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265: Interview With Mark Larocque, Sales Manager of Synology America Corp

Topics:

This week we have the pleasure of being joined by Mark Larocque, Sales Manager of Synology America Corp.

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Mark's Bio:
Founded in Vancouver, Canada up until 2015, where I relocated to Seattle, I have a Computer Programming diploma as well as an Adult Education diploma.  Have always had passion for all things tech with a major focus on Apple products, which seemed fitting in me working at Apple Retail from 2011 – 2016.  I have had several roles in account management at various tech firms and currently manage a California book of System Integrators and Re-Sellers at Synology.  I acquired a DS412+ back in 2012 and integrating this unit within my Apple household has allowed me incredible freedom with the many features that Synology provides, as well as the quality of the product and the support offered.  I also have the most adorable Siamese cat named Cobalt.

Some background on Synology:
Founded in 2000, Synology creates network-attached storage (NAS), IP surveillance solutions, and network equipment that transform the way users manage data, conduct surveillance, and manage network in the cloud era. By taking full advantage of the latest technologies, Synology is committed to delivering products with forward-thinking features and best-in-class customer service.

-Mark and the CCP crew talk about some of the hardware that Synology produces

-Jerry asks Mark to describe the naming schema of the product line

-Similar to Apple's take, Synology supports the latest Disk Station Manager (DSM 6.2) on hardware that goes back a number of years

-Mark speaks to the fact that any security concerns are often addressed and patched within a 24 hour period

-The Package Center is a nice advantage of DSM - downloading apps like Photo Station, Media Station, Moments

-QuickConnect is a very nice added benefit of DSM in that it can perform "port punching" to open accessibility to your Synology storage without managing ports on your firewall

-Sam asks about the number of customers moving to Synology from macOS Server and Mark discusses the ability to work directly from the box over the network

-Many of the Synology units support a 10 Gb connection to allow for incredibly fast throughput with supported network equipment and workstations like the iMac Pro

-Synology offers a "product selector" on their site to offer options for compatibility: https://www.synology.com/en-us/support/nas_selector

-In discussing hardware, the topic of hard drives is discussed along with the partnership with Seagate's line of products, such as the IronWolf series.

-Some Synology units have m2 slots for caching.  You can use both for read & write caching

-Jerry talks about an alternative to companies like Box in Cloud Station.  Synology has built in features for HIPAA Compliancy

-Sam talks about the high level of support for any issue that arise

-Joe has a Synology use case of his own while living on the road

-Synology is a perfect solution for Time Machine backup destinations, especially in the wake of Time Capsules no longer being produced

-Jerry brings up Synology's router line as well.  The RT1900ac & RT2600ac units.  Mark goes on to say that the RT2600ac will act as the backbone of their mesh products

-Mark makes the CCP crew aware of the availability of their partner program!  Some of the benefits of the partner program:
--Technical advice and discovery calls
--Special approved discounted pricing
--NFR units - substantial discounts for partners once per calendar year
--Loaner units to use for 30 days as a proof of concept for the clients before purchase

-To find out more about the partner program, call them directly at 425-818-1587 or visit https://www.synology.com/en-us/form/inquiry/sales

264: On The Road With Joe Saponare

OTR2.jpg

Topics:

-Joe is reporting from the streets of Boulder Creek, CA #vanlife

-Joe talks about the unglamorous life of living in a camper (down by the river)

-He actually references Marco Arment discussing camper stories on Accidental Tech Podcast: http://atp.fm

-Cellular difficulties creep up as Joe discusses using his cellular modem

-As a board member of a non-profit, Joe discusses his ability to score an unlimited data plan with Sprint: mobilecitizen.org

-Joe's transition has been surprisingly smooth after going on the road, largely due to his staff at PsiMac

-The disasters of Kerio / GFI are brought up once again

-Both Joe and Jerry have hosted CrashPlan PROe for clients.  Joe is slowly migrating his users to BackBlaze.  Jerry has decommissioned his PROe server.

-Since the root level Library is excluded from BackBlaze by default, Jerry provides a solution to use Carbon Copy Cloner to copy the data to the Documents folder, which would then be backed up.

-Joe's MacBook Pro had a bit of damage when purchased from a client.  Now it is reporting "service battery".  After deciding to send it to depot for repair, he shares his dealings with the process.

-As Jerry comments on Joe's name dropping in California, Joe recalls the SNL sketch called "The Californians" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jIBZjL8G5s

263: Two Guys Pointing To A Mac, Looking Interested & Intrigued

This week we are proud to be sponsored by FLEXdesk, an offering from our friends at Rooted Consulting.  FLEXdesk - Help Desk support that grows with you

Topics:

-Jerry talks about his recent experiences working with out friends at TidBITS Content Network: https://tcn.tidbits.com

-Sam is disappointed in our train show on the way to ACEs won't make it to air

-Sam has some interesting follow up from a story he shared about iCloud backups not appearing.  Jerry's idea to rename one of the phones was based on an older issue relating to Time Machine backups.

