Centralized Management for

The Geometer's Sketchpad 5 (GSP5)

For users of Apple Remote Desktop (ARD)

Getting Ready to use Sketchpad

You have two tasks to perform before students and faculty can use GSP5:

1) "Install" – Ensure the software is in place on your Macs.

2) "Register" – Ensure your GSP software license is registered and activated on all of your Macs.

Apple Remote Desktop (www.apple.com/remotedesktop/), also known as ARD, makes it easy to

centrally manage both of these tasks for networked computers across your lab, building, or even
across multiple buildings. We'll highlight the process by referring to the Administrator's Guide
(currently found online at images.apple.com/remotedesktop/pdf/AdministratorsGuide20061116.pdf).
If you're not already familiar with using Apple Remote Desktop for distributing software, we
recommend you take a few minutes to view the tutorial at www.apple.com/remotedesktop/tutorials/
softwaredistribution.html provided by Apple, which provides a context for the instructions below.

Step 1 – Install
There are two different approaches to installing GSP5 onto client computers via Apple Remote
Desktop. The first approach is most suitable to single-lab installations where there a limited number of
computers that are all connected to the network and turned on. The second is better suited to school-
wide or district-wide implementations that might also include 1:1 laptop implementations. When you
can't ensure all computers are on the network and turned on, you'll need to let ARD's Task Server
capabilities manage the rollout of GSP5 for you.

1) Key Curriculum Press provides GSP5 as an Apple disk image (known as a .dmg file). This is the
easiest form for manual installation, one computer at a time. You can use the Copy Files
command to copy the entire .dmg file and open it on all the client computers (as shown in the
third demo of the Apple tutorial movie mentioned above). If so, you need to use ARD to issue a
single Unix command to all the client computers that would copy the files from the opened .dmg
file to the Applications folder. Then you need to issue a second Unix command to close and
dispose of the .dmg files (thus saving space and cleaning up the desktops on all the computers).
2) The other approach is to use Apple's PackageMaker (included free with ARD) to construct a
.pkg file from the contents of the GSP5 .dmg file. You can then use the second scenario in the
ARD tutorial movie to let ARD's Task Server manage the automatic installation of copies of
GSP5 as the computers are turned on (or brought back from home in the case of 1:1 laptop
initiatives). The instructions for PackageMaker can be found with your copy of ARD, or at

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 developer.apple.com/DOCUMENTATION/DeveloperTools/Conceptual/PackageMakerUserGuide/
PackageMaker_UserGuide.pdf.

For the first option, you can review the section Copying Files starting on page 108 of the ARD
Administrator's Guide. For the second option, you'll need to review the 28-page PackageMaker guide
and the section Installing Software on Offline Computers starting on page 104 of the ARD
Administrator's Guide.

Step 2- Register
If you launch an unregistered copy of GSP5, it asks you to either:

• Enter your License Name and Authorization Code.

• Go to the Key Curriculum Press online store to buy a license.
• Run in Preview mode (limited functionality which also shuts down after 20 minutes use).

This makes sense for individual teachers or students buying their own copy, but isn't convenient for an
administrator who manages many computers. Fortunately, you can issue Unix commands to GSP5 that
will allow you to register and activate your license. As with the decision on how to Install the software
to your computers, you have a related choice in how to use ARD to issue the commands to all your
computers.

1) If you have chosen to use the Copy Files approach to install the software and have already used
ARD to copy the .dmg file to each computer and to issue a Unix command to copy the files from
the opened .dmg file to the Applications folder on each computer, then you merely need to issue
an additional Unix command to register GSP5. The syntax for this is the following (use the
values provided on your invoice or order confirmation for LicenseName and AuthorizationCode).

Sketchpad_Executable -license register -name "LicenseName" –code AuthorizationCode

Sketchpad_Executable refers to the complete path (location) and name of the inner executable
contained with the Sketchpad application bundle. The location and name of Sketchpad_Executable
is (assuming you haven't changed the name or location of the folder for Sketchpad)

/Applications/Sketchpad/GSP5.app/Contents/MacOS/GSP5_Rel_KCPT_31_105

where /Applications/Sketchpad is the default location of the Sketchpad application bundle and
GSP5.app/Contents/MacOS/GSP5_Rel_KCPT_31_105 is the location of the inner executable
within the bundle.

2) If you have chosen to use Apple's PackageMaker to create a .pkg file that can be distributed
and installed via ARD's Task Server, you can still issue the Unix command above one or more
times as more and more computers finish installation. However, you can also add the Unix
command into the package as a "postinstall" step before you install the package. The

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 advantage of adding the registration command is that by combining the Install and Register
steps within the package, you can use ARD and its Task Server to automate the complete GSP
installation to all your computers.

Note: It is important that you protect not only the LicenseName and AuthorizationCode, but also any
package that embeds them. Providing any of these items to an unauthorized user is tantamount to
violating your license agreement for GSP5.

Deregistering Sketchpad
There are three common reasons to do this:

1) Your institution bought a 1-year license and you wish to replace your current licenses with new
licenses.
2) You are decommissioning computers (either to replace them or sell them as surplus/salvage)
and wish to ensure that Sketchpad isn't being used in a non-compliant manner.
3) Some 1:1 laptop initiatives deliver the computers to students when they graduate minus any
software that wasn't provided as part of the initiative. If you wish to leave Sketchpad on the
laptops in evaluation mode (and let students decide if they subsequently want to buy their own
copy) all you need to do is deregister the software to remain compliant with your own license.

This is very simple to do with a variant of the Unix command used to register GSP:

Sketchpad_Executable -license deregister -name "LicenseName" –code AuthorizationCode

We require the LicenseName and AuthorizationCode as before to limit accidental deregisteration by a

student or teacher. This will reduce the need for you to make "house calls" for computers on which
GSP5 "mysteriously" stops working.

As with registration, issuing Unix commands to a set of client computers managed by ARD is described
in the section Executing a Single UNIX Command starting on page 148 of the ARD Administrator's
Guide. You can issue the deregister command to any or all of the client computers as you desire.

Deleting Sketchpad
Strictly speaking, this is outside the scope of this document. There is nothing different about using
ARD to delete Sketchpad than using ARD to delete any other files from the client computers. See the
section Using Report Windows to Work with Computers starting on page 128 of the ARD
Administrator's Guide.

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