225: Discussions By The Water Cooler

This episode is sponsored by Kalos Consulting, specialty recruiter and business partner of the Apple Consultants Network.

The Kalos team has over 20 years of combined experience in recruiting, and they made in a big splash in the IT space 18 months ago by becoming the only recruiter specializing in Apple’s FileMaker software. Kalos has since placed 17 developers in full-time roles, mostly with companies in the FileMaker Business Alliance. Good news travels fast, and Kalos was asked to extend its services to members of the Apple Consultants Network.

Their goal is to assist you in growing your business by finding the people you need to make that a reality. If your company specializes in Apple IT and you need help growing your team, or you’re an Apple consultant who wants to learn about new opportunities, give Kalos a call at 630.746.5626 for a free consultation. Find out more at KalosConsultingInc.com.

TOPICS:

- iPhone 6 Plus Replacement - Touch Disease 
http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-6-plus-touch-disease-what-is-it-and-what-can-i-do-2016-10

- Max Headroom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom
https://youtu.be/cYdpOjletnc

- Apple Magnetic Adapter Patent - USB-C To Magsafe
http://macs.ws/2h6oMAF

- Important changes to the Dropbox public folder
Effective September 1, 2017, Dropbox Plus and Business users can no longer render HTML content, and the Public folder and its sharing functionality have been disabled
https://www.dropbox.com/help/files-folders/public-folder

- Amazon Web Services - S3
https://aws.amazon.com

AWS Free Usage Tier*
As part of the AWS Free Usage Tier, you can get started with Amazon S3 for free. Upon sign-up, new AWS customers receive 5 GB of Amazon S3 storage in the Standard Storage class, 20,000 Get Requests, 2,000 Put Requests, and 15 GB of data transfer out each month for one year.

- Connected Data Transporter Private Cloud File Sync and Share Appliance, Named Computer Technology Review Most Valuable Product (MVP) 2015 Award Winner
http://macs.ws/2h8Gjov

Support for all of the consumer-class Transporters ended on September 01, 2017.
https://helper.nexsansupport.com/tfc_support

---

Thanks again to Kalos Consulting for sponsoring Command Control Power! 

If your company specializes in Apple IT and you need help growing your team, or you’re an Apple consultant who wants to learn about new opportunities, give Kalos a call at 630.746.5626 for a free consultation. Find out more at KalosConsultingInc.com.

224: Interview With Christopher Holmes of Rooted Consulting & HCS Technology Group

TOPICS:

Christopher Holmes of Rooted Consulting and HCS Technology Group
https://www.rootedconsulting.org/
Twitter: @josemocha
Instagram: @josemocha

Chris and Sam talk up Slack and using it internally

Sam going to set up a tent at a local festival as a new avenue to reach out to potential customers
http://www.seaport.org/

A discussion brews about keeping smaller clientele vs large entities that represent a large portion of your income

To sign or not to sign?  Sam contemplates whether signing a new client was the right fit

An opportunity arises where a PC consultancy wants to partner up

Chris talks about his company, Rooted Consulting and their help desk offering called Flex Desk

Hiring is forever on Sam’s mind…

Why is searching network volumes so difficult?

Easy Find vs Finder
http://www.devontechnologies.com/products/freeware.html

Chris brings up AFP going away in High Sierra https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/FileManagement/Conceptual/APFS_Guide/FAQ/FAQ.html

Preventing updates by clients.  The ongoing battle

iOS screen sharing?  TeamViewer says it’s coming in iOS 11!

https://www.teamviewer.com/en/features/ios-screen-sharing/

223: It's not you, it's me!

TOPICS:

Sam gets back from his European tour and gives us all the details

A potential crisis is averted at a large client while Sam is away

Sam puts out a call for an HP managed switch expert

HP Enterprise support is not a joyous experience for Sam

“Don’t we have people that can do this?” - Becoming a manager and keeping the tech

iCloud Photo Sharing goes “belly up” and Sam finds an interesting way to resolve it

Joe has his own iCloud Photo Library sync issue

An interesting situation for Sam when an AirPort Extreme will not allow outbound VPN connections

Sharing the detailed Unifi app with a client backfires on Sam

Joe has the age old problem of clients pinging him for freebies

Sam has trouble multitasking.  Joe has some answers.

Joe’s client emailed the wrong email address for PsiMac with surprising results

Taking it personal when your contact at a client leaves unexpectedly

uBlockorigin is a fascinating ad blocker - https://www.ublock.org

Joe forces Sam to reveal some recently unpleasant experiences with Windows

Sam goes through a tough negotiation pitching MSP to a legacy client

When your potential replacement seeks details about the client

https://www.patreon.com/cmdctrlpwr

222: Flashback Followup, Tagging & More

We're sponsored this week by Watchman Monitoring, a favorite tool of ours that should be in every professional consultant's toolkit.

Visit WatchmanMonitoring.com/cmdctrlpwr and sign up for your free trial to find out how Watchman Monitoring can keep an eye on your client machines and notify you of over 100 issues. Be sure to tweet @cmdctrlpwr #CCPsentme to support the show!

