Sara Kelly

When lack of IT strategy creates unforced errors

Frank, the founder of an innovative e-commerce, direct-to-consumer business, hired a talented and capable web developer to redesign the company’s website. As they were drawing close to launch, the web developer requested credentials for the domain registration service to make a few minor DNS updates and switch from the old website to the new, beautiful one. A well-intentioned project manager provided the web developer with the domain management account’s super admin credentials before taking off for a long weekend.

Later that night, a few staff members realized they were no longer getting emails, and their customer service team started reporting bounced messages and automated systems failing. Even worse, marketing and sales emails were generating embarrassing flurries of messages and confused inquiries as attempts to reach them failed.

Lannan’s new, office and community space in New York’s historic Bayard-Condict Building

When Lannan Foundation closed operations in Santa Fe and set up new operations in New York City at the end of 2024, Macktez was given an opportunity to help design technical solutions for its new headquarters in the historic and landmarked Bayard-Condict building (the only building in NYC designed by renowned architect Louis Sullivan) in downtown Manhattan.

An AI loophole in your pocket: Why Apple’s Writing Tools require a second look

Most users won’t find it easy to distinguish between the privacy Apple promises generally for “Apple Intelligence” and the terms and conditions of your free ChatGPT account. The problem is that when you use free genAI tools, there is no guarantee that your input data (proprietary emails, drafts, or internal notes) won’t be used to get added to and train the large language model (LLM), which makes that input essentially public. This seamless OS integration, activated by a single menu tap on selected text, facilitates behavior we strongly advise against: sending work-related data through a free genAI application.

Redundancy by design: Engineering a high-availability infrastructure for a high-throughput creative firm

Macktez was engaged to architect a ground-up, zero-compromise infrastructure covering wired networking, wireless, compute, and storage. Every layer was designed with redundancy as a first-order constraint: redundant power, controllers, chassis, and paths throughout. The result is an environment that has delivered zero infrastructure downtime since deployment, with real-world internal file transfer throughput of 5–7 Gbps. This performance is comparable to the local NVMe storage of a modern high-end workstation, delivered over a fully shared, enterprise-grade SAN.

Mapping the Invisible, from Technology to Biology

A conversation on the systems we are building to read and interpret the planet’s biological data in real time. We will move from the fundamentals of genomic sequencing as a public health tool to the complex analytics used by organizations like the CDC to track viral evolution and prevent pandemics. This discussion will explore the practical and ethical challenges of creating global access to genetic information and the immense potential of using this data for our collective safety.

Fundamental tips & tricks from Macktez CTO Reilly Scull

“How strong is your foundation?” Reilly asks. “Don’t skimp on the foundation. Don’t be that guy.”

Hormones, Health, and the New Rules of Access

The Tête-à-Tech series kicked off its third year with a conversation that was less of a polite medical lecture and more of a revolutionary manifesto. Hosted by Noah Landow, CEO of Macktez, the event featured Jessica Halem, co-founder of Aviva Bio, a clinical-stage biotech company focused on hormone-based medicine. The room was intimate and the topic was a long-overdue reckoning: how technology and telehealth have finally reached a tipping point for women’s wellness.

Premier beauty brand adopts next-gen user directory and device management

With a blend of Mac and Windows devices across multiple departments and international geographical locations, our client needed an efficient way to handle user authentication and device management from a central platform.