Speaker 1: Authorities discover the way China might be cyber spying on us,
Speaker 1: and it is not good. Two major outages in one week.
Speaker 1: What we know about Verizon and Bank of America's issues.
Speaker 1: Ring adds a key feature to its cameras, but not
Speaker 1: to its most popular products. I'll explain, plus your tech
Speaker 1: questions answered.
Speaker 2: What is going on? I'm Rich Demiro and this is
Speaker 2: Rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: This is the show where I talk about the tech
Speaker 1: stuff I think you should know about. It's also the
Speaker 1: place where I answer your questions about technology. I believe
Speaker 1: that tech should be interesting, useful and fun. All right,
Speaker 1: let's open up those phone lines at triple a Rich
Speaker 1: one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two,
Speaker 1: four to.
Speaker 2: One zero one.
Speaker 1: Every time I do that, I just imagine the floodgates
Speaker 1: opening with Kim standing behind them, just all these calls
Speaker 1: flowing her way. She will go through them and get
Speaker 1: you on the air. Here, give me a call. If
Speaker 1: you have a question about technology. Email is also an option.
Speaker 1: Just go to Rich on tech dot tv and hit
Speaker 1: contact up at the top. That's Rich on tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: Hit contact. You can submit your question there. It will
Speaker 1: make its way right to my inbox guests. This week,
Speaker 1: We've got Justin Klosco from Consumer Watchdog. He's gonna talk
Speaker 1: about tech related privacy concerns and how you can better
Speaker 1: protect your information. Then later in the show, it is
Speaker 1: shopping expert Trey baj. She is from truetrade dot com.
Speaker 1: She's gonna talk all about Amazon Prime Day, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna have a check in from North Carolina. One of
Speaker 1: my friends that lives there covers VR for Android Central.
Speaker 2: He's been on the show before.
Speaker 1: He is gonna call in and talk about what it's
Speaker 1: been like in the wake of this hurricane over there,
Speaker 1: and especially when it comes to technology, it has not
Speaker 1: been good over there.
Speaker 2: But let's talk about Prime Day.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get to the China spying stuff in the
Speaker 1: in the next segment that is just wild, but I'll
Speaker 1: get to that in a moment.
Speaker 2: But first, let's talk about Prime Day.
Speaker 1: This is happening this week, and I figured I would
Speaker 1: share my tried and true ways the way that I
Speaker 1: shop on Amazon. And I know we're gonna have Trey
Speaker 1: on later on to talk about her tips and tricks,
Speaker 1: but these are mine. This is the way I shop
Speaker 1: on Amazon day in day out year in, year out
Speaker 1: to make sure that I'm getting the best deals on
Speaker 1: Prime Day. So Prime Day is happening on Tuesday and Wednesday,
Speaker 1: October eighth and ninth. Once again, you do have to
Speaker 1: be a Prime member, So if you're not paying for
Speaker 1: that Prime membership, you might want to sign up for
Speaker 1: a free trial if you're going to start your holiday shopping.
Speaker 1: These deals are exclusive for Prime. And I've noticed that
Speaker 1: Amazon has started sort of promoting the Prime membership a
Speaker 1: lot more so when you go on Amazon. I ordered
Speaker 1: something the other day and it was like, hey, you
Speaker 1: would have paid ten dollars for shipping if you weren't Prime.
Speaker 1: And then if you go to your Prime page, if
Speaker 1: you go to Amazon dot com, let's see Prime, there
Speaker 1: is a page and it tells you, like how much
Speaker 1: you've saved on Amazon Prime over the years, which is interesting.
Speaker 1: So let's see Amazon Prime membership. Let's see. I think
Speaker 1: there's a here's the stats. I've saved one and twenty
Speaker 1: eight dollars with Prime. That doesn't sound like that much.
Speaker 1: I mean how many for oh, for twelve months, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's that's a lot. I've watched sixty three movies and
Speaker 1: shows which I don't believe I have. But okay, three
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty four packages, zero books, that's prime books,
Speaker 1: and I've listened to five hundred and ninety four songs,
Speaker 1: so I don't know. I mean, I guess the three
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty four packages. If you do the math,
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty nine dollars for the year divided
Speaker 1: by three hundred and thirty nine packages, that's forty one
Speaker 1: cents shipping each package.
Speaker 2: Wow. Okay, that's when you put it that way.
Speaker 1: Remember when when shipping actually cost a lot of money,
Speaker 1: like you would literally pay for postage and handling. And
Speaker 1: now it's just if you're not getting free shipping, you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm not ordering from there. I mean, it's very rare
Speaker 1: that we pay for shipping, but somebody has to pay
Speaker 1: for it is built into the price of these things,
Speaker 1: all right. So my first strategy number one, make a
Speaker 1: gift list now. And by the way, AI is really
Speaker 1: good for helping you with this. I mentioned a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago is my kid's birthday. We said, hey,
Speaker 1: give me some ideas for a ten year old for
Speaker 1: you know, a ten year old boy.
Speaker 2: And I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: We got such great ideas from AI, so lean on
Speaker 1: AI and the Adobe Insights actually said people are leaning
Speaker 1: on AI for shopping so much more than ever before.
Speaker 1: Great way to brainstorm gifts and gift ideas. Review your
Speaker 1: past purchases. This is one of my best tips because
Speaker 1: you know, we buy so much stuff on Amazon. Like
Speaker 1: it's not sexy, but I buy like my filter for
Speaker 1: my refrigerator, right Like, I buy that on Amazon every
Speaker 1: six months, never goes on sale. Maybe it's on sale
Speaker 1: during Prime Day. So go to Amazon up at the top,
Speaker 1: hit returns and orders, and then buy again. This will
Speaker 1: give you a list of all of this stuff you
Speaker 1: have purchased on Amazon, and so you can see like,
Speaker 1: oh okay, I do need that again. You'll just get
Speaker 1: ideas for things that you may have purchased in the past.
Speaker 1: Like we purchase I know again it's silly. These wipes
Speaker 1: for our shoes that we use. My kids love them.
Speaker 1: They really clean up. You know what I'm talking about, Bobo.
Speaker 1: You got to have clean shoes, right, So my kids
Speaker 1: love them. I love them, and we order them all
Speaker 1: the time. They may be on sale. So once you
Speaker 1: have that, you've got your stuff in your cart. Now
Speaker 1: check your cart. So I don't know about you, but
Speaker 1: I save a lot of stuff in my Amazon cart
Speaker 1: for later. Go to your Amazon cart, scroll down to
Speaker 1: the bottom and see what's in there, and also add
Speaker 1: stuff in there. So if you want to track the
Speaker 1: price on things, add it to your cart today. That
Speaker 1: way you're not scrambling on Tuesday and Wednesday to come
Speaker 1: up with all the stuff you want to purchase. And
Speaker 1: then once you do that, watch for early deals. So
Speaker 1: in the in the sort of days leading up to
Speaker 1: Prime Day, things go on sale. So just continue, you know,
Speaker 1: for the next week or so, it's time to visit
Speaker 1: Amazon and just see what's there, see what's happening that's
Speaker 1: you know, you never know when you're gonna find something
Speaker 1: that's that went on sale.
Speaker 2: And keep in mind this is a two day event.
Speaker 1: It really lasts in my mind, probably more like four
Speaker 1: or five days, because if you think about the two
Speaker 1: days before it, the day after, plus the two days,
Speaker 1: you know, there is a long swath of time to
Speaker 1: get those deals. I would say the deals really drop
Speaker 1: off though after Prime Day, so once it ends, you're
Speaker 1: not really going to be getting that many deals right
Speaker 1: after that. So look more in the days leading up
Speaker 1: to it. Now, here's the most important thing to look for.
Speaker 1: You have to look for these special Prime Day banners.
Speaker 1: Don't just look for something that says save eleven percent,
Speaker 1: save fifteen percent. I'm looking right now at my past purchases,
Speaker 1: and you see these banners they say Prime Early Deal,
Speaker 1: limited time deal with Prime, or thirty six percent off
Speaker 1: or whatever percent off, limited time deal. So right at
Speaker 1: the top, it's showing me all the stuff I've purchased
Speaker 1: in the past, Like these these luggage tags that I paid, Well,
Speaker 1: they're okay, they're not that big of a deal. They're
Speaker 1: only you're typically eight dollars right now there's seven. But hey,
Speaker 1: that's a dollar saved. Why not bad example, Let's see
Speaker 1: these lights that I bought outside typically eighty nine dollars.
Speaker 1: These are on sale for fifty six. And this even
Speaker 1: has a countdown ends in four hours. So again that's
Speaker 1: how you identify the Prime Day deals, these big red
Speaker 1: banners near the price tags. If you don't see that,
Speaker 1: it's probably not on sale for Prime. Now, once you
Speaker 1: find something that you want to purchase, I take the
Speaker 1: URL and I go to a website called Camel Camel Camel.
Speaker 1: You pop that URL from Amazon into Camel Camel Camel,
Speaker 1: and this will give you the price history. So what
Speaker 1: you're looking for on that price history is to see
Speaker 1: if the lowest price that they've recorded is lower or
Speaker 1: higher than the current price. So if the current price
Speaker 1: on sale is the same or lower than that last
Speaker 1: previous lowest price on Camel Camel Camel, go ahead and
Speaker 1: buy it. That means that this is a better deal.
Speaker 1: So for instance, this TV that I looked up was
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty nine dollars. Camel Camel cammell said, Oh,
Speaker 1: the last cheapest price was one sixty nine, so therefore
Speaker 1: this is way cheaper, I mean ten dollars cheaper than
Speaker 1: it's ever been. And that's what you're really looking for
Speaker 1: because you can't go by the list price on Amazon.
Speaker 1: The list price means absolutely nothing. That does not mean
Speaker 1: that this item ever sold at that price. It just
Speaker 1: means that's the list price. This thing could be on
Speaker 1: sale all the time, and that's why Camel Camel Camel
Speaker 1: will help you figure out if it's actually a deal
Speaker 1: or if it's just you know, the typical price it's
Speaker 1: always been. Now, if you're looking for deep discounts on
Speaker 1: Amazon stuff. That's where you're going to find some great
Speaker 1: stuff like Ring, Kindle, Fire TV, Echo, and euro for
Speaker 1: the mesh Wi Fi. Those are all going to be
Speaker 1: on sale. Typically they discount the previous year's products a
Speaker 1: little bit more than the current stuff, but the current
Speaker 1: stuff gets discounts as well. Some of the current deals
Speaker 1: you can get right now Amazon Music Unlimited four months
Speaker 1: for free, Kindle Unlimited, three months free, Audible if you
Speaker 1: like to listen to audiobooks. I think I picked up
Speaker 1: like three months free, but your offer maybe personalized depending
Speaker 1: on if you subscribe before. And then of course Amazon
Speaker 1: promising all kinds of deals on all these brands. There's
Speaker 1: a list of a couple dozen of them, American Girl, bos, Coach, Dice,
Speaker 1: and Lego, Peloton, Samsung. I've listed them all my website,
Speaker 1: and what I did for you is actually link them
Speaker 1: all up because Amazon doesn't give you like a list
Speaker 1: plus the links. So what I do is I go
Speaker 1: through and I link them all up so that you
Speaker 1: can click if you want something from Bos, you can
Speaker 1: click that link and see what's on sale instantly from Bos.
Speaker 1: And so I've done that with all of the different brands.
Speaker 1: Then of course I put things that I like in
Speaker 1: there as well, So you can check that all out.
Speaker 1: That's all on my website, rich on tech dot TV,
Speaker 1: and it's basically a big banner there that says Prime Day,
Speaker 1: So check it out and if you need the thirty
Speaker 1: day free trial access that is available as well. So
Speaker 1: my advice for Prime Day, don't just spend money like
Speaker 1: no reason. Go in with a plan and you can
Speaker 1: actually save money on the things that you actually need
Speaker 1: and actually want and actually want a gift throughout the holidays.
Speaker 1: By the way, this week, I mentioned last week on
Speaker 1: my Instagram was sort of knocked by Instagram. Well this
Speaker 1: week they actually shut down my account completely for a while.
Speaker 1: That means I lost all my posts, all my followers,
Speaker 1: all my account access. It was suspended. I logged on
Speaker 1: and said, your account is suspended and you can appeal this,
Speaker 1: but if you appeal and lose, we delete your account
Speaker 1: and you can never come back. And I said what,
Speaker 1: And so I tweeted about this. I went on X
Speaker 1: and I said, hey, here's my story, Like, what the heck?
Speaker 1: I know I made fun of Meta last week in
Speaker 1: this show, but come on, does somebody really get mad
Speaker 1: there and delete my account.
Speaker 2: Well, it turns out I don't know.
Speaker 1: All I know is that a Meta spokesperson replied to
Speaker 1: my tweet and said, hey, this was a mistake.
Speaker 2: Your account was back now.
Speaker 1: I think that seems kind of fishy, seems kind of
Speaker 1: odd that all of a sudden, after I got this
Speaker 1: knock on my account last week, the day or a
Speaker 1: couple days later, after I make fun of Meta, they
Speaker 1: close my account and say I'm suspended, like for no reason.
Speaker 1: It said copyright or something like give me a break.
Speaker 1: So long story short. At first, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I am relieved of posting of stories, of making reels
Speaker 1: of all this social media stuff, like life is so
Speaker 1: free right now. And then I was like, it's also
Speaker 1: kind of sad that I lost one hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: thousand people there that I talked to on a daily basis. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I have my account back at rich on Tech, So
Speaker 1: I am there. Let's hope that there are no more
Speaker 1: quote unquote mistakes with my Instagram. All right, eight A
Speaker 1: eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. Give me a call
Speaker 1: if you have a question about technology. My name is
Speaker 1: rich Damiro and you are listening to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you talking technology at triple eight Rich one
Speaker 1: oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one. The website for the show rich
Speaker 1: on Tech dot tv. If you want to link to
Speaker 1: something I mentioned, hit the light bulb up at the
Speaker 1: top of the show and you can get links there.
Speaker 1: This is show number ninety two. Marta wrote in on email, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: I would like to say you are such a great
Speaker 1: informative person with great phone etiquette.
Speaker 2: Thanks for this great show.
Speaker 1: My question, I'm interested in perching a good purchasing a
Speaker 1: good router for my place, which at the moment is
Speaker 1: twelve hundred square feet.
Speaker 2: Much appreciated.
Speaker 1: I would say Eerro is gonna be your best bet,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna be on sale right now during the
Speaker 1: prime day.
Speaker 2: So check out ero E E r O. That's what
Speaker 2: I use. I've used for many years.
Speaker 1: It works, it works well, and I don't think you
Speaker 1: need like the latest version. I just think like one
Speaker 1: to two nodes.
Speaker 2: Would probably be the best of the just the standard
Speaker 2: one I think is on sale already, so E E
Speaker 2: R O on Amazon Marta and thanks for the kind
Speaker 2: words there.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go to Linda in Seal Beach. Linda,
Speaker 1: you're on with Rich.
