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087: Joe's Birthday Bash

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Recorded live on February 3, 2015

This week's show has been brought to you by the good folks at Blue Mango Learning Systems, makers of Clarify. Visit Clarify-It.com to download a free trial of Clarify, and start creating how-to's and instructional documents today – and help others be great. Use coupon code CCPSENTME for 15% off.

Topics:

- Joe complains about the Windows 7 installation process, follow up to Jerry's point about Windows last week: 1) select appropriate version of Windows; 2) buy Windows 7 from Amazon; 3) wait for physical delivery; 4) insert Windows disc and run installer 5) enter product key when prompted; 6) update Windows updater & restart 7) install 174 updates.

- Wren Sound having a sale on current lineup; planning Bluetooth/AirPlay combo units coming soon - BONUS: CCP Listeners Who Enter The Code giffin50 at the Wren Sound Store get an additional $50 off! Bringing the total to $199 from the Wren Sound Store http://wrensound.com
This speaker has been rated by The Wirecutter as one of the best AirPlay speakers you can buy - http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-airplay-speaker/

- Tim Nyberg asks about client purchases: Apple Store affiliate program vs. Apple Store vs. Apple Authorized Reseller

- Alexis Cornellier asks about what tools we use for diagnostics; Joe recommends SoftRAID for its SMART status analysis

- Sam advises that Word 2011 may have sporadic issues saving to a sever with the word "file" in the share name

- iOS 8 GMT bug, which manifests as a "PST" bug for Joe

- Sam deals with an "email tough-guy"

- Jerry debates "you lie" vs. "new parakeet" - 
Monty Python "Dead Parrot" Sketch

084: New Year's Resolutions 2015, Part 2

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Recorded live on January 6, 2015

Many thanks to our sponsor this week, Watchman Monitoring. We use and highly recommend Watchman Monitoring. Sign up for your free trial at watchmanmonitoring.com/cmdctrlpwr.  New Year promotion for people who subscribe: and add the agent to any 20 computers in 30 days and get Custom Branding for 1/2 off.

Topic:

- Business Resolutions for the New Year

080: "Smart" apostrophe

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Recorded live on December 9, 2014

Many thanks to our sponsor this week, Watchman Monitoring. We use and highly recommend Watchman Monitoring. Sign up for your free trial at watchmanmonitoring.com/cmdctrlpwr and tweet @cmdctrlpwr #CCPsentme to support the show! Here's an example of a smart Watchman alert: "Battery condition has changed to Service Battery." Let your client know they need to replace their battery before their next trip!

Topics:

- Joe found that "smart" apostrophe (actually a right single curved quotation mark) in the Computer Name caused a client's Time Machine backup to fail; replacing it with an actual apostrophe (straight single quote) fixed it

- Jerry expresses frustrations when trying to walk a client through initiating a "spontaneous" screen sharing session and walks us through some alternatives to TeamViewer and finds the free trial of join.me to be easiest

- Jerry's client is tickled to teach him something

- Jerry's analogy about where the space on his MacBook Air is going: it's like "the help" stealing silverware piece by piece for a year until Thanksgiving comes and you only have place settings for two and a half

- Time Machine's Local Snapshots (Mobile Backups) can take up space and fail to be removed:
sudo tmutil disablelocal
sudo mv /.MobileBackups.trash /Trashme

- OmniDiskSweeper, DaisyDisk, WhatSize will not see the .MobileBackups folder unless run as root

- Joe's client deliberates for so long about upgrading iCloud storage (to enable iCloud Backup) that it could have paid for two years of iCloud storage

076: Interview with John Chaffee of BusyMac, formerly of Now Software

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Recorded live on November 11, 2014

Many thanks to our sponsor this week, Watchman Monitoring. We're all very happy users of Watchman Monitoring. Sign up for your free trial at watchmanmonitoring.com/cmdctrlpwr and tweet @cmdctrlpwr #CCPsentme to support the show! Here's and example of a smart Watchman alert: "Time Machine AutoBackup was enabled, but is now off." Time Machine may not be completing its backups on schedule

Special thanks to our guest this week, John Chaffee of BusyMac, gearing up for the much-anticipated premiere of BusyContacts. Listen to the show for 20% off!

- John takes us on a trip down memory lane, including the history of Now Software, BusyMac, BusyCal, and now BusyContacts

- remember Now Utilities? see this TidBITS from 1994 for context (note the CompuServe email address at the bottom)

- Power On Software acquired Now Software and rebranded as Now Software in early 2000's

- Calendar and Contacts cloud syncing options (iCloud, Google, Exchange, Kerio, Zimbra, Fruux, OS X Server, etc.)

- Mac App Store challenges

- how to wisely roll out a public beta (i.e. BusyContacts)

074: Managed Services Refresher with Luis Giraldo of Ook and MonkeyBox

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Recorded live on October 28, 2014

This week we're thrilled to be sponsored by Smile, makers of TextExpander – which just got a whole lot better with iOS 8 and custom keyboards. Visit smilesoftware.com/restart to learn more.  Try TextExpander for free and tell your clients!

Thanks to Luis Giraldo for joining us once again to discuss Managed Services.

How does one Quantify the Value of Managed Services?

