Speaker 1: Samsung unveils its new foldable phones, Android Declaire's war on
Speaker 1: I message and why you should always open Instagram links
Speaker 1: in a certain way, plus your tech questions answered. What's
Speaker 1: going on on rich Demiro And this is rich on Tech,
Speaker 1: the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I
Speaker 1: think you should know about. It's also the place where
Speaker 1: I answer the questions you send me. I'm a tech
Speaker 1: reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Hope you
Speaker 1: are having a fantastic day. Welcome to anyone and everyone
Speaker 1: that is watching and listening on Instagram live right now.
Speaker 1: On occasion, I will live stream the show on Instagram
Speaker 1: at rich on Tech. So if you're watching there, thank you.
Speaker 1: We've got folks tuning in from all over the world.
Speaker 1: And when I say that, I mean it got folks
Speaker 1: from Portugal, Culver City, Cacmo, Kansas City, Missouri, and just
Speaker 1: about everywhere in between. So thanks for doing that. Speaking
Speaker 1: of different places, So I just got back from a
Speaker 1: trip up to Bend, Oregon. This was a family reunion
Speaker 1: that was planned for many, many years and it was fantastic.
Speaker 1: I've got to say. We did the drive up there.
Speaker 1: It was thirteen hours up thirteen hours back, we stopped
Speaker 1: each way and kind of, you know, like I really
Speaker 1: I love and I think I've talked about this before,
Speaker 1: but I've been doing this podcast for so long, and
Speaker 1: I also talk on social media that I feel like
Speaker 1: I've said everything before, but I've probably mentioned the fact
Speaker 1: that I like to enjoy the journey. So when I
Speaker 1: was growing up, and nothing against my dad, but you know,
Speaker 1: we drove all the time to a place up in
Speaker 1: like the Adirondacks in New York City, in upstate New York,
Speaker 1: and it was like power through. It was like you
Speaker 1: got out of school three pm, hop in the car,
Speaker 1: and next thing you know, be like we're going We're
Speaker 1: going up to the lake. It's like what And there
Speaker 1: was no stopping. There was just like I don't remember
Speaker 1: ever stopping once. And so now as an adult, like
Speaker 1: that was the way I kind of did my life.
Speaker 1: For the first ten years of driving places, I would
Speaker 1: just be like, all right, let's go, We're going right through.
Speaker 1: And as they get older, I just like to stop more.
Speaker 1: And it kind of occurred to me I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: the only thing I'm losing here is time, you know,
Speaker 1: and so what's the what's the reason why I have
Speaker 1: to get somewhere so fast, Like let me, you know,
Speaker 1: those like vista points they have on the side of
Speaker 1: the freeway. I would never stop for those. And now
Speaker 1: I'm like, you kids want to stop, anyone want to stop?
Speaker 1: And sure enough we stop. It's always beautiful, it's always fun,
Speaker 1: and you stretch your legs, you go to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: And now it's gotten to the point where we stop
Speaker 1: too much, like we've just stopped way too many times. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I say this all because we stopped overnight on the
Speaker 1: way up to Bend. We stopped overnight on the way back.
Speaker 1: We stopped in I think it was like Redding and
Speaker 1: then San Francisco all right, sorry San Sacramento, not San Francisco, Sacramento.
Speaker 1: And it was great. We had such a great time.
Speaker 1: The kids enjoyed it. It was it was really nice.
Speaker 1: Bend is just a magical place. It's like one of
Speaker 1: those cities, like you know how they say, like keep
Speaker 1: Austin weird, or you know, Portland. I know is kind
Speaker 1: of an eclectic place, but Bend is a very eclectic
Speaker 1: place as well. And so it's a small city that
Speaker 1: plays very eclectic. It's very outdoorsy, It's a beautiful place.
Speaker 1: The food is good. I only went to one or
Speaker 1: two restaurants up there. We mostly cooked, but you know,
Speaker 1: it was just We went to this place called sun
Speaker 1: River as well, which is like this huge kind of
Speaker 1: planned I don't know, it's like a vacation spot, but
Speaker 1: very like outdoorsy. So anyway, I tell you all this
Speaker 1: because I love to travel. I love seeing different places.
Speaker 1: And while I was up there, I picked up a
Speaker 1: couple stories. So whenever I'm kind of a place, I
Speaker 1: always find myself thinking like this would make a cool story.
Speaker 1: That would make a cool story. So I visited the
Speaker 1: last Blockbuster store of loves up there. I'll talk about
Speaker 1: that more later in the show. I also did a
Speaker 1: story with this golf board that you might have seen
Speaker 1: on my segment, which is kind of like a motorized
Speaker 1: scooter that replaces a golf cart on a golf course.
Speaker 1: It was really also cool. I don't know what to say.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just love to kind of experience these things,
Speaker 1: and I feel like if I'm experiencing something for the
Speaker 1: first time, there's a lot of other people out there
Speaker 1: who may not have seen that thing. Place, gadget sign
Speaker 1: whatever it is as well, so I like to share
Speaker 1: that stuff. So if you follow me on social media,
Speaker 1: which many of you probably do, you probably see just
Speaker 1: this like ongoing flow of consciousness from my world to yours.
Speaker 1: And it's just because I love sharing stuff that's kind
Speaker 1: of interesting to me, and I feel like there's other
Speaker 1: people out there that are also interested in that stuff.
Speaker 1: So if you ever get the chance to check out
Speaker 1: bend Or, it is truly beautiful. There were some fires
Speaker 1: while we're up there around our area, so that wasn't
Speaker 1: very fun, but it is a very very nice place.
Speaker 1: So go up there if you have the chance, and
Speaker 1: take your time getting there. I know it's long, but
Speaker 1: take your time and get there. All right, let's get
Speaker 1: to the first story of the week. Samsung unveiled a
Speaker 1: bunch of new devices, so two new foldable phones, a
Speaker 1: pair of earbuds, and a watch. And this is I
Speaker 1: can't believe this, but we're going on the fourth generation
Speaker 1: of foldable phones from Samsung and still no real competition
Speaker 1: for foldable devices. And when I say that, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: some companies out there that are making them, but here
Speaker 1: in the US, there is really no competition, and that
Speaker 1: competition would come in the form of a company named Apple.
Speaker 1: Apple has yet to even have any sort of real
Speaker 1: rumors about a foldable phone. And so with that in mind,
Speaker 1: let me just go over quickly what we saw. So
Speaker 1: we've got the flagship foldable, which is the Z Fold four.
Speaker 1: This is the phone you might have remember that had
Speaker 1: screen issues when it first came out. They sent them
Speaker 1: to us, and the next thing you know, they said,
Speaker 1: you got to give them back because the screens are breaking.
Speaker 1: And so they went back to the drawing board they
Speaker 1: figured out what happened. There's little specks of dust and
Speaker 1: dirt that were getting behind the screen and causing it
Speaker 1: to fail. They have long figured that out. It's been
Speaker 1: four generations of this phone. Three of them have had
Speaker 1: no problems since that first time. So on this screen,
Speaker 1: on this phone, you get a screen outside, six point
Speaker 1: two inch screen outside, and then a giant seven point
Speaker 1: six inch screen on the inside. And they've upgraded this
Speaker 1: new model with better cameras, better durability. It weighs just
Speaker 1: a tiny bit less, and the price tex stays the
Speaker 1: same at eighteen hundred dollars. And when I tell you
Speaker 1: eighteen hundred dollars, you tune out. And you say, ah,
Speaker 1: that's not something I'm gonna get right now, And I
Speaker 1: would agree with that. This is not a phone for
Speaker 1: the masses just yet, but it goes to show the
Speaker 1: possibility of what these fold walls are going to do
Speaker 1: for us in the future. The fact that you can
Speaker 1: have a phone that has a standard a standard footprint
Speaker 1: that opens up into a tablet sized phone is really
Speaker 1: really cool for so many reasons, like just saying I
Speaker 1: was going on vacation. You know, when I was on vacation,
Speaker 1: I actually took an iPad with me. I didn't use
Speaker 1: it at all, but I just wanted to have that
Speaker 1: reassurance of if I ever found myself in a place
Speaker 1: where I was bored, or on one of the nights
Speaker 1: we weren't doing much and I wanted to watch a
Speaker 1: movie on a bigger screen, the iPad would fit that purpose.
Speaker 1: And we never took it out. But again, if your
Speaker 1: phone can do that, if you're on a plane, if
Speaker 1: you're traveling, if you just want to jot something down,
Speaker 1: it's it's seriously cool. And the z fold four, I
Speaker 1: feel like they have continually evolved and it's just going
Speaker 1: to keep getting better. Once that can fold into a
Speaker 1: smaller kind of form factor. Be a bit less bulky,
Speaker 1: be a bit thinner. It's really going to be a
Speaker 1: force to be reckon with. So you've got that one. Now,
Speaker 1: the Flip four, I've gotten my hands right now. This
Speaker 1: is the model that I think most people will buy.
Speaker 1: It basically looks like a standard Samsung S twenty two
Speaker 1: or S twenty two plus smartphone, but it folds in half,
Speaker 1: so there's a small screen outside and then a six
Speaker 1: point seven inch screen inside. So you've got this nice, small,
Speaker 1: compact form factor when it's folded, but then when you
Speaker 1: open it up, it just acts like a regular smartphone.
Speaker 1: So on this phone, they have improved the selfie camera,
Speaker 1: brighter pictures overall, more stable videos. These are all things
Speaker 1: that Samsung has said. I am still in the process
Speaker 1: of testing this phone, so I can't say that these
Speaker 1: are all true. It also has a bigger battery. One
Speaker 1: of the big complaints was the battery went pretty fast.
