Ask the Tech Guys 2013 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

00:00 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Well, hey, hey, hey. It's time for Ask the Tech Guys. I'm Leo Laporte Coming up.

00:05 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
We take a ride in Dicti Bartolo's pirate ship bedroom Arrgh, and I'm Mike, a Sergeant, and we answer the question is it a good idea to store passwords in multiple locations and then?

00:18 - Leo Laporte (Host)
where do you put the antenna in the attic? If you don't have an attic, it's coming up next on Ask the Tech Guys Podcasts you love From people you trust.

00:30
This is Tweet. This is Ask the Tech Guys with Mike a Sergeant and Leo Laporte, episode 2013,. Recorded Sunday, february 25, 2024. Leoville on the moon. This episode of Ask the Tech Guys is brought to you by Wix Studio.

00:52
All right debate time. Who gets more out of Wix Studio Designers or developers? Well, first of all, if you don't know about Wix Studio, it's the web platform offering the flexibility agencies and enterprises need to deliver bespoke sites hyper-efficiently. But back to the debate. For designers, there's lots to recommend it. You can create fully responsive websites. You start with a blank canvas or choose a template for any layout. You could tweak per pixel with your CSS and if no code, you think, oh man, or you'd just like to move fast.

01:27
There are a ton of smart features, like native no-code animations and responsive AI that adjusts every breakpoint. I mean that is really great. For Devs, wix Studio is really great. It offers a powerful suite of homegrown web APIs and REST APIs so you can quickly integrate, extend and write custom scripts in a VS code-based IDE, alongside an AI code assistant, of course. Plus, it's all wrapped in rock solid auto-maintained infrastructure. So really, wix Studio is both. It can do both AI that writes your code or fixes your breakpoints. Fully responsive editor or a zero setup Dev environment. No code animations or well, no code animations. Everybody likes that, designers or developers. It's up to you. Search Wix Studio and find out for yourself. Go to wixcom slash studio or click on the link on the show page to find out more. We thank Wix so much for supporting us. The tech guy is now on with the show. Well, hey, hey, hey. How are you today? I'm great. How are you?

02:30 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It's my costargeant as I live and breathe. There's Leo Laporte, as I die and don't breathe.

02:36 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I don't know what the opposite is. That's very grim.

02:38 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Live and breathe, die as I live and breathe and suffocate. That is a funny phrase, isn't? It.

02:42 - Leo Laporte (Host)
As I live and breathe, as I live and breathe. That's what happens when you get old, like me you start saying old-isms.

02:48 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
As I live and breathe.

02:50 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Well, good, lord willing, and the creeks don't rise. And in fact the creeks were rising, but we made it through the floods, thank goodness. And.

02:58 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
AHA 2 by 2.

03:00 - Leo Laporte (Host)
2 by 2 and NOAA together are back in charge. This is the show we answered, where we have terrible digressions and then we answer your technology questions at 888-724-2884.

03:14 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
That is the phone number that you could call If you're calling during the show. It's very important that when you are brought on stage, you press the characters star or asterisk and six to unmute yourself when you're brought on. If you call during the week, while we're not doing the show, you can leave a voicemail that we will happily answer on the show. You can also add to calltwittv in a browser of your choice. That will connect you to a Zoom room where you will hang out and be able to ask your question.

03:43
We suggest doing it from a mobile device because you'll have that webcam and the microphone built right in, but we've got a lot of folks who call in from their computers and that's fine for them as well. The one thing we ask is that you look on your screen. It's going to probably be at the bottom somewhere for a little hand icon and typically it'll say raise hand below it. If you have a question, please click or tap that button so that your hand is raised and you let us know that you do indeed have a question. You're not just hanging out, because we do have some folks who just like to hang out, which is fine. Lastly, you can email us atgtwittv and send in your audio, your video or your text-based questions.

04:24 - Leo Laporte (Host)
By the way, I'm just admiring your socks. I know you hate this part of the show everybody, but we're going to do it anyway. I'm wearing normal weird socks. You are wearing kind of funny socks because they have pink flamingos on them, but they're gray. But they're gray, yes, so it's kind of like a visual pun.

04:41 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It is a little bit. The heel and the toe are flamingo pink. You can't see that, but the flamingos themselves are gray. They're crypto flamingos. It's like the color drained down into the bottom of the sock.

04:54 - Leo Laporte (Host)
See, you can get so much pleasure out of those tube-like devices you put on your feet to protect yourself from shoes. I was watching Drive to Survive Formule 1's coming back in about a well, march 2, soon a week and that means Netflix released its episodic reality show about Formule 1 from last year called Drive to Survive, which I highly recommend. A fifth or sixth season, I don't care, I don't remember. Anyway, it's getting a lot of people in the US into Formule 1 auto racing. But they did a whole episode on the Aston Martin team, which I'm kind of a fan of, alonso because he's the oldest guy, oldest driver. He's almost I don't know, he's over 40s, 43 or something but they focused on the and his partner's, lance Stroll, the son of the owner of the team, and this is a long way around to say. They constantly shown him and he's very, very wealthy billionaire Doesn't wear socks. It's like, dude, you can afford socks.

05:55 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
What are his shoes, though?

05:57 - Leo Laporte (Host)
They're just like loafers without socks, and I think that's disgusting.

06:01 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Well, loafers technically.

06:02 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Maybe he's wearing little pads. Sometimes you wear those socks.

06:04 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Might be wearing those, but that's really weird.

06:06 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Why Is it something about your ankle that you think is so attractive?

06:10 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
No, it's, it's a, it is a style, it's a style.

06:14 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I know it's a rich person style, yeah, richest guy I ever knew personally, also a billionaire with where they want his ratty shoes. It was intentional, I convinced, to show that he was like one of the men of the team. So, speaking of the people, at&t had a little problem, a little bit of a problem. Yesterday, or a day before yesterday, they were out. I got my Nixle alert. You know we have our local police alert system saying hey, don't call 911., it's out, it won't work. Great Love that AT&T, the cell network, the, the, the, the nationwide cell network famous so far for so long. It got so much AT&T was my bell. They got so many concessions from the federal government about their monopoly because they would preserve the network, it would be the most reliable network. Well, no longer true. Right From 4 30 am Eastern to 4 pm Eastern, nearly 12 hours no AT&T. That's wild. Is anybody AT&T here? This guy?

07:14 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Did you? Was your phone out, so I use Wi-Fi calling. Ah, so you didn't even notice, so I didn't notice until I got the Nixle alert. And then I got an email from AT&T saying use Wi-Fi calling.

07:26 - Leo Laporte (Host)
But so does 911 work on Wi-Fi? I guess it would.

07:30 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It does so. Whenever you set up Wi-Fi calling you actually, you're taken to a portal where you have to put in your address Address, yeah, and so then they use that. But what was interesting I think that kind of went along with this is that many of the other carriers on the different third party sites that report when things are down, they also started to show outages, and it turned out that what was happening is that people on T-Mobile, people on Verizon, were trying to get in touch with people on AT&T. Oh, they weren't able to get in touch with them. Their service was out too.

08:03 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So then they were reporting that it was out. I saw those reports like it's all down. No, it's just AT&T. No, it was just AT&T. Thursday Got the day wrong Thursday. Weird, isn't it Now, by the way, department of Homeland Security and the FBI both investigating, but AT&T says no, it wasn't bad actors, because that's the first thing I think.

08:20 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, you're like oh, they're being d-dust. What's happening? Hackers? It wasn't bad actors.

08:23 - Leo Laporte (Host)
They said it was a result of well, they got a weird phrase that they used. We love those, right, and I didn't really like the phrase Wiggle phrases. What was it? It was so funny. The outage was not a cyber attack but caused by quote the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network. I don't even think that's correct English. I don't even know what that means. The application I mean that's the intent, right, it's obfuscating. Yeah, exactly, the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network. See how they even got that little bit of like we were expanding the network. Yeah, exactly, you got to add in the explanation.

09:14 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
So that's all code for someone, or someone's messed up.

09:17 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Somebody. Yeah, clearly somebody messed up.

09:20 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Or somebody, maybe many people, that wasn't supposed to be.

09:22 - Leo Laporte (Host)
We don't know. I'm sure Steve Gibson will address this on Tuesday in Security. Now Most people have interpreted that as a software error, but that may not be. One of the things that causes this often is something called BGP routing, and it's happened in the past. The entire internet for a while was routed through a small ISP in Norway or something. These things happened, so it could have been something with a routing error. Some WAG speculated that there was a certificate that expired on a machine that hasn't been used in a decade and they fired the guy who knew where the machine was and how it worked eight years ago and it just never broke until now, and that could be it too.

10:09 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I feel like that's how everything runs secretly. I'm convinced it's all just some machine somewhere that we don't know about. I mean all the processes.

10:16 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Well, it's obvious the application and execution of incorrect processes is they were expanding their network. That's what happened.

10:22 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, that's what I'm. If I'm ever taken to court for anything, that's what I'll say to the judge.

10:27 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Sources from the ABC, not the Australian Broadcast Corporation I don't think. I think it's the American Broadcast Corporation says that it was a software update. Their sources say it was a software update that went wrong. No external actor was involved. It was incompetence, not conspiracy. But you can see why ATT doesn't really want to say that either. Yeah, exactly.

10:47 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Because then you're going wait, so a software update could make me not be able to call 911? Yes, and people don't want to think about that. Yes, you don't want to believe that that's the difference between getting in touch with emergency services or not. We're all hanging by a thread. Yes, that's really. I mean genuinely.

11:05 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That is something that we have to remember in some cases, which is why I'm very glad that the entire corpus of everything we know is now on the moon. Ba ba, ba ba.

11:19 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Did you see this? I did not realize that that was part of this. I have to tell you I'm not a don't tell Rod Pyle, I'm not a big space guy. Rod has made me more of a space guy than I've ever been, but I didn't really know what was going on with this. So tell me more.

11:31 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So it was kind of a fascinating story. Spacex launched this private satellite or private lander, really the intuitive machines I am one. I'm sure, John, you followed this, Because we haven't put any lunar lander on the moon in how many? 30 years, A long time.

11:48 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Since Apollo and they've been trying, private companies have been trying, but it's just messing up the thing was coming in.

11:53 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It was actually a great story. Maybe Rod will tell us this whole thing at some point. But the lander's coming in and they realized that somebody had, back at the home office, when they launched it, forgot to turn on An incorrect process the landing cameras. So then they're scrambling because they can't see to land right. So it turns out there are a number of scientific missions on this and there was one that was using, I think, LiDAR, and it was intended for them.

12:22
They're quickly coding no way and they turn it on and they're quickly sending code and uploading it quickly before you land here and they were able to land it With the LiDAR.

12:32 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
That's amazing yeah.

12:34 - Leo Laporte (Host)
There's a private company hired by NASA, but it is a private. It's private Anyway, but unfortunately it tripped the. Lidar tripped, it tripped. So it's a normal looking lunar lander, although it looks kind of tall. But apparently its legs were widespread anyway, so it looked a little top heavy, I have to say, in the pictures in the press conference.

12:54 - Jeremy (Caller)
But apparently as it was coming in.

12:55 - Leo Laporte (Host)
There was a rock they didn't know was there and it hit it. So it's sideways.

13:00 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
And it's still sideways Because it doesn't have some sort of arm to.

13:03 - Leo Laporte (Host)
No, it can't get up.

13:05 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
So it's falling when I pick it up.

13:07 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Thank you, so it's sideways, but it still works right. Yeah, it's still sending stuff back. I don't know if you can get all the payloads off the part that's on the ground is an artwork.

13:19 - Jeremy (Caller)
Oh OK, All the payloads run the other three sides, Plus there's a solar panel on the side that's facing up.

13:25 - Leo Laporte (Host)
OK, oh good. So they've got energy, They've got transmission. It's weak and it's still. But here, I didn't know this. This is cool. On the IM-1 Intuitive Machines, lunar Lander is a sheet, many sheets, of nickel nano-fiche called the Lunar Library. We've tried several times to do this. It blew up a couple of times, but we got it there. So on the moon now, thanks to Galactic Legacy Labs and the Luna Prize mission, is the Lunar Library a backup of human knowledge that will now sit on the moon, untouchable, forever. That's cool, see, if you think about it. Say, there's a calamity on Earth and we all lose all our knowledge, we're going to have to figure out how to get back to the moon to get it, which means it's a test in and of itself.

14:20 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It's there, so what did?

14:21 - Leo Laporte (Host)
they put up there, which is I think this is really cool. We had I don't know if you remember on Twig on Thursday we had a wonderful, or Wednesday we had a wonderful guest, molly White, who is one of the editorial advisors to Wikipedia. We thanked her profusely for her. I think 15 years she'd been working on that Wikipedia for free as a volunteer.

14:40
So, the entire English Wikipedia, all six million articles, is on the moon. Take that eighth grade teachers, who won't let you use Wikipedia for research. Project Gutenberg is on the moon. That's the project to get all the public domain works into plain text so you can download 70,000 eBooks All public domain stuff. Obviously, the Long Now Foundation's Rosetta project, which is an archive of 7,000 human languages Wow, so that I don't know. So that if the moon men find it, they can talk to us. I don't know. Selections, selections, a sampling of the internet, archives, collection of books and important documents and data sets. I really hope that the first, leoville, is on the moon. I'm just saying my first website, anyway, seti Institutes Earthling Project, featuring a musical compilation of 10,000 vocal submissions representing. I bet you never going to give you a oh please.

15:38 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I hope so.

15:39 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I've got to let you down I hope that's up there the Arch Lunar Art Archive I guess that's what's on its face down A collection of works from global and contemporary digital artists recorded as NFTs. Oh well, why? Hey, they're on the moon now, moonbirds. This is really the big. Why, though, david Copperfield's magic secrets? The secrets to all of his greatest illusions, including how he'll make the moon disappear in the near future? This sounds like an ad, that, yeah. And by the way, what does somebody so say? Some future civilization finds us. They don't know it. Which is more important, david Copperfield's magic secrets or Wikipedia?

16:20 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
They don't know.

16:20 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh my goodness, they figure it must be pretty important. They put it on the moon.

16:23 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
They think, yeah, we are a world of illusionists.

16:26 - Leo Laporte (Host)
They think David Copperfield, you know what I think.

