A discussion that comes up frequently on MacAdmin Slack and other admin discussions is: Should commands in scripts have their full path hardcoded or not? Or phrased slightly differently, should you…| Scripting OS X
It’s been a while since I wrote about my books. Life has been tugging me in different directions (in a good way, overall). Things are going well, overall, but there was always this nagging feeling that I really should do something about the books. They were getting a bit… well… old… If you follow this … Continue reading Books Update — 2025| Scripting OS X
In the last bi-weekly (fortnightly) Summercamp issue of MacAdmins.news, we look at the security updates, lots of app and tools updates, and have links to several amazing posts and tutorials from fellow Mac Admins. Regular weekly issues resume in September.| Scripting OS X
Building packages can turn complex very quickly. We will start with a few simple examples first and build up from there. You should read the first two posts in this series, first: Installing Packag…| Scripting OS X
Many organisations like to set or pre-set the Desktop Picture of managed Macs. There are a few options for Mac Admins. One of the commonly used methods may break in macOS Mojave because of the new …| Scripting OS X
What is a package? If you have been using a Mac, you will have encountered an installation package file or pkg. Package files are used to install software and configuration files on your Mac. Packa…| Scripting OS X
I usually post this collection of links as part of the weekly MacAdmins.news summary, but that is currently on a slower bi-weekly “Summer Camp” schedule. So I am posting this here for a change and will link in the issue next week. The dot-six updates, as is common are mostly bug fixes and security patches. … Continue reading Apple Platform updates for July 2025| Scripting OS X
The macOS installation process installs a pkg file with root credentials. Because of this high level of privileges, it is essential for a Mac system administrator or security expert to be able to i…| Scripting OS X
Setup Manager 1.3 We have released Setup Manager 1.3 today. You can see the release notes and download the pkg installer here. Most of the changes to Setup Manager in the update do not change the w…| Scripting OS X
A few weeks back I introduced a new tool: utiluti, which sets default apps for url schemes and file types. Not standing still, I have updated the tool with new verbs to list url schemes and file types that a given app can handle, as well as inspect and set default apps set for specific … Continue reading New tool updated: utiluti v1.1| Scripting OS X
Further chipping away at the backlog of new and updated with merged 200 PRs merged or closed. The new PR templates and automations are proving to be a big help! Many thanks Bart for working on thes…| Scripting OS X
A while back I wrote a post on the Jamf Tech Thoughts blog about managing the default browser on macOS. In that post I introduced a script using JXA to set the default application for a given url scheme. (like http, mailto, ssh etc.) The beauty of using JXA/osascript is that it doesn’t require the … Continue reading New tool: utiluti sets default apps| Scripting OS X
Earlier this year, I released a beta version of desktoppr 0.5 which added an option to control the tool using a configuration profile. You can read all the details of how I built out this workflow …| Scripting OS X
One of the most popular articles on this blog is “Notarize a Command Line Tool with notarytool.” In that post I introduced a workflow for Xcode to build and notarize a custom installer …| Scripting OS X
A few years back, I built and released a small tool to simplify the deployment of macOS desktop pictures (also known as “wallpapers” since macOS Ventura and on other platforms) without …| Scripting OS X
Distribution packages are a special format of installer packages. Distribution packages can contain one or more normal or component packages. They can also contain extra resources to customize and …| Scripting OS X
