Speaker 1: A new search engine that you pay for. Microsoft Reveals
Speaker 1: Windows eleven. You can now test out the latest iPhone
Speaker 1: features if you dare plus your tech questions answered?
Speaker 2: What is going on?
Speaker 1: I'm Rich Dmiro and this is Rich on Tech, the
Speaker 1: podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think
Speaker 1: you should know about. It is also the place where
Speaker 1: I answer the questions you send me.
Speaker 2: My name is.
Speaker 1: Richdmiro once again, tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. Thanks so much for tuning in. Got a
Speaker 1: lot of folks listening today on Facebook. What do they
Speaker 1: call it? Live audio rooms? Live audio rooms? This is
Speaker 1: a new thing on Facebook. I've been testing out and
Speaker 1: it's pretty phenomenal. It's basically their version of clubhouse. But
Speaker 1: the reason why it's so cool for me personally is
Speaker 1: because I've got my following on Facebook and so the
Speaker 1: fact that they folks can just listen in, and not
Speaker 1: just listen in, but I can actually bring people on
Speaker 1: the show. So I don't know if I'm gonna dare
Speaker 1: do that this time, even though we've got let's see
Speaker 1: nine people that want to come on, But maybe I'll
Speaker 1: do it. If you have a tech question and you
Speaker 1: or you want to say hi, you know, just I
Speaker 1: guess invite yourself or raise your hand to speak, and
Speaker 1: I'll do that.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'll bring a couple of people on.
Speaker 1: So let's see, I'll I don't know, it's always nerve wracking,
Speaker 1: you know, to bring folks on, but I'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: Why not, Well, this is a big week in so
Speaker 1: many different ways. Number One went back to KTLA for
Speaker 1: the first time in like four hundred and seventy five
Speaker 1: days or something like that, so that was a big deal.
Speaker 1: So I've been reporting from the studio at KTLA in
Speaker 1: Hollywood again. I went home before that for like a week,
Speaker 1: and it was really cool to see my family hang out,
Speaker 1: brought all the kids, all that good stuff, and honestly,
Speaker 1: this was one of the best times that I've ever
Speaker 1: had at home. And I'm I don't know what the
Speaker 1: difference was. Well I think I do. So we stayed
Speaker 1: at a hotel for the first time ever. I've gone home
Speaker 1: now for you know, twenty years or something like that,
Speaker 1: to New Jersey and I've never stayed at a hotel
Speaker 1: except maybe once or twice when I was doing like
Speaker 1: workout there in New York City. But you know, for
Speaker 1: a personal trip, and we stayed in a hotel, my
Speaker 1: whole family. We had this great suite that was not fancy,
Speaker 1: believe me, not a fancy suite, just like one of
Speaker 1: those like you know, sweet hotels. And I'll give a
Speaker 1: shout out, why not Homewood Sweets.
Speaker 2: It was called. I loved it, So it was great.
Speaker 1: We had two rooms, like two bedrooms, so it was
Speaker 1: just it was just great. And I think that the
Speaker 1: difference was that there was like a lot of delineation
Speaker 1: between the family time and personal time and my family time,
Speaker 1: and it just you know, at the beginning of the
Speaker 1: day we had some time to go to the gym
Speaker 1: at the hotel. The end of the day, we had
Speaker 1: some time to decompress. So I think that made for
Speaker 1: like a much better trip. And it felt like a
Speaker 1: vacation versus like cramming in a family member's house, which
Speaker 1: is historically what I've done. So I thought it was great.
Speaker 1: It was one of the most relaxing and refreshing trips
Speaker 1: that I've ever had.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 1: I gotta say it was really really fun. And who
Speaker 1: would think New Jersey would be fun to go to
Speaker 1: on a vacation, But it totally was so New Jersey
Speaker 1: for the win. Let's see what else this week? KTLA
Speaker 1: celebrating thirty years. So thirty years of KTLA Morning News.
Speaker 1: I've been there for ten of those years. Can you
Speaker 1: believe it?
Speaker 2: I can't. So ten years.
Speaker 1: They did like this whole big thing where they profiled
Speaker 1: a bunch of the reporters, and you know, I barely
Speaker 1: made the cut, I'm sure, but they did a profile
Speaker 1: of me, So thank you, kati La. But I guess
Speaker 1: they felt obligated since I was They're like, well, he's
Speaker 1: been here kind of a long time, we should probably
Speaker 1: do something on him. So they did, and it was great,
Speaker 1: and I'm playing it down. It was. It's just fantastic,
Speaker 1: so many nice comments from people that watched, and it
Speaker 1: was just really really fun. So thank you KTLA for
Speaker 1: letting me be a part of TV history over the
Speaker 1: past ten years. Not me, but like you know, KTLA
Speaker 1: is TV history. It's it's a big historical TV station
Speaker 1: in America, and I'm so happy that I'm part of it.
Speaker 1: And I really do just going through like all the
Speaker 1: little file videos that they showed, it's just I've had
Speaker 1: so many opportunities in this job I've talked to so
Speaker 1: many amazing people, I've done so many amazing things, I've
Speaker 1: gone to so many amazing places, and it's just such
Speaker 1: a great spot that I landed upon, and I do
Speaker 1: not ever ever take it for granted. Ever, even when
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm like I could do other things
Speaker 1: in life, like I still think to myself that, like,
Speaker 1: this is still amazing. And I'm not planning on going
Speaker 1: anywhere anytime soon. Let's put it that way. It's a
Speaker 1: lot of work, Don't get me wrong. There's no simple
Speaker 1: way to do my job, and it's I make it
Speaker 1: look like it's effortless. That's the goal on TV. But
Speaker 1: believe you me, it is something that I think about
Speaker 1: twenty four to seven, how to do the best stories,
Speaker 1: how to present the best stuff, whether I'm doing a
Speaker 1: fair job, whether I'm doing a good job, And so
Speaker 1: believe me, that's never ever lost on me. And so
Speaker 1: that's that's that Facebook audio. Like I said, I'm on here,
Speaker 1: it's it's just such a cool feature that they have here.
Speaker 2: I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker 1: I would I My only thing is I wish that
Speaker 1: they had a way that they would let me like
Speaker 1: people could when they request to speak, people could like
Speaker 1: comment something. That would be the only thing that I
Speaker 1: would say that would be really cool for them to do,
Speaker 1: because otherwise I have no frame of reference, Like if
Speaker 1: all these people are, you know, wanting to speak, I
Speaker 1: don't know what they want to speak about. But we've
Speaker 1: got a lot of people in the front row on
Speaker 1: the podcast on a Facebook audio. Adam tab It, Sarath,
Speaker 1: San Megan Betty, thanks for joining, Thanks for thanks for
Speaker 1: being a.
Speaker 2: Part of this.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the first story of the week.
Speaker 1: This is really really interesting because we are so used
Speaker 1: to Google, We're so used to Google being free. But
Speaker 1: what about paying for a search engine and what about
Speaker 1: paying for a search engine that's more private and has
Speaker 1: no ads. That is the deal with Niva n ee Va,
Speaker 1: and I saw this, I immediately signed up. It's five
Speaker 1: dollars a month, but first three months are free, and
Speaker 1: then if you do some other things like take a
Speaker 1: tour of the website or whatever, you can get even
Speaker 1: more months for free. So I think I'm on like
Speaker 1: six months free right now. And they knew they were
Speaker 1: gonna do that. This is heavily funded by vcs, so
Speaker 1: they know that they're gonna they need a long runway
Speaker 1: for people to try something different, especially if they're gonna
Speaker 1: be paying for it down the road. This reminds me
Speaker 1: of like the Spotify's of the world. Any web service, basically,
Speaker 1: it always starts out very much reduced price or free,
Speaker 1: and then eventually, like I've said in previous podcasts, they
Speaker 1: kind of crank up the volume, right they say, Okay,
Speaker 1: now we're gonna make it paid just a little bit.
Speaker 1: So Niva, I will say out of the gate that
Speaker 1: I'm actually quite impressed with the search results. And usually
Speaker 1: with these third party random search engines that are not Google,
Speaker 1: I'm always like, eh, I just passed it off, like
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to mention names. But there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of them out there that people are starting
Speaker 1: to use because they're more private, and I try them
Speaker 1: for like thirty seconds and I say, Nope, just not
Speaker 1: gonna work.
Speaker 2: Niva.
Speaker 1: I actually did switch on my Chrome to use Neiva
Speaker 1: as the default, and I've got to say, so far,
Speaker 1: I haven't had a problem with the results. In fact,
Speaker 1: I really like how they present results because they do
Speaker 1: it in such a good way. I mean, I'm very
Speaker 1: very impressed with them, so I think the results are
Speaker 1: gonna get better. It's not an end all because there's
Speaker 1: still a lot of features on Google that are missing
Speaker 1: that I really enjoy, but I will say I think
Speaker 1: they're onto something I really really do. So it's ad free,
Speaker 1: it's private. They're tracking what you search, but only to
Speaker 1: make your search better. They're not sharing it with a
Speaker 1: million advertisers and a million third parties, which is really cool.
