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293: It's A Dream Come True, But Not Without Its Challenges

Topics:

-Jerry gets beat up on social media for his browsing habits

-TidBITS is having a membership drive! Please join us in supporting TidBITS so they can continue to well written, relevant Apple focused content.  https://tidbits.com/membership/benefits/

-Sam had to turn his back on his Mac recently because his 2016 MacBook Pro had to be sent in for repair under the keyboard repair program.  He reported very positive results overall.  A couple of things he missed were related to not syncing Desktop & Documents to iCloud and some websites not displaying as expected in iOS.

-Inevitably, the conversation steers towards Joeโ€™s โ€œjankyโ€ 15โ€ MacBook Pro and the built-in cooling vent.  He also talks about the repair performed in office, thanks to tools and guides from iFixIt.

-Jerry comes up with a new Command Control Power drinking games

joes_janky.jpg

-Joe specced a new MacBook Air for a client, who had almost 500GB of data. On the MacBook Air, this necessitates a $1000 upgrade to 1.5TB SSD. For comparison, he specced a MacBook Pro 13-inch Touch Bar & Touch ID with 1TB SSD (16GB memory in both) and found that the price was exactly the same: $2599. The MacBook Pro has the Touch Bar and much better performance, but for the same price the MacBook Air has better battery life and portability, more storage as configured and no Touch Bar which might be benefit to some people. So it comes down to trade-offs. See Gruber's take and the video comparison he linked to by Quinn Nelson

-Joeโ€™s tip of the week: earn Apple Gift Cards on the Barclaycard Visaยฎ Signature with Apple Rewards. 3 points per dollar on all purchases made at Apple or iTunes, 2 points per dollar on restaurant purchases, and 1 point per dollar on all other purchases

-Hazel by Noodlesoft is a product recommended by Jerry to create rules for folders.  For instance, Jerry has a folder on his Desktop of his Mac that can do OCR, specifically with PDFs.  He uses that along with PDF Pro from Smile Software.

-Joe gets giddy when talking about Automator and AppleScript.  He talks up using AppleScript to manage his status board at his office, where he posts photos of his adventures with Ashleigh.  Jerry is concerned about how his staff reacts to Joe living the high life while they are at work.

-Joe revisits his clients issue with the Share menu on an iMac Pro: the Share menu would appear, but it would be frozen, and the only way to dismiss would be to quit the app in question. At long last, the problem is solved. Joe shares the exciting conclusion.

-Joe shares the solution to his longtime issue logging into sites with untrusted self-signed certificates. The message would show "This Connection Is Not Private" and you could click Show Details, then click Visit this Website, which would prompt for the login password. However, then it tries to reload the page and the same thing happens (This Connection Is Not Private...). Solution: use Private Browsing. This seems to solve the issue in the future, even when visiting a site in a normal browsing session i.e. without Private Browsing.

-Not to bring the show down, Sam shares two stories of how his company and two separate clients parted ways.  Both for different reasons but it led to a rough start to 2019.  The team discusses the breakups and the benefit of ridding yourself of bad relationships before they bring you further down.

289: Deep Thoughts

Topics:

-Sam shares his thoughts on seeing a fellow customer at a local diner and what his business and life might be like

-Samโ€™s story reminds Joe of a time when the two of them used to get together for their breakfast meetings

-After being around a long time, old clients seem to find their way back around

-What kind of stance should be taken when clients donโ€™t follow your recommendations?

-A possible client that Sam is negotiating with is being severely under-billed by their current tech company. This causes a challenge for HCS to quote the job.

-As Joe says, we compete on value not price. And Sam loves when potential clients are shopping around and donโ€™t go with him at first. Then they come back around after dealing with a โ€œcheaperโ€ solution.

-Sam shares deep thoughts about chance meetings, life decisions, and how the show has changed his life and his business.

-โ€I should have known thisโ€: Sam sheepishly shares how he was not aware of being able to easily move the cursor on the screen on an iOS device

-At a network installation for a client, Joe notices a distance issue with PoE access points and how the speeds vary.

-After dealing with a variety of Ubiquiti products, Joe has a good deal of information to share. Within that same discussion, billing for managing alerts, updates, etc. for this equipment has come front of mind for Sam.

-Adam Karneboge of macOS Support Essentials fame, reminds Sam that the name of the show violates Appleโ€™s Style Guide

288: Shoehorns, Straight Jackets & Ducktape

Special Thanks To Our VIP Sponsors!

