Speaker 1: Hope you're having a fantastic day. The website for the
Speaker 1: show rich on Tech dot TV. You can follow me
Speaker 1: on social media. I am at rich on tech. So
Speaker 1: I figured I would tell you some of the useful
Speaker 1: websites that I have bookmarked. You know, I'm always on
Speaker 1: the lookout for unique, interesting, useful websites that are also helpful,
Speaker 1: and so these are a few that I've bookmarked over
Speaker 1: the years that I think will help you out. I
Speaker 1: know it's going to be a lot of information, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna link it up on the website rich on
Speaker 1: tech dot TV. So you don't have to write down
Speaker 1: these web addresses. All you have to do is listen
Speaker 1: to what they can do. You can go get the
Speaker 1: list and then you can bookmark these for yourself. So
Speaker 1: the first one is Google dot com slash search slash images.
Speaker 1: So you know that you can use Google to search
Speaker 1: for images reverse search images, but did you know you
Speaker 1: can use Google to create images? So yes, this is
Speaker 1: an AI image generator and it's very simple. All you
Speaker 1: have to do is go to the website. It says
Speaker 1: make something new. Type something in like a let's see
Speaker 1: giant delicious ice cream cone, and I just generated that
Speaker 1: and it looks pretty incredible. You can use these pictures
Speaker 1: as you like, and they give you four to choose
Speaker 1: from and usually Google is pretty good. Next up, ten
Speaker 1: minutemail dot com. So have you ever signed up for
Speaker 1: something but you have to give your email address and
Speaker 1: you don't really feel like using your real email address
Speaker 1: because you know you're gonna get spammed. Well, this website
Speaker 1: gives you a disposable email address. As soon as you
Speaker 1: load up the website, it gives you an email address,
Speaker 1: and it's a whole bunch of gobbledygook, but you don't care.
Speaker 1: You're gonna copy, you're gonna paste it, you're gonna put
Speaker 1: it into that other website. And it gives you a
Speaker 1: countdown of ten minutes to use that email. And if
Speaker 1: you need some more time, there's a big button that
Speaker 1: says get ten more minutes, and it will reset the
Speaker 1: clock to ten minutes again. Now, how do you check
Speaker 1: this email because you're not logging in, Well, there's there's
Speaker 1: a big giant inbox zero right at the top, and
Speaker 1: when that changes, you will scroll down the website and
Speaker 1: you can see the email.
Speaker 2: That you got.
Speaker 1: So maybe you just wanted to get a printable PDF
Speaker 1: for some sort of confirmation. You can do that with
Speaker 1: this website again, it is called ten minute Mail. Now,
Speaker 1: this is a new one that I've recently stumbled upon
Speaker 1: through one of the newsletters that I follow, Agenda hero
Speaker 1: dot com slash Magic. I don't know about you, but
Speaker 1: people send me calendar invites all the time. It's like
Speaker 1: an email with a whole bunch of information about where
Speaker 1: I need to be where at a specific time, at
Speaker 1: a specific place, and sometimes that information is in an image. Well,
Speaker 1: with this magic by Agenda Hero, you just either paste
Speaker 1: in all the text or the image and it will
Speaker 1: take all that information and parse out what you need
Speaker 1: to do. So it will make a title, it will
Speaker 1: make a date and time automatically the location, and it
Speaker 1: will make a description. And then in one more click
Speaker 1: you can have this email to yourself or you can
Speaker 1: add it to your calendar of your choice. Again, this
Speaker 1: is Agenda hero dot com slash Magic. Next up, this
Speaker 1: is a travel website awards versus cash calculator. So if
Speaker 1: you've listened to me for a while, you know that
Speaker 1: I'm not a huge proponent of racking up miles.
Speaker 2: Of course, I love miles.
Speaker 1: I love getting free upgrades, but I don't actively try
Speaker 1: to get miles or a crew miles because it's just
Speaker 1: a lot of I used to do that back in
Speaker 1: the day and I just can't be bothered anymore. So, Yes,
Speaker 1: I love when I have miles. I love when I
Speaker 1: can use them, but I'm not sitting there trying to
Speaker 1: put my two dollars Starbucks on a credit card to
Speaker 1: get the points. But with that said, I do have
Speaker 1: a couple of points programs that I'm a part of,
Speaker 1: and I'm always wondering, like, is it better to use
Speaker 1: my Southwest points or to pay for the flight?
Speaker 2: And so this awards versus Cash calculator lets.
Speaker 3: You do just that.
Speaker 1: So you put in the loyalty program the cost in
Speaker 1: points and any fees they might charge you, and then
Speaker 1: you put the cost in cash and you hit the
Speaker 1: calculate button and it will tell you, Hey, you're better
Speaker 1: off paying cash for this, or this is a great value,
Speaker 1: You're better off using miles. It works with airlines, it
Speaker 1: works with hotels. And this is from the points guy
Speaker 1: dot com. Again, it's the pointsky dot com slash calculator.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is a photo tool.
Speaker 1: It's called bgraser dot com. Bgraser dot com. And what's
Speaker 1: handy about this is that it lets you remove the
Speaker 1: background from a picture in just one click. It is
Speaker 1: super fast. It is really good, and it is free.
Speaker 1: So just drag and drop a picture on there. I
Speaker 1: just did it as we're speaking, and you tap start.
Speaker 1: You can even do a couple of pictures all at once,
Speaker 1: and it does a great job. I'm so impressed. It
Speaker 1: literally got me perfectly. It got the outline of my body.
Speaker 4: Look at that.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna check this out. Oh, it did such a
Speaker 1: good job. It's so impressive. And then you can save
Speaker 1: that picture and put a different background on it, use
Speaker 1: a different tool or whatever you want to do. But
Speaker 1: it's just kind of a very easy way, uh, to
Speaker 1: recreate the background. Maybe you're selling something on eBay, maybe
Speaker 1: you just want to, you know, show something without a
Speaker 1: distracting background.
Speaker 2: Again the website bg Eraser dot com.
Speaker 1: Next up, and I know I'm giving you a lot
Speaker 1: of these, but again I'll link them all on the website.
Speaker 2: Rich on tech dot tv.
Speaker 1: Next up is a website that's called cleantext dot org.
Speaker 1: So how many times have you gotten a bunch of
Speaker 1: text that is just gobbledygook.
Speaker 2: It's got a whole bunch of arrows in it, or.
Speaker 1: Spaces in it, or lines in it, or something that's
Speaker 1: just messing it all up. So all you have to
Speaker 1: do is take it, copy it into this website cleantext
Speaker 1: dot org, and then it's one click. It says pretty
Speaker 1: it up, and it will figure out what it needs
Speaker 1: to do. It will get rid of the extra spaces,
Speaker 1: get rid of the extra characters, and it will give
Speaker 1: you the output. You can copy and paste that to
Speaker 1: where you need it. It's just one of those things
Speaker 1: that you know, every once in a while it really
Speaker 1: comes in handy. Okay, This next website is really handy
Speaker 1: if you belong to a team or a club or
Speaker 1: a group anything where you're trying to get people to
Speaker 1: bring something to like a potlock. Instead of texting a
Speaker 1: million different things and saying, oh, no, I got that,
Speaker 1: I got that, or starting a spreadsheet. The website is
Speaker 1: called who Brings dot com and all this does is
Speaker 1: help you create simple group packing lists for your next gathering.
Speaker 1: So you type in what you want, you know the
Speaker 1: name of the group, and you type in the stuff
Speaker 1: that you want, and then you send that link to people,
Speaker 1: and there's no sign in, there's no registration. It is
Speaker 1: free and it even has AI suggestions. Now that's something
Speaker 1: new they added last time. So let's say you're creating,
Speaker 1: you know, a picnic party or a potluck for you know,
Speaker 1: and you want to have a theme.
Speaker 2: Even you can make.
Speaker 1: The list and have people say what they're gonna bring,
Speaker 1: and you can even do different quantities up down, thumbs
Speaker 1: it up, thumbs it.
Speaker 2: Down, whatever you want.
Speaker 1: It's just super simple and it's just so everyone's on
Speaker 1: the same page, nice and easy. Again, that is called
Speaker 1: who Brings dot Com. Now, this next website has been
Speaker 1: around for it is super handy. It is called just
Speaker 1: Delete Me, and it's a directory of direct links to
Speaker 1: delete your account from different services. So the popular ones
Speaker 1: are available in one click. That's Amazon, that's Facebook, that's Instagram,
Speaker 1: Go Daddy, Google, LinkedIn Netflix.
Speaker 2: And what I like about this website.
Speaker 1: Is that not only does it give you the direct
Speaker 1: link to how to delete these, it gives you information
Speaker 1: on how to delete them, including.
Speaker 3: Step by step.
Speaker 1: It also tells you how easy it is to delete
Speaker 1: a website. So, for instance, a log into a website
Speaker 1: for instance Amazon Easy, Instagram, easy, LinkedIn, Medium, Netflix, hard.
Speaker 2: Skype, impossible.
Speaker 1: So it's a really fun website. It's just delete me
Speaker 1: dot xyz. I feel like this website has gone through
Speaker 1: a couple of owners over the years. It's just a
Speaker 1: nice resource on how to delete a log in for
Speaker 1: a website when maybe you don't feel like looking up
Speaker 1: the directions or you might get some ideas on things
Speaker 1: to get rid of. This is a website that I
Speaker 1: also use on almost a weekly or daily basis. It
Speaker 1: is a way to redact information from a photo. This
Speaker 1: website is super safe, super private. It all happens inside
Speaker 1: the browser, so it is browser based. You go to
Speaker 1: redact dot photo and you drag and drop a picture
Speaker 1: or a screenshot whatever you want in there, and then
Speaker 1: all you have to do is kind of hover your
Speaker 1: mouse over the area that you want to redact.
Speaker 2: I found that is it is the simplest.
Speaker 1: Way to redact information in the browser and know that
Speaker 1: it's actually gone so that you can share that photo
Speaker 1: safely on social media. So let's say you take a
Speaker 1: picture of a screenshot of your Amazon receipt or something
Speaker 1: like that, and you want to share something about it,
Speaker 1: but you don't want your home address on there so
Speaker 1: you can easily use this website. It is redact dot photo.
Speaker 1: It works really well, it happens quickly, and it's great.
Speaker 3: All right. The website you.
Speaker 1: Need to know for all of the links to these
Speaker 1: handy websites I.
Speaker 3: Just gave you is rich on tech dot TV.
Speaker 2: My name is Rich dmiro.
Speaker 3: You are listening to Rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: We'll have some of your questions coming up right after this.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you, talking technology. The website for the show
Speaker 1: rich on tech dot TV.
Speaker 2: Let's go to Thurman in Winchester, Massachusetts. You're on with Rich.
Speaker 5: Yes, I guess good morning for you. For me, I
Speaker 5: was thinking about, especially from Verismon where I've had some
Speaker 5: signal drops the last few months.
Speaker 6: To subby.
Speaker 5: I first I thought, I go AT and T, just
Speaker 5: try out that network, But then I understand there are
Speaker 5: things like pure Talk that use the AT and T network,
Speaker 5: and they've now added foreign coverage, so that's good. So
Speaker 5: I'm I'm tempted to make the punge, but I just
Speaker 5: wondering if you've had an opinions on these discount woild
Speaker 5: wireless carriers that are piggyback on the main network.
Speaker 1: Great question, and I will tell you this off the bat.
Speaker 1: I trust one of these mv and o's to my mom,
Speaker 1: So if it's good enough for her, believe me, I
Speaker 1: think they are good enough for everyone. Now Here is
Speaker 1: the main difference. Okay, So with the main carriers like
Speaker 1: a Verizon, an AT and T or a T Mobile,
Speaker 1: they want you on one of their fancy unlimited plans,
Speaker 1: which includes a lot of stuff. It includes Netflix, it
Speaker 1: includes mobile hotspot, it includes some sort of foreign roaming.
Speaker 1: So it's all about getting you on that big unlimited plan.
Speaker 1: And also they have a lot of discounts with phones,
Speaker 1: and people get their phone through the carrier. I feel
Speaker 1: like the mv and o's are kind of a play
Speaker 1: on your budget, so you can get more for your
Speaker 1: money if you're bringing especially if you're bringing your own
Speaker 1: phone to the table. And a lot of these mv
Speaker 1: and o's have their own phone deals as well. Now,
Speaker 1: what's an mv and O Mobile virtual network operator. There's
Speaker 1: only three networks in the US. That's AT and T,
Speaker 1: T Mobile, and Verizon. All of these other companies that
Speaker 1: you hear advertised are running on their networks now the
Speaker 1: downsides of something like an mv and O is really
Speaker 1: you have to check out the plan to see what
Speaker 1: you get and what you don't get. So there are
Speaker 1: some people that believe that AT and T or Verizon
Speaker 1: or T Mobile will prioritize their highest paying customers first
Speaker 1: and then so if you're in a really congested area,
Speaker 1: you may not get the top speed or the top
Speaker 1: service in that area. Now, I will tell you I
Speaker 1: have a test line for Mint Mobile, and I find
Speaker 1: that it is excellent. It really really works very nicely.
Speaker 1: And I've tested many other mv and o's over the
Speaker 1: years and they're really good as long as you know
Speaker 1: what you're getting. Some of them have limited minutes, some
Speaker 1: of them have limited data, some of them may not
Speaker 1: have you know, all little perks of those unlimited plans.
Speaker 1: But if you know what you're getting for that price,
Speaker 1: it's a really good value. So Thurman, I have no
Speaker 1: problem recommending that you switch to one of these, and look,
Speaker 1: if you don't like it, you can always switch back.
Speaker 1: Some of these, you know, or almost every single one
Speaker 1: of them is month to month, so you basically pay
Speaker 1: for it. You're kind of paying in advance, and that's it.
Speaker 1: They just billy every month with something like a Mint Mobile.
Speaker 1: Some of them give you a bigger discount if you
Speaker 1: pay for more than one month at a time. But
Speaker 1: it's a new year, a lot of these companies are
Speaker 1: giving deals right now, and so I think you'll be fine.
Speaker 1: And if you want to try an AT and T,
Speaker 1: you can actually go to a website called whistle Out
Speaker 1: whist l E whistle out dot com and they will
Speaker 1: help you compare all of the different sell plans out there.
Speaker 1: The website again whistle out dot com, and you can
Speaker 1: say if you want it to run on the AT
Speaker 1: and T network, or the Verizon network or the T
Speaker 1: Mobile network. A lot of the mv and o's run
Speaker 1: on T Mobile. That's probably the most common one. AT
Speaker 1: and T is probably the second most common, and then
Speaker 1: Verizon is probably the least common.
Speaker 2: For mv and os.
Speaker 1: The main one that they've run is their own, which
Speaker 1: is called Visible, and that's basically and you know when
Speaker 1: Visible first came out, I interviewed the CEO Visible, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't even believe it. I said, how are you
Speaker 1: offering Verizon's network at a fraction of the price. I
Speaker 1: think it was like thirty bucks a month, and the
Speaker 1: big thing was that it was limited in your speed,
Speaker 1: so your speed was download limited to about five megabits
Speaker 1: per second. They've since done away with that, but that
Speaker 1: was kind of like the delineation. If you want the
Speaker 1: fastest Verizon network speed, you got to go with Verizon.
Speaker 1: If you don't really care and you want to save
Speaker 1: a bunch of money and pay thirty dollars a month,
Speaker 1: go with Visible. So great question, Thurman, appreciate the call.
