Ask The Tech Guys Episode 1959 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.

Leo Laporte (00:00:00):
It's time for Ask the Tech Guys. I'm Leo Leo Laporte. Coming up, I'm gonna show you the latest Amazon Echo. Is it worth the steep

Mikah Sargent (00:00:07):
Price? And I'm Mikah Sargant and I will help you get your contacts and calendars sorted on your mobile devices.

Leo Laporte (00:00:13):
Then we'll explain why I'm wearing this weird outfit. Ask the Tech Guys is next

Mikah Sargent (00:00:20):
Podcasts

Leo Laporte (00:00:21):
You love

Mikah Sargent (00:00:22):
From people you trust.

Leo Laporte (00:00:24):
This

Mikah Sargent (00:00:25):
Is Tweet is tweet.

Leo Laporte (00:00:29):
This is Asked the Tech Eyes with Leo Laport and Mikah Sargant, episode 1,959 for Sunday, January 29th. 2023. That's thick with two Cs. This episode of Ask the Tech Guys is brought to you by CacheFly. Cachefly is the only CDN built for throughput. Delivering rich media content up to 10 times faster and traditional delivery methods and 30% faster than other major CDNs. Learn how you can get your first month freeat cachefly.com. Thanks for listening to this show. As an ad supported network, we are always looking for new partners with products and services that will benefit our qualified audience. Are you ready to grow your business? Reach out to advertise@twi.tv and launch your campaign now.

Mikah Sargent (00:01:20):
Boo boo boo.

Leo Laporte (00:01:21):
It's time for the tech guys. Ask the tech guys. Hello, Mikah. Sargant. Hello

Mikah Sargent (00:01:26):
Leo. How'd

Leo Laporte (00:01:28):
You know it was

Mikah Sargent (00:01:28):
Me? Lucho. Laport.

Leo Laporte (00:01:30):
I'm wearing my Mexican wrestler mask with a 49ers on it. I think I'm a little over geared. You.

Mikah Sargent (00:01:38):
I, you know, the hat could go <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:01:41):
Apparently there's a football game today

Mikah Sargent (00:01:43):
Is the, is the jacket warm?

Leo Laporte (00:01:45):
It's really warm. This is what they call a throwback cuz they don't make 'em anymore. Gold. Niners jacket. I so my wife is a football fan. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and I have become by football fan by proxy. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And apparently her team is playing in about an hour. So I she may be a little the

Mikah Sargent (00:02:05):
Right

Leo Laporte (00:02:06):
Now. Yeah. I may be a little distracted. Today, <laugh>, this is the show we answer your computer questions. We talk about computers, the internet, home theater, digital photography. We talk about smartphones, smart watches. We talk a lot about AI these days.

Mikah Sargent (00:02:19):
Yes, we do. There's a lot of it.

Leo Laporte (00:02:21):
Possibility. I asked there, so there's a number of different things that happened all of a sudden with ai. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> that got our attention. It started with stable, actually probably with Dolly too, when open AI opened access to its image generation, artificial intelligence. I read something good. I like this because it kind of explains to me what's really going on. Okay. With ai, it's not technically exactly right. Okay. But if you think about Dolly with images or stable diffusion or mid journey or chat, g p t with text, it's best to compare it to auto. Correct. We've played this game, haven't you, where you go into your phone and you type a word and then you pick, you just go from autocorrect and keep typing and it generates a sentence. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> based on what it knows about you and kind of weak rules.

(00:03:12):
But what if you had a really strong set of rules for the Correct. Okay. That's kind of what chat G p T is doing. There's another description and I got, we had a question last week and I, and I saw this article and I thought, this is really the best explanation I've seen yet of what our question was last week. Should we worry about our jobs? This was an interview from the markup@themarkup.org to coding the high, the hype about ai. Julia Anguin in conversation with Arvind NARI Yon, who is a professor of Arti, I guess Professor of Artificial Intelligence. I don't know, <laugh>, is that a, is that a thing? He is an expert writing a book called AI Snake Oil right now. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. He is a Princeton computer science professor. He is this became well known because he did a talk how to recognize Snake Oil and AI some years ago.

(00:04:08):
But Julia Anguin interviewed him for the Markup and I thought he said something very interesting at the end. Before I get to that though, I'm gonna mention an analogy he gave, which I really liked. Remember when Comp <laugh>, did you ever watch the show? Silicon Valley? Yeah. On the, on hbo. Yeah. You remember that one of the kids living in the startup house came up with his own program hotdog, or not <laugh>, right? Yes. Where it could look at anything and tell you if it was a hotdog or not A hotdog. That's all right. Right. That's how in a, in a lot of ways, our image AI image stuff started with image recognition. You know, you could type a dog into Google photos and search for a dog and you'll see a pic, all your dog pictures. So it, it started by doing that.

(00:04:53):
He says, essentially what's happening is doing that in reverse. Once it figured out how it could recognize a dog, then it could take from the prompt dog and generate a dog. Got it. Just kind of back up. It's a, it's a similar process. And of course, all of this, it's not intelligence. That's a, it's unfortunate, cuz that's not a good word for this, but all of this machine learning stuff comes based on looking at a lot of stuff and then deciding based on all that stuff, kind of autocorrect how stuff's related so that if you gave it x it would know Y comes next. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> in a trivial example. So there, he talks in this article, and I recommend it about a lot of different uses for ai, some that aren't so good. He says, there's a kind of AI where decision makers decide what to do, what something's gonna happen in the future.

(00:05:46):
They predict the future. The best known of this is minority report, pre-crime, predicting that person's gonna be a criminal, but it is actually used, for instance, in parole hearings. Is this person likely to re-offend, right. Re-Offend mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And if he is, we're not gonna let him out. He says that's the worst use of ai because it's basically taking sta statistics and applying to an individual mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And as we know, individuals are not statistics, statistics are individuals as a group, not any in individuals. It's very easy for you or me to, to def you know, to defy the statistical prediction. Right. So it's a bad way to judge, to judge people. He says, when an intervention is made based on a prediction, we need to ask, is that the best decision we can make? Maybe the best decision would be not is he likely to reoffend, but what could we do to rehabilitate him?

(00:06:39):
Yeah. <laugh>, that might be a better question. Right, right. Oh so anyway he, it's a great article, but let me give you the last paragraph, because one of the things that somebody asked us last week, I don't know if we had a great answer, was, should we be worried about all this AI taking our jobs? What is, what is the chance that AI is gonna take our jobs? He says, assume some of the wildest predictions about chat gret the text one. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> the one that writes are true. And it will automate entire job categories. By way of analogy, this is again, professor Ariana think about the most profound information technology developments of the last few decades. The internet, smartphones, they've reshaped entire industries, but we have learned to live with them. Some jobs have gotten more efficient, some jobs have been automated, so people have retrained themselves or shifted careers.

(00:07:28):
There are some harmful effects of these technologies. We're learning to regulate them, even with something as profound as the internet or search engines are smartphones. That turned out to be an adaptation where we maximize the benefits and try to minimize the risks rather than some kind of revolution. And he says, I think he says, I don't even think large language models like chat G P T are on the scale of that. Now, we may disagree on that. I think a lot of us think interesting. It is on the scale of smartphones or the internet, but he says, no matter what, there'll be potentially massive shifts, benefits and risks in many industries, but he doesn't see it as a sky is falling kind of issue. Now. That was the answer I wish I'd given last week. So I thought I'd I'd bring that back up.

Mikah Sargent (00:08:10):
I think, I think generative AI as a whole is the transformative technology. It's not necessarily one of these individually, but this whole concept as a,

Leo Laporte (00:08:19):
Something going on Right.

Mikah Sargent (00:08:21):
Play around. Yeah. With,

Leo Laporte (00:08:21):
There's something happening

Mikah Sargent (00:08:22):
With video, with music, with all sorts of, and that as a whole, I think is going to be life changing.

Leo Laporte (00:08:28):
There is some AI music now, it's not very good, but there's some very interesting stuff. Alex Lindsay sent me a YouTube video. I don't know if I can play it. I probably can't of a Billy Eilish song, but AI replace Billy Eilish voice with Ariana Grande. Oh, wow. Is it Grande or

Mikah Sargent (00:08:45):
Grande? Oh, grande, yeah,

Leo Laporte (00:08:46):
Grande. And it's was, it was good. It did very well. That's the kind of thing we're singing that's gonna get better and better. Right. Well, I

Mikah Sargent (00:08:55):
Mean, and when, so think about music theory. I'm honestly surprised that music wasn't one of the first things that these scientists tackled, given how mathematical music is and the way that we not only express music, but appreciate music and how it is tied to these scales, these mathematical scales, and understanding the, the way that, you know, you resolve a melody, all of that is very rules-based. Yeah. And even though there is artistry involved, I'm surprised to not see more generative AI involved with music just yet. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:09:27):
So anyway, that's, yeah, I think it's fascinating. I'll play, if you want later on, we could play we could play some music. I have some music. The AI generated music. Google announced a release some this week. Oh, neat. Wait, should I play it now? I think I got my, I think I've got my audio working. This is always a question while we're, while I'm ing around, we are open, the lines are open@call.twit.tv. That is our zoom line. If you do that, my suggestion is do that on your phone and your browser. Call TWI tv. If you have Zoom on there, it'll launch it. If not, it will pull it up and install it and then use your phone because your phone's microphone works and camera works. We know that <laugh>, and we can see you on your phone. People are so tempted to use their fancy computer setups and often that makes it harder.

(00:10:13):
But if you've got it and it's working okay, fine. But we are gonna take some calls in just a bit. Call dot twit tv. Coming up, I'm gonna do a little demo of the newest Amazon Echo. It's a little creepy. It follows you around. <Laugh>, it follows you around. I got this from my mom cuz I thought sh you know, she's, she's 90 years old and I wanted to talk to her and it's getting harder and harder for her to set up the iPad and do the FaceTime. So I said, this way I can just call you mom and you'll hear, you know, Leo's calling and she'll press the button and, and I'll, I'll be there and she'll be there and we don't have to worry about it. Nice. So far it's worked very well. Maybe if I can get her to answer the phone. We'll call mom <laugh>.

Mikah Sargent (00:10:53):
She's, she's aware calling, right? No.

Leo Laporte (00:10:55):
Oh, I'll, I'll let her know ahead of time. Okay. Okay. <Laugh> <laugh> we also have what else do we have coming up?

Mikah Sargent (00:11:03):
We've got, I mean, besides calls, we've got

Leo Laporte (00:11:05):
Some great questions. Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (00:11:06):
We got some great questions and some emails, which is exciting.

Leo Laporte (00:11:09):
Ask the tech guys@twitch.tv. I'm gonna, I forgot they're reminding me in the Discord. Let's go guys. I forgot to tell 'em we were doing a show. So <laugh>. I gotta, I gotta do that. One more thing, let's talk about before we get to the calls, we got some good ones coming in just a bit, including we've got a good, a good shot of somebody's cables. Yes. Which should be a lot of fun. The cables have their hands raised, so I think they want to know something. We'll, we'll go there. <Laugh>. Should we, should we not go there first? Let's not go there.

Mikah Sargent (00:11:41):
<Laugh>. Sometime along the way we'll talk to Joe Cable.

