520: My Precious

Topics:

-Jerry takes issue with the way Joe & Sam covet their calendars.

-Each of us either use Calendly or Harmonizely.

-We discuss the latest in Apple certifications and listing on the ACN locator.

-The two courses and exams are Apple Device Support and Deployment & Management.

-All of us are intrigued with Apple Messages for Business. Cost seems to be a barrier for entry.

-You can have SMS hosted by a different company than you use for voice.

407: A Ticking Time Bomb In Your Business

Thank you to our VIP sponsors!

Special Thanks to our friends:

Topics:

• What exactly is technical debt?

• Jerry has two pretty big professional clients who have accumulated quite a bit of technical debt.

• Spending money on important things will save you the trouble of dealing with it later.

• The group talks about how these clients who refuse to spend money sometimes aren’t sustainable.

• News Flash: On TeamViewer you can now disable in-product marketing messages.

• Sam is looking into a business continuity document that can be very useful especially with clients who don’t listen (thanks to Michael Thompsen of Origin84 for the tip).

• When your system can’t keep up with you it can cause you to be unproductive because you end up wasting time on things and switching tasks.

• Sam tells a story about how one of his client’s old systems finally kicked the bucket and he had to get all of their data back.

• Tip: Update your software about every 2 to 3 years.

• You end up paying less to keep up with updates than to fix everything when it goes wrong.

• Joe actually had to buy floppy disks for a job he had to do on a Powerbook 100.

• Jerry shares two useful tools he uses: Smith.ai and a helpful calendar app called Harmonizely. Harmonizely allow clients to schedule appointments and offers direct integration with Daylite..

• Daylight training has been transformative for Jerry.

• Sam can’t bring himself to start offering calendaring services to his clients. One reason is a need for control.

• Joe also talks about showing just how unavailable you might be.

• Jerry talks about the mysterious “alien arrow” that one of Joe’s clients has been telling him about.

• What is Casper Sky??

Thank you to our Patreon sponsors!

214: Hiding In The Server Room or Where The Buffalo Roam

Topics:

Jerry shares a story about working on an older MacBook Air that takes an interesting turn

Old tricks for retrieving data from dead hard drives are discussed. Do you risk it or go right to Drive Savers?

Sam makes an attempt to restore a file for a client and takes some time to hide out in the server room when he can't find it

Jerry goes through a scare with a Buffalo NAS when at a client site and comes up with a creative solution:
Buffalo LinkStation Pro Duo 2-Bay 2 TB (2 x 1 TB) Network Attached Storage LS-W2.0TGL/R1 - https://www.amazon.com/Technology-LinkStation-Attached-LS-W2-0TGL-R1/dp/B001696ZXA

Paragon - ExtFS for Mac 11 - https://www.paragon-software.com/ufsdhome/extfs-mac/

ReclaiMe File Recovery Ultimate
to recover Windows and Linux PCs, Macs, and NASes - - http://www.reclaime.com

Working with multiple versions of software presents its challenges

Liquid spills and freezer tricks lead to a recent Apple development:

AppleCare+ for Mac now available:
MacBook Pro 13-inch: $269.00 (vs. $249 before?)
MacBook Pro 15-inch: $379.00
iMac: $169.00 (same as before!)
Get up to 3 years of accidental damage coverage and 24/7 expert telephone technical support from Apple, the people who know your Mac best.

The guys all have Late 2016 MacBook Pros and kick around the idea of upgrading to the latest model with Apple's hardware announcements

Use Etrecheck to search for legacy items that might be affecting your computer's performance:
https://www.etrecheck.com/

212: Live With Susan Chiz Berenguer of EmSpace Technology Consulting

We're sponsored this week by Watchman Monitoring, a favorite tool of ours that should be in every professional consultant's toolkit.

Visit WatchmanMonitoring.com/cmdctrlpwr and sign up for your free trial to find out how Watchman Monitoring can keep an eye on your client machines and notify you of over 100 issues. Be sure to tweet @cmdctrlpwr #CCPsentme to support the show!

This week Susan Chiz Berenguer of EmSpace Technology Consulting joins us for a conversation about her consulting practice and focusing on elder support.

