582: Mercury Retrograde and Tech Troubles: Is There a Connection?

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Jerry and Sam discuss issues with Zoom’s SMS campaign requirements and RingCentral’s lack of shared SMS functionality. Jerry also shares his frustration with RingCentral’s call handling limitations and the need for an unused extension to utilize advanced features.

For Joe, clients bypass Smith.ai by pressing extensions, leading to increased costs. Apple Intelligence may help manage notifications upon returning from being off the grid.

The hosts discuss the need for digital detox and features in Apple’s notification system. They also share their experiences with managing notifications and the potential benefits of AI-driven prioritization.

Sam has had an initially successful rollout of pricing emails to clients and he talks about the positive response he has received.

Jerry shares frustration with clients ignoring service recommendations despite positive feedback. After some input from Joe and Sam, he considers personalizing emails and including recommendations in newsletters to improve response rates. Joe also mentions the importance of using a personal email address instead of a bulk email service to avoid being filtered out as spam.

A customer’s easy acceptance of a significant rate increase led to a discussion about the importance of maintaining a consistent network stack. Despite the challenges, we discuss the value of following established procedures to ensure successful outcomes.

Joe wonders if Mercury being in retrograde has had any affect on clients being able to follow simple instructions.

Joe brings up the dangers of deep fake audio and how to protect against it. He even brings up a story of how Ferrari thwarted a deepfake attempt. They suggest using context knowledge or a safe word to identify potential scammers.

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Patreon Show - 572: Exploring Legacy Software, CGNAT Challenges, and AI's Impact on Privacy

In this patron-only episode of Command Control Power, the hosts reflect on past conferences, such as Lightspeed in Montreal, and the challenges of utilizing the Lightspeed software for consulting businesses. The conversation shifts to Unifi network monitoring setups and the unique complications presented by Carrier Grade NAT (CGNAT) on residential ISP connections. The hosts discuss potential security and monitoring solutions for modern clients, including Unifi's professional phone support and Wattbox. Finally, the episode examines the growing concerns around AI voice cloning, its potential for misuse, and ideas for safeguarding privacy in a digital age.

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

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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??

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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