Speaker 1: All right, if you have Spectrum TV, you now get
Speaker 1: Disney Plus for free.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: If you have Spectrum TV, if you're paying Spectrum TV customer,
Speaker 1: you get Disney Plus for free.
Speaker 2: This is traditional TV.
Speaker 1: You have to have the Spectrum TV Select package and
Speaker 1: this is not something that you just have. You know,
Speaker 1: you have to sign up for this. It's something you
Speaker 1: have to activate. But it is a free perk. So
Speaker 1: if you have Spectrum TV Select, you can go to
Speaker 1: this website Spectrum dot com slash Disney Plus and you
Speaker 1: have to log in with your Spectrum account and then
Speaker 1: you can activate a free Disney Plus basic subscription. That
Speaker 1: is the Disney Plus that has ads. I think it's
Speaker 1: about I don't know six to nine dollars a month value,
Speaker 1: and you are going to get ESPN Plus as well
Speaker 1: for free in the next couple of months. So if
Speaker 1: you have Spectrum TV, you're paying for standard you know
Speaker 1: TV that comes in through cable for your house or
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 3: Even through the Internet.
Speaker 1: If you're doing the Zumo box, you now can activate
Speaker 1: a free Disney Plus subscription. You can find more information
Speaker 1: about that on my Instagram. I've got the step by
Speaker 1: step Instagram. I am at Rich on Tech. Just look
Speaker 1: for the Disney ears and you can find out more information.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Eddie in Temple City, California.
Speaker 2: Eddie, you're on with Rich. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 7: Listen.
Speaker 8: I have an iPhone ten, which is the ex YEP,
Speaker 8: and when I go to the setting, it tells me
Speaker 8: that I still have like twenty or thirty gigabytes of Sage, right, Okay,
Speaker 8: but Apple keeps bugging me, sending me messages telling me
Speaker 8: that I'm running out of space. I'm asking me to
Speaker 8: pay a monthly fee, which I refuse because I don't
Speaker 8: want my pictures in the cloud. Okay, So the main
Speaker 8: question is maybe two questions. The first one, if I
Speaker 8: switch to samsum, would they be bothering me with the
Speaker 8: same thing? No, or what can I do with iPhones
Speaker 8: to download my pictures like every I don't know, like
Speaker 8: every month somewhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so I mean you could do that if
Speaker 1: I mean the thing I recommend for that is called
Speaker 1: the I expand And at this point you can really
Speaker 1: plug any hard drive into the iPhone.
Speaker 2: But I think the sand disc I that's the letter
Speaker 2: I X P A N D.
Speaker 1: I think they have the best software for downloading your
Speaker 1: photos from the phone. If you're an Amazon Prime member,
Speaker 1: you can sorry you didn't want the cloud.
Speaker 2: So okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: But you know, iPhone seems to have this weird thing
Speaker 1: with like the storage situation where people are getting that
Speaker 1: message that you're out of storage, and you know, they
Speaker 1: really just try to push people to getting cloud storage
Speaker 1: because the way the iPhone is set up, you can't
Speaker 1: really access the files that are on your phone, so
Speaker 1: you can't really know like what's going on, where things are,
Speaker 1: what's taking up space, what's not taking up space. But
Speaker 1: the thing I would do before you make any changes, Eddie,
Speaker 1: is go into your settings, go into your Apple ID.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming you have some sort of iCloud on your account.
Speaker 1: Maybe not, but there's this thing called recommended for you,
Speaker 1: and there are a couple of ways to free up
Speaker 1: storage on there, so you can look at that under
Speaker 1: your recommendations. But if you want to see the storage
Speaker 1: that's on your phone, you can go to iPhone Settings
Speaker 1: and then General and then storage. Where is that? I
Speaker 1: just saw it there? Why can't I find it about?
Speaker 1: And then it will tell your storage how much things
Speaker 1: are taken up. But I find the iPhone to be
Speaker 1: really complicated with the storage situation. And believe me, it's
Speaker 1: just like you know, they just they want people to
Speaker 1: go to the cloud because they make it confusing on purposes,
Speaker 1: seems now, I don't know that for a fact. But
Speaker 1: on Android, I feel like it's very much more straightforward.
Speaker 1: You can look at the storage on your phone, you
Speaker 1: can see where things are stored, you can.
Speaker 2: Plug in a drive, you can move things around.
Speaker 1: And you know, Samsung they're in the hardware business mostly
Speaker 1: where if you look at Apple, yes they're in the
Speaker 1: hardware business, but increasingly services and software are a huge
Speaker 1: which part of their.
Speaker 2: Revenue, and so they're looking to get.
Speaker 1: People to upgrade to these You know higher iCloud plans
Speaker 1: and all the other things in Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: On Tech. Rich DeMuro here talking technology with you at
Speaker 1: triple eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. The website is
Speaker 1: rich on Tech dot TV. Cybersecurity is such a huge
Speaker 1: deal in our lives privacy. If you're online, you know,
Speaker 1: chances are your information is out there and it is
Speaker 1: yours to protect. So let's bring on Lisa Plagamaire, executive
Speaker 1: director at the National Cybersecurity Alliance, to talk about some
Speaker 1: of the ways we can protect our privacy. Lisa, thanks
Speaker 1: for joining.
Speaker 9: Me, Happy to be here.
Speaker 10: Thanks.
Speaker 1: So, explain to me what the National Cybersecurity Alliance is.
Speaker 9: So, we're a nonprofit organization.
Speaker 11: We're actually the founder of the Cybersecurity a wareath month
Speaker 11: every October, and our is around empowering a more secure,
Speaker 11: interconnected world. So what that means is empowering consumers and
Speaker 11: everyday people with the information they need to stay secured,
Speaker 11: to keep their information private when they choose to.
Speaker 9: And so it's stay Safe online dot org. We have
Speaker 9: a lot of very.
Speaker 11: Plain spoken advice. You won't find a lot of techt
Speaker 11: speak or legal ease. On our website, we have all
Speaker 11: kinds of advice for the average average citizen easy to understand.
Speaker 1: So let's first talk about kind of like where we're
Speaker 1: at with cybersecurity, like how much are we at risk
Speaker 1: on a daily basis? Like we always hear about hacking
Speaker 1: and you know these data breaches and all that stuff,
Speaker 1: Like how much is the average consumer kind of what
Speaker 1: are they up against?
Speaker 11: They're up against highly highly sophisticated organized crime in nation
Speaker 11: states like the Big Four, so Russia, China, Iran in
Speaker 11: North Korea.
Speaker 1: What are kind of like the first steps we can
Speaker 1: take to protect our privacy online?
Speaker 9: So there are a couple of things that are really
Speaker 9: really basic.
Speaker 11: There's four main things that everybody can do, and if
Speaker 11: we all did them, they would make a massive debt
Speaker 11: in the problem.
Speaker 9: So the first one is passwords.
Speaker 11: We have some really bad habits about using the same
Speaker 11: password on multiple websites or a similar one.
Speaker 9: Those are really easy to hack.
Speaker 11: They're using software to hack them, password cracking tools. So
Speaker 11: don't use the same password on everything. You probably need
Speaker 11: a password manager to help you to keep it all straight.
Speaker 11: Then multi factor authentication, that's that thing where you go
Speaker 11: to sign on to your bank account. You have to
Speaker 11: have a text or a push notification from authenticator app
Speaker 11: before you can get into your bank account.
Speaker 9: So turn that on on every single account that offers it.
Speaker 11: Keeping things up to date, so when you get that
Speaker 11: remind me later option, do not take that. Make sure
Speaker 11: you run whatever update is trying to run, whether it's hardware, software,
Speaker 11: the firmware and your router operating system on your phone
Speaker 11: or any device. Keep everything up to date, especially your
Speaker 11: anti virus, and then watching out for phishing and social engineering,
Speaker 11: so not every you know, instant message you get is
Speaker 11: going to be from a legitimate person.
Speaker 9: That you really know.
Speaker 11: We've all gotten, you know, phishing emails that are really obvious.
Speaker 9: They're not so obvious anymore. With the help of AI.
Speaker 11: The bad guys are getting a lot better at creating
Speaker 11: phishing emails, texts, phone calls that make it harder and
Speaker 11: harder for us to tell that somebody's trying to trick us.
Speaker 11: And I'll add one more, and that's checking your privacy
Speaker 11: and security settings on your devices and all the apps.
Speaker 3: That you use.
Speaker 11: Those are not usually set to, you know, to have
Speaker 11: a default to be maybe the most private option, so.
Speaker 9: You might not be comfortable when you start doing am
Speaker 9: to those settings.
Speaker 11: You might be sharing stuff that you don't feel comfortable sharing,
Speaker 11: and so maybe dial those things to a level that
Speaker 11: you feel more comfortable with, for example, making your friends
Speaker 11: less private on Facebook.
Speaker 1: Now, when you say that these aren't made private, you
Speaker 1: know they're not the best interest of the consumer generally
Speaker 1: when they're at their de faults. That's probably because these
Speaker 1: companies want to collect as much information on us as
Speaker 1: they can, right so that they can monetize it.
Speaker 9: Yeah, because that their core.
Speaker 11: Most social media companies are essentially advertising vehicles, and so
Speaker 11: the more information they have on us, the more targeted
Speaker 11: those ads can be, the more they can charge for
Speaker 11: that advertising.
Speaker 1: Now, the big, the big kind of flip side to
Speaker 1: all of this I get from many many people when
Speaker 1: I say you got to use good passwords, you got
Speaker 1: to use multi factor, you got to update your software,
Speaker 1: you got to do all this stuff. They say, look rich,
Speaker 1: I got nothing to hide, They got nothing to worry about.
Speaker 2: It's not a big deal, Like who wants to come
Speaker 2: into my you know?
Speaker 3: Uh so I was.
Speaker 1: I got one of my accounts I used to make
Speaker 1: like a Christmas card one year and that like, that
Speaker 1: account was hacked, right, and so the password that I
Speaker 1: used there, and my address and my phone number and
Speaker 1: my everything is just out there on the web because
Speaker 1: they were hacked. And so that's kind of like the
Speaker 1: thing that I don't think people realize is that when
Speaker 1: you share this information with one company, it can be
Speaker 1: out there in a multitude of ways if that company
Speaker 1: is packed right.
Speaker 11: And a lot of these criminal organizations are creating massive
Speaker 11: databases that where they they're trading in your data, just
Speaker 11: like you know the data companies and the legitimate ones
Speaker 11: in the business world. They're building these massive data warehouses
Speaker 11: with a lot of information. So if your password has
Speaker 11: already been compromised, you might think, well, I don't have
Speaker 11: anything in that specific account that had the breach.
Speaker 9: I don't have anything in their value, Like you said,
Speaker 9: who cares.
Speaker 11: The problem is they're going to take that password and
Speaker 11: versions of it, you know, click it a little bit.
Speaker 11: Using software. They can do this at scale really quickly,
Speaker 11: and they're going to try that on every other account
Speaker 11: out there, and they can do it in minutes using technology.
Speaker 9: To do it.
Speaker 11: Because these are businesses and time is money for them,
Speaker 11: so they're going to use technology to their advantage, and
Speaker 11: that's why it's so important not to use the same
Speaker 11: password or similar password on multiple accounts and to use MFA.
Speaker 11: The other thing that can happen. You might think, oh,
Speaker 11: this doesn't matter to me, I don't have anything avalue
Speaker 11: there when they take over one of your accounts.
Speaker 9: If they have access to one of your accounts, they
Speaker 9: can use that account to try and to harm to
Speaker 9: somebody else.
Speaker 11: Right, so we've all seen the Facebook instant message that
Speaker 11: looks like it's from your Aunt Betty, but it's not
Speaker 11: Harriet Betty or Aunt Betty had her Facebook account taken
Speaker 11: over because she's probably using a weak password and no MFA.
Speaker 11: So you don't want to be the launch pad for
Speaker 11: somebody to go try and defraud other people. You also
Speaker 11: don't want the Chinese coming into your house using your
Speaker 11: router to lob an attack on your local power company.
Speaker 2: And can you explain the concept of the dark web.
Speaker 11: So basically, the current Internet was not designed to be
Speaker 11: secure or private.
Speaker 9: It was designed for the free and open flow of information.
Speaker 11: And if they could build it all again today, they
Speaker 11: would not build its own the way it's developed.
Speaker 9: You need a special browser to get there.
Speaker 11: What's on the dark Web is essentially marketplaces, mainly the
Speaker 11: deal in data, credit card information, social security numbers that
Speaker 11: are for sale, bank account credentials so somebody including your
Speaker 11: bank balance so that somebody knows where they're you're.
Speaker 9: Worth trying to deal from.
Speaker 11: And also things like drugs, guns and humans, human trafficking.
Speaker 11: Every bad, possible criminal thing that you could think of
Speaker 11: to buy and sell is available on the dark club.
Speaker 9: Unfortunately.
Speaker 1: Wow, it sounds like we're up against a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff here, Lisa, But I like the couple of tenants
Speaker 1: that you mentioned about, you know, keeping our stuff private
Speaker 1: at the end of the day. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: stuff that we need to stay up on, right, and
Speaker 1: we need to stay aware of this stuff because I know,
Speaker 1: I just I keep hearing in my mind over and
Speaker 1: over people say, come on, they're not what do they
Speaker 1: need to do with me? But when you build this
Speaker 1: profile of someone, there's a lot you can do that
Speaker 1: and it and the time and energy it takes to
Speaker 1: dig out of that if something happens to you is
Speaker 1: really just not worth it.
Speaker 9: We need to think about.
Speaker 11: Our loved ones too, So older folks, aging Americans, they
Speaker 11: don't get defrauded as often, but when they do, the
Speaker 11: dollar amounts are high.
Speaker 9: The bad guys are going to go where.
Speaker 11: The money is, right, why do I steal the bank
Speaker 11: Because that's where a round the bank is, That's where
Speaker 11: the money is.
Speaker 9: And our aging loved.
Speaker 11: Ones have accumulated their life savings and so when they
Speaker 11: get defrauded, and it happens way too often, it's for
Speaker 11: large dollar amounts. So I spend a lot of time
Speaker 11: with trying to keep my mom safe online, for example.
Speaker 9: And then younger people gen X.
Speaker 11: Gen Y, they click a lot, they move really fast
Speaker 11: through the technology and so they're actually more likely to
Speaker 11: click on something malicious.
Speaker 9: But the when they suffer.
Speaker 11: A loss of their data or money, those losses are
Speaker 11: much smaller. But they're moving pretty fast and sometimes not
Speaker 11: quite paying enough attention.
Speaker 1: Lisa Plagamaire, executive director at the National Cybersecurity Alliance. The
Speaker 1: website staysafeonline dot org. H really really good information. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 9: My pleasure.
Speaker 1: All right, that just this stuff, And I'm telling you
Speaker 1: since since I'm here and I get all the emails,
Speaker 1: I know for a fact that this stuff happens on
Speaker 1: a daily basis. People are getting hacked, they're getting scammed,
Speaker 1: they're falling for tricks. Please tell your loved ones, Please
Speaker 1: get educated on this stuff.
Speaker 2: It really will make a difference.
Speaker 1: Eighty to eight rich one O one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Rich on tech. Rich Demiro here talking technology at
Speaker 1: triple eight. Rich one O one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. Let's go to
Speaker 1: John in Palm Springs. John, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 12: I bought a new S twenty three phone, and when
Speaker 12: they copied everything off of the old phone, I am
Speaker 12: missing hundreds of photos. I still have the old phone
Speaker 12: and they are missing there now as well. And so
Speaker 12: I read that they are probably still there and I
Speaker 12: can hire somebody to retrieve them.
