Speaker 1: California's new privacy rights, whys suffers a data leak, What
Speaker 1: you need to know about it, Why it might be
Speaker 1: easier to file your taxes for free this year, And
Speaker 1: the best journaling apps if you're trying to kick off
Speaker 1: twenty twenty with a fresh start.
Speaker 2: What's going on. I'm Rich Dmiro.
Speaker 1: This is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk
Speaker 1: about the tech stuff I think you should know about.
Speaker 1: Plus it's where I answer your questions. We've got producer
Speaker 1: Megan here ready with your questions.
Speaker 2: Yes, Happy New Year.
Speaker 1: I would like to say that we improved the podcast
Speaker 1: for the new year, but we didn't.
Speaker 2: Let's be honest.
Speaker 1: I mean I'm basically rolling in here fresh off of
Speaker 1: vacation for a week, and I will tell you I
Speaker 1: was trying to figure out what made this vacation different
Speaker 1: than other vacations.
Speaker 2: And here's what I've realized. It is the first time.
Speaker 1: That I had a week off without going out of
Speaker 1: town or having family members in town. So by like
Speaker 1: day three, day four, I'm like, what is why does
Speaker 1: this feel so good? And that's what it was all about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I literally did not do anything, didn't check email.
Speaker 1: I you know, I was on social media once a
Speaker 1: day and that was it. It was like it was
Speaker 1: just very like get let go of everything and kind
Speaker 1: of come back. And now we're getting back into it
Speaker 1: because it is it is twenty twenty, and there's no
Speaker 1: more fooling around because CS is happening very soon, which
Speaker 1: means I try to avoid my emails for the entire week,
Speaker 1: but that is nearly impossible because every day and every
Speaker 1: tech person I know, you're just getting bombarded with emails
Speaker 1: from CS. I'm looking at my calendar for next week
Speaker 1: and it is more filled than I've ever seen. There's
Speaker 1: no way I'm gonna be able to do all these
Speaker 1: things that I actually put in the calendar.
Speaker 2: But I will try, yeah, and will be It will
Speaker 2: be tough.
Speaker 1: But my goal is to always bring the coolest CS coverage.
Speaker 1: There's so many things there. I try to find the
Speaker 1: stuff that is for the everyday person and stuff that
Speaker 1: like will actually come to fruition because a lot of
Speaker 1: times there's like pie in the sky, these big ideals,
Speaker 1: you know, eight K, sixteen K, that's cool, but I
Speaker 1: want to know this stuff that's going to come out
Speaker 1: in the next year that's going to be really useful.
Speaker 1: And that's going to be uh, maybe not as flashy
Speaker 1: as the big stuff that just looks cool on TV,
Speaker 1: but but that you know, you can actually use. Like
Speaker 1: what you know, if you have Hugh lights in your home, like, well,
Speaker 1: what are they coming out with to make those easier?
Speaker 1: Or you know, we just had this story come out today.
Speaker 1: C by Ge makes some of my favorite lights, and
Speaker 1: you know, just last week I was looking for like
Speaker 1: a motion sensor for those lights, and it turns out
Speaker 1: they're going to be unveiling those as ces. So it's
Speaker 1: like little things like that that I think are more interesting.
Speaker 1: I also saw a refrigerator that lets you grow your
Speaker 1: own indoor vegetables, so I thought that was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see that. Perfect for urban gardeners.
Speaker 1: I have a feeling in California people be growing something
Speaker 1: other than carrots.
Speaker 2: But yeah, we'll see, all right.
Speaker 1: So you have probably been getting a lot of emails
Speaker 1: from companies about new privacy changes and their privacy policy,
Speaker 1: and I know in my email it's just been one
Speaker 1: after another and I ignored a lot of them until
Speaker 1: I looked into it because a lot of people emailed
Speaker 1: me and they're like, Rich, what is going on.
Speaker 2: Well, here's the deal.
Speaker 1: As of January first, we have a new thing called
Speaker 1: the California Consumer Privacy Act, or CCPA, And even if
Speaker 1: you don't live in California, this probably will affect you
Speaker 1: in certain ways because it's similar to what happened over
Speaker 1: in Europe with GDPR. That was their General Data Protection Regulation. Basically,
Speaker 1: it's privacy protections for consumers. And even though Europe enacted
Speaker 1: those for European consumers, a lot of it transferred over
Speaker 1: to the US because look, if you're a company like
Speaker 1: Facebook and you have to abide by all of these
Speaker 1: privacy regulations, in many cases, it's much easier just to
Speaker 1: put them out for everyone instead of just people in Europe.
Speaker 1: I mean, how do you filter a person coming from
Speaker 1: Europe to your website and say, oh, only these apply
Speaker 1: to you. And it's the same thing with California. So
Speaker 1: now I have to filter someone from Europe and California
Speaker 1: and everyone else. It makes it very complicated. So a
Speaker 1: lot of these companies are just blanket updating their privacy
Speaker 1: policies to kind of apply to everyone.
Speaker 2: Here's what this CCPA does for you.
Speaker 1: Number One, you can ask a copy to produce or
Speaker 1: ask a company to produce a copy of all of
Speaker 1: the information it has gathered on you. And a lot
Speaker 1: of this is coming from the La Times story. It's
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, and you might have some new privacy rights online,
Speaker 1: they say, And so that's number one.
Speaker 2: Now, that's what GDPR did as well.
Speaker 1: And companies like Facebook and Twitter and Google have allowed
Speaker 1: you to do this for a long time. They call
Speaker 1: it takeout or things like that, where you can just
Speaker 1: download a bunch of the information. This is very specific
Speaker 1: about what you should be able to download.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The other thing you can do is ask for that
Speaker 1: information to be deleted, and they will delete it, and
Speaker 1: so you can do that as well. And the third
Speaker 1: is what they're calling opt out, which seems like it
Speaker 1: would be pretty straightforward, but it's really not, because when
Speaker 1: you're talking about the internet, like I looked at the
Speaker 1: bottom of the La Times website and a lot of
Speaker 1: these websites have a new button that says do not
Speaker 1: sell my personal information, and you can click it, and
Speaker 1: then there's a toggle at the bottom that says, basically,
Speaker 1: opt out of all like everything you just collected from
Speaker 1: me on this website, don't share it with anyone else.
Speaker 1: Don't sell it to anyone else, which is kind of odd.
Speaker 1: So you can do that, but it feels like it's
Speaker 1: a one time thing, Like I don't think that that
Speaker 1: continues for like over and over for every visit through
Speaker 1: the time. Well, that's through any website, Like if you
Speaker 1: go to the bottom of like a lot of these websites. Now,
Speaker 1: let's just look at BuzzFeed, because I'm curious if they're
Speaker 1: you know, they're in California, right, they're serving up California.
Speaker 2: So let's see if I go all the way down
Speaker 2: to BuzzFeed.
Speaker 1: Now, the problem is a lot of these websites, you
Speaker 1: can't scroll to the bottom of the website.
Speaker 2: There is no bottom on BuzzFeed.
Speaker 3: It's just loading.
Speaker 1: It just goes and goes. They call that infinite scroll.
