Managing iOS devices with MDM

I gave a talk on building a Mobile Device Management server for over-the-air enrollment.

Video

Outline

Slide show

The deployment, enrollment and management features are really based on your budget. If you only have $100 budget and a 10.7 Mac, Lion Server with Profile Manager is a fine choice, it bring the management in house which I always enjoy.  It gives you

1. Clear Passcode, 
2. Unlock
3. Wipe

It does not give full disk encryption, app delivery, or remote desktop. 

I think the best solution, although I have not tested it, is to use SCCM 2012 as it is cross platform, easily virtualized and can used Active Directory natively.  

I think the real challenge that can be easily overlooked is why to use the device at all.  Mobile phones, fine, you have data that should not be exposed.   Tablets in Higher Ed?  The challenge is how to integrate them into the classroom, how to make them useful tools. That's where the money and energy need to spent, researching the purpose. Managing the devices is the easy part.

Strong Finish

A couple of months ago, shortly before thanksgiving, we bought a Nikon D40x DSLR. We researched as much as we could before choosing, we just didn't know what we'd want or need. I chose the d40x over the d40 because of the higher megapixels. We got the body and a kit lens for about $650 (quitting smoking money) from Amazon. Shortly after we bought a camera case and a tripod for $40 also on Amazon.

I took a photography class in highschool and that's the extent of my formal training. I had a great teacher who loved Macs and really pushed us to create art however we saw it, either with SLR cameras or digital videos. For some reason I felt that all those lessons I learned JR year would carry across a decade.Getting this camera has been a blast for me, it's allowed me to take some really nice shots of the island we live on.

The d40x allows a shutter time up to 30 seconds which is usually more than I need. Playing with the shutter speed for night shots and aperture settings for day shots has been so much fun for me. I'm only recently starting to bump up against some of it's short comings.
1. No time lapse settings: no way to create a gif automatically. It has to be done manually, and I have, it's just not as pretty and a big PITA.
2. No bracketing. This would allow me to take the same picture x number of times with different exposures to make some HDR pictures.

This is a great beginner camera. It's taken almost 6 months for me find things I want it to do that it can't. Also means I can get another camera someday and leave this one for J or our kids one day :)

One of the best things about this camera is that it encourages me to adventure. My dad gave up photograpy because he feels it takes away from the experience of the event. I agree, but I also find that I wouldn't even be at the event if it weren't to take pictures. Now I also get a chance to share some of that experience with you.

Another gif

Kev and I biked up to imaloa observatory today to take pictures of some plants for the Wikipedia.
It's a steep hill and lots of fun on a bike. As soon as I started down behind Kev I pulled out the camera and started clicking off shots. There's a certain thrill to riding down a hill with no hands looking through a camera snapping away.

It's not amazing, but it's a fun little gif.
It weighs in a just under 9mb so be patient.
The Wikipedia articles are: Schizostachyum and Osteomeles anthyllidifolia.

Publishing Short Stories

The two previous posts have been waiting to see the light of Internet for almost a month. I've been debating how to publish these stories. I thought about Scribd, I considered submitting it to a short story zine or two. I knew I wasn't publishing for money and I didn't want anyone else to control it. I also knew that I didn't want to create another account with another site and that's really what helped me decide to go with Google Docs.

I didn't read about publishing rights like I wanted to, so I'm not sure what they're covered under. If you're interested in republishing these or using them leave me a comment and we can work something out.

Ninja Edit:
I meant to end this post with a question. Have you ever published anything, in physical media or on Internet? What experience did you have, what avenues did you pursue?

Short Story 2: Surfing

Surfing is one of those mythical activities I'd never actually be able to do. Like owning a convertible or seeing Nine Inch Nails in Prague.

I'm about to make this happen! As I stare glassy eyed at several boogie boards hanging. Which do I need? What's the difference? The owner is quacking away on the phone without a care for me.

I choose one, immediately he gets up “you don't want that one, you want THIS one.” he snaps and then back to his phone. I grab some flippers and wax and I'm out.

Twice a week I ride to the beach to learn this sport and conquer this. 45 minute bike ride there, 2 hours of flopping around in the water, 45 minutes bike ride home. While discussing my trouble I hear that I may be too big to catch waves.

How can this be? Hawaiian men are bigger than me and I know they do it, they invented it! My motivation sapped, I give up for a few weeks. I ask around about surfing and how to get starting. No one wants to tell me about the boogie board, only about real surfing. Longboarding. It took them only a few tries to pick it up. Good for fucking them.

The motivation I lost turns to spite with this latest news. I'll show them by showing myself and learning this once and for all.

We drive to the beach in the rental, I launch out, pass the snorkelers towards the waves. They're coming in high and strong today.

I'm the only one out here which is a little strange but it's too late to worry about that now. I position my body facing the shore and turn my head to wait for a good wave. A few small ones and then a big one, it lifts me up and pulls me but I didn't kick fast enough and it rolls past me and breaks a few feet infront.