Speaker 13: But if true, I have no idea who that would be.
Speaker 1: Okay, where do you store these photos? Are they just
Speaker 1: on like your phone or they go to the cloud somewhere.
Speaker 13: No, they're just on the phone. Unfortunately, I'm I am
Speaker 13: the most illiterate tech guy in the world.
Speaker 1: So okay, and you're sure you're not using because on
Speaker 1: Samsung devices they like to send these to one drive.
Speaker 2: Are you sure they're not sync to one drive in
Speaker 2: some way.
Speaker 13: Well they could be. I see one drive on my phone, okay,
Speaker 13: but I never knew what it was. I didn't never even.
Speaker 14: Clicked on it.
Speaker 1: Okay, well click on it and and uh, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a there's a section of the Samsung phone in
Speaker 1: the settings that is called I'm trying to look here,
Speaker 1: accounts and backup and if you look there, let's see
Speaker 1: backup data. So so in here it's it says where
Speaker 1: these things are backed up. I'm trying to find this
Speaker 1: while we talk live. I know it's tricky, but there's
Speaker 1: a couple of places. A couple of places I would look.
Speaker 1: Number one, I would on a website.
Speaker 15: I would do use Google at all, I I guess, yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, so if you have a Google account, I would
Speaker 1: try going to photos dot Google dot com on a
Speaker 1: website on your computer, so on a desktop browser, and
Speaker 1: see and log in with your Google and see if
Speaker 1: any of the photos made their way there. Then I
Speaker 1: would go to one drive dot com again from a
Speaker 1: computer and log in with either your Samsung account or
Speaker 1: your usually it's linked to a Microsoft account if you
Speaker 1: have that, and see if they're there. Otherwise, on your
Speaker 1: old phone, I would go into the files app, and
Speaker 1: there's a there's like an app on the old on
Speaker 1: the Samsung that is lets you see all the files
Speaker 1: on that phone. And so I would go in there
Speaker 1: and look for one a folder that says camera, and
Speaker 1: see if you can find them in there. Let's go
Speaker 1: the line too melody is in Carl's Bad Melody You're
Speaker 1: on with Rich.
Speaker 16: Several years ago I retired and during my tenure as
Speaker 16: a worker for forty some years, I had to use
Speaker 16: I used the Microsoft Word program to do a lot
Speaker 16: of documents and newsletters, et cetera. And those were on
Speaker 16: my home computer. And so I've continued with a software.
Speaker 16: But at some point, maybe about three or four years ago,
Speaker 16: they changed it to a subscription program where I have
Speaker 16: to pay sixty some bucks a year to continue to
Speaker 16: use the software.
Speaker 3: But sure, I no.
Speaker 16: Longer have to do documents and newsletters, and I really don't.
Speaker 17: Use it that much.
Speaker 3: But yes, you don't want to pay that money.
Speaker 16: Right, But will I be able to reference the documents
Speaker 16: I have previously made with Words if I do not
Speaker 16: have this subscription?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? Absolutely. Now this used to be very complicated in
Speaker 1: the past. It is not anymore. Thanks to so many
Speaker 1: free tools out there, so you'll be just fine. You
Speaker 1: can continue to make these documents in the word format
Speaker 1: as much as you want, and there will be many
Speaker 1: ways to access them later. The easiest way do you
Speaker 1: have a Gmail or a Google account? Yeah, okay, easiest
Speaker 1: way Google Docs. So take these.
Speaker 2: You can actually do this right now if you want.
Speaker 1: You can go to Google Drive, or you can go
Speaker 1: to Google Docs and you can drag and drop one
Speaker 1: of these files into the screen and it will put
Speaker 1: it into Google Drive, Google Docs, and then you can
Speaker 1: open it and Google will make it so that you
Speaker 1: can edit that file, you can read that file, whatever
Speaker 1: you need to do. It will convert it for you
Speaker 1: on the fly, and so you'll be able to edit,
Speaker 1: you'll be able to read it, you'll be able to
Speaker 1: access it. There will be no there will be no
Speaker 1: issues here whatsoever. So Melody, you can continue to do this,
Speaker 1: but I would recommend that there are many other ways
Speaker 1: as well. If you have a Mac computer, you can
Speaker 1: use pages. There are some free office suites online. There
Speaker 1: are some popular ones like open office and things like that.
Speaker 1: So I mean there's a lot out there, but I
Speaker 1: think that Google Docs is the easiest that's the one
Speaker 1: that I use, and I think that you're gonna find
Speaker 1: it very very simple to just open these documents, edit
Speaker 1: them right in your web browser and have no problem
Speaker 1: with that whatsoever. Thanks for the call, Melodie, appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Steve is in Glendale. Steve, you are on with Rich.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the show. Hello Rich, Hello Steve. What's up?
Speaker 13: So?
Speaker 7: I got a Facebook business page. I'm a professional handy
Speaker 7: man in Glendale, California, and I made a post and
Speaker 7: I've gotten this message before I got a message, I
Speaker 7: actually got four separate messages. Your Facebook page is expect
Speaker 7: to be permally removed due to post the post violating
Speaker 7: our trademark rights. Blah blah blah. You know it's going
Speaker 7: to be removed, and then you know it's but it's from
Speaker 7: it's at the top, it heads it's from Katie Estes
Speaker 7: and it shows this weird logo like support and I
Speaker 7: think it's probably fishing and ships trying to skip and
Speaker 7: I'm not. I'm I've learned not to click on strained blinks.
Speaker 7: And it's from Facebook dot p.
Speaker 1: R O okay, and it sounds like a website.
Speaker 2: So how can I help? Did you get hacked.
Speaker 7: Well, I mean, I have it. I'm just I'm just
Speaker 7: should pay tention to that.
Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, good question. Spam yep, yep.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent ignores spam.
Speaker 1: These are these are very I'm telling you, Steve, there
Speaker 1: are so many scams happening with social media it is
Speaker 1: it's almost become untenable to deal with all this stuff,
Speaker 1: and especially if you have a business account, any sort
Speaker 1: of Facebook page. So a couple of things. Number one,
Speaker 1: these are notifications that they're sending you. This says, hey,
Speaker 1: you're you're violating our terms and conditions, and they seem
Speaker 1: scary because you're running a business. You might be getting
Speaker 1: some clients from this Facebook page, right, and so you
Speaker 1: don't want your page to go away. And so what
Speaker 1: they want you to do is see this notification, click
Speaker 1: that notification without thinking, and then and either log in
Speaker 1: or somehow do something that will either take over your account,
Speaker 1: hijack your account, or you know, otherwise steal your personal information.
Speaker 1: So you can safely ignore these, I can guarantee you
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent of the time, ninety nine point nine
Speaker 1: if there's something truly amiss with your Facebook account, Facebook
Speaker 1: will get in touch with you through a legitimate means,
Speaker 1: which is probably through some sort of pop up notification
Speaker 1: in the app or an email.
Speaker 2: So believe me, I do a lot of things.
Speaker 1: On my Facebook page, Facebook dot com, slash rich on tech.
Speaker 1: I see these things all the time. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of scam artists also that post on your page, so
Speaker 1: when you comment something, they may comment and say, hey,
Speaker 1: we can help with that, and those are scam artists
Speaker 1: as well. Those I would block, but really these are
Speaker 1: mostly bots. But it's a good lesson to learn. And
Speaker 1: the thing that I would do is make sure if
Speaker 1: you have a Facebook account, two things I would do.
Speaker 1: Number one, set up two factor authentication, and this means
Speaker 1: that you need a separate code to log in once
Speaker 1: you log in.
Speaker 3: With your password.
Speaker 1: So let's say you fell for one of those notifications,
Speaker 1: you logged in with your password, they got it, they
Speaker 1: immediately try to hijack your account. They wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to because there would be a secondary code that is
Speaker 1: texted to your phone and that would make it so
Speaker 1: that they wouldn't be able to get in. The other
Speaker 1: thing to do if you have a Facebook business account
Speaker 1: is to get an admin on that account, someone you
Speaker 1: trust that is not you, and that way, if there's
Speaker 1: ever a problem with your Facebook account, because these are
Speaker 1: usually linked to a personal Facebook account, that way that
Speaker 1: other person will be able to help you get back in.
Speaker 1: And if you have a personal Facebook account, there's other
Speaker 1: others some excuse me, there's some other things you can do,
Speaker 1: which is called trusted contacts. You can set those up
Speaker 1: to help you regain access to your Facebook account. And
Speaker 1: if you have a problem with your Facebook and it
Speaker 1: is hacked, the best place to go is Facebook dot com,
Speaker 1: slash hacked, Facebook dot slash hacked.
Speaker 3: Thanks for the call. My name is Rich d'miro.
Speaker 1: You can follow me online at rich on Tech, the
Speaker 1: website for the show richon Tech dot tv. More rich
Speaker 1: on Tech come in your way right after this. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 3: Rich Demiro here.
Speaker 1: Hanging out with you, talking technology, the website for the
Speaker 1: show rich on Tech dot TV. There you can find
Speaker 1: me on x on Instagram, and on Facebook and my email.
Speaker 1: Just click the email icon to send me a message.
Speaker 1: That's what Jessica did. She says, my daughter just sent
Speaker 1: me something on Disney Plus slash Hulu now cracking down
Speaker 1: on sharing. My daughter is a college student out of
Speaker 1: state and uses our account. Will this be an issue
Speaker 1: like Netflix? And will they offer an added upgrade to
Speaker 1: be able to add her to the account or will
Speaker 1: she need her own account. We are having to upgrade
Speaker 1: our Netflix account so she can continue using it. Thanks
Speaker 1: for any insight to this, Jessica. Well, Jessica, My overall
Speaker 1: advice is to continue sharing your account until they somehow
Speaker 1: block or restrict it.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 1: Disney Plus and Hulu have both updated their subscriber agreements
Speaker 1: to ban account sharing for new subscribers. This happened earlier
Speaker 1: this year, and for existing subscribers it just started around
Speaker 1: mid March. Now, that does not mean that they are
Speaker 1: enforcing this across everyone's account just yet. Disney Plus says
Speaker 1: starting in the summer, they will introduce new features to
Speaker 1: allow account sharers to start their own subscriptions or add
Speaker 1: individuals outside of their household foreign additional fee, just like
Speaker 1: what you noticed on Netflix. I think Netflix charges seven
Speaker 1: to ninety nine to convert someone on your account to
Speaker 1: their own account, but preserving all of their.
Speaker 2: Watch history and things like that. Why are they doing this?
Speaker 1: Well, Netflix sort of started this and they said enough
Speaker 1: is enough.
Speaker 2: No more sharing accounts.
Speaker 1: And by the way, when they turned off the account
Speaker 1: sharing on Netflix, they turned on a lot of money
Speaker 1: because a lot more people said, Okay, fine, I will subscribe.
Speaker 1: I will pay my own money to do this. And
Speaker 1: it's not a ton of money, but across a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of millions of subscribers, that does add up to
Speaker 1: a lot for Netflix, and for the average person, Okay, fine,
Speaker 1: for eight bucks a month, I'll get my own account whatever,
Speaker 1: and the free ride is over. I've said this many,
Speaker 1: many times. These companies all started out letting us do
Speaker 1: all kinds of things with our accounts and not really
Speaker 1: caring about this. But now that the money has slowed down,
Speaker 1: they want to increase that revenue, and so Disney's doing this.
Speaker 2: Netflix did it.
Speaker 1: A lot of the other streaming services will end up
Speaker 1: doing this as well. But again my advice is just
Speaker 1: to continue sharing until you're forced to not share. Now,
Speaker 1: there's lots of signals on how they figure out if
Speaker 1: someone is indeed sharing their account.
Speaker 2: They might look at your IP address.
Speaker 1: They might look at how many devices you have on
Speaker 1: your account where those devices typically access your account, whether
Speaker 1: that device is a.
Speaker 2: TV or a tablet, Because if it's a TV.
Speaker 1: You know, they're thinking, Okay, how many TVs does this
Speaker 1: person have across the US. But if it's a tablet,
Speaker 1: they might understand, Okay, this tablet does travel to different cities,
Speaker 1: and this phone travels to different cities. Now, with your
Speaker 1: daughter in college students, I do think that's a bit
Speaker 1: of a tricky area because college students, you know, they're
Speaker 1: sort of in the household, but they're not watching in
Speaker 1: the household. So maybe if they access this on a
Speaker 1: device that's an iPad or a tablet that they bring
Speaker 1: home once in a while and access that on their
Speaker 1: home Wi Fi network, they might allow them to continue sharing.
Speaker 1: But again, I would continue to it, doing it until.
Speaker 2: You can't anymore.
Speaker 1: But as we know, Netflix came down on this really fast,
Speaker 1: and it was very swift when they made that change.
Speaker 3: So thanks for the question, Jessica, appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Next up, June says, Hey, Rich, I volunteered to be
Speaker 1: the DJ for a party event, and I'm looking for
Speaker 1: a free software or an app I can assign a
Speaker 1: key on the keyboard that will play a sound effect,
Speaker 1: for example, a drum roll, a bell, ring, a gong, etc.
Speaker 1: I'm using a Mac I plan to use VLC media
Speaker 1: player and load all the sound effects and just double
Speaker 1: click to play them.
Speaker 2: But maybe you have a better suggestion. Thanks very much,
Speaker 2: Best June.
Speaker 3: June, great question.
Speaker 2: What you want is called a soundboard.
Speaker 1: This is something that many people in the audio industry
Speaker 1: are familiar with. It's what DJs use, it's what radio
Speaker 1: stations use. We use one here and it's just a
Speaker 1: great audio production thing to have. So it's a little
Speaker 1: piece of software that makes a board that almost looks
Speaker 1: like a bunch of squares. Each one of those squares
Speaker 1: is loaded up with a certain sound or maybe a song.
Speaker 1: And what's nice about these sound board applications is that
Speaker 1: they let you do different things. Not only can you
Speaker 1: trigger these sounds with different keystrokes and also external devices,
Speaker 1: but you can also do different things like start the
Speaker 1: sound but stop it immediately, or just solve it out
Speaker 1: or fade it in, or you can you know, rapid
Speaker 1: fire that sound.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of different options.
Speaker 1: So if you want the paid app that does this,
Speaker 1: the company I like that makes a lot of great
Speaker 1: little handy apps like this is called Rogue Amiba and
Speaker 1: their app is called Farrago fa r r Ago and
Speaker 1: that's going to be a really nice supported app, but
Speaker 1: it's gonna cost some money. You'll get a free trial,
Speaker 1: so I would say definitely try the free trial and
Speaker 1: see if it works for you.
Speaker 2: If you like it, you can pay for it.
Speaker 1: But as you know, there are always alternatives to everything.
Speaker 1: So the two alternatives I have not tested, but they
Speaker 1: are available for free.
Speaker 2: One is called.
Speaker 1: Sound show s o U n D Show sound Show
Speaker 1: and this is a free tool for Windows, Mac, Os, Linux,
Speaker 1: and Android.
Speaker 3: Now I say free.
Speaker 2: It is a name your own price download.
Speaker 1: So a lot of these independent developers will allow you
Speaker 1: to download stuff for free, but you know they ask, hey,
Speaker 1: do you mind paying just something? You can support them
Speaker 1: with any that you like, And that one seems to
Speaker 1: have all of the features that you need.
