424: Ducktape and Popsicle Stick Solution

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Topics:

• Jerry recently took the Addigy Certified Expert training

• Text Sniper is an incredibly useful tool that is like OCR for your screen: https://www.textsniper.app.

• Jerry uses it during a presentation to capture text for notes.

• Addigy integrating Splashtop is a welcome addition to their feature set for remote support.

• Joe tells a funny story about Outlook reminders in his latest peeves corner.

• He prefers first party because he likes to know Apple’s solution first and know the ins and outs.

• The group discusses Mail issues.

• Western Digital MyCloud Drive isn’t our favorite choice for customers.

• We have to choose the right equipment or software for our clients based on what is right for them but also what we can support well.

• Sam shares a funny story about trying to talk to a tech person at Staples.

• Should the group start a show where they go to local stores and ask tech questions?

• Joe talks about the times before he was an Apple consultant and shares the story about how he found out about the Apple Consultants Network.

• Is Sam Neo from the Matrix?

• The crew talks about older, unreliable software like Retrospect

• Jerry has an internet recovery issue with a local Mac mini acting as a content cache

423: Dress Your Best & Billable Rates

Topics:

• Jerry talks about the used Mcintosh amplifier from 1967 he recently got for himself.

• He gives a warning about energizing older products like this because it can be dangerous.

• What is appropriate to wear on the job?

• Sam shares a story about his clients dog ripping his brand new corduroys.

• There’s a certain value you provide when you dress the part.

• Joe shares some of his favorite button down shirts.

• The group discusses raising rates and how to communicate that you are doing so with clients.

• Sam explains that he has stopped giving discounts to new clients to win them over because he charges what his services are worth.

• Jerry likes to slowly creep his rates up so it isn’t a huge jump.

• Sam recently increased his hourly rates and he explains how he’d rather have longer term relationships with his clients and his pricing shows that.

• Adding valuable monthly services helps you to bill outside of hourly labor.

• The group discusses billing for network monitoring.

421: Meet Me In The Back Of Sizzler

419: When Jiggled by The Jiggler

Season 8 is here!

• Thank you to our long time sponsor, Jon Brown of Grove Technologies for his continued and increased support of Command Control Power.

• If you would like to contribute to the show, please visit http://patreon.com/cmdctrlpwr

• In the latest “I should have known this” corner, Joe learned something new about widgets from the TidBITs newsletter.

• Sam adds another TidBITs tip about AirTags.

• Jerry revisits the Mouse Jiggler app from Episode 246: Let Go Of My Echo or Echo Location that helped his Fusion Drive encryption proceed, and shares some excellent feedback from Tom Bridge re: encryption requiring the mouse to be moving. Tom suspected Apple is "using the entropy from the mouse cursor to do part of the encryption" which is apparently the case in High Sierra with APFS (although Jerry's drive was not APFS). 

• Jiggler 1.9 : No-Doz for your Mac

  http://sticksoftware.com/software/Jiggler.html

• A benefit to working remotely is that the client won’t see every time you have to google an answer!

• Sam purchased a 13 inch MacBook pro M1 and then somehow a random serial number got added to his apple business manager.

• He made the mistake of not listening to Joe’s rules for making a new migration work properly.

• Joe and Sam are both very happy with their newer M1 computers since they finally have devices that can keep up with everything they do.

• Jerry suggests Synology Migration Assistant because it works very well for him.

• While completing a migration Jerry ran into a password problem.

• Both Joe & Jerry have gathered a treasure-trove of knowledge from a series of YouTube videos from SpaceRex. He has put out helpful videos that can improve Synology performance like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYEEfAI-Upo

• Little tips like disabling SMB1 or SMB encryption on Synology to increase speeds have been helpful.

• Jerry also talks about the realities link aggregation.

• Always consider the quality of drives you add to your drive array.

• Avoid SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) drives and look instead for CMR (Conventional Magnetic Recording) drives.

• “Cache” is king.

• Jerry has a real issue with terrible unboxing videos.

• Jerry would love to have a better partner relationship with Synology.

• Joe wants to talk more about ransomware, malware, and protecting your data more in future episodes.

• Important tip: Always have a backup!

• There are risks to relying solely on backups without an “air gap”.

• Sam and Joe highly recommends the Security Advisor on Synology

418: Interview With James Chiappetta, Security Expert From Better Appsec

Topics:

• This week we are pleased to welcome James Chiappetta, Security Expert from Better Appsec.

• An intro to the human element of security.

  • https://betterappsec.com/how-appsec-can-help-balance-product-usability-with-security-e958463aad81

  • https://betterappsec.com/how-to-account-for-the-human-element-in-appsec-146548ecb9a1 

• What are the most common iphone PINs and what drives the creation of them? http://danielamitay.com/blog/2011/6/13/most-common-iphone-passcodes

• Is a 6 digit PIN really more secure than a 4 digit PIN? 

• https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.04868.pdf >> In a throttled scenario, simply increasing the PIN length is of little benefit. In our results, there was no significant difference between 4- and 6-digit PINs within the first 100 guesses

• Product and Usability/Convenience - Opting in vs Opting out

  • The Engine Start/Stop example - https://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/features/do-stop-start-systems-really-save-fuel.html && https://www.edmunds.com/fuel-economy/engine-stop-start-systems-save-fuel-at-low-cost.html 

• What is the responsibility of consumer brands on data privacy and security? 

  • GDPR - accept all cookies?

  • Steve Job’s stance on prompting the user about the decision of opt in vs opt out

  • How or when does the question of optin vs opt on get asked factor in? 

Consumer empowerment. The individual should be able to actively manage their own data via consent, access, and correction mechanisms. In the event of a lack of adherence to these principles, there must be a way for the individual to address the breach without negative consequences. >> https://lolokaufman.medium.com/is-privacy-by-design-enough-12aa4fddb747

417: Nana-Technology or Sitting In A Bubble Of Time

Topics:

• Sam gives a shoutout to Armin Briegel of Scripting OS X for solving a huge problem he was having. If you’re not subscribing to his site, you should be.

• Being a part of the Mac Admins community is invaluable.

• Joe talks about creating a custom AppleScript to sync data in the Photos app. Jerry brings up an interesting point about support over the network.

• Note to self: Triple the estimate when quoting a scripting/automation job!

• The group talks about their automation processes.

• One of Sam’s old difficult clients who he had not talked to in years reached out to him for help. He was not sure how to respond.

• Joe shared a similar story about a client who rebook things off with him coming back after years.

• Jerry says that taking notes can be extremely helpful especially when trying to remember what happened with a client in the past. Daylite is an excellent tool for documenting this information and attaching to a client record.

• Sam tried to part ways with a client that was very time consuming but he didn’t have the heart.

• Joe shares a tip on setting up hot corners because even though they’ve been useful, they also drive him crazy.

• Shoutout to the TidBits content newsletter for sharing tips that even the professionals don’t know!