Speaker 1: Verizon plans get more expensive. Google unveils a new watch
Speaker 1: and a cheaper pixel, How hackers get your password? Plus
Speaker 1: your tech questions answered? What's going on on rich Demiro
Speaker 1: And this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I
Speaker 1: talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about.
Speaker 1: It's also the place where I answer the questions you
Speaker 1: send me. I'm the tech reporter at KTLA, Channel five
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. Welcome to the show. Hope you are
Speaker 1: having a fantastic day. So clearly today's segment really hit
Speaker 1: a nerve. We talked on KTLA about how to free
Speaker 1: up storage on your smartphone. Now I think that this
Speaker 1: is less of a problem than it was before, but
Speaker 1: it's still a pretty big problem. And the number one
Speaker 1: thing that I see is that people do not back
Speaker 1: up their pictures. I don't understand why. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess I do. It could be complicated, but you just
Speaker 1: have to. And the main two things that are going
Speaker 1: on here is that you've got a combination of storage
Speaker 1: on your phone which is limited, and then you've got
Speaker 1: storage in the cloud, which costs money. And so people
Speaker 1: don't want to pay for that storage in the cloud
Speaker 1: because it becomes expensive. But yet they're running out of
Speaker 1: storage on their phone, and so what they do is
Speaker 1: they just basically delete stuff and say, I guess I
Speaker 1: don't need that. You shouldn't do that, there's no need
Speaker 1: to do that. Pay a couple extra bucks a month
Speaker 1: to get the storage online. Pare down your photos or
Speaker 1: your video you're really it's the videos that take up
Speaker 1: the most storage. So if you're in a place where
Speaker 1: you're like where I was a couple probably a year ago,
Speaker 1: where I was looking at my Google Drive and I
Speaker 1: was really close to the next tier where I'd have
Speaker 1: to pay much more per month, it's really the videos
Speaker 1: that put you over the edge there. So go through
Speaker 1: and delete the videos. You'd be surprised how many trash
Speaker 1: videos are on your phone, like stuff that you took
Speaker 1: that you don't really need anymore, or videos that you
Speaker 1: started and then like let's say your kid plays baseball
Speaker 1: like mine, there's a lot of scenarios where you start
Speaker 1: taking a video because they're up at bat and then
Speaker 1: they stop or they strike out, and you don't really
Speaker 1: need that video anymore. So just go through and delete
Speaker 1: videos on your phone. The easiest way is really to
Speaker 1: delete some big videos on your phone and iPhone. I
Speaker 1: was a little bit surprised doesn't have a real easy
Speaker 1: way to do that. And so if you want an
Speaker 1: easy way to delete the big files on your phone,
Speaker 1: there's an app called Gemini Photos, which is really nice
Speaker 1: and it's a couple bucks. It's like three days for free,
Speaker 1: five dollars a month, twenty dollars a year, or like
Speaker 1: thirty five for lifetime access or actually unlimited access, because
Speaker 1: sometimes they change the program. They come out with Gemini too,
Speaker 1: and then they're like, oh, never mind, that's not included.
Speaker 1: So I would pay like the five dollars to use
Speaker 1: it for a month and you know, there you go.
Speaker 1: You can save it get rid of all the big files.
Speaker 1: It also helps you get rid of the blurry photos.
Speaker 1: There's also this major confusion about iCloud with the iPhone,
Speaker 1: and the major confusion is that people don't realize that
Speaker 1: when you delete stuff off your phone if you have
Speaker 1: an iPhone using iCloud, they don't realize that when you
Speaker 1: delete a picture off your phone, it also deletes out
Speaker 1: of iCloud. iCloud is not a one way backup, it's
Speaker 1: a two way sink between your phone and iCloud. So
Speaker 1: anything you do on your phone is reflected in iCloud.
Speaker 1: Now that's the reason why I like Google Photos better
Speaker 1: than iCloud is because it's a one way sink. When
Speaker 1: a picture goes up to iCloud or sorry, when a
Speaker 1: picture goes up to Google Photos, it sticks there. It
Speaker 1: stays there even if I delete it off my phone
Speaker 1: outside of the Google Photos app. So that's a little
Speaker 1: confusing as well that on my iPhone, I basically have
Speaker 1: two apps on the home screen. I've got Photos and
Speaker 1: I've got Google Photos. And this is the other thing
Speaker 1: that I recommend that you do almost on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: I go through at the end of the day and
Speaker 1: I just go through and delete pictures out of my
Speaker 1: Google Photos. I just it's almost like maintenance. So I'll
Speaker 1: just spend ten to fifteen minutes a day just going
Speaker 1: through my Google Photos and just deleting stuff. And that
Speaker 1: could be old photos. Sometimes you just go in and
Speaker 1: pick a category like fireworks, and I'll just scroll through
Speaker 1: all my old pictures and videos and just just kind
Speaker 1: of clean it up, pare it down a little bit,
Speaker 1: look through receipts, do that, and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: different ways you can just spend time kind of paring
Speaker 1: down your your cloud accounts so that you don't have
Speaker 1: you're not faced with this giant, you know, plethora of
Speaker 1: pictures at some point that you're never going to get through.
Speaker 1: I'm always hoping too, that Google will apply some sort
Speaker 1: of AI to making our photos easier to manage in
Speaker 1: a like, in a cleanup way, and they do. They
Speaker 1: definitely have ways, It's just not one hundred percent one click.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I've got a great article on the website
Speaker 1: rich on tech dot tv about cleaning up your photos
Speaker 1: and freeing up storage because it is a summer and
Speaker 1: you are going to be taking a lot of photos
Speaker 1: and videos, so definitely get that storage cleaned up on
Speaker 1: your phone before or you take a vacation, because you
Speaker 1: don't want it to be when you're on vacation you
Speaker 1: run out of storage. All right, let's get to the
Speaker 1: first big story of the week. Verizon plans are getting
Speaker 1: a little bit more expensive. This is not a huge
Speaker 1: price increase, but honestly, I'm kind of sick of all
Speaker 1: the price increases. Every single service that I subscribe to
Speaker 1: use do whatever in real life online has gotten expensive
Speaker 1: over the past six months. More expensive. And that's including Netflix,
Speaker 1: which went up by two bucks a month. My alarm
Speaker 1: system went up by a couple bucks a month. Haircuts.
Speaker 1: I brought the kids for haircuts that went up by
Speaker 1: another three dollars for the two of them. You know,
Speaker 1: so three dollars times to another six bucks. What else
Speaker 1: went up? Amazon went up, Amazon Prime went up. So
Speaker 1: basically everything has gone up in price. And if you've
Speaker 1: been to the grocery store, you know that all those
Speaker 1: prices have gone up. So, yeah, inflation is real at
Speaker 1: this point. It is happening, and big companies are saying,
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like there's two things happening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everything's becoming more expensive. But also I think a lot
Speaker 1: of companies are sort of what I always refer to
Speaker 1: as klingons, where they're like, oh, we notice everyone else
Speaker 1: is raising prices, Let's raise prices too. And a lot
Speaker 1: of this is reality, Like I'm sure it does cost
Speaker 1: Verizon more to do business because everything is costing them more,
Speaker 1: like fuel and labor and all these other things. And
Speaker 1: so now they're adding what's called an economic adjustment charge
Speaker 1: of a dollar thirty five per voice line for consumers.
Speaker 1: If you have a business line it's gonna go up
Speaker 1: by ninety eight cents a month and then two dollars
Speaker 1: and twenty cents per data line. So bottom line for
Speaker 1: the average consumer, you're gonna be paying a couple bucks
Speaker 1: more for your Verizon bill next month. This starts in June,
Speaker 1: and it's just one of those things where it's not
Speaker 1: a huge amount where you're sitting there going, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna cancel Verizon, but it's just enough when you add
Speaker 1: it up to all the other things that prices are
Speaker 1: just going up, and it's just the reality of what's
Speaker 1: happening right now with the econ me. I don't know
Speaker 1: what's causing it precisely, but it's happening in a big way.
Speaker 1: And again I think some of it is is chalked
Speaker 1: up to kind of like higher cost of doing business,
Speaker 1: but other things other people are just like, you know what,
Speaker 1: it's just kind of like the time to raise prices,
Speaker 1: and that definitely seems like what's happening in a big way.
