Don't Get Phished, Flight Booking Hacks & Phone Roaming Advice

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The tech world is going nuts over a new chat
GPT feature that can edit images like never before. Facebook
is bringing back the Friends Feed. A security expert falls
for a scam and he's not the only one. Plus
your tech questions answered? What's going on on rich dmiro
And this is Rich on Tech. This is the show

(00:23):
where I talk about the tech stuff I think you
should know about. It's also the place where I answer
your questions about technology. I believe that tech should be interesting, useful,
and fun. Let's open up those phone lines at triple
eight Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. Give me a

(00:44):
call if you have a question about technology. Email is
also open. Just go to richon tech dot tv and
hit contact. We've got some great guests this week. Colin Walkee,
a cybersecurity and data privacy expert, will join us to
explain what twenty three in mes bankruptcy means for your
genetic data, plus what you can do to protect your

(01:06):
privacy and Later in the show, Mark Vina is a
CEO and principal analyst at Smart Tech Research. He's going
to share why he ditched the iPhone Yes to switch
to the Galaxy S twenty five Ultra, and he's been
using the iPhone for a very long time. Well, speaking
of a very long time, I did something this week

(01:28):
that I have not done in a really long time.
I wrote a letter and sent it through the post office.
Now I probably sent one hundred and fifty emails this week,
but a letter that does not happen very often. I
took pen to paper and I sat there at a
desk and I actually used my horrific handwriting to write

(01:48):
a letter to my dad. I was staying at a
hotel and they had this inviting desk. It was an
old school desk, and it had one of those nice
writing mats, you know, the kind that you like the
pen kind of sinks into it a little bit as
you write, and they had the letter letterhead all laid
out there with an envelope, and I said, you know what,
I am going to write a letter. We were staying
at a place called the fest Parker Inn, which my

(02:09):
dad is a big fan of fest Parker. Now it's
a little bit before my time, but as I understand,
he was a very famous actor back in the day.
And I know you're probably laughing at me saying rich.
Come on, we know who fest Parker is. But you
know that was a little bit before my time. And
so I said, I got to write a letter to
my dad on Fest Parker letterhead, tell him how the
inn still had all the inklings of Fest Parker lingering

(02:31):
in the hallways, and of course telling about our weekend
we spent up in Wine Country for my wife's birthday.
And then I went to the post office the tiny
little town we were in called Losa Livos. I stood
in line and I bought a stamp. And by the way,
that stamp was seventy three cents. Now I know why
people don't write letters as much, because that is expensive.

(02:51):
But I got the stamp, I put it on the letter,
I sent it out, and I still haven't heard from
my dad if he got it, but I hope he did.
I'm curious how long it takes to get a letter
these days. Anyway, it was kind of fun. And you know,
me as someone who loves tech, but I think I've
realized something about myself. I also love low tech, and
I also love how tech helps us unlock things in
our world. So as much as I love technology, it's

(03:14):
just kind of fun to go back to the times
when we were not connected in a bazillion different ways. Now,
the other lesson I have this week is that tech
is only as secure as the people using it, namely us.
So let me tell you about a guy who knows
security like This guy has been on our show, Troy Hunt.
He runs a website called Have I Been Poned? That's

(03:36):
pwned dot com. You basically pop in your email address,
it'll tell you all the places your information has gotten
hacked and is out there in the world. He also
teaches people how to avoid scams. That's what he talked
about on our very show. And guess what he got
phished this week. If you're not familiar with what phishing is,
it's when you get one of those emails and it says, hey,
click here, your account has been compromised. Click there, You

(04:00):
type in your name your password, and you realize shortly after,
oh no, what did I just do?

Speaker 2 (04:05):
I just handed over my information to the bad guys.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
So he got an email that looked like it was
from Mailchimp, which is his newsletter provider. He said his
account was suspended because of a spam complaint. He clicked
the link, he entered his credentials and even the one
time passcode. So we even had his account protected with
that two factor authentication, and he realized instantly it was
a fake site. The hackers immediately went to work. They

(04:30):
took his entire email list sixteen thousand plus addresses, they
exported it, and of course those are probably going to
be used to spam those folks. He realized what he
did was wrong immediately, but the damage was already done
and the red flag he mentioned. He detailed all of
this in his blog post about it. His password manager

(04:50):
which he was using, so he had a good password,
he had two factor authentication, but as a human, he
bypassed all of those those privacy and protections. His password
manager did not auto fill the website, but he ignored it.
He just did it himself. He copied and pasted his
password into there. Why he said, jet Lag, You know,

(05:13):
all this stuff can't beat the human error that we
bring to the table.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
And that's what happened with him.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Just as I sat down to write my newsletter yesterday,
I got an email from Microsoft saying, hey, we noticed
some suspicious login activity on your account. Click here to
confirm it. I said, suspicious log in activity what are
you talking about? Microsoft? And they wanted me to click
that link that took me to this area that would
let me check to see the recent logins on my account.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
And I said, no, not so fast. I'm not going
to that page.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
So I googled the Microsoft Account Suspicious login page, which
is account dot live dot com slash activity. I went
there directly, I logged in and I said, we want
to confirm this is you, and I confirmed it was me,
and sure enough, I look at that page and guess what.
I see a laundry list of bogus logins from all

(06:05):
over the world. And I pasted this into my newsletter
this week. United Kingdom, South Africa, Brazil, Columbia, Ukraine, France, Pakistan, Cutter, Venezuela. No,
these are not stamps on my passport. These are the
places that were trying to log into my Microsoft account
all weekend long. They didn't get in because I had

(06:27):
two factor authentication enabled on my account, so I did
change my login. I guess somehow my password was compromised
somewhere along the way. But again, I'm not the only one.
So many people and Troy, by the way, now, I
didn't fall for it, but Troy did, He's not the
only one. According to the FTC twenty twenty four, so
I record twelve point five billion dollars in scam losses.

(06:50):
That's up two point five billion from the year before.
One in three people who reported scams said they lost money.
Remember the guy we had on last week, Colin said
he fell victim to one of those tech scams. Scams
that start online cost US three billion dollars, more than
phone calls, more than texts, more than emails combined. The

(07:12):
most money per person phone scams median loss fifteen hundred.
Biggest overall losses bank transfers, followed by crypto Yes, people
are transferring money or having money transferred out of their
bank accounts. This is happening all the time. Investment scams
are the worst. Seventy nine percent of people targeted loss
money nine thousand dollars median loss there. Job scams. How

(07:36):
many times have you gotten those job scams to your text?
And you say who falls for these things? I get
them every single day. Hey, we have a job opportunity
for you. Losses there jump from ninety million to over
five hundred million in the past four years. So you're
talking people fall for these scams all the time, younger people.
This is the thing, There is a disconnect. Younger people

(07:58):
fall for scams more often, according to the FTC, but
seniors lose the most money when they fall to the scams.
Why is that seniors have the most to lose. They've
saved up money their entire lives, or at least some
of them have. Young people fall for these scams. People
think young people don't fall for this stuff. Yes they do.
It's the young people and the old people, the people

(08:18):
in the middle. You know, they've kind of you know,
they're the people that are a little bit more aware
of this stuff. They don't fall for it as often. Now,
imagine this. You've got a super secure app, a messaging app.
It's end to end ENCRYPTID. You think you're doing the
right thing. It's recommended by privacy privacy experts. Yes, I'm
talking about Signal. You think that's safe and secure, Well

(08:39):
it is unless you add the wrong person to the
group chat. How many times have you texted someone quickly
responded to a text quickly and you realize, oh no,
that's the wrong person. We've all done it. We're human again,
we are all human, but not when the stakes are
this high. You heard the story. I don't have to
go over it. The government officials using Signal reportedly for

(09:03):
war planning. They added a journalist accidentally to the group.
Now I get it. We've all done this. We've added
accidental people to a group text, we've applied to a
group text, we've added people to a group email that
maybe shouldn't be on there. So when you think about
this Signal app, it is very secure. In fact, most

(09:25):
security experts recommend that you use Signal if you want
the most secure messaging. It's one of only two apps
that I know that end to end encrypt messages by default.
The other is WhatsApp. Now, WhatsApp brings a laundry list
of issues with it because it's owned by Meta Right,
and that has its whole issues with privacy and security.
But Signal, this is an independent app, and there was

(09:49):
no hacking here, There's no breach. Someone put in a
bad contact. Now here's the thing. This is not supposed
to be on government devices. They don't allow Signal. But again,
think about you at your work. How many regulations and
rules do you have at your work about what you
can use and what you can't use Oh we want
you to use teams, but you probably text folks at

(10:09):
your work using I message, Oh we want you to
use Google Drive. Well, maybe you uploaded something to Dropbox
and shared a link. We are human and this is
where the mistakes happen, human error. So be careful, whether
it's phishing, whether it's scams, whether it's military level messaging.
Technology can only go so far to protect us. The

(10:30):
weakest link isn't always the software. Most of the time
it is us, So stay skeptical, double check everything, use
a password manager, and if something fills off even for
a second, you have to slow down, take a breath,
double check, don't click, make sure what you're doing is
the right thing. That is how we get taken in

(10:53):
this day and age. I get emails every day from
folks saying I got hacked on Facebook. Ninety nine percent
of the time it is some sort of mistake they
made on their account. They fell for something, they click something.
Be careful, all right? Coming up Facebook brings back the
friend feed and your calls At triple eight Rich one
O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one

(11:14):
zero one. You are listening to Rich on Tech Welcome
back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out
with you talking technology at Triple A Rich one O one.
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four to
one zero one. The website is richon tech dot TV.
You can go there for the show notes. This is

(11:35):
episode one hundred and fifteen. You can get links to
anything I talk about right there. And if you're not
signed up for my newsletter, go ahead pop in your
email address. It comes out every weekend filled with all
kinds of tech tips and tricks and reviews and the
stories I do on TV. Let's go to Susan in
Santa Monica. Susan, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 3 (11:54):
I Rich, thank you, and you are wonderful. And the
woman that answers the phone, she's absolutely wonderful too.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
Thank you. It's Kim and she is awesome, and so
is Bobo. Wonderful. We've got a wonderful crew here.

Speaker 3 (12:04):
You certainly do.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
What can I help you with?

Speaker 3 (12:06):
Okay, So I have an elderly friend, quite elderly. He'd
like to get the he wants the computer. I'd like
to get it at costco. It has to have a
good customer service on the phone, because nobody's available. He
doesn't want anybody to help him. It's got to be
really easy. He's never used a computer, he's got no email,

(12:27):
doesn't want it, no financials on there. He just wants
to be able to get on the internet like podcasts, research, whatever.
Money's not an issue. But and he hates his iPhone.
It's way too much for him. And he doesn't want
the iPhone to be talking to the computer. Exfinity is
his internet provider.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
Okay, well I was going to recommend I think the
best customer service is Apple for sure.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Does he not want a MacBook?

Speaker 3 (12:55):
Well, I mean he's not going to be talking to
his phone.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
It does, okay, so you can make sure it doesn't.
But yes it does. You know, there are some synergies there,
but you can turn those off, so if you don't
want that to happen, you don't need it to happen.
But as he gets a little bit better with the computer,
he may enjoy that. But I think that the beauty
of Apple is that he can bring it in to
the Apple store if he if he ever needs help,

(13:19):
and they will walk him through whatever.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
Can them.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
Oh absolutely, you can call them too, So they've got
great customer service.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
Great.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
Customers call them for the iPhone, Oh won't they're not
very good?

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Well, I mean they're the best, so I mean other
than I mean, after that, it's going to fall off
pretty quickly. I mean there are some other you know,
manufacturers like Lenovo that are known for having good customer
service as well, but they're definitely not going to be
as good as Apple. So I would say, look, I
think when you go to Costco, they only stock a

(13:52):
few computers, so I would steer towards the MacBook Air.
I think that's going to be the absolute cream of
the crop for him. The thing about the MacBook Air
is it's going to last for him ten years, so
he's not gonna have to worry about a new computer
for a long time.

Speaker 2 (14:06):
Now.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
If he gets another computer, write down these specs. But
I would recommend any computer there that you know, if
you if you see the laptops there, does.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
He need a laptop?

Speaker 3 (14:16):
Yeah, a laptop all right?