Speaker 3: All Rich, there's a good chance that my iPhone fifteen
Speaker 3: is jail broken. I am looking for a solution. I
Speaker 3: have called different companies online and all that take care
Speaker 3: of our companies.
Speaker 4: Where can I go.
Speaker 3: To find an individual? I'm not being successful?
Speaker 2: What do you want? I mean, how did this get
Speaker 2: jail broken?
Speaker 4: And there's a neighbor.
Speaker 2: And he had access or they had access to your phone?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: They yes, they had access to all of my I
Speaker 3: was broken into.
Speaker 4: My home and.
Speaker 3: They got all my information and my passwords. And I
Speaker 3: have changed my password on my iPhone about ten times.
Speaker 3: I'm just what do I do next? I purchased a
Speaker 3: new I've even just a new iPhone. I kept my
Speaker 3: old email address Apple had told me to. When they
Speaker 3: recovered it, they had me go back to my old
Speaker 3: email caudebt.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, I've also did How did he get into
Speaker 1: the phone? How did he did he have your past
Speaker 1: code as well?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 2: Wow, so did you have that written down somewhere? I?
Speaker 3: Yes, I did, Okay, I did.
Speaker 1: And so what is your phone doing that you believe
Speaker 1: that this person still has access to it?
Speaker 3: I am I am having some way somehow. One example
Speaker 3: is my Apple I D password. The app drop Box
Speaker 3: was added to my Apple I D password where you
Speaker 3: go into sign into your Apple IP. I have had
Speaker 3: files downloaded off of my phone into drop Box. I
Speaker 3: only used drop Box perhaps two times, and that was
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty when I sold property.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Well, so there's a couple of things you
Speaker 1: can do. Number one, you you should be able just
Speaker 1: to literally recover your phone through your computer. You just
Speaker 1: fully restore it and that will that will format it
Speaker 1: and put fresh software back on it. So if you
Speaker 1: if you look up factory restore iPhone.
Speaker 3: Uh, factory reset and that is.
Speaker 1: What not reset have. This is a restore. This is
Speaker 1: a reset just resets the software that's on there. Restore
Speaker 1: means you're connecting your phone to a computer and it's
Speaker 1: actually going to put a new copy of the operating
Speaker 1: system on your phone. That's what you need to get
Speaker 1: rid of this. Uh this jail break, Now, to jail
Speaker 1: break a phone is it's quite involved and I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what the end game here is with this. Person.
Speaker 1: But no matter what, you need to change your passwords.
Speaker 1: You need to set up two factor authentication, and you
Speaker 1: start by going into your Email account changing that password,
Speaker 1: enabling two factor authentication. Then you go into your Apple
Speaker 1: account and you change your password and you enable two
Speaker 1: factor authentication. Those are the two things you need to
Speaker 1: do immediately to get this person to not have access
Speaker 1: to your account. Then you got to take your phone.
Speaker 1: You got to factory restore it with a computer, and
Speaker 1: that's going to be the way that you get this
Speaker 1: phone erased and formatted and reset back to factory. I
Speaker 1: would bring it to an Apple store as well, just
Speaker 1: to make sure that everything is on the up and up.
Speaker 1: You can also take it to a place like you
Speaker 1: break I Fixed. They will do a free diagnostic. You
Speaker 1: can also scan it if you want to see if
Speaker 1: this thing has spyware on it, the webs the software
Speaker 1: I amazing. We'll actually scan it for popular U spyware,
Speaker 1: which is Pegasus, Predator, King's Pawn and Operation Triangulation. So
Speaker 1: those are the steps I would take, Linda, and reclaim
Speaker 1: your privacy, reclaim your phone, and get a password manager.
Speaker 1: Start putting stuff in there instead of writing it down
Speaker 1: because you saw what happened. Someone got in and got
Speaker 1: access to everything. Coming up, I'll tell you how China
Speaker 1: might be having access to the US information right here.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you, talking technology at Triple eight Rich one
Speaker 1: oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four
Speaker 1: one zero one. A little bit of trivia.
Speaker 2: Did you know?
Speaker 1: This was the very first music video to ever air
Speaker 1: on MTV and very obviously it makes sense video killed
Speaker 1: the radio star because the MTV kind of changed everything
Speaker 1: when it came to music.
Speaker 2: I really did. Welcome back to the show. I'll get
Speaker 2: to your calls in just a moment. What but don't
Speaker 2: play music videos anymore? So they killed them? Yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't even think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you could actually watch like the old school MTV
Speaker 1: like they have it like on those streaming networks and
Speaker 1: like it's just it's so weird to see. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you used to sit down and just watch music videos.
Speaker 1: Now of course it's YouTube and you know, Vivo and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. So this is kind of a big
Speaker 1: story out of the Wall Street Journal. This China linked
Speaker 1: hacking group called salt Typhoon breached the networks of major
Speaker 1: US telecom providers like Verizon AT and T in Lumen.
Speaker 1: So what they did was they took advantage of the
Speaker 1: back doors that these providers have built in for court orders.
Speaker 1: So if they needed to wiretap someone in the US,
Speaker 1: you know, I apparently they have a way to do
Speaker 1: that on all of our networks, and China somehow figured
Speaker 1: out a way into that, which means of Internet traffic
Speaker 1: from businesses and millions of American consumers is potentially exposed here.
Speaker 2: What does that mean.
Speaker 1: It means all the stuff that's flowing on the Internet
Speaker 1: China could have seen. That's really bad, I mean really bad.
Speaker 1: This is the reason why encryption is really important. This
Speaker 1: is the reason why back doors are really bad, because
Speaker 1: you can't have a back door to a system that
Speaker 1: only the good people can access. And who's good? I
Speaker 1: mean really, who wants that at all? If you think
Speaker 1: your transmissions are private and they're not scary. So we
Speaker 1: don't know what the full extent of this breach is.
Speaker 1: We just know that it's really bad. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is bad. The fact that they are tapping our systems
Speaker 1: that we have here in the US, that you know,
Speaker 1: depending on where you believe, should we have those are not.
Speaker 1: This is not a good thing. So again, encrypted, encrypted, encrypted.
Speaker 1: This is why Apple has been so hip with encryption
Speaker 1: and making sure your device is encrypted, and Android is
Speaker 1: getting more private and more encrypted. But it calls into
Speaker 1: a lot of questions like you know, using a VPN
Speaker 1: does that help? Using an app like Signal does that help?
Speaker 1: You know, we just had this change over to RCS,
Speaker 1: which is Rich Communication Services. So typically I message is encrypted,
Speaker 1: so if you're texting someone, I message is encrypted. We
Speaker 1: just saw WhatsApp they are encrypted. But we also saw
Speaker 1: all these all these big providers in the US are
Speaker 1: moving to encryption. Whether they have a backdoor sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: they don't necessarily tell us. But this is you know,
Speaker 1: news to me that all these major companies, Verizon, AT
Speaker 1: and T. You know, back in the day it was
Speaker 1: just phone lines. They are very easy to wiretap, but
Speaker 1: once you get into these networks that are transmitting data packets,
Speaker 1: it's a lot tougher to sniff out unless it's unencrypted
Speaker 1: and unless there's a back door. And clearly that was
Speaker 1: taking advance of it in a big way. That is
Speaker 1: something to watch. Let's go to Gary and Laguda Noguel. Gary,
Speaker 1: you're on with Rich.
Speaker 5: Yes, Rich, have another cell phone question for you here. Sure,
Speaker 5: now I'm considering getting the new phone. And see when
Speaker 5: I called you. I have my Samsung Galaxy STMNY. I
Speaker 5: love the size of the phone, and it works good
Speaker 5: with a Hoverizon when I'm mountain in the desert and
Speaker 5: up in the mountains. It works good around my house here,
Speaker 5: it doesn't where I live. I live in Team Mobile zone.
Speaker 5: Mayos say, And I want to ask you, now, how
Speaker 5: are these phones that I've seen that had dual SIM cards?
Speaker 5: Are they worth purchasing or not? I mean, and how
Speaker 5: does the dual SIM work?
Speaker 6: Uh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, I mean you would basically need to purchase
Speaker 1: a SIM a plan from two providers, and you can
Speaker 1: install both those providers on your phone, and then you
Speaker 1: can actually use both of those providers at the same time.
Speaker 1: You can have the both active. Someone texts you on
Speaker 1: the T Mobile line, it'll come through. If someone texts
Speaker 1: you on the Verizon line, it'll come through. You can
Speaker 1: decide which one's your primary so you can say, like,
Speaker 1: I want to use this as my primary line, so
Speaker 1: when you start composing a text, it will go from
Speaker 1: that line. You can decide which one uses data, you
Speaker 1: can have them both use data. I mean, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of options when you're talking about e SIMS, and
Speaker 1: almost every modern smartphone at this point supports multiple SIM cards.
Speaker 1: So whether that's the Pixel, the Samsung, or the iPhone,
Speaker 1: you can install and use multiple SIMS on most of
Speaker 1: those devices, no problem. But I will tell you, I
Speaker 1: think this is expensive. I think that it's a little
Speaker 1: of a solution. But if you were using Verizon as
Speaker 1: your primary SIM most of the time, and then when
Speaker 1: you go home, you've got T Mobile, you know, have
Speaker 1: it used that, it's kind of going to get see
Speaker 1: So I why not just use Wi Fi calling when
Speaker 1: you're home? I mean, if it's when you're out and
Speaker 1: about in the area and it doesn't work, you know,
Speaker 1: but the Wi Fi calling in your house is going
Speaker 1: to work just fine. The other thing I would look
Speaker 1: into there is a carrier called Red Pocket Red Pocket
Speaker 1: and they actually have this feature that lets you switch
Speaker 1: between the three networks, so they call it Coverage Genius,
Speaker 1: and they operate on all three networks and you can
Speaker 1: choose your network.
Speaker 2: Based on your needs.
Speaker 1: So whether you want better coverage in your current location,
Speaker 1: whether you're traveling, whether you're moving and I'm looking at
Speaker 1: how this works, and it says you can change networks
Speaker 1: if you need to improve your coverage, have a new device,
Speaker 1: you're just trying to find the right fit, so you
Speaker 1: download this coverage Genius tool to switch your ESUM from
Speaker 1: one network to another, keeping your number functional. So I
Speaker 1: don't know, that does not sound like something that you
Speaker 1: want to do like every day. It more sounds like
Speaker 1: you can switch networks if you go to a different
Speaker 1: area that has no signal, and it takes a little
Speaker 1: bit to do this, but it doesn't sound like something
Speaker 1: that's automatic. So I'd probably gary recommend number one just
Speaker 1: using Wi Fi calling when you're home and if you're
Speaker 1: out and about, and you'd you know, I guess the
Speaker 1: main thing what it comes down to is I always
Speaker 1: tell people to find a carrier that works where you
Speaker 1: live and where you work. So if you're talking about
Speaker 1: you know where you live is T Mobile, I'd probably
Speaker 1: go with T Mobile, and then when you're out and about,
Speaker 1: just use T Mobile. I know Verizon is a great network,
Speaker 1: you want to be on it, but I think it's
Speaker 1: very important to have a network that works where you
Speaker 1: live and the other way you can do it is.
Speaker 2: You can flip it.
Speaker 1: You can still stand Verizon and just use the Wi
Speaker 1: Fi calling when you're home, but that's not as clean
Speaker 1: as as doing it the other way. So hope that helps.
Speaker 1: Gary appreciate it. Thanks so much for the call.
Speaker 2: Today. Let's go to Brian and Murrietta. Brian, you're on
Speaker 2: with Rich.
Speaker 7: Good morning.
Speaker 8: I'm trying to help a friend of mine.
Speaker 9: She does door Dash, and the way I understand is
Speaker 9: that the higher the level you are and the percentage
Speaker 9: of completion, the more orders you're going to get. She's
Speaker 9: at the highest I guess the level of platinum, and
Speaker 9: her percentage of completion is like the ninety nile, so
Speaker 9: she shouldn't getting.
Speaker 4: More orders, but especially during peak time.
Speaker 8: And things like that.
Speaker 10: She could be at the restaurant.
Speaker 11: In the store, but the software, the door Dash program
Speaker 11: will give to somebody that's further away. And I was
Speaker 11: trying to help her figure her eyes and I wonder
Speaker 11: one and DoorDash.
Speaker 9: Can't figure it out either while somebody else is getting
Speaker 9: it further away.
Speaker 12: And she's at that level, and I think she's at
Speaker 12: the store.
Speaker 11: Because boot it off, because somebody else is going to
Speaker 11: prioritize and then my other question is twofold, is that
Speaker 11: if if she decided, okay, I suggest her to go
Speaker 11: to Varizon, don't go to Visible or Total, go to Verizon.
Speaker 11: Having the Ultimate on the Minute Plus which has the
Speaker 11: five G Ultimate wide band versus just the five G
Speaker 11: doesn't make it any think that'll make a.
Speaker 12: Difference as far as being on the network.
Speaker 10: And maybe they're they're just recognizing that she's there and
Speaker 10: she's going to get that order. The difference between the
Speaker 10: alter all the why versus the G and the just
Speaker 10: regular G.
Speaker 2: What signal is she? What signal is she on? What? What?
Speaker 2: What carrier?
Speaker 13: Uh?
Speaker 9: It's it's kind of like like Total or Visible?
Speaker 7: What was like?
Speaker 1: So she is on T Mobile? Okay, she is on
Speaker 1: an MV and L, So that could be it. I
Speaker 1: don't think that's it. I think that these systems look
Speaker 1: at the location of your phone and they take into
Speaker 1: account a lot of different algorithms. So again I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's like strictly that it doesn't know she's there.
Speaker 1: But what I would recommend is for sure looking in
Speaker 1: your door dash app and making sure the location permission
Speaker 1: is set to all the time and not just when
Speaker 1: using the app. That's the number one thing. You want
Speaker 1: to make sure that it has access to your location
Speaker 1: the entire time. And then when it comes to cellular,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know five G ultra wideband. Yes, that's
Speaker 1: going to be your absolute best signal and you're going
Speaker 1: to get deprioritized the least if you're on one of
Speaker 1: the big unlimited plans. But I don't think that's contributing
Speaker 1: to it. I would say tell her to turn her
Speaker 1: Wi Fi off and make sure that she's on a
Speaker 1: cellular signal so that way it's always finding because sometimes
Speaker 1: your phone gets caught in this weird dead zone of
Speaker 1: it's like Wi Fi cellular, Wi Fi cellular. That's what
Speaker 1: I would do first off, before spending more money. This
Speaker 1: is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology. The
Speaker 1: phone line for the show is eight eight eight rich
Speaker 1: one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. Give me a call if
Speaker 1: you have a question about technology, something bugging you. Maybe
Speaker 1: you found a great app you want to share with everyone.
