Speaker 1: The new Nest Hub watches you as you sleep. But
Speaker 1: there's a reason. Chrome adds live captions to pretty much
Speaker 1: any audio or video on the web. Plus an Apple
Speaker 1: Store secret and your tech questions Answered? What's going on?
Speaker 1: I'm Rich Dmiro and this is Rich on Tech, the
Speaker 1: podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think
Speaker 1: you should know about, and it's where I answer the
Speaker 1: questions that you send me. I'm the tech reporter at
Speaker 1: KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Hopefully you are having
Speaker 1: a fantastic day wherever you are. So I just used
Speaker 1: task grab it for the very first time, and this
Speaker 1: is a company that I kind of actually forgot about.
Speaker 1: To be honest, you know, I always have this list
Speaker 1: of things I want to do around the house, but
Speaker 1: I just never do them, and I know it's bad.
Speaker 1: It's bad. It's bad. I've been on a kick though.
Speaker 1: I've really been trying to be more productive in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, get through all the things that I need
Speaker 1: to do that. You know, a lot of these things,
Speaker 1: like these little things on your to do list, you
Speaker 1: know they cost money, and so you don't necessarily want
Speaker 1: to do them because you don't want to spend the
Speaker 1: money but then you sit there and you're like, why
Speaker 1: am I not doing this? Why am I not doing this?
Speaker 1: And it really comes down to like just kind of
Speaker 1: coordinating and just saying like, look, I can do it.
Speaker 1: You know, It's like it's not that expensive sometimes. And
Speaker 1: so that was the case with some ring lights that
Speaker 1: I wanted to put up that I've had sitting around
Speaker 1: my house for a while. And so finally I forget.
Speaker 1: I actually got a pitch from task grab It for
Speaker 1: something totally unrelated, and I was like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I forgot about task grab It, And so I went
Speaker 1: on the app and I looked I had my old
Speaker 1: account because I did a story with task grab It,
Speaker 1: like many many years ago. Let me see how many
Speaker 1: years ago? This was task grab It KTLA uh May sixth,
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen. Okay, so five six years ago. That's a
Speaker 1: long time ago. So I, you know, so I created
Speaker 1: an account back then when you know when I did
Speaker 1: the story with them, but they arranged it, so I,
Speaker 1: you know, I met up with a tasker. We did
Speaker 1: a couple of tasks, blah blah blah. It was really cool.
Speaker 1: Ikia bought them. Anyway, long story short, I booked this
Speaker 1: guy on task grab it to install these ring lamps,
Speaker 1: and I got to say he did a great job.
Speaker 1: He was a little late, but it was finding you
Speaker 1: was such a nice guy that I really didn't mind.
Speaker 1: And total for the two lights was a hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: I mean that's pretty good in my you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not a electrician, but I think a hundred bucks is
Speaker 1: pretty good. And I love how it's all through the app.
Speaker 1: It's on demand. You chat with the person that you
Speaker 1: you know, want to use, so you know, you can
Speaker 1: look at you put in what you want to do,
Speaker 1: and then it gives you kind of like the taskers
Speaker 1: that can do that, and then you pick one you
Speaker 1: you know, I guess book them and then you kind
Speaker 1: of chat with them. The funny thing is if people
Speaker 1: wanted to get around this, they could, They could just
Speaker 1: chat and then say like, oh, just call me and
Speaker 1: then arrange the job. But then you don't, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like you're it's kind of like you don't want
Speaker 1: to do that. You know, you don't want to get
Speaker 1: around these systems that these tech company built because there's
Speaker 1: protections built in for you and the person that's doing
Speaker 1: the work at your place, So you know, it seems
Speaker 1: like why wouldn't I just you know, contact them outside
Speaker 1: of task grab It and just say, hey, can we
Speaker 1: arrange this for twenty bucks less? But I don't know,
Speaker 1: not really worth it and I love having the receipt
Speaker 1: in there and it's great, So I gotta say a
Speaker 1: great little job. I think they did a nice job.
Speaker 1: Everything's working nicely, and I don't know, check it out.
Speaker 1: I'll put the link to task grab It in the
Speaker 1: show notes so you can check them out if you
Speaker 1: have stuff to do around the house, like putting stuff together.
Speaker 1: I still have another thing, so I'll be honest. The
Speaker 1: other thing, this is the reason why I thought of it,
Speaker 1: is because we got a basketball net for Christmas and
Speaker 1: I still have not put it together, and so I
Speaker 1: need to get a tasker to do that as well.
Speaker 1: And again it gives you like a little you know,
Speaker 1: price and everything like how much it's estimated to be. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I would recommend it. I think task grab It you
Speaker 1: did a great job. Thank you. All right, let's talk
Speaker 1: about the first item of the week, the new Nest Hub.
Speaker 1: And I love the Nest Hub. It's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite smart displays. But I'll be honest, I'm having a
Speaker 1: little envy with the Amazon side of things right now
Speaker 1: because of all the stuff that works with their stuff.
Speaker 1: Whenever I go into the Amazon four Star store, I
Speaker 1: always look at like I saw the new what is it,
Speaker 1: the Echo ten, which just looks so nice. It just
Speaker 1: it follows you around, and I'm definitely gonna buy one.
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna get one for my mom and
Speaker 1: my dad because then I can video chat with them
Speaker 1: from across the country and they don't. You know, the
Speaker 1: problem with video chatting on the phone is that it
Speaker 1: doesn't you know, it's just annoying to hold your phone,
Speaker 1: it's shaky. This will follow you around. It kind of
Speaker 1: swivels left to right, and it's just easy for video chatting.
Speaker 1: And my wife was like, oh my god, It'd be
Speaker 1: perfect for our kitchen because then we can chat with
Speaker 1: your mom while we're cooking. We often chat while we're
Speaker 1: cooking and it will just follow us left to right.
Speaker 1: The Nest Hub Max sort of does that, but it
Speaker 1: does it on the camera only. Anyway, I digress. The
Speaker 1: new Nest Hub Ub. You know, this is like their
Speaker 1: smaller smart display, and what I love about their smart
Speaker 1: display is the fact that it has Google built in,
Speaker 1: so of course I love that. But it also displays
Speaker 1: your Google Photos, which is really really nice because if
Speaker 1: I got one of these Amazon ones, I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to show my Google photos because they don't play nice.
Speaker 1: Of course, you know, you have to live in a
Speaker 1: silo with all these things. But the new Nest Hub
Speaker 1: hundred bucks. It does all the stuff that it typically does,
Speaker 1: but the big new feature is this Motion Sense, which
Speaker 1: is a radar that's built in low power radar, and
Speaker 1: it tracks your sleep, so it watches you breathe. It
Speaker 1: also has a microphone built in, a thermometer built in,
Speaker 1: temperature sensors. I should say, so you get this report
Speaker 1: of exactly how you slept, and you can see your
Speaker 1: disturbances like coughing and storing. And Google is sending me
Speaker 1: one to test, so I can't wait. I know people
Speaker 1: think it's creepy that Google is watching you sleep, but no, no, no,
Speaker 1: sleep is very very important right now. The Apple Watch
Speaker 1: is severely in the sleep department. Fitbit is great, but
Speaker 1: they're owned by Google, so I mean, and you also
Speaker 1: have to wear something on your wrist. This you don't
Speaker 1: have to wear anything you just go to bed, and
Speaker 1: it kind of senses that there's a sleep activity happening.
Speaker 1: And I asked them, I said, well, what about the
Speaker 1: rest of the stuff that's happening in the bed, and
Speaker 1: they said, no, we only look at sleep, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it sees other stuff, but it it just
Speaker 1: doesn't count that in your you know, in the activity.
Speaker 1: So I know that's going to take a little bit
Speaker 1: of getting used to. People are definitely not open to
Speaker 1: the idea of Google sensing all this stuff. But I
Speaker 1: think it's great. I think it's awesome. I think that
Speaker 1: the data that you're getting outweighs any sort of the
Speaker 1: privacy concerns. And yeah, it's weird that it's recording audio
Speaker 1: and in your bedroom, but I think it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of neat to have that sleep data. So after a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks of getting this sleep data, it's going
Speaker 1: to give you information on how to improve your sleep.