Speaker 1: So I guess I can't see BuzzFeed. Let's try New
Speaker 1: York Times dot com. What's another like news? I guess
Speaker 1: we can try ours and see Yeah, okay again New
Speaker 1: York Times. I scroll to the bottom and it just
Speaker 1: refreshes the whole page. Okay, wait, I think it stopped.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I can't. Okay anyway, So that's that's what
Speaker 1: the deal is. And you if you really want to
Speaker 1: have some fun. I think two takeaways from this. Number One,
Speaker 1: California now has one of the strictest online privacy laws
Speaker 1: in the nation, which is good. California has always been
Speaker 1: ahead when it comes to privacy and rules and regulations and.
Speaker 2: All that good stuff.
Speaker 1: So it's good it's happening here first, but I think
Speaker 1: it kind of filters out to the rest of the nation.
Speaker 2: That's number one.
Speaker 1: Number Two, these companies are collecting a lot of data
Speaker 1: on us, and that's pretty apparent if you want to
Speaker 1: look through, like just open one of the emails that
Speaker 1: you've gotten that says we're updating our privacy policy and
Speaker 1: just kind of click to the updated policy. And it's
Speaker 1: actually written in pretty clear terms what they collect. Like
Speaker 1: I was reading the one for Postmates, and they're collecting
Speaker 1: like everything like when you're using the app, when you're
Speaker 1: opening the app, where you're going, when you're using the app,
Speaker 1: They use when you're in motion, so that they know
Speaker 1: if you're traveling in front of a business that you
Speaker 1: might want to get something from.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's really crazy. Wow. Anyway, so it's wild.
Speaker 2: It is wild. The new Frontier.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, so that connects to our first question from Gwendolyn,
Speaker 3: what is the Facebook privacy notice about? And should we
Speaker 3: as users ask for information to be deleted?
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to see if I actually got the
Speaker 1: Facebook privacy notice from Facebook. I imagine that was probably one
Speaker 1: of the first to come through. But let's see, that's
Speaker 1: kind of tough to find. There's so many emails with Facebook.
Speaker 1: But what she's asking is if you should if you
Speaker 1: should opt out with something like Facebook. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: you can opt out because if you go to their
Speaker 1: private policy, I mean, to use Facebook, they have to
Speaker 1: collect information on you. I mean that's kind of how
Speaker 1: it works. Yeah, And if you don't agree to that
Speaker 1: policy and you want to opt out, I believe you
Speaker 1: basically have to stop using the service because how can
Speaker 1: you use Facebook, which is tracking you, your friends, your contacts,
Speaker 1: where you go, where you check in, your location, the
Speaker 1: things you like, the things you share. How can it
Speaker 1: do anything without that information? So if you opt out,
Speaker 1: there's really not much you can do.
Speaker 3: Basically, you delete your account, Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's what I would say.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can't really use it without, you know,
Speaker 1: without giving them that information. So I think if you
Speaker 1: want to opt out, Number one, you can't really use Facebook,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure Facebook in their privacy policy says like, look,
Speaker 1: if you want to opt out of this, you're welcome to,
Speaker 1: but we have to close your account. Because unless there's
Speaker 1: a way to use Facebook without all this data being collected,
Speaker 1: I don't know it, but that would be pretty amazing
Speaker 1: because the way that Facebook makes money is through our data.
Speaker 1: I mean, they sell ads against what they know about us,
Speaker 1: and that's where you get all those crazy little ads
Speaker 1: that people email me about all the time that always
Speaker 1: seemed too good to be true.
Speaker 2: You know, like what did my wife buy?
Speaker 1: Like Lindsay bought like a dress off an ad she
Speaker 1: like looked up and all of a sudden, she's like,
Speaker 1: the perfect dress popped up in my feed?
Speaker 2: Was she talking about it? She was searching for dresses.
Speaker 1: But I guess whatever keywords she searched, the companies had
Speaker 1: then sold an ad against that, and next thing, you know,
Speaker 1: it was like the perfect dress and I forget if
Speaker 1: it worked out or not, but you know it's all
Speaker 1: these companies do the same thing, but that's how they work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they get your data.
Speaker 1: So Gwendolyn, I think if you are not comfortable with
Speaker 1: what Facebook is doing. Then you can opt out, but
Speaker 1: really I think opt out means that you got to
Speaker 1: quit the service. That's kind of the agreement is like, hey,
Speaker 1: we'll use all the stuff that you feed to us
Speaker 1: and give you this free service that has connected billions
Speaker 1: of people around the world in really interesting ways. And
Speaker 1: let's not forget that Facebook also owns Instagram, so the
Speaker 1: same thing is happening there and Instagram.
Speaker 2: At this point, I would argue.
Speaker 1: It's probably not more popular, like theoretically, like it feels
Speaker 1: like numbers wise, yeah, but it feels like when I'm
Speaker 1: looking at people scrolling, they're on Instagram.
Speaker 2: Not so much Facebook anymore, although I still see a
Speaker 2: lot of Facebook. All right, let's talk about more privacy stuff.
Speaker 2: This happened over the break. I call it the break.
Speaker 1: I mean, we didn't have a podcast last week, so
Speaker 1: theoretically there was a little break. Why you might remember
Speaker 1: that name because myself, along with a lot of other people,
Speaker 1: recommended their cameras and this is a very popular security
Speaker 1: camera because it was super cheap. It was I think
Speaker 1: about twenty dollars for the wisecam, and that's what made
Speaker 1: it seem too good to be true. And I hate
Speaker 1: for people to think like, oh, I told you so rich,
Speaker 1: because you said this was such a good thing, and
Speaker 1: now look at what happened. They got breached. They suck,
Speaker 1: And I don't think that's the case here. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: camera's twenty bucks. They actually have a nice black version.
Speaker 1: Now it's kind of cool. But the beauty of this
Speaker 1: little camera is that nobody could believe, in a world
Speaker 1: of one hundred dollars security care, that any company could
Speaker 1: come up with a twenty dollars camera.
Speaker 2: And what they did was they just made it simpler
Speaker 2: and easier.
Speaker 1: And these were smart guys that used to work at
Speaker 1: Amazon and gals and they just said, hey, let's make
Speaker 1: a device you know that's twenty dollars and it does
Speaker 1: all the things you need. And the best part about
Speaker 1: Ways or whys rather ways, is the way you navigate.
Speaker 1: The best part about Whys is that it will take
Speaker 1: little clips and send them to the cloud for you
Speaker 1: for free.
Speaker 2: And it's not unlimited.
Speaker 1: It's like fourteen days worth of clips, and they're limited
Speaker 1: to a certain amount of time, maybe ten seconds. But
Speaker 1: if someone breaks into your home, oh you need is
Speaker 1: a thirty second clip of them, you know, moving in
Speaker 1: front of the camera and you've got their face.
Speaker 2: So that was really cool, and a lot of you
Speaker 2: bought these things.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think this Wyse story was one of
Speaker 1: the most popular stories we did in either twenty seventeen
Speaker 1: or twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: I can't remember what year it was, but it was
Speaker 2: a couple of years.
Speaker 1: Ago and it was super I mean, I got emails
Speaker 1: about this camera four months on end, and I don't
Speaker 1: think that I was wrong about this company.
Speaker 2: I still would recommend them.
Speaker 1: In fact, I have one of these in my house
Speaker 1: that my kid used to try to capture Sanna on
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve. But here's what happened in this breach. Basically
Speaker 1: what was stolen was or what was exposed I should say,
Speaker 1: because no one has necessarily used this information in nefarious ways.