Leo Laporte (00:11:44):
Joe Cable. But first I wanted to talk about Corey. Dr. Rose. I thought very Corey is so good at crystallizing stuff and I thought his article was really, really good. He uses a bad word in the title I, I want to use a bad word. So I'm gonna say the Ertification of TikTok mm-hmm. Is the name of the article. Talk's in certification. You can take the R out and you'll get an idea of <laugh>, what's going on. But we're in the good place right now, aren't we? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And we're gonna say that. So he makes, he makes a really interesting point I thought as well. He says, here's how platforms die. We're talking Facebook or Google or, or really anything. It doesn't even have to just be in technology first. Number one, they're good to their users. Then number two, they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers.

(00:12:37):
Oh. And three, finally, they abuse those business customers to get to make profit, to claw back all the value for themselves. Four, everybody says this place is inured and leaves. Wow. He says, Amazon did exactly this. When Amazon first started out, it was all about the customer, right? We're gonna serve the customer. In fact, they had lower prices and free shipping or low cost shipping. They subsidized it all. They weren't stupid. The idea was get customers locked in. We talked about Amazon's smile last week. They got rid of their charity platform. That was all about getting people locked in. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And, and then the next step was to get business customers to use it. And that's when they created the marketplace. Half of what you buy on Amazon now is not sold by Amazon, but a third party. So they got the third party sellers all, all locked in.

(00:13:27):
Right? And then the final step, which is since everybody's locked in we are going to capitalize on this. We're gonna make money on it by basically ransoming access to the customers. When you first, in the early days of Amazon, when you searched on Amazon, you'd probably find the best product at the lowest price. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Now you find the advertised product. And, and he says, this is what they did to the marketplace users. They said, if you wanna be in the marketplace, you've gotta return as much as 45% of your profits to us in the form of, of advertising. So lots of business customers come in. The strategy minute was harder for shoppers to find anything anywhere except Amazon. That meant they searched on Amazon, which meant that sellers had to sell on Amazon. That's when they started harvesting the surplus from its business customers.

(00:14:22):
Stage two. Right? maybe that's, that's stage three, I guess. Yeah, that's stage three. And essentially he says, if you search for cat beds on Amazon, the entire first screen is ads. Including ads for products. Amazon clone from its own sellers, putting them out of business. That's the big one, right? Those Amazon Basics products. Third parties have to pay 45% in fees to Amazon, but Amazon doesn't charge itself these fees. Profit. Right? All told the first five screens of ads for cat beds of, of results for cat beds are 50% ads. Now, at some point it gets so bad that you leave the platform. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> we're not there yet.

Mikah Sargent (00:15:00):
Not for Amazon. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:15:01):
We were there for Facebook. Same thing happened to Facebook. At first, the proposition, the value proposition was you get a great place to stay in touch with family and friends. Then they got the publishers to start putting their content on there. Then they got 'em all locked in. Then they said, the heck with you. Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (00:15:18):
It was off. I remember working in a company when that was going on where we published and Facebook was, you know, big for us. And then suddenly the video views that we thought we had did not actually match what was actually happening. And that, that just dropped as Facebook sort of looked internally for ways to make money themselves.

Leo Laporte (00:15:37):
Corey writes today, Facebook is terminally inured a terrible place to be, whether you're a user, a media company, or an advertiser. It's a company that deliberately demolished a huge fraction of the publishers. It relied on defrauding them into a pivot to video based on false claims of the popularity of video among Facebook users. If you even saw a 10th of a second of a video, it would count you as a view. Yep. Right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> companies threw billions into the pivot. The viewers never materialized. Media outlets folded and droves or sold as your company did to equity capital. Yep. But Facebook has a new pitch.

Mikah Sargent (00:16:15):
<Laugh> <laugh>, it's starting over doing

Leo Laporte (00:16:17):
It's claims to be called Meta. And it demands that we live out the rest of our days. Corey is such a good writer as a legless sexless, heavily surveilled, low poly cartoon character. Woohoo.

Mikah Sargent (00:16:30):
Woohoo.

Leo Laporte (00:16:32):
So he, this, he starts, the title is the Certification of TikTok. He says TikTok is not quite there yet, but when it first started, right at first, it, its algorithms were, were great for creators, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> actually it what was great for users cuz they gave you what you wanted. Then they said, now we gotta get the businesses Volga, the creators involved. And so they started putting, they, they have what they call a heat button that they would press on creators. They wanted to, he says it's like a Kearney. You ever play the Kearney games? Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (00:17:02):
Oh, okay. Yes. You get some people to win, right?

Leo Laporte (00:17:05):
Yeah. So he talks about the, the, the fruit baskets where you throw something in, he says, and these Kearney games are getting a little switch they can flip. The pops are ball out the fruit basket so you don't win. He says, they only let people win. They wanna let win. So they look for the biggest Rube and they make sure he wins the biggest teddy bear. Then he walks around the Kearney, look what I got. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And it drives traffic.

Mikah Sargent (00:17:24):
Anyone can get it.

Leo Laporte (00:17:26):
So he says, TikTok, it had that little switch, and that's the four you tab. And they put the creators, they wanted to promote like my son Salt Hank in there, grew them to vast size. But now of course, the next stage is gonna start to begin. And and that's, and that's really what happens to all these platforms. It's, and you know what, it's not even something to bemoan. It's the way of the, it's called capitalism. Yes. And then these platforms wither away and the next thing takes over. Here's the most important thing. I think you gotta realize that. And you gotta know when to leave. You gotta know when you're the rube and that teddy bear isn't really something you want. And you know, who's doing this now? Who has a four uab now all of a sudden

Mikah Sargent (00:18:11):
Oh, it doesn't. I can't even Twitter. Oh, Twitter has one. But Etsy just got one too. Oh,

Leo Laporte (00:18:15):
There you go. Interesting. <laugh>. Interesting. So Twitter's at that stage of monetization where screw everybody, right? We're just, we're just gonna make, get as much money at this as we can't.

Mikah Sargent (00:18:28):
Exactly.

Leo Laporte (00:18:29):
And if you want your posts to be seen by anybody, you're gonna be giving us some money. You're gonna be giving us some money. They've, they've already said that $8 for the blue check, but they now are planning a larger business plan where you pay even more if you're a business on Twitter. Cuz a lot of businesses now are dependent on Twitter. Right. To drive traffic. Your old publication Yep. Drive traffic through Twitter. Right. Well, once they got ya, then they raised the prices. I think that's pretty obvious.

Mikah Sargent (00:18:53):
It's why, I guess the thing that's really sticking out to me here is how quite literally you can take this and just drop overlay it on all these companies and you are seeing it play out over and over and over again. Yeah. There's no change. He says

Leo Laporte (00:19:06):
That it works. The, the one remedy that government should take, and I agree with this, is making this stuff interoperable. So it's easy for you to leave. Okay. As long as you can leave, then it's fine. Take advantage of the early stage when they're doing a lot of great stuff for you. If you're a business, take advantage of the second stage when they're doing a lot of great stuff for you. But the minute they start doing certify, you need to be able to leave. Now these companies really try to lock you in and that's where perhaps regulation can help.

Mikah Sargent (00:19:33):
What do they, what do you mean? Or what does Dr. Oin, when he says leave, does that mean leave,

Leo Laporte (00:19:38):
Go to another one. So then go to the next.

Mikah Sargent (00:19:40):
But you can lea I could leave. What

Leo Laporte (00:19:42):
Is it that, I mean, but you can't take with you necessarily your followers. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> or your family. Or your customers. And so the idea is government needs to just, and it's a simple thing, and I think this is, this is light-handed regulation. Just make sure that it's interoperable, that there's a standard for your follower data, let's say, so that you can export it and then go to the next one. Got it. In fact, the last Congress, I think it's dead in the new Congress, the last Congress did have a bill for exactly that interoperability. I, yeah, I remember talking and it was the, I think it was the right thing to do. So anyway, that's the sermon for the day. Thank you very much.

Mikah Sargent (00:20:17):
Ah,

Leo Laporte (00:20:17):
Amen. Now we should talk to a real priest. <Laugh> let's pick up now we have a new system. I'm excited about this. We want to thank Andy Carucci of Zoom and Zoom Iso Andy created Zoom iso and that's what we're using now for all of our shows. And he wrote us a script, didn't, it's Andy's script, right? Little script that gives me buttons. This is kinda like the old radio show. It's a big script. <Laugh> giant script. Thank you, Andy. So I can see all the people in here. If you raise your hand, I'll know that you're interested in talking. And I'm gonna pick up on let's see now I don't see his name on here. Wait a minute. I see, I see. Kevin's hand is raised.

Mikah Sargent (00:20:59):
Maybe we, we can have Kevin lower hand and re ray's hand.

Leo Laporte (00:21:03):
No, wait. Oh, there it is. Is red. Oh. Why is it red? Is that good? Does that mean good thing? Maybe it means I belong. I'm on it for a while. I'm gonna push the button, Kevin. Now I don't know if you have to still do all that stuff. You do. Maybe you do Kevin speak. Let me just see if I can ah, ah,

Mikah Sargent (00:21:17):
Kevin,

Caller 1 (00:21:19):
Look at I'm in your circle of light.

Leo Laporte (00:21:21):
Yes. This is magic, isn't it?

Mikah Sargent (00:21:22):
Everything. The light touches

Leo Laporte (00:21:24):
Now it says SJ after your name. Are you in the society of Jesus?

Caller 1 (00:21:28):
I certainly am for 50 years now.

Leo Laporte (00:21:31):
Wow. Like our own friend. Father Robert. Are you a priest?

Caller 1 (00:21:34):
I am. I'm an antique Jesuit

Leo Laporte (00:21:36):
<Laugh> an antique Jesuit <laugh> Jesuit. That's wonderful. That's wonderful.

Caller 1 (00:21:41):
Robert's probably about 20 years behind me in the society. I, I was rector of the high school that he went to when he was in high

Leo Laporte (00:21:48):
School. Oh, wow. You had si

Caller 1 (00:21:50):
No bellman.

Leo Laporte (00:21:51):
Bellman, Jose. I know Bellerman very well. They had an excellent football team.

Caller 1 (00:21:55):
They did

Leo Laporte (00:21:56):
Bellman Prep, had a very, very powerful football team and brought a lot of great players to fruition. Well, it's so nice to meet you father, it's great to have you on to

Caller 1 (00:22:07):
Meet too. I'm down in Phoenix and I'm a chaplain for Creighton University Health Science Campus in Phoenix. Cool. So I'm chaplain for the medical school, nursing school, pt, ot, pharmacy, and soon to be physician's assistant programs. And I teach in the medical school medical ethics. Medical. I

Leo Laporte (00:22:25):
Was gonna ask you. You do, so you do medical ethics. See, that's fascinating to me. That's awesome. Especially as we get into biotech and, and genetic modification. The challenges are huge.

Caller 1 (00:22:36):
It's changing every day. First off happy birthday to Lisa and happy anniversary to both of you.

Leo Laporte (00:22:42):
I forgot to say anything on the air about that, but Yeah. One of the reasons I'm wearing this. No, I didn't lose a bet. <Laugh>. I wanted to honor my wife, who is a massive lifelong San Francisco 49ers fan and has made me a fan as well as our anniversary today. I gave her a Brock, Purdy jersey, Mr. Irrelevant jersey. Yes. So, but I, unfortunately it was too small, but I had, but I, as a good husband mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, I've learned you start with the smallest size and work your way up instead of the largest size and work your way up. I'm

Mikah Sargent (00:23:14):
So sorry. I'll have to go.

Leo Laporte (00:23:15):
Yeah, yeah. You got, you learn these things in times. That's very

Caller 1 (00:23:18):
Good marriage advice. Very good.

Leo Laporte (00:23:20):
<Laugh>. Very clever. What can we do for you, father?

