Speaker 1: Now, also from the Washington Boast on the Tech days
Speaker 1: of Chris miss my true love gave to me better
Speaker 1: Wi Fi. We're big fans of Jeff Fowler. The guy
Speaker 1: writes about tech stuff for the Washington Post, and that's
Speaker 1: his title of his article today, Jeff, Welcome to the
Speaker 1: Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 2: How you doing pretty good?
Speaker 3: Thank you for singing me?
Speaker 2: Sure? So are you?
Speaker 1: Are you done with your shopping? You got everybody purchased
Speaker 1: for uh?
Speaker 3: Pretty much?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I'm a solid do it on Thanksgiving and take advantage
Speaker 3: of all of the discounts. I actually track prices over
Speaker 3: the year because I'm a big nerd.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good for you.
Speaker 1: I wish I was like I wait to the last
Speaker 1: minute and then popular stuff is sold out on a
Speaker 1: have to find the last one that's into luth Minnesota
Speaker 1: and pay extra to ship it clear across the country.
Speaker 1: That's the way I do my shopping. So this whole
Speaker 1: Wi Fi thing tell us what we can do? It
Speaker 1: sounds really interesting. I actually read the article.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so here's here's the deal. We were sitting around
Speaker 3: at the Post thinking like, okay, so what actually happens
Speaker 3: with people's technology over the holidays and we realized, you're
Speaker 3: stuck at home with your mom, your dad, your grandma,
Speaker 3: your uncle, whatever, and it turns out probably they have
Speaker 3: terrible technology going on in their house. They have a
Speaker 3: lot of things that super annoy you or maybe even
Speaker 3: make your life a little bit worse when you have
Speaker 3: to hang out with them. So we wanted to give
Speaker 3: some folks some like ideas of like, okay, what's like
Speaker 3: some really simple things you could do when you're stuck
Speaker 3: home with them to help them. And number one on
Speaker 3: the list is fixing the bad Wi Fi in the house.
Speaker 3: You know, we've all seen it, like the Netflix stutters out,
Speaker 3: you have to stay in one room or go to
Speaker 3: one corner. It's like America's number one tech problem. And
Speaker 3: it turns out there's actually a super easy solution for it.
Speaker 3: You got to just take that really ugly router box,
Speaker 3: the thing that's all the blinking lights that might look
Speaker 3: like it's an alien spaceship, and you got to move
Speaker 3: it out into the open because a lot of people
Speaker 3: think that that thing is somehow like magic and so
Speaker 3: that they just you know, it can like work from wherever,
Speaker 3: and it can't. It actually has to be out in
Speaker 3: the open. For all those radio waves to make it around.
Speaker 2: Okay, interesting, So a couple things on that.
Speaker 1: It clearly travels through some stuff, because like I have
Speaker 1: my router box in the bedroom and I get you know,
Speaker 1: good service out in the living room. So it's going
Speaker 1: through the walls and the doors. Does that just slow
Speaker 1: down the signal or is it certain kind like it
Speaker 1: can't go through metal?
Speaker 2: Tell me more about them.
Speaker 3: So the official nerdy word for what we're talking about
Speaker 3: is attenuate the signal. And so yes, it still can
Speaker 3: go through, but it's less strong. It can't reach as
Speaker 3: far through certain kinds of materials. So you named you
Speaker 3: named a big one metal. And here's the thing. It's
Speaker 3: not just like just like any metal that is the problem.
Speaker 3: Even things like wire mesh, like the chicken wire that's
Speaker 3: like built inside a lot of people's plast master.
Speaker 2: Right, I have a cock fighting ring in my and
Speaker 2: so I get a lot of chicken wire.
Speaker 3: Well, a lot of people not have it. And I
Speaker 3: had this in my house in the stucco walls they
Speaker 3: put that stuff. It turns out that that happens to
Speaker 3: be the exact gauge that messes with Wi Fi other
Speaker 3: things that mess with it, fish tanks, giant things of water.
Speaker 3: Also microwaves. If you ever turned on a microwave near
Speaker 3: near your WiFi router, like the whole thing cuts out
Speaker 3: because it uses the same the same radio wavelength, so
Speaker 3: it kind of it gets in the way. Certainly. The
Speaker 3: point is lots of things can mess up Wi Fi waves,
Speaker 3: including just like putting it inside a shelf or behind
Speaker 3: the TV. That's a big piece of metal.
Speaker 2: So the idea is take.
Speaker 3: That thing, move it out into the open, and let
Speaker 3: it really do it. It's it's business, and you're just
Speaker 3: going to immediately get a lot better WiFi.
Speaker 2: Well that's interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean, I won't mention the three lettered company that
Speaker 1: I have mine with, but they're the ones that wired
Speaker 1: this thing up and put a tiny short cord on
Speaker 1: it so it's right behind the dresser in the bedroom.
Speaker 2: Why don't they tell you that. I would think they'd
Speaker 2: want you to get better.
Speaker 3: Service because these there's a reason these are the East
Speaker 3: favored companies in the United States of America. They're not
Speaker 3: really focused on customer service. They're just focused on trying
Speaker 3: to raise your prices every year by tricking you into
Speaker 3: having to go negotiate with them again.
Speaker 2: To get the movies.
Speaker 1: So one more thing on this. Does it matter whether
Speaker 1: it's down on the ground or a pies up high better?
Speaker 3: It should be kind of as close as possible to
Speaker 3: the middle of your space. So if you have like
Speaker 3: a two story house, Pies is probably a little bit
Speaker 3: better if you're on the lower floor. Other than that,
Speaker 3: just just a clear open space is what its. Think
Speaker 3: of it a little bit like a light bulb, right
Speaker 3: where would you put a light bulb if you wanted
Speaker 3: to like maximize the amount of space that would.
