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

580: Mission Critical: The Power Struggle

In this episode of Command Control Power, the team discusses ongoing technical challenges involving network equipment and power management. Joe shares updates on troubleshooting a host of issues with his elevator client, alongside dealing with generator compatibilities and frequent power outages. The conversation includes insights from Jerry and Sam, while addressing client concerns and experiences with improving power protection and network reliability. They delve into various power backup solutions and the frustrations of managing sophisticated networking equipment under unpredictable conditions.

-Joe has an update to his elevator client story.

-Sam and Jerry both have generators now but of course, have not lost power since the installation.

-To have true uninterruptible power using a UPS, there are specific models and settings needed.

-Joe recommends the Ecoflow River 2 for a portable power station: https://us.ecoflow.com/products/river-2-portable-power-station

-We want to know what Joe has to do when troubleshooting requires an onsite visit.

-On top of all of this, Joe’s client has 2 UniFi mission critical switches: https://store.ui.com/us/en/pro/category/all-power-tech/products/usw-mission-critical

-The “Joe” recipe for recycling power on UniFi devices is to unplug for 2 minutes.

-For warranty, always buy direct from UniFi.

-Sam really wants to know the client mood after everything that has happened.

-Jerry is sporting a CCP shirt from friend and Patron, Richard Wingfield. Thanks Richard!

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Best Of CCP - Interview With Adam Engst Of the TidBITS Content Network

578: Tech Upgrades, MFA Madness and More!

Topics:

-Sam talks about his recent trip to Las Vegas to see Dead & Co at The Sphere

-BackBlaze has increased the price of sending a hard drive to $279.

-Jerry is running macOS Sequoia on his daily driver.

-Each year, the path of how users upgrade is a hot button topic.

-Sam likes Erase-install from Graham Pugh.

-A minimum point release is a safe bet for stability.

-The same people that don’t like security rules are the very people that are more likely to fall for things like phishing emails.

-Pulling that same thread, Microsoft is moving to conditional access for MFA and sunsetting per-user MFA.

-Joe talks about Apple disabling support for Post Script files. Sam does a like test.

-Jerry turned to Archive.org for an older version of the Drobo Dashboard app and he finds a live link to what he needed.

-He also suggests NextDNS for additional protection from harmful sites.

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577: Positivity and Practical Tips: Navigating Tech Challenges with New Insights

In this episode, we discuss a range of topics from VPN configuration issues with the UniFi system, to the advanced security features of iCloud. They dive into real-world tech troubleshooting experiences, including a detailed examination of the ‘PERFECT DATA' scam through Microsoft 365 and the pros and cons of Apple's new support AI. The team finishes by sharing practical and actionable tips, such as enabling advanced data protection in iCloud and dealing with HFS-formatted CDs on modern Mac computers. Along the way, we share personal anecdotes and experiences.

Jerry describes his VPN and Network Configuration Challenges.

He uses UniFi’s Teleport Solution. “It’s the bomb.”

Based on Jerry’s advice, Sam uses Hudu’s documentation tools

Joe’s 1Password Tips and Tricks

Sam has a nightmare Microsoft 365 security incident involving an Enterprise Application called PERFECT DATA. He has some tips to help avoid something like this in the future.
-Microsoft Entra>Users>User Settings>Users can register applications (turn OFF)
-Applications>Enterprise Applications>Consent and Permissions>Do not allow user consent (or allowed from verified publishers)

Conditional Access Challenges

Should you buy licenses directly from Microsoft or through a reseller?

Apple's Security Features

Advanced Data Protection

Legacy File Systems and Solutions

Wrapping Up and Final Thoughts