Caller 1 (00:23:24):
Well, listen, I have a very old iPod and I'm trying to get, I I, I have all of my music that I downloaded from my CDs. It's on the iPod and I collect old time radio programs. I taught communications in mass media for years. And I have a great collection of old time radio programs that are all on my iPod, and I'm trying to transfer it onto my Mac, but it seems to be impossible. I, I've tried a program called Any Trans from a company company called iob B, and it starts out, and then it closes out and disconnects my iPod. Oh. Is there any way getting my information off my iPod? Let

Leo Laporte (00:24:05):
Me ask a couple of questions and then Mikah has an answer for you. Is it a, how old an iPod, is it a FireWire connection or is it you? It's,

Caller 1 (00:24:12):
It's this one and it is this connector.

Leo Laporte (00:24:17):
Yeah. It's the 30 P connector. Okay, got it. So

Caller 1 (00:24:20):
It's almost as old as I am. When

Leo Laporte (00:24:22):
Steve jobs created the, I, well, he didn't create it, but when Apple created it, and Steve went to the record companies and negotiated, and he was a tough negotiator, they said, that's a perfect piracy device. Everybody's just gonna put all their songs on there and bring 'em over to their friends. They'll co they'll connect it and copy it off. So Apple, I don't think Apple's Heart was in it <laugh>, but, but Apple said, all right, all right, we'll make it so you can't just copy songs off of it. But they only kind of did it. It's actually fairly easy too. They did it, they did security through obscurity, for instance. The songs don't have the song name on 'em. The folders are not logical, and the device won't mount as a storage device without some shenanigans on software part. But the good news is, very quickly people figured that all out and figured out a way you can copy stuff off and, and you're not un you know, unfortunately, you're not alone, Kevin, there are a lot of people for whom this iPod is their music backup. And I tell people, oh my gosh, don't rely on that as your only copy of your music. But of course, that's exactly what we do. You know, the computers, we get rid of 'em, they go away, but the iPod that got stuck in a cupboard somewhere. So I've rec Are you on Windows or Mac?

Caller 1 (00:25:36):
Mac.

Leo Laporte (00:25:37):
Okay, that's good.

Caller 1 (00:25:38):
Mac

Leo Laporte (00:25:38):
Person. That makes it a little easier. There's a program called Santi, which is iTunes backwards. Oh. that works on Windows. But what do you, do? You have a,

Mikah Sargent (00:25:48):
So yeah, I'm, I'm leaning towards having you use Amazing.

Leo Laporte (00:25:52):
I love

Mikah Sargent (00:25:53):
Amazing, amazing. I've been using now for a long time as a means of backing up all of the devices I have. One of the magical things about it is if you, if your local storage couldn't support the huge drives that are on some iPhones and iPads, I need to back it up to a different location. I can do that. But amazing. It is specifically designed to try and work with so many different iPhones, iPods, iPads, et cetera. So even the older ones are, are likely to have support there now. In fact, amazing. One of the things that they talk about is a 30 pin connector, you know, as part of the, the kinda instructions for doing it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I'm amazing as well. Very simple to walk through the steps to do a full backup or even just have device connected and browse the hard drive on the device.

(00:26:47):
So you don't even necessarily need to do the full backup if you know, if, if you're after just kind of getting the music or in this case, the content that you had off of there. Now one other thing I would suggest is, depending on what version of Mac os you are running you may try a more simple approach rather than, you know, going to a third party software. When you plug it in make sure that you launch the finder and see if it appears in the sidebar on in Finder, because that can sometimes give you everything that you need. Well, you know, you, and I'm curious if, if you did try that as kinda the first

Leo Laporte (00:27:29):
Step step you should explain. That's something new in io started in IO and Mac Os I can't remember, was it Ventura?

Mikah Sargent (00:27:35):
I think it's two ago. Two

Leo Laporte (00:27:37):
Ago. Yeah. <laugh>, they, it got rid of iTunes and they put music as a separate app, and then they put the, the actual syncing mm-hmm. <Affirmative> of the iPod in the Finder itself, which actually I guess makes sense, but it's somewhere nobody looks anymore. Right. So if you open the Finder, if you've got your iPod plugged in, even with a 30 pin cable via usb, it should show up in the Finder as an object.

Mikah Sargent (00:27:55):
Yes, absolutely. You

Leo Laporte (00:27:56):
Can't just drag files off of it.

Mikah Sargent (00:27:58):
No, no. What'll happen is whenever it pops open, you'll see a bunch of different options for syncing it, for backing it up, that kind of thing. And in making a backup of it, you would then be able to dig into that backup and find the files that you're looking for. So

Caller 1 (00:28:15):
Unfortunately doesn't show up and finder for some reason and automatically disconnects it.

Mikah Sargent (00:28:20):
Okay. So whenever you say it automatically disconnects it is what does it look like? I mean, is it disconnecting on the max end? It's saying, Hey, this is you know, please

Leo Laporte (00:28:31):
Says it on the Yeah. Okay.

Mikah Sargent (00:28:36):
And do you have more than one 30 pin dock connector? More than one 30 pin cable. Okay. I tried

Caller 1 (00:28:45):
Other ones doing the same thing.

Mikah Sargent (00:28:47):
Yeah. Yeah. I would give, I, I believe I Mazing has a free trial. Okay. And so I would at least give IB

Leo Laporte (00:28:54):
Something that tries harder, maybe. Yes. Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (00:28:57):
Because it could, yeah. It, who knows what's happening. I'm

Leo Laporte (00:28:59):
Worried that the hard drive on the iPod that's, or the firmware on the iPod is messed up.

Mikah Sargent (00:29:03):
Something could be good wrong

Leo Laporte (00:29:04):
There. Was that the classic? Is that the, that the really big this hundred 60? I

Caller 1 (00:29:07):
Think it is. You know, this is my, my second one. The first one the battery died, so they exchanged it. Oh, nice. Than fixing the battery. They exchanged it. And that was a long time ago. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:29:17):
Long. I bought a bunch of 'em when they dis before they discontinued it, I knew they were discontinuing it. And and I, I, for a while had an exchange system with my mom. I had put all <laugh> all the music on. Oh, nice mail. And she'd sent me the other one back so I could update

Mikah Sargent (00:29:31):
It <laugh>. Oh, that's

Leo Laporte (00:29:33):
Funny. It got too complicated for her. So I somewhere there in, probably in the mail there, <laugh> a bunch of iPods.

Caller 1 (00:29:40):
Now you could put all the music on one of those small hard drives and move it back and forth you

Leo Laporte (00:29:44):
Want. I know. And nowadays, of course, I mean, the world has changed so rapidly and so fast. People don't even save their music anymore. They just stream it. Right. They just buy a subscription. And, and it, it used to be that I had a lot of stuff that I had downloaded. Father, forgive me, father perhaps sinned. I downloaded from Napster. And it was low quality, but it was obscure stuff. And then I had some obscure stuff that I had found or ripped, and it wasn't in iTunes. And now everything, like, I don't know how many songs, 80 million songs or something. There's very little that they don't have in iTunes. And probably you

Caller 1 (00:30:19):
Don't have my old time radio programs. It

Leo Laporte (00:30:21):
Won't have those. You're right. That's a good point. What's your favorite old time radio show?

Caller 1 (00:30:26):
Oh, I was partial to the Shadow. I always liked the shadow.

Leo Laporte (00:30:28):
Who knows what looks in the hearts of men, the shadow knows. How do you know

Mikah Sargent (00:30:36):
That? Because I'm an old man, Leo. Oh

Leo Laporte (00:30:38):
My God.

Caller 1 (00:30:40):
Oh my God. How

Leo Laporte (00:30:42):
Did you know you, like you, you know, you told me once you used to listen to Old Time Radio with

Mikah Sargent (00:30:47):
Me, with my great-grandparents. You great-grandparents. That's, that's how I know my

Leo Laporte (00:30:49):
Dad and I, we couldn't, there was a radio station. This was in the, probably in the seventies, maybe the sixties. There was a radio station that broadcast old time radio outta like New York. We couldn't get in the house. So we'd go out and sit in the car where they had a better antenna. Oh, wow. And we would listen to Old Time Radio. 

Caller 1 (00:31:05):
When I was teaching communications, I had, I had an a modern cathedral radio, but it was, you know, antique. And when I got to the section on radio, I would always play the radio programs through this cathedral radio. You know, it had a input in the back. Yeah. And it was amazing how the students in class would pull their desks up close and watch. Isn't

Leo Laporte (00:31:27):
That interesting? Yeah.

Caller 1 (00:31:28):
Nothing for the imagin. Amazing for the imagination. Nothing like it these

Leo Laporte (00:31:32):
Days. I, you know, I, I'm a little, I don't ever use this word anymore, but I a little too young to remember that. But I've heard many times that people would sit around the radio like that, like sit around the TV now, but they would sit around the radio and look at it. So it's interesting that even young people

Mikah Sargent (00:31:48):
Have that impulse to do that. Yeah.

Caller 1 (00:31:50):
It's a natural reaction.

Mikah Sargent (00:31:51):
One other question for you. You are able to play the audio on your iPod, right? You can plug in your headphones and listen. Okay. Problem. So if all else fails, what you'll do is you'll plug into that headphone jack with a recorder, and then you and I, it's gonna be a lot of manual work and, you know, we want to try it this way first, but it, you know, you don't have to lose these tracks because you can end up just recording them out to something through that audio output. So

Leo Laporte (00:32:17):
That's the, an so-called analog hole. Yes. And it does bypass all and for old radio, it's not gonna sound any worse.

Mikah Sargent (00:32:23):
Right, right.

Caller 1 (00:32:24):
No. Would you record, like with Odyssey or something like that? Yeah,

Leo Laporte (00:32:28):
Anything. If you had a tape recorder, you could do it

Mikah Sargent (00:32:31):
<Laugh>. Yeah. So plenty of options there. But yeah, let's give amazing a shot first. And you can reach out to us. What is it? Ask the tech guys at twit do tv. Yeah. let us know how that goes. Yeah, I would really like to, and I'll be happy to follow up to Yeah. Give you some suggestions.

Leo Laporte (00:32:47):
Thank you so much, Kevin. It's a pleasure. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to meet you. And since

Caller 1 (00:32:51):
People been watcher for years,

Leo Laporte (00:32:53):
Oh, it's really, I I guess we've never, I don't remember talking to you before, so it's great to it's great to meet you finally.

Caller 1 (00:32:59):
All righty. Thank you Sunday, Kevin. We'll get up there to visit with. Please do.

Leo Laporte (00:33:02):
Please do. Alrighty. God bless. We need a chaplain. <Laugh>

Mikah Sargent (00:33:07):
Robert's too.

Leo Laporte (00:33:08):
<Laugh> <laugh> Robert's, kind of our chaplain, and said that Bellerman Prep, you walking into the campus of Bellerman Prep is like walking into the fresh Prince of Bel Air. It's a fancy school. <Laugh>. Very nice school. That was a pleasure talking to him. All right, let's take a little break for words from our local stations all up and down. Oh, no. <Laugh>. Nevermind coming up. I have I'm hoping, I'm still hoping. I told him he has until 12 noon. We can

Mikah Sargent (00:33:36):
Do parody ads. Have you tried this new dog food?

