251: Some Serious 'Splainin' About Apple Products
/• 'Splainin': Originally derived from the TV series I Love Lucy: to give a false explanation to something you are trying to hide.
• Jerry mentions tracking slow times on the calendar for future reference and reflection
• Jerry picks Joe’s brain about different types of labor scenarios and how PsiMac offers labor services
• Joe and Jerry discuss the need to constantly reevaluate the optimal age of a Mac that might be a candidate for upgrade. When is it worth upgrading 2011-2012 iMacs?
• Jerry recommends the iFixIt Pro program for resellers to get a better rate on parts including the adhesive kit for 2012 and newer iMacs
• Jerry revisits the Mouse Jiggler app from Episode 246: Let Go Of My Echo or Echo Location that helped his Fusion Drive encryption proceed, and shares some excellent feedback from Tom Bridge re: encryption requiring the mouse to be moving. Tom suspected Apple is "using the entropy from the mouse cursor to do part of the encryption" which is apparently the case in High Sierra with APFS (although Jerry's drive was not APFS). See also: The Lava Lamps That Help Keep The Internet Secure
• installing MalwareBytes on High Sierra requires manually allowing the kernel extension to run by clicking Allow in System Preferences: Security & Privacy: General. It appears that it cannot be done using TeamViewer, or perhaps other remote access software e.g. Screen Sharing either. It must be clicked by a local user. See MalwareBytes forum posts 1 and 2
• the MalwareBytes kernel extension issue reminds Joe of an old issue where Keychain Access prompts for login password would require a local user with a physical mouse to click the Allow button. We discussed it two years ago in February 2016, in Episode 140: Tom Bridge of Technolutionary.com - Go iPad Pro or Go Home, in which we discuss the Apple security note About the security content of OS X El Capitan 10.11.1, Security Update 2015-004 Yosemite, and Security Update 2015-007 Mavericks, which explains a change to SecurityAgent: "Impact: A malicious application can programmatically control keychain access prompts. Description: A method existed for applications to create synthetic clicks on keychain prompts. This was addressed by disabling synthetic clicks." Also, we followed up in the very next episode, 141: Keep Your "clicks" Local and Organic!
• In honor of all the new segments (Joe's Conspiracy Corner and Think Like a Client), Jerry and Joe both bring back an old segment and share an "I Should Have Known This"
• Jerry shares a tip courtesy of our very own Sam Valencia: how to find which volume is the startup disk in Terminal
• Joe shares where the setting is to turn off the Offload Unused Apps feature: in Settings: iTunes & App Store
• Jerry brings up the 'Splainin' we sometimes have to do on Apple's behalf
• To round out the show, we share some of the challenges and confusion clients can feel when trying to decide on a new Mac or an upgrade