NOTE: THE BELOW DOES NOT WORK WHEN UPDATING TO FIREFOX 8+.

Unfortunately Firefox doesn’t deal with plist files like most other Mac apps (part of it’s cross platform nature) so MCX isn’t an option. However you can manage Firefox by either editing the Application file itself (annoying) or by installing a global browser customization extension (easy).

If you want to low down on this and to also stand on the shoulders of giants; read Greg Neagle’s posts about customizing Firefox:

• Firefox Default Settings
• Firefox Default Settings Revisited)
• Firefox Global Extensions
• More Firefox Customization
• Firefox global extensions, again

The quick and dirty steps to disable updates:

1. Install the Firefox Client Customization Kit: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2553/
2. Launch the CCK Wizard from the Tools menu
3. Create a new configuration
4. Follow the Wizard through to the Customize Preferences section (the 12th or 13th screen). Be sure to remember the Unique ID (first screen) you gave the extension.
5. Add both the app.update.enabled and app.update.autoUpdateEnabled keys and set them to false. I also lock these preferences because I update the applications using munki
6. Save your CCK .xpi. The next extra steps involved here are so the user is not prompted to install the .xpi to their local extension folder when they launch Firefox. (I figured this out on my own and then noticed it was in the comments on the More Firefox Customization post and even has it’s own post.)
7. Install the .xpi file it creates on your local profile (should just be able to double click on it or just drag it onto Firefox).
8. Go to your local Profile’s extension folder (~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/SOMETHING/extensions)
9. Find the folder that corresponds to the Unique ID you gave it on the first screen of the CCK. In my case it was an email address.
10. Copy that folder to /Library/Application Support/Mozilla/{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384} (where global extensions are stored)
11. Open up Firefox and test to see if it is installed (check the Extensions loaded or if you used that menu item see if it exists)
12. Read Greg Neagle’s post on More Firefox Customization for more details.

That folder you copied to the Global Extensions Folder can now be distributed to all your computers that need the CCK applied; either as a package (ideal) or using Remote Desktop.

Of note, extra things I like to do are to disable the welcome and upgrade pages, and add an item for our home page to the Help menu (also helps verify the extension is working) but I do allow users to disable the CCK if need be (though I’ve yet to know one to care enough to do so)

http://chealion.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/OutputBDDVDWeb.pdf

I do have an audio recording of the first presentation I’ve given since high school but have yet had a chance to listen and edit it as necessary.

I hope everyone found it useful.

For brevity I’m leaving out the exact steps to hook this up with your favourite mail client but you can find that out fairly easily as it’s only changing the SMTP server (or check my post about setting up Shaw’s SMTP service) and change mail.shaw.ca to smtp.gmail.com and using your Google login instead of say Shaw’s in the section about changing your SMTP server).

1. Set up a Google Account. If you have one you’re good to go.
2. Log into Gmail
3. Go to Settings (link is in the top right)
4. Go to Accounts and Import
5. Under “Send mail as:” section click “Send mail from another address”
6. Enter your email address you want to use (eg. username@shaw.ca) and press Next
7. Choose to use Gmail’s servers, press Next and choose Send Verification
8. Click on the link in the verification email. This will verify the email address so you can move onto step 9. You may need to check your Junk Mail folder.
9. Back at the “Send mail as” section (you may need to refresh the browser) click the “make default” link for the email address you set up and be sure that below it “Always reply from default address” is selected.
10. Now be sure to change your SMTP settings on your computer/mobile device accordingly. This varies from device to device as to the steps but is the most important step. If not set correctly (eg. not turning off other SMTP servers on an iOS device) will make everything we’ve done for naught.
11. Send an email to yourself to test and reply to it and make sure it gets to the right address. The only times I’ve ever seen an error here is if the SMTP wasn’t set up correctly, step 9 wasn’t followed or the carrier’s SMTP server was enabled again (yes it’s repeated because it accounts for 99% of errors I’ve seen).

Not difficult, but something I can grab when writing an email on how to do it.

Please join me in welcoming Shaw’s new feature of actually allowing Shaw email users to send email while travelling without resorting to webmail or trying to find the local ISP’s SMTP server address (or seeing that Telus’ mobile SMTP server is blacklisted AGAIN marking all your email as spam). This is of course ignoring that I don’t recommend anyone actually use their ISP provided email address but instead use something a bit more dedicated like your own domain or an actual email service. It’s still better than an AOL address.

Previously I’d been setting clients up to use a Gmail account as their proxy sending address when they have a Shaw or Telus email address - this makes it easier for Shaw clients. It’s also a lot simpler than the Gmail approach (which I have yet to post here).

