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094: Remind me on a website

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Recorded on March 17, 2015

This week's show has been brought to you by the fine folks at Backblaze: Online Backup Made Easy. Visit Backblaze.com/ccp to sign up for their Partner Program and ask for your free license of Backblaze. Try Backblaze and see just how great it is!

Topics:

- Joe thinks Reminders should have the ability to remind me "on a website" (in addition to "on a day" and "at a location"). How great would it be to be reminded when you end up on Amazon or MonoPrice that you need some cable or whatever?

- Apple engineer explains how the new MacBook came to be

- Jerry's funny wifi story

- Sam's Apple Store saga: cracked screen, poorly seated memory, failed migration; seltzer (goes well with sushi â€“ see also: non-alcoholic beer)

- Joe's client attempted a self-directed email server migration at noon on a Wednesday; see also: Episode 077: Trust No One, Yoseminite Sam in regards to a serious permissions issue caused by a prior consultant

- Sam's client turned off Time Machine, but Backblaze saved the day

- Jerry reminds us of Bender, which saved the day for his client

- Joe's CCC praise: migrating to new SSD in new machine, Carbon Copy Cloner identifies drives across reboots, and across different startup disks

- Sam encounters (and solves – remotely) "unapproved caller: SecurityAgent may only be invoked by Apple software"

- Joe teases an upcoming segment about upgrading a client's van

092: What's in the Bag

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Recorded on March 3, 2015

Jerry, Sam, and Joe walk through the contents of their tech bags. Don't miss the images posted to CommandControlPower.com.

Subscribe to our newsletter for Joe's special video feature! (Password: ccp)

We're sponsored this week by Watchman Monitoring, a favorite tool of ours that should be in every professional consultant's toolkit.

Visit WatchmanMonitoring.com/cmdctrlpwr and sign up for your free trial to find out how Watchman Monitoring can keep an eye on your client machines and notify you of over 100 issues. Be sure to tweet @cmdctrlpwr #CCPsentme to support the show!

Topics:

- Jerry shares some great recommendations including WiebeTech UltraDock, Wiha 91118 pouch, and Skooba Design Cable Stable Mini.

- Sam shares the backstories behind carrying Atlas gloves, Gunnar computer glasses, and his set of client keys.

- Joe talks briefly about building PsiTool, and recommends mesh pouches to keep cables, adapters, and tools organized. Also, don't forget to bring cleaning supplies, and fasteners like twist ties, cable ties, anchors, and screws.

091: Interview With Mike Bombich From Bombich.com - Makers of "Carbon Copy Cloner"

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This week's show is commercial free and we hope you enjoy. -  We are pleased to speak with Mike Bombich, Owner and Developer of the premier Macintosh backup application, Carbon Copy Cloner. The leading choice among Apple support professionals, Carbon Copy Cloner is one of the most flexible and powerful backup programs in the Macintosh eco-system. Mike discusses the program's beginnings as well as discussing the current version, Carbon Copy Cloner 4.

TOPICS:

- Bombich Software released Carbon Copy Cloner in 2002, was one of the first OS X backup programs to exist for Apple's new Unix based system. Since then, they have updated and refined their product, offering simplicity of use and feature rich options for the support professional

- "If you make it boot ten seconds faster, you've saved a dozen lives." - Steve Jobs speaking to Andy Hertzfeld
As told here at folklore.org - "Saving Lives"

- Bombich Software Reseller Program - https://cccreseller.com/apply

- Buy Carbon Copy Cloner - Direct From Bombich Software
 Unique opportunity for Consultants to sign up for the CCC Reseller Program and indicate an interest to provide technical support for the Carbon Copy Cloner product!

- Home Automation

  • Philips 431643 Hue Personal Wireless Lighting, Starter Pack - Amazon Link
  • Indigo Domotics -the most advanced do-it-yourself (DIY) smart home platform available. https://www.indigodomo.com

090: Interview With Rusty Little From Alsoft - Makers of "Disk Warrior 5"

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Recorded live on February 17, 2015

This week's show is commercial free and we hope you enjoy. -  We are pleased to speak with Rusty Little, Director of Engineering at Alsoft, Inc., makers of the award winning Mac repair and recovery utility, Disk Warrior 5. Rusty chats about Alsoft's rich Mac history, including product development and the new release of Disk Warrior 5.

TOPICS:

- Alsoft, Inc. was founded in 1984 by two former Apple employees to develop and market MacExpress®, the first programming framework for the Macintosh.

- Chronological Release Dates of Alsoft Products - i.e."Disk Express"

- Buy Disk Warrior - Direct From Alsoft
- Buy Disk Warrior - Direct From Amazon

089: "Big Brother" Is Crashing Your Mail

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Recorded live on February 3, 2015

This week's show has been brought to you by the fine people at Backblaze - Online Backup Made Easy. Visit Backblaze.com or https://www.backblaze.com/ccp to sign up for their Partner Program. If you provide IT support and want to know more, simply signup to try their Partner Program. Backblaze will give your company a free account to try Backblaze and see just how great it is!

