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Managing El Capitan’s FileVault 2 with fdesetup
For the first time since fdesetup‘s initial release in OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.x, Apple has not added new features to fdesetup as part of a new OS release. Instead, fdesetup maintains the same set of...
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2015 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 1,500,000 times in...
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First look at Veertu
One of the lesser-known changes that Apple introduced with OS X Yosemite was a Hypervisor framework, which was designed to allow virtualization solutions to be built for OS X without the need for...
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FIPS 140-2 validation and FileVault 2
One question I’ve seen which has caused confusion for folks who deal with security regulations is this: Is FileVault 2 FIPS 140-2 validated? The answer is: Yes, depending on the version of OS X The...
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Creating an Office 2016 15.18.0 installer
Microsoft recently released a new software installer to help make the task of deploying updated copies of Office 2016 for Mac admins a lot easier. This new installer is available along with the latest...
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Suppressing Office 2016’s First Run dialog windows
As part of preparing to deploy Office 2016 in my own environment, I wanted to be able to suppress the various “What’s New” dialog windows which are displayed on Office 2016 applications’ first launch...
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Payload-free package slides from the January 2016 MacDMV meeting
For those who wanted a copy of the payload-free package talk from this evening’s MacDMV meeting, here are links to the slides in PDF and Keynote format: PDF: http://tinyurl.com/Jan2016MacDMVPDF Keynote...
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Controlling the Diagnostics & Usage report settings on El Capitan
One of the pop-up windows you get on first login to Yosemite and El Capitan is the Diagnostics & Usage pop-up window. This window requests permission for the following: Send diagnostics and usage...
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Suppressing the iCloud and Diagnostics pop-up windows on El Capitan using...
After posting how to control the Diagnostics & Usage report settings on El Capitan, I was tipped off that there were new ways available on OS X El Capitan to manage both the Diagnostics and the...
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Installing Endnote X7.5’s Cite While You Write plug-ins for Office 2008, 2011...
Thomson Reuters has released Endnote X7.5, an updated version of their Endnote bibliography software. This updated version had been long-awaited by a number of folks because it added support for Word...
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Word 2016 and Endnote’s “com.ThomsonResearchSoft.EndNote.plist” dialog window
Microsoft Office 2016’s applications are sandboxed, which means that they don’t have access to external files and settings by default and need to ask permission from the user. Thomson Reuters’ Endnote...
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Slides from the “FileVault 2 Decrypted” Session at MacAD UK Conference 2016
For those who wanted a copy of my FileVault 2 talk at MacAD UK 2016, here are links to the slides in PDF and Keynote format. PDF – http://tinyurl.com/MacADUK2016pdf Keynote –...
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Getting started as a Mac admin
To close out MacADUK 2016, there was a panel discussion about the non-technical skills involved with being a Mac admin. One question was something like this: “How should a new Mac admin get started?”...
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Certificate expiration and downloaded Mac App Store installers
Mac admins who have previously downloaded installers from the Mac App Store may be seeing some of those installers displaying warning messages and/or failing to install as of this morning. This...
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Creating password-protected PDFs on OS X
If you want to restrict access to a PDF document, one way to do this is by setting a password on it. Thanks to OS X’s built-in PDF creation tools, it’s relatively straightforward on OS X to add a...
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Apple security update blocks Apple Ethernet drivers on OS X El Capitan
Over the weekend, Apple released an update for a kernel extension blacklist used by System Integrity Protection on OS X El Capitan. This blacklist is a security measure to help Apple block kernel...
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Using pmset on OS X to schedule restarting your Mac
OS X’s pmset command line tool is designed to control power management settings on your Mac, but it also has various options for scheduling your Mac to perform various actions at set times using the...
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Deploying Word, Excel and PowerPoint templates for Microsoft Office 2016
In many shops, Mac admins have a requirement to deploy templates for Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint. With Microsoft Office 2011, this is a relatively straightforward process as there is an...
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Using AutoPkg recipes with alternate software downloads
An issue that crops up occasionally for AutoPkg is that a vendor will release a new version of their software but be slow to update the download location which an AutoPkg recipe is looking at....
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Speaking at X World 2016
I’ll be speaking at X World 2016 in Sydney, Australia, where I’m planning to do a couple of sessions. This is the first time I’ve had the pleasure of traveling to Australia, so I’m looking forward to...
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