Speaker 1 (14:18):
So if he needs a laptop, I would say, you know,
they only stock a few of him. Stay away from
the gaming laptops. He does not need that. But I
would say an Intel Core I five or an AMD
rise in five, So those are the Those are the
processors that you want. Then you want sixteen gigs of memory,
that's the RAM, and then you want for the hard
drive at least a five twelve a one terabyte would

(14:40):
be the best. And then graphics I wouldn't really worry about.
If he's just doing you know, web searches and stuff
like that, integrated graphics are going to be just fine.
So and of course you want you know, the Windows.
The latest Windows is Windows eleven. I think most of
the computers come with that at this point. But that's
I I'd stick towards the Apple MacBook Air for sure.

(15:02):
I think that's gonna be his best choice. After that,
I would just look at one of the computers there
the you know that they sell, and I think they're
all gonna be a great value. And usually at costco
you get a little bit more for your money than
you would anywhere else. But I think when it comes
to calling tech support, you know, you got to stick
with the big brands. So I think, you know, Dell
has good tech support. I do like as US as well. Uh,

(15:24):
those are the main companies in Lenovo, Like I mentioned,
so anyone that's doing business PCs like a Dell or
a Lenovo. You know you're gonna get pretty good customer
support because that's part of their game. Thanks for the call, Susan.
Hopefully he finds a nice computer he likes.

Speaker 4 (15:39):
There.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
Let me tell you about Facebook before we go to
break here. Facebook is bringing back the friends only feed.
This is how it all started, and now they're realizing
people are sick of all the nonsense on Facebook that
they're encountering on a daily basis, all the influencers, the brands,
the AI driven slop. So now they're going to add
this new friends to to the Facebook app, and this

(16:01):
will be a dedicated feed with posts only from friends
and family. That means you can see their photos, their videos,
their birthdays, their friends requests. This is rolling out right now.
This is going to replace the old tab that showed
your friend requests. That'll still be there somewhere else, but
it'll be a little bit more hidden than before. So

(16:21):
I tried finding this on my Facebook app. It's not
there just yet, but if you tap the little friends
right now, it just shows your friend requests. Soon that
will show a feed of just stuff from your friends.
You know what it's all about. Engagement. People are kind
of getting sick of all this nonsense that's populating their feeds.
So if they can make social media feel social again,

(16:44):
that I think will be a good thing because people
want that. We want more of our friends in our lives,
less of this nonsense from AI, which, by the way,
I've been sharing a ton of because shat GBT is
doing this great new thing with the photos. I will
tell you about that when we come back. Eight eight
to eight rich one oh one eight eight seven four
to two, four to one zero one. More of your
calls right here on rich on Tech right after this,

(17:06):
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
out with you, talking technology at triple eight rich one
oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two,
four one zero one. The website for the show Richontech
dot TV. Get a lot of emails every week. Uh,

(17:28):
deb from Agora Hills Rights in. My son is planning
to get his twelve year old daughter a phone through Verizon,
probably an iPhone. I remember you telling callers not to
fall for the free phone deals and calling them a
ripoff because of the thirty six month contracts. He's wondering
what you recommend for a cheap iPhone if that even exists,
and what's the best way to add her to his
Verizon plan. She doesn't need the latest and greatest. He's

(17:50):
also considering just buying a phone out right to avoid
all the sales pitches and hassles preteens yikes, yikes, is
right for twelve year old. Now here's my guidance on
those deals, the free phone deals. Number One, they're not free.
You're beholden to that carrier for the next thirty six
months because you're basically, while you're not signing a contract,

(18:11):
you're financing that phone, and by them giving you that
phone for free, they're giving you the equivalent in a
credit over the next thirty six months. So let's say
that the phone is six hundred dollars. They'll take that
divided by thirty six months. You'll get the phone for
free up front, but basically you are getting the thirty

(18:31):
six months divided by the six or the six hundred
divided by the thirty six months, and so they'll charge
you for that, and then they'll give you a credit
for that. So yes, you are getting it for free.
But here's the thing, you're sticking with that carrier and
I have nothing against Verizon or any other carrier, and
my guidance on this always stays the same if you
do not plan on leaving your carrier, If you're going

(18:52):
to stick with Verizon for the next three years, anyway,
it's not a bad deal. You're just paying a little
bit more for your service. Because what I would recommend
to your son is to buy the iPhone sixteen E
outright for six hundred bucks and then go to something
like Visible, which charges twenty five dollars a month to
forty five for the phone and for unlimited service. So

(19:15):
that would be, if you do the math, much cheaper
than probably adding the twelve year old to the Verizon plan.
But it's also what's easy. It's also what you already have.
Most people don't want to deal with having two different
cell phone services, two different bills, all that stuff. But
if you want to save the most money, the easiest
way is just buy the phone outright and get an

(19:36):
mv and O. Whether it's Mint Mobile, whether it is Visible,
those are two good mv and o's that will save you.
Mv and o's Mobile Virtual Network Operator Visible runs on
the Verizon network, and Mint Mobile is actually owned by
T Mobile and it runs on the T Mobile network.
So again, Dev, just you know, do what's best for

(19:57):
your situation. I have nothing against those deals, They're just
not a free phone. You can't walk away the next
day and with that free phone. Eighty eight Rich one
oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four
to one zero one.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Emma in San Bernardino, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 5 (20:15):
I wish. I am going through a family emergency. I
am trying to book a lass manpula to Wahaka, and
I was wondering what search engines do you recommend. I mean,
I've been looking for a day or so and then
they go up to go down, obviously, but I looked

(20:37):
at what was it called my Trip, and it seems
too good.

Speaker 6 (20:40):
To be true.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
It probably is to be too good to be true.
I've not heard of that website my Trip, Yes, I've
not heard of that one. So the only place that
I look for fares is Google Flights. So that is
the absolute best way to look for flights. If you
are right up against date of a flight, you're gonna

(21:03):
be paying a lot no matter what. There is no
such thing as a discounted fare when it comes to
right up against the time of the flight. So the
best way to do this a couple of things. If
you have miles, that could be the best way to
buy the flight. So a website like points yeah dot
com if you maybe have a credit card with Points,

(21:25):
or you can even see there's two websites I recommend
points dot com and point dot me. And they may
have some paid services. You might be able to get
a flight a search for free. But the beauty of
those is that they figure out ways of using your
miles in ways that you might not think of. So
I know you said you had to go to a
certain destination. You may find that the miles on the

(21:49):
main airline. Let's say that Jet blueflies there. You may
find that on sorry, let's say Delta. You have your
miles with Delta, but yet Blue also flies there. But
maybe you can transfer your miles into Jet Blue using
your credit card. So those websites will help you unearth
those sorts of things that you may not think of yourself.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
So first off, I check that.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
The second thing I would check is if this is
sort of a bereavement fair, you may be able to
call the airline directly and ask them if they offer
that may not be much cheaper, but you might get
you know, like some airlines may offer up to ten
percent off, so you might be able to figure that
out by calling the airline directly. But what I would

(22:33):
do is, I think your best bet right now is
going to be finding the cheapest data fly and the
cheapest combination of places to fly from. So on Google Flights,
which is flights dot Google dot com. Instead of choosing
a specific airport, like, for instance, you're in San Bernardino,
I would type in is Ontario close to there? I

(22:56):
would think so right, so I would put like Ontario,
or or I would put Los Angeles right, and instead
of choosing LAX, choose the city of Los Angeles, and
that will choose all of the airports nearby. Actually it's
not choosing Ontario, so I guess they don't consider that.
So let's say let's just type in Ontario O nta
Rio Ontario, California. Okay, So if you choose Ontario, California,

(23:19):
that will choose Ontario airport and also LAX, which is
going to give you a much wider swath. But I
would even open it up further to Burbank as well.
So now you've got three airports that you're looking for
flights from. And then the city that you said, what
was the city, Wahakah, So you put that in as
your destination and see if there's any airports that are nearby.

(23:41):
And then also the thing you want to do is
just look one way at a time, So choose each
flight one way at a time instead of that round trip,
and that will help you sort of come up with
the cheapest possible option. And I will tell you my experience,
fares jump up seven days before you have to fly.
And the reason for that is because business travelers have

(24:04):
money to burn, and that's where the airlines really make
their money. They don't make it on the leisure travelers
that are booking, you know, sixty ninety one hundred and
eighty days in advance. They know those people are going
to book because they're booking for their kids, they're booking
for spring break, they're booking when they have vacation. Where
airlines really make their money is on that last minute travel,
and so they know seven days before. When you work

(24:26):
for a big company, you don't care what that airfare
is because you've got to get to that business meeting.
You've got to get to that event. You've got to
get to that conference, whatever it is. They know they've
got you, and so that is what I recommend. I
book airfares all day, every day, and believe me, at
any given moment, I am searching for I've got my
tracked fares on let's see right now, I've got one, two, three,

(24:50):
four tracked fares and I watch those prices go up
down around all over the place. Thanks for the call, Emma.
Hopefully you can find a flight that fits your chat gbt.
This week, you might have noticed people are tweeting and
sharing on social media all kinds of images from chat GBT.
Chat Ebt did a major upgrade to their image generation tool,

(25:14):
which is now built right into chat ebt. You can
access chat gibt by going to chat dot com. By
the way, they opened it up for free and paid users,
but people started using this so much it was melting
the servers at chatbt and they had to limit it
to just paid users. Now thankfully, I'm a paid user
and I have been using the heck out of this.

(25:36):
I absolutely love it. So they used to have this
image generation tool called Dolly three, but now they are
replacing that with just this default image generation inside chat gibt,
so in the regular chat you can just say, generate
me an image that looks like this or whatever you want.
It's more lifelike, it has logos, you can make transparent backgrounds.

(25:57):
The text, for the first time ever, is readable. So
it used to be that AI had a real problem
with generating text. This time it is perfect every single time.
And the other thing you can do is upload an
image and ask it to modify that image in any
style you want. So a lot of people are doing
this Jibli style. This is like a Japanese animation art house.

(26:21):
So people were generating images like that and they're amazing.
I mean, it's quite incredible. And of course, yes, there's
this whole debate over AI and copyrighted images and images
in the style of things and how artists are going
to fare because now chat gbt can make such great
images and it's all very much a concern, And yes,

(26:43):
people will be losing jobs. Entry level jobs in generation
of images will be lost because of this, because you
no longer need to know how to use Canva or
even Photoshop to make an amazing image. And so yeah,
this changes the dynamic of our world. But it's incredible.
It's amazing, and I think you shall play with it
because you can't hide from this stuff. It is happening,

(27:06):
it is changing, and we have to adapt. And I
do feel sorry for the artists that have made their
living making images like this, because now you can literally,
in plain text, generate something that is quite incredible. And
I know because I was doing it all weekend. So
take an image, upload it and say make this in
the style of whatever you want a muppet. You can

(27:26):
turn yourself into a muppet. Yes, that's what I did
this weekend. You can turn well, I mean on chat
ebt and become a muppet. I mean, you could really
have fun. I said, make make a an old timey
newspaper poster style advertising my newsletter. It did that and
it gets everything really really good. You can turn any

(27:47):
image into a Dolly Renaissance portrait. Whatever you can think of,
any famous artist, it will make an image in that style.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
It is quite incredible.

Speaker 1 (27:58):
Anyway, if you're on the free chatchibt, you gotta wait
a bit until the paid people have their turn, but
eventually it'll make its way to you. Eight eight eight
rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two,
four to one zero one. My name is Rich d'miro.
You are listening to Rich on Tech. Welcome to rich
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging

(28:19):
out with you talking technology at triple eight Rich one
O one eight eight eight seven four to two four
one zero one. This is the show where I talk
about the tech stuff I think you should know about.
It's also the place where I answer your questions about technology.
Phone lines are open, website also open Richontech dot TV.

(28:42):
Hit contact if you'd like to email me. We'll get
some of your emails and calls on as well. Let's
go to Richard in Bell, California.

Speaker 7 (28:55):
Yes, I got all those apps installed on all my
devices that let you know when the phone is charged
up to night percent or drains down to twenty percent.
The problem is those things go off at three in
the morning and wipe me up, you know, because the
device is drained down.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
Is it really sound like my house? My wife gives
me issues every day. She's like, there's so many things
going off in the middle of the night. I'm like, yeah,
that's all the gadgets I'm testing. Can't can't silence them all?

