343: It Doggles The Mind

Topics:

-The boys are back in town (spread the word)

-Joe gives Jerry credit for an old Time Machine reference to turn off low priority throttle for a speedy backup 
http://osxdaily.com/2016/04/17/speed-up-time-machine-by-removing-low-process-priority-throttling/

-Joe has two clients in a short span that were victims of “hacking”

-In one instance, an Apple ID was stolen. In another, a transfer of 20k was almost completed by an evil doer 

-The common factor between the two was the user’s cellular number

-With SIM hijacking, an attacker can port your SIM to a new device or even to switch carriers

-Jack Dorsey (CEO of Twitter) was a victim of SIM hijacking https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/technology/sim-swap-jack-dorsey-hack.html

-The crew laments over all of these security concerns that surround us, and are astonished that people still don’t get it

-Joe’s other client, lost access to their business phone number. His carrier first required a police report 

-Joe has a theory that these events were planned during Apple’s holiday shutdown, since resources are thin 

-An incredibly important recommendation is to create a PIN for your cellular carrier as another layer of protection 

-Another tip is to not use your cellular phone as your two factor authentication. Rather use an Authenticator app o Google voice number.

-Samsung Pass’ presentation included icons from that were complete rip offs of Face ID & Touch ID
https://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-copied-apple-face-id-touch-id-icon-ces-keynote-2020-1

Thank you to our Patreon sponsors!

342: Armin Briegel of Scripting OS X - Moving To zsh

Topics:

-Armin Briegel from Scripting OS X https://scriptingosx.com joins us on Command Control Power!

-Armin is promoting his new book called “Moving to zsh”

-He recently presented at MacSysAdmin https://www.macsysadmin.se in Gothenburg, Sweden
You can find Armin’s and other presentation videos here: https://scriptingosx.com/2019/10/macsysadmin-session-videos/

-Armin’s career goes from Germany, to the United States and currently in The Netherlands.  During his career he had the opportunity to work for Apple.

-Before moving back to Europe, Armin was training his replacement when he was asked about books available to learn topics for the Mac.  This was one of the inspirations for writing his first book.

-Before “Moving to zsh, Armin wrote three other books:
Packaging for Apple Administrators: https://scriptingosx.com/packaging-for-apple-administrators/
-PropertyLists, Preferences and Profiles for Apple Administrators: https://scriptingosx.com/pr3-for-apple-administrators/
-macOS Installation: https://scriptingosx.com/macos-installation-for-apple-administrators/

-Upgrading a Mac to Catalina, 10.15 will result in your default shell remaining at bash

-If you create a new user, clean install the OS, or purchase a new computer, your default shell will be Z Shell

-Questions come up related to current commands and scripts and how they are affected by the change

-Sam lets it slip that he is now running Catalina on his production computer

-He discusses an issue with Reminders in Catalina and Joe talks of the Apple Mail data loss issues

-Sam asks Armin if we will see Erase All Contents and Settings in Catalina since we now have separate APFS containers for the OS & data, similar to iOS

-User enrollment is another new feature that is fascinating for features like enterprise wipe

-Erase & Install is a custom app that Armin wrote ((https://bitbucket.org/prowarehouse-nl/erase-install/), which gives the user a user interface that leverages startosinstall to wipe a computer.  In Europe, with GDPR, this provided a confirmation for a user that a business computer was wiped of personal data.

-Sign up for the Scripting OS X newsletter here: https://tinyletter.com/scriptingosx

341: Have A Mindful New Year

Topics:

-Joe has taken to using a journal, largely inspired by his epic road trip.  Joe uses the Day One app https://dayoneapp.com

-Sam agrees with the practice and talks of his long term journaling goals

-Sam Harris’ meditation app, Waking Up is another recommendation from Joe: https://wakingup.com

-We at Command Control Power wish everyone a happy. healthy (and mindful) new year!

Thank you to our Patreon sponsors!

338: Merry & Bright With Addigy

Topics:

-The crew does an Addigy check up to see where they stand with managed clients 

 -Joe brands his Addigy restart scripts after the show and it’s a top rated download!

