OS X

OS X on Intel?

September 1, 2004

Matt Raible asks for Intel-based laptops from Apple, asking to get OS X running on Intel for a speed boost in Java development. Here's an idea... a powerbook that runs Windows. Apple could quickly take the lead in sales.

Close but no cigar....

August 30, 2004

Lakewood studios has a product iList Studio that looks really cool. In a few minutes of working with it however, it falls short. It is missing some critical features. The instructions tell users to use MySQL 4.0, what I didn't see is that this is a requirement because it can't authenticate with later versions of MySQL. Second I can't tell that it deals with relationships which takes away the real power of using a relational database.

It appears to be worth keeping an eye on though. Just not worth the steep price tag yet.

Process

August 18, 2004

Jumsoft has released Process 1.0 which it touts as afresh face in the tired throng of outlining applications. They tout Source Taking as a major enhancement to increase productivity by allowing project managers to manage and schedule an entire project in a single window.

What is needed in OS X web browsers

August 17, 2004

I'm experimenting with OmniWeb 5. It is a great web browser. It occurs to me though, as I'm still unable to read my bank statements with anything but Internet Explorer, and the older statements are n PDF format that the OS X web browsers need to be able to display PDF inline. Why can't they? PDF rendering is built right in to the OS... Is it a webKit shortcoming? Wherever the issue lies it should be addressed sooner rather than later.

Read more about What is needed in OS X web browsers

Apple Remote Desktop 2.0 crashes when you click scanner

August 16, 2004

I've been battling an annoying problem with Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) where it crashes when you click on the "scanner" icon to run a scan of the network. Several searches had been unproductive until I found this article in the knowledgebase today. The thing is that even though it has "crashes" in the title a search for crash and the ARD product won't show it. Once you click scanner you have just a second when the program opens to move it back to "master list"... but that is a tiresome work around.

So the hint says you can only have 29 network ports in your active configurations. This means you can't have more than 5 "locations" set in network preferences because there are some ports (internal modem) that even if you don't use you can't delete.

KDC on Mac OS X Server

July 2, 2004

I've had a heck of the time getting LDAP to run on Mac OS X Server 10.3. The underlying problem has been kdc not starting so there is no way to do authenticate. I here is what I did to get kdc working... well almost. It currently is running but won't authenticate the primary user.

1. mkdir /var/db/krb5kdc

2. kdb5_util create -r TIOGA.SIERRATARN.COM -s

3. kerberosautoconfig -r TIOGA.SIERRATARN.COM -m tioga.sierratarn.com -u

4. kdcsetup -f /LDAPv3/127.0.0.1/ -a admin -p XXXXXXX -w TIOGA.SIERRATARN.COM

5. kadmin.local (create local user)

6. krb5kdc ( Start it up)

New iMacs delayed until September

July 1, 2004

Apple has stopped taking orders for the current iMac according to a note in the Apple Store. The announcement confirms that Apple had planned to empty channels of the current iMac models while they prepared to announce the new machine. The new iMac was conspicuously missing from the WWDC Keynote earlier this week.

Read more about New iMacs delayed until September

MindFortress

June 17, 2004

Mindfortress looks to be an interesting multi-media knowledge base app. I think they have the start of something here. But it is lacking in a key feature. The knowledgebase needs to sync through the web. If I have two machines then I need to ability to seamlessly have them sync but still work while offline.

Office 2004

June 4, 2004

Business Week has an article pointing out that Office Mac 2004 may require network admins to take a fresh look at Apple. I think they are right but for a different reason. Certainly the ability to do shared calendaring is a key new feature of Entourage and its integration with Exchange is a welcome addition. However it is the enhanced outlining and notebook functionality of Word that has me excited. After a quick look it looks like it might be the outliner that takes me away from NoteTaker 2003 simply for its integration with other Word documents.

Hooking up LDAP

June 2, 2004

MacDevCenter ran an article last week on setting up LDAP on OS X Server. The article points to a key problem I've had consistently. When looking at the admin interface the server constantly says KDC is not running. This looks to be a reverse domain name mapping problem with making sure that there is agreement between the forward and reverse domains.