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Miller-Kannemeyer, TLU Building, 124 James Drive, Silverton, Pretoria (2026)

23/06/2022

What is an IT Lab?

Today’s article is a very short piece.

At work, my IT guys are great advocates for creating “a sandpit” that one can play in and test, otherwise known as “a lab”. I found a beautiful definition on a science website describing a lab as “allowing you to turn a project into a living experiment”.

What a wonderful explanation!
I suddenly have visions of Jurassic park and a dinosaur leaping out from some conspicuous corner. But this is exactly what a lab can do in terms of all those horrid IT gremlin's that plague us.

It creates a real life space that allows us to test updates, potential changes to the system, new settings and a host of other things that an IT department may need to do. It is a safe space, that if something goes wrong, it does not affect the rest of the business and allows you to trouble shoot and fix before rolling it out across an organisation.

What surprises me is how many organisations don’t have a lab in place. It really isn’t that expensive when you look at the cost per device and the value you get out of it.
If you have found this interesting, please feel to reach out to me to discuss a lab in your environment. Though we specialise in Mac OS, we have YEARS of experience Wintel as well and can help you either way. It is snow weather in JHB today. I am off to make some hot cocoa and start sketching a piece on as much as I hate changing my password, why it holds so much value.
(And I REALLY DO hate having to continuously change my password!)

14/06/2022

I HATE I.T.!!! Yell my two colleagues as they are trying to solve a problem at a client…but the excitement and chatter as they start to think they know what is causing the problem; is exhilarating. Their energy levels go up and you can see the excitement as they start trouble shooting and getting closer and closer to the root cause.

I find the technical definition for Level 3 support rather dry.

“Level 3 support consists of experts, who may include specialists such as architects, engineers, and creators. These support experts have access to the highest level of company and product information. They can provide solutions for a wide variety of technical problems.”

Here is my definition:

“Level 3 support is PROBLEM SOLVING. It often has very little to do with the hardware, but more to do with how the hardware is integrating into the environment around it.

Level 3 support will require you to do a lot of investigating into how something should be set up, and compare it to, how it is actually set up and then investigate how that will impact other technical layers within the environment.

Suddenly you are no longer working in a contained environment. The world of Level 3 support expands considerably and requires you to have GOOD RELATIONSHIPS with other departments to work together to make sure everything works smoothly and coherently.”

It has been great fun to watch my colleagues problem solve and work their way through the different layers to discover what the root cause is.
It really did make me stop and go, “I don’t think we have a good definition of Level 3 support”. I hope you have enjoyed my definition.

My next piece will be on why one should set up a lab…this has been another learning of mine watching my colleagues at work. It has been fascinating and I think it will be a fun article to write, looking at it from a non IT perspective.

Until then, I’m going to go and listen in on my colleagues again and gather up some of that positive, contagious, energy as they resolve another issue that has been plaguing a client. Their energy really is fantastic, (and their language and description of situations is hysterical)! Until next week, stay warm and remember you can contact me at Miller Kannemeyer to assess your IT estate and see how we can help integrate Apple Macs into your environment smoothly and easily to allow you to enjoy everything they have to offer.

28/03/2022

Application Labs

In our series on Preparing for the Future one of the critical steps most organisations forget is the focus on Software and Hardware evolution and the impact thereof on our staff. If we think back to the beginning 90’s and the text based word editors we used with escape codes to bold or italic text to the complex GUI’s we have today. Far more innovative and ergonomic thinking has gone into these designs and we have become used to it. The basic look and feel across operating systems, software applications and hardware allows for intuitive interaction. This is a continuous learning process and it is great, but what if it breaks?

In the previous articles we focussed on the changes in hardware, and operating systems and the speed at which these changes now take place. This means that we have new versions of software coming at us on a nearly annual basis. Organisations investing in specific software to enable their staff run the risk of quickly having outdated software and without the future proof testing may inadvertently crash their whole company with a single update. The need for future proof testing is becoming a critical ongoing function that requires organisational systemic knowledge as well as a constant view of what is on the update horizon.

