Speaker 1: Tech, travel, food, whatever. It is the last episode of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, and it's a special one where I
Speaker 1: answer just the questions you sent me. What's going on.
Speaker 1: I'm Richdemiro and this is Rich on Tech, the podcast
Speaker 1: where I talk about the tech stuff I think you
Speaker 1: should know about, and it's where I answer the questions
Speaker 1: you send me. I'm the tech reporter at KATLA Channel
Speaker 1: five in Los Angeles. I figured for the last show
Speaker 1: of the year, I would do things just a little differently,
Speaker 1: and so I asked you on Instagram and Facebook to
Speaker 1: send in your questions on a wide variety of topics.
Speaker 1: And yeah, yes, sent me some questions. So I've got
Speaker 1: lots of questions. I've got so many, so many to
Speaker 1: go through right here, I've got them on my computer.
Speaker 1: So we're just gonna get started. So it's going to
Speaker 1: be a lot of I'm gonna just kind of jump
Speaker 1: around because there's questions from all over there on a
Speaker 1: wide variety of topics. So it should be a pretty
Speaker 1: fun show, because you know, it's the end of the year.
Speaker 1: We need something fun to listen to. Getting ready for
Speaker 1: Ces coming up in January. I was just in Vegas
Speaker 1: yesterday and it was cold, so it reminded me that
Speaker 1: it's going to be very cold in January. For CS.
Speaker 1: CS is still kind of a mixed bag right now
Speaker 1: because we've still got a lot of you know, restrictions
Speaker 1: and things going on, of course, variants, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's just we're not in a place where where things
Speaker 1: are like no problem, you know. I mean last year,
Speaker 1: we thought a year later things would be a lot better,
Speaker 1: and you know, they're just kind of all over the
Speaker 1: place still. So CS is happening, but some people are
Speaker 1: not going. Some people are predicting that they're going to
Speaker 1: cancel it. But at this point we are getting a
Speaker 1: lot of emails from CS saying that it's happening. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of exhibitors, there's a lot of people, and
Speaker 1: they're actually going to give everyone a COVID test as
Speaker 1: well now, so well see, I kind of want to
Speaker 1: go just to see how different it is. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm curious to see what a show in this sort
Speaker 1: of pandemic world looks like. I mean, is it small?
Speaker 1: Is it it's just maybe it's easier to manage. I
Speaker 1: don't know. But anyway, I am planning on attending unless
Speaker 1: anything majorly changes, but I will plan on attending and
Speaker 1: bringing those reports to you. All right, let's start with Cynthia.
Speaker 1: She's got the first question. I guess should I do this?
Speaker 1: I don't know if I should do this because the
Speaker 1: whole thing is this. So Cynthia's first question is needing
Speaker 1: a new iPhone and mini pad. I'm using the six
Speaker 1: s lol, no upgrade. Love. When is the best time
Speaker 1: to buy these? After Christmas? You are the best enjoying
Speaker 1: you since you began. Oh thank you, Cynthia. New iPhone
Speaker 1: really comes down to you just kind of have to
Speaker 1: look at the deals that are out there. So they
Speaker 1: don't particularly do deals any particular time except when they launched.
Speaker 1: Been doing a lot of deals during launch. But my
Speaker 1: way to do this now the mini iPad. I have
Speaker 1: not seen any deals on at all. So if you
Speaker 1: go to iPad Mini the way I look for deals,
Speaker 1: you go to iPad Mini deal in Google okay, and
Speaker 1: then you hop over to the news section. So this
Speaker 1: will bring up bloggers that look up oh wow after
Speaker 1: I just said that. So one day ago, iPad Mini
Speaker 1: sees rare discount one hundred and thirty dollars off. Wow,
Speaker 1: I actually want to do that. Wow, Amazon is offering
Speaker 1: Oh interesting Amazon, this doesn't oh I see, never mind,
Speaker 1: the rare discount on the iPad mini is only twenty
Speaker 1: dollars off. That's that's not really like a it's not
Speaker 1: a huge discount. But yeah. So the way I look
Speaker 1: up any kind of deals is you just type in
Speaker 1: the name of the product in Google, type the word deal,
Speaker 1: and then the secret is you want to move over
Speaker 1: to the news section and that will give you all
Speaker 1: of the bloggers that track these things. And the reason
Speaker 1: why bloggers track these things is because they share their
Speaker 1: affiliate links, so they get a little bit of a
Speaker 1: cut of the price when you buy something, So there's
Speaker 1: something in it for them. There's an in it to
Speaker 1: win it kind of aspect to this. So iPad mini, Yeah,
Speaker 1: just check Amazon or check those deals and see. When
Speaker 1: it comes to the iPhone again, just the same thing.
Speaker 1: So I would just type in iPhone and whatever model
Speaker 1: you want, So if you want the twelve or you
Speaker 1: can just type iPhone deals and see and it'll tell
Speaker 1: you what the deals are on the iPhone. And of
Speaker 1: course mac rumors comes up and it says we're just
Speaker 1: ten days away from Christmas. This was a couple days ago,
Speaker 1: and it will give you if you scroll down to
Speaker 1: the iPhone just have iPhone doesn't really have iPhone, so
Speaker 1: it didn't have iPhone in that one. But that's because Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I guess what I would do is probably just
Speaker 1: check the carriers in that case if you can't find
Speaker 1: something there. But you know, it's one of these things
Speaker 1: where you just kind of have to do a little
Speaker 1: research online, just kind of just pop around. You can
Speaker 1: call your carrier. I have a friend that actually changes
Speaker 1: carriers every time the new iPhone comes out that he
Speaker 1: wants to get because he'll get a new deal. Now,
Speaker 1: I feel like the carriers have gotten a little hip
Speaker 1: to that because these days they're offering a lot of
Speaker 1: these deals to new and existing customers. But first place
Speaker 1: to start is your carrier, call them up, see what
Speaker 1: they say, and go from there. Okay, next question from Instagram,
Speaker 1: Stefan says, how's life driving with a Tesla? Good question.
Speaker 1: I am obsessed and I think I've mentioned this on
Speaker 1: the podcast before, but yeah, there's no other way to
Speaker 1: describe it except it is the best car I've ever purchased.
Speaker 1: I love it. It is totally changed my entire life.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel better, I'm healthier, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: just kidding, No, I mean, it's one of those things
Speaker 1: that it just has really opened up my eyes to
Speaker 1: different ways of thinking. When I drive to work and
Speaker 1: when I drive around or I take a road trip.
Speaker 1: It's just really phenomenal to me that I'm not using
Speaker 1: any gas, which is number one. There's other weird little
Speaker 1: things like like you would never idle in your car
Speaker 1: or leave your car on for like an hour, whereas
Speaker 1: with a with an electric car, that's no problem. So
Speaker 1: this is why they and it makes me realize why
Speaker 1: they built in the Netflix and the YouTube and all
Speaker 1: that stuff, because you can sit in your car now,
Speaker 1: so your car becomes almost like another room. It's all
Speaker 1: because it's electric. So if it's electric, you can just
Speaker 1: leave the thing on just like any other thing that's electrics.
Speaker 1: You're not feeling this pressure when you're running a gas
Speaker 1: engine that you want to turn it off because it's
Speaker 1: you know, ruining the environment or whatever it's doing. It's
Speaker 1: just wasting gas, especially with gas prices. But overall, really
Speaker 1: really enjoy it. I do think that there's something to
Speaker 1: this whole Tesla thing and it's it's just I don't
Speaker 1: know how to explain it. It's just really kind of
Speaker 1: changed my entire thought process when it comes to cars,
Speaker 1: Like it's just it's really really phenomenal to drive. It
Speaker 1: handles really well, and it just it just changes the
Speaker 1: way you think about cars. But it also makes me
Speaker 1: think that if everyone switched to one of these overnight,
Speaker 1: we'd have a whole other set of problems. You know,
Speaker 1: where to charge them, how to get the electricity to
Speaker 1: charge them. So I think that we're in a good
Speaker 1: transition time, and I think I'm glad that Tesla and
Speaker 1: some of these other companies have taken the lead on
Speaker 1: this because there is going to be a transition period.