-The FBI telling users to reboot their routers caused a bit of panic for some customers

-Repairs is how Jerry spent his Memorial Day weekend and he laments about the latest iMac glue strips from iFixIt. He also had a heck of a time with a fan repair in a Drobo FS

-privnote.com is the latest recommendation from Jerry for securely sending password information

-Time management seems to be a weak point for Sam as he describes preparing for meetings or presentations

-Jerry talks about dressing up for a new client and a snazzy tie

-Sam discusses a client that pays a lump sum annually and the stress that comes with it

-There is some CrashPlan PROe follow up for Jerry as he recently moved to a Linux hosted solution running virtually

-Somewhat on the heels of recent discussions at ACEs, the guys talk about marking up hosted services if you are doing the legwork to set it up and manage

-Contract discussions come up again and Sam talks about being specific about what is NOT covered just as much as what is

-Jerry has to deal with a family member second guessing his work and making his own recommendations

262: How Would A Normal Person Do This?

Topics:

-One of Jerry's local clients needs assistance with updating the OS.  He ends up working on it off-site and doing his magic to bring it back to life.

-The guys discuss working off-site vs in front of the client's eyes as well as keeping equipment like external monitors on hand

-Sam talks about setting up Ubiquiti equipment in his office to be in his comfort zone and coming to the client with a fully configured Wi-Fi setup

-Sam realizes a downside to having an office...spending money on lunch!

-The topic of nutrition comes up again, when the work day gets away from you.  Sam likes the Clif Bars and Jerry is a fan of the Lara bars.

-Jerry loves the podcast How I Built This and interestingly enough, they had Lara on to talk about how she started her business.
https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this

-Right up to the start of the show, Sam was working on an iPhone with water damage with a good friend of the family.  An odd situation came up with relation to iCloud backups.  Jerry has a suggestion based on an old trick to resolve Time Machine backups.  Stay tuned to the next show to find out what happens!

-A pet peeve of Jerry's is when he might shave off some time to be nice.  A client pays and then keeps you around to enter information in the register, delaying you even more.

-Sam recalls that awkward moment when a client was opening a safe in front of you and trying to make sure you aren't able to see

-As Jerry is running, he listens to podcasts.  He shares another pet peeve for playing sound effects that scares the heck out of you while running on the road.

-Working with SonicWall is nothing new to Sam but he had a moment of frustration setting up the SSL VPN client on Windows 10

-While on the Windows topic, Jerry has problems with a computer that ended up being Windows Home Edition

-The dreaded employee or friend that gives a client bad advice that makes them second guess you

-Jerry deals with Windows 5?? (Windows NT) and trouble with UPS

-Sam shares a funny story about hanging out with Adam Rice at ACEs and learning that Reachability actually does exist on the iPhone X!  Chalk that up to something he should have known.

-We have probably all been there before: Jerry talks about a client that swears that a feature existed before when it actually didn't.

261: Just Stick It In The Chooser

We welcome our VIP Patreon sponsors:

Zvon Petric - At Your Server

Zvon Petric - At Your Server

Topics:

-Sam's younger sister got married! Sam felt the need to tell the story of how he almost brought the ceremony to a halt.

-To segway back into a technology discussion, Sam describes a recent relationship he developed with an A/V company that has blossomed into a steady stream of referrals.

-Jerry brings up a topic brought to us be a few listeners about the end of macOS Server.  The topic diverges into Airport Extreme's demise and how we have learned to move on.

-Joe has to deal with file sharing for iOS devices so Sam recommended a great app called FileBrowser: https://www.stratospherix.com/products/filebrowser/

-All this file sharing talk makes the guys think back to the days of OS 9 and The Chooser

-Sam has some follow up on his move to Synology and illegal characters

-Jerry gives his review of Ubiquiti Amplifi after we have some listener feedback:
https://amplifi.com

-Mesh Wi-Fi Showdown: Plume, Google Wifi, Eero, AmpliFi
https://youtu.be/F6tn_uLz3KM?t=11m59s

-An angry Sam talks about showing completed Reminders on macOS

-There is an update to Omni Disk Sweeper:
https://www.omnigroup.com/more/

-Support Omni Group by using some of their other very functional products: OmniFocus, OmniGraffle, OmniPlan, & OmniOutliner.  Jerry mentions an accommodation for members of the ACN.

-Shout out to Mac Geek Gab Podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mac-geek-gab-enhanced-aac/id73330785?mt=2

-The team at Mac Geek Gab recommend Elclecticlight.co to find, among other things, a 32-bit app checker for macOS.

-Cocktailis a great utility that Joe highly recommends. A recent tip by the makers of Cocktail talk about the Reading List being available offline is not on by default.  Enable it in Safari Preferences>Advanced pane.

-Etrecheck gets further discussion as Jerry talks about how he has used it in the past

-Joe has some follow up from our pal Tom Bridge of the MacAdmins Podcast, among other things.  Tom had some insight into the "Too many corpses" error Joe was getting a few weeks back.

-Blog posts are a huge driver of traffic to your site and Jerry gives some blog and social media tips

-Speaking of blog posts, our friends at the TidBITS Content Network.  They can help fill in that gap of having new and relevant content on your site since we constantly run out of time.

-One Time Secret is a site used for a secure method of sending information like passwords to your clients:
https://onetimesecret.com

-All this talk about passwords brings to mind a great Jimmy Kimmel bit asking people on the street for their passwords: https://youtu.be/opRMrEfAIiI

Thanks to all of our Patreon sponsors!

Thanks to all of our Patreon sponsors!

