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060: Server, Services, and Such

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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.

Still boots!

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

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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

057: Kobayashi Maru

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- Microsoft's takedown of 23 of No-IP's most common domains to stop malware, claiming their intention to keep "valid" subdomains resolving, but apparently they have been unable to handle the number of requests; Microsoft's statement

- when it rains, it pours: how to cope

- redundancy, fault tolerance, risk tolerance

- Mac mini colocation via Macminicolo.net or Mac Mini Vault

- running a mail server for clients: backup MX via Dyn.com or McAfee SaaS, or using a cheap mail server to forward messages to personal email accounts

- clients sending banking info or passwords by email, forming bad habits

056: A Bitcoin mine hiding in your server rack?

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Recorded live on June 24, 2014

Sponsored by Smile, makers of PDFpen for iPad – a great way to grab a client's signature and finish a meeting with a signed contract, right on your iPad. Plus, it now has Transporter integration (along with Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive, and Box), so you can pick up the signed contract on your cloud of choice when you get back to your office. Listen to the show for a special offer for ACN members!

Show Notes

Thadd Weil, Public Relations Manager for Synology joins us for a live interview to discuss vulnerabilities in older versions of Synology's DiskStation Manager software, which were patched last year by Synology but made the news recently

Check out the ACN Alumni list at Google Groups, for current and former members of the Apple Consultants Network

Sam and Joe made a guest appearance on Thank You For Calling along with Peter Cohen and Stephen Hackett, hosted by Moisés Chiullan

Followup

Joe posted his Automator workflow to Export VPN Configurations

055: First Macs

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Recorded live June 17, 2014

This week's show is sponsored by Drobo. The Drobo Gen 3 (4-bay) is now shipping! Use coupon code CCP50 for $50 off at DroboStore.com and support the show!

Topics

- Jerry describes an issue where an admin user shows up as being Managed with Parental Controls after an upgrade to Mavericks, despite still appearing as an admin; also a keychain issue with the Local Items keychain

- Joe rambles through trying to remember the details of an issue with iCloud Keychain and SoftwareUpdateLauncher hanging; see this Apple Discussions post

- Sam leverages VoiceOver to navigate a blank screen which turned out to the be login window; we narrowly avoid another server discussion

- WWDC 2014 videos are available online without a developer account; Jerry recommends #702, Managing Apple Devices

- Joe's Export VPN Configurations Automator workflow to help migrate VPN configurations to a new Mac

- Sam, Jerry, and Joe discuss their first Macs which prompts some lively war stories from the chatroom

- Jerry recommends NetNewsWire for RSS feeds and TweetBot for keeping up with Twitter; Sam uses NewsBar; Joe reloads tabs for some reason