Speaker 1: That is, you know that we need we need a
Speaker 1: long runway for this. There's a lot of gas cars
Speaker 1: out there, so I'm not saying everyone needs to buy one,
Speaker 1: but if you do buy one, I think you will
Speaker 1: be very very happy. Rick asks what is the best
Speaker 1: cell phone to buy? Rick, there's a lot of I mean,
Speaker 1: I would have a lot of choices for this, So
Speaker 1: I think when it comes to the iPhone of things
Speaker 1: or the Apple side of things, I would say either
Speaker 1: the iPhone thirteen which is just the standard iPhone or
Speaker 1: the iPhone thirteen Pro. And the main difference between those
Speaker 1: two phones is the fact that the Pro has a
Speaker 1: zoom lens and the thirteen does not. And of course
Speaker 1: the Pro just has slightly better specs in certain ways,
Speaker 1: but it's not you know, it's got like a better
Speaker 1: screen and that kind of stuff, But that's the main
Speaker 1: thing is that is you get the zoom lens and
Speaker 1: you get a higher quality camera as well. But otherwise
Speaker 1: I think that the thirteen is great. That's on the
Speaker 1: iPhone side of things. On the Android side of things,
Speaker 1: I would recommend the Pixel six and the Pixel six
Speaker 1: Pro and I just did my review of these on
Speaker 1: TV and they're just it's just the best. It's it's
Speaker 1: just such a great Android device. And I did the
Speaker 1: update finally to check it out, and I will say
Speaker 1: I'm not totally impressed with the update, Like I think
Speaker 1: there's still more work to be done. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, I think overall, I'm very picky because I
Speaker 1: test a lot of these phones, so I'm very picky
Speaker 1: with my phones, and I think that the you know,
Speaker 1: I expect a little bit more from the Pixel because
Speaker 1: you know, this is Google's phone, this is Google's flagship. Like,
Speaker 1: there shouldn't be any stutter, There shouldn't be any nothing
Speaker 1: should be wrong with this phone. Like Apple comes out
Speaker 1: with their phone and it's like there's a couple of
Speaker 1: little bugs here and there, but it's not nothing. That's
Speaker 1: like that's like a deal breaker. And I'm not saying
Speaker 1: there's a deal breaker with a pixel, but it's just
Speaker 1: like I feel like with with Apple or Google stuff,
Speaker 1: it just feels a little bit unpolished compared to Apple.
Speaker 1: And that's natural. I mean, that's why Apple is the
Speaker 1: market leader, because they have figured out how to ship
Speaker 1: stuff in a way that is super polished. And to
Speaker 1: be quite honest, Apple's been slipping in that aspect. I
Speaker 1: mean when when iPhones came out a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: you did not see so many updates like we're seeing today.
Speaker 1: Like with the iPhone. If you are looking, you're noticing
Speaker 1: that the the iOS is getting updates like almost you know,
Speaker 1: it feels like every month, which is great because you're
Speaker 1: always getting new features and things fixed and little things.
Speaker 1: But it used to be the iPhone had one main
Speaker 1: iOS update a year and the maybe one little tiny
Speaker 1: you know, incremental update. But now we're just seeing them
Speaker 1: all the time, and so you know, it is what
Speaker 1: it is. But otherwise, let's see if you want something
Speaker 1: that's more unique. I think that the Samsung devices are
Speaker 1: really cool. The you know, the flip phones. The fold
Speaker 1: is is really neat. It's it's nice and simple. The
Speaker 1: flip is really cool too, or sorry, am I getting
Speaker 1: those mixed up? I think the yeah, the z flip
Speaker 1: so sorry, the fold is not simple. The fold is
Speaker 1: like the bigger, kind of clunkier one, but it's got
Speaker 1: the big giant screen inside. The flip is the smaller
Speaker 1: one that you know fits in your pocket, which is
Speaker 1: really cool. So again, if you want like a different
Speaker 1: form factor, and then if you want a lot of zoom,
Speaker 1: you got to go with the S twenty one Ultra.
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of choices out there when
Speaker 1: it comes to cell phones, there's not one fits all.
Speaker 1: I mean iPhones, believe me, you see the most of
Speaker 1: those everywhere. But you know, as you travel you do
Speaker 1: see a lot of different phones out and about, and
Speaker 1: so yeah, there's there's lots of choices still out there.
Speaker 1: Adrian says, how was the concert? Oh, Adrian, you must
Speaker 1: follow me on social media or did I mention? I
Speaker 1: didn't even mentioned that I was going to a concert
Speaker 1: on social media. So the concert was excellent, that was
Speaker 1: That's why I was in Vegas. I went to a
Speaker 1: Luke Comb's concert and I just, you know, I just
Speaker 1: had this feeling that Luke Combs would be pretty good
Speaker 1: in concert because I really enjoy his music, and he
Speaker 1: was great. It was t Mobile Arena. It was really
Speaker 1: really nice. Definitely a great show. And did I don't
Speaker 1: think I posted anything about it yet, but I'll probably
Speaker 1: post a couple couples of things about it. But it
Speaker 1: was just great. I mean, he did a really nice job.
Speaker 1: Definitely definitely uh what's the word, uh, when you're your
Speaker 1: your comfort zone. Definitely impeded on my comfort zone a
Speaker 1: little bit. I mean I've been to one concert here
Speaker 1: in La which you know, was a little bit more
Speaker 1: the rules were a little stricter, so you know, with
Speaker 1: with entrance and all that stuff. But here, you know,
Speaker 1: is Vegas is a little bit more relaxed, but still
Speaker 1: still I think everything was on the up and up
Speaker 1: and it was a really nice concert. But yeah, Luke
Speaker 1: Colmbs was great. Told his backstory, which you know, obviously
Speaker 1: you go to concerts to hear a little bit more
Speaker 1: than the CD or the streaming, I should say, but
Speaker 1: he did a great job told his story, and it
Speaker 1: was just amazing that he basically said, in six years
Speaker 1: his entire life has changed, because six years ago he
Speaker 1: was absolutely nothing, and now here he is like selling
Speaker 1: out stadiums and concert venues in Vegas. So pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Thanks for asking. I always don't mind a Vegas trip,
Speaker 1: all right, Janet says, how do fire sticks work? I'm
Speaker 1: a technically challenged grandmother. Good question. It's so interesting because
Speaker 1: I always take for granted the fact that I understand
Speaker 1: all this stuff and it just kind of comes natural.
Speaker 1: And then you get a question from someone like I'm
Speaker 1: not going to name someone the other day, but they
Speaker 1: told me on their phone they got a little wrench
Speaker 1: at the top, a little wrench icon. Now, to me,
Speaker 1: when I see a wrench icon, I know that that
Speaker 1: means that my phone has a software update or something
Speaker 1: like that, right, And to this person, they said, oh,
Speaker 1: I thought I needed to tighten a screw or something
Speaker 1: on my phone. I mean, that sounds funny, but the
Speaker 1: reality is like, yeah, if you don't understand, if you
Speaker 1: didn't grow up with this stuff, or you didn't you're
Speaker 1: not really technical. Why would you think that a wrench
Speaker 1: would mean a software update? You'd say, oh, shoot, I
Speaker 1: need to tighten something on my phone because there's a
Speaker 1: wrench icon. And so it's little things like that that
Speaker 1: I take for granted that I know. And this is
Speaker 1: part of why I like doing what I do, because
Speaker 1: my tech segments on TV reach the average person. They're
Speaker 1: not tuning in for technology, they're tuning in for local
Speaker 1: news and for fun and weather and all that stuff,
Speaker 1: and then my stuff comes up and they go, oh,
Speaker 1: that's cool. This guy explains stuff, hopefully in a way
Speaker 1: that's easy to understand, and that's always my goal. So
Speaker 1: the firesticks, it's interesting a lot of people think that
Speaker 1: when you get a firestick, that's it. You just plug
Speaker 1: it in and that's all you need, Like you don't
Speaker 1: need to get cable, you don't need to get internet,
Speaker 1: you don't need satellite whatever. But the firestick is really
Speaker 1: just a platform. It's a conduit for you know, streaming
Speaker 1: services that you choose, and so you can't just go
Speaker 1: ahead and cancel your cable. You can't just go ahead
Speaker 1: and cancel your Internet. You have to decide what do
Speaker 1: you want on this fire stick. Nowadays, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of free streaming services. So if you just had
Speaker 1: the firestick and you just had Internet, which are the
Speaker 1: two basic things you need. Yeah, you could probably suffice
Speaker 1: on the built in news programming that Amazon provides you.
Speaker 1: You could probably suffice on Pluto to be what else. YouTube,
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of free content out there, and
Speaker 1: it's all ad support it, so you're not going to
Speaker 1: get away from the ads. But it's just kind of
Speaker 1: like broadcast TV where it's free. You put an intenta
Speaker 1: up and you get it and there's ads and so
Speaker 1: same thing here. But if you want to step it
Speaker 1: up a notch, you can go with Netflix, you can
Speaker 1: go with Hulu all the things that I pay for
Speaker 1: every month, Hbo Max, and that's what you do. So
Speaker 1: the firestick is just sort of the platform. You stick
Speaker 1: it into the back of your TV that kind of
Speaker 1: takes over your TV screen. So it's no longer you
Speaker 1: turn on your TV and it defaults to channel two
Speaker 1: or whatever it is. It turns on to the firestick
Speaker 1: and now the firestick is your platform, so you can
Speaker 1: look on there for movies, TV, shows, games, whatever you want.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a whole app store. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like a cell phone on your TV screen, and you
Speaker 1: can decide what you want to pay for, if you
Speaker 1: want to pay for anything, and then once you pay
Speaker 1: for those things, you can watch the content on those surfaces,
Speaker 1: and you can also integrate gets a little technical, but
Speaker 1: you can integrate an antenna if you want. They have
Speaker 1: a thing called fireTV recast, which lets you connect an
Speaker 1: antenna to your fireTV and then you can watch broadcast
Speaker 1: channels through there. I find that there's so much around
Speaker 1: and all the broadcast channels that I care about have
Speaker 1: the stream apps, especially Channel five, and so you don't
Speaker 1: you basically don't even need the antenna. You just use
Speaker 1: the streaming app and that works pretty well. But the
Speaker 1: fire sticks are great. I think it's probably the best
Speaker 1: overall streaming platform. I know a lot of people like Roku.
