419: When Jiggled by The Jiggler

Season 8 is here!

• Thank you to our long time sponsor, Jon Brown of Grove Technologies for his continued and increased support of Command Control Power.

• If you would like to contribute to the show, please visit http://patreon.com/cmdctrlpwr

• In the latest “I should have known this” corner, Joe learned something new about widgets from the TidBITs newsletter.

• Sam adds another TidBITs tip about AirTags.

• Jerry revisits the Mouse Jiggler app from Episode 246: Let Go Of My Echo or Echo Location that helped his Fusion Drive encryption proceed, and shares some excellent feedback from Tom Bridge re: encryption requiring the mouse to be moving. Tom suspected Apple is "using the entropy from the mouse cursor to do part of the encryption" which is apparently the case in High Sierra with APFS (although Jerry's drive was not APFS). 

• Jiggler 1.9 : No-Doz for your Mac

  http://sticksoftware.com/software/Jiggler.html

• A benefit to working remotely is that the client won’t see every time you have to google an answer!

• Sam purchased a 13 inch MacBook pro M1 and then somehow a random serial number got added to his apple business manager.

• He made the mistake of not listening to Joe’s rules for making a new migration work properly.

• Joe and Sam are both very happy with their newer M1 computers since they finally have devices that can keep up with everything they do.

• Jerry suggests Synology Migration Assistant because it works very well for him.

• While completing a migration Jerry ran into a password problem.

• Both Joe & Jerry have gathered a treasure-trove of knowledge from a series of YouTube videos from SpaceRex. He has put out helpful videos that can improve Synology performance like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYEEfAI-Upo

• Little tips like disabling SMB1 or SMB encryption on Synology to increase speeds have been helpful.

• Jerry also talks about the realities link aggregation.

• Always consider the quality of drives you add to your drive array.

• Avoid SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) drives and look instead for CMR (Conventional Magnetic Recording) drives.

• “Cache” is king.

• Jerry has a real issue with terrible unboxing videos.

• Jerry would love to have a better partner relationship with Synology.

• Joe wants to talk more about ransomware, malware, and protecting your data more in future episodes.

• Important tip: Always have a backup!

• There are risks to relying solely on backups without an “air gap”.

• Sam and Joe highly recommends the Security Advisor on Synology

418: Interview With James Chiappetta, Security Expert From Better Appsec

Topics:

• This week we are pleased to welcome James Chiappetta, Security Expert from Better Appsec.

• An intro to the human element of security.

  • https://betterappsec.com/how-appsec-can-help-balance-product-usability-with-security-e958463aad81

  • https://betterappsec.com/how-to-account-for-the-human-element-in-appsec-146548ecb9a1 

• What are the most common iphone PINs and what drives the creation of them? http://danielamitay.com/blog/2011/6/13/most-common-iphone-passcodes

• Is a 6 digit PIN really more secure than a 4 digit PIN? 

• https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.04868.pdf >> In a throttled scenario, simply increasing the PIN length is of little benefit. In our results, there was no significant difference between 4- and 6-digit PINs within the first 100 guesses

• Product and Usability/Convenience - Opting in vs Opting out

  • The Engine Start/Stop example - https://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/features/do-stop-start-systems-really-save-fuel.html && https://www.edmunds.com/fuel-economy/engine-stop-start-systems-save-fuel-at-low-cost.html 

• What is the responsibility of consumer brands on data privacy and security? 

  • GDPR - accept all cookies?

  • Steve Job’s stance on prompting the user about the decision of opt in vs opt out

  • How or when does the question of optin vs opt on get asked factor in? 

Consumer empowerment. The individual should be able to actively manage their own data via consent, access, and correction mechanisms. In the event of a lack of adherence to these principles, there must be a way for the individual to address the breach without negative consequences. >> https://lolokaufman.medium.com/is-privacy-by-design-enough-12aa4fddb747

417: Nana-Technology or Sitting In A Bubble Of Time

Topics:

• Sam gives a shoutout to Armin Briegel of Scripting OS X for solving a huge problem he was having. If you’re not subscribing to his site, you should be.

• Being a part of the Mac Admins community is invaluable.

• Joe talks about creating a custom AppleScript to sync data in the Photos app. Jerry brings up an interesting point about support over the network.

• Note to self: Triple the estimate when quoting a scripting/automation job!

• The group talks about their automation processes.

• One of Sam’s old difficult clients who he had not talked to in years reached out to him for help. He was not sure how to respond.

• Joe shared a similar story about a client who rebook things off with him coming back after years.

• Jerry says that taking notes can be extremely helpful especially when trying to remember what happened with a client in the past. Daylite is an excellent tool for documenting this information and attaching to a client record.

• Sam tried to part ways with a client that was very time consuming but he didn’t have the heart.