Speaker 1: So just don't be surprised next month and you get
Speaker 1: your Verizon bill, it is going to be higher. Now
Speaker 1: if you're looking to switch. There are a couple of
Speaker 1: companies that I do recommend that I think are pretty good. Now,
Speaker 1: here's the thing. When you have a big unlimited plan
Speaker 1: from Verizon, it gives you everything. So if you're traveling internationally,
Speaker 1: you need that hot spot, you need the international data.
Speaker 1: You have an Apple Watch, you need that. So it
Speaker 1: becomes very intertwined. You've got a couple of kids on
Speaker 1: your plan, you don't really want to change anything. And
Speaker 1: that's where these big companies really make out with millions
Speaker 1: and millions of people overpaying every month for services that
Speaker 1: they just don't need. You know, an unlimited plan is
Speaker 1: a good ninety dollars a month, sixty to ninety a month,
Speaker 1: And do you use all those features? Probably not now
Speaker 1: I do personally, and I can't switch out of one
Speaker 1: of these big all on one plans, but someone like
Speaker 1: my wife definitely. If you look at her Verizon data usage,
Speaker 1: it's literally a gigabyte a month, two gigabytes a month.
Speaker 1: It's a joke. But we're sort of intertwined on this plan,
Speaker 1: so I'm not gonna I thought about switching her off,
Speaker 1: but it's just too much, and it's kind of nice
Speaker 1: to have everyone together. Especially my son has a plan
Speaker 1: as well, so it's just one of these things where
Speaker 1: I got to stick to it. Now, if you are single,
Speaker 1: if you have just two people on your plan, maybe
Speaker 1: no kids, maybe no Apple Watch. Definitely some alternatives to
Speaker 1: look into. Number one Mint Mobile fantastic. I've got a
Speaker 1: family member with it. They pay three hundred bucks for
Speaker 1: the whole year. It's not unlimited data, but it's like
Speaker 1: eight gigs a month and it works just fine. I've
Speaker 1: got a test Mint Mobile plan that it is unlimited
Speaker 1: for thirty dollars a month and it's fantastic. It works great,
Speaker 1: it does what I need. Obviously, it's on a secondary phone,
Speaker 1: so it's not my primary line. But it's been fantastic
Speaker 1: and you only have to think about it once a
Speaker 1: year when you pay that bill. The other one that's
Speaker 1: really good is Visible. Now. The thing about Visible is
Speaker 1: that it's owned by Verizons, so you get Verizon quality network.
Speaker 1: The problem is you're not going to get Verizon quality support,
Speaker 1: and so when you need help, in the case of
Speaker 1: another family member that I have on Visible, help is
Speaker 1: not very good. It's mostly by chat. It's you know,
Speaker 1: you either have to chat or call. I don't even
Speaker 1: know if they offer a phone call, but you know,
Speaker 1: you can't go into a store, which at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, when you're having trouble, the ability to
Speaker 1: go into a store is really nice. So you can't
Speaker 1: do that. But at the end of the day, you
Speaker 1: get an unlimited Verizon plan for twenty for as low
Speaker 1: as twenty five dollars a month. Now it is typically
Speaker 1: forty dollars a month, and they do they do limit
Speaker 1: things like your speed and you know, your hotspot data
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, but a lot of people again
Speaker 1: don't need all that stuff. So you can get what's
Speaker 1: called a party plan for twenty five dollars a month.
Speaker 1: And it sounds like you have to join with a
Speaker 1: bunch of people like in your family. You don't. You
Speaker 1: can actually just link up with any random party plan.
Speaker 1: They've got links to these things on Reddit and online
Speaker 1: where you can just find a random Visible party plan,
Speaker 1: and they don't they don't frown against it, like it's fine.
Speaker 1: I'd ask Visible this and they said, yeah, it's fine,
Speaker 1: you can just join whatever. So if you join a
Speaker 1: random party plan, you can pay twenty five dollars a
Speaker 1: month unlimited Visible. They just added e SIM support for
Speaker 1: a lot of Android phone Samsung and pixel, so you
Speaker 1: don't even have to get a SIM card sent to
Speaker 1: you. You can just activate your phone with this right from
Speaker 1: your device. So that's something to look into. The other
Speaker 1: plan that I really like, and I have not tested
Speaker 1: this one but I want to, is an AT and
Speaker 1: T plan that's only available at Walmart, and it's forty
Speaker 1: five dollars a month for unlimited. It's really good. Now
Speaker 1: I don't know what the downside is to that plan.
Speaker 1: A friend was telling me that, you know, they'll throttle
Speaker 1: you really quickly if you go over the data. But
Speaker 1: it's like unlimited, but still, you know, they give you
Speaker 1: like thirty five forty five gigs of data whatever it is,
Speaker 1: and then after that they have the right to throttle
Speaker 1: you and slow down your speeds. But it does come
Speaker 1: with hotspot, it comes with online storage. It's five g
Speaker 1: So if you are a single person with one line,
Speaker 1: you like the idea of prepaid, you pay your bill.
Speaker 1: You know, you can do automatic payments, but it's forty
Speaker 1: five dollars a month. You have to sign up or
Speaker 1: buy the SIM, at least inside Walmart. I think you
Speaker 1: have to sign up in Walmart, but look into that.
Speaker 1: I think it's called the AT and T Max Walmart plan.
Speaker 1: But those are some good alternatives if you're looking to
Speaker 1: save some money, like we all are at this point.
Speaker 1: Oh that's that sound means it's time for the first question.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Paul says, Hey, Rich, I speaking of
Speaker 1: what we just talked about. I just called Spectrum Mobile.
Speaker 1: Was thinking of changing over from Verizon. They told me
Speaker 1: I have a They told me I have to have
Speaker 1: a five G compatible phone. My eight plus has been
Speaker 1: paid off two years ago. I'm not buying a new
Speaker 1: iPhone again. My mind is the last with the home button.
Speaker 1: I think this is a form of bait and switch
Speaker 1: is their way around it. They would send me a
Speaker 1: five G only simcard, Paul. So, Paul sounds like I
Speaker 1: think Spectrum is heavily advertising Spectrum Mobile, which is you know,
Speaker 1: it's another option. If you have Spectrum, it does probably
Speaker 1: save you some money. I'm a little bit torn on
Speaker 1: them because I don't like the idea of giving a
Speaker 1: big cable conglomerate even more of my money per se.
Speaker 1: But if you can save money every month by going
Speaker 1: with it, and you're not going to really switch, because
Speaker 1: I think with Spectrum Mobile you have to have Spectrum
Speaker 1: Internet or some sort of Spectrum service to get the
Speaker 1: cheapest price. I could be wrong on that because it's
Speaker 1: been a while since I looked into this, But with
Speaker 1: regards to the five G I'm not sure that their
Speaker 1: SIM card is only five G compatible. I would be
Speaker 1: a little bit. I don't think that's totally true. But
Speaker 1: if this is their rule, you have to go buy it,
Speaker 1: because what they're doing is they're not going to send
Speaker 1: you a SIM card unless you send them what's called
Speaker 1: the IMEI off your phone and it's compatible with their
Speaker 1: with their rules and their network. So what they're going
Speaker 1: to do is say, okay, send us this number from
Speaker 1: your phone, which is you can find it in settings
Speaker 1: called the IMEI, and that tells you if your phone
Speaker 1: is compatible with their network. Now, it may be compatible
Speaker 1: with the Spectrum Mobile service, but since they're not allowing
Speaker 1: anyone with just four G phones to get on anymore,
Speaker 1: they may say no, you can't do that. And it's
Speaker 1: not bait and switch, it's just that's their rule. That's
Speaker 1: what they want to do, and they want to prevent
Speaker 1: people from having a bad quality of service when they
Speaker 1: get on that network, because not like the the cell
Speaker 1: phone carriers are not retiring four G anytime soon, Like
Speaker 1: it's not going away this year or next year or
Speaker 1: even in probably a couple of years. But I think
Speaker 1: that the emphasis is definitely on five G. And so
Speaker 1: if that's their rule, it's not bait and switch. It's
Speaker 1: just hey, you know, this is what we want to do,
Speaker 1: this is our priority, and we make the rules and
Speaker 1: you can either live by them or you know, find
Speaker 1: some other service. So what I would recommend Paul is
Speaker 1: maybe look into some of the other services that I mentioned.
