318: Interview With Tim Nyberg Of The MacGuys+ - Value Based Billing

Topics:

-From the days of the Apple II, Tim Nyberg was known as “The Mac Guy” in his college days because he could confidently fix any Apple computer. Tim kept the name, opened The MacGuys+ in 1991 and today he and his team are still obsessed with Macs and Apple technology. 

-Tim talks about his history from typing papers for fellow students, to a job at Kinkos, and eventually landing back in Minneapolis to build his current business. 

-Tim has a brick and mortar location that serves a purpose for walk in traffic and repairs. 

-Having a location has its challenges but provides opportunity and space to perform some large scale tasks 

-As Tim’s business has seen changes over the years, Jerry notes that the tools that he uses has allowed him to work more efficiently

-Tim starts to see himself being more of the business end of the company and transitioning from the technical end of the company. He is on his way to obtaining his MBA. 

-There are some clients that have been around for 20 years who want nothing to do with managed services 

-Value based billing is a concept that Tim has been presenting to his clients. Part of this is setting expectations with the customer and making them realize what the value of the work is. 

-As Jerry asks for a practical example, Tim talks about value based billing in projects like Synology setups, Wi-Fi roll outs where the value of expertise and padded time for potential pitfalls are covered as a part of the cost. 

-If projects go more smoothly than expected, it provides opportunity to offer a discount to the customer.

-One book that provided good information on this topic was "Value-Based Fees" By Alan Weiss

-It is important to express to the customer what your value is. Less important than total hours on an invoice is the details of all the work performed. 

-Like many of us, Tim leverages the TidBITS Content Network and a variety of social media tools to provide content to his customers. 

317: Working On & Working In

Topics:

-Joe kicks off the show bringing up leisure time and time management 

-Working ON the business vs working IN the business

-A challenge for Sam is meeting interruptions that occur when clients reach out. Not just for him but for his staff

-Sam may be on the lookout for a new hire but does he look for an admin or a tech?

-The CCP crew are very appreciative of the collective audience and their feedback/advice

-“This is not for everyone”. Sam comes to the realization that running a business isn’t something everyone can handle. 

-A continual question for Sam is taking on Windows clients. 

-Joe explores marketing new services to current clients as a method of increasing revenue. For instance, offering Ubiquiti installations for clients in need of upgraded Wi-Fi. 

-QuickTime screen recording to the rescue for Sam as he tries to see a message that quickly disappears on his screen

-Joe has some follow up to how he sets up his clients with individual Ubiquiti UniFi controllers. While Sam is moving to a central controller, specific logins per client is something they agree on. 

-Cloud Key stability has plagued all of us. After some research, Joe has dug up information about the Mongo database and how it is prone to failure during a power loss. To combat this, Joe discusses his backup power plan for the Cloud Key. 

-After a recent discussion with Christopher Stout on Episode 311, Sam is looking to setup a closed system like UniFi, Synology Surveillance Station or Security Spy

-Sam learns some interesting details from a SonicWALL vendor about true throughput 

-Friend of the show, Weldon Dodd points out a great write up by Rich Trouton on his site, Derflounder. It’s an interesting piece about enabling Touch ID for sudo commands.

316: Wi-Fi On A Stick

Special Thanks To Our VIP Sponsors!

Topics:

-Sam has a first run working with the ”Wi-Fi on a stick” method of mapping out Wi-Fi. He uses a product from wifistand.com and NetSpot to create a map":
https://wifistand.com

-Joe brings up a great tool called Magic Plan to create floor plans on iOS:
https://www.magicplan.app/en/

-The nanoHD is a particular Ubiquiti model that same used and likes to deploy

-Joe warns of things to be aware of when scouting out an environment for Wi-Fi

-Another new monthly service that Sam is offering is hosting a UniFi controller in his environment to manage firmware updates and alerts. Joe weighs the responsibilities that comes with such an offering.

-Joe throws Sam a curve ball explaining how he has a singular login for his clients

-Another issue in the long line of networking troubles that Sam has experienced: finding incompatibility between a SonicWall and WAN connection at a NYC client. The fix? A dumb switch!

-That story rings a bell for Joe who has a similar story to tell about a Zywall and WAN connection that turned out to be a multi pronged problem.

Thanks to our Patreon Sponsors!

