I wonder how many businesses out there end up employing Apple Mac engineers when they really only needed someone on hand when they need them. Of course to find a person like this must be really hard. If you went to an IT Recruitment company and asked for a freelance Mac Expert I am not sure they will find you someone that will do anything else than say a 3 month stint.

I think there is an opportunity for recruitment companies to find ad-hoc support people to establish long term relationships with their clients.

I offer support and management services on an ad-hoc or contracted basis and for the clients that use me this is the best middle ground between full time employee and IT Services company.

In my case I am ready to work between the hours of 7am and 8pm, my clients only pay for what they use but I am there when ever they need me. In the past I have been in jobs where I am paid to sit there and wait for a problem to arise, you desperately look around for projects to take on to keep you from going mad but essentially you are just sitting there waiting for someone to ask you a question. I am never sitting around waiting for someone to raise a support call, the point is nobody pays me to sit around!

So if you think that you are nudging towards recruiting a mac specialist then maybe you could instead opt for a gentler more efficient step of recruiting a Mac expert like myself who will always be on hand to help but only charge you for what you use?

For more information on possible arrangements for your own dedicated mac support person, freelance IT manager or contracted mac support please take a look at my How Can I Work For You page.

For a while now I have been using Archiware’s Presstore backup software for Mac OS X Server.

By comparison to Retrospect it does not look as feature rich and is much more expensive but my view is that Presstore is by far superior backup software.

For my London clients that use Mac OS X Server with LTO and AIT Tape drive libraries I am slowly moving them over to Presstore, the speed of the backups and restores are amazinly fast compared to the bloated Retrospect but more than that the software works.

The last version of Retrospect I dared to trust with my backups was version 6.1, it was good but slow. Retrospect 8 was a disaster and has changed hands from Dantz to EMC and now to Roxio, it is software I will probably never use again.

The interface is a little more confusing than Retrospect but that is all forgiven for the stability it provides. It really does do what it is supposed to very well.

If you need help with Mac OS X Server backup and are in the London area then please get in touch to learn more about how Presstore can be setup for you. Please get in touch with David Lee, IT Consultant.

This biggest problem is that there is not enough of a warning that Apple have removed support for PowerPC applications. Apple moved away from PowerPC processors some time ago in favour of Intel based processors, for the transition which has been going on for quite some time Apple has used an emulation technology called Rossetta. It is this piece of software that is now missing from Mac OS X 10.7 Lion so any older PowerPC applications will now no longer run.

Microsoft Office 2004 is one of these applications, it is a full PowerPC application.

Some people thought they were ok because they knew they had all Intel applications but even some of these can have problems:

- Vectorworks 2008 uses a PowerPC application to install the software. So while you will be fine with an upgrade a clean install of the system will not work as well for you as you will not be able to install it.

- FormZ is another Intel application that has a PowerPC installer.

- Adobe Photoshop CS3 CS4 and maybe even CS5 uses PowerPC applications when it creates a droplet for an action. Fine if you don’t use them.

So some of my early adopting London clients are looking to remove Mac OS X Lion and reinstall Snow Leopard. Just until they can make sure all their applications are fine with it. Downgrading to Lion may not be that straight forward.

To avoid these sort of problems you might like to contact me to create you an IT Road Map / IT Budget.

As an independent Apple Mac Consultant based in London I can help your company form a plan of upgrades for years to come.

Please get in touch if you are in the general London area and need some Mac Consultancy or some Mac Support. Please contact David Lee.

It was my first install on this server and first impressions are to reject the changes Apple have made since Snow Leopard Server.

It is easy to setup but there are loads of options that are simply missing. Apple allows you to download Server Admin Tools for 10.7 which were previously installed by default. These extra tools give you better control over things like DHCP, DNS and Open Directory.

It seems obvious to me that Apple have taken a step to make the server more approachable but it feels like it is not ready yet.