Speaker 1: Apple TV is excellent, but it's it's a little pricier,
Speaker 1: and Chrome Cast is great, but it's a little bit,
Speaker 1: you know. I just feel like fire TV is really
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on there, Like Amazon is really
Speaker 1: really pushing it, so it's become I think it's it
Speaker 1: might be the most popular, maybe Roku is, but I
Speaker 1: feel like Firestick is definitely the one to kind of get.
Speaker 1: That's the one I reckon the most just because simple.
Speaker 1: That's when I have not in my primary TV. Primary TV,
Speaker 1: I still have Apple TV because my kids like to
Speaker 1: mirror stuff and you know, use all those features, not
Speaker 1: like the Apple Arcade on there. But for my secondary TV,
Speaker 1: I do use the fire Stick and then it's really nice.
Speaker 1: And I just got the new one, the fire Stick Max.
Speaker 1: It's the Amazon fire TV four K Max. Did I
Speaker 1: get that right? And so that one is it was
Speaker 1: thirty five bucks and it's just you know, it's a
Speaker 1: little bit faster, a little bit better, and so it's
Speaker 1: been great. All right. Jumping around here, Joanna says, what
Speaker 1: food gadget do you use on a regular basis? Airfier,
Speaker 1: Vita mix, any new gadgets you recommend for the kitchen.
Speaker 1: So the the latest thing that I use is an
Speaker 1: air fryer. I bought it at Costco. I bought the
Speaker 1: I think it's Ninja or Ninja whatever it is Ninja
Speaker 1: And we'll actually I have two things I really really
Speaker 1: liked that I bought in the past two years, the
Speaker 1: air fryer, and also the Instant it's like kind of
Speaker 1: like the Instant Pop brand, but it's a it's a
Speaker 1: coffee maker that does both in the espresso shots and
Speaker 1: regular K cups. And I swore off K cup machines
Speaker 1: forever because I thought that the coffee was gross and
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, kind of stale tasting and
Speaker 1: watery and like not very good. But honestly, after using
Speaker 1: another coffee maker for like a year, like a ground
Speaker 1: coffee maker that actually ground the beans fresh, which I
Speaker 1: thought would be great, but it turned out to be
Speaker 1: not so great, and it was a pain to clean up,
Speaker 1: and it just it never made a cup of coffee
Speaker 1: that was very good. And so I actually just ditched
Speaker 1: that and I bought the Insta one, which was a
Speaker 1: third of the price. It was like one hundred bucks
Speaker 1: versus like three hundred I paid for the grinding one.
Speaker 1: And the Instant one is so perfect. I love it,
Speaker 1: So now I just buy So now I just buy
Speaker 1: like the CA cups that are a little bit fresher.
Speaker 1: So they've got this brand at Costco that is like
Speaker 1: a San Francisco Pod or something, but it's like a
Speaker 1: it just feels a little bit fresher ground than some
Speaker 1: of the CA cups you can buy at the store.
Speaker 1: And then also I liked some of the Starbucks ones
Speaker 1: that are a little bit stronger, and you know, so
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with that. And then I love the n
Speaker 1: espresial part of it. Then the espressial part is excellent.
Speaker 1: It uses then espresso pot odds and I make, you know,
Speaker 1: when I come home, I'll make like a nice espresso
Speaker 1: in the afternoon with a little bit of a I
Speaker 1: don't know if you say, panna, like a little bit
Speaker 1: of whipped cream on it. And they actually make this
Speaker 1: stuff that's meant for it's called like sweet Foam from
Speaker 1: I think it's the same company that makes like, you know,
Speaker 1: whip cream. And it's just really good. And so I've
Speaker 1: just that's been my coffee situation. The air fryer situation
Speaker 1: has been a little bit less. I've been less pleased
Speaker 1: with it. It's cool, but I feel like it it's
Speaker 1: hit or miss, like the things I make in it,
Speaker 1: like sometimes they're good, sometimes they're not. I know, people
Speaker 1: love the air fryer situation, and it is easy because
Speaker 1: you're not heating up like an entire oven. Things do
Speaker 1: cook fast, but I just feel like it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of hit or miss, Like sometimes things come out really good,
Speaker 1: sometimes they don't, and then I feel like the thing
Speaker 1: gets really messy inside and so it's like a lot
Speaker 1: to clean up. But overall I like it. I mean
Speaker 1: it's fun, especially for like nuggets and French fries for
Speaker 1: the kids. Stuff like that we've made. You know, we've
Speaker 1: made like Brussels sprouts in their roasted I mean I've
Speaker 1: made I've tried everything in there. Like some things I
Speaker 1: thought we're gonna be good in there, like sand and
Speaker 1: in stuff, is like it just gets a little messy
Speaker 1: and like, you know, kind of I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: not as not as exciting as I thought it was
Speaker 1: going to be. But it stayed on my counter and
Speaker 1: it's fine. The other thing I really like is my
Speaker 1: food thermometer that I use is the Thermo works. I
Speaker 1: got to get this right, Therma pen Therma pen one.
Speaker 1: And the reason why I like this thing is because
Speaker 1: it's so fast. It's it's takes a reading in less
Speaker 1: than a second. And I am like a I am
Speaker 1: a stickler for food temperatures. So whether I'm grilling in
Speaker 1: the back, whether I microwave something, whether I make it
Speaker 1: in the oven, I always check the temperature to make
Speaker 1: sure that it's cooked. And I don't know, I grew
Speaker 1: up in a house where my mom was a little
Speaker 1: bit obsessed with like making sure foods were cooked, and
Speaker 1: so that just kind of carried over to me. So
Speaker 1: I do the food thermometer and I love it. It's
Speaker 1: really great, and I've had a bunch of different bunch
Speaker 1: of different ones over the years. This is definitely my
Speaker 1: favorite because it's the fastest and it's also the easiest
Speaker 1: to use. It just sort of works and there's just
Speaker 1: no uh, there's no bones about it. The other one,
Speaker 1: this one's like eighty five to one hundred bucks. The
Speaker 1: other one I would I was using was called Lava Tools,
Speaker 1: and I bought a bunch of those. Those were closer
Speaker 1: to like thirty bucks, and those That one works really
Speaker 1: well too. It's just a little bit slower for the reading,
Speaker 1: all right. Next question from Instagram Telebela, how do you
Speaker 1: save something on Instagram to watch later? Good question because
Speaker 1: this always happens to me where I you know, what
Speaker 1: we're doing is we're scrolling through Instagram and all these
Speaker 1: things while we are doing other stuff. So we're at
Speaker 1: we're at Starbucks in line and you're scrolling through and
Speaker 1: you're looking, and for the most part, that's fine. You
Speaker 1: just scroll through, you're watching something, something catches your eye, whatever.
Speaker 1: But then there are things where you want to watch
Speaker 1: something later because it's a little bit more involved, or
Speaker 1: you want to remember about it, and so what do
Speaker 1: you do. So on Instagram there actually is a little
Speaker 1: feature that lets you do this, which is if you
Speaker 1: look underneath someone's post, there is a little bookmark, and
Speaker 1: so you can bookmark their post and then you can
Speaker 1: watch it later. So that goes into you know, you
Speaker 1: can tap the bookmark or you can press and hold
Speaker 1: the bookmark and it will bring you to your categories
Speaker 1: and you can create like I've got food, family, fitness,
Speaker 1: to watch, books, travel, work, music, gadgets, wish list, so
Speaker 1: you can make your little like folders for the things
Speaker 1: that you save. Now, I will tell you in my experience,
Speaker 1: the problem with this setup is that I never ever
Speaker 1: go to my folders to ever look at any of
Speaker 1: that stuff. So the other way that you can do
Speaker 1: it is you can share stuff to a service. So
Speaker 1: if you the one that I like is called Pocket.
Speaker 1: And so if you share, like, if you sign up
Speaker 1: for this thing, it's called it's just called Pocket. It's
Speaker 1: basically a read it later service. So if you go
Speaker 1: to get Pocket dot com you can sign up. It's free.
