410: The Person Who Blows The Horn

Topics:

• Sam tells a creepy story about something that happened with one of his old devices the other night.

• Did anyone hear a train in the background?

• Joe & Sam talk about social events during the pandemic and how much more we appreciate seeing each other.

• Joe brings up live desktop with Addigy.

• Stay tuned to an upcoming episode where we welcome back the CEO of Addigy, Jason Dettbarn.

• Joe’s Tip: du -sh command to display disk usage statistics.

• The group talks about the large amount of spam calls they’ve been getting.

• Joe discovered that the spam callers have actually been using real people’s numbers. They wonder how the callers have been doing this.

• Joe has time on his hands to talk to spam callers.

• Sam discusses one of the weird issues he’s had with his replacement iPhone that he can’t really figure out. And Joe could be on to something with a SIM card issue.

408: The Mystery System

Topics:

• Sam talks about how efficient the MFA set up on 1Password is.

• When clients are prepared with their 1Password vault it makes it a lot easier for the group to do their jobs.

• Creating a vault with client data can be very helpful.

• Does anyone create separate vaults for each of their clients?

• 1Password is huge for teams, however, setting it up isn’t always worth it if it’s just for one person.

• Joe talks about the new, app-less 1Password extension.

• Sam shares information from a recent article that came out about chrome data-harvesting.

  • He says: DO NOT USE CHROME!

  • https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2021/03/20/stop-using-google-chrome-on-apple-iphone-12-pro-max-ipad-and-macbook-pro/?sh=29a801574d08

• Joe shares a story about a client who had a scary problem with the Nest security system because they didn’t migrate their account when Google bought out Nest. They refused to return her money when they weren’t providing the monitoring services she was paying for.

• Lately companies have seemed a little lax when it comes to their clients threatening to cancel their service.

• Sam is very hesitant to recommend Kitcast because of an issue he had with the customer service. They actually discovered they had a problem with how they deploy their app but they seem to be very slow on fixing it.

• Joe asks Sam about his billing and MSP that they had talked about 6 months ago and the two of them discuss how they bill their clients.

• Sam talks about an “uncouth” interaction he had with a rude client.

• Joe explains how he used Omni Disk Sweeper to help discover what was causing a weird problem for one of his clients.

• What is the mystery “System” that often contains a lot of data that seems to be non-removable?

404: Let's Just Say His Name Was Bill

Topics:

• Joe performed a fully remote project with a client where he had to help extend their Eero network into their outdoor garage studio all through email.

• He works on a similar project for another client who gives him hard time about billing and the story ends with a surprising twist.

• The group talks about the difficulty of charging for remote work.

• How and when should you let a client know that there are going to be billable charges for a remote assessment and evaluation?

• Some difficult clients aren’t worth the money. But it’s a tough decision if they represent a large portion of income.

• Joe talks about “Fire Client Friday”.

• When does a client go too far?

• The group discusses how to figure out who you want to work with.

• Sam feels like he’s in an awkward position of assisting a previous employee of a client who may be turning around and billing for the answers.

• Joe and Jerry give Sam good advice on how to approach the issue.

402: Never Lose Your Trash Again!

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Topics:

Happy 400th episode!….2 episodes late.

• Joe dropped his iPhone 11 Pro Max. He ends up replacing it with a new iPhone 12 pro which leads into a group discussion about iPhone repairs and carriers

• He talks about the difficulties he had and the time it took when trying to get two carriers on his new phone. eSIM and physical SIM setup order is important!

• Sam sets up three separate Genius Bar appointments for his iPhone 11, Apple Watch series 3, and AirPod Pro issues. This leads into a second unexpected event that causes him to be locked out of his car.

• Pop quiz - What did Sam forget when he restored his iCloud backup to a new phone?

• The group speaks about being treated as a normal consumer when purchasing technology or speaking with customer service.

• Sam reveals his oversight with Google Authenticator.

• iCloud Drive presents a challenge to Jerry in an experience he had with a client losing a very important file in iCloud drive.

• Joe piggybacks off of Jerry’s story and talks about his client also losing data.

• Should you use the trash to store files? PsiMac may have an offering for you!

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400: Interview With Justin Esgar & Tim Pearson of the ACES Conference

Topics:

-This week we welcome back Justin Esgar and Tim Pearson of the ACES conference.

-Justin gives a recap of virtual ACES.

-He explains how the plans changed for last year’s virtual conference that was originally supposed to be an in-person conference held in Atlanta.

-Justin and Tim speak about the struggles of having an online conference for the first time.

-This year this ACES conference will be taking over the month of May. Every Thursday (tentatively) from noon to 2:30 EST two speakers and a round table session discussing all the aspects of your business. Throughout the month there will also be a couple of other surprises. Tickets will be on sale in February. First 100 people who sign up get a gift box.

-ACES Conference Slack is open for questions http://acesconf.herokuapp.com/

-What will the roundtables look like?

-Joe and Tim speak about the benefits of attending a conference like ACES.

-Joe tells a story about an experience he had at the 2017 ACES conference that helped him with his business recently.

-For the newly initiated, what is ACES?

-Justin explains why he started ACES and speaks about how welcoming the ACN community is.

-Everyone talks about how interacting with more people helps you improve your business and learn more.

-Tim shares a head scratcher with the group that involves remote access.

-The group discusses internet providers and cellular service companies.

-Justin talks about how they are going to continue the “Women in IT ACES Scholarship”. Three tickets will be given to women in IT who apply here: https://acesconf.com/women-in-it-equality-scholarship/

-Follow Leonard Fienstein on Tik Tok!

398: Geeks On The Half Shell

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Topics:

-We share a bit about our numbers and how the pandemic has affected income. 

-Being more aggressive about charging for billable time in situations where you might offer a discount in the past. 

-Jerry finds that sharing documents in Microsoft Teams is not as straightforward as other video conferencing services. 

-Microsoft Teams for Mac is not up to the same standards as Windows.

-Adam Codega has suggested a Microsoft tool to remove all things Microsoft. 

-Joe & Jerry continue on about offering discounts and the negative impacts on a business. 

-We all love UniFi product. But Jerry talks about a new URL for administering their products has changed. This seemingly happened without notice. 

-A snag that Jerry hit was that the first account that gets added to the controller is automatically listed as the owner. So if using your company email, you appear as the owner as opposed to the client. 

-John Moder also provided some advice on this topic. 

-On a positive UniFi note, listener Greg talks of an issue similar to Joe’s where a printer wouldn’t see the Wi-Fi network due to an apostrophe in the name. Creating another SSID was once again the resolution. 

-Jerry wants to get into the discussion of leasing network equipment to customers. 

-Another consultancy actually puts their stickers on customer computers, chargers and equipment. 

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