Speaker 1: What's going on.
Speaker 2: I'm Rich Tamiro and this is Rich on Tech, the
Speaker 2: podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think
Speaker 2: you should know about, and it's where I answer the
Speaker 2: questions you send me. I'm the tech reporter at KTLA
Speaker 2: Channel five in Los Angeles. If this is your first
Speaker 2: time ever listening, welcome to the show. It's a little
Speaker 2: bit different for this episode because I don't have my
Speaker 2: full setup, so I'm just going to do questions that
Speaker 2: you send me.
Speaker 1: And since this is the first show of twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: One, I've gotten so many questions in the past couple
Speaker 2: of weeks from you over the holidays, and so I'm
Speaker 2: going to do my best to just get through a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of questions and just do what you like
Speaker 2: the most on this show, and that is answer questions.
Speaker 2: So first off, Happy New Year. I cannot believe that
Speaker 2: we are in twenty twenty one. It feels like all
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty is a blur because of the pandemic,
Speaker 2: and I've been working from home for so many months
Speaker 2: now that in itself is just unbelievable. As a as
Speaker 2: a news reporter, you know, I always imagine that i'd
Speaker 2: be in the studio and you can't really do what
Speaker 2: I do at home, and that has been proven wrong
Speaker 2: because I've been at home now for nine months and
Speaker 2: it's been pretty cool. And what I like about working
Speaker 2: from home is I don't know if I mentioned this previously,
Speaker 2: but I love having all the things I need at
Speaker 2: my disposal. So if I want to compare you know,
Speaker 2: what Siri says to what Alexa says, to what Google says.
Speaker 2: You know, I've got all three of those smart speakers
Speaker 2: set up at the ready, ready to go. It's a
Speaker 2: little bit different than you know, being at the TV station,
Speaker 2: where I've got a great set and great audio and
Speaker 2: great video, but I don't have access to all the
Speaker 2: little things that I have at home, whereas at home,
Speaker 2: you know, the set isn't that great, the audio is
Speaker 2: not that great, the video is not that great. But
Speaker 2: I do have all of the things I need. You know,
Speaker 2: if I need to, you know, shoot something in my
Speaker 2: living room, I can do that. If I need to
Speaker 2: shoot something in the kitchen, I can do that. So
Speaker 2: it's been really interesting. It's been a learning curve and
Speaker 2: at the same time it's been fun. And you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not begging to go back anytime soon, because I
Speaker 2: think we're going to be through this, hopefully in the
Speaker 2: next six months or so with the vaccine coming up
Speaker 2: and through. But you know, the reality is, I'm kind
Speaker 2: of enjoying being at home for the time I can.
Speaker 2: So let's get to the questions again. I don't have
Speaker 2: my full setup with me, but I am going to
Speaker 2: do my best to just get through these questions because
Speaker 2: what the reality of this show is, it's all about
Speaker 2: the questions, you know, and believe me, you send a
Speaker 2: lot of them. All right, let's go, Mikey says, good morning, Rich.
Speaker 2: I was hoping you had some advice about a situation
Speaker 2: with my MacBook Pro. I purchased my MacBook Pro from
Speaker 2: a best Buy in West Lebanon, New Hampshire in April
Speaker 2: of twenty sixteen. It worked well for two years, then
Speaker 2: it all went downhill fast. Turns out my machine is
Speaker 2: actually a twenty twelve MacBook Pro. I thought I was
Speaker 2: buying a twenty sixteen and twenty sixteen both best Buy
Speaker 2: an can't help and best Buy I won't even let
Speaker 2: me trade it in because it's too old, even though
Speaker 2: I bought it in twenty sixteen. I think the date
Speaker 2: the computers are made should be printed out on the box.
Speaker 2: Any advice on this odd dilemma, Thank you, Mikey. That
Speaker 2: is a really odd dilemma, but it's not unheard of,
Speaker 2: and I number one agree, one hundred percent. I think
Speaker 2: that the year something is made should be very prominent
Speaker 2: on it. And it's interesting because when you're searching on
Speaker 2: Amazon for stuff, sometimes there will be a little notation
Speaker 2: that says there's a newer model of this device available,
Speaker 2: and sometimes it will say the twenty twenty version or
Speaker 2: the twenty nineteen version. But Mikey, I one hundred percent agree.
Speaker 2: I think that with consumer electronics there should be a
Speaker 2: year stamped on these things because sometimes you might go
Speaker 2: through a whole purchase, and especially if you're buying something
Speaker 2: on sale or discounted or from a third party retailer,
Speaker 2: you may not realize that what you're buying is actually
Speaker 2: something that was made a couple of years back. Now,
Speaker 2: when you bought a twenty twelve and twenty sixteen, that
Speaker 2: is pretty wild. That's a four year old device, and
Speaker 2: I'm actually pretty surprised that they still had that in
Speaker 2: stock or even for sale. So I don't really have
Speaker 2: a good answer for you. And you know, I think
Speaker 2: the answer that I have is to just if it's
Speaker 2: really not working out for you, And now you're talking
Speaker 2: this is.
Speaker 1: An eight year old device.
Speaker 2: I think that you just you just cut your losses here,
Speaker 2: you put it on eBay, you sell it somewhere. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's getting a little up there. But my wife actually
Speaker 2: used as a computer that's almost as old, so and
Speaker 2: you know, does what she needs. So I think that
Speaker 2: you can still use this or someone else can find
Speaker 2: some value in this. I think for you sounds like
Speaker 2: you need a machine that's going to be a little
Speaker 2: bit higher powered. So I would say, you know, put
Speaker 2: on eBay, trade it in. You can trade it in
Speaker 2: through the Apple website. I don't know how much you're
Speaker 2: going to get for that, but you know, you and
Speaker 2: go that route. But that is a great question, and
Speaker 2: that's a new one I had not really I've put
Speaker 2: some thought into this stuff, because especially when you see
Speaker 2: stuff on sale, especially around the holidays, you know, if
Speaker 2: you're seeing major discounts on these things, a lot of times, yes,
Speaker 2: they are a little bit older. So that is a
Speaker 2: great question. And I'm sorry that that happened to you,
Speaker 2: But It's a great lesson for future reference to always
Speaker 2: think about the birth of the device that you are purchasing.
Speaker 2: Just see when it was made and make sure that
Speaker 2: that is the latest model. With the iPhone, it's pretty
Speaker 2: simple because we.
Speaker 1: Know the numbers and the models.
Speaker 2: But when you're talking about laptops, it's not always that clear.
Speaker 2: And I'm gonna have to look at my MacBook box
Speaker 2: and see what numbers are on there, because that is
Speaker 2: an interesting thing. And but the other thing is a
Speaker 2: lot of us are buying stuff online, so you do
Speaker 2: need to kind of look at those little things on Amazon.
Speaker 1: I know, if you scroll down.
Speaker 2: There's a little section that says date first available. So
Speaker 2: for instance, with the with the iPad, that's a really
Speaker 2: tricky one because the iPad, you know, they don't really
Speaker 2: go by like right now, it says new Apple iPad,
Speaker 2: latest model eighth generation. So I mean, you know, you
Speaker 2: might not know what you know if it didn't say
Speaker 2: latest model, eighth generation.
Speaker 1: I don't know, is that the new one? Like it
Speaker 1: should say twenty twenty iPad. But if you scroll down
Speaker 1: on Amazon, there's usually a little section that says date
Speaker 1: first available. I'm gonna see now this is a very
Speaker 1: uh okay uh date.
Speaker 2: Release date nine fifteen, twenty twenty, so that gives me
Speaker 2: an indication that this is the eighth generation, is.
Speaker 1: The latest model.
Speaker 2: So another place to check I always talk about this
Speaker 2: is the MacRumors. They do a buyer's guide, so Buyer's
Speaker 2: Guide dot MacRumors dot com is another good place to look.
