Part of what I do involves managing Pearson PowerSchool, our Student Information System (SIS). One of the common annoyances teachers have had in years past with PowerSchool is opening it’s gradebook. The gradebook is a Java application that requires logging into PowerTeacher and downloading a JNLP file every time you want to open it up if you’re on a Mac (as all of our staff are).

With PowerTeacher Gradebook 2.6 Pearson has created a new Gradebook application that can be installed into the Applications folder and initiate the Gradebook (including future updates to the Java app itself). Unfortunately the app isn’t signed and thus cannot be opened on 10.8 when initially dragged to the Applications folder with the default Mac App Store and identified developers setting in Gatekeeper. For teachers that have administrative access to their machine, walkthroughs aleady exist for resolving this issue but for those of us who are administering our deployments through a management suite such as Casper this takes some strategic thinking.

My goal was to avoid setting Gatekeeper to be wide open in order to accomodate this one application. Initially I started to follow the method outlined on Charles Edge’s excellent blog Krypted. This method utilizes the scptl command to create a label for the Gradebook and whitelist it. This is how the security assessment policy subsystem of OS X manages rules for application security. Unfortunately this didn’t resolve the problem when attempting to open the Gradebook application. According to Charles’s post, the scptl framework isn’t perfect and feels like it’s still just a start to Apple’s security framework management with Gatekeeper. This is all I can chalk my outcome of the process to at the moment but let’s head onward and upward to the resolution.

I called JAMF support to see what insight they could offer. Let me just say that JAMF support is astounding and they have some brilliant engineers who understand OS X deeply. After reading this Apple Knowledgebase article JAMF support found that the error message we were receiving was related to the OS thinking that the application had been modified by someone other than the developer. Stepping back from the situation for a minute I’m really unsure how this isn’t a bigger issue that Pearson has had to address. The application itself was downloaded directly from their teacher portal once logged into our account so the permissions were inherited upon that download but that’s neither here nor there. If you’re in a similar situation, the fix may be to change the ownership of the application to root:wheel using the change ownership command below.

*sudo chown -R root:wheel /Applications/Gradebook.app*

This worked successfully for me and allowed our teachers to open the application with standard accounts and for me to push it out to our teachers through Casper without a problem.

At the beginning of June I wrote about the ebb and flow of client work all coming in at once. I wrote the following thinking it wouldn’t prove true:

I look forward to testing the theory in another 6 weeks.

Here we are 7 weeks and 2 days later and I can report that it happened again, but differently. This time it was my day job and my side work that found themselves intertwined into an insane set of circumstances for which I was expected to resolve and support. A client of mine had a switch and 3 computer’s network cards get fried from a nearby lightning strike. At work our teachers are back in full swing getting prepared for the year and there is still so much to be done including preparation of this historic beast of a building before school starts next Thursday.

Funny how things work. Another 6 weeks perhaps?

Just saw Tonx’s new site design and jumped to the new ad above. This is another great piece from Sandwich Video and I’m a huge fan of Tonx. I’ve been a subscriber for about 6 months and everything about the video succinctly conveys what Tonx is and why it’s great.

Now to go buy a robe, some slippers and a super comfy chair to round out the experience.

Exactly a year ago I was halfway through the most insane summer of my life (thus far but hopefully forever). Courtney and I had been living with my in-laws for a month and a half while our house was being built (FWP, I know). I was working 7 days a week at a minimum of 12 hours a day and driving an hour each way to and from work. I felt like there was no end in sight and we were barely going to be able to open school with any of the necessary technology on time. I was doing so much that I’d never done before thus the work was the learning and the learning was the work. There was an abundance of frustration trying to make things work that I didn’t know how to make work and advising vendors on things I had little to no expertise with all while thinking about the next ten things that I needed to get to. And yet I perservered and somehow was able to only use a minimal amount of shoestring and duct tape to get it all done.

Looking at where I’m at a year later is sobering. It’s mid-June and I’m working normal hours, enjoying time with others socially and managing even more than last year with confidence. There’s the three new buildings to prepare with infrastructure (one of which is a mere 131,000 sq ft), the count of over 2,000 machines to prepare, the 130% growth in scholar enrollment and almost 200 staff to support; yet I feel confident in our team. This summer is miles ahead of where we were last year. It really is amazing how much one solid additional person can bring to the amount of work that can be accomplished on a team.