Speaker 2: And it does work with Mac.
Speaker 1: The other one is called soundplant soundplant dot.
Speaker 2: Org and again this is a free download. You can
Speaker 2: download it for free.
Speaker 1: It works on Mac and Windows, and it looks like
Speaker 1: it was last updated in April twenty twenty three, so
Speaker 1: it's pretty recent. But again, these are the type of
Speaker 1: apps that you need. So I just gave you three
Speaker 1: good examples.
Speaker 2: I think it's so fun to do this.
Speaker 1: I used to do this show that you're listening to
Speaker 1: off of a road mixer that had sort of a
Speaker 1: soundboard built into it. So I had a couple of
Speaker 1: if you ever listened to the show we're talking you know,
Speaker 1: four years ago, if you ever listened to my old
Speaker 1: old podcast. I used to have a couple of main things,
Speaker 1: like a ding that's right, just a couple of basic
Speaker 1: sounds that we would use.
Speaker 3: For our show.
Speaker 1: One of them actually drove people nuts, and whenever I
Speaker 1: did a question like this, like an email question, we
Speaker 1: would have the sound of a keyboard clocking, and it
Speaker 1: was very controversial. Some people loved it, and some people
Speaker 1: really were bothered by the fact that I would have
Speaker 1: that sound because it threw them off.
Speaker 2: Thanks for the question, June, appreciate it.
Speaker 1: E says, I have a couple of spectrum technicians over
Speaker 1: at my house and they mentioned something about a high
Speaker 1: split update.
Speaker 2: Do you happen to know anything about that?
Speaker 1: Had to look up the answer to this one because
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure what the high split update is,
Speaker 1: but E, the good news is it sounds like the
Speaker 1: internet in your area is about to get a whole
Speaker 1: lot faster. High split moves the return spectrum allocation higher
Speaker 1: to around two hundred and four megahertz, giving more bandwidth
Speaker 1: to the upstream for more speed. This is normally combined
Speaker 1: with the one point two gigahertz extended spectrum doxis for
Speaker 1: the downstream to offer much higher upstream and downstream data rates.
Speaker 2: So what does that all mean?
Speaker 1: In Layman's terms, It sounds like your internet is going
Speaker 1: to get faster in your area, especially the upstream, which
Speaker 1: means when you're uploading stuff back to the network that
Speaker 1: will be faster, and that's an important thing for a
Speaker 1: lot of people if they're working from home like myself,
Speaker 1: I'm always uploading large files and sending them to the cloud. Typically,
Speaker 1: when you're looking at Internet, they're only advertising the download speeds.
Speaker 1: That's important for most people, and they're usually pretty fast,
Speaker 1: but they kind of hide the upload speeds, especially with cable,
Speaker 1: because they're usually much slower. Fiber will typically have upload
Speaker 1: and download speeds that are similar or even the same,
Speaker 1: but with cable Internet typically the upload speed is much
Speaker 1: slower than the download speed. But starting April tenth, it's
Speaker 1: going to be a lot easier to see key details
Speaker 1: about an internet service provider's plan because they have to
Speaker 1: have a new label called Broadband Facts.
Speaker 2: Yes, it is modeled after Nutrition Facts.
Speaker 1: It tells you the name of the plan, how much
Speaker 1: it costs every month, including any introductory pricing plans, and
Speaker 1: also any monthly fees you might have to pay, any
Speaker 1: discounts you might be eligible for, plus the speeds provided
Speaker 1: with the plan upload, download, and the latency. They'll also
Speaker 1: tell you how much data you get included in your
Speaker 1: monthly pricing plan, and the network management policy, which is
Speaker 1: if they reserve the right to throttle you, and the
Speaker 1: privacy policy how they share all that information they are
Speaker 1: collecting on you. Again, this is mandated by the FCC.
Speaker 1: It starts on April tenth. You are listening to Rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro
Speaker 1: here hanging out with you talking technology at triple eight
Speaker 1: Rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. This is a show where
Speaker 1: I talk about the tech stuff I think you should
Speaker 1: know about. So you'll find that I don't talk about
Speaker 1: all the tech stuff. I don't answer all the tech questions.
Speaker 1: It's really consumer focused. It's the everyday user. If you're
Speaker 1: not a tech person, this show is perfect for you
Speaker 1: because it helps you understand what you're up against. So
Speaker 1: much technology in this world. I'm helping you understand it.
Speaker 1: You can find me on social media. I'm at rich
Speaker 1: on Tech on Instagram, where I hang out a lot.
Speaker 1: Facebook X. Let's go to Ellie. Ellie is in your Belinda, Ellie,
Speaker 1: You're on with Rich.
Speaker 4: Hi, Good afternoon, Rich. How are you?
Speaker 3: I am doing fantastic. How about you?
Speaker 4: So far, so good? But the day is young?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 15: I like that?
Speaker 3: Outlook? All right, what can I help you with?
Speaker 1: All Right?
Speaker 4: I have a problem. I live in a two story home,
Speaker 4: and I replaced my router that was provided by the
Speaker 4: cable company Spectrum because the signal was just interrupted. I
Speaker 4: also live next to the mountains. I live in the
Speaker 4: home of President Nixon the city.
Speaker 2: So I'm President Nixon's home.
Speaker 4: Yes, the library, and yes, yes he was born here.
Speaker 2: Correct, Oh my gosh, Okay, sweet.
Speaker 4: So I had an interruption the signal because I'm really
Speaker 4: close to the mountains and I have a two story property.
Speaker 4: So I replaced the router from the Spectrum company, the
Speaker 4: cable company, and I bought my own.
Speaker 3: Okay, and would you get I got.
Speaker 4: This one from this company called the l NKSYS link sys. Okay, yes,
Speaker 4: And it gave me two towers to put one in
Speaker 4: the you know, above and one below the levels, and
Speaker 4: I still get interruption, and so I'm wondering what I
Speaker 4: can do to change that because when my kids come
Speaker 4: over and they're using their WiFi and stuff like that,
Speaker 4: they don't get the signal. And I don't know what
Speaker 4: I can do to change that.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, what so number one, the mountains don't have
Speaker 1: anything to do with your signal, so that is not
Speaker 1: causing the issue. What's causing the issue is the material
Speaker 1: of this home. So I'm guessing this is an older
Speaker 1: home and it has probably thick walls that are really
Speaker 1: tough to get this signal through. That's what I'm guessing.
Speaker 1: It also sounds like it's pretty large if it is
Speaker 1: a former president's home, So that is the problem. You've
Speaker 1: got a lot of space and you've got a lot
Speaker 1: of challenges for a Wi Fi signal.
Speaker 4: That is being it was in the president's home. It's
Speaker 4: said he's the city, he was born here.
Speaker 2: Oh, he was born there.
Speaker 4: Okay, but it is an older home and there is
Speaker 4: a lot of bricks involved.
Speaker 2: Okay, there you go, that's the issue.
Speaker 3: Okay, Yes, that is the issue.
Speaker 1: So you you sort of halfway solve this issue by
Speaker 1: going with the Linksys system. It sounds like you have
Speaker 1: a mesh system, but that is what you need here,
Speaker 1: and you it sounds like you may need do you
Speaker 1: know how many square feet this house is?
Speaker 4: Well, the lot is is big, but the house itself
Speaker 4: is thirty two hundred square Okay.
Speaker 2: That's that's pretty large.
Speaker 1: So I would recommend are.
Speaker 2: You trying to get internet on the lot or just
Speaker 2: in the house.
Speaker 4: Well, I already have it in the house, but it's
Speaker 4: still an interruption, that's signal.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So here's what I would do. You need a mesh system,
Speaker 1: the system that you have already. I would go online
Speaker 1: and look up the name of it and see if
Speaker 1: it is a mesh system that you can expand with
Speaker 1: more what are called access points. Let me explain what
Speaker 1: a mesh system is. So typical internet you get from
Speaker 1: Spectrum is just a router that sits below your TV
Speaker 1: and it just stays there, and that's basically it. It sends
Speaker 1: out the signal. It does not reach very far because
Speaker 1: it's just the walls and everything else.
Speaker 2: Kind of mess with it.
Speaker 1: So what most people are upgrading now to these days
Speaker 1: is called a mesh system, and a mesh system is
Speaker 1: kind of like think about the home base under your
Speaker 1: TV sends out the signal to all these little access
Speaker 1: points around your house, and they all talk to each
Speaker 1: other to kind of make sure that the signal completely
Speaker 1: blankets every corner of your home. And with two of
Speaker 1: these and I'm not sure links is you know, I
Speaker 1: think the companies that I typically recommend for this are
Speaker 1: either ORB RBI or ero E E r O. Those
Speaker 1: are two of the best, and so I would look
Speaker 1: into maybe getting one of those systems. And you want
Speaker 1: probably three access points, so that would that would be
Speaker 1: three of these little devices that you would put around
Speaker 1: your house, and you know, I think that that's probably
Speaker 1: gonna solve. The other thing you can do if you
Speaker 1: really want to get this solved, is you know, you
Speaker 1: can hire someone to wire an Ethernet cable from the
Speaker 1: home base system, you know, buy your TV or wherever
Speaker 1: your your internet comes into your house, and then you
Speaker 1: can wire that to another room that is pretty far
Speaker 1: away and you can plug one of the access points
Speaker 1: into that and that way it's going to get a
Speaker 1: nice strong signal that is actually like a really good signal,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna put that out through your house as well,
Speaker 1: But that's gonna be a lot more expensive because you
Speaker 1: are getting someone to come to the house and drill
Speaker 1: and all that good stuff. So I would say you
Speaker 1: could probably solve this problem with a better mesh system
Speaker 1: that has three points to it. So again, look up
Speaker 1: and see if the mesh system that you have will
Speaker 1: allow a third access point. If it does, I would
Speaker 1: get that third access point, and I would also look
Speaker 1: at where you're placing these. So with Internet, you really
Speaker 1: want to place the main signal in kind of the
Speaker 1: center of the house and also up off the floor
Speaker 1: and not obstructed by anything. And then the other two
Speaker 1: you want to put in different areas that are not
Speaker 1: too far away but far enough where it can still
Speaker 1: get the signal and put it in that area of
Speaker 1: the house, but also reach the third one and put
Speaker 1: the signal there as well. So if they're unobstructed, that
Speaker 1: would be ideal. Like if it's up like a staircase
Speaker 1: that you can see something like that, that would be ideal.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Wi Fi is it's tricky. It's not the
Speaker 1: signal we are really stretching this signal to its maximum
Speaker 1: capacity at this point. It was really not intended to
Speaker 1: do all the things that we're doing with it. There
Speaker 1: is a new standard coming up called Wi Fi seven.
Speaker 1: It is very much emerging. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: need to upgrade to that just yet because a lot
Speaker 1: of devices don't take advantace that just yet. But a
Speaker 1: lot of these problems hopefully will be solved with Wi
Speaker 1: Fi seven that handles this stuff a little bit better.
Speaker 1: All right, Thanks for the question.
Speaker 2: Melody are Ellie and or Belinda.
Speaker 1: I thought it was odd that you lived in the
Speaker 1: President's house, but I get it orball innda okay president
Speaker 1: from there.
Speaker 2: I do have a warning though for you.
Speaker 1: If you got gift cards over the holidays, check the
Speaker 1: balance immediately. This happened to us and it's quite scary.
Speaker 1: It's happening to a lot of people based on the
Speaker 1: comments on my Instagram and Facebook page. But basically what
Speaker 1: happens is scam artists go to the stores, they write
Speaker 1: down the numbers from gift cards, so like somehow open
Speaker 1: up the back of them, write down the number, and
Speaker 1: then they'll record that number, keep it at home, and
Speaker 1: then I guess. They check on a daily basis to
Speaker 1: see if any money got charged up onto that card,
Speaker 1: and as soon as it does, they drain the funds.
Speaker 2: So what happens when you get gift cards? Right, you
Speaker 2: give them, you buy I'm.
Speaker 1: At the store, You hold on to them for a week,
Speaker 1: You give it to a person at a birthday party
Speaker 1: or the holidays, that person gets it, they hold on
Speaker 1: to it for a couple of weeks. So, as you
Speaker 1: can see, there's a lot of time here for the
Speaker 1: scam artists to do their work. And so I've noticed
Speaker 1: that a lot of registers they will look at the cards,
Speaker 1: they will visually inspect them to make sure that they
Speaker 1: have not been tampered with, but it doesn't always catch them.
Speaker 1: And so what you need to do if you have
Speaker 1: a gift card that you got over the holidays, Number one,
Speaker 1: check the balance and make sure that it is valid,
Speaker 1: because if it's not, the quicker you do this, the
Speaker 1: more of a chance you might have of recovering those funds.
Speaker 1: The problem is gift cards are pretty much treated as cash.
Speaker 1: But if you have the receipt and you've got your information,
Speaker 1: some people say they are successful in getting the money
Speaker 1: back but this is a very very big issue that
Speaker 1: again it happened to us, and you know, it's just
Speaker 1: one of those things.
Speaker 2: Where there are so many gift cards.
Speaker 1: Gift cards are almost their own currency, and it's just
Speaker 1: it's very simple for these scams artist to do this apparently,
Speaker 1: and people buy these carts. They don't look at the back,
Speaker 1: they don't notice that numbers are scratched off, and he reported,
Speaker 1: and they put the money on it and it's gone.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here talking technology, hanging out with you at
Speaker 1: Triple eight Rich one oh one eight eight eight seven.
Speaker 3: Four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Joining me now, Titanya Jordan, author and founder of Parenting
Speaker 1: in a Tech World and Bark Technology's Chief parent Officer.
Speaker 10: Welcome to the show, Titanya, Hi, thank you so much
Speaker 10: for having me.
Speaker 2: I should say, welcome back to the show. You were
Speaker 2: one of the early guests last year, so thanks for
Speaker 2: joining me again. Uh so you post all about child
Speaker 2: and teen safety online, So first off, tell me what
Speaker 2: Bark is all about, the company that you work for.
Speaker 10: Sure, So Bark launched the safest smartphone for kids within
Speaker 10: the past year, which is incredible and what's so incredible
Speaker 10: about it is that it has our tech baked into
Speaker 10: the smartphone. And so in twenty fifteen, Bark launched as
Speaker 10: an AI based software solution that alerted parents and caregivers
Speaker 10: to dangers happening in their children's social media, text and email.
Speaker 10: So we started with an app, and then we moved
Speaker 10: to a smartphone.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now, now when parents think about you know, like
Speaker 1: I get this question, like, how do I monitor what
Speaker 1: my kids are doing on their phone?
Speaker 2: Right? So what can Bark do?
Speaker 1: And I know with iOS and Android things are a
Speaker 1: little bit different, right, like what you can search and
Speaker 1: what you can just get? Can you explain the difference?
Speaker 1: Like what if a parent has if a kid has
Speaker 1: an iPhone, which of course a lot of kids want
Speaker 1: the iPhone?
Speaker 2: Like what can parents monitor on that?