Leo Laporte (00:33:39):
<Laugh> <laugh> Leo will now attempt to eat the dog food and will give you a report back. I asked Alex Lindsay to do a demo of how he makes art beautiful images with Mid Journey, which is one of those artificial intelligence art generators to give us a little demo on Mid Journey. He still has half an hour

Mikah Sargent (00:33:57):
Amazing art with

Leo Laporte (00:33:58):
It. So I know that we're gonna lose him at noon because even though he's a Steelers fan, he is from Pennsylvania. I have a feeling that he might transfer his allegiance from Pittsburgh to p to Penn, Philadelphia have given half a chance. Our show today is brought to you by our great friends. And when I say brought to you, I mean, brought to you quite literally our great friends that CacheFly. The whole world, as you know, is moving to digital traffic patterns spiking all over the place. We're a really good example. Our, our, you know, download bandwidth is not consistent at all throughout the week. Like a hum No. It's more like a scream when a new show comes out. Ah, everybody downloads it all at once and then it <laugh> gets down to a low hum after that. Very spiky. And that's what's going on all over the internet.

(00:34:45):
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(00:37:38):
Learn how you can get your first month free with our friendsat cachefly.com. C a c H E F L y.com. Somebody in the Discord is saying, where do you buy Lossless audio these days? There are plenty of good places to do that. But does, do people really buy <laugh> music anymore? That seems like kind of an old fashioned thing for years. I've been saying physical media is dead. Forget the CDs. The DVDs Right? The books. The paper books. We love 'em still. But it's more of an antiquarian passion, right? Most, most people, most people are streaming, right? Yeah. Sad to say. I think that's the, the, the wave of the future. I, I have a couple places I go to get music itracks, I T R A X and a I X records. Those are two places to get good, high quality, high bit rate content. Actually I think it was Scott Wilkinson who introduced me to a I X, it's run by a friend of his. They do a lot of their own recordings so that they can completely control the the quality of it. A I x records.

Mikah Sargent (00:38:55):
It's also band camp.

Leo Laporte (00:38:57):
Band camp. Oh, you like band camps?

Mikah Sargent (00:38:59):
Lossless. All right. So I guess if you've got band video

Leo Laporte (00:39:01):
Says band camp

Mikah Sargent (00:39:02):
Direct artist. Yeah. Indie artists Yeah. Who aren't published.

Leo Laporte (00:39:06):
A I x will not have like every record you want, but they, because mostly cuz they do their own recording in 96 kilohertz, 24 bits. So if you wanna just hear what it sounds like, it's a great place to go. Yeah. And of course see really beautifully recorded music.

Mikah Sargent (00:39:19):
Many of the music streaming services have it as part of the subscriptions now. Apple Music almost any new album that's released is going to be going to offer a lossless format. 

Leo Laporte (00:39:31):
And that's the thing

Mikah Sargent (00:39:33):
I know that several other do as well. Amazon music being won. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:39:37):
Yeah. Alright, let's go back to the phones. We have many, many, many, many more calls. And I've, I'm very bad about doing this. Let's see who's got their hand raised. This is nice. This is a nice setup. Thank you, Andy. I see Cody on the line. I don't think we've talked to Cody ever before. All right, Cody, I'm gonna press this button then press that button and you have to accept, and then you will be in like Flynn <laugh>. By the way, do you know this story? You're an old man. You should know what in like Flynn comes, comes

Mikah Sargent (00:40:07):
From. That is something I have heard my grandpa say before, but I don't know what it comes from. I am his grandpa. I'll be honest.

Leo Laporte (00:40:13):
I should point out look up Errol Flynn someday and you'll see what in like Flynn means. Now let's see if we've got Cody on the horn.

Mikah Sargent (00:40:23):
Cody on the horn.

Leo Laporte (00:40:24):
Ha ho Cody, where are you calling? Well see,

Mikah Sargent (00:40:29):
I see there's Cody. There he

Leo Laporte (00:40:30):
Is. I see him in, he is using his phone, which I love,

Mikah Sargent (00:40:33):
And trying to talk to us. You could

Leo Laporte (00:40:35):
Turn it sideways, believe it or not, and it will fill up the

Mikah Sargent (00:40:39):
Oh,

Leo Laporte (00:40:40):
It's a big Cody, where are you calling from? Cody,

Caller 2 (00:40:44):
Duluth, Minnesota.

Leo Laporte (00:40:46):
Can you show us the outside? Is it real snowy and cold and freezing and everything? Oh

Caller 2 (00:40:51):
Yeah. It's, it's pretty snowy. Pretty cold.

Leo Laporte (00:40:53):
The snow. Michael, you miss that Mikah, don't you? Oh, I do. I

Mikah Sargent (00:40:55):
Miss the snow so much.

Leo Laporte (00:40:57):
What's up Cody? What can we do for you today? I'm so glad you called us.

Caller 2 (00:41:02):
Yeah, so I have a question. I was actually hoping to get in on one of your last radio shows and I never quite made it. Oh. Cause you guys were so busy and popular.

Leo Laporte (00:41:10):
<Laugh>. Aw. Well, it's a little easier these days I hope.

Caller 2 (00:41:13):
Yeah. So this goes back, I actually called in, I think early 2020. Covid had just started and I was trying to stay busy with backing up some old photos and things like that and what I originally called about. Then that project's done. Now I'm at a point now where I have so many photos backed up and we have a two year old who's gonna turn three. Congratulations. So a lot of pictures of our, you know, only child that I'm running out of storage space in, in a few locations. So

Leo Laporte (00:41:39):
Was he, was your, was he born in Covid during Camp Pandemic? Yeah. So,

Caller 2 (00:41:43):
Wow. She was, she was born Valentine's Day at 2020. So right before,

Leo Laporte (00:41:48):
Just before,

Caller 2 (00:41:49):
Just before. Thankfully,

Leo Laporte (00:41:51):
You had all these dreams of going to Disneyland,

Mikah Sargent (00:41:53):
<Laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:41:54):
Going to the park. Well, I'm glad, I'm glad she's

Caller 2 (00:41:57):
Here. Things didn't exactly turn out the way we thought it

Leo Laporte (00:41:59):
Was. You know, she's so little that she probably, this still wasn't too affected by it yet. Fingers crossed. Yeah. Yeah. So what's what, so you got a lot of photos?

Caller 2 (00:42:11):
Yeah, so I, I think I've maybe a little bit of an advanced setup. Maybe I give you a little bit of background. I have a sonology for bay NAS at my house at, with I think eight to nine terabytes of effective storage for the total array. Perfect. And I'm backing that up to a, a separate sonology nas that's actually at my mother's house. So, you know, the whole is my house, something happens, tornado fire, whatever. Hopefully that's another, you know, backup means. Nice. in addition to that, I'm using iDrive.

Leo Laporte (00:42:43):
Yeah, you set,

Caller 2 (00:42:46):
The only issue is I'm up to four terabytes now. <Laugh> of, you know, of what holy available eight or nine

Mikah Sargent (00:42:53):
Available video along with that photo, unless you're just

Caller 2 (00:42:58):
<Laugh>. Yeah. So I'll, I'll share a scenario like Christmas this year, for example. I remember thinking back in my old home videos with when my, you know, dad had his old camcorder. And it's fun to look back at some of those. So I do that now. So when my daughter's old, she can look back, oh, it's wonderful. And I'll say, oh, remember these fun times? Yeah. But I have a habit of shooting everything, you know, 4K and 30 frames or 60 frames a second. That's funny

Leo Laporte (00:43:21):
Because your daughter, she's gonna have a, you know, a 23 K tv. Right. So it's just gonna say, why did dad shoot 4k? God, it's so blurry.

Mikah Sargent (00:43:29):
Thank God the upscaling chip in here and it's all AI power.

Leo Laporte (00:43:33):
In the old days it was all 2d. I don't, I don't understand. You know, that's great. It's so good you're doing that. But yeah, it does start to fill up, especially those videos. You're, I think so what's the problem that you're seeing? Is it just too much?

Caller 2 (00:43:48):
Well, I, I can just see that, you know, th this foray NAS that I bought about a year ago, yeah, it was a bit of an investment and I had to, you know, talk my wife into it said it was more expensive.

Leo Laporte (00:43:57):
It's like a

Caller 2 (00:43:57):
Whole throwing money at something we didn't need. And I, I can see, you know, that's gonna get eaten up and I'm gonna need a, something bigger, you know. So is there a, is there a better process? Is there a compression tool somewhere? Is there something else I should be considering or a best practice? I,

Mikah Sargent (00:44:13):
You know, the, what's wild is there's someone here who knows a whole heck of a lot about taking photos and videos and I am curious about the backup process. Anne, why

Leo Laporte (00:44:22):
Don't you go over to the, would you mind the radio corner and help us out here because we're

Mikah Sargent (00:44:27):
Curious if you've

Leo Laporte (00:44:27):
Got ARU or host photos of hands on? Photography has probably, probably some solutions. I can tell you what I do. I also have a Sonology and Sonology does have a photos app that's a decent replacement for Amazon or Google. Honestly, I still use the cloud. I have, all my photos are backed up to Google Photos because I have a pixel phone app, unlimited backup there. Amazon, if you have an Amazon Prime account, also unlimited there, I wouldn't, I wouldn't trust that they're always gonna be around. But for the interim they survive. I think the, I think the Sonology is a great way to do it. You know what I ended up doing with my sonology when I got a new one? <Laugh>,

(00:45:04):
That's in your future. Probably when I got a new one, I took the old one to work here. Oh. And Sonology has a tool called Hyper backup that lets you synchronize two chronologies. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So I have my sonology at home backing up everything. And then at its leisure in the background, it synchronizes with the sonology here. So they're actually duplicate. And I am now fairly confident then unless a bomb hits Petaluma. Right. in which case it probably doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Yeah. <laugh>. But that I will have everything and in the photos, it's a really good example of something you really always, always want to keep around. Ant Pruitt is is a professional photographer. They have an even higher burden. You know, you do a wedding, you would darn well better not lose those photographs. Hey Ant.

Ant Pruitt (00:45:53):
Hello

Leo Laporte (00:45:53):
Sir. I'm so glad you're here in your Clemson orange

Ant Pruitt (00:45:56):
Beautiful orange, right? Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:45:58):
<Laugh>. Yeah. That's gorgeous. So I'm sure you've addressed this on hands-on photography. What do you, what do you recommend? Well,

Ant Pruitt (00:46:03):
Was, I'm sorry I couldn't hear the question here. He's

Leo Laporte (00:46:06):
Got a lot. Well

Ant Pruitt (00:46:06):
Basically have any cans on.

Leo Laporte (00:46:08):
Oh, well basic. So you just sit there, what are you doing?

Ant Pruitt (00:46:11):
I I watch paint dry over here on the studio. That's all

Leo Laporte (00:46:15):
<Laugh>. Yeah. We love you. I can't, you know, you're so nice to come in and and help us out on this. I really appreciate it. He has a two-year-old and has a lot of 4K video, lot of photos. He's got two terabytes now. Oh boy. Of content. He's been backing it up to a a sonology, which is, is big. Yeah. But, but it's good he's gonna run out cause it's only a four base sonology unfortunately at some point. One thing to look at, I should mention that is good about Sonology and you'll have to check which sonology you have, but Cody, many of these sonology you could connect an external additional without getting a new sonology.

Ant Pruitt (00:46:53):
Exactly. Just daily change.

Leo Laporte (00:46:55):
That's, that's why when you look at the model, make an easier cell. Yeah. You look at the model number, the first part is how many total drives and the second part is the year. So if, okay, so if you, if your model number is 2223, it can hail 22 drives. Now you don't have 22 drives. But that's with an extender. Yep. And then it's the year 23. So one thing you could just get more storage and the sonology I, you know, is, is pretty reliable. Unless there's a fire or something that physically destroys it, it's pretty reliable. And backup Ant, what do you do?