• Joe shares a tip on setting up hot corners because even though they’ve been useful, they also drive him crazy.

• Shoutout to the TidBits content newsletter for sharing tips that even the professionals don’t know!

415: Interview With Jason Dettbarn / Founder & CEO of Addigy - Cloud Based Mac Management Platform

Thank you to our VIP sponsors!

Special Thanks to our friends:

Topics:

• This week we are excited to be joined by Jason Dettbarn, the founder and CEO of Addigy.

• Dates for The Addigy User Summit have been booked for February, 2022: https://addigy.com/event/addigy-user-summit-2020/

• Throughout the pandemic, they started seeing more VPN and remote control technology being put into use in order to manage devices.

• COVID forced the whole IT industry to improve, since everything had to be done remotely.

• Jason explains how the pandemic has actually effected his business positively.

• Take a European summer this summer authorized by Jason Dettbarn.

• Sam and Jerry think Joe’s been on a break for the past three years.

• Joe thanks Jason for the great product he’s created, specifically Addigy LiveDesktop while he does one of his famous remote migrations.

• Additional remote control capabilities will be announced at their Innovation Summit.

• Join Addigy for their Innovation Summit on June 15! https://addigy.com/innovate2021/

• Quick Tip for Addigy users: Joe has a URL on his site for users to enroll into Addigy on the fly to allow management when they need it.

• Addigy will be adding variables to their Custom Facts in an upcoming update.

• Custom criteria will be added to allow auto assigning devices to a particular policy.

• Addigy is the only multi tenancy solution to allow Single Sign-On for Mac.

• Apps & Books deployment is now available in Self Service.

• Thomas Reed from Malwarebytes will be joining the security panel of the Innovation Summit.

• Addigy places a big value on community.

• The Custom Fact feature allows you to report custom criteria about a computer that isn’t built into Addigy.

• The community aspect is what allowed such a quick remediation of Silver Sparrow.

• “Day zero” support is already too late. Jason explains how Addigy prepares.

• The Command Control Power crew had their own Addigy Summit.

• Use all of the features available to you when installing Addigy.

• Addigy Certified Expert, Addigy Certified Associate certifications are available from Addigy:
  https://addigy.com/training/

• Joe talks about maintaining software updates using Addigy.

• Content caching is a feature that will explored in the near future.

• Jerry has a theory about kernel panic alerts he has seen from some of his users.

• Don’t forget about the Addigy Innovate Summit on June 15th!
  https://addigy.com/innovate2021/

414: Devolving Into Chaos

Topics:

• Jerry talks about a problem he had shipping a package through Walgreens.

• Jerry shares five tips of the day today.

  • Tip #1: Don’t ship your package through Walgreens.

  • Tip #2: Clean out your wallet.

  • Tip #3: Don’t carry a lot of money in your wallet.

  • Tip #4: Check in your settings in Backblaze to make sure you update it to more than 30 days.

  • Tip #5: If you create a folder in safari with multiple URLs, you will have the option to open all of the tabs.

• ACN links that you may have been using on your websites have changed. (Shoutout Jason Golfarb for sharing this information.)

• The cobbler’s son has no shoes.

• There should be better tools for web browsing management.

• The group discusses the Apple Airtags, Sam has used them to track his dog who runs away at night.

• Both Joe and Sam have a bad time as they attempt to update the UniFi Controller. Joe found his answers online while Sam reached out to Ubiquiti support. In either case, the solution involves an SSH connection and running this command: apt update; apt install -y openjdk-8-jre-headless

• Note to self, check the release notes.

• Note 2 to self, don’t upgrade client networks on a Friday night.

• One of Sam’s one off clients had a gen1 Cloud Key that crapped out. Matt used an old trick by getting into the Mongo database to store a new password and write it back to the cloud key.

• Jerry talks about the great UniFi LTE device he installed with Joe and the group discusses payments for it.

• Joe gives a quick tip on how to configure the device.

413: The Ultimate Technical Debt

Topics:

• Jerry talks about what he likes about SmallCube.

• The group talks about Apple supporting old hardware.

• Joe finally purchased a new refurbished Mac!

• Jerry talks about a problem with a computer that would not download Big Sur and kept going black that had a weird solution.

• This leads into Joe’s story about problems with a laggy bluetooth keyboard.

• Pro tip: Don’t let your device just sit around for a long period of time.

• Jerry shares a theory about kernel panics.

• People don’t read on screen warnings, which can lead to trouble.

• They have a conversation about how useful Omni Disk Sweeper is.

• Joe has an update to the df command thanks to listener Viktor Glemme.

• Terminal commands can be very helpful and efficient if you learn how to work with them.

• Jerry shares a story about a client that had trouble going to certain secure websites with Safari.