Speaker 1: Is the one plus nine Pro five G camera? All
Speaker 1: the company hyped it up to be unlimited cloud storage?
Speaker 1: Is it too good to be true? My favorite new
Speaker 1: phone mount? Plus your tech questions answered? What's going on?
Speaker 1: I'm Rich Demiro 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, whether via email
Speaker 1: or Facebook or Twitter, or see me on the streets whatever.
Speaker 1: I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: I hope you are having a fantastic day, getting ready
Speaker 1: to do something awesome in life.
Speaker 2: A taking a breath. I got a.
Speaker 1: Little bit of a late start this morning, had some
Speaker 1: little tiny fires to put out, but all is good,
Speaker 1: and you know, I can't complain overall. And I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, the kids are getting back into school, which
Speaker 1: is just wild. I can't believe it. I never thought
Speaker 1: that would happen. My wife is going back to work,
Speaker 1: which is wild. I didn't think that would happen. I
Speaker 1: am still working from home, so I don't know. You know,
Speaker 1: I've been working from home for a year now, and
Speaker 1: it used to be I would check in you know,
Speaker 1: just say, hey, are you sure you don't want me
Speaker 1: to come in? You know, do I need to come in?
Speaker 1: And at this point it's kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: we've gone this far. Things are working out at home.
Speaker 1: Actually it's kind of funny. I might have mentioned this
Speaker 1: on the podcast, but working from home is actually infinitely
Speaker 1: easier for my segment because I have all the tech
Speaker 1: stuff I need. So a lot of the stuff that
Speaker 1: I talk about on TV is gadgets that people are
Speaker 1: using at home, or are gadgets that people are using
Speaker 1: at home, and so I have basically a real life
Speaker 1: set here with my entire house. Like yesterday we shot something.
Speaker 1: Oh well, I can't talk about that well anyway, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So there's different areas of my house,
Speaker 1: like if I need an outdoor area, if I need
Speaker 1: at an indoor area, or if I.
Speaker 2: Need like a.
Speaker 1: What was I gonna say, a desk, like a what
Speaker 1: do you call a desk office area? That's what the
Speaker 1: word is, you know, if I need a kitchen area.
Speaker 1: We have used every single area of my home to
Speaker 1: shoot and it's kind of funny, but you know, it's
Speaker 1: worked and it's been great. So in some ways it
Speaker 1: is easier to be here. You know, I've got the
Speaker 1: three smart speakers lined up and connected to Wi Fi
Speaker 1: and ready to go. So if I need to compare
Speaker 1: something boom, I can compare how the response is. I've
Speaker 1: got the various cloud you know, or the various streaming
Speaker 1: services hooked up so I can see, you know, if
Speaker 1: I need to do a quick tutorial on something, I
Speaker 1: can do that. So you know, I'm not like forcing
Speaker 1: myself to go back to work. We have a new
Speaker 1: boss starting April twenty first, I believe, so I think
Speaker 1: you know, who knows. We'll see what happens then, and
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure he'll have some thoughts on things,
Speaker 1: and you know it'll just be different because there's there's
Speaker 1: you know, change is always in store, right when you
Speaker 1: have new people start. I mean, hopefully they won't change
Speaker 1: too much, but you know, there's always there's always room
Speaker 1: for improvement, right. All right, let's start with my story
Speaker 1: on KTLA today. I love this story because you know,
Speaker 1: this is this is my secret weapon with my segment.
Speaker 1: It is you so because I get so many emails
Speaker 1: on a daily basis from viewers of my segment and
Speaker 1: listeners to the podcast, and people on my Facebook, and
Speaker 1: people on my Instagram and people on my Twitter. I
Speaker 1: have literally you can't pay for an inside track that
Speaker 1: I have. So when I do a story like Today's
Speaker 1: story with three little gadgets, these are the things that
Speaker 1: people want most. These are things that I get questions
Speaker 1: about all the time. When we did the story about
Speaker 1: the password Manager, I get questions about password Manager so
Speaker 1: much so that story.
Speaker 2: Was a huge success.
Speaker 1: Today's story huge success because people are always looking for
Speaker 1: great Bluetooth speakers. They're always looking for dash cams, and
Speaker 1: they're always looking for cool accessories for their smartphone. And
Speaker 1: I found three of them. Let me just go through them.
Speaker 1: The first is the Lexon minno X. This was a
Speaker 1: tiny Bluetooth speaker that I actually found on sale at Nordstrum.
Speaker 1: I couldn't resist it. My wife was looking at bathing
Speaker 1: suits and I'm sitting there like, I found this little
Speaker 1: sale rack and I'm like, what is this electronics at Nordstrum,
Speaker 1: And so I bought this thing because I couldn't resist
Speaker 1: it was so tiny, and I brought it home. I
Speaker 1: played a song on it, my current favorite song, Chris Stapleton's.
Speaker 2: Oh My God.
Speaker 1: What's starting Over? I think it's called starting Over Chris. Yeah,
Speaker 1: starting Over. Oh such a good song. So anyway, I
Speaker 1: played that and I just couldn't believe it. I was
Speaker 1: like stun I said, lindsay get out here.
Speaker 2: I was outside. I was like, come on out, you
Speaker 2: gotta listen to this thing.
Speaker 1: And we both were just like sitting there in shock.
Speaker 1: So it's a little tiny speaker.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I don't want to bum you out and tell you
Speaker 1: that I paid twenty four dollars for it, because it's
Speaker 1: selling for forty on Amazon. You know, maybe you'll find
Speaker 1: it on sale at some point, you know, do a
Speaker 1: price alert. You don't have to buy things, you know immediately.
Speaker 1: But I just love it. It's water resistant, it's rechargeable.
Speaker 1: It's USBC, which gives me, you know, hope that it's
Speaker 1: like you know, current, and it sounds great.
Speaker 2: It's literally the tiny speaker.
Speaker 1: If you want to see the video on it, go
Speaker 1: to my Facebook, Facebook dot com slash rich on tech.
Speaker 1: Cool little speaker that is now a tool in my
Speaker 1: toolkit when I when I bring my backpack of stuff
Speaker 1: anywhere I go. All right, The next thing is the
Speaker 1: nexsar Beam GPS dashcam and I had this thing, I'll
Speaker 1: be honest, sitting here for about probably six months to test,
Speaker 1: and I just didn't get a chance to test it.
Speaker 1: And part of that was that my screen or my
Speaker 1: my windshield and my car has been broken for a bit,
Speaker 1: like there was this crack that formed and it just
Speaker 1: kept getting bigger. And I finally one day was like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, why am I taking so long to
Speaker 1: fix this little tiny repair?
Speaker 2: And so I call up safe Light. You know, I
Speaker 2: didn't even call him.
Speaker 1: I just did out on my computer and the guy
Speaker 1: was out here within three hours, fixed it within an hour,
Speaker 1: and boom. I waited probably six months to fix my windshields,
Speaker 1: so don't wait to do things. And it was about
Speaker 1: a quarter let's see. It was a third of the
Speaker 1: price that I thought it would be. So I was like,
Speaker 1: why did I wait so long to do this? Now
Speaker 1: I have a great you know, I can see through
Speaker 1: my windshield again. And now I was able to set
Speaker 1: this up. And I fell in love with this camera immediately,
Speaker 1: Like I'm talking immediately. It's so easy, it's tiny, The
Speaker 1: GPS is integrated into the camera housing kind of like
Speaker 1: into the little suction mount. It's tough to explain, but
Speaker 1: it's just so easy to set up. You run the
Speaker 1: wire to your you know, cigarette light or whatever they
Speaker 1: call nowadays the power port, and you download the app.
Speaker 1: And the real magic of this dash cam is the app.
Speaker 1: The app is so nice, it's so well designed, it's
Speaker 1: so slick, and I'm using on iOS, so it's really good,
Speaker 1: and it's just unbelievable. And what this thing does is
Speaker 1: it you know, it just records the road. It's one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty dollars camera, but it uses AI to
Speaker 1: detect unusual events. So there's a little g sensor inside
Speaker 1: the camera. You know, if there's a hard crash or anything,
Speaker 1: or like a you know, someone hits your car while
Speaker 1: you're parked, it's gonna spring into action and it's going
Speaker 1: to record. And not only that, if your phone is nearby,
Speaker 1: it's going to immediately send that data to the cloud
Speaker 1: like that little clip, so that you know, for safekeeping reasons.