Ant Pruitt (00:47:27):
It's funny you say that cuz I was gonna mention the same thing. It's just daisy chaning because getting a an additional NAS can be really expensive. It sure is. And then hot swapping with larger drives is another option. But again, it could be a bit costly at times. So a lot of times just getting an extra connection to your existing NAS is a good option.

Mikah Sargent (00:47:48):
And do you use any compression stuff like to, to archive things that, you know,

Ant Pruitt (00:47:53):
Video

Mikah Sargent (00:47:54):
Got a hundred thousand photos and you know, you're not gonna look at all a hundred thousand

Ant Pruitt (00:47:57):
For video? I do not compress, but for photos Lightroom has a tool built into it. Lightroom classic That is, I take all of my raw files for the previous year and convert those raw files into compressed d and g files. And that allows me to still retain a lot of data just in case I need to go back and pull that, those photos back up and retouch 'em and send them out again. I have that option of doing that without losing quality.

Leo Laporte (00:48:25):
Here's an example. If you had a Sonology for instance 1517 this would be the year 2017 and a 15 drive sonology, it only has four or five drives, but you could buy the extender that it add another additional five drives. Now spousal acceptance factor still an issue because that doesn't pricey. It doesn't include the drives <laugh> I mean it's a little less expensive cause it doesn't include the brains either. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But it's gonna, it's gonna add up. That is one way to expand the sonology. I ended up every, every about five years. Sonology makes enough of sonology is what we call a NAS network. Attached storage. It's a basically a headless computer. It doesn't have a keyboard, mouse or monitor. It connects to your network, but it has a processor and it has RAM in it. It has a lot of storage.

(00:49:11):
That's the chief benefit. It's got a ton of storage and you connect it to your network and you can use it for a lot of things serving media. A lot of people put Plex on it. Serve media. You can use it to backup up. Of course you could put backup software in all your systems, including your phones and your tablets, and it will automatically all back up to the sonology. And then you can as, as, as you're doing, you can hook up the, the Synology software to iDrive and have it back up to the cloud, which gives you really a pretty good, that's that 3, 2, 1 backup we talk about where you have three copies of everything, two different storage media and one at least is offsite.

Ant Pruitt (00:49:47):
And when you look at your online backup services, check, check out their terms and, and, and services. Because sometimes you'll see in the fine print that if you remove a drive from your home system, and even though you may have already backed it up to the cloud, once you remove it from the home system, that cloud service will say, Hey, that drive doesn't exist anymore. So they will take it off. Wow. So, okay. Keep that in mind.

Leo Laporte (00:50:10):
Yeah, yeah. I, you know, yeah. It's,

Mikah Sargent (00:50:15):
So, it sounds like what I would do in this situation, it's belt and

Leo Laporte (00:50:18):
Suspended. Understand. What I would do

Mikah Sargent (00:50:20):
Is I go on Amazon, why go wherever once a year and I buy an external drive. I market it with the year I plug into my sonology for, and this is for the year past, so it's 2023. So then all of 2022 or 2020 ones photos and videos go onto this drive. And then I freed up a bunch of space. And then I've always got those external ones that are separate from the na, the NASA that I'm regularly pulling from as an archive

Ant Pruitt (00:50:44):
Logic is you're not going to necessarily grab that stuff quickly from last year. You know, it's the same idea that I have with my photos that I, I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna open up something from 2021 today, in 2020.

Leo Laporte (00:50:57):
You can extend that to the cloud, by the way, if you're willing to roll your own, instead of going with a service that does it all, like iDrive and has terms of services you gotta pay attention to. You can buy from Amazon. They have a service called Glacier. Oh yeah. Which is which, exactly. That idea, which is, it's cheap long-term backup. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> because they don't even keep it online. They move it offline. They put it somewhere, I don't know where, in a closet, somewhere in, in Jeff Bezos's garage. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so they have a Burke The dealer. The dealer. Is that it? It's gonna be slow to get it back. Yeah. The

Mikah Sargent (00:51:29):
Premise

Leo Laporte (00:51:29):
Being

Mikah Sargent (00:51:29):
Get

Leo Laporte (00:51:30):
It back. Yeah. You're rarely gonna ever want it back, but, but you can kind of guarantee it's gonna be there forever. So that's, that's the Amazon and many, many cloud storage companies have something similar. Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (00:51:41):
Back blood as I know

Leo Laporte (00:51:42):
Does. Yeah. wasabi does, GLA Glacier on Amazon is a good example of that. And it's pretty cheap. It's, you know, what you always wanna look at with Amazon, for instance, is they charge you for egress. They charge you when you're gonna get the stuff. Now, in this case, you don't care cuz you, you're hoping I'm probably never gonna need it. It's more like belt and suspenders. It's an insurance policy. And so you don't care how much they charge you for your egress. You want, you want the lowest possible price for storage. And that's what Glacier does. Yeah. It, it's, it, it, it, it, it, it's inexpensive to store, but it's time consuming and expensive to get back. But that's fine as

Mikah Sargent (00:52:16):
A, as a, as a one who doesn't have all of the knowledge that you have. What I was thinking about this whole time is why don't I just have a script that looks at all of the files I have on my network attached storage and says if the files are two years or older, then compress them all into, you know, zip or even a, a more powerful archive. And then they're there, but they're smaller, they're taking up less space. And then it just keeps doing that. And then if I ever need to, I can just uncompress them. So I'm making space for things.

Leo Laporte (00:52:49):
The problem is you can't really compress binary files, especially video files that much. They're already pretty compressed. You're not gonna get a lot of space back.

Ant Pruitt (00:52:55):
Got it. Yeah. I don't even think about it with video photos. Yeah. But definitely don't even think about it with,

Leo Laporte (00:52:59):
They're already pretty compressed. That's the whole point. I guess you could convert it to H 2 65, which is a, a much more efficient codec over EG four. But I wouldn't, that's a lot of time consuming that Cody.

Mikah Sargent (00:53:11):
Yeah. A lot of processing

Ant Pruitt (00:53:12):
Pattern. I was gonna say, you have to, what's your daughter recode it? It takes a lot of juice. Exactly.

Leo Laporte (00:53:16):
Exactly. What's your, what's your daughter's name? Cody. Eleanor. Eleanor. Aw. Do you call her Ellie? We call her Ellie. Yep. Aw, such a little Ellie. So this happened so fast. My little Abby, who is now 30 <laugh> does want these old photos. I was very pleased in old videos. I had a video of her when she was about Ellie's age, maybe a little bit older showing me a drawing that she'd done. And I, and I, and I showed it to her and she bursted into tears. Aw. It was so cute. She was so happy to see it. So you're doing the right thing. One other thing I wish I had done, and everybody who has little kids should do this, create a Gmail account in their name. I think Gmail be around for that 20, 30 years. I'm hoping

Ant Pruitt (00:54:04):
That's the one thing Google hasn't killed.

Leo Laporte (00:54:06):
Yeah. Credit Gmail account in their name and send 'em an email every once in a while with some pictures in it. Just saying, Hey, today we went to the park and I took these pictures of you. Can you imagine getting those? That's

Mikah Sargent (00:54:19):
All me. You get to log into the email one day and, oh,

Leo Laporte (00:54:22):
There's all these letters from mom and dad.

Mikah Sargent (00:54:24):
Just cry.

Leo Laporte (00:54:26):
<Laugh>. It is, it's just

Caller 2 (00:54:27):
Gonna, I think you talked about that on the radio show, and I actually took your advice and set that up. Oh, that's

Leo Laporte (00:54:31):
A wise good call. Yeah, you're a good daddy. Hey, Cody. Have a great day. It looks pretty cold in, did you say Duluth?

Caller 2 (00:54:39):
Duluth, yeah. It's pretty cold. It's four degrees according in my my truck. Oh, it's, it's the warmest It's been for a while.

Leo Laporte (00:54:45):
Did you go into the truck so that Ellie wouldn't make noise?

Caller 2 (00:54:48):
<Laugh>. He's napping. Yeah. So I'm outside so I don't make any racket

Leo Laporte (00:54:51):
Balls. Oh. So he wouldn't wake her up. Yeah. That's a good day. Look

Ant Pruitt (00:54:54):
At day.

Leo Laporte (00:54:55):
Yeah. Go back in and cuddle that. Special, special special package. <Laugh>. That's special. Baby, baby. Oh, I'm so jealous. Those are great days. I know. It's hard work. It's hardest work you'll ever do, but you'll look back on it goes quick. It goes, it's, it goes way too quick. Thanks. So great to talk to you, Cody.

Ant Pruitt (00:55:11):
Thank you, sir. Have a

Leo Laporte (00:55:12):
Great day. Stay warm. Four degrees. Thanks. I don't remember what four degrees is like.

Mikah Sargent (00:55:17):
<Laugh>. Thank you

Leo Laporte (00:55:18):
Aunt. I saw. Thank you. Aunt Pruitt. Hands on. I

Ant Pruitt (00:55:21):
Don't wanna know what Four degrees

Leo Laporte (00:55:21):
Feels great. Twist on tv, on Good grief. You never lived anywhere cold.

Ant Pruitt (00:55:25):
I've gotten down to nine and that was cold enough.

Leo Laporte (00:55:28):
That's too bad.

Mikah Sargent (00:55:28):
Oh, Missouri gets down to negative temps, baby.

Leo Laporte (00:55:32):
I remember five degrees in Toronto, but that's about as cold. I saw the the coldest it's ever got. Where did I see that today? I saw that. I read it. 65 below.

Mikah Sargent (00:55:44):
Yeah. Should be. 

Leo Laporte (00:55:47):
It was no, I think it was Nolaka. Oh. Because, and it was so cold that the breath that, you know, normally it's steam when it comes out, it would freeze and drop to the ground.

Mikah Sargent (00:55:57):
Wow.

Leo Laporte (00:55:58):
It just turned into powder <laugh> as you breathed it out. Yeah. It was five degrees. Was so cold. I felt like my tongue was freezing. <Laugh>. That's cold enough. All right. I got a hand raised. We appreciate all the calls at calls dot twi tv. Thank you for doing the Zoom with us. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I think that's great. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> I'm gonna go to Glen. So prepare yourself, Glen. You're gonna get a little popup message here and it's gonna say accept when you do, you will be on the air. There he is. He's joined us. Glen, where are you calling from? Got it. Hi Glen. Hey Glen.

Caller 3 (00:56:35):
From another cold place known as Massachusetts.

Leo Laporte (00:56:42):
Where are you? That's right. Are you walking down the hall of your house?

Caller 3 (00:56:46):
I am. I'm walking down because I need to turn the volume up for my lovely wife, Tammy.

Leo Laporte (00:56:51):
Hey Tammy. Hi <laugh>.

Caller 3 (00:56:54):
Hold on. Cuz she's the one with the problem.

Leo Laporte (00:56:57):
See, I'd love this that we can get vo video now. It's so much more fun to see, see people. Yeah. Hi, Tammy. Video. Now it's so, oh, Tammy, it's the stream. She can't hear me. It's the stream. So I

Caller 3 (00:57:10):
Have headphones. Headphones

Leo Laporte (00:57:10):
On. Yeah. Yeah. It's a little bit of,

Caller 3 (00:57:12):
And I'm wearing headphones so I could walk around. Yeah. Anyhow. So we've been fighting with Tammy retired at the beginning of the year after 37 years in Umas. So that's great.

Leo Laporte (00:57:23):
Great school. Was she at Amherst?

Caller 3 (00:57:26):
At Amherst? Yes. Yeah. Nice. She was a chemical engineering student advisor. So pretty cool.