Speaker 1: It's owned by Firefox, and that enables you to save
Speaker 1: things to look at and read and do whatever with later.
Speaker 1: And so it comes up like a list of your stuff.
Speaker 1: So what I do is I'm trying to do this
Speaker 1: more efficiently, is that when I have a little bit
Speaker 1: of free time and I'm sitting on the couch, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: let me open up Pocket and let me digest this
Speaker 1: stuff that I didn't really want to read quickly or
Speaker 1: browse quickly when I'm out and about, but now I
Speaker 1: want to give it my full attention. And so you
Speaker 1: can also save an Instagram video whatever to Pocket. So
Speaker 1: you would just say share, which you tap the three
Speaker 1: dots in the upper right hand corner and you would
Speaker 1: say share too, and then you just select Pocket, which
Speaker 1: is right here, and now it's saved to Pocket, and
Speaker 1: then when you're on your phone or computer later on,
Speaker 1: it will show you, oh, you've got this Instagram. Now
Speaker 1: it's going to bring you back to the Instagram site
Speaker 1: when you want to do that. But other things that
Speaker 1: will either show you the article or it will just
Speaker 1: show you the video. But with Instagram it's a little
Speaker 1: bit trickier. But those are the ways I'd recommended to
Speaker 1: save something for later. I had a whole system where
Speaker 1: I was like saving the link and all this stuff
Speaker 1: and putting it on my to do list. But I
Speaker 1: think that the best way to do it is probably
Speaker 1: just to use pocket and just remember to check pocket,
Speaker 1: you know, regularly, Like the way that you check Instagram,
Speaker 1: the way that you check Facebook, just check Pocket as well.
Speaker 1: Just make it part of your routine so that you
Speaker 1: don't forget the stuff that you bookmark for later. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's see so many questions. Ah, let's do a travel one.
Speaker 1: Let's see NYY fan mom says best travel website for
Speaker 1: package deals. Thanks Rich. Well, you know, it's interesting you
Speaker 1: say that I don't like package deals for travel because
Speaker 1: and maybe I'm in the minority here, but I feel
Speaker 1: like the reason I don't like those is because a
Speaker 1: lot of times they require you to prepay for stuff,
Speaker 1: and I definitely don't like to prepay for travel. Also,
Speaker 1: I just feel like with the I mean, yes, the
Speaker 1: package deals are probably better overall, but I just don't
Speaker 1: like the idea of having to have everything packaged up
Speaker 1: and now you are beholden to the company that sold
Speaker 1: you this package. So I like to book things directly
Speaker 1: with the companies themselves because I get the most flexibility.
Speaker 1: I get the terms and conditions that I understand, and
Speaker 1: it usually does not require a deposit. You know, if
Speaker 1: it's flights, obviously you have to pay for those. But
Speaker 1: it's just so much easier to deal directly with these
Speaker 1: companies because the problem is once you book a package,
Speaker 1: now you have to deal with that package company if
Speaker 1: there's any sort of problem. And I just had this happen.
Speaker 1: I booked a rental car through price Line, and I
Speaker 1: booked it through price Line, no big deal, saying Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm flying out the next day or it was like
Speaker 1: two days later, so I can prey this whole thing.
Speaker 1: So I prepaid for my entire car rental because it
Speaker 1: was way cheaper that way. And what do you think happens?
Speaker 1: I got a toothache on the morning I was supposed
Speaker 1: to fly out. I ended up canceling my flight, changing
Speaker 1: it to the next day going to the dentist, and
Speaker 1: it was a whole big thing because my car rental,
Speaker 1: you know, price line was like, sorry, we can't do
Speaker 1: a thing for you. I said, well, can you just
Speaker 1: move it? Like I might be flying out there in
Speaker 1: a day or two. Can you just move my rental?
Speaker 1: And they're like, nope, we can't do anything. I said, okay. Now,
Speaker 1: I've rented cars so many times in my lifetime, and
Speaker 1: if you have a regular car rental, it's super flexible.
Speaker 1: It's like they didn't even ask for a credit card
Speaker 1: half the time. I never prepaid, by the way, but
Speaker 1: you can just you know, change your stuff. And with
Speaker 1: this one I couldn't. So it was a real big pain,
Speaker 1: and so I said never again. That was the one
Speaker 1: time I tried booking something through a third party and
Speaker 1: I said never again. So when I actually got to Avis,
Speaker 1: who was the rental company that they get or maybe
Speaker 1: it was hurt so that they gave me, I can't remember.
Speaker 1: At this point, I said well and I was. I
Speaker 1: was like a day late for my rental and I
Speaker 1: just walked up to the desk and I said, oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, because I couldn't get a hold of
Speaker 1: anyone at Hurts to talk to me, like at all.
Speaker 1: It was impossible to get a hold of a customer
Speaker 1: service representative. I think when I finally got a hold
Speaker 1: of them, they told me, oh, you got to go
Speaker 1: to price Line. And when I went to price Line,
Speaker 1: they said, oh, maybe you can call Hurts and I said,
Speaker 1: you can't. It's like a circle. I can never get someone.
Speaker 1: So it was just the worst experience. And I got
Speaker 1: there and I finally said, oh, I'm just gonna go there.
Speaker 1: If they can't rent me the car, then I'll just
Speaker 1: have to eat the you know whatever. It was four
Speaker 1: hundred bucks and move out my life for six hundred
Speaker 1: I don't know how much. It was a lot because
Speaker 1: it was ridiculous. It was like this, rental cars have
Speaker 1: been really expensive lately, and so I went up to
Speaker 1: the rental car counter and I said, hey, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm a little bit late for my rental and they're like, ID,
Speaker 1: and I was like, okay, give them my ID. Okay,
Speaker 1: your car's out there. They could care less, like they
Speaker 1: just I mean, so I ate the day of rental,
Speaker 1: but still my car was available. So it turned out
Speaker 1: to be okay. But it was just kind of funny
Speaker 1: that the one time I do that, it just you know,
Speaker 1: did not work out. I thought I saw another travel
Speaker 1: question here, so I'm going to answer another travel question.
Speaker 1: Let's see here. Ah, here we go. This is from
Speaker 1: NYC oh another NYC NYC poser booking flights. When's the
Speaker 1: best time? How much in advance travel sits? Thanks? All right,
Speaker 1: So here is where I think. I here's what I do.
Speaker 1: So when it comes to flights, I always check the
Speaker 1: Google Flights. That's basically how I search for flights. Now,
Speaker 1: when I book flights, I ninety nine point nine percent
Speaker 1: of the time book United because that's my airline that
Speaker 1: goes back to Jersey and I have status on so
Speaker 1: I will pretty much stick to United. But I'm always curious,
Speaker 1: like because not only does Google Flights give you the
Speaker 1: best days to fly, it also gives you the cheapest flights,
Speaker 1: like the you know, let's say you find So the
Speaker 1: way that I choose my flights, I typically go to
Speaker 1: the calendar. I'll type in my my destination and my origin.
Speaker 1: Right then I'll go to the calendar and on the
Speaker 1: calendar it'll highlight the cheapest days in green. But the
Speaker 1: trick to this all is that you have to choose
Speaker 1: your options before you fly. So if you only want
Speaker 1: a direct flight, you got to make sure that you
Speaker 1: have that option chosen in Google flights, and that way,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes you'll see super duper cheap flights, but
Speaker 1: they're connecting, and if you don't like connecting, like I don't,
Speaker 1: I don't want those flights. I'm not even gonna consider,
Speaker 1: even if it's five hundred dollars cheaper. Well maybe for
Speaker 1: five hundred if I'm buying four tickets like I typically
Speaker 1: have to with my family, but if i'm you know,
Speaker 1: if it's just me or just me and my child, whatever,
Speaker 1: or me and my wife, I'm I'm just doing a
Speaker 1: direct flight, like if I can, I will do direct
Speaker 1: And so I will just make sure that it says
Speaker 1: direct flight. And you can be as specific as you want.
