August 05, 2014

062: Mac Repairs - The Agony and The Ecstasy

August 05, 2014/ Joe

Recorded on July 31, 2014; aired on August 5, 2014

Followup from Dave Provine: How to Restart SMB automatically on Mavericks Server

Liquid Spills - Mircro Replay -

Tools We Use - Tools that we can’t live Without
8" Straight & Curved Hemostat http://amzn.to/1qXedhv
Magnetic Projet Mat - https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Tools/Magnetic-Project-Mat/IF145-167
iFixit 54 Bit Driver Kit https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Tools/54-Bit-Driver-Kit/IF145-022
Wiha - Wiha 26099 - Screwdriver Set, Slotted, 8Pc 1-4mm Bonus Pack http://amzn.to/1qXcOax
iMac Screen Removal - FastCap HOD-DOUBLE Handle On Demand - http://amzn.to/V2fdSp

http://www.PowerBookMed.com
http://www.iFixit.com

Data Recovery - Driver Savers Partner Program

What repairs you regularly do.
What repairs you won’t do and why.
Apple Store repair experiences
Depot Experiences
Out of warranty satisfaction repairs
Weirdest Repairs

July 30, 2014

061: Phony Tech Support

July 30, 2014/ Joe

Recorded live on July 29, 2014

- one of Joe's clients fell for a popup window claiming virus infection and imploring her to call phony tech support, who proceeded to run harmless utilities (ping test, CPU History, netstat, top) and claiming they were evidence of malware; paid $300 for two years of support from "Mac"; Joe removed LogMeIn, TeamViewer, and ran a full scan using Sophos Antivirus and removed 8 instances of malware

- Sam's wife received a call from phony tech support; thankfully she proceeded to interrogate the guy about his badge number, company, and credentials until he hung up

- Social Engineering techniques on the rise, demonstrated in this scene from Hackers

- Network World reports: FTC takes out “tech support” scammers; $5.1 million in fines, retribution

- Jerry reminds us to manually remove updates downloaded by Software Update service when no longer needed!

- Joe recovered data from client ZIP disk, wrote AppleScript to convert old Word documents

- xkcd: Automation

- Joe discovered issue with Time Machine failing to complete a backup, with no error messages displayed, due to nesting of folders too deeply: "destination path too long"; not sure how long is too long, but in this case is was over 50 levels deep

October 02, 2013

019: Interview with Elaine Kwok, Product Marketing Manager for Promise Technology

October 02, 2013/ Joe

Intro Recorded Live on October 1, 2013; Interview Recorded on September 24, 2013

Jerry, Sam, and Joe are pleased to be joined this week by Elaine Kwok, Product Marketing Manager for Promise Technology.

As with the original release of Thunderbolt in 2011, Promise will be first to market with Thunderbolt 2 peripherals to be released alongside the forthcoming Mac Pro redesign later this fall.

We would like to extend our sincere thanks to Elaine for taking the time to discuss the Promise product line with us, especially during this busy time as the company gears up for Thunderbolt 2. Stay tuned for exciting updates from Promise!

But first, listen to Joe recount his recent data recovery success through his MacGyvering of a hard drive with a broken mini USB connector on the bridge board of a WD MyBook for Mac. The tools at his disposal were as follows: a USB connector salvaged from a non-working donor enclosure; a pair of needle nose pliers; a rubber band; a plastic dust cover from a mini-DVI to DVI adapter; a spare 3.5" hard drive; and a spool of kapton tape. Go!