459: Got Fiber?

Topics:

-Jerry expresses his frustration with clients at times.

-He also has difficulty chasing down customers who sign up for MSP service and do not make the time to install all of their tools.

-A good old previously mentioned marketing tool is placing a sticker on network equipment that is branded with your company contact information.

-Sam uses small asset tags with contact information that go on all devices.

-rackmount.it is an excellent custom rack mount equipment.

-One of Sam’s clients was unimpressed after his cable management work.

-Joe talks about raising his onsite rates.

-Joe has to do some convincing to get a client to get the right configuration of Synology and UniFi equipment.

-Optimum Online, a local ISP, is now providing fiber with Gigabit symmetrical speeds.

-Jerry also has fiber…

458: Interview with John O'Fallon of Maxum, Makers Of Rumpus

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Topics:

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457: In A Bit Of A Crisis

Topics:

-Joe discusses some of the new products released by Apple.

-All the latest announcements were immediately discussed in TidBITS Content Network newsletter.

-Josh Centers of TidBITS started a separate site called http://applebuyingadvice.com to help people make decisions on what products to purchase.

-Working with a long standing client where he used to be the “web master”, Joe recommends Squarespace for their updated website.

-One of Joe’s customers has a mac.com email address that did not seem to be able to receive mail any longer to anything but the new icloud.com address.

-Joe is frustrated about attempting to donate to UNICEF via Apple Music. Sam is surprised at making a live donation on air.

-Sam tries using a navigation app with some old friends with little success.

-Windows 365 is a cloud hosted version of Windows. Joe’s experience wasn’t so great.

-Dropbox issues a warning of compatibility with macOS 12.3: https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/desktop/macos-12-monterey-support

-Sam issues a warning about using a configuration profile to set a password expiration on a local Mac account.

-MDM Live from Addigy get a big thumbs up from Joe.

-In looking into it, Sam sees some very interesting beta features like MDM Live and Flex Policies.

-One of Sam’s clients reaches out at odd hours of the night. This particular issue dealt with a failed upgrade attempt.

-We discuss what defines a crisis and cancellation policies.

-We take a moment to thank Nate Cinal of Scout IT for his thoughtful gifts to the crew.

455: Getting On The High Horse

Topics:

-Jerry explores Synology notifications and Joe explains how Synology removed the built in feature. Central Management System to the rescue. 
https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/feature/cms_maintenance

-One of Jerry’s clients asks for employer tracking software. He was referred to Veriato. He asks the group their opinions on such a request. 

-Sam had a couple of sketchy client situations as well. 

-Messages in the cloud - A customer of Joe’s has questions regarding this feature and specifically syncing deletions. 

-Messages attachments can create storage issues for users. 

-Recommending upgrades can backfire as in the case when Joe recommended customers upgrade to Monterey 12.2. 

-Joe found a great bit of software called Mini Wale On LAN. Grab a copy and buy Hanz a cup of coffee:  https://www.tweaking4all.com

452: VPN For Clients

Topics:

-Jerry wants to know everyone’s take on VPNs. 

-iCloud Private Relay is another option that Joe will start to recommend as it comes out of beta. 

-One of Sam’s approaches is to suggest verbiage in employee agreements as opposed to enforcing technology. 

-More about iCloud Private Relay: About iCloud Private Relay - Apple Support

-Joe brings up valid concerns about using the office firewall as a VPN solution as it may not be scalable.

-Sam’s third party VPN of choice is NordVPN but he has some concerns about it now being in the App Store.

-Jerry wants everyone to use his affiliate links.

-As Sam’s daughter is applying to colleges, he is concerned about one institution’s practice in handling secure documents.

-As Jerry looks to migrate a client’s mail data, he finds that their current provider wont’ provide admin access, likely because they have multiple customers in the same portal.

-Password management and “credential stuffing” is an ongoing process for Joe’s customers. 

-It’s astonishing that some providers allow very insecure passwords.

-Props for TidBITS Content Network for providing incredibly useful content to provide to our customers for topics like password security.

-Keychain Password Manager “memorable” password feature is gone because it was a 32-bit function.

451: Blue Chip Mail Migrations

Topics:

-Jerry talks about using Rackspace for Microsoft 365 hosting. Somehow they don’t offer two factor authentication. 

-Jerry had a struggle migrating a family tenant of Microsoft to a business license. He used Power BI to get it done. 

-Joe ran into a gotcha with a migration and claiming a domain. 

-PowerShell is a knowledge that is a necessity at times. 

-Allowing users to be Global Admins could be dangerous due to how flippant they are with their own passwords. 

-There is a danger to managing a service if that service has issues. 

-Moving to new devices can cause an issue with Authenticator apps. 

-Google Chrome has an extension for scanning QR codes for two factor. 

-Joe talks browser recommendations and password management. 

-Safari has a nice password import feature. 

-CCP loves 1Password but there have been some hiccups in recent versions.