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056: A Bitcoin mine hiding in your server rack?

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Recorded live on June 24, 2014

Sponsored by Smile, makers of PDFpen for iPad – a great way to grab a client's signature and finish a meeting with a signed contract, right on your iPad. Plus, it now has Transporter integration (along with Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive, and Box), so you can pick up the signed contract on your cloud of choice when you get back to your office. Listen to the show for a special offer for ACN members!

Show Notes

Thadd Weil, Public Relations Manager for Synology joins us for a live interview to discuss vulnerabilities in older versions of Synology's DiskStation Manager software, which were patched last year by Synology but made the news recently

Check out the ACN Alumni list at Google Groups, for current and former members of the Apple Consultants Network

Sam and Joe made a guest appearance on Thank You For Calling along with Peter Cohen and Stephen Hackett, hosted by Moisés Chiullan

Followup

Joe posted his Automator workflow to Export VPN Configurations

055: First Macs

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Recorded live June 17, 2014

This week's show is sponsored by Drobo. The Drobo Gen 3 (4-bay) is now shipping! Use coupon code CCP50 for $50 off at DroboStore.com and support the show!

Topics

- Jerry describes an issue where an admin user shows up as being Managed with Parental Controls after an upgrade to Mavericks, despite still appearing as an admin; also a keychain issue with the Local Items keychain

- Joe rambles through trying to remember the details of an issue with iCloud Keychain and SoftwareUpdateLauncher hanging; see this Apple Discussions post

- Sam leverages VoiceOver to navigate a blank screen which turned out to the be login window; we narrowly avoid another server discussion

- WWDC 2014 videos are available online without a developer account; Jerry recommends #702, Managing Apple Devices

- Joe's Export VPN Configurations Automator workflow to help migrate VPN configurations to a new Mac

- Sam, Jerry, and Joe discuss their first Macs which prompts some lively war stories from the chatroom

- Jerry recommends NetNewsWire for RSS feeds and TweetBot for keeping up with Twitter; Sam uses NewsBar; Joe reloads tabs for some reason

Export VPN Configurations when migrating to a new Mac

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VPN Configurations are among the few things not automatically migrated by Migration Assistant when switching to a new Mac. As Apple Consultants, we often have dozens of VPN connections to client networks conveniently listed in the VPN menu. With one-click access to client networks, we're ready to connect and provide remote support at a moment's notice.

After successfully migrating to a new Mac, there's a certain kind of "cobbler's kids" dread the first time you instinctively reach for the VPN menu and find none of your familiar connections listed.

Here's a quick-and-dirty Automator workflow I put together to help migrate VPN configurations when switching to my new MacBook Air a couple of years ago.

Preparation

  1. Open System Preferences > Network, and click the lock to authenticate if necessary.
  2. Select the first VPN connection in the service list.
  3. Click the gear below service list, and choose Export Configurations.
  4. Select the "Export the default configuration" and "Include items from the system keychain" checkboxes.
  5. Navigate to a folder of your choosing, or create one – this folder will be used by the Automator workflow to save each of the exported VPN configurations. Click Save.

Export VPN Configurations

  1. Download the Export VPN Configurations Automator workflow and put the application in your Dock (temporarily) to make it easier to access.
  2. Open the Export VPN Configurations app in your Dock. The first time you open it, you will get an error that the action Watch Me Do encountered an error. Open System Preferences > Security & Privacy, and check the box on the Privacy tab to allow Export VPN Configurations to control your computer.
  3. Make sure the second VPN connection is selected in System Preferences > Network (you've already exported the first one in the preparation steps above).
  4. Click the Export VPN Configurations app in your Dock to run it.
  5. After the workflow runs, the next VPN connection will be selected automatically. Run the workflow again to export the next VPN connection, and repeat until you've exported all of your VPN connections.

Import VPN Configurations

Perhaps this could benefit from some automation, but I will leave that as an exercise for the reader.

  1. Copy the folder where you saved your VPN configurations to your new Mac.
  2. Open System Preferences > Network, and click lock to authenticate if necessary.
  3. For each VPN configuration: Click the plus (+) below the service list on the left, and add a new VPN interface with the correct type (L2TP over IPSec, PPTP, or Cisco IPSec) and name it accordingly, e.g. "Client A VPN (L2TP)."
  4. Open each VPN configuration file you copied to your new Mac, and choose the corresponding interface you created in step 3.

054: Interview with Brian Best from BestMacs and Mac-MSP Gruntwork

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Recorded live June 10, 2014

- Brian got started on the Mac in the days of nine-inch monochrome screens and System 6; began working on Macs professionally in 1996; started BestMacs in 1999

- when transforming his consultancy to Managed Services, Brian developed a suite of tools in-house to be released under the Mac-MSP brand; the first to be released is Gruntwork for automating maintenance; a remote screen sharing and remote login (SSH) tool called Blue Sky is coming soon

- Gruntwork can be compared to CasperSuite; uses Munki for software updates

- the importance of working more on the business instead of in the business as the business grows

- Mac-MSP offers discounts to Apple Consultants Network members and subscribers of Watchman Monitoring

- going "all in" when transitioning to Managed Services from hourly billing: having a referral to another consultant ready for clients who don't want Managed Services helps avoid leaving clients in the lurch

- Allen's "Personal Support" plan; Easing Into Managed Services

- Gruntwork proudly displays the service provider's branding; demonstrates value by reminding users that maintenance is being run

- @Siracusa: Gruntwork will run a live disk verification, and if it fails, will automatically restart in Single User mode, run the disk repair, log the result, restart normally, and report the result #HFS+

- Apple should buy Alsoft and build DiskWarrior into the Recovery Partition and diskutil

- how to price managed services; don't undercharge, match the old pricing at a minimum

- demo videos at mac-msp.com/demo

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053: Toxic Hellstew

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Recorded live June 3, 2014

Tim Cook quoting Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, ZDNet: "With vulnerabilities such as Heartbleed and Pileup likely to go unpatched on tens, if not hundreds of millions of Android devices, the platform is fast becoming a toxic hellstew that should send chills down the spines of IT admins."

Yosemite and iOS 8 initial impressions

How the OS X Beta Program will affect us as Apple consultants; expect overzealous clients to call for help troubleshooting issues with pre-release software

Family Sharing looks great for home users, but still no way to migrate purchases or merge Apple IDs

Sam reports that AirDrop works between Yosemite and iOS 7

Joe reports that Apple Store is no longer accepting machines at the Genius Bar using "Quick Drop"

Jerry reports that Genius Bar has been lenient when accepting machines from consultants on behalf of clients; no signed letter needed

Difficulty offering help as a Consultant in the Apple Store; would be nice if Apple would more readily refer clients to us as they tend to be thrilled when they eventually do find us

Joe had fun configuring an Automator workflow for a client referred (eventually) by the Apple Store

The Craig Federighi Show from Jonathan Mann

052: Aloha 'Joe"

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