Speaker 2: But check those out, all right, good question. Sorry that
Speaker 2: happened to you, Mikey, but thanks for writing in. I
Speaker 2: do appreciate it, all right. Phil A writes in, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 2: can you recommend an alternative to WhatsApp? I feel like
Speaker 2: I need to delete my account after reading about it's
Speaker 2: new privacy policy. Am I overreacting? Let's see here basically
Speaker 2: seeking a chap at with video functionality that I can
Speaker 2: use with my iPhone friends. Thanking it, thanks in advance,
Speaker 2: Happy New Year.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I've been getting a lot of questions about this WhatsApp
Speaker 2: you know, new privacy policy, and Facebook owns WhatsApp, they
Speaker 2: purchased it, and Facebook what they've been doing is slowly
Speaker 2: but surely they are just merging everything into one, you know,
Speaker 2: cross platform, whether you use Facebook, whether you use WhatsApp,
Speaker 2: whether you use Instagram, whether you use Messenger, it's all
Speaker 2: kind of working together. And you know, that makes sense
Speaker 2: for them from a business standpoint to just kind of
Speaker 2: merge everything and not keep it all separate. But for users,
Speaker 2: especially with WhatsApp. You know a lot of WhatsApp users
Speaker 2: were on there and then Facebook purchased them. They said
Speaker 2: they were going to keep things primarily the same. That
Speaker 2: didn't necessarily happen, as we see over and over in
Speaker 2: the tech world. You know, these companies they buy something
Speaker 2: and they say nothing's going to change, and then sometimes
Speaker 2: are ninety nine percent of the time things change. And
Speaker 2: we saw this in a big way with Instagram. Right now,
Speaker 2: I'm reading that book No Filter, which is all about
Speaker 2: Instagram and how it started, and you know, the whole
Speaker 2: thing is, you know, I'm reading between the lines of
Speaker 2: why the founders left Facebook, because it's pretty clear that
Speaker 2: the changes that Facebook wanted to continue to make to Instagram,
Speaker 2: the founders of Instagram were just not comfortable with, and
Speaker 2: that's why they eventually left. And you know, a spoiler
Speaker 2: there a spoiler alert, But I mean, I think we
Speaker 2: all know that. But as I'm reading the book, I'm
Speaker 2: reading through between the lines and realizing this is why
Speaker 2: they're leaving. So What's app kind of the same thing
Speaker 2: now the let's see, So it says the new privacy
Speaker 2: policy actually, according to PC mag won't affect WhatsApp users
Speaker 2: who decided to stop sharing data with Facebook back when
Speaker 2: the option was available in twenty sixteen. So they will
Speaker 2: continue to honor the opt out if you opted out back.
Speaker 1: In the day.
Speaker 2: But they say, you can check in your setting Account
Speaker 2: settings tab, look in the download your data function and see.
Speaker 2: But the reality is what's happening is WhatsApp is going
Speaker 2: to have a new privacy policy that's going to share
Speaker 2: more data with Facebook. And I think it's going to
Speaker 2: be kind of the same data that Facebook collects throughout
Speaker 2: all of their other apps.
Speaker 1: And I think they're just kind of aligning all those things.
Speaker 2: Now, if you have a Facebook account, I would say, honestly,
Speaker 2: you know, what's the difference if you use Instagram and
Speaker 2: you're using Facebook. I think, Phil, you know, you're already
Speaker 2: putting yourself out there with their privacy policies. So WhatsApp
Speaker 2: is just going to be more in line with those
Speaker 2: privacy policies.
Speaker 1: Now. To answer your question, if you.
Speaker 2: Want to delete your accoun you can fully do that.
Speaker 2: I think one of the reasons why people like WhatsApp
Speaker 2: is that the messages are end to end encrypted as
Speaker 2: far as I know, and so let me just let
Speaker 2: me confirm that and to end, I think that the
Speaker 2: yeah WhatsApp is yeah. So WhatsApp is end to end encrypted,
Speaker 2: which means that even WhatsApp can't read the contents of
Speaker 2: your messages, your photos, and your videos. So that's that's
Speaker 2: why a lot of people are attracted to it because
Speaker 2: it's secure, but the fact that it's also owned by
Speaker 2: Facebook gives people some pause. So answer your question, I
Speaker 2: would look at two things. I use an app called
Speaker 2: Telegram and it's a nice cross platform app, but you're
Speaker 2: talking about video functionality, so scratch that.
Speaker 1: So the two I would.
Speaker 2: Recommend is I would say Google Duo. But again, I
Speaker 2: mean that's Google. So you know who has the better
Speaker 2: privacy policy Google or Facebook.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but you've got that going on.
Speaker 2: So Google Duo is a great cross cross platform app
Speaker 2: that does video chatting with iPhone and also Android.
Speaker 1: The other one you.
Speaker 2: Can look at that's really secure is Signal. So if
Speaker 2: you are worried about privacy, I think that Signal is
Speaker 2: probably going to be your best bet because Signal is
Speaker 2: the most secure chat app, and I guess they also
Speaker 2: do video I have not used it, but they also
Speaker 2: do video chat as far as I can tell, So
Speaker 2: I would say maybe to switch to Signal. Now here's
Speaker 2: the thing that's really tricky is that most of the
Speaker 2: challenge is getting your friends that have iPhones to use
Speaker 2: these other apps. You've already gotten them to sign up
Speaker 2: for WhatsApp, Now you have to get them to sign
Speaker 2: up for another app. And I find that because Facebook
Speaker 2: or not Facebook, because FaceTime is built into the iPhone,
Speaker 2: most iPhone users are like what now. I think the
Speaker 2: pandemic has helped that situation just a little bit because
Speaker 2: they know, you know, they're more open to different apps.
Speaker 2: And I think Zoom is also a fine alternative as well.
Speaker 2: But the problem with Zoom is that it's a little
Speaker 2: bit too much. I think Google Duo is more of
Speaker 2: just a video chat app. So oh, you're saying, I'm
Speaker 2: basically seeking a chap at with video functionality, So that
Speaker 2: could mean two things. I'm not sure you meant you
Speaker 2: want to be able to send videos or you want
Speaker 2: to be able to chat with video chat, so either
Speaker 2: way Telegram, which is what I used, they will do that.
Speaker 2: I think that when it comes to video chat, it's good,
Speaker 2: but I'm not sure it's the best.
Speaker 1: But they do let you send videos. So good question.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Phil, and yeah, appreciate that. All right, let's
Speaker 2: move on to the next question. Tom says, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 2: I hope you're doing well. I have a question for you.
Speaker 2: I have to transcribe one of our production meetings from
Speaker 2: a Zoom session we had. I remember you reporting about
Speaker 2: an application in which you could take an audio file
Speaker 2: and convert it to a printed outline. Do you remember that, Tom,
Speaker 2: I sure do. And there's a lot of ways you
Speaker 2: can do this. The simplest way I think is going
Speaker 2: to be well, there's a couple of ways. Let me.
Speaker 2: Let me explain what I mentioned into my piece on KTLA.
Speaker 2: So this whole thing came about because there's a really,
Speaker 2: really good app built into the Pixel phones that is
Speaker 2: called Recorder, And this thing is like pure magic.
Speaker 1: You set it up to record.
Speaker 2: And you see in real time on your screen everything
Speaker 2: that's being said. And this is a life saver for
Speaker 2: me as a journalist because I can set up my
Speaker 2: Pixel and if I'm on an online call and I'm
Speaker 2: you know, in a briefing or something. I can literally
Speaker 2: have it transcribe everything that everyone's saying and have a
Speaker 2: nice record and go back, you know, oh wait, did
Speaker 2: they say sixteen gigs or ten gigs. It's just it's
Speaker 2: really amazing. And I could also transcribe my interviews. So
Speaker 2: if I'm feeling a little lazy and I've got a
Speaker 2: long interview that I want to transcribe, I can just
Speaker 2: play it and the Google Phone will listen to it
Speaker 2: and transcribe it.
Speaker 1: And it's pretty magical.
Speaker 2: And if you're a college student or even any student,
Speaker 2: you can put this in class.
Speaker 1: And it can be recording.
Speaker 2: And the cool thing is wherever you're recording, you can
Speaker 2: tap and go right to that spot in the recording.
Speaker 2: You know, you can tap the text and you can
Speaker 2: listen to exactly what that person said. I believe the iPad.
Speaker 2: Does the iPad do that? Something does that? A lot
Speaker 2: of the note taking apps. Oh I think the note
Speaker 2: from Samsung does that as well. But the reality is
Speaker 2: there's a lot of ways to do this. Tom that's
Speaker 2: just one, but you have to have a pixel phone.