Speaker 1: It's just it's out there.
Speaker 2: But why is nickname?
Speaker 1: So what you called your cameras in the app, device names,
Speaker 1: user emails, your profile photos, your WiFi router name, and
Speaker 1: also some Alexa integration tokens. So if you had one
Speaker 1: of these connected to either Alexa or Google Assistant, that
Speaker 1: connection you might have noticed broke over the holidays and
Speaker 1: you're probably sitting there going wait, why is this no
Speaker 1: longer working with Alexa or Google.
Speaker 2: That's because as a precaution.
Speaker 1: They just reset all those tokens, so you just have
Speaker 1: to go in and re establish that connection.
Speaker 2: So who was affected by the breach?
Speaker 1: At first they were saying people that signed up December
Speaker 1: fourth through twenty sixth. It's all users that created an
Speaker 1: account prior to December twenty sixth. But what was not
Speaker 1: taken or what was not the information did not contain
Speaker 1: is passwords, personal financial data which aka credit cards, and
Speaker 1: video file. So those three things arguably are the things
Speaker 1: that you would worry about the most in a security breach.
Speaker 1: So with that said, it's like, okay, you could breathe
Speaker 1: a little sigh of relief, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: if you named your camera you know, something really interesting,
Speaker 1: you know, like a funny name, and it's linked to
Speaker 1: your username, that could be kind of embarrassing. Otherwise it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of like we dodged a little bullet here,
Speaker 1: because you know, it's it's bad. Anytime that data is
Speaker 1: stolen or exposed, it's not good and we don't like
Speaker 1: to hear that. And it gives whyse kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, people are like I knew that was a
Speaker 1: cheap camera.
Speaker 2: Maybe their security is not that good.
Speaker 1: And if you look at Whyse's forum where they talk
Speaker 1: about a lot of these questions, they say they actually
Speaker 1: have a question that I thought was.
Speaker 2: Great, let me find it here in this paperwork.
Speaker 1: My hands are so dry every time before CES, my
Speaker 1: hands get it like the driest possible. And then CS
Speaker 1: doesn't help because it's the driest place on the planet.
Speaker 2: You need those gloves. I like lotion gloves.
Speaker 1: Okay, so your full disclosure. There was a year at
Speaker 1: CES I actually slept in those, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Because I had to.
Speaker 1: I was so my hands were so dry that I
Speaker 1: was like, this is who wants to see dry cractically
Speaker 1: red hands. It's ridiculous. And we live in LA which
Speaker 1: I don't even understand. But and then at C, yes,
Speaker 1: you're washing your hands a lot because you don't want
Speaker 1: to get sick.
Speaker 2: So it's this whole big thing.
Speaker 1: But it's funny you say that because I actually went
Speaker 1: out and bought those one year and I slept in them,
Speaker 1: and I.
Speaker 2: Thought it was the funniest thing ever. If it's weird,
Speaker 2: it's weird, but it.
Speaker 1: Worked, Okay. So in their blog posts, they say. We've
Speaker 1: often heard people say you pay, you pay for what
Speaker 1: you get. I think people say you get what you
Speaker 1: pay for. I think they got wrong. But assuming WISE
Speaker 1: products are less secure because they're less expensive, and why
Speaker 1: says this is not true. We've always taken security very
Speaker 1: seriously and were devastated that we let our users.
Speaker 2: Down like this.
Speaker 1: It's this is a clear signal that we need to
Speaker 1: totally revisit all WISE security guidelines and all aspects, better
Speaker 1: communicate those protocols to WISE employees, and bump up priority
Speaker 1: for user requested security features.
Speaker 2: Beyond two factor authentication.
Speaker 1: And I think they might force you to put on
Speaker 1: two factor authentication at this point, which you should. But
Speaker 1: what happened here? How did this get exposed? Well, let's
Speaker 1: see how did they do it?
Speaker 2: One or something?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess, let's see here, let's see. Says, we've
Speaker 1: been auditing all of our servers and databases. We discovered
Speaker 1: an additional database that was left unprotected anyway. Basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: something went wrong, so they figured it out. And if
Speaker 1: you have a WISE camera, I don't think all is lost.
Speaker 1: I just think that with anything, always set up two
Speaker 1: factor authentication and always understand that with all of these
Speaker 1: IoT devices, there's always a chance this can happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I will say in this respect, I think we
Speaker 1: got the best case scenario, which is your credit card
Speaker 1: and your video files were not leaked, right, So.
Speaker 2: That's good news. Okay.
Speaker 3: Our next question comes from Lucy and she wrote in
Speaker 3: on rich on tech dot tv. She filled out the
Speaker 3: contact section and that's how she was able to send
Speaker 3: this question. As we begin a new decade, I would
Speaker 3: like to clean out my drawers and closets of old
Speaker 3: technology devices. I have broken tablets, iPhones, trio, refurbished laptops,
Speaker 3: basically a decade of old technology and power chords. I
Speaker 3: don't want to just trash them in an e waste collection.
Speaker 3: I would really like to go through saved pictures and documents.
Speaker 3: Is there a way to do this? Can you help me?
Speaker 2: Okay, a couple questions, I think.
Speaker 1: Well, let's see the first question about these saved documents
Speaker 1: and photos. I mean, there's not really a simple way
Speaker 1: to do that. You kind of have to power all
Speaker 1: these things up and go through and just kind of
Speaker 1: collect the stuff that's on them. I mean there's no
Speaker 1: like magical formula. Now, there used to be a device
Speaker 1: I would have recommended, but it went out of business.
Speaker 1: It was this little box and I'm trying to remember
Speaker 1: the name of it, but it was a little box
Speaker 1: that you would plug your devices into and would basically
Speaker 1: like find all the pictures off those devices and kind
Speaker 1: of put it on that box. Oh and it was
Speaker 1: kind of cool, but it went out of business. So
Speaker 1: I have this box sitting at home with all these
Speaker 1: pictures on it that I can no longer access. And
Speaker 1: I will tell you that they did give me a
Speaker 1: runway of like times running out, you need to get
Speaker 1: all those photos off, and I just never did, okay,
Speaker 1: and so now I just have this box forever.
Speaker 3: That's uh, You'll never be able to get anything out
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, basically, I'm sure maybe one day if I've really tried.
Speaker 1: But yeah, So the first thing you got to do
Speaker 1: is go through and try to get all these documents off,
Speaker 1: which means powering up those computers. I would recommend probably
Speaker 1: the easiest thing to do is just get Google Photos
Speaker 1: for the photos. You literally install it on the computer
Speaker 1: with their special helper app and it will scan the
Speaker 1: hard drive and upload all the photos to there. I
Speaker 1: would do that with the documents you're just gonna have
Speaker 1: to go through and kind.
Speaker 2: Of grab what's what you need. Yeah, I love that
Speaker 2: you have a Palm Trio. I will tell you a story.
Speaker 1: I've been obsessed with cell phones for my entire life basically,
Speaker 1: and I remember making my wife drive.
Speaker 2: When I lived in Louisiana.
