Mac Admins Podcast

Every organization has a set of norms they follow. Within those are processes that people go through routinely - and those aren’t often documented at new organizations (be they orgs within other orgs or new companies). There have been systems like Six Sigma for tracking those processes, but like how neurons know what paths to take - those are only one part of the brain. EOS is one of those business operating systems, like the OS of...

Lingon has been a part of the MacAdmins toolkit for as long as recent memory caused us to make launch items. Sandkorn became useful around the same time that we had to start looking at application sandboxes. In today’s episode, we interview the person behind these: Peter Borg

Hosts:

• Charles Edge - @cedge318
• Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom

Guests:

• Peter Borg

Transcript:

Click here to read the transcri...

Rapid Security Response, the iMac turns 25, Apple financials, and… WWDC predictions!

Hosts:

• Tom Bridge
• Charles Edge
• Emily Kausalik-Whittle

Transcript:

Click here to read the transcript (brought to you this week by Alectrona)

Links:

• https://www.apple.com/news...

MacAdmins have to manage all kinds of things. We talk a lot about settings and features when it comes to device management. But fonts are one of those things that can be important and in fact a security issue as well. For example, if a drug company uses the wrong font they could face massive penalties from regulators. Employees might send out materials with unlicensed fonts. In today’s episode we’ll talk about what’s i...

“Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it.” - Plato

There are so many different ways to learn about the MacAdmin field. One that we haven’t covered on the pod is the Lynda.com (now LinkedIn) courses that date back to the era of Mac OS X Server. Today, we’ll hear from its creator Sean Collins about his courses, how the industry has evol...

Configuring new devices with Automated Device Enrollment can be a thoroughly magical experience for the end user receiving their machine, but Apple doesn’t have the entire flow programmed in such a way that it’s obvious to the end user what’s happening. Baseline is a new open-source way to handle some of that messaging, and we’re here today to talk with Rob and Trevor from Second Son Consulting in LA about their develo...

Join us today for a live panel episode from the X World conference in Melbourne, Australia

Hosts:

• Tom Bridge - @tbridge@theinternet.social
• Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom
• James Smith - @james@smithjw.me

Guests:

• Tony Gray 
• James Corcoran
• Jon Rhoades
• Merill Fernando
• Bart Reardon

Transcript:

Click here to read the transcript (brought to you this week by Alectrona)

Links:

• X World Sessions

Sponsor...

Packaging every version of each piece of software managed can be incredibly time consuming. Without automation, it would take an inordinate amount of time to download, package, test, and deploy software at a cadence that matches how often third party vendors patch their tools. Autopkg can be one of the biggest time savers for those charged with managing Apple devices. We’ve discussed it in previous episodes but in this episode we’l...

HomeKit and the Home app. There are many like it, but this is the kit (no pun intended) that Apple has vetted for automating the home. This ecosystem of products is the culmination of decades of R&D by the home automation industry, made simple - or simple(ish) by Apple. Yet it doesn’t always work as it says on the tin. In this episode we’ll have a panel with Bob Gendler, Steve Yuroff, and Tim Pearson to talk through what we like, w...

We love APIs. It tells us a little about products and a lot about how various vendors feel about structured automation. In today’s episode we’ll chat about the FileWave API - what can be done, what can’t - and of course, some cool uses in a new age of AI for everything! Our guest is Josh Levitsky, Global Head of Pro Services at FileWave, who gets to tinker with the FileWave APIs often.

Hosts:

• Tom Bridge - @tbridge@the...

There’s always news. So we’ll talk about that for a hot minute. We’ll also talk about how to get the most from products that, well, don’t do everything you want them to do. Or at least the ones that don’t do what you want… yet… In other words, let’s chat about how you convince product managers to build what you need.

Hosts:

• Tom Bridge - @tbridge@theinternet.social
• Charles Edge - @cedge318
• Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom
...

Apple’s version of passkeys are the latest piece of a sprawling identity picture for the Apple platform that isn’t widely supported just yet - which is a perfect time to start learning about it.  Passkeys aren’t just Apple; they’re supported on Mac, Windows, Android, and even in our browsers. This evolution in WebAuthn's capabilities means we don’t need physical tokens (although that’s still an option) to have a second...

We have these computers. And they are truly bastion hosts. Nothing comes in, and only that with which we want goes out. They’re perfect when we finish setting them up. Then people make changes and put apps on there. The changes we can mitigate, the apps require a little more analysis. A common strategy to manage that risk is to employ a reputation-based access such as dictated by zero trust - another is to test apps for vulnerabili...

Spring is coming, and with it, MacADUK’s return to Brighton, England for this year’s first European Mac Admin Conference. We’re talking with two of the organizing committee, Alex Hawes and James Ridsdale about this year’s conference, what attendees can expect, and what’s important to them in a Mac Admins Conference.

Hosts:

• Tom Bridge - @tbridge777
• CHarles Edge - @cedge318
• Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom

Guests:

According to a recent PDQ survey, 85% of people who manage devices are a team of 1. Many of our guests have a small scope to their job: they manage Macs and/or iPhones. But many in IT manage, well, everything. That means being a jack of many traits: knowing just enough about networking, switches, routers, every piece of software used in an organization, budgeting, or whatever is on the docket at the moment. Today we’re going to cov...

We’ve wanted to have an episode with MacPaw since far before Ukraine was invaded on February 24th, 2022. Then we pushed it back over and over out of respect for everything going on. But we’re super-excited to finally have someone on the podcast  to talk about what it was like to go through an invasion, the technical infrastructure, tooling, emotional toll, and how they still managed to get work done 11 months into a war. We welcome...