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561: UniFi-ed by Chaos: Adventures in Ubiquiti Network Warfare

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  • Discussing the new MacBook Air M3 and its migration process

  • Highlighting the improvements in data transfer speeds

  • Network hardware lifespan and how to recommend upgrades to clients

  • Signs to look for to determine if network hardware needs to be upgraded

  • Discussing the benefits of Wifi 7

  • Common challenges faced during network upgrades and how to address them

  • Exploring Ubiquiti UniFi products including the Flex Switch and Switch Ultra

  • The client needed to replace an access point with a switch and an access point.

  • The client also had a builder working on their house who reset the network devices, causing additional problems.

  • The issue was resolved after the network devices were reconfigured.

  • Learned that the client should not touch the network devices and to label them accordingly.

  • Unifi devices were discussed. There are pros and cons to pre-configuring the devices on site vs on location. ░

560: Interview with Justin Esgar of ACES Conference - May 15th - 16th 2024

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Thank you to our VIP sponsors!

▶️ New: watch on YouTube!

Topics:

-Today we welcome Justin Esgar of Virtual Computers and The ACES Conference.

-Justin gives us his full review of Vision Pro.

-Joe gets practical about flying with a Vision Pro.

-Justin recommends a book called MSP Secrets Revealed (he happens to be in it as well).

-He does not recommend crying while wearing a Vision Pro.

-Our show now uses Streamyard, which Justin highly recommends.

-ACES Conference is back live!

-This is not a technical conference. Rather, it’s more about improving the ways we run and profit from our MSP practices.

-Justin tells us about many of the great names that will be in attendance, as well as Apple and other sponsors.

-Super Ops is giving away an Apple Vision Pro at ACES Conference!

-There will be great swag given away and, as Joe mentions, the hallway sessions.

-This is the 10th ACES Conference!

-Justin tells us why he started, and continues to run this conference.

-All sponsors have some requirements from Justin - no roadmaps.

-Make yourself accountable when you are there. Make the best use of your time.

-We talk about the ACES Mastermind Program. They group meets regularly to help each other accelerate growth of their businesses.

-Use the code commandcontrolpower for 10% off the ACES Conference!

-They are also offering a travel stipend. If your cost of travel is $650 or more ACES will help make it more accessible to be there.

-If the content doesn’t draw you in, come for the skiing!

-Both Joe and Adam Rice have their anniversaries during ACES.

Thank you to our Patreon sponsors!

559: Talking NSITSP with Jason Harrison of Harrison Technology Consulting

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▶️ New: watch on YouTube!

Topics:

-This week we welcome Jason Harrison, of Harrison Tech Consulting.

-He is also heavily involved with NSITSP (National Society for IT Service Providers).

-Jason takes us through the history of his consulting practice, where he handles a variety of operating systems.

-We discuss how IT support is not just supporting the endpoint anymore. You have to be a security expert as well.

-Jason says this is also where the NSITSP comes in.

-The idea of NSITSP is that our industry wasn’t represented well. It is a completely member driven organization that aims to establish high standards and ethics and improve the credibility of IT providers.

-The other aspect of the organization is that legislation is inevitable, and it would serve all of our best interests to be a part of crafting that legislation.

-Sam curiously asks about their code of ethics.

-Compare our industry and ethics to that of a locksmith who may have privileged access and has to have their own code of ethics.

-Want to get involved? Visit NSITSP and look at the membership and volunteering options.

-Switching gears, we get into a conversation about cloud vs private data storage.

-Understand the lack of regulation around cloud data storage.

-Jason uses Kerio Connect and Kerio Control for private cloud setups.

-Just call Jason “Mr. On Premises.”

-Some of the questions to ask a client are their tolerance for risk, exposure, and speed needs.

558: Battery Powered M4 iMac

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Topics:

-We talk about on air meltdowns and recall similar situations when dealing with clients.

-When dealing with a financial site, Jerry works with support to “enable cross website tracking”. Tech support is impressed with his technical prowess.

-Similarly, Sam has experienced issues loading the Microsoft 365 admin panes when in Safari private browsing. Refreshing and reducing protection features allows it to work.

-Joe mentions using profiles in Google Chrome as a resolution. Sam uses Arc for this purpose.

-Joe & Sam talk about their 1Password experiences.

-1Password searching can now search note contents (again).

-They also adjusted their billing methods to bill for unverified accounts.

-Joe explains how to find items in macOS.

-Jerry was dealing with a client that kept having QuickBooks issues using Parallels. It turned out to be a feature that will “pause” Windows when idle.

-In another Parallels story, Jerry finds a resolution to his problem with Joe’s help…by finding our own show notes!

-Should you run AutoCAD on Parallels?

-Jerry runs into an issue with MacPractice at a high priority client after a security update. Unbelievably, MacPractice not only does not support macOS Sonoma, but even the latest updates of Ventura.

