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425: The Appointments You Make Are Equal To The Appointments You Take

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Topics:

-Jerry shakes Sam’s tree to get the skinny on a fancy pants email signature he has from Wisestamp.
-As a part of his updated signature, Jerry includes features like a “pay now” link and social media buttons.
-One concern Sam has is including the Harmonizely link to book time.
-We continue part of a conversation from a “patron only” episode.
-What are the fees of waiting for payment vs a fee of a credit card transaction?
-Sam uses Moonclerk, integrated with Stripe for credit card payments.
-Harmonizely is now a full part of Sam’s workflow. He is now convincing Matt on his team to do the same.
-simplybook.me has acquired Harmonizely and has added to their already impressive features.
-Joe talks about a book called “The 4 Hour Work Week” by Tim Ferris.
-Sam talks about the mindset he needs in order to be able to take tech support calls.
-As part of being cautious with available time, Jerry explains methods used to curate his available time on Harminzely.

424: Ducktape and Popsicle Stick Solution

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Topics:

  • Jerry recently took the Addigy Certified Expert training

  • Text Sniper is an incredibly useful tool that is like OCR for your screen: https://www.textsniper.app.

  • Jerry uses it during a presentation to capture text for notes.

  • Addigy integrating Splashtop is a welcome addition to their feature set for remote support.

  • Joe tells a funny story about Outlook reminders in his latest peeves corner.

  • He prefers first party because he likes to know Apple’s solution first and know the ins and outs.

  • The group discusses Mail issues.

  • Western Digital MyCloud Drive isn’t our favorite choice for customers.

  • We have to choose the right equipment or software for our clients based on what is right for them but also what we can support well.

  • Sam shares a funny story about trying to talk to a tech person at Staples.

  • Should the group start a show where they go to local stores and ask tech questions?

  • Joe talks about the times before he was an Apple consultant and shares the story about how he found out about the Apple Consultants Network.

  • Is Sam Neo from the Matrix?

  • The crew talks about older, unreliable software like Retrospect

  • Jerry has an internet recovery issue with a local Mac mini acting as a content cache

423: Dress Your Best & Billable Rates

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Topics:

  • Jerry talks about the used Mcintosh amplifier from 1967 he recently got for himself.

  • He gives a warning about energizing older products like this because it can be dangerous.

  • What is appropriate to wear on the job?

  • Sam shares a story about his clients dog ripping his brand new corduroys.

  • There’s a certain value you provide when you dress the part.

  • Joe shares some of his favorite button down shirts.

  • The group discusses raising rates and how to communicate that you are doing so with clients.

  • Sam explains that he has stopped giving discounts to new clients to win them over because he charges what his services are worth.

  • Jerry likes to slowly creep his rates up so it isn’t a huge jump.

  • Sam recently increased his hourly rates and he explains how he’d rather have longer term relationships with his clients and his pricing shows that.

  • Adding valuable monthly services helps you to bill outside of hourly labor.

  • The group discusses billing for network monitoring.

422: 2015 Interview With Alsoft Makers Of Disk Warrior

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Topics:

For this week’s episode of Command Control Power, we have decided to run a little experiment. We are making this episode a patron only feature. You can find this episode if you are a supporter of Command Control Power on Patreon. You can also click on the Support link in the menu above. Sign up if you are not yet a supporter. If you are a supporter of the show, you can simply log in to Patreon and you will be able to enjoy this week’s episode which we promise is extra juicy. It has some interesting client issues and interactions and we think you will enjoy hearing it. Let us know your feedback if you do. In the meantime, enjoy a highlight from an older episode.

420: Floppy Emu

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https://www.dropbox.com/s/0edy8orrdqin6g3/MacSE_DataTransfer.mov?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0edy8orrdqin6g3/MacSE_DataTransfer.mov?dl=0

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Special Thanks to our friends:


Topics:

-A family approaches Jerry about retrieving data from a Mac SE. The story has some depth to it outside of the technical. 
-Jerry gets an assist with the Emu, which behaves exactly like a real disk drive, requiring no special software or drivers: https://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu/
-A tool available in Windows to view these files was http://a2ciderpress.com
-Another win was an online file converter called http://convertio.co
-Joe had some anecdotes about older Mac computers and accessories he had in high school. 
-WWJD (What Would Joe Do)?
-TextExpander was proving to be troublesome for Jerry and he was given an interesting workaround involving Mission Control. 
-Some other tools we like are Keyboard Maestro and Alfred
-Jerry puts Joe on the hot seat about taxes. Joe actually has a story to tell about dealing with the IRS. 
-Are chicken coops tax deductible?
-Pro Tip - fast.com for speed tests. 
-Joe recommends Proton Mail for secure email communication. Especially for data at rest. 
-mail-tester.com is recommended by Proton Mail to test security of your email messages. 

Thank you to our Patreon sponsors!

Thank you to our Patreon sponsors!