423: Dress Your Best & Billable Rates

Topics:

• Jerry talks about the used Mcintosh amplifier from 1967 he recently got for himself.

• He gives a warning about energizing older products like this because it can be dangerous.

• What is appropriate to wear on the job?

• Sam shares a story about his clients dog ripping his brand new corduroys.

• There’s a certain value you provide when you dress the part.

• Joe shares some of his favorite button down shirts.

• The group discusses raising rates and how to communicate that you are doing so with clients.

• Sam explains that he has stopped giving discounts to new clients to win them over because he charges what his services are worth.

• Jerry likes to slowly creep his rates up so it isn’t a huge jump.

• Sam recently increased his hourly rates and he explains how he’d rather have longer term relationships with his clients and his pricing shows that.

• Adding valuable monthly services helps you to bill outside of hourly labor.

• The group discusses billing for network monitoring.

422: 2015 Interview With Alsoft Makers Of Disk Warrior

Topics:

For this week’s episode of Command Control Power, we have decided to run a little experiment. We are making this episode a patron only feature. You can find this episode if you are a supporter of Command Control Power on Patreon. You can also click on the Support link in the menu above. Sign up if you are not yet a supporter. If you are a supporter of the show, you can simply log in to Patreon and you will be able to enjoy this week’s episode which we promise is extra juicy. It has some interesting client issues and interactions and we think you will enjoy hearing it. Let us know your feedback if you do. In the meantime, enjoy a highlight from an older episode.

421: Meet Me In The Back Of Sizzler

418: Interview With James Chiappetta, Security Expert From Better Appsec

Topics:

• This week we are pleased to welcome James Chiappetta, Security Expert from Better Appsec.

• An intro to the human element of security.

  • https://betterappsec.com/how-appsec-can-help-balance-product-usability-with-security-e958463aad81

  • https://betterappsec.com/how-to-account-for-the-human-element-in-appsec-146548ecb9a1 

• What are the most common iphone PINs and what drives the creation of them? http://danielamitay.com/blog/2011/6/13/most-common-iphone-passcodes

• Is a 6 digit PIN really more secure than a 4 digit PIN? 

• https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.04868.pdf >> In a throttled scenario, simply increasing the PIN length is of little benefit. In our results, there was no significant difference between 4- and 6-digit PINs within the first 100 guesses

• Product and Usability/Convenience - Opting in vs Opting out

  • The Engine Start/Stop example - https://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/features/do-stop-start-systems-really-save-fuel.html && https://www.edmunds.com/fuel-economy/engine-stop-start-systems-save-fuel-at-low-cost.html 

• What is the responsibility of consumer brands on data privacy and security? 

  • GDPR - accept all cookies?

  • Steve Job’s stance on prompting the user about the decision of opt in vs opt out

  • How or when does the question of optin vs opt on get asked factor in? 

Consumer empowerment. The individual should be able to actively manage their own data via consent, access, and correction mechanisms. In the event of a lack of adherence to these principles, there must be a way for the individual to address the breach without negative consequences. >> https://lolokaufman.medium.com/is-privacy-by-design-enough-12aa4fddb747

413: The Ultimate Technical Debt

Topics:

• Jerry talks about what he likes about SmallCube.

• The group talks about Apple supporting old hardware.

• Joe finally purchased a new refurbished Mac!

• Jerry talks about a problem with a computer that would not download Big Sur and kept going black that had a weird solution.

• This leads into Joe’s story about problems with a laggy bluetooth keyboard.

• Pro tip: Don’t let your device just sit around for a long period of time.

• Jerry shares a theory about kernel panics.

• People don’t read on screen warnings, which can lead to trouble.

• They have a conversation about how useful Omni Disk Sweeper is.

• Joe has an update to the df command thanks to listener Viktor Glemme.

• Terminal commands can be very helpful and efficient if you learn how to work with them.

• Jerry shares a story about a client that had trouble going to certain secure websites with Safari.

411: It’s Weird That It's Not Weird

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Topics:

• The group discusses the less than fruitful tech tag sale.

• It’s weird that it isn’t weird to see people after awhile during the pandemic.

• They talk about how things went when they met up for the first time in awhile.

• Sam will not forget that Jerry owes him a cookie.

• Joe struggled to diagnose a slow computer the other day. Turns out it was a heating problem and Jerry had to swoop in.

• He shares an app he used to check the fan speed of a computer called Macs fan control. https://crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control/download.

• The group thanks people who in the Slack community.

• After Jerry praised Harmonizly a couple shows back, Joe suggested the app to a client and Sam ended up using it as well.
  https://harmonizely.com/?fpr=macworks

• Sam shares a story about how he had to perform a wipe and setup a UDM Pro for a client whose previous technician had set himself as the owner. This leads to some head scratching results.

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