243: Star Belly & Plain Belly Sneetches

Topics:

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-Jerry humbly shares a story of formatting the wrong drive while preparing new external installers and things to watch out for in APFS volumes when booted from HFS+

-Joe almost attempted a migration to Sierra from High Sierra when setting up Judy's new computer

-Jerry compares HFS+ to APFS issues to the Dr. Seuss Sneetches

-Sam shares his latest experience with Daylite and how he has seen the power of the product.  Our own Jerry Zigmont can help!
http://www.daylitemac.com

-This leads into a further conversation about Daylite as a product and methods of integration

-Joe has frustrations about Microsoft's auto update.  It provides a perfect opportunity to discuss our friends at Addigy

-Jerry talks about some of his non-public facing websites to try and make things easier for his clients.  But as it turns out, it ends up creating frustration.

-The group compares MSP models and how they all operate slightly differently

-Joe was listening to the mac catalog and has some followup from episode 231: “Grant BigLanik Easy Access” re: Amazon Gift Cards: very annoying, resulted in having to use AirPlane Mode to finish a recipe for Curried Butternut Squash and Pear Soup on AllRecipes.com. (Joe misstated this as SimplyRecipes.com in the podcast. The Editor regrets the mistake.)
 

242: Goals For 2018 With Weldon Dodd of Rewind Tech - Denver, CO

Topics:

Weldon Dodd of Rewind Technology joins us for another episode
https://rewindtech.com

-Weldon asks the crew about New Year's resolutions and the conversation immediately delves into a discussion on Wi-Fi

-Eero is a recommendation Weldon has been using in a lot of residential environments.  Joe & Jerry have similar positive experiences:
https://eero.com

-Cisco Meraki is what Rewind Tech usually turns to for continued management of a network:
https://meraki.cisco.com

-Weldon discusses his 1, 3, 5, 7 plan (Software - every year, endpoint equipment (laptops) - 3, servers - 5 years, networking equipment - 7 years)

-Sam is starting to evaluate Daylite as a CRM and sees many possibilities for use within his organization.  Still, the discussion of a good old fashioned spreadsheet comes about.
https://daylitemac.com

-Weldon discusses the future of his training and MSP business as well as his role within the organization

-2018 goals for Weldon: creating and utilizing custom DEP deployment solutions since the future of imaging is changing. Ultimately he wants a great experience for the customer.  Here are some of the tools that he is looking into:

The ability to create macOS packages to deploy user accounts
https://github.com/gregneagle/pycreateuserpkg

DEP deployment tools:
https://github.com/Shufflepuck/SplashBuddy 
https://gitlab.com/Mactroll/DEPNotify
https://github.com/erikng/installapplications

-Tim Perfitt from Two Canoes discusses acquiring a new iMac Pro and the changes that come with it: https://twocanoes.com/secureboot-imac-pro/

-Another great resource mentioned from Scripting OS X called NetInstall Is Dead, Too: https://scriptingosx.com/2017/12/netinstall-is-dead-too/

-Weldon takes a few moments and acknowledges the fellow members of the Mac community

-Have a great 2018!

241: "Not Dead Yet" With Weldon Dodd of Rewind Tech - Denver, CO

Topics:

-To start the new year, we are very pleased to be joined on our first live show of 2018 by Weldon Dodd of Rewind Technology in Denver, CO.  Weldon hangs with the crew as another host in case Sam goes missing again.
https://rewindtech.com

-Some things never change, the old HCS land grab jokes are in full swing

-Joe discusses the first zero day exploit of 2018, actually launched via tweet on New Year's Eve. Check out the IOHIDeous narrative on GitHub, kind of interesting! The vulnerability exists in a process called IOHIDUserClient which the macOS limits to having only a single instance at any given time, which happens to be spawned by WindowServer. So in order to exploit the vulnerability, we need to kill the WindowServer process. But terminating it requires admin privileges and essentially reboots the GUI, so this is not a viable mode of exploitation. But it turns out that by logging out the user, WindowServer releases its IOHIDUserClient temporarily, giving the exploit enough time to spawn its own instance of IOHIDUserClient and leverage it to compromise the system. The exploit can use "launchctl reboot logout" which does not display a warning dialog. The exploit can also use an AppleScript command to send loginwindow an event called "AppleEventReallyLogOut" (osascript -e 'tell application "loginwindow" to «event aevtrlgo»'), and loginwindow apparently doesn't care who sent the event, but it does display a dialog box as if the user selected "Log Out" from the Apple menu.

-Jerry wonders if this will be on the CCP test

-Sam recalls a story working after hours at a client when the alarm goes off

-Weldon shares his story of a Promise RAID gone wrong. Friends don't let clients pull drives out of RAID drive bays.  It also leads to a further discussion about how to handle RAID solutions and future expansion.

