367: Leaving A Trail Of COVID Behind Me

Topics:

-Joe starts rattling off the list of his beer flight.

-Joe is in Montana now and feels he has left a trail of COVID behind him.

-CCP is close to going into the political arena

-Both Sam & Jerry encounter situations where clients or others at a client site are not wearing masks.

-COVID fatigue is a thing.

-Everyone has their opinions about masks but various businesses and individuals have to contend with interacting with others.

-Sam realizes he needs something formal to make clients aware of his policies for onsite visits during COVID.

-Jerry has disposable masks that he uses in order to stay safe at client visits.

-Joe’s team has not reported anything alarming as of yet but Joe wonders if hazard pay is a necessity.

-Providing a disposable mask may be another way to protect yourself.

-Moving on to WWDC, we briefly discuss Apple’s move away from Intel. Joe recalls the similar move from PowerPC to Intel.

-A little Command Control Power Theater 

-Jerry laments the oncoming questions from users that will inevitably come about these changes and if they should wait on purchases.

-Joe is reminded of Osborn announcing the next generation while still trying to promote their current generation.

-Sam thought it was curious that Apple decided to use the names Universal 2 and Rosetta 2 in relation to apps that can work on both processors (Universal 2), and apps that were designed for Intel and need translation (Rosetta 2).

-Jerry was not that interested in WWDC.

-Thank goodness for the TidBITS Content Network to help capture significant announcements from WWDC and other events.  Visit http://tcn.tidbits.com to sign up.

366: Do You Think I'm An Idiot?

Topics:

-Jerry poses the question to the group: what if clients want to downgrade from macOS Catalina?

-Turns out Jerry has a real situation that dealt with this very issue. It turned into a cluster but it did require a Time Machine backup and reinstall of the previous OS. 

-An inadvertent sales tactic for Joe is reaching out to a client who has been sitting on a proposal for a long time and saying they will close the ticket. Astonishingly, it causes clients to immediately respond. 

-After two visits to a client, Sam experience issues out of his controls, one with Apple and one with Jamf. He describes how it just makes him look bad. Joe and Jerry can relate. 

-Jerry has a great relationship with an Apple Authorized Reseller, Micro Decision Systems in NY. Richard Cooperman has always made the client experience easier. In a recent instance, Jerry describes having a tough time swapping out a recently purchased problematic computer.  Jerry personally offered to step up to the plate for the customer but Richard came through in the end. 

-Sam can’t wrap his head around the mess at a new client. Various application and operating system versions, status of admin accounts, compliance are all factor that are making his head hurt. 

-Jerry hits the nail on the head when describing unexpected hours and a hurt to the bottom line. 

-Jerry is reminded of being frustrated with clients that always seem like they have something better to do. 

365: Interview With Richard Wingfield Of Envision Design

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Topics:

-This week we welcome back Richard Wingfield, Head Geek at Envision Design in Houston, TX.

-Richard has talent in photography and has taken a picture a day on Instagram @rbwaia

-Joe recommends a guided meditation app on iOS called Waking Up by Sam Harris.

-Sam has experienced float tanks as a form of meditation and relaxation.

-Working to calm your “monkey mind” can take practice.

-Currently, Envision is only working with their clients in a remote capacity.

-On the topic of photography, Joe mentions the Front Steps Project in Neeham, MA.

-Richard discusses some of his key components in working with his clients in a managed services capacity, like Synology, Dropbox, Barracuda, etc.

-As more of our clients work from home, we discover just how many only use their iPhone as a hotspot or those who are just stealing their neighbor’s wifi.

-Most of Richard’s clients have been respectful of not having his team in and much of their staff is still mostly remote as well.

-He did have one that needed onsite work to set up surveillance system for a client that just completed a new space as the pandemic hit.

-Sam has a client that has had a very tough time with video conferencing, even though their network and ISP speeds are very stable.

-Richard had suggested a device called Domotz to Sam, to investigate network related issues at his client. Richard installs Domotz at all of his clients as part of his services to them. Domotz has a hardware device that can be installed but even more handy is their Synology app.

-Domotz charges $19/month per site and includes a powerful feature set for reporting, network topology, and device priority.

-Richard put considerable effort into making billing changes in his company. In part, it was in response to clients not understanding what his monthly charges were for. In these changes, he split out costs for actual support time, called Consulting & Support and costs for items they may resell, called Software & Services.

-These changes to his billing procedure helped, especially when clients may look to shop around.

-Richard talks about minimum standards for signing and working with any new client.

-Some clients only learn after something happens.

-Syncing is not backup!

-As a gesture to his clients, Richard and his company gave many hours on top of MSP support to assist remote setups.

-Give a listen to Richard Wingfield’s new podcast, The Black Hole Cafe. He records the show with his daughter and the first episode is dedicated to coffee: https://www.theblackholecafe.com

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

Command-Control-Power stands against the systemic racism and prejudice that pervades the country and society we live in. America has a long and painful history of violence perpetrated against black people. As allies of the Black Lives Matter movement, we want to be active participants in bringing a long-overdue end to this cycle of oppression.

We are inspired by our colleagues and those in other industries who have chosen to speak out, both personally and professionally against ongoing social injustice and inequality. On a daily basis, we see hateful rhetoric, ever expanding ignorance, and continuing violence. Recent events have put these weaknesses of our society on full display. We must try to return to a time of meaningful discourse. If our country’s leaders are incapable of leading by example, we need to step up individually to show our peers how it is done.

Those of us who have privately disapproved of the shameful behavior and injustices to our fellow humans should no longer stand silent. We must peacefully find ways to not only express our disapproval but take action to create change.

There is good in this world. Not all who are sworn to protect and serve are evil. Not all who are of opposing viewpoints are ignorant. But enough is happening in public view to show all of us that action towards meaningful change is needed. That can begin by making your voice heard. By donating to a cause. By cleaning up your city’s streets. Show the world that you care and others can follow in your footsteps.

We have donated one month's Patreon income from Command Control Power to these three charities: Black Lives Matter, Communities United Against Police Brutality, and Campaign Zero.

Please consider joining us in donating to a cause. Here are some worthwhile resources, if you so choose.

To listen is to learn. To that end, if you have any input or thoughts you would like to share with us, we would love to hear from you.

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.