Speaker 1: If you want Verizon, I would definitely check into Visible,
Speaker 1: and I believe you'd be able to activate that eight
Speaker 1: plus right from your handset there. All right, So Google,
Speaker 1: I was off last week. I had to go down
Speaker 1: to San Diego for a Lego Land shoot, so I
Speaker 1: did not was not able to do the podcast. So
Speaker 1: I did see Google Io, I did follow it, but
Speaker 1: I was not able to talk about it in a
Speaker 1: big way on the podcast. I'll be quite honest, I
Speaker 1: was underwhelmed. I think that Google is still doing amazing
Speaker 1: things with AI and machine learning. I think that Apple
Speaker 1: is catching up to a lot of it, except for specifically,
Speaker 1: voice transcription is really horrible on Apple. Still if you
Speaker 1: use Siri, it's amazing on Google. But I think a
Speaker 1: lot of these things, I mean, Google just their secret
Speaker 1: sauce is really just really flexing their software smarts. But
Speaker 1: I'll be honest on the flip side, I think that
Speaker 1: Google had lens for a very long time, which reads
Speaker 1: things in pictures, which is identifying what's in the pictures
Speaker 1: and also the text. But I think that Apple's implementation
Speaker 1: of live text on their phones is just phenomenal. So
Speaker 1: good example, I'm going on vacation later and or soon,
Speaker 1: i should say, and I was looking up some recommendations
Speaker 1: and this social influencer had posted a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: recommendations for this area on an Instagram story and it
Speaker 1: was just a ton of tiny text. So I screenshotted
Speaker 1: that Instagram story I put into my photos and I
Speaker 1: just started copying and pasting all the recommendations from that
Speaker 1: using live text into my Google Maps, which I use
Speaker 1: what's called lists, and I just bookmark little things that
Speaker 1: I want to go to in different cities. And so
Speaker 1: it was such an easy process. It was such a
Speaker 1: smooth process. And that was something that I'd have to
Speaker 1: look over see what the name of the restaurant is,
Speaker 1: and then remember it and then type it into Google Maps.
Speaker 1: This way you literally just copy and paste the text
Speaker 1: even though it's a picture. It can still recognize that
Speaker 1: text and copy and paste it really easily, and it
Speaker 1: was right on. So kudos to Apple for doing something
Speaker 1: so smooth. Which Google has had that feature for years,
Speaker 1: it's just never been any good. But I did notice
Speaker 1: that Google has definitely stepped up their kind of use
Speaker 1: of Google Lends ever since Apple kind of integrated it
Speaker 1: into their phones in such a big way. So it's
Speaker 1: you know, look, it's a it's a it's competition, and
Speaker 1: Apple and Google our neck and neck in this competition
Speaker 1: of what they can do for you and the products
Speaker 1: and services that they have. Anyway, all that's to say,
Speaker 1: not too many things to talk about from Google. Iow
Speaker 1: a couple of notable items. Pixel six a's coming out
Speaker 1: in July. This is going to be a cheaper pixel
Speaker 1: phone at four hundred and fifty dollars. It's going to
Speaker 1: have dual cameras on the back, a main lens and
Speaker 1: an ultra wide so no telephoto. But Magic Eraser has
Speaker 1: also gotten a little bit better. It can now change
Speaker 1: the color of just acting objects in your picture, which
Speaker 1: is kind of cool. In addition to deleting things out
Speaker 1: of your pictures, it also comes with the same highly
Speaker 1: accurate speech recognition, cool features like recorder, live caption, Live Translate.
Speaker 1: It's going to receive five years of security update, and
Speaker 1: it's also the first Pixel that can go seventy two
Speaker 1: hours in extreme battery mode. So this is going to
Speaker 1: be available July twenty first, for pre order July twenty eighth.
Speaker 1: I say that the Pixel six A is going to
Speaker 1: be an excellent phone for the average phone user that
Speaker 1: wants a really good phone that's going to last five years.
Speaker 1: These Pixels just keep on going if you're not a
Speaker 1: power user. I think that these lower priced Pixels are
Speaker 1: really the perfect smartphone because they have great software, they
Speaker 1: have an excellent camera. They're not I mean, the iPhone
Speaker 1: now has options that are the cheapest option of the
Speaker 1: iPhone is four thirty. I think for the iPhone se,
Speaker 1: which is okay, the Pixel six say, well, we'll offer
Speaker 1: that ultra wide. I think it's gonna have a better
Speaker 1: kind of a better camera maybe and also some some
Speaker 1: cooler features. But the I would say, if you're looking
Speaker 1: at those you know, budget phones. I would say that
Speaker 1: the the options to look at are the Samsung I
Speaker 1: think it's the fifty three, and then the the Pixel
Speaker 1: six A and also the iPhone S. All Right, the
Speaker 1: other thing they mentioned, I'll just go over this since
Speaker 1: I've got it here is the Pixel Watch, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, the big smart watch to rival the Apple Watch.
Speaker 1: And the Apple Watch has just been amazing. It's been
Speaker 1: out for seven seven years now and it just is
Speaker 1: the best wearable on the market. There's nothing even close
Speaker 1: to what the Apple Watch does, and quite honestly, it's
Speaker 1: basically the thing that keeps me in the Apple ecosystem. Now,
Speaker 1: if they let if they set the Apple Watch free,
Speaker 1: and Apple knows this, this is why they don't set
Speaker 1: I message free. If they set the Apple Watch free
Speaker 1: and let you activate it as a its own device
Speaker 1: without going through a lot of hoops like they do
Speaker 1: right now, I think that they would lose some people
Speaker 1: to the Android because people would have more options. You
Speaker 1: can wear an Apple Watch and have Android. But they
Speaker 1: know that that keeps you in the ecosystem, so they
Speaker 1: don't do that. But if they did, it would it
Speaker 1: would get a lot of not a lot of people.
Speaker 1: But definitely people would think twice. They go, oh cool,
Speaker 1: I can get the Apple Watch, which is really amazing,
Speaker 1: but I can also get a pixel phone or something
Speaker 1: else like that. Not too much to say about the
Speaker 1: Pixel Watch except it's gonna have things like Google Maps
Speaker 1: built in. It's gonna have fitbit tools built in, it's
Speaker 1: gonna have Google Wallet built in. But this thing does
Speaker 1: not come out for a long time. It's not coming
Speaker 1: out until the fall. And you know, it's one of
Speaker 1: these things that it's gonna be first generation. There's definitely
Speaker 1: gonna be some downsides to it. It's not gonna be
Speaker 1: as full featured as the Apple Watch. People are gonna
Speaker 1: be disappointed. Will it be fine? Probably, But I think
Speaker 1: for that we're gonna I hopefully. I'm pleasantly surprised. I
Speaker 1: just don't see it as being amazing out of the gate.
Speaker 1: I think that if you're looking for a companion to
Speaker 1: the pixel or to an Android for a smart watch,
Speaker 1: it'll be a nice option to have. But we're gonna
Speaker 1: have to kind of sit and wait on that one.
Speaker 1: All right, Let's get to the next question. Nancy says,
Speaker 1: I just watch your segment which you recommended a password manager,
Speaker 1: Can you recommend one for iPhone and Mac? So, yeah,
Speaker 1: the couple of a couple of this actually had to
Speaker 1: do with the next story. I was gonna mention how
Speaker 1: hackers get your password, So I guess I'll skip to
Speaker 1: the end and then I'll go back to the beginning.
Speaker 1: But the password managers that I recommend number one. If
Speaker 1: you want a free one, I recommend Bitwarden. I did
Speaker 1: a story with Bitwarden was very impressed. They offer a
Speaker 1: free product. Yes, there is a it's a freemium product,
Speaker 1: which means you sign up and they hope that you
Speaker 1: get a little bit frustrated with what they offer for free,
Speaker 1: or you want some extra features that you end up
Speaker 1: paying for the full service product. And that's not I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that in a bad way. That's what all
Speaker 1: these companies do. Whenever you use a product that's free.
Speaker 1: The hope is that you're just a little bit hamstrung
Speaker 1: by that product and that you say, oh, okay, fine,
Speaker 1: I'll pay the extra five bucks a month because you
Speaker 1: get a taste of that product and you already have
Speaker 1: a login, you've already started using it, and you're already
Speaker 1: comfortable with it, and yeah, you can suffer through the
Speaker 1: free product and use just the free options, but it's
Speaker 1: always going to be a little bit better if you
Speaker 1: pay for the paid product. And that's just kind of
Speaker 1: the business model. And yes, you could use a free
Speaker 1: product forever and just say, oh cool, I'm one of
Speaker 1: those people that this free product works great and it's amazing.