Speaker 10: Ooh great question? So yeah, I will say, if you're
Speaker 10: listening to this and you have not yet bought your
Speaker 10: child a smartphone, please avoid the iPhone. That's the equivalent
Speaker 10: of giving your child a Ferrari when they turned sixteen
Speaker 10: instead of a very sensible Honda or Toyota. Apple is
Speaker 10: great for adults who need privacy, but it's very cumbersome
Speaker 10: for parents to try to manage that. Said, Bark can
Speaker 10: monitor your children's iPhones and iPads and Apple watches to
Speaker 10: an extent, whether it's text, message, email, social media, camera, roll, video,
Speaker 10: all kinds of things, we can monitor it. I will
Speaker 10: say one of the most popular apps that children eventually
Speaker 10: want is Snapchat, and Bark isn't able to really monitor
Speaker 10: Snapchat on an iPhone, not because of Bark's limitations, because
Speaker 10: Snapchat has decided it doesn't want to open its API
Speaker 10: to a platform that could help keep kids safer on
Speaker 10: the platform. The good news is that with Android phones
Speaker 10: and the Bark smartphone, we can connect to and monitor Snapchat,
Speaker 10: which is just one more reason why androids and the
Speaker 10: Bark phone are a better option for parents.
Speaker 1: My wife works with teens, and she was telling me
Speaker 1: that Snapchat is everything. I mean, text messaging is not
Speaker 1: even They don't even care anymore, Like I thought it
Speaker 1: was all about, you know, for adults, this whole blue, bubble,
Speaker 1: green bubble I message thing.
Speaker 2: But for teens it is all about Snapchat.
Speaker 1: And I think it's because of I'm guessing the fleeting
Speaker 1: nature of the chats, which.
Speaker 2: I'm laughing, but it's really serious.
Speaker 1: It's like they you know, they like it because things disappear, right,
Speaker 1: It's very serious.
Speaker 10: They do like it because things apparently disappear. But you know,
Speaker 10: one thing that we've really got to get across to
Speaker 10: everybody that uses tech is that anything you do online,
Speaker 10: even if the platform tells you it disappears, doesn't actually disappear.
Speaker 10: It lives on a server somewhere. You know, if you
Speaker 10: recycle your phone to get a new phone, like, there's
Speaker 10: still data that lives on that phone even if you
Speaker 10: wiped it clean. So it's important to get that message across. Also,
Speaker 10: you know, kids love Snapchat not only because it has
Speaker 10: purported disappearing messages, but it also has for my eyes only,
Speaker 10: so if a parent does go into the app to
Speaker 10: try to see what's going on, they might not be
Speaker 10: able to access certain things that the child has hidden
Speaker 10: in the my eyes Only vault. Snapchat also has snap maps,
Speaker 10: which essentially gives anyone that you're connected to your real
Speaker 10: time location, which is not a problem if your child
Speaker 10: is only connected to three of their friends that they
Speaker 10: know and who are good people. It's a bigger problem
Speaker 10: if your kid has two hundred contacts and they only
Speaker 10: know twenty of them.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an interesting one too.
Speaker 1: What do you think is the most pressing kind of
Speaker 1: situation affecting teens and children right now when it comes
Speaker 1: to technology?
Speaker 10: Ooh, that's uh, we need a lot more where we start.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right.
Speaker 10: Overall, it's the fact that parents and caregivers and ed
Speaker 10: and physicians and legislators currently cannot help protect kids digitally
Speaker 10: like they can in real life with seat belts and
Speaker 10: sunscreens and healthy diets, et cetera. There's a world of
Speaker 10: danger living deep in children's digital signal, and it is
Speaker 10: harming them, not at low rates, but at frequent rates.
Speaker 10: And it's the worst of the worst, whether it's exposure
Speaker 10: to extreme violence, graphic sexual content, suicidal ideation, disordered eating,
Speaker 10: you name it. Kids are encountering it at a much
Speaker 10: younger age, at a much more frequent rate, and parents who
Speaker 10: care about them have no idea. So that's that's the problem,
Speaker 10: and it's not getting better.
Speaker 1: Do we have a solution or do you know.
Speaker 2: What what is the solution?
Speaker 1: Because parents, you know, they want, like you said, we
Speaker 1: do all these things for our kids, you know, teach
Speaker 1: them how to you know, walk and ride their bikes safely,
Speaker 1: and all this stuff, But when it comes to the
Speaker 1: phones and tablets, most of the kids are actually more
Speaker 1: advanced than the parents.
Speaker 10: They are, and that's why it's a multifaceted approach. While
Speaker 10: the Bark app and the Bark smartphone are one key
Speaker 10: component to it right because at least we're giving you
Speaker 10: insights and helping you help your child have a healthier
Speaker 10: relationship with tech, it's not the total solution. It starts
Speaker 10: with education and awareness. As parents and caregivers, we need
Speaker 10: to know what is happening and the rate at which
Speaker 10: it's happening. We need to have multiple, candid conversations with
Speaker 10: our children much earlier than we might think, at a
Speaker 10: more frequent rate, because it's all about that relationship that
Speaker 10: you have with your child will help you navigate these
Speaker 10: rocky waters as they grow up. So using tech like Bark,
Speaker 10: having that conversation and those relationships, understanding you know, just
Speaker 10: the nuances, and then advocating for change. Right now, the
Speaker 10: laws aren't set up to protect children from the harms
Speaker 10: that social media causes them, and so reaching out to
Speaker 10: your local legislator to advocate for change and reform that
Speaker 10: will hold social media companies more accountable. I mean just
Speaker 10: over the past year, social media has generated over eleven
Speaker 10: billion dollars in revenue off of minors children under the
Speaker 10: age of eighteen, So they do not have a vested
Speaker 10: interest in minimizing the amount of time children are spending
Speaker 10: on their platforms.
Speaker 2: It starts with us, Wow, that's a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Okay, you posted something the other day about incognito mode.
Speaker 1: People think that they're protected or private. Tell me what
Speaker 1: we need to know about incognito mode.
Speaker 10: Essentially, children are using incognito mode because they think it's
Speaker 10: completely anonymous, when in fact, this goes back to the
Speaker 10: Snapchat conversation we just had that information lives somewhere. Just
Speaker 10: because your parent can't get on that computer and see
Speaker 10: your browser history. The internet service provider, the websites and
Speaker 10: apps that you visited, they know where you went, and
Speaker 10: if needed, that information can be shared with your parent
Speaker 10: or let's say, employer when you get older. So it's
Speaker 10: an important and misunderstood concept that does get abused. Certainly,
Speaker 10: it's a very cool aspect if you're trying to, you know,
Speaker 10: hide search history when you're trying to shop for a
Speaker 10: present for somebody, but it's obviously used for more nefarious purposes.
Speaker 1: What's your advice to parents about the safety tools that
Speaker 1: are built into some of these products?
Speaker 10: Oh my gosh, well cut me off at any time,
Speaker 10: but here we go, lightning round. Don't give your kid unfettered,
Speaker 10: unmonitored access to the internet. Keep connected tech and common
Speaker 10: areas at the home, not in their bedrooms. Don't let
Speaker 10: them access it overnight. Don't let your child have access
Speaker 10: to things that you have not spent time on yourself.
Speaker 10: Make sure that you just take a like one minute
Speaker 10: literally to google whatever your child can access, plus the
Speaker 10: term parental controls and see what free built in options
Speaker 10: you have right at your disposal that you might not
Speaker 10: even know about. And then finally, just talk to your kids.
Speaker 10: Let them know that they are loved unconditionally and they
Speaker 10: can talk to you about anything and you won't freak out.
Speaker 1: T Tanya Jordan, author and founder of Parenting in a
Speaker 1: Tech World and Bark Technologies Chief Parent Officer. Please follow
Speaker 1: Titanya on Instagram. T t a n Ia Jordan on Instagram.
Speaker 1: She posts great rules about all this stuff that you
Speaker 1: need to know. At least it'll get you thinking. At
Speaker 1: least it'll remind you that you have to do this stuff.
Speaker 1: I know it's tough as a parent, Believe me. It
Speaker 1: is so easy to hand our kids our phone or
Speaker 1: their phone or let them play these games for a
Speaker 1: half an hour, an hour and it just continues to
Speaker 1: go more. Rich On Tech, come in your way right
Speaker 1: after this. Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich Demiro
Speaker 1: here hanging out with you at Triple eight Rich one
Speaker 1: oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four
Speaker 1: one zero one h and also find me on Instagram
Speaker 1: at rich on Tech. That's where I hang out the most.
Speaker 1: You can check out my stories. Let's go to Terry
Speaker 1: in Seal Beach. Terry, you're on with Rich?
Speaker 5: Hi, Rich, how are you?
Speaker 2: I am doing fantastic.
Speaker 3: How are you well.
Speaker 6: I'm getting ready to go out of the country for
Speaker 6: a couple of weeks, and obviously I can't use an
Speaker 6: e SIM on my phone. I have to actually physically
Speaker 6: swap out sim through each country I go to. And
Speaker 6: I'm just wondering, is there a way, even if I'm
Speaker 6: using a foreign SIM that I can still text and
Speaker 6: receive in sentex the folks.
Speaker 2: Back here, is this an iPhone or a different type
Speaker 2: of phone?
Speaker 6: No, it's a it's a Google Pixel five A five G,
Speaker 6: which is not you know, I heard your recommendation a
Speaker 6: long time ago about using a SIMS. Unfortunately I can't
Speaker 6: use an SIM on this phone.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, that might have been before. Is that before
Speaker 1: the SIM started on those yes? Okay, all right, So
Speaker 1: you've got so you basically have a carrier here in
Speaker 1: the US, like a T Mobile, Verizon, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: and you're going to pop that SIM card out, and
Speaker 1: then you're going to pop in a SIM card for
Speaker 1: the country that you are in. Correct, Okay, your text
Speaker 1: messages from the other SIM will not still get delivered
Speaker 1: to that phone because they are dependent on that SIM card,
Speaker 1: and the I'm trying to think if there's a solution.
Speaker 1: The only solution I can think of is sometimes these
Speaker 1: carriers have an app, like a Verizon Messages or a
Speaker 1: T Mobile Digits that will deliver the messages digitally to
Speaker 1: your phone, But that is carrier dependent, and I don't
Speaker 1: know if you have the SIM card in there or
Speaker 1: out of there, if that would still work.
Speaker 3: Like, like, I.
Speaker 1: Want to be able to check my text messages on
Speaker 1: a different device, and it's really tricky to be able
Speaker 1: to do that. So I think It's one of those
Speaker 1: things where once that SIM card is out, it's just
Speaker 1: that those texts are not going to come through on there.
Speaker 6: Let me ask you this. I have a backup phone
Speaker 6: that I take with me because I learned the hard way.
Speaker 6: If you drop a phone on a remote island, Yeah,
Speaker 6: and it cracks, you're out of luck.
Speaker 18: Yep.
Speaker 6: But you can still use a backup phone via Wi Fi.
Speaker 6: So I was just wondering if I bring my backup
Speaker 6: phone with my US domestic SIM in it, will I
Speaker 6: be able to text by a Wi Fi?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah?
Speaker 3: Does that?
Speaker 2: Does that phone have Wi Fi calling on it?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, turn on the wife. So here's what you do.
Speaker 1: Turn on the Wi Fi call, put the take the
Speaker 1: SIM out, put it in that phone. It will activate.
Speaker 1: You know, usually it's pretty automatic. It just switches over
Speaker 1: if you if you pop the SIM in there, uh,
Speaker 1: it will activate. Once that's activated, your old phone will
Speaker 1: have no service, you know. Now you can use that
Speaker 1: on your trip. But this old phone, this other phone,
Speaker 1: you will turn on Wi Fi calling and then once
Speaker 1: you're over in the other country, just make sure your
Speaker 1: roaming is off and uh it as long as this
Speaker 1: carrier supports Wi Fi calling, your text will come through
Speaker 1: and your phone calls will come through on Wi Fi calling.
Speaker 2: Now here's the thing.
Speaker 1: I learned this actually from a friend when I was
Speaker 1: in Japan, because I had my phone off and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, yeah, I've got my I don't want
Speaker 1: to use my US carrier. He's like, dude, He's like,
Speaker 1: why don't you just turn on your Wi Fi calling.
Speaker 1: I said, well, text messages won't come through. He goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: they will, and sure enough they came through as soon
Speaker 1: as I activated that Wi Fi calling on that but
Speaker 1: kept the roaming off. So I want to report back though, Terry,
Speaker 1: when you get back, you got it all right, good luck,
Speaker 1: have fun. And it sounds like a nice place you're
Speaker 1: going to.
Speaker 6: If it's a it's called Fiji.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, well, enjoy Fiji.
Speaker 6: It's actually even warmer than southern California right now.
Speaker 1: I've had water from there and it's it's pretty tasty.
Speaker 1: So I imagine the whole island is even better. Thanks
Speaker 1: for the call today, triple eight rich one on one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: You know, the Fiji water is so good. Even my kids.
Speaker 1: My kids are nine to twelve, and even they know
Speaker 1: the quality of Fiji water. When they're in the store
Speaker 1: and I'm like, look, you can pick out any water
Speaker 1: bottle you want. They're like, Dad, we want Fiji. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what kind of kids am I raising that they're drinking
Speaker 1: Fiji water? When I was a kid, I drank out
Speaker 1: of the hose right and it was cold and delicious,
Speaker 1: And you know what Fiji water is very is very similar.
Speaker 2: I guess you know you find things at CS.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you a recommendation of a product that
Speaker 1: I really found there and I've been using ever since.
Speaker 1: It's called the Gator Grip. This thing is so simple,
Speaker 1: it's so easy. It's literally a almost like a clothes
Speaker 1: pin for your phone, and it has a very simple functionality.
Speaker 1: You put this thing on your phone and you can
Speaker 1: now prop up your phone so you can watch videos
Speaker 1: on it. It's like fifteen bucks rich on tech dot
Speaker 1: TV slash Shop if you want the link to that.
Speaker 1: I love when I find little things like this that
Speaker 1: I actually use.
Speaker 3: Triple A.
Speaker 2: Rich one on one is the phone number eight eight
Speaker 2: eight seven four.
Speaker 1: To two four one zero one. This is the show
Speaker 1: where I talk about the tech stuff I think you
Speaker 1: should know about. It's also the place where I answer
Speaker 1: your tech questions.
Speaker 2: Gina in Venice. You're on with Rich.
Speaker 19: So I'm wondering. I'm an Apple person, I have across
Speaker 19: the AU platform, and I'm wondering if there's a way
Speaker 19: to think applications that I have like to sink Gmail
Speaker 19: across all applications. So when I i'd wather it a
Speaker 19: message or email and on my iPhone and delete it,
Speaker 19: it's all also deleted on my Mac or my iPad
Speaker 19: or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: Yes, So there's a couple of ways you can do this.
Speaker 1: If you download, like specifically for Gmail, if you download
Speaker 1: the Gmail app, you can install that on your various devices,
Speaker 1: and if you delete a message on one device, whether
Speaker 1: it's the web, whether it's the iPhone, whether it's the iPad,
Speaker 1: it will delete on all the other devices as well,
Speaker 1: if you're using the Apple Mail app, as long as
Speaker 1: you set up the email using kind of like their flow,
Speaker 1: which if you haven't done this in a while, like
Speaker 1: if you set it up a long time ago, you
Speaker 1: might have. You might have set it up as what's
Speaker 1: called pop three. And if you're setting up is pop three,
Speaker 1: that means that the email is kind of downloaded to
Speaker 1: your device and everything happens locally, so you want to
Speaker 1: set it up as what's called imap imap, and when
Speaker 1: you make a change there, it is reflected on the server,
Speaker 1: which means it'll be reflected anywhere else. So if it's
Speaker 1: not deleting, Like let's say you've got the mail app
Speaker 1: on your phone, you delete an email from Gmail and
Speaker 1: it doesn't delete, then that means I would go in.