Leo Laporte (00:57:33):
Really good school. Yeah.

Caller 3 (00:57:35):
Yeah. So so in her retirement she gave back her college computer and we bought, or she bought herself air Mac, air M two. Oh.

Leo Laporte (00:57:48):
Mike and I both have that. What color did she get? Yeah

Caller 3 (00:57:52):
Some kind of silvery

Leo Laporte (00:57:53):
Thing. Oh, we got the midnight blue. It was, we got the, the,

Caller 3 (00:57:56):
Whatever it was. It was pretty, yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:57:58):
<Laugh>. Yeah. Good.

Caller 3 (00:58:02):
So anyway, one of the problems we're having is probably an easy solve for you. She's been trying to sync all of her calendars and everything. Of course, we're not Mac people or I'm not Mac people. She is, but you know, the whole Mac ecosystem thing, which is supposed to be a no-brainer is having a hard time syncing with her iCloud to put her calendars onto her on her new Imec air. Yeah. And we just got the, while we've been sitting on a hold here, we got the Google calendar to sync with her Mac calendar finally on her computer. But when she goes to iCloud, it's not repopulating and fixing it there. What say you,

Mikah Sargent (00:58:47):
So this is, it's interesting how often this question comes up. And I think part of the problem, what we end up seeing is it depends on when folks are logging into which account. So,

Leo Laporte (00:58:57):
Hey, I'm gonna put this in terms, Tammy will understand it's a chemical valence issue. <Laugh>, go ahead. I'm sorry. <Laugh>. That's as far as I can go. Yeah,

Mikah Sargent (00:59:09):
Yeah. It stops there. So yes. Look at those covalent bonds and check if the electrons are positively charged. No. So depending on when you log in first oh yeah. They would be negatively charged. Yeah. I'm getting frowns from, from the audience anyway. So you want to look into the settings and see how you have your accounts chosen. So on, you know, whether it be an iPhone, an iPad, what have you. When you go into the settings and for example, we're looking at calendars here, I would tap on calendar and then I tap on accounts. You can choose kind of which account ends up being the main account, the default calendar that is used. And that's where I see a lot of people have this issue, is they don't have the default calendar set to the one that they want. And so the other one ends up popping up first and foremost. And that is where the problem comes in because then you're going and looking and you can't find it.

Leo Laporte (01:00:07):
I, you know, it's funny, I spent the last my weekend which was yesterday. Can you mute him for just a little bit? Cause we're getting some feedback through doing this. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I decided that I didn't want, I've been using Google. I mean, really the key in my opinion is to pick one cloud provider and make that your dominant cloud provider. If you're a Mac user, iCloud makes a lot of sense. If your cross platform like I am iCloud works, but it's not ideal, maybe it's better to use something like Google, which works on Android, windows, Mac, iOS, everywhere, even Linux. But there is a standard for this. There's a Cal D card D and IMAP standard. These are, these are the three big standards that Google supports anybody will support for having a centralized calendar. I like the idea of a calendar in the cloud because if you have multiple end up having multiple devices and almost everybody has at least a, a, a computer and a phone that's multiple devices and you end up having more.

(01:01:07):
Or, and this is what Lisa and I do, if you wanna share with Tammy, if you wanna share a calendar, she wants to share with you, I have Lisa's personal calendar shared with me. I subscribe to it. She has the same for me. So that when we, she, she or I make an appointment, we don't conflict. You know, we can say, oh good, we can, we can go, you know, do this see this show or go to dinner or whatever. So it's nice to have that in a family to have shared calendars. So again, having a cloud solves all that. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, but pick one I cloud's good if you're all Mac, all Apple, I should say. Google's good if you're really cross-platform, but I lately just decided to turn 'em all off and go with Fast Mail. Our sponsor Fast Mail. I've been a user of Fast Mail app for email for a long time and I knew that they supported, besides imap, IMAP supports email and notes and reminders, but I knew they also supported Cal Dev and card dev, which are the two standards for cloud calendars and cloud address books.

(01:02:01):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so I, now you gotta be careful because one of the things Apple will tell you as soon as you turn off connection to iCloud is, well that means we're gonna erase everything on the calendar. So before you do that, you want to connect them all up and make sure they're all synchronized and that everything is somewhere. Yes.

Mikah Sargent (01:02:20):
Exactly.

Leo Laporte (01:02:22):
And one of the things a good calendar program will do. I I moved off of fantastic. How, which I used for a long time because they raised their subscription significantly. Yeah. And it irked me. Yeah. cuz I don't wanna pay $50 a year for a calendar. So I moved to something I'd used. Frankly Apple's calendar is fine. Yeah. Apple's address book is fine. But I thought I should try some others. I moved to a program I used to use for years called Busy Cow. And they have busy card as well, our busy contacts as well. And just to try it out, it's $33 a year. It's a little less expensive. But anyway, it will do a backup automatically. And I like that. That's a nice feature. I think every calendar program should have. Apple does not have, which is it will every periodically make a copy of everything and store it.

(01:03:08):
That's nice. Off the cloud. Yeah. Because you're gonna screw it up at some point. You're gonna get 15 copies of the same address or something. And so, so that's problematic. So I think it's really important that you, you know, pay attention to this. Backup's very important. I would pick one Cloud bef what I recommend doing, I don't know if you've ever done this, is at some point go through everything and clean it up. Yep. Make it perfect, then save it to a drive. Say don't have it on the cloud at all exported. That way you've got the perfect address book the perfect calendar. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And now you can start messing around cuz Synchronization's notorious for screwing these things up. Now you can start messing around. I used fast mail, I'm very happy now. Everything's on Fast mail. I haven't yet turned off Google and iCloud. I will at some point. Although I think having iCloud is probably a good thing for backup. So, so you've seen this happen though. Like Yeah,

Mikah Sargent (01:04:03):
It's, it's a very common occurrence, unfortunately because I think Apple is sort of trying to balance using all of those technologies that are available while also making it so that their internal to technologies work. And that is where the confusion ends up happening. So one thing that I want to recommend or suggest is sort of using the system the way that it's intended. So if we can show my screen real quick. So here on the Mac I have gone into the system settings and you may think, oh, I want to add my calendar, so I'm gonna go to the calendar app and add my calendar. I'm going to suggest that's not where you do it. Instead you scroll down until you find internet accounts. You choose add account, and then you add that other account that you're trying to connect to. So if it was a Google account that you were using Microsoft Exchange, whatever you click on that you sign in here and then it's going to let you sync the different tools that are available. So we're just talking about Cal d we were talking about card D, those, those different technologies that are, is it card dev?

Leo Laporte (01:05:08):
Yeah. Yeah. They're basically valence matching technologies to make sure that you that you you know, all the electrons can, can combine without losing any data.

Mikah Sargent (01:05:18):
Absolutely. Yeah, sure.

Leo Laporte (01:05:20):
And there is a standard and as far as I can tell, you're not gonna, you might lose some non-standard weird data stuff mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. But most, I haven't found anything yet that doesn't get copied. Actually, some of the stuff I wish it wouldn't get copied cuz I've had, I have now thousands of names in my address book and, and there's notes from tools that I used back when. Yep.

Mikah Sargent (01:05:40):
That's why for me, I end up, when I do log into these new internet accounts, I almost always just limit it to the calendars I turn cuz they're check boxes for everything. So you can say, I want you to sync my calendar, don't sync the notes that I have there. Don't sync the contacts that I have there cuz I've got all that stuff figured out. So yes, it sounds like what we need to do is sort of get it going across the system. And that might be why that calendar isn't showing up there on the Mac or on

Leo Laporte (01:06:05):
The, I didn't know you could make a default. I think that might be really the solution. Just say, yeah, this is the one that I, I have one,

Caller 3 (01:06:12):
I have one more question. May not be related, may be related. She also had an issue with, and it seems like there's some sort of of commonality out there where after some Mac update 16, everybody started losing their contacts. What do you know about that?

Mikah Sargent (01:06:29):
So this is, yet again when I have had folks tell me that they lost their contacts it ended up being that they had, it had changed, it had shifted in the system to where the contacts were not the, the default contacts. I'm trying to see, don't show my screen just yet. I'm trying to see if I can get to this without having my contacts appear. Okay. So you can show my screen now. You, I have the contacts app downsized, but normally it would be on the screen. So I've got the button contacts in the top, I choose settings. And then here in general, down at the bottom, once again, default account. And that is where I could choose between the different accounts I have. Make sure it's set for the account that has the actual contacts that you have.

(01:07:17):
If you have been up to this point always creating your contacts in your Google account, you know, at gmail.com, then that's what you wanna have. Is that a default account? If you've been creating them on your iPhone, then it's probably that the iCloud account needs to be said as the default. That is going to make sure that that is what appears in that contact app. This is the other gripe that I have. Apple tries to, in some way simplify the way that these apps appear on the screen. And in doing so, they kind of hide some of these menus that aren't showing you the full context that some of those contexts aren

Leo Laporte (01:07:50):
Showing always problematic. That's, that's the balance Apple has of making it easy for everybody, but then hiding and sometimes confusing.

Mikah Sargent (01:07:58):
Confusing in, in

Leo Laporte (01:08:00):
Hiding that away people by hiding things. Yeah. did you

Caller 3 (01:08:03):
Get all that? Tammy

Mikah Sargent (01:08:05):
<Laugh>,

Caller 3 (01:08:06):
She's in the other room. So thank you. Appreciate

Mikah Sargent (01:08:09):
It. Yeah, of course. And can always follow up. Ask the tech guys@twit.tv to let us know if you're still appreciate it. Struggling. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:08:16):
Cool. Please talk to everybody. Say bye Tammy. Bye Tammy <laugh> <laugh>. We, I I just show you can show I've taken all the personal stuff out. This is the web-based fast mail calendar, which honestly works just fine. I think in, in, in some ways it might be better to just use the web as you probably do for email already. Yeah. just use the web for your calendar and contacts. You'd eliminate all of these problems. This is completely capable. It does all the things that you'd want it to do. You see, I have, you could continue to show this. You'd see I have a variety of calendars I can turn off and on. So if I wanna see Lisa's calendars, I can turn it on. I usually leave it off cuz she's much busier than I am and it fills my calendar with stuff I don't have to worry about.

(01:09:05):
I've synced up to trip it, which is a, the travel site I use by subscribing to that, it automatically puts in any travel plans so that I don't even have to manually enter those at all. You see, I also have events, this is kind of an, I, I don't know if I recommend this or not. It's a subscription service called Forecast with a K. And it, it's a kind of a a how should I, it's like a consumer driven calendar app where people could put events in. So if you go to forecast, you'll see it's got all sorts of, and I, I like to keep track of this stuff partly cuz of the show. Like it's Oprah's birthday happy birthday, Lisa and Oprah. I could see the championship game is coming up between the Bengals and the Chiefs.

(01:09:55):
I see it's World Puzzle day. What's it called? The site forecast with a k. That's cool. And you can add you can add your your events to it. So it's got a lot of events in it and I wish it were free cuz it really is kind of like IMDB or Wikipedia where people are contributing it. I don't know if it's worth spending 10 bucks a month for something like this. I must be grandfathered in on an older plan. But cuz I can't believe a hundred bucks a month. That's crazy. Excuse me. But I do love the idea of having you know, having my calendars kind of all in there. And I can use that to, you know, when it's hotdog day national hot Dog day, I can I can celebrate with you. Yeah. Celebrate with you.

Mikah Sargent (01:10:42):
That's really cool.

