It’s possible to add users from directory structure 1 (in this case an openLDAP implementation that’s sharing our University’s Novell eDirectory) into an OpenDirectory group (directory structure 2). I can do this on server 10.4 easily using the Workgroup Manager GUI. But doing it for hundreds of students every year is… well, I don’t have the time to do that, either in terms of deadlines or workload, quite frankly.

The information contains users grouped both by groups and containers, but it’s an old gripe that Workgroup Manager won’t show you anything but a flat list of users. There’s a group tab there, but it doesn’t seem to work for me. Also, I don’t have direct access to edit the data or create groups on 1, and the users are already correctly organised by container.

So, can anyone out there tell me if it’s possible? I don’t mind getting my hands dirty on the command line, and if Leopard is needed I had to order it this week anyway…

The ModBook, made by Axiotron, is a very nicely modded MacBook with integrated Wacom technology to make what looks like a fantastic product. As well as top quality glass and aluminium skinning, it boasts built-in GPS and more levels of pressure sensitivity than standard tablet PCs (the full 512), and still weighs the same as the macbook it was hacked from.

According to the Modbook page on wikipedia, the modbook won best in show for the 2007 Macworld Conference & Expo, but it must have been overshadowed by the iPhone hype: that and the fact that the actual release has been delayed since then. However, you can the Axiotron show anything more than the standard ‘tablet mode’ landscape layout: you might guess is that there’s a custom screen and hinge on a MacBook body, and that the screen fully articulates to reveal the standard mac keyboard underneath. You’d be wrong, according to this article. Also, there’s a reason none of the shots seem to be in portrait mode: it looks like it’s not supported. Modding the MacBook means that ModBooks invalidate Applecare Warranties, but Axiotronic offer their own: possibly more of an issue for us non-americans. Also to go in the con column is the price: starting at $2,279 and with the probability of high international shipping fees, it might be cheaper to buy a MacBook and a separate tablet…

So the conclusion: it’s really nice to see someone actually using the excellent Apple Inkwell technology that’s currently massively underused in OS X (yes, if you run OS X you have inkwell. Check out your system prefs). Unfortunately those of us who need to be able to type as well as draw will find the lack of a keyboard a big handicap. Additionally, replacing paper with a ModBook would, I imagine, be impaired by the lack of a portrait mode. However, for GPS shenanigans, mobile DVD playback and creative arty types, it certainly fulfils the geekasm quotient.

Talking of geekasm, here’s one final video to make you gooey:

Yes, it’s new phone time, new contract time, and it looks like I’ll be able to have pretty much whatever I want. My friends are all going for the N95 8GB Nokia (we couldn’t afford the iPhone, even if it was offered on business tariff), but I’m just not getting on with the interface. Don’t get me wrong, the feature set is fantastic, and the camera with Carl Zeiss optics among the best I’ve seen on a phone. iSync integration with the macs is good. But I just don’t enjoy using it.

So I’m thinking of one of those HTC smart phones. In particular either the Tytn II (also known, I think, as the Vodaphone 1615 or the o2 XDA Stellar) or something similar without the largely pointless keyboard, assuming I can find one on tariff which isn’t processor crippled in comparison.

So, windows CE… does anyone know much about it? How difficult will it be to sync to the macs? How do people find the interface? Any comments welcome as always.

Out of interest, I’m writing this on an iPod touch in Apple’s Executive Briefing center

The idea is simple: you can make sure that when new accounts are created, they already have the preferences set up exactly the way you need them. There are several scenarios where this technique can be used or where it presents an advantage:

Network Users - rather than time and hard drive consuming creation of users, customising the default profile will allow Mac OS X to create new accounts as soon as users are authenticated.

fast user churn - I administer some macbooks for a short citizen media course: the users share the macs extensively for a few months, at the end of which the machines need to be quickly prepared for new users. All I have to do is apply any patches, delete the old users, and make new user accounts. The new user accounts are already set-up with all the user preferences, guide documents and iTunes libraries ready to go.

the self-cleaning oven - Great for store demonstration machines or Kiosk-mode. You have computers that you think people are going to mess up. That’s fine, but you need a way to make sure the user account re-sets itself. Setting up a log-out script to delete the user’s files and recreate from the default template is a simple and powerful way of doing this.