260: Live From ACES - "Joe Has Left The Building"

Thank you to our sponsor, Phone.com.  Flexible, cost-effective communications & collaboration solutions for small business and entrepreneurs starting as low as $9.99/month.

Trusted by over 25,000 businesses, every day.

Topics:

Command Control Power is live at the ACEs Conference in Baltimore Maryland!

-Special thanks to Justin Esgar for inviting us to be a part of ACEs

-Joe talks about the excellent start to the conference with yoga and the first session of the work/life balance with Melanie Curtis

-We are now at 260 shows and counting

-A shout out to Michael of Origin 84 listening live all the way from Australia

-A huge announcement from our very own Joe Saponare!  After much thought and planning, he is taking to the road with his wife Ashleigh.  They will be traveling in their camper van for the next year or so.  An amazing experience and we all wish them well.

Al Franken Antenna.jpg

-A question from the audience about Wi-Fi on the road.  Joe talks about his AT&T and Verizon connections via a bonded cellular router.  It brings to mind Al Franken on SNL.

-He will start by flying out to LA shortly and head off to the Pacific Northwest.

-Steve Sorbo offers an open invitation to visit him in Seattle

-Richard Wingfield asks how his clients are taking this.  Joe is taking an approach of giving certain clients a heads up but not making a big announcement as of yet.

-Live support!  Sam gets desperate texts from one of his employees during the live show.  He is in the weeds with a Synology migration.

-We are doing a new t-shirt campaign that will include our Patreon sponsors.  If you are not already a sponsor, visit https://www.patreon.com/cmdctrlpwr/memberships by June 1st to have your name on the shirt.

 

-Command Control Power announces that, thanks to the support of our listeners, we are now able to go sponsor free!

-Steve Sorbo mentions how much he enjoyed the show featuring Smith.ai

-If you have any suggestions for the show, please let us know

-Richard Wingfield discusses how the show acts as his psychiatrist 

-Jerry puts Allen Hancock on the spot and he discusses a new feature coming from Watchman Monitoring

-Joe made the move from Zendesk to RepairShopr

-Adam Engst of TidBITS Content Network has advice about making major changes like a new website or infrastructure and time to estimate to get the job done

-Alex Narvey of Precursor Systems brings up his favorite tip from the show, unlocking a user's session with admin credentials.

Using your preferred command line text editor, edit /etc/pam.d/screensaver change: account required pam_group.so no_warn group=admin,wheel fail_safe to account sufficient pam_group.so no_warn group=admin,wheel fail_safe Back at the lock screen, hold down Option & Return and enter the username of an administrator and enter the password. You will be granted access to the logged in user session.

-Justin Esgar comes up to discuss the day 2 schedule for ACEs.  He also talks about the videos available to view all the amazing content from ACEs 2018 for just $299.  You can purchase them here: http://acesconf.com/video

-Sam briefly mentions his decision to sign a lease for office space in CT

259: Nana's Got A Bunch Of Reds In Her Basement

-This week we are proud to be sponsored by FLEXdesk, an offering from our friends at Rooted Consulting.  FLEXdesk - Help Desk support that grows with you

Topics:

-Sam starts the show by discussing a recent rate increase he is introducing

-Jerry discusses timing of rate hikes

-While on the topic, Sam shares a story about tough negotiations with a particular client

-After an announcement from CrashPlan ending PROe Server for Mac, Jerry has to take steps to keep his server up and running for clients using Parallels and Ubuntu

-A brief talk about storing data in the cloud and FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt)

-"All my data is gone" - Sam recalls a story where a client fiddled with equipment and caused a minor scare for herself

-After replacing macOS Server with a Synology, Sam gets the dreaded ticket to report that items are missing.  The story turns to an issue of illegal characters in filenames.  An old favorite called A Better Finder Rename is brought in to do mass renames on the server.

-The Synology discussion prompts Jerry to talk about types of drives used, including WD Reds and Seagate IronWolf.

-DAS PSA from Jerry about Drobo units and a run of bad power supplies

-Sam brings up a great blog discussion about APFS snapshots at the setup assistant thanks to a tip from Arek Dreyer https://smithjw.me/2018/04/23/APFS-Snapshots-Setup-Assistant/

258: One More Pajama Story

This show is brought to you commercial free, thanks to our Patreon sponsors!

This show is brought to you commercial free, thanks to our Patreon sponsors!

Topics:

-Sam has a big announcement - HCS has acquired office space in South Norwalk, CT!  Pictures to come soon.  The only downside is he can no longer wear his pajamas to the weekly meetings.

-Joe was hoping to have some follow up from listeners about the Downloads folder not being in the Dock causing hangs in macOS

-Jerry asks Joe for follow up from MacStadium about an IP block that seems to think its in Russia

-Jerry asks the crew about upgrading to TeamViewer 13 and Joe riffs on how "un Mac-like" TeamViewer is as an app

-Jerry forks over a few bucks for disposable booties to wear at clients

-The old crew discusses styles of young people today

-What to do when Face ID doesn't work?

-Lost VPN credentials have been a recent issue for Joe

-Sam discovers Rumpus for Windows!  He may have been living under a rock but had no idea.

-Jerry has recently started working with Meraki products.  He mentions how you can sign up for their webinars and get free gear as well as a three year Meraki license.

