187: "Merry Crimble!"

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.

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.

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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.

073: Mac mini Late 2014 Review and Recommendations

Recorded live on October 21, 2014

Thanks to Mac Mini Vault for sponsoring this week's episode of Command Control Power. Mac Mini Vault has the most advanced data center options for Macs, with the best pricing. They run multiple data centers and have the Mac expertise to be there for you when you most need it. Visit MacMiniVault.com to sign up and use coupon code CCPsentme for 75% off the first 3 months!  When you send in your Mac mini, tweet @cmdctrlpwr #CCPsentme to support the show!

- Joe recommends AirBase from Giros Design, a great mounting option for AirPort Extreme or AirPort Time Capsule; flexible mounting options include single/dual gang wall boxes, vertical/horizontal orientation, and wall/ceiling mount; plus AirGuard to secure device in place for ceiling mount; also, AirLatch mounts Apple TV to back of TV

- we discuss the new Mac mini Late 2014, and attempt to read the handwriting in the tea leaves on the wall; see Mac Mini Vault's teardown and benchmarks

- what are the implications of soldered RAM when Apple's memory pricing is fairly competitive

- what does the lack of Quad Core processor mean in practice for Server use? depends on number of services and users, but what is the tipping point?  how close is that tipping point to Mac Pro territory?

- with small data sets stored on the internal hard drive, the PCIe-based flash storage should offer a significant benefit vs. the HDD or even SSD options of previous models, perhaps making up for the lack of Quad Core in many circumstances

- friend of the show Mark Fuccio points out the news today from Connected Data, announcing Transporter Genesis for Business  which offers private cloud service in the form of rack mountable hardware unit, plus client software to enable file sharing and syncing that users expect from services like Dropbox; see also last week's discussion

- we stumble through a discussion of Family Sharing; here's the simple explanation from Apple: "Music, movies, TV shows, and books can be downloaded on up to 10 devices per account, five of which can be computers."

- Great Firewall of China attempting MITM attack on iCloud.com?

- anyone going to MacTech Conference November 5-7, 2014?

064: Interview with Jon Schwenn, Lead Engineer of MacMiniVault.com

Recorded live on August 19, 2014

- Interview with Jon Schwenn, Lead Engineer of MacMiniVault.com (CyberLynk Networks)

- benefits of colocation vs. on premises hosting: physical security, physical safety, reliable internet and power

- types of common services running on Mac mini: backup server, file sharing, ESXI, Daylite, Xcode Server, MacPractice, Rumpus, FileMaker, LightSpeed

- NewerTech Headless Mac Video Accelerator @ $19 from OWC; uses Thunderbolt: possible to connect later in daisy chain; vs. fit-Headless which uses HDMI; side benefit: screen saver and screen lock work properly

- Joe's story of Apple Store achieving 80% Mac mini Server setup after six weeks, finally referred client to ACN; two hours later, server is 100% good to go

062: Mac Repairs - The Agony and The Ecstasy

Recorded on July 31, 2014; aired on August 5, 2014

Followup from Dave Provine: How to Restart SMB automatically on Mavericks Server

Liquid Spills - Mircro Replay - 

Tools We Use - Tools that we can’t live Without
8" Straight & Curved Hemostat http://amzn.to/1qXedhv
Magnetic Projet Mat - https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Tools/Magnetic-Project-Mat/IF145-167
iFixit 54 Bit Driver Kit https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Tools/54-Bit-Driver-Kit/IF145-022
Wiha - Wiha 26099 - Screwdriver Set, Slotted, 8Pc 1-4mm Bonus Pack http://amzn.to/1qXcOax
iMac Screen Removal - FastCap HOD-DOUBLE Handle On Demand - http://amzn.to/V2fdSp

http://www.PowerBookMed.com
http://www.iFixit.com

Data Recovery - Driver Savers Partner Program

What repairs you regularly do. 
What repairs you won’t do and why.
Apple Store repair experiences
Depot Experiences
Out of warranty satisfaction repairs
Weirdest Repairs

060: Server, Services, and Such

Recorded on July 8, 2014, aired on July 22, 2014

Sponsored by Smile. Check out Smilesoftware.com for a great screencast from David Sparks about PDFPen for Mac, and to learn why you should use and recommend Smile's awesome software to your clients.

Topics

- MacBook Air torqued

- creative client interpretations of rates and service offerings

- Managed Services discussion; revisiting Easing into Managed Services

- Jerry recommends AJA System Test with the following settings: "MBytes/sec", File I/O API: Unix, "Round frame sizes to 4 KB", "Enable network volumes", Test: Disk Read/Write, Video Frame Size: 1920x1080 10-bit RGB, File Size: 1GB, "Disable file system cache"

- Jerry's legal firm successfully replaced Mac mini Server with Synology

- "working off the server" vs. copying files locally for editing and then copying back to server

- scheduled server restart to work around SMB service interruption? Sam suggests scheduling a launchd job to stop and then start SMB using serveradmin command

- Jerry recommends TP-LINK TL-WR710N 150Mbps Wireless N Mini Pocket Router with USB port for storage for streaming movies to iPad when traveling

058: Talking Shop part 10

Recorded live July 8, 2014

- Jerry's main 13-inch MacBook Air gets depot'd; what to do when your primary machine goes in for repair?

- OWC offers upgrades for flash storage modules in MacBook Air 2010-2011 and 2012 models

- how to restore client data when a machine comes back from Apple with a wiped drive? clone? update & migrate?

- This is the sapphire crystal display from the iPhone 6?

- black screen at startup after migrating data to new MacBook Air; solution: delete loginwindow.plist

- Jerry's black screen Mac mini: reinstalling Mavericks fixed it

- processor throttling due to thermal protection on MacBook Pro #1: fallout from prior liquid damage, covered under 1-year warranty by MicroReplay

- processor throttling due to thermal protection on MacBook Pro #2 after machine froze during sleep: fixed with SMC reset

- Apple's Refurbished Outlet eBay Store

- using SSD Fan Control to work around lack of temperature data on third party hard drives replaced in some iMac models