Speaker 1: I'm at eighty three percent this morning. I've had it
Speaker 1: on for a couple hours, have not been using it
Speaker 1: all of those hours, but we'll see if the battery
Speaker 1: is any better. It also has faster charging. It comes
Speaker 1: in a ton of cool colors. Samsung sent the reviewers
Speaker 1: this bora purple color, which is not my personal favorite,
Speaker 1: but it's pretty nice. It also has a much more
Speaker 1: reasonable price tag of one thousand dollars. And the funny
Speaker 1: thing is, I've had a lot of people tell me
Speaker 1: Rich I've got the z Flip three, I don't need
Speaker 1: an upgrade. This phone is awesome. I love it. People
Speaker 1: who get this phone seem to absolutely adore it, and
Speaker 1: I can see why. I've just had this thing for
Speaker 1: a day, and there's so many little things about it
Speaker 1: that are super unique and super fun that I can
Speaker 1: see why people fall in love with this phone. Now.
Speaker 1: The funny thing about the people that told me they
Speaker 1: have the three, and I said, well, do you know
Speaker 1: they're letting you upgrade for one hundred dollars to the four.
Speaker 1: So if you have the Flip three, you can send
Speaker 1: that back to Samsung and they will send you the
Speaker 1: new one for a hundred bucks. That to me is
Speaker 1: a win in my book, and I definitely think you
Speaker 1: should take advantage of that, because what Samsung knows is
Speaker 1: that they can sell these things on the secondary market.
Speaker 1: They can give them to people that need refurbished models,
Speaker 1: so they can get all those threes in at a
Speaker 1: slight loss. But then the four people will be really
Speaker 1: happy because they're kind of rewarding you for being on
Speaker 1: the cutting edge and saying, look, you know what you
Speaker 1: are our mascots out there. You're the people that are
Speaker 1: that are telling people about these phones and showing them
Speaker 1: in real life. So we're gonna give you one hundred
Speaker 1: dollars upgrade, and we're gonna use that phone that you
Speaker 1: send back to us to you know, percolate through the
Speaker 1: system for refurbished phones and replacements and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. A couple other things, Samsung announced the Galaxy
Speaker 1: Watch five. This has more accurate sensors. It now tracks
Speaker 1: body temperature, which is good for sleep. It also detect snoring.
Speaker 1: It's got a bigger battery. Plus it has apps from Spotify,
Speaker 1: Google Assistant, and Google Maps. I wish I had Google
Speaker 1: Maps and Google Assistant on the Apple Watch, but you
Speaker 1: know it's Apple. They don't play nice with Google most
Speaker 1: of the time, and it's it's gonna be an improved
Speaker 1: watch experience. Then they've got this pro version of the
Speaker 1: watch that is aimed at people who might go with
Speaker 1: something like a garment. This has a more rugged design
Speaker 1: and even bigger battery, which if you ever go hiking
Speaker 1: with a smart watch, you realize that you need a
Speaker 1: big battery because GPS eats up a lot or sorry, yeah,
Speaker 1: GPS eats up a lot of your battery when you're
Speaker 1: out and about with just your watch. So if you're
Speaker 1: tracking a big hike that may last you know, five hours,
Speaker 1: six hours, that is something that you need to take
Speaker 1: into consideration, which is a bigger battery. The watches start
Speaker 1: at two hundred and eighty dollars. They've got LTE versions,
Speaker 1: they've got the standard version, but they also came out
Speaker 1: with buds as well, a new pair of Galaxy Buds,
Speaker 1: but I have not tested those just yet. So anyway,
Speaker 1: just going through all the Samsung stuff, I think Samsung
Speaker 1: does not get enough credit for the innovation that they
Speaker 1: bring to the to the marketplace. Apple commands a lion's
Speaker 1: share of the both market in America but also the
Speaker 1: attention by the media in America, and for good reason.
Speaker 1: Apple has a very polished product. It does really amazing things.
Speaker 1: I've used an iPhone now since day one with Android
Speaker 1: as well, but I've used an iPhone, and I'm continually
Speaker 1: impressed with some of the things that it does really
Speaker 1: well and very easily. And I think on the flip side,
Speaker 1: Android people don't give enough credit for just how customizable
Speaker 1: it is and just the way that it becomes your
Speaker 1: very own as opposed to iPhone. Even using an iPhone
Speaker 1: for a year in it still does a lot of
Speaker 1: things that I don't like, Like when I click on
Speaker 1: I almost call it a minefield sometimes because you click
Speaker 1: on certain links and things and you just know it's
Speaker 1: not going to act the way you want it to act.
Speaker 1: Like if I tap an address, it's going to open
Speaker 1: up in Google Maps or sorry, in Apple Maps, and
Speaker 1: I just don't want that to happen. So what developers
Speaker 1: have to do they have to go around these weird
Speaker 1: little limitations and they have to program in. If you watch,
Speaker 1: if you click like a link that goes to an address,
Speaker 1: the developer literally codes into the app app do you
Speaker 1: want this to open in Apple Maps? Do you want
Speaker 1: it to open in Google Maps? Do you want it
Speaker 1: to open in ways? I mean, come on, that's that's
Speaker 1: kind of a weird thing. When you can just set
Speaker 1: literally a default app on most other on all Android.
Speaker 1: What is going on here? On the Instagram, Kyle is
Speaker 1: saying you have a strong sock game, can you show
Speaker 1: them without the shoes? I don't know. That's kind of
Speaker 1: a weird request, but anyway, all right, let's get to
Speaker 1: the first question of the day. That was not the
Speaker 1: first question of the day. Let's just be clear, all right,
Speaker 1: Joel says, can I install and use WhatsApp on my
Speaker 1: Galaxy tab for using just Wi Fi? Thank you, Joel.
Speaker 1: So originally I thought this was going to be a
Speaker 1: very simple question, and when I started researching the answer,
Speaker 1: I found that it's not as straightforward as I thought.
Speaker 1: So if you have something like Telegram, you can install
Speaker 1: it on a bunch of devices and use it across
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of devices very easily. WhatsApp is a
Speaker 1: little trickier because the WhatsApp platform is encrypted by default,
Speaker 1: which means it typically only runs on one device at
Speaker 1: a time. Now, I think they've gotten around that in
Speaker 1: certain ways where you can install it on like the
Speaker 1: desktop and a phone at the same time. But the
Speaker 1: reason why I went with Telegram for my personal messaging
Speaker 1: with my friends and family. If I can get my
Speaker 1: friends on there, I've got all my family on there
Speaker 1: is that it allows you to install it on a
Speaker 1: bunch of different devices and use them simultaneously. That's because
Speaker 1: it's not end to end encrypted by default. They have
Speaker 1: options for end to end encryption with chats by enabling
Speaker 1: that on certain chats, but it's not done by default. WhatsApp.
Speaker 1: It is done by default, which means it is the
Speaker 1: most secure way to message folks. But the limitation is
Speaker 1: that because it's so secure, you can't have it running
Speaker 1: on a whole bunch of things all at once. So Joel,
Speaker 1: my answer is, I don't think it's easy to do this,
Speaker 1: but I think there are that may work. I just
Speaker 1: couldn't easily find one quickly. So I think if you
Speaker 1: want to use WhatsApp, it looks like you might want
Speaker 1: to tie it to a phone number on a phone.
Speaker 1: You might be able to install on a tablet, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like that's a simple thing to do.
Speaker 1: If you think that's if you have experience doing this,
Speaker 1: let me know in the comments or email me hello
Speaker 1: at richontech dot tv and let me know. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like that's a very straightforward thing to do.
Speaker 1: If you want something that does work on various platforms.
Speaker 1: I would recommend something like Facebook Messenger or Telegram. Those
Speaker 1: are apps that do work on multiple platforms, and just
Speaker 1: using Wi Fi on a tablet all by themselves very easily.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to Let's see what do we
Speaker 1: want to talk about. First, we want to talk about
Speaker 1: There's so many things to talk about this week. All right,
Speaker 1: let's talk about Let's talk about Android and iPhone messaging. So,
Speaker 1: in case you haven't noticed, this week, Google has launched
Speaker 1: an all out messaging war against Apple. They are no
Speaker 1: longer playing nice. So here's the thing. Apple and Google
Speaker 1: are frenemies. The reason for this is that even though
Speaker 1: Google has its own platform called Android, they rely on
Speaker 1: millions and millions of iPhone and iOS users to use
Speaker 1: their products on the iPhone and on iOS. And so
Speaker 1: Google will kind of lie what's the word lieover? You know,
Speaker 1: they kind of lay and just they they kind of
Speaker 1: play nice with Apple, but they know they're not really
Speaker 1: friends with Apple because Apple would cut them off at
Speaker 1: the knees in about ten seconds given the opportunity. But
Speaker 1: what Apple needs is a really good search engine on
Speaker 1: the iPhone, and they need a search engine that works
Speaker 1: really well, and so Google is the default search engine
Speaker 1: on the iPhone. Apparently Google pays lots of money to
Speaker 1: Apple to make that happen. But who else is Apple
Speaker 1: gonna use? You're if you think that Apple is gonna
Speaker 1: switch to Bing. If you think that Apple's gonna switch
Speaker 1: to Bang on the iPhone, the iPhone would go like
Speaker 1: down in about ten seconds. It would be people would
Speaker 1: switch in mass to some other to some other platform
Speaker 1: if the iPhone switched to Bing for their search engine.
