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396: FileVault Incrimination

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Topics:

-Sam shares with us that he has been vaccinated with the Moderna vaccine.

-He volunteers with the local Emergency Response Team and was given the opportunity for early vaccination.

-Going back to tech, Joe has an issue related to his passwords in Safari hanging up the process. As he digs into the problem, he discovers an issue with his Keychain.

-Howard Oakley from one of our favorite sites, Eclectic Light Company (https://eclecticlight.co), guides him through the process of correcting issues with your Login Keychain.

-Sam shares a great little tidbit he learned from colleague Steve Leebove of Mac Rescue (https://macrescue.com). Holding down the Option key while clicking the Advanced button in Network Preferences reveals additional fields like Hidden or Shareable. But what are the grayed out networks that can only be seen while holding down Option?

-Another good one that Sam found was when attempting to access a backup DMG on a Synology and receives the message “resource temporarily unavailable”. Using the Synology widget for Connected Users, he was able to remove the sessions for that user and mount the DMG after that.

-And oldie but goodie. Joe talks about using Migration Assistant after Setup Assistant and configuring a user as opposed to doing it during. In addition, when going through Migration Assistant, wait for all the folder sizes to be calculated before proceeding with migration. He has a recent engagement with a client where this proved to still be the correct method.

-Sam’s last tip involves KEXT user approvals. When Turbo Boost Switcher Pro was not functioning properly in macOS Big Sur, he had to find a way to re-allow it. Here is the syntax pulled from https://www.rugarciap.com/faqs/: kmutil trigger-panic-medic --volume-root /Volumes/<YourVolumeName>.

-Joe talks about the Staged Extensions folder where these kernel extensions could live prior to approval.

-What is FileVault Disk incrimination?

392: Super Spreader Clients

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Topics:

-PsiMac and MacWorks joined forces for a Wi-Fi job. Sam was feeling very left out. 

-UniFi and Eero and go to equipment for Wi-Fi jobs. 

-Jerry & Joe go into detail about the job in an aging house with some wireless challenges.

-Using UniFi on this job, Joe talks about adjusting wireless uplink settings in the UniFi Dream Machine controller.

-Sam finally gets to join in and he gets into working with Eero on a job. He begins by dealing with an oddity where an entire network comes to a halt when a particular computer gets turned off.

-He learns some things with Eero like the lack of functionality when using the web interface vs the app.

-Since we are all doing more remotely, Joe takes us through a remote Eero setup. 

-Joe found that setting up this network was actually faster offsite. Which is good on the one hand for efficiency but also a negative for business reasons as it means less billable time. Sam finds similar results.

-Sam brings back an old favorite “pop quiz”, networking edition.

-Jerry has a PSA regarding a Synology with Seagate drives. Be careful where you buy from.

-Amazon had an offer to give a 20% credit on old routers but Jerry has a bad experience with his return.

390: A Cesspool Of Covid

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Topics:

-One of Sam’s clients shows off their new podcast studio. Sam stays silent about Command Control Power since he likely has spoken about them. 

-Joe blows Sam’s cover about how he used his new fancy Rode microphone backwards on a recent show. 

-We discuss our first mics. 

-As the guys check in about business status, Sam talks about a client that finally suspended monthly services. 

-Most recently, one of Jerry’s education clients had to request a quote from multiple vendors during a renewal period.

-A recent client call sounded like a Kobayashi Maru and an impossible feat to accomplish so Jerry & Joe figure, let’s refer Sam!

-Joe is really hoping to replace his janky MacBook Pro.

-As this show was recorded before the M1 announcement, Joe considers what new Mac computers will be on the horizon.

-Sam has a strange volume issue with his 2020 MacBook Air

-As we revisit the HP driver issue, Joe credits the MacAdmins Slack for pointing him in the right direction. 

-Joe questions the validation process.

-Should you just live off the grid?

-One of Joe’s clients designed software once used on the space shuttle.

388: Adam Engst of TidBITS Content Network Discusses Apple's M1 Silicon

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Topics:

adamengst-headshot2-640x692.jpg

-Adam Engst of TidBITS Content Network joins us to talk about Apple’s release of the M1 chips.

-We talk about “One More Thing...”

-Joe goes on a tear about some history of Mac. 

-Joe is proud of his first generation JamBox. 

-Adam is very excited about the benchmarks he is reading about the M1 chips. 

-Even Rosetta 2 is showing a benchmark of 80% of native use!

-Adam talks about unified memory and how the memory is built in to the M1 chip. 

-Thermal capacity in the new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Mac mini is discussed. The MacBook Air doesn’t even have a fan!

-Sam & Joe are emotionally scarred from recent MacBook Air models. 

-Adam is not impressed with the Touch Bar on the MacBook Pro. 

-While we were once concerned about first generation chips, everything we are hearing has us excited. 

-Battery life is a notable difference that users will be most aware of. 

-50 of recent Mac purchases were customers new to the Mac. 

-Adam warns about issues to be wary of with Big Sur when it comes to third party backup programs like Carbon Copy Cloner and Super Duper. 

-Time Machine in Big Sur now uses APFS. You will likely want to start your backups fresh. 

-The low end MacBook Air has a 7 core CPU instead of an 8 core. Why?

-Adam is going to test his new computer by dumping all his apps in Login Items to see how it responds. 

-Sign up with TidBITS Content Network and have Adam and his team create meaningful content for your organization. 

387: Know When To Fold Em'

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Topics:

-Joe had a client reach out just to say something positive about Parallels 16. How infrequently do we get those feel good calls?

-Speaking of Parallels 16, Jerry has a gripe about a Parallels update that ended up costing him.

-Sam wants to inject some feel good stories and talks about a free offer from a local ISP for households with educators and school age children.

-Another great tool for educators is Safe You Tube, a site that lets you play YouTube videos for children, without potentially inappropriate ad content.

-What happened to paper cups?

-We have some follow up to the Carbon Copy Cloner Privacy Fish, from Mike Bombitch himself!

-And now we have a hot air balloon from Tech Tool Pro.

-Amy McKnight and others give Joe some credit for his PSA about being able to open PDFs in Microsoft Word.

-Jerry is annoyed by a client that is clearly multi tasking while trying to work with him remotely.

-Joe has a similar client and sees the proof with Handoff displaying multiple apps in their Mac Dock. 

-While trying to work with a new client remotely, Sam seems just how difficult it can be when leaving a lot of the work to the client.

-Sam & Joe have a live conversation about a potential new client that they are both in discussions with.