Our first plan was to do a manual setup of each device. However this went from having no additional software to requiring Microsoft Office 2011 (and all its updates) and some printer drivers. For 100+ devices, this would add too much time to the process.

The next plan was use DeployStudio to run a custom workflow to run the install for Office and its updates, setup a user account, install printer drivers and then bind to OD. In our initial tests, it took about 2 minutes to boot into the DeployStudio NetBoot image. The workflow then took about 6 minutes to run, and this was operating over 802.11n wireless networking. Oddly, using a USB ethernet adapter gave us slower results with almost 3 minutes to boot into NetBoot.

When we came to run 4 Air’s simultaneously booting to DeployStudio over our wifi (which was an open network provided by an Airport Extreme), we suddenly saw a increase in time to boot, up to 15 minutes to get 4 laptops booted to the point of running the workflow. Our next step, running the workflow, gave flawed results. Due to an error on my part, involving not checking the Automate button in the workflow creator, our workflow processing took a long time. We hit 45 minutes since boot before we realised this issue. Once we did, and manually advanced the workflow, the remaining workflow finished in about another 15 minutes. Its hard to tell how much time was wasted by our stupidity.

Another odd issue we noticed, even running steps of the workflow such as setting region information and language settings, and configuring the computer information (which should be the case of creating the specific script and copy it to the local hard disk) seemed to take minutes to complete. Once again, once completed, we were unable to login to our laptops with the local user account. Investigation revealed that our Add User setting hadn’t worked and we were left with no way to log in to the machines, without enabling root.

Needless to say, we quickly aborted this plan in search of another.

Our final solution was time consuming to set up (given our maximum 4 day schedule). We created a golden master from a new machine, installed Office and all its updated (including the just released SP2), printer drivers, added our Wifi settings (which seemed impossible to do via DeployStudio), ran Software Update and all the other usual tasks of creating a golden master. Once we had that, we created an disk image of it, removed the swap files, and volinfo file. Then compressed it (giving us an 8GB dmg to deploy).

The final deployment method was interesting. Given the slow nature of USB Ethernet being limited to 100Mbps, and Wifi giving poor test results, we invested in some Thunderbolt Cables. We then did this:
1. Install PSU Blast Image Config (BIC) on each of the 3 laptops already built.
2. Setup the Configuration files for our dmg and set to Autorun
3. Configure the master laptop to auto login and autorun BIC
4. Put that laptop in Target Disk Mode (hold T while booting)
5. Connect that laptop to an unimaged laptop and boot, holding Option to get the boot picker
6. Select our Thunderbolt connected volume
7. Let it boot, and auto launch BIC
8. After hitting an error at the image restoring stage, realise we need to unmount the internal volume first
9. Put in our admin password and press enter
10. Wait. Hit enter to confirm the error about setting the Automatic network settings
11. Wait for it to reboot. Unplug Thunderbolt

We then had an imaged laptop that just needed renaming to match our labelling system.

Our final setup stage, binding to OD, we have to do manually. Due to a failed delivery, we still don’t have our server to bind to yet, so we will be doing this via ARD from the server once its arrived.

How long did this process take? Thunderbolt took as much time as the internal SSD to boot. The image restoration took about 90 seconds to restore our 8GB image and another 45 seconds to verify. The total time from boot to reboot was about 4.5 minutes. With three people working, we imaged 101 MacBook Airs in about 4 hours.

What does this all mean for future deployments? Well at the moment, there is no practical way to network deploy MacBook Air’s. The lack of ethernet and relatively slow wifi speeds meant we could do one or two simultaneously and it would take perhaps 10 minutes per machine.
The golden master and a Thunderbolt drive seems the only viable solution here. We lucked out by having enough spare laptops to use those in replace of actual Thunderbolt drives, since these cost £350 for a 120GB drive (from Elgato) but for £40 for a Thunderbolt cable, it made for our best solution.