Speaker 7 (29:28):
Is it necessary to you know, not charge up to
one hundred percent. They say it damages the battery, and
why can't they make the phones where we could just
leave it plugged in all the time while we're at home.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
Well, a lot of people do. And so Richard, what
do you have an iPhone or an Android?

Speaker 7 (29:48):
I got an Android and some tablets and some a
lot of old phones I use.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
Well, here here's my guidance on this.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
So I mean, you know, look, if you're keeping your
phone for seven years, yeah, you got to think about
the battery, right, But I think most of the modern
phones that we have, the batteries they're good, and yes,
charging and decharging and you know, draining the battery definitely
has an effect on the phone. But now both iPhone

(30:16):
and Android natively. And I think you can ditch the
apps that you have. By the way, Richard, I think
you can uninstall those because that's a nuisance. You don't
need to wake up, you don't need to disrupt your
sleep in the middle of the night to unplug your phone. Now,
I test every phone in the world. I leave them
plugged in, I charge them up. Yes, it does have
a bit of an impact on the battery life. So

(30:38):
if you're worried and you're trying to keep your phone
for a very long time, I would be concerned. But
if you have an iPhone or a Samsung, they have
battery optimization and health features built right into the phone.
You probably never even noticed. But if you go into
the iPhone, look for battery and then tap go into
settings battery and then tap charging, and you'll see there's

(31:01):
a charge limit, so you can do eighty eighty five,
ninety ninety five or one hundred, and your iPhone software
will actually recommend a charge limit for you. And so,
for instance, mine is saying, based on your iPhone habits,
a charge limit of ninety percent is recommended to help
preserve your battery and so I can tap that and
my phone will automatically optimize the battery charging on its own,

(31:25):
So you can do that and just leave that there, okay,
and if you need more, you can always just override
that at any time. If you're on Samsung, if you
go into your settings, Settings and then battery, you will
notice they also have a section labeled battery protection. Now
this is on the latest software, which may or may

(31:45):
not be on your phone, but it is rolling out
to some of the older devices. But if you tap
that and tap battery protection, turn it on, you've got
basic battery protection. When your battery is charged to one
hundred percent, charging will stop until the battery drops down
to ninety five percent and we'll start charging again. So
that way your battery is not constantly being charged all
day long at one hundred percent. It'll wait until it

(32:06):
drops down, then it'll trigger again to charge. Then you've
got adaptive stop charging at eighty percent while you're asleep,
and switch to basic before you wake. Sleep time is
estimated used on your phone is estimated based on your
phone usage patterns, and then you've got the maximum protection,
which is your battery will stop charging when it reaches

(32:27):
eighty percent. So my advice in general is if you're
a person that swaps your phone out every three years,
you probably don't have to worry about the battery and
how you're charging it. It's probably going to be fine
for those three years. If you're keeping it for a
very long time, then yes, I would go into some
of these settings and be more aware of how you
charge your phone and how you're charging it. If you

(32:49):
don't have access to these battery optimization features in your software.
Then I would say you probably want to charge your
phone up, maybe up to one hundred percent, and then
let it get down to about twenty five percent. Don't
ride it all the way to zero before you charge
it up again. Really, from what I understand, batteries when
they get down to under twenty percent, that's when it

(33:11):
really strains them. And so if you're going down, if
you're going up to one hundred and down to zero
every single time, that's putting a lot of strain on
your battery. And so what I'd recommend is that eighty
that twenty to eighty percent is the sweet spot for
today's modern batteries. That's where you kind of want to
keep your phone, and you can use that software built
into your devices Richard to help make that happen.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
But good question.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
But if yeah, if you're exchanging your phone all the time,
trading it in, not giving it to a family member,
when you're done, sure, ride the heck out of the battery.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
You'll be just fine.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
By the way, if you have let me get this
piece of news here. If you have Spectrum TV, which
I know a lot of folks do, they are rebundling cable.
This is so interesting. They just keep adding streaming services
to the mix. So if you are a spec Trum
TV Select subscriber, you now have access to Peacock at
no extra charge. So you're getting Peacock Premium. Now, that's interesting.

(34:10):
It's Peacock Premium, but it says it's the ADS supported.
So let me see what that means. Peacock plans, because
I have Peacock. Mine is not I thought it was
premium was the one? Oh okay, well this is a
this is a funny way to name something. Peacock Premium
still has ADS, but Peacock Premium plus say that three times.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
Fast does not have ads.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
So Peacock Premium is eight bucks a month, but you're
getting that for free now. If you have Spectrum TV,
this is happening right now, available immediately, and this is
an addition to all the other streaming services they're giving
you Max Disney plus, ESPN plus, Paramount plus Vix and
the Tennis channel. I know, Bobo, you're excited about the

(34:53):
tennis channel. Oh no, Venus and Serena aren't planned anymore.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
So it's kind of you're over it. You're done, You're done. Watching.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
I know people were into tennis last week. They had
that big tournament in Indian Wells. I know people were
excited about that.

Speaker 6 (35:05):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
And I used to play tennis as a kid, so
I do. I do have a soft spot for tennis.
I know there's a big war, you know between the
pickleball lovers and the tennis lovers. Why because they're converting
tennis courts into pickleball courts and the tennis people hate that. Oh,
don't send me the angry emails. I'm not converting your
courts anyway. Available right now, So if you have Spectrum

(35:26):
TV Select, you now have Peacock Premium eight eight eight
rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to
two four one zero one. More rich on Tech right
after this. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro
here hanging out with you talking technology at Triple eight
Rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to

(35:49):
two four one zero one. I hope you're having a
great day. The website for the show is Richontech dot tv.
If you're just finding me for the first time, I
know we're recently on WOAR in New York City. Thanks
for finding us. I'm getting the emails from you folks,
and I absolutely love the fact that you're finding us
and enjoying the show. It makes my day when I

(36:11):
get an email that says, hey, Rich, I like what
you're doing because it's very validating. We all need to
be validated in this world, right, and so my validation
comes from your emails.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (36:22):
Let's go to Let's go to Ace, Ace and pear Blossom.

Speaker 6 (36:28):
Rich.

Speaker 8 (36:28):
I like your show, dude, Thank you.

Speaker 6 (36:31):
And I'm a longtime listener back to Jeff Levy and
Leo Laporte, and I think you're the best replacement so far.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
Oh wow, well thank you.

Speaker 6 (36:39):
You know, I got really a big problem. I'm an
old senior seventy eight years old on low income Social Security,
and I live alone, and I don't have good vision anymore.
I've use the magnifier all the time, which really is
a pain in the button. And today when I went
to go on Amazon, I found up my cash was full,

(37:01):
so I had to go empty the cash. That was
a big pain. And then when I came back to Amazon,
they went, oh, hey, you need to sign in again.
And when I signed in again, well, you need to
go and get this secret number from your Yahoo email.
So when I go to my Yahoo email to get
the secret number, I'm signed out of Yahoo too now

(37:21):
and I'm signed out of my Gmail and Gmail, which
I'm trying to do all morning. When they got rid
of the HTML easy fast Gmail, they screwed everybody that
our old people on dial up ISP. It takes me
a fast way to get into the Gmail. Now. My

(37:42):
Gmail account is two hours of reload, reload, sit and wait.
It took me seven days one time.

Speaker 2 (37:49):
Oh my gosh, seven days. So you might as well
send a letter.

Speaker 6 (37:52):
Well, yeah, I mean it makes it. And all the time,
I can't get onto Amazon to buy my food. I
can't drive anywhere. I got to get most of my
food from Amazon.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
What kind of dial up? Are you on?

Speaker 6 (38:05):
The cheapest one out there?

Speaker 2 (38:08):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (38:09):
Man, I mean that's yeah, that's that's rough because it's slow.
What are they charge for dial up these days?

Speaker 6 (38:15):
It's like around one hundred bucks a month.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
A hundred year, one hundred bucks a year something like that. Okay,
I was gonna say, a hundred bucks a month. You
might as well switch. Do you not have access to
faster internet in your area?

Speaker 2 (38:26):
For that?

Speaker 6 (38:28):
I kind of like having this line, Okay, you know,
it's a lot clearer when you talk to people. And
I used to call talk radio a lot and you
need a landline to get through clearly.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
And you sound great.

Speaker 6 (38:38):
For years and I have grandsons, and.

Speaker 2 (38:41):
Yeah, you do sound good. So this is the landline. Yeah, yeah,
I don't even know where Pear Blossom is, but it
sounds like in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker 6 (38:48):
It's on the way to Las Vegas. It's out by
Little Rock.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
Okay, well, I don't know where that is either. We're
not talking Arkansas.

Speaker 6 (38:54):
Well, there's it's cool, there's no crime. We have a
weather window here. There's hardly any hell lying around at night.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
Oh my, no helicopters. He's off the eight.

Speaker 9 (39:04):
I'm looking at going between Palm del Lancaster on the
way to the fifteen.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
Between between Little Rock and Lano Lano with two l's
and then Black Butte Airfield.

Speaker 6 (39:18):
I know it's not you have an airfield out there.
It's like a little glider airport.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
I know you pronounced it Butte not but uh, we
were just talking last night. My kids fall asleep, there's
a helicopter over the house.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
We love, you know.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
We live in La Proper and my kids are like
helicopters all night every night.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
Yeah, this is I go.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
I I remember when I moved to La going to
USC that's the first time I heard a helicopter. I mean,
I was like, this is this is the reality of
living in a big city. I said, do you want
to live in the middle of nowhere where there's more
you know, no one around you? I don't know, I mean,
pick your poison anyway. To answer your question, Ace, You're right,
So a Gmail got rid of what's called the basic

(40:00):
HTML view right in January. So this was a couple
of months ago. Uh, and so it does slow down
things because what's happening on Gmail is they're loading a
whole bunch of stuff. So I think what you can
do to try to make that a little bit easier
on your connection is I would recommend that you probably
want to download if you can. I mean, I don't

(40:22):
know if you can even download an app on dial up.
But what what about using on your computer something like
Outlook or thunder or you know, Apple Mail built into
a to an Apple computer or Thunderbird from Mozilla just
to get you know, just to get your email. It'll
it'll die, It'll get the email quicker, it'll pull it

(40:43):
from the server and put it, you know, at least
put on your computer. So I think that's probably number
one what you want to do. Number two, you might
want to go into your settings on Gmail and just
see what you can do to you know, kind of
lessen the load on the internet, because it sounds like
there's a lot going on. It's trying to load a

(41:03):
lot of things, and I think maybe having you know,
the view on Gmail optimized a bit more for a
slower connection might help. So you might want to you know,
there's maybe turn on compact view inside Gmail, and also
maybe try a different browser. So maybe the problem is
downloading any of this stuff on a slow connection is

(41:25):
going to be tricky. So I think that's what you're
up against. I mean, I think that the dial up
service is really tricky because not a lot of things
are optimized for dial up, and even people that live
in rural areas now with the addition of Starlink and
all these satellite connectivity services that are getting better, you know,
the speeds are just getting faster everywhere. So it's a

(41:46):
tough thing. But ace I think you can. I think
you can figure it out. I really do. I think
you got to try to switch to an email client
and that way your emails are downloaded all day instead
of just when you try to log on. Or I
would just try to optimize the view inside Gmail and
there might even be a Chrome extension that can kind

(42:07):
of simplify Gmail or maybe bring back that HTML basic view.
But yeah, Google removed that in January because they said
that most people. I think they said back then that
like not a lot of people were using it, like
they had some sort of number they gave that said,
you know, there's only a handful of people. I think
they mentioned you by name, and they said there was

(42:30):
only like one or two people using it. Great question, Ace,
Thanks for the call today. I do appreciate out there
in a pair, Blossom. Do we have time for another
question before the break?

Speaker 2 (42:40):
One more question?

Speaker 1 (42:41):
Okay, let's see, let's go to Leslie and Coda Dekasa, California.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
Leslie, you're on with rich Leslie. Hey, what's up? Welcome?

Speaker 10 (42:51):
Oh?

Speaker 11 (42:52):
Thanks, Actually driving the USC right now, and yes, the
helicopters are still overhead all right.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
Well, hey, I don't know what they're doing, but they're
doing something. What can I help you?

Speaker 6 (43:04):
With.

