362: Fear Inoculum

Topics:

-CCP is on video!

-Jerry has commentary on his cohosts’ appearances

-Jerry & Joe are fancy coffee drinkers. Jerry’s coffee of choice is Afrique and he uses a Baratza Virtuoso grinder.

-Joe, a major fan of the band Tool, shows off the new album, Fear Inoculum, along with visual props. He also shows some of the artwork from his friend, Alex Grey. 

-Sam had the opportunity to see a Tool show as well

-People deleting emails to free up space aggravates Jerry immensely 

-On the topic of clearing out mail, Joe assisted a customer in freeing up space with their ISP’s free email account. 

-Jerry has some show and tell to help visualize a story about storage space on an iMac. He uses a product called Grand Perspective.  Clam AV was taking up a tremendous amount of space, possibly with quarantined items. 

-Jerry discusses taking away markups on hardware to help his clients out

-What show would be complete without Sam discussing his buddy with a restaurant

-Sam does a rare repair for him as he replaces the logic board for a 2017 MacBook from his own 2016 MacBook

-Jerry does his best Sopranos impressions 

-Apizza is a thing and there are different theories as to how it came about 

-An entire section of the show is dedicated to the food service industry 

-Joe has “a buddy” who has a USB tester called “Is it me or is it USB”.  Command Control Power is offering these free to our Patreon sponsors at the $25 and above level. And the t-shirts are coming! (Better late than never)

361: Command Control Power "Almost Live" at ACEs 2020

Topics:

-Sam is recording from his beach front property

-Jerry has the Richard Wingfield starter kit with his goatee.  An homage to our friend and contributor to the show

-Joe could not get his janky mic to work moments before recording the show

-In a recent trip to the market, Sam loses one of his AirPods while taking off his mask.

-While on the topic of AirPods, Jerry has a tip for easily pairing your AirPods with your Mac. An app called ToothFairy: https://c-command.com

-Joe has his fancy pants AirPods Pro and shows off the features

-We go around the horn to show our threads.  Joe is wearing his company logo, PsiMac.  Jerry is proudly wearing a Watchman Monitoring shirt.  Sam is wearing an Origin84 shirt from listener and friend of the show, Michael Thompsen.

-Sam is so far disappointed with the performance of his new MacBook Air.  Jerry wonders if he has too many items on his desktop…

-Joe recently purchased a MacBook Air, right before the release of the latest model.  He has an Apple support story with a happy ending.

-With regards to the fan issues on the new MacBook Air computers, Joe talks about the limited “thermal headroom”.

-Jerry wants us to be guinea pigs to try an app called Turbo Boost, to disable that feature and see if ti helps: http://tbswitcher.rugarciap.com

-Sam decided he did not need a MacBook Pro any longer and he is now regretting that decision

-Joe asks about screen size and remote access. Jerry & Sam both use accessibility features to zoom in to areas of the remote computer.  

-Sam goes commando with his phone and has paid the price.  Jerry wonders about changing the name of the show.

-Jerry has been performing a good amount of iMac repairs and upgrades.  In a recent repair job, he suffers damage to the logic board.  He enlists the help of Command Control Power patron, John Moder of Crisp Solutions (http://www.crispsolutions.net).  John puts him in touch with Computer Repair of Des Moines, who performed incredible work to repair the board.

-Moving to topics related to the current times, Sam has a direct conversation with his employee about what his comfort level is when it comes to visiting clients.  He also wants to make sure that the company supplies him with anything he needs.

-Having similar conversations with clients is also critical to make sure there is no confusion. Especially when they may be paying monthly for a service they expect to receive.

-As we all start adjusting to changes while being onsite, Joe watches in shock as other contractors at a client site are being very lax in their approach to safety.

-Working in this new remote capacity and essentially making your clients be your onsite hands can be awkward. In addition, it can lead to even more awkward conversations about billing.

-Thank you to Justin Esgar, Tim Pearson and the team at ACES!

354: This Is Not Snake Oil

Topics:

-Jerry talks of how business has slowed down for him since all of the recent events have occurred

-Joe has been busy setting up remote access for corporate clients and he hasn’t felt an impact as of yet

-Sam starts to broach the subject of maintaining security on home computers

-One of Sam’s client laid off 95% of their workforce 

-Projects have been put on hold

-How long will the shelter in place for the New York area last?

-An office move that Sam had referenced in the last episode is still going to move forward under special circumstances.  An HCS tech will arrive on site when nobody else is in the office in order to connect equipment.

-Jerry has retail clients that are cutting prices due to the times

-Could we learn something from retailers slashing prices?

-Jerry reminds us that we are relying on supplies from other countries like China, which could cause delays even if we do want to start projects.

-Sam ordered a new MacBook Air

-Simply asking is an approach that Joe says could speak a discussion for moving on work

-Jerry inquires about “Sam’s buddy” with the restaurant, who is surviving with curb side pick ups and delivery

-One of Jerry’s clients receives a very well done phishing scam that does a redirect through Microsoft One Drive.  Thankfully they caught it in time.  Jerry was surprised as to how casual the compromised vendor was about it.

-As the topic of newsletter and reaching out comes back up, Joe has some thoughts of dark web scanning and phishing tests.  Sam has some ideas of reaching out just with information as opposed to a marketing pitch, followed up by individual calls to the client.

-Some of our fellow consultants like Michael Thomsen of Origin 84 and Tim Nyberg of The Mac Guys have contributed to the show with some of their ideas for contacting clients

353: Interview With Adam Engst Of the TidBITS Content Network

Topics:

-Thank you to all of our newest Patreon sponsors:
Daniel Carroll
Tim Hannon
Sikko Lucas
Nick Harvey
Sara Gepp - Close to the Earth IT
AJ Protebka - Campfire Technology Group
Remie Cremers - Tesla Pro Tips

-We welcome Adam Engst from TidBITS back to the show!