There are a few factors that need to be considered in creating a proper laboratory to ensure all future scenarios are tested for before allowing any updates in Operating Systems, Software and Hardware to occur in production:

Laboratories should be an organisationally reflective. This means that the devices, software and operating systems used in the lab should contain the mostly used, but also the most influential in ensuring organisational continuity.
Any device we utilise today is but a single node in a much bigger Ecosystem and the lab should be reflective of the ecosystem as well.
Testing methodologies that not only test for functionality but also non-functional factors should be defined and acceptance criteria agreed to ensure that the software or hardware not only does what it is supposed to when introducing change, but also performs to acceptable speeds. These definitions should cater for industry standards and regulatory requirements as well as the ever present security considerations.
Staffing and skill levels of the lab should also be considered carefully as these resources would need to obtain sufficient knowledge of the various applications and devices to ensure effective testing can be done as required.

Smaller companies may not have the resources to create such a lab and may thus need to consider outsourcing the function.

We at Miller Kannemeyer have extensive knowledge and experience in building these specific labs across various industries and geolocations.

Continue following the new series of articles on Preparing for the Future as Miller Kannemeyer uncovers some of the more IT-type eddies starting to bombard your world.

25/03/2022

Time to change Bad Habits

We have all had IT tell us we shouldn’t save anything to our desktops…it should all be in the cloud.

Why, who cares, what is the importance of this…

Ultimately, you have no back up, or saved copy if you don’t.

My personal PC accidentally got dropped the other week. The screen went black and I suddenly realised all the files I had on my desktop that I had been meaning to move to the cloud but hadn’t! A lot of it I didn’t have copies of. My heart sank and I felt a bit sick. Luckily my PC repair gentleman was able to fix my laptop and I was able to recover the items sitting on my desktop.
The first thing I did was move them to my iCloud Drive.

I was one of the lucky examples…an acquaintance had her very important presentation on her desktop, she had spent A LOT of time on this presentation. While dropping her daughter off at school for her first day, someone decided to help themselves to her laptop out of her boot! Presentation GONE! No back up, no recovery!

Some of the other benefits of saving to the cloud are:

Collaboration - in iCloud it is incredibly easy to collaborate on a document. As a team we can all work on the same document, adding our elements to it, while others are working on theirs. We can review with ease and make comments, edit and finish a document quickly as a team.
* Note that you do all need to be given access to a shared iCloud Directory for this!

Organising - your desktop is always visible, which makes it a tempting place to save too, but it is difficult to organise. Although you can sort files by name or date, you can’t do a second criterion. It can very quickly become overwhelming and crowded. In the Cloud you can organise and tag documents making it much easier to organise and search or even create smart folders.

Another very big one is;

Security - your desktop is not as well protected as files in libraries such as Documents, or Pictures, or in the Cloud. Having Guest settings open allow users access to your desktop, as discussed in my article posted last week “Not all Guests are welcome.” Saving to your Desktop is just not as secure.

We may be in the habit of saving to the desktop. But what is a habit, it is something we do repeatedly. So let's create some new habits…let's save our work to the Cloud to be safer, and more prepared for anything and everything that happens in life.

You can contact me at Miller Kannemeyer to do a free scan to go through your basic settings and advise what is enabled and what you should consider enabling or disabling to tighten up your security, and protect yourself and your data.
I will post again next week on my view and experience of 3rd Level Support. There is a very formal definition of it, but I would love to share my experience of seeing it in action and how I feel the formal definition doesn’t explain the full intricacies of what is involved. Until next week, be safe, and let's create a new habit of saving to the Cloud.

18/03/2022

Guests are not always welcome…

As we work our way through why security is important and the different soft target spots we have on our devices; Guest Account is another area that cybercriminals can use as an easy way into your system.