Speaker 1: The closest best Buy was like three hours away, and
Speaker 1: so I think it was three hours, and so we
Speaker 1: had to drive three hours to buy this phone. This
Speaker 1: Palm Trio that came out was brand new, and I
Speaker 1: had to have it the first day. And I drive
Speaker 1: there and then we get to the checkout and it
Speaker 1: was like eight hundred bucks, you know, like full price
Speaker 1: or whatever. Like I think it was five ninety nine,
Speaker 1: which seemed like a lot, you know. And I get
Speaker 1: there and she's.
Speaker 2: Like six hundred bucks. She didn't tell me it was
Speaker 2: that much.
Speaker 1: Because like a lot of times, cell phones were like
Speaker 1: free at the time, you know, like right, one hundred
Speaker 1: bucks or whatever. This was before iPhone and anyway, so
Speaker 1: I just remember driving to this and getting and now
Speaker 1: I think of that phone, Oh my gosh, and that
Speaker 1: phone is like it was cool at the time. Now
Speaker 1: it'd be like nothing.
Speaker 2: If you had it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so anyway, so I'm glad you have the Palm Trio. Now,
Speaker 1: when it comes to recycling these products, no, you don't
Speaker 1: want to just throw them in your trash can. You
Speaker 1: can recycle them. Two places i'd recommend looking into because
Speaker 1: I just did this with my mom. Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: you tweet about that's Staples. So Staples, if you look
Speaker 1: on their website, items accepted for free recycling is basically everything.
Speaker 2: So you know, let's see a cell phone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, cell phones are on their laptops, are on their
Speaker 1: GPS devices. Everything is recyclable there and you just bring
Speaker 1: it to your local store. They will recycle them securely
Speaker 1: and responsibly, any brand, any condition. The only things you
Speaker 1: cannot bring are alkaline batteries, appliances like giant printers like
Speaker 1: the floor, like the ones you have at your work,
Speaker 1: like a printer like a kitchen, electronics, bulbs, speakers, smoke detectors,
Speaker 1: and TVs. But they will take monitors now in California,
Speaker 1: and this is what this is why my mom and
Speaker 1: I actually went to Staples versus best Buy in New Jersey.
Speaker 2: Best Buy will take a lot of this stuff as well.
Speaker 1: There is a limitation so you have to put in
Speaker 1: your zip code and it will tell you a lot
Speaker 1: of times you can only bring back like three items
Speaker 1: a day, so you can bring in like three you know, computers,
Speaker 1: but they I'm at three household items per.
Speaker 3: Day because they just don't want to have They.
Speaker 1: Don't want to you know, bring like a dump truck,
Speaker 1: you know, and plus that could. Yeah, I think it's
Speaker 1: mainly for like let's say I started a company where
Speaker 1: I go to your house and like collect all your stuff.
Speaker 1: Then I just dump it off like at the end
Speaker 1: of the week at best Buy. They want to keep
Speaker 1: that probably at Bay. So the average person, you know,
Speaker 1: three things.
Speaker 2: So again, in a.
Speaker 1: Lot of cities or a lot of states, if you
Speaker 1: want to do a monitor at best Buy, they're going
Speaker 1: to charge you twenty five dollars, which is still pretty
Speaker 1: darn good. You can bring it for free to Staples,
Speaker 1: so I'd always go to Staples. Yeah, if you can,
Speaker 1: if you can. But in California they don't have any
Speaker 1: drop off fees. So again, California, like I talk about,
Speaker 1: is very progressive and a lot of their laws and things,
Speaker 1: they clearly want people to recycle properly, and so there
Speaker 1: are no fees for drop offs in California. Now I'm
Speaker 1: telling you this based on what I see on the website.
Speaker 1: I would call just to be sure. Like I called
Speaker 1: Staples before I went in and asked them, and you know,
Speaker 1: they told me all that stuff.
Speaker 2: So just call wherever you are. But two really easy
Speaker 2: ways to recycle stuff.
Speaker 1: And believe me, it's I actually have a TV because
Speaker 1: I upgraded a little TV in the playroom and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna bring that to one of these, probably just Staples,
Speaker 1: and just bring that in and get it recycled.
Speaker 2: No, it's too it's too Yeah, it's too small.
Speaker 1: And nowadays you can buy TVs for let me see, Actually,
Speaker 1: can I not bring a TV?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Never mind, I can't bring a TV into Staples? Can
Speaker 1: I bring a TV into Best Buy? Let's say TV
Speaker 1: and video? You can recycle for twenty five dollars a
Speaker 1: two a flat panel less than fifty so perfect, twenty
Speaker 1: five bucks. So and I might also check and see
Speaker 1: if California, like if LADWP, since we live in Los Angeles, might.
Speaker 2: Take that for free.
Speaker 1: There's an app called the LA three to one one
Speaker 1: app that is very good about helping you understand if
Speaker 1: they'll haul away this stuff for free. Good question, and
Speaker 1: I'm glad I just did that with my mom. I
Speaker 1: was a little concerned with the hard drive on the
Speaker 1: laptop or the computer, because you know, it's still had
Speaker 1: some stuff on there, and they say they're going to
Speaker 1: wipe it and do it responsibly.
Speaker 2: I just hope they do that, you know.
Speaker 1: And that's the other thing my recommendation. I just recycled
Speaker 1: my other laptop through Apple. I did wipe everything off
Speaker 1: there manually with my moms. It was too old and
Speaker 1: kind of decrepit that we didn't want to do that.
Speaker 1: But I would recommend if you can, to wipe your stuff,
Speaker 1: even though these companies say they're.
Speaker 2: Going to do it for you, but you never know,
Speaker 2: just in case, yeah.
Speaker 1: You might get some kid in there that's like, uh,
Speaker 1: let me take a look at this, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's just yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Better better just to feel secure in knowing that your
Speaker 2: stuff is gone.
Speaker 1: Speaking of personal information, it might be easier to file
Speaker 1: your taxes this year for free.
Speaker 2: And I always knew that into it. You know, the.
Speaker 1: Developers of Turbo tax, which by the way, I've used
Speaker 1: to file my taxes, and I actually was very impressed
Speaker 1: with their system. But what I don't like is on
Speaker 1: the back end of what into It and TurboTax are
Speaker 1: doing is their lobbying to make taxes way more complicated
Speaker 1: than they need to be. And if you've ever filed
Speaker 1: your taxes, which I'm sure you have, is this year
Speaker 1: your first year?
Speaker 2: Maybe this is like my second year. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 2: kind of crazy.
Speaker 1: It's it's just this whole big thing where like nobody
Speaker 1: really knows, and you talk to five different people, you
Speaker 1: get five different answers, and so it's just kind of annoying.
Speaker 2: But anyway, so here's the deal.
Speaker 1: IRS and into It and all these companies that make
Speaker 1: these these turbo or these tax filing systems. They basically
Speaker 1: had a deal for many years that they would hide
Speaker 1: their free products from search engines like Google, so that
Speaker 1: it made it tough for people to find them. So
Speaker 1: when you search for like online tax filing, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: immediately find the free filing from Turbo Tax. You would
Speaker 1: just find their paid and maybe if you hunted down
Speaker 1: on their website you might see something about free, but
Speaker 1: then you might not be able to cross reference.
Speaker 2: You're like, well that seems kind of shady, Like why
Speaker 2: would I do.
Speaker 1: So, apparently this is all ending and now you can.
