Blogs every Mac admin should know about

Musings of an Apple Systems Administrator
A blog about the day to day tasks of a systems administrator. A how to guide and user tell all about OSX Server systems issues and challenges.
MacAdminCorner.com
Mac Admin CornerGeneral IT and Mac administration ramblings
Krypted.com
Charles Edge has written many Mac Server Books including the Enterprise Mac Administrator’s Guide and Beginning Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server: From Solo Install to Enterprise Integration. Charles also frequently updates his blog over at Krypted.com.
SystemsBoy.com
Very interesting to read, he has a great writing style.
Managing OS X
Greg is one of the top contributors and well respected guru’s on many of the Mac lists. He has written many useful articles including MCX, dslocal, and Leopard and managing Office 2008 with MCX, and much more.
IrisInk
Intelligent posts, great to read.
AFP548.com
One of the most well known Mac IT sites, run by a couple Apple SE’s (I don’t remember their exact titles), this site is also home to a couple useful tools including InstaDMG and KeyMinder. Their forums are also pretty lively. Summarizing everything this site, and the next one on the list would require entire articles.
Unflying Object
He claims it’s not a blog, but it sure looks, smells and tastes like one to me. Useful posts too.
eWeek
Mostly IT corporate related news, their Mac section occasionally posts some interesting commentary.
ComputerWorld
Ryan Faas, the author of iPhone for Work: Increasing Productivity for Busy Professionals (Books for Professionals by Professionals) and other books is a regular columnist at ComputerWorld.
Explanatory Gap 
Nigel Kersten was a sysadmin with Google and a Mac wiz to say the least.

MacEnterprise.org
Originally macosxlabs.org, this site is the combined efforts of several businesses as well as higher education instututions to provide a central repository of collaborations. I’m not sure it’s considered a “blog” but it’s worth making the list anyway. Best known for their [usually] monthly webcasts as well as the mailing list.

Configuring RAID 1 (Mirroring) on the 2011 Mac Mini Server

1. When booting the Mac Mini for the 1st time, hold the "T" key down to force the unit into Target Disk Mode 
2. Connect a laptop via Firewire 800 cable 
3. Open Disk Utility on the laptop 
4. Select the primary Macintosh HD mounted from the Mac Mini on your laptop HD in Disk Utility 
5. Select New Image and change the type to Read Only and the save destination to your laptop's Desktop and start creating the image (approx 5-7 minutes) 
6. When finished imaging, select each of the 500GB internal HD's and Erase leaving the name as the default 
7. Select RAID and drag each of the Untitled HD's into the RAID window 
8. Press the Options button at the bottom and put a check in the "Automatically rebuild RAID mirror sets" and leave the RAID Block Size: at 32K 
9. Press Create RAID and wait till finished (~30 seconds) 
10. Select Images from the top pull-down and then Scan Image of Restore… 
11. Select the image of the Macintosh HD from step 4 on the Desktop to prepare it for the restore 
12. Press Restore at the top right and drag the new RAID volume into the Destination box 
13. Select the Browse… button to the right of the Source and select the Macintosh HD image you just scanned for restore 
14. Select Restore and press Continue at the warning box 
15. When the restore is finished, quit Disk Utility and drag the Macintosh HD Firewire mount to the trash to disconnect it from Target Disk Mode 
16. Push the power button on the Mac Mini Server to shut it off and pull off the Firewire 800 cable 
17. Restart the Mac Mini Server and begin the Setup Assistant process

Send AirPlay Video from an iPhone or iPad to a Mac, PC, or TV with XBMC

XBMC is a powerful free app that turns any Mac or PC into a full fledged media center. The newest version has been updated with a slew of improvements, but most interesting for iPhone and iPad users is the addition of AirPlay video support. This means you’ll be able to wirelessly transmit video from an iOS device to anything running XBMC, whether it’s a Mac hooked up to a TV or an old PC, here is how to set that up and get AirPlay video working.

Enable & Set Up AirPlay Server in XBMC on a Mac or PC

This will be the same for Mac OS X, Linux, or Windows:

1. Get the latest version of XBMC (free)
2. Launch XBMC and scroll over to “System”
3. Choose “Settings” from the submenu and click on “Network”
4. Scroll down and find “Allow XBMC to receive AirPlay content”, click the dot next to it so that it’s blue
5. Optionally, set an AirPlay password (this is largely unnecessary for private networks)

Export AirPlay Video to XBMC from an iPhone or iPad

Now from the iOS device:

1. Start playing a video as usual from a variety of video apps
2. Tap the video to show the control bar, then tap the AirPlay icon
3. Look for “XBMC (Computer Name)” and tap on it to begin AirPlaying the video

Unfortunately XBMC will only accept non-DRM video to be shown with AirPlay, meaning some trailers within Trailers app and a fair amount of content downloaded from iTunes won’t show up at all. You’ll know instantly if it’s working or not because the video either works or it doesn’t within XBMC.

Diablo 3 Release Date Set for May 15

Diablo 3, the highly anticipated action role-playing game, will be released on May 15 for both Mac and PC. Blizzard Entertainment has had the game in development seemingly forever (2001!), but it appears the long wait has been worth it. Gameplay is a mixture of dungeon crawling and hack-and-slash with RPG elements. 

