571: The ACEs 2024 Debrief We Never Knew We Needed

In this episode of Command Control Power, host Joe and co-hosts Sam and Jerry debrief the ACEs Conference 2024. The episode also touches on the various technologies and vendor booths that fascinated the hosts, including LionGuard and Halo PSA, as well as the different people they met and reconnected with. Sam's presentation on his MSP journey is highlighted alongside humorous moments and key takeaways. A special thanks to Justin Esgar for organizing a successful conference!

Topics:

Adam Engst delivered a thought provoking presentation about AI.

A great list of patrons, friends, and fellow consultants were at the conference this year.

We reflect on the overall conference experience and the parts we loved the most.

Smaller conferences offer a more intimate experience.

Sam had the opportunity to present at ACES this year and he discusses how we are always learning.

He opened the kimono so to speak to get into his billing practices over the years.

“Don’t negotiate against yourself” - Joe Saponare

Brian Lattanzio and Omar Elshamy came to represent Apple, as well as offer a custom training.

Jerry will be at the next one, as long as it’s “east of the Mississippi”.

561: UniFi-ed by Chaos: Adventures in Ubiquiti Network Warfare

• Discussing the new MacBook Air M3 and its migration process

• Highlighting the improvements in data transfer speeds

• Network hardware lifespan and how to recommend upgrades to clients

• Signs to look for to determine if network hardware needs to be upgraded

• Discussing the benefits of Wifi 7

• Common challenges faced during network upgrades and how to address them

• Exploring Ubiquiti UniFi products including the Flex Switch and Switch Ultra

• The client needed to replace an access point with a switch and an access point.

• The client also had a builder working on their house who reset the network devices, causing additional problems.

• The issue was resolved after the network devices were reconfigured.

• Learned that the client should not touch the network devices and to label them accordingly.

• Unifi devices were discussed. There are pros and cons to pre-configuring the devices on site vs on location. ░

558: Battery Powered M4 iMac

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.

531: Interview With Mr. Macintosh of MrMacintosh.com

Topics:

-This week we welcome the one and only Mr. Macintosh (aka Ryan).

-Ryan has been around Apple products since 2010

-His first Mac was a blue & white G3 tower.

-During a rough hiring time, he found an all Mac based company that hired him.

-His company was then taken over by a Fortune 500 company, which provided him with great opportunities.

-We talk about finding helpful forums with detailed solutions to a problem you are researching.
Krypted - Charles Edge
DerFlounder - Rich Trouton

-ChatGPT and similar services are still in their infancy and are inaccurate at times.

-Mr. Macintosh started his site to try to give back to the community but discusses the challenges of running a blog site.

-He talks about a few specific articles that he recalls.

-Spelling and grammar has always been a difficulty but he took it as a way to get better.

-“When you have a passion, it makes it easier to spend that extra time on it.”

-There is a level of responsibility and stress when posting things like commands that can be destructive.

-We get into supported operating systems and hardware.

-“Right to repair” is a hot topic that Joe has some thoughts on.

-You can find Ryan on the MacAdmins Slack and on Twitter (or X) as ClassicII.

285: MacMini, Why For Art Thou?

Topics:

-After recent hardware announcements from Apple, Jerry, Joe & Sam discuss the Mac mini specifically and where this updated model falls into their client needs. And what about a new iMac?

-Sam is excited about the new iPad Pro (he may have purchased one) but Jerry shoots down new product talk

-TidBITS Content Network is continually proving its value for the team

-Joe has an excellent tip about using affiliate links when doing email marketing like TidBITS

-Based on a listener’s feedback in our Slack channel, Sam recommends SetApp, a subscription service for Mac apps

-Turning on mark down support in secure notes is now a feature of 1Password. Thanks to Joe’s feedback/rant online? Who knows.

-Jerry struggled on-site at a client with an odd Gmail issue with Apple Mail and as it turns out, it was the Keychain.

-One of Joe’s client has an issue where their iCloud outgoing emails are going to spam for recipients. He utilized a blacklist tool to see if their IP or domain was on any blacklists. After working hard to diagnose, it turned out to be the fact that the user was using their ISP’s mail server to send messages.

-FileVault encryption proved to be more difficult for Jerry and it required running Disk Utility from the Recovery partition

-One of Joe’s clients was trying a remote session and found MacHelp Mate!