All that being said the server does work well and for most will satisfy their needs. For my more ‘configured’ clients I am going to have to go back to using the Command Line more to get things done (like iChat virtual hosts).

The new Promise RAID with Thunderbolt connection is excellent. I installed a 12TB system in the standard RAID 5 configuration leaving us with a total of 10TB, just amazing amount of secure storage for not a lot of money.

I think in the future I will learn to like Mac OS X Lion Server, I know already that I am able to provide help and support to my London clients. I have bought a copy (why not it is so cheap) and have been playing around with it.

For help and support on Apple Servers please contact David Lee, Independent consultant in London.

Most recently working in Hoxton, Hackney, Fulham, West Kensington, Hammersmith, Chiswick, Islington, Chelsea and Guildford.

Providing Mac Support in London is pretty easy, using remote support and a motorcycle I can get to where I need to be quickly.

It is made difficult because Adobe and Apple do not release a roadmap, you can only really guess based on previous experience as to when software becomes incompatible, and anyone who has spent even the smallest amount of time in IT purchasing will know that Apple and Adobe are ruthless in backward compatibility.

Mac OS X Lion will not work with Mac Office X or Mac Office 2004 because Apple have removed the PowerPC (old G4 and G5 hardware) emulation software known as Rosetta which this software relies on.

I also expect Adobe CS3 applications to not work properly.

Still it is really good to work out what your business will be purchasing in the next few years. Having a good think about it means you can stagger your purchasing so you do not have some heavy IT spends in one year.

If you would like your IT spending for the next few years mapped out then please get in touch for expert mac consultancy.

With Open Directory you have one secure central place to store all the information which controls what users can have access to.

You can also use the Open Directory to provide hot desking and managed preferences. So, if a user wanted to move computer they can by simply logging in, all their documents, email and all their settings will appear on the computer, even the desktop background will be as it was when they last logged in on their previous computer. You can also have it so that centrally you can manage things like what applications are in the Dock.

Open Directory is very important for Mac OS X Server so you should regulary backup the Open Directory using Apple’s Server Manager application. If possible have two servers and setup an Open Directory Replica.

For advice and support of Apple Open Directory on Mac OS X Server then please contact me.

Upgrading a Mac Server should be done with care and when you have enough time to deal with any problems as a result.

As a Mac Engineer when my London clients need a Server Upgrade I will make sure I do it at an acceptable time with the time to recover from any problems.

The processes should be:

- Make sure all data is backed up and easily restorable.
- Make clones of the Mac OS System disks that can be quickly restorable.
- Archive the Open Directory.
- Run pre install checks and maintenance tasks.
- Perform upgrades.
- Lots of Testing .

I also make sure that after any update or upgrade I am available to deal with any problems over the first few hours of use. Just in case there is an unknown problem that crops up.

Generally any kind of IT support / service activity that causes disruption on the network or servers in my view should be done when the least people are working. I often work very early and very late at my London Mac Networks.

If you need updates or updates to your Mac Systems and would like minimal disruption then please get in contact, I am more than happy to start from as early as 6am and will stay as late as you like.

Working unsociable hours for computer support and upgrades is just part of the job.

Today I ran some updates on some servers. Two updates caused me problems:

Kerio Connect Mail Server 7.2

After running the update I ran some tests and noticed that some email aliases were not working. When I looked into it I realised that for every user with an alias from the Open Directory server on Mac OS X Server 10.6 was not working.

I did not have time to understand the problem better so quickly worked out that if I make a change to the alias and save it the alias would then work again. So I ended up re-saving the aliases on around 70 accounts.

All working now but what a pain!

Mac OS X Server 10.6.7 with Java update and FileMaker Pro Server 10

After running the Server OS update I tested the server and found that the FileMaker Admin java app would no longer work. Turns out it was the Java update supplied by the apple Software Update service that caused the problem.

FileMaker offer no fix and are not working on it, they have fixed FileMaker Server 11. In the end I had to downgrade the Java on the server which is a shame as the new version plugs some java security holes!

