.
• (!(userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2)) is a bitwise operation to exclude disabled users.
• If you want to return to seeing all users and objects, you need to clear the filter, by clicking on Set Filtering options icon, then click "Show all types of objects"
• You can reverse the query to see users who haven't changed password yet, by changing the query string >= to <=

TIPS & TRICKS: Recalibrate a Sticky iPhone Home Button

Didn't know about this trick until today. Apparently, if the home button on the iPhone is sticking or not responding, recalibrating it could help to get it working again. Here are the steps:

1. Click on a native iOS application (i.e. Stocks, Email, Messages, etc.).
2. Push and hold the power button on top until the "slide to power off" screen appears.
3. Let go of the power button. 
4. Push and hold the home button until the "slide to power off" screen disappears and let go of the home button. 

The home button should be recalibrated now. 

Hope this helps someone. 

TIPS & TRICKS: Adobe Acrobat Licensing Error

Encountered this error message:

The scenario is that this error shows up after deploying a custom Windows 7 image. When a new user logs into the machine and tries to launch a PDF file, this error message appears.

Here is Adobe's knowledge base article on this:

http://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/error-213-19-licensing-acrobat.html

Part of the problem is that the user needs to have full access to \ProgramData\Adobe (I found that just giving an administrative account explicit access to that folder temporarily and launching Acrobat once was enough). However, the more specific problem is that Adobe forces a window on first launch of Adobe Acrobat that asks you to register the software. If that process can either get disabled or launched prior to imaging (without getting reset during the Sysprep process), then we can avoid this error message. Thanks a bunch Adobe.

RANTS: The Day Has Finally Arrived

People have been saying for some time that Macs are safe and are not susceptible to malware infections. As a result, anti-malware software is not needed. The market more or less followed this trend. But, this has changed. Malware is not something that only PC users have to deal with anymore. I've been asked many times in the past whether anti-virus or other anti-malware was needed. I've always said that it's better to be proactive about protection than to wait until there's a problem. By then, the computer would've already been infected.

Here's a BBC news article about Macs becoming the right size target for attackers to pay attention:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17623422

Here's the F-Secure link about how to figure out if your Mac might be infected:

http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/trojan-downloader_osx_flashback_i.shtml

Hope this helps someone.

RANTS & RAVES: Reasons to Upgrade

I've got an iPhone 3G. You read that right, iPhone 3G. It's as slow as molasses. But, I've been holding off on upgrading for several reasons. First, I'd like to think that I'm environmentally conscious by taking longer to upgrade the device. Second, I think that the device has some life left in it. It does the basics for me. I just can't ask it to do more, which brings me to this post. Here's an ongoing list of the reasons why I really need to upgrade:

1. Can't rotate photos. I took a photo of a sheet of paper, instead of photo copying it. Problem is I took it in landscape mode and I am unable to keep it in landscape view to keep the text upright. When the phone is in landscape the photo rotates to portrait mode and the text is sideways. My neck hurts. 
2. Photos are very low in quality. I'm capturing precious moments in very low quality. Great for hiding those pimples. 
3. No front facing camera. Can't Skype or Facetime. 
4. 
   

RAVES: Shadow IT

Good short article about reevaluating the role of IT departments. The two important points I got out of this article are:

1. Users really want to consume more information. 
2. IT departments need to expand on productivity and capacity in order to meet the demand of their users to consume more information. 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/22/shadow_it/

TIPS & TRICKS: Imaging Bootcamp Partition on a Mac

I haven't used this tool yet. But, it definitely came from a good recommendation source. OS X is already easy to clone and restore using various tools. The Bootcamp partition has not been quite as easy. Hopefully, this tool makes cloning as easy as the OS X side.

http://twocanoes.com/winclone.php

Happy Computing.