-"Joe's Tech Korner" is back as he talks about issue related to Apple Remote Desktop and issues connecting to a Mac remotely.  Using quick thinking, he power cycled the switch remotely, which caused the computer to re-communicate with the network and allowed him back in.

-The group talks about an influx of spoofing emails appearing to come from Rackspace

-Jerry talks up CoRD as an excellent alternative to Microsoft Remote Desktop:
http://cord.sourceforge.net

257: Interview With Lucas Acosta, CEO of Foojee Consultants in Atlanta, Georgia

Topics:

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Lucas Acosta, Founder & CEO of Foojee Consultants in Atlanta, GA joins us this week for an interview

Five Things You Should Know About Foojee

  1. Foojee was born out of a calling to serve. We combined that calling with our enthusiasm of Apple products and created a company.

  2. We're in it to win it. We don't outsource our talent. All of our team members are W-2 employees with benefits, and each one adds their own spice to the Foojee brand.

  3. Why the name Foojee? Welp, the Fuji apple is our founder's favorite type of apple. Simple as that.

  4. Since we opened shop, we've grown on referrals alone.

  5. We create monthly Apple®-centric videos filled with tips, news, advice, and the occasional joke. It's how we like to keep in touch with our clients.

-Foojee is an outsourced IT shop for businesses using Apple products

-The majority is managed services for small businesses as well as MDM projects

-Video started out as a side hobby that turned into a revenue stream for Foojee. It all started when they started doing it for themselves. Lucas encourages those listening to try it yourself first

-Foojee uses a traditional email campaign with hosted YouTube videos to send to their subscribers

-Video also creates a way to keep that close relationship with your clients

-"Apple products at work" is the theme of their latest videos, focusing on using Apple products in business

-Get started using an iPhone as your microphone, using the Voice Memos app

-One thing videos do not do is generate leads.  But it helps when potential clients are comparing you to your competitors

-Visit Foojee's YouTube channel

-Lucas discusses the raw, single take vs scripted video and the pros and cons of each

-As the CEO, Lucas is still 50-60% engineer and 20-30% business development

-Lucas started Foojee in 2008 and he discusses the ebbs & flows of running a business

-He was initially under the impression that he needed to be big in order for clients to hire them

-In the same vein, Joe talks about his focus on the residential market

The main reason Lucas is part of the ACN, besides the leads, is that he wants to be aligned with Apple

Foojee's original company name was On-Site Technical Consulting!

Thank you to our Patron sponsors!

Thank you to our Patron sponsors!

255: Live April Show - Deep Down In A Bunker In Switzerland

We welcome our new VIP Patreon sponsors:

Zvon Petric - At Your Server

Zvon Petric - At Your Server

Topics:

-Jerry has an amusing client story about a lost password and how he put Addigy to good use

-Speaking of passwords, Sam describes an uncanny story about how an Apple employee guessed a user's password out of thin air

-Sam describes a story of how a client was scammed via email for over $200,000.  It calls to mind that Ubiquiti was similarly the victim of an email scam to the tune of $47 million dollars!  
http://fortune.com/2015/08/10/ubiquiti-networks-email-scam-40-million/

-Two possible options for secure mail:
Proton Mail: proton.me, formerly protonmail.com
Mimecast: https://www.mimecast.com

-Joe encounters an interesting startup message in verbose mode: "Too many corpses being created"

-One of Jerry's clients has some issues with spam filtering with Only My Email and directing messages to Fast Mail

-Is long propagation time still a thing?

-GFI sucks! - According to Joe's experiences.  Media Temple isn't much better.
Go to status.gfi.com and view the history to have a laugh

-Jerry has an interesting experience with Sherweb where a certificate trust dialogue box appears for a client's email...

IMG_2572.jpg

-Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer: https://testconnectivity.microsoft.com

-Sam runs across a situation where copying files using the Synology GUI was unbearably slow.  He ended up enabling SSH on the Synology and used a host Mac to initiate an SSH connection and utilitized the cp command:
cp -pr /source/directory/ /destination/directory/

-ACEs is just around the corner and the group shares some great quotes from previous attendees.  If you haven't already, sign up for ACEs today!

-Sam & Joe have a secret meeting at PsiMac World Headquarters

-Joe spins a yarn about calendar invites and an Apple ID, Google Calendar, and Microsoft Exchange, oh my!

254: What's up, Dock?

Topics:

-This week's show is brought to you by FLEXdesk - your help desk support that grows with your company.  Go to rootedconsulting.org/flexdesk to find out more.

-Jerry takes over Joe's Peeves Corner as he gripes about Apple Remote Desktop and its annoying habit of jumping to different computers when it is populating a list

-It brings up the topic of Addigy and their remote access client and its speedy and reliable access.  Also Addigy's SSH/command line capabilities to perhaps kickstart Apple Remote Desktop.

-Joe talks about users enabling Printer Sharing.  If users turn it on and people connect through it, changing the host computer's name in System Preferences>Sharing will cause shared users to no longer be able to use it.

-Continuing failed updates with High Sierra and the now infamous "missing or damaged" error

-It reminds Joe of a story where a client had a firmware password on a Mac that was acquired from a previous user.  In a similar situation where the Apple Store could not/would not unlock it.  They extracted the hard drive, installed it in another system and wiped/updated it.  They then placed it back in the original iMac and it successfully booted.