Speaker 1: If you want to turn off tracking completely, you can
Speaker 1: do that. They also let you customize various aspects, so
Speaker 1: if you want to see more of a particular news
Speaker 1: source and less of another one, you can do that,
Speaker 1: which Google lets you do to some extent, but they
Speaker 1: have a lot more. They've really thought of a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff. So the other thing that's kind of cool
Speaker 1: that I have not done yet is that you can
Speaker 1: connect Neva to third party services that you use like
Speaker 1: Google Drive or Microsoft or drop Box, and so when
Speaker 1: you search in this one search box, it brings up
Speaker 1: results from your emails and your Dropbox files and all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: I'm a little bit I'm a little bit hesitant.
Speaker 1: To do that because that means they have to index
Speaker 1: all of my emails and all of my other stuff
Speaker 1: and third parties, and I'm not really in my Google drive.
Speaker 2: I'm just not ready to give them that access just yet.
Speaker 2: Maybe be in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: But I will say I think they're onto something, and
Speaker 1: I think I don't think they're gonna give Google a
Speaker 1: run for the money immediately, but I do think they're
Speaker 1: gonna be a viable option. And a lot of people
Speaker 1: I hear over and over they say I'm willing to pay.
Speaker 1: I will pay for something if it's ad free or
Speaker 1: if it's better, or if it's premium. And then of
Speaker 1: course when push comes to shove, they're listening to Pandora
Speaker 1: for free at like fifty six kilobits per second.
Speaker 2: Sound I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if that's like the actually whatever
Speaker 1: it is, the you know, the sound quality. You know,
Speaker 1: now we're seeing all these streaming services go up and
Speaker 1: up with the sound quality. But you know, like anyway,
Speaker 1: bad joke, but NIVA check it out, n ee v A.
Speaker 1: I talked to the founder, one of the founders this week.
Speaker 1: I'll have a story on KTLA next week about it.
Speaker 1: But I have to say, I think they are definitely.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 1: I said onto something so many times, so I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think of a different word. But there's just something
Speaker 1: about it that is like it's really refreshing to like
Speaker 1: to type in here and all every time you type,
Speaker 1: it has like little things like in the search box,
Speaker 1: like right now it's saying no ads here. Another time
Speaker 1: it said like the right results, no distractions. Another time
Speaker 1: it said, let's see you're the trackers be gone. So
Speaker 1: I'm very very much is this is Let's put it
Speaker 1: this way. This is the longest I've ever spent with
Speaker 1: another search engine other than Google in about a decade,
Speaker 1: so that has got to be a good sign for NIVA.
Speaker 2: All right, let's get to the first question of the day.
Speaker 1: And yes, if you're listening on the Facebook, I am
Speaker 1: monitoring for some of the people requesting to speak. So
Speaker 1: I just know that if you, if I recognize you
Speaker 1: from my page, I'll probably be more more apt to
Speaker 1: bring you on because I trust you.
Speaker 2: Because I know, I know, I've seen.
Speaker 1: You around, so I know you that you're not just
Speaker 1: you know, just trying to get on for no reason.
Speaker 1: All right, first question of the week, Let's go here
Speaker 1: to Connie. Connie says Hey, Rich, I remember you mentioning
Speaker 1: at one point how to get oh do we have
Speaker 1: Robert on?
Speaker 2: Robert? You're on?
Speaker 3: Hi?
Speaker 2: Rich, Hey, how's it going good?
Speaker 3: I was just listening to your podcast on the way
Speaker 3: home from my doctor's appointment.
Speaker 2: Oh well, very good? Everything okay with the doctor, I hope. Yeah,
Speaker 2: look at the check it.
Speaker 1: Okay, very cool, very good. My last check up was virtual.
Speaker 1: I didn't even my doctor didn't even show up like
Speaker 1: he just they just did like a blood test.
Speaker 2: And that was it.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh, where's the doctor? Always working from home? Okay?
Speaker 3: Much better and using the time wisely. Now I could
Speaker 3: I could text in for our our email for prescriptions,
Speaker 3: refills and stuff.
Speaker 2: It's much smarter.
Speaker 1: One thing about coronavirus it is is fast forwarded technology.
Speaker 1: So in so many ways with all these businesses and
Speaker 1: doctors and everything, it's it's quite impressive in that aspect.
Speaker 1: Otherwise it's been horrible, but with the tech, with the
Speaker 1: tech adoption, it's been really good. So what do you
Speaker 1: think of this whole thing? What do you want to say?
Speaker 3: I think it's pretty cool. I heard you, yeah the
Speaker 3: other day on it and it was new and it
Speaker 3: was even new to you, so I knew that was something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, my goal is to really, I mean,
Speaker 1: my goal with this show has always been to do
Speaker 1: live calls, and so this is about the closest I
Speaker 1: think I'm getting to it with the easiest kind of solution.
Speaker 1: It's like, here's all my Facebook people that want to
Speaker 1: ask questions. I think the main thing is finding a
Speaker 1: time that I'm on every week so that people know
Speaker 1: they can come on and join, not just randomly, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Yes, I did.
Speaker 2: That's yeah.
Speaker 3: I heard you on the podcast asking for written evaluations
Speaker 3: and whatnot, and I just wanted to make the point
Speaker 3: to you that listen to your podcast. And then later
Speaker 3: in the day, my wife asked me a question and
Speaker 3: it's something you hit upon on your podcast, and I'll
Speaker 3: pull up the podcast for her to answer the question
Speaker 3: right away. So I just want to let you know
Speaker 3: that stuff you do talk about comes into our life
Speaker 3: and we appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Oh well, thank you, Robert, and I that is literally
Speaker 1: the goal. Like when I get these questions every day
Speaker 1: from people, and I don't answer all the questions that
Speaker 1: I get on the podcast, but when I get these questions,
Speaker 1: literally every question I choose is based on what am
Speaker 1: I hearing from friends. Who do I think will have
Speaker 1: the biggest you know which questions? Do I think we'll
Speaker 1: have the biggest impact on people? And a lot of
Speaker 1: times the people listening to the podcast are a little
Speaker 1: bit more tech savvy, but my hope is that the
Speaker 1: information trickles down to other folks as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm I'm not real tech savvy. I my last
Speaker 3: semester in high school was the first semester they offered
Speaker 3: a computer class. I never took any computer classes at all,
Speaker 3: but with your help, I've learned.
Speaker 2: A lot over the years. Awesome.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, Robert. I've definitely seen your messages on
Speaker 1: my Facebook page. I do appreciate it, and thanks for
Speaker 1: listening today.
Speaker 2: So very cool.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to that first question from Connie. Connie, hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: I remember you mentioning at one point how to get
Speaker 1: rid of the little dot light next to the phone
Speaker 1: battery percentage? Can you tell me how to take it off?
Speaker 1: Is it bad to keep it there? Sent from my iPhone? So,
Speaker 1: if you have an iPhone and you've updated to the
Speaker 1: recent software, what Connie is talking about is the little
Speaker 1: indicator light that's in the upper right hand corner. Whenever
Speaker 1: an app is using your microphone or your camera, you'll
Speaker 1: see that light up. And Connie, as far as I know,
Speaker 1: I don't believe there's a way to get rid of that.
Speaker 1: And I think that's actually something you don't want to
Speaker 1: get rid of because as I record this right now,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at my Facebook app on my iPhone and
Speaker 1: I see that there is an indicator light because it
Speaker 1: is using my microphone. And so that is a safety
Speaker 1: precaution that Apple has built into the phone. It lets
Speaker 1: you know, like if you happen to be using an
Speaker 1: app and you see or you're not using an app
Speaker 1: and you see that that's lit up, it would make
Speaker 1: you go, huh, that's odd. I'm not using my microphone
Speaker 1: right now, Why is something listening to me? So I
Speaker 1: think they did that also well, some of the fears
Speaker 1: about Facebook listening in when you didn't think it was listening,
Speaker 1: and so Apple is saying like, no, like here we're
Speaker 1: showing you when it's listening. So if you're not seeing that,
Speaker 1: then it's it's probably not listening. So, by the way,
Speaker 1: on the new version of Android, they're actually taking this
Speaker 1: a step further, and I hope Apple does this as well.
Speaker 1: They're putting in not just the indicator light, but they're
Speaker 1: putting in two global toggles. And those global toggles one
Speaker 1: is for the mic, one is for the camera. You
Speaker 1: toggle those switches on your phone, and its not I
Speaker 1: say switch, it's a it's a you know, it's not
Speaker 1: a physical thing. It's a it's a button, you know,
Speaker 1: like a virtual button on the screen. You tap that
Speaker 1: and your camera and your microphone one or the other
Speaker 1: are completely disabled. Like you cannot even use the camera
Speaker 1: on your smartphone if you disable that.
Speaker 2: Like if you, let's say you're in a really.
Speaker 1: Private place, or you you know, you're having a private
Speaker 1: conversation or whatever, or you just want some extra privacy,
Speaker 1: you toggle those two switches and boom, nothing can access
Speaker 1: those two things on your phone.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I know there's gonna be some conspiracy theorists that don't
Speaker 1: believe it, but I think that that is a very
Speaker 1: very cool feature that they're building into the UH to
Speaker 1: the Android twelve, and Apple of course is very I
Speaker 1: think has some of the best privacy features going on
Speaker 1: the UH on the phone.