16:29 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
We're galactic leaders.

16:30 - Leo Laporte (Host)
They think he was the galactic leader and he was a fraud. Yes, he was a liar, but he couldn't help put all of his secrets there, where no one could see them.

16:41 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Oh my god, that's amazing. The leader hid his secrets on the moon and why David Copperfield?

16:47 - Leo Laporte (Host)
He's not even our best magician. I know he's our richest magician. What a choice, but Penn and Teller would have been better. Anyway, the arch mission primer, which teaches a million concepts with images and words in five languages, I just want to see that Is. Can I go somewhere? Why can't I just download this?

17:04 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
myself. I want to yeah.

17:05 - Leo Laporte (Host)
The arch mission private library millions of pages of books, documents and articles on every subject fiction, nonfiction, textbooks, periodicals, audio recordings, videos. This is, I guess, like all the copyrighted stuff that they couldn't get from somewhere else. And then the mission vaults, which are private collections, including collections from advisors and partners, and a collection of important texts and images from all the world's religions. So this is a massive thing. Now it is. First of all, this is ridiculous. It's etched into thin sheets of nickel. It was built to last for four billion years. Well, until the sun eats us. Who's going to read this?

17:48
Anyway, I'm glad they did it. It's kind of cool. It is very cool, says. This is the medium post by a Nova Spivek who worked on the mission. This is their third attempt to launch the arch missions. 30 million page lunar library. He says we can guarantee that civilization on Earth will never be lost. Well, actually I probably will, I need to tell you, but anyway it's there. That's really cool. It's like when we sent Vigeraat Voyager out with the disk that Carl Sagan made of songs and languages and live long and prosper and stuff. So I think it's cool. John is going to say something now For alien anthropologists, if they can read it well, that's the thing it's just as likely to look at it and go, ah, that's pretty. I mean, how are they going to know?

18:43 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Anyway, yeah, Well, obviously they have universal translators, Leo.

18:48 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh, oh, the Klingons, they're going to be able to read it. No problem, we're going to take a little ad break and then, when we come back, more of this we're going to actually answer some questions. Please, I beg of you, and please, please, I'm sorry, you know what?

19:03 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
First of all, how dare you?

19:04 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That's the first question I live a solitary, lonely life in my little bubble.

19:10 - Kevin (Caller)
Advent of God.

19:11 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I don't know nobody. I don't talk to nobody. Once a week I get to sit next to a human and talk. Once a week I've been saving this up all week.

19:21
All right, we'll be right back after this. This episode brought to you by Robinhood. Did you know that even if you have a 401K for retirement, you can still have an IRA? Robinhood is the only IRA that gives you a 3% boost on every dollar you contribute when you subscribe to Robinhood Gold. But get this Now. Through April 30, robinhood is even boosting every single dollar you transfer in from other retirement accounts with a 3% match. That's right. No cap on the 3% match. Robinhood Gold gets you the most for your retirement thanks to their IRA with a 3% match. This offer is good through April 30. Get started at robinhoodcom. Slash boost Subscription fees apply Now for some legal info.

20:06
Claim as of Q1 2024, validated by Radius Global Market Research. Investing involves risk, including loss. Limitations apply to IRAs and 401Ks. 3% match requires Robinhood Gold for one year from the date of first 3% match. Must keep Robinhood IRA for five years. The 3% matching on transfers is subject to specific terms and conditions. Robinhood IRA available to US customers in good standing. Robinhood Financial LLC. Member SIPC is a registered broker dealer. I guess it's called now right, by the way, boy producer. I could call him that. Now he's not here, so you have to, and Ashley's not here Anthony Nielsen filling in. He's a man's man, thank you, yeah, oh, listen to that voice, mr Nielsen. Who should we speak with first?

20:57 - Kevin (Caller)
year. Let's go with Kevin I Kevin.

21:00 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I, I, I, I sir, there he is, hi, kevin from. Vegas. How are you?

21:06 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I recognize Kevin.

21:08 - Kevin (Caller)
We can't hear there we go Retired musician from Las Vegas. Yes, sir, expat from the Bay Area.

21:14 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I want to see this. I live in an eye world. Where'd you get that?

21:19 - Kevin (Caller)
That was at a Mackerel convention many moons ago. Since they haven't had them for a while now, yeah, many moons ago. Yeah, and that was the reason I was going to do a little show and tell, because you had mentioned, of course, the last month, when the 40th anniversary of the Mack, and you mentioned the revolution in the Valley, the book by Andy Hertzfeld.

21:41 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Which I bought and I left it on. I should have brought it in. I have it. It's a beautiful book.

21:46 - Kevin (Caller)
And I have it, and I also have it. Have to show you if I can do this right. Yes, oh there we go.

21:54 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh, you got a signature. Bye.

21:57 - Kevin (Caller)
Andy Hertzfeld's signature. I got to meet him and talk with him for a little while. So a little brush with fame there, and he's one of the sweetest people ever.

22:07 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh, it's definitely. I got an email from Bill Atkinson one of the other great people who's been on our shows many times saying you know you should come to the Computer History Museum for the event, and I never read my email and I saw it after the event, unfortunately. Sorry, bill, but thank you for the heads up, yeah pretty cool. I should mention for those listening I live. His teacher says I live in an eye world. Now Apple's online online thing service is called eWord eWorld right.

22:38 - Kevin (Caller)
Yeah, oh yeah. Way back when yeah, that was yeah, that's dating you, which also is the other thing. I was feeling nostalgic and looking at some of the YouTube videos of your old screensavers and so look at the wallpaper.

22:58 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
From call for help and screensavers.

23:01 - Kevin (Caller)
So also I have another one that you might be interested in.

23:05 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh yeah, there's Leo and the Leo avatar from the screensavers. That's funny I also have Megan.

23:12 - Kevin (Caller)
And yeah, I forgot who made those.

23:15 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I should give the person credit, but I don't remember the nose.

23:18 - Kevin (Caller)
No anyway, so feeling a little nostalgic about that.

23:23 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Somebody just told us Adam in the Discord told us that there is an illicit stream of screensavers and the lab with Leo and G4 shows Somebody's still running. It's called 4GTVstream. I should probably not say that out loud. It should be kept secret.

23:40 - Kevin (Caller)
Well, there are a bunch of them on YouTube, yeah also illicit.

23:46 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You know we tried. So NBC, so Tech TV was sold to Comcast, which then turned it into G4 TV and then eventually folded G4 TV. Comcast of course was NBC was of course universal, which was of course bought by Comcast. So Comcast owns the rights to all that stuff. And we approached them 10 years ago. Lisa had a lot of calls with them saying, because we know they have all of those shows in a storage facility in Los Angeles, saying that's got to be costing you money. By the way, they're on tape. They're not even on hard drive. I don't think maybe they are. She's got to be costing you money. We'd like to take those shows once a week show an old one, have the hosts come back and talk about it and maybe update it and we'll put ads in it and we'll share the revenue with you. And they said no. So everything that you see on YouTube and on this 4GTV stream is but I think NBC at this point they don't really care. I mean that stuff's 20 years old.

24:56 - Kevin (Caller)
Who cares? There's so many interesting old tech you were talking about on this one, I think it's fun yeah, Interesting to go see what you were talking about, which was at the time cutting edge, and so is really not at all. So it is interesting to watch those old shows.

25:15 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Well, I put a heart and soul into it. It has did hundreds of other people.

25:19 - Kevin (Caller)
I was really disappointed when you went off the air when the whole tech TV and all of that Imagine my disappointment.

25:29 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That was my living, but that's why we created. Twitter. Yeah, that's why we did this. It's not, it's the poor man's version, but we do it.

25:39 - Kevin (Caller)
The question I have actually probably is from Mike and more than you, but it's about the HomePod mini and can get some additional sounds for the alarms, because there's very limited for that. On the iPhone there seems to be a ton of different sounds and especially that really a horrible one that just will wake up the day. On the iPad or on the HomePod mini there's just very limited and it's very muted sounds. There's nothing like that'll really wake you up.

26:15 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, that's a good question. So you are, I assume, just speaking out loud to the device to say set an alarm.

26:27 - Kevin (Caller)
Right, yeah, I've gone into settings and they have some choices, but there's like four or five or six different alarms you can set on. Well, through your iPhone on the Home app.

26:40 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Right, you know this was on Amazon's Echo, but I wonder why Apple wouldn't offer this On the Echo. You could say wake me up at 6am by playing Rippling Waters by the Nitty Gritty dirt band, and that will set an alarm with that as the music. But that is of course Amazon's Echo.

26:58 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, this is a good question. I actually I've never tried to change the alarm. I have a feeling that this is something that you could achieve through. Well, almost certainly it's something that you can achieve through shortcuts, but as far as Really, yeah, yeah, yeah, because basically what you do is you'd set a time-based shortcut and you would say change the output of the audio to my HomePod at this time and then play this song or play whatever you know. You can even put a sound, you can encode the sound and then play it back.

27:32 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So here's an article from January of last year HomePod software 16.3. How to use ambient sounds in HomePod alarms, thanks to our ClubTwit Discord. So how do you do it? In the Home app on your iPhone or iPad, tap the HomePod you'd like to set up, scroll down to the alarm section, then tap New. After you've entered an alarm time, tap Play Media. Oh, there you go, play media. Then choose media and you can play ambient sounds.

28:06 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I wonder why it doesn't just give you access to play whatever sounds you want.

28:08 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You should be able to play anything in your library, right yeah, are you doing it right now? I'm looking at it and I don't see, it's just the ambient sounds Like having a crackling fireplace is not going to wake me up in the morning. You know what I'm saying Exactly, unless I think, oh, the house is burning down. Let me see Play media.

28:26 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Choose media. Oh yeah, I could play something from Apple Music, okay. So yeah, this is, you can play any audio.

28:32
Yeah, so basically and if we want to here, let me go ahead and share my screen. This is quite simple. We've talked about this before, I think on the show as well you can add anything that you want to your Apple Music Library. That's a sound. So if you wanted to, you could go online and find a sound that you wanted. I'm on AirPlay One, but basically what you do is you tap New Alarm and then here you would choose instead of play tone, you choose play media. You can use the current volume of that device or you can set a custom volume to say I want those to play at 100%, and then you choose media, and ambient sounds is something that Apple just makes available to you. But if you choose Apple Music, you can go to Browse, but if you go to Library, this can be stuff that you've added to your Apple Music Library. Or you can decide that you want to wake up every morning to Texas Hold'em by Beyonce, which is totally understandable. That's a good song.

29:25 - Leo Laporte (Host)
But a word of warning if you add it to your you know you play it a lot then Apple, from then on, is going to start offering you country music.

29:32 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Sure, that's a good point. Did you notice that I didn't think about that?

29:35 - Leo Laporte (Host)
All of a sudden we're listening in the car to like new music. It's all country.

29:39 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Oh, that's funny Because.

29:40 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Lisa can't stop playing Beyonce's new song, which is a great song. Okay, so you're adding new alarm and you can actually choose media for that new alarm. Very, nice.

29:49 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
So you kind of have to just if there's a specific sound that you'd like to have, just treat it as if it's music and drag it into your Apple Music Library. It'll sync between your devices. Then you could choose that, as you know the sound that you want.

30:04 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Also you can use, by the way, to make your own ringtone Exactly Yep Say more, say more. I like having. I have a. I was in my psychiatrist's office when it rang earlier this week. This is I have a lot of very weird ringtones. Let's see turn on the sound, but the one I like is you might like this also is a little nostalgic. That's a good ringtone. Yeah, it is. It's the twit, the twit theme. Yeah, for, for, for Lisa, I have this.

30:45 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I don't know why or this? That's good. That Rihanna song is about an abusive relationship, so no.

30:55 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I know, actually, you know it's funny. I never listened to past her singing oh, and then all of it is a Jay-Z who's coming on there, Eminem, eminem, oh, it's Eminem, that's right, and he's like whipping her with chains and I'm going wait a minute. That's not the song I meant, but I don't ever hear that part because it only plays Just Rihanna, rihanna's part, thank you. This is a good one for an alarm.

31:16 - Jeremy (Caller)
This Lisa hates this when I have this in my alarm.

31:20 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It starts with a big symbol. You know what it is. You picked it out right away. John knows what it is.

31:32 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
This is a great alarm, though it is, this would wake me up.

31:43 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And I do. I leap up and I put my arms in the air and I say it's me ready for the day. Lisa uses for her alarm it's crazy A ringtone for the phone. So when her alarm goes off I always think the phone is ringing. Oh no, you can do that. Yes, not recommended.

32:03 - Kevin (Caller)
Brother and I make sci-fi fans, so I have that sci-fi tone. I love that.

32:09 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, you could do the Twilight Zone theme. You could do all sorts of fun things. I like that fanfare for the common man Isn't that good, because it's well, it's an alarm.

32:21 - Kevin (Caller)
Yes, it gets you up Okay. Well that really answers the question, because I had seen that media but I hadn't thought that I could add. I thought that was music from the Apple one or Apple Music Plus. But you can actually add other things to your library and then, and then put it in there, okay, That'll be, that'll work.

32:48 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Wonderful to talk to you, yeah, and great question. Happy Mac anniversary. Yeah, well, I, yesterday was Steve Jobs 16. It would have been Steve Jobs 69th birthday, so that's that's a sad one, yeah.

33:02 - Kevin (Caller)
Yep, I don't know, but kind of hibernating because of all of the between the Formula One last year and the Super Bowl this last month, it's been a mess out here, so local have been staying at what and now I see NASCAR is coming.

33:20 - Leo Laporte (Host)
NASCAR has got a three day event in a couple of weeks or a week. So yeah, you live in Party Town, USA, Las Vegas, Nevada.

33:30 - Kevin (Caller)
And I'm I'm like being a homebody, because it's just nuts to get around the streets.

33:35 - Leo Laporte (Host)
We, we at least, and I've briefly considered retiring to Las Vegas just because there's always a party and we thought but what we were going to do was get a condo in one of the casinos up above it. So you just get in the elevator, you go downstairs and da, da, da da.

33:51 - Kevin (Caller)
Well, the church that I did some part time work as an organist is like a block from a Legion Stadium. Oh, wow, wow. So they asked me well, just before, a week before the Super Bowl, could you do the 12 o'clock mass on Super Bowl Sunday? You can imagine my one word answer.