Lessons learnt again the hard way is to where possible run as few updates as you can in any one time and make sure you have time to deal with any issues.

I did have an entire clone of the servers before I started work but did not want to roll back.

Lets see what tomorrow brings….

If you need help with you Mac OS X Server with FileMaker Server and or Kerio Connect Mail Server then please get in contact for fast help in London.

For many companies it is hard to justify having a Mac Support person to be on hand within the company.

In order to get what you need you will have an experienced Mac engineer with advanced Mac OS X Server skills, Active Directory integration. As these guys will be support people in design, publishing and marketing roles they will also need to be knowledgable in the design and publishing processes with a very good insight on pre-press and the printing process.

What might be best would be to find a freelance Mac Consultant that is able to provide you with Mac support on an ad-hoc basis. The only problem is that these people can be hard to find so you end up with an Mac Support Company.

I offer my services to fill the gap between an internal member of staff and an Mac Support company. I can work as if I were an employee but not full time. I can do this because I already provide Mac Service, Support and Consultancy to London based businesses.

For a few clients I allow Mac users to contact me direct and will deal with their issues just like another member of the IT team.

If you need a Mac Support Professional to assist your IT team then please get in contact.

Kerio Connect 7.2 and new iCal and iPhone calendar features

For a few years I have battled with Kerio’s Mailserver with iCal and iPhone calendars.

My initial problem was just silly, any of my clients that used Open Directory to authenticate their email could not have a . in their email address. If they did the calendar invites would go horribly wrong. Open Directory does not allow a . in the short name so the email address with a . has to be added as an alias on each email account.

More recently I have seen a rise in the amount of clients that need to send and receive meeting invites. While the feature is there, to me it seems to be very hit and miss. Sometimes it would work and sometimes not. This is just asking for trouble as people may not know that a meeting has changed, been cancelled or even exists!

Kerio announced this month that their next version handles meeting invites server side so I am hopeful that this is going to solve my problems.

As it is a bit of a leap I am going to test it first!

I will report back what I find out.

If you need Apple Mac Support with Kerio Connect Mail Server and are in London please get in contact.

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion – London Mac Users

So, soon Apple should release their next version of Mac OS X. Mac OS 10.7 will of course be called Lion and has some interesting features that business will need to consider for deployment.

Adobe Creative Suite 3

For my design and publishing client I will be particularly interested to know if Adobe CS3 is going to work. Indesign CS2 does not work well at all in Snow Leopard, it was fine in Leopard. The biggest problem was that text does not display in Indesign CS2 on Snow Leopard.

I am concerned because CS3 was not tested for Snow Leopard, Adobe drew the line. I tested an early pre–release of Lion and Bridge did not work! The software installed ok and the updates all ran (slowly of course, it always does). In my limited experiment Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign appeared to be working ok but I think it is now time to move away from CS3.

Mac OS X Server Support

Another thing I will be interested in, some of my London based design companies that I provide Mac Support for use Mac OS X Server and Managed Client Preferences. This is the system that will let the Mac’s be controlled centrally by the Mac OS X Servers. In the past you really needed to make sure you had the most current version of the server running so that it can successfully manage the current version of Mac OS X.

Mac OS X Support of Auto Version

One other thing I am intrigued to know is how Mac OS X handles the new Auto Save option. Is it using something like Subversion to only keep a copy of the changes and saving hard disk space or is it saving entire files? I am mostly concerned about what it does to users with network based accounts. I can’t image we would want thousands of versions being stored on the server?

This could be a problem especially if you are still going to run Snow Leopard Server, if there is a Managed Client preferences for it you will have limited control.

Anyway, as soon as it comes I out I need to get onto it and review and update my clients road maps so that there are no nasty surprises. I have already warned the CS3 users that their London Macs might need some money spent on them.

