Speaker 1: New products from Apple, including a new iPad Pro and
Speaker 1: a new MacBook Air. Embracing our new lives at home
Speaker 1: due to coronavirus, plus your tech questions answered. What's going on?
Speaker 1: I'm Rich Damiro 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 and I answer the questions that
Speaker 1: you send me. My name is Rich Dmiro, tech reporter
Speaker 1: at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Joining me is
Speaker 1: producer Megan. How's it going? Let me bring this down
Speaker 1: and bring you up?
Speaker 2: Hello, you know it's going.
Speaker 3: This is an interesting new normal that we're all just
Speaker 3: you know, adjusting to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of crazy. I'm in my home, Megan is
Speaker 1: in her home trying to do this. We're also Facebook
Speaker 1: living this, so we are saying hello to everyone that's
Speaker 1: listening on Facebook Live that or I should say, watching
Speaker 1: on Facebook Live. And of course I just heard the
Speaker 1: little comments. So every time someone does one of those
Speaker 1: little like thumbs up, you hear it on the show anyway,
Speaker 1: So that's fun. Yeah, there it goes again. So I
Speaker 1: got to figure out how to get that off anyway. Oh,
Speaker 1: mute sound effects. There we go. So, how are you adjusting.
Speaker 1: We are working halfway from the station, halfway home. It's
Speaker 1: very interesting for sure. Oh no, they're still there. And
Speaker 1: I don't know what to say. I mean, I've got
Speaker 1: my kids at home, I've got my wife at home,
Speaker 1: and it's pretty wild. It's like a very different experience.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I feel like every day it's changing. We're
Speaker 3: just like, you know, it's just all so crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is crazy. And your whole family home, I'm
Speaker 1: guessing as well, Yes they are. And then so you know,
Speaker 1: and now California is on this crazy like shutdown. So
Speaker 1: we were watching that on TV yesterday. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just every day it seems like something else changes. Let's
Speaker 1: get to the first story. New MacBook Air. So I
Speaker 1: know that tech news has taken sort of a backseat
Speaker 1: to you know, this crazy virus that is, you know,
Speaker 1: making its way through all of the world. But there
Speaker 1: was some tech news this week and Apple released a
Speaker 1: new MacBook Air. Now, normally we'd go up to Cooper
Speaker 1: Tino for a big event and you would, you know,
Speaker 1: have Tim Cook up on stage. None of that happened
Speaker 1: because guess what, we're in crazy time. So they just
Speaker 1: put out a press release. They put out the MacBook
Speaker 1: Air and it's now ninety nine dollars, so got a
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars price cut, it got two times of performance,
Speaker 1: a new keyboard, and twice the storage. So that's the headline,
Speaker 1: and realistically, I think they did a great job of
Speaker 1: making this a computer that is now very desirable for
Speaker 1: a student or a college student, because that price point
Speaker 1: is nine ninety nine, which one hundred dollars cheaper than before.
Speaker 1: Before it was eleven hundred. And the reality is anything
Speaker 1: over one thousand, mentally is really tough to comprehend, and
Speaker 1: so nine ninety nine is just a nice magic number, right,
Speaker 1: That's why everything is ninety nine cents, you know, three
Speaker 1: ninety nine. But if you're a student, you can actually
Speaker 1: get this for eight ninety nine, so nine hundred bucks,
Speaker 1: and I get it. That's way more expensive than like
Speaker 1: your typical five hundred dollars Windows computer, but you're getting
Speaker 1: a Mac and it's really nice magic keyboard, which means
Speaker 1: the keyboard is going to be way better than before.
Speaker 1: It's the keyboard that I use on my current MacBook Pro,
Speaker 1: which is the Magic keyboard, and it's really good. And
Speaker 1: it also has double storage, so two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: six versus one twenty eight. And I think that's all
Speaker 1: you need to know about it. So there you have it,
Speaker 1: all right, Producer Megan, it is time for your first question.
Speaker 3: Okay, So our first question comes from Claudia Hi Rich.
Speaker 3: I saw your story about expanded sell and internet service
Speaker 3: during the next two months due to COVID nineteen. But
Speaker 3: what about security? What should we be looking for to
Speaker 3: be safe online? Especially since schools are now online and
Speaker 3: most of our activities exercise to shopping are online. How
Speaker 3: do we not become a victim during this time of
Speaker 3: increased accessibility and increased use.
Speaker 1: Okay, great question, and this is something that I actually
Speaker 1: am working up a story on. But yes, everyone's working
Speaker 1: at home and this company, my Fi, they have some
Speaker 1: executives that I asked this question too because of your
Speaker 1: email and a couple things. Number one tips to secure
Speaker 1: your home network, They say Wi Fi access points. You
Speaker 1: know the SSID like the thing you connect to. They
Speaker 1: say to change your settings to hide your SSID. So
Speaker 1: normally in your house at broadcasts, if you go on
Speaker 1: your phone and you look at all the kind of
Speaker 1: networks around you, you can see all your neighbor's networks.
Speaker 1: So of course that's much easier to hack because now
Speaker 1: you can just connect to that network if you can
Speaker 1: figure out the password, and now you're on the network.
Speaker 1: So if you hide that SSID, that means that hackers
Speaker 1: can't see your network. And that doesn't mean they can't
Speaker 1: detect it, but they can't see it, and so that
Speaker 1: makes it a little bit tougher for them. Obviously, you
Speaker 1: want to use Wi Fi Protected Access, so WPA or
Speaker 1: WPA two if you haven't done that. Make sure that
Speaker 1: your password on your Wi Fi network is long and
Speaker 1: random so it can't be cracked. Do not use the
Speaker 1: default password. And this is my favorite. Use a guest
Speaker 1: network because when I have babysitters come to the house,
Speaker 1: I have them connect to the guest network. The reason
Speaker 1: I do that is because they don't have access to
Speaker 1: all of the things on my network, which are the
Speaker 1: smart lights and the computers and the storage, and I
Speaker 1: don't not that I don't trust them, but it's just
Speaker 1: easier also to manage those guests that are on your network.