34:11 - Leo Laporte (Host)
There's no way to get there.

34:12 - Kevin (Caller)
You'd have to walk. Yeah, I don't know why they didn't just cancel the masses. Yeah, because it was ridiculous.

34:19 - Leo Laporte (Host)
But you're you're lucky to live in a very fun town. That's especially for sports fans.

34:24 - Kevin (Caller)
A lot of good concerts, and definitely true, yeah.

34:27 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Have you seen anything in the sphere yet? Did you see you doing the sphere?

34:30 - Kevin (Caller)
No, that's a little pricey for me right now. I mean even I think it's like 60 or $70 just to see the show, let alone a concert.

34:40 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, yeah, they have a movie that plays there, yeah, I. I briefly went and looked at the Bono tickets and my credit card said no, no, no, no, not going to do it.

34:56 - Kevin (Caller)
So anyway, but yeah, I'll take advantage. I mean, the Smith Center has got a lot of concerts and shows and stuff, so that's wonderful, definitely. Yeah, not be a ref of opportunities to go over here, conquer and see plays and everything.

35:10 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So have a wonderful Sunday. Take care.

35:13 - Kevin (Caller)
You too. Thank you for the call.

35:15 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Igor Ackerman in our club Twit Discord says don't do this in an apartment, don't have a lot of alarm. He says my neighbor's alarm was Amy McDonald's. This is the life for a few years.

35:27
I can't stand that song ever since yeah, that's a good point you don't want them to be. It's nice, though, because it used to be for a long time You'd have a bell ringing with your alarm and then it was an electronic beeping with your alarm. But I have all my my. When I was a kid, I had a clock radio and I would have the radio come on. I didn't mind that. Well, it was news, news radio, and I actually vividly remember some very bad news from the sixties Waking you up, waking me up, oh, that's not fun yeah.

35:59
Let's see what else should we do. Should we take another call?

36:01 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
We're kind of the we were six minutes out from the kids Go to. Can we do an email? Oh, we could do. We could go to Dick early.

36:09 - Leo Laporte (Host)
He's on the line. Well, why not? Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages joining us now from Disneyland, Mad Magazine's maddest writer and the giz wiz, our gizmo wizard. Here is the cover of the new mad, which is absolutely awesome. It shows Taylor Swift with her new boyfriend number 87 on the Kansas City Chiefs, alfred E Newman. What? And it is the love stinks issue, which is even better. Yeah, good, good cover. So that's the only thing they're updating. Now, though, is yeah, they and folding.

36:49
Oh good, oh yeah, cause look, tay Tay and Travis are in the fold in, but I won't fold it in because I don't know Spoilers.

36:57 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, no spoilers. You don't want to ruin it, yeah.

37:00 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Dick joins us every month to talk about a gizmo or a gadget. What you got out there for gizmo?

37:06 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
Well, you know what, when I have time, I roam through Amazon looking for things that might be unique, and I came across a picture of a pirate ship, and now that I have no boat and the marina is closed, I thought, you know what? I'm going to buy this and make it my headboard, because it's three by five feet, whoa. And so, yeah, see, that's it, it's beautiful.

37:37 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, it's like a mad magazine cover. I'm looking for Alfred E Newman it almost does.

37:42 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
And then I found out about the company. I think it's called Belelko Belco and they make backgrounds up to 20, 10 by 20 feet.

37:56 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I love it, and these are on fabric right.

37:59 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
These are on fabric and, leo, this was $10.

38:04 - Leo Laporte (Host)
What? Just 10 bucks, and now you have some sort of lighting arrangement in your bed.

38:08 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
Yes, you know what I also on an old gizmo show I did a thing called the Mecca man, which is a projector. You're really getting into it. This is your little bedroom boat.

38:23 - Micah (Caller)
He's in a captain's outfit.

38:25 - Leo Laporte (Host)
He's got a. Oh, this is his.

38:26 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
And the stuff on the wall too. Yeah, I have my captain's hat, my photo captain shirt, your naval chronometer on the wall and wow. My yeah, and then. So Dennis said you know what the thing ends before the ceiling of your bedroom. Why don't I I'm an artist paint a mask?

38:47 - Leo Laporte (Host)
that goes all the way to the ceiling and I said you know what?

38:51 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
I'm going to buy running lights.

38:53 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So those are real lights on a painted mast. Good Lord man.

38:57 - Ken (Caller)
Oh, this is lovely.

38:58 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You're going to wake up one day and say what am I? What's happening? Where am I? I'm on a boat. Oh, no, I woke up.

39:03 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
No, I wake up every morning by throwing up.

39:09 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Wow, I love the. I love the little additional mask that Dennis put there. That's great, yeah, and then.

39:16 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
So we had that up for two days and then it said it still drives me crazy. Oh, there, to show you that it's fabric washable. It's like a tapestry yeah, yeah, exactly Exactly.

39:27 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Can you get any?

39:28 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
picture on this. You know what? I put a link into their catalog. You can get a castle, you can get a swimming pool, you can get a huge office, actually, if you hung it in back of you it would look like that's the real purpose for it.

39:47 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah.

39:48 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
It looks like you are in a gigantic office with stainless steel fixtures. Who needs?

39:54 - Paul (Caller)
a green screen, exactly.

39:56 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
It was better than a green screen, because you can change them every day and you don't need a computer. You don't need anything. I think it's a great idea.

40:06 - Jeremy (Caller)
Do you have to feed the?

40:07 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
parrot. The parrot is an old, old toy from Wowie that used to you remember that? Yeah, and he would ask for a cracker. And if you put the cracker in his mouth, that triggered the thing for him to make chewing sounds.

40:27 - Leo Laporte (Host)
By the way. So the one you have is a little small. How big is this? Like five feet. I got the three by five. The office one for 1789 comes at seven by five, which really is perfect for a backdrop, so people won't think you're in your bedroom.

40:45 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
How are they so inexpensive? They go up to 10 by 20 feet.

40:50 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh look, oh my God, for a hundred bucks for that. Okay, there's that. How much is it worth to not have to go to the office? This is cheaper than a Wii work. That's for you.

41:03 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Exactly yeah, wow, that's super cool.

41:06 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
And that little guy that makes the clouds move and the nebulas. That's 26 bucks on Amazon, yeah you kind of need.

41:16 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Because this is so static. I'm thinking it'd be nice to cut little holes in the fake windows and then put something else so that the light could change. Maybe it'd become dark.

41:27 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Maybe I'm thinking over things, yeah, suddenly we're going back to the green screen again.

41:32 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I'd love to do this, John, though for our studio backdrop, and then I could go home and I just need a thing for Micah, just where I could put his head. The parent.

41:43 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
We cut out the parent on the. But there you go.

41:46 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And then I could put a screen behind it and then Micah's face could move His body would never move, but nobody would notice. And then his, but his face would move and they'd think he was here.

41:55 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
Mm, hmm, yeah.

41:57 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Stop moving your foot. Nope, that's ruining the illusion. Wow, this is from a company called Bellico.

42:05 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
Bellico yes, Okay.

42:08 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And $105.

42:09 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
That's for one that is 10 by 20 feet.

42:12 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Look at all the ones. Oh, here's a vineyard, here's an old house. It says it's Jerusalem, but it could be anywhere in the world.

42:20 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I'm standing outside of Jerusalem.

42:23 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That's really. These are really great fun reporting to you. Live from a golden field, golden glitter or just. Yes, I spent a lot of money to put up a stone backdrop in my house, ma ma.

42:39
The reason I'm not writing you is I'm in a prison, Actually, you know now that I see this, I think John Federman, senator Federman from Pennsylvania, is actually using this. He's, he's. It looks like he's in a dungeon. Maybe he's using this Wow, bellico, bellico, wow. And then you need with it the Mecca warrior night space. That really did add to it.

43:03 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It makes a big difference. That was cool it looked like the the clouds were kind of moving. That was pretty neat.

43:10 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And the stars? You have stars on your ceiling. Is that from the Mecca as well? It does. Yes, Wow, I like that. Dicty Bartolo, improving our life. Dozens of these you could there's it's an unlimited supply. I want to buy them all. I really do I, I uh, we can just have a lot of variety. Rustic kitchen backdrop.

43:37 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I'm about to put the pizza into the.

43:39 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I will send this to Henry for his videos. Yeah, he just rented a houseboat. Oh, he's going to shoot his cooking videos on a houseboat. You know a little bit about that. Yeah, yeah, in the, in the, uh, in the San Francisco Bay, cool, yeah, I don't think it goes anywhere.

43:57 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Oh, okay, that's a situation like in one of those. It looks like a regular.

44:01 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
No, I rarely moved my houseboat after I set it up, because it was.

44:06 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Everything falls out out of the cabinet, exactly, exactly, oh look, oh, I might have to get this for for Michael, our Packers fan. He could pretend he's at the stadium. Look at that. Oh, they look at that. Oh yeah, that is pretty cool.

44:24 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, and I could see this as they say kind of at a birthday party yeah, Got your little photo booth section. Yeah.

44:31 - Leo Laporte (Host)
They. They is the resolution. Pretty good, dick.

44:33 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
You know what? Uh, I think it is. I think it's sensational. I love that pirate ship thing that I had.

44:39 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I love it. Oh, I could be in Venice.

44:41 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
Oh, the bookshelf.

44:42 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I could be on a cruise ship. I could be in a Royal Palace. Oh, the Hobbit House. Oh, I definitely want a Hobbit House Reporting to you live from Hobbiton. Hobbiton, very nice, they're smart. Whoever's doing it Think it's a Chinese company that just steals all these pictures and prints them on fabric at a all caps.

45:07 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
But most of them have excellent ratings, so people do like them.

45:11 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, dick D Bartolo, there's 20 pages of these, oh boy Dick.

45:16 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
what have you done? Leo's not going to pay attention for the rest of the episode.

45:20 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh, look, you could have the Death Star behind you. Oh, I have a bad feeling about this. Pretend you're on Tatooine.

45:30 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
Yeah, and the funny thing is on Amazon they only have the pirate ship. And when I started doing some research I found their catalog and I put the link there on my website.

45:41 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Well, if you click what I did, is so under the listing there's the link to the company brand Bellico, and this is all Amazon available. These are all from Amazon.

45:53 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
Yes exactly.

45:54 - Jeremy (Caller)
So you just have to.

45:55 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You just have to work it, man, Sleuth it, Sleuth around. Oh, I don't like that one Racing car forest cartoon. Oh yeah, I feel like Wendy the Pooh birthday or something. You know, there's a couple from Jerusalem. I'm thinking maybe they're in Israel, I don't know.

46:08 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
Oh, Dick, you missed your party. Oh, there you go. Very cool. Well, I was going to buy that, but then my apartment looks just like it, so you wouldn't know what we used to introduce Dick with disco music behind him.

46:22 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Every time Dick D Bartolo Mads, magist, maddist writer, also offers it has a contest that you can participate in and win a copy of Mad Magazine. You'll be playing for the April issue, so does that mean the contest ends in a day or two, is it? It ends, yeah.

46:41
February 29th Just around one extra day just to do this. You see the call the what the heck is it? Contest, a close up of a gizmo or a gadget. I'm pulling it up, I just want to see what it looks like. See, if I know, in the back of my mind it's a blender for a mouse. Oh yeah, we. Oh, that's good, that's very good. Go to giz wizbiz, click the what the heck is it? Button. There it is. If you know what that is, well, actually you have a better shot of Mad magazine If you, if you don't know what it is, because there's only six Mad magazines for the right answer, there's up to 12 for the best, wackiest wrong answer. So better to come up with a bad answer. But you got a few more days and are you not know if you're in this one yet? You must by now.

47:31 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
Oh yeah, Take off on love connection.

47:34 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's got a little Alfred E Newman. It really is the Valentine's issue, the Loughford E Newman Valentine you could send to your friends. This is my favorite part, though, is the gatefold. I really wanted to.

47:46 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
I'm very, those are all new. John Johnny Samson is doing the foldings.

47:50 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Tay Tay does not look too happy on the cover, though she. She thought it was Travis Kelsey. She saw the number, but then he took off his helmet and she was horrified.

48:00 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Who is this man?

48:03 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
I have to tell you the giz whiz just celebrated 18 years. Wow, wow.

48:11 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I was just thinking that. So you and I started it.

48:14 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
The first show was February 20th 2006.

48:21 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Wow, and the show continues. So it's 18 years of greatness. I mean, oh true greatness. The show continues at giz whiztv. You're doing it with Chad Johnson Now. In fact, you can watch the live recording Thursdays 4 30 pm Pacific. And then there's the giz fizz, which we've traditionally done on a Wednesday evening. It's 5 30 pm Pacific, but both of those are now streamed on giz whiztv. Does Chad help you with all of that?

48:53 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
Chad set up, all set up OBS for me here. So you do it directly, that's giz fizz I do right from, right from here.

49:04 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That's really awesome. Thank you, chad. We love, we love OMG.

49:07 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
Well, thank you for getting giz whiz going for 18 years.

49:12 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Wow, wow, wow. Yeah, I did it for half. The total time Is that half the share?

49:15 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
Yeah, exactly, we just broke it in half.

49:18 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And then I died and Chad took over the clones. You see, the clones won't do it. I don't know why we tried, but the clones won't do it. Thank you, dick DeBartolo. Can I ask a quick question, a tech question?

49:33 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
Sure, yes, okay, I sit in the. I have a bedroom, google speaker, living room and bedroom. Well, I'm sitting at my table where I eat, which is in my living room, but I pick up my phone and I ask Google a question and it always answers in the bathroom. I know driving crazy. And the door is closed. It's not supposed to. Is there a way to tell it? Just answer where I'm talking.

50:04 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
So what's frustrating about that is, if you were using Amazon Echoes, then this is actually something that the company solved for. There was that realization, and so they have a built-in technology that uses it, looks at how the sound is coming towards a device and sort of which one is quote, unquote, hearing it louder, and then it makes sure to respond to that. But I don't think Google has implemented similar technology.

50:31 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Well, it's funny, because the Amazon technology does not work all that way.

50:35 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
No, it's also not great, but it does try to solve it for you.

