🔒 Patreon Special

IT Pros: exclusive shows await you on Patreon, focusing on the more challenging aspects of running your practice and working with clients and employees.

199: How Far Up The Dogpile?

/

Topics:

-Sam runs into a long on-site day with a stack of Mac mini servers

-Clients vary about how much sensitive data they choose share with their trusted consultants

-Phishing scams can prove to be difficult to completely resolve for clients

-AOL or not?  The crew is divided

-Jerry reminds us that email, contacts, & calendars seems to be a area that constantly requires training

-A frustrating client tests Joe.  It leads to a further discussion about dealing with difficult clients.

-Sam has some follow up on the AutoMounter product he found from the App Store
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/automounter/id1160435653?mt=12

197: Free Cheese, Aces Conference & Dogs

/

Topics:

-Sam leads off with some very exciting news about his business

-Office or no office.  Joe poses the question and reviews some of the pitfalls as well.

-Some follow up from Sam regarding a client resistant to monthly billing

-"The router guy" reaches back out and Sam sees an opportunity for a Ubiquiti solution

-Join us for ACES Conference in May of this year.  Use the coupon code "command" to receive 10% off the current ticket price!

-Consider a VIP session with Mike Michalowicz to learn how to deal with client reluctance to give referrals, the "cringe factor" when your phone rings, working with other vendors.

-The ongoing dilemma of dealing with clients that don't pay on time

-Some follow up from Joe about changing the email address for an Apple ID.  Jimmy Obomsawin (@jimmymacsupport) gives a tip about how to work through the issue if you are stuck with a device using the old address.

-Sam has his moment to use his Apple expertise to assist a traveler on line with a digital boarding pass issue.

-Friend of the show, Matthew Waples (@waples) graciously hosts Sam at a local watering hole in Dallas.

-Extra credit: Some amusing client dog stories get kicked around.

196: Phil Schilmer Calls Apple Support

/

- We're sponsored this week by:

Watchman Monitoring, a favorite tool of ours that should be in every professional consultant's toolkit.

You can visit WatchmanMonitoring.com/cmdctrlpwr and sign up for your free trial to find out how Watchman Monitoring can keep an eye on your client machines and notify you of over 100 issues. Be sure to tweet @cmdctrlpwr #CCPsentme to support the show! 

Topics:

-Jerry records an encounter with an organization claiming to be Apple support.  "Phil Schilmer" takes the bait.

-After receiving a routing call to setup Windows in Bootcamp, Jerry has some hurdles.
Set up a Windows partition on your Mac: 

-Joe puts a call out to non-ACN listeners to hear your story.  Email or tweet us!

-Sam has a client struggling to understand the value of his MSP model.

-Needing to provide employee monitoring for a client, Jerry researches and reports on ActivTrak. 

-Services like CrashPlan provide cloud based backup, but what about when it's time to restore?  Jerry has to suffer through that slow process.

-Why do end users close the TeamViewer Quick Support window after giving credentials?

-The CCP crew discusses the pros and cons of selling used equipment on eBay.  Jerry tries to organize a tech tag sale.

-Jerry and Sam work together over the weekend to correct an issue with Rumpus running on macOS Server 5. 
http://www.maxum.com/Rumpus/Blog/OSXServer5Conflicts.html

-Refer back to Episode 079 to hear all about Rumpus from its creator, John O'Fallon of Maxum Development.

195: A Friend Of My Nephew Does Our IT Work

/

Topics:

-Sam has some follow up (or lack there of) from his sketchy router story on show 194.  He also discusses the perils of working with "a friend's nephew".

-Jerry poses a question to the group about spending long days on-site.

-Joe deals with the frustration of dealing with clients that don't respect your time.

-Sam gets bitten by non-responsive Macs due to a security update not being applied: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1908?locale=en_US.  The story turns out to be a win for Sam and Addigy.

Take a look at Addigy for yourself and give it a test drive.

-Sierra Tip of the week - A Finder preference to keep Folders on top when sorting by name

-Did you Patreon supporters receive your tattoos?  If not, send us your address to receive them.

-Joe has a snafu when changing the main email address for an Apple ID.  He shares it as a PSA for our listeners.

-Sam shares an odd iCloud Family Sharing story in the hopes that someone out there has some thoughts...

-Not to be outdone, Joe describes a situation where a customer's devices are showing a two factor authentication prompt seemingly random.

194: Blowing Up Your Zendesk Tickets

/

Topics:

Sam's team worked on a 27" mid-2011 iMac with surprising results.  Could it have been the drive enclosure this whole time?

-Friend of the show Mike Dent (@mcdent) of Ubertechs provides some insight on his experiences using a different drive enclosure:  https://www.zapals.com/akasa-ak-hda-03-black-2-5-to-3-5-ssd-hdd-adapter.html
-Equally important is the thermal sensor: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DIDIMACHDD11/

The rates conversation is revisited with each of the hosts bringing up their model for attracting MSP clients while not shying away from those "break/fix" clients.

Sam brings up a quick option to use Apple's Volume Purchase Program to purchase an app for a client when no credit card was on file.

While on the subject, he brings up a great little product for keeping volumes mounted even when the disconnect unexpectedly.  AutoMounter: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/automounter/id1160435653?mt=12

An old favorite FTP app called Rumpus: 

Joe found an intriguing (and possibly dangerous) problem with power adapters for an iPad in the office.

During a slow period, Jerry shares his thoughts on Watchman monitoring and ZenDesk integration and particularly how to turn them in to billable work with clients.

Jerry found an odd Apple Mail issue where it was slow to launch.  Keychain related?

Sam shares a great tip about how to login to a non-admin account on a Mac when the screen is locked...only to find that this feature does not function in Sierra!  Thanks to Kevin Ginger for the quick research.
-https://www.jamf.com/jamf-nation/discussions/21385/unlock-standard-user-s-screensaver-as-admin-broken-in-10-12

Joe's client has an issue where Safari would not load any websites.  The fix related to reinstalling the Security Update 2016-003 Supplemental (10.11.6).

Little Flocker is highly recommended from Jerry for detecting and protecting a Mac from malware and other security concerns: https://www.littleflocker.com.  Comes from the mind of Jonathan Zdziarski https://www.zdziarski.com/blog/

Jerry experiences a "wonky" iPhone search issue.

Sam encounters an odd situation with static DNS values ending up in his network settings after visiting a client.  Jerry chimes in with the possibility of a hacked router.  Sam will follow up on that on a future show.

As a special bonus, Jerry shares a great kitchen tool called the Rapid Egg Cooker: http://amzn.to/2lsJaJb