Speaker 1: I don't know whatever it is. Kim will take it
Speaker 1: and get you on the show if possible. Let's see
Speaker 1: website for the show Rich on tech dot TV. A
Speaker 1: couple things you can do there. You can sign up
Speaker 1: for my newsletter. You can send me an email just
Speaker 1: hit contact, or you can hit the light bulb icon
Speaker 1: for show notes. So anything I mentioned here in the
Speaker 1: show notes, I will put there where the light bulb is.
Speaker 1: And also on the front page is the Amazon Prime
Speaker 1: Big Day Deals. What you need to know, I've got
Speaker 1: all my tips and tricks for that. Let's go to
Speaker 1: Diana and towards California. Diana, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 13: Hi, Rich, thank you for taking my call.
Speaker 2: Absolutely what can I help you with?
Speaker 13: Yes, I need your help with. A few days ago,
Speaker 13: my dad was powering up his Windows laptop and then
Speaker 13: he got d like a pop up or a screen
Speaker 13: that was sounded like it must have covered his whole screen.
Speaker 13: That was selling my subscription to Microsoft to be sixty five.
Speaker 13: So he didn't really understand fully and he does not
Speaker 13: need Microsoft through sixty five, but he went ahead and
Speaker 13: it's a subscription to get it off his screen.
Speaker 2: And so, uh, that's why they do that.
Speaker 1: By the way, I've set up many Microsoft computers. It's
Speaker 1: basically it looks like you're just saying yes, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: yes to all the different things, but like actually subscribing
Speaker 1: you to stuff.
Speaker 13: Yeah, and he does not know how to like get
Speaker 13: out of those screens or those windows. But anyway, so
Speaker 13: he ended up ultimately actually subscribing and giving him his
Speaker 13: credit card number, and thank goodness, it wasn't a stam.
Speaker 13: It appears to be legitimately from Microsoft. So he received
Speaker 13: his you know, acknowledgment or a welcome email, but they
Speaker 13: do not have any information on how to cancel, and
Speaker 13: so it just has a link to activate. And I'm
Speaker 13: not even sure if he has a Microsoft account, so
Speaker 13: I'm not sure what's the best and quickest way to
Speaker 13: cancel out of this subscription.
Speaker 1: Well, he must have a Microsoft account because he must
Speaker 1: have set it up or signed in with it. Because
Speaker 1: typically on the Windows computers, I'm guessing he got an
Speaker 1: update to Windows and that's what happened when it usually
Speaker 1: when it gets a big update, it like tries to
Speaker 1: get you to sign up for all this stuff.
Speaker 2: Again, is that what happened? Or do you get a
Speaker 2: new computer?
Speaker 13: Yeah, it was an older laptop, but I wasn't there
Speaker 13: when it happened, so he only describes it as he
Speaker 13: was turning on the computer and the screen came up.
Speaker 13: I was chasing Microsoft through sixty five and it sounded
Speaker 13: like it you didn't really know how to get out
Speaker 13: of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So typically it's when you get a big update on
Speaker 1: these computers. They they always go through this flow of like,
Speaker 1: let's set up your new computer, and then they try
Speaker 1: to get you to switch to Edge and they try
Speaker 1: to get you to resubscribe to one Drive and all
Speaker 1: this stuff. So it's pretty innocent what happened to him.
Speaker 1: I would call this a dark pattern, which basically it
Speaker 1: looks like you're doing one thing, but Microsoft is sort
Speaker 1: of tricking you into doing another thing, which is the subscription.
Speaker 1: If you read really carefully, obviously you would notice it.
Speaker 2: But they hope that nine.
Speaker 1: Out of ten people don't really read these things very closely.
Speaker 1: They just click yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and there
Speaker 1: you go, or they think that they need it.
Speaker 13: So the good news is he would have been forced
Speaker 13: to create a Microsoft account if you didn't already have one.
Speaker 12: Oh yeah, to purchase this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a link to an account.
Speaker 1: So the good news is I subscribe and cancel Microsoft
Speaker 1: stuff all the time, especially Xbox Live because they're always
Speaker 1: sending me a notification that says, hey, take a free month,
Speaker 1: and I'm like sure, So it is very easy, very straightforward.
Speaker 1: The good news about reputable companies and big companies is
Speaker 1: that they do make it easy to cancel their subscription.
Speaker 1: So the thing you want to do is log into
Speaker 1: his account, his Microsoft account. You're gonna have to obviously
Speaker 1: if he has an email address. I'm sure he only
Speaker 1: has one or two. You got to ask him which
Speaker 1: one is on his account, and then go into account
Speaker 1: dot Microsoft dot com. Basically log into his Microsoft account
Speaker 1: and then on the left hand side, there's a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of like menu items under your email address, and
Speaker 1: it says account, your info, and then Service and Subscriptions
Speaker 1: is the number three item, So you tap that and
Speaker 1: that will show you all of your active service, all
Speaker 1: of your subscriptions. So I can see my Xbox Game
Speaker 1: Pass ultimate and if you scroll down, it will say
Speaker 1: Microsoft three sixty five I had the family version.
Speaker 2: Mine has expired.
Speaker 1: But you can see where it says manage resubscribe, but
Speaker 1: you can press manage and there's a cancellation option in there,
Speaker 1: and of course they will try to get you to stay,
Speaker 1: but just go ahead and cancel it out through there.
Speaker 1: That's the easiest way to do it. It's pretty straightforward
Speaker 1: as long as you can log into his Microsoft account.
Speaker 1: That might be the tricky thing is figuring out how
Speaker 1: to do that. You're probably going to have to do
Speaker 1: a password recovery on his account just if he doesn't
Speaker 1: know the password. And I would do one step further, Diana,
Speaker 1: I would make sure that once you have his account
Speaker 1: logged in, I would set up two factor authentication on
Speaker 1: that account as well, just to protect a little bit better.
Speaker 1: So those are the things to do. Just basically, go
Speaker 1: to account dot Microsoft dot com, log in, look for
Speaker 1: the section that says services and subscriptions, look for three
Speaker 1: sixty five family and get rid of it.
Speaker 2: And by the way, the same.
Speaker 1: Goes for Apple, all of your iCloud subscription or sorry,
Speaker 1: you're Apple subscription, and all of the Google Play subscriptions.
Speaker 1: These companies, you know, they make it very very easy
Speaker 1: to sign up, and it is very easy with these
Speaker 1: major companies to get rid of it. It's just it
Speaker 1: seems like a lot, and it seems like we're so
Speaker 1: used to do I really have to go into my
Speaker 1: account and do this, and what's my password? And I
Speaker 1: got to do two factor and this and that. Just
Speaker 1: take the time to do it. I mean, it really
Speaker 1: only takes a minute or two what I do with
Speaker 1: most subscriptions. Unless I know I'm keeping something, I will
Speaker 1: cancel it immediately, so I do not forget. And nine
Speaker 1: out of ten subscriptions except Apple, which is interesting, most
Speaker 1: of the are sorry Apple's own products, But most of
Speaker 1: the other subscriptions, like anything you've subscribed through iTunes, you
Speaker 1: can easily go in on your phone and cancel that
Speaker 1: immediately and you will still retain access for the entire time,
Speaker 1: even if it's a year. You just have to go
Speaker 1: into your settings and then up at the top. And
Speaker 1: this is probably a good thing to look into. Just
Speaker 1: look at your account, tap there and then it says
Speaker 1: subscriptions under Apple account, and all of your subscriptions will
Speaker 1: be in there. Tap one and just say cancel and
Speaker 1: it will not automatically renew. And I do that again
Speaker 1: as soon as I sign up for things, because you're
Speaker 1: gonna forget. And the other thing I do is if
Speaker 1: I get the email that says hey, thanks for signing up,
Speaker 1: I will snooze it. Until a couple of days before
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get built. And that way, that email will
Speaker 1: pop up in my Gmail a day or two before
Speaker 1: it's time to renew.
Speaker 2: I don't get hit with those those charges.
Speaker 1: All right, coming up, I'm gonna tell you about Verizon
Speaker 1: message shutting down. What you need to know. This is
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich
Speaker 1: Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology. The phone
Speaker 1: line for the show is eight eight eight rich one
Speaker 1: oh one. That is eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. Give me a call. If
Speaker 1: you have a question about technology. You can also email.
Speaker 1: Just go to the website rich on Tech dot tv
Speaker 1: hit content at you can send your message that way. Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of messages, this has been blowing up my website.
Speaker 1: I wrote a post about Verizon Message plus shutting down.
Speaker 1: So whenever I get a bunch of emails about something,
Speaker 1: I immediately say, okay, there's something here, and I will
Speaker 1: be honest. You're like my canary in the coal mine
Speaker 1: because you are the one who texts me, message messages me,
Speaker 1: emails me. I mean, it's just like all of a
Speaker 1: sudden when I see a bunch of people send me
Speaker 1: the same thing.
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, there's something to this.
Speaker 1: So on this Verizon discontinuing their Message plus app. I
Speaker 1: got text from Tim Tammy, Connie Dave, Sharon, Cheryl Rudy.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I didn't just make up those names, Bobo that those
Speaker 2: are those I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: Those are I had to look back on my email,
Speaker 1: I mean, all these people. So when I get that
Speaker 1: many emails, boom boom boom, boom boom, I go all right,
Speaker 1: I got a look into this, and sure enough, this
Speaker 1: has just been going wild. People are up in arms
Speaker 1: about this Message Plus shutting down On November seventh, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. Verizon wants you to switch to what's called
Speaker 1: Google Messages now. Verizon Message Plus has been around forever.
Speaker 1: This app is so ancient and the reason they started
Speaker 1: it back in the day, you were able to have
Speaker 1: Verizon Messages on your phone and then you could also
Speaker 1: install this app on say your iPad or another device
Speaker 1: and also see your messages. And that feature got sort
Speaker 1: of like discontinued over the years, but a lot of
Speaker 1: people were just used to using this app and it
Speaker 1: lets you do some interesting things above and beyond your
Speaker 1: standard messages like you can basically change your background. You
Speaker 1: can add a signature to your texts, like kind of
Speaker 1: when things were fun with the texting and now it's
Speaker 1: gotten very serious with the Google Messages. So, long story short,
Speaker 1: they want you to switch to Google message Why because
Speaker 1: Google Messages is kind of like the standard messaging app
Speaker 1: on the Android side of things, And most of this
Speaker 1: applies to just Android folks. Maybe if you had a
Speaker 1: Message Plus installed on your iPad or maybe on your iPhone,
Speaker 1: this might apply to you, but it mostly applies to
Speaker 1: people on Android. So what they want you to do
Speaker 1: is download the Google Messages app and then open up
Speaker 1: that app, and as soon as you open that app,
Speaker 1: it should say, hey, would you like us to set
Speaker 1: this Azure defall app for messaging? And you say yes,
Speaker 1: and all of your messages should come over to Google Messages.
Speaker 1: Now what I would do personally, just because this is
Speaker 1: a big switch over, I don't care about my text messages.
Speaker 2: They can be deleted. I don't care.
Speaker 1: I don't keep any it doesn't really matter to me.
Speaker 1: But I know a lot of people like to keep
Speaker 1: their messaging history. So if you're one of those people,
Speaker 1: there's always a chance that's switching over, you know, something
Speaker 1: could go wrong and you might lose your text. So
Speaker 1: I would use an app like SMS Backup and restore
Speaker 1: to back up your messages before you switch these apps,
Speaker 1: and that way you have a nice copy of them
Speaker 1: and your Google Drive or on your phone in one place,
Speaker 1: and if something goes wrong, you can always recover them.
Speaker 1: That way, you don't have to, You don't have to
Speaker 1: do that backing up. But I just recommend that because
Speaker 1: anytime you do a major switch or a major change,
Speaker 1: there's always potential for an issue. Now you might be saying,
Speaker 1: why do we have to do this, why?
Speaker 5: Why?
Speaker 2: Why? Well?
Speaker 1: I think the reason is because RCS. The iPhone now
Speaker 1: supports RCS, which is Rich Communication Services, and that means
Speaker 1: that when you text from Android to iOS, you will
Speaker 1: now see typing indicators, you will now see when people
Speaker 1: read your messages. You can send large photos and videos.
Speaker 1: It basically has bridged the divide between iPhone and Android
Speaker 1: when it comes to messaging, and it's a great thing.
Speaker 1: And Message Plus does not support RCS, nor do a
Speaker 1: lot of third party messaging apps or any that I
Speaker 1: know of on the Android side of things. So the
Speaker 1: other thing that happened is Samsung also recently switched to
Speaker 1: Google Messages. So if you're on Samsung, this is like
Speaker 1: a one two punch. You're like, Okay, I'm on Samsung.
Speaker 1: I've had Samsung Messages. Now they want me to go
Speaker 1: to Google Messages. If I have Verizon Message Plus, now
Speaker 1: I have to go to Google Messages. Everything's filtering over
Speaker 1: to Google Messages. You see now the question I'm getting
Speaker 1: from a lot of people after I've explained all this
Speaker 1: on my website, Everyone's saying, Rich, what can I use
Speaker 1: instead of Google Messages. I don't want to use Google.
Speaker 1: I don't trust Google. I don't want my stuff going
Speaker 1: into Google. Well, number one, if you're using an Android phone,
Speaker 1: your stuff's going into Google, no matter what I mean,
Speaker 1: it's already happening. But if you because this is Android,
Speaker 1: Android allows you to do a lot of things that
Speaker 1: you can't do on iPhone, Like, for instance, on iPhone,
Speaker 1: you cannot choose your text messaging app. It is one
Speaker 1: hundred percent I message or messages whatever they call it there,
Speaker 1: and that's it. It is the messages app that Apple
Speaker 1: gives you. You cannot set another default. On Android. You
Speaker 1: can set any message, any messaging app you want as
Speaker 1: your text messaging app. But here's the caveat. It will
Speaker 1: not support RCS. Now I was talking about China earlier
Speaker 1: with the whole spying thing. RCS is encrypted, maybe not
Speaker 1: yet to the iPhone, but Android to Android it is,
Speaker 1: And so again that's going to be the most secure
Speaker 1: way to message, and it's also going to be the
Speaker 1: best way to message with your iPhone friends. So if
Speaker 1: you choose one of these other apps, you're not going
Speaker 1: to get the read receipts, you're not going to get
Speaker 1: the typing indicators, you're not going to get the large
Speaker 1: photos and videos because everything's going to go through SMS,
Speaker 1: not RCS, which is the new, much better standard for texting.
Speaker 1: So with that said, if you go on the Google
Speaker 1: Play Store, you'll see there are a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: apps in the top communication apps. Google Messages number one, WhatsApp,
Speaker 1: Messenger number two, but that does not handle SMS as
Speaker 1: far as I know, don't think it does. Telegram number three,
Speaker 1: as far as I know, does not support SMS. Messenger
Speaker 1: used to support SMS, doesn't anymore. Then you've got one
Speaker 1: called messages, and you know you can use that. But
Speaker 1: again it's you know, I don't know who makes this.