50:38
You mean, google doesn't do that at all. It doesn't say, oh, who's nearest? I don't think it does. At least last time I looked into it. The only thing I could think and it's kind of annoying is you would just kind of keep the bathroom one, or wherever it is. You'd hit the mute button on that, except when you're using it, so that way it doesn't hear you when you're in the other rooms. But then you have to remember to. You know what I mean. That's annoying, right, that's kind of a pain.

51:07 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So are both of them screens or is one of them just a speaker? One is they're both screens, because if one's a speaker, one's a screen. You can say say the answer and we'll only say it on the. It won't show it, it'll only say it. Let me just see on the Google support. Your issue has been escalated to the Google product team. This is back in January 2022. Maybe there's some settings you can. You can, you can set. Let's see here.

51:43 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
What's so? It's nothing really simple as what.

51:46 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I don't know. Multiple devices respond to. Hey, you know who.

51:50 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, so they have. They have implemented a technology that says proximity type of request capabilities.

51:55 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That's why I knew that if you had one that had a screen and one didn't, yeah, then you could help it with by saying show me.

52:02 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
or just say instead of show me, but if they're both screens you could change the wake sensitivity of the device that's in the bedroom bathroom, whichever was the one that's further away.

52:15 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So let's see the just how sensitive the Google assistant is to hey Shmo Mo.

52:23 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
Oh, that's some that will work.

52:25 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So this feature is available on most speakers and smart displays, but only in some languages. Why they Google when you, when you adjust the you know who sensitive device, it applies to anyone who uses that device. So open the app, you do this on your phone, tap home, touch and hold your speakers, smart display and then device settings and then under the audio settings there is a hey, you know who's sensitivity. Choose how sensitive you. If you don't want to ever to answer in the bathroom, you could say just don't be. You know, you could say stop it.

52:58 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
Yeah, okay, all right, that's good. That's that's very good. Yeah, yeah, we love you know you should. You should make a show about this kind of thing.

53:10 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It. Just, I just don't think anybody watch it, that's. You know, this is actually technically the longest podcast we've ever done, because we started the radio show in January 2004. So we just celebrated 20 years of doing ask the tech guys, so or of some kind, or the tech I show, or whatever. So in a way, you know we're neck and neck dick and and someday you may catch up and beat us. Well it's great.

53:39 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
Thanks so much, guys. It's great. Okay, it's a pleasure Give us a great question and for the streams giz wizTV.

53:49 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Thank you guys, Thank you.

53:54 - Ken (Caller)
Bye.

53:55 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I feel like when he's leaving, it's like Dorothy leaving the Emerald City or what's buddy leaving the North Pole?

54:06 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Bye buddy, Hope you find your dad.

54:09 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Is that something I should? Is that from frozen elf? Oh, elf, bye buddy.

54:13
Hope you find your dad meant to watch that this Christmas. We're going to take a little break, pause, try to do the fold out and we'll be back with more of your questions. 888-724-2884. Give us a ring and we'll make up an answer. You're watching. Ask the Tech Guys Leo Laporte, micah Sargent. I'm still trying to do this fold. I don't want to spoil it. You know I hate it when you get a mad magazine and it's already creased. I really hate that, because then you don't. Maybe it's better if it's somebody did it right, but doing it right. I can never get those arrows to line up. Who should we take next? Mr Anthony Nielsen, temporary producer.

54:59 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Mountain fold.

55:01 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, let's do the phone call, fun call. Okay, wait a minute, don't tell me Send a breakout room.

55:07 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
All right, remember caller star six to unmute.

55:11 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Hello, hi. What's your first name and where are you calling from?

55:15 - Paul (Caller)
Hi, this is Paul in Columbus, ohio. Hi, paul, welcome.

55:18 - Leo Laporte (Host)
What can we do for you?

55:20 - Paul (Caller)
An occasional caller. Well, this is a little different. That relates to programming. Okay, we've got Netflix and Hulu and a couple other things, but we dumped one of the services that has the news available also. Oh, it was like we're paying $40 a month for it. That's what we weren't watching. So, anyway, you can download. I use Fire TV app and you can download, like MSNBC or CNN, right, but then it wants your cable description information, right, although I've read articles and it says that you can do it that way, which we don't have cable, or you can buy or you can pay for it, right, but I never. When I go to that service, it's never available.

56:13 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Depends on the service. So some services do offer what? So you're a cord cutter, you don't have cable service. It's all over the internet, yeah, and what device are you using? A Fire TV device. Is that the one you're using, fire TV? Yeah, so as a convenience for people who do pay for cable, a lot of these, like Max, say well, you don't have to buy it because you're already paying for it to the cable provider. Just give us the information of your cable provider. But you can buy some of them over the top, and over the top means without a cable subscription.

56:50
Max is one, for instance, I don't know, it's like 15 bucks, 16 bucks a month. Now you want news. So there are. You know, cbs has a channel. Nbc has a channel. Probably the best bet would be Peacock. That would give you all the NBC news plus all the other stuff that's on Peacock, and you can subscribe to Peacock over the top. You don't. In fact, I don't think it matters. If you have a cable subscription, so that's the first one to look at is the Peacock app. They'll have. I think they'll have MSNBC, if that's the news you want.

57:23 - Paul (Caller)
Some of the programs they do.

57:24 - Leo Laporte (Host)
yeah, yeah, the problem is that when you go, when you unbundle now, it's all a cart and it ends up being probably just as expensive because you have to buy each individual thing. What I do and actually turns out this is the number one choice now for court cutters is I subscribe to YouTube TV. Now, not cheap it's almost 75 bucks a month but it's basically a cable subscription and it gives you all the local news channels as well as the national cable news channels, and you know you get your locals basically, and so that is, in effect, replacing the cable subscription. But, as you can see by the price, it's not replacing, it's not saving you any money. But that way I get the locals and I don't need to have a cable subscription. If you, just if you don't care, you know you don't say well, I need CBS, nbc and ABC news.

58:17
You could pick one. Abc is, I think, hulu, right. I can never remember who owns what. Yeah, disney owns Hulu, disney owns ABC. So I think Hulu would have ABC, peacock would have NBC. I don't know who has CBS. I think they do. They go their own way. I think there might be a CBS app. Let's see here.

58:46 - Paul (Caller)
So we still have the frustration of the yeah, you gotta pay for some yeah. Having to buy it. Well, I don't mind paying for it, but I don't wanna pay for stuff about using, so I would be glad to buy it. I completely understand.

58:56 - Leo Laporte (Host)
MSNBC. Well, msnbc, you can watch on the internet for free. So let's see what they're saying. How to stream MSNBC without cable? This is from Rolling Stone Live TV streaming service. Okay, that's Direct TV or Hulu or Sling or YouTube TV. They're showing you all of those Fubo's free. Oops, I didn't mean to hear that Fubo's free, isn't it? I thought so. No, it's not completely free. How to watch it for free? Well, you can do complimentary live streams for several days. Wow, these are all trial versions. I guess there's no way to watch MSNBC for free, unfortunately, let me see. It used to be years ago.

59:58 - Paul (Caller)
It was on. I hadn't found a stream on the internet that was free or web-produced.

01:00:02 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I don't think it's there. Yeah, peacock is probably the best bet and Peacock's cheap, so, like I, say I don't mind paying something reasonable for it but,

01:00:14 - Paul (Caller)
I just don't wanna have to buy another, like YouTube or one of the other ones.

01:00:18 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, peacock is $6 a month with ads, but you don't mind the ads and you get a lot more. You also get some live sports effect. The NFL was doing one of their things on Peacock. I remember one of the playoff games was on Peacock but you also get. You get local not local news, but you get national news from NDC and they're playing Oppenheimer too. Yeah, yeah, well, I bet you, I don't know is that? Do you have to pay for that additionally?

01:00:48 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
No, maybe not.

01:00:49 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Available exclusively on Peacock Nice. So, yeah, peacock is so, unfortunately, what happened is every company decided oh, we need our own app. So you either pay a lot for a unified app from Hulu's Sling Direct TV, fubo, or you get a M1Z2Z a la carte. The nice thing and most people do this is for say, you wanna watch the news because there's an election coming up. You pay for it till after November and then you cancel it, or people turn them on and off all the time, and I think that that's another way to go. You're only paying monthly $6 a month. It's not too bad. Yeah, I gave up on news a while Like, oh my God.

01:01:29
That's so depressing. I understand exactly how you feel.

01:01:33 - Paul (Caller)
Well, that's a point too. Yeah, but then I'm one of those old guys. I'm older than you are.

01:01:39 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, we old guys, we like to sit in front of our TV all day and shake our canes. Why I gotta?

01:01:46 - Paul (Caller)
Well, I found a really interesting website on YouTube. It's LAFlights Live. Where they've got at the airport, these guys do airplane spotting. Oh yeah, it's like bird watching. Yeah, johnny Jett, I think has talked about that.

01:02:04 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It turns out there's a. The best place is the In-N-Out burger next to LAX has an excellent view, plus the food's not bad, so you could just sit there all day. I'm not surprised. In fact, there's a 4K. No, that's not it. What did? How do you say LA what?

01:02:21 - Paul (Caller)
LA flights Flights.

01:02:23 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Live. Let me just check this out. Oh, look at that so you could just stream stuff taken off all day from the airport.

01:02:34 - Paul (Caller)
Wow, that's like someone running the camera. I got that from. I got that from the airplane geeks podcast. Yeah, we're talking about it.

01:02:43 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Well guess guess who's on the on the other line right now? Oh really, Our airplane guy. Yeah yeah, Micah's on the line. I see his smiling face.

01:02:54 - Paul (Caller)
Well, call Micah. Paul says hi and love the podcast, Isn't it right, micah is?

01:02:58 - Leo Laporte (Host)
waving. Actually, why not? Thank you, paul, there's some answers for you.

01:03:03 - Paul (Caller)
You have to buy something and then you have to decide which thing you want to buy, I don't mind paying for it. Yeah, I think five 99 for Peacock. Yeah.

01:03:11 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I end up paying for, like most of those services, just cause there's a show you know, oh, you know there's below decks on Peacock. But then I got to have Paramount Plus for Yosemite, and then they get you. They get you coming and going Netflix, I'm watching Drive to Survive. Yeah, TV's not free, but you know what? It never was free, Really, Did you? We just thought it was. But with all those ads it's the same thing we're going through. Advertisers are just getting cheesier and cheaper and cheaper, and so you know everybody wants now to set, put the cost back on the viewer. I'm afraid Free, the days of free content are gone, Are almost gone.

01:03:52 - Paul (Caller)
Yeah, you're on my list or subscription, so thank you, you're getting into that.

01:03:56 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I appreciate that. I know everybody's tired of having more subscriptions. Thank Paul. Thank you, thanks so much. We should say hi to Mike Bye. He's there. He's sitting there waiting for us. Now how do I hang up? I just press hang up and then I pick it up. You showed me this like a year ago, but I don't Send to breakout room. Send to breakout room. Okay, micah and Maine are airplane geek On the way. I'm still watching LAX, so apparently.

01:04:25 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Is somebody running that camera?

01:04:27 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It looks like some human, is actually aiming at each time, so you can watch the planes take off.

01:04:32 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Now, dude, does that change? Isn't the takeoff just like what's it's?

01:04:37 - Leo Laporte (Host)
the same every time, unless it crashes.

01:04:39 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Oh, is that what you're hoping for?

01:04:41 - Leo Laporte (Host)
No, I don't think I hope not.

01:04:43 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
What are they looking for?

01:04:44 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Micah have you watched this channel.

01:04:46 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Micah, maybe there's new ones, I don't know.

01:04:48 - Micah (Caller)
There are a number of channels where you can watch airplanes take off from all over the world. There's somebody that does it at LHR in London, there's somebody that does it in Paris. There's people all over that can do that, and it's a lot of fun to watch. I forgot exactly what airline that. No, I can't remember the name of it right now. I don't watch it. When I want to watch an airplane, I drive down to my local airport. I'm only a couple of miles away and I sit in the spotting area and I take pictures, and it's just a lot of fun.

01:05:12 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Is it like third watching, where you're looking for a Airbus 380 or so You're looking for a rear A?

01:05:18 - Micah (Caller)
lot of people do that. Some people will take down tail numbers. You can use an app called Flight Radar 24 and see who's flying all over you and flying around. I use that.

01:05:27 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I've used that. I like that yeah.

01:05:29 - Micah (Caller)
Is it like and?

01:05:29 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
then there's You're going. Oh wow, that pilot pulled the wheels up too soon. What do you get off?

01:05:38 - Micah (Caller)
Well, I've done that. When I watched my friend Captain Jeff from the airline pilot guy and I said, oh, jeff, you slam that down. That was really good. We tease each other about that all the time but, and, by the way, jeff has never slammed down an airplane. Yeah.

01:05:52 - Leo Laporte (Host)
But yeah, a lot of people. Any landing you can walk away from right.

01:05:56 - Micah (Caller)
Pretty much, pretty much. And then there's also Live ATC. It's another great app where you can put in any. You can be anywhere in the world and listen to any tower anywhere in the world, but you can listen to the local tower and hear the air traffic controllers and the ground control talk to the plane as they're coming in and that, if you're into that kind of thing, that's something you can listen to as well. It's a great app to have and if you're bored and you're driving around, you can listen to it in the car.

01:06:21 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's a little more soothing than listening to the network news. I think this is Well, I have another solution for so there's a live, by the way, there's a live camera operator, cause they're so yeah, it's crazy. Okay, go ahead.

01:06:33 - Micah (Caller)
You have a solution For Paul. Yes, have you ever heard of the app you can get on Roku or Fire TV local now? Oh, is it free? Local now is a free app and you can get some NBC news and CBS news local, sometimes national. They have Washington Post news. They have a bunch of other things that are available. You put it, you can plug in your city if you're online and it takes it off your Roku or your Fire Stick and you can get a number of different free newscasts as well as a lot of other things on there that I don't really care for but other people might.

01:07:08 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Is ads supported? Is that the idea?

01:07:10 - Micah (Caller)
Ads supported. Yeah, and you can get Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Television and Washington Post Television and all those other things are available there on local. Now Nice, I think it just started picking up local PBS stations as well.

