The Iru Blog

Iru Team

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4 min read

How to Level Up Your Security Education Program

Educating end-users is a core responsibility for security teams. Not only are such education programs required by compliance regimes, but they’re also one of the most effective ways to actually maintain security: Users are now one of the key attack vectors for bad actors. The more they know about the threats and how to respond to them, the better they’ll be able to defend themselves and your organization.

Educational September 27, 2024

Iru Team

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8 min read

Apple Intelligence: What Mac Admins Need to Know

One of Apple’s biggest announcements at this year’s WWDC was about the upcoming release of what the company calls Apple Intelligence. But, this being Apple, it wasn’t just a jumping-on-the-bandwagon announcement about AI. Rather, it’s about the very Apple approach the company is taking to artificial intelligence, one that puts user benefits and protections first.

Educational July 30, 2024

Iru Team

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5 min read

How to Make Device Management Work for End Users

There’s no question that modern device management is a boon to IT teams. It simplifies and centralizes the way you deploy operating systems, apps, and settings on the devices your organization relies on to get its work done. It also gives you visibility into how those devices are being used and whether they’re in compliance with your desired end-states.

Educational July 19, 2024

Iru Team

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5 min read

To Improve IT Efficiency, Consider New KPIs

How efficient is your IT team? Historically, that’s been a straightforward question, with an equally straightforward answer: You look at the number of help-desk tickets they receive in a given time period, count the number that were solved, calculate the ratio of tickets solved to tickets received, and—voila! You have a metric.

Thought Leadership April 23, 2024

Iru Team

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9 min read

How to Add Devices to Apple Business Manager Using Apple Configurator

Before mobile device management solutions for Apple devices—such as Iru—were common, there was Apple Configurator.

Educational April 18, 2024

Iru Team

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5 min read

Deploying Adobe Creative Cloud: Choosing the Right Path

For Apple IT teams with MDM tools, deploying applications to users is a familiar and relatively straightforward process. Depending on the app and the MDM solution, it could mean deploying titles from the macOS App Store, building and deploying your own app packages, and/or making apps available via self-service.

Educational March 6, 2024

Iru Team

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4 min read

Managing iCloud Access: What You Can (and Can't) Do

Apple IDs have long been integral to the Mac, iPhone, and iPad experience. People are accustomed to using them to sign in to services on their Apple devices—whether those devices are personal or professional.

Educational February 22, 2024

Iru Team

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8 min read

Configuring Mac Settings: MDM, Configuration Profiles, or Scripting?

When it comes to managing Mac computers, there are several ways IT teams can configure their settings remotely.

Educational January 19, 2024

Iru Team

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16 min read

Guide for Apple IT: Introduction to Mac Shell Scripts

With computers, there are usually multiple ways to perform a given task. On Mac, the most obvious and most common way is through the graphical user interface (GUI) using a keyboard, mouse, or trackpad. But smart Mac admins know that anything you can do in the GUI you can usually also do from the command-line interface (CLI).

Educational January 16, 2024

Iru Team

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5 min read

Mac Evaluation Utility: What It's Good For, How to Use It

The Mac Evaluation Utility (MEU) started out as an informal collection of scripts that Apple engineers and consultants would use to evaluate client environments, to see if they were ready for the deployment of Apple devices. Those scripts would check things like local device settings, network configurations, and the accessibility of Apple services, looking for anything that might pose problems for that deployment.

Educational January 9, 2024

Iru Team

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5 min read

Key to Successful MDM Migration: Enlisting Users

Migrating from one MDM solution to another can be a huge win not only for an Apple IT team but for its organization as a whole. That move can unlock efficiencies, reduce costs, and improve security and compliance for everyone. But in pitching, planning, and executing such a migration, it’s good to keep one particular constituency front of mind: your end users. Ultimately, they’re the real reason you’re switching—and you can’t make the move without them.

Educational December 14, 2023

Iru Team

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6 min read

Apple IT Essentials: PKGs and Software Deployment

Packages are structured files, denoted by a .pkg or .mpkg file extension, used to carry installable software. They can contain app and software components, scripts, receipts, and other metadata necessary to install, update, or remove an application. But there are several different types of packages that you might run across.

Educational November 17, 2023

Iru Team

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7 min read

Managing Mac Printing: What Admins Need to Know

Despite the rise of paperless and remote offices, managing printers is still a thing, something Mac admins must deal with every day.

Educational November 10, 2023

Iru Team

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3 min read

Kandji Introduces Enhanced Controls for External Storage Volumes

When your organization audits security, does it include removable storage in that assessment? If not, it should: According to one survey, while 87 percent of companies still use USB drives, less than half of them impose port control on employee devices, and less than half require the use of encryption on those drives.

Product News October 18, 2023

Iru Team

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5 min read

Four Signs It's Time to Switch MDM Solutions

It isn’t that difficult to know when you need to change your current MDM solution. The most prominent sign? You dread making any changes—small or large—to the macOS, iOS, iPadOS, or tvOS devices you’re managing.

Thought Leadership October 13, 2023