Speaker 1: So it's really fantastic. The video is crystal clear. And
Speaker 1: I know that one hundred and twenty dollars is a
Speaker 1: little pricey for a standard dash cam, but honestly, I
Speaker 1: think you're paying for the amazing design and smarts on
Speaker 1: this camera. You can get a camera on Amazon for
Speaker 1: like what forty fifty bucks. But I'm telling you the
Speaker 1: software is what's going to absolutely kill you because you're
Speaker 1: just going to be like, this is so annoying. This
Speaker 1: is a pleasure. You want to sit there and look
Speaker 1: through all your clips. Exporting clips is easy. Making a
Speaker 1: clip is easy. You get unlimited cloud storage for your clip,
Speaker 1: so if you want to upload them all to the cloud,
Speaker 1: you can do that. It's really quite amazing. NEXSAR Beam
Speaker 1: GPS dashcam is what it's called. And finally, this might
Speaker 1: be my favorite of the bunch, the Tentacle three P sixty.
Speaker 1: This is a phone mount slash tripod. I might have
Speaker 1: talked about it in the podcast, but it's just amazing.
Speaker 1: It's a forty dollars device. I've been using it as
Speaker 1: a stabilizer, as a wrap around mount.
Speaker 2: It could be a tripod.
Speaker 1: It's it's you know, maybe six inches tall. It's not
Speaker 1: the big, huge tripod. But you can literally wrap this
Speaker 1: thing around tree branches, you can stand it up, you
Speaker 1: can use this. I mean, it's just it's possibilities are unlimited.
Speaker 1: So during the summer, you know, summer's coming up, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be traveling, you're gonna be doing stuff outside the house.
Speaker 1: This is like just a simple smart way to like
Speaker 1: just up the ante, right. You take it on a hike,
Speaker 1: you take it wherever you go on a boat, and
Speaker 1: it's just seriously cool.
Speaker 2: I talked to the guy who invented it. Let me
Speaker 2: get his.
Speaker 1: Name because now I, of course I know his name
Speaker 1: is Hans, but I have to remember his last name.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I'm so embarrassed right now, I am
Speaker 1: so embarrassed. I can't believe it. Hans Dose, I should
Speaker 1: remember that. So Hans does cool guy wore a wore
Speaker 1: a Hawaiian shirt to my mazoom interview with him. He's
Speaker 1: in a where is he's some short in like sank
Speaker 1: any area kind of. But he came up with this
Speaker 1: thing because he was on a hike and he tried to,
Speaker 1: you know, prop up his phone on a tree branch
Speaker 1: take a picture. Next thing, you know, the phone crashed
Speaker 1: to the ground. The whole thing shattered, and what a
Speaker 1: nightmare and boom. Now he's an amazing entrepreneur. So good
Speaker 1: for you, Hans, And I'll never forget your last name. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, cool guy. I mean, and you know, we
Speaker 1: put this on TV today. He said it was amazing.
Speaker 1: So many people bought one, and I just love that
Speaker 1: because I love when I find things that I think
Speaker 1: are just life changing and awesome and other people feel
Speaker 1: exactly the same.
Speaker 2: So anyway, check it out.
Speaker 1: I've got a link on my I'll put the links
Speaker 1: in the show note for all those gadgets. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: get to the first question. Let's see not so much
Speaker 1: question but comment. William says, Hey, Rich just wants to
Speaker 1: let you know that my son bought the very first
Speaker 1: Volkswagen ID four sold by Galpin Volkswagen, maybe the first
Speaker 1: sold in California. He absolutely loves it, despite the fact
Speaker 1: that some of the tech items origin only promised by
Speaker 1: Volkswagen are not available on the first models.
Speaker 2: Awesome, William.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I tell you know, I forget
Speaker 1: what I talk about on the podcast, but I did
Speaker 1: drive the Volkswagen, and I'll be honest, I fell in
Speaker 1: love with it. But at this point I am going
Speaker 1: to go with the Tesla three for my personal car
Speaker 1: because I just feel like I love what Volkswagen's doing.
Speaker 2: It's amazing. I fell in love with that car.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, when I really
Speaker 1: collect all my thoughts and all of my kind of
Speaker 1: feelings about the situation, I love what what Tesla's doing
Speaker 1: as much as what Apple's doing. They are an Apple
Speaker 1: of the car world, and you're not just buying the Tesla,
Speaker 1: You're buying into the entire world of Elon Musk and
Speaker 1: the way he thinks and his smart brain and the
Speaker 1: way they do things. And so for that reason, that's
Speaker 1: the direction I will end up going when I buy
Speaker 1: a new car. I just got my windshield fixed, so
Speaker 1: that's not happening anytime soon, but you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: when I'm ready for it. So, but you know, William awesome.
Speaker 1: The Volkswagen the I four I was super duper impressed with.
Speaker 1: I thought it was seriously cool, and I think it's
Speaker 1: a strong contender if you are considering a Tesla, especially
Speaker 1: the model hy which is like their little suv. The
Speaker 1: ID four is a great alternative to that, and so
Speaker 1: definitely definitely check it out. All right, let's get to
Speaker 1: the first story. I guess, well we'll be on the
Speaker 1: second story. I guess this is the second story. But
Speaker 1: this is gosh, this makes me sad. So one Plus
Speaker 1: launched the new one Plus nine series smartphones. And here's
Speaker 1: the thing, I get a lot of this stuff early, right,
Speaker 1: So I had the one plus phones for a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks, and I'm sitting there and I'm using them,
Speaker 1: and I've never been so excited to unbox a phone
Speaker 1: and use it because I'm like, this might be my
Speaker 1: next phone.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Well, after using it for a couple of days, it
Speaker 1: became very clear to me that this was not gonna
Speaker 1: be my next phone. And that's because the camera was
Speaker 1: just so all over the place. I could not trust
Speaker 1: it to take a consistent shot. And so I I
Speaker 1: thought this, but you know, you never really know, and
Speaker 1: so I decided I wasn't really going to cover it
Speaker 1: for KTLA for various reasons. With that said, I kind
Speaker 1: of was like, Eh, this is really a non starter.
Speaker 1: I can't go on TV and tell people about this
Speaker 1: phone that might be amazing and then it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, it's only available through one carrier, Like, no,
Speaker 1: that doesn't really work these days. So I kind of
Speaker 1: held off, and I just did like some social media stuff,
Speaker 1: like a little video on my Facebook maybe it's something
Speaker 1: on my Instagram.
Speaker 2: I kind of forget and I just.
Speaker 1: I kind of like went through some pictures and I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm not impressed with the pictures on this thing.
Speaker 1: But I sat there like, oh my gosh, cause I
Speaker 1: recorded this stuff before the you know, before everyone they
Speaker 1: call them embargoes, before you're allowed to actually publicly talk
Speaker 1: about it, and so you know, I sat there and
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know, like, am I wrong? And
Speaker 1: I'm like nervous. I'm like sitting up like what if
Speaker 1: all the reviewers come out and they say, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is the best phone ever, this is the best
Speaker 1: camera ever. And I'm sitting there saying, well, I don't
Speaker 1: really like the fringing around the photos of flowers and
Speaker 1: this photo is a little odd.
Speaker 2: And sure enough it came out. Well.
Speaker 1: I watched one review and exactly what I imagined, what
Speaker 1: I thought, was exactly what was said in this review.
Speaker 1: And so I was like breathing a sigh of relief.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, okay, so it was not just me.
Speaker 1: It was And I read several reviews, and I looked
Speaker 1: at several reviews and everyone was kind of saying the
Speaker 1: same thing, like Oh my gosh, so much hype for
Speaker 1: this smartphone because of this camera, and it kind of
Speaker 1: fell flat. Now, don't get me wrong. I think that
Speaker 1: it's still a good camera. I think it's a great camera.
Speaker 1: It's just not a consistent camera. And that's the problem.
Speaker 1: You might get a great shot, you might not get
Speaker 1: such a good shot. And that's like, you know, when
Speaker 1: I was using this thing for the couple of weeks
Speaker 1: i was testing it, I just kept going back to
Speaker 1: my iPhone when I really wanted to make sure I
Speaker 1: got the shot right. And that's a problem. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I'll just give you the top level stuff about the
Speaker 1: one plus nine series. There's two phones, the nine Pro,
Speaker 1: which you know is the main one, and then the
Speaker 1: nine which you know that's I don't know why you'd
Speaker 1: want that one, but anyway, they've got all the specs
Speaker 1: you need. So, I mean, the specs on this thing
Speaker 1: are just phenomenal. Like this is my perfect Android phone, right.