Topics:

-Jerry gets Joe to talk about the challenges of working remotely and the fun of TeamViewer

-Presentation is everything: Joe also discusses how to relay his time away to a client

-Listener Tim Hannon wrote in to present some good use cases for the new Mac Mini

-Post show, Sam shares a link about the secret world of the Mac Mini: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/10/the-secret-world-of-mac-mini/

-One of Jerryโ€™s clients has a frustrating time with an iMac that would spontaneously reboot

-Going down memory lane, the crew shares old and odd client stories

-More feedback from listener Tim Hannon in response to Joeโ€™s issue - Time Machine reporting unable to backup but upon remote session, the next attempt completes. Tim references eclecticlight.co:
https://eclecticlight.co/tag/consolation/ - unified log in Mojave and earlier
https://eclecticlightdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/runt2m2.zip - RunT2M2 โ€“ runs T2M2 as root to enable assessment of Time Machine when in normal user mode

-Jerry has a peeve, a tip, and a case to be made:

-Jerryโ€™s peeve: Mobile data list on iOS not alphabetized (Joe provides the answer - it is based on data consumption)

-Jerryโ€™s tip: Using TidBITS Content Network for social media

-Jerryโ€™s case to be made: Using texting in your business for efficiency (business number, not cell phone). Joe counters because replying on the business line is not as simple.

Thank you to all of our Patreon sponsors!

Thank you to all of our Patreon sponsors!

286: Team Expectations

Topics:

-Joe kicks off the show trying to gather Samโ€™s secrets to hiring only to find that Sam has no method

-Sam shares a story of how relinquishing control can sometimes not work out as expected

-When do you make that first hire? What is the key to knowing this is the time?

-Who should that first hire be? Admin or technical?

-We revisit the topic of finding ways to have your employees learn. Do they do it during work hours or is the expectation to learn on their own time?

-Developing โ€œsane business hoursโ€ is a method that Joe and his team implemented to help build a positive culture in the office

-โ€Jerry McGillโ€ discusses his thoughts on finding a niche market

-A project Sam was working on for a client seems doomed to fail based on lack of collaboration

-โ€Borderline negligenceโ€ is the term Joe uses to describe networking equipment that another company installed

-Jerry raves about Eero after replacing his Ubiquiti equipment in the house

285: MacMini, Why For Art Thou?

Topics:

-After recent hardware announcements from Apple, Jerry, Joe & Sam discuss the Mac mini specifically and where this updated model falls into their client needs. And what about a new iMac?

-Sam is excited about the new iPad Pro (he may have purchased one) but Jerry shoots down new product talk

-TidBITS Content Network is continually proving its value for the team

-Joe has an excellent tip about using affiliate links when doing email marketing like TidBITS

-Based on a listenerโ€™s feedback in our Slack channel, Sam recommends SetApp, a subscription service for Mac apps

-Turning on mark down support in secure notes is now a feature of 1Password. Thanks to Joeโ€™s feedback/rant online? Who knows.

-Jerry struggled on-site at a client with an odd Gmail issue with Apple Mail and as it turns out, it was the Keychain.

GMail_Screenshot_1_.png
GMail Screenshot 2.png

-One of Joeโ€™s client has an issue where their iCloud outgoing emails are going to spam for recipients. He utilized a blacklist tool to see if their IP or domain was on any blacklists. After working hard to diagnose, it turned out to be the fact that the user was using their ISPโ€™s mail server to send messages.

FileVault_Failure.png

-FileVault encryption proved to be more difficult for Jerry and it required running Disk Utility from the Recovery partition

-One of Joeโ€™s clients was trying a remote session and found MacHelp Mate!

284: When In Doubt, Whack The Plist

Special Thanks To Our VIP Sponsors!

Topics:

-Sam is at the Jamf Nation User Conference (JNUC) 2018. He discusses his time there and MDM concepts as a whole.

-While at JNUC, Sam spots a CCP shirt on a listener. Big shoutout to Chris Stout of Stout Computer Services

-Joe is Southeast of Sacramento, CA in Bakersfield. On the road, laundry is a luxury!

-Sam had the opportunity to watch a live recording the 100th episode of the Mac Admins Podcast

-To get into technical topics, Joe brings up a nagging issue he has been having with TeamViewer. After his own trials and tribulations, he has come up with a solution that should help others.

-The team also discusses other remote access tools like Bomgar, Splash Desktop, and Addigy

-An issue related to iTunes showing a phantom update when connecting an iOS device creates a head scratcher that didnโ€™t appear to have an obvious fix

-Amongst the many issues Sam has had with his 2016 MacBook Pro, he finally has a resolution to his network lags when switching networks. HINT: go to /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration

-Jerry is very happy with his Series 3 Watch with cellular and has some tips for using it without your iPhone nearby: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205547

-Joe seems to be alone with his phantom Time Machine alerts. Jerry and Sam consider taking him home.

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Thanks to all of our Patreon Sponsors!