MonkeyBox integrates with Watchman Monitoring

Previously:
010: Managed Services discussion with Luis Giraldo
041: Managed Services Roundtable with Allen Hancock, Luis Giraldo, and Kevin Ginger, Part 1
042: Managed Services Roundtable with Allen Hancock, Luis Giraldo, and Kevin Ginger, Part 2

072: One-Factor Authentication

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Recorded live on October 14, 2014

Many thanks to our sponsor this week, Watchman Monitoring. We're all big fans and very happy users of Watchman Monitoring. Sign up for your free trial: watchmanmonitoring.com/cmdctrlpwr and tweet @cmdctrlpwr #CCPsentme to support the show!

- thanks again to Thomas Reed of AdwareMedic for last week's interview!

- listener questions; @myklreinhart: "I'd love to hear your annoyances about 6+ before I go buy one. For example, one handed typing— is it as tough as made out?"

- Jerry reports on his everyday use of iPhone 6 Plus; points out one-handed keyboard for iOS 8

- the future of input methods: qwerty keyboards vs. whispering into cupped hands; or T9 predictive texting vs. QuickType; or how about purely predictive (Google Now)?

- death of Macworld/iWorld Conference & Expo; Jerry's beige PowerComputing box; recent end of Macworld print magazine

- Dropbox "breach" prompts another security discussion; reminder: Dropbox offers two factor authentication

- BoxCryptor: folder-level or file-level encryption for your Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, or OneDrive

- cursory "private cloud" discussion of options including Synology CloudStation, Code42 SharePlan, Kerio SamePage, vs. Apple Snow Leopard Mavericks Server

- new Mac mini coming soon? it's been 721 days...

- Jerry gives us FLAC

 

068: Motor City

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Recorded live on September 16, 2014

- Sam's Detroit fast food field trip - old school McDonalds

- 1 Infinite Loop Branded Flak Jacket for those tough road trips - image

- brief discussion of iPhone 6 vs. iPhone 6 Plus; Jerry points out that iPhone 6 has similar footprint to iPhone 5 in Mophie Air case; see also this helpful on-screen size comparison

- Sam follows up about his client with an HP motherboard issue, which HP diagnosed as a bad drive; HP’s hired tech took the hard drive and “completely forgot” about it

- Jerry discusses pitching Watchman Monitoring - When signing up for Watchman, Tweet the hashtag #ccpsentme and let them know you heard about Watchman product here.

- benefit of a personalized “pitch” email written with TextExpander, vs. a generic newsletter; see also Greg Scown, co-founder of Smile, discussing the new TextExpander touch 3

- check out the 1Password App Extension for iOS 8; another example of iOS 8 changing the game for developers and users

- Mac malware/adware discussion; search Google for "Adobe Flash Player" and check out the ad at the top; claims to install Adobe Flash, but shows the Firefox logo, and actually installs Geneo; why doesn’t Google block these ads? why doesn’t Apple block the installer?

- Thomas Reed, author of TheSafeMac.com, writes about recent Mac adware and Apple’s minimal response; also maintains AdwareMedic

- Channel Camp registration is open

067: Watch Me Do

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Recorded live on September 9, 2014

This week, we're thrilled to be sponsored by Watchman Monitoring.  Visit WatchmanMonitoring.com/cmdctrlpwr to find out how Watchman Monitoring can keep an eye on your client machines and notify you of over 100 issues.  When you sign up (and we know you will), be sure to tweet @cmdctrlpwr #CCPsentme to let us know and support the show!

Topics:

- Which Watch?

- iPhone 6 vs. iPhone 6 Plus? compare sizes to iPhone 5

- back pocket vs. front pocket?

- Sam's story of a client unplugging the backup hard drive from the server because they thought it was slowing the system down – should have had Watchman Monitoring installed, which can let you know if a drive is unmounted

- Joe moves his Drobo disk pack from old Drobo Gen 2 into new Drobo Gen 3 and realizes huge speed increase: 123.7 MB/s write & 171.9 MB/s read vs. 27 MB/s write & 24.6 MB/s read; Sam is already using his new Drobo Gen 3 as primary storage on his home server

- Software Update prompts to upgrade the Mac OS on a Server, which kills the Server: we consider this a bug!

- something goes wrong, end user flails, copies and pastes from forums, then finally calls you, the professional

- Bender from Forget Computers automatically backs up server settings

 

061: Phony Tech Support

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Recorded live on July 29, 2014

- one of Joe's clients fell for a popup window claiming virus infection and imploring her to call phony tech support, who proceeded to run harmless utilities (ping test, CPU History, netstat, top) and claiming they were evidence of malware; paid $300 for two years of support from "Mac"; Joe removed LogMeIn, TeamViewer, and ran a full scan using Sophos Antivirus and removed 8 instances of malware

- Sam's wife received a call from phony tech support; thankfully she proceeded to interrogate the guy about his badge number, company, and credentials until he hung up

- Social Engineering techniques on the rise, demonstrated in this scene from Hackers

- Network World reports: FTC takes out “tech support” scammers; $5.1 million in fines, retribution

- Jerry reminds us to manually remove updates downloaded by Software Update service when no longer needed!

- Joe recovered data from client ZIP disk, wrote AppleScript to convert old Word documents

- xkcd: Automation

- Joe discovered issue with Time Machine failing to complete a backup, with no error messages displayed, due to nesting of folders too deeply: "destination path too long"; not sure how long is too long, but in this case is was over 50 levels deep

049: Discretion Is the Better Part of Valor

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Broadcast May 6, 2014

TOPICS: