Meeting Notes - Feb 19, 2003

What's New by Mikio Moriyasu

New Apple Software
Apple Final Cut Express 1.0.1 is a digital video editing tool. The new release has improved performance and stability.

Apple iLife 1.0

Apple iDVD 3.0 lets users create DVDs on their Macs
Apple iMovie 3.0.1 is the easiest way to import, edit, and share your movies. iMovie 3 works with iTunes, iPhoto, and iDVD, and makes it easier to create movies with your own music, photos and video. Available via Software Update.
Apple iPhoto 2.0 is the easy-to-use, all-in-one application for importing, organizing, editing and sharing digital photos. Available via Software Update.

Apple Mac OS X 10.2.4 Update delivers enhanced functionality and improved reliability for the following applications, services and technologies: Address Book, Classic compatibility, Finder, FireWire, Graphics, OpenGL, and Sherlock. Available via Software Update

Apple Safari 0.8.2. improves compatibility with popular web sites, displays web pages and Flash content more quickly, adds XML support, increases standards conformance and improves stability. Available via Software Update

Apple X11 0.2.1 is a complete X window system to run X11 apps. In the new release, the installer now defaults to replacing /etc/X11, to use quartz-wm instead of twm. This is the only change since v0.2.

Software Notes
Apple is offering Keynote & iLife for $14.95 to all of its education customers (faculty-only). The limited-time offer is good through March 31, 2003. Read more.

Macromedia has announced a subscription plan for keeping users up to date with the MX product line called Macromedia DevNet. Pro service will cost $1,499 per year, essential service will cost $299 a year. Read more.

Microsoft has announced that it will be bringing Exchange functionality to the Entourage e-mail client, a move that has answered prayers for many Mac users in corporate PC environments. Read more.

Hardware
Apple debuted new and upgraded hardware this month along with a few price reductions:

Xserve - Upgrades

Xserve RAID - New Hardware

Power Mac G4 - Processor speed upgrades & lower prices

1GHz PowerPC G4
Dual 1.25GHz PowerPC G4
Dual 1.42GHz PowerPC G4

iMacs - Simplified product line & lower prices.

17" 1GHz PowerPC G4
15" 800MHz PowerPC G4

eMacs - Simplified product line & lower prices.

800MHz PowerPC G4
700MHz PowerPC G4

LCD Displays

23" Cinema HD Display - Lower Price
20.1" Cinema Display - New Hardware
17" Studio Display - Lower Price

Problems
American Power Conversion Corporation (APC) is voluntarily recalling about 900,000 back-up power supply devices. These devices are primarily used to protect computers in case of a power failure. The power supply device can fail, causing the unit to overheat, which may pose a fire hazard to consumers. Read more.

When Screen Effects is in operation and prompting for a password, the Dock and certain key system functions, can be accessed even though they not visible. Once Full Keyboard Access has been enabled, users can launch/quit apps, reboot the system, and log off the current user. If the current user has admin privileges, it is even possible to change the settings for the startup volume through system preferences. Unauthorized access can be minimized by using custom shortcuts for full keyboard access and uncommon key-combinations.

When installing OmniPage Pro X under Mac OS X 10.2.x, the installation process ends when it is almost complete. There are two solutions. Startup in Mac OS 9 to install OmniPage Pro, or dig into the InstallerMaker archives and launch the "OmniPage Pro X English" file using the "Open with Classic" option in the Get Info dialog box.

Some CRT iMacs, after startup, will power down after a few seconds without activating the display. The LED goes from orange to green and immediately shuts down. There appear to be four primary issues that cause this problem: A faulty flyback transformer; A faulty analog board; Outdated firmware; Accumulated dust. One workaround involves connecting an external display to the iMac's internal video out port. Users can then try updating the firmware.

10.2 in Brief
For those with subscriptions, MacFixit Has started to compile lists of issues that users have encountered while using the latest software updates from Apple including: Mac OS X 10.2.4, Final Cut Pro 3.0.4, iLife 1.0 apps, Safari 1.0 Beta, Keynote 1.0, and Airport Extreme.

General News
In a symbolic move that may reveal Steve Jobs' lack of confidence in non-Intel processing platforms, Pixar is replacing servers from Sun in its render farm with eight new blade servers from Racksaver. In all, the blade system contains 1,024 Intel 2.8GHz Xeon processors, and it runs the open-source Linux operating system. Read more.

A Mac service technician presents a true, twisted, and amazing tale of the oven-baked PowerBook. A woman come in to an authorized reseller to see if she could get her PowerBook G4 Ti repaired after it had literally been baked in an oven for 20 minutes. The top of the screen was a little brown and warped, the screen was all cracked, and there was not a single key on the keyboard. After being told that the screen alone would cost at least $1000, the woman decided to leave the machine with the reseller for discard. Before they tossed it in the trash, they decided to try and power it and it worked. Read more.

Mikio's entire presentation including a complete list of new Apple and third-party software since December, new Apple hardware releases, Apple retail news, and other Apple related topics can be found on the main Mac Managers web site at: http://www.macos.utah.edu or select from the options listed below:

NetInstall/NetRestore Overview by Scott Doenges

NetInstall (Network Install), was introduced with Mac OS X Server 10.2, as a method of network-booting Mac clients to distribute application software and OS updates. While it utilizes NetBoot's underlying technology, NetInstall, however, uses a RAM disk to store information on the client, so the local disk is free to be reformatted and reimaged.  The purpose of NetInstall is to drastically cut down on the amount of time an admin has to spend at each of his/her client Macs.

Thanks to Mike Bombich (the creator of Carbon Copy Cloner) NetInstall can be customized to be much more useful to lab administrators.  NetRestore utilizes the command-line version of Apple Software Restore (ASR) that was included with Mac OS X 10.2.2.  Mike also kindly created NetRestore Helper, which actually converts standard NetInstall images into whizz-bang NetInstall-NetRestore images.  NetRestore's GUI has complete control over all command-line ASR functions (including buffer sizes, which can be modified in the Advanced Settings window).

Scott's presentation is based on is based on work being conducted as part of Student Computing Labs ongoing conversion to Mac OS X. His complete report is available for viewing on the main Mac Managers web site at: http://www.macos.utah.edu in the "Documentation" section. You can also select from the options listed below:

Login, Logout, and Startup Scripts by James Reynolds

What is a startup script? A startup script runs when the Mac is booted. It is more than just a script though, it has components that help define the exact behavior of the script. The script itself should be formatted specially to act as a startup script.

What is a login script? A login script is executed right after the user authenticates and before the Finder loads. The script has no special requirements.

What is a logout script? A logout script is executed right after the Finder quits and before the login panel is displayed. The script has no special requirements.

Why are these scripts important? Knowledge of these scripts will help do several things:

• Debug existing startup/login/logout scripts
• Many existing applications install bad startup/login/logout scripts.
• Create your own system customizations
• Execute a script or tool with root permissions
• Custom administrative, accounting, or security tools/scripts
  

James' presentation is based on work being conducted as part of the Higher Education Mac OS X Lab Deployment Initiative. His complete presentation including scripts is available for viewing on the main Mac Managers web site at: http://www.macos.utah.edu in the "Documentation" section. You can also select from the options listed below:

Other Issues

Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2003
San Jose, CA - May 19th to the 23rd, 2003

Apple will use the 2003 Worldwide Developers Conference to boost its emerging Xserve presence. Other tracks of interest include Enterprise IT, Apple Developer Tools, QuickTime, Application Frameworks, Core OS, Hardware, Graphics and Imaging. Read more.

Apple is offering the WWDC Getting Started Bundle providing interested developers with: WWDC 2003 ticket, an ADC Select membership, an ADC Select hardware discount, and more, for $2,195(US). If you're already an ADC Select member, enter your Apple ID and password to purchase the special "WWDC 2003 Select Renewal Bundle" for US $ 1695. Read more.

Apple is offering ADC Student Members scholarships to attend this year's Worldwide Developer Conference. Winners of a student scholarship receive a free student e-Ticket to the conference. To put that in perspective, the regular attendee price is a cool US $1,595. Read more.

Integrating Mac OS X on Campus
Apple Computer and the University of Utah is sponsoring a day-long conference that will demonstrate how easily Apple Mac OS X can be integrated into mixed computing environments. Attendees will learn how UNIX-based Mac OS X integrates with Active Directory, LDAP v3, and Kerberos, and discover open source client management tools, including Radmind and RsyncX.

Location: University of Utah - Salt Lake City, UT

Date & Time: May 1, 2003; 9:00AM - 4:00 PM (MST)

Type: Seminar

Click here for additional information.

If there is a topic you would like to see discussed at a future Mac Managers Meeting, please let us know here.