Speaker 1: But for most people, or for many people, I should say,
Speaker 1: they will translate into a paid customer. Now, for paid
Speaker 1: password managers, I like dash Lane and I like one Password.
Speaker 1: I think those are two of the best. I think
Speaker 1: they're highly recommended. Last Pass I used to recommend a lot,
Speaker 1: but a lot of people were burned by last Pass
Speaker 1: when they went from free to a paid service and
Speaker 1: they kind of really hamstrung the free service, and so
Speaker 1: I kind of like it left a little bit of
Speaker 1: a bad time haste in my mouth. Now, if you
Speaker 1: ever want to switch from one password manager to another,
Speaker 1: there are ways of switching. It's not the easiest thing
Speaker 1: in the world, but I have done it and it works.
Speaker 1: But it's it's doable. But the beauty of a password
Speaker 1: manager is that you just have to remember one password
Speaker 1: and then it will fill in all the passwords and
Speaker 1: so what you want to look for is a password
Speaker 1: manager that works across various devices that includes a computer,
Speaker 1: a smartphone, a tablet, and maybe even your watch. And
Speaker 1: so when you look at that, something like dash Lane
Speaker 1: and one password and bitwarden, they'll cover a lot of
Speaker 1: those bases. But what Nancy is asking me is can
Speaker 1: you recommend one for iPhone and Mac? And so if
Speaker 1: you are just using an iPhone in Mac, I would say,
Speaker 1: just use the built in iCloud keychain. And so iCloud
Speaker 1: has a built in password manager. It will generate passwords,
Speaker 1: it will fill in those passwords, and it's super easy.
Speaker 1: It's super simple. You may even have seen it when
Speaker 1: you're using Safari on the iPhone or Safari on the Mac.
Speaker 1: It says, hey, do you want us to suggest a password?
Speaker 1: Do you want us to recommend one? Do you want
Speaker 1: us to save one? Do you want us to fill
Speaker 1: in one? That's all fine and dandy if you're only
Speaker 1: using iPhone and Mac. In fact, I would qualify not
Speaker 1: just iPhone in Mac. But you have to be using
Speaker 1: Safari on both iPhone and Mac for this to truly work.
Speaker 1: If you're using Chrome on the iPhone and Mac, I
Speaker 1: would not recommend using the built in password manager on
Speaker 1: the iPhone because it's going to present some problems because
Speaker 1: you're gonna be copying and pasting a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: So for that reason, I would recommend a third party one.
Speaker 1: And like I said, Bitwarden, dash Lane, one Password are
Speaker 1: all going to be good options, even last Pass. You know,
Speaker 1: it really comes down to your preferences. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just look get a feel for how much these things cost,
Speaker 1: the features they have, like some of them have, like
Speaker 1: I think dash Lane might have like a built in
Speaker 1: VPN that you can use, so that if that's an
Speaker 1: option that you want, then go with that. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of different there's a lot of different ones,
Speaker 1: and you can, you know, you don't have to use
Speaker 1: my recommendations. You can look up online a lot of
Speaker 1: people like other brands, just see what you like. But again,
Speaker 1: if you're just using Chrome and Android, then I would
Speaker 1: recommend the built in password manager that Chrome has. An
Speaker 1: Android and I don't know what is that called. Let's
Speaker 1: see Chrome password manager. It's just called Google password Manager,
Speaker 1: and so you can use that, but again I would
Speaker 1: only use that if you're using Android and Chrome. That's it. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's your password manager. Now why do you need
Speaker 1: a password manager? This is what I got into on
Speaker 1: the news. This was another popular story this week because
Speaker 1: I'm telling you I've always said this on the podcast.
Speaker 1: I am like a doctor. I hear a lot of stories.
Speaker 1: I see a lot of stuff, and the way that
Speaker 1: I see this stuff is all through emails. People email me,
Speaker 1: they DM me on a daily basis, give telling me
Speaker 1: about their problems. And the problems typically stem from hacking.
Speaker 1: They typically stem from losing accounts. They typically stem from
Speaker 1: organizing their computers, organizing their photos, recommendations for better Wi Fi.
Speaker 1: I mean, these are like the common themes I see
Speaker 1: over and over and over selecting which smartphone to get.
Speaker 1: But one of the biggest problems I see is hackers
Speaker 1: getting passwords. And ninety nine percent of the time we
Speaker 1: hand over our passwords to the hackers through a phishing
Speaker 1: attempt and those fishing emails that you get you're listening
Speaker 1: to a tech podcast. You may be a little more
Speaker 1: savvy than a lot of people, but the fact is
Speaker 1: you've got someone in your family or friends that is
Speaker 1: not as savvy as you, and these are the people
Speaker 1: that fall for this stuff, and it's your grandma, it's
Speaker 1: your mom, it's your dad, it's a friend, it's a relative.
Speaker 1: And these are smart people that are doctors, their lawyers,
Speaker 1: their architects, their journalists, their teachers, whatever. They're smart in
Speaker 1: their aspect. They may not be as tech savvy as
Speaker 1: you are or as I am, and that's what happens.
Speaker 1: So what happens is you get this email and there's
Speaker 1: some sort of what the sexpert I talk to calls
Speaker 1: a stressor event. Hey, you got to you got to
Speaker 1: change your password right now, or your account was just
Speaker 1: logged in from somewhere you need to help, you know,
Speaker 1: lock this down, or your Amazon account was just used
Speaker 1: to purchase this, so you better go in and fix that.
Speaker 1: And before you know it, when you try logging in
Speaker 1: to fix it, they've already taken your password and they're
Speaker 1: off and running and they're they're messing things up and
Speaker 1: they're somehow either you know, screwing with your stuff or
Speaker 1: just they can do a lot of damage. So what
Speaker 1: do you want to do? You want to make sure
Speaker 1: that you do not fall for that social engineering, don't
Speaker 1: get tricked. So learn to spot the signs of a
Speaker 1: phishing email. Sometimes it's not always that easy. So and
Speaker 1: tell your friends and family members about this. That's the
Speaker 1: other thing is like educate your friends, you know, talk
Speaker 1: about this stuff. I know, you're out to a beer
Speaker 1: with your friends, like just say, hey, uh, do you
Speaker 1: know how to spot a phishing email? Because I think
Speaker 1: you should know, and just you know, see the reaction
Speaker 1: on their face and be like, I know. I listen
Speaker 1: to Rich on Tech, that's what he talks about. The
Speaker 1: other way that your password gets out into the wild
Speaker 1: is when a website is hacked. And this happens. This
Speaker 1: has happened to me many times. You sign up for
Speaker 1: one website, they are hacked, and next thing you know,
Speaker 1: that password and email combination is floating around on the web.
Speaker 1: It might be on the dark web, it might be
Speaker 1: a little tough to access, but these hackers know how
Speaker 1: to find this information. And then they go ahead and
Speaker 1: they try that password and use their name on a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of different websites, common websites. You might use Gmail.
Speaker 1: They try it there. Yahoo, You might try it there.
Speaker 1: They might try it on a banking website, and they
Speaker 1: just keep going and of course you know they're not
Speaker 1: sitting there necessarily trying to log in. They're using automated
Speaker 1: systems that can do this stuff very fast in a
Speaker 1: big way. And so this expert I talk to Roger Grimes,
Speaker 1: by the way, who is an excellent expert from the
Speaker 1: software training company or security awareness training company know before.
Speaker 1: He said that twice a year, your password is probably
Speaker 1: stolen from a website that you belong to. And this
Speaker 1: is why you don't want to reuse the same password
Speaker 1: over and over. People say, ah, I've got my password,
Speaker 1: I use it. It's the same password I've had for years.
Speaker 1: Don't do it. I mean literally, you're putting yourself at
Speaker 1: so much risk if you're using the same password over
Speaker 1: and over. It's just not worth it. Take the five
Speaker 1: minutes to sign up and understand how to use a
Speaker 1: password manager. Take the five minutes to turn on two
Speaker 1: factor authentication. The first thing that I ask people when
Speaker 1: they get hacked, I say, did you have two factor on?
Speaker 1: They said no. I've been talking on the news about
Speaker 1: two factor authentication now for ten years, and still when
Speaker 1: I ask people, a lot of people have not turned
Speaker 1: it on. Turn it on, set it up. The best
Speaker 1: way to do it is with an authentication app. Look
Speaker 1: up one of those Microsoft offers one, Google offers one.
