200: Not So - Off The Rails!

Topics:

-PsiMac is hiring! Judy offers up details about a full time consulting position at their Norwalk, CT office.

-Jerry, Joe & Sam get together for a rare in person show to celebrate 200 episodes and it goes...well it goes ok. We would like to thank our good friend Tom Bridge for putting us in touch with James Smith.  James was instrumental in making the show sound listenable after a very rough recording (it gets better about 20 minutes in).

-Jerry serenades the group and the audience at the opening of the show

-The team discusses a pre-show Google Hangout experience with some of our dedicated listeners

-A little reminiscing and trips down memory lane about the show's humble beginnings

-Down to business, Jerry goes in to a story about Gmail and Outlook 2011 security settings

-A dialogue opens up about cellular carriers and their plans.  And how to avoid higher chargers.

-Sam's daughter helps the CCP crew ring in show 200 with a batch of cupcakes

-Don't forget to join us at Aces Conference this year, where we will hold a very special live show!
www.acesconf.com

-Sam got hot under the collar dealing with a client's poor planning and working with another vendor

-One of Joe's show ideas, "Residential Roundtable" gets a conversation going

-After Joe brings up another show idea, Sam's back on the couch to talk about the need for office space.  Joe offers up some of his experiences in his years in his own space.

-Admin or no admin? That topic comes up again as a point of focus for the next hire in a small business.

-Access to our back catalog will now only be available to our Patreon sponsors.  Please take a moment to visit our Patreon site and consider contributing to the show.  Thanks for listening!

194: Blowing Up Your Zendesk Tickets

Topics:

Sam's team worked on a 27" mid-2011 iMac with surprising results.  Could it have been the drive enclosure this whole time?

-Friend of the show Mike Dent (@mcdent) of Ubertechs provides some insight on his experiences using a different drive enclosure:  https://www.zapals.com/akasa-ak-hda-03-black-2-5-to-3-5-ssd-hdd-adapter.html
-Equally important is the thermal sensor: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DIDIMACHDD11/

The rates conversation is revisited with each of the hosts bringing up their model for attracting MSP clients while not shying away from those "break/fix" clients.

Sam brings up a quick option to use Apple's Volume Purchase Program to purchase an app for a client when no credit card was on file.

While on the subject, he brings up a great little product for keeping volumes mounted even when the disconnect unexpectedly.  AutoMounter: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/automounter/id1160435653?mt=12

An old favorite FTP app called Rumpus: 

Joe found an intriguing (and possibly dangerous) problem with power adapters for an iPad in the office.

During a slow period, Jerry shares his thoughts on Watchman monitoring and ZenDesk integration and particularly how to turn them in to billable work with clients.

Jerry found an odd Apple Mail issue where it was slow to launch.  Keychain related?

Sam shares a great tip about how to login to a non-admin account on a Mac when the screen is locked...only to find that this feature does not function in Sierra!  Thanks to Kevin Ginger for the quick research.
-https://www.jamf.com/jamf-nation/discussions/21385/unlock-standard-user-s-screensaver-as-admin-broken-in-10-12

Joe's client has an issue where Safari would not load any websites.  The fix related to reinstalling the Security Update 2016-003 Supplemental (10.11.6).

Little Flocker is highly recommended from Jerry for detecting and protecting a Mac from malware and other security concerns: https://www.littleflocker.com.  Comes from the mind of Jonathan Zdziarski https://www.zdziarski.com/blog/

Jerry experiences a "wonky" iPhone search issue.

Sam encounters an odd situation with static DNS values ending up in his network settings after visiting a client.  Jerry chimes in with the possibility of a hacked router.  Sam will follow up on that on a future show.

As a special bonus, Jerry shares a great kitchen tool called the Rapid Egg Cooker: http://amzn.to/2lsJaJb

190: Interview With Yochai Gal of the Boston TechCollective

Joe & Sam interview Yochai Gai of the Boston TechCollective, a worker-owned cooperative in the greater Boston area.  After working first independently and then with other organizations, Yochai founded and operated the San Francisco TechCollective in 2006.  In late 2012, he took that idea coast to coast and co-founded the Boston office.

The organizations were formed based on a simple, powerful idea: that tech experts, rather than managers, should be the ones in charge of a tech support enterprise.  Have a listen as we talk to Yochai about the business, structure and technical aspect as well.

https://bostontechcollective.com

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.

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

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

178: Hi·er·ar·chi·cal

Recorded October 18, 2016

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!

TOPICS:

- Joe mentions HFS stands for hierarchical file system, pronunciation guide on hierarchical (compare to incorrect "hierarchial" [sp] and vs. hierarchal meaning)

MacSysAdmin 2016
"How can you avoid the catastrophes caused by disk drive failure"
Tim Standing, SoftRAID
http://docs.macsysadmin.se/2016/2016doc.html

- Joe's iCloud Photo Library not updating in Photos app, not loading at iCloud.com: "Cannot Load Library: Photos was unable to load your photos and videos." Photos app open with Option-Command to repair library, required administrator authentication

- FatCat Software, Power Photos https://www.fatcatsoftware.com/powerphotos/

- Future - Apple Backing Up Entire Mac Hard Drive

- Unlimited Secure Storage from Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/home

- Apple Optimizing Your Storage In Sierra

- Joe receives a Watchman Monitoring notice about one of his own Macs: PsiMac Joe mini of PsiMac has reported a change: The computer has begun downloading an OS Upgrade: "10.12 - Sierra". Judy observes "I guess still better than Windows starting Windows 10 update when you click the X on the prompt to do so.."

- Watchman detected Joe's MacBook Pro upgraded to Sierra had not backed up in 10 (7?) days, needed to update TimeMachineEditor