371: Sometimes It's Not Pretty To See The Way The Sausage Is Made

Topics:

-The show starts with Joe & Jerry as Sam is rushing back from a job. 

-Jerry has been spending his free time on Facebook Marketplace. He gives us a little history of stereo equipment as he picks up a couple of Marantz receivers. 

-A client reaches out to Joe for a fan repair on an old Mac running OS 9!

-Jerry puts out a call to listeners for old stereo equipment. 

-The guys recall childhood stories of being band geeks and nerds. 

-Pro tip from Jerry.  Cotton face masks under disposable masks have cut down on the fogginess that can occur for those who wear glasses. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085CNR5QQ/

-Friendly PSA - stock up on PPE while there is inventory and before the start of school brings more panic buying. 

-Jerry has a possible tip for those that have had trouble using QuickTime to display an iOS device. 

-“How did we do?” - we discuss how beneficial those post support surveys really are. 

-On the flip side, Malwarebytes took a unique approach to incentivize people to attend a seminar. 

-Sam had a negative experience with malwarebytes sales. 

-Some of Jerry’s clients text their requests. Sometimes the informality can create confusion. 

-Pro Tip from Joe: try deselecting the auto join checkbox in macOS Wi-Fi network list instead of removing networks.

-Sam also uses a script to remove unwanted networks. This can be run on an ongoing basis as a maintenance script for computers. 

370: Did I Not Read The Effing Manual?

Topics:

-Fake keyboard sounds drive Jerry bananas

-Amazing calculator tips are blowing our minds.

-A TeamViewer tip from Jerry. Or not.

-Sam has done some research to automate the installation of TeamViewer Host as well as auto assigning and grant easy access. 

-Jerry shared a video of a person scamming the scammers by infiltrating their call center. Here is Jim Browning’s YouTube channel. 
https://youtu.be/le71yVPh4uk

-Joe wants to get Sam’s take on his new AirPods Pro. The noise cancellation feature is incredible. He recalls Adam Engst’s TidBITS review and joe spot on it is.

-Jerry schools us about how to properly insert earplugs.

-Joe’s ears are working overtime with holding in his AirPod, holding up his glasses, and his mask. 

-Misplacing notes in the Notes app creates a difficult restore situation. Jerry gets help from MacMost.

-Joe finds himself in a similar situation to Sam where he received credit for an article with content from TidBITS Content Network. 

-Sam runs into a situation where a product he purchased form social media advertising stopped working and he found the warranty was only 30 days. Word to the wise, stay away from the Magic Bolt. 

368: Finding Your Way Through The Chicane

Thank you to our VIP Sponsors!

Special Thanks to our friends:

Topics:

-Jerry gets a real kick out of Joe’s texts of frustration with clients.

-Joe’s patience is tried with a client simply unable to deal with passwords. It’s a remote session that would have taken down the best of us.

-Jerry has a password story of his own that caused Apple to lock the account.

-In Sam’s early career, he accidentally forwarded a negative email about a client…to that same client. Jerry has a similar story from his past.

-HCS had recently picked up a new client from another consultancy. During a conference call with a vendor, the sales engineer decided to open up and bad mouth the consultancy after just meeting on the phone.

-Jerry has a Dropbox story where terabytes of data were attempting to be synced over a poor internet connection.

-After one of Joe’s clients went down a road of potential concern working with someone claiming to be Norton and providing private information, he decided to investigate. As it turns out, it was a legitimate service from Norton called LifeLock.

-It does bring up a conversation about the validity and safety of using services like LifeLock.

-Somehow we end talking about maps…

Thank you to our Patreon sponsors!

367: Leaving A Trail Of COVID Behind Me

Topics:

-Joe starts rattling off the list of his beer flight.

-Joe is in Montana now and feels he has left a trail of COVID behind him.

-CCP is close to going into the political arena

-Both Sam & Jerry encounter situations where clients or others at a client site are not wearing masks.

-COVID fatigue is a thing.

-Everyone has their opinions about masks but various businesses and individuals have to contend with interacting with others.

-Sam realizes he needs something formal to make clients aware of his policies for onsite visits during COVID.

-Jerry has disposable masks that he uses in order to stay safe at client visits.

-Joe’s team has not reported anything alarming as of yet but Joe wonders if hazard pay is a necessity.

-Providing a disposable mask may be another way to protect yourself.

-Moving on to WWDC, we briefly discuss Apple’s move away from Intel. Joe recalls the similar move from PowerPC to Intel.