Speaker 1: There's a couple other companies that offer them. That's the
Speaker 1: best way to do it so you're not tied to
Speaker 1: your phone number. Oh let's see what else. This expert
Speaker 1: was telling me that the passwords that you think you
Speaker 1: make up, that you think are tough for hackers to guess,
Speaker 1: are very easy. They can guess sixteen to eighteen character
Speaker 1: human created passwords all the time now, if using a
Speaker 1: password manager, if it's a totally random password. As far
Speaker 1: as they know, eleven or twelve perfectly random passwords are
Speaker 1: uncrackable at this point. So that's why when you've got
Speaker 1: all those crazy passwords on the h Sorry if you
Speaker 1: hear some commotion in the background. We are fostering two
Speaker 1: kittens right now, and they are just running all over
Speaker 1: the room. So it's uh that they're getting into this
Speaker 1: playful state. When we first got them, we had to
Speaker 1: nurse them to health. They were so tiny and so scared.
Speaker 1: But now they are turning into the kittens that you
Speaker 1: know and love. But they are eating my wires, they
Speaker 1: are playing around. They're yeah, just put your mouth on
Speaker 1: that USBC cable. Okay, climb on my router. The one
Speaker 1: kitten is now that we've got two the and is
Speaker 1: sitting on top of my hero So I'm sure the
Speaker 1: Wi Fi signal just took a big nose dive. Let's
Speaker 1: see what else They are cute, though, I will say
Speaker 1: it's a lot of work giving them medicine and all
Speaker 1: this stuff, but it is cute and it's fun to do.
Speaker 1: The kids love it. Okay, where was I? So the
Speaker 1: passwords that you want to use from a password manager,
Speaker 1: eleven or twelve character is going to be perfect, going
Speaker 1: to be a good password. The other thing is if
Speaker 1: you like, let's say, on your computer at work. And
Speaker 1: I understand why you may not want to use a
Speaker 1: password manager, because your computer at work, you're logging in
Speaker 1: thirty forty fifty times a day. Right, every time you
Speaker 1: leave to get up from your computer, you should be
Speaker 1: locking it. Every time you come back, you want to
Speaker 1: unlock it, and that probably requires your passwords, So I
Speaker 1: get it. You probably don't want to put in a
Speaker 1: twelve character randomly generated password, so you want to use
Speaker 1: a password that's a little bit more familiar, and so
Speaker 1: in that case, use something what's called a password, a
Speaker 1: pass phrase, and a passphrase is something like Johnny jumped
Speaker 1: over the big blue fence where overalls. Now it may
Speaker 1: not have to be that long, but something to that effect.
Speaker 1: It's a it's almost like a sentence that you can remember,
Speaker 1: I love eating ice cream in the summer. Don't use
Speaker 1: that because that's too that's that's too easily guessable. Okay,
Speaker 1: now they just turned on the speaker by pressing the
Speaker 1: button on it. That's real nice. Okay, So now I
Speaker 1: gotta go hang on a second. I've got to go
Speaker 1: turn off the music because the kittens have turned on
Speaker 1: this speaker, so let me turn this off. And okay,
Speaker 1: that's this is well, this is a first for the
Speaker 1: podcasts having to turn off a speaker in the middle
Speaker 1: of it because the cats are on it. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so pass phrases very smart, and that's that's what I
Speaker 1: would use. The other thing, uh, the other thing I
Speaker 1: didn't mention is the other way that these hackers get
Speaker 1: your password is unauthorized password resets. And so if you get,
Speaker 1: if anyone ever asks you to read them a number
Speaker 1: that you get like a confirmation, just don't believe it.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's funny because again, and I've talked
Speaker 1: about this on the podcast in the past. These hackers
Speaker 1: basically reverse engineer the security measures that companies have put
Speaker 1: in place to protect us. So what happens is, if
Speaker 1: you ever use let's say PayPal, and let's say you
Speaker 1: don't log in for a long time, PayPal will say, hey,
Speaker 1: we notice you logged in. Can you please enter the
Speaker 1: phone enter the six digit code that we just texted
Speaker 1: to your phone. And so that's just put in place
Speaker 1: to make sure it is who you are who you
Speaker 1: say you are when you go to use PayPal after
Speaker 1: not using it for a year. Now on the flip side,
Speaker 1: what the hackers will do is they'll call you up
Speaker 1: and they'll say, hey, mister Demiro, we noticed that your
Speaker 1: PayPal account has been hacked, so we need to fix it.
Speaker 1: And just to confirm you are who you say you are,
Speaker 1: we just texted you a code to your phone. Please
Speaker 1: read us that code. And what they're actually doing is
Speaker 1: a password reset. So they've got your password because it's
Speaker 1: already been hacked in some other ways, and they send
Speaker 1: that password reset code to your phone. Now you read
Speaker 1: them back that code they entered in the website, and
Speaker 1: now they've taken over your account, so that's another way
Speaker 1: that they get accessed. You just have to be on
Speaker 1: your toes and this stuff I'm telling you is just stuff.
Speaker 1: This is why I talk about it because you just
Speaker 1: have to know about it. It's really it's very tricky,
Speaker 1: and that's what they do, is they really try to
Speaker 1: trick you. So be on the lookout for that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. All right, let's get to the next question.
Speaker 1: Ron says, good day. Is it possible to use music
Speaker 1: for my library as ring tones on my iPhone twelve pro?
Speaker 1: If so, how do I transfer a song to my
Speaker 1: ringtone menu? Thank you? Be well well, Ron, this is
Speaker 1: a good question. This is a feature that used to
Speaker 1: be pretty popular on the iPhone. I have not set
Speaker 1: a custom ring tone a long time, but when the
Speaker 1: iPhone first came out, this was the bee's knees as
Speaker 1: they called it. I don't even know what that phrase
Speaker 1: refers to, but you know what that's I think all
Speaker 1: the kids said that maybe back in the fifties. So
Speaker 1: these days iTunes is definitely less of a force in life.
Speaker 1: Transferring things to your iPhone is not necessarily easy. So
Speaker 1: what I would recommend is a program and the program
Speaker 1: I recommend is called I ring I r I n GG.
Speaker 1: And this is from soft Reno and this is actually
Speaker 1: a company that's based out in Ukraine. So we are
Speaker 1: still thinking about folks out in Ukraine that are going
Speaker 1: through a very tough time right now. Hopefully that situation
Speaker 1: will be resolved. We do hope so, because it's just
Speaker 1: too senseless what's happening there anyway, I digress, but iring
Speaker 1: r I n GG is a simple drag and drop
Speaker 1: way of putting ring tones on your iPhone. I don't
Speaker 1: even know what to say. It's just that's it. It
Speaker 1: doesn't get much easier than this. You select a song,
Speaker 1: you drag it into the app, or you can even
Speaker 1: choose a song from the app, and then you just
Speaker 1: plug in your phone and boom, it will transfer it
Speaker 1: to your phone. It's so easy you do not need iTunes.
Speaker 1: It's like literally the easiest app I've ever used in
Speaker 1: my life. Maybe I'll go back to using custom ring
Speaker 1: tones I I You know, I was testing this app
Speaker 1: out a couple of years ago. I definitely had some
Speaker 1: custom ring tones on my phone. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: one of these things where if you still want to
Speaker 1: do it. That's the easiest way that I know to
Speaker 1: do it. All right, good question, great, great question. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get to the next story of the week. Pretty
Speaker 1: simple story. Amazon has updated the Fire seven. I don't
Speaker 1: typically recommend the Fire tablets because I think that they
Speaker 1: are not very exciting. They are literally if you just
Speaker 1: want a basic, the most basic tablet to read books on,
Speaker 1: watch videos on, and maybe surf the web a little
Speaker 1: bit on. But these are mostly consumption devices like these are.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I'd recommend checking my email
Speaker 1: on them because they're so basic. But this is a
Speaker 1: good a good tablet for just watching videos and also
Speaker 1: reading books, even for kids. I don't typically recommend the
Speaker 1: Fire tablets because, honestly, the Fire tablets are just they're
Speaker 1: just so complicated. I feel like like the software is
Speaker 1: not that good. It's just it's just not that great.
Speaker 1: Just spend the extra money on the iPad. I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: I get it. The iPad is like five times six times.
