🔒 Patreon Special

IT Pros: exclusive shows await you on Patreon, focusing on the more challenging aspects of running your practice and working with clients and employees.

558: Battery Powered M4 iMac

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Topics:

-We talk about on air meltdowns and recall similar situations when dealing with clients.

-When dealing with a financial site, Jerry works with support to “enable cross website tracking”. Tech support is impressed with his technical prowess.

-Similarly, Sam has experienced issues loading the Microsoft 365 admin panes when in Safari private browsing. Refreshing and reducing protection features allows it to work.

-Joe mentions using profiles in Google Chrome as a resolution. Sam uses Arc for this purpose.

-Joe & Sam talk about their 1Password experiences.

-1Password searching can now search note contents (again).

-They also adjusted their billing methods to bill for unverified accounts.

-Joe explains how to find items in macOS.

-Jerry was dealing with a client that kept having QuickBooks issues using Parallels. It turned out to be a feature that will “pause” Windows when idle.

-In another Parallels story, Jerry finds a resolution to his problem with Joe’s help…by finding our own show notes!

-Should you run AutoCAD on Parallels?

-Jerry runs into an issue with MacPractice at a high priority client after a security update. Unbelievably, MacPractice not only does not support macOS Sonoma, but even the latest updates of Ventura.

555: A Desperate Cry For Help

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▶️ New: watch on YouTube!

Topics:

-Has Sam really not backed up in an extraordinary amount of time?

-This sparks a discussion about backup policies in general.

-We talk about the 3-2-1 backup strategy and how relevant it still is.

-Joe shares a client story about how a calendar syncing app removed calendar history.

-If you’re a consultant, finding a backup service with affiliate options can be beneficial financially.

-We are constantly fighting the good fight about keeping macOS and hardware up to date.

-Joe charges a fee for working with unsupported Mac computers.

-There is a difference of what we will support, depending on residential vs business clients.

-How reliable is Time Machine?

-We share some details from our rates and plans survey. Join us on Patreon to hear more.

514: The Fix Is In

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Thank you to our VIP sponsors!

Topics:

-Archiving/Deleting in Apple Mail is inconsistent.

-Jerry has been seeing issues on multiple computers when upgrading from macOS Ventura 13.2.1 to 13.3.1. Reinstalling the OS still creates data issues.

-“That’s a lot of nanas to deal with”.

-Pro tip about using the Option key when clicking About This Mac to reveal System Information.

-Thanks to Guillaume Gete for 80 Shades of the Option key

-Joe talks about his use of Nudge as well as an AppleScript automation with the help of sudoade.

-We discuss end user perception as Sam talks about a story upgrading Wi-Fi for a new customer.

-Jerry mentions The Hawthorne Effect, which discusses how people increase efficiency when they feel like they are being watched.

-Joe had been recommending a mail server upgrade to a client until finally one day, their provider went down. They still did not learn their lesson.

-We get into how to quote email migration projects and the economy of scale.

513: Pricing Your Device Management Stack

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Topics:

-Jerry & Joe talk about their monthly MSP offerings and the services it includes.

-Jerry uses Square for automated credit card payments and invoices.

-Joe talks about competing on quality as opposed to pricing.

-Offering a lower starting point without important services can put both you and the customer in a bad position.

-How do you handle consultants in your area that offer extremely low rates?

-The hosts speak to the benefits of monthly fees.

-Priority scheduling and unattended remote support are big selling points for Joe’s plan.

-We spoke with Tim Pearson on Patreon Episode 471 to discuss some great tips on managed services pricing.

-One of Jerry’s clients uses a Remote Desktop tool called NuoRDS.

-Jerry was able to remotely assist a customer while in an Uber in Belgium.

-The tool that Jerry uses to manage scheduled restarts is called Power Manager.