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Disable text to speech globally in OS X 10.5.8

Submitted by tlarkin on Wed, 03/31/2010 - 14:41

We had a problem with students using text to speech to make the Macs tell dirty jokes and cause distractions in class rooms.  So I found that the Voice Over Utility found in /Applications/Utilities will create a user level property list when launched and edited.  I also noticed that you could dump (export) the preferences to a file once you configure it.  Upon inspection of said file I found this string:

SCRCategoryIsEnabled

So, naturally the first thing I tried on my own iMac workstation is:

 

Dummy Receipts in Casper

Submitted by tlarkin on Tue, 03/23/2010 - 13:13

Hello, this document will briefly touch on the dummy receipt system one can employ with Casper.  First, and foremost I suppose I should outline the concept of what exactly this is.  A "dummy receipt" is a file which is stored on a system due to it meeting certain criteria to build a report off of.  For example, you want to know how many machines in your enterprise have a certain version of an application, or maybe a certain user account present.  The concept is you create a script that checks these conditions out and depending on the outcome either exits the script, or installs a text file

Using a Compiled Image as your parent configuration in Casper

Submitted by tlarkin on Thu, 03/04/2010 - 16:10

So, I ran into a little quirk with Casper not too long ago.  Since Casper has a package priority feature, where you can set a value to any of your packages you create from 1 to 20 it tells Casper in what order to install the package.  This is an important feature if you are applying multiple updates and you need to install them in order.  That way the latter updates you can give a higher number and they will be installed chronologically by the number you give them.  1 is the first package and pretty much reserved for OSes since your OS should always be installed first, and 20 would be anyth

Managed dual booting with Casper

Submitted by tlarkin on Tue, 08/25/2009 - 10:07

So, lets say you have a lot of managed user accounts, that do not have admin rights.  Let us also say you have a dual boot environment so all of your users need to be able to boot back and forth between OS X and Windows.  This puts you in a bit of a pickle since your users are managed.