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The necessity for so many of us to work from home during Covid shutdown highlighted to Mac Aid the need for services and products to provide safe and secure ways to connect remote workers to on premise servers and systems.
Mac Aid have been working with Fortigate to implement the FortiAP, a high security appliance which gives workers secure access to your business servers and systems from home.
The rush to provide remote access to workers from their homes meant that many were accessing company servers and systems via unsecured home internet connections. The FortiAP is a high security appliance which gives workers access to your business servers and systems from home, without compromising security.
We call it the Fortinet & Mac Aid remote worker solution.
With the FortiAP, both setup time and cost are drastically decreased compared to other solutions. All that’s needed is a FortiAP wireless access point at each staff member’s home and a FortiGate where your server sits.
And the whole solution is a zero touch deployment. The FortiAP is preconfigured at Mac Aid and then delivered to the user, who installs it in their home with remote assistance from Mac Aid.
If your systems are compatible, you can even use your office deskphone at home by plugging it into the FortiAP; very useful for workers who may be dealing with multiple calls or a high-volume of transfers.
When the time comes that your staff are back in the office, you will be able to reuse the FortiAP to increase your wireless coverage back at the office.
Simplify the way you deploy secure network access to staff who are working from home by installing a secure wireless networking solution from Fortinet, the FortiAP, at their home – and any worker device that connects to the WiFi (or wired into the FortiAP) will gain the same level of security as though they were sitting at their desk in the office.
Call Mac Aid to discuss how FortiAP and Fortigate can work to improve the security of remote access for your business.
Mac users have long presumed that they were immune from computer viruses and malware, but there are a few reasons to reconsider that view these days.
A few years ago, Macs were a small minority of computers, and so generally considered to be an unrewarding target for hackers and other cybercriminals. But Macs are a lot more popular now, and while it’s great to see more Macs around, it also means they are now more a more attractive target.
And while Macs are arguably more secure, it has never been true that there weren’t any Mac viruses or malware. As far back as the 1980s there were Mac viruses propagated in those pre-internet days by rampant floppy disk swapping. These weren’t very destructive viruses, but could make systems unstable, and it wasn’t very good for your reputation to be passing them around.
https://blog.malwarebytes.com/mac/2019/12/mac-threat-detections-on-the-rise-in-2019/
Apple themselves put a lot of development work into keeping the Mac secure. In recent years you will have noticed more and more warning dialogs about allowing different applications to access parts of your system. Restrictions have been tightened around installing software. And Safari imposes aggressive blocking of websites it considers suspicious. Those measures are all great, but a problem is that busy people tend to just “okay” past these warnings, so they can keep doing whatever it is they’re doing. So while they’re great to have, these systems aren’t infallible.
Another thing to think about regarding viruses, malware and adware, is being a good computing citizen. No one wants to be responsible for propagating nasties to clients or friends – so even if viruses or malware might not affect your system, you might find yourself responsible for passing them to others. This has been an issue in the past with the Microsoft macro viruses that were prevalent – they didn’t affect Macs, but Macs could pass those files on to PC users, who they might have affected.
Adding to the vulnerability of your Mac is the fact that so many of us are working remotely these days. Your office probably has sophisticated firewalls and other filtering mechanisms in place, that keep that environment relatively secure. But your home network very likely does not. So you might be more vulnerable these days than you realise. Cybercriminals very quickly realised that remote workers were an attractive target for this reason.
So there is good reason to stop and consider whether you should be tightening up your security. Of course anti virus or anti malware is yet another software gadget to install and look after. So the best solution would be something that you install once and don’t need to think about again.
Mac Aid recommend Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection, a small application that is installed on your system, that is remotely monitored by Mac Aid. It runs scans in the background, and reports on the health of your system. We monitor our Malwarebytes endpoints daily, so if anything suspicious is noted, we’ll get in contact to discuss how you might deal with it.
So if you decide that it’s time you took some precautions to protect your devices, and your family, friends and clients from malware and viruses, talk to Mac Aid, we’ll can very quickly set you up and remotely deploy Malwarebytes.
Apple released their long rumoured iPhone 12 at another of their virtual video events from Apple Headquarters this week.
All 4 iPhone 12 models feature 5G, a new A14 Bionic processor, a new industrial design with flat edges and thinner bezels, Super Retina XDR OLED displays, upgraded “Ceramic Shield” front glass, and a new 12-megapixel wide camera with wider aperture promising improved low light performance. So they were pretty much exactly as rumours had described in recent months.
While all iPhone 12 models still have a lightning connector (with a cable supplied in the box, but no earbuds), they also introduce a new iteration of “MagSafe” for enhanced wireless charging using magnets and for attaching chargers, cases and accessories. Apple says the iPhone 12 can charge wirelessly at up to 15 watt speeds. There’s an Apple Watch-like MagSafe iPhone charger, iPhone 12 cases and a new magnetic wallet accessory that snaps on the back of the phone.
