Technology Blog
We need to tightly control the version of InDesign (ID) and InCopy (IC) in use here at the newspaper. As such we disable the Apps Panel within the Creative Cloud Desktop Application (CCDA) and exclusively use Munki to install Adobe Creative Cloud applications.
Yesterday we transitioned from InDesign CC 2014 to CC 2019 in a single day and I wanted to share the details in case it might be useful to others. Read on if you are interested in how we did it.
When Adobe released their November 19 update to InDesign CC 2019 last week, they broke the most important rule of version numbering: the version should go up!
This wasn’t immediately obvious until today however due to an almost two week delay in the update becoming available to package in the Adobe Admin Console. This alone is a topic for another post…
Microsoft Remote Desktop 10
The upgrade of Microsoft Remote Desktop (MRD) from version 8 to version 10 also involves a change in delivery for many MacAdmins from the Mac App Store (MAS) to a standard package installer.
Since a few extra considerations are involved I decided to share how I accomplished it using Munki. Read on if you are interested in the details.
Another component to my DetectX Swift (DTXS) Management License rollout this week is the ability for users to run a scan and have the results be sent to MunkiReport immediately. This could be useful anytime I don’t have easy access to a user’s computer and am having to walk them through things over the phone or via Slack and I want to verify the results of the scan remotely.
I accomplished this with an on demand Munki NoPkg that any standard user can easily run via Managed Software Center. Read on for the details.
This week I began rolling out DetectX Swift (DTXS) with a Management License across our fleet. I first learned of DTXS earlier this year thanks to Zack McCauley and his DetectX Module for MunkiReport.
McCauley covers one option for automatic scans in his excellent Deploying DetectX Swift with Munki article using Outset and a boot-every script. He also helpfully included a sample LaunchDaemon in the module repo, however neither scans as frequently as I’d like. Read on for how I decided to handle automatic hourly scans and reporting.
Most MacAdmins take an either/or approach to managing updates for Microsoft Office on macOS, utilizing either Microsoft AutoUpdate (MAU) or Munki. However I’ve found that a hybrid approach using both works best for us.
I’ve shared my setup severals times on the MacAdmins Slack, most recently in a direct message, so I wanted to provide more details here. Read on if you are interested in how I’m keeping Office up-to-date and providing for new installs.
This year we started seeing a problem with the hard drives failing inside our 2009, 2010 and 2011 iMacs here at the newspaper. The computers still work fine otherwise and since it is pretty easy to replace them (it can easily be accomplished in under ten minutes without removing the display) that is what we’ve been doing.
The only downside is that the OEM hard drives ship with specific Apple firmware that ties into the thermal management system. Installing a new hard drive or SSD results in the fans running at full blast. Thankfully software exists to work around this and I automated the installation and configuration with Munki, read on to see how.
I’ve been using an internal Microsoft AutoUpdate (MAU) Caching Server here at the newspaper since shortly after it was announced by Paul Bowden last year. I helped explain the various configuration options available last night in the #microsoft-office channel of the MacAdmins Slack and wanted to expand on them with a more detailed article.
There are three different ways the MAU Caching Server can be configured. If you are interested in learning the differences of those options please read on.
A year after my article detailing the removal of the iSCSI initiator from the Drobo Dashboard software, the time finally arrived that I needed to setup a Drobo B800i on a clean install of Mac OS X El Capitan.
Despite being prepared for what I was getting into it still didn’t go smoothly. Read on for how I finally got it going.
My predecessors liked Drobo, I inherited a variety of models here at the newspaper. We’ve got around ten of them connected to various servers and systems via Firewire, USB and iSCSI.
I’ve never been a big fan, personally preferring products that operate with standard RAID levels instead of proprietary technologies like Drobo. While I’m sure “BeyondRAID” works fine it will require another Drobo to recover data in the event the disks are fine but the chassis fails. But I understand why they are popular, Drobo offers RAID-like storage at reasonable prices that isn’t intimidating to the average consumer.
But a change they sprung on Mac OS X users this week has really soured me on the company. Read on for the details…