iPad Setup Resources

I've been doing a lot of iPad deployment lately, and speaking about iPad management to a variety of groups.  I thought I'd share some links that I feel are very helpful to those considering iPads in their schools, or that are already rolling them out.

A good thing to know... how to create an iTunes account without a credit card associated with the account - Apple Knowledge Base article

New information - iOS 7 is going to give us new capabilities and tools that will be very helpful to schools!! iOS 7 education page

You will have many woes unless the proper ports are open through your firewall for Apple services - their push server for instance..  this Well Known Ports page will  be helpful... 


I highly recommend that you read Apples iOS 6 Deployment guide to help you decide how you wish do deploy the devices. It is available as one of the files to be found at the following link. It explains the basic best practices deployment models, VPP, and even contains an appendix with some wireless info for the network geeks to ponder over. 
Apples education IT resources


Loved this blog post, it makes several great points.  I cannot emphasize enough that schools shouldn't do technology by checkbook - careful thought and planning should go into this process, before buying anything.
5 Mistakes schools make - 


If you are planning to do any number of iPads over 20, get signed up for the VPP program with Apple.  Discounts!!!  And an easy way to manage purchases.  There are some gotchas, but joining is a must IMHO.
Volume Purchase Program


For managing carts of iOS devices, for preliminary setup before individual distribution, even for preparing them for Mobile Device Management systems - you have got to have Apple Configurator!  Free from the App Store, you'll need a Mac running 10.7 or newer.  

Configurator Download

The fellow that writes the Krypted blog is an Apple Genius.. well he doesn't work at the store, but he's a real genius. Excellent article on how to use Configurator in this link, but check out his blog, lots of gems there.

Krypted Configurator how-to

Found this article interesting.  Apple sold more iPads than Macs to schools in a recent quarter. And it was a record setting quarter for Mac sales.  The tablet revolution is upon us, and the iPad leads the pack!
Apple is replacing Macs in schools with iPads



If you've heard me speak about iPad management with Apple configurator, I always mention the importance of backing up your "mothership" i.e. synch station with Time Machine.  Following the link I've excerpted a couple of paragraphs from the article to reinforce why this is so critical.  Makes the cost of an external hard drive look pretty cheap!
Backing up the Configurator "mothership"

Additional Information

If you have supervised devices with Apple Configurator and you lose the Apple Configurator data files, the devices will still be supervised by the Mac that is running Configurator, but Apple Configurator will not be able to reinstall app backups or user data onto those supervised devices.

It is especially important to back up Apple Configurator information if you are using VPP codes. After a VPP code has been redeemed, only the Apple Configurator database keeps a record of what device that code was redeemed for. If this database is lost, and the app is deleted from the device, Apple Configurator will not be able to reuse the redeemed code in order to install the app, and you will need to purchase and redeem additional codes to replace the app on a device.

If there's an iOS device that just refuses to play nice, unsupervise it, and follow the proceedure in this Knowledge Base article to reset it.
Unable to update or restore

This little device, while a bit pricey, will allow you to charge and sync 15 devices at a time. You may be able to convert an existing cart to an iPad cart using a couple of these. Or just set the device on a table and forgo the cart route altogether.

16 Port Charge Station

Mobile Device Management (MDM) systems are the way to go with larger deployments, they let you push out management changes "over the air" where Configurator requires that the devices be synched.  There are several out there, but Casper is probably the most popular solution.

Casper by JAMF

A really attractive alternative to the paid MDM solutions by JAMF or MobileIron is the MDM system by Meraki.  They make really great network devices that are cloud managed. They've extended that concept to cloud management of IOS, other mobile platforms and computers, and its free and works pretty well! Sign up for a free account and start playing. Not quite as capable as other solutions but did you see the FREE part??  Go to the bottom of the following page and sign up.
Meraki MDM

Apple provides an alternative solution with its 10.8 Mountain Lion server.  Starting with 10.7 Lion server, you can manage settings on your iOS devices using push technology incorporated into Server.  It also provides an easy WebDav server for transferring and storing files.  The advantage of other MDM systems are their ability to create  self service portals for application distribution.  Lion or Mountain Lion Server might be worth a look however, cost wise. The link is to an excellent book that provides good guidance to setting it up.

Managing iOS Devices with Lion Server

This is a pretty long list of resources I found to be important. I'll add more here as I come across them and as I learn more tricks and tips out there in the field.  I hope you find them to be useful.