556: Assume The Magic Pose

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Thank you to our VIP sponsors!

▶️ New: watch on YouTube!

Topics:

-We get into the future of Vision Pro and whether or not we will be getting one of our own.

-What are the ideas or use cases for the Vision Pro and is the cost worth it?

-Would you pay to rent a Vision Pro?

-Sam wants to know if people “dress up” for video calls.

-Sam recently set up zoom rooms and new A/V equipment.

-Joe had some issues with continuity camera and how apps will only see the iPhone when it is in the “magic pose”.

-Jerry has an “I should have known this” moment with text messaging.

-Hudu is an online documentation tool used by Jerry & Sam. Jerry had concerns about storing sensitive data, like passwords.

-Joe’s dad has a curious issue with his iPhone Home Screen.

-An ex freelancer of a client Joe supports had an issue where the company Lock Screen message still appeared on the screen, even after unenrolling from MDM. Turned out to be a FileVault issue.

To be discussed on a future show:

-How much do we actually need Watchman Monitoring? Can an MDM like Addigy fill the void?

-Apple rescoring recent exams

Thanks to our Patreon sponsors!

555: A Desperate Cry For Help

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▶️ New: watch on YouTube!

Topics:

-Has Sam really not backed up in an extraordinary amount of time?

-This sparks a discussion about backup policies in general.

-We talk about the 3-2-1 backup strategy and how relevant it still is.

-Joe shares a client story about how a calendar syncing app removed calendar history.

-If you’re a consultant, finding a backup service with affiliate options can be beneficial financially.

-We are constantly fighting the good fight about keeping macOS and hardware up to date.

-Joe charges a fee for working with unsupported Mac computers.

-There is a difference of what we will support, depending on residential vs business clients.

-How reliable is Time Machine?

-We share some details from our rates and plans survey. Join us on Patreon to hear more.

553: The Mac at 40 With Chris Hawver, Tim Pearson, Ted Freitas & Steve Sorbo

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Celebrate 40 years of the Mac with Sam Valencia, Jerry Zigmont, and Joe Saponare, seasoned Apple Consultants Network members. These tech experts share 20+ years of experience through discussions on: solving tech support mysteries, hilarious client stories, and the Mac's impact on technology and culture. Joining them are Chris Hawver, Tim Pearson, Ted Freitas, and Steve Sorbo for a nostalgic journey.

552: Exploring Installomator with Isaac Ordonez of Mann Consulting

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Topics:

-Today we will cover Installomator - an excellent Github project originally designed by Armin Briegel, creator of scriptingosx.com and friend of the show.

-To help further that discussion, we welcome Isaac Ordonez, Director of Technology at Mann Consulting.

-Isaac handles a number of different instances and has a lot of experience in Installomator.

-He gives us the breakdown of how Installomator can benefit your fleet. Namely by helping to manage updates.

-Starting out in high school, Isaac has been managing Mac computers for a number of years.

-The days of imaging long behind him, he knew he needed an updated approach to package management and updating applications.

-Isaac talks about “recipes” and how Installomator finds application versions and can help deliver using an MDM.

-The benefit of running from something like Jamf is that the script doesn’t have to be at rest on the client workstation.

-The Installomator channel in the MacAdmins Slack is an incredible resource for support that Isaac contributes to.

-Big shout out to Adam Codega and Sóren Theilgaard!

-Installomator has a print log function. Isaac takes advantage of that by writing all of his instances to a central log.

-They write their logs to Data Dog.

-Sam talks about how he leaned on Sóren to assist with his first Installomator deployment.

-Jerry wants to know more about Swift Dialog.

-Forcing updates for App Store apps is unmanageable. When there are packaged versions, it helps to go that route with something like Installomator.

-If you need assistance getting Installomator off the ground and/or managing, reach out to Isaac’s team at Mann Consulting.

551: Triumphs, Twists, and Unexpected Joys

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Topics:

-We have recently completed our rates survey. Stay tuned for more information.

-Jerry wants to know what has changed about our businesses for the better.

-Recurring fees have been a tremendous change for him.

-He also purchases a 2023 Mac Mini to filter out his spam emails. He uses SpamSieve to filter out junk mail.

-MacAdmins Slack has a for sale channel.

-Jerry also uses the new Mac mini for home automation.

-Joe & Sam discuss their automations as well.

-For 2024, Sam has been leaning into automation (no reference to the above). Using tools like Setup Your Mac, coupled with a setup guide, has made new user setup virtually hands off for IT.

-Another great open source tool called SYM Helper has made the script configuration much, much easier.

-Joe has some excellent points about certain features that would be great to be a function of MDM and not things we have to find open source solutions for.

-Because of confusion of updates vs full version upgrades, Joe & Sam had to disable their Nudge update prompts.

-Sam had a real problem with AWS VPN on Sonoma that he could not sort out. Once he did, he packaged up the solution and placed it in Self Service for users to correct themselves.

