192: Calendar Bankruptcy & Skunky Third Party Memory

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TOPICS:

Joe describes his tough day with a client router failing.  PSA: Check your network equipment warranties!

As Joe brings up how great iCloud has been, Sam tells a personal story of woe about syncing issues.  Joe & Jerry offer free consulting advice.

Resetting network settings in iOS resolved an issue for Sam where a user had fiddled with many settings, including which apps operate over cellular.

Joe has some follow up about his fix for removing incompatible extensions in the last show.

A story of another great win for our pals at Watchman Monitoring & Gruntwork!

Sam presents a real head scratcher of a case where an iMac spontaneously kicks the user out of their session and goes back to the login window.  Any suggestions?

Billing and discounts is a common discussion in our world, and Joe recalls some handy tips for showing clients your appreciation.

While on the subject, Sam had a recent need to increase rates for clients and recounts one particular story with a client.

Jerry encounters a situation we have all probably dealt with, when clients attempt to glean as much information from you as possible in an attempt to "do it yourself".

Jerry's client has some challenges working with external displays alongside the new 13" MacBook Pros.

Use the LG UltraFine 4K Display with your MacBook or MacBook Pro
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207447

Use the LG UltraFine 5K Display with your Mac
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207448

191: Cause & Effect

Jerry had more than one instance of clients with Airports requiring a firmware update to version 7.7.8 due to portables not connecting properly. 

Continuing on the wifi discussion, Sam discusses testing Ubiquiti access points at a residential client by temporarily running ethernet throughout the house to determine permanent locations.

Sam had the daunting task of giving an internet safety presentation at a middle school in the area.  Helpful hint: bribe them with Jolly Ranchers.

Temporary tattoos!  An anonymous listener kindly donates these temporary tattoos to the gang at CCP.  

Joe runs in to a startup issue after migrating a client to a new iMac.  Joe finds that adding /Library/Extensions to his troubleshooting process will help diagnose similar issues.
https://www.justinsilver.com/technology/os-x-el-capitan-10-11-1-hanging-on-boot-fixed/

Webex causes Sam some grief as the installer silently fails when attempting to install the plug-in.  The fix is created a missing folder:  ~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins
https://supportforums.cisco.com/discussion/12578216/cant-installrun-webex-my-mac

Sierra Logs rehash: https://eclecticlight.co

Sam goes back on the psychiatrist couch to discuss working with a client when you have a personal relationship.

ARD - /var/folders & /var/db - Locations that are handy when troubleshooting or grabbing settings for ARD.

189: New Years Holiday Mix 2017

-The gang starts off the new year with a brief chat with Justin Esgar, founder of the ACEs Conference.  This year's conference will be held in Phoenix, AZ and is selling fast!  Use the promo code "command" when registering to receive 10% off the current ticket price:
https://acesconf.com/

-Joe follows up on his Apple Mail issues that have plagued his new MacBook Pro.

Sam discusses finally receiving and setting up his new MacBook Pro.  He reviews the manual steps he took to set his computer up from scratch as opposed to a migration. VPN profiles and System Keychain proved to be the bigger sticking points.
How to properly backup and restore the System Keychain: http://www.sebastiencouture.com/post/88839839716/backup-restore-system-keychain-os-x

-Jerry recounts an issue he had with an SSD upgrade in an iMac.  It brings back the conversation of the issues dealing with the mid 2011 models.

-Joe had some interesting issues with his MacBook Pro having a “hard freeze”.  Holding down Command Control Power had no effect!

-As our friend Pam Lefkowitz’s Twitter handle says, It’s “Always DNS”.  Sam describes an issue where DNS caused an issue with authenticating to Active Directory.

-Jerry’s Pro Tip of the week - Meraki’s MDM solution is free for up to 100 devices.

-Not to be outdone, Joe give us a pop quiz: Try it at home - Cmd+Shift+6.  He goes into some other “cool” features of macOS.

-Cautionary tale from Jerry - Don’t be cavalier with your backups.

