Mac Admins Podcast

Episode 359: Mac@Cisco - A Mac Admins Perspective

Most of us will have seen or heard about Fletcher Previn’s presentation at JNUC 2023 around the employee choice program at Cisco, and how the numbers stack up for offering the mac. This presentation, and Fletcher’s previous presentations for IBM were described from the perspective of the executives and decision makers, and you our dear listeners will be all too aware that implementing a successful program such as this requires a lot of effort, enthusiasm and collaboration at an engineering l...

Episode 358: Kim Trojanowski on SupportApp

In this episode we meet Kim Trojanowski and hear a little about her experience with SupportApp and finding and working with new tools. Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Guests: Kim Trojanowski - LinkedIn Links: SupportApp - https://github.com/root3nl/SupportApp 2021 SupportApp JNUC Presentation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LijCmR6gQAM README file - https://github.com/root3nl/SupportApp/blob/master/README.md SupportApp Channel on Slac...

Episode 357: Jordan Burnette on Transitioning From A Solo Admin To Team

Being a solo admin is great! So is going to a larger team, where the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. We interview Jordan Burnette about such a transition in today’s episode. Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Guests: Jordan Burnette - LinkedIn Sponsors: Kandji Kolide Watchman Monitoring If you're interested in sponsoring the Mac Admins Podcast, please email [email protected] for more info...

Episode 356: Workbrew

The team from Workbrew joins us this week to discuss the challenges MacAdmins face with Homebrew at their companies. We discuss ways to cut down on IT busywork while also getting ahead with your engineering and security teams with an uncompromising approach to engineering productivity and security posture. Along the way we’ll touch upon maintaining the Homebrew Open Source Project and their approach to building a business around Open Source. Hosts: Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom...

Episode 355: Arek Dreyer - Back By Popular Demand

When polled, one of the most requested guests was one we’ve had on before, Arek Dreyer. So rather than tell Arek, what we wanted to talk about, we thought we’d hit him up for what he wanted to talk about! Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Guests: Arek Dreyer - LinkedIn Links: https://www.instagram.com/p/zRML8gyxFN/ TILLREDA portable induction cooktop, 1 zone white - IKEA Toronto Mac Admins Presentation S...

Episode 354: Cody Thomas

Keychain is one of the best password managers on the market - especially for the money. In this episode, we chat with Cody Thomas about his research into Keychain security, where he was able to find some successes in red teaming, and where his attempts were thwarted! Hosts: Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Guests: Cody Thomas - LinkedIn Links: Cody Thomas at Objective By The Sea 2022 Cody Thomas at Objective By The Sea 2021 Sponsors: Kandji Kolide Siit ...

Episode 353: MacAD for 2024

MacAD returns to Brighton in May of 2024! We’re excited to welcome members of the organizing committee, Maxine & Liam join the podcast to talk about this year’s conference, what attendees can expect, and why you should be booking your trip. Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Guests: Maxine Davenport - LinkedIn Liam Donnelly - LinkedIn Links: https://www.macad.uk [email protected] Sponsors: Kandji Kolide Sii...

Episode 352: Blake Brandon from 1Password

Admins face challenges with their own vaults of secrets. How do we secure/share secrets like passwords, but also those that aren’t, like SSH keys, certs, or passkeys? And what about mass deployments and IdP integrations? Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Guests: Blake Brandon - LinkedIn Links: 1Password: https://1password.com/ Ryan Reynolds & 1Password: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bGNgU-2aBs Ryan Reynold...

Episode 351: Yoann Gini on Bravas

Bravas is a new offering based out of the EU, focused on the small business market. Identity and Device Management together, they’re trying something new for the SMB market. Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Guests: Yoann Gini - LinkedIn Links: Bravas - https://www.bravas.io/en/ JWT - https://jwt.io/ WebAuthN - https://webauthn.io/ Shared Signals Framework - https://openid.net/wg/sharedsignals/ XKCD Standards - https://xkcd.com/927/ K...

Episode 350: Shyam Bhojwani on Workato for MacAdmins

The world is a collection of not-yet-interconnected endpoints. Today, we’re going to talk to Shyam Bhojwani, Director, Business Technology & Cybersecurity on one of the ways to connect those endpoints! Hosts: Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Guests: Shyam Bhojwani - LinkedIn Links: Workato Systematic Community - Workato Sponsors: Kandji Kolide Siit Nudge Security Watchman Monitoring If you're interested in sponsoring the Mac Admins Podcast, pleas...

Episode 349: Andrew Robinson On Evaluating New Tech

New tech comes and goes faster than ever. In today’s episode we’ll look at evaluating when it’s time to come to users with plans and/or products to help them either embrace or hold off on it, with Andrew Robinson. Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Guests: Andrew Robinson - LinkedIn Links: Set up iCloud Keychain – Apple Support (AU) Two-factor authentication for Apple ID User Presence vs User Verification Log into Bitwarden with a pass...