Speaker 1: Let's see, this is sixty bucks, so six times five
Speaker 1: five times the cost for an iPad. And I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: the iPad will last longer, the software is better, your
Speaker 1: kids will appreciate it. It's just an overall better experience.
Speaker 1: But with all that said, the iPhone, the Fire seven
Speaker 1: does have USB C now, so it's gonna have easier charging.
Speaker 1: It's got a thirty percent faster processor, double the RAM,
Speaker 1: which realistically is probably like two gigs versus one. I
Speaker 1: don't know the actual specs, but it's like very light
Speaker 1: on the RAM, and it has forty percent more battery life,
Speaker 1: so you get ten hours of use. So this is
Speaker 1: now sixty dollars. Used to be fifty dollars. It's a
Speaker 1: little bit more expensive ten dollars price increase. That all
Speaker 1: goes back to the first thing I was talking about, inflation.
Speaker 1: So suddenly these tablets cost more to make. I guess
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get it. Everything's just more expensive. These tablets
Speaker 1: will be available for pre order and they're shipping on
Speaker 1: June twenty ninth. Not much more to say about those.
Speaker 1: They do offer a Fire seven kids. The Fire seven
Speaker 1: is the smallest tablet from Amazon. And what can I say?
Speaker 1: If you just want a cheap tablet, you're taking a
Speaker 1: long plane flight, you just want something the cheapest possible
Speaker 1: thing you can get. Fire seven is gonna do that.
Speaker 1: For you. All right, let's get to the next question
Speaker 1: of the podcast, and this comes from Donna. Donna says, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: quick question. I need to offload the photos from my phone.
Speaker 1: I currently have an iCloud account that's frequently backed up.
Speaker 1: If I delete photos from my phone, will they still
Speaker 1: be on the cloud. I don't want to lose any
Speaker 1: I'm not sophisticated enough to understand how I could preserve
Speaker 1: my photos and free up storage on my phone. Thanks
Speaker 1: for your help, cheers Donna. Oh wow, this goes back
Speaker 1: to what I was talking about at the beginning. And yes,
Speaker 1: very very complicated. But you need to know, Donna, that
Speaker 1: when you delete a photo off your phone, it will
Speaker 1: be it will be deleted off of iCloud. So what
Speaker 1: you need to do is, uh, you need to be
Speaker 1: very familiar with a feature called optimize I phone storage.
Speaker 1: So your iPhone, if you have iCloud and you have
Speaker 1: an iPhone, you can set up your iPhone so that
Speaker 1: you can take advantage of unlimited storage and iCloud or
Speaker 1: I guess I should say as much storage as you
Speaker 1: pay for an iCloud and your phone will. Okay, let
Speaker 1: me explain how this works. Let me take a deep
Speaker 1: breath because this is kind of complicated. But Number one,
Speaker 1: go into settings on your iPhone, tap or says your name,
Speaker 1: which is up at the top, Then tap iCloud, and
Speaker 1: then tap photos. And when iCloud Photos is turned on,
Speaker 1: which it probably is if you're already using iCloud Photos,
Speaker 1: there is a toggle underneath that says either optimize iPhone
Speaker 1: storage or download and keep originals. Downloading keep originals means
Speaker 1: it is going to sync all of your photos to iCloud,
Speaker 1: but only to the extent of storage that you have
Speaker 1: available on your iPhone. If you run out of storage
Speaker 1: on your iPhone, it's gonna say, sorry, we can't do
Speaker 1: anything else. So what you want to do is choose
Speaker 1: the option for optimize iPhone storage. And here's what that's
Speaker 1: gonna do. Let's say your iPhone is sixty four gigabytes
Speaker 1: of storage on board. Let's say you have a terabyte
Speaker 1: of storage and iCloud. When those sixty four gigabytes are
Speaker 1: getting to be filled up on your iPhone, your iCloud
Speaker 1: storage sixty four gigs is no big deal. You've got
Speaker 1: a terabyte. What it's going to do is it's going
Speaker 1: to keep uploading the full resolution pictures to iCloud. Keep
Speaker 1: using your storage there on your iPhone. It's going to
Speaker 1: continue to use just the storage on your phone that
Speaker 1: it has available. But what it's gonna do is it's
Speaker 1: going to start deleting old pictures off your phone, but
Speaker 1: only the full file of them, the full res file.
Speaker 1: It's gonna keep a tiny resolution file that you can
Speaker 1: still browse through on your phone. But there's gonna be
Speaker 1: a little cloud in the corner. And so when you
Speaker 1: want to use that picture, when you tap on it,
Speaker 1: your phone is gonna go, oh, hold on, I don't
Speaker 1: have this picture on my local storage. Let me just
Speaker 1: go grab it from the cloud, and in five four
Speaker 1: three two one, boom, here you go, here's your picture.
Speaker 1: And so in the background, it's gonna constantly be managing
Speaker 1: this storage on your phone and making sure that you
Speaker 1: have enough storage to continue taking pictures on your phone,
Speaker 1: even though you only have sixty four gigabytes of storage.
Speaker 1: But it knows that you've got that nice, glamorous two
Speaker 1: terabytes in the cloud. So it's gonna work with the
Speaker 1: two of those storage areas to kind of make sure
Speaker 1: that you have as much you can basically take two gigs,
Speaker 1: two terabytes of photos, even though your phone only has
Speaker 1: sixty four gigs available. It's only gonna keep the amount
Speaker 1: of photos on your phone that it thinks it can
Speaker 1: handle at any given time. But you'll have full access
Speaker 1: to browse all those pictures and to download the fues
Speaker 1: at any time to share them out. So hopefully that
Speaker 1: makes sense. I know it's so so complicated. I understand
Speaker 1: it in my brain, but when you talk through it,
Speaker 1: it's just one of these things. It's like really weird
Speaker 1: and it's like, okay, it makes sense, but it also
Speaker 1: just is very complicated. But make sure that's clicked and
Speaker 1: you should be okay. All right, Speaking of Apple, let's
Speaker 1: just talk more about Apple while we're on that topic.
Speaker 1: If you have a subscription, Apple has made a little
Speaker 1: tiny change to the way subscriptions work, and I guess
Speaker 1: this all has to do with inflation as well. This
Speaker 1: is the common theme of today's show. But now Apple
Speaker 1: has changed the rules to say that the developer can
Speaker 1: increase your subscription price basically without telling you. Now, I
Speaker 1: think they're still gonna say that you have to approve this,
Speaker 1: like in a little notification, but it doesn't automatically stop
Speaker 1: them from doing this. So I think this is being
Speaker 1: a little bit overblown, but the reality is, Look, subscriptions
Speaker 1: go up, and just like on your credit card, when
Speaker 1: Netflix sends you notification that says, hey, just so you know,
Speaker 1: starting next month, we're gonna be charging you nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: nine a month instead of seventeen ninety nine. So instead
Speaker 1: of having instead of stopping all those subscriptions, instead of
Speaker 1: Netflix sending you an email and saying, hey, starting next month,
Speaker 1: if you want to continue subscribing, you need to resubscribe
Speaker 1: at nineteen ninety nine, that's not very good for a
Speaker 1: business model, not very good for the customer because most customers,
Speaker 1: a majority of customers are gonna sit there and say, okay,
Speaker 1: two dollars Netflix, handfist in the air, but I'll stick
Speaker 1: with you. Same thing with Apple. You're gonna see your
Speaker 1: subscription go up. Let's say for some app that you have, Okay,
Speaker 1: it goes up from nine ninety nine to ten ninety
Speaker 1: nine a month, and you're gonna go ough. I wish
Speaker 1: that didn't happen, but okay, fine. So instead of making
Speaker 1: you stop the subscription or manually stopping it for everyone
Speaker 1: and then making you start up again, they're just gonna say, look,
Speaker 1: if it's under a certain threshold, you can just automatically
Speaker 1: opt people into this new higher subscription. So the main
Speaker 1: numbers here are five dollars, So if a subscription changes
Speaker 1: by more than five dollars monthly or weekly, it doesn't
Speaker 1: qualify for this new thing. It will stop the subscription.