315: The Skeleton Just Popped Up!

Topics:

-Jerry has a “non-technical” gripe about health bowls he wants to share

-Drink every time Joe says açaí

-To bring it back to technology, Jerry has issues with the motivational announcements on the Nike Run app

-Client perceptions and marketing terms often are deceiving

-clients that won’t spend money are nothing new. But Joe & Jerry dive deeper into the disfunctional relationships that persist through time.

-The “computer friend” is a red flag

-A potential customer approaches Jerry about doing project work or “cost plus” work before establishing an ongoing relationship

-A move to G Suite ends up being a challenge for Jerry as he gets bounced around support.

-Joe flips the conversation to show when clients can be correct and prove us wrong

-A shoutout to TidBITS Content Network (https://tcn.tidbits.com)

and all that they provide to us on a regular basis, as well as the bonus material during Apple announcements

-Joe compares directing a client to your blog to explain something as a customized “Let Me Google That For You”

-Sam wishes he was a part of the conversation as Jerry & Joe have a good ole’ fashioned gripe session about client habits

-“Oh no the skeleton popped up” - One of Joe’s clients saw Apple's branding for WWDC on apple.com and thought it was a result of her recent hacking, calling it a skeleton

313: Addigy And More...

Topics:

-Joe has spent time recently dedicating his focus on Addigy and Watchman Monitoring and understanding how to best leverage those tools

-Scripts has been what Joe has been concentrating on and he has found a tremendous amount of help and support through the MacAdmins Slack and the Addigy community

- Joe created a script to help ensure your client's Mac fleet gets restarted regularly, according to the best practice you decide. Initial prompt to gently suggest a restart after a "recommended" uptime, default to do nothing if ignored. Second prompt when uptime reaches "preferred", defaulting to gracefully restart if ignored. Final prompt when uptime reaches "limit", defaulting to try a graceful restart and then try a forcible restart if needed. Default values: 7 days, 21 days, 75 days. "I prefer HyperCard"

- Joe's script, for Addigy users: Restart Mac per Best Practice gets approved while recording the show!

-Sam talks about the “Easy Button” he learned while working with Jamf. He likes the thought of empowering the users to have them complete step 0 before calling support.

-These conversations seem to always point to how it weaves into your managed services or hourly plans. And having clients wonder why they have you if things are working so well.

-Joe also created a couple of great scripts to work with Watchman Monitoring functionality:
— This script to easily "Adjust Watchman Monitoring Time Machine Warning", default 21 days. For those users who just can't seem to run a backup regularly whether by circumstance or habit. Previously used to connect remotely to adjust this, since it can't be changed remotely in the Monitoring Client web interface. Now we can deploy it remotely, even across multiple machines or an entire client!
—Another script to "Adjust Watchman Monitoring Root Capacity Warning", default 95%. For those users who perpetually, or periodically, ride the edge of Apple's recommended best practice and you want to give them a bit more leeway. Again, it can't be changed remotely in the Monitoring Client web interface and we used to have to connect remotely to adjust this.

-Jerry gets a call from a new client in a remote location and discovers a 2011 iMac that was fairly unresponsive. Jerry is tasked with the job of migrating to a new iMac. He sees an old version of TeamViewer on the computer and discovers a surprise!

-Jerry & Joe discuss an episode of the CYBER podcast - Snowden on iPhone: with Android, patching landscape is a disaster because manufacturers discontinue phones quickly and don't continue providing software updates, and because phone vendors don't control chipset updates like for WiFi and cellular chips. This leaves many older phones vulnerable but in many different ways so there's no simple exploit or "skeleton key" for all devices. This mitigates the kind of widespread attack that can be developed for iPhone, since so many iPhones are running the same versions of iOS and have the same chips and firmware running on the chips.

-A worrisome story about sharing sensitive data with others on Dropbox is shared by Joe. It leads him to think of a method of phishing or scamming end users: create phony Dropbox accounts, create shared folders, share some data with strangers "accidentally" in a folder with a generic name like “SECURE”. Listen as Joe talks about how he would set his trap.