Speaker 1: I don't I'm kind of like a little weirded out
Speaker 1: by it because I don't know. It just has messages
Speaker 1: and it looks like a generic messaging icon.
Speaker 2: Then you've got text Now.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they handle SMS, messages, SMS and
Speaker 1: private chat discord messages. All these apps are called messages,
Speaker 1: and what are they trying to do. They're trying to
Speaker 1: get you to install it instead of Google Messages. But
Speaker 1: I would be very careful because once these apps have
Speaker 1: access to your texts, that's you know that you don't
Speaker 1: know where they're going, and unless it's a reputable app maker,
Speaker 1: you really can't vouch for how they're handling the privacy
Speaker 1: of your messages. Now, the apps that I've used in
Speaker 1: the past that I really like was called Pulse SMS,
Speaker 1: but again kind of old school, doesn't support RCS. So
Speaker 1: it works on all these platforms, but you're not gonna
Speaker 1: get RCS. The other thing you can do, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's really.
Speaker 2: Just that's it. It's really just you gotta switch.
Speaker 1: Textra is another one that's out there on Google on Android,
Speaker 1: but again, none of these are gonna support RCS, and
Speaker 1: I will tell you that if you're not on RCS,
Speaker 1: your text messaging is old school. It's not gonna get
Speaker 1: it's not gonna be able to send the big pictures
Speaker 1: and the big videos between the iPhone and Android. And
Speaker 1: that's like been the biggest issue with people, is that
Speaker 1: whole situation. So I would just switch. Now, you have
Speaker 1: until November seventh before Verizon completely shuts down Verizon Messages,
Speaker 1: but I would just go ahead and get rid of
Speaker 1: it right now. So download Google Messages and just go
Speaker 1: with that. Speaking speaking of Verizon, I can't believe this
Speaker 1: happened this week and nobody's mentioned another word about it.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you if this affected you, but
Speaker 1: there's a huge Verizon network outage on was it Monday
Speaker 1: this week earlier or last week whatever, depending on what
Speaker 1: day you're listening, if you're listening recorded on the podcast,
Speaker 1: but Verizon, and like my personal phone was out for
Speaker 1: like eight hours, no service whatsoever, said SOS in the
Speaker 1: upper right hand corner. Many many people experienced this across
Speaker 1: the US. We don't know what caused it, and Verizon
Speaker 1: just said, hey, we fixed it, but they never said
Speaker 1: what happened and so we don't know. Was this a hack,
Speaker 1: was this a mistake, was it a software update, was
Speaker 1: it a glitch?
Speaker 2: We don't know.
Speaker 1: But all we know is that lots of people had
Speaker 1: no access to Verizon for many, many hours. Now, for
Speaker 1: me personally, okay, fine, even though I was out and
Speaker 1: about all day and it was really annoying, I had
Speaker 1: a backup phone. I've got a backup line. I was
Speaker 1: in Wi Fi some of the time. But if you
Speaker 1: don't have Wi Fi and that's your only phone, that
Speaker 1: is a problem, especially when it comes to emergencies. Now,
Speaker 1: hopefully nine one one calls went through because maybe it
Speaker 1: latched onto a different network. But this is this is
Speaker 1: wild because we saw this hap with AT and T
Speaker 1: as well, remember that one that was just a few
Speaker 1: short months ago. This these these outages when they hap
Speaker 1: and they're rare, but when they do happen, they seem
Speaker 1: to be getting bigger and more widespread and impacting more
Speaker 1: people at a wider swath. So it is you got
Speaker 1: to think about these things. You got to think about
Speaker 1: having a backup plan if your phone was not working,
Speaker 1: what would you do now if you're home or at work, Okay,
Speaker 1: find you have Wi Fi. But if you're out on
Speaker 1: the road, you're a traveling salesperson, you know, and your
Speaker 1: phone went out and you have no access to Wi Fi,
Speaker 1: that would be a problem.
Speaker 2: That's like your livelihood.
Speaker 1: So I think it's odd that Verizon has not said
Speaker 1: anything about this in a couple of days.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: I just find that very very odd, and I hope
Speaker 1: the FCC pushes them to say, hey, what happened here, Verizon,
Speaker 1: we need some answers. They did say they're investigating, but
Speaker 1: you know, everyone always forgets about this stuff.
Speaker 2: Bank of America this week, same thing.
Speaker 1: People were logging into their bank accounts and saw a
Speaker 1: zero balance. Now, I remember back in the day when
Speaker 1: I did that, it was for real. But thankfully I've
Speaker 1: worked hard and I've tried to not have that zero
Speaker 1: balance anymore. But I remember the days when I did,
Speaker 1: and it was you know, no one wants to see
Speaker 1: zero balance. But imagine logging into Bank of America and
Speaker 1: you actually have a zero balance when you know you
Speaker 1: have money. That's like the biggest fear, right, Like you
Speaker 1: just log into your bank acount and it's like gone.
Speaker 1: You're like, wait, what do I do? What if it
Speaker 1: doesn't come back? And that's what happened with these Bank
Speaker 1: of America folks. This was on October third, Mobile access,
Speaker 1: mobile banking. People are having all kinds of issues. This
Speaker 1: did not go on as long as the Verizon outage,
Speaker 1: but can you imagine seeing that if you did, that
Speaker 1: is scary because you don't know if it's going to
Speaker 1: be resolved. You're like, okay, is my money gone or
Speaker 1: is it coming back again. Bank of America apologized, but
Speaker 1: they did not say what caused it. And again, most
Speaker 1: of these things are innocent enough. It's someone doing a
Speaker 1: software update, but you know, we are on high alert
Speaker 1: nowadays with cyber criminals and hacking, and so whenever this
Speaker 1: stuff happens, you think the worst. And we hope that
Speaker 1: nobody had access to Bank of America and wiped out
Speaker 1: accounts was thankfully at it didn't happen, but we don't know.
Speaker 1: Put it protect your accounts. Please put in that two
Speaker 1: factor authentication. Do not reuse the same password ever. You
Speaker 1: gotta do what you can to protect yourself. Eighty to
Speaker 1: eight rich one On one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one.
Speaker 2: This is rich On Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here hanging out with you at Triple eight
Speaker 1: Rich one O one. That's eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. The website for the
Speaker 1: show is rich on tech dot TV. Let's go to
Speaker 1: Donna in Squim, Washington. Did I say that right?
Speaker 4: You did exactly right.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Rich, appreciate your show. Listen to you every
Speaker 4: every Saturday.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Well, this is I'm in desperate need to help. I
Speaker 4: work for a small business. So about ten years ago,
Speaker 4: the owner's son purchased a domain and Google workspace from
Speaker 4: a third party vendor. Just this week, and this email
Speaker 4: is used specifically for the business. This week, I could
Speaker 4: not log in. When I went to log in, it
Speaker 4: says you're out of space. Purchase more. But I have
Speaker 4: to go to the third party vendor.
Speaker 7: I have tried for.
Speaker 4: The last ten days sending. It's impossible to find a
Speaker 4: phone number, so I send emails, always a different person.
Speaker 4: They're asking for information that the son who set it
Speaker 4: up does not remember his password. I have the sign
Speaker 4: in but not the password. So bottom line, our business
Speaker 4: email is being held hostage and is there any way
Speaker 4: to recover it from Google? I don't care and the
Speaker 4: owner doesn't care about the domain, but it's tough to
Speaker 4: do business without email.
Speaker 1: Well, the domain is part of the email, isn't it
Speaker 1: isn't the.
Speaker 2: Email addressed the domain?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 4: Well, and this I'm not savvy enough to know this.
Speaker 4: There is there's a separate domain to set up a website,
Speaker 4: which I believe never got set up.
Speaker 2: It's fine, but you registered a domain.
Speaker 4: Right, Yes, But then there's a Google workspace that has
Speaker 4: the ability for four people to receive an email. And
Speaker 4: as the admin, I use it, and then the owner
Speaker 4: uses it, and two of the workers use it as well.
Speaker 4: But most most and most important is as the admin.
Speaker 4: All the vendors send their invoices to me to pay.
Speaker 2: But, yeah, did you lose access to this? What happened?
Speaker 4: It says that our storage is fully so when I
Speaker 4: go in because I can log into the admin side
Speaker 4: and see the workspace, who's so you know this and that?
Speaker 4: But when I go to purchase.
Speaker 2: More space, Okay, you can't do it.
Speaker 4: I have to contact the third party vendor and they
Speaker 4: won't do anything without information that nobody has.
Speaker 1: Can you get access to the email on this account
Speaker 1: or no?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: So when you go to like do you go to
Speaker 2: Gmail or how do you usually get the email?
Speaker 4: I go to Gmail, okay, and I when I go
Speaker 4: to sign in, it just says your account has been suspended.
Speaker 1: It's been suspended. Interesting, okay, Well a couple of things first.
Speaker 1: First up, I would go to the I'd first see
Speaker 1: who owns this this don't well, there's so.
Speaker 2: Many things going on here. Number one.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a it's a lesson that we have
Speaker 1: to remember these things. I know, and I'm guilty of
Speaker 1: this myself. Sometimes you set up these things really fast
Speaker 1: and you think, Okay, I'll remember that in the future.
Speaker 2: Then you don't.
Speaker 1: And so at the point of anything, and this goes
Speaker 1: for anyone that's listening that's setting stuff up, just take
Speaker 1: your time and write it down, because you really are
Speaker 1: going to forget, Like like I've set up you know,
Speaker 1: those like security questions sometimes and you're like, oh, of
Speaker 1: course I'll remember those, and then two years later you're like, oh, now,
Speaker 1: what was my mother's favorite color or something like that,
Speaker 1: and you're like, I don't remember what I put. So
Speaker 1: write those questions down and write them in your password manager,
Speaker 1: along with the strong password and any information that may
Speaker 1: come along, especially the recovery codes. First thing I would
Speaker 1: do is go to the I can look up and
Speaker 1: see what this domain is registered under, like who owns
Speaker 1: the registration?
Speaker 2: And so you go to go to that website.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm sorry, I can look up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I see a n N dot org. Look
Speaker 1: up dot I can dot org and see who owns
Speaker 1: the domain. And that will help you see like where
Speaker 1: this domain is actually registered and there should be some
Speaker 1: contact information there to help you get some customer support there,
Speaker 1: because you do need to have control over this domain
Speaker 1: as well. For Google, Uh, you're gonna have to try
Speaker 1: to recover this account. Have you gone through all the
Speaker 1: recovery steps on Google's recovery page or no?
Speaker 4: No, because when I go to anything, it refers me
Speaker 4: to the third party vendor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the third party vendor set up this Google
Speaker 1: workspace account.
Speaker 2: Is that what I'm hearing.
Speaker 4: That's the way I understand it. I wasn't in years ago.
Speaker 4: So I'm trying to help them.
Speaker 1: And so you're paying that are you paying? Are you
Speaker 1: paying to this third party vendor?
Speaker 2: Still?
Speaker 4: Well, they were and this is probably the problem was
Speaker 4: last year the bank because there were so many payments
Speaker 4: that came through on this where to account. The bank
Speaker 4: flagged it and then stopped stop the credit card. Okay,
Speaker 4: so I know they want a payment, and I said
Speaker 4: that in an email to I'm and happy to pay well,
Speaker 4: but they want this past information that the owner says
Speaker 4: he can't find.
Speaker 1: So first off, I would go to the credit card
Speaker 1: receipt and look up the phone number for the third
Speaker 1: party and see and call that, and that could be
Speaker 1: a good way to get in and figure out what's
Speaker 1: going on here with the payment. The other thing, you
Speaker 1: have to google how to recover your Google account or
Speaker 1: Gmail and there is a sign in help button. See
Speaker 1: if that will help you get recovery to this account.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure it will because it's a workspace account,
Speaker 1: but try that. First coming up, we're gonna talk privacy.
Speaker 1: This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology. Our
Speaker 1: phone number is eight eight eight rich one oh one.
Speaker 2: Very confusing.
Speaker 1: It's literally saying that number while I'm trying to give
Speaker 1: our number. Eight eight eight seven four to two four
Speaker 1: one's your one. By the way, little pro tip if
Speaker 1: you're ever at the grocery store and you know how
Speaker 1: they ask for like your phone number at the you know,
Speaker 1: check out if you want to get the deals or whatever,
Speaker 1: and you don't have one, eight six seven, five three
Speaker 1: oh nine works every single time because someone has registered
Speaker 1: that number.
Speaker 2: So little pro tip if you know.
Speaker 1: Some of these stores are really strict about that, Like
Speaker 1: they're like, you have to put your number in if
Speaker 1: you want to get the best deals. So just put
Speaker 1: the area code in with that number and it's it's
Speaker 1: it probably works like nine out of ten times.
Speaker 2: Anyway. See you learn stuff here. Uh.
Speaker 1: Joining me now is uh Justin Clasco from Consumer Watchdog.
Speaker 2: Justin Welcome to the show.
Speaker 8: Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: So tell me what Consumer Watchdog does.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so, you know we we we fight large companies.
Speaker 6: We try to give a voice to just regular everyday
Speaker 6: people and try to even the playing field out there,
Speaker 6: because it's a it's not very even.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, let's talk about this when it comes
Speaker 1: to what do you think consumers are up against? Like,
Speaker 1: what do you think their biggest kind of I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously these big companies are are collecting our data. They're
Speaker 1: they're pretty much in charge if we want to if
Speaker 1: we want to use anything. We got to play by
Speaker 1: their rules, right, Yeah.
Speaker 6: And I mean I think a big thing that consumers
Speaker 6: don't notice is kind of just the amount of power
Speaker 6: and how how these companies have their hands in a
Speaker 6: lot of different things, and you know, including collecting data,
Speaker 6: which is a big part of it, and it's foundational
Speaker 6: to you know, your everyday life and how decisions are
Speaker 6: made online.
Speaker 8: We're living online.
Speaker 6: Increasingly, so it's it's very important to to kind of
Speaker 6: take control of your personal information.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: We hear about this data collection all the time. But
Speaker 1: and then some people are like, well, I don't care.
Speaker 1: What are they going to collect on me?
Speaker 7: You know?
Speaker 1: So what is kind of like the good and bad
Speaker 1: of this data collection? Like why do companies want so
Speaker 1: much data about us?
Speaker 6: They want data on you because you're more likely I
Speaker 6: think to buy things and to spend money and and
Speaker 6: to enrich you know, companies. So you know, if if
Speaker 6: they if they know you've been in this location trying
Speaker 6: to buy you know, uh, sunglasses, and they know that
Speaker 6: whether there's competitors around you, they can fine tune that stuff.
