Held in cities around the country, MacTech Boot Camp is a one day event for those that support the home user, and small business market. MacTech Boot Camp is a single-track, hotel based seminar that is specifically geared to serve the needs of consultants and techs wanting to serve their base better.
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Sessions Chairs
 Caroline Green, IvanExpert
Caroline Green is a principal of IvanExpert, providing Mac support for small businesses and home users in New York City. Caroline joined the company in 2007; her managerial, business, and sales skills were honed in the publishing industry, where she worked for over a decade.
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 Ivan Drucker, IvanExpert
Ivan Drucker is a principal of IvanExpert, providing Mac support for small businesses and home users in New York City. Ivan, who founded the company in 2002, worked at Apple as an engineer in the 1990s at their headquarters in Cupertino, California.
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 Craig Cohen, HCS Technology Group
Born May 28, 1970, Craig Cohen, President and Senior Systems Engineer, is a second generation Technical Specialist. HCS Technology Group was brought to life in October1982. Since then, the company has grown to more than 20 employees, five locations and contractors worldwide, with a management team that represents some of the most experienced technology professionals in the industry.
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 Neil Ticktin, MacTech Magazine
Neil not only emcees the event, but oversees the session chairs and content for each MacTech event. Neil has been the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of MacTech Magazine since 1992. With both a technical and business background, Neil has authored hundreds of articles including most of MacTech's well known benchmarking articles on productivity applications, virtualization, and performance products.
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Speakers
MacTech and the event's session chairs have some great featured speakers lined up for you, including:
 Sean Costello, IronGate Server Management & Consulting
Sean Costello has supported Macs in business since 1993. Based in Ottawa, ON, Sean represents the Canadian perspective on the Apple Consultant's Network. He is a member of the ACN Advisory Council, he works with resellers, consultants and business owners across North America to better navigate today's challenges surrounding IT deployment and support. Sean is an expert with CrashPlan Pro, and he excels at helping other consultants learn how to use, to sell and to deploy CrashPlan solutions for their customers.
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 Paul Suh, ps Enable, Inc
Paul Suh has been a Macintosh developer, systems administrator, and trainer since 1985, specializing in Mac OS X security and development of complex, dymanic web sites using WebObjects. He started ps Enable, Inc. in 2006, after working for seven years at Apple Computer in various positions. Prior to that, he worked as an economist at LECG and at Deloitte & Touche, analyzing markets and businesses.
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Ivan Drucker, IvanExpert Ivan Drucker is a principal of IvanExpert, providing Mac support for small businesses and home users in New York City. Ivan, who founded the company in 2002, worked at Apple as an engineer in the 1990s at their headquarters in Cupertino, California.
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 Michael Piper, MacMind
As brief as it can get - Right Livelihood. Michael cares a whole lot about the"Big Picture." Michael understands life in these times depends on compromise, but he is keeping an eye on the prize. His highest goal is to do good work, or do no work at all. Michael understands the software/wetware interface. He has a knack for gleaning the breakdown in whatever process, and developing new pathways for success.
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 Mike Volchok, Mike's Tech Shop
Mike Volchok started Volchok Consulting in 1993 providing on-site support for small and medium sized businesses in Manhattan. In 2007, he opened Mike's Tech Shop -- an Apple Sales and Service provider and one of the fastest growing Apple Specialists in the country. Mike’s provides a boutique experience in the New York Apple mega-store world. Mike Volchok earned a masters degree in International Relations from the University of Chicago. It looks very nice on his wall. In real life, Mike has been featured as the original rollerblading computer consultant on the front page of the Wall Street Journal and appeared on MSNBC and ABC.
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 Justin Esgar, Virtua Computers Inc, & Autriv Software Development
Justin Esgar is a returning speaker to MacTech, having presented at the Los Angeles conference for the past 2 years. He has devoted his career to all things Mac, owning both Virtua Computers, a Mac consulting company here in New York City, as well as Autriv Software Development, the company behind the apps SignMyPad, NYC Truck Food, and Homebase, as well as OSX-based Blackbook. With SignMyPad alone, Autriv has been featured in numerous publications, including documentation directly from Apple for being one of the most useful business apps on the market.
When he’s not speaking about the accessibility of software development, overseeing consulting clients, or working on the next big idea, Justin can be found at home with his mini labradoodle Rusty and his wife Michelle.
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 Marc Grayson, Mac Systems Engineer at Emerging Health IT
Marc Grayson has over 10 years of experience providing Macintosh support for corporate clients, small to medium-sized businesses, secondary and post-secondary schools, as well as individual users. His knowledge encompasses all Apple hardware, from servers to iOS devices. An interest in designing and building Apple networks lead him to his current position at one of New York City's leading hospitals as Macintosh Systems Engineer.
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 Miguel Chavez, C & C Computer Factory
Miguel has been elbows-deep in Apple hardware and software since 1989 when he moved on from Amiga and decided to check out those platinum boxes with the funky 13" monitors. Desktop publishing and NYC were like two peas in a pod and he spent several years working his way up from tech help desk to running the IT department in a division of Scholastic Inc., overseeing over 100 computers (even some PC's, heavens!), several servers, and a Syquest or two. All that experience in both the tech and human side of computing led him to venture off on his own and now 15 years later, as one half of C&C Computer Factory, he still enjoys helping folks get the most out of their computers. Ah bless!
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 Chris Peters, EscapeWire Solutions
Chris Peters is an Apple Consultant Network member and a iOS/Mac Developer working at EscapeWire Solutions. He has been using Mac's since his parents purchased him one in 1993. After getting out of the US NAVY in 2006 he decided that he wanted to work as a consultant in the Apple field. He specializes in Small to Medium sized business as well as the hospitality market.
