Happy New Year!
New decade, even. Well, the last decade has certainly been… interesting.
What ever the new year (and decade) brings from the Apple Admin side of things, I will link to it!
I will be presenting at MacAD.UK (March 24–25) this year again. The topic of my session will be “Terminal Wizardry and and Witchcraft 2020” which will pick up on the presentation from two years ago. Much has changed since then and it is time for an update. I am looking forward to meeting you there!
Quite a bunch of links this time, because we were off for two weeks and this is the catch up summary. You can tell that most MacAdmins were able to take some time off as well, except for Howard Oakley (Eclectic Light) who just kept publishing like he always does. (Thank you for all your work, Howard!)
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
“Apple Device Management: A Unified Theory of Managing Macs, iPads, iPhones, and AppleTVs” by Rich Trouton and Charles Edge
- Amazon US, UK, DE (Affiliate Links)
- Apple Books (Affiliate Link)
- Apress
On Scripting OS X
- Command-Control-Power Podcast featuring Scripting OS X!
- Book Update – Moving to zsh v3
- Downgrading a Mac that shipped with Catalina to Mojave
News and Opinion
- Scaring People into Supporting Backdoors – Bruce Schneier
- Here’s how Apple TV has quietly become a robust digital signage solution – Bradley Chambers, 9to5Mac
- Publishers determined to kill electronic books – Howard Oakley
- Apple Shutting Down Developer Mailing Lists – Michael Tsai
- Because Jamf Nation – Ben Toms
- Python 2 Series to be Retired By April 2020– Python.org (via Rich Trouton)
- Apple Plans to Switch to Randomized Serial Numbers for Future Products Starting in Late 2020 – Joe Rossignol, MacRumors
- The security of Safari extensions – Jeff Johnson
MacAdmins on Twitter
- Fiora: “looks like dropbox doesn’t like me using dropbox as an automatic backup service… ” (Thread)
- Jason Broccardo: “It’s 2020 and you know what that means, right? Adobe Flash Player dies at the end of this year!”
- Roy van Rijn: “One of our office chairs turns off monitors… we couldn’t believe it, but we have it on tape. Surprisingly, there even is a known issue for it”
Bugs and Security
- MacOS Malware Outbreaks 2019: The Second 6 Months – Phil Stokes, SentinelOne
- The Mac Malware of 2019 – Patrick Wardle, Objective-See Blog
- DNS Hijacking: A New Method of MitM Attack Observed in the Wild – Roee Avni and Oksana Davidov, Airo
- Operation AppleJeus Sequel – Securelist
Support and HowTos
- DEP tokens and MDM Activation Lock are tied to an individual Apple ID account…and password – Graham Pugh
- Useful Resources for Apple TV Deployment – EdTechChris
- What to do when a macOS update goes wrong (Catalina edition) – Howard Oakley
- Getting More Logs From Xcode – Charles Edge
- ‘Erase Mac’ doesn’t? – Howard Oakley
- Preparing your Mac for disposal (Catalina edition) – Howard Oakley
- Migrating Windows 10 to a Mac Pro (2019) with Winclone 8 – Twocanoes Software
- Network security can block updates, notifications, and more – Howard Oakley
- Find My Mac and Activation Lock – Howard Oakley
- Mac Pro 2019 – Twocanoes Software
- Suppressing the macOS Software Update Alert Icon via Configuration Profile in Jamf Pro – A. Orlebeke
- Forcing Jamf Pro 10.17.1 to Not Use TLSv1.3 – A. Orlebeke
- Initial Raspberry Pi Config, Headless – Ed Marczak
- Now with One Stop Shopping – Anthony Reimer
- Raspberry Shell – Ed Marczak
- When did my Mac last start up, and why? An exploration with Ulbow – Howard Oakley
- Mac Admin Tools – A. Orlebeke
- Catalina’s privacy protection backfires again: why you can’t save a logarchive there – Howard Oakley
- Top 5 security measures to implement in 2020 – David Acland, moof IT
- Diagnosing privacy protection problems in Catalina – Howard Oakley
- Track and Tackle com.apple.macl – brunerd
- Potential disruption to customer websites and Microsoft products and services in Chrome version 79 and later – Microsoft Support (via Rod Trent)
- Protecting folders and volumes is too blunt – Howard Oakley
- Key macOS and related documentation from Apple – Howard Oakley
- Office What’s New Management Preview Updates Now Available – Microsoft Tech Community
Scripting and Automation
- Fun with AppleScript and Notes – Eric Hemmeter
- Easy Python Module Version Management – Charles Edge
- Finding out where zsh aliases and settings are defined – Ash Ryan Arnwine
- A beginner’s guide to the Jamf Pro Classic API – Rich Trouton
Apple Support
Updates and Releases
To Listen
- AutoPkgr with Shawn Honsberger – Mac Admins Podcast
- Ceremony – Mac Admins Podcast
- 2019, The Year In Review – Mac Admins Podcast
- Scrooge McDuck Meets Marley’s Ghost — Command-Control-Power
- Armin Briegel of Scripting OS X – Moving To zsh — Command-Control-Power
Just for Fun
Support
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