Among the lineup, is a new iPhone 12 Mini with a 5.4 inch screen, bringing the full-screen/Face-ID iPhone experience to a smaller form factor for the first time. Expectations had been that this rumoured iPhone Mini might have been an entry level cheaper device, it turns out to be a fully fledged smaller version of the iPhone 12, including 5G, and OLED screen, MagSafe and the A14 Bionic processor. So those of us who have long been wanting Apple to release a premium smaller iPhone are in luck.
There are also iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max models, with a stainless steel body, rather than aluminium. Both feature reimagined pro camera systems including an expansive Ultra Wide camera, a Telephoto camera with an even longer focal length on iPhone 12 Pro Max, and new wide angle cameras to capture beautiful professional-quality images and video in bright and low-light environments. iPhone 12 Pro models also introduce a new LiDAR Scanner for immersive augmented reality (AR) experiences.
iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Mini will be available in white, black, blue, green and red and iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone Pro Max in graphite, silver, gold and pacific blue.
So all up the iPhone 12s seem a worthwhile upgrade, particularly for those who have been waiting for a 5G iPhone, a smaller model or updated cameras. Pre-orders for iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro open on 16 October, iPhone 12 mini and iPhone Pro Max open on 7 November.
Apple recently updated the 27 inch iMac, with 10th generation Intel processors, SSD storage as standard, Radeon Pro 5300 or 5500 TX graphics cards, a 1080p HD webcam, optional nano-textured True Tone display, Apple T2 chip and a 10Gb Ethernet option.
While Covid 19 has meant that many users have moved to laptops, rather than desktop Macs, there is still a place for the serious speed and power that only comes with a well equipped desktop like an iMac or Mac Pro. This seems like a very solid upgrade to what was already a great Mac, bringing it up to date and adding all of Apple’s latest innovations in hardware design.
The optional nano texture display is an interesting upgrade, and a real game changer for work spaces with challenging lighting issues, like direct sunlight or changing lighting conditions. Unlike typical matt display coatings, the nano‑texture is etched into the glass at the nanometre level. This reduces glare while preserving contrast, for jaw‑dropping image quality. This is a great upgrade for photographers, retouchers and video editors, which was previously only available on the Apple XDR Pro Display. For demanding users with the need for a matte display this alone might might make this a very compelling iMac upgrade.
The 10th generation Comet Lake processors in the 27 inch iMac are available as 6 or 8 core variants and can be upgraded to i9 10 core. Performance of the 10-core i9 version is stated to be 65% faster than the previous top spec iMac, which will be a huge improvement for those needing serious power for photo editing, rendering and compiling, video editing, and other processor heavy tasks.
The 27 inch iMac can now accommodate up to 128GB of RAM and comes with 512GB SSD as standard, which can be upgraded to 1, 2, 4 or even 8TB.
The 27‑inch iMac also now features a 1080p FaceTime HD camera and a studio‑quality three‑mic array. And the T2 chip acts in concert with the speakers to enable variable EQ and an enhanced bass response, so all your content can have big, balanced, high‑fidelity sound.
This is likely to be the last Intel iMac, so for those with the need for a really potent iMac now, the tons of upgrades under the hood in this version make this a very capable Mac, and a sound hardware investment.
Apple announced Big Sur – the next version of Mac OS at WWDC in July. Betas have been available for developers since then, and the public beta program is now open too, so brave early adopters can give Big Sur a try.
Big Sur is an interesting Mac OS update in a couple of ways. Most notably, the visual changes are quite pronounced, more so than in Apple’s recent yearly updates. Big Sur brings a much more iOS like aesthetic to the Mac, which can be a bit startling initially, but once you get used to it it’s a fun, vibrant interface to use, and generally has a clean, modern vibe.
There is a new Control Centre, much like the one in iOS, updated Notifications Centre, and updated design for Finder windows, save dialogs, menu bar and menus and the Dock.
Under the hood, Big Sur goes a lot further in allowing iOS apps to run on MacOS, and also lays further groundwork for Apples move to using their own processors, rather than Intel’s over the next couple of years.
Safari is faster and more battery efficient than ever in Big Sur and features enhanced privacy features to give you more control of browser tracking, an editable start page, and improved tab design.
The Messages app is now a direct port of the iOS version, and that means it now has all the features it was previously missing, compared to its equivalent on iOS. The Maps app has been similarly upgraded to mirror its iOS counterpart.
https://www.apple.com/macos/big-sur-preview/features/
Note that like Catalina, the current version of Mac OS, Big Sur is 64 bit only. So if you use any older apps that are 32 bit, you might need to hold off until you find equivalent apps that will run under Big Sur.
Testing at Mac Aid has found Big Sur quite stable and most regularly used applications seems to work well. While you should never install beta software on your primary Mac, if you have a spare Mac around, and a taste for adventure, you can register for he public betas yourself and give it a try.
https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/
Big Sur should be released during Spring 2020.