Speaker 2: But that's a that's a good one on Android as well.
Speaker 2: All right, good question.
Speaker 1: So, by the way, I have an explainer video about
Speaker 1: the whole about the whole indicator light on my Instagram.
Speaker 1: If you go to my Instagram and click IGTV. By
Speaker 1: the way, I've never really done this on the website.
Speaker 1: If you go to instagram dot com slash rich on
Speaker 1: tech and then hit ig TV, you'll see like all
Speaker 1: of my Instagram TV videos, which is actually kind of
Speaker 1: cool because you.
Speaker 2: Can see them all lined up.
Speaker 1: It's uh and you can see all the titles, so
Speaker 1: you can, you know, just see if there's anything that
Speaker 1: interests you. And I mean I was looking at this
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, this is cool. I forgot that
Speaker 1: I did so many. So there is one that is
Speaker 1: labeled you can look at. The says here's what the
Speaker 1: new iPhone privacy dot means. And so that's the video
Speaker 1: that you want to look at. If I end up
Speaker 1: doing notes in the podcast, we can I'll put that
Speaker 1: in there.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Last week, I know I was off, but Windows eleven
Speaker 1: Microsoft showed off the new Windows eleven and I'll be honest,
Speaker 1: I get very excited about new software.
Speaker 2: I just do. I'm a nerd.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of built into my blood. I've always
Speaker 1: been the person that wants to update my software and
Speaker 1: wants to get new software, and it's just exciting.
Speaker 2: It's fun.
Speaker 1: It's something that's built into the fabric of kind of
Speaker 1: who I am, and if you're a tech nerd, I
Speaker 1: feel like that's kind of how you are as well.
Speaker 1: I have not played with Windows eleven yet, even though
Speaker 1: there is a public beta out there. I would not
Speaker 1: recommend installing it on your machine that you need to
Speaker 1: rely on, because betas are buggy. But let me just
Speaker 1: go over a couple of the top features. Simplified design
Speaker 1: Number one, new start button and taskbar. They move the
Speaker 1: start button in the taskbar to the middle. So that
Speaker 1: makes sense because you know, it's just kind of the
Speaker 1: screens are getting so big, so it's now in the center.
Speaker 1: It's got new snap layouts, snap groups, and desktop features
Speaker 1: to help you optimize like what's on your screen. And
Speaker 1: I do this all the time with my Mac. I
Speaker 1: have a program called what is it called. It's called Rectangle.
Speaker 1: I used to use one called Spectacle, then I used
Speaker 1: to use one called Cinch. I think so I love
Speaker 1: the idea of snapping windows to certain places, and Windows
Speaker 1: ten had like a way to snap windows into certain places,
Speaker 1: but now you're going to get many, many more options.
Speaker 1: And also it looks like the ability to save those
Speaker 1: layouts so that you can just kind of immediately snap
Speaker 1: your windows to places, and that's really handy. Microsoft Teams
Speaker 1: is now going to be built into Windows, which makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense now that we know that the
Speaker 1: you know, communication is so key and people working remotely.
Speaker 1: Teams was huge during the pandemic. Maybe not as big
Speaker 1: as Zoom, but definitely having it built into Window makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. And it's so funny because if
Speaker 1: I was saying this, you know, thirty years ago or
Speaker 1: twenty five whatever years ago, when the whole like Internet
Speaker 1: Explorer thing happened, when Microsoft got sued by the government
Speaker 1: for anti trust, it's so interesting because it seems like
Speaker 1: that would be the same by building teams into Windows.
Speaker 1: But now it's like everything has their own proprietary stuff
Speaker 1: built in, Like Android has Duo, you know, iPhone and
Speaker 1: iOS stuff has FaceTime, and now Windows has Teams.
Speaker 2: And I'm not a fan of that, honestly.
Speaker 1: I think that you should be able to install a
Speaker 1: program and set it as your default video chat and
Speaker 1: that should be the way all these systems are, but
Speaker 1: that's just not the reality. I mean maybe on Android,
Speaker 1: but not. I don't even know if you can do
Speaker 1: it on Android. But it's just, you know, these silos
Speaker 1: that they're building us in. And I like teams because
Speaker 1: it is good across all the different services. It does
Speaker 1: work Windows, Android iOS, but I'm not a big fan
Speaker 1: of companies building in their own technology because you know,
Speaker 1: then you're kind of limited hit people. The default is
Speaker 1: gonna be, oh, I can only use teams, but you know, anyway.
Speaker 2: What else, what else? What else? Android apps?
Speaker 1: You're gonna be able to run those on a Windows machine,
Speaker 1: which I can't imagine that's gonna be a good experience,
Speaker 1: but that'll be fine. It's there and new widgets, So
Speaker 1: who doesn't love widgets. I think that it's funny because
Speaker 1: Windows ten or I think it was ten had widgets
Speaker 1: but they were never used. Or maybe it was Windows seven,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but the Windows has had widgets in
Speaker 1: the past, they never took off. Widgets never really took
Speaker 1: off on Android in a meaningful way, and now even
Speaker 1: on my iPhone, I don't think the widgets are that fantastic,
Speaker 1: But I like widgets. I like seeing stuff when I
Speaker 1: do go to my desktop. It is kind of fun
Speaker 1: to see new information. So Windows eleven there is a
Speaker 1: public beta out now, but this all things point to
Speaker 1: an October launch for the actual Windows eleven update, which
Speaker 1: I'm sure during that time we'll hear all the people
Speaker 1: complain about how they don't want.
Speaker 2: To update because it's gonna mess up.
Speaker 1: What they're used to, all right, Sandra says, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: You've been so helpful with your wonderful reviews of the
Speaker 1: new tech stuff that's always appearing. Your advice is easy
Speaker 1: and pertains to the everyday user of technology.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I have a question regarding streaming iHeartRadio stations to my iPhone.
Speaker 1: I'm a big Dodger fan. I enjoy listening to the
Speaker 1: games of my twenty year old Walkman radio, but that's
Speaker 1: about to bite the dust. If I listen to the
Speaker 1: Dodgers on my iPhone while away from home, will use
Speaker 1: up the data that I have allotted for my iPhone
Speaker 1: Verizon plan I do not have unlimited.
Speaker 2: Thanks again, Sandy.
Speaker 1: Sandy, the answer is yes, it will definitely use your
Speaker 1: data unless you are on Wi Fi. So if you're
Speaker 1: on Wi Fi and you can find a Wi Fi network,
Speaker 1: you can log onto that and your iHeartRadio will come
Speaker 1: through there. But yes, iHeartRadio as an app. The way
Speaker 1: it works is that it does use the data from
Speaker 1: your phone, so your cellular data would be used in
Speaker 1: that instance. Now, if you want to keep it from
Speaker 1: using your cellular data, you can actually go into the
Speaker 1: settings on your iPhone and you can turn off cellular
Speaker 1: data for the iHeartRadio app and that will force it
Speaker 1: to never use cellular data. It will only work if
Speaker 1: you have Wi Fi, So that's a kind of an
Speaker 1: easy way to if you don't want to think about it.
Speaker 1: And if you happen to be in a Starbucks or
Speaker 1: in a place, or you're even in your house listening
Speaker 1: and you want to just make sure that you're only
Speaker 1: using your WiFi, you can do that. It's kind of
Speaker 1: an extreme measure, but it's definitely an option. Now there
Speaker 1: are radio station apps that you can get that do
Speaker 1: use an FM tuner on your phone, but in the
Speaker 1: US they are increasingly hard to come by. I know
Speaker 1: that TCL with their last phone, the TCL ten Pro,
Speaker 1: they did have it built in.
Speaker 2: It's a rarity, but if.
Speaker 1: You put the headphones in the phone, the headphone cord
Speaker 1: acts as an antenna which can actually pick up an
Speaker 1: FM radio station and it does not use your data.
Speaker 1: So that's another option on iPhone that's never possibility. It's
Speaker 1: just never existed, and it's even on Android phones. It's
Speaker 1: very hit or miss. Like Samsung, I know, has built
Speaker 1: the technology in there in the past, but a lot
Speaker 1: of the carriers have disabled it because guess what turns
Speaker 1: out this cell phone carriers want you to use their
Speaker 1: data because it costs you money. So that's, you know,
Speaker 1: just one of those things. But the radio app, I
Speaker 1: think it's called like ant an ant radio or.
Speaker 2: Something like that.
Speaker 1: So if you look it up you can see there's
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff written about it online that people
Speaker 1: talk about. But yeah, here in the US, not that popular.
Speaker 1: But there are some phones that actually lets you do it.
Speaker 2: It's just it's not always possible. So good question.