Speaker 1: So maybe you should go to sleep earlier, Maybe the
Speaker 1: temperature is not right, maybe a toss and turn all
Speaker 1: the time, and you can you know, maybe your allergies
Speaker 1: are acting up with the coughing, the snoring is keeping
Speaker 1: you up. You just don't know until you see this data.
Speaker 1: The only thing that's kind of weird is you would
Speaker 1: think this would be a free feature, but clearly they
Speaker 1: have plans to charge for this because it says sleep
Speaker 1: sensing is available as a free preview until next year,
Speaker 1: which means that's an indication that this will be a Theoretically,
Speaker 1: they'll charge for it next year sometime. I think they're
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how this is gonna exist with
Speaker 1: Fitbit because Fitbit has a premium subscription of I think
Speaker 1: it's ten dollars a month, so of course we'll it
Speaker 1: be free for those people, probably, but I think they're
Speaker 1: still trying to figure that out. But anyway, the new
Speaker 1: Nest Hub is one hundred bucks. Their pre orders are
Speaker 1: open right now. I don't know when the Nest Hub
Speaker 1: is available. I think in the next month. But cool feature.
Speaker 1: I have my Nest Hub in the bedroom. I love
Speaker 1: it in there because it doesn't have a camera. You
Speaker 1: get all the you know. I just did a routine
Speaker 1: where it turns on my night my bedside lamps every
Speaker 1: night at sunset with a nice candlelight color and puts
Speaker 1: on some smooth music so I can relax before I
Speaker 1: go to bed. So I think it's it's a great
Speaker 1: little device for the bedroom. And I think that Google
Speaker 1: definitely knows that, because they're Google, they know everything. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get to the first. Uh, let's get to the
Speaker 1: first question from Lester Rich. I have an epsn et
Speaker 1: twenty seven to twenty. Recently, I got a message that
Speaker 1: some documents would not print after some past date in
Speaker 1: March because Google retiring some app. Lots of sums in here.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, I can't print anything from my
Speaker 1: iPhone ten s Max. My wife can't print from her
Speaker 1: iPhone twelve pro. The epsoin iPrint app just twirls indefinitely
Speaker 1: and never finds the printer. Is there a solution sent
Speaker 1: for my iPhone? Lester? Lester, you ignored all of the
Speaker 1: emails that you got about this app and some impending doom,
Speaker 1: and now you're having problems just like they imagined you would,
Speaker 1: and you're emailing me for a solution. So, uh, look,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say, come on, Lester, you gotta
Speaker 1: you gotta be on top of this stuff, but the
Speaker 1: reality is you got to be on top of this stuff.
Speaker 1: And clearly I don't know what's going on here. I
Speaker 1: don't know what why the Google said they're retiring some
Speaker 1: app or whatever EPSOM said, but it kind of warned you.
Speaker 1: And now it's like, oh, and now that I want
Speaker 1: to actually print something, I can't do it. So here's
Speaker 1: my advice. Uh, I don't think that the printer stopped
Speaker 1: working with the printer app. Perhaps it's a new app
Speaker 1: you need or whatever. So what I would do is
Speaker 1: I would delete your printer from the wireless network and
Speaker 1: you know, reform at it to like factory specs. You know,
Speaker 1: just do the do a hard reset, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's instructions online on how to do that. Usually push
Speaker 1: a pin some sort of uh you know, paper clip
Speaker 1: in some sort of hole in the back of the
Speaker 1: printer for a couple seconds, let it restart, or maybe
Speaker 1: a hold down two buttons, whatever you do. Get that
Speaker 1: back to factory. Then I would delete the app from
Speaker 1: your phone and I would start over. Reconnect the printer
Speaker 1: to your network, download the app to your phone, log
Speaker 1: it all in, sign it all up, and see if
Speaker 1: that helps. Let me know. But that's what I would
Speaker 1: do personally, or you know, go ahead and look in
Speaker 1: your email for that Google message and see what they
Speaker 1: were saying was gonna change and make this program not
Speaker 1: work so well, But Lester, I know. I'll be honest,
Speaker 1: I have something similar happening. This thing called eb which
Speaker 1: is a photo device. They sent me an email that
Speaker 1: said until unless you update this device, it's not gonna
Speaker 1: work after June fifteenth or whatever. And sure, sure enough,
Speaker 1: they've been sending this email to me for two months.
Speaker 1: I've not updated the device. But to be fair, I
Speaker 1: don't really use the device, so I don't need it.
Speaker 1: But if I ever did later on in the year,
Speaker 1: I'll be the same. I'll be in the same boat
Speaker 1: as Lester. So I'm not I'm not kind of pooh
Speaker 1: poohing you, Lester. I'm just saying that we're human. This
Speaker 1: is what we do. We put things off into the
Speaker 1: last possible minute, and then all of a sudden, it's like, now,
Speaker 1: what was I supposed to do there? And it's too late.
Speaker 1: All right, Let's talk about a feature on Chrome I
Speaker 1: thought was really cool. I just think this is really amazing,
Speaker 1: and pretty much Google has added close captioning to the
Speaker 1: entire web. Any audio or video that you can watch
Speaker 1: on Chrome, you can now close caption and this is
Speaker 1: through a feature called live caption, and you can turn
Speaker 1: it on in Chrome Settings. This is Chrome on your
Speaker 1: desktop and you basically turn this on and anytime you
Speaker 1: start playing a video, it starts transcribing it, which is
Speaker 1: just really phenomenal. So, I mean, I'm talking anything, even
Speaker 1: in like your Google Photos. Let me try. Let me
Speaker 1: try doing this. So let's see if I have a
Speaker 1: video on my Google Photos, I'm gonna play and let's
Speaker 1: see here, let's see if it actually does it press play?
Speaker 1: Why is this selecting? Oh? I see I've got something selected. Okay,
Speaker 1: so impressing play. So my kid is doing some multiplication
Speaker 1: and he yep, look at that. I'm gonna do four
Speaker 1: time seven. Oh this is so amazing. I just it's
Speaker 1: such a cool feature. I know you can't hear what
Speaker 1: he's saying, but I can see it. I'm just so
Speaker 1: you turn it on, you go into settings, and then
Speaker 1: you go into accessibility or Advanced Accessibility, and then it
Speaker 1: says live caption. You have to have the latest version
Speaker 1: of Chrome for this, but it works across social and
Speaker 1: video sites, podcasts, radio content, personal video libraries like I
Speaker 1: just said, Google Photos, video players, and most web based
Speaker 1: video or audio chat services. So again, if you're doing
Speaker 1: a video chat like a Zoom or a Google Meet
Speaker 1: inside your browser, not on the third party app, but
Speaker 1: inside Chrome, you can get a transcription in real time
Speaker 1: of what the person's saying. The transcriptions are created on device,
Speaker 1: which means the content does not leave your computer, which
Speaker 1: means that it's private or as private as it can be.
Speaker 1: It works offline, which means you don't even have to
Speaker 1: have an Internet connection, and that's basically it. I have
Speaker 1: a video of this, I'll put it in the show notes.
Speaker 1: I think it's amazing for accessibility, and not just accessibility,
Speaker 1: but for many reasons. I've just left this on and
Speaker 1: it's just kind of cool that I can see whatever
Speaker 1: is being said on my computer. I can now just
Speaker 1: read on the screen and you can move around where
Speaker 1: it is and kind of I don't know if you
Speaker 1: can resize it, but you can resize it a little bit,
Speaker 1: I know. But it's just a great little, great little feature,
Speaker 1: and so I'm totally cool with this again, Chrome Live Caption.
Speaker 1: Check it out. I've got a video on it, and
Speaker 1: it's just a great accessibility feature. Or it even works
Speaker 1: when your volume is down in your computer, So your
Speaker 1: computer can be muted as long as that audio is
Speaker 1: coming through the web. As you know, if the volumes down,
Speaker 1: you can still see what's being said. All right, let's
Speaker 1: get to the next question. Deborah, I have a Note nine.
Speaker 1: I keep getting all these messages that I have to
Speaker 1: move my photos to Microsoft. One note, my gallery on
Speaker 1: my Android currently backs up to Google Photos. Is that
Speaker 1: completely stopping as of April first? Will I lose what's
Speaker 1: in Google Photos? After April first? Is Google Photos going away?