The new 2011 MacBook Air came with a few ports missing. Most people miss their FireWire (I do sometimes) or ethernet (I do sometimes) port, and there are solutions coming for this, beside’s Apple’s Thunderbolt display. But what else is it missing? A little port known for its fondness of Kensington locks. The rectangular hole in many people’s laptops is often overlooked, but for some people, like college students, or small offices (or even big offices) this is critical to reducing the change of your precious laptop being stolen. But my MacBook Air doesn’t have this.

There could be two explanations to this.

1. There simply wasn’t enough room in the tiny case to make an extra hole. Besides, 5 is too many anyway.

2. Its so small and light, that there is no reason to need to lock it anywhere

Personally, I think its a little of both. I’m sure neither Jony Ive nor Steve wanted to make extra holes in the body of the Air, but when you’re carrying around a 2.96lb laptop, is it ever really that problematic to take it with you?

1. Follow the instructions here for creating a Windows PE boot disc. You will need a Windows system to create this with. Unfortunately the file resultant ISO file is 180MB, not really suitable to share here.
2. Get your WIM image on a USB drive.
3. Create you VM, selecting the appropriate OS, in my case, XP. Use the ISO image you created in step 1 as the install media.
4. Start up your VM and wait to be presented by a command prompt.
5. Type DISKPART to start the disk partition tool. Type the following commands

list disk
sel dis 0
clean
create part pri size=30000 (for 30GB, change as necessary)
ass letter=c
format fs=ntfs label=XP quick
act
exit

6. Next you need to insert the USB drive with your WIM image on. And we need to go back into DISKPART. You need to assign a letter to your partition on the drive. So do this

list disk
sel dis 1 (confirm disk number from list disk command)
list vol
sel vol 3 (in my case, my partition on the drive was 3)
ass letter=m
exit

7. Back at the command prompt, you can now begin applying the WIM to your VM. Type the following command, inserting your own wim file name where I put in filename.wim
imagex  /apply m:\filename.wim 1 c: /verify

The variables for this are of course your wim file name, the destination drive should usually be C:, and the “1″ is the index number on your wim. This is likely to be 1 but if you are unsure or have issues, refer to the Microsoft Support pages.

Then, give it about 10 minutes to apply your WIM and once done, type “exit” to reboot the system. You will probably need to shutdown the VM when it reboots, to allow you to remove the ISO image which will be attached to the VM as a physical disc. Once that is out, reboot and make sure you’re plugged into your company network if needed, and that the networking mode is Bridged. This will give your VM a physical IP address from the DHCP server, rather than using NAT routing to reuse the IP address of your Mac.

The history of this actually goes back to an iPod leaflet I picked up in John Lewis in Norwich one time while walking past their Apple selection. On their screenshot of iTunes, they had a “All Time Faves” playlist, which I stole and adjusted to create this.
iTunes links are provided where available

1. Alanis Morissette – Hands Clean [iTunes]
2. Avril Lavigne – Don’t Tell Me [iTunes]
3. Barenaked Ladies – Aluminum [iTunes]
4. Blink 182 – Here’s Your Letter [iTunes]
5.Box Car Racer – There Is [iTunes]
6. Busted – Meet You There [iTunes]
7. The Calling – Adrienne [iTunes]
8. Dashboard Confessional – Hands Down [iTunes]
9. Dashboard Prophets – All You Want
10. Death Cab For Cutie – Summer Skin [iTunes]
11. Dido – White Flag [iTunes]
12. Fastball – Fire Escape
13. Goo Goo Dolls – Slide [iTunes]
14. Guster – Amsterdam [iTunes]
15. Hoobastank – The Reason [iTunes]
16. Incubus – Talk Shows On Mute [iTunes]
17. Less Than Jake – Look What Happened [iTunes]
18. Lostprophets – Last Summer [iTunes]
19. Mark Owen – Four Minute Warning [iTunes]
20. Michelle Branch – All You Wanted [iTunes]
21. OutKast – Hey Ya [iTunes]
22. Robbie Williams – Feel [iTunes]
23. Ryan Adams – New York, New York [iTunes]
24. Semisonic – Secret Smile [iTunes]
25. Smashing Pumpkins – 1979 [iTunes]
26. Sponge – All This And Nothing
27. The Starting Line – Best Of Me [iTunes]
28. Steriogram – Walkie Talkie Man [iTunes]
29. Superfine – Betsy Went Flying [iTunes]
30. Tenacious D – Tribute [iTunes]
31. U2 – Beautiful Day [iTunes]
32. The Vines – Ride [iTunes]

