347: Dream On

Topics:

-Not surprisingly, a UniFi topic kicks off the show.  As Jerry rolls his eyes about the UniFi Dream Machine, it appears UniFi has released a rack mountable Dream Machine Pro: https://store.ui.com/products/udm-pro

-Joe recounts a story of him installing a Dream Machine and Flex HD
https://store.ui.com/products/unifi-dream-machine
https://store.ui.com/products/unifi-flexhd

-Joe has a PSA  and UniFi best practices to share: Turn off Settings > Site > Uplink Connectivity Monitor (only if no mesh access points in use!). Turn off Settings > Site > Auto-Optimize Network. Turn off Settings > Wireless Networks > SSID > Advanced Options > High Performance Devices. 
Modify the DTIM Period? 

-Wi-Fi channel management and manual vs automatic is something Sam & Jerry differ on

-DHCP vs static vs DHCP reservations.  What do you do?

-Joe has a new business idea for an auto power cycling router

-The gang jokes about photos clients take and send to help diagnose issues

-Sam discovers that you can set up a single UniFi access point without the use of a controller and simply use the app

-UniFi “rolling upgrades” via the controller can be confusing, as noted by Joe when doing it recently.  It's mostly been successful, because the Start Rolling Upgrade button is only available when viewing the "Wireless" tab, which only lists the APs – and yet, it includes the switch update as part of it 

-Jerry has a client that requires manual firmware of their 16 Ubiquiti UniFi devices using SSH

-Zendesk has a great API to use with mail clients so you can quickly change the status of tickets, assign to agents, etc.  Sam discovers this late in the Zendesk game but it has already made him much more efficient dealing with tickets: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203691006-Using-the-Mail-API-to-update-ticket-properties-from-your-inbox

-Another PSA from Joe, Apple has begun recycling serial numbers for Mac computers so companies like Watchman Monitoring need a new method of determining the estimated age of a machine.
https://beetstech.com/blog/decode-meaning-behind-apple-serial-number
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/01/06/apple-randomized-serial-numbers-late-2020/

-Sam has an odd end result when dealing with an old issue of Spotlight being unable to search Outlook emails

-The “Focused” email in Outlook can be too easy to click on and confuse the user.  Jerry has seen this all too often.  Joe wants to rename it “randomly hide some of my stuff”.

-As the spotlight conversation goes on, Joe mentions a script he created in Addigy to destroy and rebuild the spotlight database: https://prod.addigy.com/#/macmanage/community/scripts/5dddb3325ff0a156d595558d

346: Vandelay Tech Industries

Topics:

-Jerry & Sam have a rare show together

-Sam is short staffed for a week and, of course, everything happens at once

-A discussion brews about the state of business in Connecticut 

-Working remotely is something Joe is very familiar with but Sam discusses working remotely with clients that move out of state

-An Apple retail store is relocating to a closer location to Sam & Joe, possibly creating new opportunities

-When business is slow, Jerry has some methods of drumming up business by developing partnerships.  One example is Drive Savers’ partner program: https://drivesaversdatarecovery.com/partner-programs/

-Another great podcast that Jerry suggest (and Sam won’t listen to) is “The Dream” https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dream/id1435743296

-Sam was in a difficult spot training a fellow consultancy on Jamf Pro for a client.  When their newly trained employee left, the client was now left in the lurch.

-Jerry talks about some red flags to look out for when meeting with potential new clients

-As Sam tries to automate more in his business, he came across a Zendesk integration called Deadline, by SweetHawk: https://www.zendesk.com/apps/support/deadline/

 -A tip from Jerry for after hours or automated replies to inquiries is the smith.ai web widget: https://docs.smith.ai/article/pzfvnbq5xl-how-to-access-your-smith-ai-live-chat-widget-code

-Sam is exploring a similiar web widget from Zendesk: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203908456-Using-Web-Widget-to-embed-customer-service-in-your-website

-Teaser for another show, Sam goes head first into Addigy functionality and finds a treasure trove of features

345: Taekwondo MSP

Topics:

-Sam is on the island of Manhattan teaching a Jamf class

-He also has an update to the issues affecting him since upgrading to Catalina, including the loss of iCloud reminders.

-Besides blocking Catalina with Addigy and other MDM solutions, ignoring Catalina in Software Update is a good addition: sudo softwareupdate —ignore “macOS Catalina”

-Sam describes frustrations when attempting to set up voice recognition using “Hey Siri” on his HomePod

-Making a push through Addigy is a focus Sam Is trying to make a priority in 2020

-A bug in Safari with Addigy is properly displaying APNs Push Certificate expiration dates.  Other browsers work as expected.

-Joe has had success with clients using secure passwords with the strong password feature in Safari

-Follow up to Joe’s SIM hacking issue with his client - the department that handles issues with porting at Verizon is the Unauthorized Port Team

-A client that Sam parted ways with had decided to fight his final bill so a mutually agreed upon number

-Sam decided to add verbiage to his MSP that ensures his company is always involved in the decision making for technology related purchases

-A big thank you to Richard Wingfield and Justin Esgar for solid advice in Sam updating his MSP agreement

-New billing practices, additional details, and per user/per device pricing are some of the changes and updates that are being planned out

-The next trick is to find the time to implement all of these changes

344: No Worries

Topics:

-Joe cracks one open to start the show

-Jerry & Joe discuss business at the start of the new year

-As a follow up to Joe’s recent client security issues, they talk about various pieces of advice that clients may or may not follow

-As things change, it does create work for our consultancies

-With Catalina, Migration Assistant has proven challenging as it can misreport successful migrations

-As Joe goes deeper into some Catalina war stories, Mail data loss becomes a bit of a nightmare

-The battle rages on over upgrading early and challenges persist

-Joe & Jerry take a stroll down memory lane in Mac history

-Joe reveals that Tim Nyberg, of The Mac Guys+ & patron of the show sent him a Macintosh SE30 to add to his Mac Museum

-Jerry has rave reviews about a product called Turbo Boot Switcher, recommended by Marco Arment.  He says it has done wonders to improve battery life on his MacBook Pro: https://www.rugarciap.com/turbo-boost-switcher-for-os-x/

-Mac Updater will scan your system to tell you which apps need updating: http://www.corecode.io

-As Jerry keeps the recommendations rolling, he talks about some great apps from Patrick Wardle, including knockknock & lulu: https://objective-see.com

-Jerry’s latest peeve is when clients respond with “no worries”

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

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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