Author: Ben Toms

Because 40

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A couple of weeks ago, was the 40th “birthday” of the Apple Macintosh. Well, today it’s my turn!

Entering my 40th year brings some a couple of milestones.

First up, I started supporting Apple devices when 18/19.. which means that I’ve now supported Apple devices for over half my life!

From working with Apple devices, I’ve been fortunate to visit many places and have met many great people. From those, there is a decent number of which I’ve know for the majority of my time supporting Apple devices and have become firm friends.

And even 20+ years on i’m still enjoying digging into issues and figuring things out, and had one such issue as recent as last week (I intend to blog about it shortly). Being so far into a career and still enjoying it is something to be thankful for.

The other milestone will be on: October 14th 2024. This will be 20 years to the day of my motorbike accident. An accident which almost meant I’d not have made it to 40 and one that has left me disabled since. This isn’t mentioned as a sober thing, (you have to have the bad to appreciate the good), just more that it’s another transformative event with an anniversary this year and that from October 14th 2024 I’ll have been disabled for over half my life.

Anyways, as you’re reading this you’re part of the reason I do what I do. So, thank you and hope to see you soon 🙂

JNUC2023: Extracting data from Jamf Pro: Hints, Tips and Tricks

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During JNUC2023, not only was I invited to speak on a panel but I also delivered a talk, titled: Extracting data from Jamf Pro: Hints, Tips and Tricks.

See below for a link to the video, the GitHub repo with all of the links as well as PDF of the slides, and lastly a link to the JNUC2023 playlist.

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JNUC 2023: Connect, Collaborate and Communicate with Jamf Communities!

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I’ll always remember this past year’s JNUC as a special one.

Not only was I was given the opportunity to speak about my history with the Jamf community, (which is something I’ve posted about here before and can often be heard chatting about), but it was also my first JNUC as a Jamf.

See below for a link to the video and a link to the JNUC2023 playlist.

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Issue accessing certain websites after installing the iOS 16.5.1 (a), iPadOS 16.5.1 (a), and macOS 13.4.1 (a) Rapid Security Responses

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Yesterday, Apple released Rapid Security Responses (RSR’s) for iOS 16.5.1, iPadOS 16.5.1, and macOS 13.4.1.

However, not long after it’s released people started to see issues accessing certain websites via Safari.

In response to this, Apple posted the above shown KB. This KB advises Rapid Security Responses iOS 16.5.1 (b), iPadOS 16.5.1 (b), and macOS 13.4.1 (b) will be available soon to address this issue, and how to remove the RSR’s.

See below for some more details on the issue affecting the iOS 16.5.1, iPadOS 16.5.1, and macOS 13.4.1 RSR’s, how to remove and detect.

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MacAD.UK 2023 – What’s new in macOS Ventura for Mac admins

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At macad.uk 2023 I revisited a talk I gave in November at a dataJAR Tech Series event.

See below for a link to the video, the GitHub repo with all of the links and lastly a link to the macad.uk 2023 playlist on YouTube.

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MacAD.UK Panel 2023

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At this years macad.uk, I was invited to join the MacAdmins.org Podcast on stage for a live podcast.

I accepted, partly due to wanting to keep myself ahead of Joel.. and also as I was 3 ciders in (thanks to VMware for the open bar).

A link to this episode can be found below, and some of the conversation hasn’t aged too well.. with recent announcements made at WWDC.

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Apple platform deployment – Accessing the latest version when your locale is neither en-ca or en-us

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TL;DR – To get the latest version of Apple platform deployment which has been updated as per the above when your locale is neither en-ca or en-us, go to: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/deployment/welcome/web

More details on this below.

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dataJAR Tech Series: What’s new with Ventura for Mac admins

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Next week at macad.uk 2023 I’m revisiting a talk which I gave last November at a dataJAR Tech Series event, and I just realised that I hadn’t posted the talk here.

So this post addresses the oversight!

You can find my talk and it’s slides, as well as the other talks from the days dataJAR Tech Series event here.

JNUC2022 : On Bootstrap Tokens, Secure Tokens, and Volume Ownership

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Not only was I on a panel at JNUC 2022, but I also gave a talk in person too titled: JNUC2022 : On Bootstrap Tokens, Secure Tokens, and Volume Ownership.

Despite me giving this talk in person, Jamf have published the prior recorded remote version (with the majority of talks recorded prior due to JNUC2022‘s hybrid nature).

One difference between this and the panel recording is that this one is COVID-19 free!

See below for a link to the video, the GitHub repo with all of the links and lastly a link to the JNUC2022 playlist.

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JNUC 2022: Patch Management Solutions Panel

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For JNUC 2022, I was invited onto a panel to discuss patch management solutions for Jamf Pro once again.

This followed a similar format to the 2021 panel. Not only did this years panel include myself alongside Armin Briegel, Ryan Ball and Sam Weiss, but we were joined this time by Isaac Ordonez as well.

Sadly, for the recording, I was a little unwell and the following day tested positive for COVID-19. So, if I sound a little off, that’s why.

See below for a link to the panels video, as well as links to the JNUC 2022 YouTube playlist.

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