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031: Help Desk Ticketing Systems and Year-End Purchases
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What do I do?
Recorded live on December 17, 2013
Topics:
- Zendesk: Starter Plan @ $1 per Agent per month
- forward emails to help desk, ticket shows original email sender as Requester
- using help desk for calls, scheduling requests, and tasks
- continue using email for quick questions
- formal "discovery" process for new clients, or doing smaller/easier tasks before larger projects
- great to see outcome of others' tickets
- configure triggers to CC lead or admin on High Priority tickets
- End of Year purchases
- selling old equipment for clients for commission vs. fixing and selling old machines inherited from clients
Picks of the Week:
- Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal – Jerry's pick
- Promise Pegasus2 R4 Diskless 4Bay Thunderbolt 2 RAID System – Joe's pick
Plus:
- Mavericks classes coming in January! Visit InstructUs Training or your local AATC for class schedules. First possible 101 class is 1/6/14. First possible 201 class is 1/22/14.
- Mavericks training books out December 30, 2013
030: Interview with Ryan Powell of iLifestyle Consulting, plus Bonus Rants
/Recorded live on December 10, 2013
Topics:
- special guest Ryan Powell of iLifestyle Consulting discusses some cloud-hosted apps he uses to help run his consulting practice
- looking at the per seat recurring/subscription pricing models of cloud software as a predictable cost of doing business
- Wufoo for forms
- LiveChat for website live chat
- RingCentral for phone system
- Highrise for CRM
- Basecamp for Project Management
- Echosign for agreement signatures
- Timely for scheduling and automatic appointment reminders
- Xero for accounting
- Zendesk for support
- Mailchimp for email marketing
- HootSuite for social media
- Google Apps for email hosting
- Robot Cloud for client monitoring and policy management
Plus:
- Joe's rant about Yahoo Small Business
- Joe's rant about Apple Store
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
027: Cleanup tools, repairing permissions, tracking down freezes and kernel panics
/Recorded live on November 19, 2013
Topics:
- Day 392: the Mac mini held hostage
- Apple Configurator insight/anecdote from Jerry; 20 device limit syncing to MacBook Air
- cleaning the dyld cache and font cache
- OnyX, Cocktail, CleanMyMac, TechTool Pro, DiskWarrior, memtest with 7 loops, Disk Utility's verify disk, Drive Genius hard drive test
- MacKeeper finds over 8 PB (Petabytes) of wasted disk space, courtesy Mike Kingsley
- use resetpassword Terminal command to reset home folder ACLs
- repairing permissions: helpful or just another 15 minutes of billable time? Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions messages that you can safely ignore
- repairing permissions can fix some printing issues; reset printing system is the nuclear option
- Knock your iPhone to unlock your Mac; great third-party app (not secret Cupertino project)
- Apple Stores configure machines to use OpenDNS and block DNS queries to non-OpenDNS servers
- VPN Reorder: app to reorder connections in VPN Status menu, courtesy Allen Hancock
Picks of the week:
- whatsmydns.com – Jerry
Memorable lines:
- Another 15 minutes of billable time! - Jerry, re: repairing permissions
026: Interview with Greg Brasher, Field Sales Executive for Rackspace
/Recorded on November 5, 2013
Topics:
- RackSpace offers Exchange hosting, mail hosting, managed SharePoint hosting
- public cloud vs. private cloud vs. hybrid
- "Fanatical Support" and the Fanatical Straightjacket award ceremony
- O'Fixies, the internal support "bar" at RackSpace HQ
- OpenStack, partnership with NASA; open source, massively scaleable cloud operating system
- RackSpace Partner Network and how ACNs can benefit from it
- Cloud Sites
- Hybrid cloud
Plus:
- the challenges of hiring someone to grow your consulting practice: very important to find someone who's willing to follow through, who can keep a commitment, who has a good work ethic, and who works well as a team player
