364: Makin' A Ruckus

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Topics:

-CCP is doing video again!

-Sam has a yarn to spin about dealing with a Ruckus ZoneDirect 1200 that died. After hours and hour of support and three ZoneDirectors later, he had the situation under control. In short, he has a ZoneDirector 1200 to sell. It can be yours for a low, low price!

-The team discusses working with wireless vendors and the difference in price points. Justifying costs are a large part of working with clients in the SMB market.

-Sam was surprised to find out that Ruckus supported a complete replacement of their hardware, free of charge, even 7 years after purchase.

-In the end, Sam only billed 2 hours of time for the Ruckus nightmare. An old discussion gets rehashed about billing appropriately when time goes way over initial an initial estimate.

-Jerry makes what should have been a simple change with Crush FTP and it blows up in his face. The vendor worked diligently to correct the issue after a recent update.

-Joe sees the light about project based pricing vs billable hours.

-Jerry talks about a “not to exceed” price, which can be helpful to comfort clients who are concerned about cost.

-Do you read release notes? Joe does. After struggling with Finder copies to a new RAID on 10.15.4 and continual crashes, Joe looks to update to 10.15.5. The release notes for 10.15.5 says “large data transfers to RAID volumes no longer cause Finder to be unresponsive”.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos_release_notes/macos_catalina_10_15_5_release_notes

-Joe recalls remote support in the early days, where we guided our clients almost by memory.

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Taking a Stand

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Sam, Joe & Jerry
Command Control Power

363: Patience Of Joe-b

Topics:

-Jerry & Sam speak with a guest who may be in witness protection 

-Jerry continues to be frustrated with remote sessions. 

-Sam is wowed by the ability to VNC directly into the touch screen of Toshiba multifunction printers. 

-Swiping up on the address bar of Safari for iOS minimizes it for more website real estate. A nice find by Joe. 

-Customers will sometimes drop computers off and do just a little too much to “swaddle” and protect it. 

-Joe has some theories of Captcha images. 

-We dedicate some time to discuss Sam’s backyard/Zoom background. 

-Sam has one heck of a time getting back into his Amazon account after being locked out due to what they detected as fraudulent activity. 

-One of Joe’s clients has multiple infections of malware on an aging Mac mini. Upon some digging, he finds some crafty malware that burrows itself in a Bookmark folder called “New Page”. 

-Upgrading old networks sometimes is met with underwhelming responses. 

-Jerry has to lay down the law with a client that has legacy email accounts and years of data and sync issues. 

-A previous consultant wanted to bill Joe’s new client for password gathering. 

-Host Gator is a challenge to deal with as Joe unfortunately finds out. 

-The email venting continues…

-A client that Sam has known for many years asks him if he needs to escalate to his tech.  

362: Fear Inoculum

Topics:

-CCP is on video!

-Jerry has commentary on his cohosts’ appearances

-Jerry & Joe are fancy coffee drinkers. Jerry’s coffee of choice is Afrique and he uses a Baratza Virtuoso grinder.

-Joe, a major fan of the band Tool, shows off the new album, Fear Inoculum, along with visual props. He also shows some of the artwork from his friend, Alex Grey. 

-Sam had the opportunity to see a Tool show as well

-People deleting emails to free up space aggravates Jerry immensely 

-On the topic of clearing out mail, Joe assisted a customer in freeing up space with their ISP’s free email account. 

-Jerry has some show and tell to help visualize a story about storage space on an iMac. He uses a product called Grand Perspective.  Clam AV was taking up a tremendous amount of space, possibly with quarantined items. 

-Jerry discusses taking away markups on hardware to help his clients out

-What show would be complete without Sam discussing his buddy with a restaurant

-Sam does a rare repair for him as he replaces the logic board for a 2017 MacBook from his own 2016 MacBook

-Jerry does his best Sopranos impressions 

-Apizza is a thing and there are different theories as to how it came about 

-An entire section of the show is dedicated to the food service industry 

-Joe has “a buddy” who has a USB tester called “Is it me or is it USB”.  Command Control Power is offering these free to our Patreon sponsors at the $25 and above level. And the t-shirts are coming! (Better late than never)

361: Command Control Power "Almost Live" at ACEs 2020

Topics:

-Sam is recording from his beach front property

-Jerry has the Richard Wingfield starter kit with his goatee.  An homage to our friend and contributor to the show

-Joe could not get his janky mic to work moments before recording the show

-In a recent trip to the market, Sam loses one of his AirPods while taking off his mask.

-While on the topic of AirPods, Jerry has a tip for easily pairing your AirPods with your Mac. An app called ToothFairy: https://c-command.com

-Joe has his fancy pants AirPods Pro and shows off the features

-We go around the horn to show our threads.  Joe is wearing his company logo, PsiMac.  Jerry is proudly wearing a Watchman Monitoring shirt.  Sam is wearing an Origin84 shirt from listener and friend of the show, Michael Thompsen.

-Sam is so far disappointed with the performance of his new MacBook Air.  Jerry wonders if he has too many items on his desktop…

-Joe recently purchased a MacBook Air, right before the release of the latest model.  He has an Apple support story with a happy ending.

-With regards to the fan issues on the new MacBook Air computers, Joe talks about the limited “thermal headroom”.

-Jerry wants us to be guinea pigs to try an app called Turbo Boost, to disable that feature and see if ti helps: http://tbswitcher.rugarciap.com

-Sam decided he did not need a MacBook Pro any longer and he is now regretting that decision

-Joe asks about screen size and remote access. Jerry & Sam both use accessibility features to zoom in to areas of the remote computer.  

-Sam goes commando with his phone and has paid the price.  Jerry wonders about changing the name of the show.

-Jerry has been performing a good amount of iMac repairs and upgrades.  In a recent repair job, he suffers damage to the logic board.  He enlists the help of Command Control Power patron, John Moder of Crisp Solutions (http://www.crispsolutions.net).  John puts him in touch with Computer Repair of Des Moines, who performed incredible work to repair the board.

-Moving to topics related to the current times, Sam has a direct conversation with his employee about what his comfort level is when it comes to visiting clients.  He also wants to make sure that the company supplies him with anything he needs.

-Having similar conversations with clients is also critical to make sure there is no confusion. Especially when they may be paying monthly for a service they expect to receive.

-As we all start adjusting to changes while being onsite, Joe watches in shock as other contractors at a client site are being very lax in their approach to safety.

-Working in this new remote capacity and essentially making your clients be your onsite hands can be awkward. In addition, it can lead to even more awkward conversations about billing.

-Thank you to Justin Esgar, Tim Pearson and the team at ACES!

360: Bum steer Or A No Steer

Topics:

-iMac upgrade needed?  No problem!  Or is it?  Jerry has quite the story to tell…

-It reminds Joe of a PSA from listener Brandon Walter on episode 273: https://commandcontrolpower.com/podcast/tag/take+control

-Supply constraints crossed Joe’s mind as factories and shipping companies are being affected by COVID-19.

-Joe wonders about external SSD options as an alternative iMac upgrade.  Jerry & Sam give their two cents.

-With so many computers in offices offline, it’s possible to get lazy about your Watchman Monitoring tickets. Stay alert!

-“I’m gonna preface this by saying I love my clients.”  -Jerry Zjgmont

-Jerry & Joe banter about walking clients through new purchases

-For making hardware purchases, Joe tends to lean towards Apple Retail and the custom store portal for ACNs.  Jerry has a good relationship with a reseller in the NY area.

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