Speaker 1: And now I have to use crappy one note, her words,
Speaker 1: not mine with a little limit of fifteen, I'm guessing
Speaker 1: she's meaning gigabytes. Well, my photos taken on my iPhone
Speaker 1: on my phone no longer backup to Google Photos as
Speaker 1: of April first. If you could clearly explain, it would
Speaker 1: be much appreciated, Deborah, deborrah, No, you don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about any of this stuff. So there's two things.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of things going on. So the message
Speaker 1: that you're getting on your note is a Samsung message
Speaker 1: with regards to one note. So Samsung used to have
Speaker 1: this thing called Samsung Cloud, but they have basically I
Speaker 1: think given up on that, and now they're moving everyone
Speaker 1: to Microsoft one note. Samsung and Microsoft have gotten very cozy,
Speaker 1: and so I think that they're just saying, you know what, Look,
Speaker 1: they know how to do cloud storage. Let's just lean
Speaker 1: on them for this. So all their cloud storage is
Speaker 1: sort of moving to one note. But anyway, so a
Speaker 1: couple things going on here. Google Photos will not be affected.
Speaker 1: This has nothing to do with your Google Photos. I
Speaker 1: know it's a little confusing because you're using Google Photos
Speaker 1: on your phone. That's a Samsung that's giving you this message.
Speaker 1: But this only has to do with Microsoft. If you
Speaker 1: the Samsung Cloud as your backup for your photos. So
Speaker 1: I don't think you have to worry about anything. I
Speaker 1: think that you can do the migration now if you want,
Speaker 1: But you don't really have to worry about anything with Google.
Speaker 1: Nothing is changing with Google Photos with respect to your storage. Now.
Speaker 1: There is something that's happening with Google Photos later on
Speaker 1: this year, and I think it's happening. Oh gosh, Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh. Now I need to remember when this is happening.
Speaker 1: But Google Photos is changing. Oh yeah, June first, Okay,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. So now we're confusing a couple different
Speaker 1: things so let me explain what's happening. So on Google Photos,
Speaker 1: which you say you do use as of June first,
Speaker 1: anything that you upload, any new photos and videos will
Speaker 1: count against your fifteen gigs of free storage, so that
Speaker 1: will be changing on June first. Now, I don't think
Speaker 1: most people have to worry about that because for a
Speaker 1: majority of people, you don't. Really you're not going to
Speaker 1: hit up against that limit. Now, if you're someone like
Speaker 1: me who's using two terabytes of Google storage, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: definitely gonna be affected starting June first, but I've already
Speaker 1: been doing the high quality forever so it really doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: But for the rest of you that if you're just
Speaker 1: using the high quality in Google Photos, it's starting on
Speaker 1: June first, that will count towards your storage. I know
Speaker 1: it's very confusing. Basically, think about it this way. Anything
Speaker 1: you've had in Google Photos up until now will continue
Speaker 1: to be free forever, and it will not take away
Speaker 1: from your storage as of June first. Anything you upload,
Speaker 1: whether it's high quality or original quality, will take storage
Speaker 1: in your Google Photos. If you go over fifteen gigs,
Speaker 1: you will have to start paying. It's like two or
Speaker 1: three dollars a month for a couple hundred gigs, so
Speaker 1: it's not really that big of a deal. But yes,
Speaker 1: Google is going to start charging for Google Photos, going
Speaker 1: back on a promise that they made many years ago
Speaker 1: that Google Photos was going to be free and unlimited,
Speaker 1: and I never said forever, but they kind of implied that.
Speaker 1: And it's it's definitely unfortunate that all these tech companies
Speaker 1: as they get bigger, as everything moves to the cloud,
Speaker 1: as there gets to be less competition. Yeah, they're kind of,
Speaker 1: like I said, the vice grip is just tightening just
Speaker 1: a little bit on us, you know, and especially on
Speaker 1: our pocketbooks or our wallets. So I don't think you
Speaker 1: have to worry too much debor That's that's my main
Speaker 1: that's my main takeaway here. So I think that's but
Speaker 1: you do need to know that if you want, go
Speaker 1: into your Google Photos app, and I would check to
Speaker 1: see just how much, just how much storage you're using.
Speaker 1: So if you open your Google Photos app, press your
Speaker 1: little profile icon in the upper right hand corner, and
Speaker 1: it will tell you how much storage you're using out
Speaker 1: of your storage on Google Photos. That's what i'd recommend
Speaker 1: to do. All right, let's move on to Instagram, which
Speaker 1: was down for just a little bit today, but no
Speaker 1: big deal, let's back up. It seems Instagram is working
Speaker 1: to make it a little bit safer for teenagers. We
Speaker 1: know that you know you're supposed to be thirteen to
Speaker 1: join any of these online services, right, But kids, of
Speaker 1: course lie, parents help them lie. I'm guilty of it.
Speaker 1: My kids have accounts on things, and I get it.
Speaker 1: It's not right, it's not the law, but you know,
Speaker 1: this is what people do. So kids under thirteen are
Speaker 1: not supposed to have an Instagram account, but believe me,
Speaker 1: if you've been around any child in your lifetime, you
Speaker 1: know that a lot of them do have Instagram accounts
Speaker 1: under thirteen. So how do they get around it? Well,
Speaker 1: they just put in a different data birth big deal.
Speaker 1: So Instagram says that they understand that this happens. They
Speaker 1: can't really do anything about it because there's no real
Speaker 1: ide verification for kids under thirteen. How are you going
Speaker 1: to do that? Right? So they're now using AI to
Speaker 1: figure out, Okay, we see this kid is on here.
Speaker 1: We think they're under thirteen, So we're going to apply
Speaker 1: these special rules to their account. Number one rule, adults
Speaker 1: aren't gonna be able to DM them. So adults, if
Speaker 1: they try to send a DM to someone under eighteen
Speaker 1: that Instagram has identified is under eighteen, whether or not
Speaker 1: they said that for real, it's not gonna work. It's
Speaker 1: gonna say sorry, you can't send a message to this kid.
Speaker 1: And so that's number one. Next one is going to
Speaker 1: be if kids are interacting with an adult, like if
Speaker 1: they're following an adult and they can you know, they
Speaker 1: could DM them, and the adult exhibits some weird behavior,
Speaker 1: potentially suspicious behavior, like if they send a large amount
Speaker 1: of dms to kids all the time or under eighteen,
Speaker 1: Instagram is either going to block the conversation, it's going
Speaker 1: to send a message along with the conversation saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you might want to just be on your guard when
Speaker 1: you text with this person. So that's the second thing
Speaker 1: they're doing. Next thing they're doing is they're gonna try
Speaker 1: to convince young people to make their accounts private. And
Speaker 1: of course we all know this is a problem too,
Speaker 1: because what do these young kids want to do. Every
Speaker 1: one of them wants to be an Instagram influencer or
Speaker 1: a YouTube star, so they don't want to have their
Speaker 1: account private. They want to be out there for everyone,
Speaker 1: but they are not a parent that knows we don't
Speaker 1: want you to have a public account, but the kids
Speaker 1: don't want to listen to that because they want the
Speaker 1: public account. So Instagram is going to gently nudge them
Speaker 1: towards choosing a private account when signing up. If they don't,
Speaker 1: they're going to send them notifications later on benefiting highlighting
Speaker 1: the benefits of a private account, and reminding them to
Speaker 1: check their setting. So again, this is all kind of
Speaker 1: a first step. They're just trying to make it a
Speaker 1: little bit, a little bit more friction between some of
Speaker 1: these pain points that they've noticed. And so I think
Speaker 1: that's that's the name of the game here. It's not
Speaker 1: going to stop all the problems on Instagram with young
Speaker 1: people and adults, but I think it should be just
Speaker 1: enough sometimes to you know, if they get rid of
Speaker 1: ten percent of of bad interactions, you know that's an improvement, right,
Speaker 1: So ideally be one hundred. But this is the reality
Speaker 1: of the world we live in. I mean, it's tough
Speaker 1: to do that. So there you have it, Instagram making
Speaker 1: some changes. All right, Let's get to the next question.
Speaker 1: Kevin says, Hey, Rich, I love the advice and help
Speaker 1: you give have you heard of any issues with the
Speaker 1: iPhone update fourteen point four point one? My SE is
Speaker 1: turning off and battery is dropping to zero percent? Thanks
Speaker 1: so much, Kevin, Uh, Kevin. Without knowing exactly which iPhone
Speaker 1: s you have, if you have the old SE, like
Speaker 1: the original that came out in I don't know, a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, many many years ago, I think
Speaker 1: that your battery could just be really bad. And so
Speaker 1: the first thing I would do, well, here's how I
Speaker 1: troubleshoot this. If it's your if it's an old SE,
Speaker 1: I would look into settings and then let's see settings
Speaker 1: battery and look at where it says battery health, and
Speaker 1: it will tell you the maximum capacity of your battery.