-Jerry floats a conspiracy theory as to why these installer issues have been so rampant

"Joe's Tech Clinic" - After an upgrade to High Sierra, the Dock and Finder were slow to respond after booting each time.  Subsequent downloads would cause the Dock to then be unresponsive, once complete.  Joe attempted many fixes: resetting launch services, removing /var/folders contents (except zz), safe boot, resetting NVRAM, SMC, nada.  Also tried trashing Dock preferences and rebuilt manually.  A key was that the Downloads folder was not in the Dock.  Unbelievably, adding it to the Dock corrected the issue!

-A nice addition to the show is additional audio from our interview with Justin Maxwell of smith.ai and Keypad.  Justin talks about his time working for Apple.

-The rumor about being caught in an elevator with Steve Jobs turns out to be true!

-Justin and his wife were at Apple during the famous "I'm a Mac" commercials.  He talks about the underdog mentality that made for a very exciting time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfv6Ah_MVJU

-He was on the team that created and released Aperture

-Joe remembers the time of the release of the Intel processor.  At that time, Justin was part of the team building the iLife website (in Flash!).  At that time, Adobe decided not to release Flash for the intel processors.  Justin's team had to rebuild the entire website, working through holidays and weekends to meet a deadline.  Released the morning of MacWorld, Steve Jobs hated it!  Justin kept a little memento to remind him of that time in his life.

-Of the many things that Justin learned from all of this, Steve was almost always right. He always thought of the user first.

253: Interview with Justin Maxwell of Smith.ai & Keypad

JustinMaxwell.jpeg

Justin Maxwell of Smith.ai and Keypad joins us for an incredibly informative and in depth interview.  Most recently the design lead for Google’s Android Auto, Justin has designed products and built teams for Google, Apple, Mint (Intuit), Sony, and plenty of startups along the way.  Here are two of Justin's offerings that we discuss on Command Control Power:

-Smith.ai is a superior call answering & intake service for small & solo businesses. Their live, U.S.-based virtual receptionists capture & qualify leads, book new clients, and build better relationships with your existing clients.

-Keypad is the most advanced & affordable cloud phone system for small businesses.  Keypad offers call routing, call analytics, and many customizations to help you track your performance, and convert more leads.

-Justin takes us through not only the story of how he brought these businesses to life but his life at Apple as an interaction designer for Apple.com

-As we talk Smith.ai, Justin describes the look and feel of the site and how it relates to their customers

-Smith.ai acts as your virtual receptionist, to provide a layer between customers and your business.  At the same time, they are able to weed out all of the spam or unnecessary calls.

-Justin was mint.com's first UX hire and gave him good perspective on small businesses and their needs

-Their team essentially followed around small businesses over the course of a Summer to figure out what their needs were and what they found was that phone calls were the biggest pain point

-Instead of being a brick & mortar company, they utilized VoIP technology and highly skilled employees working from their locations

-"It all starts with a phone call"

-Jerry can't imagine running his business without Smith.ai at this point.  Even just not having to answer calls at client sites to try and make a sale

-Smith.ai's system uses machine learning to help the receptionists make the right decisions over the course of a call and provide the correct answers, versus reading from a script

-Joe & Justin discuss their easy to understand pricing as opposed to minute based pricing

-Keypad is an excellent complement to the Smith.ai service.  Instead of using services like Ring Central, Google Voice or Grasshopper, which can add latency to a call, they developed Keypad.

-You can sign up for the beta of Keypad here

-Simplicity is a focus of Keypad because of feedback the team has received about similar service offerings

-Justin discusses analytics to understand when volume is high or knowing when you need additional support

-Jerry mentions a possible higher tier offering for VIP support and how to tie it in to our monthly services plans

-Joe signs up right here on the show!

-Look out for service offerings in the chat space from Justin's team

252: Migrate Is Becoming A Trigger Word For Me

Topics:

-Joe has some follow up for same from Episode 223 "It's not you, it's me" about Mail notifications

-Sam follows up on his experience at the ACN Road Show in Santa Monica, CA

-Sam shares a story from one of our listeners that recovered a stolen MacBook Pro with assistance from the police department

-In working with a client, Joe discovers that Find My iPhone was off.  He also discussed enabling show last location, which is a handy feature.

-Sam tries to inject a new segment in the show, "Sam's travel corner"

-Jerry reminds us about taking a few moments to ask clients for an online review

-Jerry talks about an experience with a client that had a failed High Sierra upgrade - "macOS could not be installed on this computer" and used terminal to correct it:
diskutil list
diskutil umount force /dev/disk1
(Take note of your disk id. disk1 in my case)
diskutil apfs convert /dev/disk1

macOSerror.png

-We reference Mike Bombich from Carbon Copy Cloner and an APFS issue that was found when dealing with sparse images:
https://bombich.com/blog/2018/02/15/macos-may-lose-data-on-apfs-formatted-disk-images

-Not to be outdone, Joe introduces yet another segment, "Joe's Kuriosity Korner"

-A client that politely declined Joe's monthly services plan ends up with an issue with data loss after a liquid spill and the Apple Store replaced hardware.  PsiMac to the rescue: had her order the hard drive from Backblaze. It contained a full copy of her home folder, which brought her data back.  Two fallout issues were Keychain related and the Photos library.  

-Sam has an issue with spotlight and Outlook 2016 and found a more recent support article to deal with the issue using the mdimport command.  This was a welcome new approach to removing and rebuilding the spotlight database:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2741535/outlook-for-mac-search-returns-no-results-and-task-items-are-not-displ

-A story you have to hear to believe - Joe's client has an issue with sending emails from Outlook and coming out as gibberish to receivers.  After upgrading from Outlook 2011 to 2016, the issue remained.  In the end, an errant carriage return in one of her contact names caused this formatting issue to occur.

"Just re-index it dude" 
-Apparently Sam

251: Some Serious 'Splainin' About Apple Products

Come see our live show at ACEs 2018! acesconf.com/ccp

Come see our live show at ACEs 2018!
acesconf.com/ccp

hqdefault.jpg

• 'Splainin': Originally derived from the TV series I Love Lucy: to give a false explanation to something you are trying to hide.

• Jerry mentions tracking slow times on the calendar for future reference and reflection

• Jerry picks Joe’s brain about different types of labor scenarios and how PsiMac offers labor services

• Joe and Jerry discuss the need to constantly reevaluate the optimal age of a Mac that might be a candidate for upgrade. When is it worth upgrading 2011-2012 iMacs?

• Jerry recommends the iFixIt Pro program for resellers to get a better rate on parts including the adhesive kit for 2012 and newer iMacs

• Jerry revisits the Mouse Jiggler app from Episode 246: Let Go Of My Echo or Echo Location that helped his Fusion Drive encryption proceed, and shares some excellent feedback from Tom Bridge re: encryption requiring the mouse to be moving. Tom suspected Apple is "using the entropy from the mouse cursor to do part of the encryption" which is apparently the case in High Sierra with APFS (although Jerry's drive was not APFS). See also: The Lava Lamps That Help Keep The Internet Secure

• installing MalwareBytes on High Sierra requires manually allowing the kernel extension to run by clicking Allow in System Preferences: Security & Privacy: General. It appears that it cannot be done using TeamViewer, or perhaps other remote access software e.g. Screen Sharing either. It must be clicked by a local user. See MalwareBytes forum posts 1 and 2

• the MalwareBytes kernel extension issue reminds Joe of an old issue where Keychain Access prompts for login password would require a local user with a physical mouse to click the Allow button. We discussed it two years ago in February 2016, in Episode 140: Tom Bridge of Technolutionary.com - Go iPad Pro or Go Home, in which we discuss the Apple security note About the security content of OS X El Capitan 10.11.1, Security Update 2015-004 Yosemite, and Security Update 2015-007 Mavericks, which explains a change to SecurityAgent: "Impact: A malicious application can programmatically control keychain access prompts. Description: A method existed for applications to create synthetic clicks on keychain prompts. This was addressed by disabling synthetic clicks." Also, we followed up in the very next episode, 141: Keep Your "clicks" Local and Organic!

• In honor of all the new segments (Joe's Conspiracy Corner and Think Like a Client), Jerry and Joe both bring back an old segment and share an "I Should Have Known This"

• Jerry shares a tip courtesy of our very own Sam Valencia: how to find which volume is the startup disk in Terminal

• Joe shares where the setting is to turn off the Offload Unused Apps feature: in Settings: iTunes & App Store

• Jerry brings up the 'Splainin' we sometimes have to do on Apple's behalf

• To round out the show, we share some of the challenges and confusion clients can feel when trying to decide on a new Mac or an upgrade

250: Interview - Justin Esgar of ACES Conference, Adam Engst Of Tidbits Contenet Network & Adam Rice of AdamRice.org .

Join us all at ACEs Conference on May 9th & 10th in Baltimore, MD! 
https://acesconf.com/ccp

ACEs Conference was created for one reason and one reason only: To help IT consultants grow their companies.With unique, premium content delivered by world-class speakers, ACEs Conference is the place for inspiration, ideas, business networking, and…

ACEs Conference was created for one reason and one reason only:
To help IT consultants grow their companies.

With unique, premium content delivered by world-class speakers, ACEs Conference is the place for inspiration, ideas, business networking, and instantly-applicable knowledge. It’s no surprise that our attendees continue coming year after year—just one ACEs Conference and you’ll be sold.

Justin esgar

Justin esgar

Adam engst

Adam engst

adam rice

adam rice

Our Guests This Week:
Justin Esgar - Founder and creator of ACEs Conference
Adam Engst - TidBITS Content Network & speaker at ACEs - https://tcn.tidbits.com
Adam Rice - Fellow ACN and ACEs attendee extraordinaire - https://adamrice.org

Just some of the great features of ACEs Conference 2018:
-Sit Down with Charles Edge - Panel Discussion
-Adam Engst will be Moderating a marketing panel
-Mark Berman - Journey Mapping (to be revealed)

-A general discussion brews about how marketing works within the world of small business

-Find that one "golden nugget" that resonates the most with you and introduces new way to thinking about things

-Jerry brings up an excellent question that Justin answers about business owners that may think they know the lay of the land and what ACEs can do for them

-Adam Rice discusses his business location, clientele, and how his first ACEs opened his eyes

-Justin talks about the ACEs Mastermind Group, which continues the conversation after the conference: https://www.acesmastermind.com

-Addigy will be holding a welcome party overlooking Camden Yards on May 8th.  Join us there!