Speaker 1: You'll be able to find the free filing options a
Speaker 1: lot easier this year, which is good. Now, when you
Speaker 1: look at free filing options, it doesn't apply to everyone.
Speaker 1: It's you have to make under a certain amount and
Speaker 1: your your return has to be a certain simplicity. So
Speaker 1: if you run a small business, you're doing an LLC,
Speaker 1: or you've got a schedule see or all these random
Speaker 1: things that people have, you're not gonna be able to
Speaker 1: file for free. You still need to get and you
Speaker 1: probably want to have a tax professional that knows what
Speaker 1: they're doing. But if you have like one W two
Speaker 1: and you work one job like I think you do,
Speaker 1: it's pretty simple. You put in your stuff and you
Speaker 1: can file for free.
Speaker 2: That's nice as long as you as long as you
Speaker 2: have to. There's an income limit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I don't know what that limit is, but
Speaker 1: they're you know, you can see it on there. But
Speaker 1: the point is, isn't it crazy that these companies like
Speaker 1: the I R S and you know these other you know,
Speaker 1: tax companies had a deal. And by the way, I
Speaker 1: got to give props where it's due. Pro publica is
Speaker 1: the I guess journalistic or the journalism organization that sort
Speaker 1: of forced these changes because they kept doing things about
Speaker 1: highlighting these little kind of shady deals that these companies had.
Speaker 3: And I read somewhere that they were targeting students too,
Speaker 3: out of student like just out of college students.
Speaker 1: Oh, I believe it, yeah, because think about it. If
Speaker 1: you have one W two and you have like, that's
Speaker 1: a lot of people in the US. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: if they can all file for free, but a lot
Speaker 1: of times you don't realize that.
Speaker 2: And even if they can get five or ten dollars
Speaker 2: out of.
Speaker 1: You times millions of people in the US, that's a
Speaker 1: significant amount of money totally. So we'll see if this
Speaker 1: year it's better. The other thing that it frees the
Speaker 1: IRS up to do is to create their own system
Speaker 1: for filing.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I kind of have mixed feelings on this because on
Speaker 1: the one side, I say, well, who knows taxes better
Speaker 1: than the irs?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And the IRS should theoretically know how much you made
Speaker 1: because all of these companies are reporting to them. Right,
Speaker 1: if you're a legit company, when you get your W two,
Speaker 1: your company is also reporting that information to the IRS,
Speaker 1: And so for you Megan, you would log on and
Speaker 1: just you'd like put in your social and they'd be like, oh,
Speaker 1: here's your information that we got from your company. Is
Speaker 1: this all correct? And then they would calculate your taxes
Speaker 1: and say, boom boom boom, you're done.
Speaker 2: Why can't they do that?
Speaker 1: Now they can? Now they're free to do that. I
Speaker 1: haven't created that system. Now, the other side of me says, oh,
Speaker 1: wait a second, do I really trust the irs to say.
Speaker 2: Here's how much you made?
Speaker 1: And now let's say they say you made more than
Speaker 1: you made? Now you have to fight that information and
Speaker 1: kind of like and then I'm like, you.
Speaker 3: Owe us exactly thousand dollars and you're like, oh, I
Speaker 3: thought I was going to make some money.
Speaker 1: Right, So I see both sides, yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: so we'll see what happens. But the bottom line is
Speaker 1: I think it's good that they kind of dropped these
Speaker 1: weird do not compete agreements they had that we didn't.
Speaker 2: Really know about.
Speaker 3: This next question comes from Marsha Love Love the show.
Speaker 3: What is the easiest way to get MP three music
Speaker 3: ripped from CDs that are on my Windows ten computer
Speaker 3: to play on my iPhone without using iTunes. Is there
Speaker 3: an app you recommend that will sync with my computer?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, there is.
Speaker 1: I love this question because I love this app. It
Speaker 1: is the best app you'll ever find what I phone.
Speaker 1: It is called Walter two and I believe I've talked
Speaker 1: about it on this podcast before. It might have predated Megan,
Speaker 1: but wa l t R two. And once you install
Speaker 1: this on your computer, whether you have a Mac or
Speaker 1: a PC, you literally drag and drop any file, not
Speaker 1: just an MP three. You can drag and drop a
Speaker 1: book file. You can drag and drop a MP three file.
Speaker 1: You can drag and drop a PDF. I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe not PDFs, but basically yeah, maybe pdf let's see, Yeah, PDFs, ringtones, videos,
Speaker 1: anything that you can find. The iPhone is amazing because
Speaker 1: it plays all these like crazy files and stuff and
Speaker 1: you can have your music on there, your.
Speaker 2: Videos, your books.
Speaker 1: But a lot of times to get them on there
Speaker 1: in the past, it's been kind of tough. And that
Speaker 1: leads a lot of people to just buy things from iTunes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and to buy books from Apple Books because when you
Speaker 1: go to like a lot of people when they're buying
Speaker 1: my book, they would say, rich, you'd go to the
Speaker 1: Amazon app, I would say, if you go to try
Speaker 1: to buy the Kindle version of my book, it would
Speaker 1: say this is not compatible with this app or this
Speaker 1: iPhone or something like that, which is totally confusing because
Speaker 1: it is compatible. It's just you can't buy it from
Speaker 1: the Amazon app. You have to actually buy it from
Speaker 1: a desktop and then download it to your phone.
Speaker 2: So it's right anyway.
Speaker 1: So it's little things like this that makes Walter Too
Speaker 1: so cool. And what they did was they kind of
Speaker 1: reverse engineered how iTunes works, and they figured out where
Speaker 1: when you drag something into iTunes and sink it to
Speaker 1: your phone, they figured out how to make it route
Speaker 1: into the right app. So if you drag a video file,
Speaker 1: which by the way, it can be any format because
Speaker 1: iPhone is very picky about the formats that it plays.
Speaker 1: So you can take any format video file and just
Speaker 1: drag it into this app. It will convert it all
Speaker 1: in the background and.
Speaker 2: Put it on your phone.
Speaker 1: It is really fantastic. And you know people that have
Speaker 1: old music, you know old music videos, old like like
Speaker 1: old CDs that you want to rip and back in
Speaker 1: the day and what was the person's name again, Oh, Marsha,
Speaker 1: Marsha was saying that she doesn't want to use iTunes.
Speaker 1: I mean, iTunes, as far as I know, back in
Speaker 1: the day, always had a ripping solution in it. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it still does now that they've you know,
Speaker 1: changed iTunes and they've changed it now to just music
Speaker 1: it's called. But it was very easy to just rip
Speaker 1: things and also get them onto your phone or your iPod.
Speaker 2: Now I think that's a little bit too tough.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Walter two is the app that you should definitely
Speaker 1: try out and just go ahead and you know, try it.
Speaker 1: You can download it for free if you want to
Speaker 1: use it indefinitely.
Speaker 2: I believe you have to pay. I think it's forty dollars. Okay.
Speaker 1: I've had this app for years, and I kind of
Speaker 1: forget about it every now and then because so much
Speaker 1: of what I do now is like, like I pay
Speaker 1: for YouTube so I can download. Actually I don't pay
Speaker 1: for it anymore. I just canceled that, but I'm probably
Speaker 1: gonna reget that. But you know, like YouTube, you could,
Speaker 1: you know, It's just I don't really have a need
Speaker 1: to put all these random files on my phone anymore.
