Command Control Power: Apple Tech Support & Business Talk

-The conversation about learning on the job continues. 

-Joe throws to Sam about identity management. Services like JumpCloud come up as a good option for even small offices. G Suite Cloud Identity Management is a great option for customers who already use Google for services like email and Google Drive.  Sam shares a shameless plug about a white paper regarding G Suite and Jamf Pro.  https://www.hcsonline.com/support/white-papers?start=20

-Microsoft provides great options in Azure as well. 

-We talk about how to implement services for a client when our own experience is limited. 

-Jerry asks a good question about how to sell something to a client that ultimately makes your life easier as a technician. 

-Sam goes on about Apple Business Manager and automated enrollment. 

-Jerry & Joe challenge Sam on why a small business should invest their time to getting this all set up. 

-Joe also makes a good point about the Apple custom store portal. This also allows the consultant to be added to create quotes.

-A call to all ACNs to sign up for Apple Business Manager: https://business.apple.com

-Joe schools us on verified phone calls on iPhone. 

-Jerry has been testing iOS 14 with positive results. 

-Both Jerry & Joe have been using RingCentral for years. Joe decided to clean house with his extensions. 

-Sam just has nana answering his calls. 

-Back to user sentiment surveys, Joe describes how apps seem to pause for an extended period before asking for a rating. 

-Exavault makes a diagnostics tool called MTR that Jerry has had success with for traceroutes.

-Security is brought up again by Joe. It reminds Sam of the “I’m a Mac” commercials with Windows Vista: https://youtu.be/8CwoluNRSSc

-Screen Recording, a long griped about feature on the show, is an admin only feature as of now in the beta release of Big Sur. The hope is that this will be configurable via MDM. 

-System 8 is now available virtually! https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/29/21346392/mac-os-8-electron-app-download-windows-linux-features

-One of Sam’s neighbors sometimes reminds him of Rick Moranis from Ghostbusters. It then turns into a story about the feud between his dog and the mailman. 

-Sam spins a yarn about setting up new Wi-Fi hardware and SSIDs at multiple client sites and the curve balls that are thrown at him.

-The conversation delves into Joe’s yoga practices.

-Since diving into the Wi-Fi security topic, Joe talks about 802.1x Authentication and other security measures. It starts a discussion about learning new technology on the job. 

Special Thanks to our friends:

-We debate the earth’s shape and whether or not it spins. Share your opinion!

-Satellite ISPs create a new level of headache for Joe’s remote support. 

-Joe thinks he is chronically under billing. Remote work may contribute to that issue.

-Jerry offers some ideas for a sliding scale.

-Michael Thomsen has some valuable input via Slack to contribute to the billing discussion.

-Right in line with the billing conversation, Jerry has a rough go at it while trying to migrate data for a client. It look him to the next day both on and off site and ended up billing only a fraction of his efforts.

-All this talk about how many hours to bill remind Sam of Monty Python and The Holy Grail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOrgLj9lOwk

-A debate ensues about what is a reasonable amount of time to bill and how much the client.

-Not to be left out, Sam has a new client that he under billed for onboarding services. He struggles to figure out how to deal with that because of their history with a previous consultant.

-Sam finds himself in a tough spot when he was “way high” on a ladder

-The show starts with Joe & Jerry as Sam is rushing back from a job. 

-Jerry has been spending his free time on Facebook Marketplace. He gives us a little history of stereo equipment as he picks up a couple of Marantz receivers. 

-A client reaches out to Joe for a fan repair on an old Mac running OS 9!

-Jerry puts out a call to listeners for old stereo equipment. 

-The guys recall childhood stories of being band geeks and nerds. 

-Pro tip from Jerry.  Cotton face masks under disposable masks have cut down on the fogginess that can occur for those who wear glasses. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085CNR5QQ/

-Friendly PSA - stock up on PPE while there is inventory and before the start of school brings more panic buying. 

-Jerry has a possible tip for those that have had trouble using QuickTime to display an iOS device. 

-“How did we do?” - we discuss how beneficial those post support surveys really are. 

-On the flip side, Malwarebytes took a unique approach to incentivize people to attend a seminar. 

-Sam had a negative experience with malwarebytes sales. 

-Some of Jerry’s clients text their requests. Sometimes the informality can create confusion. 

-Pro Tip from Joe: try deselecting the auto join checkbox in macOS Wi-Fi network list instead of removing networks.