TOPICS:

- Jerry talkes about RackSpace Hosted Exchange woes using Apple Mail application. 
Walt Mossberg reviews Outlook for IOS Outlook for iPhone, Android Is a Powerful Productivity App . Sam references security concerns outlined in the article - Outlook for iOS app "breaks" corporate security, developer says .
 You can download your copy of Outlook for IOS from the iTunes Store

- Joe shares his customer issue with POP & IMAP accounts not reflecting "Read" & "Unread" Email Status When Mixing Email Protocols

- Backblaze Storage Pods Seen Here - https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-storage-pod-4/
  Reliability Data Set For 41,000 Hard Drives Now Open Source -   
  https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-data-feb2015/
   Backblaze Parther Program - https://www.backblaze.com/ccp

- Sam talks about his customer that was bitten by the Cryptowall & Cryptolocker Issue, Bitdefender Labs "Cryptowall Vacinne" - http://labs.bitdefender.com/projects/cryptowall-vaccine-2/bitdefender-offers-cryptowall-vaccine/

- Joe tells his tale of the "Big Brother" Mail Crashing Bug in Yosemite 10.10.2 bit not in 10.10.1 
Apple Support Forum - OSX Yosemite 10.10.2 MacMail freeze

- Jerry talks about Apple Mail Email Signature Woes & needing to disable iCloud Drive Syncing for "Mail" under Options in System Preferences
How to Make an HTML Signature in Apple Mail for Yosemite OS X 10.10
http://matt.coneybeare.me/how-to-make-an-html-signature-in-apple-mail-for-yosemite-os-x-10-dot-10/

 

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

086: Apple Store Goes Above and Beyond

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- Joe's Apple Store followup: they fixed it!

- project-based billing considerations

- writing proposals, including an onsite followup to give the client (and consultant) a level of comfort that any unforeseen issues can be resolved because you're standing by

- clients taking your well-designed proposal with specifications and shopping around to other consultants

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

083: New Year's Resolutions 2015, Part 1

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Recorded live on January 6, 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:

- helping family members around the holidays (Jerry sent a newsletter!)

- Comcast shipping new modem/router combos which include an open wifi network; Sam had issues with port forwarding and Comcast doesn't support it

- warning clients and family to be careful trying to follow instructions they find online: "stop if you see the word Terminal"

- we appeared on MacVoices again!

- the need to exercise the tech muscle when you go from being a one man show to hiring someone, to avoid getting rusty

082: Interview with Charles Edge of JAMF Software and Krypted.com

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Pre-recorded on December 16, 2014

Thanks to Charles Edge of JAMF software and Krypted.com for joining us this week!

Topics:

- Bushel, device management for small workgroups

- Charles appeared on MacVoices recently

- Charles has a new book: Take Control of OS X Server

- Special link for Command Control Power listeners to check out the Bushel beta

081: Three French Wrens

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Recorded live on December 16, 2014

Thanks to Smile, makers of PDFPen Scan+, for sponsoring this week's Command Control Power! Visit smilesoftware.com/restart to learn more.

Topics:

- Jerry recommends treating yourself to a second MagSafe Power Adapter: one for your mobile kit and one for your desk

- Jerry also recommends the Wren V5AP AirPlay Speaker,  the Wirecutter's best AirPlay speaker

- TeamViewer 10 followup

- Mike Kingsley recommended using Screen Sharing app and entering the client's Apple ID to request permission to share their screen; works with 10.10 clients; another prompt to control their screen; doesn't share your Apple ID with them – all you need is their Apple ID

- Joe recommends Philips Hue, the Hue Server app, and Indigo

- Sam recommends the Schlage door lock

- check out Sam's Peachpit courses!

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

079: Interview with John O'Fallon of Maxum Development

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Recorded live on December 2, 2014

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.

"And now," cried Max, "let the wild rumpus start!"

Topics:

- John O'Fallon of Maxum Development, makers of Rumpus, discusses 20 years of Mac development, including Apple contracting Maxum to develop the first web server for Mac, the basis of Personal Web Sharing in System 7, Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9!

- how Rumpus came to be

- what are the most popular features and feature requests of Rumpus

- Mike Kingsley offers a couple of examples of customized branding in the Rumpus interface

- plus, John started a brewery!

078: Spelunking for Yasmite

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Recorded live on November 25, 2014

Thanks to Smile, makers of TextExpander touch, for sponsoring this week's Command Control Power! Visit smilesoftware.com/restart to learn more.

Topics:

- helping clients with their "Flash Drive Plug-in"

- Joe noticed Contacts app is better about pasting in an address, automatically parsing city, state, and zip

- trouble with DiskMakerX? createinstallmedia works great for Mavericks, Yosemite, etc.

- difficulty cloning copies of Yosemite installer using latest version of CCC? Disk Utility block copy works

- CCC works perfectly to copy all the data from a failing drive with directory corruption; Disk Utility thought there were only 30GB of data on the drive, but there were actually 235GB; CCC got it all; after rebuilding the directory and repeating the clone using CCC, no additional data needed to be copied; great support from Mike Bombich

- Sam recounts flash storage becoming inaccessible on new MacBook Pro

- Sam explains the pitfalls of restoring the Microsoft User Data folder from Time Machine backup

- Jerry discusses a recent client interaction from which we can all learn something

- how to restore Calendar from Time Machine backup

- we discuss strategies for billing for those unexpectedly-long resolutions; Sam recommends communicating at regular intervals

077: Trust No One, Yoseminite Sam

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Recorded on November 19, 2014

Topics

- Jerry bails out Joe onsite, and diagnoses an issue where a specific website wouldn't load or respond to pings from a client location, but loaded fine from elsewhere; turned out to be a block on the client's static IP due to three failed login attempts

- we discuss clients trying to set things up and fix things themselves

Yoseminite Sam: a no-nonsense guy

Yoseminite Sam: a no-nonsense guy

- do you give clients easy access to their servers, e.g. Screen Sharing?

- Sam lands a client on bowtie alone: "I'm a no-nonsense guy, and you look like a no-nonsense guy too."

- what's your dress code for consulting?

- Joe details troubleshooting serious permissions issues in Yosemite after a prior "consultant" tried to set up shared calendars

- how do you bill for extensive cleanup work like the saga Joe describes?

- Joe notices a pattern to Security Questions answered by a prior consultant

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)