You can now get the whole playlist (minus a few tracks) in an iMix on iTunes. Get It Here

A few months back, Boxee stepped forward and seemed to take the stage. It offered the same XBMC features, folder scanning, internet lookup on movies, TV shows, as well as a wide range of streaming sources including Hulu, iPlayer, ABC, MTV, Comedy Central amongst them. They also offered the ability to add friends, so you can see what they’ve watched recently. Boxee has a clean interface, with the main menu accessible at any time, on the left, and display and sorting options on the right. Possibly its key winner in the field was the AppleTV support. With the help of a patch stick, you could load Boxee on your AppleTV and watch streaming internet TV at any time. This was a big selling point for many.
Being in the UK, and unable to access most of the content, it was a real benefit when the BBC iPlayer was added to the streaming sites.


Last week Plex’s name came up a bit more on the internet, especially on Twitter, so I thought I’d give it a try. After downloading and running the new beta, I added my Movies folder and let it do its work. Unfortunately for me, it failed at the first hurdle. It picked up half of my TV shows, and presented all my films as “Film Showcase”. This was a step further than it managed last time I had tried it but still not working status. I gave it a chance, cleared the Application Support folder and reran it. After adding back the video source folder (I think here I may have messed up and configured this incorrectly). Checking the TV section revealed almost all my TV shows, as well as every episode I had for them. This was getting better. Enabling Fan Art lets Plex download some really good banners and posters to show you what program you’re looking at. Drilling down further into a TV show gives you full screen artwork for the show, and, as a very nice touch, plays the TV show intro in the background. It is these small features that sold me on Plex.


As I said above, Plex didn’t pick up on all my shows, but holding the Menu button button, or pressing I brings up a menu that allows you to do a forced rescan of folders and that seemed to sort my issue. All my shows were now up on screen for me to browse. Plex also tracks what shows you have and haven’t watched so you can be sure you’ve seen every episode of 24. Plex also has its own App store, allowing you to add more plugins as they are added. For me, I decided to add a TWiT Live plugin so I can watch Leo’s live stream.

While I do sometimes use Plex to watch TV on my Macbook Pro itself, I usually hook it up to my TV for a more pleasant and larger Media Centre experience. Even going through DVI to S-Video and into a standard def TV, Plex looks gorgeous (as does Boxee but the Plex UI wins here) I can only imagine how much nicer it would look on an HDTV. So rather than buying an AppleTV, why not pick up a Mac Mini, throw it under your TV and enjoy a richer media centre experience?

Plex Homepage
Boxee Homepage

One Tree Hill (recent convert), Smallville, Heroes, Big Bang Theory, Numb3rs, Chuck, and beginning in Janurary, Lost.

However I really just wanted to share this great advert which appeals to two of my interests. Can you guess which?

And here is the second one. (and yes I know the ads aren’t current but hey, who cares)

Needless to say, that space quickly got used up, and I started spending a lot of time deleting iTunes content, and backing up stuff to DVD’s and my MyBook. I played with the idea of upgrading the drive a lot, but always held back because I have AppleCare and there is a chance it could void my warranty, or cause problems if I ever have to take this machine in. 

But this isn’t a post of regrets, its a post of action. The action being I finally took the plunge. The price was right so I ordered a Western Digital 5400rpm 320GB laptop drive and it arrived swiftly last week. I really couldn’t wait so I immediately formatted it, and started to clone my current drive over using SuperDuper. Three hours later and it was ready. I did a quick check and booted from it via USB. All was good so I was ready for the replacement.