Guest Account allows a user with access to your device, the option to login without a password and roam freely on your desktop, whether to use the internet, play music from an app or download files to print.

Though a guest account is a low-privilege account, you can’t access emails for example, this becomes dangerous when a user can gain access to whatever files, shares and applications are on your desktop. We all know we shouldn’t be saving important information to our desktop, but we all do it anyway!

As I was looking into the security risks of having Guest account on, I was trying to understand why someone would use this setting. Why would someone need temporary access to my device? As I was asking my colleagues, they suggested it is a great setting for our children! They can play on our device, watch a movie, or Netflix, play a game and not delete random apps, install others and accidentally call our boss 6 times!

Now Guest account setting makes sense! But just remember to switch it off when your child is finished playing on your device. Also check to make sure it is not automatically switched on.

You can contact me at Miller Kannemeyer to do a free scan to go through your basic settings and advise what is enabled and what you should consider enabling or disabling to tighten up your security, and protect yourself and your data.

I will post again next week on what is “why we should be saving to the cloud…instead of our desktops“. Who thought learning about all these settings and how my data can be of importance would be so interesting when explained in everyday situations. Stay safe out there and chat again next week.

22/02/2022

Put up your defences!

This old dog is still learning new tricks…like that our Firewall is our very basic first line defence on our macOS…yet we all often ignore it. Our Firewall is like our lock on our front door. It isn’t 100% hacker proof, but it is a good place to start putting basic protection in place.
Your Firewall can protect you from unwanted contact initiated by other computers when you are connected to the internet or a network. If you don’t have your Firewall enabled you become a very soft target while sitting at the coffee shop connected to the free wi-fi. Your Firewall manages and validates what network traffic is allowed access to your device and looks for anything malicious, like hackers and malware that could infect your computer.
This got me thinking though…what is malware and why is it so dangerous…why should I make sure I have my firewall enabled?
Malware is a collection of software designed to cause harm and havoc - in short, malicious software. Malware can damage files, steal sensitive data like passwords and even take your device hostage!
A malware known as ransomeware holds the files on your computer hostage. Ransomware hackers threaten to delete all your data unless you give them money.
OK! So now I think I understand the importance of my Firewall a bit better! But I don’t have important information, and I most certainly don’t feel I have enough money in my bank account to warrant any attack. This may be true and someone may be looking to just create havoc and give me a hard time in blocking things on my device or deleting files just for fun. But I think we sometimes under estimate the valuable information we have with regards our companies.
What about those meeting notes you have that outline how you will be working with your client and what they are expecting you to deliver? What you have promised to deliver and how? This is very important intellectual property that allows you to differentiate yourself from others in the market. In fact, those meeting notes, have the clients name, and your contacts at that client on them…what if someone took that information and contacted your clients, and started bad mouthing you, or offering the same solution/service? Or threatening too. Now suddenly the information that I have access to becomes quite valuable.
Making sure your Firewall is enabled isn’t the only step you need to take in protecting yourself and the information you have access too, but it is a first. Now that we may have a better understanding of malware and some of the things hackers can do with this, let's make it a little harder for them at every opportunity we have.
Let's make sure we keep our front door locked and enable our Firewall.
Remember, you can contact me at Miller Kannemeyer to do a free security scan to go through your basic settings and advice what is enabled and what you should consider enabling or disabling to tighten up your security, and protect yourself and your data.
I will post again next week on the Gatekeeper setting, what it is, and why we should use it…but for now, I’m locking my “front door”, and relaxing knowing I’m that little bit more secure. Cheers

17/02/2022

The move from CISC to RISC computing is creating a gap in the market. There are two primary reasons for this. The divergence from CISC to RISC processors and the Operating system abilities. Tertiary to this is the drive by Application developers towards the most efficient and feature rich application to entice user adoption.

