Here is the detailed session information—including video recordings and resources supplied by speakers as applicable—for the 2021 Conference, grouped into the conference blocks in which they were presented. Find out more about a specific speaker by clicking on their name, which will take you directly to their entry on our 2021 Speakers page.
Tuesday Afternoon Block
M.C.: Maurice Shevalier • MacDeployment Conference Committee Chair, Calgary
View this full block of sessions on YouTube
Large Scale Apple Silicon Deployments with MDS
Timothy Perfitt • Chicagoland, USA
Watch on YouTube
The new M1 Macs introduced many new challenges for deploying the new hardware. MDS has been updated to support rapid initial and return to service of both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.
MDS is an open source project for deploying Macs. It includes workflows, tons of services (including web, logging, munki, munkireport, and micromdm). Learn how to turbocharge your Mac deployment in the age of Apple Silicon.
Online Conferencing in the COVID-19 Era
Zarah Pearse • Calgary, AB, Canada
Watch on YouTube
Platforms such as Zoom, WebEx and Teams are usually contemplated as internal collaboration tools of which an organization will choose one but when most of an organization’s interactions are external you have to embrace all of the above. This presentation summarizes a Calgary law firm’s experiences with Zoom, WebEx and Teams as we interacted with clients and participated in court and regulatory hearings in the COVID-19 era.
Taking Your Event Virtual
Adam Anklewicz and Nathan Beranger • Toronto, ON, Canada
Watch on YouTube
Like everyone else in the world, MacBrainedYYZ missed our regular gatherings and wanted to move them online. We couldn’t agree on a platform to use, so we decided to try as many as possible. Nathan and Adam will be talking about trying a meetup with FaceTime, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Kumospace and WebEx.
(The speakers invite you to join them in the #toronto channel of the MacAdmins Slack for discussion and information on future virtual meetups.)
The Oh S@#t Moment
Meg Ciliberti • Toronto, ON, Canada
Watch on YouTube
What happens when your way of working gets flipped upside down, literally overnight? In this session, Meg will share some examples of how her team handled that problem through technology and adapted to being a part of a company that went digital-by-design.
Fast Five: The do’s and don’ts of device deployment
Molly Rigual • Eau Claire, WI, USA
Watch on YouTube
Ready to knock your next deployment out of the park? This session is for you! Learn how to successfully deploy your devices through key recommendations on the do’s and don’ts of device deployment.
Wednesday Morning Block
M.C.: James Mahalek • MacDeployment Conference Committee, Calgary
View this full block of sessions on YouTube
An Online Presentation on Presenting Online
Armin Briegel • Netherlands
Watch on YouTube • Slides and other resources
Meetings and conferences have moved online. We have all become experts at using Zoom, Teams, WebEx et al to attend meetings, listen and watch. When you are the presenter, things are much more challenging, though. This presentation will share some advice that Armin has figured out over the last year for making great online presentations from your home office.
How to Build Your macOS VM for Free
David Yoon • Toronto, ON, Canada
Watch on YouTube • White Paper (PDF)
This session will show you how to build a never-booted macOS VM snapshot using VMWare Fusion Player (free version). This is very helpful in testing out your zero-touch MDM enrolment workflow.
Yoga for Your MDM: Using Your MDM to Support Flexible and Student-Centered Learning Options
Christina Gremillion and Tracey Joyce • USA
Watch on YouTube
The pandemic has taught us many things including how important it is to support flexible and student-centered learning. Your MDM can do more than just deploy, inventory, set up and control devices. Using your MDM, you can create an environment where students can determine how, what, when and where they learn and teachers have all they need to help them succeed.
Administering Apple Silicon
Ben Toms • United Kingdom
Watch on YouTube • GitHub Repo of Resources
During this session, we will focus on the changes and challenges to Mac admins when it comes to managing Apple Silicon powered devices.
Wednesday Evening Block
M.C.: Maurice Shevalier • MacDeployment Conference Committee Chair, Calgary
View this full block of sessions on YouTube
Disks, volumes, and drivers on macOS; now and in the future
Timothy Standing • Mill Valley, California, USA
Watch on YouTube
Storage hardware and software has seen more changes in the past 4 years than in the previous 30. Disk are changing as is the hardware used to access them and the software which controls this hardware. This talk will start with a high level overview of the changes to storage on macOS. We will then gradually peel the onion and go into greater and greater detail into how things have changed and what that means for you as an end user or system administrator.
Banishing Squirrels From IT: How to Admin While ADHD
Kelly Guimont • Portland, OR, USA
Watch on YouTube • Download Slides (PDF)
Dealing with tech can already be hard, but it’s even harder when your attention span is finicky. This session will offer (both the ADHD diagnosed and the just distractible among us) ideas for how to make time for what you want to work on, minimize time on what you don’t, and give some tips for improving How To People (a skill a lot of us haven’t used much in the last year).
Songs COVID-19 Taught Us
Marcus Ransom • Melbourne, Australia
Watch on YouTube
Much the same way that Woody Guthrie taught us about the Dust Bowl era, what are the cautionary tales about 2020 and beyond that the MacAdmin community will be passing down to the next generation? How have these experiences changed the way we approach our jobs? How has a global pandemic transformed technology in a way that futurists and Digital Prophets were trying to get us to embrace for years?
Conference Closing
Anthony Reimer • MacDeployment Conference Committee, Calgary
Watch on YouTube • Conference List (with website links)
Includes the Tycho Sjögren Memorial Conference List.