Speaker 1: So if your battery is at you know, forty percent
Speaker 1: or something, it might be time to bring your phone
Speaker 1: to an Apple store, get a new battery installed, or
Speaker 1: perhaps consider a new phone. If it's the old SE,
Speaker 1: the original iphe S first generation, Let's see when did
Speaker 1: that come out? That premiered in twenty sixteen, so it's
Speaker 1: been about five years, which is probably enough for your
Speaker 1: battery to be pretty pretty burnt on that one. So
Speaker 1: if it's that phone. That's what i'd recommend. If it's
Speaker 1: a new iPhone se that recently came out and the
Speaker 1: batteries dropping to zero percent, well you probably want to
Speaker 1: take it to an Apple store and see what's going on.
Speaker 1: But also check that battery health. See what's going on
Speaker 1: in the battery health, see what's draining the battery. It'll
Speaker 1: tell you over the last ten days. Like I can
Speaker 1: see on my iPhone that Instagram uses my battery the
Speaker 1: most than Twitter, than the camera, than Facebook, then Google Photos,
Speaker 1: and so that's kind of what you want to see
Speaker 1: what's going on there. And if it's something's like really
Speaker 1: draining your battery, you know, maybe consider getting rid of
Speaker 1: that app or restricting the background activity on it or
Speaker 1: something like that. The other thing I would do is
Speaker 1: go through all your apps and delete any that you
Speaker 1: don't need or want anymore, and restart your phone and
Speaker 1: make sure that your software is properly updated. But those
Speaker 1: are the steps that I would take to see why
Speaker 1: your battery is dropping down to zero. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: my battery drops down to zero too, but you know
Speaker 1: it's because I'm using my phone. So and the iPhone
Speaker 1: twelve is significantly a larger consumer of battery than previous
Speaker 1: iPhone models that in my experience, So my iPhone eleven
Speaker 1: pro before. I mean, I could go a whole day
Speaker 1: and I'd still have, you know, fifty percent left or
Speaker 1: something insane. And now I you know, by the end
Speaker 1: of the morning, after I've just gone through like my
Speaker 1: quick you know, beginning of my work day, I'm down
Speaker 1: to like, you know, eighty percent or seventy percent. So
Speaker 1: definitely the iPhone twelve. But you have an iPhone se
Speaker 1: So I don't even know why I'm telling you that,
Speaker 1: because none of it applies anyway. All Right, cybercrime, this
Speaker 1: is a problem. This is a real problem. Cybercrime four
Speaker 1: billion dollars in losses in twenty twenty. This according to
Speaker 1: the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, which two thousand complaints
Speaker 1: per day in twenty twenty, and probably a lot more
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty because you know, we're all working from home,
Speaker 1: people are checking their email more. So they said it
Speaker 1: was twenty percent more than twenty nineteen, which I believe.
Speaker 1: And I'm just telling you this because you know, I
Speaker 1: think that you should be aware of the scams that
Speaker 1: are propagating the Internet, and we know, there are just
Speaker 1: scammers around all corners of the web. I mean, it
Speaker 1: is just unbelievable. How many people email me with a
Speaker 1: scam that say, you know, rich, I just got this text,
Speaker 1: I just got this email I just got is this legit?
Speaker 1: And it's it's really tough for the average person to
Speaker 1: kind of sort through all this stuff, especially with the
Speaker 1: phishing scams. Those are just unbelievable and they're unrelentless. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like you get an email from your credit card
Speaker 1: company and you have to sit there and look at
Speaker 1: it for twenty minutes wondering is it legit? Is it
Speaker 1: not legit? I mean, it's really a problem. So top
Speaker 1: three types of compromises are business email compromise. Okay, that
Speaker 1: means when you get an email from someone at your
Speaker 1: work and it looks like it's coming from someone at
Speaker 1: your work and you click a link and it's not
Speaker 1: so good. Ransomware attacks that's a huge one. Ransomware attacks
Speaker 1: are when you know, you download some software to your
Speaker 1: computer and boom, it's just like, oh gosh, what did
Speaker 1: I just do? Next? Thing? You know, you can get
Speaker 1: windows that say like, oh, you got to pay us
Speaker 1: some bitcoin for ransom or whatever, and that's a that's
Speaker 1: a big mess. Then you have tech support scams, which
Speaker 1: this one is just I think this affects a lot
Speaker 1: of average people because they get to pop up and
Speaker 1: it says, oh, you got to call this one eight
Speaker 1: hundred number to call Microsoft to figure out what's going
Speaker 1: on with your computer. And next thing you know, you
Speaker 1: call the number and then say, Okay, thank you. We
Speaker 1: see a problem on your computer and can you please
Speaker 1: navigate to this website And they make you navigate to
Speaker 1: some website and it downloads software to your computer and
Speaker 1: they're like, okay, please click yes, and you click yes,
Speaker 1: and next thing know, they've taken over your computer and
Speaker 1: now they've got you paying to get your computer fixed.
Speaker 1: And it's a whole big thing. And believe me, when
Speaker 1: you think people don't fall for this, be on TV
Speaker 1: for a week and see the emails that you get
Speaker 1: from people. I mean, sometimes I'm just I can't believe
Speaker 1: my eyes when I'm reading this stuff. I just feel
Speaker 1: feel for these folks that just you know, got duped.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I don't know what to say. I
Speaker 1: really don't know what you can do, except you know,
Speaker 1: you got to move on because your computer is compromised.
Speaker 1: You already spent the six hundred dollars. I mean, hopefully
Speaker 1: you can get that back from your credit card company.
Speaker 1: But it's it's a mess, it really is. So please
Speaker 1: be aware of these things and share these I post these,
Speaker 1: you know, these scams that people send me on my
Speaker 1: Facebook page from time to time Facebook dot com slash
Speaker 1: rich on tech, and I do that because I understand
Speaker 1: that some people that follow me are tech savvy, but
Speaker 1: a large majority or not, and so I want to
Speaker 1: make sure that the tech savvy people are keeping the
Speaker 1: non tech savvy people up to date. You know, you
Speaker 1: get these emails, Like my dad texted me and he
Speaker 1: said something about an email and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: you didn't You didn't reply to that, right, He's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I didn't. I'm like, okay, I mean he had something
Speaker 1: up for sale on Craigslist and I get, you know,
Speaker 1: some of these emails to this certain email address he has,
Speaker 1: and I'm just watching the scams roll in, one after another,
Speaker 1: one after another. Oh my gosh. So if you're listing
Speaker 1: stuff on these public you know, uh, directories of sales,
Speaker 1: you know, where you sell something like a used. Good.
Speaker 1: You gotta be really careful because half the people, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm always like, what's the angle here? What are you
Speaker 1: trying to scam me out of? You know? So just
Speaker 1: be very very careful, all right, Darlene says, good morning, Rich.
Speaker 1: My friend's husband just got back from the hospital. He
Speaker 1: kept trying his password and his iPhone is disabled. What
Speaker 1: can he do to get his password reset? My friends
Speaker 1: are in their seventies. Um ooh, that's not good. So
Speaker 1: the iPhone is disabled, Well, that's a problem. You're basically
Speaker 1: gonna have to reformat your iPhone. As far I know,
Speaker 1: I don't think that there is a way for you
Speaker 1: to recover that passcode, because that would be a security
Speaker 1: issue for the iPhone. I mean, maybe you know there's
Speaker 1: some sort of crazy, you know, high tech tool out
Speaker 1: there that could do that, but I don't know of it.
Speaker 1: So I know this isn't what you want to hear.
Speaker 1: But I would say if the device is completely disabled,
Speaker 1: like if you like can't even ever open it again,
Speaker 1: then you're gonna have to format it. But if you
Speaker 1: still have a way to try another code, I would
Speaker 1: ask your your friend that got out of the hospital
Speaker 1: to really think hard and to really just use that
Speaker 1: muscle memory is in his or her brain to just
Speaker 1: like kind of press the numbers without looking the way
Speaker 1: they did before the hospital. So, I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a that's a really tough one because you can't
Speaker 1: really recover the passwords on these things. They're just not
Speaker 1: set up to do that as far as I know.