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Sessions
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| Building Your Brand: Marketing and Business Concerns
You are new in business, or you've been doing this for years; in either case you can't apply your skills as a technology consultant until you have customers to apply them to! Marketing is one of the most important, but most overlooked skills in our business. We will teach you how to market yourself using your social skills, and contacts, as well as people and organizations you may not have considered. You will learn to market your skills to specific communities where word of mouth can catch fire to set your business above the rest. |
| Best practices: Hardware, Software and Network Deployment
What are best practices for installing new computers? What about Windows partitions, how to install an OS, software updates, and more? What do you need to know about password strength, printer setup, and more? How do you handle serial numbers? What are the basic choices your clients need to know for wired and wireless networks, and VPNs? What are the benefits of master images and deployment methods? We’ll discuss these and other items. |
| The New World of Apple IDs, iTunes, and Mac App Store
Apple has changed the rules for Apple IDs, iTunes accounts, and more. Learn the new rules, how devices are treated, migrating to new hardware, dealing with multiple IDs, and iCloud. Find out how iTunes Match works, how Mac App Store differs from iTunes, and the right way for doing deployment and imaging. Learn the restrictions for merging Apple IDs and how to combine them. |
| Troubleshooting Methodologies: Hardware, Software and Network Problems
You've worked your magic on the problems you've encountered and nothing is working. It must be hardware, but how can you be sure? What are the tests and tricks you should try, and in what order? How do you know when a problem is software based or hardware based, and how will that determination change your plan of action to get the problem solved for your customer? We walk you through the best tests and utilities, along with a best practice methodology for troubleshooting, and what to do when you are sure hardware is the problem. |
| Business Technologies: Mobility, Virtualization and Windows
Businesses of all sizes need business technology. Find out your options for integrating mobility, virtualization and Windows into your clients’ networks. Mobility is a big part of today's world, and it's getting bigger. Who are the main mobility players? What are your Mobile Device Management Options? How do you deal with iOS integration to the Mac/PC? With everything you've done for your customer so far, they think the world of you. It would be horrible to lose that trust just because they ask you to put Windows on their Mac. You may not be a Windows person, but you can absolutely handle Windows on your customers Mac, and we're going to show you how. We will give you the pros and cons of virtualization and non-virtualization options. We'll help you understand some of Windows' main technologies, security and best practices. |
| An Experts Guide to Working with Clients
So your marketing paid off! You have clients. Now, can you talk to them? Can you translate those often misspoken needs and wants into tangible technical deliverables? Can you help your hard won customers to understand your ongoing value and keep coming back for more? We’ll guide you through some of the most important steps to help you lead your customers; guide them to the right solutions, and convert their unfocused dreams into fully understood needs. Learn how to best protect yourself from scope creep, incorrect needs assessment, miscommunicated rate structures and other communications faux pas' that can lead to unpaid invoices, or worse. Your customer now knows what they want, and what you can deliver and you have agreed to do it for a mutually understood price. You are well on your way to a positive customer experience, and repeat business. Now, how are you going to document all of this? In fact, once you get started, how will you document your work, the customers serial numbers, inventory, and other important data they surely assume you will gather, keep and protect on their behalf? We will show you how to safely and securely document information for your customers, and we will expose you to some of the pitfalls of failing to do so properly. |
| Storage and Protecting Oneself: Backing up, Archiving and Restoring Data
Well, you've learned your lesson, the hard way. Before making a major change to a system, get a clean backup. But what about backups? There are so many options, some free, some very expensive, and some require you to roll your own. We expose you to the software available to perform backups, and we give you best practices for backup strategies related to backup rotation, media types, online, offline and nearline storage solutions, as well as over-the-net solutions. We talk about the pro's and con's so you can make an informed decision that is right for your specific customers needs. There is no "one size fits all" solution, so we prepare you to make an informed decision. One of the things that is the most fun about computers is making them do things for you automatically, so you can focus your time and effort on more important things in your life. We will talk about how to use tools like Automator, and AppleScript, and even shell scripting to help you to make your computer or your customers computers, do the types of things people expect computers to do. |
| How to Make Remote Consulting Work for You
You have setup the perfect small office for your customer. Every best practice followed, no expense spared, everything is right. Still, customers love to call with questions, and when they do, you need to deal with their needs in a way that meets their expectations, is fair to you and the loved ones who have to deal with you answering your phone at all hours of the day and night. We will give you solid guidance on how to handle support calls from your customers so you can keep them happy, and keep your sanity all at the same time. If you can't fix it over the phone, you'll probably have to actually work on the customers’ computers to fix the problem. But how wonderful would it be to do so without driving across town? If you plan ahead, and setup the proper systems like ARD, VNC, VPN and a host of other possible technologies, you can solve many support problems for your customers remotely. We show you the currently available options, talk about proper configuration, and costs to you and the customer, and ways you can track your remote support to be sure you make money for your efforts. |
| You Can't Know Everything: Getting the Support You Need
Your job is off to a fantastic start. You are fantastically prepared, yet as so frequently happens, you run into a snag right in the middle of the job. Something you've never seen before and have no idea how to solve. You feel that knot in your throat that sinking sensation in the pit of your stomach. Where do you turn for help? Where can you find answers to those last minute, on site, make or break questions that can be the difference between success or failure? We show you our favorite places to find those answers, and how to express your searches in the most search engine efficient language. |
MacTech selects key vendors to be a part of the event. Gold and Silver sponsors will be speaking and attending the event, and can talk to you about the solutions they offer. It's a unique opportunity to make contacts within these companies and get your questions answered. Interested in sponsoring a MacTech event? See our sponsorship page.
These great publications support MacTech Events in a variety of different ways.
Note: Schedule and details subject to change.
