MacTech InDepth: Network & Wifi Design & Troubleshooting, Boston

Adam Schechter, Precision Consulting, Inc.

As the President and CEO of Precision Consulting, Adam Schechter has established a reputation as one of the leading Macintosh solution providers in the country. After his introduction to Mac use in1985, Adam spent four years at the New York Times, rising to manage all Macintosh operations for the company’s magazine division. In 1997, he left the Times to start Precision Consulting, and since then has worked with numerous educational institutions, Fortune 50, Fortune 100, and Fortune 500 companies, including Playtex, Pepperidge Farms, Travelers Insurance, Aetna. Through his company, Adam has assisted firms with outsourcing IT responsibilities to streamline processes, implementing statewide 1 to 1 wireless initiatives, addressing design concerns (placement, radiation emissions, etc.), and integrating Macintosh and Windows services into existing networks. Precision has served its educational client base diligently – Yale, Quinnipiac, and Fairfield Universities have taken advantage of their expertise in addition to the hundreds of schools in Maine and New Hampshire that were part of massive 1 to 1 deployments and other smaller schools. Adam is a member of the Apple Consultants Network, a former Apple Advisory Council member for ACN; is an Apple Premier Developer and holder of many Apple certifications; and has been a frequent speaker at both MacWorld and Seybold. In addition, he has taught a number of courses at the Apple Market Center in Manhattan, including Network Design, Introduction to OS X, and Successful Support Technologies.

Andy Espo, Call Andy! Macintosh Consulting

In 1988, while running a successful event production company, Andy Espo realized his business’ need for a computer system. “At that time, the only choices available were DOS and Mac,” commented Andy, “It was a pretty easy decision!” With experience in professional audio, video, theatrical lighting and scenery, Andy was determined to add the automation of his own business to his technical repertoire. As his company grew, so too did his reputation for knowing Macs. In 1998, Andy transitioned out of event production and into being the full-time, “Mac-Guy”. Now in it’s thirteenth year, Call Andy! Macintosh Consulting retains an array of clients in the public relations, marketing, architecture, advertising and design sectors. Andy is an Apple Consultants Network member, and is on the board of the Boston Macintosh Users Group (BMac).

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.

MacTech and the event’s session chairs have some great featured speakers lined up for you, including:

Adam Schechter, Precision Consulting,Inc.

As the President and CEO of Precision Consulting, Adam Schechter has established a reputation as one of the leading Macintosh solution providers in the country. After his introduction to Mac use in1985, Adam spent four years at the New York Times, rising to manage all Macintosh operations for the company’s magazine division. In 1997, he left the Times to start Precision Consulting, and since then has worked with numerous educational institutions, Fortune 50, Fortune 100, and Fortune 500 companies, including Playtex, Pepperidge Farms, Travelers Insurance, Aetna. Through his company, Adam has assisted firms with outsourcing IT responsibilities to streamline processes, implementing statewide 1 to 1 wireless initiatives, addressing design concerns (placement, radiation emissions, etc.), and integrating Macintosh and Windows services into existing networks. Precision has served its educational client base diligently – Yale, Quinnipiac, and Fairfield Universities have taken advantage of their expertise in addition to the hundreds of schools in Maine and New Hampshire that were part of massive 1 to 1 deployments and other smaller schools. Adam is a member of the Apple Consultants Network, a former Apple Advisory Council member for ACN; is an Apple Premier Developer and holder of many Apple certifications; and has been a frequent speaker at both MacWorld and Seybold. In addition, he has taught a number of courses at the Apple Market Center in Manhattan, including Network Design, Introduction to OS X, and Successful Support Technologies.

Andy Espo, Call Andy! Macintosh Consulting

In 1988, while running a successful event production company, Andy Espo realized his business’ need for a computer system. “At that time, the only choices available were DOS and Mac,” commented Andy, “It was a pretty easy decision!” With experience in professional audio, video, theatrical lighting and scenery, Andy was determined to add the automation of his own business to his technical repertoire. As his company grew, so too did his reputation for knowing Macs. In 1998, Andy transitioned out of event production and into being the full-time, “Mac-Guy”. Now in it’s thirteenth year, Call Andy! Macintosh Consulting retains an array of clients in the public relations, marketing, architecture, advertising and design sectors. Andy is an Apple Consultants Network member, and is on the board of the Boston Macintosh Users Group (BMac).

Ben Levy, Solutions Consulting

Benjamin Levy has been working as a Macintosh Consultant for more than 20 years as the owner of Solutions Consulting. He is a member of the Apple Consultants Network, on whose Advisory Council he served for five years. A long-time speaker at Macworld Expo Mr. Levy has spoken at each of the last 15 Expos and delivered more than 40 individual sessions on a wide range of cutting edge topics. Mr. Levy is also an Apple Certified Trainer and delivers Apple training to IT professionals at schools, corporations and training centers around the country.