Speaker 1: The screen is big, it feels great in your hand,
Speaker 1: it's a perfect size phone. It's got a great color,
Speaker 1: it's got a great camera setup. It charges phenomenally fast.
Speaker 1: I'm talking thirty minutes to charge the entire phones. You
Speaker 1: never have to worry about charging. It's got you know,
Speaker 1: tons of megapixels, big sensor. The telephoto lens is terrible,
Speaker 1: it really is, is just not good. But the other
Speaker 1: two lenses are really nice, but they're just again, they
Speaker 1: don't create shots that are as good as something you
Speaker 1: can get off the Samsung or the iPhone. And that
Speaker 1: makes me really sad because I've loved this company for
Speaker 1: so long and I just feel like they're kind of
Speaker 1: falling apart and I don't know what's happening. And I
Speaker 1: just read today that the main marketing guy, the CMO,
Speaker 1: is leaving. And he was a oh, big, big supporter
Speaker 1: of this company for so many years. I met him
Speaker 1: many times, Kyle, and it's just, you know, it's just sad.
Speaker 1: So anyway, it is IP sixty eight. It's got the
Speaker 1: one and twenty hertz display, the best software on an
Speaker 1: Android phone. The software on the one plus is like
Speaker 1: butter it's so good, it's perfect. But yet again I
Speaker 1: come back to it. It's just I can't use it anyway.
Speaker 1: I don't want to totally, you know, be a bummer
Speaker 1: about it. Maybe they can fix things in a software
Speaker 1: update and we'll keep an eye on that, but it
Speaker 1: was a little bit overhyped. They've got this new hastle
Speaker 1: blot on I say, Hasselblad partnership, and.
Speaker 2: It's just, you know, it just did not do much.
Speaker 2: I don't. I think the colors on the pictures are
Speaker 2: just kind of.
Speaker 1: Very very muted and very dim and dingy looking compared
Speaker 1: to like the iPhone or Samsung, where it's like it
Speaker 1: just pops, you know what I mean. And some people
Speaker 1: might like that, I personally don't.
Speaker 2: So there you have it. It's going to be available.
Speaker 2: Let's see, uh.
Speaker 1: Nine hundred and sixty nine dollars for the Pro and
Speaker 1: it's available April second. Now, the other thing that one
Speaker 1: plus came out with is a watch, and I'm a
Speaker 1: little a little concerned about this because this seems like
Speaker 1: the perfect watch for Android people. But again it's like,
Speaker 1: are they promising a lot and then not delivering.
Speaker 2: We'll see.
Speaker 1: So it's a it looks like a Samsung kind of
Speaker 1: that design where it's got the round face and it's
Speaker 1: got you know, notifications, it's got the ability to make
Speaker 1: an answer calls, play music, you can store up to
Speaker 1: five hundred songs on it. It's got bluetoothe you can
Speaker 1: connect wireless earbuds. It's got great battery life. You can
Speaker 1: get a you know, charges in twenty minutes for a
Speaker 1: week's worth of power. Let's see two weeks of use
Speaker 1: or a week worth of use if you're really like,
Speaker 1: you know, big active user. It's got water resistance IP
Speaker 1: sixty eight. It's got all kinds of workout types on there,
Speaker 1: including automatic detection for running and jogging. It's got built
Speaker 1: in GPS, blood oxygen monitoring, stress detection, breathing training, rapid
Speaker 1: heart rate alerts, and sedentary reminder. So I mean amazing
Speaker 1: for one hundred and fifty nine dollars, I mean sounds
Speaker 1: like a winner. But again, we're just gonna have to
Speaker 1: see what the deal is with this thing. So I'm
Speaker 1: a little bit I'm treading lightly on that because I
Speaker 1: want to believe that's my dream watch. If it had LTE,
Speaker 1: it would be my dream watch. It does not, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: But there you have it. Erica writes in Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: I hope you're well. I recently bought some fight feet
Speaker 1: fit feet electric smart bulbs from Costco. I've seen them
Speaker 1: there for sure. I just don't know how to pronounce
Speaker 1: some feet. I'm guessing I really want to get them
Speaker 1: set up, but my husband thinks they're unsafe to use.
Speaker 1: He believes we can be jacked or get spyware. Is
Speaker 1: this the case with smart light bulbs? Thanks Erica.
Speaker 2: It's a good question, Erica.
Speaker 1: And we often hear how the weakest link to any
Speaker 1: network is really an Internet connected device. That is, you know,
Speaker 1: the software might be outdated, it might have a bug
Speaker 1: or some sort of hole in the software security hole.
Speaker 1: And so I think your husband is being cautious, but
Speaker 1: I also think he's a little bit like, come on, like,
Speaker 1: I don't think you're gonna get hacked or spyware from
Speaker 1: these things. Now, with that said, what I always recommend
Speaker 1: with any of these smart home devices, especially the ones
Speaker 1: that seem innoculous, right, the ones that seem like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm just put.
Speaker 2: Plug it in a light bulb, no big deal. Well,
Speaker 2: that's where you need to worry.
Speaker 1: Because the nests of the world and the you know,
Speaker 1: the Google homes and the Apple devices, they're they're all fine.
Speaker 1: They're gonna your password is gonna be you know, as strong.
Speaker 1: They've got everything encrypted, they've got the best software teams
Speaker 1: it's these random brands that are creating stuff that's super
Speaker 1: cheap that you need to be concerned about. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying you should not use it. I do have
Speaker 1: some stuff like this in my home. But you need
Speaker 1: to make sure you do not use their default password,
Speaker 1: and you need to make sure that you.
Speaker 2: Keep the software updated.
Speaker 1: If there is a thing on a light bulb, I
Speaker 1: mean you know, if you have a Hue bulb, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're updating the software all the time. If you have
Speaker 1: a Lifix bulb, they're updating. If you have a nano
Speaker 1: leaf bulb, they're updating that stuff all the time. With
Speaker 1: fight or feet or whatever it's called, it may not
Speaker 1: be updated. So you just do have to be concerned.
Speaker 1: But I think you're gonna be Okay. You plug these
Speaker 1: light bulbs in and I think you're gonna be fine.
Speaker 1: But again, just make sure that you're being smart about
Speaker 1: this stuff. Don't just plug them in and you know,
Speaker 1: take for granted that they're going to be safe. Just
Speaker 1: take the proper precautions, and that way you can protect
Speaker 1: your entire network, because your network is only as secure
Speaker 1: as you know the device that someone can break into
Speaker 1: it on. So just be careful with that. All right,
Speaker 1: good question there. Let's see what should we go to
Speaker 1: the quickie? Let's do a quickie story. Disney Plus has
Speaker 1: hiking prices for the first time in the US. Disney
Speaker 1: Plus now stands at seven ninety nine a month. This,
Speaker 1: according to Variety, went up from six to ninety nine
Speaker 1: a month. Now it's seventy nine ninety nine a year,
Speaker 1: compared to sixty nine to ninety nine for the annual
Speaker 1: plan before. First time the company has raised rates since
Speaker 1: Disney Plus debuted in November twenty nineteen, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: can you believe it's already been a year.
Speaker 2: In November, December, January, February.
Speaker 1: March a year and almost six months that Disney Plus
Speaker 1: has been available.
Speaker 2: I cannot believe it.
Speaker 1: It feels like just yesterday I was recording my segment
Speaker 1: and planning my segment for KTLA on Disney Plus, and
Speaker 1: when I went back to cut some video on this
Speaker 1: for TV to talk about the price hike, I had
Speaker 1: to go back into my files and I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, what so I think we've gotten our use
Speaker 1: out of it. I would say for the family movies
Speaker 1: like The Sit Down Friday night thing. I wish they
Speaker 1: had a little bit more because we're not, Like, it'd
Speaker 1: be awesome if there's something every Friday night, like a
Speaker 1: new like Pixar movie.
Speaker 2: I get it. That's that's really tricky.
Speaker 1: I mean, is it too much to ask for like
Speaker 1: a multi you know, a six hundred million dollar budget
Speaker 1: movie or a billion dollar budget movie every week?
Speaker 2: I mean, come on, Disney.
Speaker 1: But nonetheless, look, Disney Plus is still pretty cheap compared
Speaker 1: to the other services. They've got one hundred million subscribers.