Speaker 1: You can say I only want these particular times, but
Speaker 1: I generally just do I make sure it says that
Speaker 1: I'm bringing to carry on, and that way I get
Speaker 1: rid of the economy basic flights, which I will never
Speaker 1: book because they're so restrictive it's insane. And then I
Speaker 1: will say I want a direct flight, and then I
Speaker 1: will then I will open up the calendar, and when
Speaker 1: I open up that calendar, it will now show me
Speaker 1: the direct flights that are not basic economy in green
Speaker 1: for the cheapest days to fly, and then I will
Speaker 1: select the first day and I will select the second
Speaker 1: day based on the first day, because sometimes when you
Speaker 1: select the first day, the second day prices changed, because
Speaker 1: it's just the way it is. And so once I
Speaker 1: select those, then I say, show me the list of flights,
Speaker 1: and then Google goes a step further and it shows
Speaker 1: you the cheapest or best flights in green. Again, I
Speaker 1: select those, and then once I'm armed with all that information,
Speaker 1: I will usually go to the travel site to book directly,
Speaker 1: and yes, if I got the information from Google, I'll
Speaker 1: typically just tap their little their little button to take
Speaker 1: me over to United. That gives them a little cut
Speaker 1: of the of the price to help them out for
Speaker 1: helping me out, and then I book my flight and
Speaker 1: I'm done. Now, when it comes to like rental cars,
Speaker 1: I typically use the same company and so I have
Speaker 1: got you know, a status on there, so I will
Speaker 1: I will just book them without really looking at any
Speaker 1: other company. Now, in the past six months, I have
Speaker 1: definitely been shopping around because the prices have gotten so expensive.
Speaker 1: But the place that I'll kind of check for car
Speaker 1: rentals will actually I'll just tell you the one that
Speaker 1: I think is the best. It's just cost Go Travel.
Speaker 1: They have the best prices for car rental. So if
Speaker 1: you go to if you're a member of Costco, definitely
Speaker 1: go to Costco Travel. They're going to be the best
Speaker 1: price for car rentals. And if you don't, and I
Speaker 1: would just go to Kayak and do a search and
Speaker 1: then you know, a get a narrow down. But the
Speaker 1: problem that the trick with the car rentals is that
Speaker 1: for me personally, I don't want an off site rental company.
Speaker 1: So I've I've made this mistake before where you have
Speaker 1: to take a shuttle, like you know, twenty minutes out
Speaker 1: to your car rental place. I want one that's on
Speaker 1: airport because I want to be able to take the
Speaker 1: airport tram or train or whatever right to the rental
Speaker 1: car place and be on my way because if you're
Speaker 1: waiting for a rental car shuttle, it could take a
Speaker 1: really long time. And I'm not talking a shuttle to
Speaker 1: like the rental car facility. I'm talking further out like
Speaker 1: I've one time I got burned by renting from a
Speaker 1: different place at Newark Airport and I did not realize
Speaker 1: with all of our luggage we had to go from
Speaker 1: the airplane to the tram to a bus to this
Speaker 1: place that was way off and it was so far
Speaker 1: and it was just like, Okay, I saved, like, you know,
Speaker 1: it probably saved a couple hundred bucks, but still it
Speaker 1: was not a very nice experience. And then with hotel rooms, again,
Speaker 1: typically in the past couple of years, I've been booking
Speaker 1: the same chain because I've got you know, membership with them,
Speaker 1: and I just recently switched to a different chain, and
Speaker 1: so I kind of look at them first. But quite honestly,
Speaker 1: I with hotel rooms, I want to stay loyal, but
Speaker 1: I feel like the loyalty has burned me in the past,
Speaker 1: where now I kind of want to just stay in
Speaker 1: the best hotel for the place I'm going to. So
Speaker 1: if you're staying loyal to a hotel, sometimes you pick
Speaker 1: a subpar location or hotel because it's something that you're
Speaker 1: getting points for or you get, you know, your free
Speaker 1: breakfast or whatever. But I find that I kind of
Speaker 1: gave that up in the last year because we had
Speaker 1: too many experiences with hotels where I just felt like
Speaker 1: they were subpar, and I was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: why am I sticking with this chain when I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily feel like we're getting the best experience every time?
Speaker 1: And so I'd rather now lets them go into Charleston,
Speaker 1: South Carolina. I will look at trip Advisor and see
Speaker 1: which are the top rated hotels in Charleston. And if
Speaker 1: you search Charleston on trip Advisor, you have to make
Speaker 1: sure you sort by I think it's called traveler reviews
Speaker 1: or traveler ranking, not their ranking, because they default to
Speaker 1: their ranking, which gives them the most money. If you book,
Speaker 1: but you want to do traveler ranking, you'll say, okay,
Speaker 1: this is the number one, number two, number three hotel
Speaker 1: in Charleston based on all the reviews that we have,
Speaker 1: And then I will go and kind of pick from those,
Speaker 1: like if the first one's like too expensive, I'll go
Speaker 1: to the second one, If the second one looks too
Speaker 1: you know, too inexpensive, I'll go to the third. So
Speaker 1: out of those top three, there's generally a choice that's
Speaker 1: pretty good. And typically those hotels, because so many travelers
Speaker 1: like them, are either close to like the things to do,
Speaker 1: or they just have a lot of good options, or
Speaker 1: you know whatever, they're just really good hotels. So that's
Speaker 1: a really long answer to everything. But and I never
Speaker 1: book a refundable a non refundable hotel room ever, because
Speaker 1: even when you think your plans are not going to change,
Speaker 1: life has a way of throwing you little curveballs and
Speaker 1: sometimes they do change. And you know, sometimes I also book.
Speaker 1: I also will track the prices as we get closer,
Speaker 1: so especially with hotel rooms, like, for instance, we were
Speaker 1: going to Irvine, California a couple months ago, and we
Speaker 1: had booked this really nice room on the top floor.
Speaker 1: It was like a big suite and you know, it
Speaker 1: was not that expensive, so I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: let's splurge for the suite. But then as we got closer,
Speaker 1: we were sitting there like, ah, really it was like
Speaker 1: double the money on just for a regular room. And
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, let me just save the money.
Speaker 1: So we ended up downgrading to a smaller room, which
Speaker 1: saved us like fifty percent. And I just said, you
Speaker 1: know what, that's like all of our spending money for
Speaker 1: the entire weekend. Like the you know, a couple hundred
Speaker 1: bucks that I just saved will be like dinner, breakfast, whatever.
Speaker 1: And now it's like we thought we were going to
Speaker 1: pay that much for just the room. Now it's going
Speaker 1: to be our whole thing. So always kind of monitor
Speaker 1: for changes with the hotel and also how you're feeling.
Speaker 1: You might change hotels completely, you might change rooms, or
Speaker 1: you might might want a smaller room or bigger room.
Speaker 1: So and the room turned out to be just fine.
Speaker 1: Sometimes with four people in one room, you know, it
Speaker 1: could be a little bit, you know, it's like a
Speaker 1: little cramped, but it turned out to be fine. Depends
Speaker 1: what you're doing, you know, are you're spending your whole
Speaker 1: time in the room or are you are you leaving
Speaker 1: the room? All right, that was a very long answer,
Speaker 1: but hopefully now you know how I book stuff. All right,
Speaker 1: Marissa says, have you heard anything about this charging station?
Speaker 1: Costco has it on sale, but there are But are
Speaker 1: these charging station really great gifts that work or are
Speaker 1: they just something that sucks up a lot of energy
Speaker 1: and not worth it? And she attached a picture of
Speaker 1: the Ubo Labs four and one wireless charger. Marissa, I
Speaker 1: would say, stay away. So what I've noticed with the
Speaker 1: chargers that charge a lot of stuff, a lot of
Speaker 1: them are not very good, and especially just taking a
Speaker 1: look at this one, I don't think it's going to
Speaker 1: be very good. I think it's gonna be very very
Speaker 1: slow at charging your gadgets. Apple themselves couldn't come up
Speaker 1: with a four to one wireless charger. They had the
Speaker 1: air power charger, which was going to charge your iPhone,
Speaker 1: your Apple Watch, and your air pods, and even Apple
Speaker 1: couldn't come out with that. And the reason why is
Speaker 1: because it's really tough to charge three things at once
Speaker 1: on charging coils. And so there's another company that came
Speaker 1: out with a charging pad that I tested and it
Speaker 1: was fine. It was fine for like three Apple products maybe,
Speaker 1: but the problem is it doesn't charge things the fastest possible.
Speaker 1: Now there is some exceptions to that if you have
Speaker 1: a charger like a like Belkan makes like a three
Speaker 1: to one mag safe charger that has been the best
Speaker 1: that I've tested. But it's using mag Safe and so
Speaker 1: it's aligning the magnets, it's charging at a faster rate.
Speaker 1: But again, wireless charging in general is going to be
Speaker 1: slower than a wired charging. So, for instance, on the Belcan,
Speaker 1: I believe it tops out at twenty watts, whereas the
Speaker 1: biggest iPhone like thirteen Promax I think, can charge north
Speaker 1: of like thirty watts. So you're gonna take a little
Speaker 1: bit longer to charge your gadgets if they're not properly
Speaker 1: lined properly lined up, they don't charge as fast. So
Speaker 1: I would say just stick to the ones like maybe
Speaker 1: just like the Belcan that has the it looks almost
Speaker 1: like arms where it's got the place to charge your phone,
Speaker 1: the place to charge your Apple Watch, and a place
Speaker 1: to charge your air pods. But if you're looking for Android,
Speaker 1: I would say in general, I have not been impressed
Speaker 1: with any of the wireless charging on Android. It's kind
Speaker 1: of slow, except for the one plus phones. But I
Speaker 1: would stick to plugging in I would get if I
Speaker 1: had my way. I mean, wireless charging is nice, but
Speaker 1: I think that the wired charging is just faster, and
Speaker 1: here it's just it's really just better. So I would
Speaker 1: check out. Speagan makes something called the oh what is it,
Speaker 1: the power station Pro. Let me see the arc station Pro.