-Dave Provine brought up the SS7 vulnerability in the MacAdmins Slack, which was originally demonstrated at the Chaos Communication Congress hacker conference in 2014 and made some news on 60 Minutes in April 2016. It exploits vulnerabilities in a system called Signaling System No 7 (SS7), originally developed in 1975. So it's not just SIM hijacking that makes SMS a weak link. By hacking SS7, an attacker could silently snoop on SMS text messages, phone calls, and access phone location data. Yikes!

-iOS 12.3 and macOS 10.14.5: wow they fixed a lot of security issues! "An application may be able to execute arbitrary code with system privileges" and "A malicious application may be able to read restricted memory" and "A malicious application may be able to elevate privileges" and "A local user may be able to modify protected parts of the file system" and "Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution"

312: The Sunk Cost Fallacy

Special Thanks To Our VIP Sponsors!

Topics:

-Jerry discusses the origin of the Jer-RE-SEND

-Jerry’s dad gets schooled on email security. His dad makes a statement that many of our clients share: “how am I supposed to know these things?"

-One of Joe’s clients thinks Touch ID will be “hacked”

-While on the topic of security, 1 Password is highly recommended by us but the built in iCloud Keychain has come a long way and may fit the bill for some customers

-Jerry’s dad provides some additional comic relief during a modem upgrade

-This story reminds Joe of The Print Shop software by Broderbund and the “tractor feed” paper

-Sam gets a little salty when describing a day that went sideways when attempting to adopt Ubiquiti Unifi equipment on site.  Something he aways recommends against.

-We discuss the important concepts of the sunk-cost fallacy, or escalation of commitment. How can we know when we're being tenacious, and when we're succumbing to commitment bias?

-Joe's issue connecting to public WiFi, captive portal login page doesn't load. There are workarounds, like closing the popup login page (which displays "A problem occurred: The web page couldn't be loaded.") and then manually loading captive.apple.com in Safari, and refreshing the page repeatedly when necessary. Or loading the router's IP address in Safari. But it turns out that it's a bug in Sophos Home that affects Mojave, and they are working on a solution: Captive Portal / Login Page does not load on MacOS when connecting to a Public/Guest Wi-Fi Hotspot. 

- Joe uses a resource by Matt Coneybear to automate the process of connecting to VPN when on non-secure networks:
http://matt.coneybeare.me/how-to-setup-an-auto-reconnect-script-for-an-ikev2-vpn-service-on-your-mac

311: Interview With Chris Stout Of STOUT

Topics:

Interview with Chris Stout of STOUT

-Chris shares how he and Sam met at the Jamf Nation User Conference (hint: it involves a Command Control Power t-shirt)

-Chris has a great and unique domain at stout.computer.  He discusses acquiring that domain and some of the initial challenges with a different URL and email address

-Jerry is a fan of the site and the design

-Sam is curious about Chris’ business relationships in the field to grow his operation.  A reliable wiring person can go a long way

-Chris made the push to become a Jamf Integrator about a year and a half ago and tells our audience how that relationship works and how he uses it to help grow his business

-Moving to CA while his wife had worked lined up became the catalyst for him to be able to pursue becoming a Jamf Integrator

-A question Sam posed to the group: have you acquired a new client that had networking equipment you were not familiar with and if so, how do you handle it?

-A subject that Chris is familiar with is surveillance and IP cameras

-Chris backs a product called Security Spy, which is a Mac based product:

https://www.bensoftware.com/securityspy/

-The most common conversation that Chris has is comparing closed circuit camera systems like Security Spy or Surveillance Station to the simple cloud services like Nest or Canary

-Giving users the ability to maintain their own recordings and the ability to fully control who possesses the video is a big selling point

-When making camera solution suggestions, Chris is always looking to spec for growth

-Bringing it all home to managed services, Chris is looking to tie in his security offering to be included in an ongoing monthly management piece

310: What Is Your Specialty?

Topics:

- Jimmy Obomsawin at jimmymacsupport.com in Washington DC and suburban Maryland had some followup to Joe's story about batch renaming files using the Finder, which Joe found out through this iMore article. Jimmy did some investigative work to determine this feature was released back in Yosemite!

- We discuss clients taking matters into their own hands: Jerry's client unplugs Ethernet cables because they claim he told them that would fix it, and Sam's client reset the AirPort back to factory defaults... "was that bad?"

