246: Let Go Of My Echo or Echo Location

Topics:

Will you be at ACEs 2018? Join us there & catch a live show!
Register Here:
https://acesconf.com/ccp

-Joe has some follow up on the Gmail Bcc mystery

-A talk about the latest ACN announcements, including the ACN Roadshow.  Joe will be attending in NYC on March 13th and Sam will be in Santa Monica on February 21st.

-Jerry has a very odd story about ordering an Echo for a customer via his Amazon account

-A macOS Server PSA from Joe - Apple Support article about changes coming in macOS Server

-Sam hasn't had a lot of affection for Airport Extremes but this latest issue with firewall settings and port forwarding not working doesn't give him the warm & fuzzies

-Jerry has an issue with a possibly bad Samsung Evo 850 and ends up replacing it within another with success
Etrecheck.com is a handy tool he has used to detect software & hardware problems on Macs

-Have you heard Jerry mention Occam's Razor on show's past.  Curious as to what the reference is?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

-220/221 Volts Whatever it takes? - YouTube (Mr. Mom reference!)

-Joe attempts a pop quiz about Photos and the All Photos vs Photos view

-Sam has to secretly Google "how to pair Air Pods" while at a client

-While Jerry is on-site to work on a Synology, he is asked to assist with a problem iMac.  As it turned out, he was sending them Watchman alerts all along about a drive failure.

-Joe has some follow up on MacBook Pro uptime; MacBook Pro with slow wake from sleep after closing lid? Try restarting! Slow changing network interfaces? Try restarting!

-Encryption a Fusion drive with FileVault was proving to be a long and arduous process for Jerry.  Only periodically moving the mouse would force it to progress again.  Jerry found a free app called "Jiggler" to keep the mouse active periodically. 
http://www.sticksoftware.com/software/Jiggler.html
To see the status of the encryption process, he used this command:
diskutil cs list | grep “Conversion Progress” 

245: Updates & Followup Fiesta

Topics:

- High Sierra 10.13.3 was released today, which makes sense as Joe just updated his PsiTool drives yesterday. Also released were iOS 11.2.5, Safari updates for 10.11, 10.12, 10.13, and Security Update 2018-001. Note that security updates are padded to three digits... At the rate we're going, might Apple hit 100 security updates this year? That's one every three days!

- If you want to get emails from Apple about product security when updates are released, subscribe to the Security-announce list

-Jerry came to the rescue of a client who wanted to clean up her inbox.  He found that Google provides a URL to request missing emails:
https://support.google.com/mail/contact/missingemails

-Sam has been experiencing an issue where replying to a selected message in Apple Mail actually creates a reply to the incorrect message.  A similar issue has occurred to him in voicemails.  At this point Jerry thinks Sam needs to have his eyes checked.

-Jerry gives us an update on his virtual receptionists, Smith.ai as Sam is exploring similar options.  A natural progression would be a service that can not only answer calls, but support your clients like our recent sponsor, FLEXdesk

-In a recent support call with a client, Jerry finds that their MacBook Air had a failed SSD module. These situations can lead to having to explain the "why" to customers.  Sometimes hardware simply fails.

-New MacTech Pro events and cities have been announced!
http://pro.mactech.com/go/ccp/

-Sam has follow up on using Daylite with his business and finds some functionality that he wasn't aware of
http://www.daylitemac.com

-CCP Theater!  Jerry and Joe role play what you might encounter with new client calls

-Joe gives us an update on his new/used 2015 MacBook Pro.  He recounts an issue where the battery reports that it needs to be serviced and then changes to a "good" condition.  He reports an uptime of 31 – nay, 33 days. Joe and Sam remark that they don't recall having had more than 10 days of uptime with their MacBook Pro 2016 models, although Sam has had better stability lately.

-Joe also follows up about having used Migration Assistant to switch to his new, used (and apparently slightly bruised) MacBook Pro 15-inch 2015, and notes that Safari Extensions needed to be reinstalled, surprisingly. But at least VPN configurations were not an issue, unlike back in the days of Mavericks (and Yosemite too?)

-Jerry is very excited about an iOS app called Drafts, a note taking app with impressive functionality.  Drafts is $4.99 in the App Store
https://agiletortoise.com/drafts/

243: Star Belly & Plain Belly Sneetches

Topics:

We're sponsored this week by Watchman Monitoring, a favorite tool of ours that should be in every professional consultant's toolkit.

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!

-Jerry humbly shares a story of formatting the wrong drive while preparing new external installers and things to watch out for in APFS volumes when booted from HFS+

-Joe almost attempted a migration to Sierra from High Sierra when setting up Judy's new computer

-Jerry compares HFS+ to APFS issues to the Dr. Seuss Sneetches

-Sam shares his latest experience with Daylite and how he has seen the power of the product.  Our own Jerry Zigmont can help!
http://www.daylitemac.com

-This leads into a further conversation about Daylite as a product and methods of integration

-Joe has frustrations about Microsoft's auto update.  It provides a perfect opportunity to discuss our friends at Addigy

-Jerry talks about some of his non-public facing websites to try and make things easier for his clients.  But as it turns out, it ends up creating frustration.

-The group compares MSP models and how they all operate slightly differently

-Joe was listening to the mac catalog and has some followup from episode 231: “Grant BigLanik Easy Access” re: Amazon Gift Cards: very annoying, resulted in having to use AirPlane Mode to finish a recipe for Curried Butternut Squash and Pear Soup on AllRecipes.com. (Joe misstated this as SimplyRecipes.com in the podcast. The Editor regrets the mistake.)
 