Speaker 2: I've tried installing that app on other androids, and it
Speaker 2: does work, especially on Samsung's. So if you find the
Speaker 2: APK for that app and you're comfortable doing that, you
Speaker 2: can install it what they call sideload it, and it
Speaker 2: works just fine on the Samsungs. On the OnePlus devices,
Speaker 2: it doesn't work as well in my experience, but you know,
Speaker 2: perhaps that's changed. But that's one way of doing it.
Speaker 2: The other way is an app called Otter. This is
Speaker 2: an app that works on both iPhone and Android, and
Speaker 2: it's called otter dot Ai. And again you can listen
Speaker 2: to your you know, a lecture, a meeting, an interview,
Speaker 2: and it will transcribe that pretty much in real time,
Speaker 2: and it works pretty well. I believe that you would
Speaker 2: be able to upload, you know, upload a a audio
Speaker 2: file into the app and let it transcribe that too.
Speaker 2: I've not personally done that, but I'm sure you could.
Speaker 2: The limitation on that one is that you get six
Speaker 2: hundred minutes of transcription for free, so that is the
Speaker 2: main thing. Oh yeah, import or sync recordings from services
Speaker 2: including Zoom, so that's another one I would check out,
Speaker 2: But you only get six hundred minutes per month, which
Speaker 2: is a lot. I mean, depends how long this thing
Speaker 2: is that you're talking about. The thing that I think
Speaker 2: is The other one is called descript D S c
Speaker 2: R I p T, and that one is really full feature.
Speaker 2: This is a full app. You can download it to
Speaker 2: your desktop. It's from Andrew Mason, the guy who started
Speaker 2: what was that gosh it Evading Me the.
Speaker 1: Deal site, I can't remember.
Speaker 2: It was out of Chicago, groupon he started groupon and
Speaker 2: then he left there and now he started this one
Speaker 2: called the Script very full featured. Again, you do have
Speaker 2: to pay for that one. I think you get a
Speaker 2: certain amount every month for free. Let's see how much
Speaker 2: you get three hours of transcription just one time. So
Speaker 2: you might be able to try this and see how
Speaker 2: it works. But if you want to upgrade to something
Speaker 2: like Creator or Pro, they are going to charge you.
Speaker 2: But that really integrates nicely as well into Zoom. The
Speaker 2: other one is if you have a Microsoft three sixty
Speaker 2: five account.
Speaker 1: This is the one that I thought was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: So if you open up Word on the web, you
Speaker 1: can upload a file into Word, look for the transcribe
Speaker 1: button and it will take a couple of minutes and
Speaker 1: transcribe the entire file for you and I think if
Speaker 1: you are working for a company or you have somehow
Speaker 1: have access to Microsoft Office three six y five on
Speaker 1: the web, that would be a really nice way to
Speaker 1: do that. So again, as a as a reporter that's
Speaker 1: always transcribing interviews, I go back and forth. Sometimes I
Speaker 1: think it's really great to have everything transcribed. Other times
Speaker 1: I just do it quickly on the fly. You know,
Speaker 1: if I'm not transcribing the entire thing. Most of the
Speaker 1: time when I'm writing a story, I don't need to
Speaker 1: transcribe the entire interview. I'll listen to the entire interview
Speaker 1: for what I call our selects, and then I will
Speaker 1: kind of pick which ones I think are the best,
Speaker 1: and then I will actually go through and you know,
Speaker 1: just transcribe on the fly the ones that I need
Speaker 1: the most.
Speaker 2: All right, thanks for answering, Tom, and or thanks for
Speaker 2: the question, Tom.
Speaker 1: I do appreciate that.
Speaker 2: All right, Moving on here, Jeffrey, can you tell them
Speaker 2: out of sorts here a little bit? So I don't
Speaker 2: have my standard setup, so it's a little bit different.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't have my sound effects and all
Speaker 2: my little things, and my timer keeps the timer I'm
Speaker 2: using for the podcast just keeps going dark on my iPhone,
Speaker 2: so I have to keep like unlocking it to see.
Speaker 2: Don't you think that on the iPhone when you're running
Speaker 2: a stopwatch, it should keep the screen lit, Like I
Speaker 2: would think that that would be a thing, because if
Speaker 2: you're actively running a stopwatch, maybe there's a time out
Speaker 2: after a certain period. But like you know, if you're
Speaker 2: running a stopwatch, don't you want to see like what
Speaker 2: you're recording? Uh? Jeffrey says, good afternoon, sir, and happy
Speaker 2: New Year. Do you know how to use an iPad
Speaker 2: as a second monitor of the iMac? I know it's
Speaker 2: called sidecar, but I'm not sure how it works.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: So I don't use this a whole lot, but I
Speaker 2: do use it sometimes. It's a great feature. But I
Speaker 2: also just forget that it's even available. But it's a
Speaker 2: feature that's built into I believe it was as last
Speaker 2: Mac operating system. The new one is called big sur which, oh,
Speaker 2: I finally updated my computer to big sur so I
Speaker 2: wiped my computer clean and oh gosh, this was Actually
Speaker 2: it was kind of a little bit of a nightmare
Speaker 2: because there is some real heavy security built into the
Speaker 2: new map books. It's mine specifically has this like security chip.
Speaker 2: I think it's called the T two or Apple loves
Speaker 2: to name their chips, but it's this chip that for
Speaker 2: security purposes. It makes it so that someone can't just
Speaker 2: like straight up erase your Mac and like start over.
Speaker 1: It's really tricky.
Speaker 2: So I did that to my Mac and next thing,
Speaker 2: you know, it would not let me install the new
Speaker 2: operating system because I needed to authenticate that.
Speaker 1: And so what I had to end up.
Speaker 2: Doing is I had to reinstall the previous operating system,
Speaker 2: and then I had to create an account, keep that active,
Speaker 2: and then go in and somehow I forget now that
Speaker 2: I did it, it's like I got through it and
Speaker 2: I forgot.
Speaker 1: But it was like it was quite the process.
Speaker 2: And I got through it, but it threw me for
Speaker 2: a loop because I was like, oh my gosh, I
Speaker 2: can't believe that I just had to erase my whole computer,
Speaker 2: reinstall the old operating system, and now go back to
Speaker 2: do the new operating system. It was kind of a
Speaker 2: it was a bunch of extra steps, but I got
Speaker 2: it to work. But word to the wise, I wish
Speaker 2: I could remember what the problem was, but I tweeted
Speaker 2: about it, so it's on my Twitter at rich on Tech.
Speaker 2: But it was it took about four or five times
Speaker 2: as long as it should have. Let's put it that way.
Speaker 2: But Sidecar is built in, and the way I see
Speaker 2: it is that it's super super easy. You just have
Speaker 2: a iPad next to your computer and it will show
Speaker 2: up in the display settings and you just go in
Speaker 2: there and it will just show up and you just say,
Speaker 2: you know, choose your iPad from the menu when it
Speaker 2: says connect to and there you go. On Catalina. You
Speaker 2: can use the airplay icon and it depends how you
Speaker 2: want to do it. Sidecar you can mirror to your
Speaker 2: other display, or you can extend your display. But again
Speaker 2: this does require the use of an iPad. So but
Speaker 2: once you do it, it's really cool and it's very simple,
Speaker 2: and you can also do it if you don't see
Speaker 2: the settings for Sidecar in your menu bar, just go
Speaker 2: into your settings, your system preferences, and you'll see a
Speaker 2: little icon for Sidecar, or you can just search for
Speaker 2: Sidecar in your settings and you know, set it up
Speaker 2: that way.
Speaker 1: Or your system preferences. I should say, but it's a.
Speaker 2: Really handy thing. I you know, I love the idea
Speaker 2: of multiple monitors. I just don't really use them because
Speaker 2: I have this little program that I really like on
Speaker 2: my computer called Rectangle, and it kind of like I
Speaker 2: can arrange my windows on my computer like either the left,
Speaker 2: the right, the top, the bottom, the center. It all
Speaker 2: kind of snaps into these you know, pre defined areas,
Speaker 2: and so I find that pretty handy. And again that
Speaker 2: app is called Rectangle for the Mac. But you know,
Speaker 2: it just depends what you like. If I had maybe
Speaker 2: if I was like not mobile and I kind of
Speaker 2: always had my desks set up a certain way, I
Speaker 2: think the multiple monitors would be kind of cool because
Speaker 2: you can keep like, you know, certain things like Twitter
Speaker 2: on one monitor and other things on other monitor and
Speaker 2: it just kind of stays all in one place. But
Speaker 2: for me, I'm always moving around, and so I can't
Speaker 2: really stick to one standard setup.