The summer of 2012 will forever have a lasting impression on me as the summer that showed me what grit looks like.

On episode 45 of CMD + Space Myke Hurley and Stephen Hackett shared that the 512 Podcast would be ending in it’s current form after two more episodes. Myke mentioned that they’d be working on a show he’d been wanting to do for about 3 years now. On episode 65 of the 512 Podcast (out today) this show was revealed to be The Prompt, 5by5’s newest show. I reached out to Stephen to find out how he got started with 70Decibels and find out about the transition of the 512 Podcast to The Prompt.

CC: I’d like to start off by getting some backstory on how you got started with podcasting. How did you get involved with 70Decibels and how did the 512 Podcast come to be?

SH: Back in early 2011, Myke Hurley invited me on The Bro Show. At the time, TBS was the only show Myke did. We really hit it off, and began chatting off-air. I was on The Bro Show several more times, and we started kicking around the idea of doing a show.

At the time, I didn’t want to do a tech show, so we landed on covering random Wikipedia articles.

By that time, Myke was already doing several other shows, and was laying the ground work for a podcast network. In October 2011, we launched Ungeniused., and 70Decibels, all on the same day. Myke, Terry Lucy (Myke’s co-host on TBS) and I were the founders, with Myke doing most of the heavy lifting.

By February 2012, I had changed my mind about a tech show, and we launched The 512 Podcast pretty quickly.

Doing two shows at once was a lot for me to handle, and by May, it was pretty clear Ungeniused had run its course. It was a very time-consuming show to prepare for, as you might guess.

CC: What lead to the 512 Podcast coming to a close?

SH: I don’t think of it as the 512 Podcast ending. It’s just … changing. Myke and I have both wanted to do something with Federico for a while, and this seemed like an obvious time to do it, with the transition to 5by5 after the merger.

CC: What can we expect the format of The Prompt to look like?

SH: With The Prompt, Myke and I are trying to break the two-guys-on-mics format that a lot of tech shows our size use. When you look at huge shows, like The Vergecast or MacBreak Weekly, it’s much more of a panel discussion, and that’s what we’re trying to re-create.

The twist is on the guest side of things. While some combination of Myke, Viticci and I will always be present, we’re going to pull in guests for interviews or pre-recorded stories as the news or our topic demands.

Speaking of topics, we’re not always going to just follow the week’s news. While that will be the driver some weeks, for sure, this format gives us flexibility. If we wanted to do an episode (or an arc of several shows) on a specific topic, there’s nothing stopping us from doing that.

Thanks to Stephen for taking the time to share a glimpse of his history in podcasting and what’s to come with The Prompt. Episode 1 is due out in merely two weeks so we don’thave long to wait! You can read Stephen’s announcement, amongst all of his other fantastic writing at 512pixels.net.

Ever since I started “making technology work” I’ve held a side business of my own. I started performing in-home technology support when I was 17 and my side work has an ebb and flow to it. It’s ranged from single handedly supporting a school on my two days off while I worked at Apple to just being on-call and supporting a handful of clients when something broke. The side work always seems to come and go at just the right time for me to be able to provide the level of support that I expect if I’m charging for it. For the last two years the latter has been the extent of my side business due to the needs of my day job.

Over the last few years I seem to have unknowingly put all of my clients onto the same schedule. It seems that about every six weeks I have a doozy of a week as something needs attention for multiple clients (usually) within 48 hours of each other. It’s a strange thing to get one phone call or email and know it’s foreshadowing of what’s to come during the next few days but somehow it makes me feel that I’ve accomplished something. I had a week like that this past week which is part of why the site hasn’t seen any new posts. I look forward to testing the theory in another 6 weeks.

Note: This is a repost from my previous/personal website. This was originally written in February of 2013. There is a reason I’m re-posting it here. A future post will reveal the intentions.

As you can read a few posts back I had a car accident in my 2009 Honda Civic Si. The external damage in that post looks kind of rough but surprisingly it’s not why my insurance company ended up totaling my car. All airbags deployed in the collision and cost more to repair than the external damage to the Civic. The driver seat alone cost between $800-$1200 and since the seat had an airbag embedded it needed replaced. All that to say that my Civic is now dead and sitting in a tow yard somewhere. Poor little guy.

