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189: New Years Holiday Mix 2017

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-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.

- 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

187: "Merry Crimble!"

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Recorded live on December 23, 2016

- When The Beatles Gave Fans A 'Crimble' Present
http://www.npr.org/2014/12/21/372257350/when-the-beatles-gave-fans-a-crimble-present

 

 

 

- We're sponsored this week by:

Watchman Monitoring, a favorite tool of ours that should be in every professional consultant's toolkit.

watchman-monitoring.jpg

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!

Gruntwork is the ultimate managed service package for you and your clients. "Think of what you would do when trying to solve a user’s support request: run a disk verification utility. Run permission repair. Update the affected software to the latest version. With Gruntwork, those chores have already been accomplished. Your time spent troubleshooting issues is greatly reduced when the common maladies are already ruled out. Better yet, Gruntwork prevents many common problems, so the Mac just works and you can focus on higher level tasks for your client." 

Find out more at - http://mac-msp.com/gruntwork and tell them CCP sent you.

ACES CONFERENCE 2017
Phoenix, Arizona | May 31-June 1, 2017
ACEs Conference- https://acesconf.com/  is the industry-leading event for growing your IT consulting company. With unique, premium content delivered by world-class speakers, ACEs is THE place for inspiration, ideas, business networking, and instantly-applicable knowledge. It’s no surprise that our attendees continue coming year after year—just one ACEs and you’ll be sold.

Many of us IT professionals are in business because of our innate skills as technologists. ACEs Conference was conceived to help us grow our businesses in every other way. From management and operations tools to sales and growth opportunities and strategies, ACEs will leave you inspired, reinvigorated and equipped to take your business to the next level.

- 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.

186: Interview With Dennis Nolan - Cirrus Partners, LLC

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Recorded  Sometime In November 2016

Joe and Jerry welcome Dennis Nolan of Cirrus Partners, LLC to the show to talk about his successful managed service practice.

Dennis Nolan is the founder of Cirrus Partners, a 12 year old Madison WI based, Apple IT support business. With a team of 4 talented professionals, they provide managed services and solutions to leading businesses in the southern Wisconsin market. 

Previously Dennis had owned and operated a commercial photography business for 18 years in Austin TX, Minneapolis and finally Madison. Combining creative approaches with a technical skill set has always been his strong suit. His previous work experience has taken him around the globe working in various countries and cultures. From Istanbul with a small Turkish man walking up and down his back in a 300 year old bathhouse to sharing a campfire with the Marlboro Man, his life experiences help shape the creativity and effectiveness of Cirrus Partners' solutions for their clients.

Dennis and his team can be reached at sayhi@gocirrus.com.

- 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

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

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- 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!

Thanks for your support – it keeps us going!

182: Tell Me About The Cloud

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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

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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.