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The Day I Unmanaged a Mac Into a Corner

There are a few kinds of mistakes you make as a Mac admin. There are the ones that cost you time, the ones that cost you sleep, and then there are the ones that leave you staring at a perfectly good laptop thinking, “How did I possibly make this *less* manageable by touching it?” These mistakes often stem from a lack of understanding or experience with macOS, but they can also be the result of rushing through tasks or not taking the time to properly plan and test.

Dec 10, 2025

31% AI Use · AI Era

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articles abm-warranty

Introducing ABM Warranty for macOS

If you manage Apple devices at scale, you already know that **Apple Business Manager (ABM)** provides warranty data — but in practice, it’s extremely limited. It doesn’t provide workflow-friendly insights, it doesn’t surface actionable coverage states, and it doesn’t help you wrangle the ever-growing complexity of **AppleCare+ renewals** across hundreds or thousands of devices. This lack of comprehensive information can lead to missed renewal deadlines, unnecessary costs, and a higher risk of device downtime due to expired warranties.

Nov 14, 2025

35% AI Use · AI Era

Exploring the Apple Business Manager API: A Hands-On Playground

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Exploring the Apple Business Manager API: A Hands-On Playground

If you’ve ever tried to talk directly to the **Apple Business Manager (ABM) API**, you already know the process can feel like deciphering a secret code. Between private keys, encrypted certificates, ES256 signatures, and OAuth2 flows... there’s a lot going on under the hood. This complexity is what makes direct communication with ABM so challenging, requiring a deep understanding of its intricacies to navigate successfully.

Nov 14, 2025

44% AI Use · AI Era

Updating Safari on macOS with Jamf Pro: Three Practical Strategies

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Updating Safari on macOS with Jamf Pro: Three Practical Strategies

Keeping Safari updated is one of the simplest ways to harden a macOS fleet. Apple ships security fixes for Safari frequently, and those patches often land before a full macOS point release. This means that by keeping Safari up-to-date, you can ensure your users have access to the latest security protections without having to wait for a major operating system update. If Safari is lagging behind, your users are browsing the web with a larger attack surface than necessary.

Nov 14, 2025

34% AI Use · AI Era

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articles

Hunting Down Jamf Profile Payloads with Python

If you've spent enough time living inside Jamf Pro, you eventually run into the same problem: someone set a configuration somewhere, sometime, and nobody remembers where. It might be something obscure – a certificate payload, a conditional SSO predicate, or that one security preference quietly misbehaving on three machines in accounting. And when you have dozens of configuration profiles, each with multiple payloads, nested keys, and XML-wrapped values, finding that setting can feel like forensic archaeology.

Nov 3, 2025

38% AI Use · AI Era

Keeping Jamf Security Cloud Current for Microsoft 365: Updated Routing Policies

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Keeping Jamf Security Cloud Current for Microsoft 365: Updated Routing Policies

When I first wrote about troubleshooting Standard Routing Policies in Jamf Security Cloud, the goal was simple: help admins keep Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 traffic flowing smoothly through Jamf Trust + App-Based VPN. This straightforward objective remains unchanged, as the complexities of network configurations can often lead to frustrating issues that hinder productivity.

Nov 2, 2025

29% AI Use · AI Era

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Running Image Generation Locally on macOS with Draw Things (2026)

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Running Image Generation Locally on macOS with Draw Things (2026)

Local LLMs have rapidly evolved beyond text and are now capable of producing high-quality images directly on-device. For users running Apple Silicon machines—especially M-series Mac Studios and MacBook Pros—this represents a major shift in what’s possible without relying on cloud services. Just a few years ago, image generation required powerful remote GPUs, subscriptions, and long processing times. Today, thanks to optimized models and Apple’s Metal acceleration, you can generate and edit images locally with impressive speed and quality. The result is a workflow that is faster, private, and entirely under...

ABM Warranty 0.4.1 Walkthrough: Wrap-Up and Beta

In this final ABM Warranty 0.4.1 walkthrough, I’m wrapping up the last features I had not covered directly in the earlier videos and then focusing on support, community, and the beta program. I also want to show where the support resources live inside the app so you know where to go if you need help, documentation, or a way to send useful feedback. Additionally, I'll be covering some of the key features that were updated since the previous version, including any bug fixes or improvements made to existing functionality.