Speaker 1: So with all that in mind, typically Google kind of
Speaker 1: stays silent about all these little limitations of the iOS
Speaker 1: platform when it comes to their products. But now they
Speaker 1: are not. They launched this new campaign raised It aimed
Speaker 1: at raising awareness of how Apple is pretty mean to
Speaker 1: Android and in turn iPhone users when it comes to messaging.
Speaker 1: So we know that when you message from an iPhone
Speaker 1: to an Android, what happens. It's that dreaded green bubble
Speaker 1: when that Android person messages you back and it's like,
Speaker 1: h this person's using an Android. Apple did that, I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe on purpose to delineate I message versus Android.
Speaker 1: I message is so nice. You get typing indicators, you
Speaker 1: get big videos, you get full res pictures, you get
Speaker 1: group chats that work really well. Well, when you go
Speaker 1: to Android, none of this stuff works. And Google is
Speaker 1: now saying that, you know what, Okay, We're not gonna
Speaker 1: stay silent about this anymore. Okay. Apple is actually holding
Speaker 1: Android users back and their own users in this regard
Speaker 1: because they're using SMS, which is old old school messaging
Speaker 1: when you talk to an Android phone, when they should
Speaker 1: be using RCS, which is Rich Communication Messaging or Rich
Speaker 1: Communications Standard something like that that all of the Android
Speaker 1: phones use to talk to each other. So, unless you've
Speaker 1: been living under a rock, if you have an Android
Speaker 1: phone and you activate RCS, which most of the phones
Speaker 1: let you do, these stays or it's done automatically. When
Speaker 1: you message a video from an Android to an Android,
Speaker 1: it looks just as good as it does if you
Speaker 1: went from iPhone to iPhone using I message. But the
Speaker 1: problem is here in the US, most users are going
Speaker 1: iPhone to iPhone or iPhone to Android, So it's not
Speaker 1: a lot of Android to Android users. Maybe in the
Speaker 1: rest of the world it is, but here in the
Speaker 1: US it's iPhone to Android. And what happens is if
Speaker 1: you're an iPhone user and you send a video to
Speaker 1: an Android phone, it looks horrible on their end. If
Speaker 1: you're an Android user and you send a video to
Speaker 1: an iPhone, the iPhone person goes, oh, what is this?
Speaker 1: Why does this look like a tiny thumbnail. It's actually
Speaker 1: a joke the way it looks. So here's the thing
Speaker 1: Google is saying, Apple, dude, like, just enable RCS on
Speaker 1: your phones. That way messaging can be encrypted. It can
Speaker 1: be better, it can look better. People can have those
Speaker 1: typing indicators. It's not going to ruin I message because
Speaker 1: iPhone to iPhone will always be on message. But when
Speaker 1: that iPhone person messages an Android person, it's finally gonna
Speaker 1: look and feel just as good. Now that sounds pretty easy.
Speaker 1: Every other phone maker, every other carrier is on it.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. Apple does not want you to
Speaker 1: know that they can make messaging better for Android users.
Speaker 1: They want you to think that Android is substandard. They
Speaker 1: want you to think that Android is not as good
Speaker 1: of an operating system. They want you to think that
Speaker 1: Android is just not good. And so that's why Google
Speaker 1: is arguing Apple is holding back all of its users
Speaker 1: and in turn, all of the Android users in the
Speaker 1: world by making messaging so bad on these between these
Speaker 1: two platforms when it just doesn't have to be that way.
Speaker 1: So we'll see if this works. But this is the
Speaker 1: first time I'm seeing Google kind of put this issue
Speaker 1: to the forefront. They've enlisted a whole bunch of influencers,
Speaker 1: They've enlisted a whole bunch of celebrities to educate the
Speaker 1: public on this message. That's saying, Look, every other phone
Speaker 1: maker and every carrier pretty much in the world is
Speaker 1: adopting this new standard that is very modern and acts
Speaker 1: just like I Message. The only person that's not adopting
Speaker 1: this standard is Apple and Apple why are you doing that?
Speaker 1: Is it to keep Apple users on the Apple iPhone system?
Speaker 1: Probably because think about it, If you knew that you
Speaker 1: can switch to an Android and it would message to
Speaker 1: an iPhone user just the same, you might be tempted
Speaker 1: to switch. This is also the reason why a lot
Speaker 1: of people say that Apple has never come out with
Speaker 1: an I message app. They can come out with an
Speaker 1: I message app tomorrow. It would work on every Android
Speaker 1: phone just as well as it works on the iPhone.
Speaker 1: But the reason is, once again, would you maybe switch
Speaker 1: to an Android phone if you had the same type
Speaker 1: of messaging on iPhone anyway. That's the campaign. It's called
Speaker 1: Get the Message. You might see a lot of your
Speaker 1: favorite influencers and celebrities kind of tweeting about this and
Speaker 1: instagramming about this because they're trying to get the word out.
Speaker 1: They're trying to make They're trying to force Apple into
Speaker 1: basically adopting the standard that everyone else has adopted, but
Speaker 1: they're kind of holding back from adopting themselves. I think
Speaker 1: they should do it. I think it would really shake
Speaker 1: up the smartphone It would really shake up the smartphone world,
Speaker 1: at least here in the United States, because the rest
Speaker 1: of the world does not care. They don't care about
Speaker 1: I message. You go to any other country in the world,
Speaker 1: you travel anywhere, no one else cares about I message.
Speaker 1: It is not a big deal whatsoever. Here in the US.
Speaker 1: People they literally run their entire lives around I message.
Speaker 1: It's so it's nonsense to me, because I wish everyone
Speaker 1: used a platform that was equal across all, Like this
Speaker 1: is a great example. When I text someone, let's say
Speaker 1: I'm using an Android, Why should they even know what
Speaker 1: kind of phone I use. It also bugs me that
Speaker 1: that Twitter tells you the kind of phone, whether it's
Speaker 1: I've sent for MyPhone sent from Android. I think that
Speaker 1: your phone should be it's nobody's business what kind of
Speaker 1: phone that you want to use. Like, if you want
Speaker 1: to use Android and you want to, you know, you
Speaker 1: like it for a certain reason. Why when I text
Speaker 1: an iPhone user, should it like, you know, put put
Speaker 1: me on blast that I'm using an Android phone and
Speaker 1: vice versa. It actually doesn't do vice versa because you know,
Speaker 1: on Android, it doesn't delineate between if you're texting to
Speaker 1: an iPhone or an Android. So anyway, this is a
Speaker 1: topic that I just don't really like. I think that
Speaker 1: it may get some publicity now that Google is sort
Speaker 1: of pushing the topic, but I just feel like it's
Speaker 1: we you know, if you're using an Android, you should
Speaker 1: not have to feel like you are somehow, you know,
Speaker 1: your friend should be saying something to you about that.
Speaker 1: I think that's that's pretty rude. So anyway, all right,
Speaker 1: let's get to the next question of the podcast. I
Speaker 1: think I went way too long in that topic. Melody says,
Speaker 1: I have a friend who's in a nursing home. She
Speaker 1: has a physical disability that keeps her in bed prior
Speaker 1: to the onset, her favorite mode of transportation was a motorcycle.
Speaker 1: She broke her ankle playing football. Oh wow. She rigged
Speaker 1: up a handle to her shift lever and made a
Speaker 1: bungee cord bracket on the handlebar to hold up the crutches.
Speaker 1: I would love to help her with a VR experience
Speaker 1: so she gets to ride again. My question, budget is
Speaker 1: an issue. Do you know of a good VR set,
Speaker 1: possibly under ideally under one hundred dollars that would be good.
Speaker 1: I have a Pixel four A that will probably not
Speaker 1: be upgraded until next year. Thanks so much, love your
Speaker 1: show and love following you on Facebook. Be well and
Speaker 1: be kind, Melody in Monrovia, Melody, you are a kind friend.
Speaker 1: I feel for your friend in the nursing home. You
Speaker 1: are one percent right VR. This is what I love
Speaker 1: so much about VR. Virtual reality is going to change
Speaker 1: the world for so many people, not just p people
Speaker 1: who you know can walk and have all of their
Speaker 1: you know, physical or no physical limitations, I should say,
Speaker 1: but for people like your friend who do have a
Speaker 1: physical disability. VR is going to open up so many
Speaker 1: worlds to them, not just the ability to explore different places,
Speaker 1: but to experience entertainment to be in places that they
Speaker 1: may not be able to travel to. So I think
Speaker 1: virtual reality it's getting such a bad rap because you know, Facebook,
Speaker 1: big evil Facebook is trying to build the metaverse, and
Speaker 1: and people it's just it's easy for them to say
Speaker 1: how terrible Facebook is. But the reality is we are
Speaker 1: you know, we are going to see so many new
Speaker 1: experiences and opportunities opened up for people of all different
Speaker 1: abilities because of virtual reality. And I am so excited
Speaker 1: about that. So when it comes to your friend, here's
Speaker 1: the deal, we are not there just yet. So when
Speaker 1: it comes to a one hundred dollars VR headset, I
Speaker 1: don't think there is one that I can recommend. The
Speaker 1: reason is that Facebook does have the best virtual reality headset.