TIPS & TRICKS: Testing RAM on a Mac

For years, I've used memtest86 to test RAM on PC's. On Macs, I've used TechTools. However, Apple stopped including TechTools Deluxe with AppleCare. Luckily, the open source community comes through again. A tool called memtest, which is a port to Macs from the PC version, does the job.

http://www.command-tab.com/2008/01/11/how-to-test-ram-under-mac-os-x/

This write-up was more thorough and how I came across this tool in the first place:

http://www.littleprojects.org/blog/2011/02/03/testing-ram-on-a-macbook-pro/

TIPS & TRICKS: Managing Permissions on Folders

Scenario: I get a call from a staff member, who I support. She wanted to see if she could obtain permission to some folders in a particular directory on my Windows 2003 file server. Without getting into the non-technical authorization of the situation and tossing the idea back and forth with my boss, I decided that we really needed was to get a listing of permissions of all the sub-folders in the directory in question. 

I poked around the web a bit, until I discovered a Microsoft tool that helps to manage permissions using the command line. GUIs are great for one-off tasks, but command line is necessary handle these types of tasks. Here's the gist of how I ended up with the results I needed:

• Download Xcacls.vbs from the Microsoft link below. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/825751
• Open a command prompt window.
• At the command prompt, navigate to the location where Xcacls.vbs is saved.
• Type in Xcacls.vbs \\server\share\folder\* > c:\output.txt

This got me the output I needed. I did need to clean up the the output a bit because there were some extraneous files in the directory that was not necessary to the task. I know this tool can go further than just listing permissions. When I need to modify permissions across multiple files/folders I will try this out. 

TIPS & TRICKS: Adding a Networked Printer on OS X Lion

Apple recommends adding a networked printer, which is visible via Bonjour. The default installation of Lion does not have very many printer drivers pre-installed. I went to the printer manufacturer's site and found that I should be able to get the driver through Software Updates on OS X, though this only works either on USB or on a printer available via Bonjour. What can you do if the printer is networked, but not available via Bonjour? 

I was trying to add a networked printer manually using LPD protocol and discovered that the driver for the printer was not available in "Select Printer Software" under "Print Using." Finally found that Apple has a bunch of drivers for various printer manufacturers available for download from the Apple Support site:

http://support.apple.com/downloads/#printer drivers

Installing drivers from here, should make them available in the Printer Software box. 

TIPS & TRICKS: Internet Explorer 9 Compatibility

I knew previously that Internet Explorer 9 had a built-in compatibility mode. Even so, there were some sites that just didn't work on IE9. Just figured out there's another way to control how IE9 behaves. There is a developer tool built-in that allow IE9 to emulate specific previous versions:

- With IE9 open, Hit F12
- Click on Browser Mode: IE9 at the bottom of the window
- Select the version that might work for you

Simple. There will probably still be sites that don't quite work, but having options is helpful.

TIPS & TRICKS: "Randomly" Waking Windows 7 Computer

Awhile back, I noticed my workstation was waking up in the middle of the night. After checking the system logs, I found that there was a Google update service that woke the computer up. I fixed that one. To my surprise, I found my computer on again at 1:41am. Another piece of update software woke up the machine. This useful command helped to confirm my findings in the log:

powercfg -lastwake


Just need to make sure to run it from a command prompt as and administrator:


- Click Start
- Type cmd in the Search programs and files box
- right click cmd under Programs and select "Run as Administrator"


If this line is included in the results after the powercfg -lastwake command is issued:


Windows will execute 'MicrosoftWindowsMedia Centermcupdate_scheduled' scheduled task that requested waking the computer.


Then, here's the fix:


- Go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Task Scheduler
- Expand Task Scheduler Library > Microsoft > Windows > Media Center
- Find mcupdate_scheduled (note: make sure to find this one because there's another one called just mcupdate)
- Right click on mcupdate_scheduled and select "Properties".
- Select the Conditions tab
- Uncheck "wake the computer to run this task"

- Hit OK to exit.

Just did this to my workstation and will see if it works. Credit goes to this site:

http://www.beirtech.com/blogs.php?action=view&bid=6