Speaker 1: I would delete my entire email account from the mail
Speaker 1: app and set it up fresh, and your your email
Speaker 1: will be safe because it's it's going to be on
Speaker 1: the server from Gmail. Yes, yeah, I think the Gmail
Speaker 1: app is the easiest way to go. That's what I
Speaker 1: use because it does work across everything.
Speaker 19: Perfect and I learned stuff. And I have one teenie quick.
Speaker 2: Question famous last words on this show, Gina.
Speaker 6: I know.
Speaker 19: When you click the box trust this device, yes, does it?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: You should only click that box when you are attaching
Speaker 1: the device a trust the device to your computer or
Speaker 1: like if you see that message when you are plugging
Speaker 1: into like an outlet at the airport, run as far
Speaker 1: as you can, because that is why they put that there.
Speaker 1: That is only for your phone to your computer, and
Speaker 1: that is because it means that you can transfer data
Speaker 1: between those two things. If you see that message anywhere else,
Speaker 1: if you're at a library, public computer, you do not
Speaker 1: want to do that.
Speaker 2: You don't want to trust that device.
Speaker 1: Your device can still charge off of that computer or
Speaker 1: that outlet, but it will not send data. So trust
Speaker 1: this device is Take that very seriously when you see it.
Speaker 1: That's there for a reason.
Speaker 19: All right, Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Rich.
Speaker 19: I really appreciate your program and all the information you provide.
Speaker 1: Well, Gina, I appreciate you listening. You are the best
Speaker 1: part of the show.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: Speaking of being out and about and traveling, if you're
Speaker 1: a nerd like me, the first thing you do when
Speaker 1: you get to any new place, whether it's a hotel
Speaker 1: room or or you know you're traveling in an airport,
Speaker 1: you want to download something. I'm always doing a speed test,
Speaker 1: so I wanted to share just the app that I
Speaker 1: really like that does this easily and fast, and I
Speaker 1: kind of like just the animations on it. It's called
Speaker 1: Meteor meteo R. It's available for iOS and Android and
Speaker 1: all you have to do is download the app and
Speaker 1: you'll see a big button that says speed test and
Speaker 1: you can do the speed test. And what I like
Speaker 1: about it is it shows you both the ping, the
Speaker 1: download and the upload, and when it's done with the test,
Speaker 1: it will actually show you some apps and how those
Speaker 1: apps are expected to perform.
Speaker 2: Based on this speed test. And the neat thing is.
Speaker 1: You can select the apps that you use the most,
Speaker 1: so you can see if the things that you do
Speaker 1: will work. Now, I will tell you, having done many
Speaker 1: many speed tests over the years, internet speeds out and
Speaker 1: about on cellular and Wi Fi have gotten way better
Speaker 1: than they ever have been.
Speaker 3: So I think for ninety nine percent of things you want.
Speaker 1: To do, you're going to find the speed that you
Speaker 1: need just about anywhere you are, unless you're trying to
Speaker 1: download a movie.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to another hour of Rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: This is the show where I talk about the tech
Speaker 1: stuff I think you should know about. It's also the
Speaker 1: place where I answer your questions about technology. My name
Speaker 1: is rich Demiro. The website for the show Richontech dot tv.
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with the show,
Speaker 1: you can tap the email icon that'll send a message
Speaker 1: right to my screen. And yes, you send a lot
Speaker 1: of them. Thank you for that. I do appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Let's get to the first question this hour. It comes
Speaker 1: from Chris. Chris says, Hey, Rich, I listened to your
Speaker 1: radio show on one oh four to three radio when
Speaker 1: I can in Caerville, Texas. I would like to buy
Speaker 1: my handicap brother and Android pad so he can play
Speaker 1: Solitaire and maybe a few other easy games. We would
Speaker 1: like him to also be able to get emails and
Speaker 1: so we can zoom with him. As the six siblings
Speaker 1: are scattered all over the country, I can't tell if
Speaker 1: any of the pads come with games. I really don't
Speaker 1: want to have to subscribe to anything at all possible.
Speaker 1: I think if he can download game apps from the internet,
Speaker 1: but once it's downloaded, will he need to be hooked
Speaker 1: to the.
Speaker 2: Internet to play?
Speaker 1: There are restrictions in the group home that he lives in.
Speaker 1: Thanks for any input you can offer, Chris.
Speaker 2: Well, Chris, it really depends on the game.
Speaker 1: So most of these tablets do not come with built
Speaker 1: in games. You may find that some of them do,
Speaker 1: but I think typically tablets just come kind of without
Speaker 1: anything installed on them, and you install the apps that
Speaker 1: you want, so you probably will need internet access at
Speaker 1: least for the initial setup. That's the way it works
Speaker 1: with most of the tablets that I've set up, and
Speaker 1: you'll probably need internet access at least to download the games.
Speaker 2: The first time.
Speaker 1: But if you search in Google Play, you will notice
Speaker 1: that some games are marked offline play. So if you
Speaker 1: go into Google Play, if you have an Android phone
Speaker 1: and just go ahead and search offline games, and you
Speaker 1: can search for that, and you will see a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of games come up. And if you tap into
Speaker 1: one of those games, it says about this game, and
Speaker 1: there's a couple of little kind of boxes underneath this
Speaker 1: one says Strategy Simulation Casual offline, So that tells you
Speaker 1: that this game works offline. It also tells you up
Speaker 1: at the top of the listing if it's available for phone,
Speaker 1: chromebook and tablet, and so you can see which games
Speaker 1: will work on the different devices.
Speaker 2: If you tap offline again, you can see a.
Speaker 1: Whole list of games that are offline games, and you'll
Speaker 1: find a whole bunch of them.
Speaker 2: That is probably the best way to do it.
Speaker 1: Set up the tablet, download the games at your place,
Speaker 1: and then hand it over to him. Now, when it
Speaker 1: comes to tablets, you didn't ask for any recommendations, but
Speaker 1: I'll give you a few that I like. I think
Speaker 1: it depends, of course, how much you want to spend.
Speaker 1: I know that the Amazon Fire tablets are always very inexpensive,
Speaker 1: and so people are drawn to them. The thing to
Speaker 1: know about that is that not every game, not every
Speaker 1: app is available, and you do not have access to
Speaker 1: Google Play, at least not easily on the Fire tablet.
Speaker 1: So if you want Google Play games, that's something that
Speaker 1: you would probably want a different tablet for.
Speaker 2: So what do I recommend?
Speaker 1: The one plus Pad is a really nice tablet that
Speaker 1: starts at four hundred and seventy nine dollars. It often
Speaker 1: goes on sale, so I would definitely look for that
Speaker 1: at a cheaper price. But that is a fantastic combination
Speaker 1: of really high end specs and a great price, so
Speaker 1: I do like that one. The other one, if you
Speaker 1: want to go on the cheaper end, is the Nokia
Speaker 1: T ten. Now, this is a small tablet, it's just
Speaker 1: about eight inches, but it's a very inexpensive price. So
Speaker 1: it's about one hundred and twenty nine ninety nine, and
Speaker 1: maybe you might even be able to find that one
Speaker 1: for cheaper. It doesn't have the best screen, it doesn't
Speaker 1: have the best specs, but I.
Speaker 3: Have tested this.
Speaker 2: It's easy to hold, it's fine for basic things.
Speaker 1: You know, some of the games might be a little
Speaker 1: sluggish on it, but that is another option. If you
Speaker 1: want something that's going to be the best combination of
Speaker 1: price and performance and features, I think you go with
Speaker 1: a Galaxy tab S nine FE and that starts at
Speaker 1: three hundred and eighty nine dollars.
Speaker 2: That is from Samsung. It is great. It's water resistant,
Speaker 2: it's dust resistant, it's.
Speaker 1: Got a nice big screen, it's got an spen included,
Speaker 1: it's got a nice long lasting battery. That is a
Speaker 1: really solid tablet. My only downside of that it is
Speaker 1: a little bit on the heavier side. But those are
Speaker 1: some great solutions. And thank you for listening in Texas.
Speaker 1: Next up, Tony says I have an iPhone fourteen plus
Speaker 1: limited warranty ending very soon. I currently pay fourteen dollars
Speaker 1: a month for Assurion with Verizon. At what point is
Speaker 1: insurance protection no longer worth it? And is there better
Speaker 1: insurance protection elsewhere? Thanks for all the wonderful information you provide, Tony.
Speaker 1: Oh no, Tony, you're gonna make me kick a bee's
Speaker 1: nest here with your question, I am probably.
Speaker 2: Gonna be very controversial in my answer, but I am.
Speaker 1: Not a huge fan of these extended warranty programs.
Speaker 3: I never have been.
Speaker 2: And I get it.
Speaker 3: Retailers, the carriers.
Speaker 1: The phone companies, they all make a lot of money
Speaker 1: off of this. What are they making money off of.
Speaker 1: They're making money off of fear. Fear that you're gonna
Speaker 1: drop your phone, and fear that you're gonna break your phone,
Speaker 1: and fear that you're gonna not have the money to
Speaker 1: replace it or repair it.
Speaker 2: But in many instances, and I will tell you this,
Speaker 2: I just don't.
Speaker 1: Think that the insurance is worth it. Let's just do
Speaker 1: simple math. So you're talking fourteen dollars a month times
Speaker 1: twelve months, that's one hundred and sixty eight dollars you're
Speaker 1: paying on top of your expensive smartphone. And by the way,
Speaker 1: that does not include any deductibles. And so when you
Speaker 1: go to get your screen repaired or if it's a
Speaker 1: bigger repair, it's gonna cost even more money. So now
Speaker 1: you're talking just for one year. Let's just say you're
Speaker 1: up to two hundred dollars. So how much would that repair.
Speaker 1: Be if you got one repair at full price and
Speaker 1: you went to someone in the mall that replaces the screen,
Speaker 1: or if you went to the Apple store and got
Speaker 1: the screen replaced, you know it might be cheaper than that.
Speaker 2: Let's see how much does Apple charge hold on?
Speaker 1: Okay, so checking the Apple Support website, it is to
Speaker 1: get a screen repair if you're out of warranty.
Speaker 2: Now keep in mind this is from Apple. They're going
Speaker 2: to charge the most.
Speaker 1: You can go to a third party repair facility that
Speaker 1: may charge less, but it's three hundred and twenty nine
Speaker 1: dollars if you have no coverage on your phone. Now,
Speaker 1: if you have an Apple Care Plus plan, it is
Speaker 1: twenty nine.
Speaker 2: Dollars to get that repair. That sounds a lot better.
Speaker 1: But how much is the Apple Care Plus Well, for
Speaker 1: two years, it is one hundred and seventy nine dollars,
Speaker 1: So do the math. Two years one hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: nine dollars plus the twenty nine. Now you're up to
Speaker 1: two hundred and ten dollars for that screen repair. So
Speaker 1: just under that three hundred and twenty nine dollars cost. Now,
Speaker 1: I will tell you I have tested hundreds of phones.
Speaker 2: Over the years okay, and I bring them everywhere.
Speaker 1: I have them in my car, they fall out of
Speaker 1: my pants pocket whatever. I have broken, maybe maybe two
Speaker 1: or three screens in my entire lifetime. Now, if you
Speaker 1: have a good case on your phone and a good
Speaker 1: screen protector on your phone, ninety nine percent of the
Speaker 1: time your phone is going to be protected anyway. And
Speaker 1: what does that leave Well, that leaves theft. So if
Speaker 1: your phone is stolen and you don't have it, now
Speaker 1: you're paying even more for.
Speaker 2: Your coverage for your insurance.
Speaker 1: So I feel like my advice is always to take
Speaker 1: that fourteen dollars a month, put it in a separate
Speaker 1: savings account, and before you know it, you will be
Speaker 1: self insured against anything that happens to your phone. And
Speaker 1: by the way, you may even save up enough money
Speaker 1: to buy a new phone completely.
Speaker 2: So that is my thought.
Speaker 1: If you feel better paying that fourteen dollars a month
Speaker 1: for that insurance plan, by all means, go ahead and
Speaker 1: do it. I'm just giving you my perspective on this,
Speaker 1: and I will tell you over the years I have
Speaker 1: had to you know, since I don't buy the Apple
Speaker 1: Care on my laptop computers either, I have had to
Speaker 1: repair my laptop computer twice, and both times the repair
Speaker 1: is worse. Six hundred dollars, which is a lot. Probably
Speaker 1: would have been cheaper with Apple Care, but that's twice
Speaker 1: in probably fifteen years that.
Speaker 2: I've had Mac.
Speaker 1: So you know, you got to do the math on
Speaker 1: these things. If you feel good having it, go ahead.
Speaker 1: But my feeling is that you're paying a lot for
Speaker 1: something that.
Speaker 2: You may not use.
Speaker 1: One more quick one here, Jennifer says, Hey, Rich, do
Speaker 1: you know if Amazon does anything with the how is
Speaker 1: your delivery responses after each delivery? I hope to reward
Speaker 1: the drivers who manage to deliver my packages to my
Speaker 1: door rather than to my neighbors. I've been diligently responding
Speaker 1: each time, but wonder if it's worth the effort. I'm
Speaker 1: a devoted follower. I've learned so much from you over
Speaker 1: the years. Thank you for providing interesting, useful information in
Speaker 1: easy to understand terms. Jennifer in Laguna Hills, California. Jennifer,
Speaker 1: thanks for the kind words. I did ask Amazon about
Speaker 1: this and they did say, long story short, this is
Speaker 1: a very important mechanism for our delivery service partners to assess.
Speaker 2: Their driver's performance.
Speaker 1: It's also the best way for customers to show their appreciation.
Speaker 1: So let your listener know that those responses are important
Speaker 1: and are linked to the driver who delivered their packages,
Speaker 1: not their neighbors.
Speaker 2: Well, there you go, Jennifer.
Speaker 1: It sounds like every time you leave a good review,
Speaker 1: it is doing good things for that driver.
Speaker 3: Keep them coming.
Speaker 1: My name is rich Dmiro.
Speaker 3: The website for the show.
Speaker 2: Rich on Tech dot TV more rich on Tech come
Speaker 2: your way.
Speaker 3: Right after this.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you, talking technology at Triple eight Rich one
Speaker 1: O one eighty eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. Marshall and Risita, you're on with Rich I.
Speaker 14: Shi in the Jersey It.
Speaker 2: Hey, how's it going.
Speaker 14: Hanging in there?
Speaker 20: I hope you doing on?
Speaker 14: I twitched over from that note twenty Ultra I had
Speaker 14: that you saw me and Amazon Fresh. I have a
Speaker 14: twenty four. I'm sorry I didn't know twenty Now we've
Speaker 14: got the twenty three, but you know that it doesn't
Speaker 14: have a standal my memory. I got a five twelve
Speaker 14: memory when I bought the phone. Because they doubled your memory.
Speaker 18: Tell them whoever you talk to the jam come to
Speaker 18: put the expandable memory back in because they did this
Speaker 18: back in the five or six senteries, and I don't
Speaker 18: know if you remember, Oh yeah, Marshall, they put it
Speaker 18: back in and on the seven or something like that
Speaker 18: because people can brained, yep.
Speaker 2: And then they took it away.
Speaker 3: Yeah, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: People love the expandable memory. But these phones are getting
Speaker 1: to the place where they have the phonemakers want no
Speaker 1: ports whatsoever.