The race for most chip makers for the common PC have been towards the best CISC chips that it can produce. With the breakaway towards RISC based ARM and the performance advantages it now has from Apple, not to mention the energy efficiency such as battery and temperature advantages, Intel chip developers are at a crossroad. Do they continue to build with the physical circuit limitations CISC presents, or do they start producing RISC based processors? This decision is not just based on the competitive advantage RISC based chip builders are starting to obtain, but also the drive from operating system developers to convert. Herein lies the problem of timing and the agility to change factory lines with all the research that is required.

The operating system developers have a similar problem and all indications are that the major developers will only have fully functional RISC based operating systems available by 2025. Due to the fact that there needs to be serious interaction between chip and operating system developers as well as the PC manufactures, the gap suddenly created by Apple will see a flurry of innovation to try and bridge the gap whilst the competition uses this lag to further its current lead.

The tertiary impact of this will be seen in terms of the bigger software development houses as it will start to redirect development towards the better performing RISC based operating systems to allow a new level of graphical and virtual features to emerge.

As an organisation you thus have the following decisions to make in terms of your hardware and software inventory. Do you sweat your assets the next three years to try and not disrupt your staff and existing enterprise agreements, or do you switch to Apple and prevent your competitors from pulling ahead? You also need to consider that it is not a perfect ecosystem as PC and operating system conflicts in a non Apple world will be multiplied due to the fact that this learning is basically starting again.

The other option is a phased approach as you have some new devices that can weather the storm, but you also have old ones in desperate need of replacement. Will you be trying the best of best for both worlds to hedge your bets? Try not to forget the leading software developers in making your call.

As always Miller Kannemeyer continue to research and track and can assist you with your strategy and help to bridge the current gap.

Continue following the new series of articles on Preparing for the Future as Miller Kannemeyer uncovers some of the more IT-type eddies starting to bombard your world.

16/02/2022

We are all held responsible to the same standard of Data Protection, do you have your basics in place?

Everyone always pushes security on your mobile devices, but sometimes we don’t fully understand the importance of this. In a recent conversation with a colleague it was explained beautifully.
It doesn’t matter if you are a big organisation, or a one man band, we are all held accountable to the same standards of security, privacy and data protection.
Now that is a very big statement and really caught my attention.
The legality around making sure you have taken every step to protect your data and that of clients is becoming treacherous water to navigate. But if you can prove that you took every step possible, you are less likely to hold any liability.
I have a MacBook though, so surely I am secure? Well at least more secure than others? I think one of Apple’s greatest security features is FileVault…but it will only work if you have enabled it.
What is FileVault? FileVault encrypts all of the content on your computer so that only you can access it should your computer be lost, stolen or damaged. There is a difference between having a password and enabling FileVault. As one article beautifully put it, your password is the lock to your front door. It is a deterrent, but I can still break in through the window, or the roof, or even get a lock smith to unlock the door for me. FileVault encrypts my information and makes it incomprehensible and only my password can un-encrypt it.
Our devices have become more than just tools to communicate with each other, we store incredibly valuable and sensitive information on our devices and in our cloud storage. Stealing sensitive information and holding corporates or individuals to ransom is becoming a very real and very profitable cybercrime.
Make sure you have an additional layer of security on your device, you can contact me at Miller Kannemeyer to do a free security scan to go through your basic settings and advise what is enabled; what you should consider enabling or disabling to tighten up your security; and how to protect yourself and your data.
I will post again next week on what FireWall enabling is and why should I care…but for now, I’m locking the vault and instead of throwing away the key, I’m leaving it to Apple to look after! Cheers

11/02/2022

Who knew cybercriminals could use our Bluetooth setting in so many ways!

