332: Interview With Adam Engst Of the TidBITS Content Network

Topics:

This week Command Control Power is joined by  Adam Engst of the TidBITS Content Network: https://tcn.tidbits.com/apple-pros/ . The TidBITS Content Network provides professionally written, edited, and illustrated tips and articles that its members can use to update their blogs, create a vibrant social media presence, and power email newsletters that people will actually read.

TidBITS Content Network: https://tcn.tidbits.com/apple-pros/

Adam C. Engst is the publisher of TidBITS, one of the oldest and most-respected Internet-based newsletters, distributed weekly to tens of thousands of readers. He has written numerous technical books, including the best-selling Internet Starter Kit series, and many magazine articles - thanks to Contributing Editor positions at MacUser, MacWEEK, and Macworld. His innovations include the creation of the first advertising program to support an Internet publication in 1992, the first flat-rate accounts for graphical Internet access in 1993 (with Northwest Nexus for Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh), and the highly successful Take Control electronic book series. In addition, he has collaborated on several Internet educational videos and has appeared on a variety of internationally broadcast television and radio programs. His indefatigable support of the Macintosh community and commitment to helping individuals has resulted in numerous awards and recognition at the highest levels. In the annual MDJ Power 25 survey of industry insiders, he ranked as the second (2000), third (2001, 2002), fourth (2003), fifth (2004), and third (2005/2006) most influential person in the Macintosh industry. He has also been included on the MacTech 25 list of influential people in the Macintosh technical community for both 2006 and 2007, and he was named one of MacDirectory's top ten visionaries. And how many industry figures can boast of being turned into an action figure?

-Jumping right in to the Catalina & iOS 13 discussion, Joe & Adam discuss their advice for not upgrading early

-Data loss??  Missing emails?? These are huge bugs that seem to out in the wild now that Catalina has been released

-Check out the TidBITS article: Six Reasons Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy (https://tidbits.com/2019/10/21/six-reasons-why-ios-13-and-catalina-are-so-buggy/)

-Joe has some follow up about the client that upgraded on his own

-The Group talks about walking the fine line between fear mongering and good advice

-Both Joe & Jerry discuss their methods of alerting customers about Catalina

-Voice Control is a feature of Catalina that Adam says could be very helpful for those that could benefit from it

-In today’s “bozo client corner”, Joe wanted to find out if Jerry had any clients that proceeded with upgrades on their own.

-Adam talks of the point of view he tries to put across to the reader since fear is not a good motivator

-As Adam watches someone force quitting all apps on his iPhone, he offers some friendly advice on why that should not be a regular practice.  Here is a TidBITS article from 2017 that describes the tech behind it: https://tcn.tidbits.com/why-you-shouldnt-usually-quit-apps-on-your-iphone/

-Jerry has a troubling client story with personal data and not only offers good advice but also considers an opportunity for another revenue stream

-Invitation to our listeners to share their “traffic stop moments”

331: Catalina Witt

Topics:

-Jerry teases that there are more things to come from Synology

-Jerry is listening to The Shining on audio and talks of the value of audio books

-“Catalina Witt” is a reference to the latest operating system that goes over Joe’s head

-Joe thinks a new corner called “Bozo clients” is in order as he recalls the clients that want to upgrade their operating system day 0

-On the flip side, he has quite the yarn to spin about a client that just won’t pull the trigger on managed services, yet proceeds to run OS updates without considering the ramifications.

-Jerry offers a bit of tough love in how he should approach this situation with a client that doesn’t seem to want to spend the time or the money to do things correctly

-Our friends at the TidBITS Content Network provide us with quality redistributable material that offers advice like why clients should hold off on Catalina upgrades 

-There are some bugs in Catalina that Jerry has experienced in his personal dealings

-Joe has an “I should have know this segment” about the Apple Watch

-The hosts are sharing a brain as they both have some things to say about Backblaze.  In Joe’s case, he has some information to share about the .bzvol directory, which it places at the root directory of all drives that are backed up: https://www.backblaze.com/bzvol.html

-Jerry’s story has a shocking resolution recommended by Backblaze support. As stated by their support team:
“Thanks for collecting those logs! They were very helpful. The inherit is timing out on our end while trying to assemble the backup state index files to prepare them for the download part of the inherit. This means your older backup state’s indexes are too large for the inherit process to handle and parse correctly. You will need manually transfer your license to continue with our services.”

-Another tidbit Joe shares about Backblaze deals with their 30 day backup limitation. He discusses some little know facts about that timeline:
https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664898-What-happens-to-my-backups-when-I-m-away-or-on-vacation-

-Arq is another backup solution that Jerry recommends is on the same price point as other vendors.
https://www.arqbackup.com

330: "A Cautionary Tale" With Richard Wingfield Of Envision Design

Topics:

-This week we have the pleasure of sitting down with Richard Wingfield, owner and Head Geek at Envision Design based in Houston, TX

-Richard is a frequent contributor to the show, not just on air but behind the scenes in frequent communications with the hosts

-After taking the time to emotionally recover, he is ready to share a personal story of data loss with a long time customer.