Speaker 1: You know, if you look at Netflix or you know,
Speaker 1: HBO Max, those are all much more expensive. Hulu, it
Speaker 1: depends on what you have. If you have like the
Speaker 1: ad free Hulu, like I do, think it's like twelve
Speaker 1: bucks a month. But you know, so oh you can
Speaker 1: get a bundle though, if you got Disney Plus, cause
Speaker 1: that's all the same.
Speaker 2: So you know, look it's going up.
Speaker 1: I put this on my Facebook page and people were
Speaker 1: you know, people get angry on the Facebook page.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh, how dare they?
Speaker 1: But then you know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: they're probably keeping it, I would say, and yeah, they'll
Speaker 1: probably lose some people, but I don't think it's gonna
Speaker 1: be enough to, like, you know, totally go from one
Speaker 1: hundred million subscribers to fifty million overnight. I think Disney
Speaker 1: is going to be okay.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Question from Marcella says, hey, rich, does Arlow doorbell offer
Speaker 1: better security than the Ring app?
Speaker 2: Why the price difference? Thanks?
Speaker 1: Well, I assume when you say Ring app you mean
Speaker 1: the Ring video doorbell. So if you look at Arlow,
Speaker 1: you know, here's the thing. You have to think about
Speaker 1: the fact that when you buy one of these devices,
Speaker 1: these little smart home devices, right, it seems like an easy,
Speaker 1: innocent purchase. Okay, you know, you get a doorbell video camera,
Speaker 1: but what you're really doing is buying into an ecosystem.
Speaker 1: So you have to be very thoughtful and strategic about
Speaker 1: this because you have to look at all the products
Speaker 1: that ar Low offers and all the products that Ring
Speaker 1: offers and see which one you like better. You have
Speaker 1: to see the subscriptions that they offer and see if
Speaker 1: you like r low better or or Ring better. Now,
Speaker 1: I will be honest, I'm not too familiar with the
Speaker 1: rlow stuff. I know that a lot of people like it,
Speaker 1: but I just don't know. I'm not familiar with like
Speaker 1: their subscription situation, if they even have one. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of the Arlow stuff does like onboard recording,
Speaker 1: and I think that's why people like it, because it's
Speaker 1: like it is cheaper over time, right than it is
Speaker 1: for for for the Ring stuff. And so let's see
Speaker 1: let's see Arlow Smart. Okay, let's see what Arlow Smart is. Okay,
Speaker 1: smart subscription plans. So they do have a subscription plan
Speaker 1: for ar Low and if you look at it, it
Speaker 1: is single camera okay, So there's no plan which gives
Speaker 1: you live video streaming. And then there's the single camera
Speaker 1: plan which is three dollars a month, and up to
Speaker 1: five cameras which is ten dollars a month, and then
Speaker 1: the Elite which is up to four K video, which
Speaker 1: is up to fifteen. So that's the main thing you
Speaker 1: need to look at. So if you look at the doorbells,
Speaker 1: they're pretty much the same price. The wireless doorbell is
Speaker 1: one ninety nine for the r Low. It's currently one
Speaker 1: sixty nine for the video doorbell three plus. But if
Speaker 1: you go on the website for Ring, I mean, they
Speaker 1: just have so many products at this point that it's
Speaker 1: like everywhere, I mean, so you can get a video
Speaker 1: doorbell for as cheap as eighty five bucks, and it
Speaker 1: might not be as clear as you know many features
Speaker 1: as the newest one. But again, I think that's what
Speaker 1: you mean when you're saying this price difference is why
Speaker 1: should I pay two hundred dollars for the r Low
Speaker 1: when I can get a Ring for like eighty five bucks.
Speaker 1: And it's a valid question, but personally, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think these are both really good companies and I'm looking
Speaker 1: at Arlow like what they have They fucked cameras, doorbells,
Speaker 1: floodlke camera. I think Ring has the larger scope of accessories,
Speaker 1: and I've been slowly but surely installing more Ring stuff
Speaker 1: because I just think they're just coming out new stuff
Speaker 1: so often that I love it. And their plan, I
Speaker 1: think is ten dollars a month for like everything, which
Speaker 1: is really reasonable, and that I think that includes the
Speaker 1: alarm system. I think it's only three dollars a month
Speaker 1: for the other like if you just have a bunch
Speaker 1: of cameras. Don't quote me on that because I've not
Speaker 1: subscribed just yet. But oh yeah, here it is Ring.
Speaker 1: Let's see where is it ring Protect. Here's how much
Speaker 1: ring Protect is. Ring Protect compare plans three dollars a
Speaker 1: month or thirty dollars a year for basic. Yeah, plus
Speaker 1: is the Ring alarm, so that actually disregard that unless
Speaker 1: you're doing their alarm system. So yeah, three dollars a
Speaker 1: month or thirty dollars a year for as oh for
Speaker 1: one device, Oh okay, so all devices is.
Speaker 2: Ten dollars a month. Okay, so yeah it's ten bucks
Speaker 2: a month.
Speaker 1: So again you kind of have to decide like which
Speaker 1: ecosystem do you want to do you want to be
Speaker 1: a part of, And that's really what it comes down to.
Speaker 1: So take a look at all the products. You know,
Speaker 1: Ring is coming out with stuff like it seems like
Speaker 1: every day Arlow they've been a little bit slower and
Speaker 1: steadier with their products, but they have the basic stuff
Speaker 1: you need doorbells, cameras, floodlights, you know, those kind of things.
Speaker 1: So it just really depends what you want and the
Speaker 1: ecosystem that you want to get into. And let's be honest,
Speaker 1: after you know you're not going to stick on the
Speaker 1: free plan, probably you're going to end up buying the
Speaker 1: subscription plan, So you got to think about how much
Speaker 1: that's going to cost you and whether you want to
Speaker 1: pay that each month.
Speaker 2: All right, let's talk about MacBook.
Speaker 1: So this is just another quick story MacBook owners that
Speaker 1: bought a MacBook between let's see basically twenty fifteen to
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, whether MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, MacBook you had
Speaker 1: this thing called the butterfly keyboard design. And this was
Speaker 1: the topic of many, many a conversation in the tech world.
Speaker 1: People hated this keyboard Apple, of course. You know, they
Speaker 1: go on stage saying how great it is. When you
Speaker 1: actually get it, you're like, oh, this is horrible. And
Speaker 1: I know from personal experience because I had a MacBook
Speaker 1: Pro with this laptop with this keyboard and it was
Speaker 1: the worst typing experience ever. Now, it did do the thing, okay,
Speaker 1: so what people are saying, So basically, there's a class
Speaker 1: action lawsuit now in a bunch of states against this keyboard,
Speaker 1: and who knows, you'll probably get like a check for
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars. But the reality is it kind of
Speaker 1: it makes you realize that, you know, all these people
Speaker 1: were complaining about it for so long and Apple just
Speaker 1: kept dismissing it. You know, they never really came out
Speaker 1: and said that this was a horrible design. They tweaked it,
Speaker 1: you know, every couple, you know, every year they would
Speaker 1: tweak or every two years they would tweak the design
Speaker 1: just a little bit, but they'd still say it was
Speaker 1: so great.
Speaker 2: But we all knew using it that it wasn't.
Speaker 1: And now you know, I actually was pretty much, pretty
Speaker 1: much pushed to buying the new MacBook Pro sixteen because
Speaker 1: I just couldn't deal with the keyboard on the old one.
Speaker 1: Now my son has it, and he's fine, you know,
Speaker 1: he doesn't really know any different. But the reality is,
Speaker 1: this was just a really not fun keyboard to have.
Speaker 1: So there was a famous column in the Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal from Joanna Stern. She talked about she wrote the
Speaker 1: whole column with the double keypresses. So a lot of
Speaker 1: people would say that when you got like some dust
Speaker 1: or crumbs in this keyboard, it would stick, and so
Speaker 1: the keys would type instead of like oney, you it
Speaker 1: would type two. And I had this problem and it
Speaker 1: drove me nuts, and I'm like, is something happening, Like
Speaker 1: what is going on?
Speaker 2: Why is this happening?
Speaker 1: And so now it all, you know, it all makes sense.
Speaker 1: Apple abandoned the design in twenty twenty, according to the Verge,
Speaker 1: and you know. It's just one of those things where
Speaker 1: I just feel like, okay, I actually know that I
Speaker 1: was not I was not the one that thought that
Speaker 1: this was a little bit weird and everyone else thought
Speaker 1: it was fine. No, it was really weird. So now
Speaker 1: we know whether you get your money or not, at
Speaker 1: least you feel like you know.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's move on to this. Let's see here.
