News and Updates

DssW's latest news and information. Announcements, insights, and guides all appear here first.

Authorization Rights and Mavericks

With Mac OS X 10.9, Mavericks, Apple overhauled authorization rights. Rights are no longer stored and easily editable in the /etc/authorization file. If you are working with rights using your own tools, there is a subtle gotcha that Mavericks introduced.

With the upgrade to Mac OS X 10.9, the /etc/authorization file has been renamed to /etc/authorization.deprecated. Typically deprecated means that the file is still being used but Apple is letting you know that this file will be dropped in some future update. …

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Discovering Mavericks

We have now had a few days to test the final release of Mac OS X 10.9, Mavericks. We have discovered problems and subtle changes that affect Power Manager.

If you have upgraded to Mac OS X 10.9, Mavericks, please download and install Power Manager 4.1.6 Preview 2. Power Manger 4.1.6 is now available and Mavericks savvy. Download Power Manager for Mavericks. …

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How to Schedule an Automator Workflow

This recipe shows how to run an Automator workflow automatically and to a schedule. A fun, if opaque, sub-title might be "How to Automate Automator". This recipe makes use of a new Schedule Assistant task recently added to Power Manager.

Automator is a great visual automation tool included with Mac OS X. With Automator you can create workflows that perform long sequences of complex tasks; ideal for marrying up with Power Manager’s scheduling capabilities. …

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Preparing for Mavericks

All current DssW products work on Mac OS X 10.9. We will continue to test with Mac OS X 10.9 and all new development work will focus on this version of Mac OS X.

Mavericks is the code name Apple has given to Mac OS X 10.9. Apple appear to have dropped the Mac section of the product name, but much like Tim Cook keeps referring to Mac as Macintosh, I will continue to prefer to include the Mac in Mac OS X. …

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How to Automate the Playing of a Movie

This recipe walks through scheduling a movie to starting playing on loop. Power Manager includes a task that deals with launching your movie in QuickTime Player and starting playback automatically. Through the task, you can play the movie back in full screen mode and ask the movie to loop forever. Both these features are optional but for most situations they will be ideal.

This recipe for Power Manager 4 walks through scheduling a movie to starting playing on loop. Update: See How to Set Up Reliable Presentations for scheduling movies and other presentations reliably on recent versions of Power Manager. Being able to play back a movie automatically is useful in many situations such as museum installations, trade shows, and in office lobbies. Getting a Mac to play a movie without human interaction can be tricky. Thankfully Power Manager’s new Play a movie task makes it easy. …

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Avoiding Password Prompts with ssh and rsync

This recipe walks through how to avoid needing to provide a password or passphrase when scripting 'rsync' or 'ssh'. We will do this by setting up ssh keys to handle securely connecting to your server or remote computer.

Secure shell (ssh) offers two distinct ways to securely log into another computer. The default way is to use a name and password combination. This is easy to understand but makes automating remote connections difficult. The prompt for a password requires human interaction, or clever tricks to simulate human interaction. …

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Power Manager recommended by Technofob.pl

Thanks to Wojciech Olszewski of Technofob.pl for reviewing Power Manager and sharing a video overview. Wojciech's review is in Polish.

Thanks to Wojciech Olszewski of Technofob.pl for reviewing Power Manager and sharing a video overview. Wojciech’s review is in Polish. …

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Power Manager and Power Manager Professional 4.1.5 Released

We are pleased to announce the launch of Power Manager and Power Manager Professional 4.1.5. This update includes new tasks in the Schedule Assistant, adds Notification Center support for Mac OS X 10.8, and improves performance.

We are pleased to announce the launch of Power Manager and Power Manager Professional 4.1.5. This update includes new tasks in the Schedule Assistant, adds Notification Center support for Mac OS X 10.8, and improves performance. …

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How to Run a Script from a Menu Item

Running a script from a menu bar item in Mac OS X is a great time saver. The menu bar is always available and easy to access. In this recipe we will create a menu item that triggers a shell script, all using Power Manager.

Running a script from a menu bar item in Mac OS X is a great time saver. The menu bar is always available and easy to access. In this recipe we will create a menu item that triggers a shell script, all using Power Manager. …

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Sixteen Years

July 2013 marks sixteen years since John and I incorporated DssW. Much has changed during the last sixteen years.

Much has changed during the last sixteen years. Surprisingly for a software company, our core focus has remained unchanged. We continue to create energy saving software. I continue to enjoy helping those who rely on our efforts to get the most from their purchases. …

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