Speaker 1: But if I did, this is the way that I
Speaker 1: would do. It's so easy when you drag and drop stuff.
Speaker 1: You will not believe how.
Speaker 2: Simple it is. It's really cool. That's awesome. So anyway,
Speaker 2: Walter too.
Speaker 1: It's made by a company called softer Reno, soft O Reno.
Speaker 2: Oh, great question.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about what people ordered on Amazon
Speaker 1: over the holidays. It feels like the holidays were so
Speaker 1: long ago because we've gone through Christmas, we've gone through
Speaker 1: New Year's New Year's Eve. So but let's take a
Speaker 1: look back at what Amazon said was most popular. This
Speaker 1: was a record breaking holiday season. Of course they say
Speaker 1: that because Amazon continues to grow at a fast clip,
Speaker 1: so every year is going to be record breaking. When
Speaker 1: it's not, we have a problem. That means that Amazon
Speaker 1: has stopped growing. And Amazon, as big as they seem,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: They still have a very far away to go.
Speaker 1: And I know a lot of people think that they
Speaker 1: rule the world, but believe me, there's still other places
Speaker 1: out there. I have a theory that at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, the only places left standing have I
Speaker 1: told you this before, are going to be Target, Walmart, Amazon,
Speaker 1: and like Kroger. Oh, and then once those are the
Speaker 1: only four and they put all the little places out
Speaker 1: of business. It's like game over for prices. It's like
Speaker 1: all the prices are gonna go all the same.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they're gonna go up. Yeah, because it's like
Speaker 2: now you have no other options. Like it's crazy. It's
Speaker 2: pretty crazy. So anyway, interesting theory.
Speaker 1: Some of the most best selling products are most or
Speaker 1: some of the best selling products this holiday season. Where
Speaker 1: the Echo Dot, the Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote,
Speaker 1: the Echo Show five, Lol Surprise, Glitter Globe Doll, Winter
Speaker 1: Disco Series with Glitter hair, I Robot, Roombus six seventy
Speaker 1: five House laboratories.
Speaker 2: What is that? What ha Us Laboratories? What is that?
Speaker 2: I have no idea what that is?
Speaker 1: Oh, it is Cruelty Free Vegan cosmetics by Lady Gaga,
Speaker 1: Sore you go on Amazon, Yep, Carhart, Amazon Basics, and
Speaker 1: Champion Items. Amazon said they now have seven hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand employees worldwide. Top ten cities that use an
Speaker 1: Amazon Locker or Amazon counter where Chicago, followed by Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, Portland, San Jose, Berkeley, Austin, and Columbus.
Speaker 1: The last delivery from Amazon occurred on Christmas Eve at
Speaker 1: eleven to fifty nine PM in Seattle. That makes sense.
Speaker 1: Seattle is like their hometown. Some of the most popular
Speaker 1: recipes that folks asked the A word about, you know,
Speaker 1: rhymes with babexa were Thanksgiving turkey chocolate chip cookies and
Speaker 1: fluffy mashed potatoes. The most searched for holiday movie on
Speaker 1: Fire TV was Home Alone, followed by Elf and The Grinch.
Speaker 1: Nothing has changed with holiday movies in recent years. It's
Speaker 1: like nothing has there been a new one. I did
Speaker 1: watch that new one called Noel on Disney Plus with.
Speaker 2: Cups. Yeah cups? Is it called cups or so called cups? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Okay, it was okay, Yeah, it's okay.
Speaker 1: And some of the best selling books at Amazon Bookstore
Speaker 1: was dog Man Fetch twenty two, which I actually bought
Speaker 1: from my kid but at Target. So I didn't contribute
Speaker 1: to that, okay, And that was not a Christmas gift,
Speaker 1: but that was just a flying on the plane gift.
Speaker 2: So uh. Anyway, So that's the information about Amazon. Nice.
Speaker 2: I love I kind of like, I'm.
Speaker 1: Sure you saw this, but all the end of your lists,
Speaker 1: I mean there's so many, there're a dime a dozen.
Speaker 1: I kind of like I don't find them that interesting.
Speaker 1: It's like the top artist that people listen to, it's
Speaker 1: like Drenk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like oh.
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift, Oh okay, I could have you know, It's
Speaker 1: like there's not much insight. There's one going around very predictable.
Speaker 1: There's one going around about like the top rock songs,
Speaker 1: and like nine out of ten were like imagine dragons
Speaker 1: or something. You know, it's just kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we get it.
Speaker 3: We already know.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: This next question comes from Tony Love your segment on
Speaker 3: Channel five. Is there a way to recover deleted texts,
Speaker 3: especially those containing photos on your kind of phone?
Speaker 2: But?
Speaker 3: Uh, be sure with iPhone once it's gone, I'm.
Speaker 2: Gonna guess it's iPhone.
Speaker 1: But there's a couple things even if you have iPhone
Speaker 1: or Android, and I don't think either of these methods
Speaker 1: are gonna be one hundred percent, But if you do
Speaker 1: an iCloud backup of your system, there is if you
Speaker 1: look in your like, okay, so there's two ways that
Speaker 1: I messages are backed up. The first way is in
Speaker 1: the messages app. If you look in there, there's like
Speaker 1: a little toggle in iCloud that says backup messages and
Speaker 1: if you ever notice if you sign into like a
Speaker 1: new phone or a new computer. And this is new
Speaker 1: by the way, as of like last year when Apple
Speaker 1: introduced this, but all your messages are synced now across
Speaker 1: devices and that's I message, that's called I Messages in
Speaker 1: the cloud. You may or may not have that turned
Speaker 1: on a lot of people don't want to turn it
Speaker 1: on because I don't know about you. But I have
Speaker 1: like five different devices, and when I get a text,
Speaker 1: they're like all going off with the I message, kind
Speaker 1: of annoying. I go to my iPad and like, all
Speaker 1: my text messages are there that like you know, I've.
Speaker 2: Already seen and stuff.
Speaker 1: But I see the benefit of it because you have
Speaker 1: all your messages in all your different places. That's number one.
Speaker 1: Now if you deleted it from there, I would say.
Speaker 1: The place to look is your iCloud backup. And this
Speaker 1: is kind of the master backup of your entire phone
Speaker 1: that happens every night when you plug your phone in
Speaker 1: and you leave it overnight to charge. So to find that,
Speaker 1: you have to go into your iCloud and just look
Speaker 1: for your iPhone backup. Now, you can't just go through
Speaker 1: your iPhone backup and kind of rifle through it.
Speaker 2: It's all like mix exactly.
Speaker 1: But there are programs that will allow you to decipher
Speaker 1: what's on that backup. So the iPhone backup or the
Speaker 1: iCloud backup was never really meant to like, it's not
Speaker 1: like a file where you can just click through. Like
Speaker 1: ideally it would be a file system where it would
Speaker 1: say photos, text messages, apps, whatever, data, and you would
Speaker 1: just be able to click through everything.
Speaker 2: It's Apple. They don't make it like that.