Speaker 1: And this is a fast wall charger. And this is
Speaker 1: one of the fastest wall chargers I've ever seen. So
Speaker 1: maybe maybe do that. I would skip the skip the
Speaker 1: four and one charger. Maybe a three and one would
Speaker 1: be fine, but the four and one not so much.
Speaker 1: All right, Teres says, how can we block those annoying
Speaker 1: live chat bubbles which pop up when shopping slash ordering items?
Speaker 1: They take up too much screen space, they're never helpful,
Speaker 1: and they waste too much time. Thank you, Teresa, you
Speaker 1: are so true, So right. I can't stand those things.
Speaker 1: I mean, who number one, they're totally fake. It's like, oh, hi,
Speaker 1: I'm a live person ready to help you, and you
Speaker 1: chat with them and they're not a live person. Now
Speaker 1: it has to like put it in the queue to
Speaker 1: get a live person. So it's it's really like most
Speaker 1: of the time they're just kind of of misleading you,
Speaker 1: And you're right, they're annoying. Like if you want a
Speaker 1: live person, you're gonna you know, you're gonna find a
Speaker 1: way to talk to a live person. Most of the
Speaker 1: time you just want to shop on the website, and
Speaker 1: by the time you have to like find the tiny
Speaker 1: x to close out the pop up, it's like you
Speaker 1: might have clicked something else. It's just it's never a
Speaker 1: good thing. So I agree Now, doing some searching, I
Speaker 1: found that there is a Chrome extension called pop out
Speaker 1: Chat Blocker. Now the problem is there's only eighty three
Speaker 1: users of this. Now that doesn't mean that it's not good,
Speaker 1: but I would just be you gotta be a little
Speaker 1: bit weary, you know, is weary the word weary weary.
Speaker 1: You gotta be, you gotta be on guard because anyone
Speaker 1: can create one of these, one of these things, and
Speaker 1: you just never know if it's like legit or not.
Speaker 1: And so it seems legit, but you just don't really know.
Speaker 1: And so I would you know, you can try something
Speaker 1: like that, see if that works. But you're right, we
Speaker 1: need we need a bigger pop up blocker for these
Speaker 1: chats because they are so they're like on every website
Speaker 1: now you go everywhere, it's like best Buy and maybe
Speaker 1: they don't have it. I don't know, let's see do
Speaker 1: this best Buy have it? But I feel like you
Speaker 1: go to every website and there's someone trying to help
Speaker 1: you chat, and it's like I don't need the chat.
Speaker 1: I don't need to chat with anyone, but especially the
Speaker 1: newer websites, like all the like the really I don't know,
Speaker 1: just the newer ones. They all have someone on them
Speaker 1: helping you chat and believe me. So the other day
Speaker 1: I need a little help with my with my wireless company,
Speaker 1: and I tried chatting them and it was like the
Speaker 1: worst experience ever. They're sitting there like, oh, we're so
Speaker 1: sorry you had this problem with your bill. And by
Speaker 1: the way, the problem with the bill was that I
Speaker 1: had two calls to four one one which I have
Speaker 1: not called for one one in a decade, right, And
Speaker 1: so I get this on my bill and it's an
Speaker 1: extra four bucks. I'm like, well, four dollars is not
Speaker 1: the end of the world. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: why should have to pay four dollars for something I
Speaker 1: didn't do? And so I was like, oh, eat, chatting
Speaker 1: will probably be the easiest. So I go to the website.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, do you want to chat? I'm like sure.
Speaker 1: I chat with them, and the person is just so
Speaker 1: overly like nice, like oh, we're so sorry you we
Speaker 1: value as a customer, and I'm like, okay, well here's
Speaker 1: the problem. Okay, and then they just keep going into
Speaker 1: like more and more like tiny details about it. They're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we see what you're talking about. And I'm like, yes,
Speaker 1: I know, I just mentioned it, and they're like, okay,
Speaker 1: we see it's on page nine of your bill. I'm like, yes,
Speaker 1: I know, I saw it already. That's how I saw it, okay.
Speaker 1: And we see that the charge was for four dollars.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yes, can you please just take the charge away?
Speaker 1: And they kept going more and more into this, and
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding. This chat conversation probably went on fifteen
Speaker 1: twenty minutes, and they said, okay, let me let me
Speaker 1: look into this, and I said okay, and I said, well,
Speaker 1: there's not really much to look into. It's just like
Speaker 1: a four dollars credit on my bill. And so finally
Speaker 1: they just kept like looking into it more and more
Speaker 1: and asking more questions but saying how valued I was
Speaker 1: as a customer. That I finally disconnected the chat, and
Speaker 1: I you know, at this point they've this is why
Speaker 1: I don't like auto pay. But they already builled me
Speaker 1: for the you know, my bill, so now it's my
Speaker 1: money that I have to get back from them, which
Speaker 1: good luck for that. But it's like one of these
Speaker 1: things where the chat was so whatever, and I know
Speaker 1: what you're saying, like rich, aren't you the tech guy.
Speaker 1: Can't you just call someone at that company and like
Speaker 1: telling me the tech guy like yes, But I like
Speaker 1: to do things the normal way, like as a regular person,
Speaker 1: and so that way I get to experience the frustration
Speaker 1: that the millions of customers around the world are around
Speaker 1: the US of these wireless companies are experiencing, because it
Speaker 1: can be very frustrating to just you know, go through
Speaker 1: the channels that you have to do. Sometimes, like I said,
Speaker 1: with the hotel, I couldn't get a hold of someone
Speaker 1: or sorry, with the rental car company. With this, it
Speaker 1: was just they were so nice but so not helpful.
Speaker 1: It's just like, oh my gosh, what is going on here?
Speaker 1: So I ended up just for now, I've paid the
Speaker 1: four dollars, but I will when I feel like I
Speaker 1: have time to call, I guess I will call and
Speaker 1: hopefully get some of that. But anyway, live chat Bubbles,
Speaker 1: maybe if you have a better extension, let me know,
Speaker 1: all right, Rob says, what is the best ad blocker
Speaker 1: app for iPhones and iPads? Okay? Interesting, So the best
Speaker 1: ad blocker app for iPhones? I mean ad block is
Speaker 1: kind of like the big one, So that's probably the
Speaker 1: one that I would go with I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't think I have an AD blocker installed on my iPhone.
Speaker 1: If I do, I it's because I've got one through
Speaker 1: an app called Firefox Focus, which also has a built
Speaker 1: in ad blocker, so you can download that. But the
Speaker 1: way that ad blocker works on the iPhone is that
Speaker 1: it kind of works inside Safari, So you have to
Speaker 1: use Safari to get the ads blocked, and so ad
Speaker 1: block Plus definitely has a Safari helper, but if you're
Speaker 1: using Chrome on the iPhone, you're not gonna get any
Speaker 1: ads blocked. Now there's other ways of doing it. You
Speaker 1: could use a VPN to block ads, but that is
Speaker 1: a little bit more involved and obviously have to subscribe
Speaker 1: to a VPN. But if you just use Safari, then
Speaker 1: just download ad block Plus and you can surf the web.
Speaker 1: And the reason why the ads could be a problem
Speaker 1: on the web is because sometimes they could have malicious
Speaker 1: they could have malicious payloads in them, so you might
Speaker 1: get a served up an AD that brings you to
Speaker 1: a website that you don't want, or it may be
Speaker 1: doing something kind of not so good with your phone.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of nice to have on there, but
Speaker 1: it's not a necessity, but I know a lot of
Speaker 1: people do like that. So that's the one that i'd
Speaker 1: probably recommend on the iPhone. All right, good question. Let's
Speaker 1: see what else do we have here? More tesla questions. Oh,
Speaker 1: here's a good question. Gil says, lots of commercials about
Speaker 1: cheap phone carriers, Cricket for example, Are they worth it? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: So here is the deal with the cheap carriers. So
Speaker 1: you've got Cricket, You've got Metro by, T Mobile, you've
Speaker 1: got Ultra, you've got Mint Mobile. There are so many
Speaker 1: of these. You've got US Mobile. So here's how these
Speaker 1: Number one, there's only three wireless carriers in the US.