Speaker 1: So that is my recommendation, as well as the recommendation
Speaker 1: from this company, which is let's see in Sego in
Speaker 1: sego slash my fi and the other thing that a
Speaker 1: lot of people are wondering, do they need a VPN
Speaker 1: when they're working at home? Don't necessarily need a VPN.
Speaker 1: If your company requires it, obviously you should be using that,
Speaker 1: and in many cases you can't access your company's files
Speaker 1: unless you're on that VPN. But the reality is for
Speaker 1: just personal stuff, you probably don't need a VPN. So
Speaker 1: good question for our first one of the day. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get to the second story of the day. Apple
Speaker 1: unveils a new iPad pro.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: I told you there was a couple of new products
Speaker 1: out there, and this is Apple, and this is the
Speaker 1: iPad pro. So iPad pro is obviously, this is going
Speaker 1: to appeal to kind of the business traveler, the high
Speaker 1: end folks. Nobody's business traveling right now. But they're making
Speaker 1: this closer and closer to a good laptop replacement. And
Speaker 1: I think they're doing a really nice job because the
Speaker 1: main headline of the iPad pro is that it now
Speaker 1: has a trackpad support. So now that the keyboard cover
Speaker 1: has a little trackpad, you know, a little thing you
Speaker 1: put your fingers on and move them around. And I
Speaker 1: think that's really crazy because Apple always said like, we
Speaker 1: would never do that. But of course they've they backtracked
Speaker 1: on the whole stylus thing. Now they're backtracking on the
Speaker 1: track pad thing. But the bottom line on the iPad
Speaker 1: Pro is that it has a new chip that's faster.
Speaker 1: They say it's faster than most Windows PC laptops out
Speaker 1: quite the burn there. It's got an ultra wide camera
Speaker 1: and studio quality mic. So, Megan, if we got these,
Speaker 1: we can convince Katla to get us these iPad pros.
Speaker 1: We can just record our podcast without any external equipment.
Speaker 1: All we need is the iPad Wow, and how cool
Speaker 1: will that be? So the microphone built in, they're saying,
Speaker 1: is as good as your studio quality mic that you
Speaker 1: have right now. It also has LDAR, which is it's
Speaker 1: kind of like a a did you hear that? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Was that you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? That's y U great, that's that's my family. We
Speaker 1: have this giant group chat on Telegram. And when my
Speaker 1: family starts chatting, oh boy do they chat. They will
Speaker 1: chat four hours. It's basically a twenty four to seven chat.
Speaker 1: So I just muted that one and the lightar on
Speaker 1: the back side of the iPad gives you new augmented
Speaker 1: reality possibilities. Now, if you're thinking of getting one of
Speaker 1: these iPad pros and thinking that you might replace your
Speaker 1: laptop with it, well it's not cheap. The base configuration
Speaker 1: is an eleven inch for eight hundred bucks, and that
Speaker 1: has one hundred and twenty eight gigs of storage. Then
Speaker 1: you go up to the twelve point nine inch model,
Speaker 1: which is a really nice size for a iPad. That's
Speaker 1: one thousand bucks. Then then, by the way, Megan, you
Speaker 1: still have to get the keyboard, so the Magic keyboard
Speaker 1: is three hundred to three point fifty. Then after you
Speaker 1: get the keyboard, you still have to get the iPad
Speaker 1: pencil or the Apple pencil. That's another one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty nine. So let's do the math real quick. You
Speaker 1: were good at math, right, So add this up for
Speaker 1: me ready eight hundred. This is for the smaller one.
Speaker 1: Eight hundred plus three hundred plus one thirty. That's eleven
Speaker 1: twelve thirty, twelve thirty, twelve hundred and thirty dollars.
Speaker 2: Whoa wow, that's a lot. That's a little bitulous.
Speaker 1: I just paid three grand for my MacBook and so
Speaker 1: you know, and if it could replace everything I could
Speaker 1: do on there. That's not bad. And I love the
Speaker 1: idea of having an iPad for everything. This has been
Speaker 1: my dream. I can't get away from my computer because
Speaker 1: I just love having the file rystem. Yeah, being able
Speaker 1: to write, and it's just it's just nice. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: I would drop my laptop in a second for an iPad.
Speaker 1: Drop your laptop, Oh heck yeah, I would totally go
Speaker 1: full Dropping my laptop is what caused me to get
Speaker 1: my trade in value went from six fifty to two
Speaker 1: hundred bucks when they got it because I dropped it
Speaker 1: once on my desk and there's a tiny little ding,
Speaker 1: So don't actually drop your laptop.
Speaker 2: No, A good idea.
Speaker 1: All right, I think we're getting into the swing of
Speaker 1: things here.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Our next question comes from Janet hi Rich. I watch
Speaker 3: you on the morning news regularly. I am a teacher
Speaker 3: and have lots more time to watch.
Speaker 2: This weekend, I saw you show.
Speaker 3: A virtual museum tour page that I cannot find on
Speaker 3: your website or the KTLA website.
Speaker 2: Can you help?
Speaker 3: I'd like to send it to students and my parents,
Speaker 3: all of whom are looking for things to.
Speaker 2: Do at home.
Speaker 1: Oh, this is a funny thing that happens when you're
Speaker 1: on TV. By the way, no matter what story that's
Speaker 1: on KTLA, if it has to do with technology, guess
Speaker 1: who presented it you Yeah, but no matter what, Like
Speaker 1: I didn't mention this at all on TV, But no
Speaker 1: matter whatever tech story that's on there, it's it's me.