Speaker 1: It used to be called the Oculus Quest. Now it's
Speaker 1: called the Metaquest, but that is the best one. It
Speaker 1: also used to be two hundred and fifty dollars when
Speaker 1: it was at its best price during the holidays. Then
Speaker 1: they raise the price by one hundred dollars, so now
Speaker 1: it is the technical MSRP is three hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: nine dollars the best price if you take the one
Speaker 1: hundred dollars off that we've seen the discounts over the
Speaker 1: holidays would be one hundred dollars less than that. So
Speaker 1: long story short, I can't recommend a VR headset for
Speaker 1: under one hundred dollars because I don't think it's going
Speaker 1: to be any good. So what I would do is
Speaker 1: get some friends together and try to cough up the
Speaker 1: You know, so if you look up refurbished Medaquest, which
Speaker 1: it's kind of annoying because if I was having this
Speaker 1: conversation two weeks ago, all these prices would be one
Speaker 1: hundred dollars less. So the refurbished Medaquest is three hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty dollars. That means two weeks ago it would
Speaker 1: have been two hundred and fifty dollars. So what I
Speaker 1: would do is you gotta go mediquest. You gotta look
Speaker 1: on eBay, look on the refurbished website. But the reality
Speaker 1: is you don't want to go with a headset that
Speaker 1: is not that is not mediquest at this point because
Speaker 1: it is the best. It's going to have the best
Speaker 1: ecosystem of things to do, and I really truly believe
Speaker 1: that right now. So maybe another year or so, when
Speaker 1: prices come down, when technology evolves, it might be a
Speaker 1: little bit better, But right now, as we stand, you've
Speaker 1: got to you've got to go with that metaquest too,
Speaker 1: and that I think is going to be the best
Speaker 1: way to do it. So I hope your friend gets well,
Speaker 1: and I do think I do think a VR experience
Speaker 1: for her to ride again would be really, really fun,
Speaker 1: and I hope she gets to experience that. All right,
Speaker 1: let's see, Oh, should we talk about another price Hikeugh?
Speaker 1: These price hikes are just they're so fast and they're
Speaker 1: just coming in from every angle. It's it's getting to
Speaker 1: be mind boggling how much more we are paying for
Speaker 1: the same exact products as before. So Disney Plus is
Speaker 1: the latest to hike prices. Basically, if you are paying
Speaker 1: seven ninety nine a month right now for Disney Plus,
Speaker 1: that is going up to ten dollars and ninety nine
Speaker 1: cents a month as of December eighth. That's a three
Speaker 1: dollars price increase. I know. Oh, rich crime me a
Speaker 1: new one. Three dollars a month, big deal? Thirty six
Speaker 1: dollars a year? Oh, come on, aren't there more important
Speaker 1: things to talk about? Well? Yeah, but you add this
Speaker 1: up to all the other things that have gone up
Speaker 1: in price, whether it's Netflix, whether it's Hulu, whether it's
Speaker 1: your alarm system, whether it's your bug pest control, whether
Speaker 1: it is every single bill that I pay on an
Speaker 1: automatic basis has gone up over the past six months
Speaker 1: to a year. And yeah, they're all a couple of
Speaker 1: dollars here, a couple of dollars there, But it all
Speaker 1: adds up. And guess what, have you gotten a raise?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Have you gotten an inflation raise? I
Speaker 1: don't think so. So again, this all just comes out
Speaker 1: of our pockets. By the way, have you looked at
Speaker 1: grocery store prices lately? Those are also really high, So
Speaker 1: you know, we're being kind of hit at all angles here.
Speaker 1: Every single company is raising prices, and I get it.
Speaker 1: It's costing more to do everything. So with that in mind,
Speaker 1: here's what Disney is doing to take a little bit
Speaker 1: of the sting away. They're introducing a new version called
Speaker 1: Disney Oh, what's it called Disney Plus Basic. Disney Plus
Speaker 1: Basic comes in at seven dollars and ninety nine cents,
Speaker 1: So you can have Disney Basic for the same price
Speaker 1: as you can right now that you're paying. You don't
Speaker 1: have to jump up to that new high price if
Speaker 1: you don't want to. But guess what, Disney Basic has ads,
Speaker 1: So now you're paying the same amount that you were before,
Speaker 1: but with ads in your programming. So personally, I'm not
Speaker 1: doing that. I'm gonna pay the extra three dollars a
Speaker 1: month because I'm trying to get away from the ads.
Speaker 1: But I get it. A lot of people are gonna
Speaker 1: do the ads. When it comes to Hulu, A majority
Speaker 1: of their advertisers or sorry, majority of their subscribers actually
Speaker 1: subscribe without or with the ads, so they're paying to
Speaker 1: watch ads, and you know, it's just one of these things.
Speaker 1: It's a personal preference. Right now, I think the fastest
Speaker 1: growing streaming services are all of the free ones. Whether
Speaker 1: it's TikTok, whether it's YouTube, whether it is tub whether
Speaker 1: it is what's the other one, Pluto TV, whether it
Speaker 1: is you know, the Roku channel. All of these things
Speaker 1: are free with ads, and it's a very fast growing
Speaker 1: segment of the streaming service because people are saying, you
Speaker 1: know what, I used to watch ads. I'm fine, I
Speaker 1: got this. You know, I got used to Netflix without ads,
Speaker 1: But you know what, I'll deal with ads to save
Speaker 1: a couple bucks a month, and so that's what they're doing.
Speaker 1: By the way, Netflix is coming out with an ad
Speaker 1: supported version as well. They're still working on how that's
Speaker 1: gonna work, but you know, it's probably gonna be around
Speaker 1: the same price. We'll see, we don't know. Oh, okay,
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the price of Disney Plus now.
Speaker 1: So Hulu with ads is going up from six to
Speaker 1: ninety nine a month to seven ninety nine a month
Speaker 1: on October tenth. If you don't if you pay for
Speaker 1: AD free, that's going from twelve ninety nine a month
Speaker 1: to fourteen ninety nine a month. Okay. The Disney Bundle
Speaker 1: with is going up from thirteen ninety nine a month
Speaker 1: to fourteen ninety nine a month. And then the premium
Speaker 1: version of the Disney Bundle, which is Hulu No Ads,
Speaker 1: Disney Plus No Ads, and ESPN Plus, that's going to
Speaker 1: remain at nineteen ninety nine a month. So what I'm
Speaker 1: seeing in all of this price increase is that it
Speaker 1: seems like the cheapest thing and the best way to
Speaker 1: go right now is with the nineteen ninety nine a
Speaker 1: month for everything without ads. And I'm not just saying
Speaker 1: that that's probably what Disney has engineered in this whole thing.
Speaker 1: They're saying, if you're looking at the prices, you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: So I can pay ten ninety nine a month for
Speaker 1: no ads on Disney Plus, Hulu Plus with no ads
Speaker 1: is going to fifteen dollars a month, fifteen plus eleven
Speaker 1: is twenty six. Or I can just pay twenty dollars
Speaker 1: a month for all of those things plus some ESPN
Speaker 1: plus programming, and it's twenty dollars a month. So this
Speaker 1: is how these companies get you. I'm telling you they
Speaker 1: have very smart people work in their marketing departments. We
Speaker 1: are not smart when it comes to marketing. We are
Speaker 1: not smart when it comes to the psychology of pricing.
Speaker 1: They employ people that figure this stuff out, and they say,
Speaker 1: we can offer these two services for twenty six dollars
Speaker 1: a month separately, or and by the way, we just
Speaker 1: raise the price on all those things, or we can
Speaker 1: just make this twenty dollars a month, and by the way,
Speaker 1: we're going to push a whole bunch of people to
Speaker 1: paying more money for something that they didn't necessarily want.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, look, I'm going to continue subscribing. I
Speaker 1: subscribe to Hulu Plus and I subscribe to Disney Plus.
Speaker 1: So I'm one of these people that's paying for both
Speaker 1: of these things. So technically I'll be paying twenty six
Speaker 1: dollars a month. What do you think I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to that Disney bundle for nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1: So this is how it works. It's just they push
Speaker 1: you over into paying for things you don't necessarily need
Speaker 1: or want, but they make the pricing work that way.
Speaker 1: And so that's just how it is. This is a
Speaker 1: very negative show today, is it not. I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm being very negative. I try to be a positive person,
Speaker 1: but what I'm trying to do is also enlighten you
Speaker 1: and let you understand that you know, we are being
Speaker 1: manipulated in various ways that we may not understand. And
Speaker 1: I get it. It's Disney Plus, it's fun, the kids
Speaker 1: love it. There's all stuff. But the reality is we
Speaker 1: are going right back to a world where when you
Speaker 1: had cable TV, you paid a whole bunch of money
Speaker 1: for a whole bunch of stuff you didn't need. And
Speaker 1: that's exactly the world we are going back to with
Speaker 1: all of these paid streaming services. Tammy says, my husband
Speaker 1: and I travel a lot flipping houses around the United States.
Speaker 1: We need some kind of Wi Fi to do our
Speaker 1: business on our iPad. What do you recommend to get
Speaker 1: Please let us know. Thank you all right, Tammy, couple things.
Speaker 1: Number One, if you want to awesome for you, By
Speaker 1: the way, traveling the US flipping houses, I want your life.
Speaker 1: That's that's amazing. I watch these house flipping shows with
Speaker 1: my kid and I'm just like, I just want to
Speaker 1: do this. But yet here I am sitting in my
Speaker 1: house with a toilet that's not working because I'm too
Speaker 1: cheap to pay for someone to come and fix it.
Speaker 1: So I'm living two separate worlds, this fantasy land where
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I should buy a house in Gavelston,
Speaker 1: Texas on the beach and rent it out on Airbnb.
Speaker 1: Then I hear my toilet running in the second room.