Speaker 1: I mean, so, uh, you got to remember those pass codes.
Speaker 1: And if you the good news is if the phone
Speaker 1: was backed up to iCloud, you could format the phone
Speaker 1: and then you could bring your data back down, So
Speaker 1: you're not gonna lose a whole lot of stuff. But
Speaker 1: it's definitely a pain and it's not fun. And you know,
Speaker 1: you're saying, these people are in their seventies, they're not
Speaker 1: gonna be the ones to do it. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to help them do this, Darlene. So, oh gosh, yeah,
Speaker 1: this whole password situation. Oh you know what, I should
Speaker 1: probably mention this while we're on the topic of passwords.
Speaker 1: So I mentioned last week that I talked to the
Speaker 1: CEO of Bitwarden. I don't know how much I said
Speaker 1: about that, but I gotta say Bitwarden is fantastic. So
Speaker 1: if you're looking for a free password manager, I can't
Speaker 1: recommend Bitwarden more highly enough. I mean, it does everything
Speaker 1: you need. I saw the demo of it. It's great.
Speaker 1: You get everything you need in the basic free version
Speaker 1: pretty much except you get you don't get passwords sharing
Speaker 1: with a family member on that free level. You can
Speaker 1: upgrade to the paid level for that. And the sharing
Speaker 1: is actually quite helpful because you don't really want to
Speaker 1: be texting passwords back and forth with your loved ones
Speaker 1: because that puts them at risk. So you want to
Speaker 1: use a password manager to share it with them securely.
Speaker 1: And the way you do this is you just put
Speaker 1: in their email address boom, the password manager shares it
Speaker 1: encrypted with them. They can now either see it on
Speaker 1: their side or you know, add it to their passwords.
Speaker 1: It's pretty it's pretty slick actually, But with Bitwarden, that's
Speaker 1: one of the features that they do keep. They hold
Speaker 1: that back for the premium users. Now, some people did
Speaker 1: email me and they said, Rich, she didn't mention that
Speaker 1: you can get that if you go to Bitwarden's organizational plan.
Speaker 1: Like the business plan basically includes two persons sharing, but
Speaker 1: that gets a little confusing because that is technically a
Speaker 1: business plan. Yes, it's you know, you need individual plans
Speaker 1: to sign up for the business plan. But like I
Speaker 1: do a consumer segment on TV for consumers, and I
Speaker 1: had to stick to what consumers are comparing. You know,
Speaker 1: there could be a lot of plans out there that
Speaker 1: you know, that are free for an organization, but I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about that. And I think that if you're
Speaker 1: savvy enough and you want to set up the business
Speaker 1: plan and do the organizational plan for two persons sharing, fine,
Speaker 1: But I personally am talking about personal plans. That's what
Speaker 1: I compared in my segment. So I think that that's
Speaker 1: like a delineation that needs to stay. You know, I
Speaker 1: need to stick to because my audience is watching for
Speaker 1: a consumer standpoint. And so when I compared consumer things,
Speaker 1: so the consumer version of dash Lane, consumer version of
Speaker 1: last Pass, consumer version of what's the one password that
Speaker 1: people like? I pick things that I thought were free,
Speaker 1: And so what I honed in on is dash Lane
Speaker 1: has a free option, but you can only access your
Speaker 1: passwords on one device. Last Pass has a free option.
Speaker 1: You can only access your passwords on one type of device,
Speaker 1: so tablets or computers, or mobiles, or I think tablets
Speaker 1: and mobiles are in the same Dropbox now has a
Speaker 1: free option, but it's limited to fifty passwords. You also
Speaker 1: have Google. They have a free option called password Manager,
Speaker 1: but that's limited to Chrome, Chromebook, and Android. And then
Speaker 1: you have apple'sy Cloud, which of course is limited to
Speaker 1: Apple products. So I'll put the whole article linked up
Speaker 1: on the show notes. But if you're not using a
Speaker 1: password manager, which if you're listening to a podcast, you
Speaker 1: probably are, But at the same time, you got to
Speaker 1: get started with one of these things because they are
Speaker 1: just essential. So you get the password manager, you come
Speaker 1: up with the master password, and then you protect the
Speaker 1: password manager master password with two factor authentication, and that's
Speaker 1: really the best you can do. That's pretty much the
Speaker 1: best you can do in this day and age, unique
Speaker 1: strong passwords for every website created by a password manager,
Speaker 1: which is then backed up by a two factor authentication.
Speaker 1: That's pretty much you know, you know, if you're doing that,
Speaker 1: you're doing pretty well. Let's see, let's go to this story.
Speaker 1: Western Digital, one of the biggest I get so many
Speaker 1: emails about and I'm sure we talked about this on
Speaker 1: the last show, but this whole idea of sticking a
Speaker 1: flash drive into your iPhone and offloading the pictures, and
Speaker 1: so it's one of the most popular questions I get
Speaker 1: and sand Disk has a new device called the I
Speaker 1: expand flash drive. Looks sounds so nice, doesn't it. Oh
Speaker 1: that's nope, nope. I'm looking for my sound effects. So
Speaker 1: I don't have that one anymore. I used to have
Speaker 1: like enchanted, like whatever. So this has lightning on one side,
Speaker 1: USBC on the other side, which is fantastic for plugging
Speaker 1: this into your iPhone. It has great software that will
Speaker 1: copy all the photos from your iPhone. You can then
Speaker 1: delete the photos off your iPhone, but I don't recommend
Speaker 1: you doing that unless you have them backed up somewhere
Speaker 1: else besides this little flash drive. But you can take
Speaker 1: this little flash drive and then you can connect it
Speaker 1: to your computer and upload those pictures to some sort
Speaker 1: of cloud service as well. Now you can do this
Speaker 1: all from your iPhone without this, But a lot of
Speaker 1: people just like the idea of having their pictures on
Speaker 1: sort of a little hard drive. This is not my
Speaker 1: preferred solution. I like to have everything in the cloud.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people out there, and everyone likes what they like
Speaker 1: to do. Some people don't want to be in the cloud.
Speaker 1: So if you did that, I would put them on
Speaker 1: this little device and then also copy them to a
Speaker 1: hard drive, and now you have your photos in two places.
Speaker 1: If you really wanted to get specific, I would give
Speaker 1: that hard drive, you know, keep it at like your
Speaker 1: friend or family's house, because you don't want it in
Speaker 1: the same house as your flash drive because if something
Speaker 1: ever happened, God forbid, you lose both devices. So again,
Speaker 1: this is a whole You know, there's a method to
Speaker 1: the madness when it comes to being overly cautious with
Speaker 1: all this stuff. But you know, at the same time,
Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of stories and I've gotten a
Speaker 1: lot of emails, so these things do happen anyway. The
Speaker 1: iPhone are the sand disc I expand flash drive looks again,
Speaker 1: works to move files between the iPhone, the iPad pro,
Speaker 1: the Mac computer, any other USB type C devices, including Android.
Speaker 1: So again, the idea is that you can plug this
Speaker 1: into anything you have and exchange files either way or
Speaker 1: just put files on there. You may not know that
Speaker 1: you can plug a flash drive into your iPhone or
Speaker 1: your Android and it will show you that on files
Speaker 1: you can you can browse the files like you would
Speaker 1: a hard drive. It really works pretty well. Uh. You
Speaker 1: get a USB C sorry USB three point zero, and
Speaker 1: of course it has the I Expand Drive app, which
Speaker 1: you know you can use to transfer things back up
Speaker 1: your phone, contacts, photos, all that kind of stuff. The
Speaker 1: drive comes in sixty four gig, one, twenty eight, and
Speaker 1: two fifty six. Prices are MSRP of forty five, sixty
Speaker 1: and ninety dollars. So of course you get your best
Speaker 1: bang for your buck with a two fifty six, because
Speaker 1: that's ninety dollars, which would be let's see here, so
Speaker 1: let's do ninety divided by two fifty six equals thirty
Speaker 1: five cents of gigs thirty five times sixty four, So
Speaker 1: that would bring the sixty four gig to twenty two
Speaker 1: dollars if you did the math the other way, so
Speaker 1: which it's forty five dollars. You're paying a twenty dollars premium.