David Allred, PhotonInc

J. David Allred is President of Photon, Inc. and directs operations. He also provides the broad experience, deep technical knowledge, and project skills that are at the center of every consulting intervention.

Josh Turiel, JH Turiel & Associates, Inc.

Josh Turiel is owner of JH Turiel & Associates, Inc., an 8-year-old consulting company specializing in small business and Mac/Windows integration. Josh had a long career in corporate IT before starting his company, so he brought that structured approach to smaller businesses. JH Turiel is a Microsoft Partner, a Kerio Preferred Partner, and a member of the Apple Consultants Network (for starters) – so we can handle whatever technologies your office depends on.

Max Buxton, Call Andy! Macintosh Consulting

Max Buxton has been a full time Macintosh consultant for over fifteen years. Before working as a consultant, Max honed his troubleshooting skills working as a software tester and application engineer for computer software development companies. Upon realizing he enjoyed working with end users as much as the technology, he transitioned to system administration, supporting groups of users and refining his “consulting” chops. In the late 1990 s, Max decided to become an independent consultant and concentrate on what he enjoys most: helping Macintosh users get the most out of their systems. He’s been a certified member of the Apple Consultants Network since 2003.

Thibault Maury, Precision

Thibault Maury is the Lead System Engineer for Precision Audio Visual, Inc. where he specializes in the design and implementation of low-latency/ high-bandwidth networks for both home and commercial audio-video control systems. The challenges faced while integrating multiple cross-platform devices has allowed him to develop a root-cause analysis style of troubleshooting applicable to all environments. Before joining Precision Audio Visual, Thibault worked as a technician for Apple Retail in the Greater NY region. After becoming proficient with the inner-workings and characteristics of Apple products he moved to Apple’s small business teams to provide pre-sales engineering.In addition to years experience of working with Apple, Thibault has attended multiple conferences and training events specializing in the Apple platform including WWDC. He has also attended Sharkfest which deals with tcp/ip protocol analysis using the wireshark analyzer.Thibault graduated from the State University of New York with a Bachelors Degree in Electrical Engineering where his studies focused on low power-loss circuit design and energy harvesting techniques.

Networking Overview

An overview of all the aspects of networking and the terminology is covered in this session. We discuss what a network is and the different topologies and basic hardware differences. The OSI model is covered and its importance in networking.

Local Area Networking

Learn the components of what local area networking is. If you’ve ever wondered how to plan a successful LAN, WAN, and in-between, we’ve got you covered. Once you know what a LAN is, we cover VLAN and its differences from LAN and when you should be using VLANs.

What’s on your network?

Once you know how set up your network and gone through the process, it’s time to learn how to control it. We discuss the benefits and consequences between choosing to monitor or to manage your network. Then we cover how to figure out what’s on your network. Quality of service is key and we go over how to stay on top of it.

DNS

Find out why DNS is important and what it is. Then we go over how DNS works, going over forward and reverse queries, fully qualified domain names, and record types. For LAN DNS, we show you how to define a primary zone. WE talk about when and why to use slave servers. If you don’t have a public static IP, we go over what you can do to implement DNS. Finally, we cover DNS debugging, whether to us built in resolution libraries or to us query tools.

Planning, Deploying, and Troubleshooting Ethernet

When planning, deploying, and troubleshooting ethernet, the right knowledge can turn a difficult situation into a breeze. For planning, we cover cabling a location and building out the physical infrastructure. We go over Power over Ethernet; what the different classes are and specifically covering 802.3af and 802.3at. You’re only as good as your troubleshooting skills, we cover how to troubleshoot cabling problems so you’re not left in the lurch when problems arise.

Wireless LAN Design and Troubleshooting

When dealing with wireless LAN, planning and design are vital to success. We go over planning for whatever system you have in place. We go over best practices for deployment and tools and techniques that you can employ. Along with this, we’ll show you the tools of the trade. Troubleshooting is important and necessary, we go over how to track down problems and how to deal with problems when you find them.

Managing Who’s on Your Network

To manage who’s on your network, we go over 802.1x network security and how to design a secure but usable system. We cover captive portal and RADIUS authentication. If you’ve been wondering how your bandwidth is being used and by who, we go over how to find out. Find out the difference between Intrusion Detection System (IDS) and Intrusion Prevention System (IPS).

Designing the Perfect Network Firewall & Understanding Network Routing

For those looking to decipher WAN routing and configuring a top performing firewall, we have the steps and information to help you out. We show you how to get data into your network. We, also, go over best practices for content filtering.