For London based Apple Mac support and consultancy please get in contact. I am available as a Freelance IT Manager / Consultant.

Apple Mac Support is generally well provided for in the Greater London area.

Areas I regularly support Mac and PC are:

E8 – Hackney, Dalston
WC2 – Covent Garden, Holborn, Strand
EC1 – Clerkenwell, Finsbury, Barbican
EC2 – Moorgate, Liverpool Street
N1 – Islington, Barnsbury, Canonbury
N7 – Holloway
W12 – Shepherd’s Bush
W13 – West Ealing
W14 – West Kensington
SE3 – Blackheath, Westcombe Park
SW2 – Brixton, Streatham Hill
SW1 – Westminster, Belgravia, Pimlico
SW3 – Chelsea, Brompton
SW4 – Clapham
SW5 – Earls Court
SW6 – Fulham, Parsons Green
SW7 – South Kensington
SW11 – Battersea, Clapham Junction
SW10 – West Brompton, worlds End
SW15 – Putney, Roehampton
SW18 – Wandsworth, Earlsfield
SW19 – Wimbledon, Merton
W1 – Mayfair, Marylebone, Soho
W2 – Bayswater, Paddington
W3 – Acton
W4 – Chiswick
W5 – Ealing
W6 – Hammersmith
W7 – Hanwell
W8 – Kensington
W9 – Maida Vale, Warwick Avenue
W10 – Ladbroke Grove, North Kensington
W11 – Notting Hill, Holland Park

I also cover these general areas plus part of the Home Counties.

E1 – Whitechapel, Stepney, Mile End
E3 – Bow, Bromley-by-Bow
WC1 – Bloomsbury, Grays Inn
EC3 – Monument, Tower Hill, Aldgate
EC4 – Fleet Street, St. Pauls
N2 – East Finchley
N3 – Finchley Central
N4 – Finsbury Park, Manor House
N5 – Highbury
N6 – Highgate
N8 – Hornsey, Crouch End
N10 – Muswell Hill
N12 – North Finchley, Woodside Park
N13 – Palmers Green
N14 – Southgate
N15 – Seven Sisters
N16 – Stoke Newington, Stamford Hill
N17 – Tottenham
N18 – Upper Edmonton
N19 – Archway, Tufnell Park
N20 – Whetstone, Totteridge
N21 – Winchmore Hill
N22 – Wood Green, Alexandra Palace
NW1 – Regent’s Park, Camden Town
NW2 – Cricklewood, Neasden
NW3 – Hampstead, Swiss Cottage
NW4 – Hendon, Brent Cross
NW5 – Kentish Town
NW6 – West Hampstead, Kilburn, Queens Park
NW7 – Mill Hill
NW8 – St Johns Wood
NW9 – Kinsbury, Colindale
NW10 – Willesden, Harlesden, Kensal Green
NW11 – Golders Green, Hampstead Gdn Suburb
SE1 – Waterloo, Bermondsey, Southwark, Borough
SE2 – Abbey Wood
SE4 – Brockley, Crofton Park, Honor Oak Park
SE5 – Camberwell
SE6 – Catford, Hither Green, Bellingham
SE7 – Charlton
SE8 – Deptford
SE9 – Eltham, Mottingham
SE10 – Greenwich
SE11 – Lambeth
SE12 – Lee, Grove Park
SE13 – Lewisham, Hither Green
SE14 – New Cross, New Cross Gate
SE15 – Peckham, Nunhead
SE16 – Rotherhithe, South Bermonsey, Surrey Docks
SE17 – Walworth, Elephant & Castle
SE18 – Woolwich, Plumstead
SE19 – Upper Norwood, Crystal Palace
SE20 – Penge, Anerley
SE21 – Dulwich
SE22 – East Dulwich
SE23 – Forest Hill
SE24 – Herne Hill
SE25 – South Norwood
SE26 – Sydenham
SE27 – West Norwood, Tulse Hill
SE28 – Thamesmead
SW8 – South Lambeth, Nine Elms
SW9 – Stockwell, Brixton
SW12 – Balham
SW13 – Barnes, Castelnau
SW14 – Mortlake, East Sheen
SW16 – Streatham, Norbury
SW17 – Tooting
SW20 – South Wimbledon, Raynes Park

For Apple Mac Expert Advice, Support and Consultancy please contact David Lee (07773 362 967)

If your Mac is having troubles there are a couple of small things you can do that may help:

1. Restart your Mac in Safe Mode.
Reboot holding down the shift key.
Restart your Mac and as soon as the computer is starting up, before the Apple logo appears hold down the shift key. Hold it down until the Apple logo has been on the screen for a few seconds.

Doing this will help your Mac  by clearing out some old caches and running some repair tasks. It may take a while (sometimes 10 minutes) to boot so be patient. Once started you will be at a login screen with ‘Safe Boot’ written in red. From here just restart your computer. This is especially good for clearing Font Cache problems.

2. Repair Permissions.
Open Macintosh HD/Application/Utilities and launch the Disk Utility  application. Click on Macintosh HD in the list and click repair permissions. Once complete run it again and reboot your computer.

You may find that some files will always have a permissions issue, particularly about some Java files.  This seems to be a normal problem so try an ignore it.

Failing all this you will be looking into some more troubleshooting techniques like deleting preferences, fixing font problems and clearing application cache files and will need more specific advice to your problems. The above is really just a general guide if you have a problem.

Please remember to keep regular backups of your Mac.

If you are in Greater London and need more Mac Help then please get in touch (David: 07773 362 967).

With VMWare you are able to run Windows based applications alongside the rest of your Mac applications. Unlike Bootcamp you do not need to restart your Mac to access your Windows programs.

Why do I need virtualization?

Many people use Virtual Machines for:

• Running Sage on a Mac
• Testing various versions of Internet Explorer and Flash on your websites
• Testing software
• Running 3DS Max
• Running Autocad

Apart from VMWare Fusion you can also use other software products for virtulisation. There is Parallels Desktop and the free Virtual Box.

You must have enough RAM, hard disk space and you must be using an Intel based Mac.

I do a lot of FileMaker and Applescript programming and use Virtual Machines to load up Mac OS X Server so that I can isolate my test environment. It means I can test things without having to keep my own computer stuck on a certain configuration.

Every day I use a motorcycle to get myself around as quickly as possible.

With my motorcycle I can get from Reading to West London in around 40 minutes. I can get from West London to South East London very quickly.

When I get a call from someone who needs my urgent support because their Mac Server has broken I am able to immediately login remotely and help, if remote support fails I can usually leave immediately and be at the server within an hour or two.

The creative companies I work for are usually deadline driven so I will always assume everything is urgent and get out to you as quick as I can even if this means I have to leave another location.

I am very disappointed in this decision, my view is even if the product line cannot support itself it still should be provided subsidised by their other products. Apple should be able to provide a full solution to their clients and really need rack-mounted kit for their larger corporate users and their video professionals.

Apple have suggested that we now use the MacMini Server and the MacPro Server options as alternatives but there are massive issues with this. The MacMini and MacPro computers do not have Dual Power Supply, Hot Swap hard drives, Lights out Management. Also they do not fit in well to a 19″ rack. The MacMini can go on a shelf but the MacPro will only fit in upright and so will take up much more space.

Fortunately many of the companies I work for will still happily install a MacPro Server and some even the MacMini Server.

In the past I have been tempted to take the exams and become an Apple Certified Professional but could not really see the benefits. Now I see that I will pass them without any training and that the exams only cost about £100 I might now go and get myself qualified just so I can put the badge on my CV and website. Me being Apple Certified will only give me an extra spin on my marketing efforts.

I must also look into the Apple Consultant network and see if being on the register will get me any new work, it only costs £350 or something similar.

