046: Secret Out-of-Band Show

Recorded on April 9, 2014

This week we are pleased to be sponsored by Drobo.  Check out DroboStore.com and use coupon code CCP50 for $50 off the Drobo 5D or Drobo 5N.

Topics:

- Heartbleed; more resources: Heartbleed Hit List, Bruce Schneier, Ars Technica, CloudFlare, NetCraft

- Windows XP End of Life; Laplink PCmover ($60) can help migrate from Windows XP; to keep XP machines running or not?

- referring clients to the Apple Store and asking them to drop your name; providing written recommendations for clients to take into the store; introducing a client to a representative in the store

- iNet, great network scanning utility recommended by Joe

045: Tech-Savvy Clients and Migration Assistant Woes

Recorded Live April 8, 2014

Thanks to our sponsor, Drobo. Check out the new Drobo Gen 3 with USB 3.0 – move your disk packs from a Gen 2 (four bay FireWire 800) model into the new Gen 3 for an easy upgrade path and 300-500% improvement in speed!  Visit drobostore.com and use coupon code CCP50 for $50 off your Drobo 5D or Drobo 5N.

Topics:

- ARQ recommended by Jerry for backing up to Amazon S3 or Amazon Glacier

- ZyWALL USG50 recommended by Joe for site-to-site VPN tunnels, very stable router

- “cool” clients

- dealing with semi-technical “inside guys” at clients: “don’t open the box”; work from a checklist; “don’t touch the server” and “don’t touch the network”

- Ubiquiti PicoStation recommended by Jerry for extending wireless networks outdoors or to another building

- Migration Assistant woes: Plan A, Migration Assistant, hung with less than a minute remaining; Plan B, Carbon Copy Cloner, detected I/O errors; Plan C, restore from Time Machine backup, worked like a charm

- Jerry called it: Migration Assistant was failing due to bad blocks on the source machine

- recommendation before starting Migration Assistant: fully update source machine, verify disk partition map and file system, rebuild disk directory, and check for bad blocks

044: Tales from Decrypt

Recorded live April 1, 2014

Topics:

- Sam is growing the practice

- freeing up time to do business development, plan projects, talk to clients

- travel charge?

- how to reimburse employee for mileage

- use PDFPen to strike through or highlight line items on invoice

- to send or not to send the zero balance invoice

- advising clients about billing for two techs on certain projects

- Jerry’s MacBook Air lockout; manual decrypt using command line

- issues with users connecting via SMB to Mavericks Server

043: Synology DS1513+ vs. Mac mini Server: Return of the Jerry

Recorded live March 25, 2014

We are pleased to be joined this week by Ryan Grimes of HoosierMac Consulting.  Ryan has been a longtime user of Synology products and has been writing a series of blog posts comparing Synology network attached storage devices to the Mac mini Server.

Thanks to our exclusive sponsor this week, Smile Software.  Smile makes great products for Mac and iOS, including our favorite time-saver, TextExpander.

Topics:

- Ryan’s comparison of Mac mini w/Thunderbolt RAID storage vs. Synology 1513+: Part 1 & Part 2

- How to set up CrashPlan Cloud Backup headless on a Synology NAS

- CloudStation

- Plex

- complications from Apple changing default connection method for Mac servers to SMB when using Bonjour

- MineCraft server

- DHCP, DNS, VPN services

- Surveillance Station

- how to find the "Performa 600" among Synology’s huge product lineup

- live demo of DSM 5.0

- cleaning up after non-certified fly-by-nights (“Anger Work”)

- Brett Terpstra's blog post on automating dynamic date math in TextExpander

042: Managed Services Roundtable with Allen Hancock, Luis Giraldo, and Kevin Ginger, Part 2

Recorded March 2, 2014

Sponsored by MoonClerk

This is part two of a special two-part Managed Services roundtable feature six members of the Apple Consultants Network, discussing the benefits of a Managed Services pricing model and how to transition a traditional hourly-billing consultancy into offering Managed Services.

Thanks to our brand new sponsor, MoonClerk – an easy and inexpensive way to collect recurring payments for your subscription services.

Thanks also to our special guests for this roundtable:

Allen Hancock, The Orchard Solutions and Watchman Monitoring
Luis Giraldo, Ook Enterprises and MonkeyBox
Kevin Ginger, kGinger Consulting

Topics:

- offering clients "self service" options through CasperSuite or RobotCloud

- building a "book of service" to work toward an exit plan for your consultancy; building something of value; getting acquired

- the benefits of talking about your service offerings to get comfortable pitching them to clients

- the fact is, servers should be managed proactively to ensure reliability, and Managed Services is a natural way to provide proactive services, billed automatically on a monthly basis consistent with the way services are rendered

- with Mission Critical services, the consultant takes on a psychological burden to ensure that the services keep working; Managed Services makes it equitable for the consultant

Resources:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/acn-alumni

http://watchmanmonitoring.com/acn-benefit

https://www.watchmanmonitoring.com/sample-agreement/

http://mhelpdesk.com/better-way-to-inform-customers-about-how-they-are-being-billed/

http://community.watchmanmonitoring.com

http://mac-msp.com

Value-Based Fees by Alan Weiss

Small Biz Thoughts by Karl W. Palachuk

Tools:

- Watchman Monitoring

- MonkeyBox

- MoonClerk

- ZenDesk

- mHelpDesk

- TeamViewer

- Support menu by Forget Computers

- RobotCloud

- Casper Suite

- Backup Minder

041: Managed Services Roundtable with Allen Hancock, Luis Giraldo, and Kevin Ginger, Part 1

Recorded March 2, 2014

Sponsored by MoonClerk

This is part one of a special two-part Managed Services roundtable feature six members of the Apple Consultants Network, discussing the benefits of a Managed Services pricing model and how to transition a traditional hourly-billing consultancy into offering Managed Services.

Thanks to our brand new sponsor, MoonClerk – an easy and inexpensive way to collect recurring payments for your subscription services.

Thanks also to our special guests for this roundtable:
Allen Hancock, The Orchard Solutions and Watchman Monitoring
Luis Giraldo, Ook Enterprises and MonkeyBox
Kevin Ginger, kGinger Consulting

Topics:

- using half-day and full-day rates to discourage "tire-kickers" and very infrequent break-fix clients, helping to position Managed Services as a better alternative

- should a Managed Services Provider include Help Desk services? end-user training? value-adds vs. just keeping the systems running

- transitioning from "one-man-show" to managed services consultancy; see also: CCP 013: Easing into Managed Services with Allen Hancock and 010: Managed Services discussion with Luis Giraldo

- developing systems for consistency, standardization to improve efficiency

- Quantifying the Value of Managed Services blog post by Luis

- "first 15 minutes free for $_/mo" is a good first step; relieves burden bulk hours

- business clients are more efficient billing-wise, and from the perspective of delivering value

- residential clients are higher-maintenance, higher-touch, more-demanding, and less efficient

- yet, Allen points out that residential clients can be more satisfying to work with, and when charging hourly it doesn't matter because they all pay the same rate

- enforcing the use of a help desk ticketing system

- user training: why should users use your ticketing system?

- reminding clients to restart

Memorable lines:

- "Hourly billing breeds inefficiency." – Luis (see also: "how hourly billing is the scum of the Earth" in 010: Managed Services discussion with Luis Giraldo)

"All inclusive billing breeds efficiency." – Luis

"We hate spending time tracking time." – Luis

"Allen, is there any way to wire that support menu to a restart command?" – Joe
"And we don't need to save, right?" – Allen
"If they call, their call can be directed to voicemail if they haven't restarted." – Joe
"Spoken like a true 'break/fix man'." – Luis