Speaker 1: So I would just I would just go with the
Speaker 1: two fifty six, if you know, or one twenty eight
Speaker 1: split the difference. I know it's a little bit more expensive,
Speaker 1: but you know, you're getting a lot more capacity, and
Speaker 1: these drives are are these files are very big these days.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the next question. Uh oh fuugh, Okay,
Speaker 1: I put this question in here because I was going
Speaker 1: to talk about the bit Warden stuff right after this question.
Speaker 1: But you know, you know mey, This podcasts all over
Speaker 1: the place. But anyway, Hey, Rich, I'm always afraid to
Speaker 1: trust password apps. Here's my solution. Tell me what you think.
Speaker 1: Pick a word, name, et cetera. Pick a number, cap
Speaker 1: the first letter of the website. Pick a character. Example,
Speaker 1: Rich Rock's twenty one capital E dollar sign equals eBay,
Speaker 1: Rich rocks twenty one capital A dollar sign equals Amazon.
Speaker 1: Then any website I go to, I know my password
Speaker 1: due to the first letter of the page. I've been
Speaker 1: using this for years. Once in a while, I change
Speaker 1: up the word good, bad, not safe enough. Thank you
Speaker 1: you Rock. Uh. I'm gonna say now, I think you're
Speaker 1: ahead of the game by having unique passwords for every website.
Speaker 1: But there's a there's a keyword when I say passwords
Speaker 1: need to be strong and unique. These are not what
Speaker 1: I would call strong passwords because it's a pattern and
Speaker 1: they're very easy to figure out. If I was able
Speaker 1: to figure out eBay, I can figure out Amazon, or
Speaker 1: if I happen to see your eBay and in Amazon,
Speaker 1: I see what's going on there and I figure out
Speaker 1: the pattern, and I say, oh, well, I guess if
Speaker 1: it was hey, hey needle, or what's that word? What's
Speaker 1: that hey needle? What's that website that does the home goods? Yeah,
Speaker 1: hey Needle, I was like, Hey Needle, I can already
Speaker 1: tell the password would probably be rich Rocks twenty one
Speaker 1: h dollar sign So I don't recommend this system. I
Speaker 1: think you're you're you're on the right path of getting
Speaker 1: unique passwords, but they're just not strong enough, and I
Speaker 1: would just I would just convert over to a password app.
Speaker 1: The fact that you say you don't trust it, I
Speaker 1: think you need to trust it because they're not infallible.
Speaker 1: But I think they are pretty darn good, and every
Speaker 1: single tech person I know uses one, and I think
Speaker 1: that as long as you're protecting it with two factor
Speaker 1: authentication and you pick a strong master password, I think
Speaker 1: you're going to be pretty good, and I think you'll
Speaker 1: be much happier with the results because you can make
Speaker 1: passwords that are impossibly complex and when I talked to
Speaker 1: bit Warden, the CEO told me that fourteen characters is
Speaker 1: kind of the sweet spot for a good password, So
Speaker 1: that's what I'd recommend. I'd recommend fourteen characters strong passwords
Speaker 1: saved in a password manager, and you can get even wilder.
Speaker 1: You can use like one of these ub keys. Definitely
Speaker 1: want to use two factor for all your websites that
Speaker 1: you log into and just you know, the most security
Speaker 1: you can, the better, the more, the better. You know,
Speaker 1: nobody ever complains about having more security except when you
Speaker 1: actually try to access your own websites. Oh, let me
Speaker 1: give you another tip that I got from the CEO
Speaker 1: of Bitwarden. This I had never heard before, but I
Speaker 1: love it. So now, how all these websites they ask
Speaker 1: you to give up highly personal information like these security answers.
Speaker 1: So the main security answers you get are your dog's name,
Speaker 1: the street you grew up on, your mother's maiden name,
Speaker 1: your first car, your high school mascot. I mean these
Speaker 1: are things that like you can pretty much figure out
Speaker 1: if you're friends with me, or you know, if you
Speaker 1: do a quick Google search on like ninety nine percent
Speaker 1: of people, or look at their Facebook page. So for
Speaker 1: that reason, you don't want to use real answers for
Speaker 1: those questions. So for that reason, I always just picked
Speaker 1: random answers to these questions and wrote them down. But
Speaker 1: the CEO of Bitwarden takes it a step further. He
Speaker 1: told me you generate another password for these answers and
Speaker 1: then save it in your notes. So all these password
Speaker 1: management apps, once you save the password for the website,
Speaker 1: that's just one field. There's another field if you look
Speaker 1: in there called notes, and in there you can just
Speaker 1: type in notes for that website. Well, you type in
Speaker 1: mother's maiden name and let me just generate a password,
Speaker 1: and I'll tell you what it is. P T five
Speaker 1: five I D L F at sign MB explanation point
Speaker 1: Z three QN. Okay, no, I'll take no symbols. Let's
Speaker 1: just do letters T J A K B k x
Speaker 1: A A G T seven G Y three. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think that anyone is going to figure that
Speaker 1: out as a mother's maiden name. So that's what you do,
Speaker 1: and you put that in as your mother's maiden name,
Speaker 1: and then you copy that and put it in your notes.
Speaker 1: I think this is just an amazing tip. Now, if
Speaker 1: you're a security expert out there, let me know if
Speaker 1: you think there's a problem with that. I could see.
Speaker 1: The only problem I could see is that if you
Speaker 1: had to use a system where you had to verify
Speaker 1: this like verbally, that could be a problem. There are
Speaker 1: some websites that do that, and I also hate that.
Speaker 1: So I have to sit there and say something verbally
Speaker 1: that is a very personal piece of information that this
Speaker 1: person is somehow typing into the website to confirm. So
Speaker 1: that's why I love the idea of coming up with
Speaker 1: basically another password. It's all it is. And so next
Speaker 1: time you encounter these random questions on a website that says,
Speaker 1: you know, what's your favorite food, what did you want
Speaker 1: to be when you grow up? What's your favorite ice
Speaker 1: cream flavor? Just pick four random questions and make up
Speaker 1: four random passwords, put them in or whatever, and next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, just save them and there you go. I mean,
Speaker 1: I had to this is I tweeted about this, but
Speaker 1: this whole COVID situation is like a total land grab
Speaker 1: for personal information. I had to register for a COVID
Speaker 1: test and I'm not kidding, Like they want to know
Speaker 1: every thing, and I'm like, Why do you need all
Speaker 1: this information? To what degree you need like every single
Speaker 1: thing about me? Why do you need all that? You
Speaker 1: know my kid has to do like a certain app.
Speaker 1: You got to check in on an app to like
Speaker 1: go back to school. And it's like all this stuff
Speaker 1: you gotta you gotta give over to this random app
Speaker 1: I've never heard of so I can drop my kid
Speaker 1: off to school. It's like, what, No, So I've been
Speaker 1: using this new system and it's so far, so good.
Speaker 1: It may, you know, blow up in my face if
Speaker 1: I ever need to remember one of these you know,
Speaker 1: these things like mother's maid a name, because I just
Speaker 1: may not be able to figure it out if I
Speaker 1: didn't take proper notes. So keep those proper notes and
Speaker 1: back up make sure that I don't know. I guess
Speaker 1: you can back up your your file for your from
Speaker 1: your from your password manager. I'm sure there's an export
Speaker 1: to back it up. And then you got to encrypt that,
Speaker 1: make sure that's encrypted, and back to Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: it just goes on and on and on. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: talk Apple Maps. Speaking of COVID, Apple maps now displays
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen vaccine vaccination locations Apple map users can now
Speaker 1: find the closest pharmacies and healthcare providers offering COVID nineteen vaccines.
Speaker 1: It's through a partnership with vaccine Finder. All you have
Speaker 1: to do is search, hit the search bar and Apple
Speaker 1: Maps and then you'll see COVID nineteen vaccines. Or you
Speaker 1: can use the fine year by menu, or you can
Speaker 1: ask Siri where can I get a COVID vaccination. It'll
Speaker 1: list the hours, address, phone numbers, and a link to
Speaker 1: the provider's website. Right now, they've got twenty thousand locations.
Speaker 1: This is great, but it really it's probably not that
Speaker 1: useful right now because just because a place has a
Speaker 1: COVID link to a vaccine does not mean you're gonna
Speaker 1: get an appointment very easily. All depends on where you live.