Episode 348: Stuart and Matt On Aftermath

Aftermath is a Swift-based, open-source incident response framework. We’re here with the main contributors to the project to talk about incident response, security life on macOS in late 2023, and using good tools to help make security better. Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Guests: Stuart Ashenbrenner - LinkedIn Matt Benyo - LinkedIn Links: Aftermath on Github: https://github.com/jamf/aftermath Jamf post about Aftermath: https://www.jam...

Episode 347: 2024 Prologue

Flashcast 13: 2023 in Review

A review of the year that was! 2023 was monumental in so many ways – a huge WWDC, great new hardware, a ton of new management concepts – and 2024 is full of promise. Tom, Charles, Marcus, and Emily take us through the highlights, and have a few predictions for what 2024 will bring. Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Dr. Emily Kausalik-Whittle - @emilyooo Links: https://eclecticlight.co/2023/12/02/rip-rsr/ ht...

Episode 346: Dan K. Snelson

Dan Snelson has been in the Apple admin community for a long time and builds lots of great tools to help others. Join us this week to celebrate and learn more about his contributions! Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Guests: Dan K. Snelson - Blog Links: AppleShare IP Xserve macOS Server Kaseya JNUC 2017 Beta Program Honor Roll swiftDialog #swiftdialog MacAdmins Slack Channel #setup-your-mac ...

Episode 345: Scott Reed & Joel Rennich on JumpCloud Go

Authentication is a big challenge for any organization - how do you decide who gets into what resource, with what security mechanism, and from what device? Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Guests: Joel Rennich - LinkedIn Scott Reed - LinkedIn Links: The 1Pass sponsored directory: https://passkeys.directory/ JumpCloud Go: https://jumpcloud.com/support/get-started-jumpcloud-go PKCE Flow: https://oauth.net...

Episode 344: Kevin M. White on Apple Docs Updates

The Apple Platform Deployment Guide is one of the most impressive and important documents that Apple updates about device management with Apple Devices. This week, we’ll be talking about all the updates with returning guest and friend of the podcast Kevin M. White! Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Guests: Kevin M White - LinkedIn Links: Account-driven Device Enrollment How Apple separates user data from org...

Episode 343: Damian Cavanagh on Shortcuts for Admin Tasks

Shortcuts aren’t just a little Applescript goodness that can be used to make droplets. Although you could do that. Shortcuts can be used to perform fairly complex atomic operations. In this session we’ll look at some of the work Damian Cavanagh has posted to his Github, and the crazy lengths he went to in order to have Shortcuts that work with device management options. Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Guests: Damian Cavanagh - LinkedIn Li...

Episode 342: Oleg Stukalenko on Moonlock

After thwarting Russian attackers since well before the invasion, the team at MacPaw in Ukraine has a keen eye on emerging security threats. Today's episode is about their new cybersecurity division called Moonlock. Hosts: Charles Edge - @cedge318 Guests: Oleg Stukalenko - LinkedIn Links: https://moonlock.com/macos-sonoma-security-and-privacy https://moonlock.com/mac-security-survey-2023 Sponsors: Kandji Kolide Watchman Monitoring If you're interested in sponsoring the Mac Ad...

Episode 341: Jason Dettbarn

Fall is that time of the year when we can take stock of the latest Apple releases, measure them against what our expectations were, and see how much tech debt piled up trying to keep up with Apple! We’ll talk through what that looks like from the perspective of an MDM vendor in today’s episode, with Jason Dettbarn, from Addigy. Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Guests: Jason Dettbarn - LinkedIn Links: Mac Admins ...

Episode 340: Ashok Amirthalingam on the Mac, Digital Transformation, and Cloud Holdouts

“Digital transformation” can mean a lot of things to different people. In this episode we unpack it, look at how it helps drive Apple adoption, and maybe get productive (which doesn’t often seem to be the goal of digital transformation but should be). Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Guests: Ashok Amirthalingam - Mac Admins Slack Sponsors: Kandji Kolide Watchman Monitoring If you're interested in sponsoring the Mac Admins Podcast, please ...

Episode 339: Just Us - Getting from A to B

We have had so many wonderful guests on the Mac Admins Podcast, telling us about things they have created, workflows they have implemented or products they have integrated in their environments. It can be overwhelming to look at your own setup and want it to look like all the things you may have heard about here, or read about on slack, or watched someone present about at one of the many Mac Admins conferences around the world. Today we are going to talk about some tips that may help you to ...

