I spent a long time trying to automate a dual-boot deployment of macOS and Windows 10. The reason being is that it’s very useful to only buy a single piece of hardware (Apple) and have it run Windows and macOS (and maybe Linux, too). But getting two completely different operating systems to deploy to a […]
I love learning obscure and under-utilized things in the tech world; PJL commands fit that bill. You can use PJL commands to get and set printer preferences. This includes getting the page count, setting the serial number, and changing the LCD display message. I was recently tasked with evaluating our printer usage to determine if […]
WinPE is a useful tool for booting a computer and laying down a new operating system. In this post, I’ll show you how to make WinPE a little more useful by automatically running a custom script at startup.
UPDATE: If you installed this script today (2016-08-15), you may need to update it. I added a line in the script that should prevent duplicate pages from being appended. There are plenty of apps that help you merge PDFs into a single file, but if you want something faster with a “native” feel, you can set up […]
GarageBand has a lot of cool loops and sound effects. If you are a systems administrator, you might be tasked with deploying these sounds and loops so you don’t need to download it onto each computer when GarageBand opens up. Or maybe you just want to have these effects for your own personal movies or […]
I often need to fill out a PDF form for requesting medical records. I have typically done this using Preview since I can use it to digitally sign the form. But requesting new records after every appointment started becoming tedious–even when doing it digitally. I also did not want to wait for years and then […]
If you want to image a lot of computers with a clean Windows 10 image, Microsoft has lots of built-in tools to help do this, but it’s easy to get lost and overwhelmed with their documentation. To alleviate that headache, I will explain step-by-step how to: create and use an Unattended.xml file that will: skip […]
Malcontents are sneaky. In their latest ploy, they are counting on you misspelling “.com” so they can send you to one of their fake domains. So instead of going to netflix.com, you end up at netflix.om–a phony site determined to infect you with malware. If you are not paying attention, you might not realize you […]
Microsoft Office for OS X is usually very sluggish and slow. This is one reason I don’t like working with DOCs or DOCXs in OS X. Yes, you can easily view the document using QuickLook (pressing the Space bar while the file is highlighted), but if you actually want to open the file and manipulate it, you […]
While helping friends and family with their computers, I often need to download an app they don’t have or update it to the latest version–something I don’t really want to spend my time doing. This is definitely a first-world annoyance for me, but I always have fun making the computer do my laborious tasks for me, which […]