Speaker 11 (43:05):
My question is related to cell phones and international travel.
It's been a minute since I've been anywhere internationally, and
we're taking the family to Europe this summer.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
Okay, congratulations, work Thanks, Okay, things work automatically.

Speaker 11 (43:22):
Do we need to plan, prepare all? Verizon, et cetera.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
You're reading my mind, Leslie. This is actually the story
that I'm doing for KTLA this week. So I just
did my story on this. We're shooting it this week
and we're going to air it. But because so many
people are asking me, I guess Europe is very popular.
But here's the deal. So here are my uh, here's
all of my steps for if you're going overseas. Number
one easiest option, keep your current plan. So most of

(43:49):
the service providers like AT and T, Verizon, T Mobile,
they will charge you a daily rate so you can
keep your same number and your data plan. AT and
T twelve bucks a day, Verizon ten dollars a day.
Many of the T Mobile plans actually include international roaming,
but you can pay for faster speeds. I think it's
like five bucks a day. So that's number one. Call
your carrier and ask what's included on your plan. So

(44:11):
sometimes if you have an expensive plan, Verizon might give
you a travel past day every month, so if you
haven't traveled in the last year, you may have twelve
days banked up, so call them first. That's number one.
So if you don't have free and your plan might
include free international roaming, like if you're on T Mobile,
so that's number one. Even if you're on a secondary
carrier like a virtual carrier visible Mint Mobile, they also

(44:36):
have international options. They used to, not a lot of
them have added that. So the second thing to consider
is what's called an eSIM. This is temporary wireless service
that you buy from an app and you activate it
right on your phone. And you said you had a
combination of iPhones. iPhone has had the eSIM for many
years now, so your phone should be compatible. Of course,

(44:57):
you want to go on Apple's website, pop in your
model number and eSIM and see if it has an eSIM.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
I believe it's iPhone eleven and.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
Up, but don't quote me on that, but that is
an app like erlo ai r A l O. You
go on the app, you buy the eSIM and you
can activate it right from your phone. That's very cost
effective because it's gonna be a lot cheaper than your carrier.
There's even an eSIM from a company called Gigsky, which
I tested. They give you a hundred megabytes for free.
You're not gonna get more than a minute in another

(45:27):
country using one hundred megabytes, But keep in mind eSIMs
are usually data only, so when you leave the US,
make sure you turn on Wi Fi calling and texting
if you're using anything other than your main carrier. Turn
off roaming, of course, to avoid those unexpected charges.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
Now, if you just.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
Want the cheapest option leslie, which just sounds like you don't,
but I'm just gonna tell you because other people might
be wondering, put your phone phone in airplane mode and
then turn the Wi Fi only back on when you
get to that country, and just hunt for hot spots.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
They are in a lot of places.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
They're not gonna be everywhere, but if you don't want
to spend a nickel, just hunt for the hotspots. There's
an app called Wi fimap dot Io which can help
you find the networks.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
But no matter which route you go.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
Before you leave, turn off those automatic backups and uploads
on apps like photo backups, Google Photos cloud storage. Make
sure they're set to Wi Fi only, so you don't
use up your entire plan.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
I actually have something else.

Speaker 9 (46:23):
Yes, when you do call your provider, Yes, make sure
you ask them how to turn on that feature on
your phone. Because when I went to Tokyo, I didn't know
that I have to turn it on. So I was
in Tokyo for like three days with no signal. Yes,
because I didn't know that they're on my Samsung. You
have to hit something to turn on international call, so yeah,
ask you before you do that.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
You may have roaming and international turned off in your
settings because of course that's the default. You don't want
to international or Rome, so yes, and a lot of times,
especially with Wi Fi calling and all that stuff, you
want to set it up before you have to leave.
And by the way, Japan is still one of the
trickiest places for international calls out of all the different countries.
They do have some different rules about their cellular networks,

(47:06):
but in the for the most part, roaming is almost universal.
Every you know, used to be five ten years ago,
it was much tricker than it is now. But I've
gone to most places now and it's quite easy to
find hotspots and also do that international rooming. Great question, Leslie,
thanks for the call eight eight eight rich one O one.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
Eight eight eight.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
Uh seven four to two, four to one zero And
sorry I was taking notes. I'm taking notes about where
Leslie is from so I can put it in the
show notes, and I was blanking there. Coming up, I'll
tell you how Nintendo is helping you lend your games
to friends much easier. Now, this is rich on Tech.
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
out with you, talking technology at Triple eight rich one

(47:49):
O one eight eight eight seven four to two, four
to one zero one website for the show rich on
Tech dot TV. Coming up this hour. We we've got
Colin Walkee, a cybersecurity and data privacy expert, to talk
about that whole twenty three and me thing. I'm sure
you've seen the news that they filed for bankruptcy and

(48:09):
folks are trying to get their DNA data out of there,
and so he will speak to that and whether you
should do that delete your information. A lot of you
probably already did you know? That's probably what the reality
is here. I mean I posted on my Instagram. People
are really eager to get their info out Dave from
Joshua Tree Rights in Hey Rich, Greetings from the High Desert.

(48:32):
I love the show and catch it both on my
local radio station and the podcast through Spotify. Here's a
question I think a lot of listeners might have. Is
it safe to store documents with sensitive or PII personally
identifiable information on Google Drive. Well, that is a great question,
and I think we take for granted the fact that
we store all kinds of data in the cloud, whether

(48:55):
it's iCloud, whether it's Google Drive, whether it's one Drive.
And I think the main thing to understand is if
this information is encrypted. And so Google Drive does encrypt data,
both in transit and at rest, so that means when
you're uploading something to Google Drive, it is encrypted, and
when it's sitting in Google Drive, it's encrypted. So if

(49:17):
someone came across those files, they'd find it tough to
figure out what's in them.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
So that's good.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
But this is linked to your Google account, and as
we know, accounts get hacked all the time, so you
have to be careful with phishing, weak passwords or any
This is what I think is the most dangerous third
party apps that request access to your Google Drive. So
my main concern is, you know, someone getting access to

(49:47):
your Google account and then of course getting into your
Drive account. Now, I do think that Google takes a
lot of precautions because they're one of the biggest out there.
Even if you don't have two factor on, they've sort
of turned it on anyway, because they will send a
notification to a different device if they don't recognize a
log in to get you to you know, authenticate that

(50:07):
log in and make sure it's you. Does it happen?
Do people get in of course every day, I'm sure,
but that is the biggest thing is make sure that
you're protecting your Google account. And this is why I
really you know, in a pinch, I will use that
sign in with Google thing, but try not to use
that because even though it's easy, you know, it just
links up all of these different places now, especially Google drives.

(50:30):
So there's two ways that apps might ask for access
to Google Drive. So for instance, I recommend an app
called SMS Backup and Restore. So if you're on Android,
you can download this app and it will back up
your your text messages to us. You know, you can
export them whatever you want to do, but it can
also back them up to Google Drive. And the way

(50:51):
that this app works, I really like it because it says, hey,
we would like access to your Google Drive, but we
would only like to be able to act says information
that we create, So a folder inside Google Drive we
will carve out and only that folder will we access.
And that is the right way to do it. When
you go to an app and it says, hey, can

(51:12):
we access your Google Drive and it says, see read
and delete all files in your Google Drive, you do
not want to allow access to that unless you really
really trust that particular service provider. Now, this also happens
for Gmail, and again, anytime an app asks for full
access to your account, you have to be careful. Now,

(51:34):
there are some legitimate apps that do this, like I
recommend a ward wallet, and for a ward wallet to
really work, it kind of finds all my itineraries and
dinner reservations and things. They want to scan your Gmail
because they're looking for any sort of reservations you've made.
Trip it. Same thing, if you give full access to
trip it, they want to ask for access to your

(51:56):
Gmail because they want to be able to scan for itinerary.
So you better trust these companies that you are giving
full access to your Gmail. The place I want you
to look third party apps and services on Google. So
go to my account dot Google dot com slash connections,
and you will see all of the third party apps

(52:18):
and services you have connected to your Google account, the
ones you know, the signing with Google whatever linked account.
But the ones you really want to take a strong
look at is the ones that says access to And
I've got sixteen you can see. Seven have access to
my calendar, seven have access to my contacts, eight have
access to my Google Drive, nine have access to my Gmail.

(52:38):
And you want to go through there and make sure
look at every one of those things that are connected,
make sure they are legitimate. If you don't use that
app or service anymore, get rid of it, disconnect that
connection to your Google account. Eight eight eight rich one
o one eight eight eight seven four two four one
zero one. I'll link up that Gmail or that Google

(52:58):
account connections on my website. Rich on tech dot TV
coming up, we're talking twenty three and me. Welcome back
to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you,
talking technology at triple eight rich one oh one eight
eight eight seven four to two four one zero one
big news this week that twenty three and meters declaring bankruptcy.

(53:21):
This is a company that went from like six billion
dollars in market cap to uh think their stock was
trading under a buck at one point, and uh the
problem is, you know, you take one of these DNA tests,
which are always a top seller during Amazon Prime days,
and that's it.

Speaker 2 (53:37):
What more you going to do?

Speaker 1 (53:38):
I'm sure they tried to sell subscriptions and things like that,
but probably wasn't much they can do with all this
information unless they were selling it, which hopefully they were not.
Uh here to talk about what you should do because
of this information being on their website. Is Colin Walkee,
a cyber security and data privacy expert.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
Colin, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
Good After which, So what was your immediate thought when
you heard that twenty three and mes was declaring bankruptcy
Because a lot of people have their DNA in this
data bank, My.

Speaker 12 (54:11):
First thought was this can't be good. I would be
extremely concerned if my data were sitting there and about
to be sold into bankruptcy proceeding to somebody I didn't
agree to give my data to.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
Well, yeah, so that's the thing I mean twenty three
and me. If you go on there, you know, data
protection kind of facts, it's like, oh, yeah, we protect
your data. We you know, hold this in high regard.
But the problem is the new company that comes in there,
just by nature of wanting to buy this distressed company,
is going to want to make money on it.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
And how do they do that.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
They monetize the stuff that this company has, which is
DNA data.

Speaker 12 (54:44):
That's right, And you know the point that you just
made their rich was if you look at their terms
and service they do speak proudly about how well they
try and protect your information, but they also say in
there that our terms of service may change at any time.
So even twenty three and me still Bill and has
the power to do essentially whatever they want with your data,

(55:04):
save and except for any potential state level laws that
really are applicable. And so, yeah, it is a concerning
situation because there's very limited options for individuals to have
control over this data at this point.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
So what happens to sensitive health data when a company
like this goes bankrupt?

Speaker 12 (55:23):
Well, it's a very good question. I mean, in this
particular circumstance, that data is in fact an asset, right
I mean it's worth money. For example, Facebook after the
Apple Store went into their opt in methodology, claim that
it cost them ten billion dollars a year in revenue.
So your data is an asset. It's being bought and

(55:44):
sold on an open market. And so in this particular case,
a buyer can come in and buy the entity as
a whole, or alternatively, if that doesn't happen, the assets
themselves can be sold off. That obviously, that then does
beg a question. So, for example, in Tol, their state
privacy law says that if you have sensitive information, you

(56:05):
have to get permission before you can collect and process
that information. So if somebody else buys the company as
a whole, I don't know that you have to regain
their permission. If you buy just the assets, it may
be the case, so that whoever that buyer is then
has to get further permission. At least for Colorado residents,
it's a further process their information. But somebody like me

(56:28):
in Oklahoma, we don't have a data privacy law. They
can do whatever the heck they want with my data.

Speaker 1 (56:32):
Yeah, so it sounds like it's very mixed depending on
where you live. And also how this bankruptcy proceeds, how
this company buys this what they label it as.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
So, I mean, what's the recommendation? I mean, do you
think so?

Speaker 1 (56:44):
I know a lot of attorney generals, at least in California.
I know they issued a consumer alert saying, hey, you
should get your stuff out of this database. And by
the way, it's not just the genetic data, it's also
the test sample as well.