Episode 338: Ben Greisler on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle (and Mac) Maintenance

Episode 337: Gene Reich tells all about JNUC

Gene Reich from Point joins the pod this week to tell us all about the 2023 edition of the Jamf Nation User Conference in Austin!  Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Guests: Gene Reich - LinkedIn Sponsors: Kandji Kolide Watchman Monitoring If you're interested in sponsoring the Mac Admins Podcast, please email [email protected] for more information. Get the latest about the Mac Admins Podcast, follow us...

Episode 336: Live at MacSysAdmin

Join Tom, Charles, and Emily as they host the Speaker Q&A at MacSysAdmin 2023. Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Emily Kausalik-Whittle - @emilyooo Links: MacSysAdmin Conference 2023 Sponsors: Kandji Kolide Watchman Monitoring If you're interested in sponsoring the Mac Admins Podcast, please email [email protected] for more information. Get the latest about the Mac Admins Podcast, follow us on Twitter! We're @MacAdmPodcast! The M...

Episode 335: Just Us on Sonoma and iOS 17

Sonoma dropped this weekend, and while this episode will be about a week out, it’s worth talking about something we haven’t really touched on: how vendors define the guidance they give their customers. Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Click here to read the transcript Sponsors: Kandji Kolide Watchman Monitoring If you're interested in sponsoring the Mac Admins Podcast, please email [email protected] fo...

Episode 334: What's new at Apple with Jeremy Butcher

Jeremy Butcher rejoins the Mac Admins Podcast to talk about Apple’s new operating systems for 2023, and all the technologies that Mac Admins can look forward to trying out this Fall! Are you ready for Managed Apple IDs that do more for your business? Are you excited for Software Update with deadlines? Let’s dive in. Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Guests: Jeremy Butcher - LinkedIn Links: Apple Business Essentia...

Episode 333: Henry and Eric on GitOps

Today’s episode with Henry & Eric from Zentral looks at what this means in practice and how modern code management tools common in GitOps and infrastructure as code are helping shape an emerging modern device management approach. Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Guests: Henry Stamerjohann - LinkedIn Éric Falconnier - LinkedIn Links: Episode 170: Identity Crisis with Henry Stamerjohann – Mac Admins Podcast Episode 23: Live at Mac AD UK wi...

Flashcast 12: Wonderlust

Join our hosts as we discuss all the announcements from Apple's September 2023 Event, Wonderlust. Hosts: Tom Bridge Charles Edge Erin Merchant Sponsors: Kandji Kolide Watchman Monitoring If you're interested in sponsoring the Mac Admins Podcast, please email [email protected] for more information. Get the latest about the Mac Admins Podcast, follow us on Twitter! We're @MacAdmPodcast! The Mac Admins Podcast has launched a Patreon Campaign! Our named patrons this month i...

Episode 332: GitHub Actions and Automating MDM Infrastructure

Automation is important for all of us, especially a margin business like an MSP. In todays episode we’ll chat with Bobby Hardaway and Ryon Riley of Advisory Solutions to hear about how they automate Jamf infrastructure with GitActions. Hosts: Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Guests: Bobby Hardaway - LinkedIn Ryon Riley - LinkedIn Links: GitHub Actions: https://github.com/features/actions Advisory Solutions: https://advisorymsp.com/ Penn State MacAdmins...

Episode 331: HomeKit Panel Part 2

We had a lovely conversation with Bob Gendler, Steve Yuroff, and Tim Pearson about home automation and specifically HomeKit and the Home App in a previous episode, but we didn’t get to everything. So we decided to have a second one! In this episode we’ll get more into onboarding of devices, Siri voice control, security, automation, and troubleshooting.  Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Guests: Tim Pearson - Linked...

Episode 330: Ben Greiner on Evangelising With MSPs

Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Transcript: Click here to read the transcript Sponsors: Kandji Kolide Alectrona Watchman Monitoring If you're interested in sponsoring the Mac Admins Podcast, please email [email protected] for more information. Get the latest about the Mac Admins Podcast, follow us on Twitter! We're @MacAdmPodcast! The Mac Admins Podcast has launched a Patreon Campaign! Our named...

Episode 329: ZTNA with Kane Narraway

Today’s episode features Kane Narraway talk through his journeys with ZTNA - what they are, what they do, selection criteria, how they integrate with other tools, and all the fun bits that go into getting a pretty interface to wireguard to work seamlessly in your environment. Hosts: Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Guests: Kane Narraway - LinkedIn Links: Black Hat Sessions: https://www.blackhat.com/us-23/briefings/schedule/ Defcon Sessions: https://defcon.org...