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184: New MacBook Pro Observations -Be Fun All The Time

- Joe's setup: MacBook Pro USB C connected to OWC USB-C Dock: connected to Gigabit Ethernet and two USB devices (speakers and iPad charger). Also powers MacBook Pro. Includes USB-C port on dock, to which I intended to connect AllSmartLife USB C Type to Mini DisplayPort adapter, but it doesn't work when plugged into the dock (but does work when plugged directly into Mac).

- OWC is accepting pre-orders for OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock which adds mini DisplayPort built-in, as well as FW800 and digital audio out.

- Joe observes: Touch ID on the new MacBook is great, and perhaps worth the difference in price vs. the "MacBook Escape" but it doesn't seem to know about Standard users. It prompts for Touch ID when system needs admin authentication, even though I run as a Standard user and my admin account isn't yet set up for Touch ID. 1Password integration is great.

- Joe observes: Touch Bar is a bit distracting, but maybe it's based on the way I type. It keeps changing from text formatting to word suggestions because I have a habit of selecting and deselecting blocks of text when I'm typing and editing.

Rocket - Quick launcher for Touch Bar

Thanks for your support – it keeps us going!

182: Tell Me About The Cloud

Recorded  November 15, 2016

Jerry revisits thin iMac upgrades and procedures.  He offers some “pro tips” based on his experiences and what he has learned from Sam’s mistakes.  He highly recommends the Anker USB 3.0 to SATA 3ft Converter Adapter Cable:
https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Converter-Adapter-Cable-included/dp/B005B3VO24

Jerry and Joe discuss an interesting special consideration when upgrading a 13-inch MacBook Pro 2011: see OWC's original blog post and followup; Joe has had good luck using OWC's thermal sensor cable in all iMacs since 2009; we've previously used SSD Fan Control with good results, but generally prefer a hardware solution.

Jerry recounts a Contacts issue he was having with iCloud and third party contact syncing.  He uses the opportunity to quiz the CCP crew on the issue. 

Sam is currently struggling with an issue related to syncing his own calendar data ever since upgrading to Sierra.

Joe has a tough go trying to watch Netflix on his Apple TV and airs his frustrations.

After cloning, Jerry hits an odd issue with Apple Remote Desktop refusing to launch:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/30474023#30474023

181: Solutions For The Apple Consultant / LSD- What A Long Strange Trip Its Been

Recorded live on November 7, 2016

- Enjoy Command Control Power and want more commercial free programs? Please visit our Patreon Page where you can support Command Control Power and help us bring you more commercial free programming.

- Synology File Server Solution  
Network Attached Storage Product Selector - https://www.synology.com/en-us/support/ nas_selector

Synology "Disk Station" Operating System - https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/6.0/features

- Ubiquiti Enterprise WiFi System
Ubiquiti Networks UAP-AC-PRO-5 UniFi Access Point Enterprise Wi-Fi System
http://macs.ws/2bYGLlc

Ubiquiti Networks US-48-750W UniFi Managed PoE+ Switch
http://macs.ws/2cCnN9f

Ubiquiti Networks UniFi Cloud Key B&H # UBUCCK MFR # UC-CK  
http://macs.ws/2bYH1AN

- Joe's positive LSD story:
A Possitive LSD Story on The News - Bill Hicks on Drugs.

iMac 27-inch Retina 5K initially failed to log into user, finally logged into user but app icons were generic, apps wouldn't open, system very slow; after deleting user account, preserving home folder, and then recreating user account and reclaiming home folder, the user account would log in and work properly but system wouldn't restart or shut down, getting stuck on black screen with arrow cursor; system log showed repeating messages about com.apple.lsd process crashing; tried safe boot and re-installing 10.11.6 with no luck; tried rebuilding LaunchServices using the following command with no change:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -seed -r

Thanks to Apple discussion forums, Joe learned a command to list the open files associated with a given process:
pgrep -u `id -u` lsd | xargs slof -p
which listed a file in /private/var/folders/kv/2kk40mdv5wdccq6hb7y3rgk80000gn/0/com.apple.LaunchServices-134501.csstore

Deleting that file didn't work, but after researching whether it was OK to delete folders in /private/var/folders/, Joe deleted everything inside /private/var/folders/ and restarted. Sure enough, the system restarted successfully and has worked properly ever since.