Speaker 12 (56:57):
Right, that's right, that's right, it's both of those. And
I mean, you know a couple of things. So, first
of all, to your question about what should individuals do, Yes,
absolutely they should try and call or submit forms through
twenty three meters to get their data deleted as well
as their samples deleted as quickly as possible. One of
the questions that I have that I don't know if

(57:17):
there's an answer to this, because this is a unique situation.
Once a bankruptcy preceding occurs, there's what's called the automatic stay,
which prevents anybody from going after any of the assets
of the debtor. Well, if I call in the middle
of a bankruptcy proceeding and I asked for them to
delete my data, while I'm not a creditor, I do

(57:38):
have the right to do that. I'm deleting assets from
the bankruptcy.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
Estate, right because think about it, that's the thing that's
valuable about twenty three meters is this DNA data? So
are they And I know people flooded the website because
it was slow to respond and all this stuff, and
you know, people were asking to have their data deleted.
We don't actually know if twenty three and me is
honoring those deletion requests right now.

Speaker 12 (58:02):
That's right, and perhaps more concerning, an FTC report came
out just last year that said many tech companies like Facebook, Google,
maybe twenty three and Me, they weren't specifically identified, don't
even know what all data they have on you or
who they share it with. So to your point, yeah,
they may or may not honor those requests, and we
don't know because it's a black wall behind there now.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
I would imagine in today's age of AI, having the
DNA of millions of people might be pretty valuable to
an AI company.

Speaker 12 (58:33):
Oh, not just to an AI company, but to bad
actors as well. I mean, certainly to AI companies, especially
if they're good actors looking to do healthcare services, but
even bad actors. I mean, for example, twenty three and
me just settled a data breach hack from a few
years ago in which six million of their twenty five
million records were accessed. And the concerning part is is

(58:53):
that those six million records were predominantly Oshkenazi, Jews or
Chinese individuals, meaning this was a targeted hack. And so
your genetic and data and information like that is sensitive
and unlike your social Security number or your name, you
can't change that. So for both good and bad actors,

(59:13):
there's a ton of value in this type of information.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
It just sounds scary to have now your DNA info
out there and your I mean, we know our social
and all the personal information is out there because of
all these data breaches. Link that up with the data
with the DNA information. It's like, I mean, what more
is there about us that we can secretly protect?

Speaker 12 (59:33):
That's right, and that's just it is. I don't think
people truly appreciate and realize how much their privacy is
being pilfered through all of the apps and everything that
they're downloading. Because now not only do I know your location,
your geolocation from your phone, not only do I know
your credit card information, but now I know who your
second and third cousins are, and so that helps exploit
individuals and deep fake attacks and synthetic fraud.

Speaker 2 (59:57):
Oh wow, I mean, yeah, that's the thing.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
It's like, the more they can up this information, the
more they have to to try to defraud us in
various ways that, by the way, some of these ways
we haven't thought of yet. And that's what these scammers
spend their whole day try to figure out, is hey,
hold on, now we know Rich's cousin, Let's use that
name to target him in some sort of attack.

Speaker 12 (01:00:16):
That's right, and then tell the technology developed sufficiently you
can't predict. So just like in twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen,
when everybody was walking around playing Pokemon Go, Yeah, even
then there were nefarious, you know, issues with that, such
as geolocation data being sold, et cetera. But now fast
forward ten years later, we're dealing with AI and robots

(01:00:37):
who need to learn how to navigate the real world,
and they're doing that through everybody's use of Pokemon Go
because it helped map a three D world that individuals
were going through.

Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
Yeah, and I've talked about that. The business behind some
of these companies is the data collection, not like Pokemon
Go is a fun game. But I mean, look at
how much that company just sold for. So I mean
it's or the company or the game. I guess the
you know, scopely bought it, and they bought parts of that.
I don't know if they bought all the data. I
guess they must have. But the point is, all of

(01:01:10):
these services that we use for free, if we are
not paying for them, we are the.

Speaker 12 (01:01:14):
Product, absolutely absolutely, And that's what's so just disturbing to
me is that not only are we voluntarily allowing this
to happen, but our legislators and those individuals who are
supposed to be our leaders are permitting this to happen.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
Well, that's the thing. It's like this tech is moving
very quickly. So what's your recommendation for the twenty three meter?
Do you think people submit that form that says delete
my information.

Speaker 12 (01:01:37):
Yes, I mean, as I've spoken to other individuals about this, listen,
you absolutely should go ahead and try and do everything
possible that you can to get that information deleted.

Speaker 6 (01:01:47):
You know.

Speaker 12 (01:01:47):
The good news is is that they should honor those
requests at this time, again, absent the bankruptcy law preventing
them from doing that. But the problem is is that
it doesn't necessarily eliminate the problem because I don't don't
know how they handle their DNA. But you could imagine
a scenario in which they then copy whatever data they
have of yours and then de identify it so that

(01:02:08):
your personal identifiers address, email name, or whatever are removed.
And in theory, you're like, well, okay, then they can't
identify me. But the problem is is you note, Rich,
I just have to find one more data set sitting
out there on the internet, and if I can find
a few data points that link back up to the
twenty three and meters data set, I can reidentify whoever
I want to.

Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
Oh, mysh, Colin, I am so happy you said this,
because people do not realize that just because your information
is d sort of like decoupled from you in a
personal way, it doesn't mean that these companies are not
recoupling it up on the back end with other databases.
And so when you give your email address or phone
number at a grocery store right for the discount, that

(01:02:51):
information is merged with other databases from a whole different
variety of places, and they come up with this full
picture of who you are, and it's very crystal clear.

Speaker 12 (01:03:01):
And I don't know if anybody's ever looked into companies
like Axiom or others that do these types of data
brokerage services. But they then label you into categories as
though are you an influencer or an influenced individual? And
that's how granularized they can get to who you are
as an individual to determine how easily you can be manipulated.

(01:03:22):
And it's very concerning because they know everything about you.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
Yeah, and it's it's these companies love to say like, hey,
we're not personally identifying you, but they conveniently leave out
the fact that, oh, on the back end, we're mixing
like six or seven databases with a lot of information
about you, and yes, we know exactly where you are,
we know what you're watching on TV, we know the
commercials we saw, and that's we're also going to target

(01:03:45):
and add to you on Facebook based on all that stuff.
So I mean, this just goes on and on. Colin Walke,
We're gonna leave it there. Do you have a website?

Speaker 12 (01:03:51):
Folks can visit, yes, and just search them a named
Colin Walkee.

Speaker 1 (01:03:56):
All right, great, conversation. Hopefully you're going to have you
on again to talk about some of this privacy stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
Because it is wild absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
Rich thanks for joining me today eight eight eight rich
one on one eight eight eight seven four to two
four one zero one. I'll link up the directions on
how to delete your twenty three and meters genetic data
on the website rich on tech dot tv. Back after this,
Welcome back to rich on tech. Rich DeMuro here talking
technology with you. The website is rich on tech dot tv.

(01:04:25):
If you want to sign up for my newsletter, please
do that. It is uh informative. Every weekend I send
it out. I've also got the show notes there as well.
This is episode one fifteen, So if you want the
link to uh anything I mentioned here on the show.
So I mentioned earlier the permissions for your Google account
if you want to review those, I've got the link there,

(01:04:45):
the instructions on how to delete your genetic data, how
to activate that Peacock premium if you're a Spectrum customer,
A whole bunch of stuff, all the travel stuff, I
recommend it. It's all on the website rich on tech
dot TV. Nintendo is working on virtual game cards for
the switch to. This means it'll be much easier to

(01:05:05):
lend your games to family members. I remember when my
kids got switches a couple of years ago. I was like,
wait a second, do I have to buy two copies
of the same game so they can play them?

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
You did, But now they're going to make digital downloads
work more like physical cartridges, So you can basically send
one game, buy it once, and send it to another
Switch on your account, and basically you'll be able to
lend that game for two weeks. It'll happen over local
Wi Fi, and after two weeks, the game automatically returns

(01:05:39):
the original owner. Of course, you can only lend it
out to one person at a time, but from everything
I can see about this, the response online has been incredible.
People are like, wait a second, is this real a
company doing something the way that they should have done it, Like,
we actually liked this idea, and yeah, this is going
to happen starting late April, So if you've been frustrated

(01:06:00):
with lending out your games to family members on the
Nintendo devices, it will get much easier. And by the way,
Nintendo Switch to coming out this year, It's been many
years since the Switch has come out, it's time for
an update. Nintendo keeps hinting, and they showed us what
it's going to look like, but they keep dropping little details.
The next amount of details are going to come out

(01:06:22):
on April second.

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
Get it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
Switch to April second, okay, and a day after April
Fool's Day, which is smart because if they did on
April Fool's Day, we would not believe them. But the
Switch to of course, you know it's gonna be out
in time for the holidays. That's going to be a
banana seller and people are gonna buy those things like hotcakes.
Because even if you had a Switch, you've probably had
it for a couple of years. Now you're ready for

(01:06:45):
an update. And you know, Nintendo devices are never as
high powered, you know as the xboxes of the world
or the PlayStations of the world. But they're just fun
and they're great for the family. And the games, I
mean the IP they have with all the Mario stuff
and zell they just keep regurgitating kind of new games
with their familiar IP that people just love. Let's go

(01:07:07):
to Mary in Los Angeles. Mary, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 4 (01:07:13):
Mary.

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
Are you there?

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
Mary had a little call Mary you on. Nope, okay,
no Mary. Let's see here. How do I drop a call?
It's been so long since I dropped call. Do I
just press this button?

Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
Did I do it?

Speaker 4 (01:07:27):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
Bobo's like, no, you did not. All right, let's see here.
Let's go to Eduardo in Tampa. Eduardo, you're on with Rich?

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Are you there?

Speaker 4 (01:07:41):
Thank you very much?

Speaker 10 (01:07:42):
Rich, Good afternoon.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
Hey.

Speaker 10 (01:07:44):
So this has to do with logging in, in particular
my financial institution. Now I do the delead browsing history,
the cachet, and you're supposed to get a hex cold
which you put in there too, acts as your accounts.

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):
Sure, when you first log in, a couple of times.

Speaker 10 (01:08:04):
It's worked, but like today, I tried it and I
called customer service, which this is a good institution because
they're there every day, so if you get locked out,
you can call them and they can unlock you.

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
Well, what happened.

Speaker 10 (01:08:19):
I did what I was supposed to do. I deleted
the browsing history, the cache is and all that. And
I mean, the last couple of times it worked, and
today it didn't work. So them and he had unlocked
me and I was able to get in.

Speaker 1 (01:08:30):
Okay, So here's the deal. So a lot of times
with these one time codes, especially with banks, when they
sense that there's any sort of unusual activity, they are
going to stop that code from going out. And so
I've gotten some messages from folks about this Amazon, and
sometimes what they'll do is on your account, they'll do
like a lockout time period. So if you've tried, let's

(01:08:51):
say you press that button like three times right to
get that code, They're like, something's not right here. We're
just going to pause that delivery of that code for
a while. So I don't know what the secret sauce
is and they don't really reveal it, and every company
in bank is different, but it's these fraud systems that
they're using to try to make sure that nobody's getting
access to your account. So that's what I'm guessing happen.

(01:09:13):
Did they give you any sort of explanation.

Speaker 10 (01:09:18):
No, I mean I did it a couple of times.
I don't think I ever did it three times. I
did it twice in night thought and I.

Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
Called them okay, So that I mean, who knows what
triggered it? I mean, but the fact is it was
triggered after you cleared out your browser, which means typically
typically when you log into your bank or any sort
of online account, they're keeping a little bit of data
on your computer, like a cookie, and so that that
cookie usually has information about your last log in, whether

(01:09:48):
you've already been sort of pre authorized on that account.
So that's why your username may be saved there. Sometimes
you use your name on your password and you just
have to log in and then it gives you that code.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
But there's a.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
Whole, you know, a variety of ways that companies will
sort of authorize you. Someplaces, you know, like your Gmail,
it'll just stay logged in forever until something changes, or
you log out. With your bank, it'll log out automatically.
But the level of security kind of varies based on
the account. But if you are clearing your browser history,
typically it is clearing out those cookies and that cash

(01:10:21):
and that is what's making that new login trigger, and
so if you don't want that to happen, sometimes there
are ways to clear your just your browsing history, but
not all the cookies, not all the other stuff, so
that you can still stay logged in. But in general, Eduardo,
I think it's a good thing that your bank locked
you out because that means that they're on top of things,
and hopefully that means your account safer.