EmSpace is an Independent Information Technology & Macintosh Services company, specializing in analyzing the needs and requirements of small to medium sized businesses, agencies and design firms with an emphasis on home-based clients, both on-site and via remote access. Clients rely upon EmSpace to analyze the state of their current systems, recommend the growth path necessary to enhance their production requirements, research features and develop cost/benefit analysis information. Once purchased; - install new hardware, firmware and software and train the appropriate personnel in its use and maintenance. On existing installations - advise and train clients in the practices of information archiving, memory management and network management and computing security.

http://emspaceplace.com
@emspace

187: "Merry Crimble!"

Recorded live on December 23, 2016

- When The Beatles Gave Fans A 'Crimble' Present
http://www.npr.org/2014/12/21/372257350/when-the-beatles-gave-fans-a-crimble-present

- We're sponsored this week by:

Watchman Monitoring, a favorite tool of ours that should be in every professional consultant's toolkit.

Visit WatchmanMonitoring.com/cmdctrlpwr and sign up for your free trial to find out how Watchman Monitoring can keep an eye on your client machines and notify you of over 100 issues. Be sure to tweet @cmdctrlpwr #CCPsentme to support the show!

Gruntwork is the ultimate managed service package for you and your clients. "Think of what you would do when trying to solve a user’s support request: run a disk verification utility. Run permission repair. Update the affected software to the latest version. With Gruntwork, those chores have already been accomplished. Your time spent troubleshooting issues is greatly reduced when the common maladies are already ruled out. Better yet, Gruntwork prevents many common problems, so the Mac just works and you can focus on higher level tasks for your client." 

Find out more at - http://mac-msp.com/gruntwork and tell them CCP sent you.

ACES CONFERENCE 2017
Phoenix, Arizona | May 31-June 1, 2017
ACEs Conference- https://acesconf.com/  is the industry-leading event for growing your IT consulting company. With unique, premium content delivered by world-class speakers, ACEs is THE place for inspiration, ideas, business networking, and instantly-applicable knowledge. It’s no surprise that our attendees continue coming year after year—just one ACEs and you’ll be sold.

Many of us IT professionals are in business because of our innate skills as technologists. ACEs Conference was conceived to help us grow our businesses in every other way. From management and operations tools to sales and growth opportunities and strategies, ACEs will leave you inspired, reinvigorated and equipped to take your business to the next level.

- Enjoy Command Control Power and want more commercial free programs? Please visit our Patreon Page where you can support Command Control Power and help us bring you more commercial free programming.

073: Mac mini Late 2014 Review and Recommendations

Recorded live on October 21, 2014

Thanks to Mac Mini Vault for sponsoring this week's episode of Command Control Power. Mac Mini Vault has the most advanced data center options for Macs, with the best pricing. They run multiple data centers and have the Mac expertise to be there for you when you most need it. Visit MacMiniVault.com to sign up and use coupon code CCPsentme for 75% off the first 3 months!  When you send in your Mac mini, tweet @cmdctrlpwr #CCPsentme to support the show!

- Joe recommends AirBase from Giros Design, a great mounting option for AirPort Extreme or AirPort Time Capsule; flexible mounting options include single/dual gang wall boxes, vertical/horizontal orientation, and wall/ceiling mount; plus AirGuard to secure device in place for ceiling mount; also, AirLatch mounts Apple TV to back of TV

- we discuss the new Mac mini Late 2014, and attempt to read the handwriting in the tea leaves on the wall; see Mac Mini Vault's teardown and benchmarks

- what are the implications of soldered RAM when Apple's memory pricing is fairly competitive

- what does the lack of Quad Core processor mean in practice for Server use? depends on number of services and users, but what is the tipping point?  how close is that tipping point to Mac Pro territory?

- with small data sets stored on the internal hard drive, the PCIe-based flash storage should offer a significant benefit vs. the HDD or even SSD options of previous models, perhaps making up for the lack of Quad Core in many circumstances

- friend of the show Mark Fuccio points out the news today from Connected Data, announcing Transporter Genesis for Business  which offers private cloud service in the form of rack mountable hardware unit, plus client software to enable file sharing and syncing that users expect from services like Dropbox; see also last week's discussion

- we stumble through a discussion of Family Sharing; here's the simple explanation from Apple: "Music, movies, TV shows, and books can be downloaded on up to 10 devices per account, five of which can be computers."

- Great Firewall of China attempting MITM attack on iCloud.com?

- anyone going to MacTech Conference November 5-7, 2014?