You need an administrator password to un-pause a printer in OS X.  It is possible to add a user to the lpadmin group.

sudo dseditgroup -n /Local/Default -o edit -a username lpadmin

This will give them rights to the printer, but if your users aren’t admins of their machines, this might not be something you want to open up.  This is the case for the school I work at.  My solution was to create a LaunchDaemon that would automatically detect and un-pause paused printers. Continue reading “Bash Script: Fix Paused Printers In OS X”

If you have 1,000 computers and don’t want them all to power on at the same time, but rather come on at different times, you can use a simple Python script to do so.  I use this in an educational setting where each lab needs a different power setting so that they don’t all power on at once and crash the server when they all try to contact it at once.  It is also a little easier on the power grid. Continue reading “Python Script: pmset–Set Energy Saver Settings For Multiple Computers At Once”

The Connect To… menu (Command+K) lets you quickly connect to a server using different protocols.  If you are deploying these settings to a bunch of computers, it can be done quickly using a simple bash script.  Just replace or add whatever servers you want into the servers variable (one per line in single quotes). Continue reading “Bash Script: Set Favorite Servers In “Connect To…” Menu”