Speaker 10 (01:10:44):
Yeah, well, I'm glad I have them for a call in,
so thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
Yeah, thank you for the call today, and I'm glad
that bank is there on a Saturday. You know, it's
like you don't even want to call these companies anymore
because you're just like, I don't even know. I mean,
it used to be you could call any big company
and they'd have someone there twenty four to seven. Now
it's like, no, I've called certain companies that I do
business with, and you cannot believe you call early. They're like, oh,
our representatives start at eight am or nine am. You're like, wait,

(01:11:09):
what this used to be a twenty four to seven service.
So I think we're paying more these days for things
and we're getting less and these companies just continue to
find efficiencies with technology that sometimes bug us eighty eight
rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two,
four to one zero one. More of your calls coming

(01:11:30):
up right after this. Welcome back to rich On Tech.
Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology at
triple eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight, seven,
four to two, four one zero one. Coming up this hour,
we've got Mark Vena. He is going to talk about
the Samsung Galaxy S twenty five and how it lured

(01:11:50):
him away from the iPhone. Yeah, after seventeen years of
using it. And I got to say, the reason why
I want it to have him on the show is
because it's kind of doing the same thing to me.
I mean, I get the Samsung every year, I play
with it and it's great, but there was always something
that kept me from wanting to use it full time.
And now it's the opposite. I have to force myself

(01:12:12):
to use the iPhone because you know, if I start
texting people with those green bubbles, they get all annoyed
at me. Even though it's gotten a lot better with RCS,
I was texting someone the other day and it's like
the RCS stuff is just perfect. It really is, because
you can see when they get the message, you can
see when they've read it, you can see when they're typing.
You can send big photos and videos and they don't

(01:12:33):
look all pixelated anymore. So, I mean, I feel like
that issue is gone, Like, choose the phone that you want,
don't just choose the one that forces you to stick
to it because you know you can't get I message
anywhere else.

Speaker 2 (01:12:45):
Oh wait, who's doing that? On my Instagram?

Speaker 1 (01:12:49):
At richon Tech, guys are having a field day with
my post.

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
It was my wife's birthday.

Speaker 1 (01:12:53):
We went to Los Alevos, California has some beautiful areas
just north of la and Losa Levos Wine Country is
one of them. So anyway, I posted our whole itinerary
what we did and just how much fun we had,
and we have literally not been We can't stop talking
about it because we had such a nice time. Because
we parked once and we never drove again the whole weekend.

(01:13:17):
And to me, that's like when you can do that
and just walk to all the places you want to
go and have dinner and wine tasting and all this stuff.
It's just so fun. So anyway, if we want to
see that, it's at rich On Tech. Give me a follow.
Let's go to Stanley in Bettsville, Ohio.

Speaker 2 (01:13:33):
Stanley, you're on.

Speaker 4 (01:13:34):
With rich Hello rich love your show. And I wanted
to ask a question that's perplexed me for months. Okay,
on our company's website, well, actually, any website that I
go to if there's a YouTube video. When I click
on it, that YouTube video mini window reappears with the

(01:13:54):
message sign in to confirm you're not a bot. This
helps us protect our community. I cannot figure out how
to get that YouTube video to play, how to sign
in to confirm with someone I don't even know who
to confirm that I'm not a bot.

Speaker 1 (01:14:12):
So when you help, you said, this is on your
company computer.

Speaker 4 (01:14:16):
Well, no, sir, any computer that I use, and on
any website I access. But it frustates me because on
our company website for our new startup, if people click
on that, they won't well I don't know if they
see the message to confirm they're not a bot or not.

Speaker 1 (01:14:33):
Okay, couple things. So typically when you see this message,
now we see these messages all the time on our computers.
You know, it says please confirm, and it makes you
do all those silly puzzles right where you're sitting there.
It's like only humans can solve this. You're like, wait
a second, I can't even solve this thing. It's like
drag the shape that most closely resembles a fish onto
the other fish.

Speaker 2 (01:14:53):
You're like, what, what? Hold on?

Speaker 1 (01:14:55):
Let me read this thing, and then you've got all
those things to say verify you're not a rope. So
websites are using all kinds of ways to avoid bots
on their sites, to you know, to keep the resources
down from being overloaded, and also malicious content. I mean,
there's so many reasons why websites want to verify who
we are, that we are actually human and really going
there for a reason, right, not just like scraping or

(01:15:18):
using some sort of automated software to buy tickets. So
there's a lot of reasons why these companies and websites
make you verify who you are and that you're an
actual human. Typically, what you're describing is when you are
using some sort of VPN or a proxy.

Speaker 2 (01:15:35):
So a lot of.

Speaker 1 (01:15:35):
Folks, especially on the iPhone, they've got this like proxy
service built in, like this iCloud Private Browsing and so
it's like some sort of like thing that shields your
IP address, and a lot of times it's activated if
you pay for iCloud Plus or something like that. And
so if you go to a website on your iPhone,
you might encounter this message that says we have detected

(01:15:57):
suspicious activity on your account. You know, we got to
wait a minute, or you got to refresh to proceed
or whatever it is. And the reason they're saying that
is because they're seeing a bunch of requests coming from
the same IP address, which is Apple servers, right, because
they're all everything is funneling through this server to try
to like clear or you know, hide everyone's personal information

(01:16:17):
from this website or their IP address, whatever it is.
So typically Stanley, that is the reason. So if you're
running a VPN, I would try turning that off. If
you're running some sort of proxy, turn that off. And
so there are some web browsers like Opera, we'll have
like a proxy built in, and so you will, you know,
if you can disable that, try reloading that website without

(01:16:41):
that proxy turned on or without that VPN turned on.
So and also I would do what we talked about
earlier with Eduardo and Tampa is clear the the browser
history and cash and see if that helps. So go
into your settings on Chrome or whatever you're doing, and
just clear out your delete browsing data. And once you
delete that, that may help reset things and make it

(01:17:05):
so that you don't see that notification every time you
go to a YouTube video It's interesting that it's happening
on no matter what computer or account you're on. That
tells me that it's at a very network level. So
that could be also a feature on your router that
you have toggled on, some sort of proxy. I'm thinking
it's some sort of proxy or VPN feature, so I
would check that for sure. A good question. Thanks for

(01:17:26):
the question. Let's look at the emails here. We got
a question from Mark in San Diego. He says, Hey, Rich,
I really enjoy your show. I live in San Diego
and MeTV is no longer over the air and free.
I tried your suggestion to use over the air apps
on my rokup, but they don't offer me TV. They
do offer a handful of local stations on a per
city basis, but no MeTV. So in San Diego, the

(01:17:49):
only way to get it is to subscribe to an
expensive stream. So for just MeTV and that's all I want,
this is not practical. Can you offer any suggestions to
get me TV for free? I've heard of MeTV. I'm
not fully familiar with it, but I'm looking at their
website and it's basically looks like a website. It looks
like a like sort of a station that shows older programming.

(01:18:13):
So I'm looking at the Yeah, Alfred Hitchcock, Adam twelve,
Andy Griffith. So it looks like these like dot two stations,
Like if you have a station in your area, they
subscribe to this MeTV to sort of air and broadcast
using one of their secondary channels, so you know, like
a four dot two four dot three, four dot four

(01:18:33):
and it's just basically to use up the airwaves and
have some sort of programming on there. I checked in
San Diego, putting into the zip code, and it looks
like it is not available over the air anymore in
San Diego, so it looks like it's only on the
cable services cox AT and tu Verse Direct TV. But

(01:18:55):
they do have it on Friendly TV, So I'm not sure.
If you checked. You said expensive streaming. Friendly TV is
like the cheapest streaming service you can get out there.
It starts at six dollars and ninety nine cents a month. Now,
I know you didn't want to pay anything, but I'd
say seven bucks a month. If you really enjoy this MeTV,
that might be a decent way of getting it, and

(01:19:18):
you can at least try seven days for free, so
I would at least investigate that, But that's really your
only way as far as I can tell. It must
have been that whatever TV station had this MeTV dropped
it and they switched to something else, or they just
air their own programming, whatever it is, but you're not
gonna be able to get it with an antenna as
far as I can tell down in San Diego, so

(01:19:39):
I would check out the Friendly TV. It's also where
a lot of people go for Hallmark programming over the
holidays because it's one of the cheapest ways to get
the Hallmark channel. But I have a feeling MeTV doesn't
do its own streaming app because its whole play is
to sell its programming to these cable providers and also

(01:20:00):
the channels that then broadcasted over the air. And so
if they had their own service, like their own streaming
app that they charged three four dollars a month for,
they sort of be cutting into their own business, which
is selling this channel to these broadcasters.

Speaker 2 (01:20:13):
So that's probably what's happening there.

Speaker 1 (01:20:16):
Thanks for the email, Rich on tech dot TV, Diane
writes in good morning, good morning. I always want to
say thank you for your help. Whenever I've emailed, You've
always responded quickly. Your answers are very helpful. I have
lots and lots of pictures on my Facebook account. Is
there any way to back them up? Especially in case
my account gets hacked?

Speaker 2 (01:20:34):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:20:35):
So a lot of these major services have what's called
the takeout and so Facebook has a tool where you
can go and you can download a full copy of
your entire account, which includes your photos, your videos, and
your other content. So if you go to your settings,
click your profile picture in the top right corner, click
settings in privacy, then click settings again, then click account center,

(01:20:58):
then click your Information and Permission, then click download your information,
then click download or transfer your information, and that's all
you have to do. That's it, Diane, Very easy.

Speaker 2 (01:21:09):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:21:10):
There's not a direct link, so I mean you're gonna
have to Maybe there is, but I will link it
up in my in my show notes. But basically you
can go to is it see A lot of them
would be like Facebook dot com. Facebook dot com slash
takeout would be like the easiest way to do it.
Let's see if that brings you to know it. Let's

(01:21:30):
see Facebook dot com slash takeout. No, that does not
bring you to it. Don't do not go to that.
Don't go there. Oh yeah, do not go there. Oh
my gosh, now I'm getting spammed. But yes, so you
do have to go to your Facebook settings and you
can download your information. But the good news is it
is pretty simple, and I will link up the instructions

(01:21:52):
in the website. But Facebook, for some reason doesn't like
all of their like settings and things always involve so
many steps, and I think they do that on purpose,
just to make life a little bit tougher. The only
easy Facebook url I know is Facebook dot com slash hacked,
and that's because so many people get hacked on Facebook

(01:22:12):
that they have to have an easy URL where you
can go and try to regain.

Speaker 2 (01:22:17):
The security of your account.

Speaker 1 (01:22:18):
And by the way, when I say people get hacked
on Facebook, a lot of times it's not necessarily hackers.
It's really people get tricked into giving up their Facebook
login information. And they do that through these notifications as say, hey,
there's a copyright infringement on your account or some sort
of problem, and you log in real quick and you've
just given up your account. So Rich on tech dot

(01:22:41):
tv for instructions on how to back up your Facebook
photos eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight
eight seven four to two four one zero one. Welcome
back to rich on Tech. Let's go to uh Mark,
Mark and Tarzana Mark.

Speaker 2 (01:22:58):
You're on with Rich.

Speaker 8 (01:23:00):
Yeah, Hi, Rich, I've been listening a long time. It's
my first time calling it. Great to have you after
Leo Laporte.

Speaker 2 (01:23:10):
Oh well, thank you.

Speaker 8 (01:23:12):
I'm in the market for a new computer, looking for
all in one or a desktop perfectly and all in
one with at least a two terabyte hard drive. You
have any suggestion.

Speaker 1 (01:23:28):
Do you have a preference Mac or PC? Windows Windows? Okay,
So a couple of things. First off, I always recommend
folks look at Costco because they typically stock one to
two all in one computers and they are a very
good deal every time, and the specs you get there
are usually better than what you would get anywhere else. Now,

(01:23:51):
the thing that you're asking about is a two terabyte
hard drive. Most of the time when I go there,
I most of the time I'm seeing a one terabyte
hard drive. That could be different these days, but that's
the main downside of getting it from a place like
Costco is that they're probably not going to have that
two terabyte hard drive unless they do. If they do,
then great, That's where I start if you have a

(01:24:12):
costco membership. Otherwise I would look at some highly rated
systems like an HP Envy all in one. So I
think that's a great system and you can get it
with a two terabyte hard drive, or I would just
go to I mean, if you want to build it yourself,
you can go to somewhere like Dell dot com and
get the two terabyte hard drive. The thing is most

(01:24:32):
of the computers, a lot of.