Operation HotRod My Computer

Operation HotRod my Mac is beginning... These are the goodies that soon will grace the innards of my trusty MacBook Pro. Its still a nice machine, but just needs a bit of a bump. I'm struck by how much this project resembles the hotrodding projects of my youth. One of my buddies would get a car, which of course needed a bit of juicing up to be much much faster. So they would get out the J.C. Whitney catalog, or get with another gear head friend and acquire a high rise manifold, A big 'ol four barrel carburator, a set of headers and glass pack mufflers. A little wrench work, some swearing and bleeding and some illicit beers later, the beater was made into a beast, much faster and ready for drag racing down old 40 highway.

 So what does this possibly have to do with a computer? Well all those bolt on parts served one purpose really - to get more fuel and air into and out of the engine, increasing its power. In the IT geek community we call this IO - input/output. The faster you can get them bits into the storage device, and back out of it into RAM where it can work for you the better! Just by replacing a spinning hard drive with an SSD or Solid State Drive, data moves much, much faster - quicker startups, better response, even faster downloads! Its an easy update and will make quite a difference.

 My plan is to remove my optical drive, replace it with an adapter that allows a hard drive to be mounted in that space, and install an SSD where the old hard drive was. My optical drive will go into an enclosure so it can still be used for the rare occasion I need to access optical media. Stay tuned here, I'll document the hotrodding process, I know you are all on pins and needles to wait for me to go out on 'ol 40 and open 'er up.

MACE presentation Links and Notes

I wanted to make it easy to find links that I refer to in my upcoming MACE presentation. I've really enjoyed helping schools deploy iPads, but it does require everyone to Manage Different!

One of the first stops for anyone considering an iPad deployment is Apples excellent iOS 5 Education Deployment Guide.  There are really good recommendations and resources to be found there.

Depending on how you deploy - for instance if you want the school to buy apps for users - getting enrolled in Apples VPP or Volume Purchasing Program is something to get done well ahead of distribution.

You will almost certainly want to use some sort of management on your devices.  The simplest is Apples iPhone Configuration Utility or IPCU.  There are Windows and Mac versions of this software.

A more robust and extensible management method is Lion Server.  A Mac Mini with Lion Server works well for smaller deployments.

I found this book to be a valuable resource to use in setting up your Lion server to manage your iOS devices.  Managing iOS Devices with Lion Server .  The link goes to Amazon's page on the book.

If you are going larger scale, even on a smaller scale if you can afford it,  you will most certainly want a Mobile Device Management (MDM) server.  Casper by JAMF is probably the most popular of this genre.  This web page has a nice comparison of the many MDM systems available.

I stress heavily the importance of an excellent, well planned wireless network when you deploy iOS devices.  There are many resources, but this is a complicated field - the building structure, existing wireless devices, selected frequencies and interference all play a part.  It may be wise to have a survey done and find a contractor who specializes in wireless networks.

Mace2012

View more presentations from jerrybutler9999

Google Wierdness solved

Had the dangedest problem at one of my schools.  They use GAE or Google Apps for Education for email.  Thats a good thing.  But the weirdness ensued. If the user did a google search while logged into Google, the first page would display, but if they went to the bottom of the page for the subsequent page - it would sort of "grey" out or appear subdued, and the next page wouldn't load.  The utterly incomprehensible solution to this problem was to go to the users account settings and select allow multiple logins, and select the resulting checkbox acknowledgements.  After logging out and back in - the weirdness goes away.  I dunno..  the Google helpdesk guy came up with this idea... how I don't know, I'm just thankful it worked!

Inaugural post for Jerry the Tech Guy

Hello World

Ok, that was not generated by a script or program.. I'm sure not a programmer, but I've managed a few hello world outputs in my day...  Its the traditional first steps of learning introductory programming - to create a program or routine to put Hello World up on the screen for those of you that haven't been down that road.  So I'm starting this blog venture with that little nod to tradition.

I'm at a transition as a Tech Guy - I've worked for many years for ESSDACK, an education service center located in Hutchinson, KS.  During that time I was our first webmaster - on a worn out LC II Mac on a 56K fractional T1. I took care of all of ESSDACKs tech support needs for many years.  I started hiring out as a tech consultant - have laptop will travel. Over the years I worked with some of the first one to one laptop programs in the state, setting up machines and networks for them. Over the years I started the KanEd Live internet broadcast program, an early QuickTime based live web broadcast. I became a bit of a FileMaker guru, I've built a number of databases for schools that are still in use.  My time at ESSDACK has been very rewarding.

The transition I mentioned above is because of my impending "Retirement".  Retiring from ESSDACK anyway, not Mac service.. Its too dang much fun, and I need to keep myself in folding money. So I'm in the process of starting up Jerry the Tech Guy LLC,  not there yet.  I have a basic website at http://jerrythetechguy.com  and I can be reached at 738- 468-6227 or jerry.butler.9999@gmail.com if you want to hear more of my intriguing tech saga, or would like to say hire me or something like that!

Watch this space for tech musings and the occasional helpful hint!