Speaker 1: They make it all compressed and weird, and it's a
Speaker 1: million things. But there are apps that will sort through
Speaker 1: that data and help you find those text messages. I
Speaker 1: don't know why this person needs to find those. I'm
Speaker 1: assuming there was a password contained in some of those,
Speaker 1: or a screenshot of a password. The screenshot of a
Speaker 1: password that he forgot is the only way to recover it.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming this is not like, you know, cheating or
Speaker 1: spousal or whatever, or just assuming this is very kind,
Speaker 1: kind natured. But that's what I would say, is you
Speaker 1: got to find some sort of a third party app
Speaker 1: to do this.
Speaker 2: Now you can retrieve that backup and then.
Speaker 1: Put it back onto your phone. But like recover it,
Speaker 1: but it gets kind of complicated exa then erase it.
Speaker 2: All this stuff on your phone. It seems like a.
Speaker 1: Third party app, which, by the way, you have to
Speaker 1: pay for these things. I think a popular one was
Speaker 1: like doctor Phone. Doctor f O n E is a
Speaker 1: popular one for a long time and that has data
Speaker 1: recovery solutions for and I haven't used this app.
Speaker 2: Often.
Speaker 1: These companies will send me these apps to kind of
Speaker 1: look at, and I'll a lot of them are are
Speaker 1: from you know, overseas companies, and I'll try them and it's.
Speaker 2: Like, okay, I see it.
Speaker 1: But anyway, doctor Phone from wonder Share is one that
Speaker 1: you might try. But I would check into some of
Speaker 1: these things and just see and you can. By the way,
Speaker 1: Android also does backups of your data as well more
Speaker 1: and more now, so I would check you can use
Speaker 1: these programs for either one of those.
Speaker 3: But if you've deleted a text, like if you delete
Speaker 3: a thread, yeah it's gone.
Speaker 2: It's pretty much gone.
Speaker 3: Yeahah, but if you wanted to find it you could.
Speaker 1: Well, Okay, I'm giving the theory of let's say you
Speaker 1: deleted it, you have to look at your backup and
Speaker 1: let's say you have several backups. Yeah, like almost like
Speaker 1: a time machine backup of like Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday,
Speaker 1: Like you have to go back in time to find
Speaker 1: that text.
Speaker 2: Got it?
Speaker 1: Because if you're just doing a backup every night that
Speaker 1: erases the old backup, then it's gonna be gone because
Speaker 1: if you waited twenty four hours, that backup has pushed
Speaker 1: out the old one. So again, this is tough because
Speaker 1: it all depends on how you back up your phone
Speaker 1: and what you're using to back it up, and how
Speaker 1: you back it up and how often if you didn't.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people plug in their phone and they look in
Speaker 1: their backup and it has not backed up in three
Speaker 1: weeks and you don't even know that.
Speaker 2: Then that might be.
Speaker 1: Your best case scenario because this text is in there
Speaker 1: and it was You're like, yes, I didn't back up
Speaker 1: last night. So it really sort of depends on so
Speaker 1: many things. That's why I say it's very tricky to
Speaker 1: do this. Well, it is a new year, and people
Speaker 1: are trying to be more mindful in the new year.
Speaker 1: People like my wife who was like, I'm downloading a
Speaker 1: journaling app to journal my life every day, and I said,
Speaker 1: good luck with that, because most people basically do this
Speaker 1: for a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like going to the gym.
Speaker 1: You go for the first couple weeks of the year,
Speaker 1: and then you drop off, and that's it.
Speaker 3: What's negative?
Speaker 2: You're right, it's hard.
Speaker 1: And I say this because I actually downloaded one of
Speaker 1: these apps last year to try to start. It wasn't
Speaker 1: actually for journaling, it was more for a daily It
Speaker 1: actually was for journaling because I wanted to keep I
Speaker 1: remember this because I don't use Facebook anymore, like personally,
Speaker 1: and Facebook used to be basically a journal because you
Speaker 1: would write, like what you did that day, and you'd
Speaker 1: show a picture of you with your kids, you know,
Speaker 1: back in the day with your friends, like going out
Speaker 1: to dinner or whatever, and it would be shared. Now
Speaker 1: Instagram is kind of like that, but you're only doing
Speaker 1: that like once a day, or you know, for a
Speaker 1: lot of people are not even doing once an Yeah,
Speaker 1: it depends on you know, you know, it depends on
Speaker 1: how often you're using that, right, But the point is
Speaker 1: a journal is much more private.
Speaker 2: You can put you know, private.
Speaker 1: Thoughts in there anyway, whatever your need. I did some
Speaker 1: research on some of these journals to see which one
Speaker 1: I like, and which one I think you'll like. I
Speaker 1: came up with one, two, three, four five, And there's
Speaker 1: one that really stands out to me.
Speaker 2: Out of all these journals. There's actually two that stand out.
Speaker 1: But anyway, the first one is called Reflectively and this
Speaker 1: is kind of there's two journals that I've noticed.
Speaker 2: Two types of journals.
Speaker 1: One is just like a diary that's online and you
Speaker 1: just type in stuff and it helps you kind of
Speaker 1: like put dates on there and pictures. The other is
Speaker 1: a guided journal, which I think is actually more useful
Speaker 1: in this day and age because if you're going to
Speaker 1: have an app that's a journaling app, it should prompt
Speaker 1: you with certain things like how do you feel today?
Speaker 1: Or what you do today? Or who would you hang
Speaker 1: out with, so that you don't have to think of everything,
Speaker 1: you know kind of yeah, and it's asking you different
Speaker 1: things throughout the week. Theoretically, if you just want to
Speaker 1: write down your thoughts, you get a pad and paper.
Speaker 3: That's what I have a journal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, wow, you do well.
Speaker 1: In my intro, I say that journaling is not just
Speaker 1: for teenagers anymore.
Speaker 2: It's not because you really think.
Speaker 1: Of journaling for teenagers, but when you talk about mindfulness
Speaker 1: and all this. You know, people are trying to get
Speaker 1: this heightened sense of awareness of themselves.
Speaker 2: Journaling is a big part of that.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's different than social media because on
Speaker 1: social media you're just putting your highs.
Speaker 2: You're not really putting your real thoughts or your real
Speaker 2: you know, just everything not as vulnerable exactly.
Speaker 1: And so that's and some people that pretend they are,
Speaker 1: Like there's some people I follow that you know, they'll
Speaker 1: post these things, but like even the vulnerable picture or
Speaker 1: the vulnerable thoughts are really crafted to be.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah whatever it is, right right. So Reflectively
Speaker 2: is a guided journaling app.
Speaker 1: This one asks you just asks you a series of
Speaker 1: questions like how is your day, what did you do?
Speaker 1: How did you feel? The entries are called stories. They're
Speaker 1: really easy to complete, and it's free for seven days.
Speaker 1: It's forty eight dollars a year after that. So that's Reflectively.
Speaker 1: I wasn't I thought it was fine. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: you know, it was like it was okay. Daily oh
Speaker 1: daylo helps you keep a personal diary without actually writing.
Speaker 1: You pick your moods and activities, so it's like happy, sad, whatever,
Speaker 1: and then what activities you did, so you know, Jim
Speaker 1: this that. I thought the funny thing was it didn't
Speaker 1: say work, so I actually had to add work as
Speaker 1: an activity, which I thought was like kind of weird
Speaker 1: that they left that out. But maybe they don't want
Speaker 1: you to talk about work because I don't know. Yeah, wait,
Speaker 1: what if you want to add more context or context?