Speaker 1: Bill says, First off, I really like your segments on
Speaker 1: the Morning News, very informative.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Bill. Is there a way to.
Speaker 1: Remove the annoying provider boot splash and sound that happens
Speaker 1: every time you turn on your phone? If you do
Speaker 1: not know, can you steer me to someone who might thanks.
Speaker 1: My particular phone is Samsung Galaxy S nine. In case
Speaker 1: that matters, Keep up the good work and stay safe, William. Well, William,
Speaker 1: I assume you're talking about because your email says sent
Speaker 1: from the Samsung Galaxy No. Eight and AT and T
Speaker 1: five G evolution capable smartphone. You're talking about the boot
Speaker 1: up screen that basically flashes like AT and T makes
Speaker 1: their little sound and it's like ah, and it's every time. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't know how many times you're restarting your phone
Speaker 1: and seeing this, But yeah, I agree, it's one hundred
Speaker 1: percent bogus, annoying, bl bloated, lame, no need for it.
Speaker 1: Why these carriers love to brand their phone so much,
Speaker 1: I don't get it. It's not like they're giving us
Speaker 1: a discount to have all this branding on it, but
Speaker 1: it happens. And the only phone that you don't I
Speaker 1: get that on is the iPhone. And maybe you know
Speaker 1: some of the things like one plus. Actually if you
Speaker 1: buy a one plus branded from T Mobile, you might
Speaker 1: get that too. But anyway, I don't know of a
Speaker 1: way to get rid of that. I used to RHM
Speaker 1: phones all the time, which is, you know, installing like
Speaker 1: new operating systems on them, and I'm not even sure
Speaker 1: that that got rid of it. I think I can't remember, honestly,
Speaker 1: but I think Bill, I don't think it's something for
Speaker 1: the feint of heart to do. Like I don't think
Speaker 1: like the average person that just has a Samsung Galaxy
Speaker 1: S nine can just like you know, go into some
Speaker 1: settings and change that. This is like a a real
Speaker 1: like you know, you would have to do some serious,
Speaker 1: heavy duty stuff on your phone to get rid of this.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that that's something that I could
Speaker 1: recommend on this consumer podcast. But I mean, and I
Speaker 1: don't even remember the websites I used to go to
Speaker 1: for like the I think it was like cyanogen mod
Speaker 1: that I used to use. Like, you know, there's all
Speaker 1: these ROMs. I used to love installing those. I used
Speaker 1: to think that I can make the Android phones so
Speaker 1: much better with all these ROMs. And I used to Oh,
Speaker 1: it was such a nightmare because nothing worked properly. And
Speaker 1: you would just install one and like you know, their
Speaker 1: phone calls wouldn't work. You'd install another one and the
Speaker 1: camera wouldn't work. You'd stall another one and it's like
Speaker 1: some other cool thing you could. You know, It's like
Speaker 1: none of it ever worked properly. And I just I
Speaker 1: stopped doing that many many years ago, probably five years ago,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I got over it. So Bill,
Speaker 1: I don't think there's a way to really do this easily.
Speaker 1: So I would just you know, restart your phone and
Speaker 1: just put it in like a corner while it restarts,
Speaker 1: so you don't hear it or see it.
Speaker 2: That's that's my advice.
Speaker 1: Oh, speaking of carriers, Verizon has a pretty good deal
Speaker 1: and I am skeptical of this deal because it is
Speaker 1: from Verizon, even though I'm nothing against them. You know,
Speaker 1: full disclosure. My service is with Verizon and it's fantastic.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: I pay a lot for it, but it's great. They
Speaker 1: have Verizon Cloud for unlimited storage. Yes, you heard me correct,
Speaker 1: unlimited storage with Verizon Cloud. There's a brand new plan
Speaker 1: for twenty dollars a month unlimited. Now, I would make
Speaker 1: the joke that all these carriers have unlimited cell phone
Speaker 1: plans which are anything but unlimited, except T Mobile. They
Speaker 1: do have one that actually is unlimited. But TIMO know, Verizon,
Speaker 1: AT and T unlimited does not really mean the same
Speaker 1: thing to you and I that it means to them
Speaker 1: with their plans. So that's why I'm a little bit hesitant,
Speaker 1: because I'm like, what's the fine print on this? Is
Speaker 1: it really unlimited or are you limited in some way?
Speaker 1: But they say no, it is unlimited. Store as much
Speaker 1: as you want automatically upload files from iOS, Android, Windows,
Speaker 1: and Mac. The first month is free. It's not just
Speaker 1: for photos and videos. You can store anything files. You
Speaker 1: can even store your texts on Android, which is kind
Speaker 1: of cool, like a text backup feature. You can set
Speaker 1: up private folders which keep them private. You can share
Speaker 1: with family and friends. You can share Verizon Cloud with
Speaker 1: up to four or other users, whether or not they're Verizon.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting because it has family and friends. That
Speaker 1: means they don't even have to be on Verizon. Like
Speaker 1: I could share this unlimited cloud with my brother, Like,
Speaker 1: that's really cool.
Speaker 2: Twenty dollars a month.
Speaker 1: I meant to download this before I did the podcast
Speaker 1: so I can kind of check it out.
Speaker 2: I did not get a chance, but I will.
Speaker 1: But then it got me to thinking, Okay, twenty dollars
Speaker 1: a month is amazing, But I already pay ten dollars
Speaker 1: a month for my Google storage, which is two terabytes.
Speaker 1: If I bump it up to ten terabytes, it's fifty
Speaker 1: dollars a month, which I know sounds like a lot.
Speaker 1: But if I'm paying twenty for Verizon and ten for Google,
Speaker 1: and now I have to put my stuff in two places,
Speaker 1: I can just put thirty dollars towards Google, and now
Speaker 1: I'm only paying twenty extra for my to ten terabytes
Speaker 1: on Google? Are you following me? But that still only
Speaker 1: gives me ten terabytes, not unlimited, but is ten terabytes
Speaker 1: enough probably.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm up to two, but I mean, you know, ten
Speaker 1: would took me a couple of years to get to two,
Speaker 1: So I mean, I don't know how long would it
Speaker 1: take me to get to ten? And then maybe I
Speaker 1: can just wait until I get to that ten and
Speaker 1: then switch. I don't know, So this is the way
Speaker 1: I think. So I think that, you know, it sounds
Speaker 1: amazing that Verizon's offering this, and I think it's cool.
Speaker 1: The only thing I don't like is that it links
Speaker 1: you to Verizon indefinitely. And of course that's the name
Speaker 1: of the game with these add on services. You know,
Speaker 1: they want you to have all these things on one
Speaker 1: bill so that you stick with them. And if you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to change my provider, and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: now I don't get the Verizon Cloud for twenty dollars
Speaker 1: a month unlimited, Oh, I'll.
Speaker 2: Just stick with Verizon.
Speaker 1: So there's a reason why they do these things and so,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, it is a very compelling.
Speaker 1: It's very compelling twenty bucks a month for unlimited that
Speaker 1: I would never have to think about my cloud storage.
Speaker 1: I'm also curious how good the apps are how good
Speaker 1: the search is. I can find anything in my Google
Speaker 1: Drive within reason, very quickly, and everything's indexed and sliced
Speaker 1: and diced, and images are all indexed and PDFs are
Speaker 1: indexed everything. I mean, you could find stuff in there,
Speaker 1: you know, type in Sunrise and everything with Sunrise pictures, videos, whatever, documents.
Speaker 2: So you know, it's a good deal.
Speaker 1: But I personally hope that their offer forces some of
Speaker 1: these other cloud service providers or cloud storage providers to
Speaker 1: bring down their prices or increase their storage. It's been
Speaker 1: a while since we saw Google double from one terabyte
Speaker 1: to two. Maybe they'll bump that up to a little
Speaker 1: bit more. All right, Tommy says, hey, Rich, good morning
Speaker 1: to you. How are you doing. I'm doing great. I'm
Speaker 1: just wondering what's your take on the new MacBook air
Speaker 1: M one. Will be good for basic use like Web
Speaker 1: office and very little photo and video editing. Would you
Speaker 1: advise to go for two fifty six or five twelve storage?
Speaker 1: Thank you, Tommy, Tommy, I think the new MacBook air
Speaker 1: M one is amazing. I was a little bit wrong
Speaker 1: on this because I was kind of thinking it would
Speaker 1: not be that great, but I have not tested.
