Best Of CCP - Dante's Ring Of Sonos

586: A Beer Lover's Adventure and Tech Talk: Exploring European Brews and New Mac OS Updates

In this episode, the hosts discuss various topics from a recent travel experience in the Netherlands and Belgium, highlighting amazing Trappist beers and unique beer brewing technologies. They also dive into the new features and implications of the latest Mac OS release, Sequoia, including the practical uses of Apple's new password app, send later in iOS messages, and the game-changing iPhone mirroring feature. Additionally, the episode features insights on managing client expectations with updates, blocking the latest OS to ensure stability, and a personal account of a sudden client shutdown. The show wraps up with tips on data recovery using Backblaze and a super-fast external drive.

00:00 Introduction and Recent Trip to the Netherlands and Belgium

00:28 Exploring Trappist Monasteries and Belgian Beers

01:57 Travel Experiences in Bruges, Belgium

03:09 Challenges of Bringing Beer Back Home

05:32 In-Flight Entertainment and Raw Dogging

07:53 Sequoia Release and Technical Discussions

13:17 Managing Software Updates and Client Experiences

26:38 Daily Driver Adventures

27:06 Apple's Seamless Integration

28:01 Send Later Feature in iOS

28:26 iPhone Mirroring and Instagram

29:30 Supporting Clients Efficiently

30:02 SMS Messages on Mac

31:31 New Passwords App

33:38 Screen Capture Limitations

36:06 Hiking Directions in Maps

39:07 Client Stories and Business Practices

42:35 Data Recovery and Backblaze

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09ZRWT134/

50:15 Wrapping Up and Teasers

585: Interview With Ben Greiner founder of Forget Computers, Apple champion and growth advisor at Addigy

Join us as we welcome back Ben Greiner, founder of Forget Computers and Apple champion and growth advisor at Addigy. In this engaging discussion, Ben reflects on his over 20-year journey in the Apple MSP world, the evolving landscape of IT management, and his role at Addigy. Ben shares insights on the integration of Apple-focused services into larger Windows-managed environments, the importance of compliance, and how Apple's advanced tools are setting new standards in the industry. This episode is filled with invaluable tips for MSPs looking to expand their Apple service offerings and successfully navigate the merger and acquisition landscape.

The hosts reflect on the 10 years in between Ben’s appearances.

Ross Matsuda, another CCP guest, also worked for Forget Computers.

Early on, Ben created Robot Cloud. This has since morphed into Vision Bot at Ntiva.

Ben talks about adapting to client needs.

Ben advises to look at the management tools that only focus on Apple products like Jamf, Kandji, and Addigy.

We get into how Ben switched from Jamf to Addigy.

Switching MDMs was harder than switching communication tools.

Most small MSPs are under one million in revenue a year.

Ben talks about how the 10,000 Small Business program by Goldman Sachs helped his business grow.

Forget Computers was acquired by Ntiva. Ben takes us down that road.

Apple vs Windows Support - it is difficult for Windows MSPs to make the shift to support the Apple platform.

Standardizing Apple Device Management

Proactive vs Reactive Device Enrollment

Ben works with existing customers to help them grow with Addigy.

Ben brings up the shift to Declarative Device Management

Compliance Standards and Challenges - is Windows really better built for business than Apple? Or has that paradigm shifted?

Jerry wants to know more about the 1Password acquisition on Kolide.

What is the future of Device Management and Security?

You can find Ben Greiner on LinkedIn.

583: Apple's Privacy Paradox & iPhone Lost At Sea

Joe Saponare discusses their experience with a CarPlay after-market device, highlighting its usefulness for maps and its limitations, such as poor sound quality and occasional connectivity issues. They also mention the convenience of Amazon’s return policy and the lack of significant improvements in CarPlay over the years. Joe concludes by noting that their car’s USB port, which only provides power when the vehicle is running, helps reduce the jankiness of the after market device.

Jerry and Sam discuss the use of CarPlay in the Honda, noting that Tesla lacks CarPlay support due to Elon Musk’s disdain for Apple. They also mention the availability of a Ubiquiti charging unit for Tesla and the potential influence of iPhone users on car manufacturers’ decisions regarding CarPlay support. The conversation concludes with a discussion about the poor quality and service of RVs, highlighting the use of cheap components and long service delays.

Apple’s new monthly permission prompt for screenshots and screen recording may affect third-party software, including Apple Remote Desktop. The prompts can be overwhelming for users, leading to fatigue and potential security risks. MDM functionality may provide a solution for businesses, but it can also be confusing for users and may not always be effective.

Users face fatigue from excessive privacy and security prompts, leading to potential security risks. Apple should improve the interface and provide a “best practice” mode for standard users, while offering advanced options for power users. MDM profiles can be effective in managing permissions, but exceptions may exist.

Joe discusses the need for a more user-friendly interface for Backblaze, highlighting the inconvenience of requiring users to navigate through system settings to enable it. Sam expresses frustration with 1Password’s synchronization issues and suggest exploring alternative password managers like Bitwarden. Additionally, Sam shares a story about an iPhone sinking in water and the inability to locate it using Find My iPhone due to a lack of iCloud syncing.

Jerry shares a tip for creating unique URLs for emails using AppleScript and TextExpander.

Jerry’s tip: APPLESCRIPT TO LINK TO APPLE MAIL MESSAGE
https://www.macsparky.com/blog/2019/02/applescript-to-link-to-apple-mail-message/

Chat concludes with concerns about AI, clarifying that Apple’s implementation prioritizes device-based processing and offers the option to disable AI features.

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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Best Of CCP - 221: DMARC, Eero's & Toupee's

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Joe discusses the problem with automatically forwarding mail in the era of DMARC and walks through an explanation from Kerio:

- You have a hosted Kerio email account, with a domain of clientname.com

- You have a forwarding rule configured to forward all email addressed to name@clientname.com to clientaddress@gmail.com

- Gmail enforces a DMARC policy

- Gmail sees the forwarded email as if they were coming from the original sender, e.g.: Facebook, PayPal, etc. etc.

- But the emails are NOT coming from the mailservers of those senders (e.g. mail.facebook.com, mail.paypal.com – fake examples), they are actually coming from the Kerio mail server (mail.itekmail.com)

- This triggers a failure of compliance with DMARC, since the sending mail server doesn't match the sending address.

- Unfortunately there isn't much we can do about this, other than use the main account (name@clientname.com), setting it up on a mail client of your choice, to avoid this problem.

- Joe and Jerry discuss Eero, and Joe explains the challenge of configuring an alternate subnet:

- Eero ad automatically assigned 192.168.7.1 subnet

- AV guy had static IPs manually assigned to two IR controllers

- had to use Advanced settings to hangs subnet to 10.0.0.0 (10.0.1.0 not an option; annoying because that's a common Apple one so this must be a common issue)

- tried to adjust starting IP to 10.0.0.1, subnet to 255.255.0.0, and ending IP to 10.0.1.254; didn't work

- after updating, allowed me to select 10.0.0.0 range and change it to 10.0.1.0 range, which worked