Episode 328: Elliot Jordan and Escrow Buddy

Today’s guest is Elliot Jordan, Senior Client Systems Engineer at Netflix, here to talk Escrow Buddy, Recipe Robot, AutoPkgr, and about all the fun projects he’s been involved in over the years! Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Guests: Elliot Jordan Transcript: Click here to read the transcript Links: Mike Solin’s Post on Focus Modes: https://mikesolin.com/2023/08/05/finding-balance-while-working-remotely/...

Episode 327: Community Management with Becky Scott

Episode 326: Training Up Junior Admins and Support Staff with Evan Walker

Episode 325: Karthikeyan on Being a MacAdmin in India

The job of a MacAdmin is a global affair. We’ve done episodes with guests in a number of countries, but wanted to focus on what it’s like in a nation with over 1.4 billion people that’s projected to be the most populous country in the near future. Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Guests: Karthikeyan Marappan - LinkedIn Sponsors: Kandji SimpleMDM Kolide Watchman Monitoring If you're interested in sponsor...

Episode 324: Mykola Savin of Setapp

Episode 323: Collin Elliot on AppleTV Management

Many of our listeners will have set up AppleTVs at work. Some might use device management tools to configure one or more AppleTVs in ways that allow them to be used in corporate or education environments. We’ll talk through the nuance of AppleTV management in this episode, with Collin Elliot. Hosts: Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom Charles Edge - @cedge318 Guests: Collin Elliott - LinkedIn Transcript: Click here to read the transcript (brought to you this week by Alectrona) Links: ...

Episode 322: Operating Systems for Businesses (Part 2)

Episode 321: Vision Pro Panel with Bryson and Rich

Vision Pro could be the next big Apple product to change the way humans interact with computing devices. In this episode, we’ll look at some of the SDKs, sensors, and other technologies that have been in the making for a decade that make this technology possible. We’ll explore successes and failures of competing platforms, and think a little about the Vision Pro in the sense of device management, support, and what we might do with them in offices, which shapes how we might manage and support...

Episode 320: Managing Macs Like We Manage Code

A lot of organizations want to treat device management like we treat code. Check in changes, get a second party to approve the check in, and the change goes live. That second set of eyes on a change provides a proactive approach to the security of changes made. It also helps mitigate small mistakes that can have a substantial impact on how users interact with their technology. We can then string together a collection of workflows to pipeline facts about devices to a SEIM or trigger events in...

Episode 319: TC Niedzialkowski on CISOs and MacAdmins

Early in the podcast, there were plenty of stories of MacAdmins who had contentious relationships with security teams. We hear less and less of that every year. It still happens, but far less. We’ve had guests on to tell us how platform teams can work with infosec, but today we’re joined by a CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) to give some tips coming from the other direction. Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Marcus Ransom - @marcusransom...

Flashcast 11: WWDC 2023

It’s that time of the year again, when Apple drops mad-crazy-awesome-sauce updates on us. We’re used to iterative updates that make our lives better. This year we also have new products to manage. No word on whether there will be any management of Vision OS - but we’ll soon be managing Apple Watches. Because see, these are all computers - just like the Vision Pro. In today’s episode we’ll spend far more time talking about hardware, software, and management options. But in the meantime, let’s...

Episode 318: MacAD.UK Panel 2023

Join Tom & Charles as they chat with Joel Rennich and Ben Toms at the 2023 MacAD.UK Conference in Brighton, England. Hosts: Tom Bridge - @[email protected] Charles Edge - @cedge318 Guests: Joel Rennich Ben Toms Transcript: Click here to read the transcript (brought to you this week by Alectrona) Sponsors: Kandji Kolide dataJAR Alectrona Watchman Monitoring If you're interested in sponsoring the Mac Admins Podcast, please email [email protected] for more ...

Episode 317: Operating Systems for Businesses (Part 1)

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 the brain, that is more comprehensive than just processes, b...

Episode 316: Peter Borg

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 transcript (brought to you this week by Alectrona) Links: Peter Borg Apps Placing Cont...

Episode 315: Just Us

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/newsroom/2023/05/apple-reports-second-quarter-results/ Rapid Security Response on The IT Hour: The IT Hour | Rapid Security Response updates from Apple 5.5.23 https://scriptingosx.com/2023/05/weekly-news-summary-for-admi...

Episode 314: All About Fonts with Glenn Kowalski

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 involved in font management: how to get the right fonts on the right device...

Episode 313: NanoMDM

The world of open source MDMs continues to evolve. We’ve had guests on to talk about open source mdm tools in the past but this is one of those episode topics that should come back up routinely. Especially when we see larger scale operations. Today we’ll talk about how NanoMDM could be  used to build a dynamic and flexible event-based mdm platform. This type of system is broadly useful to multiple different types of orgs and can have great security benefits. Hosts: Tom Bridge, Principal P...