Speaker 1: So I look this up and I you know, I
Speaker 1: actually looked it up in our script system at work
Speaker 1: to see what was mentioned, and it's actually Google has
Speaker 1: this thing called arts and Culture. So it's arts and
Speaker 1: Culture dot Google dot com, and there you have. You
Speaker 1: can go through a whole lot of stuff. It's amazing
Speaker 1: you can look through, you can explore everything. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's museums, there are places like here's what's trending this
Speaker 1: week's most popular skip the queue at the Metropolitan Museum
Speaker 1: of Art. So you just click there and you can
Speaker 1: be touring the met in New York City and you
Speaker 1: can look at the all the exhibits. There's twenty eight
Speaker 1: online exhibits, including Coco Chanel, Christian Dior, Baroque, v Oz.
Speaker 1: There's all kinds. There's two hundred things you can look
Speaker 1: at in there. So that's what she was talking about.
Speaker 1: Arts and culture dot Google dot com. And that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: I mean, I I really cool. You know you don't
Speaker 1: have kids just yet, but let me tell you. Entertaining
Speaker 1: kids at home, I will tell you this is this
Speaker 1: has been the most amazing part. It's it's very chaok.
Speaker 1: In my house, obviously, we're all working from home. We
Speaker 1: do little kids and my kids are doing zoom, my
Speaker 1: wife is doing zoom on doing a podcast. I mean
Speaker 1: it's crazy, like the bandwidth you need to get this
Speaker 1: done is really crazy. But I will tell you the
Speaker 1: most magical thing is sitting there doing lessons with my kid.
Speaker 1: Because I don't really teach my kid. I just let
Speaker 1: the teachers do that. But sitting there doing his review
Speaker 1: worksheet worksheets, it's kind of amazing to watch to see
Speaker 1: what your kids know. And that has been really eye
Speaker 1: opening because watching my kid do math is just really
Speaker 1: fun as a parent, like, wow, this little kid has
Speaker 1: like all this knowledge in his head. Like it's kind
Speaker 1: of cool.
Speaker 2: No, it's fascinating. That's so fun.
Speaker 1: So speaking of coronavirus, you know, I call it CV
Speaker 1: because I hate even saying the word at this point
Speaker 1: because it's like this thing has affected us in ways
Speaker 1: that like, what the what the heck is going on?
Speaker 1: But speaking of CV our story on KTLA today, and
Speaker 1: some of you might notice by the way that I
Speaker 1: no longer have a personal website. A lot of you
Speaker 1: been emailing me. I've gone through some changes with that
Speaker 1: and actually today, Megan, what are you drinking over there?
Speaker 1: It's a oh nice, I'm having some vodka in a
Speaker 1: water bottle.
Speaker 2: Oh nice. Well that's yeah typical.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty standard. But it says body armor, so
Speaker 1: it looks like I'm having something healthy. No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: It's actually just water. It's just water. But this water
Speaker 1: bottle is unique because it's really meant for like athletes
Speaker 1: because look at that wide opening, so you can like
Speaker 1: really get like a lot of water at once. So
Speaker 1: it's like it's like really to quench your thirst. And
Speaker 1: I've literally done minimal workouts since I've been stranded here.
Speaker 2: I don't believe that.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, that's that's I did. I actually did the
Speaker 1: the Planet Fitness online workout that they're doing their live
Speaker 1: streaming at like seven pm every day, So I put
Speaker 1: up YouTube and like I just did the workout just
Speaker 1: to try it out. So We're going to do a
Speaker 1: story on all these fitness companies that are doing at
Speaker 1: home workouts. It was great and it wasn't really hard,
Speaker 1: but it was great. And then today I'll probably go
Speaker 1: for a run. But the Planet Fitness people were telling
Speaker 1: me that they actually have tanning beds in their gyms.
Speaker 1: So they were like, oh, Planet Fitness sucks because they
Speaker 1: have tanning beds, which I had to look up, which
Speaker 1: I think is kind of odd in today's day and
Speaker 1: age for like, you know, you know all this stuff
Speaker 1: about tanning. I mean, you went through the tanning face,
Speaker 1: what you went through your tanning bed face? But you've
Speaker 1: given that up, right, I've.
Speaker 3: Never I've never done it.
Speaker 1: You've never done that. I'll advance actually did it once.
Speaker 1: I did it once, and it was when I when
Speaker 1: I first started at KTLA. I moved from oh no,
Speaker 1: sorry k Cal, I think it was, and I moved
Speaker 1: from like the middle of nowhere, and I felt like
Speaker 1: I didn't fit in in LA without a tan and
Speaker 1: so actually I actually went once and it was like
Speaker 1: the most humiliating experience. I never did it again. But
Speaker 1: now they just now.
Speaker 4: I realize, well now I realized they just give you
Speaker 4: the you know, the bronzer, Yeah, the bronze or whatever,
Speaker 4: and they can do whatever they want in the makeup room.
Speaker 1: You know, it's right. Okay, So some of the freebies
Speaker 1: companies are offering. This was our story on KTLA. And
Speaker 1: by the way, if you want to see my new
Speaker 1: kind of new website thing, it's uh uh what is
Speaker 1: it? It's links dot rich on tech dot tv. So you
Speaker 1: can check it out, Megan. It's actually kind of cool.
Speaker 1: I set it up today and I'm now paying like
Speaker 1: I think it's like six bucks a month for this
Speaker 1: little website. But it really it's nice. It's like very
Speaker 1: well designed, it's simple, but it just gets you to
Speaker 1: because my whole thing, and this is to kind of
Speaker 1: complete the story my whole My whole thing about rich
Speaker 1: on tech dot TV was to make it easy for
Speaker 1: viewers when they see me on TV to find my story.