-A handy virtualization app for Synology, which Sam has used in conjunction with CrashPlan, is Docker: https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/feature/docker

-Jerry is busy building Minecraft worlds on Synology. He ends up needing a volume formatted as Btrfs.  Read more here: https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/Btrfs

-Time Machine and Synology has had a spotty past

-Sam discusses a Wi-Fi upgrade in NYC and replaced aging equipment with Ubiquiti Unifi. He also has some advice on utilizing a Cloud Key.

-He also mentions a handy workaround to test network settings remotely while still needing to reconnect to the remote computer.  Joe recalls a similar solution for another problem.

-Jerry talks about the Unifi In Wall units that he has set up recently: https://inwall.ubnt.com

Thanks as always to our Patreon sponsors!

Listen to the outtakes and learn the origin of this picture!

240: From The Cutting Room Floor

TOPICS:

- Time Machine and its network-equipped brother, Time Capsule, are superb innovations. They make backup seamless, invisible and easy. They’re also slow. Really slow. I’ve had to wait before I put my MacBook Pro to sleep sometimes while a backup finishes and, of course, the initial backup can literally take days.

Here’s how to fix that.

Open a Terminal window, which you’ll find in the Utilities folder within the Applications list, and paste in the following, typing your login password when prompted:

sudo sysctl debug.lowpri_throttle_enabled=0
This command prevents Time Machine’s backup process assuming a low CPU priority, allowing backups to complete insanely quickly. In fact, you’ll see MB and GBs tick past on the Time Capsule progress display in a second-by-second fashion (provided your Mac isn’t very busy with some other task).
http://www.mackungfu.org/massively-speed-up-time-capsule-time-machine-backups

- Karaoke Style With Taylor Boyko

- Running With Adam Engst

Adam C. Engst is the publisher of TidBITS, one of the oldest and most-respected Internet-based newsletters, distributed weekly to tens of thousands of readers. He has written numerous technical books, including the best-selling Internet Starter Kit series, and many magazine articles - thanks to Contributing Editor positions at MacUser, MacWEEK, and Macworld. His innovations include the creation of the first advertising program to support an Internet publication in 1992, the first flat-rate accounts for graphical Internet access in 1993 (with Northwest Nexus for Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh), and the highly successful Take Control electronic book series. In addition, he has collaborated on several Internet educational videos and has appeared on a variety of internationally broadcast television and radio programs. His indefatigable support of the Macintosh community and commitment to helping individuals has resulted in numerous awards and recognition at the highest levels. In the annual MDJ Power 25 survey of industry insiders, he ranked as the second (2000), third (2001, 2002), fourth (2003), fifth (2004), and third (2005/2006) most influential person in the Macintosh industry. He has also been included on the MacTech 25 list of influential people in the Macintosh technical community for both 2006 and 2007, and he was named one of MacDirectory's top ten visionaries. And how many industry figures can boast of being turned into an action figure?

Will O'Neal, founder and president of both Mid-Atlantic and Metro-Atlanta Computer Solutions, has been supporting Macintosh for nearly twenty years. He began his career in 1989 operating Linotronic Typesetters for Darby Graphics and worked his way into technical support after becoming an expert with early versions of page layouts, image editing applications and font management issues. He started MACS in 2002. Since then, the company has grown from just Will to twelve Apple enthusiasts, including six Apple Certified outside technicians. Will holds the title of Apple Certified Technical Coordinator, and he regularly attends classes around the world to stay on top of the latest hardware, software and solutions for business of all types and sizes. Because of Will’s vast experience and desire to stay current on ‘all things Apple’, he is also the Lead Technical Advisor for MACS. He has a passion for providing exceptional service and solutions to his customers. 

239: Joe's Super Secret Password - PSIMacRules!

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TOPICS:

When The Beatles Gave Fans A 'Crimble’ Present
https://www.npr.org/2014/12/21/372257350/when-the-beatles-gave-fans-a-crimble-present

The Kim Komando Show ® and all material pertaining thereto is a Registered Trademark / Servicemark: No. 2,281,044. America's Digital Goddess
https://www.komando.com

Logo (programming language)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language)

238: Interview With Pepijn Bruienne Of DUO Security & The Mac Admins Podcast

Pepijn Bruienne is a Research and Development Engineer at Duo Security in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He breaks Macs to help his employer's customers be more secure. With more than a decade and a half of experience in a variety of Mac Admins areas, his skills include Systems Administration, Operations Management, Mac/Linux/Windows Server and Desktop integration, software deployment, configuration management and process automation.

Pepijn is also co-host of the popular Mac Admins Podcast and friend to our show.  Subscribe today and listen to Pepijn and the crew discuss all things in the Apple IT world.  Listen to the first Command Control Power/Mac Admins crossover show here:
https://podcast.macadmins.org/2017/10/01/episode-53-cultural-exchange-with-sam-valencia/