The expectations for Diablo 3 are quite high, but looking at gameplay videos and screen shots don’t disappoint with it’s gorgeous graphics and action packed style. This could easily wind up being the best major game release for the Mac platform this year, and gamers of all types should be anxiously awaiting it’s release.

Diablo 3 will cost $59.99 and can be pre-ordered and even pre-downloaded directly from Blizzard via BattleNet.

Playing on my iPad & iPhone

My 2 favorite games on my iOS devices this month are:

Flick Kick Football by PikPok

Stupid Zombies by GameResort LLC

Best Dark Souls info on Web

Checkout:

• Dark Souls IGN
• Dark Souls Wiki

For Video Walkthrough's check out videos by YucheeEL on YouTube.

Apple Releases Safari 5.1.4 Packed with Improvements

Apple recently released a maintenance and security update (Version 5.1.4) for its Safari Web browser, which now claims to have an 11% improved JavaScript performance over the previous version. This is in addition to the update delivering roughly another dozen enhancements as well. 

The Safari 5.1.4 update, which is available exclusively for Macs running on Mac OS X Lion includes the following changes:

• Improve JavaScript performance up to 11% over Safari 5.1.3 
• Improve responsiveness when typing into the search field after changing network configurations, or with an intermittent network connection
• Address an issue that could cause webpages to flash white when switching between Safari windows
• Address issues that prevented printing U.S. Postal Service shipping labels and embedded PDFs 
• Preserve links in PDFs saved from webpages 
• Fix an issue that could make Flash content appear incomplete after using gesture zooming
• Fix an issue that could cause the screen to dim while watching HTML5 video 
• Improve stability, compatibility, and startup time when using extensions 
• Allow cookies set during regular browsing to be available after using Private Browsing
• Fix an issue that could cause some data to be left behind after pressing the “Remove All Website Data” button

Although version 5.1.4 is a small update, there are more significant changes coming to the Web browser that are coming later this year with the launch of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. As of right now, Safari 5.2 for Mountain Lion will sport a simplified user interface that has a unified search as well as new sharing features that make it easy to send links via the Messages application or post them on Twitter. Hopefully there will be a slew of new features that are yet to be unveiled for the bigger update expected later this year.



Download Safari

Firefox 11 For Windows, OS X & Linux Now Available For Download

The most notable addition to Firefox version 11 is the ability to migrate bookmarks, browsing history and stored cookies from Google Chrome, with Mozilla also adding synchronization features for add-ons and adding support for some additional CSS properties. From a developers point of view, Firefox 11 brings the availability of the CSS style editor as well as being able to fully visualize a web page in 3D thanks to the new page inspector 3D view. A number of fixes have also been implemented which were left outstanding in the previous build, most notably a fix which brings redesigned HTML5 video controls, as well as rectifying the issue which prevented Growl notifications from being displayed when using Growl 1.3 or later. Read the Release Notes here.

• Download Firefox 11  for Windows
• Download Firefox 11 for Mac
• Download Firefox 11  for Linux

List Of HTC Android Devices Which Will Get The Ice Cream Sandwich Update In The Coming Weeks

HTC have begun rolling out their Ice Cream Sandwich update to a very select few devices, with a larger device set to be included in the near future. In an official statement on their blog, HTC Global Community Manager Darren Krape has let users know that the company is currently only in the early stages of this Android 4.0 process


Following HTC devices are confirmed to get a tasty treat of Ice Cream Sandwich:

• DROID Incredible 2 by HTC
• HTC Amaze 4G
• HTC Desire S
• HTC Desire HD
• HTC EVO 3D
• HTC EVO Design 4G
• HTC Incredible S
• HTC Sensation
• HTC Sensation XL
• HTC Sensation 4G
• HTC Sensation XE
• HTC Raider
• HTC Rezound
• HTC Rhyme
• HTC Thunderbolt
• HTC Vivid

Apple & Flash

Install Siri On iPhone 4, 3GS, iPad, And iPod touch With Free i4Siri Proxy Server For Spire

Finally be able to install Siri on older devices like iPhone 4, 3GS, iPad, And iPod touch with Spire & Free i4Siri Proxy Server For Spire.

Look for "Spire for iPad/iPad2" in Cydia for iPad port of Spire. It is close to 100mb download, so be patient

Follow step by step guide at:

• Spire Installation
• i4Siri Proxy Server For Spire

Enjoy!!!

Change the Default App a File Opens with on a Mac

After lot of experimenting found an easier way to change an individual files default application by doing the following from the Mac Finder:

• From the Finder, select the file that you want to adjust
• Hit Command+i to “Get Info” on the file
• Click to expand the “Open with” section within that files info screen
• From the pull down menu, select the application you want to open this specific file with
• Close the Get Info window

This will only change the default behavior of that specific file. If you click the “Change All” button you will change that file types association across Mac OS X, causing all instances of that file to open in the application you chose.

Here I go again!!!

Segregating my personal and techie blogs. :)