068: Motor City

Recorded live on September 16, 2014

- Sam's Detroit fast food field trip - old school McDonalds

- 1 Infinite Loop Branded Flak Jacket for those tough road trips - image

- brief discussion of iPhone 6 vs. iPhone 6 Plus; Jerry points out that iPhone 6 has similar footprint to iPhone 5 in Mophie Air case; see also this helpful on-screen size comparison

- Sam follows up about his client with an HP motherboard issue, which HP diagnosed as a bad drive; HP’s hired tech took the hard drive and “completely forgot” about it

- Jerry discusses pitching Watchman Monitoring - When signing up for Watchman, Tweet the hashtag #ccpsentme and let them know you heard about Watchman product here.

- benefit of a personalized “pitch” email written with TextExpander, vs. a generic newsletter; see also Greg Scown, co-founder of Smile, discussing the new TextExpander touch 3

- check out the 1Password App Extension for iOS 8; another example of iOS 8 changing the game for developers and users

- Mac malware/adware discussion; search Google for "Adobe Flash Player" and check out the ad at the top; claims to install Adobe Flash, but shows the Firefox logo, and actually installs Geneo; why doesn’t Google block these ads? why doesn’t Apple block the installer?

- Thomas Reed, author of TheSafeMac.com, writes about recent Mac adware and Apple’s minimal response; also maintains AdwareMedic

- Channel Camp registration is open

053: Toxic Hellstew

Recorded live June 3, 2014

Tim Cook quoting Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, ZDNet: "With vulnerabilities such as Heartbleed and Pileup likely to go unpatched on tens, if not hundreds of millions of Android devices, the platform is fast becoming a toxic hellstew that should send chills down the spines of IT admins."

Yosemite and iOS 8 initial impressions

How the OS X Beta Program will affect us as Apple consultants; expect overzealous clients to call for help troubleshooting issues with pre-release software

Family Sharing looks great for home users, but still no way to migrate purchases or merge Apple IDs

Sam reports that AirDrop works between Yosemite and iOS 7

Joe reports that Apple Store is no longer accepting machines at the Genius Bar using "Quick Drop"

Jerry reports that Genius Bar has been lenient when accepting machines from consultants on behalf of clients; no signed letter needed

Difficulty offering help as a Consultant in the Apple Store; would be nice if Apple would more readily refer clients to us as they tend to be thrilled when they eventually do find us

Joe had fun configuring an Automator workflow for a client referred (eventually) by the Apple Store

The Craig Federighi Show from Jonathan Mann

042: Managed Services Roundtable with Allen Hancock, Luis Giraldo, and Kevin Ginger, Part 2

Recorded March 2, 2014

Sponsored by MoonClerk

This is part two of a special two-part Managed Services roundtable feature six members of the Apple Consultants Network, discussing the benefits of a Managed Services pricing model and how to transition a traditional hourly-billing consultancy into offering Managed Services.

Thanks to our brand new sponsor, MoonClerk – an easy and inexpensive way to collect recurring payments for your subscription services.

Thanks also to our special guests for this roundtable:

Allen Hancock, The Orchard Solutions and Watchman Monitoring
Luis Giraldo, Ook Enterprises and MonkeyBox
Kevin Ginger, kGinger Consulting

Topics:

- offering clients "self service" options through CasperSuite or RobotCloud

- building a "book of service" to work toward an exit plan for your consultancy; building something of value; getting acquired

- the benefits of talking about your service offerings to get comfortable pitching them to clients

- the fact is, servers should be managed proactively to ensure reliability, and Managed Services is a natural way to provide proactive services, billed automatically on a monthly basis consistent with the way services are rendered

- with Mission Critical services, the consultant takes on a psychological burden to ensure that the services keep working; Managed Services makes it equitable for the consultant

Resources:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/acn-alumni

http://watchmanmonitoring.com/acn-benefit

https://www.watchmanmonitoring.com/sample-agreement/

http://mhelpdesk.com/better-way-to-inform-customers-about-how-they-are-being-billed/

http://community.watchmanmonitoring.com

http://mac-msp.com

Value-Based Fees by Alan Weiss

Small Biz Thoughts by Karl W. Palachuk

Tools:

- Watchman Monitoring

- MonkeyBox

- MoonClerk

- ZenDesk

- mHelpDesk

- TeamViewer

- Support menu by Forget Computers

- RobotCloud

- Casper Suite

- Backup Minder

033: Marketing and Followup

Recorded on January 14, 2014

Topics:

- Promise Pegasus R6, 4 TB RAID 6 failed 1 TB drive replacement – live rebuild during a workday, approximately 3 hours; Promise Utility had reported a PFA condition on Drive #5; sent log to Promise support who authorized an advance shipment RMA; drive reported several bad blocks the next day and went offline; drive replaced and RAID rebuilt successfully in 3.5 hours

- Google's algorithms rank local sites higher for local service providers

- Google text ads are often clicked indiscriminately by "normal" people even though we technical people often avoid them

- "white hat" vs. "black hat" SEO techniques

- put your phone number at the top of every page

- put your email address on the page; spam is a solved problem

- good to have separate pages for each type of service you offer, e.g. Remote vs. Onsite

- being a salesperson without sounding like a salesperson

- giving away your time on "good faith" and asking the client to write a good referral; prospects look for recent referrals

- alternatives to the ACN Consultants Locator for reviews, e.g. Yelp

- however, be wary: Yelp often removes positive reviews written by legitimate users, if those users have only posted one review; also, it has been reported that "Yelp will help you remove bad reviews…for a price."

028: Client Gifting and Consultant Go Bags

Recorded live on November 26, 2013

Follow Up:

Joe installed Knock app last week and noticed that it moved itself from the ~/Downloads folder to the /Applications folder without needing to authenticate despite being logged into a standard user account. Joe checked permissions on /Applications and found that the folder permissions were configured to give Everyone Read/Write access. Repaired permissions for the first time in forever and it corrected this and a few other things.

Topics:

New Mac Pro on December 3rd?  Expect Promise to release new Pegasus 2 alongside Apple's Mac Pro release.  Look for discounts on original Promise Pegasus models.

Jony Ive biography by Leander Kahney, recommended by Jerry

Fast Company Weekend Reading: An Oral History of Apple

Guest Pass app to generate iOS profile granting temporary access to a wifi network

KeyCard app to lock and unlock your Mac based on iOS device proximity

Indigo for home automation

Nest Thermostat and Smoke Alarm

Client gifts: how to select clients? Contract clients? Nurturing existing client relationships and rekindling old client relationships.

Client gift ideas: chocolate macaroons, iKlear kits, scotch

Tip from Ryan Powell: I gift throughout the year by giving new clients a "new client care package" with little Klear singles, microfiber cloth, referral cards  drive savers pamphlet and an explanation of my monthly support plan. The referral card is a little elevator pitch about the company, short link to the contact form with the promise of a free phone consultation, then when a client books an appointment I'm sure to give the referring client a small account credit as a thank you.

Sending a Thank You cards to new clients

Referral credit vs. something tangible like an iTunes gift card

What's in your Consultant Go Bag? Examples:

• MagSafe to MagSafe 2
• Thunderbolt to FireWire
• Thunderbolt to Ethernet
• USB to Ethernet
• Ethernet cables
• USB flash drive with partitions for Mac OS installations, diagnostics
• FireWire 400 to 800
• FireWire 800 to 800
• USB, mini USB, micro USB
• USB to Lightning
• USB to 30-pin
• iPhone Headphones
• Tools including screwdrivers, spudger, putty knife
• Memory assortment for all Intel Macs from lifetimememory.com

Joe's current bag: iBackFlip Somersault

024: Clients Plunging Headfirst into Mavericks

Recorded live on October 29, 2013

Topics:

- Clients upgrading to Mavericks, and then asking for help

- Jerry's medical practice client finds out MacPractice is not yet Mavericks compatible

- Joe's clients encounter trouble with Juniper VPN and SoftRAID

- Sam's client encounters problems with Zimbra, VPN Tracker

- run Mountain Lion in a VM to run apps that do not yet work on Mavericks?

- according to VMWare, "Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Server, 10.6 Snow Leopard Server, 10.7 Lion client or server and 10.8 Mountain Lion client or server are fully supported on VMware Fusion while running on supported Apple hardware"

- Sam mentions CNET article: External drives experiencing data loss after Mavericks installation

- using Roaring Apps to determine app compatibility with Mavericks

- Sam and Jerry advise us to back up (archive) our OpenDirectory databases; this is built into Time Machine starting with Mac OS X Server 10.7.2 Lion

- Mavericks Prep service? flat rate to review installed apps, check file system, and advise client along a self-guided upgrade

- Promise Pegasus 2 and SANLink 2 announced

Follow up:

- John Siracusa tests battery life improvements from Mavericks on 2007 MacBook Pro and finds 25% improvement