After 3 hours of sleep, around 6am on Saturday, I came back to the office to fiddle around with server one more time. No matter what I did, ODR still thought that ODM is on the network, and I’ve decided to move to the Plan B.

Plan B was to export our current OD structure via Archiving, install new OS X server on MacMini and restore from there. Little I knew how corrupted LDAP was on the original server, after all ‘hard reboots’ throughout it’s lifetime.

By around 10am, I clearly understood that Plan C is my only solution – which was exporting users from original OD and re-importing them into brand new installation of OS X. The only positive from this approach was that our users would have to change their passwords upon initial login anyway, to comply with recent implementation of IT Sec Policy, so loosing user’s passwords was not a big deal.

By around 11:30, I had all my users imported and passwords reset, but one more hiccup was waiting for me… Read »

Tags: Apple, DNS, IT Solutions, Open Directory, Server Setup

And here comes magical day – Friday, May 20th. All planning is done, hopefully, and we are ready for servers’ upgrade, update and reconfiguration.

So first let’s see what we have, then we’ll see what we want, and then we will see what we get…

Our current setup is:

3 XServes and one VMWare OS X Server all working very hard and therefore one XServe, which acts as Open Directory Master (ODM), AFP, SMB, DNS, DHCP and Netboot server, works very hard every day and hangs ocasionally. During those ‘hangs’ “hard reset” is required, which does the number on the server. Single sign-on process is not working anymore and every time server ‘hangs’, since it’s running DHCP and DNS services, none of the users can access Internet. So back to set-up:

• XServe 1 – Mac OS X 10.5 Server, AFP, DNS, DHCP, SMB, ODM
• XServe 2 – Mac OS X 10.4 Server, AFP, FTP, Mail, Web and FileMaker Server
• XServe 3 – Mac OS X 10.5 Server, AFP, ODR (Open Directory Replica)
• VMWare Server – Mac OS X 10.5 Server,AFP, FileMaker Server

Now in order to free up XServe 1 and ensure it’s stability and no-impact on Internet, I’m bringing MacMini into the picture, running 10.6 OS X Server which will be DNS, DHCP and ODM. XServe 1 would then be AFP, SMB server – file server.

Plus, all servers, except VMWare server, will be running 10.6 Server software to increase performance of existing hardware and utilize latest Mac technologies. Read »

Tags: Apple, DNS, IT Solutions, Open Directory, Server Setup

There comes time, when Apple releases new OS X Server version and existing server is acting up. And that time is perfect for spring cleaning, updates and upgrades.

So this time came. Apple has OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Server for quite some time now, with bunch of possible bugs and kinks worked out, with skinnier footprint and increased performance on existing hardware. Our existing server, which hosts DNS, DHCP acts as Open Directory Master and on top of that serves files via AFP and SMB, after multiple “hard resets” is not performing how it once did. It also, for some reasons, lost it’s “single sign-on” capabilities via AFP (while it’s OD Replica works just fine). And, on top of that all, time showed that having DHCP and DNS on the server that every now and then “freezes” and requires “hard reset” is not a practical idea – once server is “hung”, users cannot access network at all. Read »

Tags: Apple, DNS, FileMaker Pro, IT Solutions, Open Directory, Server Setup

I’m really suspicious to all things said and showed on the internet, and this video is not exception. Somebody please pinch me as this video from 1994 talks about electronic newspapers.

We see newspapers going to e-publishing thanks to success of tablet device, iPad from Apple in particular. But this video talks about future more than 15 years. Just to put this into perspective: 7 years before release of Mac OS X, 5 years before release of Mac OS 9, 3 years before release of Mac OS 8, and a year before release of Windows 95. Read »

Tags: Apple, Cell phones, Gadgets, iPad, iPhone, New products, Prototype, Video, YouTube

Well SouthPark guys did it again. In the season 15th Premier episode they make fun of location tracking, iTunes agreements and everything else that could make fun of.

Here is sneak peak

Words won’t explain it, you’ve got to watch it.

Tags: Apple, iPad, SouthPark, Video, YouTube

This is pretty cool. By using front camera, app developers can create apps that ‘simulate’ 3D, i.e. glasses-free. Front facing camera tracks face position, esentially what angle is looking at the iPad, and adjust picture on the screen.

We track the head of the user with the front facing camera in order to create a glasses-free monocular 3D display. Such spatially-aware mobile display enables to improve the possibilities of interaction. It does not use the accelerometers and relies only on the front camera.

Jeremie Francone and Laurence Nigay

Here is video:

From MacStories

Tags: 3D, Apple, iPad, New products, Prototype, Video

Ok, I’ve been waiting for this one for a while now. Ever since I’ve learned that Verizon would introduce Personal Hotspot I hoped that Rogers would follow this as well and not block it.

Now, it’s official: iOS 4.3 on Rogers has Personal Hotspot that lets you connect up to 3 devices to share your cell phone data.

Read »

Tags: Apple, Cell phones, Gadgets, iPad, iPhone, IT Solutions

Tags: Apple, Video

Ok, seriously, why haven’t I thought of that? Well maybe I don’t have an iPad yet to play with.

Here is very easy way to print off the iPad. What? I didn’t say from…

Source.

Tags: Apple, iPad

Many of you might know of such mod as Hackintosh. It’s when Apple Mac OS X is installed on regular PC computer or laptop/netbook to mimic perfection of OS X. How about hardware components of it? Apple’s esthetics?

Well, it actually easier than one might think. Sure Jonathan Ive won’t be happy, but you will have Apple on your PC laptop too.

Tags: Apple, Joke