Speaker 1: And we are on a whole bunch of different stations
Speaker 1: across America, and so that's why I can't necessarily say
Speaker 1: KTLA dot com slash tech because that'll bring you to
Speaker 1: our story. So the whole thing of rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot TV was that I wanted to make sure people
Speaker 1: can find the stories I mentioned, because it's my pet
Speaker 1: peeve when you see someone on TV say, oh, just
Speaker 1: go to our website and find the story, and you can't.
Speaker 1: So that's that's why did it. Okay. So here's a
Speaker 1: couple of things that I talked about today on TV
Speaker 1: that you can get for free while you're stuck at home.
Speaker 1: Zen Caster. If you've ever wanted to start your own podcast,
Speaker 1: zen Caster is lifting the limits on its basic plan
Speaker 1: through July first, which you can do an entire podcast
Speaker 1: right from your computer with them. Miro Drop. If you
Speaker 1: want to send a large file for work, miro drop
Speaker 1: will let you send up to a ten gigabyte file,
Speaker 1: and that's pretty large, so oh wow. You know, if
Speaker 1: you need to send a file for work or whatever,
Speaker 1: that's there. Trip it Pro. If all your all my
Speaker 1: flights have been canceled in the next couple of months
Speaker 1: are changed, trippet Pro will actually help you keep track
Speaker 1: of that, and you can get a free subscription to
Speaker 1: that right now for six months if you sign up
Speaker 1: before March thirty first. Peloton, I don't have a Peloton bike.
Speaker 1: In fact, the exercise bike that I talked about in
Speaker 1: this podcast that I ordered is it's like so back
Speaker 1: ordered that it's like, what's going on here? And if
Speaker 1: this would have been perfect timing, but it's still not arrived,
Speaker 1: so I haven't done well.
Speaker 2: What was it called? The bike that you you ordered?
Speaker 1: The bike that I ordered was the Bowflex C six,
Speaker 1: And I also noticed they raise the price on it,
Speaker 1: so demand must be so high that they actually up
Speaker 1: the price by fifty bucks. So when I ordered it, it
Speaker 1: was eight ninety nine. Now it's nine hundred and fifty dollars,
Speaker 1: so oh WOWK Peloton, you can use the Peloton app.
Speaker 1: They're giving that free for thirty days or for ninety days.
Speaker 1: Normally it's thirty, it's ninety. Then there's an app called
Speaker 1: Caribou cr Ibu. This lets you connect your kids on
Speaker 1: a virtual plate eate so you can connect this with
Speaker 1: grandma and you can read a book across the app,
Speaker 1: so it's kind of like FaceTime, but you can read
Speaker 1: a book. So talk about that for a second, Meggan,
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna clear my throat here, so give your
Speaker 1: thoughts on that.
Speaker 3: I think that's so cute that you can like read
Speaker 3: a book with your grandma or your aunt or your uncle.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 3: Are your kids using that.
Speaker 2: Are you still clearing it?
Speaker 1: They are not. They have not used it, but I
Speaker 1: may try it. The problem is getting your kids. Getting
Speaker 1: grandma to install that app is probably the biggest challenge.
Speaker 1: But the mark on the Facebook chat says, what was
Speaker 1: the new website for Rich? I Eventually it'll just still
Speaker 1: be rich on tech dot tv, but it'll bring you
Speaker 1: to this other website. But just go to links dot
Speaker 1: rich on tech dot tv and that should bring you
Speaker 1: to the new site. It's pretty cool, so just I
Speaker 1: mean it should some people. Here's the problem with the website.
Speaker 1: If you went to my old website and you try
Speaker 1: to go to rich on tech dot tv, it's currently
Speaker 1: giving you an error because your browser is thinking it's
Speaker 1: not finding the redirect. But if you're new and you've
Speaker 1: never been to my website and you go to rich
Speaker 1: on tech dot tv, it should work and bring you
Speaker 1: to the new one. But if you just go to
Speaker 1: links dot rich on tech dot tv, that's working all right.
Speaker 1: The other thing is kina do k I n E edu.
Speaker 1: This one's really good. If you have really little kids
Speaker 1: under four, you type in their age and all their
Speaker 1: stuff and their day to birth and it will give
Speaker 1: you activities for them daily, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 1: Sling TV is encouraging folks to stay and sling. This
Speaker 1: is kind of like their Netflix and Chill. You can
Speaker 1: actually watch a whole bunch of stuff on their website
Speaker 1: without logging in or signing up. It's watch dot sling
Speaker 1: dot com and no sign up, really easy Headspace. They're
Speaker 1: giving their meditation app free to any teacher in the
Speaker 1: US and healthcare professionals. And we actually messed up a
Speaker 1: little bit about Megan with our tags today. With our wraps,
Speaker 1: we mentioned the healthcare professionals only, and I actually kind
Speaker 1: of got that wrong. It's all teachers as well. So
Speaker 1: if you have a teacher or a school administrator or
Speaker 1: any support staff in the US, if you work at
Speaker 1: a school, you basically get Headspace for free. And I
Speaker 1: would say one hundred percent get that because I like that.
Speaker 1: And yes, Courtney recommends clear cash and cookies and then
Speaker 1: rich on tech dot tv will work. I tried that
Speaker 1: on my computer. It's still not working. I think I
Speaker 1: have to do a full reset on my browser. Apple
Speaker 1: News Plus not necessarily anything special for the free trial.
Speaker 1: Well it's just a month, but they have all kinds
Speaker 1: of magazines, and I would say, if you have never
Speaker 1: done one of the Apple News Plus subscriptions for free,
Speaker 1: take advantage right now. Thirty days is amazing. So that's
Speaker 1: pretty good. And then Go Noodle has some free stuff
Speaker 1: as well. We've featured one of their things. But the
Speaker 1: Sling TV experience is really cool. It's the real deal.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not bad at all. Molin says, I
Speaker 1: am a teacher. Can you type in the link? Yes?