Speaker 1: I'm like, never mind, I don't even want to call
Speaker 1: this guy to fix my toilet. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just I guess I live in a fantasy land. Okay,
Speaker 1: So props to you for flipping houses and traveling. That
Speaker 1: sounds amazing. If you're running your business on your iPad,
Speaker 1: why do you need Wi Fi. I think that you'd
Speaker 1: be better served. Well, there's two things you can do.
Speaker 1: If you're talking about an RV situation, I would probably
Speaker 1: recommend get one of these home Internet services from these
Speaker 1: wireless home Internet services from T Mobile or Verizon. Verizon's
Speaker 1: called a five G Home Internet. T Mobile is called
Speaker 1: I think just T Mobile Home Internet. So go on
Speaker 1: their websites. You have to search your address see if
Speaker 1: it works at your address. I think T Mobile just
Speaker 1: opened it up to everyone. Verizon still has to check
Speaker 1: to see if it works where you live, and then
Speaker 1: they will give it to you. But once you get it,
Speaker 1: you can take it anywhere you want. As long as
Speaker 1: it has a signal, it'll work. So previous versions of
Speaker 1: their home Internet did not allow you to do that,
Speaker 1: but now it does, so I would say the home
Speaker 1: Internet is going to be the best because it's a
Speaker 1: brick that you plug in and then it puts it
Speaker 1: spits out a Wi Fi signal. It takes the cellular signal,
Speaker 1: takes it into this little box, and then it spits
Speaker 1: it out as a Wi Fi signal. And I think
Speaker 1: that's going to be the best way to do it. Now.
Speaker 1: If you're just using the iPad and you don't really
Speaker 1: need like a Wi Fi signal. I would recommend an
Speaker 1: iPad with cellular and you can just get an iPad
Speaker 1: that has a subllular connection on it and activate that
Speaker 1: and so that way the iPad always has a great
Speaker 1: cellular connection no matter where you go. And that would
Speaker 1: probably be a bit less expensive and a bit more
Speaker 1: straightforward than the Wi Fi because if you don't need
Speaker 1: you know, if you're connecting a whole bunch of devices,
Speaker 1: like if you have like three iPads that you're using
Speaker 1: and a desktop computer or something in your RV when
Speaker 1: you're traveling, then yeah, you need like a Wi Fi
Speaker 1: router that can power all those devices. But if you're
Speaker 1: just using one iPad, I think that it would be
Speaker 1: easier to get an iPad that has a cellular connection
Speaker 1: built in. Now, if you already have the iPad, then sure,
Speaker 1: just get the Wi Fi the home Internet from one
Speaker 1: of these companies. You can also get a mobile hotspot
Speaker 1: that will work as well. I would recommend just getting
Speaker 1: a five G mobile hotspot from whoever your provider is,
Speaker 1: whether that's T Mobile, at and T or Verizon. It
Speaker 1: also depends on how much you travel and where, so
Speaker 1: if you're finding that, let's say you have T Mobile
Speaker 1: for your phone serve and it's not really working that
Speaker 1: well for your phone or data, you might want to
Speaker 1: go with something like a Verizon or a Team or
Speaker 1: or an AT and T for the other service that
Speaker 1: you're going to be using to run your business on
Speaker 1: this iPad. But bottom line, there's basically three networks in
Speaker 1: the US. Pick one of them. Pick either home internet
Speaker 1: through those guys, or a mobile hotspot, or if you
Speaker 1: want to be super easy about it, you can literally
Speaker 1: just connect the or you know, activate the Wi Fi
Speaker 1: hotspot on your smartphone and you can connect drpad to that.
Speaker 1: That's what we do. I mean, I you know, I'm
Speaker 1: a tech person. I've got two kids in the back
Speaker 1: seat when I'm driving, and my wife and I've got
Speaker 1: the personal hotspots on our on our iPhones, and the
Speaker 1: kids just activate through them and it works really well.
Speaker 1: The last trip we did, we used eighty percent of
Speaker 1: my wife's hot spot mine. I use mine a little
Speaker 1: bit more for work, but you know, but they just
Speaker 1: it's actually pretty pretty funny how how Apple has it
Speaker 1: all set up with these permissions where you can automatically
Speaker 1: have your kids to connect to the Wi Fi hot
Speaker 1: spot on your phone, or you can tap allow to
Speaker 1: allow them. So I like to be the little power
Speaker 1: player as dad and be like, all right, kids, what
Speaker 1: are you gonna give me for this Wi Fi hotspot access?
Speaker 1: And they're like, oh please, We'll be so good, and
Speaker 1: I'm like all right, fine, allow, And the next thing
Speaker 1: you know, they're quiet for the next two hours until
Speaker 1: their time runs out or whatever on their iPad. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I digress. So the easiest way is just to use
Speaker 1: your smartphone as a hot spot. Next easiest way is
Speaker 1: probably to get one of the home Internet hot spots
Speaker 1: that you can plug in, but you do need a
Speaker 1: plug to do that. And the next easiest way is
Speaker 1: to get a mobile hotspot from your provider that works
Speaker 1: on a battery and you can just use that. So
Speaker 1: either way, you've got lots of options. Tammy, thanks for
Speaker 1: the question. All right, let's talk you want to talk
Speaker 1: sneaky sneaky one more time. I told you this show
Speaker 1: is very negative today. I don't know why, but now
Speaker 1: let's talk about how Instagram and Facebook are being a
Speaker 1: little bit sneaky when it comes to tracking things that
Speaker 1: you do on your phone. So if You've been fu
Speaker 1: following this whole controversy with Apple and how they basically
Speaker 1: cut off all of the ad the ad companies and
Speaker 1: Instagram and I should say Facebook and Meta. It's basically
Speaker 1: an ad company, that's what it is. It's serving up
Speaker 1: ads to you, and so is Google. You know, the
Speaker 1: two the biggest tech companies in the world are are
Speaker 1: our data companies. They're they're taking your data and they're
Speaker 1: making a play on that now. They're also very useful.
Speaker 1: Instagram is fantastic. Facebook is great if you like Facebook.
Speaker 1: I know people hate on Facebook, but it still has
Speaker 1: connected billions of people around the world. Let's not forget that.
Speaker 1: And Google obviously is pretty amazing. But the thing is
Speaker 1: about these companies is that we get a product and
Speaker 1: we give them our data, and that's how they make money.
Speaker 1: So Apple went along and said, you know what, all
Speaker 1: this cross tracking of data on our apps happening on
Speaker 1: the iPhone, We're going to stop letting people do that.
Speaker 1: And they did, and Facebook took a big loss because
Speaker 1: of that. They took a big hit on their ad
Speaker 1: revenue because they just can't track people as well, which
Speaker 1: means they can't serve up personalized ads as well. Anyway
Speaker 1: to get around this. Felix Krause, this founder of Fastlane
Speaker 1: dot Tools, has said, you know what, I kind of
Speaker 1: noticed something. Do you ever notice how on Instagram, when
Speaker 1: you click a link on Instagram, it opens up in
Speaker 1: its own little browser on the Instagram app. Well, I
Speaker 1: thought that was because of a limitation of the way
Speaker 1: iOS works, because iOS most things happen kind of inside apps.
Speaker 1: But he argues that actually it's so that Instagram and
Speaker 1: Facebook can track what you do when you browse the web.
Speaker 1: So what happens is, let's say you're on Instagram, You're
Speaker 1: on my Instagram stories, I post a link, you click
Speaker 1: that link, it opens up the link and you start
Speaker 1: surfing around. Right. That link might be for a product
Speaker 1: that you like. Think about this when you're on Instagram.
Speaker 1: A lot of it has to do with products. It
Speaker 1: might be a restaurant that you like. It might be
Speaker 1: a tech gadget that you like. It might be a
Speaker 1: fitness something that you like, and so you click that
Speaker 1: and typically if you click that and it brought you
Speaker 1: to Safari, well that's it. Instagram has no way of
Speaker 1: tracking that whatever you do after that action, because now
Speaker 1: you're in Safari. All that stuff is happening inside Safari.
Speaker 1: Safari has its own privacy measures and a lot of
Speaker 1: that stuff stays siloed. But if you're surfing the web
Speaker 1: inside Instagram or Facebook's little browser app, guess what, Now,
Speaker 1: they can track what you're doing. And he says that
Speaker 1: it can. It can track basically every interaction with external websites,
Speaker 1: everything from form inputs to all the taps that you do.
Speaker 1: And so what his recommendation is and I one hundred
Speaker 1: percent recommend that you do this. So from now on,
Speaker 1: when you open up a website in Instagram, there's a
Speaker 1: little there's a little like menu that you can press.
Speaker 1: Instead of surfing that inside Instagram, press that menu and
Speaker 1: say open in browser and that will flip you over
Speaker 1: to Safari or whatever your default browser is. Get just
Speaker 1: open Safari on your iPhone and that way you're getting
Speaker 1: tracked less on what you do. So by him telling
Speaker 1: people this, it's kind of one more little kind of
Speaker 1: like jab in the stomach for Facebook. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, if they're being sneaky about this, which they
Speaker 1: may be, I don't know, maybe they're not. Maybe they're
Speaker 1: just making this easy, but they can track what you're doing,
Speaker 1: and so I think if they can, you know, I
Speaker 1: think Facebook should probably come out and say that they're
Speaker 1: doing this. Hey, you know, we track what you're doing
Speaker 1: to make a better experience or to help serve up
Speaker 1: more personalized ads to you. And I think that this
Speaker 1: is really really fascinating, the fact that he kind of
Speaker 1: connected the dots on this thing. I always wondered about
Speaker 1: this because why on Instagram is it such a pain
Speaker 1: to do anything with links? Remember they didn't even have
Speaker 1: external links for a while, only for like influencers, like
Speaker 1: you could post a link if you had like a
Speaker 1: certain amount of followers or whatever. But anyway, again, this
Speaker 1: is just one more way that you can be tracked.
