078: Spelunking for Yasmite

Recorded live on November 25, 2014

Thanks to Smile, makers of TextExpander touch, for sponsoring this week's Command Control Power! Visit smilesoftware.com/restart to learn more.

Topics:

- helping clients with their "Flash Drive Plug-in"

- Joe noticed Contacts app is better about pasting in an address, automatically parsing city, state, and zip

- trouble with DiskMakerX? createinstallmedia works great for Mavericks, Yosemite, etc.

- difficulty cloning copies of Yosemite installer using latest version of CCC? Disk Utility block copy works

- CCC works perfectly to copy all the data from a failing drive with directory corruption; Disk Utility thought there were only 30GB of data on the drive, but there were actually 235GB; CCC got it all; after rebuilding the directory and repeating the clone using CCC, no additional data needed to be copied; great support from Mike Bombich

- Sam recounts flash storage becoming inaccessible on new MacBook Pro

- Sam explains the pitfalls of restoring the Microsoft User Data folder from Time Machine backup

- Jerry discusses a recent client interaction from which we can all learn something

- how to restore Calendar from Time Machine backup

- we discuss strategies for billing for those unexpectedly-long resolutions; Sam recommends communicating at regular intervals

077: Trust No One, Yoseminite Sam

Recorded on November 19, 2014

Topics

- Jerry bails out Joe onsite, and diagnoses an issue where a specific website wouldn't load or respond to pings from a client location, but loaded fine from elsewhere; turned out to be a block on the client's static IP due to three failed login attempts

- we discuss clients trying to set things up and fix things themselves

Yoseminite Sam: a no-nonsense guy

- do you give clients easy access to their servers, e.g. Screen Sharing?

- Sam lands a client on bowtie alone: "I'm a no-nonsense guy, and you look like a no-nonsense guy too."

- what's your dress code for consulting?

- Joe details troubleshooting serious permissions issues in Yosemite after a prior "consultant" tried to set up shared calendars

- how do you bill for extensive cleanup work like the saga Joe describes?

- Joe notices a pattern to Security Questions answered by a prior consultant

076: Interview with John Chaffee of BusyMac, formerly of Now Software

Recorded live on November 11, 2014

Many thanks to our sponsor this week, Watchman Monitoring. We're all very happy users of Watchman Monitoring. Sign up for your free trial at watchmanmonitoring.com/cmdctrlpwr and tweet @cmdctrlpwr #CCPsentme to support the show! Here's and example of a smart Watchman alert: "Time Machine AutoBackup was enabled, but is now off." Time Machine may not be completing its backups on schedule

Special thanks to our guest this week, John Chaffee of BusyMac, gearing up for the much-anticipated premiere of BusyContacts. Listen to the show for 20% off!

- John takes us on a trip down memory lane, including the history of Now Software, BusyMac, BusyCal, and now BusyContacts

- remember Now Utilities? see this TidBITS from 1994 for context (note the CompuServe email address at the bottom)

- Power On Software acquired Now Software and rebranded as Now Software in early 2000's

- Calendar and Contacts cloud syncing options (iCloud, Google, Exchange, Kerio, Zimbra, Fruux, OS X Server, etc.)

- Mac App Store challenges

- how to wisely roll out a public beta (i.e. BusyContacts)

075: Hey Siri

Pre-recorded on November 4, 2014

This week's show has been brought to you by the good folks at Blue Mango Learning Systems, makers of Clarify.  Visit Clarify-It.com to download a free trial of Clarify, and start creating how-to's and instructional documents today – and help others be great.  Use coupon code CCPSENTME for 15% off

- Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 Dual Band WiFi Gigabit Router saves the day... wait – what?!

- how to use Hey Siri feature without being connected to power

- how to use Speak Screen feature: Settings > General > Accessibility > Speech and then toggle on Speak Screen. Speak Screen is only available for devices running iOS 8 or higher.

- Jerry's Windows Migration Assistant woes

- Apple Store Stories: they don't check migrated data – anecdotal, or corporate policy?

- we wonder why the mainstream press hasn't paid more attention to the decreasing repairability of the Mac mini

- we address a pressing question from listener Gannon Nordberg: @CmdCtrlpwr I’d love to hear what you guys think about eating meals when onsite with a client. Also, business customer vs. residential

- client foibles: upper caps and lower caps; small caps; x-ing out; UBS port; closing everything when we connect remotely

074: Managed Services Refresher with Luis Giraldo of Ook and MonkeyBox

Recorded live on October 28, 2014

This week we're thrilled to be sponsored by Smile, makers of TextExpander – which just got a whole lot better with iOS 8 and custom keyboards. Visit smilesoftware.com/restart to learn more.  Try TextExpander for free and tell your clients!

Thanks to Luis Giraldo for joining us once again to discuss Managed Services.

How does one Quantify the Value of Managed Services?

MonkeyBox integrates with Watchman Monitoring

Previously:
010: Managed Services discussion with Luis Giraldo
041: Managed Services Roundtable with Allen Hancock, Luis Giraldo, and Kevin Ginger, Part 1
042: Managed Services Roundtable with Allen Hancock, Luis Giraldo, and Kevin Ginger, Part 2

073: Mac mini Late 2014 Review and Recommendations

Recorded live on October 21, 2014

Thanks to Mac Mini Vault for sponsoring this week's episode of Command Control Power. Mac Mini Vault has the most advanced data center options for Macs, with the best pricing. They run multiple data centers and have the Mac expertise to be there for you when you most need it. Visit MacMiniVault.com to sign up and use coupon code CCPsentme for 75% off the first 3 months!  When you send in your Mac mini, tweet @cmdctrlpwr #CCPsentme to support the show!

- Joe recommends AirBase from Giros Design, a great mounting option for AirPort Extreme or AirPort Time Capsule; flexible mounting options include single/dual gang wall boxes, vertical/horizontal orientation, and wall/ceiling mount; plus AirGuard to secure device in place for ceiling mount; also, AirLatch mounts Apple TV to back of TV

- we discuss the new Mac mini Late 2014, and attempt to read the handwriting in the tea leaves on the wall; see Mac Mini Vault's teardown and benchmarks

- what are the implications of soldered RAM when Apple's memory pricing is fairly competitive

- what does the lack of Quad Core processor mean in practice for Server use? depends on number of services and users, but what is the tipping point?  how close is that tipping point to Mac Pro territory?

- with small data sets stored on the internal hard drive, the PCIe-based flash storage should offer a significant benefit vs. the HDD or even SSD options of previous models, perhaps making up for the lack of Quad Core in many circumstances

- friend of the show Mark Fuccio points out the news today from Connected Data, announcing Transporter Genesis for Business  which offers private cloud service in the form of rack mountable hardware unit, plus client software to enable file sharing and syncing that users expect from services like Dropbox; see also last week's discussion

- we stumble through a discussion of Family Sharing; here's the simple explanation from Apple: "Music, movies, TV shows, and books can be downloaded on up to 10 devices per account, five of which can be computers."

- Great Firewall of China attempting MITM attack on iCloud.com?

- anyone going to MacTech Conference November 5-7, 2014?