Speaker 1: So again, if the subscription changes by a dollar, two dollars,
Speaker 1: three dollars, four dollars, it will be okay. And it's
Speaker 1: also fifty percent. So if a subscription is ninety nine
Speaker 1: cents a month and all of a sudden they raise
Speaker 1: it to to ninety nine a month, that's not going
Speaker 1: to be okay. So they'll be able to raise it
Speaker 1: to a dollar forty nine a month with it being
Speaker 1: okay under this new thing. So I think at the
Speaker 1: end of the day you are going to get a
Speaker 1: notification that says, hey, this subscription is going up, and
Speaker 1: you just say okay. But I don't think they're going
Speaker 1: to be automatically canceling it in that case unless it's
Speaker 1: over those thresholds. So again, another very complicated nuance, but
Speaker 1: I think it sounds very reasonable what Apple is doing
Speaker 1: because it's kind of a win win. Developers get to
Speaker 1: raise prices, customers get to continue their subscriptions at a
Speaker 1: reasonable price increase, but if it goes over a certain threshold,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to take action about that subscription. Next
Speaker 1: question on the list, Ira says Rich, I need to
Speaker 1: make a QR scan code for my wife's art business.
Speaker 1: I heard that some of them are not safe to use.
Speaker 1: Can you recommend a safe website to use to make
Speaker 1: the QR code. One that I've heard of is qrmonkey
Speaker 1: dot com. I'm not sure if it's safe to use,
Speaker 1: all right, so quick check of qrmonkey dot com. Now,
Speaker 1: I think that QR codes are gonna be safe in
Speaker 1: general if you're making one. The main thing is that,
Speaker 1: let's see how can I QR QR code monkey, Okay,
Speaker 1: what's going on? Code QR. I'm just gonna search for
Speaker 1: QR code generator. Okay. I'm sure there's apps that can
Speaker 1: do this as well. But if I look at QR oh, okay, well,
Speaker 1: if you look at QR code generator, you know what
Speaker 1: I would just use that. That's what I would use.
Speaker 1: QR dash code dash generator dot com. It's part of Bitley,
Speaker 1: and so I really trust Bitley, and so I would
Speaker 1: definitely use this one. And the cool thing about this
Speaker 1: one is that you can, oh, this is excellent. You
Speaker 1: can put in a URL, you can put in your email,
Speaker 1: you can put a Wi Fi. Oh, this is great.
Speaker 1: Definitely use this one. QR dashcode dash generator dot com
Speaker 1: and it gives you so many options. You can even
Speaker 1: track the scans so that you know you can kind
Speaker 1: of connect it to Bitley to track them. Let's just
Speaker 1: make one real quick. I'll do rich on tech dot
Speaker 1: tv and it immediately generated it. You can put a
Speaker 1: little you can put a little frame around it that
Speaker 1: says something. You can even change what the frame says. Oh,
Speaker 1: this is phenomenal. So definitely just use that. And yes,
Speaker 1: there is a pro version that can let you do
Speaker 1: things like PDFs and stuff, but uh no, it looks like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, you just sign up for free to do that.
Speaker 1: But this is fantastic. It's got a lot of basic options.
Speaker 1: And I think that this is really good because it
Speaker 1: is owned by Bitley. I think that I'm I'm I'm
Speaker 1: happy that it's owned by Bitley because it's not going
Speaker 1: to go away anytime soon. So or hopefully not. And
Speaker 1: that's the big concern. Once you generate a QR code,
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty much gonna work depending on how that
Speaker 1: QR code is generated, Like if it's redirecting things like
Speaker 1: viviability to change it later on. What it's doing is
Speaker 1: using a kind of a redirect service to go to
Speaker 1: your website. But if it's just building the information directly
Speaker 1: into the QR code, then it should last forever. So
Speaker 1: I'm looking at this one and it's yeah, it's totally
Speaker 1: this is great. So QR dashcode dash generator is a
Speaker 1: great way to do it. Now, the one thing that
Speaker 1: could be handy, I mean inside your business. You know,
Speaker 1: you can have a scan for the Instagram page of
Speaker 1: your business, the Facebook page, the Twitter page, the ability
Speaker 1: to send you an email. But Wi Fi, I think
Speaker 1: is a good one. Instead of making people put in
Speaker 1: the Wi Fi network and password, you could even do
Speaker 1: this in your house. You just put your SSID, which
Speaker 1: is your Wi Fi network name, and also your password
Speaker 1: in this QR code, and people with an iPhone or
Speaker 1: Android could just literally aim their phone at this QR
Speaker 1: code and they can link up to your Wi Fi.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'm gonna do this for my WiFi. Now,
Speaker 1: the one thing I will say is that you don't
Speaker 1: necessarily want to do this for your your main Wi
Speaker 1: Fi network. So at home you should have and your
Speaker 1: business you should have a guest Wi Fi network. The
Speaker 1: reason why you should have that is because it's a
Speaker 1: lot safer. So, for instance, at my home, whenever people say, hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: can I hop on your Wi Fi? It's easy to
Speaker 1: give them my real WiFi and address and you know,
Speaker 1: all that good stuff, but it's much safer to give
Speaker 1: them a guest network. You can set up a guest
Speaker 1: network on most routers. I highly recommend it because what
Speaker 1: it does is it protects your your IoT devices, your
Speaker 1: all your smart home stuff, and all of the anything
Speaker 1: that's plugged into your network. It protects that from the guest.
Speaker 1: The guest does not have access to, you know, any
Speaker 1: hard drives that may be on your network, or any
Speaker 1: network servers or network storage, or the ability to just
Speaker 1: do anything, you know, mess with your smart lights. So
Speaker 1: definitely use a guest network and create the QR code
Speaker 1: for that. You can put it up in your kitchen
Speaker 1: or on your refrigerator. Your friends and family can come
Speaker 1: into your house, they can just hover their camera over
Speaker 1: that QR code and they can link into your network.
Speaker 1: So in fact, I'm gonna I'm gonna leave that page
Speaker 1: open so I don't forget to do that. But great question,
Speaker 1: Great question, Ira, thanks so much for asking it. All right,
Speaker 1: speaking of the house, if you have wisecams, they have
Speaker 1: a new security system and it's called cam plus Pro.
Speaker 1: This is three dollars and ninety nine cents a month,
Speaker 1: or forty eight dollars a year, or let's see three
Speaker 1: a month or three three three, I don't know, oh, monthly, Okay,
Speaker 1: So if you which is it for the whole year?
Speaker 1: It's forty dollars for the year, so that's a pretty
Speaker 1: good deal. You can try fourteen days free and you
Speaker 1: can turn any Wisecam version two, Wisecam version three, or
Speaker 1: wisecampan version one into a security system. There's no hubs,
Speaker 1: there's no sensors, there's no contracts, and they have smart detection,
Speaker 1: so they use noonlight noo n l ight. It detects
Speaker 1: people and it recognizes them through facial recognition, and it
Speaker 1: can basically dispatch emergency services if you need it. So
Speaker 1: it's all powered by artificial intelligence kind of reminds me
Speaker 1: of what's happening with both Ring and Nest, and also
Speaker 1: the other one. I did a story on which the
Speaker 1: name is evading me right now, Deep Centennial. And so, look,
Speaker 1: all these companies are starting to use AI to recognize
Speaker 1: intruders at your home and kind of disregard the familiar faces.
Speaker 1: And when they recognize someone that's not familiar, either in
Speaker 1: your house or around the perimeter, they are helping you
Speaker 1: call emergency services. So again it's called camplus Pro from Wy's.
Speaker 1: You probably got to pop up about it if you
Speaker 1: have a wyscam. That's what it's all about. One more
Speaker 1: thing I wanted to mention. Amazon is launching its free
Speaker 1: V app on Apple TV Free V f R E
Speaker 1: E V E E was formerly IMDb TV, and so
Speaker 1: this has a bunch of free stuff to watch. These
Speaker 1: free apps are the next big thing. So you've got
Speaker 1: two b you've got Zoomi, you've got Pluto, you've got
Speaker 1: Roku free TV, and there's so many of these free
Speaker 1: TV apps and people like free if you don't mind ads,
Speaker 1: these are all ads supported, and so you can watch
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of stuff. Dealer, No Deal, Bewitched, shark Tail, Bosh,
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of stuff, so they have a ton
Speaker 1: of stuff to watch for free. And free V is
Speaker 1: now available on Apple TV, So if you have an
Speaker 1: Apple TV, you can now watch Amazon free V for
Speaker 1: free if you don't mind ads. But again, you know,
Speaker 1: especially with the increase of prices of all these streaming services,
Speaker 1: people are looking to free and so again if you
Speaker 1: don't mind advertising, which you know, broadcast TV it's been
Speaker 1: supported by advertising forever. So again, streaming started as a
Speaker 1: premium which it was all kind of paid for and
Speaker 1: no ads. Now we're getting to this point where okay,
Speaker 1: we've reached a plateau on that, and now let's go
Speaker 1: to the next level, which is offering similar services but
Speaker 1: for free with ads. And even Netflix said that they
Speaker 1: are going to look into that as well, So don't
Speaker 1: be surprised if we see an ad supported version of
Speaker 1: Netflix in the next year or so. Andrew says, good morning, Rich.