Speaker 1: And again this this question falls under the you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure if this is a stupid question,
Speaker 1: but you know what, it doesn't matter. There are no
Speaker 1: stupid questions here, so that's that's just that's kind of
Speaker 1: how I roll, you know. All right, let's see I
Speaker 1: brought on Fred. Let's see if Fred wants to come
Speaker 1: on and actually speak. But in the meantime, while he
Speaker 1: figures that out, let's talk about travel sites. This is
Speaker 1: a story I did on KTLA and you know traveling.
Speaker 2: I was, it's just clearly.
Speaker 1: People are traveling. I mean, believe me going to New Jersey.
Speaker 1: The when I went to New Jersey from LAX. I'm
Speaker 1: not kidding. I've had my routine down for years. You know,
Speaker 1: I travel a decent amount, and I'm not joking. We
Speaker 1: were running to basically make it to the gate because
Speaker 1: I well, Number one, I made a reservation at the
Speaker 1: wrong parking place, So that was that was fun. When
Speaker 1: I when I went in, it like didn't open, and
Speaker 1: I was like, that's weird. So turned out I made
Speaker 1: a reservation at the wrong place. That was my first mistake.
Speaker 1: Then I totally misjudged timing and how everyone is understaffed
Speaker 1: right now because they have not been able to staff
Speaker 1: up because they were operating at such a lesser extent
Speaker 1: ur in COVID, and all of a sudden everyone just
Speaker 1: started traveling and now it's like, oh, we need to
Speaker 1: get these people back here. And so you know, checking
Speaker 1: in luggage, all that stuff just took a really long time.
Speaker 1: But I will say the woman that checked me into
Speaker 1: the plane, the woman who scanned my boarding pass, did
Speaker 1: say she was a big fan, so that was that
Speaker 1: was nice.
Speaker 2: On the plane, I was like, do.
Speaker 1: Big fans get a big upgrade to first class? Turns
Speaker 1: out no, no upgrade to first class.
Speaker 2: That's you know, it's kind of funny.
Speaker 1: You always read these things to say, if you dress
Speaker 1: real nice at the airport and you walk up to
Speaker 1: the stand with confidence and you ask for a first
Speaker 1: class upgrade and you tell them you're on your honeymoon,
Speaker 1: you might just get it. That does not work. It
Speaker 1: has never worked. Maybe it worked like in the sixties,
Speaker 1: but are you kidding me? They have such sophisticated algorithms
Speaker 1: that determine who is going to get that upgrade to
Speaker 1: first class. And by the way, they have such good
Speaker 1: algorithms that it used to be, you know, you can
Speaker 1: get a first class upgrade, you know, days and weeks
Speaker 1: in advance. Now the algorithms are so smart that they
Speaker 1: try to sniff the money out of your pocket right
Speaker 1: up until like the moment that you walk on that plane.
Speaker 1: So a lot of times you can still purchase an
Speaker 1: upgrade to first class, like up until the last moment,
Speaker 1: and you might even bump someone out.
Speaker 2: That got a free upgrade.
Speaker 1: I've I've seen that happen, and so people have told
Speaker 1: me that. They said, ah, yeah, I had the upgrade,
Speaker 1: and I guess someone paid for it, so they you know,
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do. It's like anyway, I was
Speaker 1: in first class once I got an upgrade a long
Speaker 1: time ago.
Speaker 2: This one.
Speaker 1: I traveled a lot lot, so i'd like, you know,
Speaker 1: the automatic upgrades, and it didn't happen very often, but
Speaker 1: one time it didn't.
Speaker 2: They actually tapped me on the back and they said, ah,
Speaker 2: you gotta gotta head back to basic.
Speaker 1: Not basic economy. It was just a con you know,
Speaker 1: whatever it's called. But it was like it was like
Speaker 1: doing the Walk of shame because I had to go back.
Speaker 2: It was like romp rope.
Speaker 1: I brought my little drink with me, though I already
Speaker 1: had an orange juice I was working on, so yes,
Speaker 1: it was just orange juice all right. Trip it number
Speaker 1: one in my informal Twitter poll. Everyone loves trip it.
Speaker 1: I use to use trip it a lot back in
Speaker 1: the day when I traveled a ton. Then I kind
Speaker 1: of started using Google Travel or Google Trips because it
Speaker 1: would do a lot of the same things. But then
Speaker 1: as part of the story, I started testing trip it
Speaker 1: again and I found out that yeah, it does actually
Speaker 1: work really well, and to get the most out of it,
Speaker 1: you're gonna want to go pro for forty nine dollars
Speaker 1: a year. But check with your company because a lot
Speaker 1: of companies give it you for free, mine included, so
Speaker 1: definitely see if your company gives you trip it. The
Speaker 1: only thing I don't like about that, and this is
Speaker 1: probably why I stopped using it. All my personal trips
Speaker 1: were showing up on my corporate expense reports and stuff,
Speaker 1: and it was kind of odd that I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: why do they keep knowing about all these trips? And
Speaker 1: so you just have to there's a way to separate it,
Speaker 1: I think, But yeah, it was just kind of weird.
Speaker 1: Google Flights if you're looking for the best place to
Speaker 1: shop for flights, I truly think Google flights is the best.
Speaker 1: I love how you can put your dates into the calendar,
Speaker 1: or not even put dates in, just put your destination
Speaker 1: in and Google flight will show you the cheapest days
Speaker 1: to fly. They're highlighted in green, and then you can
Speaker 1: click those days. Typically what I do is I'll click
Speaker 1: the best cheapest days and I'll see if they're okay
Speaker 1: for my travel dates, and then I will look for
Speaker 1: the cheapest flights on those days, which Google also helps
Speaker 1: you identify. The other feature I really like is how
Speaker 1: you can track your flight prices, so you can pick
Speaker 1: your exact flight price or sorry, your exact flights, and
Speaker 1: you can hit track and Google will tell you when
Speaker 1: the prices go up or down. Now I will tell
Speaker 1: you a majority of the time.
Speaker 2: They go up.
Speaker 1: And this is why I always say, if you find
Speaker 1: a good price and it works for you, just book it.
Speaker 1: The trip that I've been tracking to New Jersey for
Speaker 1: later in the year was about two hundred dollars when
Speaker 1: I first started tracking it. Then it went up to
Speaker 1: two thirty now, then it went up to two fifty,
Speaker 1: and today it went up to six twenty seven. So
Speaker 1: these things, you know, if you keep keep an eye
Speaker 1: on them, they definitely go up in price. And it
Speaker 1: is it does pay to book when you see a
Speaker 1: price that you think is right. There's no right time
Speaker 1: to book. It just really has to do with the price.
Speaker 1: If you fly home to New Jersey all the time,
Speaker 1: like I do. I know the average price is about
Speaker 1: three hundred dollars. And so if I see a price
Speaker 1: at two twenty or two oh seven, like I have
Speaker 1: enduring coronavirus, you know I should have booked those prices.
Speaker 1: Now they're going up to regular prices three fifty four hundred,
Speaker 1: and if you're looking at the week before, it's like
Speaker 1: game over, they could be really really high.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: Flight Aware this is a website that helps you track
Speaker 1: your flights, and one feature I just really like about
Speaker 1: it is the get Notifications. So if you have a
Speaker 1: person that's picking you up at the airport, or you
Speaker 1: just want to get updates, or you want to send
Speaker 1: updates to a family member or a friend or whatever,
Speaker 1: you pop in your flight number and look for the
Speaker 1: get notifications banner in the upper right hand corner, and
Speaker 1: then you put in your friend's email address, and they
Speaker 1: will get updates when your flight takes off, when it lands,
Speaker 1: if it's delayed, if it's diverted, whatever, it's canceled. And
Speaker 1: believe me, I've had every single one of those things
Speaker 1: happen to me. I've had flights canceled I've had flights delayed.
Speaker 1: I've been diverted several times. One year, I think I
Speaker 1: had two emergency landings in different places. Thankfully, it wasn't
Speaker 1: the plane that was the problem, it was people on
Speaker 1: the plane. I actually I shouldn't say thankfully.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: In two cases it was very scary. You know where
Speaker 1: they say is there a doctor on board? And when
Speaker 1: you hear those words on a plane, it is it
Speaker 1: is very wow, like wait, what, uh? Okay, my next.
Speaker 1: This is probably my biggest travel tip. And maybe I'm
Speaker 1: spending too much time on this, but Google things to do.
Speaker 1: I know it sounds like I just love Google, but
Speaker 1: I do. Some of these things are really cool. But
Speaker 1: this is my biggest I didn't want to share this
Speaker 1: secret on TV because I just think it's so fantastic
Speaker 1: that I wanted to keep it all to myself. But
Speaker 1: if you search the name of a city on Google Plus,
Speaker 1: the words top sits, So this works no matter where
Speaker 1: you are. It doesn't have to be a big city.
Speaker 1: It can be a small city, it can be a state,
Speaker 1: it can be anything. So you can type in California
Speaker 1: top sites, you can type Los Angeles top Site. You
Speaker 1: can type Malibu top sites. Let me see, can you
Speaker 1: Malibu top? Oh see, I'm using Neiva, so I have
Speaker 1: to switch to They have a feature on there, so
Speaker 1: they do. But let me go to Google and just
Speaker 1: type in Malibu top sites, and sure enough, here it is.