-Envision Design has minimum requirements for a Synology: + system, 4 bay or more, that support Btrfs (https://www.synology.com/en-global/dsm/Btrfs), which supports roll backs

-Their company keeps an offsite data center in Austin, TX where they can provide redundant backups for their customers.  It is out of the flood zone and drivable to quickly access their data.

-Costs for offsite backup are higher than the large companies like CrashPlan or Backblaze but the personal service and quick turnaround is a compelling sales pitch

-Richard describes some of the options he presents to his clients for data redundancy and backup. He now requires a level of minimal redundancy that he will not budge on. 

-Richard’s story is of a drive failure that went horribly wrong.  This was initially due to a software bug that was compounded by human error.

-As Richard takes us through this, we find there was a software bug with DSM 6 that began syncing local deletions on their Synology to their offsite copy.  Since the client did not want to spend money, they opted for a sync solution on the archive server as opposed to any kind of versioning.

-They relied on Drive Savers to restore data. Unfortunately, after a couple of months of working on it, all of the header information was missing so they received a bunch of files without names or metadata.

-All totaled, the burden of cost was placed on Envision Design and ended up costing them upwards of around $12,000.

-With all this talk of data restoration, Jerry recalls a story of working with Drive Savers and a rescinded commission

-Envision Design sticks with all Iron Wolf drives to populate their Synology devices with.  One of the benefits of additional health data if you go with 4 TB or greater.

-Bonding multiple NICs is another benefit that Richard’s team takes advantage of.

-Cost of downtime is a language that most clients will understand when helping them decide on budget 

-Sam is eager to look into off-site backup storage as another area of recurring revenue 

329: DAKboard & PODMod

Topics:

-Joe is questioned by Jerry about a product that he used for many years called Statusboard for iOS by Panic https://library.panic.com/statusboard/. He has since moved to a solution that runs off a Mac mini in his office. Joe recommends products called Geek Tool & Feedwind to add dynamic calendar content that he displays for clients to see when in his office

-An excellent customizable display solution called DAKBoard https://dakboard.com/site/business is what Jerry uses for his family to run his shared calendars

DAKboard at Casa de Jerry

DAKboard stock photo

Statusboard at PsiMac World Headquaters

-Jerry has an iPod eBay story to share. iflash.xyz sells boards that can be inserted into specific iPods to increase storage. He uses that along with open source software called Rock Box to play FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec ) files. 
https://www.iflash.xyz/store/iflash-solo/
https://www.dcsoundop.com/88-ipod-classic-sd-card-upgrade-w-iflash-xyz-adaptor/
https://www.iflash.xyz/prepare-sdxc-exfat-for-use-with-the-ipod/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-B2DJKKSCA

-Joe & Jerry get philosophical and reflect on how technology has changed over the years

328: I am Not My Brothers Printer

Topics:

-The band is back together!  

-Jerry discusses upgrading from the iPhone 7 Plus to the iPhone 11.  He is “whelmed”

-Sam & Joe still haven’t pulled the trigger on upgrades

-A little time is spent talking about the latest product releases.  The Always On feature of the watch isn’t blowing our socks off.

-Jerry’s 2015 MacBook Pro went sideways and he had to put his skills to work on his own hardware

-An old issue that Jerry experienced before was related to Automated Device Enrollment at Setup Assistant

-Sam ran into an intriguing conundrum with blog posts created by our friends at the TidBITS Content Network
https://tcn.tidbits.com

-Joe realizes that marketing is a part of his business that he needs to incorporate more

-The practice of sending using breached password combinations to gain access to secure information is called “Credential Stuffing”.  Jerry thinks Joe is talking about Thanksgiving

-Clients sending passwords via email is nothing new but Joe reveals how it can also lead to the client paying for time to have their consultant now change their credentials.  He also discusses how you as the consultant can be tied to this bad practice.

-Jerry shows up to a client site to do a hard drive upgrade on a Mac mini.  He heads into trouble when a keyboard he brings with him does not allow him to boot in to Target Disk Mode.

-He has another story at a client site where he was troubleshooting the wrong Brother printer

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327: Bob's Your Uncle

Topics:

-Sam and Joe are back after a one week hiatus

-On one of them’s latest travels, he is a fellow passenger with their flight entertainment system July Joe has a story of helping a friend with theory and their HomePod while visiting line

-Sam’s local mail truck catches fire!

-Joe and Sam are discuss the filters in iOS Mail app and how it can confuse end-users

-Ignoring the support ticket is a perk that Sam thoroughly enjoys

- In recent work with a local Unifi controller, Sam discovers just how easy it is to access the database and reset the admin password:
https://techreally.com/ubiquiti-controller-forgot-password/

-Sam and Joe discuss the origin of “Bob‘s your uncle”

-In what can be filed in the “I should have known this” section of the show, Sam discovers keyboard shortcuts in the calendar app that blow him away

-The new iPhone and Apple Watch models are briefly discussed and the guys kick around ideas about upgrading

-An interesting new development is the Apple Independent Repair Program: https://support.apple.com/irp-program