One More Thing

Well here is my review of some of the top features of Leopard Server. In Part 1 I will be looking at the new Server Configurations, how these configurations effect Open Directory and DNS, and a few other tidbits thrown in.

Server Admin/ Server Preferences.
There are now 3 “modes” that the server runs in. Standard, Workgroup, and Advanced. The biggest issue for everyone to know, is that a server running in
Standard or Workgroup mode, can not be Admin’d through the Server
Admin tool that we are all used to using on 10.4 and earlier servers.
In Standard and Workgroup modes, the tool for setting up services is called Server Preferences and it is like the System Preferences
interface on Mac OS X client. Simple icons that you click on, and then
make simple changes to the service. There is almost no advanced
configuration in the Standard and Workgroup modes.
If you try to Admin a server with Server Admin, that is running in
Standard or Workgroup mode, the Server Admin will present a warning to
you, that you are about to turn the server into an Advanced server.
The reason it does this, is once you go Advanced, there is no going
back. This is because in the S&W modes, a lot of the advanced
configurations are done for you, using somewhat default preferences. I
forget exactly what Server Admin does to these defaults, but whatever
it does causes the server not to be able to go back into the more
simplified mode. It was explained to us that this might change in
future versions of the OS.

Changes to OD
Now I forget what all the differences were between Standard and Workgroup
modes. One difference that I do remember is that depending on the mode Open Directory is configured in different ways. In Standard Mode it is set to be a standalone OD Master. In Workgroup Mode, OD is set to be connected to a Directory System, such as Active Directory. This is where things get interesting. As you might already know, there are issues with Mac OS X clients binding to AD,
specifically, AD has no place for Mac OS X specific client management
attributes. This would generally require schema changes (which most AD
admins will not even talk about, let alone do), or set up the so
called “Magic Triangle”. When a 10.5 server is in Workgroup Mode it
can use a feature called Augmented Records. Augmented Records is a new
feature that allows you to use Active Directory or Open Directory
running on Leopard Server, for all user and group lookups and
authentication. At the same with no schema changes required you can
store any custom information needed for client management,
calendaring, or collaboration services in the local Open Directory
server. The bad news is that this is a feature currently not available
in Advanced Mode, so you still have to set up a Magic Triangle when in
Advanced mode.

True Easy DNS
Another change with the S/W and Advanced modes is DNS (this is also,
to me Huge Feature #2, Easier DNS setup in all modes). In S/W modes,
the DNS server does a reverse DNS lookup, and then creates forward and
reverse DNS names based on the results of the reverse lookup. They did
this because, as they explained it to us, something like 60% of the
support calls they were getting for server wound up being improperly
configured DNS. So don’t be surprised to see a server in S/W mode that
resolves to something silly like server.152-208-5-102.dsl.sbc.com .
and be aware that while it is a FQDN, it might only be valid inside
the local network, and will obviously change if the ISP’s DHCP server
assigns a new address.

It’s not a DeLorean, but it works.
Another feature of Standard and Workgroup modes is that Time Machine will back up local server volumes. The Server data can not be backed up by Time Machine currently when the server is in Advanced Mode. You can however backup clients to shared volumes on the server with Time Machine over AFP. I would have to test this out before I attempted to roll it out to a production environment.

Other Interesting Things
Other differences, shares are no longer created in WGM, they are now
created in Server Preferences/ Server Admin depending on the mode you
are in. AFP performance is now supposedly twice as fast. It will be
interesting to see what people have to say about this once it is out
in the wild. Server Admin now only shows you the services that you choose in the
left hand column, this can be kind of confusing when you first open up
server admin. I think I remember something about SACL’s now being more granular than they were in 10.4, but they breezed by that pretty quickly.
There is a new System Image Utility. Apple was pushing this hard,
going as far as to say Mike Bombich was going to spend a majority of
his time working with SIU and not focusing that much on NetRestore.
They aid that Mike sees SIU as the future. SIU looks better, but the
proof will be the first time we use it, and comparing it to how fast
it is or is not. Apple is also pushing the idea of building base
images of all of the different OS’s you need (since every new Mac
seems to have a new OS), and then building all your Applications as
packages, and installing the packages Via ARD. I don’t think I agree
with this, especially since most of the Imaging that we do for onsite
clients is for Labs that have all of the same systems. This idea might
work better in a large enterprise environment.

Well that is it for now. Part 2 coming soon.

I saw it at Macworld, and thought that it would be cool, but flawed.

I saw all the hype before hand and shuddered at the real possibility that it might be a big flop.

I saw the Madness of the night it was launched, and thought how crazy it was.

And now, today, I have finally used one. The magical, but flawed, iPhone.

Now, to be fair, I only used it to try and send email. I had a client that was trying to make it work both inside and outside of his network. Problem is, that the ISP he uses is blocking port 25, and they don’t allow their mail server to relay mail from outside the network. Obviously, we are going to have to call them, and ask them for an exception to the port 25 situation for this customers network. This way he will be able to use the cwmx.com mail server to send mail through.

This is not my real problem with the iPhone. My problem with the iPhone is that when using email, the keyboard sucks ass. The only way for you to know that you have “pressed” the key that you meant to, is to “press” and hold that key until the letter pops to the top of the screen.