Speaker 1: Top site in Malibu is Point Doom, then el Maattotor Beach,
Speaker 1: and then Zooma Beach, which is one of my favorites.
Speaker 1: So you can also narrow down by kid friendly outdoors, museums, beaches.
Speaker 1: It's fantastic. It is absolutely my best kept secret for travel.
Speaker 1: Type in any city and just top sites and you
Speaker 1: will find the best things to do in that place.
Speaker 1: And they're not always like a paid thing, and they're not.
Speaker 2: Edited by a curator or whatever.
Speaker 1: It's just Google using Google's knowledge to kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: figure out what people are clicking on, what has the
Speaker 1: most websites directed to it. All that good stuff, all right,
Speaker 1: Moving through uproad. This is an app that replaces toll transponders.
Speaker 1: When I first talked about this on KTLA, everyone poop
Speaker 1: pooed me. Oh, Rich, come on, come on, come on.
Speaker 1: It's such a cool idea. I just wished it worked
Speaker 1: for rental cars. But if you Uproad continues to expand
Speaker 1: the amount of roads that it works on nationwide, So
Speaker 1: if you have this app installed in your phone, you
Speaker 1: basically can use easy Pass in a lot of different places.
Speaker 1: Of course, check to see if it works on the
Speaker 1: roads that you're going to be going on before you go.
Speaker 1: There are some convenience fees involved with it, but it
Speaker 1: is pretty cool. And finally, this is something I didn't
Speaker 1: get to check out personally, but I thought it sounded
Speaker 1: pretty cool. It's called Hotels by Day and this lets
Speaker 1: you rent a hotel room by the day or just
Speaker 1: like a hotel pool, so if you want to just
Speaker 1: hang out by the pool, lounge around. You can rent
Speaker 1: these rooms in blocks of three to twelve hours. And
Speaker 1: right now they have two thousand properties. They say there
Speaker 1: should be sixty.
Speaker 2: Five hundred on board by the end of the year.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Next question comes from row heat. He says, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: I love your Facebook feeds. Can you please suggest a
Speaker 1: video editor, a free and a premium version. Well, rohe,
Speaker 1: my favorite video editor is Adobe Rush and it is
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily free. I think some parts of it
Speaker 1: are free, but if you really want to get the
Speaker 1: most use out of it, you have to pay ten
Speaker 1: dollars a month, but I'll be honest, I've been using
Speaker 1: it without paying and it seems to still work. So
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's like premium features that I
Speaker 1: don't get. I know it says every time, hey upgrade
Speaker 1: for four K, but honestly, I don't need four K
Speaker 1: for my social media stuff, so I've been I mean,
Speaker 1: that app is just is just amazing. I absolutely love it.
Speaker 1: It is so good, it's so easy, it's it's simple,
Speaker 1: and even if you even if you do have to
Speaker 1: pay ten dollars a month, which you don't have to,
Speaker 1: you can try a free trial of it, and you know,
Speaker 1: it might it might beg you to kind of or
Speaker 1: nag you to, you know, continue subscribing. But I think
Speaker 1: once I canceled, I'm still using it. It's on my phone,
Speaker 1: it still works, and maybe maybe there's certain features I
Speaker 1: can't use, but it seems like it works pretty well,
Speaker 1: and so that is my favorite. Otherwise, I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't really have another option. I mean, I use Final
Speaker 1: Cut Pro as my desktop editor.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 1: You can also get iMovie on the iPhone. He sent
Speaker 1: sent his email from the iPhone, so you can get iMovie.
Speaker 1: There's something called clips Apple Clips which you can use.
Speaker 1: There's also Majesto m A g I t O. You
Speaker 1: can also use Google Photos to edit. They have some
Speaker 1: photo video editing features built into that. But my overall
Speaker 1: favorite is definitely Adobe Rush. It is phenomenal and that
Speaker 1: is that is what I'd recommend using. So good question,
Speaker 1: good question, good question.
Speaker 2: All right, if you.
Speaker 1: Use venmou, this is Oh my gosh, it's so again.
Speaker 1: This goes back into the thing of when these sites
Speaker 1: start out, all these tech startups. Venmo, good example, how
Speaker 1: in the world does venmo make money. They don't charge
Speaker 1: you anything to send money to your friends. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: charge little things like to you know, if you want
Speaker 1: your money out instantly and show up in your bank account.
Speaker 1: And yes, they might make a percentage on all the
Speaker 1: money that people keep in there in their bank accounts
Speaker 1: or their accounts rather, and they might make interest on
Speaker 1: that money.
Speaker 2: I guess they call that word float.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm not a financial expert, so maybe that's not
Speaker 1: what it's called, but you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 1: if I keep one thousand dollars in my Venmo for
Speaker 1: a month, someone's making some interest on that money because
Speaker 1: someone else is putting that money to good use, not me.
Speaker 1: It's just sitting there. At the end of a month,
Speaker 1: it's still a thousand dollars. But if you keep a
Speaker 1: thousand bucks in a savings account at your bank, at
Speaker 1: the end of a month, you might have one thousand
Speaker 1: dollars and three cents because there's not much interest they're
Speaker 1: paying anymore on these accounts.
Speaker 2: So with that said, Venmo is going.
Speaker 1: To start charging a fee for people that use it
Speaker 1: as a business transaction. Venmo was created for person to
Speaker 1: person payments and it has worked very.
Speaker 2: Well for that. But guess what.
Speaker 1: A lot of business people have, especially independent contract have
Speaker 1: become hip to the fact that if I pay you
Speaker 1: via Venmo, you get the full amount and it kind
Speaker 1: of goes under the table. And Venmo knows this. They're
Speaker 1: not dumb and so but of course Venmo wants to
Speaker 1: They want to make as much money as possible because
Speaker 1: they're part of PayPal. And guess what, when everyone was
Speaker 1: using PayPal back in the day to pay each other,
Speaker 1: it was the same thing. Soon as you're identified as
Speaker 1: a business, next thing you know, you got charged fees
Speaker 1: on your account. And now Venmo all the people flock
Speaker 1: to Venmo to use it for free, and guess what,
Speaker 1: same company and same issue, and now Venmo saying we're
Speaker 1: gonna do the same thing. So according to recode on vox,
Speaker 1: one point nine percent of the transaction plus ten cents
Speaker 1: from the money that is sent to the seller. But
Speaker 1: here's how they're making it legitimatized. Is that the word
Speaker 1: they're saying that once you do this, you'll be eligible
Speaker 1: for Venmo's purchase protection program, which does make a little
Speaker 1: bit of sense, because if there's a problem with a
Speaker 1: business transaction and you do it through Venmo, you have
Speaker 1: no recourse because guess what, you bought something from someone online,
Speaker 1: You sent them money via Venmo and they don't ever
Speaker 1: send you the gadget or the product or whatever. And
Speaker 1: you go, oh, what's my recourse and they say, I
Speaker 1: don't know. You just sent me twenty bucks for sushi.
Speaker 1: That's what it's said on your Venmo And so how
Speaker 1: do you, you know, have any recourse when this was
Speaker 1: not a legitimate quote unquote business transaction. So that's what
Speaker 1: their argument is, and I do see a side of that.
Speaker 1: As people use Venmo, you can get scammed by Venmo.
Speaker 1: So it could actually protect you in certain ways because
Speaker 1: people have to register as a seller. I'm just giving
Speaker 1: you both sides. I'm not saying you know one way
Speaker 1: or the other. But you know, look, I ran a
Speaker 1: business when I sold my book, and it is expensive
Speaker 1: to have a business. I have an LLC for that,
Speaker 1: and it's it's expensive every year in California. You got
Speaker 1: to pay eight hundred dollars just to have that. My
Speaker 1: taxes are more expensive because I got to pay for
Speaker 1: you know, a schedule. I think they used to call
Speaker 1: it schedule. See now I think it's just whatever they built.
Speaker 1: I don't know. My point is, if you're running a business,
Speaker 1: there are fees associated with running that business, and not
Speaker 1: all of them are exciting to pay. And believe me,
Speaker 1: when I was doing when I was selling my book
Speaker 1: and I sold it in person the way I personally
Speaker 1: felt would I would say, if you wanted, I'd accepted Square,
Speaker 1: right that little thing where you swipe the credit card
Speaker 1: when I do like speaking things, people would come up
Speaker 1: at the end and buy my book.
Speaker 2: And so I was so happy.
Speaker 1: To pay the three percent or whatever it was on
Speaker 1: top of the fee to sell my book through Square
Speaker 1: or when I sold it on Amazon, it was like,
Speaker 1: I think they took thirty or forty percent of a
Speaker 1: profit or whatever a rake because of all the stuff
Speaker 1: that they'd let me.
Speaker 2: Do on there. And I was so happy to pay,
Speaker 2: even though I saw these huge.
Speaker 1: Numbers going by my eyes, going, oh my gosh, look
Speaker 1: how much money I paid to Amazon this month, or
Speaker 1: look how much I paid to Square in a lesser extent,
Speaker 1: but I was so happy to do it because guess what,
Speaker 1: I was making money at the same time. And so
Speaker 1: my feeling as a business person and this is just
Speaker 1: my feeling, and I get it. Business people you can
Speaker 1: argue with me, but it's like there is a cost
Speaker 1: associated with doing business, and I get it.
