689: Stitches, Switches, and Sketchy Devices: A Podcast Nose Dive

Jerry describes having basal cell carcinoma removed from his nose and urges regular dermatology checkups, then shares how iOS 27 repeatedly warned him before sharing a “sensitive” stitched-and-bloody photo, even suggesting he consult a “trusted adult.” Joe discusses costly RV maintenance and how machines (including hard drives) can fail when left idle, leading into Mac maintenance routines. They debate slang like “cooked,” then talk Apple’s new iPhone lineup, including Jerry’s iPhone 13 Pro Max purchase and their mixed expectations for the first-gen iPhone Duo (weight, outer-screen constraints, camera and battery compromises) alongside improvements like cooling, battery life, and a vapor chamber. They cover Apple Watch “always listening” features, citing Gruber’s privacy rationale, and discuss practical recording/summaries for medical visits. Jerry explains how Claude helps him solve technical issues, analyze security research, navigate health insurance decisions, and produce billable security reporting; they note macOS screen sharing bug fixes and mention keychain migration and safe mode articles. They tease upcoming Patreon topics about a move and walking away from a client.

00:00 Show Kickoff Banter

00:21 Nose Surgery Story

02:30 iOS Sensitive Image Warning

04:43 Scar Care And Skin Checks

05:19 RV Maintenance Costs

06:57 Idle Vehicles And Backup Drives

07:51 Mac Maintenance Cycles

08:57 New Slang Cooked Debate

10:32 New iPhone Pro Purchase

11:09 iPhone Duo First Impressions

13:59 Upgrading From 16 Pro

15:52 Carrier Handoff And eSIM Switching

17:56 Duo Software And Fold Durability

19:26 Foldable Display Durability

20:54 Watch Always Listening Debate

23:24 Trusted Device Privacy Logic

25:53 Real World Recording Use Cases

27:43 Claude as IT Copilot

31:33 AI Summarizes Security Research

34:49 Health Insurance With Claude

39:25 Billable Security Reporting

41:45 macOS VNC Bug Takeaways

43:00 Keychain Migration Confusion

45:33 Safe Mode and Show Wrap

46:19 Patreon Tease and Goodbye

Best Of CCP - Interview With Adam Engst Of the TidBITS Content Network

Best Of CCP - 071: Adware & Malware Focus with Thomas Reed of

506: Time Machine Blues

Thank you to our VIP sponsors!

Topics:

-We would like to thank new Patreon member Rolf Woodward, and thank Bruce Corson for increasing his pledge.

-Time Machine is hopelessly broken in Jerry’s recent dealings.

-He has been recommending Carbon Copy Cloner.

-Joe had a specific issue where the Contacts app database was extremely large and causing an issue with backups.

-Sam is very keen on company policies where local file data is not company responsibility.

-Jerry talks about supporting a customer who had some major issues after a computer migration.

-BackBlaze has a great service to ship a drive with backup data.

-Joe talks about important directories to be aware of when troubleshooting macOS.

Thank you to our Patreon sponsors!

357: Interview WIth Chad Keith Of Atlas Solutions

Topics:

-Chad Keith of Atlas Solutions joins the show

-Chad originally called his company “Behind The Mac” but decided to change the name to work well with Apple Business Manager and the Apple Consultants Network

-A listener since the early days of the show, he shares how moved to a monthly services model and hearing fellow consultants was very encouraging.

-At one time, Apple had run a ‘Behind the Mac’ ad campaign: https://9to5mac.com/2018/06/14/apple-behind-the-mac-ad-campaign/

-Chad discusses how it did not take much convincing for most of his clients to move to the MSP model, explaining how the even keeled billing approach appealed to them.

-Calculating monthly pricing for new clients can be difficult and needs ongoing attention

-Having mentors that have been through this is key to developing a plan for pricing

-With clients reaching out, defining a point of contact will help streamline requests

-In the current climate, Chad discusses how his business has been affected with support and travel

-He also talks about how local businesses and communities are affected by COVID-19

-If you haven’t seen John Krasinski’s “Some Good News” broadcasts, you are missing out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5pgG1M_h_U

-Joe shares some ideas for contactless food distribution

-Jerry goes to get pizza dough for the family and quickly changes his mind after seeing the conditions

-A short discussion brews about the loans available from the Small Business Association: https://www.sba.gov/page/coronavirus-covid-19-small-business-guidance-loan-resources

-The healthcare industry has changed through all of this and technology has been making more possible while keeping our healthcare workers safer

-Chad Keith has a podcast of his own called “Overcoming Average” http://overcomingaverage.libsyn.com

-Link Tree is where Chad has all his available contact and social media information: http://linktr.ee/atlascarolina

306: Crazy Like a Fox

Topics:

-The crew starts off the show by discussing Multiple PSAs

-Jerry is able to turn a break/fix client into recurring revenue.  He describes the story of attempting to restore from backup and the hoops he had to jump through to get the job done

-Both Joe and Jerry I talk about the dangers of excluding folders from a time machine back up

-Thanks to Mike Bombeck at Carbon Copy Cloner, Jerry is able to follow steps to downgrade a fusion drive on APFS
https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/downgrading-apfs-formatted-fusion-volume-from-mojave

-Since Jerry‘s client had updated their operating system on their own, Joe describes the dangers of downgrading and suggests spending that consulting time moving the client forward to the current OS

-An offshoot of Jerry’s Time Machine discussion is APFS conversion and how this process is different in Mojave

-Jerry reveals a bit about how he bills his managed service clients and they discuss the pros and cons of various billing methods

-On the heels of the downgrading conversation, Joe describes having to reinstall High Sierra in order to get Safari working again. Jerry wonders if using Pacifist by Charlesoft would allow viewing the packages in the macOS Installer: https://www.charlessoft.com

-As Joe goes into a story about managing multiple Photos libraries, he discovers that this client has a short lived product called Bevy to centralize their photos.

-Jerry wants to know if he used Power Photos to get the job done
https://www.fatcatsoftware.com/powerphotos/

-Joe delivers a prime example of the standards that his company adheres to by investigating and diagnosing files on a linux device and coming away with the win in converting them to jpg to be used in Photos

-Joe reveals a hidden gem in the Finder which allows batch renaming files