Speaker 2 (01:24:33):
Them have where are you. You're in Tarzana.

Speaker 1 (01:24:36):
I was gonna say there's a great place called Microcenter
down in Tustin, but that's too far from you to go.
But I would recommend. I mean, I think the iMac
all in one is a great computer. But you did
want a Windows PC. But I'm looking at some of
the recent reviews and the HP comes up pretty high.
Let's see if you want something that's on Amazon, Yeah,

(01:24:58):
the hps score very high. Yeah, Acers, I'll a sus.
I don't know if they make let me see if
they make it. I like the asuses recently. I think
they're doing great on laptops. Yeah, I don't see as
many as the ace US and the all in one.
They probably have them. But I think what it really
comes down to, Mark is when you go to best

(01:25:18):
Buy or wherever you go, you're looking for the specs
that are going to make sure this computer lasts for
a bit. So again, I think that's depending on what
you're doing. Since you want that two terabyte drive, maybe
you want a better processor, So I would say at
least an Intel five seven is going to give you
a much faster speed, and then same thing with the AMD.

(01:25:38):
If you go five or seven, that's really what you want.
You don't want anything below a five at this point.
And then with the memory, I always say sixteen gigs
a RAM minimum, But if you're really outfitting this thing
like I went thirty two last time, it just gets
very expensive. That's the unfortunate side of memory. When you're
getting it the day that you buy the computer, and
then the hard drive two terabytes, it's very reasonable. That's

(01:26:01):
what I did on my last computer. So the higher
you go with these specs, the more you're gonna spend.
That's that's basically what's going on, because most people are
getting that. You know that simple, simple, processor, hard drive
at five twelve or maybe a terrorbyte, and the memory
at sixteen gigs, so good luck. Feel free to email
me if you you know. Some people will email me
if they're trying to decide between two things. But that's

(01:26:23):
what I would do, is start at Costco. That's usually
the best place to start.

Speaker 2 (01:26:27):
Thanks for the call. Mark. Pixel nine A.

Speaker 1 (01:26:29):
We talked about this. Google's like mid range phone. I
would call it their budget phone. It's under five hundred dollars.
They announced it last week, but there was a delay
because of some sort of issue with a component quality situation,
and so now they have said, okay, I guess that's
figured out. They got back to the drawing board, they
figured out what was happening, and the release date is

(01:26:52):
April tenth. So this is a phone that is pretty fantastic.
Even though I haven't played with it just yet, I
can just tell. Because it's a Pixel, it's gonna have
great software. It's got a decent chip inside, It's got
eight gigs a RAM up to two hundred and fifty
fifty six gigs of storage, got a nice big screen,
brighter than before, great refresh rate, big battery, good IP rating,

(01:27:16):
so IP sixty eight, which means gonna be water and
dust resistant, and it's got that great Google software that's,
by the way, updated for seven years. So if you're
looking for a budget phone, you want a great Android
you don't really necessarily care about the iPhone side of things,
go with the Pixel nine A I mean five hundred
bucks launching April tenth. This is their answer to the

(01:27:38):
iPhone sixteen E that's five ninety nine, which is also
great if you are on the iPhone side of things.
And Disney Plus, by the way, getting a feature users
have been asking for for a while, the ability to
remove shows and movies from the continue watching row. I
know it sounds silly, but you weren't able to do this,
so if you started watching a movie or a show,

(01:28:00):
it would just linger there forever. So this is helpful
if you started something or didn't finish something and you
just want to get it away from your screen.

Speaker 2 (01:28:08):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:28:09):
So this is rolling out. It's starting on Apple TV,
mobile and Web. So on Apple TV can press and
hold the center button on a title, then select remove.
On mobile or web, tap the three dots next to
a title and choose remove. So more devices will get
this feature soon I mean, can you believe they didn't
have this for a while. I mean if you started

(01:28:29):
watching like some silly movie on Disney Plus and you're like, ah,
that movie's bad, it'll just linger there forever, and it's
like it just haunts you. Now you can finally get
rid of the ghosts on your Disney Plus screen. All right,
I'll put links to all of these things on my
website rich on Tech dot tv, also the Instagram at
rich on Tech. Coming up, we're gonna talk Samsung versus iPhone.

(01:28:53):
Mark Vina is going to talk about why he has
ditched his iPhone in favor of Samsung. Right here on
rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich
DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology. The website
for the show rich on Tech dot tv.

Speaker 2 (01:29:12):
That's real.

Speaker 1 (01:29:12):
Find links to everything I mentioned here on the show.
I got an email about callers or I guess listeners
looking for my Wine Country recommendations. That's on my instagram
at rich on Tech. You got to go there. Like
I said, I spent the weekend last weekend, b lined
it after the show and went up to Wine Country

(01:29:33):
at my wife.

Speaker 2 (01:29:33):
So I've got my recommendations there.

Speaker 1 (01:29:34):
Feel free to steal at itinerary if you're ever going
to visit California or if you're in the area. All right,
my next guest is Mark Vena. He is the CEO
and principal analyst at smart Tech Research. He ditched his
iPhone recently for the Samsung Galaxy S twenty five.

Speaker 2 (01:29:53):
He's going to talk about it. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 13 (01:29:55):
Mark Rich, How are you this afternoon?

Speaker 2 (01:29:58):
Good?

Speaker 1 (01:29:58):
I typically see you, you know, somewhere in the world,
depending on where we are, but it's good to hear
your voice. And you know you're always making the rounds
because you're an analyst. To explain what an analyst does,
by the way.

Speaker 13 (01:30:10):
Well, technology we really have great jobs.

Speaker 2 (01:30:13):
Yeah, you do.

Speaker 13 (01:30:13):
That's what you're doing.

Speaker 14 (01:30:14):
You're looking at the landscape, the technology landscape, and you
try to make call balls and strikes and what companies
are doing right, what are they operating in interesting markets?
You know, what is the market looks like from a
tailwind standpoint or a headwind standpoint.

Speaker 13 (01:30:29):
One of the great parts of the job.

Speaker 14 (01:30:30):
And you know, even though you're not an analyst, you
know you're you are in the.

Speaker 13 (01:30:35):
Technology coverage area.

Speaker 14 (01:30:36):
We get lots of free stuff, you know, and you're
you're constantly getting samples somethink my house looks like Best
Buy sometimes, and but it gives you an opportunity to
play with the technology and evaluated. And it's, you know,
one of the most exciting things I've done in my career.

Speaker 1 (01:30:50):
Because if an analyst says, oh, this is great, this
is the next best thing, it's kind of like a
journalist giving a good review.

Speaker 2 (01:30:55):
It's like, oh, this is something want So I hate
to use.

Speaker 14 (01:30:58):
That word influencer, but I guess I am an influencer.
I hate that, but because it's too it's just twenty
twenty five ish. But you know, I am sure.

Speaker 13 (01:31:09):
You know, you get a lot.

Speaker 14 (01:31:10):
Of inquiries from from your listeners, from your TV appearances.

Speaker 13 (01:31:14):
I get every time I do something on.

Speaker 14 (01:31:16):
ABC News or a network news channel, or I'm sure
I'll get, you know, emails appearing on your radio show.

Speaker 13 (01:31:22):
Mark, you know, do you really mean what you wrote about?

Speaker 8 (01:31:25):
Is it?

Speaker 13 (01:31:25):
Are you really giving up your Apple iPhone?

Speaker 14 (01:31:29):
And in this particular case, you know, the the publication
I wrote on Tech Newsworld, it is a great, great publication.
The editor there why we're very close relationship with he
encourages me to write on things that are a bit controversial,
and I try.

Speaker 13 (01:31:43):
To be fair, I try to be balanced.

Speaker 14 (01:31:45):
And this one was a hard one for me, rich
because I've been in the Apple ecosystem for more than
a decade, you know. I mean, I bought the first
Apple iPhone that came out in two thousand and seven,
and I you know, I drank the kool aid, so
to speak, and I really fell in love with it.

Speaker 13 (01:32:00):
And it was hard.

Speaker 14 (01:32:01):
You know, you you excited some things earlier before I
came on your show that you know, you know, I've
been getting these Samsung phones regularly, and you know, what
is it going to take for me to you know,
to move off the schneid, so to speak. And you know,
the the S twenty five Ultra and the S twenty
five Standard one, but I'm the one I'm I compared.

Speaker 13 (01:32:20):
It to is the Ultra.

Speaker 14 (01:32:21):
It's a great phone, you know, and and it's it's
i mean harder and harder to find reasons that well,
why do why do I want to stay in the
Apple ecosystem?

Speaker 13 (01:32:29):
And we'll we'll talk about that.

Speaker 1 (01:32:30):
Yeah, Well that that's the thing, is like there's always
some little thing that kind of kept me back. And
this year is really the first year where I'm like,
I'm turning to the Samsung much more than the iPhone
because it's just it's kind of fun. I mean, Samsung
has always thrown a lot of features at the wall
and and kind of some stick, some don't. But what
was sort of the main thing for you? What was
the thing that, like you started using the Samsung, You're like, no,

(01:32:53):
I want to stick with this.

Speaker 13 (01:32:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (01:32:54):
Really, the main thing is is that the camera capability,
both video and image photography is is stunning.

Speaker 13 (01:33:00):
You know.

Speaker 14 (01:33:01):
Not to say that the Apple iPhone sixteen Pro isn't
it isn't a very solid phone, Apple, I'm sorry. Samsung
has always had a pretty good lever in that space
because of their technology with sensors and uh, They've got
this great relationship with Qualcomm. I think I saw you
at the Qualcom event last time I saw you, and
they are really the magic the technology ingreading behind the scenes.

(01:33:23):
And and not to say that Apple Silicon isn't great.
Qualcomm has done a fantastic job of really you know,
rising to the occasion with its latest Snapdragon technology. They're
playing a great role now as you know, in PCs
kind of you know, reshaping that category.

Speaker 13 (01:33:39):
But for me, it was really the camera capability, uh,
the RCS cable. It's funny that you reference that.

Speaker 14 (01:33:45):
Now, there is a downside of of going through the
using a a Android phone when you're using a I'm sorry,
a Apple iPhone when you're using it with a Windows
PC and we'll talk.

Speaker 2 (01:33:58):
Yeah, that's the thing is. It's like, I mean, that's
a bummer.

Speaker 13 (01:34:01):
Practically, that's a big bummer for me. It's a big bump.

Speaker 1 (01:34:03):
Well, here's look, at the end of the day, Apple
doesn't really do anything to make their products easier to
use with any other products, whereas in the tech world,
and you know this, the whole beauty of tech is
like interoperability, right, Like the whole thing is like things
should work together. And that's the problem is like Apple
is amazing if you have a MacBook or an iPad

(01:34:23):
and an iPhone, it's an incredible cohesive ecosystem AirPods. But
as soon as you try to like mix and match,
it's like, oh, that doesn't work.

Speaker 13 (01:34:31):
Oh that great is exactly the problem.

Speaker 14 (01:34:34):
And the problem is is for that joy of operating
the Apple ecosystem, they extract the premium and when you
go out and buy a MacBook Pro or a MacBook Air,
you know, let's face it. I mean I regularly get
a MacBook Pro every time they rev v models because
I use it for video editing and things like that.
And you're paying for the five thousand dollars where you

(01:34:56):
can get a comparable Windows PC gel and a p
and a number of others make very very fine qualcom
Snapdragon based PCs and others. I had mentioned Intel, but
that's a different story.

Speaker 2 (01:35:08):
That's a whole other story.

Speaker 14 (01:35:09):
Yeah, but the fact of the matter is you can
get into into the Windows.

Speaker 13 (01:35:13):
The Windows ecosystem is a lot more affordable.

Speaker 14 (01:35:15):
And that frustrates me because to your point, Apple, it
doesn't have to be that way. But remember which everything
that Apple does, and I suspect I'm an old marketing guy.
If I was Greg Joswiak or one of the big
scene of leaders at Apple, I probably would do everything
I can to keep you in the ecosystem.

Speaker 2 (01:35:35):
Yeah, that's been on record.