-A little Command Control Power Theater 

-Jerry laments the oncoming questions from users that will inevitably come about these changes and if they should wait on purchases.

-Joe is reminded of Osborn announcing the next generation while still trying to promote their current generation.

-Sam thought it was curious that Apple decided to use the names Universal 2 and Rosetta 2 in relation to apps that can work on both processors (Universal 2), and apps that were designed for Intel and need translation (Rosetta 2).

-Jerry was not that interested in WWDC.

-Thank goodness for the TidBITS Content Network to help capture significant announcements from WWDC and other events.  Visit http://tcn.tidbits.com to sign up.

365: Interview With Richard Wingfield Of Envision Design

Thank you to our VIP Sponsors!

Special Thanks to our friends:

Command Control Power has donated one month's Patreon income from Command Control Power to these three charities: Black Lives Matter, Communities United Against Police Brutality, and Campaign Zero. Please consider a donation if you would like to support one or more of these organizations.

Topics:

-This week we welcome back Richard Wingfield, Head Geek at Envision Design in Houston, TX.

-Richard has talent in photography and has taken a picture a day on Instagram @rbwaia

-Joe recommends a guided meditation app on iOS called Waking Up by Sam Harris.

-Sam has experienced float tanks as a form of meditation and relaxation.

-Working to calm your “monkey mind” can take practice.

-Currently, Envision is only working with their clients in a remote capacity.

-On the topic of photography, Joe mentions the Front Steps Project in Neeham, MA.

-Richard discusses some of his key components in working with his clients in a managed services capacity, like Synology, Dropbox, Barracuda, etc.

-As more of our clients work from home, we discover just how many only use their iPhone as a hotspot or those who are just stealing their neighbor’s wifi.

-Most of Richard’s clients have been respectful of not having his team in and much of their staff is still mostly remote as well.

-He did have one that needed onsite work to set up surveillance system for a client that just completed a new space as the pandemic hit.

-Sam has a client that has had a very tough time with video conferencing, even though their network and ISP speeds are very stable.

-Richard had suggested a device called Domotz to Sam, to investigate network related issues at his client. Richard installs Domotz at all of his clients as part of his services to them. Domotz has a hardware device that can be installed but even more handy is their Synology app.

-Domotz charges $19/month per site and includes a powerful feature set for reporting, network topology, and device priority.

-Richard put considerable effort into making billing changes in his company. In part, it was in response to clients not understanding what his monthly charges were for. In these changes, he split out costs for actual support time, called Consulting & Support and costs for items they may resell, called Software & Services.

-These changes to his billing procedure helped, especially when clients may look to shop around.

-Richard talks about minimum standards for signing and working with any new client.

-Some clients only learn after something happens.

-Syncing is not backup!

-As a gesture to his clients, Richard and his company gave many hours on top of MSP support to assist remote setups.

-Give a listen to Richard Wingfield’s new podcast, The Black Hole Cafe. He records the show with his daughter and the first episode is dedicated to coffee: https://www.theblackholecafe.com

364: Makin' A Ruckus

Thank you to our VIP Sponsors!

Topics:

-CCP is doing video again!

-Sam has a yarn to spin about dealing with a Ruckus ZoneDirect 1200 that died. After hours and hour of support and three ZoneDirectors later, he had the situation under control. In short, he has a ZoneDirector 1200 to sell. It can be yours for a low, low price!

-The team discusses working with wireless vendors and the difference in price points. Justifying costs are a large part of working with clients in the SMB market.

-Sam was surprised to find out that Ruckus supported a complete replacement of their hardware, free of charge, even 7 years after purchase.

-In the end, Sam only billed 2 hours of time for the Ruckus nightmare. An old discussion gets rehashed about billing appropriately when time goes way over initial an initial estimate.

-Jerry makes what should have been a simple change with Crush FTP and it blows up in his face. The vendor worked diligently to correct the issue after a recent update.

-Joe sees the light about project based pricing vs billable hours.

-Jerry talks about a “not to exceed” price, which can be helpful to comfort clients who are concerned about cost.

-Do you read release notes? Joe does. After struggling with Finder copies to a new RAID on 10.15.4 and continual crashes, Joe looks to update to 10.15.5. The release notes for 10.15.5 says “large data transfers to RAID volumes no longer cause Finder to be unresponsive”.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos_release_notes/macos_catalina_10_15_5_release_notes

-Joe recalls remote support in the early days, where we guided our clients almost by memory.

Thank you to our Patrons!