Coles Notes

1. Turn on Mobile Access using the new Webmail beta: https://wmbeta.shaw.ca
2. Change your SMTP settings to point to mail.shaw.ca using port 587, STARTTLS, and use your username and password as the authentication

More elaborate instructions

Setting Up Shaw’s End:

1. Sign into https://wmbeta.shaw.ca
2. Click on Preferences (right side of screen - it’s a text link beside Feedback)
3. Click on the ‘tab’ that says ‘Mobile Access’
4. Set it to Enabled (click the radio button beside it)
5. You may need to change your password to meet their new security requirements.
6. Press Save. It will say “Preferences saved” in a small yellow box at the top of the page if it’s successful.

Thunderbird:

1. Go to the Tools menu and choose Account Settings
2. On the left side on that window click on “Outgoing Server (SMTP)”. You may need to scroll as it’s always the last item.
3. There should be an item associated with the Shaw account you just turned on. Whichever account you turned on Mobile Access for and click on it and then click the button that says “Edit…”
4. In the window that appears change the server name to mail.shaw.ca instead of shawmail or shawmail.cg.shawcable.net that it was set to. The port number should be changed from 25 to 587 and the Connection Security to STARTTLS. Authentication: Normal password and then enter your username
5. Press OK
6. If you did not change your password when setting up Shaw then press OK and you’re done. If you did change your password when setting up Mobile Access the next time you check email it will ask you for a new password and you can enter it.

Mail.app:

1. Go to the Preferences and click on the Accounts section
2. Click on your Shaw account on the left side
3. Where it says Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP): click on the drop down menu and choose “Edit SMTP Server List”.
4. Find the Shaw SMTP server in that list and click on it.
5. Change Server Name to mail.shaw.ca
6. Click on the Advanced tab
7. Check off Use Secure Sockets Layer
8. Change the Authentication drop down menu to Password
9. Enter your username and password and then press OK.
10. Close the accounts preferences window and say yes to saving it if necessary.

Shaw’s already provided instructions on setting up an account anew for iOS, Android and Blackberry devices: https://wmbeta.shaw.ca/doc/offnet-device-instructions.html

The hint? Just do a search for # HTTP request. Keep only GET, POST, HEAD for any version of AWStats.

Of note, as of the published date AWStats 7.0 does not count the files viewed correctly. I’m not sure why.

My primary reason for the extra work is that Google Chrome will not recognize a .mov file as a valid wrapper for video in HTML 5’s <video> tags.

Using Compressor

You need to make your Compressor preset using x264 as a normal QuickTime movie preset (use the table below to help with settings if necessary). You’ll then want to grab the script from GitHub and add it as a script to your preset.

Scripting Compressor isn’t very straight forward, while you can use AppleScript or launch a script using Compressor they fail to mention that the script must be saved as an application and the file is accessed by using on open.

Helpful Table of Limitations

Android information is rather limited. Official Android information is near non-existent.

Thanks to: - http://www.proactiveinteractive.com/software/compressor/index.php

    <video OTHER_ATTRIBUTES_HERE>
        <source src="PATH_TO_MAIN_PROFILE.mp4" type='video/mp4; codecs="avc1.4D401F, mp4a.40.2"' />
        <source src="PATH_TO_BASELINE_PROFILE.mp4" type='video/mp4; codecs="avc1.42E01E, mp4a.40.2"' />
    </video>

The video codec for H.264 is: avc1.YYYYXX where YYYY represents the profile, while XX is the level (multiplied by 10 and turned into HEX):

Profile     Value   
Baseline    42E0
Main        4D40
High        6400
Extended    58A0

Level       Hex Value   
3.0         1E
3.1         1F
4.1         29
5.1         33

Now when I visit with an iPhone 3G it loads the baseline version, while my iPhone 4 and iPad both load the Main Profile version. For my current project I use video for whenever Flash isn’t available and it does leave a gap for Firefox and Opera users who don’t have Flash but according to our web stats they don’t actually exist.

It’s also important to note that Android users are also left in a lurch because any version lower than 2.0 doesn’t support <video>, and those that do can’t handle a <source> element having a type value like above. To top it all off it isn’t able to play or show controls on a video on it’s own. You have to add some JavaScript to your page in order to play to pass the click event and tell it to play.

The fix: Make sure “Always Insert Attachments at End of Message” is checked off (preference key is AttachAtEnd - boolean for you MCX minded folk) and you can now attach inline as you would normally want to without having Outlook eat your message.

Thunderbird will display the text correctly, but you’ll lose it and it will only appear as an attachment once that email is forwarded or replied to: (Part 1.1.3 is the text “There’s an attachment”). You’ll also notice the horizontal rule separating between the different HTML portions of the email.