Create an account, and configure it the way you want. Make sure you go into each program and configure it the way you want it. Empty the trash, log-out and log in as a local administrator user. Then go to /Applications/Utilities/Terminal(.app) and enter the following:

(Don’t type in the line numbers: I use those to make comments below)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

sudo su
mv /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj.bak
ditto -rsrcFork /Users/$shortname /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj
rm -R /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/.Trash
rm -R /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/.bash_history
rm -R /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/Library/Preferences/com.apple.recentitems.plist
rm -R /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/Library/Keychains
rm -R /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/Library/Preferences/com.apple.keychainaccess.plist
rm -R /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/Library/Preferences/com.apple.internetconfig.plist
chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj
exit

Code Comments:

Line 1:

In terms of security, it’s not actually recommended to do this. Using Sudo Su means that I’m essentially acting as root, which potentially can do great damage to the system. The alternative is to write ’sudo’ in front of the remaining lines, but I’m a bit lazy for that. It’s up to you.

Line 2:

This just backs up the default user template. I leave restoring the back-up as an exercise for the reader
Replace ‘English’ with your default language: have a look around the relevant directory if you’re unsure what apple has called it.

Line 3:

Replace $shortname with the short name of the user you’ve used to create the template.

Lines 4-6:

Cleanup: makes sure that the trash, recent items and bash (terminal) history are all empty.

Lines 7-8:

This deletes the default keychain. If you don’t delete this, the template will try to use the $username keychain, which can be a problem. If the end user experiences any errors, they’ll be given the option to create a fresh keychain, which is what they should do.

Line 9:

Safari and Firefox use a system setting that uses an absolute path (/Users/$username/Desktop) for the default save path (instead of ~/Desktop). Tut tut. Deleting this .plist will set the proper values when the account is created.

Line 10:

Finally you’ll need to change the ownership of the profile to the system rather than the $username user.

Line 11:

This exits the ’su’ mode (so obviously, you can miss it out if you’ve been entering lots of ’sudo’s instead).

One or two final (or penultimate) notes:

New users will have the same files, documents and settings you originally set up. Be aware you may be replicating large amounts of files between accounts for things like iTunes (we decided we didn’t care), and large profiles will take a while to create.

iPhoto (as of iLife 7, anyway) is worth mentioning because it doesn’t play totally nicely: new users will have to re-select their default iPhoto library the first time they log in. I think the default is “~/Pictures/iPhoto Library”

]]> http://yamahito.net/blog/2007/10/11/changing-the-default-template-in-mac-os-x/feed/ http://yamahito.net/blog/2007/09/26/graham-lucinde/ http://yamahito.net/blog/2007/09/26/graham-lucinde/#comments Wed, 26 Sep 2007 22:54:40 +0000 yamahito Just stuff http://yamahito.net/blog/2007/09/26/graham-lucinde/ I’ve got a lot of photos from last weekend’s wedding to sort through and prettify; I thought perhaps some of you guys would like a sneak preview:

]]> http://yamahito.net/blog/2007/09/26/graham-lucinde/feed/ http://yamahito.net/blog/2007/09/07/hiding-users-in-104/ http://yamahito.net/blog/2007/09/07/hiding-users-in-104/#comments Fri, 07 Sep 2007 16:13:43 +0000 yamahito Apple Mac http://yamahito.net/blog/2007/09/07/changing-profile-templateshiding-users-in-104/ Hiding users from the log-in window used to be a bit of a pain pre-Tiger. But that’s thankfully no longer the case.

In the bad old days, you’d have to change a user’s UID, which is fiddly process involving NetInfo manager and chmod. When Tiger came along it seemed to become even fiddlier; you also had to set the default shell to /dev/null, which isn’t really useful for hidden admin accounts that you actually want to use locally.