-Tickets are $529 but using the code CCP will give you a 10% discount.  Use your code before prices go up!

-Command Control Power will be doing a Live Show at ACEs Conference 2018 on day 1.  We hope to see you there.

 

249: Live Show - A Series Of Unfortunate Events

watchman.jpeg

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:

-Joe calls back to a 27" iMac hinge repair.  Sam & Joe have both used https://www.themachack.com to hold up the display.  But Joe references that Apple will reimburse customers with proof of repair.

-TI83 Calculator was Joe's calculator of choice in high school.  You can still get one on Amazon!
https://www.amazon.com/Texas-Instruments-TI-83-Graphing-Calculator/dp/B00001N2QU

-The Jiggler was a handy program Jerry had used to keep FileVault moving along.  But unfortunately he has some follow up news regarding FileVault that wasn't so great.

-The team discusses fusion drives and weighing cost options for clients

-Joe introduces a new segment to the show, "Joe's Konspiracy Korner"
In this week's konspiracy, Joe throws around theories about a rash of errors on macOS computers. - "macOS could not be installed on your computer.  The path /System/Installation/Packages/OSInstall.mpkg appears to be missing or damaged"
Some solutions offered from Stack Exchange - https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/299808/high-sierra-the-path-system-installation-packages-osinstall-mpkg-appears-to-b

-Sam got bleeped! Guess the banned word and we'll give you credit on the show!

-Sam brings up a scenario where a client lost her iPhone with Find My iPhone off and a lost iTunes backup password.  Jerry offers a possible solution in LCOM Soft:
https://www.elcomsoft.com/

-Some Synology follow up from Sam regarding rebuilding a RAID.  This was discussed on an Episode 241 with Weldon Dodd.

-Jerry has some rave reviews about a podcast app for Apple Watch called Outcast
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/outcast-for-apple-watch/

Some more of Jerry's reviews:
PopClip Extensions
pilotmoon.com/popclip/

Card Hop
https://flexibits.com/cardhop

-Joe's pop quiz: how is a shut down and cold boot different from a restart?

-Another new segment from Joe!  How to think like a client?
This week: Backups.  A client wouldn't realize that the key to laptops backing up reliably is to plug them into power while they are open and awake, unless they support Power Nap (Dark Wake). The default setting is not to back up while on battery power.

-One of Jerry's clients has an issue where she thought all of her documents appearing as My Documents.zip.  The explanation is something we have all encountered before.

-How much time have you spent assisting clients with downloading and running TeamViewer?

THANK YOU TO OUR PATREON SPONSORS!

THANK YOU TO OUR PATREON SPONSORS!

248: Interview with Jeramy LeCompte and Daniel Allen of FLEXdesk by Rooted Consulting

Topics:

We have the great pleasure of having not one, but two guests on this week.  Jeramy LeCompte and Daniel Allen of Rooted Consulting join us to talk about their outsourced help desk service, FLEXdesk.

Jeramy lecompte

Jeramy lecompte

daniel allen

daniel allen

FLEXdesk is a flexible, outsourced HelpDesk service that allows you to quickly and easily scale your business with a highly qualified and experienced team without adding the expenses associated with traditional employees. This allows you to focus on customer support and gives you peace of mind to provide a great customer experience.

-Daniel answers some questions regarding minimum requirements and overall logistics of onboarding new clients

-Jeramy also talks about providing tier 1 and tier 2 support for their customers as well as offering tier 3 when necessary.

-Everyone on the FLEXdesk team has obtained at least Apple Certified Support Professional status

-They discuss the challenges that all teams face when dealing with a new end user that may be unfamiliar with the personnel

-Documentation is key and makes the handoff seamless to the FLEXdesk team

-Some benefits of FLEXdesk:
    -Allows you to free up time to focus on building your business
    -Takes out the need to hire a full time employee
    -Reduces costs in training and on-boarding 

-Scheduling and prioritizing is a critical aspect of how they operate

-Looking to get started?  Email support@rootedconsulting.org to reach out to a member of the team.  Or visit www.rootedconsulting.org/flexdesk

 

247: Interview with Michael Thomsen, Director, Origin84

- Michael Thomsen, Director at Origin84, Proactive Support Professional, Sydney, Australia
Origin84 is an Apple-focussed technology consultancy based in Surry Hills, NSW.

Michael has spent over ten years of working professionally alongside the sales and service branches of Apple Australia. He has gained a deep understanding of the complexities and uniqueness of selling and supporting Apple branded equipment. 

After 8 years of independent consulting he founded Origin84 in 2015 to meet the opening in the Australian market for a mid size Apple focussed support and management consultancy. Over the past 12 months Origin84 has grown to be a premiere supplier of premium professional services in Australia to the advertising, marketing and banking sectors - or any company who rely on Macs to make their living. Origin84 has also been specifically sought out to work with a number of international and multinational clientele.

Topics:

-Joe remembers the kind gift that Michael gave us during the live ACEs show last year

-Home users are not part of Origin 84's business focus

-Requirements for ACNs outside of the US are different and some of those details come in to focus

-Australia has a small market and is heavily regulated and Michael gives us his thoughts and process

-Michael changed his model from ordering application licenses to having the client purchase, thereby adjusting risk/reward ratio.  It also empowers the client as opposed to you holding all the keys and a false sense of job security.