Speaker 1: Three major Okay, you've got AT and T, you've got
Speaker 1: T Mobile, and you've got Verizon. That's it. Now there
Speaker 1: is US Cellular, but they're they're a very small footprint
Speaker 1: in I think the Midwest, so they're not as prevalent
Speaker 1: as the big three. So when you're getting one of
Speaker 1: these what we call mvn os mobile virtual network operators,
Speaker 1: they are just a company that is almost like a
Speaker 1: service company, but the back end is all being provided
Speaker 1: by AT and T, T Mobile, Verizon, So they're actually
Speaker 1: operating on their networks. So if I wanted to start
Speaker 1: one of these companies, I would say, Hey, Verizon, I
Speaker 1: would like to open up a wireless carrier. I will
Speaker 1: pay you one cent a minute for everyone that uses
Speaker 1: the data on your lines or whatever. And they say, okay,
Speaker 1: Now I can market my company in my own way.
Speaker 1: I can provide customer service in my own way. I
Speaker 1: can provide phones in my own way. So I get
Speaker 1: to call the shots when it comes to how I
Speaker 1: run this little carrier, and some of them are better
Speaker 1: than others. Now, when it comes to cricket, Cricket I
Speaker 1: Believe is owned by AT and T Visible is owned
Speaker 1: by Verizon, and Metro is owned by T Mobile. So
Speaker 1: you've got those three that are basically just the baby
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters of the big carriers. Then you've got
Speaker 1: the other ones. So like mint Mobile is its own
Speaker 1: company and it runs on T Mobile, and then something
Speaker 1: like US Cellular or US Mobile is its own company,
Speaker 1: and they give you a choice of do you want
Speaker 1: T Mobile or Verizon, and then it goes on and
Speaker 1: on and on. So there's a whole bunch of these things. Now,
Speaker 1: the difference is the price and the features so typically
Speaker 1: when you're going with one of these carriers, you have
Speaker 1: to be very careful about the features that you need.
Speaker 1: And that's also what's so great about them is a
Speaker 1: lot of times you're not paying for features that you
Speaker 1: don't need. Like when you when you sign up for
Speaker 1: like t mobiles big plan, it's got like Netflix included,
Speaker 1: it's got you know this, it's got that, it's got
Speaker 1: one hundred gigabytes of online storage. Maybe you don't need
Speaker 1: all that stuff. Maybe all you need is unlimited data
Speaker 1: and unlimited talk and text and that's it, and you
Speaker 1: don't you know, you don't need a lot of hotspot
Speaker 1: or something. And so something like a mint Mobile plan
Speaker 1: which has you know, very they have very limited plans,
Speaker 1: or they have plans that are unlimited for thirty bucks
Speaker 1: a month, And so you can go to these services
Speaker 1: and still get the quality of service that you expect,
Speaker 1: but you're not paying for a lot of extras. And
Speaker 1: typically they are prepaid, so you're you're paying in advance.
Speaker 1: So with something like mint Mobile, you can pay your
Speaker 1: entire year in advance for thirty dollars a month, three
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty dollars for the entire year of cell
Speaker 1: phone service all at once, you don't have to think
Speaker 1: about a bill again for a whole nother year. Or
Speaker 1: you can go with one of their cheaper plans and
Speaker 1: you can get something that's cheaper. And again, it really
Speaker 1: down to what do you need. So, for instance, my
Speaker 1: mom is on one of these mv and os because
Speaker 1: all she needs is basic data and basic calls and texts.
Speaker 1: She is nothing, doesn't need anything exciting or fancy with
Speaker 1: her phone, and so these are perfect for her because
Speaker 1: they save her money. So with me personally, I've got
Speaker 1: a big plan from one of the big carriers because
Speaker 1: I want all I want the best number one and
Speaker 1: I want the bells and whistles, so I want, you know,
Speaker 1: the hot spot, I want the international roaming if I
Speaker 1: ever go international. I want, you know, all these little
Speaker 1: things that come with it. I need, and that's not
Speaker 1: something that every single person needs. So if you don't
Speaker 1: need those things, just just be sure to look at
Speaker 1: what features you get and what features you don't get.
Speaker 1: A good website for comparing this stuff is called whistle
Speaker 1: Out and they do a pretty good comparison of these
Speaker 1: various carriers and kind of tell you the pros and
Speaker 1: cons of them, but just look closely before you buy.
Speaker 1: I mean Visible from Verizon and for twenty five dollars
Speaker 1: a month is like phenomenal unlimited. But I've gotten a
Speaker 1: lot of emails from people saying, you know, Visible customer service,
Speaker 1: it's tough to get a hold of. There's no stores
Speaker 1: to go into, you know, if you need help, it's
Speaker 1: like you know, you're chatting with someone. So that's not
Speaker 1: for everyone, but for my you know a family member
Speaker 1: that has that, it's great. They love it because it's
Speaker 1: it's simple, it's cheap, it's dirt cheap, and they get
Speaker 1: unlimited service on Verizon. Maybe not at the fastest speeds.
Speaker 1: That's another difference. You may get Verizon service, but they're
Speaker 1: not going to give you the fastest download speed. They
Speaker 1: cap it at a certain speed. But again, if you
Speaker 1: don't need the fastest speed, then you're fine. Like I
Speaker 1: do I need I need uploads and downloads the fastest
Speaker 1: possible because I'm doing a lot on social media. If
Speaker 1: you don't need that, no big deal. So good question,
Speaker 1: and that's a that's a yeah. Oh let's see, okay,
Speaker 1: next question here, Oh my gosh, so many Uh here
Speaker 1: we go Pog says it wants to take my Mac
Speaker 1: to a mom and pop shop to get it serve,
Speaker 1: or to the Apple Store for more money. I learn
Speaker 1: a lot from you when I watch you on KTLA five.
Speaker 1: You're doing awesome work, Thanks POGs. It depends. I've talked
Speaker 1: about this on the podcast before, but I think it
Speaker 1: depends what you need done. So I've taken mine to
Speaker 1: the Apple Store and I've taken it to a mom
Speaker 1: and pop shop, and honestly, the experience was quite similar.
Speaker 1: I think that it depends if it's under warranty or not.
Speaker 1: If it's under warranty, you probably want to take it
Speaker 1: to an authorized repair center because they can do all
Speaker 1: the warranty stuff it's not, then yeah, take it to
Speaker 1: the mom and pop. I mean, in many cases, the
Speaker 1: mom and pop might be better because it's a better experience.
Speaker 1: It's simple, it's easy, it's in your neighborhood. You're supporting
Speaker 1: a local business, and they might give you better customer
Speaker 1: service than the Apple Store, which is great. But you
Speaker 1: know you're gonna be bringing it to this big store.
Speaker 1: They're gonna be either doing the repair in house or
Speaker 1: shipping it out. And so if you can get it
Speaker 1: done to mom and pop, go for it, So I'm
Speaker 1: all about that. The other place to check out is
Speaker 1: I know it's not Mom and Pop, but it's you
Speaker 1: Break I Fix and they are owned by one of
Speaker 1: the big insurance companies and so they do a good
Speaker 1: job as well. All right, Kenny says, I'm an artist.
Speaker 1: I traditionally use paper paint pens. I'm considering trying out
Speaker 1: digital art using something like an iPad Pro or a
Speaker 1: Samsung tablet. Are these the best alternatives or should I
Speaker 1: consider another tablet that may work just as well. No,
Speaker 1: I definitely go with the iPad Pro for sure. I
Speaker 1: mean iPad Pro with the Apple pencil. The new one
Speaker 1: is going to be your best bet. And the reason
Speaker 1: I say that is because I think that Apple is,
Speaker 1: you know, their creator company. The stuff they make is
Speaker 1: definitely has creators in mind like you. And I also
Speaker 1: think the software that you're gonna get is just gonna
Speaker 1: be way better than the software you can get on
Speaker 1: any other sort of tablet. So I would Kenny highly
Speaker 1: recommend the the the iPad Pro and the Apple pencil.
Speaker 1: Hugo says, what are your thoughts on the whole meta thing?
Speaker 1: Virtual videos? Headgear, etc. I'm gonna tell you I am
Speaker 1: so so hyped up about the meta thing. I am
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand percent in on this, and I'll tell
Speaker 1: you why. I think the last two years have really
Speaker 1: solidified the fact that people can work from home. People
Speaker 1: don't mind being in their own little bubble to an extent,
Speaker 1: and we don't want to be locked in our places
Speaker 1: without you know, the ability to go somewhere, but if
Speaker 1: you can explore. Let's say you're going on a trip
Speaker 1: to Tokyo and you can explore Tokyo virtually before you
Speaker 1: ever get there and kind of understand it and get
Speaker 1: the lay of the land and like walk in your
Speaker 1: shoes in Tokyo, like down the streets. Ah, that's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: And so I see a huge, huge market for virtual reality,
Speaker 1: the metaverse, things happening in the metaverse, and I just
Speaker 1: really truly think that we are going to see this. Now,
Speaker 1: let me just give you a very simple example. Let's
Speaker 1: say that you want to have a beer with a
Speaker 1: friend and that friend is in another city. Well, the
Speaker 1: chance of you guys having a beer together is is
Speaker 1: slim to none. Now, you're not going to call each
Speaker 1: other up on the phone and have a beer over
Speaker 1: the phone. That's just not a thing. But if there
Speaker 1: was an app that you know or whatever in the metaverse,
Speaker 1: there is a bar that you can meet at and
Speaker 1: you could both have a beer inside with these you
Speaker 1: know and see each other and chat face to face
Speaker 1: while having this beer. That is an unbelievably new, wild
Speaker 1: and weird concept. You might be saying, rich, come on,
Speaker 1: give me a break like that is that is not cool,
Speaker 1: But it's going to happen. And we're going to see
Speaker 1: that times a million. With every little aspect of life.