Speaker 1: And I think that tracking is essential for a lot
Speaker 1: of these tech companies to make money, and that's the
Speaker 1: way that we've gotten a lot of these services for
Speaker 1: free over the years. I just think that people and
Speaker 1: as a public, we need to be understanding of what
Speaker 1: is happening to us. And as long as you understand
Speaker 1: the game, you're allowed to play it. But if you
Speaker 1: don't understand, then I think that that's not very nice
Speaker 1: for the end user, which is us. And by the way,
Speaker 1: on those on those browsers on if you're using Safari,
Speaker 1: I do think you should be using a content blocker
Speaker 1: in Safari and that will help minimize some of the
Speaker 1: ads that you see and also some of the tracking
Speaker 1: that you see. Oh, Instagram's telling me it's time to
Speaker 1: close my app. I guess I gotta go, all right,
Speaker 1: So anyway, again, just telling you what's up and Tony
Speaker 1: Tony's Show says. Tony Show eighteen on Instagram says, what's
Speaker 1: up with all the scammers on Instagram? Yes? I have
Speaker 1: to deal with so many scammers. As soon as I
Speaker 1: post something on Instagram, the first five comments are, oh
Speaker 1: I I never knew that Ms Murphy was so good
Speaker 1: at giving me free money. I'm giving five thousand dollars
Speaker 1: to the first five people that comment. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I have to go through and block or I don't
Speaker 1: even block them anymore. I just delete them because it's
Speaker 1: just easier, because I know that those scam artists will
Speaker 1: just be around for like one minute. It's like a bot,
Speaker 1: and then they go away. But so annoying. Oh my gosh. Okay,
Speaker 1: next question on the show comes from Chris. Chris says,
Speaker 1: I'm looking for information on the best virus protection programs
Speaker 1: to protect my laptop as it currently does not have one.
Speaker 1: McAfee keeps popping up, but I'm not so sure I
Speaker 1: want to use this program. Thanks for your feedback, Best Chris,
Speaker 1: Chris with a C. Cris sent from mail for Windows.
Speaker 1: It's very rare that you see Chris spelled that way.
Speaker 1: So I'll tell you a couple things. Number One, I
Speaker 1: feel like you don't need as much antivirus software as
Speaker 1: the anti virus, as as big anti viral would lead
Speaker 1: you to believe. I think that Number one, in today's world,
Speaker 1: you need to be more smart about what you do
Speaker 1: online and the links that you click and the things
Speaker 1: that you respond to. And really social engineering is the
Speaker 1: probably the top way that people get scammed these days,
Speaker 1: and so I think that if you rest under the
Speaker 1: guise of antivirus software is protecting me, you could be hacked.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's more important than right now
Speaker 1: one of these programs being loaded onto your computer because
Speaker 1: you click a link. So I think that you should
Speaker 1: have antivirus and malware software up to date on your computer,
Speaker 1: but I think that paying for it is probably something
Speaker 1: you don't necessarily need. To do. Windows has something called
Speaker 1: Windows Defender built in, which I think for a majority
Speaker 1: of the cases will work to protect you. But you
Speaker 1: do need to keep that up to date and keep
Speaker 1: your Windows up to date. The reason why I say
Speaker 1: that you should keep your software up to date. I
Speaker 1: know we don't like change, but I want you to
Speaker 1: keep your software up to date because it protects you
Speaker 1: from exploits that hackers have figured out when you use
Speaker 1: old software. And that's the reason why we should not
Speaker 1: be running old software. I know we like things to
Speaker 1: stay the same. We like our software not to change,
Speaker 1: but the hackers love when you don't change your software
Speaker 1: because when they have an exploit, they can use it
Speaker 1: against you because the software has not been updated to
Speaker 1: patch that. With all of that said, the website that
Speaker 1: I think you should go to for the best antivirus
Speaker 1: software is called avavdash test dot org. And so what
Speaker 1: they do is they test all of these various antivirus
Speaker 1: software and they will rank them. So on Windows right
Speaker 1: now for home users, the top is called on lab
Speaker 1: ahn Lab. Then next is a vast Free, Next is
Speaker 1: a vast One. Next is AVG Internet Security, which by
Speaker 1: the way, is the same company as a Vast, then Avira,
Speaker 1: bit Defender, then f Secure, then g Data then g
Speaker 1: K seven then Kasperski then Malware Bites, then McAfee, then
Speaker 1: Microsoft Defender, then e Scan, then Norton, then PC Maatic,
Speaker 1: then Total AV, then trend Micro then Viper. So you're
Speaker 1: talking the most popular programs that you see advertised all
Speaker 1: the time, which is Norton, McAfee, PC Matic, and Total AV.
Speaker 1: They're sitting at the bottom of that list, and they
Speaker 1: charge a lot of money. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of these programs just bog down your computer. When I'm
Speaker 1: on a Windows computer with like you know, the full
Speaker 1: suite of one of these, like a big name programs running,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh my gosh, what is happening here? My
Speaker 1: hard drive is going It's giving me notifications every two
Speaker 1: seconds about something to do, and it wants to do this,
Speaker 1: it wants to do that. Just I think less is
Speaker 1: more with some of this stuff, So just be aware
Speaker 1: of that and be really on your toes. And I
Speaker 1: think it's better to educate yourself about phishing, about how
Speaker 1: the latest ways that hackers are getting in, Like I said,
Speaker 1: a lot of it has to do with social engineering,
Speaker 1: So just be aware of what social engineering is and
Speaker 1: be very critical of any message that you receive that
Speaker 1: has anything to do with logging in or confirming or denying,
Speaker 1: or you know, a bogus charge or a bogus order.
Speaker 1: Those are a lot of the ways that these these
Speaker 1: scam artists are getting people. Nowadays, you're just handing over
Speaker 1: your information most of the time. Yes, you can still
Speaker 1: get a virus on your computer. You can still get
Speaker 1: malware on your computer. A lot of the malware these
Speaker 1: days has to do with browser helpers, and I've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of that on people's computers. So there's just
Speaker 1: a lot. Look, there's just a lot of ways that
Speaker 1: you know that people are being taken these days. Irene
Speaker 1: on Instagram says, my dad lives in the Philippines. We
Speaker 1: video call every day. What video calling app do you recommend? Oh,
Speaker 1: that's a good question. Actually that's from Instagram. I would
Speaker 1: recommend Meat. So Google had something really cool cross platform
Speaker 1: called Google Duo that came out in twenty sixteen. I
Speaker 1: was so excited about it. I remember the minute it
Speaker 1: came out. I was in an airport and it was
Speaker 1: really the first cross really good first cross platform solution.
Speaker 1: Alternative to FaceTime, and I sat there in the airport
Speaker 1: and I just started doing like a live video and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this
Speaker 1: is so cool. A download it now and it's gone.
Speaker 1: So Duo is going away. They are merging Duo with
Speaker 1: Google Meat, So if you want, you can download Google
Speaker 1: Meet to your iPhone, to your Android. I like cross
Speaker 1: platform stuff. FaceTime is amazing, but FaceTime is not truly
Speaker 1: cross platform. Yes, you can share a link now with
Speaker 1: someone on Android, and you know, they can join in
Speaker 1: on your FaceTime call, but it's not truly a cross
Speaker 1: platform messaging service. I like things that are open to everyone.
Speaker 1: So I like things that are cross platform that work
Speaker 1: the same both on iOS and and they don't you know,
Speaker 1: they don't. They don't delineate between the two platforms. They
Speaker 1: just work. That is. That's WhatsApp. They have video calling
Speaker 1: in there, Telegram has video calling, Zoom. You can use
Speaker 1: cross platform very easily and including on desktops and mobile.
Speaker 1: Let's see what are the other ones. Google Meet I
Speaker 1: think is great, FaceTime, Messenger is great. So all of
Speaker 1: these programs to me, are better than FaceTime. FaceTime is great,
Speaker 1: It's amazing. Because it's built in and it's simple for
Speaker 1: the iPhone. But again, I like things that work around
Speaker 1: the world, and like you said, Irene, you've got family
Speaker 1: members in the Philippines that may not have the iPhone,
Speaker 1: and so let's get something that works across all of
Speaker 1: these platforms. I would recommend Google Meet. You can download
Speaker 1: it now for iOS and Android. And that's the new
Speaker 1: video messaging app that Google has launched for everyone, kind
Speaker 1: of getting rid of duo, which that's a whole other
Speaker 1: story for Google and their whole like you know, limited
Speaker 1: attention span on stuff. But anyway, I digress. All right,
Speaker 1: where are we Are we on a story again? Okay?
Speaker 1: Oh no, I think we're on a question, even though
Speaker 1: it was a kind of a bonus question there. Jennifer says,
Speaker 1: I'm traveling to Ireland next year with friends. I'm curious
Speaker 1: about the Wise card. I guess there was some news
Speaker 1: article on a station earlier this week. I didn't see it,
Speaker 1: but a friend did. Anyway, we're wondering what the affordability
Speaker 1: is of this card. It claims to exchange American currency
Speaker 1: into euros. I don't quite understand the fees. Do we
Speaker 1: get charge of conversion? Rate every time we use the
Speaker 1: debit card, or do they take a processing fee off
Speaker 1: the top. Their website shows fees but doesn't specify if
Speaker 1: those fees are purchased or one time per purchase or
Speaker 1: one time per deposit. Any advice would be greatly appreciated,
Speaker 1: thanks in advance, all right. So the Wise card I
Speaker 1: have never heard of. Had to look it up, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of a debit card that is for international travel,
Speaker 1: and it says it's four times cheaper to spend internationally.