- Joe shares the story of a one-time client with all the wrong equipment, which had been recommended and configured by a "computer friend". The Seagate NAS RAID enclosure failed, and now she's running off of RAID 0 primary storage. Needs new primary storage and new backup, and new workflows, and doesn't have the budget or interest. Sam points out the importance of walking away from a scenario like this before taking on the responsibility (and liability), and Jerry seconds this: "run away!"

- Sam has an update about a client forwarding his recommendations to the former (current?) "IT guy" who will be doing the new equipment setup remotely from Florida.

- Sam talks about lessons shared by Jerry and Joe on a previous show, about how to navigate personal relationships with clients.

- Sam talks about the challenges of selling subscription security services on firewalls, and clients finding parts for cheaper online.

- Jerry reveals a new wrinkle with his MacBook Pro 13-inch 2015 model that may have fallen off the back of a truck, when it comes back from repair and shows it's under management by Amazon

309: The Tech Power Of Magnets

Topics:

-Sam discusses the work/life balance when he’s on the road

-Jerry describes being in “BusyCal Hell” with a small medical office. Joe & Sam weigh in with their thoughts

-As Jerry describes this situation as a hornet’s nest, it reminds Joe of Apple Knowledge Base Article HT201657 where they describe sync services “as if it were a swarm of bees”.

-Jerry reminds us of how BusyCal/BusyMac has changed hands some time ago

-The former “IT guy”. Trust is large part of our relationships and Sam spins a yarn about how that trust was completely broken with a new client relationship.

-An episode of Command Control Power wouldn’t be complete without a gripe from Joe. Safari suggestions is his latest target.

-In some truly amazing sleuthing, Joe shares a client story where he diagnosed an issue with a Mac going dark at seemingly random moments. From afar, he appears to have correctly pointed towards a multitude of magnets that the customer wears. He also recounts a similar story from episodes of the past where he diagnosed an issue with lighting and solar powered keyboards.

-Jerry shares a PSA about Startup Security Utility on Mac computers with a T2 chip: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208198

-Joe has real time follow up! While recording the show, he heard back from the magnetized client who confirms that he was right on the money with his diagnosis.

308: Don't Fear The iCloud

Special Thanks To Our VIP Sponsors!

Topics:

-The Command Control Power team has a call to action to request reviews on iTunes to help support the show. And if you feel so inclined, become a patron:
https://www.patreon.com/cmdctrlpwr

-Joe has experienced some oddities when using Messages at times when he has poor internet connectivity

-Jerry questions why Joe doesn’t use iCloud Messages. Sam admits that he doesn’t use it either.

-An explanation of “SIM hacking” has Jerry & Joe quite concerned. An episode from the Reply All Podcast is what started Joe down this road:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/130-the-snapchat-thief/id941907967?i=1000423456775

-Another show called Cyber Motherboard also discusses this topic:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sim-hijacking-and-the-phone-number-ransom/id1441708044?i=1000423673553

-Joe describes how some clients are skeptical of technology - not using Touch ID because "it will all be hacked eventually". Also not using a password manager and not using secure passwords because they are "giving up control"

-While Sam isn’t entirely convinced, it is a security topic that we should all be paying attention to.

-Sam transitions to a story about how he had to dig into his mindset and workflow for a client he hadn’t touched in many years. It gave him a moment to see how far he had come but at the same time, showed how his lack of notes caused the investigative work to be done.

Thank you to our Patreon sponsors!

307: Don't Get Too Comfortable With This iPad

Topics:

-Joe starts off the show with some follow up and a PSA

-Long time friend of the show, Dave Provine helps clear up information regarding /private/var/db/fpsd/dvp.  Dave explains that those folders are in reference to the fairplay streaming daemon.

-Joe provides a PSA to the team about accessing a computer remotely when Apple Remote Desktop is running.  A simple checkbox in the preferences will allow this functionality.

-Joe shares some of the settings he enables for ARD for security, including storing credentials in keychain and encrypting network data.

