040: Remote Support Workflows and Coverage when Traveling

Recorded live March 4, 2014

Topics:

- Rumpus FTP server

- Device Enrollment Program; there goes 15 minutes billable/device… leaving more time for client face-time?

- remote support and workflows for being away from the office, either at a conference or on holiday

- Wi-Fi quality in hotels when traveling

- timing vacations as extended weekends instead of full weeks to minimize downtime

- teaming up with local consultants for backup coverage; filtering incoming requests in your absence

- away messages and advance notice for clients; why shake the hornet's nest?

- SendLater plugin

- going off the grid for a day... or nine… I took nine.

- subcontractor rates; professional courtesies

- SIMporium.com

- representing the contracting company, or generically Apple, or explaining the coverage arrangement between the consultants to the client

- sharing secure notes with trusted partner consultants; e.g. MonkeyBox.com

- monitoring client machines with Watchman Monitoring

- the importance of comprehensive documentation

Followup:

- re: episode 039: when enabling (Legacy) FileVault on 10.6 and prior, there's an option to "use secure erase" when deleting the old home folder after it's been migrated to the encrypted disk image

039: Goto Fail

Recorded live February 25, 2014

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Topics:

- Joe asks and answers: what is the "J" that appears in some emails? (J is a smiley face in the WingDings font)

- Joe wonders why some people include an extra "P" at the bottom of some emails, i.e. "P Please consider the environment before printing this email" (the P is supposed to be a nice forest scene in the WebDings font)

- Jerry reports being able to receive email using Mail.app in Mavericks version 10.9.2.

- Apple's Goto Fail SSL bug: strategies for proactively notifying clients; timing of updates; test your system at gotofail.com

- Sam's Mavericks 101 class "aha moments"

- Sam recommends Revise IT training app by Amsys

- security concerns about Target Disk Mode and resetpassword utility on Recovery partition

- Jerry, Sam, and our live listeners offer Joe some ideas about what to do when Time Capsule fills up

- Joe offers a tip: temporarily "promote" clients to VIP in order to receive notifications when they email you back about something pertinent, for example when coordinating a time to meet, or if you want to know immediately when a client confirms you should proceed with some work

038: Weather Permitting

Recorded live February 18, 2014

Topics:

- Jerry receives a call from the brother of Samantha West

- Joe recommends the SanDisk Extreme 64 GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive for diagnostic drives because it's extremely fast and reliable; SanDisk finally announced a fast 128 GB version: SanDisk Extreme PRO® USB 3.0 Flash Drive; some non-spammy reviews from Tom's Hardware and The Wirecutter

- use FileWave Lightning to automate creating our diagnostic partitions?

- Sam recommends the Skooba Design Cable Stable DLX, originally recommended by Ryan Powell in the chat

- Sam explores TeenSafe for iOS security and parental controls; see also OpenDNS, Intego Family Protector, and Spector

037: Anecdotal Anecdotes

Recorded live February 11, 2014

Topics:

- Jerry walks us through how to resolve a failure to start Mail server and Calendar server on Mac OS X Server after renewing a certificate, and tells us what Dovecot means

- Sam explains how to resolve failure to login to iCloud by removing the NetworkInterfaces.plist

Simplenote

Notational Velocity

SubEthaEdit

ScreenSteps; see also: Clarify

ScreenFlow

OmniGraffle

OmniDiskSweeper

GrandPerspective

Krypted.com

TunnelBear

MonkeyBox

036: Low Hanging Fruit & Slow Paying Clients

Recorded live February 4, 2014

Topics:

- dealing with clients who are slow to pay

- recurring payment processing options: Ryan said, "jotform.com for cheap forms with Stripe recurring payments" and Allen said "keep the card with Merchant Warehouse; stripe will do this on its own; or recurly.com"

- serving on the ACN Advisory Council as a way to get more involved and give back to the community 

- Printers going off-line and needing to be power cycled

- why kernel_task sometimes pegs the CPU at 100% or more: seems to be related to throttling CPU intensive tasks to cool the system down when it's too warm by prioritizing simpler system tasks

- re: recent discussion on Accidental Tech Podcast about pitfalls in modern technology that our kids will think were crazy: no one mentioned passwords!

035: Interview with Mike Kingsley, Kingsley MacConsulting

Interview recorded January 21, 2014; Intro recorded on January 28, 2014

Intro:

- testing Mavericks Server; being Client 0

- using Profile Manager to easily configure CalDAV, CardDAV, VPN services; Sam's trick to save a profile without a user name

- the trial and error of troubleshooting a server leads to uncertainty

- using authrestart to bypass FileVault 2 on next restart; installing software updates that require a restart now does this automatically

- force quitting fsck to allow mounting a drive that was failing to mount, even read-only, after letting fsck complete

- using the "security" command to read the contents of the user's keychain

Interview:

- Mike started his consulting practice in 2004, a great year for Apple

- first computer was an Apple IIe in 1984

- Apple Store has been great source of referrals; helps to think of Apple as a partner, and promote their services like AppleCare and JointVenture

- JointVenture can be a great supplement to help from Apple consultants

- first job was working at Disneyland; customer service was ingrained in the culture and top quality; out of five day training for new hires, three days are purely customer service; helps with consulting: owning issues, taking responsibility; e.g., customer drops ice cream cone, and employee walks customer over to the ice cream stand to facilitate the resolution; how to deal with people who are upset, hearing both sides; if you can't help, who can?