Speaker 2: You feel like, oh, this is such a waste, Like
Speaker 2: why does.
Speaker 1: Someone have to you know, why do I have to
Speaker 1: pay to Venmo to get money from someone?
Speaker 2: Well, there is it.
Speaker 1: There are people that have to program that app, and
Speaker 1: there are people that have to you know, work the
Speaker 1: app and work the customer service and all this stuff.
Speaker 2: So there are fees involved.
Speaker 1: I was at a restaurant in New Jersey and there
Speaker 1: was a big sign at the cash register that said
Speaker 1: we will charge three point nine to nine percent on
Speaker 1: top of any credit card that you use here. And
Speaker 1: I said, what I mean, And I've seen this before,
Speaker 1: the signs that say we don't accept credit cards or
Speaker 1: we have to do a ten dollars minimum, and you
Speaker 1: know with that restaurant. I posted it to my Facebook
Speaker 1: page and people were chiming in. But the reality is like, okay,
Speaker 1: I mean, I get that you have to pay four
Speaker 1: percent and it's you know, covering the fees on the
Speaker 1: credit card, and you want me to pay cash, but
Speaker 1: like it's much more convenient to pay with a credit card,
Speaker 1: and now I have to pay, you know, another way,
Speaker 1: because I'm not paying four percent on top of my dinner,
Speaker 1: which is already expensive. And so we ended up the group,
Speaker 1: we ended up paying cash. And this was the best part.
Speaker 1: And I if my dad is listening to this podcast,
Speaker 1: this is all in good Jess. But it was so
Speaker 1: funny because we're at the table and you know, we're
Speaker 1: all splitting up the bill and my dad said, you
Speaker 1: know what, you just put in this much and you know,
Speaker 1: I was using my credit card or no, I was
Speaker 1: putting cash in and my dad sees the four percent
Speaker 1: thing and he's like, oh, he put his credit card
Speaker 1: down and he said after he saw it, he goes, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not paying four percent, so I'll I'll just put
Speaker 1: cash in. But he was short some of the cash,
Speaker 1: so by him saving money on that four percent transaction fee,
Speaker 1: I had to put in like an extra like thirty
Speaker 1: dollars onto the bills. I said, hold on, you saved
Speaker 1: the transaction fee. I got to put an extra thirty
Speaker 1: dollars on top of the cash already put in.
Speaker 2: It gave us a laugh, but it was funny.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I do not mind putting in my
Speaker 1: fair share, but it was just so funny how it happened, like, oh,
Speaker 1: the restaurant site or you save your four percent, but
Speaker 1: I don't. Well, you know, you listen to this podcast
Speaker 1: because you're hearing rich on tech, and you know what,
Speaker 1: if you don't want to hear my stories, then uh,
Speaker 1: don't listen. But you know what you're you're guaranteed to
Speaker 1: get a little, a little bit of my stories built
Speaker 1: into this podcast because I like telling stories and I
Speaker 1: like I like sharing a little a little insight on
Speaker 1: my life with you. So thanks. All right, I think
Speaker 1: it's time for another question. Enough about me, Enough about Venmo.
Speaker 1: Let's get to another question. Patricia Nelson woos. Patricia says,
Speaker 1: my ten year old granddaughter loves to draw. Her birthday
Speaker 1: is coming up in late July. I would like to
Speaker 1: buy her a tablet so she can draw on, but
Speaker 1: does not h but I've been overwhelmed by the choices.
Speaker 1: Ideally it should be able to run independent of the computer,
Speaker 1: but those look very expensive.
Speaker 2: Our home computer is a MacPro.
Speaker 1: If using a computer is required for my need, which
Speaker 1: would be okay, as long as she can be drawing
Speaker 1: on her tablet as well as a screen, I appreciate
Speaker 1: it if you can help me make a choice. Thanks Patricia. Patricia,
Speaker 1: here's the deal. I think what you're referring to with
Speaker 1: the ones that have to be connected to a computer
Speaker 1: are there's a certain type of like super high end.
Speaker 1: I forget what the brand name is, but it's what
Speaker 1: all the graphic artists use, and it connects to your
Speaker 1: computer and you can draw and you can do all
Speaker 1: kinds of amazing stuff. I don't think your ten year
Speaker 1: old daughter granddaughter needs that. What I think she'd be
Speaker 1: perfectly suited with is an iPad. And there's two choices here.
Speaker 1: So the iPad as it stands, the three hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty nine dollars basic iPad you can get that. The
Speaker 1: latest model does have a touch sensitive screen for the
Speaker 1: Apple pencil, but you have to use the old Apple
Speaker 1: pencil with that one. And the old Apple pencil is fine,
Speaker 1: but it's not amazing. It was kind of the first
Speaker 1: generation and it lacks some of the features that I
Speaker 1: think are a little bit better with the new Apple pencil.
Speaker 1: And also the new iPad that is a little bit
Speaker 1: more expensive. But here's the thing, it gets kind of expensive,
Speaker 1: and so that's the problem. The new iPad that you
Speaker 1: know you have to get would be the iPad Air,
Speaker 1: and the iPad Air starts at five hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: dollars if you do the education pricing, plus another one
Speaker 1: hundred dollars for the Apple pencil, so you're talking six
Speaker 1: hundred fifty bucks. I don't know how much you were
Speaker 1: planning on spending on your granddaughter, but that sounds like
Speaker 1: a very expensive present.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I bought an iPad for my niece, and I think
Speaker 1: I got her the iPad Air. I can't remember at
Speaker 1: this point. Maybe I got the regular iPad. No, I
Speaker 1: think I got the regular iPad plus the pencil I forget,
Speaker 1: but anyway, it's been a while. It was last year,
Speaker 1: but anyway, But I would say the reason why I
Speaker 1: like the iPad air with the Apple pencil is that
Speaker 1: the Apple pencil is a better It just has a
Speaker 1: better feel to it, and it also magnetically attaches to
Speaker 1: the iPad on the side, and it also wirelessly charges
Speaker 1: through that magnetic connection, and so for all those reasons,
Speaker 1: it's a much better setup. But your granddaughter's ten, I
Speaker 1: don't think she's really gonna care. It's just, honestly, I'd
Speaker 1: be more worried about the fact that the original Apple pencil,
Speaker 1: when you want to charge it on the iPad, you
Speaker 1: have to plug it into the bottom of the iPad,
Speaker 1: and it's this weird like looks like an ice cream
Speaker 1: pop like a popsicle stick with the iPad pencil as
Speaker 1: the stick and the iPad as the popsicle part, and
Speaker 1: it can break really easily. So for that reason, I
Speaker 1: think that the other one's better. But those are the
Speaker 1: two things I'd recommend. Just go to the Apple store
Speaker 1: and definitely check out both of those choices and see
Speaker 1: which one you think will work. Better for you, all right,
Speaker 1: Hallmark is this is a neat I thought this was
Speaker 1: really cool. It didn't do as well as I thought
Speaker 1: it would online. Nobody cared as much as I did.
Speaker 1: But I think it's really cool. So, you know, you
Speaker 1: send a card. Some people still send old fashioned cards
Speaker 1: that are handwritten. My mom and my mother in law,
Speaker 1: I think, are the last two people that send send
Speaker 1: me handwritten cards. And so you know, they go to
Speaker 1: the store, you go to Target or wherever you buy
Speaker 1: a card, and you buy a card, you fill it out,
Speaker 1: and you put a stamp on it, and you put
Speaker 1: it in the mailbox. That is all going to go
Speaker 1: away in the future. I feel like like it's just
Speaker 1: it's just dwindling at this point already. So Hallmark of
Speaker 1: course sees that writing on the wall no pun intended.
Speaker 1: And what they're doing is they have a new feature
Speaker 1: called Sign and Send, And I think this is brilliant
Speaker 1: because it's a mix of the two things that we do.
Speaker 1: So now you can use your smartphone to send a
Speaker 1: card and it's a real Hallmark card that you send
Speaker 1: right from your phone.
Speaker 2: But here's the twist.
Speaker 1: You write your message on a blank sheet of paper,
Speaker 1: right and then with a real pen, and then you
Speaker 1: take a picture of that message with your phone, which
Speaker 1: then scans your message into the phone and then prints
Speaker 1: exactly what you wrote in your handwriting inside the card.