Leo Laporte (01:10:43):
Let's take some more calls, shall we? Or should I take a walk? Maybe I'll take a hike. You gonna take a hike? I'm gonna take a hike. Alright. I don't know. I don't know how this is gonna work out because I don't, there's not really that much to say about it, but I thought I'd show you this new Amazon Echo. Yeah, I'm excited. It's a little pricey. That's the only negative. Although they occasionally have sales. Let me, let me disconnect and walk

Mikah Sargent (01:11:06):
Off. Yeah. Particularly black Friday and end of the year sales on these devices. And typically when new versions come out, I think around September they'll also have some sales on them.

Leo Laporte (01:11:22):
So I told you the story. I wanted to get something from my mom that made it easier for her to do video calls. And and I thought, you know, she loves her echo. She <laugh> she uses it to when she turns on the shower to, to remind her that she turned on the shower for hot water. And so she says, remind me to check the shower in 20 seconds, <laugh>, things like that. She doesn't wanna walk away and forget. She does. She says, remind me to take my my medications. Things like that. So she's got a good relationship with her. Amazon Echo the other day. She said, oh, it seems to be dying. I said, well unplug and plug it in again. But then I thought, you know, I'm gonna send her a new one. Anyway, this is one of the higher priced echo shows and it has a couple of interesting features.

(01:12:00):
First of all, that's a big old subwoofer. The speaker on this is really quite good. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So she gets to hear some pretty darn good music. She likes to listen to music. It also has a fairly large screen. And another thing I did is I, I kept it on my Amazon account. You know, when you buy one of these, it's automatically set up for your account. You can, there's a little checkbox hidden away to say, don't associate with my account. That's probably a good idea if you're gonna give it as a gift. But I knew that mom wouldn't remember her Amazon login <laugh>. And there was another reason I did that because I have taken all the family slides. We have about a thousand photos from when I was a kid and mom was young and I had digitized them. My sister did this some years ago and I put them all on Amazon photos and made the photo album that she gets.

(01:12:45):
And she was so pleased because all of a sudden she's seeing pictures when you're 90 years old. It's good to see pictures from the good old days. She loves this. And this just, just, just shows those pictures, which is great. Actually, this is an old picture from my good old days of my wife Lisa, her son Michael. And I think we're we're in Japan at the hotel there. So that's kind of fun. And, and, and, you know, it does this continuous slideshow. So you know, she says, wait, wait, wait. I wanna see that picture again. I said, mom, you just sli. She, I said, don't worry about mom. They'll be, it'll come back. It'll come back in about, there's a thousand pictures in about 10 years. <Laugh>. But there's another interesting thing this does, it follows you around. So this echo is on a swiveling base.

(01:13:32):
 Now this is what you're paying a lot of money for, is this swiveling base? Yeah, it is. List is 200. I got it for 150. They have a lot of sales. So keep your eye peeled. I'm sure there'll be prime day and Black Friday sales. But this thing swivels around. It's a little creepy now. You gotta put it somewhere where it can see all the way around. In fact, when you get it, it will ship with a paper template that you can put down to make sure it's gonna go somewhere. Really? Yeah. Thats funny. It could swivel all around. We have a like a little bit of a raised shelf in our great room, which is the kitchen, the dining room, and the living room is all one big room. And we have a little shelf that's almost in the middle. It's perfect for this. And as I, when I say oh, I didn't change the wake word. Okay. So we're gonna, I'm, I don't wanna wake up your Amazon, everybody. Oh. So

Mikah Sargent (01:14:22):
Can we, do you have a mute button there for you? Stomp button.

Leo Laporte (01:14:26):
Okay. Ready?

Mikah Sargent (01:14:32):
What it turns around is where you are. Okay. Maybe that is a little scary. I wasn't expecting that. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:14:39):
It. Call it. And as you walk around on a call, it follows you around. And I thought this would be great for mom. She doesn't have to think about it. She just says, you know, the word. Wait a minute, let me mute me again. Cause I'm gonna change his name. Change your name to Ziggy.

Alexa (01:15:01):
Sorry. Changing the wake word is not supported on this device.

Leo Laporte (01:15:05):
Now that's interesting. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. I, that's a limitation of this particular echo show is changing the, I tried to change your name. She said it's not supported on this device. I'm not sure why that is. But anyway, I thought there's not much more to say about it. It is better. Audio quality. It's really great audio quality, which is nice. Mom has it in her bedroom right next to her bed. She can listen to music or ocean sounds when she goes to sleep, that kind of thing. And, and she could do it with her voice. Most importantly, my sister, who lives just a few blocks away, mom's in Rhode Island, so I can't get to her very quickly. But my sister, fortunately lives just a few blocks away. I got her one of these as well. And we all have the same.

(01:15:43):
We all have, and I put a little post-it note on moms that says, if you want to talk to your son, say, and I, I gave her the name. There's a couple of different names. I said, you say call Laport Kitchen, which is actually the name of this one. Or you could say, call Lao's office and she can remember that. And I have a name for hers and I could say, call mom. And so that way she doesn't have to remember much. She can simply say, you know, call mom. There are additional <laugh>. Here's a good picture of the birthday girl. There are <laugh> in her, in her 40 49ers colors. There are additional features for seniors that are really, really great. And if you have a senior parent or a senior in your family that you wanna have take advantage of this, I would check into the those features because there's a lot of other things it can do. It can monitor, it can it can listen for sounds. Now. They can listen for glass breaking or falling. She can call 9 1 1 with her voice. She can call for help. So there's a lot of great things I think for a senior. This is a really great thing. And because it turns, when you talk to it, it almost feels alive. Yeah. And there's something about that. It could be some people would find this creepy. Yeah, my mom is actually likes it.

Mikah Sargent (01:17:01):
It's, it's, I could see it being kind of Yeah. It's, it's it it, it makes you feel like there's a person there with you almost. Well,

Leo Laporte (01:17:07):
And as, as we more and more on this, and we, we, we have at least a weekly call on this thing. She sees me in this thing. It's become kind of a proxy for me. So if it follows her around, if it talks to her, she doesn't think of it as a robot or even Amazon. She thinks of it as, as kind of a almost her family. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> family members. My sister and I use this to talk with her on it. I think this is a really amazing tool for people with limited mobility for elders, for people who have other disabilities that make it difficult for them, for instance, to type using your voice. I hope, I know, we know Amazon has lost a lot of money on this product. I think that's too bad cuz I really think this is a really great product.

(01:17:52):
This is the most expensive echo you can get. Can you pull that up on Amazon somebody so that we can show you the listing. I don't know why the price goes up and down as it does. That's, that's pretty Amazon for you. I wouldn't buy it at $200. But if it comes down to 150 bucks, I think it's a, a really great a really great little device. And I will look into why it says it. And I can only call it the a word that seems Yeah, I didn't, I didn't realize that. That seems odd. It it could be that the, oh yeah, look at that. 2 49. Do not get it. This is the, this is the most expensive 10th generation. There's one other negative, it's minor, but I don't like it. This is the black one you saw that comes a black and white.

(01:18:31):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Even when you get the black one, you get a white cord. Aw, what's the point? Right? That's how hard would it be to give me a black power cord? I ask you. Doesn't bother me that much, but <laugh>. But if you're O C d, I want you to know, and I know we have a lot of people for whom that would be annoying. That's one more thing. All right, I'm gonna walk back. That's the little tour of the Amazon 10th Generation. Very cool echo show. You can follow me as I walk around. It learns who you are. It knows your voice. It's almost like a little, little pet little pal in your, Hey everybody. Leo LaPorte here. I'm the founder and one of the hosts at the TWIT Podcast Network. I wanna talk to you a little bit about what we do here at twit because I think it's unique.

(01:19:15):
And I think for anybody who is bringing a product or a service to a tech audience, you need to know about what we do Here at twit, we've built an amazing audience of engaged, intelligent, affluent listeners who listen to us and trust us when we recommend a product. Our mission statement is twit, is to build a highly engaged community of tech enthusiasts. Well already you should be, your ears should be perking up at that because highly engaged is good for you. Tech enthusiasts, if that's who you're looking for, this is the place we do it by offering 'em the knowledge they need to understand and use technology in today's world. And I hear from our audience all the time, part of that knowledge comes from our advertisers. We are very careful. We pick advertisers with great products, great services with integrity, and introduce them to our audience with authenticity and genuine enthusiasm.

(01:20:15):
And that makes our host Red Ads different from anything else you can buy. We are literally bringing you to the attention of our audience and giving you a big fat endorsement. We like to create partnerships with trusted brands, brands who are in it for the long run, long-term partners that want to grow with us. And we have so many great success stories. Tim Broom, who founded it Pro TV in 2013, started advertising with us on day one, has been with us ever since. He said, quote, we would not be where we are today without the Twit network. I think the proof is in the pudding. Advertisers like it Pro TV and Audible that have been with us for more than 10 years, they stick around because their ads work. And honestly, isn't that why you're buying advertising? You get a lot with twit. We have a very full service attitude.

(01:21:09):
We almost think of it as kind of artisanal advertising, boutique advertising. You'll get a full service continuity team, people who are on the phone with you, who are in touch with you, who support you from, with everything from copywriting to graphic design. So you are not alone in this. We embed our ads into the shows. They're not, they're not added later. They're part of the shows. In fact, often they're such a part of our shows that our other hosts will chime in on the ads saying, yeah, I love that. Or just the other day, one of our hosts said, man, I really gotta buy that <laugh>. That's an additional benefit to you because you're hearing people, our audience trusts saying, yeah, that sounds great. We deliver always overdeliver on impressions. So you know, you're gonna get the impressions you expect. The ads are unique every time.

(01:22:03):
We don't pre-record them and roll them in. We are genuinely doing those ads in the middle of the show. We'll give you great onboarding services, ad tech with pod sites that's free for direct clients. Gives you a lot of reporting, gives you a great idea of how well your ads are working. You'll get courtesy commercials. You actually can take our ads and share them across social media and landing pages. That really extends the reach. There are other free goodies too, including mentions in our weekly newsletter that sent to thousands of fans, engaged fans who really wanna see this stuff. We give you bonus ads and social media promotion too. So if you want to be a long-term partner, introduce your product to a savvy engaged tech audience. Visit twit.tv/advertise. Check out those testimonials. Mark McCreary is the c e o of authentic. You probably know him one of the biggest original podcast advertising companies.

(01:22:57):
We've been with him for 16 years. Mark said the feedback from many advertisers over 16 years across a range of product categories, everything from razors to computers, is that if ads and podcasts are gonna work for a brand, they're gonna work on Twitch shows. I'm very proud of what we do because it's honest. It's got integrity, it's authentic, and it really is a great introduction to our audience of your brand. Our listeners are smart, they're engaged, they're tech savvy. They're dedicated to our network. And that's one of the reasons we only work with high integrity partners that we've personally and thoroughly vetted. I have absolute approval on everybody. If you've got a great product, I want to hear from you. Elevate your brand by reaching out today@advertisetwit.tv. Break out of the advertising norm. Grow your brand with host red ads on twit.tv. Visit twit do TV slash advertise for more details.

(01:23:55):
Or you can email us, advertise@twit.tv if you're ready to launch your campaign. Now, I can't wait to see your product, so give us a ring. I'm ready for another call. Are you? Yeah, let's do another call. All right. Raise your hand. Nobody's got their hands. Wait a minute. That's, that's wrong. Some people do. Let's go to Richard Richard's got his hand razed. Richard, you're gonna get an invitation. Click okay. As soon as you see that. And you will join us in the OnAir. Did you hit that second button? Oh, [inaudible] I gotta remember it. I got two buttons. There it goes. Richard. Now you're gonna see that little popup before you [inaudible] <laugh>. [inaudible] Unmute your mic. Deb, turn on your camera if you wish. Hello? Hello? Richard?