-The remote discussion prompts further griping about TeamViewer

-Offboarding clients with remote access like TeamViewer is not always a challenge

-Sam goes on a rant about Apple IDs in a corporate environment and a lack of understanding on the client side

-Joe’s team has a process for migrations and he talks about the challenges he faces when clients have their own assumptions and expectations

-Migration Assistant has presented problems for Sam’s team so he asks for details on Joe’s method

-Finding Retrospect in a user’s StartupItems further solidifies Joe’s method for migrations

-Joe generously shares some of his procedures for migrating data

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

305: I Have Some Cookies In My Kitchen

Topics:

-Big thank you to Michael Thompsen and Viktor Glemme for guest hosting a recent episode of Command Control Power. Thanks as well to their guests Will O’Neal and Luis Giraldo for mixing it up with them. 

-Sam & Jerry express their disappointment in the cancellation of AirPower. 

-Sam shares some exciting news about office space. His group is on the move again. 

-Jerry has incredibly useful and relevant advice for marketing your business with Google and how he uses the TidBITS Content Networkto deliver information to potential customers.

-Reselling additional services is a subject that has come up in previous episodes. Sam has some thoughts to add and talks about how he is bundling up some services that he hasn’t offered in the past. 

-JumpCloud is one such service and Sam mentions their partner program

-Sam describes a conundrum that a consultant might find himself/herself in: pay me more to allow me to do less work. 

-Jerry finds a great site for picking the right Mac for your needs 
Picking the Best iMac to Buy in 2019 - https://www.macrumors.com/guide/best-imac-to-buy/

-The guys lament over Safari responsiveness lately 

-One of Jerry’s education clients has a need for a product called Inkscape. He describes his challenges dealing with X11 and the installation process. 

-Big shout out to Shawn Maddock of Envision Design. Envision is the company of friend and supporter of the show, Richard Wingfield. 

-Sam has some cookies in his kitchen

304: Joe's Beauty Salon

Topics:

-Jerry has some follow up on a show where Sam & Joe discussed friendliness with employees.  Jerry offers his thoughts on drawing a line with staff.

-The topic spills over into relationships with clients

-Insurance is something that Jerry is curious about amongst others in our profession.  He and Joe discuss hard numbers.

-Jerry wants to know why Joe doesn’t hire people as contractors or 1099 employees

-After buying a new MacBook on eBay, Jerry has noticed that the display is starting to delaminate: MacBook Retina STAINS ON DISPLAY / damaged AR coating

-Joe brings up the “Rights to Repair” movement
https://repair.org/stand-up

-Louis Rossmann is a very vocal voice on the subject of Right to Repair
https://rossmanngroup.com
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl2mFZoRqjw_ELax4Yisf6w

-Security is a subject we commonly bring up and Joe recalls a story he heard on the Reply All podcast.  This concerning topic revolves around intercepting a phone number in two step verification by a practice called SIM swapping.
https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all

-Jerry wraps up the show by offering up movie recommendations:
The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley | Documentaries | HBO
https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/the-inventor-out-for-blood-in-silicon-valley
Free Solo
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/films/free-solo/
Dawn Wall
https://www.dawnwall-film.com
Meru
http://www.merufilm.com

303: Guest Host Michael Thomsen of Origin84 with Viktor Glemme, Will O’Neal and Luis Giraldo

Special Thanks To Our VIP Sponsors!

Topics:

-This week we have a special guest host as Michael Thomsen takes the mic. Michael is the Director and Founder of Origin 84 - https://www.origin84.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mjthomsen/

-Victor Glemme is a member of the Origin 84 team and he joins Michael in his hosting duties. Victor previously worked at Apple and Jamf and originally hails from Sweden
https://www.linkedin.com/in/glemme/

-Will O’Neal receives a call from Michael and talks about his business and the upcoming ACEs Conference.  Will owns Mid Atlantic Computer Solutions and is on the board of directors for the ACEs Conference - 4macsolutions.com

-ACEs Conference this year will be held in Kansas City, MO June 4-6
http://acesconf.com

-This year at ACEs Conference, they will focus on small groups and less speakers.  This new collaborative and mentoring format will be a welcome and exciting change to an already impactful conference.

-ACEs has its own Slack channel at acesconf.slack.com

-A yoga class will once again be at the start of the conference this year

-Kansas City has been chosen as a 5G test city.  Will and the team will attempt to work with Sprint to provide some demos for participants.

