This week most of the Mac Admin news was about the imminent “AEpocalypse” or the effect of the new privacy and security controls in macOS Mojave on scripts and applications that send Apple Events.
Also Microsoft changed the OS requirements for Office after they got much feedback from the community, including many admins. (So, yes, talking to your reps and filing bugs, does sometimes help!)
If you would rather get the weekly newsletter by email, you can subscribe to the Scripting OS X Weekly Newsletter here!! (Same content, delivered to your Inbox once a week.)
On Scripting OS X
News and Opinion
- Privacy Policies Will Be Required for All Apps and Updates Beginning October 3rd – John Vorhees, MacStories
- NetNewsWire Comes Home – Brent Simmons
- Who pays to educate developers? – Julia Evans
macOS Mojave
- macOS Mojave: Opening New Vistas in Security for Mac Users – Dave Nanian
- macOS Mojave gets new APIs around AppleEvent sandboxing, but AEpocalypse still looms – Felix Schwarz
- Creating Privacy Preferences Policy Control profiles for macOS – Rich Trouton
- Privacy Preferences Policy Control – Carl Ashley
- Hazel and the AEpocalypse — Noodlings
- Howard Oakley: “As fas as I can test in ß10, AppleEvents aside, the system now works as explained at WWDC, from a user POV. Corrections welcomed – full article on blog tomorrow…” (Click for diagram)
- Reading TCC logs in macOS – Carl Ashley
- Working with Mojave’s Privacy Protection – Howard Oakley
- Privacy + Scripting = Problems – Howard Oakley
MacAdmins on Twitter
- Erik Gomez: “Most #macadmins have considered homebrew harmful for many reasons.… ” (Thread)
- Uluroo: “Mac users: With the release of macOS Mojave on the horizon, let’s talk about the bits of macOS that haven’t changed in a while, that we’re surprised still exist, and that are fun little Easter eggs.” (Thread)
- Caleb Coy: “#macadmins Slack team just hit the milestone of 20,000 registered members. Some will nit pick and argue that register != active. Frankly, I don’t care. This is pretty amazing.”
- Jeremy Reichman: “User approval is definitely at the intersection between liberal arts and technology.”
Bugs and Security
- HP Leaves Mac Users Vulnerable to Fax Hacks – Michael Tsai
- Remote Mac Exploitation Via Custom URL Schemes
Support and HowTos
- Booting the Mac: Will my Mac boot from this disk? A visual guide – Howard Oakley
- Microsoft changes OS requirements for Office 2019 for Mac and Office 365 for Mac – Office 365 (via William Smith)
- Avoid Kernel Extension and Access Control Issues During macOS Update – SimpleMDM Blog (Contains useful advice for any MDM solution)
Scripting and Automation
- Hello, AppleScript: What’s the Use? – Phil Stokes, AppleHelpWriter
- Wither JSS-in-a-Box – Richard Purves
- Graham R Pugh: “‘erase-install’ has new automation options: 1. Auto-download your current system version’s macOS installer, or the latest prod version. 2. Move the installer to /Applications for later use. 3. Use, or overwrite, an existing installer at /Applications”
Updates and Releases
To Watch
To Listen
Support
There are no ads on my webpage or this newsletter. If you are enjoying what you are reading here, please spread the word and recommend it to another Mac Admin!
- Weblog
- Weekly Email Newsletter (TinyLetter)
- Apple News
- Micro.blog
- Mastodon.social
If you want to support me and this website even further, then consider buying one (or all) of my books. It’s like a subscription fee, but you also get a useful book or two extra!