-Sam also uses a script to remove unwanted networks. This can be run on an ongoing basis as a maintenance script for computers. 

-Fake keyboard sounds drive Jerry bananas

-Amazing calculator tips are blowing our minds.

-A TeamViewer tip from Jerry. Or not.

-Sam has done some research to automate the installation of TeamViewer Host as well as auto assigning and grant easy access. 

-Jerry shared a video of a person scamming the scammers by infiltrating their call center. Here is Jim Browning’s YouTube channel.  https://youtu.be/le71yVPh4uk

-Joe wants to get Sam’s take on his new AirPods Pro. The noise cancellation feature is incredible. He recalls Adam Engst’s TidBITS review and joe spot on it is.

-Jerry schools us about how to properly insert earplugs.

-Joe’s ears are working overtime with holding in his AirPod, holding up his glasses, and his mask. 

-Misplacing notes in the Notes app creates a difficult restore situation. Jerry gets help from MacMost.

-Joe finds himself in a similar situation to Sam where he received credit for an article with content from TidBITS Content Network. 

-Sam runs into a situation where a product he purchased form social media advertising stopped working and he found the warranty was only 30 days. Word to the wise, stay away from the Magic Bolt. 

-As Sam ventures out to clients again, he realizes he is not prepared for some basic functionality out in the world.

-Both Joe & Jerry are fancy coffee drinkers

-Jerry was in for a shock as he walks in the door to a client where they were not practicing the same measures that he was for safety.

-Joe was hopeful of a video from Jerry’s incident but no such luck.

-Sam thinks he’s taking the brave approach of assisting a client in setting up Google WiFi remotely. That’s just a regular workday for Joe.

-Google seems to require the Google WiFi app for setup, then the Google Home app moving forward.

-Google WiFi vs Eero. Which would you choose?

-The iOS screen sharing via QuickTime didn’t work for Sam and Joe recalls having a similar issue lately.

-All this discussion of remote access get Joe all riled up again about screen recording on macOS.

-A once exciting and now disappointing “feature” of Ubiquiti UniFi was up alerts. Sam figured this would be a great way to find out once a device came back online but instead, he received repeated and unnecessarily alerts throughout the day. So much so that he had to turn this feature off.

-Joe is in for quite a surprise while attempting to remotely upgrade a client to macOS 10.15.5. His client ended up on the beta of Big Sur! He had to do some extra work to create a script in Addigy using the seedutil command. This would allow him to get the status of computers in the Developer Program. Thanks to Shawn Maddock for pointing him in the right direction with seedutil. Joe has submitted those as scripts and custom facts for the community. 

-Sam also mentions managing beta program access via MDM configuration profile.

-A bug that may occur when enrolling into the Big Sur beta is that your computer will display a message stating that “your computer is being managed by swscan”, as noted in the developer documentation: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-big-sur-11-beta-release-notes

Special Thanks to our friends:

-Jerry gets a real kick out of Joe’s texts of frustration with clients.

-Joe’s patience is tried with a client simply unable to deal with passwords. It’s a remote session that would have taken down the best of us.

-Jerry has a password story of his own that caused Apple to lock the account.

-In Sam’s early career, he accidentally forwarded a negative email about a client…to that same client. Jerry has a similar story from his past.

-HCS had recently picked up a new client from another consultancy. During a conference call with a vendor, the sales engineer decided to open up and bad mouth the consultancy after just meeting on the phone.

-Jerry has a Dropbox story where terabytes of data were attempting to be synced over a poor internet connection.

-After one of Joe’s clients went down a road of potential concern working with someone claiming to be Norton and providing private information, he decided to investigate. As it turns out, it was a legitimate service from Norton called LifeLock.

-It does bring up a conversation about the validity and safety of using services like LifeLock.

-Somehow we end talking about maps…

-Joe starts rattling off the list of his beer flight.

-Joe is in Montana now and feels he has left a trail of COVID behind him.

-CCP is close to going into the political arena

-Both Sam & Jerry encounter situations where clients or others at a client site are not wearing masks.

-COVID fatigue is a thing.

-Everyone has their opinions about masks but various businesses and individuals have to contend with interacting with others.

-Sam realizes he needs something formal to make clients aware of his policies for onsite visits during COVID.

-Jerry has disposable masks that he uses in order to stay safe at client visits.