-In a bonus, LuisGiraldo also joins the Origin 74 team on the show
Luis Giraldo on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/luisgiraldo/
ITGlue - https://www.itglue.com
Ook Enterprises - https://ook.co

-Luis gives us a quick history of his business life in Ook Enterprises and how he came to be at IT Glue

-Luis talks about meeting with his partners and setting goals for his business

-Monkey Box was developed to “scratch an itch” and he tells the story of how that brought him into the IT Glue family

-What is IT Glue exactly? It provides a structured way to create consistency, efficiency, and scalability by having a centralized IT documentation platform

-Luis gives a shout out to some great members of the Mac Admins community:

Tom Bridge and Chris Dawe on Wireless - http://macadmins.psu.edu/files/2017/07/psumac2017-154-A-System-Administrators-Fundamentals-of-Wi-Fi-or-Arguing-With-Physics-Section1-RF-Wi-Fi-Jargon-rgldvy.pdf
-Rich Trouton - http://derflounder.wordpress.com
-Charles Edge - http://krypted.com

Thank you to our Patreon sponsors!

302: The Virtual Strength Of Ten Men

Topics:

-New iMac computers have been released. While it is a welcome update, the group discusses the difficulties of dealing with refreshes when recently purchasing “new” hardware for clients.

-On a positive note, Joe brings up the longevity of Apple products

-Jerry laments the release of new products with rotational drives. The crew agrees.

-Joe starts reading off specs and pricing from Dell and realizes that Apple is in a league of its own

-New AirPods have been released and Jerry already has them on order. Joe’s history with his AirPods comes back up.

-Apple Store Lady - https://youtu.be/jiyMx7rDKAM

-Sam is not impressed by the hardware updates

-Friend of the show, Brandon Walter of Macfaqulty, has a PSA about adhesive strips purchased from eBay. He provides our show with photo evidence sent from his client.

-Working from a variety of coffee shops, Joe has experienced some inconsistencies with Captive Portal on macOS

-This reminds Jerry of trouble working remotely while on a trip. He also clears up some confusion for Joe about Tripmode and its country of origin.

-Circling back to Joe’s nomadic life, he describes the joys and frustrations working in various coffee shops and establishments. But while it is his mobile office, he observed a fellow tech using it as his hardware workbench.

301: iMessage Tapbacks in Popovers

Topics:

-Sam has a frustrating story about working with a VoIP provider he shares a long relationship with.  An issue with the client’s quality of service on their phones goes into a 2 year sago with an annoying fix in the end.

-To add some humor to his stories, Sam shares a very funny story about a late night visit from a user in need.

-Not a show goes by without Joe sharing an annoyance of a feature or lack thereof.  In this case, he discusses “pop over” functionality in Messages.  Sam gives a tip back to Joe.

-A tip that Sam just learned is that he can charge his iPhone from his iPad Pro using the USB-C to lighting cable.  There are a variety of features of the USB-C ports as explained here:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209186

-Sam is now solar powered (well, his home is)!

-The FaceTime bug, now fixed, has Joe thinking big picture with regards to security.

-If you are going to cover your camera with tape, at least make sure it’s not clear tape.

-In his off time, Joe sits in his camper and ponders about security.  So he has some theories on malware.

-Sam decides to bring up a rather embarrassing story of how he missed the obvious

-As Joe & Sam start to go down the road of managing a team, one point that Sam brings up is the way mistakes are made.  Joe goes back and forth about holding employees accountable and making excuses for them.

-Making mistakes with employees often cannot be reversed

-Managing the employee relationship is extremely difficult to get right, as Sam and Joe both have realized over the years

Thank you to our Patreon sponsors!

300: Talking Ubiquiti With "Super Remie" Cremers

Topics:

-Remie Cremers of Super Remie comes back to join Command Control Power for our 300th episode and discuss Ubiquiti and Wi-Fi in general

-Remie is a newly minted Ubiquiti Wireless Enterprise Admin

-He addresses use of a UniFi Cloud Key and how he goes the route of using an in-house controller on a Mac mini in his office.

-By doing so, he then manages all of his clients as “sites” in the controller. He then charges his clients an annual fee to maintain this for them

-A point of interest is how to migrate devices from one controller to another. More testing may be needed on Sam’s part.

-Remie shares a tip on creating users for clients, which involves setting up credentials for the user instead of having them jump through hoops to create a new account.

-Finding difficulties in implementing an SSL certificate for his controller, Remie created a guide and shares it with listeners.