-Jerry & Joe consider adding snarky comments to their messages to users 

-Joe talks more about his fancy scripts like rebuilding the spotlight index and checking for download sizes
ls -lh /Library/Addigy/download-cache/downloading
The main part of Joe's script:
du -sh /Library/Addigy/download-cache/downloading | cut -f1,1

-TeamViewer’s version upgrades and the lack of ability to manage from an earlier version frustrates Joe

-Inside a scam call center by Jim Browning youtube channel that busts fake tech support scam centers: https://youtu.be/xb_rgQ4IDS8

-Joe complains that users will not accept Apple’s advice for strong passwords but will accept fake tech support scams. Jerry has a different take on the password feature. 

337: These HEViC Files Are Wreaking Havoc

Topics:

-Joe joins the crowd in the cloud 

-The biggest issue affecting Joe in his move to the cloud is “van-width”

-An unexpected issue was dealing with his Dropbox data. Joe's PSA: Symlinks in Dropbox = no bueno.  It just got stuck "checking for changes" for days on end. Found a relevant link: “stuck on checking for changes" issue, which said that the solution was removing symlinks from inside the Dropbox folder. It included a handy command to list all symlinks in the Dropbox folder: 
find ~/Dropbox -type l -exec ls -lah {} \; 

-The old days of Mac HelpMate comes up as Joe is sifting through his Dropbox data

-A new type of filesystem link (like symbolic links and hard links) to be aware of, called a firmlink: 
https://eclecticlight.co/2019/10/13/last-week-on-my-mac-more-than-adventurous/

-Jerry is very happy to report that ClarifyIT has a beta that is 64-bit capable!

-After some finagling, Jerry finally figures out how to get Paste and match style working in the latest version of Microsoft Office

-In updating his Mail Chimp and testing with one of his email addresses, Jerry gets a random tips & tricks newsletter

-Upcoming show on marketing is an idea the CCP staff is kicking around

-Google Ads halts Jerry’s marketing plans by saying he is in violation of terms.  Getting in touch with the right people at Google turns out to be an even bigger challenge.

-Facebook and Instagram marketing can be region specific.  Or is it?

-Sam almost has a major mishap in his travels to Alaska 

-HEVC and HEIF wreaking havoc on Joe's MacBook Pro: com.apple.iLifeMediaBrowser.ILPhotosTranscodeCache in ‎⁨~/⁨Library⁩ ▸ ⁨Containers⁩ ▸ ⁨com.apple.ScreenSaver.iLife-Slideshow-Extension⁩ ▸ ⁨Data⁩ ▸ ⁨Library⁩ ▸ ⁨Caches⁩. This folder grows to consume all available disk space on his Mac running 10.14.6 Mojave.

Thank you to our Patreon sponsors!

336: Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

Topics:

-Sam is in Minnesota at the Jamf Nation User Conference

-Meanwhile, he has just returned from an Apple training gig in Alaska

-While at JNUC, Sam again ran into friend of the show, Chris Stout of STOUT https://stout.computer

-A call to action for our listeners!  Take photos in various locations with your Command Control Power t-shirt

-Sam takes a closer look at his process he recently used with a large deployment:
-Sam used AutoDMG for a quick restore of macOS: https://github.com/MagerValp/AutoDMG
-The createinstallmedia command worked well as an offline installer of macOS: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372
-Here are the disks that were used to backup user data: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07S1PCSV5/ref=twister_B07Y17L7BZ?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

-Joe takes us back in time to discuss the early encounters with Startup Security Utility on T2 computers

-Sam notices a difference in the behavior of users in large, corporate environments vs the SMB clients we are used to

-Joe deals with some confusion dealing with Daylite Saving while in Sedona, Arizona

-The topic of time zones reminds Sam about an issue he has with his Mac auto correcting time…incorrectly

-The Safari beachball bug has been plaguing Joe for a while

-Sam & Joe compare keychains

-After installing countless Synology NAS devices, Sam dug up a Github project which allowed for a python script to be run to do a speed test on the Synology: https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli

-When moving from a Windows Server to Synology, Sam had to do some Googling but found a tool built-in to Windows Server called Robocopy.  Here is an example of syntax to preserve modification dates & times: robocopy /s /e /DCOPY:T