-Joe mentions how he permanently closed his office.

-Joe uses a recovery company called Data Savers, which Jerry has never heard of.

-Both Jerry & Joe have affiliate sites for some of their partner programs. Sam needs to purchase some domains…

549: Embrace The Action Button

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Topics:

-Jerry was recently studying for the Apple Device Support Exam when he discovered Handoff was not working properly.

-Handoff and Universal Clipboard are features of Apple’s Continuity.

-Eventually, signing out of iCloud on both devices and signing back in corrected the issue. As an aside, he had to turn off ScreenTime in order to sign out of iCloud.

-An alternative solution, via this YouTube video resolved Universal Clipboard for most by running this command: defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.coreservices.useractivityd.plist ClipboardSharingEnabled 1

-Joe is very happy with the new iPhone and the Max size.

-He talks about the new Action button. His three favorite actions are easier ways to activate the flashlight. the camera, or begin a voice recording.

-Jerry goes for the larger screen just to avoid enlarging the default font size.

-Do you use the Always-On display?

-As people “surrender to the cloud”, there is less of a need for local storage solutions.

-Promise and OWC are two common options that we see out in the field.

-A new topic arises - how much do we want to rely on cloud storage?

-A marketer leaves Joe a poem after multiple attempts to reach him.

-Jerry & Chat GPT create a reply.

-After the closing bell, Joe gives us the results of the YouTube advice he followed from Jerry.

Alternative solutions for fixing Handoff:

  • Disable Handoff in System Preferences

  • Open Terminal and run: rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.coreservices.useractivityd.plist

  • Keychain Access → delete "handoff-own-encryption-key"

  • Restart in Safe Mode (hold Cmd+R to do that)

  • System Prefs → Enable Handoff

  • Reboot

Hello, World!

548: Interview With Chad Swarthout and Ryan Ball of Alectrona - Patch Management

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Thank you to our VIP sponsors!

Topics:

-We are pleased to welcome back Chad Swarthout, founder & CEO of Alectrona. We also have the pleasure of welcoming Ryan Ball, Director of Engineering at Alectrona.

-Chad was on the show back in 2019

-We discuss the road Alectrona has taken since back in 2019.

-Chad had the insight to go fully remote and close his office prior to the pandemic of 2020.

-A majority of their clients have offsite employees as well.

-All of the clients Alectrona has taken on since the pandemic have been all over the country.

-Jerry wants to know more about how they acquire clients outside of their local area.

-They tend to try and meet with customers on a regular basis to keep in contact and be aware of what needs changes.

-Chad talks about how they found a need for patch management in many of their Jamf engagements.

-From there, Alectrona Patch was born

-Ryan gets into the details of how Alectrona Patch works, mainly by the use of a configuration profile.

-Multiple times a day, they system polls for product updates to have them ready for update deployment.

-They account for a variety of installer formats like DMGs, PKGs, and zip files.

-Alectrona Patch is meant to by deployed via MDM.

-Learn more at https://www.alectrona.com/patch

-Alectrona Patch is on a monthly consumption model. $2.50/Mac per month up to 199 Mac computers. For larger needs, reach out to their team for pricing.

-Monthly pricing is based on how many unique devices are reaching out to their content server.

-Ryan & Chad talks about the back end details of how the tool works.

-Joe wants to know if Dolly Drive is supported.

-Another tool that Alectrona offers is called Migrator

-Migration Assistant has caused issues in business environments so the Alectrona team wanted to create a replacement for offsite users to seamlessly migrate to a new computer.

-This also sped up the return rate for previous computers.

-Jerry wants to know about white labeling, which the Alectrona products can support.

-You can reach out to the team about Alectrona Patch by visiting their MacAdmins Slack channel.

Thank you to our Patron sponsors!

Configure Down Alerts for UniFi networks

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UniFi has become an industry standard network platform and a popular choice among Apple Consultants. Surely you’ve heard us discuss our UniFi experiences on the podcast. In fact, we discussed the topic of down alerts for UniFi networks on episode #538: Welcome All Pings.

Why is this necessary?

UniFi offers solid options for built-in push notifications delivered to your mobile device or email, including for important events like when your network switches to backup internet or backup power, hits an LTE Data Limit, or detects a rogue client or access point for example.

But one very obvious omission is the ability to alert an admin when the network goes down. This prompts an equally obvious question: how is the network supposed to alert you when it’s down – when it’s down? That’s a fair question for a locally-hosted controller, but with Remote Access enabled, this shouldn’t be an issue since the UniFi controller shows in the UniFi Site Manager at unifi.ui.com. In fact, the Site Manager will indicate if a network is down and when last reported online. So why doesn’t it have an option to alert the admin?

In this post, I’ll provide instructions on how to configure down alerts to be sent by push notification and/or email when your UniFi network goes offline, using NameCheap for Dynamic DNS and UptimeRobot for monitoring.

Read on for the full instructions…

Read More