Speaker 1: I think that is super super cool. The service is free,
Speaker 1: which is also really cool. And I think that again
Speaker 1: Hallmark sees the writing on the wall, they need to
Speaker 1: offer this in a very competitive way. Otherwise it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: either offer this for free, or we just don't have
Speaker 1: people buy as many cards. And so you can do
Speaker 1: this right from your smartphone. The cards start at three
Speaker 1: dollars plus. You know, there's like they go up to
Speaker 1: like you know, cards can get expensive. They could be
Speaker 1: like six bucks depending on how elaborate they are, but
Speaker 1: three dollars is the starting price. And it's kind of
Speaker 1: funny because when I went to try I always like
Speaker 1: to try things out. I didn't try out the actual
Speaker 1: scanning of my handwritten message. I will do that soon,
Speaker 1: but I just kind of put a card in my
Speaker 1: in my car online and I kind of went to
Speaker 1: check out and it said two dollars and fifty cents
Speaker 1: for this service, but then it was crossed out, and
Speaker 1: so in my blog post, I wrote, you know, like
Speaker 1: this is two dollars and fifty cents, but you know
Speaker 1: right now it's being offered for free, and Hallmark actually
Speaker 1: emailed me to say no, Rich, no, no, no, we are
Speaker 1: actually going to offer this for free, like indefinitely forever.
Speaker 1: I said, well, why do you have two fifty written
Speaker 1: on the website and they said, well, we want people
Speaker 1: to know that it's a value of two dollars and
Speaker 1: fifty cents, which I said, well, that's confusing because that
Speaker 1: to me seems like this is going to be two
Speaker 1: dollars and fifty cents in the future, Whereas I think
Speaker 1: if they're trying to get people to adopt it, you
Speaker 1: should just tell people that this is going to be free,
Speaker 1: like this is something that you should come back for
Speaker 1: every single time, because if I just did that one
Speaker 1: time card for two fifty, I might or you know,
Speaker 1: with that two fifty scratched out, I might think, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not going back to that because two fifty is
Speaker 1: going to be with the prices in six months and
Speaker 1: I'm not paying that. So I think they need to
Speaker 1: be more clear about that, and hopefully they will be.
Speaker 2: But anyway, long.
Speaker 1: Story short, you can get your first, your first card,
Speaker 1: completely free, so I'm talking even the price of the card.
Speaker 1: I've got the instructions on my website, Rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot tv, but definitely try it. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: such a cool thing. My niece's birthday is coming up,
Speaker 1: the one that I bought the iPad for actually last
Speaker 1: year on our birthday. That's coming up again this year,
Speaker 1: and so I should have done this, but now it's
Speaker 1: too late because it's gonna be blated. I guess they
Speaker 1: do belated cards, right, So I guess I can send
Speaker 1: a belated birthday card. But it's called Sign and Send
Speaker 1: from Hallmark. I think it's the coolest thing ever and
Speaker 1: just such a smart way of getting us to send
Speaker 1: cards that kind of feel like they're personalized, even though
Speaker 1: we didn't actually write in them.
Speaker 2: But you know, pretty cool, all right.
Speaker 1: Eric writes in hey, Rich, there are so many shopping
Speaker 1: apps and it's so confusing. But I'm looking for a
Speaker 1: free app that will give me the price of an
Speaker 1: item in a store when there is no price tag
Speaker 1: on it, just a barcode or a QR code, and
Speaker 1: when no one can be found to help. I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily want to compare prices from other stores. I just
Speaker 1: want to know what the item costs in the store
Speaker 1: I'm shopping, like the in store price check kiosk in
Speaker 1: some retailers. Does that exist? Thanks very much, Eric, Well
Speaker 1: Eric number one, I think that these things, these kind
Speaker 1: of things did exist for a while, but to be honest,
Speaker 1: the price comparison apps are few and far between at
Speaker 1: this point, and the reason for that is because Amazon
Speaker 1: has become the default shopping search engine. So when people
Speaker 1: that use Amazon are searching for something to buy, they
Speaker 1: don't really pop it into Google. They pop it into
Speaker 1: Amazon and then they just buy it. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's just the way it is. And so a lot Okay,
Speaker 1: So the answer to your question is a couple things.
Speaker 1: Number One, you can use the Amazon app, and a
Speaker 1: lot of stores will actually price match Amazon. They don't
Speaker 1: really advertise it, but they will definitely do it, especially
Speaker 1: the big box retailers. So that's one way of doing it,
Speaker 1: and they handle they've got a barcode reader built in.
Speaker 1: You can do it that way. The other app is
Speaker 1: a red laser. This was big back in the day.
Speaker 1: It's it's still around, but it's just you know, the
Speaker 1: results may not be that good.
Speaker 2: But they still have it.
Speaker 1: But I think the real answer is you kind of
Speaker 1: have to use the the retailer's own app if you
Speaker 1: want to get their pricing info. So if you're inside Target,
Speaker 1: like I have the Target app on my phone and
Speaker 1: it's fantastic.
Speaker 2: I love the Target app. It's so great.
Speaker 1: If you're not using it, I think I already talked
Speaker 1: about this, but you should definitely be using it.
Speaker 2: And what's the other one.
Speaker 1: If you're inside best Buy, they have an app that
Speaker 1: you can scan things with if you're inside what's the
Speaker 1: other one?
Speaker 2: I mean it's just Target.
Speaker 1: Well, Walmart they've probably I don't know, I don't have
Speaker 1: the Walmart app, but I'm.
Speaker 2: Sure they have it.
Speaker 1: But those are I'd recommend either you know, Amazon Red
Speaker 1: Laser or just if you shop at a place over and over,
Speaker 1: that's a good way of doing it. But Amazon's a
Speaker 1: pretty good one because they they have a lot of
Speaker 1: the they have a lot of the pricing in there,
Speaker 1: and plus it will give you an idea of if
Speaker 1: the price in the store is pre competitive with what
Speaker 1: you can get through Amazon.
Speaker 2: So good question there.
Speaker 1: All right, let's uh, let's talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: this Facebook Audio Rooms that I'm using. So this is
Speaker 1: a new feature on Facebook that we've got a couple
Speaker 1: uh folks listening over over one hundred people listening right
Speaker 1: now live. And what's really cool about this live audio
Speaker 1: rooms is yes, it is a complete clubhouse takeoff, right,
Speaker 1: but like I said in my last podcast, where every
Speaker 1: app is going to have a clubhouse, this is the reality.
Speaker 1: Is that something like you know Stories that that Snapchat
Speaker 1: kind of invented. Every app now has its own version
Speaker 1: of Stories, and now we're seeing the same thing with audio.
Speaker 1: And so you see all these apps introducing basically clubhouse,
Speaker 1: and what I think is bad about that is that, yes,
Speaker 1: it's a copycat and sad for Clubhouse because it came
Speaker 1: out of the gate first and now everyone just copies them,
Speaker 1: and you know, they're they're definitely lessening, lessening in strength
Speaker 1: as I can see it, Like everyone was talking about
Speaker 1: them six months ago and now I don't see as
Speaker 1: many people talking about them. But on the plus side,
Speaker 1: you know, you have to it's good to have the
Speaker 1: features that you want with the audience.
Speaker 2: That you have. So look at YouTube.
Speaker 1: They introduce something called Shorts, which is basically a ripoff
Speaker 1: of TikTok. But guess what if you have five million
Speaker 1: people as your audience that you are Let's say you
Speaker 1: don't even have five million. Let's say you have twenty
Speaker 1: five thousand people on YouTube that you've you know, you've
Speaker 1: struggled to build that audience, or I should say you
Speaker 1: worked hard to build that audience. It's really nice that
Speaker 1: you can now address that audience using the latest kind
Speaker 1: of features that audiences expect, which are shorts on the
Speaker 1: platform that you have your audience on. Now, there's something
Speaker 1: to be said for building an audience on different platforms.
Speaker 1: But as someone who has a very fragmented audience across
Speaker 1: a podcast, across Instagram, across Twitter, across a little bit
Speaker 1: on YouTube, and a lot on Facebook, it is a
Speaker 1: lot of work to keep up with the different individual
Speaker 1: apps and all the different ways that they do things.
Speaker 1: So the fact that you can have one audience in
Speaker 1: one place and really concentrate on that audience and do
Speaker 1: the things that they like, you know, like stories and
Speaker 1: audio and video and whatever, you know, it's it's there's
Speaker 1: something to be said for that too. So audio rooms
Speaker 1: are now enabled for for certain people. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's like for everyone just yet, but it's definitely
Speaker 1: enabled on my account, and you know, you just pop in.
Speaker 1: It's like listening to the radio, except you can participate.
Speaker 1: You can send stars. So people have been sending me
Speaker 1: stars all broadcast long, which is really cool because the
Speaker 1: stars actually somehow translate into.
Speaker 2: I don't know, it says by stars.
Speaker 1: So the stars actually translate into money, which is kind
Speaker 1: of cool for a creator that you know, is making
Speaker 1: a living on this, which is really cool. It also,
Speaker 1: if you send stars, it bumps you up to the
Speaker 1: front row, and so you can if you send those,
Speaker 1: I can like shout you out, like right now, Diga
Speaker 1: Diga is in the front row because they sent me stars,
Speaker 1: and that's that's pretty neat. And then I can see
Speaker 1: people giving me thumbs up, which is, you know, it's cool.
Speaker 1: It's not stars, but it's a thumbs up, which is
Speaker 1: also nice. And you can purchase those in this room
Speaker 1: as well. So I think that they did a couple
Speaker 1: of cool things. I don't see anything specifically unique to
Speaker 1: Facebook to Facebook's version of Clubhouse except the stars, which
Speaker 1: you know, it is kind of nice that you can
Speaker 1: monetize your Facebook audios if you are making a living
Speaker 1: on there, there can be fifty speakers, no limit to
Speaker 1: the number of followers, and it's again, it's a really
Speaker 1: neat way of for me.