Speaker 1: Let me see if I can do this. So let's
Speaker 1: go to links dot rich On. I had like a
Speaker 1: little tiny browser and it's not working. So here, I
Speaker 1: think I can actually go in here and type stuff.
Speaker 1: So I think I can comment if I comment here,
Speaker 1: if I add a comment, boom, Let's see if that works.
Speaker 1: Did that work?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: I can add things to the broadcast too, which is
Speaker 1: kind of cool. So oh, I forgot that I can
Speaker 1: actually do this. Watch this, Megan, Are you watching the broadcast?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm watching on my phone. It's just it's delayed
Speaker 3: for me.
Speaker 1: See that now it's gonna It's got that. I forgot
Speaker 1: that I can do this. This is actually part of
Speaker 1: the most fun thing. So if you go to there
Speaker 1: and then click on the first story, it will have it.
Speaker 1: I have like one hundred thousand windows open right now,
Speaker 1: so it's tough for me to do anything. But I
Speaker 1: think it's working. I mean I think people are there.
Speaker 2: It loaded on my phone.
Speaker 1: Okay, perfect, Okay, you know what that sound means. And
Speaker 1: if you guys type in the wittiest comments, I'll start
Speaker 1: putting them on screen too. So do we lose Megan though?
Speaker 1: Oh no, we lost you and I did that there
Speaker 1: were You're back?
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm back, yep, okay.
Speaker 3: This next question comes from Cynthia. I have several old
Speaker 3: computer laptops that I don't know what to do with.
Speaker 3: I seem to recall you.
Speaker 1: Oh, hold on, Megan, it's saying there. It's echoing, So
Speaker 1: if you want, I don't know if you're oh I
Speaker 1: see hold on, let me see something. Okay, I think
Speaker 1: uh oh we lost Megan. Okay, echo, echo echo, Okay,
Speaker 1: something happened here when I did that. I don't know
Speaker 1: what happened. Are you you're not on your phone? Is it?
Speaker 1: If you're watching this on somewhere else, maybe just close
Speaker 1: that out? Okay, if you're watching the broadcast, Okay, I
Speaker 1: don't hear an echo about now. I don't hear it,
Speaker 1: but I don't know why I have.
Speaker 2: Everything off now Okay, should I go ahead?
Speaker 1: Or yeah? Go ahead?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: This next question comes from Cynthia. I have several old
Speaker 3: computer laptops that I don't know what to do with.
Speaker 3: I seem to recall a story you covered about recycling
Speaker 3: your laptops for seniors, or maybe it was a senior
Speaker 3: recycling laptops for others. I'm concerned about data on these
Speaker 3: laptops being stolen or something like that. What would you recommend?
Speaker 1: Okay, so this is a yeah, I think. I think
Speaker 1: what happened was the when I did the scene. When
Speaker 1: I changed the scene, it messed up. Okay. Uh So
Speaker 1: the question is you have an old laptop, what do
Speaker 1: you do? And the reality is when you get rid
Speaker 1: of an old computer, you want to be really careful
Speaker 1: with that because you know someone can get the data
Speaker 1: off that computer if you don't dispose of it in
Speaker 1: a good way. So the number one thing I talked
Speaker 1: about is to if you go to Best Buy, they
Speaker 1: will actually recycle your computers for free. And this is
Speaker 1: something they do nationwide and I have not personally brought
Speaker 1: something there. To get recycled. But you kind of have
Speaker 1: to trust them. They have on their website if you
Speaker 1: go to best Buy Recycling, they do have a way
Speaker 1: to They do have some like instructions on how to
Speaker 1: wipe the data from your hard drive, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to look at that right now. So wiping your hard
Speaker 1: drive is an advanced procedure. If you don't feel comfortable
Speaker 1: doing it, you can schedule an appointment to bring your
Speaker 1: computer into a Best Buy and have a geek squad
Speaker 1: agent handle the process. Now I don't know if they
Speaker 1: charge for that process. But the problem is now most
Speaker 1: of the new programs like the Max and the Windows
Speaker 1: computers have this built in, but the average person's not
Speaker 1: going to want to do this themselves. So my idea
Speaker 1: is you either have to trust them to do it themselves,
Speaker 1: or you can find a geek that you know, like
Speaker 1: a nerd, that can help you do that. But what
Speaker 1: I've done in the past is I've actually taken the
Speaker 1: hard drives out of my computer and I still have
Speaker 1: them sitting here in my garage and I kind of
Speaker 1: took a hammer to them. You can do that, but again,
Speaker 1: this is the main thing. Now, I will tell you
Speaker 1: I did bring my mom's computer to Staples. They will
Speaker 1: also recycle stuff, and they say that they will take
Speaker 1: care of it. They do say that they will get
Speaker 1: rid of the stuff on the hard drive buy themself,
Speaker 1: you know, in a responsible manner, and realistically, if you
Speaker 1: have kids, I say kids, because usually the geek squad people,
Speaker 1: you know, some of them are probably young. Hopefully they're
Speaker 1: following the instructions and hopefully you can trust them to
Speaker 1: bring it in there. If I was running best by,
Speaker 1: I would have these best practices in place and say, look,
Speaker 1: we don't go in and we don't unlock people's computers,
Speaker 1: and we don't take the hard drive contents, we don't
Speaker 1: go through them. But you never know. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people out there in America, so you
Speaker 1: just never know, hopefully of good people doing that. But
Speaker 1: the person specifically that I think she was asking about
Speaker 1: was the Laptop Elf project. And if you google laptop
Speaker 1: Elf project, you'll see the story that we did. Just
Speaker 1: google laptop Elf KTLA and you can see the story
Speaker 1: that we did on this guy in Redondo Beach that
Speaker 1: will happily he's a nerd. He will happily take your
Speaker 1: computer and dispose of it or recycle it or erase it,
Speaker 1: whatever you need to do. So, yeah, it's a good question. Wow,
Speaker 1: I feel like this podcast is really painful because doing
Speaker 1: the podcast is one thing. Doing the live is another one.
