All new content for 2014!

Whether you’ve been to any MacTech event prior, or are new to MacTech events, MacTech BootCamp III will benefit you. All new content. All new curriculum. All new line up. All designed specifically for the Apple tech.

MacTech BootCamp III: Seattle, WA 2014

MacTech BootCamp III is a one day event targeted at the issues facing techs supporting small-to-medium sized businesses, small office, and home office (often referred to as SMB or SOHO markets), as well as consumers. Specifically, it is for anyone providing support services as a consultant or part of an organization. MacTech BootCamp’s sessions cover a variety of topics from those in the know about the topics below, all of which are designed to make BootCamp attendees more successful in supporting these markets.

Who Should Attend?

MacTech BootCamp is a one day event for those that support the small business market, small office/workgroup clients, or those supporting others in larger organizations.

MacTech BootCamp is a single-track, hotel based seminar that is specifically geared to serve the needs of consultants and techs wanting to better serve their base. MacTech BootCamp is perfect for those that already support small-to-medium sized businesses, communities, organizations, provide services to systems integrators or government clients, consumers, or that want to become a consultant supporting these areas.

Packed Schedule.

Using MacTech’s proven “running order” approach, we pack in the maximum number of sessions into the time available. Session titles below. At MacTech BootCamp, you learn from the experts and get to ask questions of those “in the know.”

See more details below.

February 12, 2014
Location
Bell Harbor Int’l Conf. Center

2211 Alaskan Way, Pier 66

Seattle, WA 98121

 Registration at 8:15am (no earlier please).

Sessions begin at 9am.

Day ends by 6pm.

Microsoft Office Accreditation. If you register for this event, you can attend the Microsoft Office accreditation event from 2pm-6pm the day prior at no additional charge. Space is limited.

Don’t wait. Space is limited. Register today.

“;
?>

Sessions Chairs


Shelley Watson, Wheelwrights, LLC

Since 1997, Shelley has run her own Apple consulting firm. Currently she is the Managing Partner at Wheelwrights, an Apple-focused technology consulting company. Shelley has worked on curriculum development teams for Apple, been an Apple Certified Trainer, and is an Apple Certified Technical Coordinator for 10.7. She is a long time member of the Apple Consultants Network, previously serving on the Advisory Council. Shelley also participates in Northwest Mac Pros, an organization of consultants, trainers and developers specializing in Apple Mac OS X and iOS systems.

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.

Speakers


Kirk Godtfredsen, KKHE Consulting

Kirk has over 23 years of Mac related IT experience – from StarControllers and 3270 emulation over Token Ring to WPA, Active Directory and iPhones, he’s had to integrate it. He spent 13 years at Apple as a systems engineer and trainer (before the stock splits – natch). For the last 10 years he has provided IT support to small biz, K-12 and higher-education, and also spends time helping out @ BusyMac, the makers of BusyCal. He has been involved with mobile computing since its inception, working on the first email client for the first internet-based phone w/AT&T Wireless. When he isn’t working, he’s biking.

Scott Neal, AcmeFoo

Scott M. Neal has been utilizing and programming Apple products since first getting his hands on an Apple ][+ and later NeXTcube. Scott’s believes strongly in automation–getting devices to do your work the way you want to, with minimal effort and stress. Often, the real benefits of device automation are underutilized–Scott would prefer that you be empowered with how to automate (meaning script and program) devices YOURSELF to do what YOU want, not just what you may see yourself limited to by default application and service setups. With that goal specifically in mind, Scott co-created acmefoo, the Apple Technology focused training and development co-op, which offers training, courseware, and consulting on a peer level, without being tied to specific device sales or marketing.

Chris Dawe, Wheelwrights

Born and raised a Texan, Chris studied history at the University of Chicago before getting sidetracked into the world of Apple and computer networking. Part of the Seattle consulting community since 1999 and Principal Systems Engineer for Wheelwrights, LLC since 2007, Chris provides support, solutions, planning, and training for a variety of business and education customers in Western Washington. In his spare time, Chris focuses on continued development of his cooking skills.

Allen Hancock, Watchman Monitoring

Allen Hancock received his Bachelor’s in Early Childhood Education at the University of Missouri – Columbia. This background in education keeps him coming back to MacTech. In 2000, Allen started the Mac Consulting Group, Inc: an Apple Specialist and Authorized Training Center based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. There, he found his thrill in helping clients make the most of their computing experiences. In 2012, Allen sold the Mac Consulting Group to The Orchard, where he continue to do what he loves most: help make happy customers. Over the course of his career, he met too many people as they suffered a failing hard drive without a current backup. As a means of preventing such loss, Allen founded Watchman Monitoring, Inc. Its namesake product is a Software as a Service tool which allows service providers to address such problems before it’s too late.


Mat X, DAM SAN consultant

Mat X has worked for 14 years in IT. Beginning in the university setting with Mac management and deployment. He moved on to work with VFX, Film and Post production and has worked with large scale Xsan and other fibre based storage systems for 9 years. Many sleepless nights were spent thinking about building better backup systems. These days his awake moments are spent implementing media asset management solutions for video editors and other creatives.

Michael Lynn, State of WA

Michael Lynn is a Mac OS X and Windows desktop administrator in an Active Directory environment for a moderately sized government department in Washington state. His day job is spent wrangling third-party software and update deployments, workstation imaging, and utilizing commercial tools like Microsoft’s SCCM and open source projects like munki and reposado. In his free time he is a writer for AFP548.com, helps with administration and service hosting for the Mac enterprise ##osx-server channel on Freenode, and is a vocal advocate for the python language and its use in the administration and automation of all things OS X. He has enjoyed using Macintosh computers for over 20 years and loves getting the most out of iOS and OS X by writing scripts and applications in any number of languages – including (but not limited to) python, Applescript, bash, ruby, and Objective-C. His code contributions are credited and can be found in such projects as CreateUserPkg, munki, and Python for iOS. His current programming obsession is writing python-based administration helpers that can be loaded into iOS without jailbreaking with the use of Pythonista. When not dealing with computers, Michael loves spending time with his wife and 2 children, reading hard science fiction, and working on his house.