Now, in terms of over all appearance, and overall functionality, I think the iPhone is leaps and bounds above what everything else that is out there. But I wish the phone was a little wider, to allow for a bigger keyboard. I did not use it as a phone, and did not try dialing a number with the keypad, but I am SURE that it is easier to type a longer email with a blackberry than it is with the iPhone. And I don’t know, but I really feel my Razr would be a better phone. Now, I really think the blackberry sucks as a phone (it is awkward) and I really think that trying to type even an SMS message with my Razr kind of sucks. If the iPhone could be a better phone than the Blackberry, and a better messaging client than the Razr, then I could see how it would be a winner.

Does anyone have an Extra iPhone that I can try out for a while?

First let me say, I WANT an Apple Set Top Box. I want an Apple version of TiVo, something that I can also play (and maybe RIP) DVD’s from. Hell, it would be great of they would also let this set top box control Home Automation via some 802.11x flavor of wireless.

But the POS that Apple displayed at Macworld that is the Apple TV, is downright useless. Great, I get to stream content from another Mac or PC to this box, but all of the iTunes content is 640×480. So first of all, this is 4:3 content, that will be played on a 16:9 screen. Secondly, did Apple ever hear of Garbage In, Garbage Out? Of all the video formats it supports (really, what they are is different levels of H.264 compression), all but one are 640X480 or less. And this is supposed to be a High-Def device? Has Apple even set foot in a specialty home theater store? My guess is no, and this is for the set of idiots out there, who bought their HDTV’s at Costco, and have never hooked them up to an HD source.

Why exactly am I going to buy this, when I could just spend more (Ok, twice as much) on a Mac Mini, that is going to come with Front Row, and thus not only be an actual computer, but also do most of what the Apple TV is going to do, only better. Yes, the Apple TV has some advantages, if there was content that exploited those advantages, it might make a little bit of a difference.

HDMI, Component Video, Optical Audio ports, who cares? None of the content that streams to this thing can take advantage of all that those ports have to offer. No HD content, all of the iTunes content is in stereo, so being able to hook up to your home theater amplifier over the optical is not going to gain you much of an advantage. It is not like this thing is going to have DVD-HD or BlueRay content being streamed to it. So the movies that you do stream to it, are going to look like crap.

So I must say to Apple, congratulations on creating a useless product, that will do less that my 7 year old PC will do running VLC. Sure, I don’t get that slick front row interface in HD, but since that is the ONLY thing you will be seeing out of this thing in HD in the foreseeable future, I have to say that this is a waste of money. I think most people who buy this thing, are going to wish they had not.

Let me start out by saying that I have been going to MacWorld Expo SF for about 15 or 16 years now, back in the days when it was split up between Moscone Center and the Brooks Hall. so I feel I have a good deal of perspective on the “good old days” of MWE as well as the current incarnation of the event. About all I can say is that I long for the good old days when it was like a circus was in town, and you were going to see all the new and glorious products that the Mac market had to offer. I guess the expo lost a lot of that magic for a lot of people in the late 90’s as the internet made trade shows somewhat irrelevant. Over the course of all those years I have seen and done a lot of things at the expo. I have been a volunteer at the BMUG booth back when BMUG was HUGE, I was a User Group leader for my college, and attended the Apple User Group meeting at the old Cadillac Bar and Grill, I worked for a local company that as a part of driving business to their store was one of the MANY companies that had people out on the street corners handing out flyers, I have worked as an exhibitor, I lugged my SE to the show to meet up with some guys from a company in the mid west so that they could install an SE/30 motherboard in it (wow, that was a huge difference… and I still have it!), and I have been just a regular attendee, with maybe a couple of hours one day to spend on the show floor like I was this year. I should also mention that I have gone to several of the NY Expo’s, but I always considered them to be somewhat second rate to the SF shows.

So it pains me to say that MacWorld is dead. Instead what we now have would be better tittled Apple Expo. When all you have is row after row of iPod accessories, and gadgets for digital cameras, and lots of stuff that is pretty much unrelated to the Mac that is used to make music with, it is hard for me to think of it as a Macworld Expo. Instead, what we now have, at least on the exhibit floor, is an Apple focused version that is located in San Francisco, instead of Las Vegas. Now I have nothing against Apple’s push into consumer electronics, whatever makes them a healthy and profitable company is great. But for Steve Jobs to have gotten only 10 minutes into his 2 HOUR keynote only to inform everyone “ok, that is all that we will be saying about the mac today”, to me is just insulting. There are lots of things that are Mac related that I am sure the Audience would rather have heard than some Suit from Cingular reading his speech off index cards. How about they address the wireless drivers issue, and reassure everyone that there was no problem, and if there had been a problem that Apple would have been all over it? How about talk about the transition of the big App’s to Intel native versions? Apple has their own applications that sorely needs updates (or have you not tried iWeb and Pages?), and I am sure they now feel somewhat foolish for attaching the year to their products, because demoing iWork 06 at MacWorld 07 is just kind of lame.

So if this is the direction that Macworld is going, I am going to guess that the name will almost have to be changed to be less Mac focused. I also fear that there will not be any expo in 5-6 years, and that early January will no longer be looked forward too as a chance to just be the geek I am.

And no “One More Thing”? That was the exclamation point on what turned out to be a bad keynote. John Mayer is good, but he is not good enough to make people forget probably the second most disappointing Keynote I have ever seen. The first being the “Mega Hertz Myth” keynote… and I got up early and stood in line for that one. Someone needs to remind Steve that while people all love the cool stuff Apple is coming out with (well most people), they are their for the computers.

Worst. Keynote. Ever.

Coming in the next couple of days, Why I think the iTv, or aTV or whatever it is called, sucks. And my reaction to the Apple iPhone.