I’ve wanted a Civic Si since I was 17 years old and Honda had recently revamped the Civic line to it’s eighth glorious generation. I was in love with the Si model in particular for a few reasons:

• It was only sold in a stick shift and had a good amount of power and handling.
• It was Honda’s return from the seventh generation Si hatchback to the (much preferred) Coupe and Sedan styling.
• I loved, loved LOVED the look of the new design. It was sporty with a lot of round but sharp edges and had fantastic lines. I still think it’s an outstanding design and was really refreshing at the time it was released.

The 7th generation Civic Si. The mom-van styling in need of a desperate overhaul.

The redesigned 8th generation Honda Civic Si. My first love in a car.

Unfortunately buying a brand new car as a 17 year old while working fast food and going to college isn’t exactly feasible. That’s not to say I didn’t make a fool out of myself by trying and walking away with the salesman wondering if I seriously thought I’d be able to get financed at my age with no co-signer. So I tabled my dreams and drove my Saturn Aura home like a gentleman. That is until I plowed it into a wood chipper that didn’t have brake lights in the middle of the night a few weeks later…

After a few years of hard work and establishing myself I was once again interested in the 8th generation Si and in the market for a car so I bought one used. It was a black 2009 Civic Si with 50,000 miles and you’d think I’d have won the lottery with how stoked I was to be able to own this car. It was a milestone of the hard work I’d done to become an independent adult mixed with the somewhat younger aspirations to have a great sporty car. I initially hated the seats but after a few minutes of driving I became right at home in the firm edged bucket seats. I enjoyed many road trips and daily driving in my Civic but alas it wasn’t long for this world as I only had it for a year and a half before State Farm put her down.

In case you’ve never totalled a car (not that I recommend everyone try it or anything) the process can put you into a bind both financially and in the way of needing to find another vehicle quickly. In my case I was given a week worth of rental coverage which meant I had a week to find and purchase my next vehicle. Not expecting to be in the car market I started looking for something in the $25k or less range with stick shift and at least 200hp. The selections I made to compare in order to cover as many bases as possible and try to make sure I was choosing a car I would really enjoy and (God willing) continue to drive for at least 5 years were:

• 2013 Hyundai Veloster Turbo
• 2010-2013 Volkswagen GTI
• 2012-2013 Honda Civic Si
• 2013 Ford Fusion

During my test driving I held off on the Fusion as it was a last resort choice for me as it’s not exactly what I was looking for, but we receive discount pricing with Ford through Courtney’s employment partnership via Apple. Upon entering the Ford dealership I told them that I was looking to test drive the Fusion unless they had a manual sporty car that had at least 200hp. Unbeknownst to me Ford had released an ST model of the Focus for 2013 earlier in 2012 so we took a look. I initially thought the Tangerine Scream model that was in front of the dealership was really outgoing but not outside of my comfort zone (I’d always wanted my Civic to be Orange Pearl) so we took it out for a test drive. As with all of my test drives I was gun shy from my accident and I always feel awkward driving a car hard on a test drive. I went home and started researching; I liked what I found. The shakedown of the 2013 Focus ST ST2 specs are:

• Turbocharged 252hp engine
• 270 foot lbs of torque
• Six speed manual transmission

Needless to say this is the car I purchased in the magnificently distinct color of Tangerine Scream.

​Tangerine Scream oozes the essence of the boy racer in me

Most people I’ve discussed my car with disagree with my choice on the color but it’s grown to be one of my favorite things about my car. Outside of the looks, speed and handling I also really enjoy having 4 doors and the hatchback. I know this car will be able to support the future (read: children) with no problem and has already been helpful in moving things for my mom as we cleared out her storage unit the first week I had the car. Driving the Focus ST is an absolute blast and is easily the best car I’ve ever owned making it my favorite. This was my first new car purchase and I’ve already heard what a stupid decision it was. Unfortunately this car hasn’t been produced in the last few years for the US market and wasn’t available used. This coupled with the fact that I really wanted a no-nonsense ownership experience for the next few years and the discounts we received from Ford helped with the deprecation that’s incurred with buying a new car made this purchase a no-brainer for me.

Looking back on the cars I’ve owned and loved I’m realizing that I enjoy compact “tuner” cars that make the driving experience fun. One day I may break into the higher-end vehicle range and find a mid-size or full-size vehicle that I really enjoy driving but for now I’m happy with my boy racer.