-For his fees, he offers to do firmware upgrades as well.

-One hurdle that he found himself hitting, was the issue of needing to do a “Set Inform” twice to adopt devices on a controller that is not on-site. Ubiquiti confirmed the need for this method.

-Joe and Remie put their fancy pants on and discuss DHCP options

-As the group discusses the topic of using secondary ports on the AC-Pro APs, Sam makes mention of a hardware limitation where speeds of the AP will represent the top speeds of the device connected to the secondary port. So if a device connected can only operate at 100 Mbps, ALL devices connected to that AP will hit that cap.

-Ubiquiti has an impressive line of products in their UniFi line

-Joe has a PSA about power cycling the UniFi equipment

-Offsite configuration in a staging area is a popular method of setup, although depending on equipment used, it can present its challenges.

-As Joe encountered issues with VPN setup, he had access to Ubiquiti’s 24/7 chat support

-The UniFi Security Gateway (USG) has its place in some installations but may not fit the bill everywhere

-Mounting methods of the access points is an important factor to be aware of that is addressed in the conversation

-Before wrapping up, Remie gets into the confusing naming convention for USB and current speeds. He also advises on purchasing the proper cables.

299: We Can Be Heroes

Special Thanks To Our VIP Sponsors!

Topics:

-Jerry starts the show on a positive vibe to take a moment to pat yourself on the back and appreciate what you do. 

-Joe reminds us to check reports on our clients and what we earn per client. Among other things to review once a year or more. 

-Jerry works with Synology’s Surveillance Station in conjunction with IP cameras and gives us his experience 

-This peaks Sam’s curiosity because as his clients are looking for a camera solution, he is concerned about services that all require a valid internet connection to record data. 

-Access cameras are what Joe uses for most of his clients

-Joe paints a picture of a solid, bullet proof solution with local storage, PoE, etc. and talk of how clients can push back by seeing inexpensive options at retail stores. 

-Jerry talks of a possible push back on cloud services in the future

-Surveillance Station licensing can work with 2 cameras for free and add-ons are two at a time 

-Masking and motion detection are nice feature sets that make it a very worthwhile solution 

-Jerry concurs and gives us all a lesson on the distinct difference between shenanigans and hijinks

-On the heels of this conversation, Jerry gets into a story of setting up a new camera at a school and working with a subcontractor whose work was less than stellar.

-To turn that towards our own businesses, the team talks about dealing with their own employees when jobs go longer than expected or a learning curve is involved.

-Stories about running cabling or drilling at client sites create some amusing situations, even if they didn’t feel that way at the time.

-Continuing the conversation of working with subcontractors or electricians, each of the guys share their stories of hilarity

297: Interview with Justin Esgar of ACEs Conference 2019 & Virtua Computers

Topics:

-It's almost the time of year again for the ACEs Conference.  This week Justin Esgar joins Joe, Jerry, & Sam to talk about ACEs 2019 - to be held June 4-6 in Kansas City, MO (NOT to be confused with Kansas City, KS) 

-Work/life balance was a theme of ACEs 2018 that Joe really loved.  Both Joe & Sam attended the morning yoga session on day 1.

-Justin's wife as well as his Board of Directors have been key to making ACEs successful: Alan Hancock, Adam Engst, Andy Espo, Will O'Neal

-After feedback from previous years, Justin and his team have implemented a new theme where participants will be able to meet in small groups and get feedback and help from their peers.

-The Keynote this year is Sgt Major Fenton Reese

-Brian Best is back for year 5.  Will he be presenting in a tuxedo?

-Justin's own company, Virtua Computers, was changed dramatically from the conference and his yearly revenue reflected this.

-One piece of advice is to research and go all in on the tools you will need for your clients. Whether it's Addigy for RMM (Remote Monitoring & Management), Zendesk for ticketing, JumpCloud for SSO (Single Sign On) or Apple Business Manager.

-Automating and perfecting your processes is not only going to make your clients successful, but it will set your staff up for success as well.

-Justin shares some of how he bills his monthly services 

-Virtua also does Dark Web scanning for his clients.  He uses ID Agent for that service

-Keeping an ongoing relationship with the client is an important factor that makes those money conversations that much easier

-Justin quizzes the group with a typical interview question