Speaker 1: So as we get more and more of these vaccines
Speaker 1: available and people can just go ahead and make a
Speaker 1: appointment at the place closest near them, this is gonna
Speaker 1: be great, but right now vaccine appointments are still a
Speaker 1: little hit or missed depending on where you live. In fact,
Speaker 1: this was my KTLA story today. It was about these
Speaker 1: computer programmers that are making their own websites that are
Speaker 1: sort of like megawebsites that scrape information from all of
Speaker 1: the pharmacy websites and put it on one page. So
Speaker 1: one of those websites is called find my Vaxla. That's
Speaker 1: finemivaxla dot com. That's just for the LA area. If
Speaker 1: you're in New York. Turbovax dot info. Turbovax dot info.
Speaker 1: It's like TurboTax with a v dot info. But the
Speaker 1: big one is vaccinespotter dot org. And I talked to
Speaker 1: the guy Nick who created this website. Smart guy doesn't
Speaker 1: make any money on it, just kind of does it
Speaker 1: because he's a computer programmer. He was frustrated trying to
Speaker 1: get his parents or his grandparents for I don't know,
Speaker 1: someone an appointment. And so now he's scanning all the
Speaker 1: pharmacy chains across the US. And if you look like
Speaker 1: if you click Alaska, you can see the pharmacy chains
Speaker 1: like Walmarts, Walgreens, you know, whatever's over there, and it
Speaker 1: tells you the vac oh the vaccine type as well. Interesting.
Speaker 1: So he does a great job. They all do. But
Speaker 1: they're doing this, you know, the kindness of their own hearts.
Speaker 1: And I figured this out the hard way too. It's
Speaker 1: like I was trying to get my parents vaccines in
Speaker 1: New Jersey and believe me, oh my gosh, just trying
Speaker 1: to navigate all these websites. There's just so many of them.
Speaker 1: It's like, I get it, but it's also just really frustrating.
Speaker 1: And I'm a tech person, and so for my parents,
Speaker 1: they're not going to sit there online for an hour
Speaker 1: a day looking for appointments scouring all these various sites.
Speaker 1: Some of them ask you to put all your information
Speaker 1: in before you can even look. So that's what these
Speaker 1: sites do. And so you know, it's a good thing
Speaker 1: that we have this availability, that we're getting more availability,
Speaker 1: and it's just it's making it easier to find. But
Speaker 1: these guys did a cool job of getting this information
Speaker 1: on one page and making it a lot easier than
Speaker 1: going from site to site to site to site to site.
Speaker 1: This will tell you if there's appointments. It's not always perfect.
Speaker 1: Believe me. It can say there's an appointment, you go
Speaker 1: to the website and no, it's gone, because guess what,
Speaker 1: you're not the only person looking at this website. There's
Speaker 1: thousands of other people scouring the web for these appointments.
Speaker 1: All right, Uh, hello, I recently received an email from
Speaker 1: AT and T stating they were changing from Direct TV.
Speaker 1: Do you know what that means for someone who has
Speaker 1: Direct TV? The information we are to read is nineteen pages,
Speaker 1: just wondering if you heard anything about this and if
Speaker 1: we now have to take AT and T instead of
Speaker 1: Direct TV. Thank you very much for reading this email.
Speaker 1: Enjoy learning from you on Fox four in Kansas City.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Joan, Joan, good question. So I had to
Speaker 1: do some research on this one because I wasn't totally familiar.
Speaker 1: I know that AT and T. This is kind of
Speaker 1: a weird thing. AT and T kind of sold DirecTV, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, they just bought DirecTV a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago, and now they're selling it, but they're selling
Speaker 1: it but keeping an interest, so it's still kind of
Speaker 1: their company, but it's got a third party that's kind
Speaker 1: of running, which is called TPG. I know, so confusing,
Speaker 1: But here's this section of their little letter that I
Speaker 1: think is pertinent to you, and it says seamless customer transition.
Speaker 1: Once the transaction is completed, existing AT and T video
Speaker 1: subscribers will become new Direct TV customers and will be
Speaker 1: able to keep their video service and any bundled wireless
Speaker 1: or broadband services, as well as HBO Max plus any
Speaker 1: associated discounts. When the transaction closed closes, all existing content deals,
Speaker 1: including Sunday Ticket will become part of what they call
Speaker 1: new Direct TV. Customers will continue to have access to
Speaker 1: premium content via DirecTV, and AT and T will receive
Speaker 1: AT and T TV will receive the same services, channel lineups,
Speaker 1: and customer care. So it sounds like AT oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: so confusing. AT and T TV and Direct TV are
Speaker 1: going to be similar, like kind of aligned. And I
Speaker 1: think the reality here is that the right on the
Speaker 1: wall for direct TV, it was a fantastic way of
Speaker 1: delivering TV to people back in the day, but now
Speaker 1: it's kind of a not a not so much Well
Speaker 1: maybe it is a sinking ship. I don't know what
Speaker 1: the what the term is for it, but it's just
Speaker 1: the returns are not increasing on that. It's it. They're
Speaker 1: going down every year because more and more people just
Speaker 1: continue to cancel services like direct TV in favor of
Speaker 1: subscription services and also of uh, you know, cable that's
Speaker 1: delivered over the internet and so you just don't need
Speaker 1: to have a satellite dish in your yard anymore. And
Speaker 1: so I think long story short for you, Joan, I
Speaker 1: don't think you have to worry about anything. I think
Speaker 1: that there there might be some change in the name
Speaker 1: or change a lot, you know, changes in the lineup
Speaker 1: or something like that. But I think it sounds like
Speaker 1: for now at least, everything's going to stay the same
Speaker 1: and the uh, the customers that are at and T
Speaker 1: video customers will become direct TV customers, and I think
Speaker 1: Direct TV customers will just kind of remain Direct TV customers.
Speaker 1: So hope that helps with the transition there. But thanks
Speaker 1: for watching on Fox four Kansas City. I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people love to watch on that. I get
Speaker 1: a lot of emails from you in Kansas City, so
Speaker 1: thank you. Well, if you go to an Apple store,
Speaker 1: you probably want to be nice. This is an article
Speaker 1: from Apple Insider based on a TikTok video that has
Speaker 1: kind of gone viral. Former Apple store employee says, you
Speaker 1: know what, if you're really nice to the Apple store employees,
Speaker 1: they might surprise and delight you by h maybe doing
Speaker 1: a repair that might cost money and give it you
Speaker 1: for free. And so this TikTok user says that rude
Speaker 1: customers you know, come in all the time. Of course
Speaker 1: they do. I mean, we get that it's everywhere. You're
Speaker 1: gonna get your problem fixed, but you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: pay for it. But if you're really nice, and of
Speaker 1: course this doesn't happen every time, but these staff members
Speaker 1: are apparently empowered to, you know, go above and beyond.
Speaker 1: And if you're really nice and you're really amazing, Matt,
Speaker 1: we might just do a little repair for you for free.
Speaker 1: And so gives the example of you come in with
Speaker 1: a water damage phone. You're not supposed to be able
Speaker 1: to replace those without a fee, but you know what, Nah,
Speaker 1: we'll just give you fore replacement. And I can definitely
Speaker 1: see this happening because it's one of those things where
Speaker 1: it doesn't really cost Apple to it doesn't cost them
Speaker 1: much to give you like a refurbished phone, and so
Speaker 1: why not and if you're really nice, and it's something
Speaker 1: that these people see and they kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: they get a you know, I don't know if there's
Speaker 1: like an allotment you get every week of like surprising delights,
Speaker 1: but I can definitely see this happening. And I remember
Speaker 1: one time I brought my laptop and I bought a
Speaker 1: brand new laptop and it crapped out after I don't know,
Speaker 1: not even a couple of weeks, and so I brought
Speaker 1: into the Apple Store and it was a logic board
Speaker 1: that fried, and the guy was like, all right, hold on,
Speaker 1: let me go get you a new a new MacBook
Speaker 1: from the back and I'll just swap it out. And
Speaker 1: so I was like, oh my gosh, that's so cool.
Speaker 1: Now I get it. It's it's under the warranty. So
Speaker 1: this is not like, you know, they're not they won't
Speaker 1: doing me any favors. But the reality was he well,
Speaker 1: actually the story ends badly because he could have swapped
Speaker 1: it out, but he couldn't because once he looked it up,
Speaker 1: he said, oh, you bought this from Amazon. I said yeah.