I have never fully understood the importance of my Bluetooth and how vulnerable it can leave me to cybercriminal attacks.
Attacks via Bluetooth are becoming more and more prevalent. Today, our mobile devices are not just used for calling or sending messages. Phones, tablets and laptops are used for work and often to store important information and execute programs that have a direct impact on a business.
There are a couple of ways cybercriminals are able to use a Bluetooth Attack to their advantage. I felt like a futuristic cop investigating and understanding all of these ways. I hope you find it as fascinating as I did.
A DDOS Attack is a “Distributed Denial of Service” Attack, and is used to create disruption or take down your system by flooding a network with so much malicious traffic that it cannot operate or communicate as it normally would. The attacker is able to “hijack” your ability to operate, by shutting your device down. This is often referred to as BlueJacking.
Now imagine a Bluetooth DDOS attack against numerous devices that are all part of the same organisation or project…lots of devices going down, all at the same time.
As I researched this more, I realised it can get even more frightening.
While BlueJacking sends data, BlueSnarfing can steal data. With all attacks that aim to gain unauthorised access to your device, you won’t realise someone has accessed your data until it is too late.
But how do people get close enough to you to hack in through your Bluetooth? Here is a very likely scenario, and one I have done more than once…you are at the airport a little early and before boarding your flight, you decide to get some work done.
You don’t know the person sitting next to you is a hacker who is just waiting for an opportunity to BlueSnarf unsuspecting users, such as yourself. Your Bluetooth is on, your device is paired and the data on your device is accessed, which can include emails, text messages and more.
Reading further, I found out there are even more ways your Bluetooth can be attacked!
Another form of attack is Eavesdropping.
We often use headsets when talking to people, many of these are Bluetooth enabled. Cybercriminals are able to gain access to these headsets via creative and malicious means and eavesdrop on your conversations.
They may even take it a step further and eavesdrop on the conversations you are having with the people around you while not even using your headset, but merely having the port open. Can you imagine the type of private information they are able to gain? This type of breach in privacy could result in catastrophic problems.
Suddenly, I am starting to realise how vulnerable my Bluetooth can leave me and my corporate and the importance of my Bluetooth settings!
You can contact me at Miller Kannemeyer to do a free scan to go through your basic settings and advise what is enabled and what you should consider enabling or disabling to tighten up your security, and protect yourself and your data.
I will post again next week on what is “FileVault” and the importance of it. Who thought learning about all these settings and how my data can be of importance would be so exciting! Could you imagine what these cybercriminals could do if they used their creativity and ability to do good. I do marvel at their skills.

05/02/2022

Life after Intel based Hardware!

Sand to Sand! During the last five decades we have had MIPS, Intel and lately ARM processors or CPUs. MIPS can mostly be found in old mainframes, Intel in most PC’s and ARM in most phones and tablets. Without delving into too much detail, Intel has Complex Instruction Set Computing (CISC) based CPU’s which previously led to peak performance, whilst ARM has Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) which is a lot more energy efficient. The complex dance between the operating system and the CPU’s make for the ability for applications to provide user functionality. Not long ago, 32-bit applications could be run on all the latest CPU’s but that is now disappearing quickly with even ARM based processors not running 32-bit applications past the end of the year. Managing the risk of outdated software on even more outdated and unsupported hardware in a cost saving exercise will increase your costs to even greater levels in a very near future.

Converting operating systems from CISC to RISC is extreme and the supply of RISC based PC’s very limited introducing a serious dilemma in any organisations strategic planning.

In the last five years we have seen Moore’s Law crumble with even i9 processors now being outperformed by entry level ARM processors as seen with the Apple M1 series. The previous performance advantage Intel processors had has now been negated and ARM’s ability to share workloads across its cores places it well ahead in performance and energy.

With the fast evolution of applications being developed the capability of the underlying OS has become even more critical. Application development as we know it is changing and backward compatibility will not be available. Organisations now have to look at not only the provisioning of newer versions of their application stable, but also the hardware required to run the newer software. Even Apple’s Rosetta 2 will not be around forever to bail you out.

If your business have not started this planning expect an even greater disruption to your tech ecosystem as you battle just to keep your workforce functioning. We at Miller Kannemeyer continuously research and test these scenarios and can assist you with your strategic planning over the medium and long term, but also to bridge the current gap.