Speaker 6: They know what you even just add to a shopping
Speaker 6: cart on your phone, and how long and you've kind
Speaker 6: of hovered over you know, a certain you know T
Speaker 6: shirt or you know, a pair of earbuds. So it
Speaker 6: really it's the detail and the speed that that is
Speaker 6: giving these companies kind of a one up, and really
Speaker 6: they just kind of start learning more about you than
Speaker 6: you even know about yourself.
Speaker 8: So it's it's it's kind of creepy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've heard stories about how Target will send like
Speaker 1: coupons to people and be like, hey, congrats some being pregnant.
Speaker 2: You're like, wait, what how do they know?
Speaker 6: Yeah, that was Yeah, that was really creepy. But yeah,
Speaker 6: that's a great example. And you know, you know, while
Speaker 6: it's good, you know, we want we want things, we
Speaker 6: want to be advertised things that we like, and but
Speaker 6: I think there's a line that gets crossed when your
Speaker 6: information is kind of weaponized against you. Like, you know,
Speaker 6: if say you have a family member that dies and
Speaker 6: an airline knows that you're trying to get a flight
Speaker 6: out to this funeral compared to another person was not
Speaker 6: They're going to price gouge you. They are gonna they're
Speaker 6: base it's basically price fixing. They're going to make you
Speaker 6: pay more money for that. And that's because of the
Speaker 6: vast amount of data that is available out there.
Speaker 1: I've heard, I mean, we've heard so much about this,
Speaker 1: you know, using VPNs and you know, private browsing and
Speaker 1: all this stuff. And you know, we now, of course
Speaker 1: we see all the cookies, you know, like, hey, do
Speaker 1: you want to accept cookies? But I'm convinced that, yes,
Speaker 1: these companies are using a lot of this information they're
Speaker 1: collecting to sort of set dynamic pricing. And especially you know,
Speaker 1: like even if something as simple as I was on
Speaker 1: a website the other day and I remember the website
Speaker 1: and I just I just paused and it was like
Speaker 1: I forgot about that page for a minute. When I
Speaker 1: came back, it gave me like fifty dollars off because
Speaker 1: I said, hey, are you still deciding?
Speaker 2: And I was like, now what if I would have
Speaker 2: said yes.
Speaker 1: Before I waited, I would have lost fifty dollars, you know,
Speaker 1: I would have paid fifty dollars more.
Speaker 8: Totally.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's I mean, it's just so like gamified,
Speaker 6: like and you know, and it's these companies are just
Speaker 6: going to be like that's market capitalism, you know, you know,
Speaker 6: we can do that and that's fine, But it really
Speaker 6: is like.
Speaker 8: Kind of a form of price fixing.
Speaker 1: So what do you recommend? What do you what are
Speaker 1: your recommendations for consumers?
Speaker 6: Yeah, so right now, if you're in the state of
Speaker 6: California with these data brokers that collect a ton of
Speaker 6: information on you, you can you can go to these
Speaker 6: data brokers like live Ramp, Experience Equal Facts, and you
Speaker 6: can tell them, hey, stop this, stop collecting all these
Speaker 6: details on me, stop collecting my geolocation, and they they
Speaker 6: under California law, have to do that. You can also
Speaker 6: access your information and they'll spit back a report for
Speaker 6: you in a few days, and you'll probably be weirded
Speaker 6: out by all the information you'll see that they have
Speaker 6: on you. But there's like almost five hundred data brokers
Speaker 6: in the state of California, so it's probably really annoying
Speaker 6: to try and exercise your rights. But that's changing. Uh,
Speaker 6: there's a there's a registry. If you Google or look
Speaker 6: up California data brokers, you'll find a state registry where
Speaker 6: all data brokers have to register, and there you'll be
Speaker 6: directed to their privacy pages how to exercise your rights,
Speaker 6: how to delete, how to opt out, how to limit
Speaker 6: your data.
Speaker 2: But go there's just a lot of them. There's a lot.
Speaker 6: Oh my gosh, it's not ideal right now, but it's
Speaker 6: getting better because of some legislation that was passed. But
Speaker 6: they're working on this right now. You know, California regulators
Speaker 6: are working on this right now. It would be a
Speaker 6: one step opt out kind of. In one step, you'd
Speaker 6: be you'd signal or delete your personal informations to data
Speaker 6: brokers and they, under law, would have to wipe all
Speaker 6: the info they have on you or whatever you direct
Speaker 6: them to do.
Speaker 8: So that'll be in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: Now that's California. What about other states? Are they as
Speaker 1: protective or you know what's happening there?
Speaker 8: Not really.
Speaker 6: I think there's like four or five other states who
Speaker 6: have data broker laws. California is definitely on the forefront
Speaker 6: of it. And you know, there is there is no
Speaker 6: federal privacy legislation. It's been introduced a couple times and
Speaker 6: it's it's dyed and and this legislation has actually been
Speaker 6: much weaker than the laws we have in California. So
Speaker 6: we should, like, you know, we should be excited about
Speaker 6: what we have here and use these rights for sure.
Speaker 1: Now this is data brokers, Is that different than these
Speaker 1: like Spokyo and all these like those are like data
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't what do they call those Like
Speaker 1: when you're when you're like email and your phone number
Speaker 1: and all that stuff is like online.
Speaker 6: Yes, so data brokers get info a lot of ways,
Speaker 6: you know, kind of like how like they're you know,
Speaker 6: they're a little even though they both are also credit agencies,
Speaker 6: they they they operate a little differently. They don't just
Speaker 6: collect public information public information that's online. And they also
Speaker 6: I mean the big thing is is your your online habits.
Speaker 6: You know, where you go, what you search, what you
Speaker 6: add to a car, what you buy, and so that
Speaker 6: is the stuff that is really fueling sort of this
Speaker 6: this multi billion dollar targeted advertising industry where you're just
Speaker 6: you're just helicoptered into this sort of consumer buying frenzy.
Speaker 1: Now I've I've heard that when you get that that
Speaker 1: letter from your bank once a year, like any company
Speaker 1: that says like hey, you know, here's how we do
Speaker 1: our sharing of data, like you should always say like
Speaker 1: do not share my stuff?
Speaker 2: Like is that does that help you think?
Speaker 10: Yeah?
Speaker 8: I mean it would, it would definitely help.
Speaker 7: And like.
Speaker 6: You know, there's there's different laws there's you know, there's
Speaker 6: financial data regulatory laws. Not to bore you, but definitely
Speaker 6: that is one part of it. And there's you know,
Speaker 6: there's multiple parts of it. You know, there's not just
Speaker 6: data brokers every day companies that collect data on you.
Speaker 6: And you know, you can also exercise your rights, but
Speaker 6: you still have to do it step by step. And
Speaker 6: you know, there was a law that almost that almost
Speaker 6: got signed by the government, but it didn't make that easier.
Speaker 8: But that's a whole other story.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean, look, money talks and obviously a
Speaker 1: lot of these these I mean I'm looking at I
Speaker 1: just followed the breadcrumbs up the chain and it looks
Speaker 1: like that big data broker that you mentioned, the live
Speaker 1: ramp is owned by Axicom, which is owned by Inner Public,
Speaker 1: which is like one of the biggest like companies that
Speaker 1: does advertising. So it's like they're they own the they
Speaker 1: do the advertising, but they also own the you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're getting the data from these little smaller companies.
Speaker 1: It's just wild when you think about this stuff. We
Speaker 1: are we are so helpless, that's the problem. And I
Speaker 1: think what you're saying about these laws and things like
Speaker 1: if you take advantage like that's really the only way
Speaker 1: that we have any sort of power because scrolling through
Speaker 1: a hundred different data and trying to remove your information
Speaker 1: is you got to quit your job to do that.
Speaker 8: Yeah, don't lose your jobs out there, guys.
Speaker 1: All right, justin, how can folks find more information? Like
Speaker 1: Consumer Watchdog? What do you think they're their best bet
Speaker 1: to do that is?
Speaker 8: Yeah, consumer watchdog dot org.
Speaker 6: We have a privacy section and if you go there,
Speaker 6: you know we can help you direct you to take
Speaker 6: control of your personal information and from data brokers.
Speaker 8: It's all there.
Speaker 2: All right, Thanks so much for joining me today. Really
Speaker 2: appreciate it.
Speaker 8: Thanks Rich, Thanks great.
Speaker 1: That's justin klausco from Consumer Watchdog. I'll put the link
Speaker 1: to the website on mine rich on Tech dot tv.
Speaker 2: Coming up more of your.
Speaker 1: Questions at triple eight rich one oh one plus ring
Speaker 1: is adding a much requested feature I will explain coming
Speaker 1: up on rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology at
Speaker 1: triple eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four to one zero one. Got a
Speaker 1: message that I don't say the phone line enough. I
Speaker 1: feel like I say it a lot, but phone line
Speaker 1: and website website is rich on tech dot tv. You
Speaker 1: can hit contact to get in touch with me. Sign
Speaker 1: up for my newsletter while you're there, lots of valuable information.
Speaker 1: If you like this show, you will love the newsletter
Speaker 1: because it's basically this show written out with all the
Speaker 1: tips and things that you can think of. Let's go
Speaker 1: to John and Fallbrook. John, I know you've been holding
Speaker 1: on for a while. Thanks so much for hanging on.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 7: Thank you very much. I enjoy your show. I look
Speaker 7: forward to listening to it every week. My question is
Speaker 7: mesh Wifelise. I need to expand extend my range a bit,
Speaker 7: and I wanted to know which of the Mesh WIFEI
Speaker 7: system sort of the best.
Speaker 1: Well, I can tell you the one that I use
Speaker 1: and that I've liked over the years. Have you looked
Speaker 1: into these at all? Is there any specific feature that
Speaker 1: you need?
Speaker 7: I really haven't looked. I roamed around a bit on
Speaker 7: on Amazon and I seen KEP Link, and I seen
Speaker 7: euro and then ORB, but I haven't looked any deeper
Speaker 7: than that.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, you just mentioned the top three, so it
Speaker 1: looks like you've done your research. So I will tell
Speaker 1: you that in my experience, I think that the the
Speaker 1: best overall, I think is that euro That's the one
Speaker 1: that I've been using since day one. You know, they
Speaker 1: basically invented the genre of whole home mesh wi fi.
Speaker 2: It is now owned by Amazon.
Speaker 1: It was started as an independent company, but Amazon scooped
Speaker 1: them up.
Speaker 2: So I really like them the best. I've been using them.
Speaker 1: I really like their app, and I think that's a
Speaker 1: big part of this is how the app works and
Speaker 1: how the setup works and all that good stuff. So
Speaker 1: I think that especially right now, when these products are
Speaker 1: going to be on sale during Prime Day, that's probably
Speaker 1: a good time to check them out and get that.
Speaker 1: With that said, I will say that the other brands
Speaker 1: that are very good are Neckgear Orbi, which maybe.
Speaker 2: A little bit cheaper than the Euroo.
Speaker 1: And then the other one that I think is actually
Speaker 1: probably the best value over and over according to all
Speaker 1: the different reviewers is the TP link the Deco. So
Speaker 1: I think that those are the three like I would
Speaker 1: rank them. Probably the Eero I think is the best.
Speaker 1: I still think it's the gold standard. Then the Orby,
Speaker 1: but if you want kind of like the best bang
Speaker 1: for your buck, I think the TP link deco is
Speaker 1: probably gonna be your best bet for that. And then
Speaker 1: it depends how many you need of these things. So
Speaker 1: on their website, I think they typically, you know, they
Speaker 1: recommend either two to three of these things in your house.
Speaker 1: So it depends how big your house is. I've always
Speaker 1: had three in my place. Depending on how big your
Speaker 1: house is, you may need more or less than that.
Speaker 1: So if you have let's say, like a you know,
Speaker 1: a smaller place, you may just need two of these things.
Speaker 1: But if you have a decent, you know, reasonably sized house,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of an average sized house, I think
Speaker 1: three is good. You can put them in all different places. Now,
Speaker 1: it also matters where you put these things. So you
Speaker 1: don't want to put these things in a closet. You
Speaker 1: don't want to put them out of sight. You want
Speaker 1: to put them where they can actually get their signals
Speaker 1: to each other. And so that's another aspect of where
Speaker 1: you place these things is that you want to sort
Speaker 1: of think about the way that these signal emanates out
Speaker 1: of them as like almost like a doughnut. And so
Speaker 1: it's going to be if this is on the floor,
Speaker 1: you're not really going to get much of a signal
Speaker 1: off these things. A lot of it's going to be,
Speaker 1: you know, just going below it or above it in
Speaker 1: that little area. So you want to have these things
Speaker 1: kind of like positioned up and away from the walls
Speaker 1: and away from behind things. Some people put these behind
Speaker 1: their TVs. You're not going to get the best signal
Speaker 1: that way, and you know that's that does make a difference.
Speaker 1: But I think the Eros, I've had absolutely no problems.
Speaker 2: With them over the years. I think they are incredible.
Speaker 2: And I'm on my like third set of them.
Speaker 1: And and by the way, I gave my dad my
Speaker 1: old set and it's still working for him and he's
Speaker 1: had it for I mean, that thing is going on
Speaker 1: many many years old and it's still getting software updates too,
Speaker 1: which is kind of cool. So I think that's a
Speaker 1: big part of it is look at the software and
Speaker 1: support of these systems. Eero has a nice long track record.
Speaker 1: They're always coming out with new features. They've got a
Speaker 1: great feature, by the way, if you subscribe to their
Speaker 1: secure where you can block all the ads on your
Speaker 1: network at the like literally at the network level. So
Speaker 1: when you come to my house and you log onto
Speaker 1: my Wi Fi guest WiFi. You're not getting the uh,
Speaker 1: you're not getting the standard one. People come to the
Speaker 1: house and they literally they literally it's like in a
Speaker 1: front when they're like, hey, can I get your WiFi?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh, yeah, sure, there's a QR code,
Speaker 1: just scan that and they're like, guess what's that all about.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, you're the guest, you get the guest WiFi.
Speaker 1: And I literally, like you could just see their eyes.
Speaker 1: They like they're like, they're like, rich, how dare you
Speaker 1: Why you don't trust me with your network? I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: I do not. I don't want you on my actual network.
Speaker 1: Guess network. I can just clear you out, you know,
Speaker 1: and you have no more access, but my home network
Speaker 1: a little trickier anyway. Thanks for the call today, John
Speaker 1: in Fallbrook really appreciate that.
Speaker 2: Good luck with the mesh Wi Fi.
Speaker 1: Ring has come out with a feature that a lot
Speaker 1: of people have wanted, continuous recording twenty four to seven recording.
Speaker 1: This is brand new and this is for eligible wired cameras.
Speaker 1: You always have to read through the lines right. They
Speaker 1: put out the press release and the blog post that
Speaker 1: says twenty four to seven recording. Yes, I could record
Speaker 1: my Ring doorbell all day. Now, no you can't. Those
Speaker 1: have batteries, they're not most of them are not wired.