Speaker 2: It, but people love it.
Speaker 1: All the reviews I've seen, all my you know, tech
Speaker 1: friends on Instagram and Twitter love it, and I've I've
Speaker 1: found little fault with it, and so I say go
Speaker 1: for it.
Speaker 2: Very little photo video and editing.
Speaker 1: I think it can handle any photo, video and editing
Speaker 1: that you're going to be doing. If you're saying is
Speaker 1: very little, it's probably just personal use simple stuff. I
Speaker 1: used to edit on my MacBook Air all the time
Speaker 1: for video and it was fine. It couldn't really handle, like,
Speaker 1: you know, the big, big stuff, but for every day
Speaker 1: basic stuff. Yeah, And whether two fifty six or five twelve,
Speaker 1: definitely go five twelve. Get the most memory. They offer
Speaker 1: the most RAM and the most RAM, so you want
Speaker 1: the most storage and the most memory. So if five
Speaker 1: twelve and sixteen is max, go for five twelve sixteen.
Speaker 1: You will be happy later. Because no, these are expensive.
Speaker 1: And I always tell people you're already going. Let's say
Speaker 1: this MacBook. I don't know how much the M one is.
Speaker 1: To see how much it is, it's probably like nine
Speaker 1: ninety nine or eleven ninety nine. Let's see it is
Speaker 1: dun it is not eight oh eight ninety nine education stores,
Speaker 1: So that means it's nine ninety nine. Okay, so nine
Speaker 1: ninety nine, they have two configurations, they've got two fifty
Speaker 1: six or five twelve.
Speaker 2: Two fifty six.
Speaker 1: Is nine ninety nine that comes with eight gigs of memory,
Speaker 1: and then what five twelve is is uh, twelve forty nine.
Speaker 1: So people are always like, oh, twelve forty nine so expensive,
Speaker 1: but you're already going the nine ninety nine, Like you're
Speaker 1: already spending that, so that the little distance is two
Speaker 1: fifty and you know, just don't eat out for like,
Speaker 1: you know, a bunch of meals and you know, don't
Speaker 1: eat out at like you know, fast food for a
Speaker 1: couple of months, and you'll be fine. You know, that's
Speaker 1: the way I see it. You know, there's there's ways
Speaker 1: that you know, we all have. You know, if you're
Speaker 1: buying a computer for nine ninety nine, you're I get it,
Speaker 1: you're going it's expensive, but you're going that far. So
Speaker 1: if you go a little bit more for the five twelve,
Speaker 1: you're doubling your store for two fifty more. So you're
Speaker 1: not doubling your storage for another thousand more five hundred.
Speaker 2: It's two fifty. So if you don't need.
Speaker 1: All that storage, like if you literally do everything in
Speaker 1: the cloud. You don't really have a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: that you're gonna be dealing with. Then by all means,
Speaker 1: just go up to two fifty six.
Speaker 2: She'll be fine.
Speaker 1: So, but I think for maximum use over the years,
Speaker 1: I like the the five twelve. You're also getting a
Speaker 1: slightly better GPU. It's eight core GPU versus seven core.
Speaker 1: Let me see if they can if you can update
Speaker 1: or upgrade the memory on this. Oh you can, yeah,
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars. Oh wow, you can even go up
Speaker 1: to two terabytes of storage. Ooh, that would be my
Speaker 1: configuration MacBook Air sixteen gigs of storage, two terabytes. That
Speaker 1: would be a whopping twenty forty nine, which is actually
Speaker 1: it's not too bad for two terabytes. Ooh, that's getting
Speaker 1: me thinking. But I don't want the MacBook Air. I
Speaker 1: would want the MacBook Pro thirteen with But see now
Speaker 1: I'm on a sixteen inch. I just can't go back
Speaker 1: to thirteen. There's no way that screen would be just
Speaker 1: too small. So let's see if I max out the thirteen,
Speaker 1: which is, let's see Intel.
Speaker 2: I don't want Intel, I want M one.
Speaker 1: There we are, so base price is fifteen hundred and
Speaker 1: then if I add the sixteen gigs of memory plus
Speaker 1: the two terabytes, now you're talking twenty three hundred.
Speaker 2: Now that's a lot. Yeah, not spending that right now?
Speaker 2: All right, good question. All right now.
Speaker 1: I thought this was a really, really good tip. This
Speaker 1: comes from the datadoctors dot com. They do a radio
Speaker 1: one minute quick tip each day for non tech people.
Speaker 1: So they're they're talking to me and not well, they're
Speaker 1: talking to the people that I talk to, right, you know,
Speaker 1: non techies per se, people that are watching the local news.
Speaker 1: They just see my tech segment and they go, oh,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. I thought this was brilliant. And I get
Speaker 1: questions all the time about, you know, people getting hacked
Speaker 1: on Instagram and Facebook and you get locked out and
Speaker 1: there's no way back in, and there's really nothing I
Speaker 1: can tell you to do except just go to the
Speaker 1: help you Facebook help page and just kind of follow
Speaker 1: the directions they give you. Sometimes you get back in,
Speaker 1: sometimes you don't. But this little tip from data Doctors
Speaker 1: is perfect. If you go into your Facebook security settings,
Speaker 1: and this is before you get hacked, do this today.
Speaker 1: There is a trusted contacts section. Okay, let me get
Speaker 1: this because I actually went in here and looked at
Speaker 1: this and I thought it was amazing because mine's not
Speaker 1: set up.
Speaker 2: And so you go into your Facebook page.
Speaker 1: You go into let's see let me see how you
Speaker 1: find trusted contacts, go to security and log in. Okay,
Speaker 1: go to your Facebook page and then go to your
Speaker 1: security and log in tab and then you scroll down
Speaker 1: and it says setting up extra security. Choose three to
Speaker 1: five friends to contact if you get locked out, and
Speaker 1: they will get a code. If you ever get locked out,
Speaker 1: if you're trying to say, hey, this is my account,
Speaker 1: I can't get back in, it will send a code
Speaker 1: to your friends and they will say, yeah, I know
Speaker 1: rich trying to get in. Yeah, click the code and
Speaker 1: boom or I think so it happens is they send
Speaker 1: a code to all three of your friends. You have
Speaker 1: to use that code to log in all three of
Speaker 1: those code, not just one. So you can choose three
Speaker 1: to five friends. I've not chosen any friends yet to
Speaker 1: do this. I'm gonna do this.
Speaker 2: Today, but what a good idea. It's brilliant.
Speaker 1: Do this before you get hacked. So again, go to
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash settings, then go to your security tab.
Speaker 1: So go to settings in privacy and let's see, see
Speaker 1: it's easier just to go to the link. I'll put
Speaker 1: the link in the show notes. But it's Facebook dot
Speaker 1: com slash settings equals slash tab or gosh, this is
Speaker 1: why you can't say this on the radio or podcast.
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash settings, question mark tab equals security,
Speaker 1: So it's basically your security tab inside the settings and
Speaker 1: then scroll down toward says setting up extra security.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do a video on this so I can
Speaker 2: explain how to do this. But this is a brilliant,
Speaker 2: brilliant thing.
Speaker 1: If you really want to protect your Facebook account, that's
Speaker 1: what you got to do. Set up those trusted contacts.
Speaker 1: All right, Lisa says, dear Rich, I love your show
Speaker 1: and your podcast. Really appreciate how you answer listeners questions
Speaker 1: in a way non techies like me can understand what
Speaker 1: I just say. We have about one hundred family members.
Speaker 1: We'd like to make historic photos of family members available
Speaker 1: to all, no matter their tech ability. I know a flicker,
Speaker 1: are there others out there? Some relatives are in their
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties. Your help would be appreciated, sincerely, Lisa. Well, Lisa,
Speaker 1: I think any cloud storage would work for this. And
Speaker 1: you basically want to send a link that does not
Speaker 1: require any sort of login. That's the magic here, because
Speaker 1: you're talking eighties and nineties. You don't want to make
Speaker 1: them jump through any sort of hoops to see these pictures. Now,
Speaker 1: if you want these pictures to remain private, that is
Speaker 1: a little bit trickier because you are going to have
Speaker 1: to password protect them if you want to do that.
