323: Catalina Ready - Interview With Jason Dettbarn / Founder & CEO of Addigy - Cloud Based Mac Management Platform

Topics:

-This week we have the pleasure of speaking with Jason Dettbarn, founder and CEO of Addigy Technology. Addigy Technology provides Cloud Based IT Management of Mac Computers.

-Jason left his job at Kaseya to start Addigy in 2014.

-He talks about the annual Addigy User Summit, held in Miami, FL. The dates for 2020 are March 25-27. Go to addigy.com/command to find out more.

-Jason talks about how MDM is the path forward, but you need additional tools that go beyond the configuration profiles of MDM.

-Some of the macOS Catalina changes to watch out for are:
—64-bit application requirements
—Notarized software
—Z shell default

-A very interesting tidbit of information from Jason - Little Snitch is the genesis for Privacy Preferences Policy Control settings that began in Mojave

-Scripting is still a big component and Jason talks up its importance, as well as submissions from the community to assist others.

-The Addigy community is the future of the product and our peers is what makes it powerful: https://support.addigy.com/support/solutions/folders/8000086921

-With the big changes coming to macOS, blocking upgrades may be a necessity and Addigy is a tool that can assist

-The Addigy agent can also assist with peer to peer downloads of large packages, like the macOS installer

-Jerry asks the questions on pricing and how to get started: addigy.com/signup

-The fact that Addigy is a true multi-tenant platform allows consultants to have separate APNs certificates and Apple Business Manager tokens for each of their clients

-Okta integration is here and Azure as well as others are just around the corner. Keep up with Addigy updates to learn the latest and greatest.

322: Dante's Ring Of Sonos

Topics:

-Since Sam missed last weeks show, he wanted to get the latest updates from Jerry on his home/office move

-Jerry raves about the Eero product as he has a trouble free set up in the new house. https://eero.com/shop/pro-wifi-system

-With Joe doing more Synology installations, he questions his co-hosts on their choices of RAID and comfort level with redundancy.

-Continuing the NAS conversation, Joe mentions the options for SHR2 and how a client surprised him with questions regarding Synology RAID F1, a RAID format specifically for use with SSDs.  The idea being that SSDs would normally have a similar lifespan, so F1 is an uneven parity distribution approach will lead to that one SSD reaches its lifespan earlier than others 

-The elders of the Internet (IT Crowd reference)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDbyYGrswtg

Joe’s discussion about a Synology causes Sam to recall the story of a Synology failure at a client.  The series of events, like restoring from Backblaze B2 and Hyper Backup’s proprietary format made a new approach necessary.

-Jerry recalls a funny story of how a client thought they were taking Drobo backups offsite by removing one of the drives and taking it home

-Sam has one of those days where he goes down the rabbit hole at a completely new client.  His almost comical experience with UniFi and Sonos equipment took him the entire day and still left him scratching his head.

321: Green Acres

Topics:

-Special thanks to Puelle Design in Portland, Maine for hosting Joe's mobile recording studio this week.

-Joe is in the Northeast! He is visiting family for some milestones before heading on the road again

-Jerry is in the midst of a move to a new home and new headquarters of MacWorks.  He calls it the reverse Green Acres.

-After having a car mishap, Jerry discovers CarPlay in his rental car

-A recurring theme for our show has been value based billing and, of course managed services plans.  Joe & Jerry share ideas about their formulas for monthly billing.  Ideas like billing per user or per device, preset hours per month, and services used are among the topics of discussion.

-Prepaid discounts are an enticing way for clients to buy in to ongoing services.  “Monthly check-ins” are also something that clients seem to be drawn to.

-Do you install Watchman Monitoring on client devices for free as a “loss leader” or break even point?  What happens if you end the relationship?

-Jerry has a couple of funny client anecdotes with his classic impersonations

-He also has his fair share of gripes

-Joe's client had an issue in Calendar on her Mac: "The server responded with an error. There is insufficient storage space for "event title" in "calendar name" in account "iCloud". The choices were Try Again, Ignore, or Revert to Server. He removed a calendar she didn't need that only had a few events on it, and it solved the problem. Then we added a few tests, and she seemed to hit the limit again. We then moved a calendar with a lot of events to a local On My Mac calendar for archival purposes, and instructed the client to move needed events back onto a calendar on the server. Hasn't happened since.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202158

Thanks to our Patreon Sponsors!