Speaker 1: But the wired ones you still can't. Because they didn't
Speaker 1: really think about this feature back in the day when
Speaker 1: they came out with these cameras, so they got to,
Speaker 1: you know, they kind of had to like figure out
Speaker 1: how to make these things work to record twenty four
Speaker 1: to seven because that's a whole nother ballgame. How a
Speaker 1: camera going from just clips, which is typically what Ring does,
Speaker 1: to twenty four to seven recording. It's like your camera
Speaker 1: is working all the time. So it's for the eligible cameras.
Speaker 1: You can look on their website to see which ones
Speaker 1: are eligible. But it's kind of a cool feature.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 1: I think it puts them on par with the you know,
Speaker 1: the wisecams of the world, the Google Nests of the world.
Speaker 1: I know, in my house, I have a bunch of
Speaker 1: different systems. So now I'll be able to kind of
Speaker 1: maybe get some of these Ring cameras because they can
Speaker 1: record twenty four to seven.
Speaker 2: Now you are going to have to pay for this.
Speaker 2: This is not included. They have three plans with Ring.
Speaker 2: You've got home basic five bucks a month, Home standard
Speaker 2: ten dollars a month, Home Premium twenty dollars a month.
Speaker 2: This is going to start to roll out now, but
Speaker 2: everyone should have it by November fifth. So if you
Speaker 2: want the twenty four to seven recording, you got to
Speaker 2: pay twenty bucks a month, twenty dollars a month if
Speaker 2: you want twenty four to seven recording. But now good
Speaker 2: to know that ring has this feature.
Speaker 1: Eighty to eight rich one oh one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one. You got
Speaker 1: a question, give me a all. We'll talk about it.
Speaker 1: Website rich on Tech dot TV. More rich on Tech
Speaker 1: coming your way right after this. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology.
Speaker 1: The phone line is open eight eight eight rich one
Speaker 1: oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four
Speaker 1: one zero one. The website for the show rich on
Speaker 1: Tech dot TV. Let's go to UH Stephanie in upland Stephanie,
Speaker 1: you're on.
Speaker 2: Hey, Hi, I.
Speaker 14: Have a question about ten. So we recently ditched the
Speaker 14: cable because we just don't watch that much TV, and
Speaker 14: we purchased I went down to UH best Buy and
Speaker 14: asked what antenna would work for us, so we purchased one.
Speaker 14: It didn't work, so then we purchased this RCA fifty
Speaker 14: five mile range.
Speaker 3: We were able to get some.
Speaker 14: Channels, but we couldn't get Channel two or seven and
Speaker 14: four would come in and out.
Speaker 3: So we've moved it.
Speaker 14: We bought an extension. I've stood outside, hold it here,
Speaker 14: hold it there, and now I'm like done. Years ago
Speaker 14: twenty one years ago, when we moved here, we had
Speaker 14: an antenna and ma attic that worked great. Yeah, I
Speaker 14: kind of researched online. I couldn't. I just kind of
Speaker 14: have come to the end of like, I don't know
Speaker 14: what to do to make this simple.
Speaker 3: Well, do you have any recommendations.
Speaker 1: I do, so I love the antennas from Antenna's direct.
Speaker 1: I would bring back whatever you bought at Best Buy
Speaker 1: and just go to this website and you put in
Speaker 1: your zip code. You live in upland so I just
Speaker 1: put in your zip code and it gives you the
Speaker 1: four antennas that would be perfect for your area. There's
Speaker 1: one for there's one for thirty three dollars, there's one
Speaker 1: for fifty dollars, one for ninety, one for one sixty.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you paid it best by These
Speaker 1: are probably a little bit more expensive than that, but money.
Speaker 14: Doesn't Yeah, I mean it's cheaper than what they had us.
Speaker 14: It was up to like one hundred dollars a month.
Speaker 2: And I said, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And I've got I've got an antenna installed on my
Speaker 1: roof and it's, uh, it's incredible. I mean people forget
Speaker 1: that you can get over the air incredible signal from
Speaker 1: these antennas, and it's actually, in most cases a better
Speaker 1: resolution than what your cable company is giving you or
Speaker 1: streaming even so, right, the only trick is if you
Speaker 1: want to have a DVR, and that's you know, that's
Speaker 1: another side of this is the DVR situation. So there
Speaker 1: are some over the air DVRs, like a company called Tableau.
Speaker 2: Have you heard of that?
Speaker 7: No, So, so.
Speaker 1: If you're gonna, if you're you know, if it depends
Speaker 1: if you care about the DVR, you know that's that
Speaker 1: I don't character.
Speaker 14: Yeah, I mean we miss being able to go back
Speaker 14: and like, oh, let's watch football game. We missed you know,
Speaker 14: an hour whatever. But where I'm okay not having it.
Speaker 14: But however, I have a question about this antenna's direct
Speaker 14: Are those antennas that have to be like installed on
Speaker 14: your group or can it just go on our attic.
Speaker 2: No, there's so it depends.
Speaker 1: I mean there's four different so there's there's three that
Speaker 1: are indoor, so you can just set them up indoor. Now,
Speaker 1: give you know you're an uplands, you're the transmitters are
Speaker 1: not necessarily close to you, so that's why you have
Speaker 1: to you know, And this will actually show you how
Speaker 1: far the distance is from where the signal is. So
Speaker 1: for instance you mentioned, this actually will show you every
Speaker 1: single channel that you can get as well, and they'll
Speaker 1: tell you the signal so where you are actually is
Speaker 1: all the signals are actually strong, which is great except
Speaker 1: for I will tell you. Let's see, I'm looking. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to see if any of these channels are major channels. No.
Speaker 14: Seven just would not like we got two. Seven would
Speaker 14: work at all for us, Like we kept moving this
Speaker 14: antenna around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's only one channel that you need,
Speaker 1: and that's KTLA, But that's besides the point. No, but
Speaker 1: I'm looking here and KABC it's strong signal. It's twenty
Speaker 1: three miles away. All the antennas are twenty about twenty
Speaker 1: three miles away from your house. So long story short,
Speaker 1: I would go, if you want to get the best,
Speaker 1: I would say probably the attic antenna's probably gonna be
Speaker 1: your best. But I would start, maybe, you know, just
Speaker 1: look at these. It tells you the range of the
Speaker 1: attic antennas seventy plus miles. You may not need that.
Speaker 1: You may be able to try their indoor amplified and
Speaker 1: just see if that one works. It's got, but you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to put that up by a window. I
Speaker 1: would say. It also tells you kind of the direction
Speaker 1: to go. I mean, this is this is the website
Speaker 1: you want to go to. So go to antennasdirect dot com,
Speaker 1: pop in your zip code and check out the antenna's there.
Speaker 1: And I think I will tell you in my house
Speaker 1: even inside, I put one of their antennas there. They've
Speaker 1: got this mohu versa which is a very inexpensive, like
Speaker 1: thirty dollars antenna, and I was able to get every channel.
Speaker 1: But I will tell you the way that these signals
Speaker 1: work sometimes are very reliant on exactly how this antenna
Speaker 1: is placed. You put it by one window, you miss
Speaker 1: one channel. You put it by the other window, you
Speaker 1: might miss another channel, so you do have to play
Speaker 1: around a little bit. But upstairs in the attic you
Speaker 1: probably have your best bet up high there.
Speaker 14: And that's what I'm trying. That's what we're finding with
Speaker 14: this RCA is like, okay, great, oh we get these
Speaker 14: channels perfectly.
Speaker 10: Oh we lost that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, let's move it over here.
Speaker 14: The slightest movement you lose a channel gain a channel.
Speaker 14: So I'm tired of playing this game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 1: You'll be calling me in a couple of weeks saying, Rich,
Speaker 1: now I need a DVR. So what do you recommend
Speaker 1: for a DVR? Because now I've got all these channels
Speaker 1: and it looks great.
Speaker 14: So yeah, once I get this square away, I.
Speaker 4: Might do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, call me when you get to that point, but yeah,
Speaker 1: check it out. I'll put the link on the website.
Speaker 1: Rich on tech dot tv, thanks so much for calling
Speaker 1: today over there and upland okay.
Speaker 14: Oh yeah, awesome, thanks for taking my call.
Speaker 2: All right, Stephanie, take care. I always do. I always.
Speaker 1: I've been doing this show for two years almost two
Speaker 1: years now, and I still I just got my finger
Speaker 1: on the trigger and it's like I cut people off
Speaker 1: I don't mean to cut you off. Sometimes it's just like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm looking at like ten different screens here,
Speaker 1: and it just sort of happened. So yeah, that's always
Speaker 1: a good I was actually the first person. I don't
Speaker 1: want to take credit for the success of that company,
Speaker 1: Antennis Direct, but I will tell you that I was
Speaker 1: one of the first people to ever feature them on
Speaker 1: the Today Show. Gosh, this was probably I don't even
Speaker 1: want to say, but probably almost fifteen sixteen, probably eighteen
Speaker 1: years ago.
Speaker 2: I don't know, whatever it was. It was a long
Speaker 2: time ago.
Speaker 1: And they they literally they said as soon as I
Speaker 1: mentioned their name on TV, their place was just flooded
Speaker 1: with phone calls. They said they could not make an
Speaker 1: outgoing call for like a week or two. That's how
Speaker 1: many people called asking for this antenna. And the antenna
Speaker 1: was so cool. It was actually a frame. It was
Speaker 1: a picture frame, and the antenna was in the frame
Speaker 1: and you put it on your wall and it would,
Speaker 1: you know, pick up the channels. And I remember I was,
Speaker 1: you know, since I was on the Today Show, I
Speaker 1: thought it'd be cool to put a picture of Lindsay
Speaker 1: in the frame, and I snuck it in. I printed
Speaker 1: out a picture of me and Lindsay put it in
Speaker 1: the frame and I was like, are the producers going
Speaker 1: to say you can't have that in the frame? And
Speaker 1: sure enough she was on the Today Show as well.
Speaker 1: How long were you on Today Show?
Speaker 2: How what? How long were you on the Today Show?
Speaker 2: Like a segment like a couple of minutes?
Speaker 1: I was on a law actually no, like like time
Speaker 1: wise like probably I think those segments were maybe five minutes,
Speaker 1: No like years, like, oh gosh, I mean this was
Speaker 1: probably almost twenty.
Speaker 2: Years ago at this point. Oh wow. Yeah. I was
Speaker 2: like I was a little kid.
Speaker 1: I was literally like it was like talk about imposter syndrome.
Speaker 1: I was working at Sina at the time, and you know,
Speaker 1: I was kind of like, I mean I was I've
Speaker 1: literally been doing the same thing, Bobo for all these years.
Speaker 1: It's just about giving people good information, right and an
Speaker 1: easy to understand way. And so when I got to CINA,
Speaker 1: and I was sort of like, you know, I had
Speaker 1: access to all this great information and the reviews and stuff,
Speaker 1: and I was the person who would take that information
Speaker 1: and put it on TV. And so I started doing
Speaker 1: these things and I was on the Today Show, I
Speaker 1: was on ABC you know all their like early morning
Speaker 1: shows there. I was on CMBC, I was on Fox Business.
Speaker 1: I mean I was everywhere because here's a person that
Speaker 1: knew how to talk about technology in a way that
Speaker 1: people understood it.
Speaker 15: My thing is is something that when I go to
Speaker 15: career days to school about you know, what we do
Speaker 15: for a living. Always tell them if you love what
Speaker 15: you do, you're never going to work a day in
Speaker 15: your life because it's always fun. It's always enjoyable. Like
Speaker 15: me coming here every Saturday, I enjoy coming here with this.
Speaker 15: It's fun, it's the interesting show and is knowledgeable and
Speaker 15: you help people. And that's one reason why I love radio,
Speaker 15: helping people and making people laugh and smile.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent.
Speaker 1: And I that is literally when you look at my
Speaker 1: mission statement, it is to help people. And some people
Speaker 1: help people by you know, being a doctor. I am
Speaker 1: right there, same level. I wouldn't go that far, but
Speaker 1: you do help a lot.
Speaker 2: I'm just kidding. I am nowhere near. I'm just kidding,
Speaker 2: but it is.
Speaker 13: It is.
Speaker 1: Look, it is one of these things where like there's
Speaker 1: so much information online and this is what this is
Speaker 1: what gets me so angry about all this, Like TikTok stuff.
Speaker 1: It's all just like nonsense, Like there's so much nonsense
Speaker 1: out there, like scary this that like they have people
Speaker 1: Like the first viral video I ever did was literally
Speaker 1: debunking a video I saw online of someone ripping the
Speaker 1: battery out of their Samsung phone and they found this
Speaker 1: little antenna in there and they're like, you see this antenna,
Speaker 1: it's spying on you. And I said, wait, what serious? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so I went to my desk. I was at KTLA,
Speaker 1: and I just said, let me try this, let me
Speaker 1: let me record a video. And I opened up the
Speaker 1: phone and I did the same thing the person did,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure enough I found the antenna. It wasn't
Speaker 1: an antenna, it was it was a way to oh my,
Speaker 1: I forget at this point. I think it was like
Speaker 1: either rf ID or I think it was the way
Speaker 1: to charge the battery. Yeah, it was like the little
Speaker 1: battery antenna, like to wirelessly charge it. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think that's what it was. But I like explained it
Speaker 1: and I was like this is fake, like stop. But
Speaker 1: then of course people were like no, you're still lying,
Speaker 1: Like but that was like the first thing I ever
Speaker 1: had to go viral. So anyway, but I've still look.
Speaker 1: I love helping you. I love and I'm you know,
Speaker 1: people are like, oh, you know, do you know your
Speaker 1: stuff or you don't know your stuff? Like I'm literally
Speaker 1: just like you. I'm like or like any person like,
Speaker 1: I'm just like collecting this information and trying to like
Speaker 1: make like digest it so that you can understand it.
Speaker 1: So you know, there are a lot of things that I
Speaker 1: don't understand. There's a lot of things I understand, but
Speaker 1: I just happen to follow all this stuff. And that's
Speaker 1: why I can, you know, do this. Okay, we'll get
Speaker 1: to some more calls in a minute. But Amazon Prime
Speaker 1: Video Financial Times reporting that apparently people don't mind the
Speaker 1: ads on Amazon Prime Video.
Speaker 2: Remember Prime Video used to have no ads. Now they
Speaker 2: have ads.
Speaker 1: Apparently people have not complained enough, so Amazon is like, oh,
Speaker 1: I guess they like them, and they're adding more. So now, okay,
Speaker 1: eight months ago Amazon added ads to Prime Video with
Speaker 1: a quote light ad load, and now they haven't seen
Speaker 1: a lot of people drop their subscriptions, and so they're
Speaker 1: gonna add more ads. Now, here's why people have not
Speaker 1: dropped their subscriptions. It's because Prime Video is included with
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime, so you're not going to cancel Amazon Prime
Speaker 1: to get rid of Amazon Prime Video. So apparently people
Speaker 1: don't mind this, and they're gonna add more ads. Now
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I don't really watch
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff on Prime Video.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Boo is right.