Speaker 1: I would like to know what's your view on the
Speaker 1: safest way to do banking with financial institutions. I have
Speaker 1: a chromebook dedicated to only financial transactions with banks and
Speaker 1: investment institutions. Will that be safest? If show? If so,
Speaker 1: what should I do VPN with available public Wi Fi?
Speaker 1: Will this be safest as usual? Thanks for your advice
Speaker 1: in advance, Andrew. I would not recommend public Wi Fi
Speaker 1: for banking and financial stuff, but if you, let's say,
Speaker 1: need to use this at a library or something, I
Speaker 1: would probably recommend using a VPN with that. I don't
Speaker 1: think you need a VPN at home if you're using
Speaker 1: your home Wi Fi. If you want to be extra safe,
Speaker 1: sure you can flip that on. But I would say
Speaker 1: at home, you are fine on your own WiFi as
Speaker 1: long as your network's not compromised in any way to
Speaker 1: use your your computer and Wi Fi for banking. If
Speaker 1: you are on the road, I would typically recommend turning
Speaker 1: off your Wi Fi and going on cellular if you're
Speaker 1: on your smartphone or using your smartphone as a hot
Speaker 1: spot to do any sort of banking on the on
Speaker 1: the go. So VPN is good when you're on public
Speaker 1: Wi Fi or you're on any sort of Wi Fi.
Speaker 1: If you're on your home network, it depends if you
Speaker 1: it's mostly for privacy if you're on your home network,
Speaker 1: but if you're on a public network, yeah, VPN is
Speaker 1: probably going to be your safest bet. I think that
Speaker 1: if you're just doing standard things like surfing the web,
Speaker 1: I don't think you need it. But if you are
Speaker 1: doing anything that's a little bit more elevated. And this
Speaker 1: is why employees most of the time use a VPN,
Speaker 1: because they're accessing servers and things that you a would
Speaker 1: not be able to access without a VPN. But also
Speaker 1: the companies and corporations get that extra security of a
Speaker 1: connection that can be trusted because it's their own connection
Speaker 1: versus the Hyatts or the Hiltons or who knows how.
Speaker 1: You know, people will jump on any free Wi Fi,
Speaker 1: but you know, be a little bit cautious when you're
Speaker 1: on Wi Fi because it's ninety nine point nine percent
Speaker 1: of the time fine, but you do need to remember
Speaker 1: that it is a public network that you are not controlling,
Speaker 1: so there could be a security issue with that network.
Speaker 1: Most of the time, there's not. Most of the time
Speaker 1: you're going to be just fine. But I would definitely
Speaker 1: be weary. Is it wary or weary, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I would definitely be on guard anytime connect to
Speaker 1: a network that is not your own. But if you
Speaker 1: have a Chromebook, you know Chromebook is good too. That's
Speaker 1: the other thing I'd mentioned is just make sure that
Speaker 1: your software is up to date. So that's the other
Speaker 1: big thing is that you want to make sure that
Speaker 1: you're using software that has been updated with security updates,
Speaker 1: because that's a that's a big deal. You want to
Speaker 1: make sure that your your exploits have been patched, if
Speaker 1: there are any on your system. All right, before we go,
Speaker 1: final story, Uber Eats launching autonomous deliveries in Santa Monica.
Speaker 1: This is super super cool. I have not been out
Speaker 1: here to check it out. I need to go stalk
Speaker 1: this vehicle because Uber told me they would not do
Speaker 1: a story with me, even though they were so excited
Speaker 1: to tell me about this. These companies, these tech companies,
Speaker 1: they love to be super secretive. Like they're all taking
Speaker 1: a page from Apple with how secretive Apple is. But
Speaker 1: like Uber Eats was like, oh hey, Rich, We've got
Speaker 1: this cool thing happening in Santa Monica. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh awesome, Can I can we go do a story?
Speaker 1: Oh no, we're not ready to do a story. Oh okay, thanks,
Speaker 1: So I just have to go out there and see
Speaker 1: this thing. But Uber Eats delivering from a place in
Speaker 1: Santa Monica a little health food shop called Creation Cafe.
Speaker 1: They are using Hyundai's Ionic five all electric vehicles. Basically,
Speaker 1: the person orders the food, the place loads up the
Speaker 1: meal in the backseat of the vehicle. The vehicle drives
Speaker 1: all by itself to the person where they're you know,
Speaker 1: wherever they ordered, and stops, and then the person gets
Speaker 1: a notification on their phone which allows them to open
Speaker 1: up the back door of the car. They open up
Speaker 1: the back door, they pull out their food, and the
Speaker 1: car drives off. Now, right now, this is happening with
Speaker 1: a lot of robots in cities, so that's happening, but
Speaker 1: those are robots. This is a car. And so this
Speaker 1: car is driving around delivering food to people for Uber Eats,
Speaker 1: which is just like, oh my gosh, I can't believe
Speaker 1: we're getting to this level. Now, I'm not sure this
Speaker 1: is the thing that I need to check out. I
Speaker 1: think that the I think that the car still has
Speaker 1: a safety driver it because I don't think that they
Speaker 1: have the approval from the state to actually have this
Speaker 1: car operating without a safety driver. So I think there's
Speaker 1: either a safety driver or a safety you know, supervisor
Speaker 1: in the car. They're not driving the car. But if
Speaker 1: they ever had to take over, they could, but Ubermotional,
Speaker 1: that's that's who's doing this, and basically they're just seeing
Speaker 1: they're just testing this to see if it can work
Speaker 1: on a broader platform, on a broader level. But again,
Speaker 1: what's happening. We're seeing automation across so many industries. This
Speaker 1: is clearly a way to automate things, to save money,
Speaker 1: to let these cars run twenty four to seven. There's
Speaker 1: no fatigue of a human driver. It could be safer
Speaker 1: than human drivers in some aspects. You know, you hear
Speaker 1: the stories on the news of the human drivers trying
Speaker 1: a French fry or taking a lick of someone's food.
Speaker 1: That obviously can't happen if it's a robot. So but also,
Speaker 1: these companies are just preparing for a future where the
Speaker 1: typical person may not want to do some of these
Speaker 1: some of these tasks anymore. You know, people are getting
Speaker 1: more educated, they're getting better jobs, and a lot of
Speaker 1: these jobs that are sort of routine or monotonous, they're
Speaker 1: looking for ways for robots and automation to replace them.
Speaker 1: Good thing, bad thing, depending on your perspective, I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: but it is happening. I'm just telling you about it.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying whether it's good or bad, but I'm
Speaker 1: just telling you what's happening. And this is definitely happening.
Speaker 1: I see it every single day in my reporting that companies, big, big,
Speaker 1: large sale companies are looking to automation and robots to
Speaker 1: automate and streamline repetitive tasks and tasks that can be
Speaker 1: tackled by a robot. I don't think humans are ever
Speaker 1: going away in any industry, but we are definitely changing roles,
Speaker 1: that's for sure. And this is just one of those
Speaker 1: ways that the changing role is happening. All right. That
Speaker 1: sound does mean it is the end of the show.
Speaker 1: That's going to do it for this episode. If you'd
Speaker 1: like to submit a question for me to answer, just
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Speaker 1: It's such a powerful way to get information across It's
Speaker 1: very challenging as well, but it's also just a lot
Speaker 1: of fun for me personally to do. So look for
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Speaker 1: Fire TV, and Roku. Once you do, scroll to the
Speaker 1: technology section, and there you can watch all of my
Speaker 1: TV segments. Everything, all of my main energy is put
Speaker 1: into the TV segments, so that's where you really want
Speaker 1: to watch to get an idea of just who I
Speaker 1: am and what I do. My name is rich Demiro.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. There are so many ways
Speaker 1: you can spend an hour of your time. I do
Speaker 1: appreciate you anyway with me, kittens and all. I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you real soon.