Jason Snell and Six Colors have opened this year’s Apple in the Enterprise report card, and are soliciting feedback from Mac Admins on how they view Apple’s products in their organization. It’s a great opportunity to share how Apple’s doing inside your org, where your success are and where your problems are. Comments are due…

As the Northern Hemisphere’s Autumn arrives, my mind turns to my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. A big table, as many people as we can fit around it, and everyone has brought something to share with their family and friends. As we prepare to set our own table this year, I want to reflect on the state…

I think it’s fair to say that every Mac Admin I know has a nemesis and it’s softwareupdate. The command line binary that has lived in every Mac since Mac OS X was released has grown much like my cat: reliable, but deeply crotchety, and occasionally, vindictive. Major Upgrades to macOS, that is to say,…

My talk at this year’s MacSysAdmin was released this morning, and it concludes a three-talk series on viewing IT through the lens of popular culture. What began with Chidi, Ted and Jules at PSU in 2021, and continued with User Trust & IT Codes of Ethics concludes today with All At Once. Mac Admins have…

The Secret Service has lately been in some hot water because they failed to backup the text message (and iMessage?) history of the devices issued to their staff during an MDM transition. I talked some with Jason Snell from Six Colors in a recent piece about what happened: iMessage histories may be device specific and limited, and if they…

I love Independence Day. I have for a long time. That doesn’t mean I love who we are as a nation right now, or that we should stop trying to make it a better place, safer for all, more equitable, more loving. I don’t have a ton of patriotism right now. Our democracy feels broken,…

Last week, Apple released beta versions of the macOS Ventura operating system for desktops and the iOS 16 mobile operating system for mobile devices. What does the iOS update mean for MDM? That’s exactly what a friend in the Mac Admin community asked me recently. I thanked them for their candor and request as many…

The most important consideration here is not just how to cut costs out of your team, which is usually a euphemism for getting rid of staff. Instead, the main goal should be how to understand business needs and priorities for the future. Should you keep the same model in place to deliver on those needs,…

I’ve talked about Charlie here before. He’s a large part of my talks these days, as children are often the dominant part of their parents’ lives. Charlie’s 8, he’s in third grade at Capitol Hill Montessori, in a class of just shy of 30 first, second, and third graders. He loves to play with Lego,…