Speaker 20: I need a good success from your part. I want
Speaker 20: a tangible thing. I could put it, take it like,
Speaker 20: you know, because if I put the micro c car
Speaker 20: once I filled it up, you know, I could take
Speaker 20: it out and put a fresh one in, sure, but
Speaker 20: take it with me and then.
Speaker 18: Whatever I want to do with that car.
Speaker 17: I don't want to put myself up in the cloud.
Speaker 20: I don't want to put it onto a laptop.
Speaker 17: And like I want something I could take and put
Speaker 17: into the you know, plug into the phone, download all
Speaker 17: the stuff from you know, the pictures and videos. However,
Speaker 17: I have put into something candile that I can put
Speaker 17: you know, Terry Ren with me because it's got five
Speaker 17: twelve told memory on it, so it probably needs to
Speaker 17: be considered something large to you know, you know, not
Speaker 17: physical arts, but like you know, data largs.
Speaker 3: That's what it is.
Speaker 1: Well, the good news is, look, the good news is
Speaker 1: with these phones with the USBC, you could plug any
Speaker 1: drive into them. Just get a hard drive if you
Speaker 1: want to do it that way, that's the cheapest. If
Speaker 1: you want something small, get a flash drive. And the
Speaker 1: phone actually has an app built in called my File.
Speaker 1: Let's see what it's called here files my files. So
Speaker 1: if you go into the my files app, if you
Speaker 1: plug in a hard drive or a flash drive, it's
Speaker 1: going to show up under storage and you could just
Speaker 1: go ahead and copy and paste all the stuff that
Speaker 1: you want from your phone into that drive. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's some apps that can help you do that
Speaker 1: as well, but it's it's built into the phone.
Speaker 2: It's very simple to do it that way. If you
Speaker 2: don't want to go to the cloud.
Speaker 1: The drives that I recommend, if you want to just
Speaker 1: get a regular hard drive, just go on Amazon search
Speaker 1: you know hard drive Western Digital and you can get
Speaker 1: like a probably a two terabyte drive for like sixty bucks.
Speaker 1: At this point. Make sure it's USBC. But if you
Speaker 1: want to get a flash drive, PNY has what's called
Speaker 1: the duo link and this is a USB three point
Speaker 1: two C drive USBC. Plug it into the bottom. They
Speaker 1: make it in one twenty eight gigabytes or two fifty six.
Speaker 1: One twenty eight gigabytes is twenty bucks. Two fifty six
Speaker 1: is twenty five dollars. That's that's a pretty good value
Speaker 1: if you want to get sand disk. They make some
Speaker 1: products that are USB flash drives under the I expand
Speaker 1: name and same thing. You can get these things very cheap.
Speaker 1: Just look for USBC there. They're kind of dropping the
Speaker 1: I expand. It looks like so it's uh. They call
Speaker 1: it the Ultra dual drive. Go and USBC. You can
Speaker 1: get it all the way up to a terabyte. Okay,
Speaker 1: so one terabyte is going to be one hundred and
Speaker 1: nine to ninety nine. You said your phone. I think
Speaker 1: you said it was two fifty six or five twelve
Speaker 1: thirty six ninety nine for a five hundred and twelve
Speaker 1: gigabyte drive flash drive. This thing is tiny. It's it'll
Speaker 1: fit on your keychain. So go ahead, you can get
Speaker 1: that and sync all of your photos, videos, files, whatever
Speaker 1: you want. Marshall, And yes, I remember you. We met
Speaker 1: outside the Amazon Fresh store and I think it was
Speaker 1: Woodland Hills. Maybe when it was first opening. You showed
Speaker 1: me your phone and you said, Rich, you made me
Speaker 1: get this. And when people say that to me, I'm
Speaker 1: always like hesitant. I'm like, do you like it? And
Speaker 1: you said yes, Thanks for the call today, eighty eight
Speaker 1: rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one.
Speaker 2: You can find me on social media.
Speaker 1: I'm at Rich on Tech on Instagram, Facebook X, all
Speaker 1: the places online, the website for the show rich on
Speaker 1: Tech dot TV. You can also watch the segments that
Speaker 1: I do for television there, and you know, just a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff you can do. Listen to the podcast.
Speaker 1: You can download this show later to listen again. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe you didn't catch something. You're like, what did Rich
Speaker 1: say about that? Let me listen to all three hours
Speaker 1: once again. Just search Rich on Tech in your favorite
Speaker 1: podcasting app or your favorite audio app.
Speaker 2: I should say, Katie is in.
Speaker 1: La Century City, Century City, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 21: If we change carriers on our cell phones from one
Speaker 21: to another, from AT and T to something else, can
Speaker 21: we keep our phone numbers the way they are?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: This is called yeah, This is called poorting out a
Speaker 1: phone number and basically all the cellular all the cellular
Speaker 1: companies use a system that allows them to grab the
Speaker 1: phone number from your old account bring it to the
Speaker 1: new account. Now, how easy that is can sometimes be
Speaker 1: a little tricky. So the thing you need to know
Speaker 1: about porting a phone number out number one, do not
Speaker 1: cancel your old service. That is the number one thing
Speaker 1: to know. So you need to have your old service active,
Speaker 1: and you have to also kind of set up that
Speaker 1: service for the port out, And with AT and T
Speaker 1: specifically you can Basically you need a pin you need
Speaker 1: your account, You need your account information very perfectly for
Speaker 1: the new carrier to be able to grab that phone number.
Speaker 1: And with AT and T you need to get a
Speaker 1: special pin code because phone numbers are our lives, and
Speaker 1: so you don't want to just be able to have
Speaker 1: a stranger take your phone number from you. And so
Speaker 1: these cellular carriers have gotten pretty like strict about porting out.
Speaker 1: They want to let you do it easily, but they
Speaker 1: also want to make sure you are who you say
Speaker 1: you are, and so you basically need to get a
Speaker 1: pin number with AT and T so that you can
Speaker 1: give that special pin number to the new provider and
Speaker 1: get them and that way they can grab that phone number.
Speaker 1: So on AT and T you can dial from your
Speaker 1: phone star Port p O R T and you can
Speaker 1: get a number transfer pin sent to you via your
Speaker 1: text message. You'll need your account passcode to generate that,
Speaker 1: so just keep in mind you will need some of
Speaker 1: that information. If you have the AT and T app,
Speaker 1: you can go into the people and Permissions and it
Speaker 1: says transfer port transfer phone number and you have to
Speaker 1: request a PIN there and it will display on the
Speaker 1: screen and that pin number is what's going to get
Speaker 1: that new carrier the ability to grab your phone number.
Speaker 1: So it's you know, porting is not tough, but you
Speaker 1: do need to have all of your information in a
Speaker 1: line and also some of these code numbers before you
Speaker 1: can allow that port to happen. And that's for a
Speaker 1: reason because again people do these things where they steal
Speaker 1: your number and then they can get your codes for
Speaker 1: logging into various websites, you know, the two factor authentication
Speaker 1: codes and or they you know, there's a lot they
Speaker 1: can do a lot of damage they can do. So
Speaker 1: that is the way to do it, Katie, And just yeah,
Speaker 1: make sure you don't and by the way, once you
Speaker 1: once that number is transferred to the new service, it's
Speaker 1: automatically canceled at your old provider. So once that number
Speaker 1: is pulled out of your account and you have it
Speaker 1: with your new service, your old service will be disconnected automatically.
Speaker 1: There's usually nothing you have to do after that. It
Speaker 1: should automatically disconnect. Thanks for the call, Katie. I'm glad
Speaker 1: you heard good things about me. You must have been
Speaker 1: talking to my family now.
Speaker 3: As you know, it is.
Speaker 1: My goal to make this show as useful as possible.
Speaker 1: That's why I do a mix of things. I talk
Speaker 1: about the tech stuff I think you should know about.
Speaker 1: That includes the news of the week. That includes reviews,
Speaker 1: that's tips, that's useful apps, And a big part of
Speaker 1: all of this is my website, rich on tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: You might know that I do have a job as
Speaker 1: a TV reporter in Los Angeles for ktlaight Channel five,
Speaker 1: So of course I have my articles on there as
Speaker 1: well on the website, and I have my TV segments.
Speaker 1: So if you go to the website rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot tv, not only can you follow me on social media.
Speaker 1: I'm on Twitter now X, I'm on Instagram, I'm on Facebook.
Speaker 1: You can find my email address there. You'll always see
Speaker 1: my latest story. Plus you can get my newsletter. I've
Speaker 1: been putting a lot of effort into my newsletter because
Speaker 1: that is kind.
Speaker 3: Of like this show. It's the best way to keep
Speaker 3: up with me.
Speaker 2: I will send out one to two emails per week.
Speaker 3: One of them is my main newsletter.
Speaker 2: One will be an audio version of this show, so
Speaker 2: that's nice and easy to listen to later.
Speaker 1: And get all the links to everything I mentioned. Plus,
Speaker 1: like I said, you could watch my latest TV segment.
Speaker 1: You can see links to all of the previous shows.
Speaker 1: So I've got all the episodes lined up in.
Speaker 2: A wiki for the radio show What's Going On?
Speaker 1: Rich tamiro here rich on Tech, Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1: Joining me now is Jose Brionez. He runs a website
Speaker 1: called Dumb phone Finder. He is a digital minimal Jose,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show.
Speaker 15: Thank you for having me. Rich.
Speaker 1: You embraced digital minimalism a couple of years ago.
Speaker 3: Tell me why and what that journey's been like.
Speaker 22: So for me, I think the idea is that I
Speaker 22: was spending too much time online and that's because I
Speaker 22: went from one environment to another. So I got out
Speaker 22: of college, I went to university, and I had a
Speaker 22: very structure life, going to school, going to work hours,
Speaker 22: and then going home. But then I went out of
Speaker 22: that structure life to the life that I had to
Speaker 22: build myself, and I found myself spending too much of
Speaker 22: that lifetime online.
Speaker 15: So when I got my first.
Speaker 22: Job, I was spending roughly about twelve to thirteen hours
Speaker 22: online work and leisure altogether, and I did not want
Speaker 22: to do that. So I started to find alternatives in
Speaker 22: my life that will allow me to live what I
Speaker 22: call a better life, a more balanced life, and interact
Speaker 22: with technology but not be overcome by it.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the first thing you did in this journey,
Speaker 1: I assume was get rid of the smartphone.
Speaker 3: What tell me about that aspect you switched.
Speaker 1: What did you try to do, Like, what was your
Speaker 1: goal in Did you try to reduce your time on
Speaker 1: the smartphone or just get rid of it all together?
Speaker 22: So I think at first I was trying to keep
Speaker 22: my smartphone and use the tools that are with it,
Speaker 22: so screen time or other you know, kind of like
Speaker 22: little hacks. But at some point in time I realized
Speaker 22: that I am not a smartphone person. If I have
Speaker 22: something available and I have the technology available to me.
Speaker 15: I want to use it. If I have a smartphone
Speaker 15: in my hands, I want.
Speaker 3: To use it.
Speaker 15: I want to get the most out of it.
Speaker 22: So taking that and going to a simpler phone at
Speaker 22: the time, I tried a Life phone too, which has
Speaker 22: been my device for the past four years, and it
Speaker 22: had enough.
Speaker 15: It had enough things that I liked.
Speaker 22: I liked the company, and it wasn't perfect, but it
Speaker 22: had the things that I wanted and appreciate it, and
Speaker 22: I started to look for alternative ways to do all
Speaker 22: of the other smart things that I had become accustomed to.
Speaker 1: And real quick I have tested the light phone. It's
Speaker 1: basically a Kindle like a Kindle screen on a phone.
Speaker 1: It's really small, it's very minimalistic. It's not a color
Speaker 1: screen as far as I know. The one I tested
Speaker 1: wasn't and it's very basic. I mean I had a
Speaker 1: couple of functions on it. I can't remember everything it did,
Speaker 1: but you know, you could text on it, you can
Speaker 1: make phone calls, and I believe Verizon for a while
Speaker 1: was allowing you to add it as a secondary line,
Speaker 1: so theoretically you could have your smartphone during the week
Speaker 1: and then your light phone on the weekends or nights
Speaker 1: when you go out to dinner. What has been the
Speaker 1: biggest challenge in transitioning away from a smartphone.
Speaker 22: I think the biggest challenge for me is that you
Speaker 22: have to relearn how to operate in the twenty first
Speaker 22: century but with twentieth century principles.
Speaker 15: So when you go to a.
Speaker 22: Restaurant and they have a QR code, you need to ask, hey,
Speaker 22: can I get a paper menu? Or when you go
Speaker 22: to the airport and instead of having the QR code
Speaker 22: ready for you to use and board your plane, you
Speaker 22: have to be mindful of printing it at home or
Speaker 22: going to the kiosk and talking to somebody so that
Speaker 22: you can get those things. And of course navigating that's
Speaker 22: a new thing, right Like you know GPS, so we
Speaker 22: don't have the bulky ones anymore, so you kind of
Speaker 22: have to go back a couple of years and say, Okay,
Speaker 22: I'm going to bring this bulky GPS on my car
Speaker 22: instead of having my phone with Android auto and everything
Speaker 22: really nicely laid out. It's difficult in the beginning because
Speaker 22: we're used to all of this convenience, but over time
Speaker 22: you start finding and you start asking more questions, and
Speaker 22: you find the alternatives that you need to find for
Speaker 22: the things that you need to do, and you live
Speaker 22: a normal life as normal as it is. It's definitely
Speaker 22: simpler and less convenient. But for me at least, it
Speaker 22: has been quite a improvement in my personal life, my relationships,
Speaker 22: and my work as well.
Speaker 2: What have the improvement's been.
Speaker 22: I think the main improvement is that I can have
Speaker 22: a conversation with my wife and not be distracted by
Speaker 22: the notifications on my phone because I'm not deeply attracted
Speaker 22: to it anymore.
Speaker 15: Even when we go on a trip.
Speaker 22: I do have a smartphone that I keep for international
Speaker 22: trips because when I'm international, I don't know the language,
Speaker 22: you know, I may not be able to figure it
Speaker 22: out all the things that I have figured out here
Speaker 22: in my local context. But even when we go international,
Speaker 22: I'm definitely more present, more available, you know. In my
Speaker 22: personal relationships, I can go to a place and not
Speaker 22: take my phone and I don't feel wow, oh my gosh,
Speaker 22: like what's going on in the world out there, because
Speaker 22: I get to cherish the experiences.
Speaker 15: When it comes to.
Speaker 22: Work, I finish work quite faster, you know, just because
Speaker 22: I don't have a lot of distractions pinging me or
Speaker 22: grabbing my attention. You kind of remain more focused in
Speaker 22: your work and you do it faster, and then you
Speaker 22: get more time for relaxation and other activities that I want.
Speaker 3: Do you ever feel like you're missing out?
Speaker 22: I do miss out, but I think that's a mindset
Speaker 22: that you have to accept. I did not start this
Speaker 22: in order to have the niceties of the twenty first
Speaker 22: century and the principles of the twentieth century and then
Speaker 22: you know, kind of like interact back and forth between them.