Speaker 1: Because the live is like it's like either you're doing
Speaker 1: a live show or you're doing a podcast. And this
Speaker 1: is what I used to do, and this is why
Speaker 1: I kind of went from doing the live to the
Speaker 1: podcast only because live is like a different beast than
Speaker 1: the podcast live. I'm looking at comments, I'm kind of
Speaker 1: like responding, I'm moving a million things in my computer.
Speaker 1: But the podcast is the podcast, So you know, look,
Speaker 1: we're all trying to figure this out. You know, we're
Speaker 1: all Corona in here.
Speaker 2: Learning experience.
Speaker 1: And since you're inside, I kind of want to mention
Speaker 1: because a lot of people are wondering about this whole
Speaker 1: Wi Fi situation. I know, Megan, you were telling me
Speaker 1: the Wi Fi situation at your home, or as the
Speaker 1: kids say, the Wi Fi sitch is pretty.
Speaker 2: Bad and it's really bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, everyone is realizing this because number one, you have
Speaker 1: a couple of things going on. People are taxing their
Speaker 1: Wi Fi systems to the limit. It's like you're using
Speaker 1: more devices than you ever have in your home with
Speaker 1: more people, So that's a problem. And then also the
Speaker 1: Wi Fi itself, if you're using just the Wi Fi
Speaker 1: router that is given to you by Spectrum or your
Speaker 1: internet provider, it's not going to be very good. And
Speaker 1: it's like us, like you, and so so in your
Speaker 1: home you have just the Spectrum WiFi router and it's
Speaker 1: just it's trying to reach the entire house, right right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But also my dad's computer is plugged into the Internet
Speaker 3: and it's not working for him.
Speaker 1: Well it's and that's the other and that's the other side.
Speaker 1: So that's the part B is that Spectrum Internet is
Speaker 1: really being taxed right now across everywhere in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's it's bad in a lot of places.
Speaker 1: And ours actually was out the other day. There's there's
Speaker 1: some sort of outage that a lot of people had
Speaker 1: to deal with as well, including us, and so I
Speaker 1: was scrambling. I told my wife to set up one
Speaker 1: of our phones as a Wi Fi hotspot, and she
Speaker 1: did that. But that's, you know, something to keep in mind. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I say all this because it might be time to
Speaker 1: consider getting one of these new mesh Wi Fi networking systems,
Speaker 1: which I've talked about extensively, and the one that I
Speaker 1: use is called Ero, but there's another one called Google
Speaker 1: Nest Wi Fi, and Android Police says it's on sale
Speaker 1: right now for one hundred and ninety nine bucks and
Speaker 1: that includes a router and an additional access point and
Speaker 1: the way the way that works. So like, for instance,
Speaker 1: in your place, Megan, And remember we talked about this,
Speaker 1: didn't we, And it was a little bit expensive, so
Speaker 1: you weren't ready to drop that money just yet. But
Speaker 1: from one ninety nine and maybe you can expense it,
Speaker 1: I mean it might be expensible.
Speaker 3: No, I actually wait, so you you think Google Wi Fi.
Speaker 1: Over euro well for one ninety nine and Google Wi
Speaker 1: Fi is fantastic. And so if you have the you
Speaker 1: put the router by your you know, where your internet
Speaker 1: comes in, and you put this little access point somewhere
Speaker 1: else in your house, and it creates a nice network
Speaker 1: that kind of envelopes your entire house in a you know,
Speaker 1: in real nice internet. And I would recommend it anyway.
Speaker 1: I would recommend just if you're listening and you're having
Speaker 1: problems with all this stuff, it might be the time
Speaker 1: to kind of look into a new setup. So uh oh,
Speaker 1: I hear doors opening. That could be bad. All right,
Speaker 1: Megan question.
Speaker 2: I just asked a question, but I can oh you did.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I thought I just gave the Wi Fi thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah that was the.
Speaker 2: Response to the Oh okay, well here's your question.
Speaker 1: I don't remember. Oh no, the laptop thing. That was different. Oh.
Speaker 1: Martha asks, by the way, on the live stream, well,
Speaker 1: wi Fi extenders help, especially with streaming. I don't recommend
Speaker 1: the Wi Fi extenders anymore. We did recommend those a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. They're just not good anymore. So
Speaker 1: and I'll just do a couple questions here. Courtney Rogers says,
Speaker 1: I've Verizon FiOS. Is fiber optic Internet better for those
Speaker 1: with new Internet challenges? Better for these new Internet challenges. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think that Verizon FiOS would be fantastic. I was
Speaker 1: actually thinking of getting my Internet switched over to I
Speaker 1: can get one gig at and T where I live,
Speaker 1: and I think I might actually do that. And Vanessa says,
Speaker 1: what about the Netgear Wi Fi Extender? I would not
Speaker 1: recommend the Netgear extenders anymore at this point, because, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just I think that these mesh networks have really
Speaker 1: done a better job, and mine has actually worked great
Speaker 1: in my house. It's it's, you know, it's it's been
Speaker 1: able to absorb all these new things, but it's still
Speaker 1: there's a limit to this, right, So okay, and let
Speaker 1: me just do one more thing. I know everyone's using
Speaker 1: Zoom and a lot of people are wondering how to
Speaker 1: change your Zoom background. So see if you'd see my
Speaker 1: background right now, I'm in my dining room. It's got
Speaker 1: you know, I've got candles behind me and like these
Speaker 1: little weird things that I put up like five years
Speaker 1: ago and I moved in that I should probably change.
