Welcome to my official home on the web. Below, you will find a list of the most recent feature articles that I have published and the sites/magazines where they have appeared. You can subscribe to this list via RSS and be constantly informed of any new pieces as they are published.

In the sidebar, you’ll find my most recent longer works as well as a feed from my Twitter account. Feel free to read my recent posts here or to follow me on Twitter.

You can also use this site to find out more about my professional background and the technology consulting and training services that I offer.

Warmly,
Ryan J. Faas

Recent Articles

Despite the death of Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs, 2011 was a banner year for the company with record breaking sales across its product lines. Several of the trends that propelled Apple forward will continue in to push the company forward in the coming year. Here’s my look at those trends (enterprise and BYOD adoption, the evolution of Siri and iCloud, new iPads and iPhones, and Apple’s role in home entertainment) and the impact that they will have for Apple and the tech industry.

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As more mobile devices flood the workplace, IT needs to deal with an ever expanding list of consumer-oriented smartphones, tablets, and other devices regardless of whether those devices are company-provided, employee owned and supported by a bring your own device (BYOD) program, or are being used for work without IT being told about them. In this piece, I offer some guidelines for crafting and implementing an effective mobile strategy that recognizes that a one-size-fits-all approach is no longer an option.

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As Macs become more prevalent in businesses, so does the need to manage them securely and efficiently. Apple’s own management tools are a great starting point, but don’t often scale well in enterprise environments. These enterprise tools help IT deploy, monitor, and manage Macs and Mac software while also offering greater integration with Active Directory and other enterprise infrastructure.

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Managing Macs can seem like an onerous challenge to IT professional used to dealing with Windows. In this article, I look at the under the hood of OS X Lion and the mechanisms and processes that Apples offers for managed deployments including Active Directory and LDAP integration, account management, initial and patch management rollouts.

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iOS 5 and the iPhone 4S are packed with great new features that will appeal to business users and consumers alike. For IT departments, some of these new features like iCloud, Find My Friends, and Siri present some security concerns. The good news is that Apple gives IT some tools to lock down these features (though they aren’t as granular as one might like). The better news is that iOS 5 offers several enterprise-specific features that will appeal to both IT and end-users.

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As I sat stunned by the news that Apple Chairman Steve Jobs, I couldn’t help but think about his life and career, both at Apple and during his time away at NeXT and Pixar. Steve changed the world and several industries more than once. Here are some ways we can draw inspiration from his life for our own personal and professional lives.

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Apple’s iPhone 4S launch offers a lot of insight into the company’s vision of the future of mobile technology. The Siri virtual assistant, an emphasis on location-based features, and diversifying the iPhone lineup so that there’s an iPhone model for everyone all point to a strategy that is about personalization as much as it is about hardware.

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Apple’s iCloud service replaces MobileMe and it offers some great new features, but some MobileMe staples like web hosting, online galleries, and syncing preferences across multiple Macs are getting left behind. Thankfully, there are some excellent alternatives that longtime MobileMe users should consider.

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The impact Steve Jobs has had during his second tenure at Apple is so dramatic that it’s almost beyond words. In this retrospective, I take a look at the nearly-bankrupt company he returned to in 1997 and how he transformed it into the world’s most valuable tech company, revolutionized multiple industries, and changed the world more than once.

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