Speaker 1: But that's what sidecar is.
Speaker 2: And oh, I don't know what's going on with me,
Speaker 2: because you're saying, do you know how to use an
Speaker 2: iPad as a second monitor of the Mac? And you
Speaker 2: literally said that, and I keep saying you need an iPad,
Speaker 2: but yes, you know that, Jeffrey. All right, by the way,
Speaker 2: thank you for one hundred thousand followers on Instagram. If
Speaker 2: I had a sound effect, I would play it, but
Speaker 2: over the holidays it was kind of a personal goal.
Speaker 1: Before the end of the year.
Speaker 2: I didn't really say that to anyone, but I noticed
Speaker 2: that my Instagram was getting up towards one hundred thousand followers,
Speaker 2: and I was just like, is this really gonna hit
Speaker 2: it before the end of the year, And sure enough
Speaker 2: it did. And as I stand one hundred k on
Speaker 2: my Instagram at rich On Tech, what does that mean?
Speaker 2: It doesn't really mean much. I mean, it's really just symbolic.
Speaker 2: But to me personally, it means that what I feel
Speaker 2: like I've been doing on Instagram, which is giving my
Speaker 2: followers the best information I can give them in a
Speaker 2: you know, not in a you know. What I try
Speaker 2: to do is is not play games. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: trying to just be myself. And when I see information
Speaker 2: I think you should know about, I put it on there,
Speaker 2: whereas I just, you know, I don't want to play
Speaker 2: a lot of games. And sometimes, you know, it's a
Speaker 2: lot of my I mix a lot of stuff like
Speaker 2: what I say in my in my because there used
Speaker 2: to be this struggle with Instagram because I used to
Speaker 2: not post anything tech related. It was just basically like
Speaker 2: personal stuff. And then you know, then I got into
Speaker 2: like posting more tech stuff and more tips and you know,
Speaker 2: like just using it in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 2: And so now in my bio, I say sharing cool
Speaker 2: new gadgets, tech tips, and my life. So my life
Speaker 2: part is the part that throws someone sometimes because they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: I followed you for that cool tech post, and now
Speaker 2: I see a picture of your kids.
Speaker 1: What gives you know?
Speaker 2: If you don't want to see the full rich DeMuro,
Speaker 2: you know, like all different aspects of my life, then
Speaker 2: you know that's not the place to follow me. But
Speaker 2: the reality is I want to show a three sixty
Speaker 2: of here's who I am, here's a cool tech tip,
Speaker 2: but also here's what I'm doing on the weekend with
Speaker 2: my family, because I am a normal person that has
Speaker 2: a regular life, and you know, I feel like I
Speaker 2: like seeing that with people that I follow, and I
Speaker 2: like to see what they like, what they're drinking, what
Speaker 2: they're eating, where they're going, what they're doing with their family.
Speaker 2: Like some of those posts are really interesting to me
Speaker 2: because I'm always curious how other people are living and
Speaker 2: you know, especially people that I follow that are tech
Speaker 2: people or public figures, like it's always fascinating, but I
Speaker 2: also follow them for a reason. I want to see
Speaker 2: what they're sharing when it comes to tech and when
Speaker 2: it comes to reviews. So for me, I kind of
Speaker 2: share all those different things. And I feel like the
Speaker 2: one hundred k means that it's working. You like what
Speaker 2: you're seeing.
Speaker 1: And yes, you know, a bunch of.
Speaker 2: People on follow me every day. Bunch of people follow
Speaker 2: me every day, So I'll just keep doing what I doing.
Speaker 2: I'll just keep doing what I do and hopefully we'll
Speaker 2: grow to even more than one hundred thousand folks on there.
Speaker 2: But thank you for following me on there. If you're
Speaker 2: not at rich On Tech is where I'm at, and
Speaker 2: be prepared for good stuff, fun stuff, interesting stuff, personal stuff,
Speaker 2: sappy stuff, and everything in between. Just sint To writes
Speaker 2: in good Morning. A lot of people write me good morning.
Speaker 2: This is an ongoing joke in this show because they're
Speaker 2: watching the morning news, where I primarily appear on TV,
Speaker 2: and then they say, oh, yeah, I want to write
Speaker 2: that guy, and then they write an email and they
Speaker 2: say good morning. When I read these things, all throughout
Speaker 2: the day. But so I like to read the good
Speaker 2: morning because I think it is a trend that a
Speaker 2: lot of people. It's like an inside joke if you
Speaker 2: listen to this show a lot.
Speaker 1: Just since it says good morning.
Speaker 2: I'm curious if there is something out there that would
Speaker 2: allow for a traditional keyboard to be used with a
Speaker 2: cell phone, specifically wanting to be able to use it
Speaker 2: when posting lots of content on Instagram without killing my thumbs.
Speaker 2: This is a funny question and just sint to As
Speaker 2: far as I know, almost any bluetooth keyboard will work
Speaker 2: with the iPhone. So you can just get a Bluetooth keyboard,
Speaker 2: pair it up to the iPhone and it will work.
Speaker 2: In fact, I've done some videos on this with I
Speaker 2: did a mouse where I connected a mouse to the
Speaker 2: iPhone and that was a that was a fun little video.
Speaker 2: But I think I connected I know I've connected him
Speaker 2: in the past because specifically, my father in law wanted
Speaker 2: this solution and I ended up getting or recommending him
Speaker 2: a Logitech Bluetooth keyboard that was kind of a travel
Speaker 2: keyboard or so I forget. It was very specific, but
Speaker 2: it had a place where you can actually stick your
Speaker 2: iPhone like. It kind of had a little ridge in
Speaker 2: there that would let you stick your iPhone almost like
Speaker 2: a am almost like.
Speaker 1: A tribe not a tripod. What do you call that?
Speaker 2: I don't know what you call it, but it was
Speaker 2: just a keyboard that would just yeah, I guess it
Speaker 2: was a tablet keyboard, iPad keyboard. Oh. Here it is
Speaker 2: Bluetooth Multi Device keyboard K four eighty. And there you
Speaker 2: have it. Switch typing between your computer, phone and tablet.
Speaker 2: It's only fifty bucks. You compare up to three devices
Speaker 2: and there's a little gosh, I don't know what you
Speaker 2: call a ridge that you just put your phone in
Speaker 2: and it's it's really simple and easy.
Speaker 1: And again you can just put any of those.
Speaker 2: Devices in there and it works now if you Oh,
Speaker 2: it's also weather proof.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: The other thing that you can do is if you're
Speaker 2: on an Android device, I believe, you can just plug
Speaker 2: a USB keyboard right into the bottom of that device
Speaker 2: and it should recognize it as long as you know.
Speaker 1: It depends.
Speaker 2: Every Android manufacturer is different, but for most of them,
Speaker 2: you know, if they use the standard you know, USB
Speaker 2: connector I forget it's called like OTG or something. It
Speaker 2: will it will recognize that keyboard. But that's another thing
Speaker 2: you can do. And I think this little keyboard I'm
Speaker 2: talking about as well on the Logitech one, the K
Speaker 2: four eighty also says it works with Android, so you
Speaker 2: can use it. Now do I recommend it?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you're posting, if your job is to
Speaker 2: post Instagram content, maybe you need that.
Speaker 1: And I think that one of these keyboards would be great.
Speaker 2: But I post a lot of content on Instagram. No
Speaker 2: more than one post a day generally, because that's like
Speaker 2: the unspoken Instagram rule. I don't know who came up
Speaker 2: with that, but it's like, why is it that you
Speaker 2: can only post one thing on Instagram a day.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I've broken that rule sometimes and I'm still here to
Speaker 2: talk about it. But you know, there you have it,
Speaker 2: So find the keyboard, see which works for you. But
Speaker 2: I just you know the other little trick I use,
Speaker 2: and this is a little inside baseball, but you know,
Speaker 2: the iPhone and the mac computers they work so well together.