-As Jerry comments on Michael’s keen business acumen, he talks about his influences

-An interesting discussion brews about putting profit first, then factor in all of your costs

-Sound advice about considering margins in your timing to allow for less stress on your team to get the job done right instead of worrying about the clock
Shaun Blanc - https://shawnblanc.net/margin/

-“I don’t like apologizing”.  Michael goes on to talk about not making mistakes, and that’s where time comes in as a benefit for your engineers as well as the clients.

-Joe brings up the origin of the Origin 84 name (here’s a hint, the year 1984 plays a role)

-A deeper dive about the ACN program not only outside of the United States, but what the ACN of the future will look like.

 

- "Whip-smart ideas and advice for businesses who earn a living with their Macs."
         -Michael Thomsen

Origin Eighty-Four PTY Limited
1 Ann Street, Surry Hills, Sydney, NSW, 2010
Call: 1300 800 936

 

Here is an example of Origin84's unique vision of working with their customers

Here is an example of Origin84's unique vision of working with their customers

246: Let Go Of My Echo or Echo Location

Topics:

Will you be at ACEs 2018? Join us there & catch a live show!
Register Here:
https://acesconf.com/ccp

-Joe has some follow up on the Gmail Bcc mystery

-A talk about the latest ACN announcements, including the ACN Roadshow.  Joe will be attending in NYC on March 13th and Sam will be in Santa Monica on February 21st.

-Jerry has a very odd story about ordering an Echo for a customer via his Amazon account

-A macOS Server PSA from Joe - Apple Support article about changes coming in macOS Server

-Sam hasn't had a lot of affection for Airport Extremes but this latest issue with firewall settings and port forwarding not working doesn't give him the warm & fuzzies

-Jerry has an issue with a possibly bad Samsung Evo 850 and ends up replacing it within another with success
Etrecheck.com is a handy tool he has used to detect software & hardware problems on Macs

-Have you heard Jerry mention Occam's Razor on show's past.  Curious as to what the reference is?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

-220/221 Volts Whatever it takes? - YouTube (Mr. Mom reference!)

-Joe attempts a pop quiz about Photos and the All Photos vs Photos view

-Sam has to secretly Google "how to pair Air Pods" while at a client

-While Jerry is on-site to work on a Synology, he is asked to assist with a problem iMac.  As it turned out, he was sending them Watchman alerts all along about a drive failure.

-Joe has some follow up on MacBook Pro uptime; MacBook Pro with slow wake from sleep after closing lid? Try restarting! Slow changing network interfaces? Try restarting!

-Encryption a Fusion drive with FileVault was proving to be a long and arduous process for Jerry.  Only periodically moving the mouse would force it to progress again.  Jerry found a free app called "Jiggler" to keep the mouse active periodically. 
http://www.sticksoftware.com/software/Jiggler.html
To see the status of the encryption process, he used this command:
diskutil cs list | grep “Conversion Progress” 

 

245: Updates & Followup Fiesta

Topics:

- High Sierra 10.13.3 was released today, which makes sense as Joe just updated his PsiTool drives yesterday. Also released were iOS 11.2.5, Safari updates for 10.11, 10.12, 10.13, and Security Update 2018-001. Note that security updates are padded to three digits... At the rate we're going, might Apple hit 100 security updates this year? That's one every three days!

- If you want to get emails from Apple about product security when updates are released, subscribe to the Security-announce list

-Jerry came to the rescue of a client who wanted to clean up her inbox.  He found that Google provides a URL to request missing emails:
https://support.google.com/mail/contact/missingemails

-Sam has been experiencing an issue where replying to a selected message in Apple Mail actually creates a reply to the incorrect message.  A similar issue has occurred to him in voicemails.  At this point Jerry thinks Sam needs to have his eyes checked.

-Jerry gives us an update on his virtual receptionists, Smith.ai as Sam is exploring similar options.  A natural progression would be a service that can not only answer calls, but support your clients like our recent sponsor, FLEXdesk

-In a recent support call with a client, Jerry finds that their MacBook Air had a failed SSD module. These situations can lead to having to explain the "why" to customers.  Sometimes hardware simply fails.

-New MacTech Pro events and cities have been announced!
http://pro.mactech.com/go/ccp/

-Sam has follow up on using Daylite with his business and finds some functionality that he wasn't aware of
http://www.daylitemac.com

-CCP Theater!  Jerry and Joe role play what you might encounter with new client calls

-Joe gives us an update on his new/used 2015 MacBook Pro.  He recounts an issue where the battery reports that it needs to be serviced and then changes to a "good" condition.  He reports an uptime of 31 – nay, 33 days. Joe and Sam remark that they don't recall having had more than 10 days of uptime with their MacBook Pro 2016 models, although Sam has had better stability lately.

-Joe also follows up about having used Migration Assistant to switch to his new, used (and apparently slightly bruised) MacBook Pro 15-inch 2015, and notes that Safari Extensions needed to be reinstalled, surprisingly. But at least VPN configurations were not an issue, unlike back in the days of Mavericks (and Yosemite too?)

-Jerry is very excited about an iOS app called Drafts, a note taking app with impressive functionality.  Drafts is $4.99 in the App Store
https://agiletortoise.com/drafts/