Speaker 1: But it's not the best background for like work. But
Speaker 1: the reality is everyone's trying to figure out where they can,
Speaker 1: you know, use a broadcast background for their home, and
Speaker 1: it's tricky sometimes if you don't have a dedicated space
Speaker 1: and so on Zoom, you can change your background to
Speaker 1: something custom and fun. I did a little Facebook video,
Speaker 1: or I did Facebook and Instagram, So find me at
Speaker 1: rich on Tech on Instagram. You can see how you
Speaker 1: do it. But you kind of go into the Zoom
Speaker 1: settings and you choose the virtual background option and you
Speaker 1: can change it to a different background, and you can
Speaker 1: also upload your own background. And apparently that only works
Speaker 1: if you have the Zoom up downloaded. It does not
Speaker 1: work if you are trying to use the Zoom like
Speaker 1: web thing. All right, Megan, you're turning.
Speaker 3: This next question comes from Tracy. Hello, please inform me
Speaker 3: on the way to shut down callers after you've done
Speaker 3: a search for insurance companies. I've gotten dozens of calls
Speaker 3: from insurance companies asking if I need insurance help.
Speaker 1: I did the same exact thing. I did a one
Speaker 1: of those quotes from Oh Gosh. I think it was
Speaker 1: policy genius and it was great, and the guy was
Speaker 1: very nice, but he kept calling and calling and calling,
Speaker 1: and I just every time he called, I would not
Speaker 1: be in a place to like think about life insurance, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, who wants to think about that? Like I'm
Speaker 1: out at the park with my kids and this guy,
Speaker 1: you know, he's like, hey, here's the Zoom. This is
Speaker 1: the official Zoom. And actually a lot of people have
Speaker 1: had trouble because Zoom. It's kind of weird because it
Speaker 1: does not say to download Zoom, Like there's no there's
Speaker 1: no download button on the main website. Which is really odd.
Speaker 1: So that because they want you to run this in
Speaker 1: your browser. But here is this is a link to
Speaker 1: the actual zoom. It's Zoom dot us slash download Zoom
Speaker 1: dot us slash download anyway. Uh okay, So the question.
Speaker 3: Was what the question was about insurance companies?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, how to block all these calls? So if
Speaker 1: you did it from a legitimate company, like a policy genius,
Speaker 1: you can go on their website or simply ask the
Speaker 1: person that's calling you to stop calling, and they will
Speaker 1: do that if you go to one of these other
Speaker 1: See the problem with all these insurance websites that you
Speaker 1: hear advertisements for on the radio and stuff is that
Speaker 1: they're mostly aggregator sites, and they are once you put
Speaker 1: in your information, like your phone number, they are pinging
Speaker 1: that out to so many different people and they're all
Speaker 1: calling you. And so that's a little bit tougher to
Speaker 1: kind of manage. But on your phone, on your iPhone,
Speaker 1: you can block callers manually, or you can do something
Speaker 1: like you can go into the iPhone settings and you
Speaker 1: can turn off all of the unknown callers. It'll send
Speaker 1: them directly to voicemail. And that's like kind of something
Speaker 1: you probably don't want to do unless you're really getting
Speaker 1: a lot of calls, but it's something that's an option.
Speaker 1: I thought this was really cool, Megan. You know, we're
Speaker 1: all home and we're all home bound, and we're trying
Speaker 1: to find stuff to watch, and everyone is blasted through
Speaker 1: every episode of Love is Blind, and so now they're
Speaker 1: looking for other garbage to watch on Netflix, and there's
Speaker 1: just not that much because they're not producing anymore. Right,
Speaker 1: So the trash on Netflix is like is at an
Speaker 1: all time low. It's like a tiny trash heap. Now.
Speaker 1: Netflix used to be a giant trash heap. Now it's
Speaker 1: just tiny. Do you like how I trash Netflix?
Speaker 2: I know what?
Speaker 3: And also The Bachelor they had to delay shooting just.
Speaker 1: Because I don't watch it. Just because I don't watch
Speaker 1: a lot of Netflix shows. I just like to trash
Speaker 1: them because everyone in the world is watching Netflix, so
Speaker 1: I just like to fine, it's fine, but it's a
Speaker 1: lot of let's be honest, it's a lot of trying
Speaker 1: to hunt for something to watch. And sometimes it's good,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's not very good. But I joke, Netflix is amazing.
Speaker 1: I just don't personally watch a lot of stuff on Netflix,
Speaker 1: you read, I read, I like to read, so, but
Speaker 1: I do like to watch movies. And Fandango Now sent
Speaker 1: me a little notice that said Pixars Onward is gonna
Speaker 1: be available today for streaming, like for buying for twenty bucks.
Speaker 1: Which this just came out in the movie theater three
Speaker 1: weeks ago or two weeks ago, I should say March six,
Speaker 1: so two weeks. They're like, look, we know everyone's cooped up,
Speaker 1: they're not going to the movies. We're just gonna let
Speaker 1: you buy this for twenty bucks. Now, twenty dollars rent
Speaker 1: to buy a movie sounds like a lot, but not
Speaker 1: really when you think about the price of a movie ticket,
Speaker 1: especially if you're bringing kids and popcorn. So I was
Speaker 1: already to download Onward tonight for twenty bucks, and then
Speaker 1: someone tweeted me and told me that it's actually gonna
Speaker 1: be on Disney Plus early in two weeks. Oh no,
Speaker 1: so you're talking it's gonna don't buy it. Well, I
Speaker 1: still feel like twenty bucks is a good deal, but
Speaker 1: I get it like right now with the whole economy
Speaker 1: and situation, like I'm kind of like, you know, the
Speaker 1: less money spending, the better. But Fandango now is actually
Speaker 1: giving everyone twenty percent off movies and TV show transactions
Speaker 1: for the first thirty days if you have a new account,
Speaker 1: So that brings the price down to twenty percent off
Speaker 1: of twenty bucks is four dollars off. That's sixteen dollars. Wow.