-Joe’s team has not reported anything alarming as of yet but Joe wonders if hazard pay is a necessity.

-Providing a disposable mask may be another way to protect yourself.

-Moving on to WWDC, we briefly discuss Apple’s move away from Intel. Joe recalls the similar move from PowerPC to Intel.

-A little Command Control Power Theater 

-Jerry laments the oncoming questions from users that will inevitably come about these changes and if they should wait on purchases.

-Joe is reminded of Osborn announcing the next generation while still trying to promote their current generation.

-Sam thought it was curious that Apple decided to use the names Universal 2 and Rosetta 2 in relation to apps that can work on both processors (Universal 2), and apps that were designed for Intel and need translation (Rosetta 2).

-Jerry was not that interested in WWDC.

-Thank goodness for the TidBITS Content Network to help capture significant announcements from WWDC and other events.  Visit http://tcn.tidbits.com to sign up.

-Jerry poses the question to the group: what if clients want to downgrade from macOS Catalina?

-Turns out Jerry has a real situation that dealt with this very issue. It turned into a cluster but it did require a Time Machine backup and reinstall of the previous OS. 

-An inadvertent sales tactic for Joe is reaching out to a client who has been sitting on a proposal for a long time and saying they will close the ticket. Astonishingly, it causes clients to immediately respond. 

-After two visits to a client, Sam experience issues out of his controls, one with Apple and one with Jamf. He describes how it just makes him look bad. Joe and Jerry can relate. 

-Jerry has a great relationship with an Apple Authorized Reseller, Micro Decision Systems in NY. Richard Cooperman has always made the client experience easier. In a recent instance, Jerry describes having a tough time swapping out a recently purchased problematic computer.  Jerry personally offered to step up to the plate for the customer but Richard came through in the end. 

-Sam can’t wrap his head around the mess at a new client. Various application and operating system versions, status of admin accounts, compliance are all factor that are making his head hurt. 

-Jerry hits the nail on the head when describing unexpected hours and a hurt to the bottom line. 

-Jerry is reminded of being frustrated with clients that always seem like they have something better to do. 

Special Thanks to our friends:

Command Control Power has donated one month's Patreon income from Command Control Power to these three charities: Black Lives Matter, Communities United Against Police Brutality, and Campaign Zero. Please consider a donation if you would like to support one or more of these organizations.

-This week we welcome back Richard Wingfield, Head Geek at Envision Design in Houston, TX.

-Richard has talent in photography and has taken a picture a day on Instagram @rbwaia

-Joe recommends a guided meditation app on iOS called Waking Up by Sam Harris.

-Sam has experienced float tanks as a form of meditation and relaxation.

-Working to calm your “monkey mind” can take practice.

-Currently, Envision is only working with their clients in a remote capacity.

-On the topic of photography, Joe mentions the Front Steps Project in Neeham, MA.

-Richard discusses some of his key components in working with his clients in a managed services capacity, like Synology, Dropbox, Barracuda, etc.

-As more of our clients work from home, we discover just how many only use their iPhone as a hotspot or those who are just stealing their neighbor’s wifi.

-Most of Richard’s clients have been respectful of not having his team in and much of their staff is still mostly remote as well.

-He did have one that needed onsite work to set up surveillance system for a client that just completed a new space as the pandemic hit.

-Sam has a client that has had a very tough time with video conferencing, even though their network and ISP speeds are very stable.

-Richard had suggested a device called Domotz to Sam, to investigate network related issues at his client. Richard installs Domotz at all of his clients as part of his services to them. Domotz has a hardware device that can be installed but even more handy is their Synology app.

-Domotz charges $19/month per site and includes a powerful feature set for reporting, network topology, and device priority.

-Richard put considerable effort into making billing changes in his company. In part, it was in response to clients not understanding what his monthly charges were for. In these changes, he split out costs for actual support time, called Consulting & Support and costs for items they may resell, called Software & Services.

-These changes to his billing procedure helped, especially when clients may look to shop around.

-Richard talks about minimum standards for signing and working with any new client.

-Some clients only learn after something happens.

-Syncing is not backup!

-As a gesture to his clients, Richard and his company gave many hours on top of MSP support to assist remote setups.

-Give a listen to Richard Wingfield’s new podcast, The Black Hole Cafe. He records the show with his daughter and the first episode is dedicated to coffee: https://www.theblackholecafe.com