If you were expecting a quiet pre-holiday time, think again. We got the (expected) RC for iOS 17.2 and macOS 14.2 this week (and a second RC for macOS), which makes the release next week very likely. Of course, this will only disturb your holiday spirits if you haven’t been testing, or if you have and found issues…
(Sponsor: vast limits)
application usage monitoring
uberAgent is an innovative user experience monitoring product for macOS and Windows. uberAgent’s highlights include detailed information about application performance, network reliability drill-downs, application usage metering, browser performance, and web app metrics. Try for yourself and get your free 100 user community license at uberagent.com.
If you think your company or product is a good fit to sponsor MacAdmins.news, please contact me!
In other news, the service that I have been using to send the email edition of this news summary for more than six years and 294 (!) editions, TinyLetter, will be discontinued by the end of February. They had been purchased by MailChimp a while back, so the writing had been on the wall. This is actually quite timely, since I had been dragging my feet on the rebranding for the email version, after moving the web part to MacAdmins.news.
I have already identified a new service that seems like a good fit and started testing. I will of course notify subscribers beforehand the actual switch, but consider this an early warning that there are changes coming!
If you would rather get the weekly newsletter by email, you can subscribe to the Scripting OS X Weekly Newsletter here!! (Same content, delivered to your Inbox once a week.)
📰News and Opinion
- RIP RSR? – Howard Oakley
- Apple joins AI fray with release of model framework – Emilia David, The Verge
- Mac Admins Foundation announces the departure of board member Jennifer Unger — Sabrina Coy, MacAdmins.org
⚙️Apple Updates
- Apple School Manager: Welcome, Document revision history
- Apple Business Manager: Welcome, Document revision history
- Apple Business Essentials: Welcome, Document revision history
🔐Security and Privacy
- New proxy malware targets Mac users through pirated software – Bill Toulas, BleepingComputer
- Fake Lockdown Mode proof of concept – Jamf Threat Labs
🔨Support and HowTos
- Terminal Secure Keyboard Entry and sudo with Touch ID on macOS – Alan Siu (But keep in mind that Secure Keyboard Entry serves a purpose. It protects from other (malicious) apps listening in on Terminal keystrokes. Since you frequently enter passwords in Terminal, this is quite sensitive. So, I don’t necessarily recommend disabling this setting, but I appreciate Alan documenting this behavior.)
- Screen Recording Options – Dan K. Snelson
- Expanding an Xsan volume – Eric Hemmeter
- How to prepare for the Apple Device Support Exam – Andrea Pepper, SimpleMDM
- Apple IT Training and Certification: What You Need to Know – Arek Dreyer, Kandji
- Labeling LUNs more easily – Eric Hemmeter
- Is XProtect up to date? – Graham R. Pugh
🤖Scripting and Automation
- Breadcrumbs – Dan K. Snelson
- JOCADS: the Multitenant Object Copier and Deleter Tool for Jamf Pro – Graham R. Pugh
- Microsoft 365 Reset (2.0.0b1) via Jamf Pro Self Service – Dan K. Snelson
- The macOS’ version of the cp Unix command won’t create links – Rob Griffith
♻️Updates and Releases
- patchomator 1.1 RC1
- Munki 6.3.5 Official Release (MacAdmins Open Source)
- Munki 6.4.0 Beta 1
- Jamf Pro Release Notes 11.1.1
📺To Watch
- JamfNation User Conference 2023 videos now available on YouTube (There is, unfortunately no playlist grouping the videos, which makes it a bit hard to link to them, I am linking to the video section which shows the latest uploaded videos, instead.)