ABM Warranty 0.4.1 Walkthrough: Managed Preferences

In this part of the ABM Warranty 0.4.1 walkthrough series, I'm focusing on managed preferences and the credential packaging workflow. In the last video, I covered multiple credentials inside the app itself. In this one, I'm showing how to package those credentials so they can be deployed securely through MDM. This process is a crucial step in ensuring that your credentials are properly configured and protected within your organization's mobile device management system.

Low Profile Walkthrough and Review

Today I’m walking through Low Profile, a utility from Nindi Gill that I use when I want to inspect profiles already installed on a Mac and figure out whether those profiles contain issues I need to clean up. The value is that Low Profile gives me a straightforward way to inspect profiles installed on any Mac. This simplicity makes it easy for me to identify and address potential problems, which is especially useful when working with multiple machines or troubleshooting complex profile configurations.

ABM Warranty 0.4.1 Walkthrough: Multiple Credentials

In this part of the ABM Warranty 0.4.1 walkthrough series, I’m focusing on multiple credentials. In the first video, I showed the basic setup and how to add a single credential. Now, I want to explore what happens when I remove a credential, what changes occur when I add more than one, and how the app behaves once there are multiple contexts in play. This will help clarify any potential issues or inconsistencies that may arise with multiple credentials.

ABM Warranty 0.4.1 Walkthrough: Introduction

In this first ABM Warranty 0.4.1 walkthrough, I want to show you what the app actually does before I get into the more specific feature videos. This is the broad introduction. I’m walking through the dashboard, how I think about the warranty cards, how released devices are handled, how the filters work, how to add credentials, where the data is stored locally, and what the logging and security model looks like.

ABM Warranty 0.4.1

The 0.4.x release series for ABM Warranty is focused on operational scale. The earlier 0.3 releases were about trust, correctness, and stabilizing the foundation. Version 0.4.1 builds directly on that work by making the app more practical for consultants, internal IT teams, and managed service providers who need to support multiple environments without losing isolation, control, or visibility. This includes improvements to user interface and workflow, as well as enhanced reporting capabilities to help these users manage their workflows more efficiently.

The warranty dashboard Apple doesn’t provide… yet

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Why Apple Fleet Risk Isn’t a Security Problem—Until It Is

Security and risk are often treated as interchangeable concepts in modern IT environments, but they are not the same discipline. Security focuses on controls, enforcement, and prevention. Risk management, by contrast, is concerned with likelihood, impact, and consequence across operational, financial, and organizational domains. Frameworks such as those published by NIST make this distinction explicit: risk assessment is not a technical exercise, but a business one. Technology informs risk decisions, but it does not define them.

ABM Warranty 0.3.1

The 0.3.x release series for ABM Warranty is about tightening guarantees. Where earlier releases focused on surfacing data and making long-running operations observable, 0.3.x focuses on ensuring that what you see is complete, consistent, and safe to trust—particularly as the app is used in larger, slower, and more varied environments. This shift in focus aims to provide a more reliable foundation for users who require higher levels of assurance from their warranty management system.

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Zero-Touch macOS Enrollment with JAMF Setup Manager: A Practical Walkthrough

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macadmins video

Zero-Touch macOS Enrollment with JAMF Setup Manager: A Practical Walkthrough

If you're trying to streamline macOS deployments in JAMF, there’s always that moment where you realize: the built-in experience gets you *close*, but not all the way there.

Discovering Mole: A Command Line Utility for Mac Cleaning

Caches pile up, apps leave behind junk, and disk space slowly disappears. While there are plenty of GUI tools out there, most of them either lack transparency or feel overly bloated.

Introducing Pique - The Game-Changing Quick Look Plugin for Mac Admins

As a Mac admin, I'm always on the lookout for tools that make my life easier and more efficient. Recently, I stumbled upon Pique - a brilliant Quick Look plugin created by Henry Stamerjohann that allows you to view file contents in a syntax highlighted way.

ABM Warranty 0.4.1 Walkthrough: Wrap-Up and Beta

ABM Warranty 0.4.1 Walkthrough: Managed Preferences

QuickPKG - More to Unpack

A few days ago I released a review of QuickPKG, a tool I love and use almost daily. What I really love about packaging and QuickPKG is that no matter what Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution I'm working with at any given moment, it provides a universal way to create a quick package to import into JAMF, Mosyle, or any MDM. This consistency is particularly valuable when switching between projects or environments, as the process remains the same regardless of the specific MDM being used.