I followed some instructions from iFixit.com and got to work. The whole process took about 90 minutes in total, and that was being very cautious and taking it slowly.

So what gems of advice can I pass on? Screws! The biggest issue is all the screws. In total, there are 8 sets of screws from around the laptop. I had a small screw box/pill box that I used to keep each type apart, and put them in the pot in the order I took them out. This made it easy to put it back together.
I would also make sure you put down a towel or cloth to lay the laptop on. You’ll be moving it around to access all the screws and the last thing you want is scratches when you’re done.

The last bit of trouble I had was removing the hard drive cable from the drive itself. Its a thin plastic cable that is glued to the top of the drive. In an ideal world you have a spudger, a small plastic tool you can use to separate the cable from the drive. I had none so I had to make do with a business card and then a pen lid when the card got too messed up. So before you delve in, make sure you have something to hand. And don’t be too worried about pulling the cable with your hands if you need to. Its fairly robust so will probably come off in your hand if you’re slow and careful.

That was the difficult part. I also bought 4GB RAM from Play.com as recommended by WIl Harris on ChannelFlip.com. Replacing this was easy as removing the battery and taking out 3 screws. Its possibly the ONLY user replaceable part of a Macbook Pro. And that is what perplexes me. Why does the high end machine have to be so difficult to replace a hard drive on? You’re paying more and are likely to be a bit more technically minded, so why is it such a pain and why does it void your warranty? That I will never understand.

But the final story is that I have a 2.2GHz C2D Macbook Pro with the biggest hard drive I can get, and the most RAM it can take. Its a true powerhouse to me.

When I first published this post in 2008 (still popular, 3 years later with 6000+ views to date), it seemed like a unknown trick for a small majority of users, usually in the enterprise.
It was written with iOS (formerly iPhone OS) 2.0 which has since been superseded by a few major updates.

If you are running iOS 4.0 or higher (and you really should be) then installing certificates is so much easier now. All you need to do now is put the certificate in an email to yourself or your users, or stick it on the web somewhere. Then either tap to open the certificate in an email, or click the link to open it in MobileSafari and you should be prompted by the OS to install the certificate.

If you’re looking to do this in an enterprise environment, you may still want to use the iPCU, but you really should take a look at Profile Manager, the Mobile Device Management feature in Lion Server (it costs £35.99 from the App Store)

——

So I now work where they employ the use of certificates for wifi security, and I want to use the wifi on my iPhone since the data connection sucks. But how?

Well with iPhone 2.0 software, there is support for certificates. But how do you get it on your phone?

Well…

1. Go to Apple’s Enterprise Support page and download the iPhone Configuration Tool. Install

2. Open up the Config tool from your Utilities folder.

3. Select Configuration Profiles and click New

4. Fill in the details on the General Tab.

5. Click Credentials. and click the plus sign, and navigate to the Certificate file (in my case a .cer file). Click OK.

6. Check the details look correct, and give it a name.

And thats it! Done.

Well not quite. You need to install it on your iphone. You have two/three options but the third involves Mac OS X Server which many personal users won’t have. So your two options are host a file on a website somewhere, or email it to yourself. If you want to host it, click the Export button, save the file to disk, and then upload it somewhere. Then navigate to that file online and it should ask you to install.

The second easier option is to email it to yourself. So click Share, and wait for Mail.app to open a new mail and punch in an email address you can access on your iPhone. Click send. Wait (or go and check your mail).

Then in the email, click the file, and you will be asked to install the file. Do so and bingo. Success. Now go test it and make sure it works!

Update: I have tested this at work, and it worked perfectly. You have to make sure you enter your username as Domain\username and your password as normal or it won’t authenticate. So now I can use the internet connection at work. Only thing is that IMAP and POP3 ports are blocked so can’t use the Mail.app to check them, but everything else works a treat!

Let me know if you like it, or prefer reading the full version.