Another couple small ones, then a big one on it's way. I don't have much hope but I kick as hard as I can. It lifts, it... breaks right on me! I'm looking down at the water this time. My board starts to shake and I then I understand: I'm riding the wave. I can't see anything, there's salt water in my mouth, I can hear screaming and my face feels strange.

I open my eyes and I can see. I spit out the salty taste of the pacific. The screaming was actually me shouting with excitement. The strange feeling in my face is the ear to ear grin that I haven't had in a long time.

I paddle back to shore. I've caught my first wave.

Published with Google Docs

Short Story 1: Howzit

“howziiiiiiit!” he says louldy right behind my head, my heart rate increasing the longer he draws out the word.

It takes me a moment to understand what he's saying. I turn around. “oh hey”

Everyone here is friendly, so this interaction is to be expected. The last city I was in, everyone ignored everyone. If you weren't being ignored, there was usually trouble.

Weeks go by, I begin to understand the accent. I don't cared if it's english, local dialiect can be pretty fucking far from the english I know.

I give a cigarette to a kid and I receive Mahalo.

I hear “give me da kine” and sort of understand what she wants this time.

One night a giant dressed in white sports jerseys lays on da pidgin right thick. It's a cool evening. The fan is on as well as the AC and I start to sweat. I barely understand a word he says. What's worse is that he wants to know about a computer, he tries using technical terms but uses the wrong ones. All made worse by this new to me language. He's patient and we make it through the conversation, I lose the sale anyway and he walks out empty handed.

Months have passed without problems and now I'm much more comfortable with this town.

I'm riding home one night after closing the shop, what the sodium lights lack in lumens they make up with adventure, I have to be extra alert and aware of my surroundings as I ride and I am. I ride past a couple of kids sitting on the concrete barriers.

“howzithowzithowzit!”

“oh hey!” and I nearly wreck my bike in front of everyone.

Published with Google Docs

Published

I've been having trouble getting to bed at a reasonable hour recently, often staying awake until 2 or 3 am. Most nights I try to play some video games until I'm tired. Last night I found my way back to wikihow. I discovered a poorly written Guide to preserving your privacy at an Internet Cafe.

I work at an Internet Cafe so I lent my experience and wrote the newer and improved guide. It's not incredible by any means but it's always fun to publish on the internet and it's a big improvement over the original guide.

Missing Shirts

About 6 months ago I realized I'd lost all of my good shirts. This was around the time when I moved from Seattle back to Richmond, drove to Florida, drove back and then moved to Hawai'i. I'm not terribly surprised they got lost but I'm still very sad. The fact that I'm missing so many of them leads me to believe they're together somewhere.
If I stayed at your house and left them with you, you would make me incredibly happy to return them to me and I'll be happy to ship something to you in return. Here is a list of the shirts that I no longer have but wish I did:



I realize that looking at this list without context might leave you in the dark. If any of my gentle readers need illustrations of these shirts, I can probably dig up a picture.

WikiHow

I've published three articles on WikiHow:
1. Heal a Broken Toe
2. Cancel a check
3. Make Lock Pics with a Street Cleaner Bristle

The check canceling I wrote before I made an account. Too bad I can't claim it as my own. Post counts matter, right?

Remember when I was talking about trying to buy that minivan? Well Thursday night I got a call from the lady saying that the person interested in buying kept trying to talk her down too much in price and she finally got fed up. She asked me how much the Craig's list ad said the price was, I told her $1,500. She said it was supposed to be $2,000. Her friend's mistake apparently.

I met with her Friday morning and she drove me to her house in HPP 20 minuts outside of town. The van looked fine, but I insisted on taking it to a mechanic before purchasing it. I gave her a $500 deposit check so she didn't think I was running off with it, then I drove it to a mechanic in Hilo. While I was driving the check engine light came on and smoke was coming from under the hood. After a brief check by the mechanic he told me the following things were wrong:

Transmission and Axle Pan leaks
Sway bar ends are broken
Engine misfires
Belts cracking
2 Outer Tie Rods are worn

He hadn't hooked it up to the scanner to find out why the engine light was on and why it was misfiring, that would cost another $100. He quoted me $1,500 to fix the above problems. I called the owner and told her what was wrong and the quoted price to repair. She sounded surprised, told me she'd call me Saturday morning and hung up. I called her Saturday morning, evening;Sunday morning, afternoon and night. No word.

Getting suspicious she would cash my check and leave me with a worthless car I called and canceled my check. I checked WikiHow before calling because I didn't know what I'd need, saw there was no article and then wrote one after calling my bank.

Tomorrow morning I get to call the supervisor at the shop and explain the situation, give him the owner's contact information, call the owner one more time and hopefully be done with it. What a strange situation this has turned into.