Speaker 1: So I'm kind of into that anyway. The other movie
Speaker 1: I want to watch that also came out early as
Speaker 1: Invisible Man, and we talked about this last week. Remember,
Speaker 1: so Ray Anthony says Onward is going to be on
Speaker 1: Disney Plus on April third, So I have to wait
Speaker 1: another two weeks, but I don't I'm tempted. I think
Speaker 1: I might get it tonight for twenty bucks. It's if
Speaker 1: I can't find another movie that's streaming that's free, I
Speaker 1: might have to just open my wallet and do that, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like you should just do it.
Speaker 1: I'm actually I'm surprised we have. We've gotten through this
Speaker 1: entire podcast without saying coronavirus that many times.
Speaker 2: I know, it's a nice break.
Speaker 1: It is a nice break because because let's be honest,
Speaker 1: it is just it's downright insane what's happening right now.
Speaker 1: Like yesterday, I watched the Mayor Talk and say that
Speaker 1: LA was on lockdown. Not lockdown, that's not the right
Speaker 1: word to use. It's safer at home. And then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden we get the governor like he's like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'll see I'll see your safe at home,
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, and I'll raise you the entire state. And
Speaker 1: now it's like the entire state is safer at home.
Speaker 1: Now they're not like they're not putting military and police
Speaker 1: outside my front door and saying you can't leave your
Speaker 1: house and you can still go on walks and you
Speaker 1: can still you saw I tweeted last night about the
Speaker 1: fact that marijuana dispensaries are still on the list of
Speaker 1: approved places to go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm a little bit confused by that.
Speaker 1: I just love that, Like you can't go you know,
Speaker 1: you can't go anywhere, but you know the pot shop.
Speaker 1: That's okay, We're look, it's California. We understand you have needs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I did see that personal grooming was on there,
Speaker 1: so I think haircuts you should be able to get in,
Speaker 1: like nail salon's. Like have you seen that meme that's
Speaker 1: going around of everyone's going to know everyone's true like
Speaker 1: roots and likes and stuff.
Speaker 2: Like it's so funny. I love that.
Speaker 1: I thought that was pretty funny too. I got a haircut.
Speaker 2: You're still gonna get your haircut?
Speaker 1: Well, I got my haircut. You know, I get it
Speaker 1: done every three weeks, and I got I got it
Speaker 1: done right before this whole shutdown. So but the place
Speaker 1: I go to is actually closed. I got like an
Speaker 1: email from them, so I don't know. I may have to.
Speaker 1: I did cut Parker's hair last night here at home,
Speaker 1: so really yeah, because and then my wife, I told
Speaker 1: her not to get a haircut right before because I
Speaker 1: was like, you don't want to be in a hair
Speaker 1: salon right before this whole thing's happening. And now she's
Speaker 1: mad at me because she could have had her hair
Speaker 1: done and she missed her window. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's kind.
Speaker 3: I was supposed to go on Wednesday and I canceled.
Speaker 1: You canceled, and now that's all.
Speaker 3: I canceled Monday, and then on Tuesday she was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I think that's better, because it's just it's.
Speaker 2: Not right now.
Speaker 3: It's just like, you know, you're not really supposed to
Speaker 3: just like be around a lot of people, you know.
Speaker 1: Longtime listener Mike Lamone I think that's how you say it.
Speaker 1: He said he got his hair cut yesterday and they
Speaker 1: closed today. So and Rick Feldman look at this. He
Speaker 1: has offered to cut my hair. But I only know
Speaker 1: one style, and I assume that style is like the
Speaker 1: buzz where that's what I want to do with my
Speaker 1: kid yesterday, where you just buzz like everything. But I
Speaker 1: couldn't do that because the trimmer I had it was
Speaker 1: fine for like sideburns, but when I tried to like
Speaker 1: actually do anything more like turn out to be not
Speaker 1: as substantial as I thought. So I will be ordering
Speaker 1: a one of those like real buzzer things off Amazon,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna have my kids they're gonna have buzz
Speaker 1: cuts by the end of the week. I can't wait.
Speaker 3: But it'll take like two months to get to you.
Speaker 2: Right now, Amazon taking forever.
Speaker 1: I know. It's like everything that we used to get
Speaker 1: like next day, same day is definitely I ordered stuff
Speaker 1: on let's see, Wednesday night, and it's it's coming here
Speaker 1: like Tuesday and Wednesday, so that's almost like I'll look
Speaker 1: at that, and Mike confirmed that's how you say it.
Speaker 1: Mike Lemone got it. That's a cool last name. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like Lemon, but Lemone?
Speaker 2: Is it Limon?
Speaker 1: Oh? Maybe it's Lemon Limon. Yeah, you know, I'm only
Speaker 1: on TV, but I can't really speak. I can't pronounce things,
Speaker 1: but that happens. All right. That's gonna do it for
Speaker 1: the podcast if you can believe it. Let me see
Speaker 1: if this even works. Oh it does. That's gonna do
Speaker 1: it for the podcast. For links to what we talked
Speaker 1: about on the show, take a look at the show notes.
Speaker 1: If you have a question for me, you can find
Speaker 1: me at links dot rich on tech dot tv. Hit
Speaker 1: that email button all the way down at the bottom.
Speaker 1: You can find me on social media at rich on
Speaker 1: tech producer Megan. Where can folks find you?
Speaker 2: I'm on Twitter at producer Megan.
Speaker 1: And currently we are all at home. I'm rich demiro
Speaker 1: On behalf of everyone that gets a show to your ears,
Speaker 1: and believe me, there's not many of us. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: We'll talk to you real soon. Six