Speaker 2: You can copy something on your Mac computer or your
Speaker 2: iPad and then you can paste on your iPhone. So
Speaker 2: if you don't know about that you can literally just
Speaker 2: if you have a Mac computer that's on the same
Speaker 2: iCloud account as your iPhone or your iPad, you can
Speaker 2: literally hit command C on your computer and then paste
Speaker 2: on your iPhone and it will paste from your computer. Now,
Speaker 2: it's only for a certain amount of time, and the
Speaker 2: two devices. I don't know if they have to be
Speaker 2: in proximity of each other, but I think that might
Speaker 2: be one of the requirements. But it works, and it
Speaker 2: does it and it's a great little hack because sometimes
Speaker 2: I'll type things out on my computer because it's simpler,
Speaker 2: and then I'll just paste it on my iPhone and
Speaker 2: it works really well. All right, Moving on to Marta,
Speaker 2: Marta says, hey, Rich, thanks for all the information you
Speaker 2: give out day after day. As one of the older generation,
Speaker 2: I have learned a lot from you. Thank you. Now
Speaker 2: a question Adobe flash Player. Should I delete it? As suggested?
Speaker 2: What will take its place? And she looks like she
Speaker 2: pasted in something that says since Adobe will no longer
Speaker 2: be supporting flash Player after December thirty first, twenty twenty
Speaker 2: and Adobe will block flash content from running in flash
Speaker 2: Player beginning January twelfth, twenty twenty one. Adobe strongly recommends
Speaker 2: all users immediately uninstalled flash Player to help protect their systems.
Speaker 2: Many thanks for your help, Marta. Yeah, I would delete
Speaker 2: it from your system because there is a good chance
Speaker 2: that it could be a vulnerability on your system if
Speaker 2: you still have the flash player installed. And if you
Speaker 2: just look at flash player, Adobe flash uninstalled, if you
Speaker 2: look at their official uninstalled instructions. So I would go
Speaker 2: to Adobe flash Player, search for Adobe flash Player end
Speaker 2: of life and make sure you're on Adobe's website and
Speaker 2: they will give you the instructions on how to uninstall
Speaker 2: it from your computer, which is a you know, whether
Speaker 2: it's a MAC or a PC. So I would uninstall
Speaker 2: it because it's a potential risk because if the software
Speaker 2: is not being updated, that means that hackers can exploit
Speaker 2: any vulnerabilities that they find in that software because it's
Speaker 2: not being updated. So there's no security patches that are
Speaker 2: being administered to this software via a software update, and
Speaker 2: I don't know when it says no longer supported. So
Speaker 2: if there was a major major security up issue with it,
Speaker 2: perhaps they would issue some sort of software update. We've
Speaker 2: seen that happen in the past with Windows, even though
Speaker 2: they said we're not supporting this Windows anymore. But then
Speaker 2: when something really bad happens, they said, okay, well we'll
Speaker 2: go ahead and one last time, we're going to update
Speaker 2: this and patch it, just because we know it's a
Speaker 2: major problem. And a lot of you are still running
Speaker 2: that software, and I imagine a lot of people probably
Speaker 2: still have Flash Player on their system, even though to
Speaker 2: answer your second question, what will take its place? Honestly, Marta,
Speaker 2: ninety nine point nine percent of the web has not
Speaker 2: been running Flash for a very long time, and what
Speaker 2: we use now is called HTML five and there's a
Speaker 2: lot of new open standards that just work much better
Speaker 2: than Flash. And honestly, most of the time Flash is
Speaker 2: just not used. You know, it's not used on YouTube,
Speaker 2: it's not used on all the video sites. It's not
Speaker 2: it's pretty much just not used anywhere anymore. I think
Speaker 2: Farmville was the last holdout, and I think that closed
Speaker 2: down as well as of January first, because they said,
Speaker 2: peace out. We built this whole game and Flash and
Speaker 2: we're done. There might be some specialized applications of Flash
Speaker 2: that you might still need for something that you run,
Speaker 2: like an app that you know your company might have,
Speaker 2: and I think you'd be instructed from your company how
Speaker 2: to get around that if that's necessary. But for ninety
Speaker 2: nine point nine percent of the people on the open web,
Speaker 2: most of the stuff that you are that are your
Speaker 2: running or encountering or have been, you know, running into
Speaker 2: over the past couple of years, has not been flash based.
Speaker 1: It's just not.
Speaker 2: And so I don't think that you're gonna see a
Speaker 2: big issue with flash going away.
Speaker 1: And I would delete off my computer.
Speaker 2: And Steve Jobs he predicted this many many years ago.
Speaker 2: He famously decided not to support flash on the iPhone.
Speaker 2: And guess what if I had my ding bell, I
Speaker 2: would say that's right, because he was right.
Speaker 1: So long ago.
Speaker 2: He saw the web moving to different, more secure, more
Speaker 2: open standards, and the iPhone really helped push that along
Speaker 2: because the iPhone, he said, you know what, we're gonna
Speaker 2: run apps, and we're gonna run web browser stuff, and
Speaker 2: you know, we're not gonna support the flash stuff because
Speaker 2: it's just it just isn't in line with what we
Speaker 2: want on the iPhone. And I think Android ran flash
Speaker 2: for a very long time, and that was a big
Speaker 2: delineation between the two platforms, because if he had a Samsung,
Speaker 2: it was like, well, I could still run all these
Speaker 2: Flash things. If you're on iPhone, it would say sorry,
Speaker 2: not supported. But nowadays we're just not seeing that problem.
Speaker 2: So Marta, I know I say, great question for everyone,
Speaker 2: but that is truly a great and very timely question
Speaker 2: right now because a lot of people are getting I
Speaker 2: got the email from Adobe, and as far as I know,
Speaker 2: Flash is not on my computer because it was not
Speaker 2: installed when I reinstalled. This is why I like to
Speaker 2: do a clean install of my operating system every year,
Speaker 2: because I like to clean off all the junk. I
Speaker 2: install so many programs throughout the year to you know,
Speaker 2: test new things, test new features, and so I like
Speaker 2: at the end of the year when they come out
Speaker 2: with the new Mac operating system, to wipe my system
Speaker 2: clean and start fresh. And it feels like a new
Speaker 2: computer when you do that and you get rid of
Speaker 2: all this stuff. The downside, and I've talked about this
Speaker 2: in the podcast, is that there's so many little programs
Speaker 2: I have to go through and reinstall. Yeah, it's a pain,
Speaker 2: but it's definitely worth it. And I like the fresh
Speaker 2: start because it challenges me to kind of take nothing
Speaker 2: for granted. So, for instance, I switched to Edge last year,
Speaker 2: towards the end of the year, I was using Microsoft
Speaker 2: Edge as my web browser, and I will report that
Speaker 2: I have gone back to Chrome. I tried when I
Speaker 2: first installed Big sur I did try to use Safari
Speaker 2: as my web browser and not install Chrome, but I
Speaker 2: just found that there's too many things I like about Chrome,
Speaker 2: and I will admit it's sluggish. It's noticeably slower on
Speaker 2: this Mac which is a really you know, a nice
Speaker 2: high end MacBook Pro, and Chrome just just drags it.
Speaker 1: It really does.
Speaker 2: Safari is fast, it's speedy, but it's just kind of
Speaker 2: not what I want. And it had all the extensions
Speaker 2: I wanted, but it was just like, it doesn't work
Speaker 2: the way that I like.
Speaker 1: And so for that reason, I just went back to Chrome.
Speaker 1: And I'm trying to deal.
Speaker 2: With it, and it's gotten a little bit better, you know,
Speaker 2: as my computer's been on for a couple of months
Speaker 2: or a month now of the new operating system, but
Speaker 2: still feels a little weird, all right, Connie says, Hey,
Speaker 2: Rich I watch you on Channel five all the time
Speaker 2: and enjoy all your information. Well, thank you, Connie. I
Speaker 2: hope you and your family had a fabulous holiday season,
Speaker 2: which I did thank you like to know about the
Speaker 2: new Samsung Galaxy S twenty one doesn't have the same
Speaker 2: feature as the iPhone eleven. The feature that I'm looking
Speaker 2: for is picture on picture, where you can be walking
Speaker 2: and talking to the phone and it shows you but
Speaker 2: the background is what you're looking at. I'm a realtor
Speaker 2: and can benefit from this feature tremendously. I've had an
Speaker 2: Android for many years and I really do not want
Speaker 2: to switch to an iPhone. Can you help me out
Speaker 2: with this question to get answered, I don't like a
Speaker 2: big phone right now. I've got the Samsung Galaxy S eight. Yes,
Speaker 2: I know it's old. That's why I need a new one.