Jim Flood, Townsend Security

Jim has been programming computers for more than thirty years, Macintosh, Windows, and UNIX, including seven years at Apple. He has lots of experience with networking protocols and distributed systems, and has spent the last six years at Townsend Security focusing on security and encryption. When not programming, he is having fun raising his two middle-school kids.

Kelly Guimont, TUAW

Kelly is a Bloggess, Talkcast Mistress for TUAW including coverage of Apple news and software, including hosting the weekly podcast. When she isn’t speaking at conferences like Macworld and MacTech, Kelly spends her time in social media, digital marketing, and evangelism on emerging technologies and social platforms.

Brian Govatos, Microsoft

Brian Govatos is a Senior Trainer for Microsoft who has also been heavily involved in the Apple community since 2006. From 2006 to 2009, he was a Mac consultant for several small business clients in Las Vegas. With a passion for communicating ideas, Brian loves to discuss technology and to inspire users to make the most out of it.

Sessions and Topics


Sessions are 30-50 minutes long, with most sessions at about 40 minutes. There are nine sessions in the 2014 curriculum.

Topics Covered

The topics covered will include:

  • PKI, encryption, certificates and you.

  • The World of Apple IDs.

  • Profiles.

  • WiFi: Best Practices.

  • Deployment.

  • Backups and Storage.

  • Office for Mac: Collaboration Tools.

  • Security: Keeping Them Out.

  • Security: Letting Them In.

  • and more…

Read on for more details.

Keynote:
How Do the Key Building Blocks for Today’s Consultant Fit Together


What does today’s Apple consultant need to know to be effective in serving everyone from small business to Enterprise, support personnel, or even home users and networks.

PKI, encryption, certificates and you.


Secure encryption of data influences how we all use technology, and the assumptions we make about the privacy of our data both on our devices and when our data leaves our devices in email, in the cloud, when we shop, and in countless other ways that extend further into our private lives with every new technology we adopt. Learn about the technology that underlies our false sense of security, how it works and what you can do as a consultant to manage that security for your clients.

The World of Apple IDs


Apple is continually changing the rules for Apple IDs, iTunes accounts, and more. Learn the latest 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 working with deployment and imaging. Learn the restrictions for merging Apple IDs and how to combine them.

Profiles


We work on Apple technology in a privileged time. We have the ability to enroll our Macs and our iOS devices into device management. We have the ability to nearly magically send instructions over the air almost instantly to enrolled devices from a server. We can send special profiles that users cannot remove from applications like Apple Configurator to devices connected over a USB connection. So many management opportunities exist today, one can hardly fit all of the options into a single 40 minute talk, but in this Profiles session, we will do our very best.

WiFi. Best practices.


Wi-Fi has rapidly become the network connection of choice. This choice means the Wi-Fi network must be reliable at all times. Wi-Fi is no longer a “nice to have” – downtime or poor performance is not an option. This session presents factors that affect Wi-Fi performance and how to use them as part of your Wi-Fi design, deployment and troubleshooting.

Deployment


Deployment was once a question of how to get the same software and configuration on a bunch of computers. Today it can mean so much more to you and your customers. Does it mean handing out iPads that are already configured and ready to go? Does it mean building a “perfect” computer and replicating it to dozens, hundreds or thousands of others? Does it mean building a clever array of installers, scripts and preference files to install in sequence to create a lightweight and flexible computer customization system? Today deployment means all of the above, and the well prepared consultant needs to understand them all.

Backups and Storage


Let’s face it people don’t back up their stuff. The fact is that is probably not your fault. The problem is if you don’t find a way to make it your problem eventually someone is going to blame you when they lose their stuff. This session is all about you saving the day. You will learn the tools, the techniques, and the tricks to make sure your customers are backing up their data, and that you can get their data back when disaster strikes.

Office for Mac: Collaboration Tools


You have options for collaboration productivity tools. What are the pros and cons of each? Do you know how to use web apps vs. applications effectively? Microsoft Office is at the core of how people work, yet many people don’t know what Office for Mac can do, let alone take advantage of it. Did you know that Office includes collaborative editing features both through the web and the cloud? Learn from Microsoft experts how you can not only make the most of Office for yourself, but those that you support.

Security. Keeping them out.


With the significant increase in cyber threats – particularly in the SMB and mid-market size companies, an understanding of systems security as well as the relevant threat is becoming increasingly essential in the marketplace. With the belief that “OS X is inherently secure,” it is our responsibility to ensure that our network and operations are as secure as anticipated. With a selection of core technologies, we can radically decrease the asymmetric threat.

Security. Letting them in.


So you’ve locked down your business – secured your data and network to eliminate any possible threat. Now the hard part – how do we let in specific users on specific devices to access our data. We must differentiate authorization and authentication to ensure access to specific resources and maintain our data integrity. By identifying the gap between user’s needs and our security requirements, we can ensure the data security while allowing real work to get done.

Sponsors


MacTech selects key vendors to be a part of the event. 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.

 

Media Support

These great publications support MacTech Events in a variety of different ways.


Don’t wait. Register today by clicking here.



Note: All information is approximate and projected, but it does evolve. All sessions, speakers and descriptions are subject to change at any time without notice.