-Adam comes in to discuss the current times and finding ways to adapt your work life to this new environment

-Things have moved quickly in a short amount of time

-Joe actually headed out west shortly before many of the recent events and had to self quarantine

-Drive through testing for COVID-19 is available but not in all areas

-Adam describes how hard it has been to concentrate on work lately

-This has also affected his local runner’s club events

-Adam’s never had an office and life working from home has been normal for him.  But for others, it’s not the norm and it presents its challenges.

-Another unexpected part of this, as Jerry & Sam have experienced, is working with children at home, who have their own work to accomplish.

-It is important to take breaks!

-Sam has a client move to complete that may not be able to shift dates.  He is trying to figure out how to deal with that.

-If you do go out, it is advised to change your clothes.  But as Adam mentions from an emergency responder, it matters how you take those items off.

-Joe has hardware labor to complete and is contemplating various methods of exchanging equipment, like “dead drops”.

-Take Control Books has a new free book called “Working From Home Temporarily” by Glenn Fleishman: https://www.takecontrolbooks.com/working-from-home/

-Adam’s son attends Cornell University and they, along with other colleges and universities, have their own situations to deal with

-Restaurants are another industry that is taking a major hit and some have shut down operations preemptively since they cannot afford to lose that much business

-Currently, IT consultancies are in demand to support clients with remote support and home office setup.  But how long will that last if businesses do not have the money to move forward?

-A discussion brews about newsletters and what we should be said and how much should you push services

-Adam has been pondering what the theme of April’s TidBITS Content Newsletter (https://tcn.tidbits.com) should be.  Working remotely will be a prime focus

-Some advice from Adam: Offer something new to your clients if possible

-An amazing product that Adam recommends is called Otter: https://otter.ai - which offers real time transcription and can integrate with a service like Zoom.  

-Do your research and get information from verified locations like World Health Organization, CDC, Johns Hopkins University: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

-It’s nice to see people and neighbors offering to help those that may not be able to get their own supplies for one reason or another

-Adam wraps up with some excellent tips about how other countries have dealt with this and what we can do

-In tech news, Apple released new products, including the new MacBook Air!  This is discussed on the TidBITS site: https://tidbits.com/2020/03/18/new-macbook-air-features-magic-keyboard-and-lower-price/

Thank you to our Patreon sponsors!

349: They’re Not Jerks, They’re Just Stupid!

Topics:

-Command Control Power needs your help. If you feel like the show has benefited you and your business, please consider supporting us on Patreon.

https://www.patreon.com/cmdctrlpwr

-Joe happens to be in his office for a change yet Sam is recording at 65+ MPH

-As Sam is using AirPods to record, they discuss the naming convention behind AirPods Pro

-Joe has a mail migration to handle for a client and is sad to discover POP mailboxes in the mix

-Local mailboxes create a need to migrate to a mail server using a mail client.  Both Joe & Sam prefer Outlook over Apple Mail for this purpose.

-Curve balls in a project like mail migrations always make billable time a challenge

-This calls to mind a recent proposal that Sam presented to a new client, only to find that they had additional devices that he didn’t account for

-As Sam looks to increase monthly revenue, he is focusing on additional services like JumpCloud & Backupify.

-One of Sam’s clients decides to openly risk data loss when presented with cloud backup options in Backupify.

-This same client recently had a migration from a local file server to Google Drive and even with a planning meeting involved, still came up with surprises and workflow changes that made the process an ongoing challenge

-Joe recalls a story of hanging up on a client after being disrespectfully addressed

-“They’re not jerks.  They’re just stupid!”

-Respect in a working relationship is an absolute necessity 

-Sometimes you should not take on a new client if you see red flags

-A benefit of “co-opetition” is warning each other about difficult clients

-Joe has been performing a number of migrations to Dropbox lately

-Sam has a question for Joe & fellow consultants when choosing cloud storage services if a client has a product that already has that functionality

-“Failure mode observations” by Joe.  Could this be another corner?

346: Vandelay Tech Industries

Topics:

-Jerry & Sam have a rare show together

-Sam is short staffed for a week and, of course, everything happens at once

-A discussion brews about the state of business in Connecticut 

-Working remotely is something Joe is very familiar with but Sam discusses working remotely with clients that move out of state

-An Apple retail store is relocating to a closer location to Sam & Joe, possibly creating new opportunities

-When business is slow, Jerry has some methods of drumming up business by developing partnerships.  One example is Drive Savers’ partner program: https://drivesaversdatarecovery.com/partner-programs/

-Another great podcast that Jerry suggest (and Sam won’t listen to) is “The Dream” https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dream/id1435743296

-Sam was in a difficult spot training a fellow consultancy on Jamf Pro for a client.  When their newly trained employee left, the client was now left in the lurch.

-Jerry talks about some red flags to look out for when meeting with potential new clients

-As Sam tries to automate more in his business, he came across a Zendesk integration called Deadline, by SweetHawk: https://www.zendesk.com/apps/support/deadline/

 -A tip from Jerry for after hours or automated replies to inquiries is the smith.ai web widget: https://docs.smith.ai/article/pzfvnbq5xl-how-to-access-your-smith-ai-live-chat-widget-code

-Sam is exploring a similiar web widget from Zendesk: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203908456-Using-Web-Widget-to-embed-customer-service-in-your-website

-Teaser for another show, Sam goes head first into Addigy functionality and finds a treasure trove of features