Speaker 1: If you have local currency in your account, the Wise
Speaker 1: card will use it. If not, we auto convert the
Speaker 1: money at the real rate for a tiny fee. Either way,
Speaker 1: it's cheaper than bank cards online or in person. And
Speaker 1: then they give this little foreign transaction fee of whys
Speaker 1: is zero, Bank of America's three percent, Chases three percent,
Speaker 1: Paypalace two and a half percent, Wells Fargo is three percent.
Speaker 1: Take out up to one hundred dollars in cash a
Speaker 1: month for free on ATMs abroad, you have to pay
Speaker 1: after the first one hundred dollars. You can use Google
Speaker 1: or Apple Pay the card is a nine dollars fee.
Speaker 1: All of this is sounding to me like a big
Speaker 1: old why so I just went to Rome. I've been
Speaker 1: around the world with my job. I have never had
Speaker 1: a special card that I need to use in a
Speaker 1: different country. Now I will tell you what I do
Speaker 1: when I go to different countries. What I do is
Speaker 1: I have one hundred dollars in cash American dollars on
Speaker 1: my person when I go, or you know, some nominal
Speaker 1: amount hunter bucks whatever, basically enough to get me a
Speaker 1: taxi from the airport to the city center or wherever
Speaker 1: I'm staying in case, you know, something doesn't work out.
Speaker 1: And I'll explain what that something is. So I carry
Speaker 1: my debit card, and I do have one credit card.
Speaker 1: I know I've talked before if all the Dave Ramsey planned,
Speaker 1: but I do have one one credit card that I
Speaker 1: do use within reason, And so with travel, I do
Speaker 1: use a credit card sometimes, and I'll tell you why.
Speaker 1: The reason why is because for some reason, you know,
Speaker 1: this happened the other day when we were in when
Speaker 1: we were in Oregon. As soon as my wife used
Speaker 1: her you know, swiped her card, it was hacked immediately.
Speaker 1: And that card, you know, I've told you, I've talked
Speaker 1: about getting hacked so many times with these cards. I
Speaker 1: don't know how these hackers are getting so sophisticated, but
Speaker 1: they are hacking. If you swipe a card or use
Speaker 1: that number online, there is a big chance that that
Speaker 1: number will be compromised. And it's just happens. It happened.
Speaker 1: It's happened to me like at least three times now
Speaker 1: in the past six months. And I am very very
Speaker 1: secure about my cards and card numbers and how I
Speaker 1: use my cards. That's why I always recommend using tap
Speaker 1: to pay because it is the most secure way to pay,
Speaker 1: or inserting your chip card into a reader. But anyway,
Speaker 1: my wife swiped and next thing you know, her card
Speaker 1: was sacked, And so it happens. Anyway, Where was my
Speaker 1: point here? So what I do is I take you
Speaker 1: a little bit of cash on the plane with me.
Speaker 1: I do not do the exchange inside the airport, the
Speaker 1: foreign currency exchange booths. Stay away from those things at
Speaker 1: all expense. Once I get to the country that I
Speaker 1: land in, I then go to a local ATM I
Speaker 1: take my debit card and I take out a bunch
Speaker 1: of cash that I can then use as backup in
Speaker 1: that country, and then that's the way it'll work. I've
Speaker 1: only had one time where the ATM in the country
Speaker 1: I arrived to, and this was Japan, did not work.
Speaker 1: And I found out later that Japan's ATMs are very
Speaker 1: different than the rest the world apparently, and their local
Speaker 1: ATMs do not like US based debit cards. And so
Speaker 1: what I had to do in Japan, it was it
Speaker 1: was a pain. I may have had to go underneath
Speaker 1: a I may I may have been stuck inside a
Speaker 1: train station at one point, and I may have had
Speaker 1: to figure out a way to get past to get
Speaker 1: out of that train station in a way that yeah,
Speaker 1: may have involved a turnstile that was I don't know. Anyway,
Speaker 1: My point is this was this was the only time
Speaker 1: I ever ran into a problem was in Japan when
Speaker 1: my ATM card would not work in any of the ATMs,
Speaker 1: in any of the train stations and in the airport,
Speaker 1: and I ended up having to go to find a
Speaker 1: city bank ATM. Someone said, oh, tryin American ATM. So
Speaker 1: I went and found or an internationally, you know, international
Speaker 1: bank ATM. So I found a city bank ATM. After
Speaker 1: so much Oh my god, this is bringing back such
Speaker 1: bad memories. And I found a city bank ATM, and
Speaker 1: I finally got cash out and it felt like I, oh,
Speaker 1: my gosh, it was so bad. Anyway, I've only had
Speaker 1: that happen once, and actually I did have it happen
Speaker 1: one time before, but this was many years ago. I
Speaker 1: was in high school and I went to Spain, and
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that you can't withdraw from their ATMs
Speaker 1: out of a savings account, had to be in a
Speaker 1: checking account. That was all another story. But anyway, my
Speaker 1: system has worked for almost every country I've gone to.
Speaker 1: And my system is this. When you get to the country,
Speaker 1: you take a little bit of cash US dollars, just
Speaker 1: as you know, back up in case something doesn't work.
Speaker 1: You take that money when you land, and then when
Speaker 1: you land, you go to a local ATM and you
Speaker 1: use your debit card to take out some local cash.
Speaker 1: When you take out that local cash, you do not
Speaker 1: accept any sort of conversion fee. You do not take
Speaker 1: the local money out. And you know it says, yo,
Speaker 1: do you want to take this out and we'll do
Speaker 1: the conversion for you. You say no to that. That's
Speaker 1: bs you take out the money without the conversion. You'll
Speaker 1: still get euros or whatever kind of cash you need,
Speaker 1: but the bank doesn't do the conversion. Your bank that
Speaker 1: ATM doesn't do the conversion. Your bank do the conversion. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't know what this wise card is talking about
Speaker 1: when it comes to these bank fees. They might be
Speaker 1: talking about credit cards that offer an international You know,
Speaker 1: if you're using your credit card internationally, some of the
Speaker 1: banks charge a three percent foreign transaction fee. I would
Speaker 1: never use a credit card with a foreign transaction fee ever, ever, ever,
Speaker 1: in my life, because why are you paying three percent
Speaker 1: on top of something. No, So the card that I have,
Speaker 1: the credit card does not charge for a foreign transaction fee,
Speaker 1: and my debit card does not charge a foreign transaction fee.
Speaker 1: So you can use your debit card. Ninety nine percent
Speaker 1: of the places around the world are taking tap to
Speaker 1: pay at this point. You can use debit or credit equally.
Speaker 1: Just the main thing you need to know is you
Speaker 1: do not want to accept any sort of conversion or
Speaker 1: do anything in the local currency or whatever they say
Speaker 1: or charge you know, do you want to charge you
Speaker 1: in American dollars because you're an American. No, you just
Speaker 1: say no to that. There's a lot of ways. Look,
Speaker 1: anytime it comes to anything, people figure out ways of
Speaker 1: scamming you. And what they use is called dark pattern.
Speaker 1: So when I was on that ATM, I had to
Speaker 1: sit there and look at the choices and I was like,
Speaker 1: wait a second, do I want to accept? Yes? I
Speaker 1: do want the conversion because I want euros. But do
Speaker 1: I want to accept a conversion fee? No? So you
Speaker 1: press no. Declined conversion sounds like something you don't want
Speaker 1: to do, right, So that's why they put that. There
Speaker 1: so many roadblocks in life, so many little obstacles that
Speaker 1: you have to figure out, And that's why I do
Speaker 1: the show, so I learn and I will pass along.
Speaker 1: But anyway, to answer your question, Jenny, I do not
Speaker 1: think you need the wise card. I think you need
Speaker 1: a good debit card and potentially a good credit card
Speaker 1: with no foreign transaction fee as a backup. Do the
Speaker 1: system I mentioned. I think you'll be just fine. I've
Speaker 1: traveled to many countries and again have not had pretty
Speaker 1: much any problems anywhere. All right, let's talk about something
Speaker 1: fun before we have to go here. Amazon, if you
Speaker 1: have one of these fire TVs, you can now do
Speaker 1: a photo slide show when friends come over. So if
Speaker 1: you go, if you go to Alexa, sorry I probably
Speaker 1: just activated your stuff. If you go to Alexa. You
Speaker 1: can say Alexa start photo frame, and this will start
Speaker 1: a three hour slideshow using your Amazon Photos, your Facebook photos,
Speaker 1: or stock images. It will hide all ads, calendars, whether notifications,
Speaker 1: and will become a photos only slideshow. So when I
Speaker 1: have people come over to my house, I typically have
Speaker 1: a slideshow running on my TV. I typically use Google
Speaker 1: Photos for that, but Amazon Photos, if you use Amazon Photos,
Speaker 1: is a cool way of doing this. Also Facebook Photos
Speaker 1: if you have that linked up. But this is for
Speaker 1: echo shows. It's also for fire TVs. I think that
Speaker 1: the slideshow on Amazon is a little bit too fast.
Speaker 1: I think it needs to be a little bit slower.
Speaker 1: You can change the settings to be a slower slideshow.
