Mac Geekery

…or: how I learned to hate Installer VISE.

In my previous article I described a mehodology for mimicing the functionality of the Windows “Power Users” group. Between implementing this and implementing directory-based accounts I have learned one valuable lesson: people who use Installer VISE (or some other malformed 3rd party installation application) need to be slapped upside the head. There's more »

One of the great dillemas of Mac admins is how to give users the ability to actually USE their machines, without the monkeys gumming up the works constantly. One of the easiest ways to do this is by using Open Directory. But what if you don’t have an Open Directory server?

Create a Power Users group. It gives users the ability to install the applications they want, without letting them modify things like network settings.

Working off of this tip from Mac OS X Hints, I created this method: There's more »

1. Download the server tools, and put Workgroup Manager either local on your machine or on an external drive (I use my Shuffle)
2. Open Workgroup Manager and edit the local directory