Speaker 2: My audience, a.
Speaker 1: Lot of them is on Facebook, and so the fact
Speaker 1: that I can pop on Facebook and just sit there
Speaker 1: and chat with people that are following me, like even
Speaker 1: if I wasn't doing my podcast, that's a really cool thing.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Lindsay now has been bumped up to the front row.
Speaker 1: Not my wife, but Lindsay has been bumped up to
Speaker 1: the front row because they have sent me some stars. Actually,
Speaker 1: so that's really cool.
Speaker 2: We're cool.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, so I can I can see a little bit,
Speaker 1: really cool Lindsay looks like they are standing in front
Speaker 1: of the big thing in Shanghai. It's like the tower.
Speaker 1: I forget what it's called, the Pearl Tower, mate, No,
Speaker 1: not the Pearl Tower. It's like the TV tower whatever.
Speaker 1: It is like this famous, you know, you know, it's iconic.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I'm I'm definitely gonna use this from now
Speaker 1: on the live audio rooms on Facebook. They're also introducing
Speaker 1: podcasts on Facebook that will come next. But to me,
Speaker 1: it's like any way that you can reach people in
Speaker 1: an easier format is really really cool. And as much
Speaker 1: as I love Clubhouse, I tried it once and I
Speaker 1: just I have zero audience there, So who is going
Speaker 1: to tune into my clubhouse?
Speaker 2: No one?
Speaker 1: And I don't feel like building a brand new following
Speaker 1: on Clubhouse because I already have a following in other places,
Speaker 1: So it's neat that we're getting these things in different places.
Speaker 1: I think face Instagram would be a cool place to
Speaker 1: get this as well. And it's you know, you say, rich,
Speaker 1: why not just go live with video like you can
Speaker 1: do on all these things. Well, video brings a certain
Speaker 1: level of anxiety to it, not just for the speaker,
Speaker 1: not necessarily myself because I'm on TV, so for me
Speaker 1: that's not that big of a deal. But for the
Speaker 1: average person, it's so much easier to just hop on
Speaker 1: audio then to think about video, because you have to
Speaker 1: think about your setup and your background and your camera
Speaker 1: and do I look good and do I look presentable?
Speaker 1: And then not to mention the people that are listening
Speaker 1: that might want to come on as speakers. Ninety nine
Speaker 1: percent of people don't want to be on camera. They
Speaker 1: don't want to be on camera, and so you're you're
Speaker 1: cutting out a whole bunch of people if you're just
Speaker 1: going on video and asking people to log in on
Speaker 1: video and to be on your video podcast. So I
Speaker 1: think that this is the perfect solution, especially for a
Speaker 1: show like mine where I'm answering questions from regular people.
Speaker 1: All right, let's see should we do one final question here,
Speaker 1: let's see bolts pro. Mike says, Hey, Rich, I saw
Speaker 1: a Facebook post that claims this new charger does amazing
Speaker 1: wonderful things.
Speaker 2: Have you tested it? I have not, Mike.
Speaker 1: And here's the answer that I give to every single
Speaker 1: person that that texts, that emails me about something they
Speaker 1: saw on Facebook. And after I just gave Facebook all
Speaker 1: this amazing you know whatever, I'll just say that I
Speaker 1: don't really like stuff that I see advertised on Facebook
Speaker 1: that people send me. A lot of it is either
Speaker 1: over dramatized or over sold, or it's high pressure sales,
Speaker 1: or it's you know, you can just get something that's
Speaker 1: similar on Amazon and it's it might be better quality.
Speaker 1: So I hate to say I don't know anything about
Speaker 1: this product that you asked me about, but when I
Speaker 1: look at the website it looks fine, but it's just
Speaker 1: it's again one of those things. Here's what I want
Speaker 1: you to do. If you see all the little pop
Speaker 1: ups that say, you know, Vanessa purchase from Washington, DC
Speaker 1: one minute ago, it's like, okay, give me a break.
Speaker 1: Like Amazon doesn't do that to me When I sit there,
Speaker 1: They don't tell me every person that just purchased, they
Speaker 1: don't tell tell me. You know, I've gone through this. Oh,
Speaker 1: Rachel just purchased from Columbia, South Carolina. But two things
Speaker 1: I want you to look at are three things. When
Speaker 1: you look at a website, I want you to look
Speaker 1: at the contact information and make sure that there's a
Speaker 1: real contact information there. Even call the phone number if
Speaker 1: you need to look at the website itself, make sure
Speaker 1: that it's not scammy. I had a family member that
Speaker 1: said they went to costco dot com today and they
Speaker 1: got to pop up this said, oh my gosh, every
Speaker 1: Friday we give free air pods to thirty people that
Speaker 1: come to our website. That just all they have to
Speaker 1: do is take a survey and pay for shipping. And
Speaker 1: so this family member sent me this and I said, oh,
Speaker 1: come on, this is totally a scam, even without knowing
Speaker 1: anything about it. Costco does not serve up pop ups
Speaker 1: that say we're giving out free AirPods. They just don't
Speaker 1: do that. Neither does Amazon. It just best Buy, No
Speaker 1: one does that. But this sounds like these scammy websites
Speaker 1: I see over and over, and so I said, send
Speaker 1: me a screenshot. They sent me a screenshot, and sure enough,
Speaker 1: it was just some trashy website that number one. If
Speaker 1: you look closely, it said mini pods. It didn't even
Speaker 1: say air pods. And so when I told my family member, like,
Speaker 1: come on, this is totally bogus, Like come on, you
Speaker 1: got to look out for this stuff, they said, well,
Speaker 1: I just got excited. And you know that's what happens.
Speaker 1: They these things prey upon your enthusiasm for something that's
Speaker 1: free or cheap or too good to be true, and
Speaker 1: you just have to be on your oh what's the word,
Speaker 1: I don't know, You just have to be on it.
Speaker 1: Just just be be skeptical of anything you see, and
Speaker 1: that includes links that I post. You know, people you
Speaker 1: know will say, rich, oh this looks scammy. And believe me,
Speaker 1: I'm a real person that's posting real stuff that's been vetted,
Speaker 1: and I you know, and sometimes even when I tell
Speaker 1: you do something like, oh, check your permissions on Google.
Speaker 1: Go to Google dot com, slash whatever, and people are like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna log into Google. Off this link. Always be skeptical.
Speaker 1: Always be skeptical of stuff you see online. All right
Speaker 1: before I go, Apple's baby software is out. So if
Speaker 1: you want to check out the latest software on your iPhone,
Speaker 1: you can. You go to beta Apple dot com. They've
Speaker 1: got it for iOS, iPad, mac os, tvOS, and watchOS.
Speaker 1: But my recommendation is do not install this on your
Speaker 1: device that you need on a daily basis. I did
Speaker 1: install it on a backup phone for the iPhone. I've
Speaker 1: been playing with it. I don't see a whole lot
Speaker 1: of huge changes cosmetically or otherwise, but there are some
Speaker 1: changes and a lot of them have to do with privacy.
Speaker 1: And believe me, the Apple is really really given these
Speaker 1: marketers a tough time with the privacy stuff they are.
Speaker 2: They are really giving it to them, Like oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: Like I can't believe.
Speaker 1: Like if I was a marketing person, like advertising in
Speaker 1: ad tech right now, I'd be like, Apple, why do
Speaker 1: you got to keep doing this to me? You just
Speaker 1: keep making my life harder and harder. But they're doing
Speaker 1: it and it's good for the consumer, so that's always
Speaker 1: nice as well. So all right, that music means it
Speaker 1: is the end of the show. If you're on the Facebook,
Speaker 1: stick around at the end. I'll interact with you for
Speaker 1: just a bit. If you'd like to submit a question
Speaker 1: for me to answer, just go to my Facebook page
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash rich on Tech hit the big
Speaker 1: blue send email button. Also, I would love it if
Speaker 1: you would rate and review this podcast to help other
Speaker 1: people discover it. Just go to rate this podcast dot
Speaker 1: com slash rich on Tech. You can find me on
Speaker 1: all social media at rich on Tech. Please follow me,
Speaker 1: especially on Instagram no matter where you live in the US.
Speaker 1: You can download the free ktla plus app on Apple TV, fireTV,
Speaker 1: and Roku. Then scroll to the tech section and you
Speaker 1: can watch all of my TV segments on demand completely free.
Speaker 1: So if you listen to me on this podcast, or
Speaker 1: you follow me on social media and you don't really
Speaker 1: know me from TV because maybe you don't live in
Speaker 1: La or one of my other cities that I'm on,
Speaker 1: download the ktla plus app. You can download any city
Speaker 1: that you live in in the US and actually see
Speaker 1: what I'm like on real TV it's kind of fun.
Speaker 1: My name is rich Tdmiro. Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: There are so many ways you can spend an hour
Speaker 1: of your time. I do appreciate you spending it with me.
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you real soon.