I’m eagerly awaiting the new modular Mac Pro. I hope Apple offers a PCI expansion chassis, standard M.2 SSDs (or reasonably priced proprietary SSD cards), and standard PC graphics cards. In other words, give us outstanding hardware without crippling the expandability and gouging your customers. New iMacs. Fusion drives and rotating drives should be omitted…
Bundlehunt is offering a wide variety of discounted Mac applications in its holiday bundle. It costs $5 to “unlock” the bundle and the applications range in price from $1 to $7. Note that these apps vary in quality. Some are bargains, others are not. If you’re a MacMaven client, feel free to contact me if…
APFS is Apple’s new file system, introduced in High Sierra. One of my favorite features of APFS is its partitioning mechanism. APFS volumes can be added and removed with ease to a container using Disk Utility. What’s fantastic is that there is no need to size APFS volumes. The volumes will grow and shrink…
Yubico sells Mac-compatible USB authentication keys for two-factor authentication. Its YubiKeys support a slew of authentication mechanisms. I just started working with their FIPS-validated key for one of my clients. Yubico’s FIPS keys appear to be functionally equivalent to their YubiKey 4 series. (Yubico is currently selling the 5 series for those customers without a need…
I’ve been using Mojave for a week and I’m still impressed. It’s a very stable operating system. While the core OS has been working well, I’ve encountered third-party compatibility issues. The most serious issue is that QuickBooks for Mac 2019, which is supposed to be compatible with Mojave, crashes consistently when the customer payments…
I took the plunge and installed macOS Mojave on my 2009 Mac Pro (with firmware hack) right after it was released. So far, so good. Here are my initial findings and thoughts: The installer required a Mac Pro firmware update to version 138.0.0.0.0. During the installation I saw a black screen for 50 minutes,…
I usually write about my clients’ computing woes, but even Mac consultants have their own problems. A few weeks ago my 2009 Mac Pro starting exhibiting serious issues. I had kernel panics and hard crashes a couple of times a day. When I restarted the machine, it wouldn’t boot most of the time. The fans…
While my regular clients hire MacMaven for IT and information security work, I often get calls from new clients with computing problems. An analogy could be made with plumbing. A plumber’s big jobs involve installation of pipes, sinks, showers, etc. Oftentimes a plumber is called to deal with a clogged toilet. These are the…
Companies that require information security leadership typically hire someone in a CISO or Director of Information Security position. You might be wondering what the differences are between these security top dog roles. At their core, they have the same responsibility – to protect a firm’s data and systems. However, what a recruiter or job ad…
In the latest versions of iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra, you now have the option of storing your iMessages in iCloud. There are two benefits. First, your messages are synced across your devices. When you delete a conversation on one device, the conversation is deleted on all your devices. Second, your older messages…