Speaker 1: But if you just want to give, like, you know,
Speaker 1: a random URL, and it's going to be pretty private
Speaker 1: just because it's a random URL, and you send it
Speaker 1: to these family members and they get to see all
Speaker 1: these pictures, download them, do whatever. I think you can
Speaker 1: use Flicker. I think that would work just fine. I
Speaker 1: think Dropbox is perfect for this. I think Dropbox will
Speaker 1: give you like a I don't know how much they
Speaker 1: give you at this point for free storage, but like
Speaker 1: a gig. And then you've got let's say, you could
Speaker 1: use Microsoft one Drive, you can use Google Photos, you
Speaker 1: can use Google Drive. I mean, there's so many ways
Speaker 1: of doing this. I think any of these cloud services
Speaker 1: would work. I don't know how many pictures you have,
Speaker 1: but I think you want the easiest thing. I think
Speaker 1: probably the easiest thing would be Dropbox. But the only
Speaker 1: tricky thing that all these providers do these days, which
Speaker 1: could trip up your family members is you know, when
Speaker 1: you do these free links, they always try to get them.
Speaker 1: They always try to trick them into like signing up
Speaker 1: or even logging in to download, even though you don't
Speaker 1: have to. I get this all the time with like
Speaker 1: box and like all these other services. I get links
Speaker 1: to pictures that people send me, like press people, and
Speaker 1: it's like you press download and immediately up pops a
Speaker 1: box to log in or sign up, and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I got to sign in, and the download kind of
Speaker 1: waits five or ten seconds, and then it happens in
Speaker 1: the background, which you know, they call it a dark pattern,
Speaker 1: you know, where it's trying to trick you into doing something.
Speaker 1: And for the uninitiated, for the less techie, a lot
Speaker 1: of times they'll just do it. They'll just log in
Speaker 1: or create an account, and then you know, they realize
Speaker 1: they don't really have to do that, or they may
Speaker 1: never realize that.
Speaker 2: So I don't like that, but I get it.
Speaker 1: They're trying to make their free services worth your time,
Speaker 1: and you know, trying to get people to convert. But
Speaker 1: if I had to pick one, you know, I'd pick
Speaker 1: one that you're already a member of. So let's see,
Speaker 1: how'd you email me? I don't have your email address, okay,
Speaker 1: so I don't know what email or what service you're using.
Speaker 1: But you know, like Google Photos makes it pretty darn
Speaker 1: easy to send links to people. I mean I exchange
Speaker 1: pictures with my photographer all the time, like little videos
Speaker 1: and stuff that all. So we use Dropbox primarily, but
Speaker 1: then if he needs like a video that I shot
Speaker 1: that's already in Google Photos, I will literally just generate
Speaker 1: a link and boom send it to him and he
Speaker 1: can just download the photo from the link or the
Speaker 1: video and it's super duper easy. So that's what I'd recommend.
Speaker 1: Check him out, and I think all those will work.
Speaker 1: And get those pictures scanned and share them with your
Speaker 1: friends and family. It's beautiful. It's beautiful when you can
Speaker 1: do that. Let me tell you about flee swear. This
Speaker 1: is from a vast They say that flee sware apps
Speaker 1: have earned over four hundred million dollars on Android and iOS. Ugh. Again,
Speaker 1: this is preying upon people that are less tech savvy.
Speaker 1: Researchers out of vass have discovered two hundred and four
Speaker 1: flee sware applications with over a billion downloads and four
Speaker 1: hundred dollars four hundred million in revenue on both Apple
Speaker 1: and Google Play. The purpose of these applications is to
Speaker 1: draw users into a free trial to test the app,
Speaker 1: and then guess what you forget to cancel and boom
Speaker 1: you're charged, and even if you cancel after that, they've
Speaker 1: already made the one nine four ninety nine. Sometimes these
Speaker 1: things go up to very very expensive free trials. I
Speaker 1: mean it could be like ninety nine dollars and then
Speaker 1: you got to try to get your money back. Flea
Speaker 1: swear consists predominantly of musical instrument apps, palm readers, image editors,
Speaker 1: camera filters, fortune tellers, QR code readers, PDF readers, and
Speaker 1: slime simulators. The applications generally do what they're supposed to do.
Speaker 1: They scan QR codes, but you don't need to pay
Speaker 1: for QR code scanner. They target younger audiences through playful
Speaker 1: themes and catchy ads on social networks with free installation.
Speaker 1: And so this is interesting because it's it's actually targeting
Speaker 1: the teens. And my kid yesterday gave me a screen
Speaker 1: time request to download a VPN, and I'm sure he
Speaker 1: saw it as an ad on one of the games
Speaker 1: he's playing. So these apps also take advantage of the
Speaker 1: fact that users are not familiar with how subscriptions were,
Speaker 1: which means even after you've deleted the app, the subscription
Speaker 1: keeps going, and a lot of people don't know how
Speaker 1: to cancel subscriptions. They made it a lot easier on iOS.
Speaker 1: On Android, when you uninstall, it says, hey, do you
Speaker 1: want to cancel the subscription? I believe it says that
Speaker 1: every time on iOS. I think that was a feature
Speaker 1: they were thinking of introducing. I'm not sure if it
Speaker 1: ever was introduced, but they've made it easier to find
Speaker 1: your subscriptions on iOS anyway. It's like two clicks now
Speaker 1: versus like ten before. So I think this is again
Speaker 1: one of those things that you just kind of tell
Speaker 1: your friends and family about, you know, just you know.
Speaker 1: My trick with free trials is you go in, you
Speaker 1: cancel it immediately. So I subscribe to Paramount Network the
Speaker 1: other day to watch the new SpongeBob movie, which I
Speaker 1: thought was fantastic by the way, I really really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: And now I'm gonna watch. You can't do that on television.
Speaker 1: But they gave me a free trial of one month,
Speaker 1: and that's on my through my Apple TV and through
Speaker 1: iOS or you know, through Apple subscriptions. And so what
Speaker 1: I did was I always let them eat email me,
Speaker 1: and then as soon as I get that email, you know,
Speaker 1: when I check my email the next morning, whatever, I
Speaker 1: go in and I cancel that subscription immediately.
Speaker 2: Now you may say, Rich, why would you do that.
Speaker 1: That's so mean to the developers, like you're just using
Speaker 1: them for their free trial and you're canceling it without
Speaker 1: even trying it. No, what I'm doing is protecting myself
Speaker 1: from myself. And so if I want the if I
Speaker 1: want Paramount Plus, after my free trial, I can go
Speaker 1: ahead and resubscribe at any time. It doesn't really hurt
Speaker 1: anyone in the process. So what I always do is,
Speaker 1: as a rule, just go ahead and cancel your subscription
Speaker 1: immediately after you subscribe. And if you feel like you're
Speaker 1: being mean, you're not. You're You're just protecting yourself. And
Speaker 1: the best part is, let's say you want to continue
Speaker 1: the subscription and on the twenty seventh day, when your
Speaker 1: subscription is supposed to renew, and it's not, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you're trying to access the app, you go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I cancel this. So it's it automatically canceled out. All
Speaker 1: these free trials, you can continue to use until the
Speaker 1: free trial runs out, even if you cancel it. The
Speaker 1: only the exception, ironically, is Apple's own free trials. If
Speaker 1: you cancel them, a lot of times they just stop
Speaker 1: working immediately, which is you know, talk about dark patterns,
Speaker 1: but whatever, I digress. So I think you just do that,
Speaker 1: and that's the rule that you make. And again I'm
Speaker 1: talking you know, if you're techy and tech savvy. But
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people like my dad just subscribed
Speaker 1: to Hulu, and I can guarantee you he will forget
Speaker 1: to cancel by the time the free trial, not to
Speaker 1: you know, single out my dad, but it just happens.
Speaker 2: It happens to everyone. I did it the other day.
Speaker 2: What I do.
Speaker 1: I forget what the what the app was, but I
Speaker 1: signed up for my kid and I say, oh, they
Speaker 1: got me. They got me for an extra month because
Speaker 1: I forgot to do this, and it's this was a
Speaker 1: specific app my kid needed like immediately, Oh it was Minecraft.
Speaker 1: Realms and it was like eight bucks. But he wanted
Speaker 1: me to like do this, and I had to do
Speaker 1: it fast, and I just kind of forgot. And I
Speaker 1: actually know why I forgot, and it was because I
Speaker 1: talked about this another podcast. My emails from Apple were
Speaker 1: not arriving to my inbox. They were going to like
Speaker 1: SPA or something. So now I've got them arriving.
Speaker 2: So now when I.