Speaker 1: I don't think slide I don't think it should be
Speaker 1: like an active slideshow where like literally people come in
Speaker 1: and they're like they're walking past your TV. They're like ah,
Speaker 1: and they can't stop looking because it's just like a
Speaker 1: picture every ten seconds. I think that it's better to
Speaker 1: have a slideshow that's just sort of natural in the
Speaker 1: background and just kind of dissolving between the pictures. So
Speaker 1: you might have to tweak just a little bit to
Speaker 1: get that type of slideshow. But I think this is
Speaker 1: a fantastic feature. It's brand new again. Just say, Alexa,
Speaker 1: start photo frame to your fire TV and you can
Speaker 1: see the pictures on your TV screen and without all
Speaker 1: the clutter. And when you have friends over, it's kind
Speaker 1: of nice to have that with a little bit of
Speaker 1: music in the background. You know, just fire it all up,
Speaker 1: no pun intended. The other thing to know is that
Speaker 1: if you're not using Amazon Photos, you should be, even
Speaker 1: if you're using another photos app. I use Amazon Photos
Speaker 1: as a backup because if you have Amazon Prime, it
Speaker 1: is free unlimited storage for your photos at full resolution.
Speaker 1: Not for your videos, but just for your photos. So
Speaker 1: just have it as a backup Amazon Photos, download it,
Speaker 1: log in with your Amazon account, and just have your
Speaker 1: phone upload your pictures every once in a while. In
Speaker 1: the background, all right, I said, Oh gosh, is it?
Speaker 1: Do I have time for another question? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Let me see. Do I have an easy question? Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: let's see. Now I don't have an easy question, So
Speaker 1: I'll just do one more story before you go. All right,
Speaker 1: I visited the last Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon, And let
Speaker 1: me just tell you, really really weird to visit a
Speaker 1: Blockbuster Video in the year twenty twenty two, because Blockbuster
Speaker 1: is such a historic part of my life. You know,
Speaker 1: Friday nights, we'd go in there with my dad and
Speaker 1: my you know, mostly my dad. My mom didn't really come,
Speaker 1: but we would go in there and we would look
Speaker 1: for movies to rent, and you'd rent a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of them. Remember, you just get bring home like a
Speaker 1: stack of movies for the weekend. Sometimes you wouldn't watch
Speaker 1: them in time before they were due. I think back
Speaker 1: then it was like a two day rental or something
Speaker 1: like that, and it was really expensive if you had
Speaker 1: late fees. The last Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon, captures all
Speaker 1: of this. They have a deal with Dish Network, who
Speaker 1: owns the Blockbuster brand. Once a year they renew this
Speaker 1: deal to keep this store open. They rent DVDs, no
Speaker 1: VHS tapes, and it smells like a Blockbuster. They've got
Speaker 1: all the new releases, they've got the yellow walls, they've
Speaker 1: got the candy, and guess what, they sell a lot
Speaker 1: of merchandise, So the trucker hat and the T shirt,
Speaker 1: both of which I didn't purchase the hat, but I
Speaker 1: bought a T shirt and a oh wait, did I
Speaker 1: get the hat? Wait a second, did I buy the hat?
Speaker 1: I think I did. Now I can't remember where my
Speaker 1: hat is. Uh oh, I don't think I brought it home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I was gonna be a Blockbuster person for Halloween.
Speaker 1: But now I don't know where. Maybe my wife knows
Speaker 1: where the hat is. But anyway, so the store is open.
Speaker 1: It's you know, most people are buying souvenirs that were
Speaker 1: coming through there that I saw. You can get a
Speaker 1: souvenir card. They're handwritten instead of dot matrix printer printed
Speaker 1: because the dot matrix printers are all gone. But it's
Speaker 1: just kind of cool. If you ever find yourself in Bend, Oregon,
Speaker 1: you got to stop by the store. I think it's
Speaker 1: going to stay open for a while. I think that
Speaker 1: the trick to it is that if this was a
Speaker 1: Blockbuster museum. And yeah, Jay rock A. Graham says, they
Speaker 1: still have the original cash register's old IBM point of
Speaker 1: sale devices. Yes they do, and I mentioned that in
Speaker 1: my piece and I showed have video of them. These
Speaker 1: these remember that blue screen that they would scan and
Speaker 1: it was all like text. It looked like dos on
Speaker 1: the screen. So they would scan stuff and it would
Speaker 1: show up and it was just such an old system.
Speaker 1: They're still using that system, which is pretty phenomenal. And
Speaker 1: this the computers just hacked together. I mean, these things
Speaker 1: are just like literally on their last year of life
Speaker 1: and there's no replacements they have, like they had, like Blockbusters,
Speaker 1: like send in their old computers to this. You know,
Speaker 1: woman Sandy Harding who runs this place, just to try
Speaker 1: to like, you know, cobble a useful system together. But
Speaker 1: it was really really cool. But take a look at
Speaker 1: my video. You can look on my instagram at rich
Speaker 1: on Tech a little bit of trivia for you. I
Speaker 1: interviewed an author named Alan Paine who wrote a book
Speaker 1: called Built to Fail. It was about the rise and
Speaker 1: fall Blockbuster. He ran a bunch of Blockbuster stores himself.
Speaker 1: He said, look, Netflix didn't actually kill Blockbuster. Netflix definitely
Speaker 1: put the nail on the coffin. But Blockbuster is just
Speaker 1: sort of a broken company. They were It's one of
Speaker 1: these companies that saw a huge rise and just had
Speaker 1: no future plans, Like they didn't realize that the world
Speaker 1: was going to change. And when this world started changing,
Speaker 1: Blockbuster was like, oh what do we do now? Streaming
Speaker 1: DVD by mail oh, we just had this one good idea,
Speaker 1: which was, let's have one hundred movies in our store
Speaker 1: and people would bring them back and rent them and
Speaker 1: bring them back in late fees were how we made
Speaker 1: our money. And when all that fell apart, it was
Speaker 1: just like they had no way of doing anything. And
Speaker 1: so Netflix came in with DVDs by mail. Then they
Speaker 1: came in with streaming, and Blockbuster filed bankruptcy in twenty
Speaker 1: ten just as streaming was taking off. And now it's
Speaker 1: a distant memory. But if you want to bring it
Speaker 1: all back, go to the Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon. It
Speaker 1: was such a fun experience. My kids had never been
Speaker 1: to a Blockbuster store. They will never know that world.
Speaker 1: And they were just sitting in there. They were so
Speaker 1: cute and just you know, taking a look at it
Speaker 1: all and just like, what is this world? You go
Speaker 1: to a store to get a movie, what late, by
Speaker 1: the way or capped at ten dollars or rental is
Speaker 1: four dollars and you can rent a movie. It's a
Speaker 1: week long rental now. And yes, you can get a
Speaker 1: souvenir membership card. I got one of those as well.
Speaker 1: Anyway that sound means that is going to do it
Speaker 1: for this show. Thank you so much for listening. These
Speaker 1: shows go fast. Yeah, I'm stalling Hererick, so I'm trying
Speaker 1: to see what I say here at the end. That's
Speaker 1: gonna do it for this episode of the show. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to submit a question for me to answer,
Speaker 1: just go to my Facebook page, Facebook dot com, slash
Speaker 1: rich on Tech hit the big blue send email button,
Speaker 1: or go to rich on Tech dot tv hit the
Speaker 1: email icon. I would love it if you had to
Speaker 1: rate and review this podcast. Go to the listening app
Speaker 1: of your choice. Write a quick line about what you
Speaker 1: like about this show. Help other people understand why they
Speaker 1: should listen. You can find me on social media at
Speaker 1: rich on Tech no matter where you live in the US.
Speaker 1: You can download the free ktla plus app on Apple, TV, fireTV,
Speaker 1: and Roku. Once you do, scroll to the tech section
Speaker 1: watch all of my TVs segments on demand. By the way,
Speaker 1: if you're wondering, I did not take the Tesla to Bend, Oregon.
Speaker 1: We took the gas guzzler, and it was my first
Speaker 1: experience at a gas station in a while. Now that's
Speaker 1: not true. I've been filled out my wife's car. But
Speaker 1: it was real gas prices are real. It was expensive,
Speaker 1: and you know, seventy five bucks for a fill up,
Speaker 1: eighty bucks for a fillip, and you know you stop,
Speaker 1: but it was convenient. I will also tell you I
Speaker 1: discovered a place called Loves. If you have not stopped
Speaker 1: at the Loves stopped there. I loved it. I was
Speaker 1: so obsessed. We stopped there three or four times on
Speaker 1: the way back and I just could not get enough.
Speaker 1: I even overspent on little knickknacks that my kids wanted
Speaker 1: because I just like love spending my money there. So,
Speaker 1: if you haven't checked out Loves, I thought it was
Speaker 1: like just a truck stop. No, it is like a
Speaker 1: really nice place. Most of the locations are nice. The
Speaker 1: people are friendly. It's just a big place. They've got
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff. It's a great selection. The restrooms
Speaker 1: are mostly clean. But anyway, I'm not getting paid by
Speaker 1: Loves to say that. I just like telling you about
Speaker 1: stuff that I discover because I just like stuff that's cool.
Speaker 1: All right, Yes, and Troy says, just wait till BUCkies
Speaker 1: comes to California. Yes, I've been to BUCkies. That place
Speaker 1: is equally awesome. I should just start another whole video
Speaker 1: series on awesome rest side stops. I think that's a
Speaker 1: great idea. My name is Richard Merel. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for listening. There are so many ways you can spend
Speaker 1: an hour of your time. I do appreciate you spending
Speaker 1: it right here with me. I will talk to you
Speaker 1: real soon