Speaker 1: You can also include some notes in your entries. The
Speaker 1: app also helps you create goals, like if you want
Speaker 1: to watch more movies, read more, or eat healthy. It
Speaker 1: kind of tracks those achievements, so every time you mark
Speaker 1: that you watched a movie that day, you can see
Speaker 1: at the end of the month, did I watch more
Speaker 1: movies than last month? So that's kind of cool. I
Speaker 1: like that there's a daily calendar tool so you can
Speaker 1: see your daily mood, so if you put your mood in,
Speaker 1: you can see like all green days, all red days,
Speaker 1: all yellow days, all at a glance.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of neat.
Speaker 1: And you can pay twenty four dollars for the yearly
Speaker 1: premium plan with the ability to lock the app with
Speaker 1: a pin, so I think that's kind of funny as
Speaker 1: they hold you hostage with that, which you know that's
Speaker 1: kind of funny. Yeah, Journey is. They do let you
Speaker 1: set a pass code for free. They even let you
Speaker 1: store your entries in Google Drive for safekeeping, and they
Speaker 1: have apps for lots of different platforms, so some of
Speaker 1: these are only iOS or some of them are only Android.
Speaker 1: This one is pretty much very close to a digital diary.
Speaker 1: You know, you start an entry, it's all time stamped,
Speaker 1: and then at the bottom there's these little buttons that
Speaker 1: lets you.
Speaker 2: Add where you are, who you're with, how you feel.
Speaker 1: And also attachments like photos, So it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a digital journal that kind of helps you along but
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily ask you stuff. Plans on this one are confusing.
Speaker 1: I cannot figure out for the life of me what
Speaker 1: the difference is between the monthly membership plan or the
Speaker 1: lifetime premium plan, because the lifetime premium is like eight dollars,
Speaker 1: but then the monthly like three dollars, So why would
Speaker 1: you not just go with the lifetime. I don't think
Speaker 1: the lifetime includes all the membership option.
Speaker 2: It's very strange.
Speaker 1: But anyway, now, if you just want a standard digital diary,
Speaker 1: the one I recommend is called Day one.
Speaker 2: Super straightforward. You kind of open it up.
Speaker 1: You get a time stamped entry that just starts with
Speaker 1: an entry, and then you can add what you like,
Speaker 1: including video, so there's like video, audio, photos, drawings, or
Speaker 1: a scan. So let's say you go to a concert,
Speaker 1: you can scan your ticket, put it in there, and
Speaker 1: you still have a paper ticket, which you probably a
Speaker 1: screenshot at this point, and it's thirty.
Speaker 2: Five dollars a year.
Speaker 1: It gives you all the features, so a lot of
Speaker 1: things Like I started writing a text entry and that
Speaker 1: was fine. As soon as I want to add a photo,
Speaker 1: it was like, you gotta pony up to thirty five bucks,
Speaker 1: which I think is fine. The other thing that's kind
Speaker 1: of cool, depending on how you use this is you
Speaker 1: can turn your entries into a printed book at the
Speaker 1: end of the year. Oh just kind of neat, so
Speaker 1: you can print out. This was my second favorite Day one, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I thought that was really cool.
Speaker 2: My favorite is jore.
Speaker 1: I think that's how you say it, jou want okay.
Speaker 1: And you can tell this is a very slick, very
Speaker 1: high end app that was designed with kind of today's
Speaker 1: users in mind. It nudges you with questions like how
Speaker 1: do you feel right now? And it kind of guides
Speaker 1: you through, like like when I set it up, it
Speaker 1: was like three different questions and you just type the answers.
Speaker 1: It even has like some of the answers started, so
Speaker 1: it can be like I feel dot dot dot and
Speaker 1: you tap that and it starts to write that, and
Speaker 1: then you just have to type the rest or I've
Speaker 1: been doing dot dot dot and then you type that.
Speaker 1: So it like kind of nudges you to like think,
Speaker 1: which I thought was really great. They also have motivational
Speaker 1: quotes to help you along, and you're always free to
Speaker 1: start a fresh new entry without all the other stuff
Speaker 1: as well. Premium Undure it's kind of expensive. It's sixty
Speaker 1: dollars a year. That gives you the ability to add
Speaker 1: photos to your entry. So again, all these all these
Speaker 1: diary apps, if you really want to get the most
Speaker 1: out of them, you're gonna have to pay. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it makes sense and it's fine. Otherwise, just use
Speaker 1: the notes app on your phone and that's free.
Speaker 2: You know, if you want.
Speaker 3: Free or Google doc you could like start, Yeah, you
Speaker 3: can do that, so Google doc for twenty twenty of
Speaker 3: all your.
Speaker 1: But what I like about these apps is I think
Speaker 1: they nudge you to think in different ways, like with
Speaker 1: the day one, the way that it showed like scans
Speaker 1: or a picture, like you just draw a little picture
Speaker 1: of like a little sketch one day.
Speaker 2: You know, it's kind of fun, like yeah or whatever.
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of neat versus just like a
Speaker 1: Google doc, which is free, but it's just different. It's
Speaker 1: a different These apps are kind of there to nudge
Speaker 1: you into doing this right kind of therapy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much, really ask you questions.
Speaker 1: Premium is sixty dollars a year and let's see I said,
Speaker 1: it gives you the ability to have a photos. It
Speaker 1: also gives you access to a library of lessons on gratitude,
Speaker 1: self confidence, and more. The Juror app reminds me of
Speaker 1: Headspace a lot, and it actually made me wonder why
Speaker 1: Headspace doesn't have or maybe it does a journaling function
Speaker 1: built in or this might be a very good target
Speaker 1: for Headspace to acquire to build that into their app.
Speaker 1: And once you have those two together, meditation and the
Speaker 1: journal app, it's like game over.
Speaker 3: I'm googling it. So journaling in.
Speaker 1: Headspace I don't think they do, but yeah, anyway, that
Speaker 1: is going to do it for the show.
Speaker 2: If you can believe it. I feel like these shows
Speaker 2: just get shorter and shorter, but they don't. That's just
Speaker 2: the way it is.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening, Thanks for watching in the
Speaker 1: new year on KTLA five. You also got me on
Speaker 1: social media at rich on Tech on Instagram. Coming up
Speaker 1: upon cees in the next week, so I will be
Speaker 1: doing a lot there with social media and the little
Speaker 1: videos and showing you all the cool stuff that I
Speaker 1: see there.
Speaker 2: Let's see what else? Oh, something that's new.
Speaker 1: If you go to rate my podcast dot com slash
Speaker 1: rich on tech, it will help you rate this podcast.
Speaker 1: So h oh sorry, it's rate this podcast dot com
Speaker 1: slash rich on tech. What I say, rate my podcast,
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Speaker 2: Keep in mind you can listen to this.
Speaker 1: Podcast on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, basically wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to audio, they have all become podcasting apps as well,
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Speaker 1: in one for a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Let's see I think that's gonna do it. Producer Megan.
Speaker 2: Where can people find you?
Speaker 3: I'm on Twitter, Producer Megan.
Speaker 1: Producer Megan on Twitter, and the website is rich on
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Speaker 1: just hit the contact button up at the top. That
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Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening. Have a fantastic day. We'll
Speaker 2: talk to you real soon.