01:07:25 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So you know this has been a constant tug of war between the local stations that wanna make money on streaming even though they're already making money on advertising and companies. Remember Ario, and they lost the big Supreme Court case and they had to go out of business.

01:07:39 - Micah (Caller)
They had little dime-size receivers that they put on the roof in New York City and people could get their TV from there, and not only are they making money on advertising, they're making money by selling their signal to the cable company, which is really just a community antenna that I'm renting. Yet I have to pay the cable company in order to get a local signal that's being broadcast for free, that's being sold for advertising.

01:08:02 - Jeremy (Caller)
I got him started. It drives me nuts.

01:08:04 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, I know what you mean. The must carry rules is a very complicated world and it was really all about the transition from a stable system that worked, called Net Broadcast Television, to this cable and then internet-based television, and it's been just a mess through this whole transition. I suppose it'll settle down at some point and probably everything will be over the top.

01:08:28 - Micah (Caller)
I would guess yeah well, even if I want to get my over-the-air signal, over the over-the-air put up an antenna, but I still want to get cable TV. I still have to pay $23.95 a month for local television stations, even if I'm never going to watch it. There's no choice in the matter. And let's, let's, let's, let's. I'm with you.

01:08:49 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Don't get me started. I'm with you.

01:08:52 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I spent a good portion of my income just to watch TV. That's very expensive.

01:08:58 - Micah (Caller)
But I have two questions for you today, one that I think might be for Micah and one would be for both of you. But I have an iOS annoyance, micah, and from one Micah to another, please help me. All right, the auto brightness on my phone is great. You know, I'm driving in the car and it's during the day and it gets dark and it dims up and it's perfect. But sometimes it locks out and it's just full brightness, no matter what I do, and the only way to fix it is go to the auto brightness setting, turn it off and turn it back on, and then everything's fine up until it does it again. Do you have any idea what it is or how to fix that permanently?

01:09:37 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Okay, so I have had this happen too. Amazon my Mac, by the way as well.

01:09:42 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh, that's annoying, so it must be an Apple thing.

01:09:44 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I've never had that happen there. So the problem is that you have two kind of competing methods of changing brightness. This has been my experience If I ever touch that brightness dial bring it up, bring it down. Apple has to balance between the choice that you've made by bringing up or bringing down the brightness and the auto brightness settings. At what point do we stop listening to what the person has chosen to do with the brightness and switch back to automatically brightening or dimming the display?

01:10:18 - Micah (Caller)
Let me just cut you off for a minute. I never touch the brightness. You don't ever touch it Ever.

01:10:24 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Ever Really. Well then this I mean, that's just straight up. It's just not working as you would expect. So to go further with that. Anytime that I've done that and it gets stuck and it seems like it's either too dark or too bright, I do the same thing. I go into the settings, I toggle the auto brightness thing on and off.

01:10:41
My one suggestion that I can make that will speed things up is almost every settings page has kind of a secret link that exists for that specific page, and so you can kind of avoid having to tap, tap, tap, tap to get to that specific area using a shortcut. So I have a shortcut that I set up called Auto Lock, and what it does is it takes me directly to the page in settings that lets me turn off the Auto Lock setting for the display, and I use that whenever I'm doing shows, so that way my screen doesn't dim and then turn off completely, and then, after I'm done with the show, I use that Auto Lock shortcut again. So this would be something that I'll have to make and we'll include in the show notes afterward, because I can't look at the settings links right now. They're huge, they're long. So you could speed it up by basically creating a little tile that you just tap on and it gets you there quicker, unfortunately, that would be great.

01:11:43 - Micah (Caller)
Yeah, that's really fast, it always happens in the car. And when I'm in the car, you know, and I'm driving along and I got the screen shining in my face because I have it set up, you know, on the dash and the holder, and then I driving along and I can't stop because I'm on the highway, you know, and I got to toggle through it to try to get to it and it's scary. Yeah, that's exactly the same.

01:11:58 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Either way if I leave it on.

01:11:59 - Micah (Caller)
it's scary If I turn it off, it's scary.

01:12:02 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, so we can help speed it up at least. But the only other thing I can, you know, suggest is when you, if you have the time, submitting feedback to Apple about it. You're not the first person that I've heard, at least Say that that's been an issue. I've certainly experienced it and, yeah, that seems to be the fix right now that we have this going in and turning off and then back on auto brightness, which is frustrating.

01:12:28 - Micah (Caller)
Well, I'm, it's just. I feel better to know that I'm not alone. You're not alone, you know. The two mic is share, the same problem we do and he's the host of iOS today If he can't figure out how to solve it.

01:12:40 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, no one can, absolutely. I mean, he lives. I have breezes and eats iOS. Are you excited about the new iPads coming out? Of course, I think I'm going to be on vacation when they have their event, so it's all on your fraud shoulders. They are rather broad. There is rumor that Apple will have new iPads on March. Yep, anyway what is your question for the two of us?

01:13:02 - Micah (Caller)
Speaking of cable companies, and you know I'm going to just say how much I hate spectrum. The people I talk to, they're nice, but I hate the company.

01:13:09 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Everybody hates them. There was once a poll some years ago on the thing you hate the most in life, and the cable companies came in ahead of heart attacks. So that gives you some idea of how I can recover from a heart attack. I can never. No, it's true, it's true.

01:13:27 - Micah (Caller)
So I had an issue with my spectrum app. I wanted to go pay the bill and the spectrum app wasn't working. So I called spectrum and I said I'm having trouble with the app. And they said, no, the app's working. The app's working fine. I said no, it's the app, so I'm dealing with you. Know their people. And they say, well, let's reset the modem.

01:13:44 - Leo Laporte (Host)
No, don't need to reset the modem. The modem is fine. It has nothing to do with the modem.

01:13:49 - Micah (Caller)
Everything else is great. Well, we really need to reset the modem? No, I really don't think so. Well, it's the only thing we can do. Let me reset, don't do it. They reset the modem. Modem gets reset and I've got a TP link that my own modem, a TC 7620. It's an older modem, works fine, was working great. So I said it's not coming back on. It's not coming back on. Oh yeah, we blacklisted your modem. We didn't tell you it doesn't work anymore. You need to get a new modem. No, I said great, I'm supposed to do a podcast in an hour and a half. I need this working now. Send out somebody with a modem, because I don't have time to go by one. Did they say why they blacklisted your modem? Yeah, because in theory it's not supposed to get 300 megabytes down and 20 up, although it does Absolutely fine, this is not a DOCSIS 3 modem.

01:14:37
It's not a DOCSIS 3 1. It's a DOCSIS 3. It's not a 3 1. Anyway, I ended up they said.

01:14:42 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I said turn it back on. That's, by the way, not about speed. They're lying to you. It's about their control, I know Absolutely.

01:14:47 - Micah (Caller)
It's about how much control of you they have. And the reason I found that out is because when I made a big stink about it and got to a supervisor and got them to call dispatch to get somebody out there and dispatch called me the woman from because I said they couldn't turn it back on the woman from dispatch said, oh, I use that modem at home, no problem, I reset it, everything's fine. They could do it, they just didn't want to. So it's working and I ordered a new modem. I ordered a Motorola MB8611, which is taking weeks to get here because apparently Motorola is going out of the modem business. Oh my gosh, this was Wirecutter's top choice. Yeah, yeah, wirecutter has now pulled it from their top choice because Motorola isn't going to be making modems anymore.

01:15:27 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That's what I use at home, because you hear it in a couple of weeks. That's what I use at home.

01:15:30 - Dick Debartolo (Guest)
Oh my.

01:15:31 - Micah (Caller)
The same one.

01:15:32 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, I have the 1,000. Yeah.

01:15:34 - Micah (Caller)
Oh man, yeah, and I wasn't sure if I can still cut it off Because it hasn't shipped yet. I had ordered from a third party on Amazon, brand new. Is there another modem you recommend, or should I just get this one? And the dispatcher I talked to said it's the one they use at home and I'm sure it's going to be fine, but I didn't know if it's going to be discontinued, if there's something better for just my own modem.

01:15:58 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So if Motorola goes out of the cable modem business?

01:16:03 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I'm trying to think of the name of the other one, aris. Yeah, aris, thank you. So I basically have only ever used Motorola and Aris modems, and when I moved here, I think the Aris that I wanted was unavailable at the time, and so I ended up just getting a Motorola, but previous to that I always used Aris as my modem of choice, and I do think Aris is as good, if not better than Motorola, so I don't think there's any hardship to that.

01:16:34 - Micah (Caller)
And by the way, it wasn't cheap. Any of the other modems were under $100 to get a 3.1, cheapest one I could find $220.

01:16:42 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh, that's crazy, not rages. It really is outrageous. So this used to be a Motorola product, by the way, and now Aris is distributing it. Wow, there's no reason why it should cost that much more. So, doxxus 3, don't get a Doxxus 3, it sounds like if you're on Spectrum, the Doxxus 3 is the most economical. Of course, the Surfboard 6183, you're going to have to get a 33 or yeah, I think the Surfboard 2000 was the one that I had the.

01:17:15
Surfboard 2000. Wow, yeah, well, I hope my modem doesn't die, I guess, and I certainly hope the cable company doesn't reset it. That is wild.

01:17:26 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
And then say oh, black, that's a euphemism.

01:17:28 - Micah (Caller)
We're going to reset it.

01:17:30 - Leo Laporte (Host)
We're going to break it, yeah.

01:17:32 - Micah (Caller)
And I said why didn't you tell me it was blacklisted before? Couldn't you have sent me an email? Couldn't you have told me before you reset it? And then I caught you, the supervisor yeah, she should have done that, but I can't do anything now. Yeah, it's too late. You can't do anything now.

01:17:46 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Wow, that's so annoying, that is so bad. So the Surfboard.

01:17:51 - Leo Laporte (Host)
The Doxxus 3.1 Surfboard 8200 is 138 bucks. That's not awful.

01:17:57 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, that's the one that I used for a very long time and it was rock solid yeah.

01:18:04 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Right, and Scooter X has one in a box that he's willing to send you. So that would be nice. You want to send it to Micah, scooter X. We can keep this all in the family, so to speak. Yeah, that's amazing behavior. I guess they want you to use 3.1.

01:18:23 - Micah (Caller)
Well, they want me to use their modem, so that that way it's a modem around it. And then they can sell it. Well, they'd give it to me for free, but then they can use their phone service on it, because that's how they have it set up. Sure, that's what you want.

01:18:35 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I'm not doing that, and the local access points too. They will make those available.

01:18:41 - Leo Laporte (Host)
The problem is we can't get rid of these guys Because, even if you're not paying for cable TV in most areas, you don't have many choices For internet. It's very common most areas of the country to have only two choices the phone company or the cable company, both of which are rapacious predators, breach monopolists. And that's your choice. So that's why we love companies like Sonic Net and my good friend Dane Jasper Good friend, dane Jasper, because they're providing competition for these incumbents and because you can get John's got symmetric gigabit, so a gigabit up and a gigabit down for $60 a month, and I can get that now Consolidated communication.

01:19:28 - Micah (Caller)
The company that bought out Verizon can sell me that, but it's going to be $150 a month.

01:19:33 - Jeremy (Caller)
Yes, that's the outrageous thing.

01:19:35 - Micah (Caller)
Yes, I'd rather pay what I'm paying now and deal with it.

01:19:39 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I'd love to get off the cable teat, but I am still there's the title Off the Cable Teat Off the. Cable Teat. Well, we were looking at buying a house closer to town. We didn't, but we were looking at it and of course, the first thing I do is type in the address into Sonic Net. Absolutely, and it was supported and I thought that's to me, that's the selling point. It can get fiber optic cable from Sonic net for $60. But there were other things that were deal breakers so we didn't buy that.

01:20:07 - Micah (Caller)
Well, I've got to tell you one more thing if you have just a minute. Yes, and it's about the Airplane Geeks podcast. It was a. We did an episode on in-flight connectivity and we had a gentleman named David Helgfaudon who's a chief executive for Smart Skies Network that takes care of in-flight connectivity, and I'm one of the hosts. I'm asking all these technical questions about internet and about Wi-Fi and about hooking it up on the airplane, and we did a great interview. I thought it came out wonderful and then people have liked it. This was episode 784. And we finished it up and the other host said Micah, how do you know so much about that? How did you? I thought you knew airplanes. What do you know about internet and Wi-Fi and connecting that? And I said don't you guys listen to Leo LaPorte and Micah, I said I learned it all from them.

01:20:54
Thank you, so anyway. So you guys have educated me and I greatly appreciate that Well well, thank you.

01:21:02 - Leo Laporte (Host)
If you love airplanes, you're going to love the airplane geeks podcast.

01:21:07 - Micah (Caller)
Go down a little bit more, you'll see what I mean.

01:21:08 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I'm looking for you, I'm looking, I'm searching. Here's all the wonderful people on this. Micah, micah of Maine, the very famous Micah of Maine flying. It looks like a helicopter on this one. I am in a helicopter in that one. Yeah, I'm in a rotor wing. That's very nice. Airplane Geeks podcast very much recommended, wonderful show and you guys do a great job and I'm thank you for plugging us Well, thank you very much. I'll give you the reverse plug. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Micah. Thanks for talking to me.

01:21:36 - Micah (Caller)
Thank you for your help with everything Good talking with you guys and have a great show. I'll be listening, so make sure it's right.

01:21:43 - Leo Laporte (Host)
We'll do our best. We'll do our best. Yeah, let's take a little time out. You can breathe for a moment, and then I'm going to give Micah a noogie, not a noogie. You're watching. Ask the Tech Guys Micah, sergeant, leo LaPorte, I have control. I do have control of the botan, but I still I wanted to fur responsibility. I basically don't want to be responsible for a caller About a video. Let's try a video call, a voicemail, as it were.

01:22:17 - Jeremy (Caller)
Hi, my name is Jeremy and I'm recording this in Regina, saskatchewan, canada. I'm switching over from LastPass to Bitwarden and I have no problem exporting my vault from LastPass into a CSV file to import it in Bitwarden. But I also have passwords saved on Keychain on my iPad and my iPhone. But Apple support tells me, without a Mac computer that I don't have, I only have a Windows computer that I can't export all of my Keychain passwords to a CSV file all in one go. I have to airdrop them one at a time and that's not good for me because I have a lot of passwords saved in Keychain. I'm wondering if you can suggest an alternate method other than airdropping them one at a time.