TOPICS:

-Joe details some followup on Flashback from Episode 220

• same issue happened again, but this time the user would log in, apps wouldn't open, but we could log out

• appeared to be user level; our admin user logged in fine

• removed Gruntwork, no change

• removed main user account, preserving home folder; recreated main user account; had been configured to auto login

• Could it be solved but deleting the Finder cache? https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5386679?start=0&tstart=0

-Jerry details his struggles replacing a Comcast EMTA ( embedded multimedia terminal adapter ) modem with an Xfinity branded modem/router to achieve faster speeds.

- Dan Monge - MacITPros.com
Workflow App - Create a List Of The Predefined Commands To Text To Smith.ai
https://smith.ai/blog/2016/03/sms-simpler-more-efficient-way-provide-real-time-s/

-Jerry discusses some of the consumer tech podcasts he listens to like:

• Mac Power Users - https://www.relay.fm/mpu

• Mac Geek Gab - https://www.macobserver.com/show/mac-geek-gab/

• Jason Snell & David Sparks - Free Agent - https://www.relay.fm/freeagents

• Tagging With Terptra - MacPower Users - https://www.relay.fm/mpu/390

Automatic filing with Hazel and Mavericks tags
http://brettterpstra.com/2013/12/20/automatic-filing-with-hazel-and-mavericks-tags/

Hazel - https://www.noodlesoft.com
GUI for Apple Scripting, Watch Folders, Filing, Actions, Renaming Tagging

Jason Snell & David Sparks - Free Agent - #26: A Batphone to My Heart
https://www.relay.fm/freeagents/26

- Smith.ai is a superior call answering service for small businesses and individuals. Our virtual receptionists help you build better relationships with new and existing customers."
Pricing begins at $50 per month - http://smith.ai/web/pricing/
Start your new Smith account today, with a, FREE 30-day/10-call trial covering 9am-9pm EST.
Mention MacWorks when you signup for your trial or Command-Control-Power
 

221: DMARC, Eero's & Toupee's

Topics:

- Joe discusses the problem with automatically forwarding mail in the era of DMARC and walks through an explanation from Kerio:

- You have a hosted Kerio email account, with a domain of clientname.com

- You have a forwarding rule configured to forward all email addressed to name@clientname.com to clientaddress@gmail.com

- Gmail enforces a DMARC policy

- Gmail sees the forwarded email as if they were coming from the original sender, e.g.: Facebook, PayPal, etc. etc.

- But the emails are NOT coming from the mailservers of those senders (e.g. mail.facebook.com, mail.paypal.com – fake examples), they are actually coming from the Kerio mail server (mail.itekmail.com)

- This triggers a failure of compliance with DMARC, since the sending mail server doesn't match the sending address.

- Unfortunately there isn't much we can do about this, other than use the main account (name@clientname.com), setting it up on a mail client of your choice, to avoid this problem.

- Joe and Jerry discuss Eero, and Joe explains the challenge of configuring an alternate subnet:

- Eero ad automatically assigned 192.168.7.1 subnet

- AV guy had static IPs manually assigned to two IR controllers

- had to use Advanced settings to hangs subnet to 10.0.0.0 (10.0.1.0 not an option; annoying because that's a common Apple one so this must be a common issue)

- tried to adjust starting IP to 10.0.0.1, subnet to 255.255.0.0, and ending IP to 10.0.1.254; didn't work

- after updating, allowed me to select 10.0.0.0 range and change it to 10.0.1.0 range, which worked

219: Nobody Beats The Wiz

TOPICS:

• Jerry & Joe revisit Circle by Disney - https://meetcircle.com . An issue issue with a test device still sending messages even after it was reset.

Circle Go https://meetcircle.com/circle-go/ - "works anywhere" has lowerd its subscription price to $4.99 per month for up to 10 devices

• Joe discusses offering to upload and merge client photos as a service.Her references an original Macworld article about using iCloud Photo Library to merge photo libraries; and a newer article .
  Jerry talks about using iPhoto Library Manager and PowerPhotos from
  

• Joe wheels and deals with his cable provider, Optimum for faster broadband rates.
  
  Joe contacts Verizon to add a second static IP to cellular SIM for free. PEP Wave device automatically acquired the static IP and reconnected, amazingly; doubled cellular data from 8GB to 16GB+2GB free for $5 more per month; can switch to business plan when using more than 5 lines, with discounts starting around 8%;
  
  Joe contacts AT&T to drop an old iPad line that was costing $10 per month; spoke with retention department and was offered 20GB data for same price as previous 10GB price; they offered to send free Samsung Galaxy Classic Watch (retail: $350) for free to use the with iPad line in the interest of keeping the line active; no commitment or contract; I can set up the watch and then if I don't like it I can keep it, give it away, or sell it and still cancel the line with no penalty; wonder what they'll offer me when I call back to cancel it a second time!
  

• Jerry talks about his first failure with a Samsung EVO 850 SSD. The drive tested fine with an open source tool https://www.smartmontools.org along with other more familiar utilities.
  

• - Joe chats about a recent upgrade To SoftRAID 5.6 that will support running a SMART test on both USB and FireWire disks.

OS 10 SAT Smart Driver -https://github.com/kasbert/OS-X-SAT-SMART-Driver

-A big thank you to all of our Patreon sponsors!