We are close to completing another trip around the sun. Whether you use the solstice (Dec 22) or the Perihelion (Jan 5) or the quaint Gregorian Calendar which switches on Dec 31.
(Dates are for UTC. The exact astronomical event may be it may be a Dec 4 or Jan 4 at your location, depending on your time zone.)
You’d think that Apple would take an early break after the Mac Pro release, but we got new and updated security documentation. Together with the new deployment and MDM documentation updated last week.
Because of the holidays, this newsletter will be taking a break as well. The next one should be on Jan 10, 2020, summarizing everything that happened in the mean time.
I wish you Happy Holidays and all the best for the new Year 2020!
See you next year!
Armin Briegel
Note: if you get an AppStore/iTunes Gift Card for Christmas, gift yourself one of my books!
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.)
Headlines
This is a good summary, but I find the continued expectation that Apple has to keep delivering “Blockbuster” devices quite tiresome. Who else is has delivered blockbuster devices? Also, the statement implies that the iPad, Apple Watch, and AirPods (all introduced since 2010) aren’t blockbusters?
- 10 Years of Apple in 10 Minutes – Rene Ritchie, Vector
- xMac, 14-inch MacBook Pro, 16-inch MacBook Air, iMac XDR: Where are these missing Macs? – Rene Ritchie, Vector
macOS Support Essentials 10.15 – Apple Pro Training Series: Supporting and Troubleshooting macOS Catalina – Adam Karneboge and Arek Dreyer – Available for PreOrder!
On Scripting OS X
- Random Terminal Background Colors (I blame this tweet.)
News and Opinion
- Catalina 10.15.2 has changed Gatekeeper’s dialogs to confuse notarization status – Howard Oakley
- How to transition from the help desk to a sysadmin job | Enable Sysadmin
- Server / Workgroup Updates – Swift Forums (IBM ends its open source contribution for Server-side Swift, via Benjamin Mayo)
- Apple Security Bounty (via Rosyna Keller)
MacAdmins on Twitter
- Jean-David Gadina: “You can keep SIP but allow debugging (including instruments) with
csrutil enable --without debug --without dtrace” - Russ Bishop: “TIL: 3rd party kext tries to inject macOS dylib into all processes, breaks downloaded simulators. Surprise! Simulator binaries can’t load mac dylibs. So far that’s four unique ways I’ve seen badly made kernel extensions break simulators. All are ”security“ products.”
Bugs and Security
Support and HowTos
- A full history of macOS (OS X) release dates and rates – Rob Griffiths
- Understanding Policies: Disable Guest Account and Built-in Guest Account Status – Zach DeMeyer, JumpCloud
- How clean re-installs change in Catalina – Howard Oakley
- Mac Pro 2019 Teardown – iFixit
- Deploying Terminal profile settings using macOS configuration profiles – Rich Trouton
- PPPC & TeamViewer 15 Changes for Mac – AP Orlebeke
- Undocumented Catalina file access change – Jeff Johnson
- Opening documents, SIP and quarantine flags in Catalina – Howard Oakley
- Time Machine: 6 Networked storage – Howard Oakley
Scripting and Automation
Apple Support
This joins last week’s new documentation:
- Deployment Reference for Mac
- Deployment Reference for iPhone and iPad
- Mobile Device Management Settings
Updates and Releases
To Listen
- Episode 147: Data Analytics & Pretty Pictures 101 with Matt Armstrong – Mac Admins Podcast
- 339: Client Gift Giving & More – Command Control Power
Just for Fun
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