01:23:34 - Leo Laporte (Host)
No, kidding, thank you. Thank you, great question, great, absolutely. So I should mention Bitwarden is a sponsor. We love Bitwarden. It's a password manager. I should also say that Apple's Keychain, if you are only using Apple devices, is a very good password manager. But the negative is well, I guess you could do it on Windows. They have a way to do it on Windows now, which is good, but you can't do it on Linux. I like to have a cross-platform password manager, so that's why I use Bitwarden. Bitwarden will import data. He's an unusual situation. He doesn't have a Mac. He has, I guess he only has an iPhone you can do it from, and this is the Bitwarden Help Center I'm looking at import data from Mac OS and Safari. You could do it from Safari directly. In other words, bitwarden, you don't even you know. It's a very straightforward thing. You export the passwords and Bitwarden will import them. Can you? And then you can also do it from Safari or from an iCloud keychain. I bet you he has access to his iCloud, no.

01:24:41 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
So this is one of the most annoying and ridiculous and Apple doesn't want you to get him out of there. I hate that. I hate this, you. So when you use Safari, it has to be from a Mac to export your iCloud keychain passwords. The only other way is to do it piece by piece by piece, as they told him. Yeah, I hate that. This is the case. It is, I think, wrong, like it's just bad, and there should be other ways to export all of your iCloud keychain passwords than to do it piece by piece. I wasn't aware of this. Yeah, it's-.

01:25:22 - Leo Laporte (Host)
There are very few. That's the only one I know of password managers that won't let you export it In a form usually CSV, comma separated values, that some other password manager can read, and the only reason I can think that Apple doesn't do that is because they don't want you to move Right.

01:25:45 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It is. I mean, yeah, that's all I can say about it. It doesn't make sense. I don't know why it's that way. I don't know why they have not made this more possible. I don't know. The only thing I could think there's no real reasonable method to go about pulling those passwords. I don't know, like getting a Mac and then returning it.

01:26:10 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's like Well, it's got his iPhone and he wants to move to Bitwarden. You can open Bitwarden. I presume you've got a computer, maybe a Chromebook or a Windows machine or whatever. You can open Bitwarden on there and you don't have to air drop them because you can't show them in the clear. Yeah, If you go to the password manager on your phone, you'll have to enter your password or your pin ID to actually show the passwords. You can, one by one, show them. If you're doing that, yeah, you can air drop them, which might be better.

01:26:39
If you have a long, complicated password, it'd be better to air drop it or copy paste or text message it to yourself. You know what that would be a faster way to do it is to create a text file on your phone. Yeah, A notes file on your phone. Copy them all into the notes file and then air drop the single notes file over. At least you could do that once. But what a pain it's, and that's, I guess it's because I mean, they do provide that faculty on a computer. It's, I guess. Is it harder to do on iOS. Are they worried that you're gonna accidentally leave your passwords lying around in the clear?

01:27:19 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I think that that's gotta be the Maybe. That's it, yeah, yeah, that's the other thing. Rhett-con yeah, if you know anyone who you truly trust and you can borrow their Mac just for the day, because all you'd need to do is log in, export your passwords, get that file and then you would log out. That's one way to do it.

01:27:38 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, see, if a friend has a iMac or a Mac lying around. Boy, that's too bad, it's really bad.

01:27:45 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
So here's the good news. I think that this is going to be addressed, given that we are moving to this passwordless future and there's this pass keys technology and between that and Apple's complications in the EU. The company wants to be, wants to make data as portable as possible, I feel, so that could push through some pressure.

01:28:10 - Leo Laporte (Host)
They're actually off the hook with pass keys, because when the FIDO Alliance set up pass keys which I really like this is this passwordless feature. This is a wireless technology they provided no way to move pass keys. So there is an easy way to move passwords, but there is no requirement for interoperability with pass keys. So it's my strong suggestion If you want to move to pass keys and I really think it's a good way to do it, it's a lot easier my strong suggestion is not to use the browser or to use an operating system to do it, but to use one password or our sponsor, bitward, to use a third party pass key friendly password manager and store them there. I'll show you If I go to a GitHub right now. Let's see. Let's go into my browser and I go to a GitHub.

01:29:00
Github supports pass keys. Oh, I'll have to log out to make this work. Let me quickly log out. Okay, so I'm a sign out for GitHub. I go here and this is just one site, but more and more expect to see this. So my password manager is gonna fill in that's Bitwarden, the password, but then it's gonna say oh, you need two-factor authentication Now. In the past I've used a two-factor authenticator but it says oh no, you have a pass key. Now watch this. The browse, bitwarden pops up. That's where the pass key is stored and I just confirm it and that's all I need to do, and I think that's a really nice workflow that gives us two-factor authentication. I don't have to open a separate application. But, more importantly, because I use Bitwarden everywhere, that pass key is everywhere. Bitwarden takes care of storing it securely.

01:29:56 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
And it works, yeah, across platform.

01:29:58 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And that's, I think, a really nice workflow. Now, unfortunately, the number of sites that support this, you know four or five, yeah, literally a handful. But boy, github does it exactly how I would like to see every site do it. So the more sites that do this, the better. In other words, it doesn't have to be our sponsor. It could be one password. I don't know whether pass keys are supported by a dashed line in some of the others.

01:30:23 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, I'm not sure. I just know it goes to.

01:30:25 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I know for sure one password Bitwarden do, but choose a password manager that supports pass keys and then that way, as we slowly do, migrate sites over to the pass key two factors. This will automatic and you do it in Bitwarden, it'll be automatic. It's really I think it's a really great solution. And then what you want to do is really lock down your password manager. You know, make sure you have a really good, long, strong password, and in fact I have two factor turned on for Bitwarden as well. So usually what I'll do is I'll say you know, ping my phone, phone does face ID. Face ID then gets sent back to Bitwarden and says okay, you're you, but you can do that with a UBIC key too. But I think it's really nice to do it with face ID. I agree, yeah, we're in again.

01:31:12
Whenever you're in a transition, a disruption, it's gonna be complicated for a while, just like with cable TVs. You know, in the broadcast to cable, to internet, that disruption makes everything weird and complicated and expensive. We're in that transition period with pass keys right now, but in the long run that's gonna be a good transition, it's gonna. I think it's gonna be a big improvement, let's see. Good question, I have an email back here, since we did a voicemail, let's be fair. Let's do an email Password. No, I did not know that. This is from Aiden, hi, mike and Leo. I have a lot of passwords in ApplePAT.

01:31:54 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Oh no, is it literally the same question?

01:31:56 - Leo Laporte (Host)
No, it's similar though it's good it's related A lot of passwords in ApplePATs which I use when I use my iPhone or my iPad. I also use a PC which I need for work and I use Chrome with passwords saved in my Google account, so he's letting the browser save it. First question is it foolish to use Google to store passwords and use it to remember passwords on my PC? No, not inherently. Not inherently, that's a good way to answer it. Not inherently, which implies it's not great.

01:32:23 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, which we'll get to yeah.

01:32:24 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Second question if not, when I was setting up my new PC, I installed Apple iCloud sync, which offers password support. This is what I was referring to. This is Apple's kind of janky way of giving you those iCloud passwords on a PC. Is this safer to use for passwords on my PC? If so, can I use Windows Hello to set it up if I don't have a camera or fingerprint reader on my PC? So three questions. What do you think?

01:32:47 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
So, first and foremost, the question about using Google versus using Apple. So, when it comes to because the reason why you're asking that question is you're kind of wondering from a privacy standpoint and you can trust that Google is not looking to your passwords as a way of gaining more access to who you are and what you're doing so if you're thinking of it in terms of like, is Google a bad place to store passwords versus Apple being a bad place to store passwords? That's why I said not inherently. It's not as if this is one more place where Google is pulling information and getting personal information about you. They don't need to do that. They've got it through so many different means.

01:33:27
But, as Leo and I have both talked about, every time you put your passwords in a new place, that is one more place that is a potential area where your passwords can be stolen. So if you have your passwords stored in Google and you have them in Safari and you use another third-party password manager and all of those places are potential areas where those passwords could be breached and taken. So keeping them kind of in one place, it's easier for you. It means that, as long as you're using a universally synced option, that they are available elsewhere and that again, you're not kind of opening yourself up to more means of getting at your passwords.

01:34:14 - Leo Laporte (Host)
The second question was Secondly if not and, by the way, google says it's better to use Chrome. For a long time, it wasn't because when you unlocked Chrome, your passwords in plain text, and they don't think that's a good idea they said well, you know, someone would have to have access to your computer to do that, and okay. But now they do encrypt those, so that's good. The one point in their favor and to have a swarm of D of their project zero security foundation or research team has said this, and I think he's not wrong is that when you use a third-party password manager, you have to use an extension like the Bitward extension, the one password extension, the last best extension. They use this JavaScript.

01:35:00
It's very possible that you'd either get a pirate extension that looks real but isn't, or there's a man in the middle. It's kind of less secure. So his point is well, it's better to use Google passwords because Chrome is not insecure. You're not using JavaScript, you're not using extension. Okay, but it is limited to Chrome, which is, like you said. That's not a great solution. I think you could reasonably use the app, not use the password extension of your browser. Use the app and it would be as secure.

01:35:34
Just to copy and paste. Yeah, I'm installing right now you'll have to forgive me the iCloud for Windows. Oh, nice, so that we can kind of demonstrate that. But I don't know if I'll happen in time. Whether it will use hello is the question.

01:35:52 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
That is, how can you use Windows hello if you don't have a Windows hello technology right?

01:35:59 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh well, you have to have Windows hello, so it doesn't have to be a fingerprint reader, but it could be a camera. But he says he doesn't have either right, yeah, that's what's my understanding.

01:36:08 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
So without those, and I don't know how you would Windows hello.

01:36:11 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I guess you could use the pin that will unlock your PC, but you will still have to unlock Apple's iCloud Right, and it will not. I don't believe that that app although I haven't been able to download it yet, so I will get to work on that but I don't believe that the Apple app oh yeah, I guess it does.

01:36:33 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Windows hello does work with just a pin. Huh, seems kind of low security.

01:36:39 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I'm not a fan of Windows hello and nor is Paul Therese. Yeah, I don't know why I can't get this to open, just not wanting to open the Windows store for some reason. Well, we'll just have to leave that as an exercise for the reader. I think I wouldn't recommend that, even if it could, because a pin you really want to have to enter your would be nice to. If you're going to use a third party password manager, it's good to have two factor on that. So you're going to want to have to enter your password. This is one of the kind of the problems here. So one of the reasons is when, once we get Pasky's up and running, that'll be nice. And Paul was really complaining about this. He did not like the fact that most password managers wouldn't use Windows hello. He's gone to Dashlane, which is a pretty one, and I've used it on the Mac. I didn't even know they offered it for Windows, they're very Mac focused. But he's now using that because he says that will do passwordless login on Windows using hello. But I might guess if it uses the pin, that's not good. That's not good. Yeah, I agree If it's just the pin, and I think that's why Bitwarden and LastPass and OnePassword don't support it because that's a weak link. You know, a six digit pin, a four digit pin, that's just too weak I think. So I would say, choose a more, a better way to do it. Even and you can't because you don't have a camera or fingerprint, you're gonna be entering your password or use pass keys. I think that's Dashlane's doing it. I'll have to ask Paul.

01:38:24
Listen to last week's Windows Weekly. It was Paul's pick. He talks a little bit about it. He has some of the information. What a mess, right? Mm-hmm Passwords are such a mess. They really are. I'm very happy. I know it's a sponsor, but this is independent of that fact, because I've been using it forever with Bitwarden and I think it does everything I want in a way that I'm convinced is very secure. Somebody was asking in our Twit community forums, twitcommunity, about whether he should store his two factor in Bitwarden.

01:38:59
Both OnePassword, bitwarden and, I imagine, all the others, allow you to have a two factor authentication app in the password manager and the secrets are locked. Both passwords and the two factor secrets are locked by that single master password and so in theory, that's a single point of failure. If somebody got your master password, you don't have two factor anymore. They got both your password and the two factor authentication, so that's, in theory, a problem. Recently, I think maybe a couple of weeks ago Steve said you know, but if that's what it takes to get you to use two factor, it's still much better and in all likelihood nobody's gonna get your master password. I hope yeah. So if that's the only way you wanna do two factor, go ahead and do it in your password manager. My recommendation and Steve still is the better way to do it is to have a separate place so that your two factors is not stored in the same place as your password. I use two FAS. It's free, open source, cross platform two factor manager and it lets you upload an encrypted blob that is your two factor secrets to iCloud or Google driver somewhere so that you can sync it up, and that to me, is a perfect solution. Or get a YubiKey. Yeah, I like the. I use a YubiKey.

01:40:19
All right, let's take. Do we need another pause? That refreshes? No, we're good on pauses. Do we have another person to join us? No, we should take another call. Let's take another call. I'll do. Melissa Head to breakout room. So now she has to press star six. Star six, yeah, and it may be Melissa or somebody with Melissa's phone Correct, we never know it's just the caller ID.

01:40:40
So what is your first name?

01:40:42 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
And from where, from whence?

01:40:44 - Leo Laporte (Host)
you call.

01:40:45 - Jamie (Caller)
Do you call? Hey, leo, it's Jamie listening out in Tampa for how you doing today. Hi, jamie, in Tampa.

01:40:51 - Leo Laporte (Host)
How the hell are you Good man.

01:40:54 - Jamie (Caller)
How the heck are you we're?

01:40:56 - Leo Laporte (Host)
great. What's up. What's up in Jamie's world?

01:40:59 - Jamie (Caller)
Hey, do I know what it says in the list. Yeah, first thing I gotta learn to do is get a Google voice number. When I call you guys, that doesn't say my mom, cause my mom didn't let me put the deal list on that, oh hi mom yeah.

01:41:12 - Jeremy (Caller)
No, it's funny. That's why I don't ever trust that. I'm always the thing to deal.

01:41:15 - Jamie (Caller)
Yeah, I don't trust it and the only reason we use the name is cause.

