Set Outlook as the default email app – mail2outlook as a shell script
If you are setting up new Macs, and would like (or require) the end users to use Outlook, it's time consuming to configure this manually for each new user ac...
Read post →Our thinking
Blog
Technical notes and observations from years of supporting creative businesses on Mac.
Download macOS Installers via Terminal
You can use Terminal to download the installer for macOS versions that are no older than the version that the Mac you're currently using shipped with, or the...
Read post →Privacy Preferences Policy Control - Application Bundle Identifiers and App Code Requirements
So that I don't have to keep looking them up when I'm setting up profiles in a new MDM, here is a list of some common apps that I'll included in Privacy Pref...
Read post →Fix Issues with SharePoint Online: Something went wrong. We're sorry, sign-in isn't working right now. But we're on it! Please try again later.
I've been trying, and mostly failing, to do the simplest of things in SharePoint – that is, share a folder with an external guest. I was logged into a client...
Read post →Ensure that Microsoft 365 Resource Calendars keep event details from email invitations
By default, if you make a resource calendar in Microsoft 365 (e.g. a meeting room calendar) and add it to a meeting via a calendar invitation, the calendar i...
Read post →Delete "undeletable" calendar spam events for Microsoft 365 renewals in Calendar app on macOS
The spammers and phishers are back at it again, sending out a heap of spam calendar invitations to people for bogus Microsoft 365 renewals. Whilst Microsoft...
Read post →Make a new Terminal window on macOS with a given Profile
I went down a real rabbit hole today, trying to do something that seems quite simple – opening a new Terminal window with a given profile from a script. Why?...
Read post →Enable Touch ID for authentication in sudo
In getting a new laptop recently, I'm reminded of all the small tweaks and quality-of-life improvements that I end up making. One of them is enabling Touch I...
Read post →Find your external IP address from the Terminal
If you're using a Unix or Linux terminal and you need to know what your external IP address is (e.g. if you're behind NAT) then there's a quick one-liner tha...
Read post →Disable Entra ID domain Federation in PowerShell
I was recently setting up federation between Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, using Google Workspace as the Identity Provider for Entra ID. Somewhere in t...
Read post →Direct download links for Microsoft Surface drivers
Here are links to the driver packs for various Microsoft Surface devices, including Surface Laptop and Surface Pro. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-au/surface...
Read post →Start Windows Defender offline scan with third-party antivirus installed
If you're using Windows Defender as your primary antivirus, then it's pretty easy to start an offline scan – simply go to the Window Security app > Virus & t...
Read post →Set Immutable ID (onPremisesImmutableId) in Entra ID via Microsoft Graph PowerShell
I've got a few clients who use Google Workspace as their main platform, but also need to use Microsoft Office or Teams, so have a Microsoft 365 tenancy as we...
Read post →IT Support Technician (Part-Time, 3-4 days/week)
Automatica is a boutique consultancy that keeps creative small businesses humming. We tame Macs, wrangle the occasional Windows machine, and dive deep into M...
Read post →Network discovery using LLDP on macOS
In trying to find the IP address of a switch on the network, I first turned (without much hope) to performing a Bonjour discovery on the network, but as expe...
Read post →Post-installation script for Dropbox on macOS
If you're deploying Dropbox to multiple systems, there's now an Enterprise Installer available from Dropbox which has a postinstall script to properly initia...
Read post →Create new user in Microsoft 365 Entra ID via PowerShell when using Federation with Google Workspace
I've got a client for whom I've set up federation between their Google Workspace and Microsoft Entra ID tenancies. Google Workspace is their primary platform...
Read post →Bypass Windows 11 TPM check from within the Windows 11 Installation Assistant
Today I needed to install Windows 11 on a late-model Intel-based Mac mini. The Mac mini has an 8th gen Intel Core i3 CPU, 8GB RAM and 250GB SSD. It supports...
Read post →Install Windows 11 on Apple Mac mini (2018)
I'm putting this up as a duplicate of my recent post detailing how to bypass TPM checks when installing Windows 11 on an Intel-based Mac mini with 8th-gen CP...
Read post →Bypass Windows 11 TPM check from within the Windows installer
I recently needed to do a clean install of Windows onto some specialised hardware – a PC that was custom built as a controller for some industrial equipment...
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