Speaker 2: Would get the light.
Speaker 1: You know, it was it was insulting, but true your
Speaker 1: your comment of people who think it just has this
Speaker 1: magical ability to go through anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because that's what I've done.
Speaker 1: I've got it tucked behind the dresser in the corner
Speaker 1: of the house.
Speaker 2: Down load. No wonder my wife. I's so crappy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's but it's an easy fix. And look, if
Speaker 3: the cable's really short, just go buy a little coaxs cable,
Speaker 3: you know, ten bucks, stretch it out.
Speaker 2: You're good to go. Yeah, Oh what else can we do.
Speaker 3: On Wi Fi? Are other things while you're seck texting
Speaker 3: where you stack with the.
Speaker 2: Family, whatever you want to talk about, I don't care.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, So here's another one. This one's a
Speaker 3: little bit more of a downer, but I swear you'll
Speaker 3: thank me. There's this thing called legacy contacts that are
Speaker 3: built into your phone, your Gmail, your Facebook, all that
Speaker 3: stuff you use. You got to set those up so
Speaker 3: if you're with elderly relatives, you're with your own kids, whoever,
Speaker 3: when take a minute, you got to just tap into
Speaker 3: the settings and choose them and turn it on. Here's why,
Speaker 3: when somebody passes away, you got to have access to
Speaker 3: their digital life now right, that's where That's how you
Speaker 3: get to their bank account, that's how you get to
Speaker 3: their emails, you get to all this sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: And if you don't have access to it, oftentimes these
Speaker 3: companies won't give it to you because it's a privacy violation.
Speaker 3: So they made these things called legacy contacts. iPhones have them,
Speaker 3: Google has them. You name them and you can go
Speaker 3: in pick a person.
Speaker 1: Just set it up.
Speaker 3: Takes a minute. You don't have to talk too much
Speaker 3: about death with your lot one, but just enough to
Speaker 3: get it set up and you'll you'll you'll thank me
Speaker 3: later because it will come up at some point.
Speaker 1: So you say to Grandma, you have been looking so good?
Speaker 1: Can I see your phone? Is that the way you
Speaker 1: want to approach you?
Speaker 3: Maybe not, Maybe that's not the Christmas message. But the
Speaker 3: way I to my parents is as I said, Hey,
Speaker 3: there's a thing on your phone that will help me
Speaker 3: help you if we ever need it.
Speaker 2: Where do you find Where do you find that?
Speaker 3: It's under settings? You can just if you're using an iPhone,
Speaker 3: for example, you can go to you can just go
Speaker 3: to settings and pull down a little search button a
Speaker 3: type of legacy okay, and.
Speaker 2: It'll pop up.
Speaker 3: And we're gonna actually you have a whole story on
Speaker 3: this coming out in the post tomorrow, so we'll have
Speaker 3: all the step by step instructions part of our extended
Speaker 3: Tech Days of Christmas. Uh special. So yeah, do this one.
Speaker 3: Trust me, you'll you'll it's like we're to think about now,
Speaker 3: but when you need it, you'll really be glad you
Speaker 3: had it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just looked on a my iPhone. Is that man,
Speaker 1: that was worth the price of admission right there? That's
Speaker 1: a good one because I had somebody deal with that
Speaker 1: recently and it was a nightmare.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean anybody. We've all had someone, we've
Speaker 3: all lost someone in our lives who is important. And
Speaker 3: you know that the digital life is just key to
Speaker 3: all the stuff you have to do after they're gone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so before Grandpa checks off skydiving on the
Speaker 1: bucket list, maybe go into his iPhone and get that
Speaker 1: taken care of.
Speaker 2: What else, one more thing, one more thing?
Speaker 1: You know what?
Speaker 3: Here's here's another one that's much more upbeat.
Speaker 2: Clean the damn camera on your.
Speaker 3: Family member's phones. Like I don't know, like do people
Speaker 3: have crisco on their fingers? I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 3: But if you look at the camera on the back
Speaker 3: of the phone, the thing is covered in like crud.
Speaker 3: And guess what. Cameras also are not magic and they
Speaker 3: cannot work as the lens is covered in crud. So
Speaker 3: just get a little micro five or anything you'd used
Speaker 3: to clean your glasses and wipe it off, and all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, the pictures will look so much better.
Speaker 3: You don't need to buy a new camera, You just
Speaker 3: need to clean your phone.
Speaker 2: Awesome, Hey, what phone do you use right now?
Speaker 3: I'm talking to you from an iPhone fifteen? But I'm
Speaker 3: the kind of guy who keeps multiple phones around, So
Speaker 3: I also have also have one of those fancy Samsung
Speaker 3: folding ones.
Speaker 1: Did you upgrade to the fifteen because you need to
Speaker 1: write about it and talk about it, or because you
Speaker 1: thought it was worth it?
Speaker 3: Not because I thought it was worth it. I'm a
Speaker 3: little bit of a strange case, right because I do
Speaker 3: have to use this stuff to write about it. So
Speaker 3: I upgraded because AT and T gave me an incredible
Speaker 3: deal this year. In particular, the carriers were all pretty
Speaker 3: desperate to people locked in, and so they gave people
Speaker 3: tons and tons and tons of money if they agreed
Speaker 3: to stick around. So I was like, sure, AT ANDT,
Speaker 3: you can pay for my phone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I noticed that too. Yeah, I like the idea
Speaker 2: of titanium.
Speaker 1: Anyway, you are fantastic, GARU really appreciate coming on, and
Speaker 1: I hope your whole holiday season is fantastic.
Speaker 3: Armstrong and Getty