Speaker 2: I'm waiting for the one that has the feature with
Speaker 2: the camera. I look forward to your reply. I have
Speaker 2: a blessed day, Connie.
Speaker 1: This is a question that is okay, So a couple things.
Speaker 2: First off, what you're referring to is a feature called
Speaker 2: double Take, and this is an app that they introduced.
Speaker 2: I think it was with iOS thirteen. They showed off
Speaker 2: this feature that allows you to use both cameras, so
Speaker 2: you can choose the combination of cameras and you can
Speaker 2: record two of them at the same time either side
Speaker 2: by side picture and picture where you're off to the corner,
Speaker 2: or you can just record two discrete streams and work
Speaker 2: with them later and you can go you know, front
Speaker 2: camera plus rear camera or front camera plus wide angle,
Speaker 2: or you can do wide angle plus rear camera or
Speaker 2: telephoto plus wide you know, just take your pick of
Speaker 2: the two cameras.
Speaker 1: And this is a really cool feature.
Speaker 2: In fact, one of the guys I like on YouTube
Speaker 2: uses this as his primary way of shooting. He's called
Speaker 2: flave City, and it's he does all kind of like
Speaker 2: he goes into a grocery store and he records himself
Speaker 2: looking at the food and specifically the food label, and
Speaker 2: he kind of talks about what's good and what's bad
Speaker 2: on that food label. And so you always see him
Speaker 2: in the corner and then see the food label on
Speaker 2: the other side. You know, the big the big picture
Speaker 2: is the food label. The little picture in the corner,
Speaker 2: Pip is him. And so this got me to thinking,
Speaker 2: I did try this a couple of weeks ago with
Speaker 2: a Boba tea making robot, and I recorded myself with
Speaker 2: the robot and I kind of did it play by
Speaker 2: play where I'm in the corner talking about, you know,
Speaker 2: the play by play of what the robot's doing.
Speaker 1: And I uploaded it and I thought it.
Speaker 2: Was pretty cool. You know, it's like, you know, it's different.
Speaker 2: It was the first time I tried it, and then
Speaker 2: I tried it again last week. What was the video
Speaker 2: I did? I have to look at my Instagram because
Speaker 2: I'm trying to remember what this was. It was, Oh,
Speaker 2: this new coffee machine I got, which, by the way,
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I am in love with my new
Speaker 2: coffee machine now I bought it. I actually bought three
Speaker 2: coffee machines through this pandemic. The first was a Briville.
Speaker 2: It was called Grind Control, and I liked it because
Speaker 2: it made a fresh cup of coffee by grinding the
Speaker 2: beans and then brewing them. And we had that for
Speaker 2: about eight months, and honestly, it was good, but it
Speaker 2: wasn't as good as I wanted. I was imagining like
Speaker 2: a super fresh cup of coffee. It never truly tasted
Speaker 2: that way. And then the grinds got stuck and I
Speaker 2: was like, Okay, this thing kind of broke and yes,
Speaker 2: I'm going to go through the you know, year warranty
Speaker 2: or whatever and kind of get it fixed and then
Speaker 2: you know, put on eBay for someone else to use
Speaker 2: for parts or whatever, or maybe even they just want
Speaker 2: a coffee machine. But it got me to thinking, you
Speaker 2: know what, I kind of you know, I was trying
Speaker 2: to get away from the cake cup because I felt
Speaker 2: it tasted stale. But cakeup is just so easy. And
Speaker 2: what that machine taught me was that the cake cup
Speaker 2: is just a whole lot easier. So then I bought
Speaker 2: this machine that was a cake cup side by side
Speaker 2: with just you know, a brewer machine that you just
Speaker 2: put ground beans in. You have to grind them before,
Speaker 2: but just like a drip brewer. So it was a
Speaker 2: drip brewers plus the cake cup. And I thought, you
Speaker 2: know what, I'll use the cakeup during the week to
Speaker 2: be fast, and on the weekends, I'll use the drip
Speaker 2: and I'll make a pot for my wife and I.
Speaker 2: But the problem is I set this whole machine up
Speaker 2: and it was leaking. And I looked on Amazon, and
Speaker 2: sure enough, like half the review said, oh yeah, this
Speaker 2: machine leaks. So I brought it back to best Buy
Speaker 2: and as I was doing my research, I found this
Speaker 2: machine from instant Pot of all companies, you know, the
Speaker 2: one that makes the instant pot that everyone loves. This
Speaker 2: is called instant Pod and apparently they only sell it
Speaker 2: at Walmart. But it is a CA cup slash an espresso.
Speaker 2: Now they don't use the word in espresso. It's just
Speaker 2: the Espresso pods, but they're an Espresso pods. And I
Speaker 2: thought to myself, Oh my gosh, this is amazing. This
Speaker 2: is the best of both worlds. During the week, I
Speaker 2: can make the ca cup and then in the afternoons
Speaker 2: I can make an espresso. And let me tell you,
Speaker 2: this machine is so amazing. I absolutely love it. Yes,
Speaker 2: I'm using you know, the ground things that are already
Speaker 2: you know, pre made whatever. But I gotta tell you,
Speaker 2: I'm loving making my cakeup in the morning and my
Speaker 2: espresso in the after And to make it even better,
Speaker 2: I found this stuff called ready whip, sweet cream or
Speaker 2: sweet foam. And okay, you know, say what you will
Speaker 2: about you know the ready whip, and it's probably you
Speaker 2: know who knows what's in there. It's got a lot
Speaker 2: of sugar, but I don't care.
Speaker 1: It is so good.
Speaker 2: It's like making your own little espresso with.
Speaker 1: A nice little foam.
Speaker 2: Even when I go to Starbucks to get this thing
Speaker 2: called I know it's called a dopio or dopyo, but
Speaker 2: it's basically a shot of espresso with some whipped cream
Speaker 2: on top, and it's just fantastic. And this recreates that
Speaker 2: experience at home. And I am loving, loving, loving my
Speaker 2: coffee right now.
Speaker 1: And I'll be honest.
Speaker 2: I mean, well, by the way, the machine I bought,
Speaker 2: I bought it for one hundred and twenty bucks, and
Speaker 2: I guess the price dropped to one hundred and Walmart
Speaker 2: automatically refunded.
Speaker 1: Me, which I thought was cool.
Speaker 2: But then as I posted it to my Instagram, people
Speaker 2: were like, oh, this is only eighty bucks at Walmart.
Speaker 2: So I was like, wait, it dropped again. So the
Speaker 2: price dropped another twenty dollars. I wrote Walmart an email
Speaker 2: and they said, now we don't do that again. We
Speaker 2: don't even do price They don't do price drop refunds,
Speaker 2: which I thought was weird because they automatically did it
Speaker 2: for my you know, the twenty dollars. But anyway, so
Speaker 2: I figured, you know what split the difference. I got
Speaker 2: my twenty bucks back. Sure, I could have brought the
Speaker 2: whole machine back and bought it for the you know,
Speaker 2: eighty Bucks versus the one twenty. But you know, it's
Speaker 2: already set up and it's fine. So the reality is
Speaker 2: I'm loving my coffee machine. If you look it up,
Speaker 2: it's called the instant Pod. If you like k cups
Speaker 2: and you like a little inn espresso.
Speaker 1: In the afternoon.