Apple advertises Mac OS X Server with the following services. Here I give my opinion on how well these services work.

Simple Administration.

I love this one. Yes it is true that you do not always need  a Mac Server Engineer to setup your Mac Server but I have been called out many times by new clients who have tried to set it up on their own. I am all for self support but often people will just waste time and end up paying for a professional installation anyway.

The Server Control panel that comes with Mac OS X does work but I much prefer to use the Server Admin and Workgroup Manager applications to get better control over the server.

iCal Server

I find the advertising on this one a bit misleading, for group calendaring you need to set it up by the Wiki web service. It is not just a straight forward CalDAV server.

Address Book Server

I have not used this too much I prefer to use Kerio Connect Mail Server.

Wiki Server 2

I do like the Wiki Server, I think it could be really good for organisations to quickly produce internal information systems. I think it is a good place for say HR to quickly and easily publish content to an Intranet.

My frustrations with the service is in the WYSIWYG editing system. I have found that you do not have enough control over the editor, annoying things like line spacing just does not seem to work very well.

Mobile Access Server

This one baffles me, I cannot see why people would want it. I would much rather people used the iPhones to access the services with VPN and then used one of the File Server access application available in the App Store.

iChat Server

I think the iChat server is brilliant. You are able to easily talk to your team from any location. You can share your screen, have voice and video chat and also send files to each other.

My only complaint is there is no iPhone app so you can only do this from your Mac. With the introduction of FaceTime on Mac and iPhone I am now doubting Apple’s commitment to iChat Server. I really hope they keep it in the next versions of Mac OS X Server, I see the Lion (10.7 Server) has kept it in.

File Sharing

With Apple (AFP) and Windows (SMB) files servers you can easily create a very stable server. I have found that these services are very stable and work very well in even the cheaper MacMini Servers.

You can create quite a comprehensive arrangement of secure file sharing areas (Share Points) on your server with clear control over permissions.

Mail Services

I have never been a fan of Apple’s Mail server. I find it hard to use and has broken on too many occasions. I think it is based on Cyrus IMAP Open Source software and the webmail used to be the PHP Squirrel Mail project.

Web Hosting

The web hosting server seems to work very well. I have used it for all kinds of things. I like the configuration interface and it comes pre-loaded with the likes of PHP. For most of my clients I would not recommend hosting your main website on the but definitely use it as a test server or some for of Extranet collaboration system for their clients.

Spotlight Server

This is probably my biggest hate about the Mac OS X Server. I really wish we could have built in to the Mac OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard clients the ability to simply search on file name like you used to be able to.

I find Spotlight to be clunky and annoying in that it will add ACL’s to files and folders which can prevent users from accessing files properly. Turning Spotlight off will remove your ability to search the server at all which I am sorry to say has often been the only way to resolve the permissions issues.

Client Management

Using Open Directory or Active Directory client management can be very useful. With this you can easily manage your Macs centrally. This is a bit topic in terms of Mac software updating, installations, configuration, rollouts, backup, deployment and more. My favourite configurations is when the Server is setup to allow your users to hot desk, this particularly useful when you have freelance staff in and out of your studio.

Networking and VPN

My clients love the VPN capability of the server. You can easily allow people to access the system in a secure way with the software already installed inside every Mac and Windows based PC.

Remote workers and people travelling are able to call back home over the internet and access the network as if they were in the building. There is a speed issue depending on your connection but it will at least keep you out of trouble if you need to retrieve files or access a database.

Over all I find Mac OS X Server to be a very stable and well designed server. I tend to not use Apple’s collaboration services (Calendars, Mail, Address books) and instead use the Kerio Connect Mail Server (MS Exchange Equivalent) that runs on Macs.

If you need advice or support in setting up your Mac Server, Mac Pro, Xserve, MacMini or other converted Mac workstation then please contact me.