01:41:18 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Then I could figure out which button cause. That's what it says on the button, but what we know you're not what I'm thinking about doing.

01:41:23 - Jamie (Caller)
Leo is turning. I'm thinking about just turning off the, my caller ID and my phone when I call you guys. Sure, if that'll work.

01:41:29 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I've never done it, then you'll just show up as wireless caller, which is fine with us. We don't. We don't.

01:41:35 - Jamie (Caller)
Oh, okay, I'll do it that way, I'll do it that way.

01:41:37 - Leo Laporte (Host)
What is that star 69 to turn it off? I can't remember. It's something like that, yeah.

01:41:43 - Jamie (Caller)
No, on iPhone it's setting phone, show my caller ID and I'll call it off. Okay.

01:41:50 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That's a lot of trouble to get.

01:41:52 - Jamie (Caller)
Anyway, leo man, yeah, I know, I know, leo Mike. Mike, I think you guys are taking my call today, sure, so so here's a cabinet in the wonderful world of one genie. So we have cable with spectrum and I heard that we should also be. I heard that it's recommended that we also have an antenna for a backup right In case anything happens with with with the cable.

01:42:17 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, cause you get hurricanes down Sure, that's smart, yeah, oh sure.

01:42:23 - Jamie (Caller)
Or or maybe like me and you just, and you just want to and just want to be able to have that to sell the sub channels, and actually the truth is the quality of a cables, of a broadcast stream is the highest quality because it's not as compressed as cable.

01:42:36 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's still compressed, but not as much so, and if you have ATSC three and I think you do in Tampa you could be able to watch, in theory, 4k. You know lower compression 4k, so yeah, and it's free, so why not? Right, yeah, exactly.

01:42:51 - Jamie (Caller)
So the question I have is so I have the internal wire, I have a my, my, my antenna is a. It's called the flat 10. It's called the flat 10. I know my channel master and I've had her for a couple of years now and she and she runs great. But the antenna wire is tucked back behind the TV. Most of the TV is from tripping over it, only down side that. Is it really messed up? My? I don't know why, but it messed up my signal because I get less channels than I did when the wire is out. In other words, I get, I find that I get. You know why?

01:43:27 - Leo Laporte (Host)
that is, the wire is acting as an antenna, which shows you that the flat 10, maybe isn't the ideal antenna. That's hysterical. So when the wire is tucked away, you get worse reception. That means the wire is actually acting.

01:43:44 - Jamie (Caller)
Then when the wires yeah, so. I didn't know that because I'm, because I'm yeah, I didn't know that Cause see people, cause you know people come here in the bedroom that I'm sitting in right now. They come in here to clean or do whatever, and they say, oh my God, the antenna wire is sticking out. Jamie could fall and hurt himself, so let's put this back behind the TV. I think a lot of times don't touch anything when I'm not here, because that's what happens.

01:44:10 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You're talking to the wrong people because if you look at the floor of our studio, it is littered.

01:44:14 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, we've got wires.

01:44:15 - Ken (Caller)
With wires everywhere.

01:44:19 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And we have a raised floor that the wires can go under. But you know it's a lot of work to see all those wires Right, right, right. I trip every single day.

01:44:30 - Jamie (Caller)
We're just kind of sad, leo, but it's kind of sad, it's pathetic. So my question is what kind of? So what kind of antenna do I need, because the black antenna portion won't. Let me take it to the wall.

01:44:41 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I forget. So are you in an apartment or a standalone house?

01:44:49 - Jamie (Caller)
At the house we don't. The reason why I don't like the idea of putting the antenna outside. One, that's very expensive. Two, I live in a hurricane country, yeah so, and lightning Sometimes all of it.

01:45:07 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And then it's like a lightning rod, go right into your TV. So I'm going to point you to a site called antenna web antenna webcom. This you'll enter in your zip code. It'll show you what channels you can get locally which is all of them, cause you're in town and then it'll show you what antenna is best.

01:45:31 - Jamie (Caller)
I live about, right, I live about 20 miles away from the six, the tower, so that's so perfect.

01:45:40 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So that's exactly what you would do. You'd enter your zip code and then it will say well, you're going to need a directional antenna for channels four, seven and 11 aimed in this direction, et cetera. Do you have an attic?

01:45:55 - Jamie (Caller)
No, we do not. I don't know anybody in Florida that has an attic, really.

01:45:59 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Are addicts uncommon, okay. So addicts is. Sometimes people will put, I know, their hands. Even they'll put their antenna in the attic, cause the wood, the shingles and the wood on the roof aren't really much of a deterrent. You know it's metal that you got to worry about when it comes to an antenna, something inside the I have found right.

01:46:20 - Jamie (Caller)
I have found that when I put the, that when the wire is not behind the TV, I get about 85 channel, that's 87 to be exact. I've tested my come. I'm like 87. So here's an experiment.

01:46:34 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Disconnect the flat tena. Okay, just see if the wire is enough, cause it might well be that really it's the wire. The reason you get all those channels is not the flat tena, it's the wire. Now you know hams know this, and I dimly remember this from my ham exams that you want the antennas. I enjoy ham, yeah.

01:46:58 - Jamie (Caller)
I love ham too. I enjoy ham. I'm talking ham and ham, ham, ham, ham, dang it. I'm not a ham.

01:47:05 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I love my personal favorite Spanish ham.

01:47:08 - Jeremy (Caller)
A bad echo from the pigs eat a horns, but that's another story for another day Anyway.

01:47:16 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So the length of the antenna needs to be a direct multiple of the length of the frequency for optimal reception. Okay, but there are other kinds of antennas. There are, and this might actually be suitable for you. There are antennas called yaggies that are little spirals. There's all kinds of antenna shapes. That's why I want you to go to antenna webcom, because they will talk about. They'll show you you enter in your zip code here, I'll enter our zip code in and they'll tell us you can't get anything up there. That's crazy. What are you living in the country for?

01:47:48 - Jamie (Caller)
I mean, come on. I mean you guys are in like the number two market and the time that you guys should be able to get every, every single day.

01:47:54 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, no, you'd think, but we are about 45 miles away from Sutro Tower, which is the San Francisco Tower, and it unfortunately is not powerful enough. So these are the four stations I can get. Only two of them are good quality channel 50. And I don't even know what KFMY is, but anyway, they're not good. They're not good.

01:48:20 - Jamie (Caller)
I think that's in my network TV affiliate. I think I got to look it up.

01:48:24 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, it's terrible.

01:48:25 - Jamie (Caller)
I can tell we're just far enough away.

01:48:28 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So this is why cable TV was invented, was for suburban areas like this that are too far away from the Metro, that couldn't get it To receive broadcast Right, right, right and even honestly even with the right antenna, the best I'm gonna be able to do is four channels, none of which I want, so this is why you have to have cable and pedal over and they're probably it's probably some random religious or independent.

01:48:56
Yeah, they're independent, so it shows you as you can see and you'll have more than this, fortunately, but it'll show you, next to the channel, the color code which is what kind of antenna you're gonna want, which in this case is a medium multi-directional antenna. And then, if I wanna get these extra two, I need a large multi-directional antenna which sounds like an outside antenna. Then, if you click the link, learn more about the antenna.

01:49:24 - Jamie (Caller)
Yeah, I mean, yeah, It'll show you all of this. I've had friends that have those outdoor antennas and I have a friend. She actually had to replace her antenna because we had one of our famous afternoon floor thunderstorms. Exactly, Exactly, Leo. Would you like to guess what happened next?

01:49:46 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I kinda know, but yeah, so that's exactly why you don't want an outdoor antenna. The flat 10 is not a bad idea, but if you think about it, it's not a good idea either. It's not the right, it's not it's really it will only work if the signal is very, very strong and, as you've learned, it turns out the wire connecting the flat 10 is actually a better antenna than the flat 10.

01:50:11 - Jamie (Caller)
So Well, true story. I disconnected the wire one time because the flat antenna requires you plug it in in two places you know, there's one end of the coax cable goes into the bottom of the antenna and you put the other end into the antenna jack on the TV or the antenna, which I forgot where it is, and I've got a Roku TV.

01:50:43 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Let me once again.

01:50:45
Let me just I don't need the details, but the Discord has given me one more site, which I like also, which is antennas direct. It's doing the same kind of thing. I entered in the zip code. It's showing me where the transmitters are. Actually, this is a nice map and then they sell antennas. They sell the right kind of antenna. Here's an indoor or attic antenna, here's the flat antenna and this is exactly what you got from Channel Master. It's amplified okay, but in theory you know. So I don't know how good this site is. It looks actually pretty good. It shows you a variety of places you can, channels you can see. It looks like they are selling the antennas themselves, which is a convenience, but may make you wonder whether you really need a buy antenna that looks like that.

01:51:40 - Jamie (Caller)
I don't know if you do yeah, I mean yeah, yeah. I mean the worst thing. The worst antenna I ever got was I got a pair of rabbit ears.

01:51:50 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, don't you remember that, Do you? Are you old enough?

01:51:52 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I know a rabbit ear. Do you remember rabbit ears, getting up and adjusting them, and then, and then Now stand there.

01:51:58 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Now, hold on he was, and he tells a funny story. He had a detuner that he built in college. So he had a little box that he made that would detune, somehow, interfere with the signal, and so he would sit in the call. You know how they have a common room with a TV and there's some poor guy who's trying to find the game and Steve's sitting with his detuner in his pocket and he, the guy, would be trying all different poses to get and he would tune it to as soon as the guy got in the most untenable. You know, one leg in the air, one leg, one hand up here, like that it would come in perfectly. Oh, that's amazing.

01:52:32 - Jeremy (Caller)
And then, as soon as he moved, he would get back.

01:52:35 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So he, the poor guy, would have to stand there like that.

01:52:39 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Oh, that's funny.

01:52:40 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And it was all cause was had a little thing in his pocket. Anyway, get the right. Those are two good resources for you to find the right antenna. It's hard if you can't put it on the roof, if you can't put it in the attic. Having in the living room is never ideal. You can maybe sometimes mount a Yaggy off the side of your house. Yeah, lightning. And then it has to be aimed in the right direction, and if the transmitter for one station is there and the other one's there, it's hard. This is why cable succeeds. Let's do another call. Who else? Let me do the other wireless caller, shall I? Hello? Hey, what's your name? Where are you calling from?

01:53:19 - Paul (Caller)
My name is Paul and I'm calling you from Pontiac Michigan, From beautiful Pontiac, Michigan.

01:53:23 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Hi Paul Welcome.

01:53:26 - Paul (Caller)
Good afternoon gentlemen. It's a pleasure to chat with you. Nice to talk to you, Paul. What can we do for you? My wife and I are about to embark on a month long trip to New Zealand and Australia.

01:53:39 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Congrats.

01:53:39 - Paul (Caller)
that's fun, and we're both iPhone users and we've been looking into installing eSIMs to provide data, cellular service and text capability. It's a bit of a challenge to gather enough information to make an informed decision, and we thought you might be able to fill in some gaps for us.

01:54:06 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Michael, do you wanna take this?

01:54:07 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, so there are loads of different options, of course, but there's an eSIM company that I have heard about from many people and have used for a long time and it's very simple to use, and I'm just trying to remember that-.

01:54:24 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Air.

01:54:24 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Loan. No, gig Sky, gig Sky. So Gig Sky, GIGS SKY. We have talked about it before on iOS today. My co-host, rosemary Orchard from the UK, has talked about it before as well, and it has built in tools for you to basically have an eSIM wherever you need to. They have different prices and different price points, and you can do just a gig of data, three gigs of data, that kind of thing, depending on how long you want to have it and it all works right there on your phone. You install the eSIM, you're good to go and apparently, if you are a Visa card holder, there are also some complimentary plans as well. So there are some other options that are included for different users. But, yes, gig Sky, long time use of this specific app, and then I've also heard of other folks who've used this and had a very easy time with it.

01:55:25 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Joe in our club Twitter says AeroLo is when he uses, when he travels A-I-R-A-L-O. He says they use Apple Pay, which is nice, because you can go online and do it and pay for it, all without leaving your phone.

01:55:39
200 plus countries. Now, I have to say, I've never used any of these because, as a Google Fi customer and as a T-Mobile customer, but primarily Google Fi customer I don't even bother. I just Google Fi. I pay the same amount for data everywhere, and so as we travel around, I just use my existing phone without an eSIM or anything, and I don't have those huge international data fees. Might be worth, though. If you're gonna use a lot of data, it's really nice when you travel, to have that data, that's great. A month, that's even better. I'm so jealous.

01:56:15 - Paul (Caller)
Great, great news, guys. Thank you very much, you're welcome so. I've been a long time. Thanks, paul, and also a club Twitter member.

01:56:23 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Oh yay, thank you for your support.

01:56:25 - Paul (Caller)
When are you leaving, leo?

01:56:27 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I'll give you a 7-3 from N8BRO, 7-3, there's a fellow amateur radio operator, w6twt, from ham to ham. When are you leaving, paul?

01:56:41 - Paul (Caller)
First of April we'll be getting ready and heading out Nice have fun.

01:56:45 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yes, Take your handy talky right so you can do a little ham radio in country. That'd be a lot of fun.

01:56:53 - Paul (Caller)
Yeah, we use an open spot and actually tie it into the internet and can work just like local back here in the state.

01:57:01 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I'll never forget. I was on a cruise and there's a guy sitting in the lobby talking on amateur radio and I said how you doing? He says internet. I was very impressed. That's great. Have a great trip, paul. Take care, all right guys. Thanks again.

01:57:18
I love our club Twitter members and please do identify yourself and your club member and your call in. We'd love to know that. Perhaps you've heard and you've said what is this club Twitter of which they speak? It is, frankly, something we wanted to do from the very beginning, 20 years ago. When I started Twitter in April 2005, 19 years ago, I thought we could do this without ads, but after a couple of years it became apparent that we really couldn't grow without ads. So over the last 15 years, advertising has been a great support. It's really made it possible for us to build studios we're in our third studio now to hire great people like Micah and do so many shows.

01:58:02
But unfortunately, advertisers for some reason, have decided to abandon podcasts. They're abandoning new media in general. You saw Vices shutting down. Many podcasts that we love, like Rocket, have had to shut down due to the lack of advertising support. We don't want to shut down, we want to keep going. So we've come back to that old thought that maybe we could be listeners supported. Now we're not gonna put all the burden on you. We still have some advertisers. Hope we keep selling ads. We're gonna try, but in the long run it looks like it's gonna be up to you to support us Now.