Speaker 2: I have just been really, really enjoying this, and now
Speaker 2: I need to research how much caffeine is too much
Speaker 2: in one day, because not like it's I'm going overboard,
Speaker 2: but I'm having two k cups in the morning and
Speaker 2: then the espresso in the afternoon, which is kind of
Speaker 2: like the most coffee I've ever drank, and I don't
Speaker 2: want to go overboard. So I'm still kind of figuring
Speaker 2: that out. I don't have the espresso every time, nor
Speaker 2: do I have the second cup every time. Hey, you
Speaker 2: know what you're listening to Rich on Tech. You're getting
Speaker 2: way more information than you need. So let's go back
Speaker 2: to this question. What was the question about the s
Speaker 2: twenty one? Is it going to have that same picture
Speaker 2: and picture feature. The short answer to your question is
Speaker 2: you've waited this long wait until January fourteenth, I think,
Speaker 2: is when they have the Samsung event and see if
Speaker 2: they have that feature. I have a feeling they will
Speaker 2: have that feature because it's a feature on the iPhone,
Speaker 2: because a lot of loggers, myself included, are really finding
Speaker 2: that feature useful. And when I looked for an Android
Speaker 2: app with that same feature, off the top of my
Speaker 2: head or off the top of Google, I could not
Speaker 2: find one. I do know of a phone that does
Speaker 2: have it too, which is called the LG Wing. And
Speaker 2: that's what got me started on that whole thing, is
Speaker 2: because LG sent me the Wing to test, and I
Speaker 2: thought that that was like the coolest feature that you
Speaker 2: could hold this phone and record yourself and other stuff. Now,
Speaker 2: I am just gonna I'll be honest, I'm gonna totally
Speaker 2: blatantly rip off flave City, and I have plans to
Speaker 2: go into a Costco or a best Buy and just
Speaker 2: kind of go through the tech stuff that I see
Speaker 2: there that's on sale that I like, and just kind
Speaker 2: of give you a walkthrough of how rich On Tech's
Speaker 2: brain processes what I see at Costco, especially because I'm
Speaker 2: always going in there, and it's been an ongoing joke
Speaker 2: in my family with my wife that when we walk
Speaker 2: into Costco, I say, honey, you know I have to
Speaker 2: go through the electronics section. That's just built into me,
Speaker 2: and I know I don't need to buy all this stuff,
Speaker 2: but I like to see what they have and what's
Speaker 2: available because I'm curious. I've been like that forever. Same
Speaker 2: thing with Best Buy. I just like to walk in
Speaker 2: there and just see what's what is being presented to
Speaker 2: the average person, what's on the end cap, what's for sale,
Speaker 2: what's you know, what has a big display, what has
Speaker 2: a small display, what's there. I don't walk through Best
Speaker 2: Buy as much as I'd like to, especially with a pandemic,
Speaker 2: but you know, I used to just go in on
Speaker 2: a Saturday and just kind of check things out, and
Speaker 2: so I think it'd be fun to do a video
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: The main thing is.
Speaker 2: You don't want to get caught, because you know they
Speaker 2: will toss you out of the stores if you are recording,
Speaker 2: so you know you have to be careful, and you know,
Speaker 2: I don't want to show a whole bunch of people
Speaker 2: in the background. So anyway, so Connie, to answer your question,
Speaker 2: wait for the S twenty one, wait to see if
Speaker 2: that's one of the features, and if it is, I
Speaker 2: would jump on it because I'm really, I really like
Speaker 2: what Samsung did with the Note twenty Ultra, and as
Speaker 2: I mentioned in my last podcast a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 2: I may be tempted to jump to the s twenty
Speaker 2: one if it has all the features I want and
Speaker 2: most importantly, the camera is solid. I'm thinking the camera
Speaker 2: is going to be very similar to the Note twenty,
Speaker 2: So if I can get that Note twenty features in
Speaker 2: a slightly smaller form factor, I am all about that,
Speaker 2: all right. Jason writes in Hey, Rich, I was wanting
Speaker 2: your suggestion on buying a not too expensive camera for
Speaker 2: selling things on my website that's being created. We print
Speaker 2: and sell clothing. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Jason. Jason,
Speaker 2: my advice is start with what you got. I think,
Speaker 2: because you're telling me you are starting a website, that
Speaker 2: means that you're just getting this off the ground. I
Speaker 2: don't think you need to spend a ton of money
Speaker 2: on a DSLR. I just don't. I think that the
Speaker 2: smartphone you have is gonna be just fine. And I
Speaker 2: think it's more important to have good lighting and a
Speaker 2: good background for your clothing that you are taking a
Speaker 2: picture of. I mean, let's be honest, ninety nine point
Speaker 2: nine percent of the people that are coming to your
Speaker 2: website are going to be coming on there from a
Speaker 2: mobile phone or their desktop, and they're not gonna be
Speaker 2: looking at high res pictures of these clothes. They're gonna
Speaker 2: be looking at a small thumbnail that they might expand
Speaker 2: into a bigger picture. But again, even if it fills
Speaker 2: up their whole screen, you're gonna be just fine with
Speaker 2: the resolution that you get from a smartphone. So if
Speaker 2: you have a later model iPhone or a Samsung, as
Speaker 2: long as you take nice pictures, I think that's where
Speaker 2: you start. I don't like to see people spend a
Speaker 2: lot of money on equipment when they're quote unquote starting
Speaker 2: something up, because it takes away from what you're trying
Speaker 2: to do. And what you're trying to do is build something,
Speaker 2: and you when you build something with a lot of
Speaker 2: expensive equipment, there's a lot of pressure there. So, for instance,
Speaker 2: with this podcast, and I know it probably sounds a
Speaker 2: little bit different today than it generally, does, you know,
Speaker 2: I started the podcast with I think I was just
Speaker 2: recording directly into my computer with just like a standard
Speaker 2: like I don't even remember that. I think it was
Speaker 2: like the iPhone mic or something you know, like the headphones.
Speaker 2: So I think that you can just use what you've got,
Speaker 2: make a nice background, maybe get some nice lighting, and
Speaker 2: then you know, if you find yourself in a place
Speaker 2: where you really need to step up your game and
Speaker 2: you really need to sort of, you know, have a
Speaker 2: much better looking setup, that's when I think you buy
Speaker 2: the DSLR and you know, once you need to do that,
Speaker 2: I would look at it site like wirecutter and just
Speaker 2: see what they recommend for like a budget or entry
Speaker 2: level camera or you know, there's so many websites out
Speaker 2: there that rank cameras. I would just look at one
Speaker 2: of those and see what they got. All right, Sandy,
Speaker 2: how are we doing on time with this podcast? Sandy says, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 2: I wanted to find out what sites are safe to
Speaker 2: order from, Like when getting a PS five. I see
Speaker 2: eBay and these sites, wondering which you would suggest to
Speaker 2: stay away from.
Speaker 1: HM.
Speaker 2: This is a tricky question because I don't want to
Speaker 2: cut out, you know, all these random websites that are
Speaker 2: selling things. But honestly, when it comes to something like
Speaker 2: the PS five, which is very much in demand, you
Speaker 2: want to stick to the main players. And I'll tell
Speaker 2: you this from experience, because I got a bunch of
Speaker 2: emails from folks when I was talking about how to
Speaker 2: get a PS five that said, you know, they got burnt.
Speaker 2: They were just buying from these random websites that said
Speaker 2: they had them in stock, and guess what, they did
Speaker 2: not have them in stock. And in some cases they
Speaker 2: hand it over a payment via PayPal and guess what,
Speaker 2: good luck getting your money back from that, because it's
Speaker 2: just not happening eBay. You know, if you're gonna buy
Speaker 2: from eBay, I would say, you have to be sure
Speaker 2: that the seller is not it's not their first rodeo, right.
Speaker 2: You want to find a seller that has a lot
Speaker 2: of good feedback, and not just feedback on you know,
Speaker 2: two dollars items for the past month and then all
Speaker 2: of a sudden they've got this thousand dollars PS five
Speaker 2: on there. You want to find someone that has a
Speaker 2: solid track record, you know, that has been selling stuff
Speaker 2: of expensive value, that has good feedback for the past
Speaker 2: couple of months and then has jumped into this PS five.
Speaker 2: Because it could just be someone looking at an opportunity.
Speaker 2: They went to their local target, they found one, and
Speaker 2: now they're flipping it, and you know, I can't knock
Speaker 2: them for that, Do I do? I think that should
Speaker 2: be happening. No, But does it happen yet. It's been
Speaker 2: happening forever, you know, scalpurs have been going on as
Speaker 2: long as humankind has been around. People see opportunity. It's
Speaker 2: you know, it's a marketplace. If someone's willing to pay
Speaker 2: more because they're in a position to do that, that's
Speaker 2: their progative. Would I pay more? No, I would not.
Speaker 2: I would just wait the six months or the three
Speaker 2: months or the four months, whatever it's gonna take to
Speaker 2: get this at the normal price from best buy dot
Speaker 2: com or from Amazon dot com, or from Sony or
Speaker 2: from one of these main websites that you can just
Speaker 2: order it and get it through the standard channels. That's
Speaker 2: what I would recommend. When it comes to these other websites,
Speaker 2: I would really really.
Speaker 1: Stay away because you just don't want to deal.
Speaker 2: With losing a lot of money, especially when you're overpaying
Speaker 2: to begin with, because you're probably paying a premium going from.
Speaker 1: One of these websites.