Speaker 1: Uh, but it's one of these things where yes, I
Speaker 1: have Prime membership and I have Prime Video, but like
Speaker 1: the last time I tried to watch something, it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: watch like six ads, and I'm like, no, I don't
Speaker 1: want to watch all those ads.
Speaker 2: But yes, you will be.
Speaker 1: Seeing more ads apparently on Prime Video in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: all thanks to people not caring apparently about more video,
Speaker 1: more ads.
Speaker 2: Eighty to eight rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: Rich on Tech dot tv is the website you can
Speaker 1: follow me online at rich on Tech. I am actively
Speaker 1: on Instagram, even though they try to stop it there.
Speaker 1: Believe me, I consider never going back, but I can't
Speaker 1: that pull of that screen, all those.
Speaker 2: Little likes and comments coming up.
Speaker 1: I'll take some more of your calls and we're going
Speaker 1: to talk to Trey Bodge about Amazon Prime Day. Right here,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you talking tech. We've still got a lot
Speaker 1: of callers, so I'm going to try to get through
Speaker 1: all of them before we get to our guests in
Speaker 1: the next segment to talk about Amazon Prime Day shopping tips.
Speaker 1: So let's go right to Craig and Woodland Hills. Craig,
Speaker 1: you're on with Rich.
Speaker 5: Hello, Hi, Hi.
Speaker 16: I was looking for a Chrome book, okay, and I
Speaker 16: needed something that's I don't do any gaming or download
Speaker 16: movies or music or anything like that. I just needed
Speaker 16: something that I could, you know, send and receive emails,
Speaker 16: maybe print them, and then do online shopping securely.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 16: I just bought an HP fourteen inch from Costco. Yeah,
Speaker 16: and the battery wouldn't take more than seventy five percent charge,
Speaker 16: so I have to return it. So now I'm looking
Speaker 16: for something else.
Speaker 1: Huh interesting? And you don't want to exchange it? Were
Speaker 1: you happy with the performance or no?
Speaker 16: I can even do the setup on it. I just
Speaker 16: was just trying to charge it and it wouldn't charge, okay,
Speaker 16: So I'm bill in the water right now. I'm just
Speaker 16: looking for a different type of chromebik that'll suit me,
Speaker 16: and I don't something that I don't need a lot
Speaker 16: of virus protection or anything and something hopefully that comes
Speaker 16: with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, the good news about chromebooks is that there
Speaker 1: are no viruses. So that's what's great about them is
Speaker 1: that they're they're fool proof. So now I say no viruses.
Speaker 1: Obviously there's always, you know, something that could go wrong,
Speaker 1: but typically the way that the chromebook architecture is there,
Speaker 1: there is really no virus that that could latch onto
Speaker 1: that system. So the brand that I like for chromebooks
Speaker 1: is a SUS as US I've tested several, they all
Speaker 1: perform really great. The thing that I think you should
Speaker 1: look out for is a Chromebook Plus.
Speaker 2: So there's two the standard chromebooks. If they're not a Plus,
Speaker 2: they're not going to have a lot of memory, and
Speaker 2: so the specs are a little bit less. So personally,
Speaker 2: if you're not getting the Chromebook Plus, let me see
Speaker 2: what the actual specs are, because they just came out
Speaker 2: with this sort of signifier for these things. So yeah,
Speaker 2: Chromebook Plus starts at three hundred and ninety nine dollars
Speaker 2: and the main thing is that it looks like they
Speaker 2: have at least ten eighty PhD display, which is great
Speaker 2: it's got a decent CPU Core I three from Intel
Speaker 2: or an AMD Rise. In the RAM that's where the
Speaker 2: RAM and the storage is really where you're going to
Speaker 2: get the plus signification. And that's going to be minimum
Speaker 2: of eight gigs of RAMM of one one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty eight gigs of storage. And your webcam is actually
Speaker 2: going to be a HD webcam as well. TENADP. So
Speaker 2: I would check out a SUS. I would check out
Speaker 2: Chromebook Plus.
Speaker 1: That's the brand that I like, and look for that
Speaker 1: plus signifier because you're going to get specs that last
Speaker 1: you a little bit longer. Yes, you can get a
Speaker 1: Chromebook for super super jeep, but you know you're not
Speaker 1: going to want to use it for very long. So
Speaker 1: if you get that plus, I think you're going to
Speaker 1: be able to use it for at least i'd say
Speaker 1: five years, so if not longer. I mean, Chromebooks are
Speaker 1: just great for browsing the web and doing the simple
Speaker 1: task that you mentioned.
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot for the question there, Craig. Let me
Speaker 2: know what you get. Email me.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Oh my gosh, let's see here. Let's
Speaker 1: go to Jeff and Marietta. Jeff, you're on with rich Y.
Speaker 12: Rich thanks for taking my call.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 12: So my wife does some graphic work and she's always
Speaker 12: used a Windows product, and now she was having trouble
Speaker 12: even with my gaming computer, making a fifteen page a
Speaker 12: newsletter every month. So I got her an Apple on
Speaker 12: the suggestion of a digital person my office, and I
Speaker 12: got her an Infinity program. But she's not used to
Speaker 12: dealing with with Apple. She's always been a Windows person.
Speaker 12: Is there any tutorials that you would suggest to make
Speaker 12: that as easy as possible?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that number one, I would go
Speaker 1: to Apple's website. They have great user guides for the Max,
Speaker 1: So you go to Apple Support.
Speaker 2: They do a great job.
Speaker 1: They used to make They used to make books, actually,
Speaker 1: but I'm looking on their their books and I don't
Speaker 1: really see it anymore, which is kind of wild. They
Speaker 1: used to have these really good guides to Mac and
Speaker 1: I'm just not seeing it. So they they might not
Speaker 1: do those anymore because they're, you know, they maybe they
Speaker 1: just moved everything to the website. But anyway, I'll put
Speaker 1: the link on the show notes. But basically Mac user
Speaker 1: guide on Apple support website. That's the first place I
Speaker 1: would go. The second is really YouTube. I mean, just
Speaker 1: you know, for the basics, like find a couple of
Speaker 1: good people that explain you know, mac os and the
Speaker 1: ins and outs and the different features. And that's probably
Speaker 1: the best way to learn, is that way, you know,
Speaker 1: cause it's visual and you can see what they're doing,
Speaker 1: you can see how they're you know, getting to you know,
Speaker 1: to know these computer systems. I remember I had a friend.
Speaker 1: I switched to a MacBook a long long time ago,
Speaker 1: and my best friend was on Windows. And I remember
Speaker 1: telling him and he like really pooh pooed me. He's like,
Speaker 1: I can't believe you're using a Mac. It's so weird.
Speaker 1: Everything's so different. And I said, I don't know, try it,
Speaker 1: and he did after a while, and I mean we
Speaker 1: always talk about this, but it's like he would never
Speaker 1: go back to Windows.
Speaker 2: Obviously. I try to use both to kind of learn both,
Speaker 2: but I really do enjoy the way the Mac works.
Speaker 2: Coming up, we're going to talk Prime Day.
Speaker 1: We got Trey Bodge talking about Amazon Prime Day.
Speaker 2: Up next on rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 2: on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology for
Speaker 1: our last caller. Before we get to our guest, Jeff
Speaker 1: and Murrietta. I was asking where his wife can learn
Speaker 1: how to use her new Mac computer. I mentioned the
Speaker 1: free user guide on Apple's website YouTube videos, and I
Speaker 1: forgot to mention a very great hands on way at
Speaker 1: the Apple store. They do these things called Today at Apple,
Speaker 1: and they are free sessions where you'll learn the basics.
Speaker 1: And I just looked it up and they do have
Speaker 1: one for getting started with the Mac computer. Learn the
Speaker 1: essentials to get the most out of your Mac. We'll
Speaker 1: start with settings, sow you how to navigate everyday features,
Speaker 1: explore how to customize your Mac, and then we'll share shortcuts.
Speaker 2: So that is a great way to do that.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming there's an Apple store near Marietta, but that
Speaker 1: is a great way because it's hands on and you're
Speaker 1: with a real human and those people know their stuff.
Speaker 2: So definitely check out that.
Speaker 1: All right, welcoming to the show now Trey Bodge from
Speaker 1: Truetrey dot com shopping expert to talk about Amazon Prime
Speaker 1: Day co coming up this week.
Speaker 2: Try thanks so much for joining.
Speaker 17: Me, Thanks for having me, great to be here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for joining and let's talk about this Prime
Speaker 1: Day thing, because is it happening more than twice a year,
Speaker 1: or does it just feel that way.
Speaker 18: I think it just feels that way. It is only
Speaker 18: happening twice a year. It started out only once a year,
Speaker 18: and then the pandemic obviously turned a lot of things
Speaker 18: on their heads, and Amazon kind of had a new
Speaker 18: idea to launch a Prime Day in October because they
Speaker 18: had to skip their July Prime Day, and so since
Speaker 18: then they've been doing it twice a year and it's
Speaker 18: kind of become the unofficial kickoff of the holiday shopping season.
Speaker 1: Now I have poo pooed this in years past. I
Speaker 1: thought it started out good and then it started to
Speaker 1: get a little bit stale. But now I actually do
Speaker 1: feel like it's kind of ramped up. And last Prime Day,
Speaker 1: I did buy a lot of stuff because, you know,
Speaker 1: things that I wanted or needed were on sale. So
Speaker 1: do you feel like the deals are there these days?
Speaker 18: I do, And especially on Amazon's proprietary brands, that's where
Speaker 18: they have a lot of wiggle room on their pricing
Speaker 18: and so they can go as deep as say sixty
Speaker 18: percent off a Blink security camera, for example, So they
Speaker 18: have a lot of wiggle room there.
Speaker 17: And so if you do need an.
Speaker 18: Amazon device or another product from a brand that Amazon owns,
Speaker 18: you know, from cleaning products to apparel and all that
Speaker 18: good stuff in between.
Speaker 17: It is a really good time to save on Amazon.
Speaker 1: So with that said, I mean, what are sort of
Speaker 1: like your you know, your top tips for you know saving.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 18: So the thing is about Amazon Prime Day, as you
Speaker 18: probably know, is that a lot of other retailers are
Speaker 18: also having big sales this week, and so it's a
Speaker 18: pretty dizzying time for consumers. And so the first thing
Speaker 18: that I would recommend is just to get organized, to
Speaker 18: make a list of your holiday gift recipients, some gift
Speaker 18: ideas for each, and then because because we do see
Speaker 18: a lot of sales on kind of day to day
Speaker 18: items as well, it makes sense to make a list
Speaker 18: of some of your favorite products too, so then you
Speaker 18: can keep your eyes peeled for exciting deals on Amazon
Speaker 18: and then also on those retailers that are having those
Speaker 18: big sales as well.
Speaker 2: Now, how do you spot the deal?
Speaker 1: Because I was saying earlier that they've kind of started
Speaker 1: putting these little banners on the price, you know, like
Speaker 1: these red banners that say like limited time deal or
Speaker 1: prime deal. So because not everything is a deal, like
Speaker 1: if it just says like, oh, twenty percent off, it
Speaker 1: may not you know that just maybe a regular deal,
Speaker 1: but a prime deal is like marked, Is that right?
Speaker 18: Yeah, So the prime deals are marked, and some of
Speaker 18: them will last the entire forty eight hours. Some of
Speaker 18: them will come and go very quickly. There's there are
Speaker 18: lightning deals, they call them, and then there'll be kind
Speaker 18: of other special deals dipping in and out. So it's
Speaker 18: a little bit tricky to keep track of all of them.
Speaker 18: So there are a couple of things that I like
Speaker 18: to do. I like to add things to my cart
Speaker 18: and then click save for later, and then when I
Speaker 18: go to save for later, all of my items that
Speaker 18: I'm interested in are in one place, and I can
Speaker 18: see very quickly if those items are on sales.
Speaker 17: So that's what I like to do.
Speaker 18: I also like to use a tool from Paypals called Honey,
Speaker 18: and it's a deal site and a deal browser extension,
Speaker 18: and I find it particularly helpful for this because when
Speaker 18: you're browsing online on Amazon and other retailers as well,
Speaker 18: it'll pop up and give you some historical pricing. And
Speaker 18: I find that helpful because maybe PayPal Honey's gonna say
Speaker 18: it's a great time to get this item.
Speaker 17: This discount is.
Speaker 18: Really deep, or we've seen lower prices before, and then
Speaker 18: I know to wait on that item, and in that case.
Speaker 2: I also get those alerts. I use the Honey extension
Speaker 2: as well. My wife puts like so many outfits that
Speaker 2: she wants to buy, so I'm always getting like an
Speaker 2: alert like, Oh, your thing is thirty percent off. I'm like,
Speaker 2: what is it? And I look at I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's another shirt.
Speaker 1: Like I'm hoping it's like one of the tech items
Speaker 1: that I've put in my basket. I noticed this year
Speaker 1: there was no mention of these invite only deals.
Speaker 2: Are they still doing that or no?
Speaker 18: That's a great question. So I think it's happening again.
Speaker 18: I haven't heard that it was removed, but that was
Speaker 18: something they were experimenting with last time, and so if
Speaker 18: it was successful, we'll see it again.
Speaker 17: If not, it'll kind of just quietly.
Speaker 1: Vanish I was one of the people I got the
Speaker 1: ninety nine dollars TV. This was like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: two years ago, but it was like the super deal
Speaker 1: of the century, and it was like invite only, and
Speaker 1: I happened to get up early because I work on
Speaker 1: the morning show at KTLA, so I was up early.
Speaker 2: I got the thing where it's like you're invited to.
Speaker 1: Buy this, and I did it like instantly, mostly just
Speaker 1: so I can talk about it for years later.
Speaker 2: But so far that's worked.
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 17: This is what we do, right, We experiment with these
Speaker 17: things and then we end up with the.
Speaker 1: TV exactly and I gave it to my father in law.
Speaker 1: Actually he might have paid me back for I can't
Speaker 1: remember at this point. So any mistakes that shoppers can
Speaker 1: you avoid during these prime big deal days?
Speaker 17: Yeah, I mean, I.
Speaker 18: Think a mistake that you can make during these times,
Speaker 18: especially we've got this forty eight hours of Amazon and
Speaker 18: then we have Targets Circle Week in Walmart's having a
Speaker 18: sale and best Buy and Lows. So the big mistake
Speaker 18: that people can make is just to get too excited
Speaker 18: about all of it and to buy too much. And
Speaker 18: so I do think making that list, keeping on track
Speaker 18: is really really helpful. And it's interesting because we are
Speaker 18: becoming an increasingly promotional culture, like we like to save.