Low Profile Walkthrough and Review

ABM Warranty 0.4.1 Walkthrough: Multiple Credentials

QuickPKG Walkthrough and Review

I use QuickPKG when I need to turn an application, DMG, or ZIP file into a package quickly without wasting time in a heavier packaging workflow. This post follows the same path as my video: what QuickPKG is, where to get it, how I run it, what a simple packaging example looks like, and where I think admins need to be careful about potential pitfalls that can arise from using this tool.

ABM Warranty 0.4.1 Walkthrough: Introduction

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Why Focusing ON Your Business Can Lead to Greater Success

One of the hardest transitions for a business owner is moving from constant delivery work toward the kind of leadership that allows the business to scale. It is difficult to focus on the business when you are still carrying too much of the day-to-day burden yourself. Even when growth creates more resources, that does not automatically mean the work can be shared effectively right away. In fact, it's common for owners to struggle with delegating tasks and trusting others to handle responsibilities, leading to a prolonged period of burnout and...

The Importance of Effective Team Communication in Dynamic Environments

Effective team communication becomes far more important as a business moves from a small, familiar operating rhythm into a larger and more dynamic environment. When you are used to running a business as an owner-operator, much of the context lives in your head. Decisions move quickly because you already know the clients, the priorities, and the reasons behind each choice. In a larger organization, that same instinct does not scale without stronger communication.

Clearing Up Misconceptions: How Mergers Can Benefit Clients

When clients hear that a company has merged, their first assumption is often that the change is being driven by money rather than service. That reaction is understandable. If the business already seemed stable, a merger can look like a move that benefits ownership far more than it benefits the customer. That is why one of the most important parts of any merger is proving, through action, that the client experience will improve rather than decline.

Why Building a Strong Team is Essential for Post-Merger Success: Our Experience

Building a strong team after a merger is rarely as simple as adding headcount. From the outside, it can seem like joining a larger organization should immediately create more capacity, more support, and a clearer path to growth. In practice, that is not always how it works. A merger may provide a stronger platform, but it does not automatically come with an instant staffing plan or a perfect roadmap for how responsibilities will be divided.

Embracing the Change: How I Transitioned from Independent Operator to Employee

Transitioning from business owner to employee is one of the hardest identity shifts an entrepreneur can make. Running your own company means you are used to setting priorities, making final decisions, and carrying direct responsibility for the outcome. After an acquisition, that changes quickly. You may still have leadership responsibilities, but you are now operating inside a larger structure where authority is shared and not every decision is yours to make.

Bridging the Gaps: Our Focus on Unifying for Success

Acquisition changes more than ownership. It changes how you work, how you lead, and how much control you have over the decisions that shape the business every day. That shift can be harder than many owners expect, especially when you have spent years operating with full authority and direct accountability for every client relationship. As a result, it's not uncommon for acquired businesses to experience an adjustment period during which they adapt to new systems, processes, and expectations.

How SMS Can Revolutionize Your Client Assistance - Here's Why

One of the most practical ways to improve client support is to meet people where they already communicate. For many clients, that means text messaging. When used correctly, SMS can become a fast, effective support channel that reduces friction, improves response times for simple issues, and creates a cleaner record of day-to-day interactions. This approach also allows support teams to respond quickly to urgent matters, while keeping the conversation history organized and easily accessible for future reference.

Revolutionizing Tech Support with Apple Messages for Business

Apple Business Chat is one of the most practical examples of how modern tech support can become faster, cleaner, and easier for both clients and technicians. For support teams that already rely on SMS-style communication, it is not just another channel. It is a more structured way to bring real-time support into the Apple ecosystem while keeping the business side of the interaction organized. This approach allows support teams to maintain control over the conversation flow, ensuring that issues are resolved efficiently and effectively without unnecessary back-and-forth.

The Pitfalls of Growing A Team: Lessons Learned

Growing a team sounds straightforward on paper, but in practice it introduces costs and complexity that many business owners underestimate. It is easy to model growth by assuming that one additional person will quickly become productive, bill enough work, and create immediate operational relief. What often happens instead is that the owner has to spend significant time training, onboarding, and correcting work before that new hire becomes a true net gain.

Enhancing Cybersecurity on macOS: Empowering Users for a Safer Digital Journey!

macOS has earned a strong reputation for built-in security, but the real value of the platform is not just that protections exist. It is that Apple continues pushing the operating system toward more context-aware security decisions that help users make better choices before a problem becomes a breach. This approach allows users to understand and mitigate potential risks in real-time, rather than simply reacting to threats after they've occurred.

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