Speaker 2: All Right, Wow, I got a lot more questions. I
Speaker 2: just kind of copied and pasted a bunch of the
Speaker 2: questions I've gotten in the last couple of weeks, and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna jump around here a little bit. Richard writes,
Speaker 2: good morning, rich I hope this year, this New Year
Speaker 2: finds you healthy. Thank you it has knock on wood.
Speaker 2: My question has to do with the safest payment method
Speaker 2: for my subscriptions. Some like Netflix have the option of
Speaker 2: either credit, debit, or PayPal. So given those three options,
Speaker 2: what is your advice a credit card, a debit card,
Speaker 2: or PayPal when given the opportunity. Thank you for your time,
Speaker 2: Happy New Year to you and his family in his service. RC. Richard, Well,
Speaker 2: this is a question that is at the top of
Speaker 2: my mind all of the time. If you've listened to
Speaker 2: this podcast, you know I am not a fan of
Speaker 2: credit cards, but I do use a credit card for
Speaker 2: various reasons, and some of those reasons have to do
Speaker 2: it travel. When it comes to business travel. You know,
Speaker 2: it's just easier when it comes to booking flights and
Speaker 2: stuff like that. It does give you a little bit
Speaker 2: more protection to have a credit card. When it comes
Speaker 2: to large purchases. I do like putting those on a
Speaker 2: credit card because you do get a little buffer.
Speaker 1: Between you and your money.
Speaker 2: And when it comes to shopping online, I like to
Speaker 2: use a credit card because I'm not putting my debit
Speaker 2: card number, which is linked to my checking account, out
Speaker 2: there on the open web, and if that site gets hacked, boom,
Speaker 2: Now they've got access to my debit card, which gives
Speaker 2: them access to my checking account.
Speaker 1: And yes, you do have a lot.
Speaker 2: Of the same protections with getting your money back with
Speaker 2: a debit card, but the reality is it's more of
Speaker 2: a headache. And just to test this, I went on
Speaker 2: my bank account and I looked at one of my
Speaker 2: transactions I made with my debit card and on my
Speaker 2: app on my on my phone, and I looked for
Speaker 2: a dispute transaction button and I didn't find one. And
Speaker 2: then I went on my credit card app and I
Speaker 2: found dispute transaction right on my app. So again it
Speaker 2: really comes down to if something were to happen with
Speaker 2: this transaction, are you protected? And so I would say
Speaker 2: for things like Netflix and those recurring payments that are
Speaker 2: really not going to change, I think you're safe using
Speaker 2: your debit card.
Speaker 1: I kind of split the difference.
Speaker 2: I've moved a lot of them to my credit card
Speaker 2: because I just like the idea of especially with recurring transactions.
Speaker 2: I don't Number one, I don't like anything auto built,
Speaker 2: you know, unless they have to something like Netflix, they
Speaker 2: have to auto auto charge you. And you know the
Speaker 2: number doesn't really change month to month, but things that do.
Speaker 2: Like historically a cell phone bill back in the day,
Speaker 2: it would you know, it would change every month. You
Speaker 2: know it would you know when you're getting different minutes
Speaker 2: and different stuff. Now you know the way the cell
Speaker 2: phone companies have got this little racket going where they
Speaker 2: give you a discount by using your debit card because
Speaker 2: it saves them money every month times millions of customers.
Speaker 2: And so I do use my debit card with my
Speaker 2: with my wireless bill. As much as I don't like it,
Speaker 2: it saves me twenty dollars a month to pay with
Speaker 2: my debit card and with my with my NOH paper bill.
Speaker 2: So these companies are very smart and they will try
Speaker 2: to get you any way they can. And you know,
Speaker 2: something like Netflix, I think you'll be fine with a
Speaker 2: debit card. But again it's to me, it's like, here's
Speaker 2: my rules when it comes to credit versus debit. If
Speaker 2: my card leaves my hand, I generally like to use
Speaker 2: a credit card. So that means if I'm in a
Speaker 2: restaurant and someone's taking my card to a back room
Speaker 2: to swipe it, I'm gonna give them my credit card
Speaker 2: because you know who knows, they might take a picture
Speaker 2: of my card. There's a chance for that to get stolen.
Speaker 2: If my card does not leave my hand, I will
Speaker 2: generally use my debit card because I'm the one swiping it.
Speaker 2: And again I will always default to my phone tap
Speaker 2: to pay when in doubt I've got my debit card
Speaker 2: on my phone, i will tap to pay. Because they
Speaker 2: don't hand over your actual debit card number when you're
Speaker 2: dipping your card using your chip. Also, again they do
Speaker 2: not hand over your actual debit card number that's printed
Speaker 2: on that card, so you are protected. The place where
Speaker 2: you are most at risk is when you wipe your
Speaker 2: card or you write down your card number into a
Speaker 2: web form. That is when you are most at risk
Speaker 2: for that card number being hacked. So with Netflix, you
Speaker 2: know if they're storing it on their server, you know
Speaker 2: that there is a risk if they were breached, but
Speaker 2: it's it's generally minimal. But again there is a risk,
Speaker 2: and so it's up to you PayPal. I would say
Speaker 2: X that I use PayPal. I've been using it more online,
Speaker 2: but again only for a transaction that.
Speaker 1: You know is not going to be disputed.
Speaker 2: So again, if you're buying something that you think you
Speaker 2: might return, then you know, maybe use your credit card. Though,
Speaker 2: you know, and again these are all personal. Finance is
Speaker 2: very That's why they call it personal finance. It's very personal.
Speaker 2: Some people like to use their credit card for everything
Speaker 2: because they get those points. Personally, I don't go for
Speaker 2: the points. I would rather not have to pay that
Speaker 2: bill at the end of the month. And so I
Speaker 2: like to use my debit card and have a you know,
Speaker 2: an ongoing kind of like seeing how much I've got
Speaker 2: in that account. I use a separate account for my
Speaker 2: debit card purchases that I load up with a certain
Speaker 2: amount that is sort of in my budget and say,
Speaker 2: this is what I use for, you know, dining out
Speaker 2: and this and that, and I know and I can
Speaker 2: see that that number dwindling, and so it does help
Speaker 2: me with that.
Speaker 1: So there you have it.
Speaker 2: Those are my sort of thoughts on it, and you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's different for everyone, So just use what makes
Speaker 2: you comfortable, all right. Wow, I can't believe it, but
Speaker 2: we have made it to the end of the show.
Speaker 2: I hope that this show sounded good. Like I said,
Speaker 2: I'm using a slightly different setup for this show, so
Speaker 2: hopefully it sounded good. I know I didn't have the
Speaker 2: full everything going, but I did want to get an
Speaker 2: episode out to you and make sure that I did
Speaker 2: get one even though I don't have my full setup.
Speaker 1: But thank you for listening.
Speaker 2: If you would like to submit a question for me
Speaker 2: to answer, just go to rich on tech dot TV. Actually,
Speaker 2: you know what, Just go to rich on tech dot
Speaker 2: TV slash podcast and look for the contact link and
Speaker 2: you can submit a question there. I am using a
Speaker 2: new service for my podcast called pod page, which I love.
Speaker 2: It's really good and I just love how clean it is,
Speaker 2: so you can go There's two ways to find it.
Speaker 2: You go podcast dot richon tech dot tv or rich
Speaker 2: on tech dot TV slash podcast. If you would rate
Speaker 2: and review the show, that would really help other people
Speaker 2: discover it.
Speaker 1: There's also a.
Speaker 2: There's a link there to rate it as well. You
Speaker 2: can find me on all social media at rich on
Speaker 2: tech Please tell a friend about me about my podcast,
Speaker 2: about my social media, especially Instagram, that is really where
Speaker 2: I'm putting a lot of my effort these days. And again,
Speaker 2: this only grows with the thanks of you telling friends, Hey,
Speaker 2: this guy is sharing stuff that I think you can
Speaker 2: use on a daily basis. It's tips, it's information that
Speaker 2: is useful, it's timely, it's gadgets that are interesting, and
Speaker 2: you know, I just feel like the stuff that I'm
Speaker 2: trying to share is stuff that the average tech consumer
Speaker 2: just needs to know about. My name is Richardimiro. Thanks
Speaker 2: so much for listening. Have a fantastic day, Happy New Year,
Speaker 2: Happy twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: I will talk to you real soon.