Speaker 1: There will be ways to do things with other people.
Speaker 1: There will be ways to interact, there will be ways
Speaker 1: to see things, there will be ways to learn. And
Speaker 1: I know it seems weird right now, but it is
Speaker 1: going to be a thing. There's no reason why it
Speaker 1: won't be. We saw people except Zoom in a way
Speaker 1: that we never saw something accepted so fast in our
Speaker 1: entire lives. When it comes to tech, I mean the
Speaker 1: adoption rate of Zoom from every walk of life. I mean,
Speaker 1: whether you are a tech person or not a tech person,
Speaker 1: you figured out Zoom in about three minutes. And so
Speaker 1: this is going to be a little bit slower, but
Speaker 1: it's going to eventually happen, and I truly believe that,
Speaker 1: and I just I can't wait. Personally, I think that
Speaker 1: the couple of times I've had a virtual reality set on,
Speaker 1: I am just amazed at the visual trickery for your brain.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've done, you know, virtual reality, and I've
Speaker 1: tested so many different types of it, you know, like
Speaker 1: different things like movies and experiences and entertainment. It's just
Speaker 1: it's such like a different way of looking at things,
Speaker 1: like quite literally and physically. And the fact, you know,
Speaker 1: when you get in, you know, there's different types of
Speaker 1: there's augmented reality, there's virtual reality. But no matter what,
Speaker 1: I think is going to have a huge impact on
Speaker 1: our world. And I think that there's going to be
Speaker 1: so many businesses made inside VR and AR and the metaverse.
Speaker 1: The metaverse is kind of like the bigger, kind of
Speaker 1: like the all encompassing vision of this, right. The metaverse
Speaker 1: is just however you get yourself into a virtual place,
Speaker 1: whether it's augmented reality, virtual reality, a mixture of the two.
Speaker 1: But I think we're gonna see just so much and
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of opportunity for people, whether
Speaker 1: it's you know, creating stuff for this. So a good question, HUGO,
Speaker 1: really really good question. Uh, let's see. K B in
Speaker 1: Chicago says everyone thinks WiFi is the rage, but at
Speaker 1: home wiring is often better, right, son No's TV, et cetera.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny you say that because I was.
Speaker 1: I was one of these wired snobs, and I kind
Speaker 1: of gave that up with the Wi Fi because it
Speaker 1: became Yes, I always think that wired will be a
Speaker 1: more reliable connection. It will also be faster in most cases,
Speaker 1: but it's like the difference is so small nowadays that
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter. Like in my house, pretty much
Speaker 1: everything is wireless, and I was a holdout. I was
Speaker 1: doing my so nos wired, I was doing my a
Speaker 1: like streaming box wired my TV, and then I just decided,
Speaker 1: you know, what doesn't really matter. It seems to be
Speaker 1: the same, Like it's not. The difference in speed was
Speaker 1: so negligible to my eyes that it just didn't really matter.
Speaker 1: And I think that a lot of that is due
Speaker 1: to the fact that streaming has gotten so efficient and
Speaker 1: so good that it doesn't really need like people think
Speaker 1: you need like a really fast connection to stream stuff
Speaker 1: and that's not really true. It's more about the quality
Speaker 1: of the connection and also your set up. You know,
Speaker 1: the device, the you know, the buffering is a lot
Speaker 1: of times that's just because it's like other factors on
Speaker 1: the network. It's not necessarily your speed. Because with Netflix,
Speaker 1: for example, you need like almost nothing to to stream
Speaker 1: stuff from Netflix. They kind of invented the fact that,
Speaker 1: you know, Netflix streaming, like they made streaming easy. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're uploading and downloading big files, that's a different
Speaker 1: story that you do want wired. If I'm if I'm
Speaker 1: downloading and uploading giant files, often I will go to
Speaker 1: my wired connection and it's like it's like blazing fast
Speaker 1: up and down. So yes, good question, Rubin. Are you
Speaker 1: going to see yes next month? Yes, I said, planning
Speaker 1: on it. And Matthias says, how do you organize your
Speaker 1: principal screen at your iPhone? Apps, et CETERA good question.
Speaker 1: I've actually gone to one home screen on my iPhone
Speaker 1: with just my most used apps and a widget, and
Speaker 1: then if I swipe over it, you know, since I'm
Speaker 1: only using one screen, it brings me to the app
Speaker 1: library and that's where all my other apps. So I've
Speaker 1: realized that I don't really need apps on the on
Speaker 1: the screens because I search for apps when I need them,
Speaker 1: and I find that that's faster than remembering where they
Speaker 1: are on the screen. So I've got my main apps
Speaker 1: on the home screen, which is like email, me, Telegram, phone,
Speaker 1: IM message, web browser, camera, Instagram, Twitter, to do notes,
Speaker 1: my car app, Google Calendar, music apps, Google Maps, photos,
Speaker 1: and that's it. And then if I swipe over to
Speaker 1: the app library, ninety nine percent of the time the
Speaker 1: app I want to use is in either suggestions or
Speaker 1: recent or social. And then if I need something more,
Speaker 1: I just swipe down search for my app, and I
Speaker 1: find that that's a really fast way of doing it.
Speaker 1: So I think that's that's it. Oh my gosh, is
Speaker 1: that is this it? Oh? So many more question thoughts
Speaker 1: on the pixel pro charging speed. Yeah, it should be
Speaker 1: faster than it is. Do you have house plants, No,
Speaker 1: I can't keep them alive. Best affordable external hard drive
Speaker 1: to save pictures, I would say Saga or Western Digital.
Speaker 1: Of all the evs coming out, Should I stick with
Speaker 1: my model? Why? Yes? Stick with it? Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: What's the simplest way to explain five G to older adults?
Speaker 1: It's faster. It's faster and better. Wow. Lots of questions. Oh,
Speaker 1: your favorite podcast is past year? And why all in show? Excellent?
Speaker 1: Thanks for recommending it, Robert, my friend best best show.
Speaker 1: It's really really great, Anthony, I see you wearing your
Speaker 1: Gooder sunglasses. Do you run too? Yes? I do. I
Speaker 1: love running. That's my favorite thing to do. Suke says,
Speaker 1: did you reserve a Rivian? I did not, but I'm tempted. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I kind of want to get the I was thinking
Speaker 1: I would. I would take the Rivian Suv and then
Speaker 1: I'd give my wife the Tesla and we'd be a
Speaker 1: full electric house. But I'm not ready to do that
Speaker 1: just yet. I'm not ready to totally do that. And
Speaker 1: I got to see what. I gotta give Rivian a
Speaker 1: couple of years just to see how they develop. All right,
Speaker 1: that's gonna do it for this episode of the show.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to submit a question for me to answer,
Speaker 1: you know what, It's probably not worth it because I'm
Speaker 1: not answering new ones until the next year. But if
Speaker 1: you want to, you can go to my Facebook page,
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash rich on Tech, hit the big
Speaker 1: blue send email button. Or go to Rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot tv hit the email button. I'd love it if
Speaker 1: you would rate and review this podcast. Just go to
Speaker 1: the listening app of your choice now Spotify has ratings
Speaker 1: as well. Write a quick line about what you like
Speaker 1: about this show to help people understand why they should listen.
Speaker 1: You can find me on social media. I am at
Speaker 1: rich on tech. Don't forget to download the ktla plus
Speaker 1: app on Apple, TV, Fire TV, and Roku. Scroll to
Speaker 1: the tech section. There you can watch all of my
Speaker 1: TV segments on demand. My name is Rich Dmiro. I
Speaker 1: cannot believe it is the end of another year. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for all of your listening. This was
Speaker 1: the best year ever for my podcast. Lots of downloads,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Lots of feedback on the show.
Speaker 1: I know there are so many ways you can spend
Speaker 1: an hour of your time. I do appreciate you spending
Speaker 1: it with me. Have a happy holiday, stay safe. Hopefully
Speaker 1: you get some good tech this holiday season, or enjoy
Speaker 1: your time off. I will see you in twenty twenty two.