Speaker 1 (01:35:37):
That's you know, that's why I Message is not available
as an app on any other platform. You know, it's
like people stick to Apple because they've got their eye
messages in there. And again, yes, it's gotten easier with RCS,
but it's still you know, it's a blue bubble thing,
it's an ecosystem thing.

Speaker 13 (01:35:52):
But still that's the same thing.

Speaker 14 (01:35:53):
And truth be told because I'm sure there will be
people that will email Mark there.

Speaker 13 (01:35:56):
There are solutions to.

Speaker 14 (01:35:57):
Allow you to use text message Apple text messaging on
a Windows PC. The reality is they're all kluegy, They're
all they all attached to Bluetooth.

Speaker 13 (01:36:06):
You got to sink it and everything.

Speaker 14 (01:36:08):
It's not as clean and seamless as the Apple experienced.

Speaker 1 (01:36:11):
But you said you miss eye mess in your article.
You said you miss eye message, you missed air drop.

Speaker 13 (01:36:16):
Yes, that is true. That is true.

Speaker 14 (01:36:18):
And anybody who uses large video files like you and
I do, that air drop features a very cool feature.
You know, you could just be you could be a
hotel room and as long as it recognizes that Apple
device in your room, you can transfer that file very
very quickly.

Speaker 1 (01:36:31):
Yeah, what about this the low key perk you mentioned,
the wireless power share.

Speaker 14 (01:36:39):
I think that's an I think that's an interesting benefit
and I and it's interesting because you know, the challenge
that Apples had with iPhones has been battery life now
I've gotten Obviously, if you get the if you get
the Pro Max, that has the larger battery, and you're
going to get really really good battery life. But if
you use these sixteen the non either the sixteen or

(01:36:59):
the sixteen Pro, the smaller format, that's going to have
a smaller battery, and you're probably not going to get
the battery life that you'd like. Now, Samsung I think
has done I mean, what's your point of view. I
think Samsung has done a really good job in the
battery life department.

Speaker 1 (01:37:12):
I mean, look, I think that the the S twenty
five I gave a glowing review this year. I mean
I really said, like, the only thing keeping people from
this phone is really if they are just an iPhone
die hard. And let's be honest. You know, it used
to be the whole thing was like should I go
iPhone or Android? And now it's the market has matured
so much that I don't see as many people wanting

(01:37:34):
to switch because they're so heavily invested and in one
ecosystem or the other. And so I think it's really
tough for these companies to even get people to switch
at this point. And I think both have their pros
and cons.

Speaker 2 (01:37:46):
I mean, they really do.

Speaker 1 (01:37:47):
Yeah, And I think you know, you said that the
one UI was excellent. It's more customizable. But Apple, you know,
they have all the apps, they have all the accessories
that are just you know, everywhere.

Speaker 14 (01:37:57):
Yeah, I mean, I mean, I mean from that perspective,
I mean, that was kind of the joyous thing when
I made the transfer. When I made the transfer, you know,
Samsung does a pretty good job of moving your data
from an iPhone to the new Samsung.

Speaker 13 (01:38:10):
I was delighted with that.

Speaker 14 (01:38:11):
I couldn't find an app that I was using on
the iPhone that was not available on the on the
Samsung Android platform. Now, I will point out something that
it's a little bit of an inside baseball thing.

Speaker 13 (01:38:22):
You know, I've got a significant other who lives in.

Speaker 14 (01:38:25):
Northern LA area, and she's got a couple of teenage daughters.
You know, I don't think I could extract an iPhone
from a private iPhone from her because she probably provides
tech support for her kids, and she does, and she
does not want to have to deal with well how
do you do this? And an A on a Samsung
phone or a non Samsung Samsung Android phone.

Speaker 13 (01:38:47):
So there is some.

Speaker 14 (01:38:48):
Benefit to that. There always has been. But I would
say that if you do want to make the plunge,
you know, and make that transfer and jump into the
non Apple ecosystem that is Samsung, I would recommend people
stay with all Samsung phones because even though Android phones
in theory rich as you know, are supposed to have
a somewhat common look and feel.

Speaker 13 (01:39:08):
You know, if you buy an Android phone from Huawei,
you buy.

Speaker 14 (01:39:10):
A phone, a phone, a not a Samsung phone, but
a non Samsung Android phone.

Speaker 13 (01:39:16):
All those phone OEMs.

Speaker 14 (01:39:17):
Are going to try to add their a little you know,
secret sauce to make the interface a little bit different
and a little bit you know, more compelling, and that
creates confusion, you know, that's happens.

Speaker 1 (01:39:28):
Yeah, and I agree, and I and I do tell
people that. I say, look, if your friends and family
have one, it's an easy way to ask for help,
is you know, if they already know what they're doing
on it. All right, Mark, We're gonna have to leave
it there. The website for Mark is smart tech research
dot net, smart tech research dot net. Real quick, I
got thirty seconds. Has anyone giving you a little bit

(01:39:48):
of issue at your green bubbles?

Speaker 13 (01:39:50):
Yes, I do that. But the reality is I think
people do understand. I mean, but there is a thing
out there. As you know, when.

Speaker 14 (01:39:59):
People see the bubbles you automatically, well, you know that
you're not You're not an Apple US.

Speaker 13 (01:40:03):
There's kind of a how it feels in the McCoy's
by default.

Speaker 1 (01:40:06):
Apple did that on purpose. That's that's the thing. Just
send them the article. Just send them the link to
the article.

Speaker 13 (01:40:10):
Mark, but it's a good world.

Speaker 1 (01:40:13):
Mark Vina smart techresearch dot net. Thanks for joining me
today talk about iPhone versus Samsung.

Speaker 13 (01:40:19):
Hey, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:40:20):
Rich All right, coming up, we are going to open
up the feedbag. It is overflowing this week. We'll see
how many of these messages from you we can get to.

Speaker 2 (01:40:31):
Right here, I'm rich on Tech.

Speaker 6 (01:40:33):
Than you.

Speaker 1 (01:40:36):
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Time for the feedbag segment.
This is your feedback plus the mail bag, the emails,
the comments, and the questions I get from you. If
you want to submit yours, just go to rich on
Tech dot tv hit contact and yes you do that
many many times per week. I do read all of
your emails. I may not be able to respawn to

(01:40:56):
all of them or share all of them. Here, but
believe me, it gets to me for better or for worse.
Leo from the Laptop Elf Project writes in great show,
I think it's helpful to separate voice typing, dictation, and transcription.
They each serve different needs for most basic tasks like
email or filling in text fields. The built in dictation
tools in Windows, Mac and Chrome are simple and work great.

(01:41:18):
On Windows, Press Win plus h to launch voice access.
On Mac, go to System Settings Keyboard dictation to turn
it on and set a shortcut. And on Chrome go
to Settings Accessibility, Keyboard and text Input toggle on dictation.
These don't have those fancy AI features you were talking about,
but they get the job done without needing any extra software.

(01:41:40):
Keep up the good work, thank you, Leo. Tony from
Oshkosh writes in after listening on WTAQ, when you were
mentioning Fax machines, you missed the mark a bit when
they came into use. The US Army was using them
regularly in the late nineteen seventies. Massive machines impractical for
most civilians unless you had serious mind honey. Fun fact,

(01:42:01):
Fax technology actually started in eighteen forty three, and by
eighteen eighty eight you could fax the signature. This will
be on the test, so make a note of it.
Thanks Tony. I was saying all that tech when I
did the nostalgia tech when I came across it, not
when it started.

Speaker 2 (01:42:15):
But thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:42:16):
Scott from Battlecreek, Michigan. Listening on thirteen twenty Wils writes in,
I was listening to your show and I heard your
discussion about saving bank or credit union statements. I'm low tech.
I still get my mailed to me. I once asked
how far bank how far back I could access statements
if needed. They told me only three years. I've had
to check statements older than that, so I'm glad I

(01:42:38):
kept the paper copies. Your listeners might want to ask
their banks or credit unions how far back they can go.
It might surprise them. And yes, Scott, great, Yes, great tip.
Because my one of my bank accounts only goes back
like one hundred and eighty days or something. It's very short. Again,
I guess it's less for them to keep. Diane writes in,
I'm listening to your pot cast for the second time.

(01:43:01):
I don't want to miss a thing. I wanted to
share how I back up my credit cards in case
they're lost or stolen. I make a copy of the
front and the back of each card, especially since the
back has the important phone numbers to call. I keep
that paper in a safe place just in case. Diane,
that is a great tip I do that. I actually
used to do this once a year. Photo copy everything

(01:43:21):
in your wallet, so all of your cards front and back,
and your driver's license and your passport, and that way,
if anything ever gets lost or stolen, you have an
easy way to recover it, or at least start on
the path of recovery. But great, great thing to do,
also very smart to do before you go on a
big trip. Photocopy your wallet. Put a copy of that,

(01:43:42):
maybe in your suitcase, obviously somewhere safe. Andrew from Oakland
writes in I've been a tech listener on KFI, going
all the way back to Jeff Levy, and I can't
tell you how much I enjoy your show. You strike
the right balance of tech info and nostalgia. How it
all fits into our lives is what really makes your
show stand out. During today's show, I guess this was

(01:44:03):
last week your story about the evolution of how we
consume media, from Walkman's to CDs really hit home. I
live for music and work in entertainment, and it instantly
brought back memories of my own tech milestones, my first
portable CD player, the Rio, which I also had I
forgot to mention that last week, and eventually the iPod.
I even have a little museum of all those devices.
And yes, I still have that very first CD player.

(01:44:25):
It doesn't work, and I'm glad I kept it.

Speaker 2 (01:44:28):
Great show.

Speaker 1 (01:44:28):
Thank you from an avid listener. Well, thank you, Andrew.
That means a lot. Stephen Marsha writ in my rich
my wife and I watch you each morning on TV.
We have learned so much. Thank you well, Steven Marsha,
thank you for watching. It sounds like I'm doing what
I set out to do. And Aaron writes in do
you noticees get nicer as they go along?

Speaker 2 (01:44:50):
I order them that way.

Speaker 1 (01:44:51):
Bud about to say that, yeah, they get nicer as
we go along. Aaron writes in, I've learned a lot
from listening to your program and find you much more
enjoyable to listen to, much more enjoyable than what I
don't know. Maybe the competition everything from knowledge about the
newest and greatest gadget to the nitty gritty of how

(01:45:11):
to fix something. You walk people through a situation, giving
them a confidence that they can do it, when on
the other side, we're afraid to make a move for
fear of messing things up. Even more, thank you again,
Erin Erin. That is my goal is to give you
that confidence. You're not going to break something, You're not
gonna mess something up. So many people are afraid of
just like using their technology, because something is gonna break

(01:45:34):
or get broke, just whatever. So many things that people
are scared of. And my whole job is to make
this stuff seem fun and enjoyable. And so if you're
not trying to break stuff, you're not using your gadgets enough.
So definitely try to break things. Um, okay, we oh,
we have one more. Let's see here. Victor from Ermont.

(01:45:57):
I just discovered your show on wo and I'm hooked.
Thank you, Victor, I love it. We just added an
affiliate in New York City, as you know WR seven ten,
and people have been finding us there on Sunday nights
and we do appreciate it because that is where I'm from.
I'm from New Jersey and so being on in New
York City has been a lifelong dream of mine and

(01:46:20):
I'm glad that we're resonating with the show there. We've
got so much more on the website rich on tech
dot tv. If you're not subscribed to my newsletter, please
find me there. Subscribe to the newsletter. We've got almost
forty five thousand of you getting the newsletter every weekend
and just enjoying that version. It's kind of a version
of this show. You can find links everything I mentioned

(01:46:41):
on my website. Just go to rich on tech dot tv.
You can find me on social media. I am at
you guessed it. Rich on tech Next week we're going
to talk to Joel Santo Domingo of The Wirecutter. He's
going to break down mesh networking, what it is, why
it matters, and the best systems to buy. If you
want better Wi Fi in your home.

Speaker 2 (01:47:01):
That's going to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:47:02):
Thanks so much for listening. I know there are so
many ways you can spend your time. I really do
appreciate you spending it right here with me. Thanks to
everyone who makes this show possible. We've got Bobo on
the board, We've got Kim on the phones, We've got
you listening, and me of course.

Speaker 2 (01:47:17):
My name is rich Demiro. I will talk to you
real soon. We'll do it again next week, all right,

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