A Site Document is what I call the record of a client’s computer system. Having a Site Document means that any computer engineer can easily gain access to your computer system in order to do some work. On many occasions I have turned up on a new site and end up scrambling around for information so that I can get to work.

Example of what is inside the Site Document:

• Network Setup
• Routers and Internet Connection details
• Wireless Networking details
• Server setup
• Custom configuration notes
• Software serial numbers
• Printer configuration notes
• Workstation configuration notes
• Directory services notes
• User administration notes (access levels)
• Web host and domain registrar notes

As a matter of course I will keep a Site Document up-to-date and I will keep records on software licensing and where required hardware assets.

It is important to keep this information secure which is why all of the computers and backup systems I use are encrypted with a very strong password. I also think it is important to make sure when a document is handed over to a client it is password protected and the client is made aware of the importance to keep it secret.

All Mac and PC software is transferred from DVD to (usually a server) hard disk for backup and easy deployment.

If you would like help with your Mac and PC network and would like me to create a Site Document for you then please get in touch for expert Mac support.

Using history as a guide I can create a fair IT Road Map for your organisation that will estimate your IT spending for 5 years. With a 5 year view we are able to realise when we might run into trouble and plan a staggered spend that will keep your creative teams on a consistent platform.

Too many times I have started work for a company where the purchase of just one workstations can have a knock on effect of tens of thousands of pounds because of backwards compatibility issues.

Mac compatibility in design studios.

Knowing that Adobe CS3 probably will not work well with the upcoming Mac OS X 10.7 Lion (Bridged seems pretty broken, so say good-by to any of your Version Cue workflows as Adobe have ditched it since CS5) and that Vectorworks 12 does not work with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard some of us should be worried that a new workstation released later this year will not be able to run their main applications.

Instead of staggering your purchases could plan to lease hardware and software over a 3 year period with a view to replacing everything in one hit. All for one monthly payment.

One of the biggest issues I face is that growing businesses accelerate the need to buy newer systems as they have more users than expected. You can plan for this and there are provisions you can put in place without extra cost to help.

We all know that Apple and Adobe are pretty secretive about their own plans but using my 10+ years experiencing purchasing and setting up systems for design studios and publishing  companies I am able to provide a fair idea on what is to come.

At the moment I expect a Mac OS to last nearly two years, MacPro to last about 5/6 years before it needs replacing, iMacs about 4 years and MacBook Pro around 3/4 years. Where possible older Macs will be cascaded to administrative staff that do not the power of these Graphics processing computers.

If you are in the general London area and in need of some Mac advice and support then please get in touch as I am sure I can provide you with something useful.

Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard

You will need:
1.PPTP Server Address (e.g: vpn.domain.com)
2.Username
3.Password

1. Go to Apple Menu and System Preferences.

2. Choose Network.

3. If the control panel is locked then click on the padlock to unlock it. Then click on the + button.

4. Set the type of Network and Name. Click Create.

5. Add a configuration. Click on the configuration menu and select Add Configuration. Enter name as your company name and click Create.

6. Enter your details. And check “Show VPN status in menu bar” on.

7. Click on Authentication Settings, change to password and enter your password.

8. Click Apply and close system preferences.

You are now finished and you can access VPN from your Menu top right.

Mac OS X Lion Server

So Apple have just released more details on the soon to arrive Mac OS X Lion.

The pricing of Mac OS X Server is just amazing, £20.99 for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion and then only another £34.99 for the server add-on components.

Mac OS X Server has always been a beefed up version of Mac OS X, there were occasions where I would have to install Mac OS X first and then install the Server components over the top, this was for compatibility reasons with the Mac OS X Server install disks. This used to take a fair amount of troubleshooting.

I am really looking forward to learning Mac OS X Lion Server, I think supporting Mac OS X Server will be a fair amount easier and I am hoping they have fixed a few bugs.

If you would like some support and advice on how to migrate to Mac OS X Lion and are London based then please click here to contact me.