What program completely falls flat on it’s face is Outlook; it just puts all attachments off to the side and you have no idea what’s in the those ATT documents and your client sure as hell isn’t going to read them. So you’ve sent the email, the email was successfully sent, the text will be visible on their webmail systems, on their mobile device (Blackberry or iPhone), and even visible in other mail clients but because it’s technically an attachment Outlook won’t display it inline by default. (For the same reason they won’t show images by default in emails - the cookie tracking and that it’s a great attack vector)

Of note, this only occurs when sending from Mail.app. Outlook can attach items inline and have no issue as it attaches the images at the end of the email.

Correct view:

Before going further it’s worth noting how to delegate a group calendar so a user can view it without manually adding the group calendar as it’s own calendar (if using Delegates instead of multiple calendar “accounts” (same credentials, different calendars) is your aim). To do so you have to add the group calendar as a normal account in order to set it up, and then set up delegation as you would for a normal account. The important URL to know for using a group calendar is http://FQDN.OF.SERVER:8008/principals/groups/groupname (as always replace http with https and 8008 with 8443 if you are using SSL).

Sunbird uses slightly different URLs than what you use in iCal to start with, where in iCal an example URL might be http://FQDN.OF.SERVER:8008/principals/users/USERNAME or http://FQDN.OF.SERVER:8008/principals/groups/GROUPNAME. The corresponding URL to use in Sunbird is http://FQDN.OF.SERVER:8008/calendars/users/USERNAME/calendar or http://FQDN.OF.SERVER:8008/calendars/groups/GROUPNAME/calendar

That’s great for adding a single calendar but what if a user or a group has multiple calendars under their one account? iCal will automatically show them as a group whereas Sunbird requires you to add each and everyone that you wish to have show up.

You can specify a “sub-calendar” to subscribe to in Mozilla Sunbird by specifying the unique ID of that calendar instead in the form of the url http://FQDN.OF.SERVER:8008/calendars/__uids__/UID_OF_GROUP_OR_USER/UID_OF_SUB_CALENDAR (Newer versions of Lightning will take http://FQDN.OF.SERVER:8008/users/USERNAME/UID_OF_SUB_CALENDAR). Note the lack of calendar at the end of the URL. To determine the UIDs in question it’s easiest using iCal, if you click on a calendar and press Command-I (File -> Get Info) you can see part of the CalDAV URL at the bottom of the sheet that appears.

You will see calendars/__uids__/UNIQUE_ID/ONLY_PART_OF_THE_UNIQUE_ID because the label the text is placed into is not big enough to fit the URL. Because you can’t get the full URL from there it’s easiest to go to the iCal Server itself and navigate to /Library/CalendarServer/Documents/calendars/__uids__/ (you’ll need administrator privileges to view this). From there find the folder named the same as the UNIQUE_ID portion of the URL and open it to find a folder with the UNIQUE_ID of the “sub-calendar”. You can now put the URL together and use that in Sunbird to view that additional calendar.

Example URL of a sub-calendar in the group:
https://FQDN.OF.SERVER:8443/calendars/__uids__/FA26C8C6-5B78-4AB0-AE73-0E9576574EBB/F74174B7-380C-4630-9192-9025F4C691A2

EDIT:

Sub-calendars also work at https://FQDN.OF.SERVER:8443/calendars/users/USERNAME/UID_OF_SUBCALENDAR

Sources Used:

• MacOSXHints.com - Add group calendars to iCal Server
• Apple Support Discussions - Correct URLs for Sunbird
• Apple Support Discussions - iCal + Sunbird

The workaround: Start up the computer in single user mode. Then use the following commands (not the ones with ## preceding them however)

## Mount the filesystem so you can read and write to it
mount -uw /
## The files we want live in /var/db
cd /var/db/
## Files that tell us it's a multi disk install
rm .AppleMultiInstall*
## File that tells us to pop up the registration dialog
rm .AppleCustomMac
## Something else to do with setup (Locale Setup?)
rm .locsetup.plist  

I removed all 3 files because they looked like the most likely culprits but gut tells me the .AppleMultiInstall* files are the only ones that have to be removed but I wasn’t able to test it.

You’re now able to boot the computer just fine - it’s imperative however to be sure that you know what has been installed as you’re interrupting the installation. Because in this case I knew that only iLife was on the second disk (in terms of what had been selected to be installed) I didn’t go ahead with reinstalling the OS to be on the safe side.

This has been tested on Mac OS X Tiger 10.4, it should be identical for Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 as well but I’m not 110% positive.