295: Change Up The Usual

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Topics:

-Jerry has some clients with MacPractice and he has some concerns with their recommendations for Dolly Drive. Joe chimes in on his experiences.

-Since Sam is relatively new to syncing Desktop & Documents to iCloud, he was looking for a way to stop specific subfolders from syncing to iCloud. He found that adding the suffix of .nosync to a folder would remove it from iCloud.

-On the heels of naming conventions discussions, Jerry has a client that named folders with all the special characters that tend to wreak havoc on an OS. He got the old line “it wasn’t a problem before” from the client.

-Sam’s client had what they thought was an issue with a UniFi mesh device. The answer was a lot more simple than expected.

-Whenever a client messes with DNS, it’s a recipe for disaster. And Jerry’s client was no exception.

-A need from one of Jerry’s friends turns into the discovery of a line of products from Ten One Design. He ends up getting his friend the Blockhead, which turns the Apple power brick sideways to the socket. Check them out for a variety of other ingenious products like the Stella or Wifi Porter.

-Listeners of Command Control Power can get a very generous 20% off their order by using the code “Command” at checkout.

-It’s the simple things. Joe shares a feature of the Amazon Prime app on iOS that just makes sense and he wonders why other video streaming apps don’t do this.

-Jerry recommends troypoint.com for use with an Amazon Fire Stick

-Joe has a new segment/corner/pop quiz called “Apple should have told us”. His story starts with a local iPhone encrypted backup with a lost backup password. Apple does have a knowledgeable article on this topic: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205220#help

-His wish for an RSS feed leads him to a lot of dead ends: apple.com/support/rss/intl/body.html, rss.support.apple.com, support.apple.com/rss, and just for fun: www.apple.com/support/home/index.html

-Thanks to Tim Nyberg of The Mac Guys for mentioning a tax break for the tax year 2018 that may apply to your business: https://www.mileiq.com/blog/pass-through-tax-deduction/

-On a fun note, Jerry shares a funny ad for the Super Bowl from Stella Artois: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX8TMYRk6_w

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294: Jonathan Mann - A Decade Of A Song A Day

Topics:

-We have the extreme pleasure of having Jonathan Mann on the show.  Among his many other talents, he is the author of the Command Control Power theme song!  https://www.jonathanmann.net

-Jonathan is well known for writing a song a day since January 1st, 2009: Song A Day Website
I’ve Been Writing a Song a Day for Ten Years

-In November 2014, Jonathan Mann set a world record for the most consecutive days writing a song.

-He takes us through the tools he uses to create his music, as well as the equipment he uses to store and maintain it:
Panasonic Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH4 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera
Synology - https://www.synology.com/en-us 
Reason - The music-making software with everything you need to create amazing music 
https://www.propellerheads.com/en/reason
Logic Pro X - https://www.apple.com/logic-pro/ 
Adobe Premiere - https://www.adobe.com/products/premiere.html 

-Jonathan has recently released a new album: I Used To Love My Body

-He discusses the struggles of going into “editing mode” when it is not normally how he works

-Jerry asks Jonathan about his method of selling his music.  He opens up about his philosophy

-A great story is shared about Jonathan at the XOXO Festival in 2014:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM4fGsyyWF0 

-During 2010, The Antennagate controversy struck Apple and the iPhone 4.  Jonathan, as he does, wrote a song about it.  The story that follows is amazing.  Hint: it involves Steve Jobs dancing to Jonathan’s song!  
Apple Press Conference 2010 - iPhone 4 Antennagate - https://youtu.be/IorfYuF4gMM 
Steve Jobs Danced To My Song - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFyXoPi9FNs 
The iPhone 4 Antenna Song - TechCrunch, MG Siegler 
https://techcrunch.com/2010/07/16/iphone-4-antenna-song/

-Currently in Jersey City, he discusses how his location or surroundings can influence his creativity

To Save the Sound of a Stradivarius, a Whole City Must Keep Quiet 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/arts/music/stradivarius-sound-bank-recording-cremona.html

-Jonathan is a very active dad and he talks about his ability to be involved and available for his family. He recently collaborated with his son to produce a song based on his latest obsession:

Mario Super Mario Super Mario Poop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTk31RzL47w 

-Jonathan is a fellow member of Patreon!  You can support him here: Jonathan Mann On Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/jonathanmann 

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 Joe’s “janky” 15” 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

-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

-Joe’s tip of the week: earn Apple Gift Cards on the Barclaycard Visa® 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

-Sam’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 don’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 don’t go with him at first. Then they come back around after dealing with a “cheaper” solution.

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

-”I should have known this”: 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 Apple’s Style Guide

288: Shoehorns, Straight Jackets & Ducktape

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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 Jerry’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 Joe’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 – 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:

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

-Jerry’s tip: Using TidBITS Content Network for social media

-Jerry’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.

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286: Team Expectations

Topics:

-Joe kicks off the show trying to gather Sam’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 “sane business hours” is a method that Joe and his team implemented to help build a positive culture in the office

-”Jerry McGill” 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

-”Borderline negligence” 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