Speaker 1: See, oh, you subscribe to a free trial, I say, oh, cancel,
Speaker 1: and then I'll resubscribe if I end up loving it,
Speaker 1: and you can always go back and do that. Just
Speaker 1: remember that, all right. Next question, Nancy says, hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: hope all is good with you.
Speaker 2: Hopefully you can help me.
Speaker 1: My question is, we have an RV with a Wineguard antenna.
Speaker 2: Can we connect it to a.
Speaker 1: Verizon mobile Wi Fi and have our Samsung TV work
Speaker 1: off Wi Fi instead of having a contract with Dish
Speaker 1: TV or Dish Network or Direct TV or Dish Network.
Speaker 1: Thanks for your help, Nancy, Yeah, I would say so.
Speaker 1: I mean, you don't exactly. I don't know what the
Speaker 1: Wineguard antenna is. I'm guessing, let's see, is that like
Speaker 1: some sort of special RV antenna.
Speaker 2: I'm guessing it must be. Okay, yeah, so.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, Okay, Well, I don't know what kind of
Speaker 1: antenna this is. This is taking in satellite TV, that's
Speaker 1: I'm guessing, But I don't think you can connect that
Speaker 1: antenna specifically to a Verizon hot spot. But I think
Speaker 1: you can have your Samsung TV work off Wi Fi
Speaker 1: if you get a Verizon hot spot. My solution would
Speaker 1: be get the Verizon Mobile hop Actually, maybe before you
Speaker 1: do any of this, just cancel the Direct TV or
Speaker 1: Dish network, use your iPhone as a hotspot if you can,
Speaker 1: if your mobile service allows it, and get a little
Speaker 1: streaming stick for your TV. So I know Samsung TVs
Speaker 1: have some sort of smarts built in, but just bypass
Speaker 1: that and go with like either I personally would go
Speaker 1: with the I'd go with the Amazon Fire TV stick.
Speaker 1: Get that plug that into the back of your TV.
Speaker 1: Use your phone to set up the Wi Fi so
Speaker 1: turn it into a hotspot. Connect the Amazon fireTV stick
Speaker 1: to your phone's WiFi, and take a trip and see
Speaker 1: if you can live with the apps. You know, the
Speaker 1: streaming apps you know, Netflix I'm guessing as one of
Speaker 1: the popular ones, or whatever else you're using. See if
Speaker 1: you can deal with those over your Wi Fi and
Speaker 1: then if you like it and it seems to work,
Speaker 1: then go ahead, invest in a mobile hotspot, get Verizons,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to do, especially if they have a
Speaker 1: five G one. I mean that would be amazing because
Speaker 1: you get you know, good signal and just hook that
Speaker 1: up in your RV, put it near a window, run,
Speaker 1: run it to a power strip and turn it on
Speaker 1: and boom, you have Wi Fi twenty four to seven
Speaker 1: in your RV. Add it to your cell phone plan
Speaker 1: and you know, now your little your Amazon Fire TV
Speaker 1: stick is running to that Wi Fi and you'll probably
Speaker 1: save a bundle in your you know, Direct TV or
Speaker 1: Dish network fees.
Speaker 2: That's what I would do.
Speaker 1: I think that's the best solution there. All right, let's
Speaker 1: do one more story before we go. This is this
Speaker 1: was just something that was kind of fun free Blockbuster
Speaker 1: dot org. So I saw a tip on Instagram from
Speaker 1: one of my friends that they had a free Blockbuster
Speaker 1: Kiosk in Tarzana, California. So I drove over and I,
Speaker 1: you know, I love check, you know, I saw I
Speaker 1: checked the date. It was like, oh, it's only been
Speaker 1: there for a couple of days. So I had to
Speaker 1: go run over there. And my wife was like, where
Speaker 1: are you? And so I like, I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: in Tarzana shooting a free Blockbuster kiosk. She's like what,
Speaker 1: and so like, I'll be home soon. I'll be home soon.
Speaker 1: And I went and I shot this thing. It was
Speaker 1: so cool. It's this little, uh, you know, newspaper vending
Speaker 1: machine that of course is not used anymore, and people
Speaker 1: go and they repurpose them, so they they spray paint
Speaker 1: them blue. Then they use stencils to make it look
Speaker 1: like a Blockbuster you know logo, and then they put
Speaker 1: little DVDs in it or see or you know vhs,
Speaker 1: and they it's like that whole give one, take one
Speaker 1: kind of thing. And then they advertise it on Instagram.
Speaker 1: It's all volunteer, it's all free. And I went and
Speaker 1: I went to the free Blockbuster dot org website and
Speaker 1: sure enough, there's a bunch of these all over the
Speaker 1: US and it's just done by volunteer. It's just kind
Speaker 1: of fun, kind of getting entertainment into people's hands for free.
Speaker 1: And so in the Blockbuster video box that I saw,
Speaker 1: there was the office space on DVD. There's a pianist
Speaker 1: on VHS Wow Old School, and there was a couple
Speaker 1: other movies as well, and I just thought it was
Speaker 1: so cool, such a fun idea, very nostalgic, and if
Speaker 1: you want to check it out. I've got the video
Speaker 1: on my Instagram at rich on Tech. And you know,
Speaker 1: people of course on my Facebook were like, oh, just
Speaker 1: gonna take one bad apple before everyone ruins this. But
Speaker 1: you know, hopefully people are good and there's enough good
Speaker 1: people in the world to outdo the bad people in
Speaker 1: the world, right, and so these it's just a fun idea.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's like, are you gonna get all your entertainment from this? No,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of fun if you can. You know,
Speaker 1: if you go there every Friday and just pick out
Speaker 1: a movie, I mean, it's just fun.
Speaker 2: You pick out a movie, you leave a movie. The
Speaker 2: only thing I was.
Speaker 1: Wondering about is, you know, what's the deal with them
Speaker 1: using the Blockbuster logo?
Speaker 2: Because the logo is very.
Speaker 1: Much inspired by Blockbuster, and on the website it says
Speaker 1: do you have permission to use this name and logo?
Speaker 2: Couldn't you get sued? And the free.
Speaker 1: Blockbuster dot Org folks say we received a letter from
Speaker 1: Blockbuster and have responded by requesting a license to continue
Speaker 1: using their trademarks. It's not like Blockbuster is really being used.
Speaker 1: But honestly, Blockbuster is still a very big brand name.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if they can ever revitalize it in
Speaker 1: some way, but Blockbuster is still very recognizable and still
Speaker 1: a I mean, for me, it just conjures up images
Speaker 1: of going into Blockbuster, you know, Friday night with my
Speaker 1: family and just being like, oh my gosh, this is amazing,
Speaker 1: you know, like this is so cool, and picking out
Speaker 1: a movie and going This was my pro tip that
Speaker 1: I shared on TV is you know you would you
Speaker 1: would grow to grow.
Speaker 2: I'm reading text messages as I'm doing this.
Speaker 1: You would go to Blockbuster and you would ask the
Speaker 1: cashier if anyone returned the movie that you want, you know,
Speaker 1: that new hot release, right, and that was like do
Speaker 1: they have it? And they look at those little movies
Speaker 1: that people dropped off of the cashier and they say, no,
Speaker 1: it's not here.
Speaker 2: Or maybe once in a while it would be there,
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 1: That music means it's gonna do it for this episode,
Speaker 1: or that's gonna do it for this episode of the show.
Speaker 1: If you would like to submit a question for me
Speaker 1: to answer. Two ways to do it. Go to richon Tech,
Speaker 1: dot tv, slash podcast and hit the microphone button to
Speaker 1: leave a voicemail, or go to my Facebook page Facebook
Speaker 1: dot com slash rich on Tech hit the big blue
Speaker 1: send email button. Also, I would love it if you
Speaker 1: would share this podcast with your friends. Take a screenshot,
Speaker 1: put it on Instagram, say that you love listening. Let
Speaker 1: your friends listen to it, rate and review it to
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Speaker 1: podcasts rate this podcast, dot com, slash rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: You can find me at rich on Tech on social media,
Speaker 1: and no matter where you live in the US, you
Speaker 1: can download the free ktla plus app on fireTV, Apple TV,
Speaker 1: and Roku. Then scroll to the tech section and watch
Speaker 1: all of my TV segments on demand.
Speaker 2: I love it. My name is Richdmiro. Thanks so much
Speaker 2: for listening.
Speaker 1: I know there are many ways you can spend an
Speaker 1: hour of your time, so I do appreciate you spending
Speaker 1: it with me. Stay safe, I will talk to you
Speaker 1: real soon.