However, there’s a dead easy way to do it just by editing a Preference file:

1	sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow HiddenUsersList -array-add account1 account2 account3

Replace ‘account1 account2 account3′ with a list of accounts to hide. You will still be able to access them by clicking on the ‘other…’ pseudo-account and entering details manually. If you want to reset all accounts to unhidden, just miss off the bit at the end that starts “-array-add…”

]]> http://yamahito.net/blog/2007/09/07/hiding-users-in-104/feed/ http://yamahito.net/blog/2007/08/21/on-a-personal-note/ http://yamahito.net/blog/2007/08/21/on-a-personal-note/#comments Tue, 21 Aug 2007 09:42:43 +0000 yamahito Just stuff http://yamahito.net/blog/2007/08/21/on-a-personal-note/ I don’t normally post personal stuff, but several people (mostly on facebook) have asked me what Laura looks like:

Things are complicated at the moment.

]]> http://yamahito.net/blog/2007/08/21/on-a-personal-note/feed/ http://yamahito.net/blog/2007/08/17/happy-birthday-to-yoooooou/ http://yamahito.net/blog/2007/08/17/happy-birthday-to-yoooooou/#comments Fri, 17 Aug 2007 09:22:25 +0000 yamahito Just stuff Tech http://yamahito.net/blog/2007/08/17/happy-birthday-to-yoooooou/ Today is the 25th birthday of the Compact Disk.

At least, today is the 25th anniversary of the first CD pressed at a pressing plant, according to The Register: it was actually invented in 1979, with the specification finalised in June 1980.

1979 was the year I was born, and the CD has turned into a technology that has dominated my lifetime, spawning the DVD and revolutionising not only music, but computing, which feeds and clothes me.

I don’t know how much longer the CD will survive. MP3s, iTunes and the rest of its children are gradually taking over, and where one 74minutes or 600MB was a huge amount of storage compared to the hard drive in your computer, it’s now trivially small. But the optical disk will be with us for a while, and the CD legacy will go on for many more years.

]]> http://yamahito.net/blog/2007/08/17/happy-birthday-to-yoooooou/feed/ http://yamahito.net/blog/2007/08/09/apple-software-update-for-windows-rant/ http://yamahito.net/blog/2007/08/09/apple-software-update-for-windows-rant/#comments Thu, 09 Aug 2007 11:23:11 +0000 yamahito Apple Mac Microsoft http://yamahito.net/blog/2007/08/09/apple-software-update-for-windows-rant/ Sometimes the bredth and scope of the stupidity of the oversights of intelligent people can be staggering. I’m sure many of my friends will agree.

Today is the turn of Apple Software Update (ASU), a windows program that runs once a week to check for updates for quicktime, iTunes, Safari and the like.

As some of you will know, we suffer from an ongoing network issue here at work: every now and then we suffer a small amount of packet corruption. It doesn’t affect browsing the web, or email, or instant messenging much. But it frequently breaks large downloads over http: .iso images and large zipped or compressed files (such as update executables) tend to get corrupted and unopenable.

It’s a lucky thing, then, that ASU has a built-in checker to make sure that the files it downloads are the same files that they meant to download, right?

Wrong. ASU finds corrupted files fine, but then proceeds to deal with them in the worst possible way: after telling you that the file is corrupt (or more accurately, that it has an ‘invalid signature’), it gives you a chance to install the updates again. What it doesn’t do is re-download the update files; someone thought it would be a good idea to cache those. Admirable in other circumstances, all it means is that ASU continually fails verification tests on these files, and the updates are never installed. At least until newer versions are released or the downloaded files are flushed/deleted (not found out where they are yet).

Let me rephrase that: If something goes wrong when it’s downloading files, My update programs inhibits me installing updates.

]]> http://yamahito.net/blog/2007/08/09/apple-software-update-for-windows-rant/feed/