242: Goals For 2018 With Weldon Dodd of Rewind Tech - Denver, CO

Topics:

Weldon Dodd of Rewind Technology joins us for another episode
https://rewindtech.com

-Weldon asks the crew about New Year's resolutions and the conversation immediately delves into a discussion on Wi-Fi

-Eero is a recommendation Weldon has been using in a lot of residential environments.  Joe & Jerry have similar positive experiences:
https://eero.com

-Cisco Meraki is what Rewind Tech usually turns to for continued management of a network:
https://meraki.cisco.com

-Weldon discusses his 1, 3, 5, 7 plan (Software - every year, endpoint equipment (laptops) - 3, servers - 5 years, networking equipment - 7 years)

-Sam is starting to evaluate Daylite as a CRM and sees many possibilities for use within his organization.  Still, the discussion of a good old fashioned spreadsheet comes about.
https://daylitemac.com

-Weldon discusses the future of his training and MSP business as well as his role within the organization

-2018 goals for Weldon: creating and utilizing custom DEP deployment solutions since the future of imaging is changing. Ultimately he wants a great experience for the customer.  Here are some of the tools that he is looking into:

The ability to create macOS packages to deploy user accounts
https://github.com/gregneagle/pycreateuserpkg

DEP deployment tools:
https://github.com/Shufflepuck/SplashBuddy 
https://gitlab.com/Mactroll/DEPNotify
https://github.com/erikng/installapplications

-Tim Perfitt from Two Canoes discusses acquiring a new iMac Pro and the changes that come with it: https://twocanoes.com/secureboot-imac-pro/

-Another great resource mentioned from Scripting OS X called NetInstall Is Dead, Too: https://scriptingosx.com/2017/12/netinstall-is-dead-too/

-Weldon takes a few moments and acknowledges the fellow members of the Mac community

-Have a great 2018!

236: MacBook Pro - Turn Back Time

Topics

• Root login issue

  • needs catchy name... “Higher Sierra. Even Higher Sierra? Too High Sierra...”

  • Joe wonders if FileVault was affected, assumes not. Probably need to log into existing user account first. From Addigy's email: "Gaining access to user accounts and turning off FileVault encryption"

  • ARD was susceptible. (Another reason not to forward ARD/SSH port from WAN to LAN!)

• Our friends at Addigy put out an immediate fix: https://www.addigy.com/fix-the-high-sierra-root-exploit
  

• Clients ask, "should I update to the new macOS?" We usually recommend waiting a few months, especially with the major filesystem changes in High Sierra. Our previous best practice was to recommend waiting until the 10.x.3 update. Should we go back to that recommendation? Note that the issue existed in the current beta of 10.13.2 in addition to the latest release of 10.13.1.

  • The sweet spot of macOS releases: 10.x.3 - 10.x.n

  • Note the latest release of each macOS version, e.g. 10.5.8, 10.6.8 v1.1, 10.7.5, 10.8.5, 10.9.5, 10.10.5, 10.11.6, 10.12.6, etc.

• Sam talks about "winging it" with a product he used to support - Canto Cumulus
  

• Jerry starts a good discussion about the current lines of MacBook Pro models and the changes that have not been well received. He mentions Marco Arment's blog posts
  -The best laptop ever made: https://marco.org/2017/11/14/best-laptop-ever
  -Fixing the MacBook Pro: https://marco.org/2017/11/24/fixing-the-macbook-pro
  

• Joe has some follow up on removing the Temp user account when the minus button is not available: you can also use Directory Utility. Open Directory Utility, authenticate as the Temp user, then remove the Temp user. Verify Temp user has been removed in Users & Groups, then manually delete home folder of Temp user. Note that we also tried changing the user's password from within the existing user (to avoid keychain issues) and it didn't work.

235: The Lazy Man Migration Assistant

TOPICS:

• Joe wonders: how many clients have gotten the wrong impression when you give them the recommendation "Just use 1Password.”

• iLugger: https://www.ilugger.com/

• Joe reveals another boneheaded move during his company's email migration – learn from his mistake! He exported contacts to a vCard file, but forgot to turn on Export Notes in Contacts app preferences

• CodeTwo Exchange Sync
https://m.codetwo.com/exchange-folder-sync

• The Mac CRM & Project Management app trusted by busy teams.
https://daylitemac.com

• thanks to listener Tim Hannon for the courteous correction about the pronunciation of patron Steve Sorbo's business name, Mac SOS

• Resolve issues caused by changing the permissions of items in your home folder
Repair Permissions - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203538

• how to enable Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) using the kickstart command on the command line:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201710

• Joe walks through his process of migrating data to a new iMac running High Sierra, which provided validation for many consultants best practice for a successful migration. The Migration Assistant built into Setup Assistant didn’t work even after repairing the source drive, rebuilding the source disk directory, letting it calculate the space needed for all items first, etc. Creating a Temp user account, installing all software updates on the destination machine first (just iTunes in this case), and perhaps most importantly using Migration Assistant in the Utilities folder is what finally yielded a successful migration

• Joe offers a bonus migration tip. If you're unable to delete a user account in High Sierra, this helped, surprisingly: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8087348?start=0&tstart=0