Speaker 18: There was a bread financial pull that found that seventy
Speaker 18: six percent of us are going to be shopping deals
Speaker 18: this holiday shopping season looking around at different retailer shopping
Speaker 18: these big sale events, and because of that, we do
Speaker 18: tend to get caught up in the excitement and then
Speaker 18: perhaps drop things into our cart and click.
Speaker 17: Buy on things that we don't need or don't even want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's always a problem.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about the idea of some of these
Speaker 1: things that you're excited about. You know, some of these
Speaker 1: deals like I saw you sent me, like the Luna Mini,
Speaker 1: Let's see fire tablets, the what's the Broovy bundle.
Speaker 17: Oh, so there are some deals that I'm really excited about.
Speaker 18: You know, we talked about the Amazon proprietary devices like
Speaker 18: the Blink camera and the fire tablets and fire TV sticks,
Speaker 18: and those are hovering in the sort of forty eight
Speaker 18: to sixty percent off range, which is significant, So I'm
Speaker 18: excited about those. And then the Lunamini is from a
Speaker 18: company called Fourio. They make really nice facial cleansing brushes.
Speaker 18: They're electric and I use them myself, and they're up
Speaker 18: to forty five percent off, so that's another big deal
Speaker 18: that I'm excited about. And then the Broovie is actually
Speaker 18: a company that they make beautiful, beautiful coffee and all
Speaker 18: different flavors, and they partner with lots of different coffee
Speaker 18: farms and so they have a lot of high quality
Speaker 18: coffee pods, and then they have a very stylish brewer.
Speaker 17: But it does tend to be pretty pricey.
Speaker 18: But around Amazon Prime Day, it's going to be fifty
Speaker 18: percent off this bundle of the brewer and lots of pods,
Speaker 18: so you can try all sorts of different coffees. And
Speaker 18: so I'm excited about deals that are that are significant,
Speaker 18: like that that at our fifty percent off, I'm pretty.
Speaker 17: Excited about that.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because that's looking it up, it looks pretty. It's
Speaker 1: like an evolved k cup, you know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a little bit elevated.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 17: Yeah, it's a very stylish brewer.
Speaker 18: And so if you want your kitchen to look fabulous
Speaker 18: and you want that sort of you know, kitchen appli
Speaker 18: and sitting there that looks amazing, the breoviy is one
Speaker 18: to look at.
Speaker 1: What do you think of camel camel camel? Do you
Speaker 1: recommend using that? And you know, for the price history I.
Speaker 18: Do, And so camel camel Camel is another option besides
Speaker 18: the PayPal honey that we were just talking about.
Speaker 17: Camel. Camel Camel though is specific to Amazon.
Speaker 18: So for Prime Day, absolutely they have a browser extension
Speaker 18: then also a website.
Speaker 17: There are lots of different tools that you can use.
Speaker 18: So first of all, if you have the browser extension
Speaker 18: and it'll just kind of do some work for you
Speaker 18: and alert you if it's.
Speaker 17: A good price or not. But if you go to
Speaker 17: their website.
Speaker 18: You can set deal alerts and be notified when things
Speaker 18: go on sale. You can get a real sort of
Speaker 18: in the weed sense of pricing on things, and I
Speaker 18: find it to be very helpful for Amazon Prime Day.
Speaker 1: Any other tools, like any other third party tools like
Speaker 1: I know, I know, Honey's pretty good. There was a
Speaker 1: new one that I was testing that didn't turn out
Speaker 1: to be that great. But you know, there's so many
Speaker 1: like extensions and things like do those actually help? And
Speaker 1: there's no real coupons for Amazon, is there?
Speaker 17: Well, yes and.
Speaker 18: No, So when you're shopping on Amazon, be sure to
Speaker 18: look for that kind of green coupon button. In addition
Speaker 18: to maybe a Prime Day sale, you can click on
Speaker 18: a coupon on Amazon and maybe save an extra five
Speaker 18: percent or ten percent or get a dollar off amount.
Speaker 17: So coupon's on Amazon, yes.
Speaker 18: And I do expect to see some sort of external
Speaker 18: coupons happening. I like slick deals dot Com for this.
Speaker 18: They are a you know, a website that has millions
Speaker 18: of deals. They have millions of deal seekers actually combing
Speaker 18: the Internet for the best sales.
Speaker 17: So it's a very kind of community, community oriented site.
Speaker 17: So I like that. And I do also like that
Speaker 17: too because all the best deals are right in their
Speaker 17: front page. So you look at the front page and
Speaker 17: they're all there. And then they have a feature called
Speaker 17: the deal Alert, which if you're looking for something kind
Speaker 17: of price, you say that TV that you were interested in,
Speaker 17: you add the name of that item to your deal
Speaker 17: alert on slick Deals, and then you'll be automatically notified
Speaker 17: when it goes on sale. So I use this feature
Speaker 17: all year long.
Speaker 18: And for example, you know I need a new dishwasher,
Speaker 18: I dropped the names of a couple of the dishwashers
Speaker 18: I'm interested in into the deal Alert, and then I'm
Speaker 18: notified when they go on sale, so I don't have
Speaker 18: to waste my time looking around all the time for
Speaker 18: good deals on that item.
Speaker 2: I love slick Deals. I mean, if you're just looking
Speaker 2: for an excuse to spend.
Speaker 1: I mean I visit that site every single morning, and
Speaker 1: I'm always like, oh I need this, I need this?
Speaker 2: Do I need it? I kind of want it?
Speaker 1: But there's such there's always a great stuff and it's
Speaker 1: not just like products. Sometimes it's like oh, get a
Speaker 1: free cheeseburger at Burger King today or whatever. So I
Speaker 1: mean there's always like something. Tell me about your newsletter.
Speaker 1: You've got your website, true truetrade dot com. Tell me
Speaker 1: about your newsletter. What do you do on there?
Speaker 17: Yeah, so I have a newsletter as well.
Speaker 18: It goes out a couple times a month, and that's
Speaker 18: lots of savings oriented content there. And then I'm very
Speaker 18: active on Instagram as well, say sharing you know, interviews
Speaker 18: like this, and also information about how to save money,
Speaker 18: little tricks and hacks that I've learned along the way
Speaker 18: on your day to day purchases, holiday shopping, give guides
Speaker 18: my favorite products that I'm trying, and some travel tips
Speaker 18: as well. So lots of money saving content on my Instagram.
Speaker 1: All right, that is true Trey dot com. That's the
Speaker 1: website and Instagram is the same thing, True Trey. So
Speaker 1: Trey Bosh, thanks so much for joining me today.
Speaker 17: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: All right, happy shopping.
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime Day coming up that is on October eighth
Speaker 1: and ninth, that is Tuesday and Wednesday. Get those deals
Speaker 1: or get those items in your shopping cart now so
Speaker 1: you can save soon.
Speaker 2: All right, coming up?
Speaker 1: It is the feedback your comments, send emails throughout the
Speaker 1: week to me when we come back. The website for
Speaker 1: the show. By the way, Rich on tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: If you want any of the links I mentioned, just
Speaker 1: hit the light bulb there. This is show number what
Speaker 1: I say, ninety two, so you can find the links there.
Speaker 1: I got an email from Andrea's in Bell Gardens, California.
Speaker 1: Basically he said that his Ticketmaster tickets were stolen out
Speaker 1: of his account, and he wondered if I'd ever heard
Speaker 1: of this, and no, I hadn't. So I reached out
Speaker 1: to Ticketmaster and I said, Hey, what's the deal, and
Speaker 1: they said, yes, this happens. It's not a Ticketmaster hack
Speaker 1: per se. It is a week password, and so typically
Speaker 1: the hackers get in because you either have a week
Speaker 1: password on your ticket Master account or your email account
Speaker 1: or both, and they basically steal the tickets right out
Speaker 1: from under you.
Speaker 2: Now, the good news is.
Speaker 1: Ticketmaster says, because these tickets these days are digital instead
Speaker 1: of paper, they can often recover your tickets for you.
Speaker 1: So if you get in touch with their customer service,
Speaker 1: they can see what happened to these tickets and help
Speaker 1: you get them back. I don't know if that's always
Speaker 1: the case, but Andreas was able to get his ticket
Speaker 1: Hits his tickets back. And if you've got a ticket
Speaker 1: Master account, go on there right now. Make sure you
Speaker 1: have a strong unique password set up on that account
Speaker 1: so that they do not you don't lose your tickets.
Speaker 1: And I also want to mention mobile x this week
Speaker 1: change their calling plans. They've made them a lot better.
Speaker 1: We had the founder of mobile X, Peter Adderton, on
Speaker 1: this show a couple months ago. Mobile x is sort
Speaker 1: of one of these startups. They run on the Verizon network,
Speaker 1: but they've got great plans and now they're even better.
Speaker 1: So you can get unlimited data twenty four dollars eighty
Speaker 1: eight cents a month, you can get ten gigs of
Speaker 1: data for fourteen dollars and eighty eight cents a month,
Speaker 1: and you can get their personalized plan that starts at
Speaker 1: three dollars and forty eight cents a month, So they
Speaker 1: this is big because they really just made a challenge
Speaker 1: to all kind of like these other mv and o's
Speaker 1: out there, like Visible Total and Mint Mobile. And I've
Speaker 1: been testing the Mobile X. It works well. It runs
Speaker 1: on Verizon. I've had no issues. So if you're looking
Speaker 1: for a the inexpensive plan. Again, these are all kind
Speaker 1: of like DIY, so it's not like you can go
Speaker 1: into a store to get help, but they do sell
Speaker 1: them the simcards at Walmart. So Mobile X is the website.
Speaker 1: All right, Let's get to the feedback. These are the emails,
Speaker 1: the comments, the questions. I got so many questions or
Speaker 1: so many emails in response to me talking about budgeting
Speaker 1: last week. Gary and Ranchel Santa Margerita said, Hi, your
Speaker 1: caller asked about an app to check his debit card
Speaker 1: spending quick and we'll let you download transactions and enter
Speaker 1: checks in future purchases to see an AMDIA up to
Speaker 1: date view.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Gary Warren writes in Hey, Rich, it's good to hear
Speaker 1: someone else who updates their budget weekly. I haven't found
Speaker 1: a good way to automate the process for my spreadsheet.
Speaker 1: I use one from Vertex forty two. Thanks for all
Speaker 1: the good information you provide. Ken from Lincoln, California said, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: though you thought you might have missed a suggestion for
Speaker 1: your personal finance budgeting Quicken. It's been around for years
Speaker 1: on both platforms. It can be as simple or as
Speaker 1: complex as you wish. I've been a happy user for
Speaker 1: as long as I can remember. I am seventy three.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Ken. Sometimes these simplest explanations are right in
Speaker 1: front of me, and I forget. Thomas writes in Rich.
Speaker 1: If you're interested in using a spreadsheet for budgeting, take
Speaker 1: a look at Tiller tillerhq dot com. I move from
Speaker 1: Mint and it does a decent job of pulling in
Speaker 1: data from all of their supported accounts. I check this
Speaker 1: out and basically you do have to pay, but they
Speaker 1: basically will take your transactions from your bank and credit
Speaker 1: card and all that stuff and put them into a
Speaker 1: spreadsheet so that you can move them around and organize them.
Speaker 1: So Tiller HQ t I L L E R HQ.
Speaker 1: I'll put the link on the show notes. Joy from
Speaker 1: Anaheim takes a different approach. I don't understand the need
Speaker 1: for a budgeting app. As a senior on a fixed income.
Speaker 1: I find budgeting necessary and very easy. It's actually something
Speaker 1: I've done for years. I make a list of all
Speaker 1: my expenses, including a weekly allowance, and then total them up.
Speaker 1: They should not exceed my income, but if they do,
Speaker 1: I can see what I can postpone until another month.
Speaker 1: Any discretionary expenses I take out of my weekly income.
Speaker 1: I check my bank balance every other day and record
Speaker 1: all receipts daily. Some things are non negotiable, like rent
Speaker 1: and utility. I subtract any fund spent from my daily
Speaker 1: allowance and write the remaining balance on my calendar. It's
Speaker 1: really very simple, not to go over. An app would
Speaker 1: seem to complicate things. Well, Joy, it sounds like you
Speaker 1: just do what an app would do. But yeah, let's
Speaker 1: see here. Arnold from Rancho Kucamonga writes in with an update,
Speaker 1: Dear Rich, thanks for solving my problem. Ads and video
Speaker 1: games kept popping ads and games kept popping up on
Speaker 1: my Samsung phone, especially interfering with taking pictures and videos.
Speaker 1: Your step by step instructions work worked. Thank you for
Speaker 1: solving what was an incredibly bothersome problem. Take care, Arnold,
Speaker 1: Wow glad to hear that that worked. SONU writes in
Speaker 1: from Las Vegas. Hey, Rich, I'm a North Jersey transplant
Speaker 1: to Vegas for twenty three years. But as you mentioned
Speaker 1: in your last show, which I stream weekly on the podcast,
Speaker 1: you recalled the slider cable boxes. You got me thinking,
Speaker 1: and this is what we use when I was a
Speaker 1: kid in Wayne, New Jersey. I think the cable company
Speaker 1: was Cablevision back then. Thanks for the memories. Yes, the
Speaker 1: slider cable box first one we had in my house,
Speaker 1: and I think it was Cablevision.
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 1: We got Bob, also from New Jersey. I guess a
Speaker 1: lot of Jersey people like hearing me talk about Jersey.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, mecha magic. I'm driving to the car,
Speaker 1: driving to the gym, and just heard you mentioned mecha magic.
Speaker 1: I would make my mom take me there as a kid,
Speaker 1: as a magic nerd. I think it was an East
Speaker 1: Orange or West Orange. I think I still have a
Speaker 1: little briefcase full of magic tricks back home in the
Speaker 1: attic and New Jersey. That's what I kept mine in
Speaker 1: a little briefcase. I was the amazing rich O.
Speaker 2: That was my name.
Speaker 1: Before I was Rich on Tech, I was rich Oh alisays,
Speaker 1: thank you, rich have a blessed week and enjoy tech day.
Speaker 1: You give so much knowledge. You investigate in detail, giving
Speaker 1: to we the older. We appreciate what you do. Have
Speaker 1: a great day again. Thank you well, Thank you Elise
Speaker 1: for appreciating me. I appreciate you for listening to this show.
Speaker 1: That's going to do it for this episode. You can
Speaker 1: find links to everything I mentioned on the website rich
Speaker 1: on Tech dot TV. Find me on social media. I
Speaker 1: am at rich on Tech. Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1: There are so many ways you can spend your time.
Speaker 1: I do appreciate you spending it right here with me.
Speaker 1: Thanks for everyone who makes this show possible. Next week
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the pros and cons of
Speaker 1: art style TVs.
Speaker 2: I'm rich Demiro. I'll talk to you real soon.