Continue following the new series of articles on Preparing for the Future as Miller Kannemeyer uncovers some of the more IT-type eddies starting to bombard your world.

02/02/2022

On my journey of this old dog learning new tricks, I have started to delve into the importance of different settings on your Apple computer. Though my focus has been security, another setting that is important to check is the battery health of your laptop.
At first I didn’t think this sounded exciting at all…until I thought of how I would be lost if my laptop battery didn’t have a good life span. Sitting on the plane from JHB to CT unable to have my laptop plugged in, I still want to be productive and get work done. To do this, I need my laptop to switch on and stay on! Mmm suddenly battery health holds some importance.
The newer Apple Macs now have a battery health management feature to improve the lifespan of your computers battery.
This reduces the wear on your battery, and slows the chemical ageing, ensuring your battery lasts longer.
Surely there is more to it than that? There is. As your battery health starts to diminish, so does the performance of your device and your ability to be productive especially when working offsite at say a coffee shop or even worse in the middle of a presentation to a client when there is no available power supply…and let's not even talk about trying to get work done during power outages.
The battery health management feature is designed to improve your battery’s lifespan by reducing the rate at which it chemically ages. It does this by monitoring your battery’s temperature history and its charging patterns.
Based on the measurements that it collects, the battery health management feature may temporarily reduce your battery’s maximum charge.
This happens as needed to ensure that your battery charges to a level that’s optimised for your usage.
I often marvel at even the little, seemingly unimportant things we can monitor and improve. You can contact me at Miller Kannemeyer to do a free scan to go through your basic settings and advice what is enabled and what you should consider enabling or disabling to tighten up your security, and protect yourself and your data.
I will post again later this week on Bluetooth DDOS Attack and the importance of our Bluetooth settings…but for now, I’m going to enjoy a cup of coffee, a good battery life and get some more work done! Cheers

29/01/2022

Life is a constant set of changes engulfing us with smaller and larger eddies in the Eye of the Storm. We think we know what is happening, and then we get these interesting surprises as mentioned in the well-known Chinese curse. In the technological world of desktop and mobile device technology this is no different and for most business, even those with sufficient resources, it becomes a world of catching up rather than preparing for the future. Furthermore catching up is becoming more hap-hazard due to the shear volume of change and management’s ability to decipher what supports the organisational strategy and what is plainly disruptive. This does not imply that disruptive is bad, but often the timing is just totally inappropriate.

In 1965 Gordon E. Moore published his famous Moore’s Law that has been driving change for more than 50 years. Being one of the Intel founders, this proved more or less a “Rule of Thumb” rather than a law regarding the 18 month cycle of computing power doubling, steady rate of miniaturisation, and the ever increasing manufacturing efficiency.

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Lately the theoretical physicist Michio Kaku has been predicting the exodus of Moore’s Law with Intel chips reaching the end of their technological capability. Computing power simply cannot maintain this exponential rise as it did before. Moore himself acknowledged that “It can’t continue forever”

With the advent of the Apple M1 chip, we can already see the computing power of the entry level M1 chip outperforming top of the line Intel chips.

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The disruption to organisations in terms of the resulting desktop and mobile device inventory as well as the new evolution of software and resulting User Experience will be daunting!

The ability to thus have some advanced warning and strategic advantage in ensuring you stay ahead of the competition require some investment in Preparing for the Future!

Miller Kannemeyer continuously researches and laboratory tests these disruptors thereby assisting our clients in preparing for a more competitive future.

In the new series of articles on Preparing for the Future Miller Kannemeyer will be uncovering some of the more IT-type eddies starting to bombard your world.

Miller-Kannemeyer

23/06/2022

14/06/2022

28/03/2022

25/03/2022

18/03/2022

22/02/2022

17/02/2022

16/02/2022

11/02/2022

05/02/2022

02/02/2022

29/01/2022

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