200: Not So - Off The Rails!

Topics:

-PsiMac is hiring! Judy offers up details about a full time consulting position at their Norwalk, CT office.

-Jerry, Joe & Sam get together for a rare in person show to celebrate 200 episodes and it goes...well it goes ok. We would like to thank our good friend Tom Bridge for putting us in touch with James Smith.  James was instrumental in making the show sound listenable after a very rough recording (it gets better about 20 minutes in).

-Jerry serenades the group and the audience at the opening of the show

-The team discusses a pre-show Google Hangout experience with some of our dedicated listeners

-A little reminiscing and trips down memory lane about the show's humble beginnings

-Down to business, Jerry goes in to a story about Gmail and Outlook 2011 security settings

-A dialogue opens up about cellular carriers and their plans.  And how to avoid higher chargers.

-Sam's daughter helps the CCP crew ring in show 200 with a batch of cupcakes

-Don't forget to join us at Aces Conference this year, where we will hold a very special live show!
www.acesconf.com

-Sam got hot under the collar dealing with a client's poor planning and working with another vendor

-One of Joe's show ideas, "Residential Roundtable" gets a conversation going

-After Joe brings up another show idea, Sam's back on the couch to talk about the need for office space.  Joe offers up some of his experiences in his years in his own space.

-Admin or no admin? That topic comes up again as a point of focus for the next hire in a small business.

-Access to our back catalog will now only be available to our Patreon sponsors.  Please take a moment to visit our Patreon site and consider contributing to the show.  Thanks for listening!

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.

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

193: Uncle Jimmy's Search Bar & Selfie Of Ulysses

Are there any CCP listeners out there that are not a members of the Apple Consultants Network? We would love to hear from you. Tell us your story!

Topics:

Joe gets a juicy emergency support job and shares the details with us.  It brings about a discussion on surcharges and fees.

Friend of the show David Sparks comes up in conversation as the guys kick around details of contract agreements with clients.

The age old MSP & billing discussion gets kicked around, as it does on occasion.  

While on the topic of the MSP model, we all chime in about an incredible product to manage your fleet of Macs, Addigy.  Give it a test drive by visiting http://www.addigy.com/cmd-ctrl-pwr

Sam brings up a "break/fix" client that wants immediate responses but doesn't want the commitment.

Sam shares an almost unbelievable story of a client that had random photos appear in her Photos library only to find that someone had been signing in to an iPhone using her Apple ID (photo below).