01:58:36
We created the club a couple of years ago. It's been a great success. I want to emphasize that the $7 a month you're paying goes directly to the studio, to Micah, to John, to Anthony. It doesn't go to me, it doesn't go to Lisa, it goes to keeping operations afloat and it is very important to us because, frankly, if we couldn't pay the power bill, we're not gonna be able to do a podcast. So you're paying, basically to keep Twit on the air.

01:59:04
We do give you benefits. I've seen people say well, wait a minute, you know these. You making the benefits less beneficial. Well, but it isn't about the benefits. You're doing it because you want to support us. We do give you some benefits. The chief benefit is you don't get any ads when you join club Twit, which means no tracking. We do have some ad tracking in our ad based shows, but you won't have any in the ad free shows. You also get video for shows, many of which we only have audio for in public, like Micah's iOS today. You also get, of course, access to the Discord, which is a really nice place to hang out, and special events too.

01:59:39
So there are a lot of reasons to join it, but I really want to emphasize the main reason is because you want to support what we do. If you like the content we're creating for you, if you want us to create more, we're gonna need you to chip in. Frankly, twittv slash club Twit. You can buy individual shows like this for $2.99 a month, but for a few bucks more, you get it all. That's what I would do, and we thank you for joining the club. And do tell us when you call in if you're a member, because I'd like to thank you for your support. Uh, did you clear the board we are running out of?

02:00:16 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
time Color.

02:00:17 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, let's do one, let's do another one, yeah, ah, hey, what's your first name and what city?

02:00:27 - Ken (Caller)
This is Ken in Arlington Heights, illinois. Hello Ken, welcome. Thank you, I am a member of the club. Thank you for everything you do, leo. I've been with you since the days of Soledad O'Brien on MSNBC Back when.

02:00:47 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I was a virtual character.

02:00:49 - Ken (Caller)
He began to tell you yes, you were a virtual character. You were very handsome then and you continue to be.

02:00:55 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I can't spin my head though.

02:00:58 - Ken (Caller)
But I've learned so much over the years and, micah, I've learned from you and the when you were not only a gasp, but now, since you've been a host and I do have a question for Micah. I was a PC user for a little over 30 years and then I made the move over to a Mac, which I absolutely love. But I have a workflow issue and I don't know how to fix this. Okay, I, you know I'll have multiple apps open and documents, and then, let's say, I have four PDFs open. All of a sudden, that one PDF that I'm looking for is missing. I can't find it. I know that it's open.

02:01:49
I run a 27 inch screen as by primary screen and I use my MacBook Pro it's an M1, as my secondary screen. And you know, I tried some third party apps like Rectangle and a few others, and that just doesn't seem to do it. But you run into these kinds of issues and is there a workaround? You know when you're on a conference call and you're trying to reference four different documents and all of a sudden, wait, where did that document go?

02:02:25 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah.

02:02:25
So, yeah, this is. It can be kind of complicated, especially if you're using multiple screens, figuring out where things are. There are lots of different methods for going about this. One of my favorite things to do, though, is just to use expose. Oh and so. So you just press F4 or F3, brother, f3, yep, and when you press F3, what it'll do is bring up your. This is actually mission control, but expose is kind of part of mission control, and it'll bring up the different documents that you have, bring up the different pages that you have, and that can be a quick way to kind of get an understanding of what is where.

02:03:06
Another thing that I like to use is so, if you're using a PDF and you are in the preview app, for example, I like to use the window option in the menu. So make sure you have that PDF kind of front of screen just one, so that previews front of screen, and then you choose window and you click bring all to front. You can set a keyboard shortcut for that, and that's what a lot of people will do, and that will basically make any preview window that exists anywhere on your machine that's open at that time. It'll bring it to the front, so it'll pop those all to the front of the document or to the front of the window, so that way, if you did have a PDF that was hiding behind something, you'd be able to see it. Between those two things, I'm typically able to find what I need.

02:03:56
Sometimes I will have an issue where the the window is minimized instead of actually being up somewhere just hidden behind layers.

02:04:10
And right clicking on an app icon that's currently launched and choosing show all windows is another great way to see what windows you currently have open in that app. That is another thing that you can set a keyboard shortcut for if you'd like, and so that's particularly helpful if you are in preview, if you've got multiple PDFs open, because it kind of shows them as a tile at the bottom of the screen, and so if I have, you know, let's say, I have a bunch of PDFs open and I again right click on preview and choose show all windows, it will just show all of the windows for that specific app. Then you can quickly click on the one that you want to bring to the front and you're able to access it. So I think what that is great. Yeah, and that's what ends up being the problem, right, is that there are so many ways to go about this you don't necessarily know which one to do, but hopefully one of those will be a great way for you to find what you're looking for that is great, If you don't mind.

02:05:11 - Ken (Caller)
Kind of a related question I do use stage manager because that helps me as well find the app of the user, I was about to say the one stage manager user, holy cow, it's nice to meet you. That's the theory behind it, though, right, it's nice to have you.

02:05:28 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Some organization yeah.

02:05:29 - Ken (Caller)
Yeah, so you can see mail and contact your calendar. They're right there to click on. But so I'll be on a call and I'm referencing two documents. So I drag, let's say, one of the PDFs over to the secondary screen and then I'm getting like the stage manager icon on the second screen, which I don't want to have. I just recently figured out if I double click quickly on the second screen then I can drag the document over and it's not minimized like a stage manager. You know size document.

02:06:11 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, so what I'm going to do? Well, first, thank you to retcon, who reminded me that the keyboard shortcut for showing all of the windows is holding down control and then hitting down arrow. So when you have preview in the front, you know one PDF in the front. Hold down control and hit down arrow. That will bring up all the different PDFs. But, going to your question, my recommendation for you, because this is what I have done in the past and in fact I have you, I believe at the beginning, mentioned you're a club twit member. You should check out my episode that's completely devoted to stage manager.

02:06:47
But if you head to Apple's support documents, we'll include a link in the show notes to the page. That's all about stage manager, and the reason why I'm bringing this up is because one thing that I think Apple has not done a good job of is revealing all of the hidden things that you can do with stage manager, and so there are lots of different options and keyboard shortcuts that you can use, and, depending on how you move something to one. You just explained it. You, if you double click and you do this, then it does this. If you just drag it, then it does that. These are all little sort of gestural and keyboard based inputs that will give you a different output. So I'm going to link you to Apple's kind of full page that has everything you need to know about stage manager so that you can kind of figure out.

02:07:39
Okay, this is how I wanted to use it. This is not how I wanted to use it, so that'll be in the show notes, which, of course, are at. Well, twittv, slash atg will give you the latest. Or techguilebscom yeah, we kept that around.

02:07:53 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Ken, are you on a?

02:07:54 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
laptop or a desktop.

02:07:55 - Paul (Caller)
I really appreciate it.

02:07:56 - Ken (Caller)
Are you on a laptop? I'm on a laptop Laptop, I'm on a MacBook Pro M1. So I really I really like it as a completely alternative suggestion.

02:08:06 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I'll show you how I work, and I think I'm much influenced by the iPad. I tend to want everything in full screen and then I can swipe between screens with three fingers. So if I keep everything full screen and let's say, I open Zoom now and I'm in a phone call, the first thing I do when Zoom opens is I make it full screen, because I don't. If I swipe around, I want it to be, and as soon as I make it full screen, it's its own workspace. So when I press F3 now, I see all these workspaces. I can go up to the top and I can reorder them. I can move them around, and so for me, given the limited real estate on a laptop, when I on my desktop, I tend to have more windows.

02:08:58 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Same. I'm a spaces guy on my laptop and non spaces guy on my work.

02:09:03 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, in fact I'll use a rectangular magnet to order screens and all of that, but there's just not enough real estate, in my opinion, on a laptop. So, but there's three fingers. Swipe is a great thing because you can show my screen. There's nothing, nothing to hide. So as I'm, as I'm swiping through, I can see all the different things I need to do, and F3 will then open up and I can organize. I can drag these around if I want it. They even notice it, even names it when you're full screen. That says discord, that says zoom, that says slack, that says emacs, that says this is windows is running in a full screen as well. So I, you know this is a nice for me and again, it's very personal. That's one of the nice things that Apple does is a with stage managers, so forth. They give you a lot of different ways of operating. But frankly, I want to be full screen on my laptop. So every time I open a nap, I just make it full screen so that it can, it can. This is, it can be there.

02:09:58 - Ken (Caller)
This is. This is great. Well, Leo and Mike, let's do another 30 plus years. Thank you so much. Hurrah, hurrah, I am so grateful to you.

02:10:07 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Thank you. So that's been a long time. It's a DevNull MSNBC, that was 1994. So yeah, 30 years exactly. That's amazing. I appreciate it. Thank you for your support. Thanks again for everything.

02:10:20 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Jeff, my pleasure, take care, bye, bye.

02:10:23 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, it's fun to. Actually, one of the things I really enjoy seeing is how other people use their computers or their phones, because everybody seems to personalize.

02:10:32 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It's very personalized and sometimes you go, I will still find I'll go wait, what did you just do? Yeah, do that again. Whoa, I didn't know that that, yeah, you've. You discover new things all the time and I also. I can take things other people do and adapt it to how I liked it. Yeah, it's awesome, and I think that that's part of what we can show at times.

02:10:51 - Leo Laporte (Host)
One of the but Anthony's saying he uses command tab, and of course that works also with his full screen because you can see everything you have open and you can choose whatever full screen application you want and go right to that. So that's another fast way of navigating. And I really like the F3. I don't use it as much as I probably could or should, but that gives you a chance to really organize it. So that, you know, I always liked, for instance, to have my Emacs next to a browser. That's so I'll set it up that way so that I can. I have the browser and then I have a Emacs and I know I can go back and forth. So that's, you know, it's handy.

02:11:27
But to have the magnet and multiple screens, I just think on a laptop you just don't have enough real estate to do that, Agreed. Whereas on my 55 inch display at home I got lots of real estate. So I'll have all those windows open at the same time. All right, that's that Command tilde. What does that do? That just switches windows within an application. So you go to preview. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, If I have multiple windows open, right, right. So that was actually his use case because he had preview open and he had multiple documents. So if you went full screen on them, you would need, you would want to use Command tilde to switch between them.

02:12:08 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Command tilde Swinton.

02:12:10 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Now I really cannot command tilde Swinton, because she is her own woman. Indeed and on that note.

02:12:17 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
That's how we'll let it Great. There's my legacy. I'm leaving.

02:12:23 - Leo Laporte (Host)
We thank you so much for watching, for your support as a club twit member and for calling in. We love our callers. We love doing this show we do. It is my one day of the week where I get to hang out and talk about my socks, so yeah, the one place you could talk about your socks. The only place I can do that, you know.

02:12:41 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Mac break now for socks.

02:12:42 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You can catch more of Micah Sargent every Thursday Tech News Weekly and you've got a great lineup now. Every week, another co host.

02:12:49 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It's really awesome. I'm very pleased We've got Abraar Alhiti of CNET Love her. Amanda Silberling of Tech Crunch Love her. Jennifer Patterson, tue of the Verge and Emily Dry-Belbis of PCMag, who are all joining us.

02:13:03 - Leo Laporte (Host)
They're all great. I love them all and it makes it a nice fun show. Every week, exactly, you get a variety which is great, and, of course, his great co-host, rosemary Orchard, on iOS Today, which you can now listen to even if you're not in the club. We moved into the club briefly and then we thought better off it, so audio versions of all of our shows now, including Untitled Linux Show. All of the shows that were previously behind the paywall are now out in the public.

02:13:27
You could subscribe to them all if you go to our website, twittv. And, of course, if you want video, join the club. It's worth it. It's seven bucks a month. You get video too. So Rosemary Orchard, micah Sargent and you do those every Tuesday right before Mac Break Weekly. Indubitably yes for iOS Today, and we'll probably find more things for Micah to do as time goes by. I think I asked Lisa if I could do this and she said no, but I think you should be on every show that I do. You should just have. It should be us. It's just the two of us.

02:14:04
But she says, then you would have Micah be doing like 10 shows a week. You can't have him do that, that would be 10. Wow, yeah, you can't have him do that. And then I said I says I says I used to do 10 shows a week when I was his age. You could do it. I could when I was twice his age. Anyway, I like you that much, I like having you around and I think you should be my co-host everywhere we go.

02:14:30
But until that time comes and it'll probably come when I need the drool cup then we'll just have to see him on iOS today, tech News Weekly and ask the tech guys. Every Sunday we do the show from 11 AM to 2 PM roughly. We stop and start a little differently, but if you tune in from 11 AM to 2 PM Pacific, that's 2 to 5 PM Eastern time we stream it on YouTube, twitteryoutubecom slash Twitter. You can also watch it pre-show, post-show as well in the club. The Discord does some streaming as well After the fact on demand version of the show, a twittertv slash ATG, or just go to techgyelabscom same place. There's a YouTube channel dedicated to Ask the Tech Guys and you can subscribe, which. I don't want to say anything, but that's a good way to get it you get it automatically.

02:15:24
I hear people say that it's a good way and that way you'll get it immediately as soon as we're done with the show and we clean it up and stuff, take out the swear words, the cuss words and stuff. Micah, during the week can people reach us? Yeah?

02:15:36 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
they can ATG at twittertv is the email we talked about, that Audio and video can be sent there, or text. That's when Leo reaches back, that's where those are coming from. And then if you do call that number, that 8887242884 number, during the week, you get to leave a voicemail for us that we will be able to play back. If you had to call to twittertv during the week I don't know what happens, but you don't want to do that Nothing.

02:16:01 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You don't want to. You could sit there for hours.

02:16:04 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
You just be all by yourself in that little game, and I don't even think there's any good music playing when you do yourself.

02:16:08 - Leo Laporte (Host)
No, it's not, it's just you just sitting there. Thank you all for being here. We really appreciate it. We'll see you next time. Mike. For Micah Sargent, I'm Leo Laporte, wishing you a great week. Bye-bye, bye-bye MUSIC.