Speaker 1: And oh no, he said, did you not buy this
Speaker 1: from the Apple Store. I said no, I bought it
Speaker 1: from Amazon. He said, I can't replace that. It's a
Speaker 1: third party. So back then Amazon was not an authorized
Speaker 1: reseller of Apple computers, and so it was basically like
Speaker 1: a gray market. I don't know how they got them,
Speaker 1: but they couldn't replace it at the store. So I'd
Speaker 1: just send it back to Amazon, which was fine, and
Speaker 1: from that day on, I've always bought my Apple stuff
Speaker 1: from Apple, but now you know I say that, but
Speaker 1: even if you go on Amazon, it's still a lot
Speaker 1: of the Amazon stuff is I think they have a
Speaker 1: deal with Apple now where it is direct, they're like
Speaker 1: a third party reseller, and so is a lot of
Speaker 1: the local stores you see, and especially Best Buy. So
Speaker 1: I think this was when Apple wasn't as big as
Speaker 1: they are now. It was when these places would kind
Speaker 1: of third party sell their stuff. But now it's all
Speaker 1: legit and I think you get the same exact benefits
Speaker 1: wherever you go. But anyway, my point is that I
Speaker 1: was really nice. The guy was really nice. He was like,
Speaker 1: all right, sure whatever, but then he kind of I
Speaker 1: guess maybe he couldn't do it. So anyway, they didn't
Speaker 1: surprise him to light me. But I've been in the
Speaker 1: Apple Store plenty of times for things, and believe me,
Speaker 1: I think that they are really great there, and the
Speaker 1: fact that you have that genius bar is just really
Speaker 1: fantastic anywhere in the world. I was in Japan once
Speaker 1: and my my MacBook Air hard drive crashed, which was
Speaker 1: the worst thing ever. I didn't know what was wrong,
Speaker 1: but I just couldn't start up my computer, and I
Speaker 1: could not believe that I was able to make an appointment.
Speaker 1: They did a little you know, analytics on it, and
Speaker 1: they said, oh, you're hard drives fried, so you need
Speaker 1: a new one. And I said, well, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to leave it here because you know, I got to
Speaker 1: fly back. But thank you, and you know, I felt better.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a computer that whole trip, which was
Speaker 1: kind of a problem, but I used my producer's computer
Speaker 1: for that trip to kind of write my stories. But anyway,
Speaker 1: it's just one of those things where this is the
Speaker 1: this is the kind of service, the top level of
Speaker 1: service you get from Apple, you know, and this is
Speaker 1: why people love them. And I found that out. So anyway,
Speaker 1: let's get to another question. Let's see Laurie says, what's
Speaker 1: the best and safest way to print out full text
Speaker 1: message conversations from my phone to my computer so I
Speaker 1: can print them out? Thank you, Luri, Lauri in Pasadena.
Speaker 1: I did not know a way. I don't, I don't.
Speaker 1: I get this question over and over. I don't know
Speaker 1: why people need to print out their texts, but they
Speaker 1: need to print them out all the time for some reason.
Speaker 1: So uh, I don't know. I recommend just taking screenshots
Speaker 1: and printing those out. But if you need to actually
Speaker 1: print a text message from your phone, there's a website.
Speaker 1: I have not tested it, but it's called print text
Speaker 1: Messages dot net. And you know, they've got an app
Speaker 1: that you can download for the Mac computer, which yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd be a little sketch, a little, you know, a
Speaker 1: little worried about that. But they also have an Android app.
Speaker 1: So the Android app I think is probably fine because
Speaker 1: it's just going to access Android works very differently. Any
Speaker 1: any program can pretty much access mobile sms, so I
Speaker 1: think you'll be fine with that. But it is five
Speaker 1: dollars to access this and get the full, the full
Speaker 1: use out of it. And I actually got an email
Speaker 1: back from Lauri saying that she paid the five dollars
Speaker 1: and it worked. And so I guess if you need
Speaker 1: to print out your text messages, print text Messages dot
Speaker 1: net is the place to go. There you go. Lori
Speaker 1: in Pasadena tried it out. All right. Let's end with
Speaker 1: the BMW I four. This is the first all electric
Speaker 1: sedan from BMW. You know BMW had that. I gosh,
Speaker 1: what is it? I don't know what it was called
Speaker 1: that electric car that was you know, it was kind
Speaker 1: of their first. It was a little funky, little funky design.
Speaker 1: People love it, and you know, I considered getting one
Speaker 1: at one point. But this I four looks like a
Speaker 1: BMW standard, you know, like an X three or or
Speaker 1: what do they call X three or no, sorry, I three.
Speaker 1: The X is these SUVs. But this looks like a
Speaker 1: like a typical like a three series, except it's an
Speaker 1: electric and they call it the I four. It looks
Speaker 1: really cool, three hundred miles range, and it's a little
Speaker 1: bit less than Tesla according to tech Crunch. But you know,
Speaker 1: the reality is, we now have a BMW all electric
Speaker 1: sedan that looks just like a regular BMW. And the
Speaker 1: reason I share this is because I've been testing out
Speaker 1: a lot of electric cars lately, and I gotta be honest.
Speaker 1: I was all set on the Tesla three, and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden I started testing these other electric cars.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my gosh, there's so many of them,
Speaker 1: you know, like the Chevy Bolt Euv I tested. You
Speaker 1: got this new BMW, You've got the new Volkswagon, which
Speaker 1: I really love, the ID four. But I'll be honest,
Speaker 1: the more I test these cars, the more I kind
Speaker 1: of think to myself, it's not just the car, it's
Speaker 1: really Tesla as a company. It's the reason why people
Speaker 1: choose Apple for the iPhone. Is an entire company that
Speaker 1: is dedicated to this car that they created from the
Speaker 1: ground up to be electric and to be amazing and
Speaker 1: to be awesome. And the software and the hardware and
Speaker 1: everything works together, and that's really what you're getting. You're
Speaker 1: getting in an iPhone of a car. And so the
Speaker 1: more I thought about, ugh, do I want to Volkswagen
Speaker 1: that they're kind of like, you know, they're tiptoeing in
Speaker 1: And yes, these are big car companies with a lot
Speaker 1: of money and they can figure things out, but at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, they're an older company that
Speaker 1: does things in old ways in addition to the new ways,
Speaker 1: whereas Tesla only does things in the new ways. And
Speaker 1: I get it, Like I always say, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of different people in this world. You don't have to
Speaker 1: agree with me. But the more I think about it,
Speaker 1: the more I just kind of want the Tesla because
Speaker 1: I'm buying into a world not just like an electric car.
Speaker 1: And so for that reason, I'm kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I just need to go with Tesla and
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna I don't think I'm gonna buy it
Speaker 1: anytime soon. I think, you know, it's like my car's fine,
Speaker 1: I don't need a new car, but definitely getting a
Speaker 1: little Tesla electric car and vat there. That's for sure.
Speaker 1: It's starting to creep in on me, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like, ah, that would just be nice, you know.
Speaker 1: And people love their Teslas, I know, believe me, I
Speaker 1: see them all the time. But I would get my
Speaker 1: windows tinted. I don't know why that's on an option
Speaker 1: on the website. That's gonna do it for this episode
Speaker 1: of the show. If you'd like to submit a question
Speaker 1: for me to answer, you can do it two ways.
Speaker 1: Just go to rich on Tech dot tv slash podcast
Speaker 1: hit the microphone button to leave a voicemail, or go
Speaker 1: to my Facebook page Facebook dot com slash rich on
Speaker 1: tech and hit the big blue send email button. Also,
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Speaker 1: can find me on all social media at rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Be sure to check the show notes for anything that
Speaker 1: I mentioned in the show. I do spend time crafting those,
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Speaker 1: my segments. Like my sister did the other day. I
Speaker 1: think it's the first time she's ever seen me on TV,
Speaker 1: and she just kept sending me screenshots. She's like, you're funny. Oh,
Speaker 1: this is so cool. That's awesome. Yeah, been doing it
Speaker 1: for ten years. My name is rich Demiro. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for listening. There are so many ways you can
Speaker 1: spend an hour of your time. I really do appreciate
Speaker 1: you spending it with me. Stay safe, I will talk
Speaker 1: to you real soon.