319: We All Have Some Value Based Billing In Our Soul

Topics:

-As much as we love Ubiquiti, Jerry has an axe to grind on this week’s show with regards to Cloud Keys

-Joe addresses the details of the issue based on his own experiences with Cloud Key power failures and the mongo database that Ubiquiti uses

-Specifically with the first generation Cloud Keys, Joe’s solution was to add power instead of relying on POE. This has been addressed with the newest generation, which now has a battery backup.
https://store.ui.com/products/unifi-cloudkey-gen2-plus

-Jerry doesn’t stop there. He has another saga dealing with a Ubiquiti install

-A strong case for an off-site controller that Richard Wingfield brought up is updating a singular controller as opposed to each cloud key at client sites 

-Circling back to value based billing, the crew reflects how they have already been using it in some respects and how to implement it properly in the future. As Jerry said, “We all have value based billing in our soul”. 

-Sam’s concern with this method is that there is no formula to calculate jobs

-Calculating monthly costs for monitoring & managing network devices leads us down the MSP path. How to bill appropriately? Do you require it? What’s not included? Questions that must be addressed when proposing services like this. 

317: Working On & Working In

Topics:

-Joe kicks off the show bringing up leisure time and time management 

-Working ON the business vs working IN the business

-A challenge for Sam is meeting interruptions that occur when clients reach out. Not just for him but for his staff

-Sam may be on the lookout for a new hire but does he look for an admin or a tech?

-The CCP crew are very appreciative of the collective audience and their feedback/advice

-“This is not for everyone”. Sam comes to the realization that running a business isn’t something everyone can handle. 

-A continual question for Sam is taking on Windows clients. 

-Joe explores marketing new services to current clients as a method of increasing revenue. For instance, offering Ubiquiti installations for clients in need of upgraded Wi-Fi. 

-QuickTime screen recording to the rescue for Sam as he tries to see a message that quickly disappears on his screen

-Joe has some follow up to how he sets up his clients with individual Ubiquiti UniFi controllers. While Sam is moving to a central controller, specific logins per client is something they agree on. 

-Cloud Key stability has plagued all of us. After some research, Joe has dug up information about the Mongo database and how it is prone to failure during a power loss. To combat this, Joe discusses his backup power plan for the Cloud Key. 

-After a recent discussion with Christopher Stout on Episode 311, Sam is looking to setup a closed system like UniFi, Synology Surveillance Station or Security Spy

-Sam learns some interesting details from a SonicWALL vendor about true throughput 

-Friend of the show, Weldon Dodd points out a great write up by Rich Trouton on his site, Derflounder. It’s an interesting piece about enabling Touch ID for sudo commands.

316: Wi-Fi On A Stick

Special Thanks To Our VIP Sponsors!

Topics:

-Sam has a first run working with the ”Wi-Fi on a stick” method of mapping out Wi-Fi. He uses a product from wifistand.com and NetSpot to create a map":
https://wifistand.com

-Joe brings up a great tool called Magic Plan to create floor plans on iOS:
https://www.magicplan.app/en/

-The nanoHD is a particular Ubiquiti model that same used and likes to deploy

-Joe warns of things to be aware of when scouting out an environment for Wi-Fi

-Another new monthly service that Sam is offering is hosting a UniFi controller in his environment to manage firmware updates and alerts. Joe weighs the responsibilities that comes with such an offering.

-Joe throws Sam a curve ball explaining how he has a singular login for his clients

-Another issue in the long line of networking troubles that Sam has experienced: finding incompatibility between a SonicWall and WAN connection at a NYC client. The fix? A dumb switch!

-That story rings a bell for Joe who has a similar story to tell about a Zywall and WAN connection that turned out to be a multi pronged problem.

Thanks to our Patreon Sponsors!