Speaker 22: I started this as a lifestyle change. I wanted my
Speaker 22: lifestyle to change. I wanted to start interacting more with
Speaker 22: print media. I wanted to kind of have a little
Speaker 22: bit more of a slower life. So, yes, I am
Speaker 22: missing out, but I'm okay with that. I have accepted that,
Speaker 22: and that's one of the hardest parts.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 22: I've missed out on a couple parties that my friends
Speaker 22: organized because I'm not in the group message or I
Speaker 22: don't have that app that everybody has. I missed out
Speaker 22: on quote unquote posts that are important. And one time
Speaker 22: I did miss out on some email communication that was
Speaker 22: pretty prompt. It wasn't a super emergency because This is
Speaker 22: something that I tell everybody. If it's a true emergency,
Speaker 22: somebody will find you somehow someway. They will call you,
Speaker 22: they will get your coworker, they will try to find
Speaker 22: your family member.
Speaker 15: Because when it's a real emergency, they will do that.
Speaker 3: You run a website called dumbphones dot org. Tell me
Speaker 3: about the website and what that helps people do.
Speaker 22: So about three years ago I started this website and
Speaker 22: the animus or the idea was to help people find
Speaker 22: their perfect phone.
Speaker 15: When people hear dumb phones, they usually.
Speaker 22: Think, oh, it's an old flip phone, it doesn't have
Speaker 22: any capabilities, but actually they do.
Speaker 15: It's just that, you know, it's not in the media
Speaker 15: as much.
Speaker 22: You don't get the shiny new announcement from Samsung or
Speaker 22: Apple out there. So if you go to the dumbphone Finder,
Speaker 22: you can find the perfect phone for you. So the
Speaker 22: website just runs different filters and you can explore it
Speaker 22: and it has a lot of other useful resources for
Speaker 22: people to start the journey.
Speaker 1: What's a dumb phone run these days? And do you
Speaker 1: have a top pick?
Speaker 15: Yes?
Speaker 22: I do have three top picks, and they all range
Speaker 22: from different price points. I think most people associate the
Speaker 22: sub one hundred dollars, but they can go all the
Speaker 22: way to three hundred dollars, like the light phone. You know,
Speaker 22: the light phone is more of a minimal device, you know,
Speaker 22: something that you really want for a lifestyle change.
Speaker 15: The CATS twenty two.
Speaker 22: Flip is more of the smarter device. You can still
Speaker 22: have apps and you know, all of the nice city
Speaker 22: and convenience of the world. That one runs you about
Speaker 22: seventy nine to one hundred dollars, depending on the condition.
Speaker 22: You can get them on Amazon. And then something more
Speaker 22: like in the middle will be a Nokia. You know,
Speaker 22: there's still Nokia devices out there. The twenty seven to
Speaker 22: eighty can run you eighty bucks or so, and there's
Speaker 22: everything in between. You know, different companies are coming out
Speaker 22: with different concepts, and I'm really excited about the space
Speaker 22: growing in the next few years.
Speaker 1: If I'm not ready to give up my smartphone and
Speaker 1: I'm not ready to get a dumb phone, give me
Speaker 1: a tip to sort of be more intentional and have
Speaker 1: less screen time.
Speaker 15: I'll give you two quick tips.
Speaker 22: The first one is give your screen time password to
Speaker 22: someone else. So that's one of the biggest things that
Speaker 22: has helped me whenever I go, you know, and I
Speaker 22: have to use my smartphone for whatever reason. My wife
Speaker 22: has set up the screen time passcode, so if I
Speaker 22: try to bypass it, I can't because I don't know
Speaker 22: the passcode, And if I really want to do it,
Speaker 22: I'll have to factor you reset, and I really doubt
Speaker 22: you're going to do that. The second one is find
Speaker 22: an app that works for you. There's one that is
Speaker 22: called unpluck with a queue or Brick, which is the
Speaker 22: Brick app.
Speaker 15: They both lock you down with physical devices.
Speaker 22: You tap the physical device and it blocks everything from
Speaker 22: your smartphone, and if you tap it again, you have
Speaker 22: access to it again, so you can leave it at home.
Speaker 22: You can have a relaxed day. You come back, you
Speaker 22: may not need to have to check email. You tap
Speaker 22: and then you have access to all of the things again.
Speaker 3: All right, Jose, this has been great.
Speaker 2: Tell folks how to find you online.
Speaker 22: So the best way is to go to the don't
Speaker 22: phone Finder Downphones dot org is my website where I
Speaker 22: run all the things for digital minimalism. I also have
Speaker 22: a personal website at Jose Brionez dot org and you
Speaker 22: can find email and different ways in there to contact me.
Speaker 1: My special thanks to Jose who really got me thinking.
Speaker 2: Could I even go a day without my smartphone? No email,
Speaker 2: no Instagram, no maps, no photos. I'm not sure I
Speaker 2: could do it. More rich on Tech coming your way
Speaker 2: right after this.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology.
Speaker 3: It is time for the feedback segment.
Speaker 1: These are the emails, the comments and the questions I
Speaker 1: get from you. If you'd like to submit yours, just
Speaker 1: go to the website richon Tech dot TV. First up
Speaker 1: is Gwendolyn. She says, Hi, Rich, I trusted the Mohu antenna, However.
Speaker 3: It didn't make a difference on my TV.
Speaker 1: I also talked to a representative as I went through
Speaker 1: his instructions, yet I was informed that I would have
Speaker 1: to pay return postage to return the antenna that was
Speaker 1: not explicit in the box or upon receiving my payment.
Speaker 1: I want my money that I paid for the antenna
Speaker 1: returned in full.
Speaker 3: Gwendolyn, I am sorry this happened to you.
Speaker 1: I love the Mohu antenna, but antennas are finicky. They
Speaker 1: don't always work, they don't always get every channel, depending
Speaker 1: on a wide variety of variables in your case doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like it worked out. But here is the lesson
Speaker 1: learned from this situation, and I do this myself anytime
Speaker 1: I shop at a store that is not Amazon. Amazon
Speaker 1: makes returns very simple and easy, but many other retailers don't,
Speaker 1: and so we've come to enjoy this Amazon return policy.
Speaker 3: But when you shop at a different store, it may
Speaker 3: be different.
Speaker 1: And so what I always do is before I shop anywhere,
Speaker 1: whether it is a bricks and mortar store or an
Speaker 1: online retailer that's not Amazon, I will always check to
Speaker 1: see what the return policy is. Sometimes you have to
Speaker 1: search in the tiny print down at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the website, but if I'm at a retail I will
Speaker 1: literally ask before the cashier rings me up. I will say, hey,
Speaker 1: what's your return policy, even if it's a storelike best
Speaker 1: Buy where I've purchased stuff before, because these retailers are
Speaker 1: changing things rapidly. So I'm sorry this didn't work out
Speaker 1: for you. I'm sorry that you lost some money on
Speaker 1: the transaction. But hopefully we can all use this as
Speaker 1: a learning process to remember to ask or to look
Speaker 1: for that return policy before we purchase from a website
Speaker 1: we are unfamiliar with.
Speaker 3: Thanks for the email Gwendolen.
Speaker 1: Next up, Tony says, just want to let you know
Speaker 1: Samsung is trying to pull a fast one. If you
Speaker 1: go to their website and search twenty twenty five, you'll
Speaker 1: see that their AI is free only until the end
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty five, but when you click on the
Speaker 1: actual S twenty four by page, it is not there.
Speaker 3: I just want to mention this to you.
Speaker 1: I heard only one tech YouTuber talking about this. I
Speaker 1: hope this cautions anyone looking to buy the S twenty four.
Speaker 1: I hope that Apple doesn't follow suit. Tony, thanks for this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did see something about this going around. So what
Speaker 1: you're talking about is the AI functionality on the Galaxy
Speaker 1: S twenty four, which Samsung has, you know, Live Translate,
Speaker 1: They've got the photo editing features, and I think what
Speaker 1: they're doing is just protecting themselves moving forward, so in
Speaker 1: case they want to end up charging for some of
Speaker 1: this functionality or limiting that functionality as we go down
Speaker 1: the line. But I don't think that's the case here
Speaker 1: because we just recently saw a rollout of a lot
Speaker 1: of these features on the S twenty three, and so
Speaker 1: you know, users of the older Samsung phones are now
Speaker 1: getting these great AI features for free. We're seeing Google
Speaker 1: do something similar. They said the Pixel eight wasn't going
Speaker 1: to get some of these AI features, and that's getting
Speaker 1: them now. So I think these companies are in a
Speaker 1: race with these AI features and they're becoming very competitive
Speaker 1: about it. So again, I think that Samsung just wants
Speaker 1: to kind of reserve the right to get rid of
Speaker 1: some of these eventually or change the way they offer them.
Speaker 1: But I don't really see that happening, because they said
Speaker 1: they want to get the AI features in the hands
Speaker 1: of over one hundred million Samsung users by the end
Speaker 1: of this year, so that's probably part of the plan.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the comment, Tony. Next up, Gary says changing
Speaker 1: my credit card number did not work for me. I
Speaker 1: did that with Bank of America and the bank had
Speaker 1: an unpublished policy of routing charges for subscriptions to the
Speaker 1: new number. I had to dispute it and change banks. Gary,
Speaker 1: this is an interesting one. So we were talking about
Speaker 1: this on the radio show a while back. But yes,
Speaker 1: this is when you have your card number hacked or
Speaker 1: changed and all of a sudden you notice your subscriptions
Speaker 1: continue to charge and I don't know what the back
Speaker 1: end system is, but somehow there's some level of trust
Speaker 1: between these major banks and reoccurring subscription retailers like a
Speaker 1: Disney Plus or an Apple Music or a Spotify. Somehow
Speaker 1: they actually just transfer those numbers over and your subscription.
Speaker 3: Doesn't miss a beat.
Speaker 1: Now that's convenient, but sometimes you want that fresh start,
Speaker 1: and you know, if your number gets compromised or if
Speaker 1: you switch cards, you're like, okay, fine, I won't have
Speaker 1: to deal with all these cancelations and changes. But then
Speaker 1: you realize, so I noticed, if you go inside your
Speaker 1: app on at least on some of them, it will
Speaker 1: give you a list of all of the recurring charges
Speaker 1: that are on your account, And I guess that's kind
Speaker 1: of the basis for what they end up sharing that
Speaker 1: number with. Next up, Christy says hi, I have never
Speaker 1: used rice to dry out any of my devices. Instead,
Speaker 1: I always save those little packets of silica gel that
Speaker 1: come in nearly everything and store them in a large
Speaker 1: sealed Mason jar. Whenever anything gets unexpectedly wet, I dry
Speaker 1: it off and stuff it into that jarro packets, and
Speaker 1: within twenty four hours at most it's dry.
Speaker 3: I've saved earbuds.
Speaker 1: That my husband has dropped in the pool more than once.
Speaker 1: Bonus keep the packets out of the landfill. Thanks Christy.
Speaker 1: Well that is a great idea. Wow, I never thought
Speaker 1: about doing that because we just tossed those little silica
Speaker 1: packets in the trash. Next up, Dan, this is a
Speaker 1: long one. Hi Rich, love the podcast. I've been listening
Speaker 1: since the first episode. Very helpful. I wanted to say
Speaker 1: that I agree with you when you said you kind
Speaker 1: of wish you had gone with an OLED TV. I
Speaker 1: had an eleven year old forty six inch Samsung led
Speaker 1: TV that went great.
Speaker 3: For Christmas, I bought a fifty five inch High Sense
Speaker 3: U eight K. I was really unhappy.
Speaker 1: Cable looked horrible in the morning, some channels, the people's
Speaker 1: lips looked purple. No amount of playing with the settings helped.
Speaker 1: I returned it and went with a Sony x nine
Speaker 1: to y L another LED. Things are slightly better, but
Speaker 1: not normal. Streaming looks good, but live TV is bad.
Speaker 1: I've learned my mistake with the High Sense. I was
Speaker 1: putting the brightness too high in trying to make live
Speaker 1: TV better. Keep the brightness way down helps. All right,
Speaker 1: I'm not good with Terminology, but OLED definitely has the
Speaker 1: best color.
Speaker 3: I would agree with that, Dan.
Speaker 1: I think that OLED overall has the best color my TV.
Speaker 1: I ended up going a little bit cheaper at the end,
Speaker 1: I was gonna go O LED. I went with LED
Speaker 1: Micro Led and at first we were really stunned at
Speaker 1: the picture, like it was vastly different than our old TV.
Speaker 1: But then after a couple of weeks we got used
Speaker 1: to it and now I've really grown to love.
Speaker 3: My new TV.
Speaker 1: And that says I teach at the high school level,
Speaker 1: and kids bully for everything, not just iPhones.
Speaker 3: All the anti bullying rhetoric does nothing.
Speaker 1: It's just so difficult to be around them as everything
Speaker 1: is driven by their social media and what others think
Speaker 1: of them.
Speaker 3: They are so addicted to their phones.
Speaker 1: That is all they think about constantly, and they cannot
Speaker 1: stop a net And I.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent believe this.
Speaker 1: I think that the phones are the most amazing thing
Speaker 1: ever invented, but at the same time, they are really
Speaker 1: not very good in a lot of situations. Kids are
Speaker 1: very much addicted to these things, so are adults. And
Speaker 1: you know, the tech companies and the social media companies,
Speaker 1: you know, it's in their best benefit to have us
Speaker 1: stare at these things as much as humanly possible. And
Speaker 1: then you add in all the challenges on TikTok and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and I agree. I think you're referring
Speaker 1: to the green versus blue bubble situation. But yeah, it's bad,
Speaker 1: and I don't know where we're going to go from here,
Speaker 1: Steven says, Hi, Rich, enjoy your show KFI on Saturdays.
Speaker 1: I'm a seventy three year old San Diego retired non
Speaker 1: techie but learning from you every time I listen. I
Speaker 1: will probably never afford to buy a new EV. I
Speaker 1: would especially worry about buying a used DV because of
Speaker 1: the concern of the expensive battery dying on me.
Speaker 3: That would be my luck.
Speaker 1: I would like you to consider having an EV car
Speaker 1: battery expert on your show explaining the pros and cons
Speaker 1: of buying a used EV, especially that.
Speaker 3: Used evs for sale will be increasing forward.
Speaker 1: As it stands now, the only car I would consider
Speaker 1: if I were in the market for a new car
Speaker 1: and I could afford it, would be a hybrids Steven, Steven,
Speaker 1: that's a great idea, because yes, we are going to
Speaker 1: start to see a lot of evs on the market
Speaker 1: that are used, and what is the deal with the battery.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure now I will tell you with mine.
Speaker 1: When I first got it, I was very concerned about
Speaker 1: the battery, and I actually purchased my car to not lease,
Speaker 1: so I was very concerned about the longevity of the battery.
Speaker 1: And now, of course I got lazy and I'm just
Speaker 1: charging it whenever I feel like it, with no real plan.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure what the effect is on my battery.
Speaker 1: I have noticed that it has gone down in mileage
Speaker 1: over the years, but I kind of feel like, you
Speaker 1: know what, I guess the next person is gonna have
Speaker 1: to deal with that, or hopefully one day I can
Speaker 1: give this car to my kid and he'll just have
Speaker 1: like a range of five miles on it. Well, if
Speaker 1: you can believe it, that's gonna do it. For this
Speaker 1: episode of the show. You can find links to everything
Speaker 1: I mentioned on my website. Just go to rich on
Speaker 1: tech dot tv. You can find me on social media.
Speaker 1: I am at rich on Tech. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening. There are so many ways you can spend
Speaker 1: your time.
Speaker 3: I do appreciate you spending it right here with me.
Speaker 3: Thanks to everyone who makes this show possible. My name
Speaker 3: is rich DeMuro. I will talk to rail sick