Caller 4 (01:24:46):
Hello. Can you hear

Leo Laporte (01:24:48):
Me? Yes, I hear you. Great welcome.

Caller 4 (01:24:52):
Hello. And welcome from Rochester, New York where it's raining instead of snowing.

Leo Laporte (01:24:58):
Yeah, it's January, doesn't it? No. <laugh>. Oh, well,

Caller 4 (01:25:03):
Well as long as it stays like this, I'll like it <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (01:25:07):
Yeah, I bet I know. Up north in New York State, you can have snow all winter and get six or seven feet in the long run and so forth. You're not that far. North

Caller 4 (01:25:16):
Buffalo. Got it. Big

Leo Laporte (01:25:17):
Course. Yeah. Yeah. Buffalo. It's tough. What can we do for you?

Caller 4 (01:25:22):
Well, my question is a Windows 10 question. When I plug a fob into my computer, whether it's a small fob or a external drive looking in Windows or a File Explorer mm-hmm. <Affirmative> on the side panel there, it shows like five different drives. And the only one I can click is the bottom one that tells me what my files are in that five. So, or in that, so

Leo Laporte (01:25:56):
Instead of just OneDrive showing up, when you plug in a USB device, or at least this particular USB device, you're seeing several of them. When you go to this pc, you see several

Caller 4 (01:26:05):
Devices Yes. And it shows more. Yes. And it shows on several devices. Yeah. Or several drives, not just the one that I'm plugging

Leo Laporte (01:26:14):
With. So this is not uncommon. A lot of u SB devices are, are partitioned and you're seeing all the partitions generally only one of them is important. Where do these, where do these drives come from? Where do they come from?

Caller 4 (01:26:27):
It, it's just drives that I've purchased or whatever. Okay. they aren't partitioned by me at all.

Leo Laporte (01:26:34):
Yeah, yeah. No, they come that way. Yeah. Yeah. Usually only one partition matters this way. They're

Mikah Sargent (01:26:39):
All named the same thing.

Caller 4 (01:26:41):
Yes. No, there's the, the, some of them don't show the name at all, but the last one might show the name of that drive that I called it.

Leo Laporte (01:26:53):
One thing you can do if you're curious is open up the disc management interface. If you do Windows Key X and choose disc management, and that's where you're gonna see what's going on with those drives. Not just the names, but you'll see how they're partitioned. And furthermore, you'll see probably from looking at it, which partition you're gonna care about. It may be, you know, some, some drives are sold with multiple drive formats. You know, one for a Mac, one for Windows, but more often there's four or five small tiny partitions. You know, therefore technical reasons. And one main storage partition that is 99% of the storage. And that's obviously the one you care about. I'm sorry. And

Caller 4 (01:27:38):
I have gone in to look at that and it only shows one partition Oh, one drive. That's it. It doesn't show any other, so

Leo Laporte (01:27:46):
It's not partition, but you're seeing five different names

Mikah Sargent (01:27:49):
And these only show up after you've plugged in the device. They're not, those other random drives are not there when you don't have something plugged in.

Caller 4 (01:27:57):
That is correct. They're, they're, once I unplug it or say disconnected it, it, it shuts off. Is

Leo Laporte (01:28:04):
There anything on those drives right now that you care about?

Caller 4 (01:28:09):
I have also pulled everything off. Okay. Reformatted the drive and put it back in again. And still the same, still the same problem.

Leo Laporte (01:28:17):
Yeah. So I, I wouldn't do this unless you don't need anything on that drive, but go again into Disk Manager and just delete those extra letters. It just has, for some reason has multiple letters associated with the same drive.

Caller 4 (01:28:31):
The only problem is, is I don't see any other drives connected. When I'm in that disc manager. It shows the one that I can see that I can look in, but I don't see where the other ones are to be able to delete all the other ones.

Leo Laporte (01:28:48):
That's interesting. And actually, that worries me a little bit. Did you buy these on Amazon? That was my

Mikah Sargent (01:28:54):
Contention.

Caller 4 (01:28:55):
<Laugh>? Well, I've, I've had these drives for over five years. Okay.

Leo Laporte (01:28:59):
There is a scam. It's going on right now on Amazon, where, where they they sell a drive as a 16 terabyte drive, but it, it really isn't. It's just got some firmware that's lying to the operating system and it's got a little tiny c TF card in there, a little micro USB card in there that has maybe a terabyte on it or maybe even less. And so you gotta be very careful. Amazon sometimes even will promote these as Amazon's choice. And they're not <laugh>, they're third party sellers. Sometimes it even says sold by and shipped from Amazon. It's, that's not enough. If it's a hundred dollars for 16 terabytes, that's enough to tell you that is not a 16 terabyte drive. It's too good. So I was worried that maybe you had one of those, sometimes those drives do show up f kind of funny. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I'm worried a little bit about what's going on on that drive. It's more than one. Huh? And you've had it for a while.

Caller 4 (01:29:57):
Yeah, it's, it's several. It's three different drives I can plug in. And that happens.

Mikah Sargent (01:30:04):
And you mentioned you, this was a Windows 10 question. Does that mean that in previous versions of Windows you did not have this issue? It it didn't crop up until you updated?

Caller 4 (01:30:14):
No, I, I, I've had Windows 10 for a little while and this was working. Okay. We'll say a month ago. Okay. I would, it wasn't drive in and it, I would, it would only show one I,

Leo Laporte (01:30:25):
You know, so there's two different things you can do to drive. You said you reformatted it, but that doesn't change the part Underlying partitioning information, I'd re partition it. I just, you say you don't see any, you just see one partition. I would delete that partition. Make sure there's no other partitions on there. Create a whole new partition table. It may be a a among the partition table. And it actually, if that's the case, you don't wanna keep using it because eventually you're gonna lose data. It's, the partition table does not match the actual physical hard drive. So I would delete any partition information, create a new partition on that drive format. That partition now it showed, should show up only as a single drive and it, and you should be able to use it safely. 

Caller 4 (01:31:08):
But now that's the same situation though, happens. I'm more than one drive. Yeah. It's not just this one drive.

Leo Laporte (01:31:16):
Yeah. That's the question is why this is happening. That's why

Mikah Sargent (01:31:18):
I'm wondering about, you know, if there, if it's master boot record versus G U I D partition table, then you've got a situation where maybe this, this version of Windows 10, you know, what update was installed that let you's Right. They are, it's, it's getting confused about the partition tables that are installed. And I don't know, I personally don't know how to change those between MBR R and G P T on on a Windows machine. 

Leo Laporte (01:31:44):
You didn't find these in the parking lot, right?

Caller 4 (01:31:47):
<Laugh>? No, not at all.

Leo Laporte (01:31:49):
<Laugh>. Okay. And how big, how big are these drives?

Caller 4 (01:31:54):
Normal small drive. It just has a bunch of PDFs on it. It's, it's nothing Stuff that I've scanned. You

Leo Laporte (01:32:01):
Remember in the old days early days of Windows, it couldn't handle more than two gigabyte drive. So they would partition anything bigger than two gigabytes into multiple partitions. There were all sorts of things. We, it's a

Caller 4 (01:32:13):
Smaller ones that I have are like two.

Leo Laporte (01:32:15):
Yeah. I, it's puzzle. It's a puzzlement. It, and, and honestly, I don't like the idea of there being hidden partitions on a drive. That sounds suspicious to me. Maybe it was for technical reasons. The manufacturer did that. The fact is that they're showing, they, they were always there. I would guess they're only now showing up cuz Windows 11 is giving you more information about that drive. 

Caller 4 (01:32:41):
Maybe I'm doing something wrong in disk manager. I, I, I don't, I guess I don't know much about that to understand what I might delete or change.

Leo Laporte (01:32:53):
Well, you can see, and that's why Disc manager is, is important. You can see on my PC here, I only see one drive. It's a C drive. But if I look at disk pit the disk manager, I actually have two drives on here. One is unused, which is good to know. I didn't know that. So I'm gonna have to format that and start using it. But you <laugh>. But the disk partitioner is the, is the single source of soil, of source of truth here. So File Explorer is gonna tell you what you, what it, what you, you know, you as the end user wanna see Disc management. And again, you get to that, you hit show my screen again. You hit Windows Key X or right click on the start menu and you go to disc management. And that's gonna open this up.

(01:33:36):
This is the, this is the real source of truth about what's in there and what it's seeing. And you could see actually, even though there's two physical drives, there are, there are a number of partitions. There's five partitions, including one unallocated terabyte, which now that I know I have it, I'm gonna format use terabyte <laugh>. I'm amused. Somebody snuck a drive in here. <Laugh>. I'm always concerned though, when you say, oh, you know, explorer is not showing or is showing something that's not there, that's cause for concern. It could just be an error. It could be, there's a technical reason the manufacturer did that, but it also could be malware. So we really want to get rid of those partitions in p in disk management. Delete everything. I mean, everything. Bare, bare, bare bones. So you'll see when I click on a, a partition on this drive and I click the red X, it's now going to, it says it's not created by Windows.

(01:34:31):
It might contain data by other operating systems. You wanna delete this partition? Hell yeah. Hell's yeah. So I'm gonna delete that partition. It's gonna go away. Now I should have, oh, without the cannot delete a protected partition. Without the force protected parameters set. So this is obviously, it's such a small partition. It's 498 megabytes. It's obviously something for the operating system. So I'm, I'm going to, you know, not delve deeper. You can also get the properties on this, see a little bit more about it, the manufacturer. I would, I would dig deeper into this. A number of people in our chat room are saying, boot into Linux <laugh>. And you, well, there's a reason why Linux is gonna be agnostic in this. Windows is gonna be doing stuff with it, thinking it's a Windows drive. Lennox is just gonna, if you launch G part ed, which is their version of dis management, the partition editor,

Mikah Sargent (01:35:22):
I've had to do that exact thing with some drives that were being

Leo Laporte (01:35:24):
Weird. And you just say, no, no, no, I'm the boss, I'm the captain. Get rid of all those extra partitions. I don't think you'll break the drive. And I think you'll probably make it more reliable. I don't know. I don't know. Without looking at that.

Mikah Sargent (01:35:39):
I did have, I sent a link to our producer who will include in the show notes a really great walkthrough of Disk Manager from oh, Microsoft itself. It's got lots of screenshots for you, lots of steps.

Leo Laporte (01:35:50):
It's a great tool.

Mikah Sargent (01:35:51):
Check that out and it'll help you. So you can do some little, you know, tests and things to see what's going on there.

Leo Laporte (01:35:57):
For a long time we had a bi partition magic or some other tool because Windows wouldn't really give us good access to the partitioner they do now. So I think it's, it's worth taking advantage of this. It should be able to tell you, dig a little deeper with properties. Something about what's going on. It's either an error in which case you want to fix it, or it could be, you know, as, as people, everybody's pointing out, oh, that 498 megabyte partition, that's the hidden Windows system recovery partition. You're right. I don't want to get rid of that, cuz that makes it easy to restore Windows on here. But the all of that also, yeah, all of that. You should be able to figure out. Yeah, check the website. I think disc management is a very good tool and you should be able to figure out something. Hey, I appreciate your call. Yeah. Nice to talk to you. Thank

Mikah Sargent (01:36:42):
You. A perplexing problem.

Leo Laporte (01:36:43):
Have a great day. Stay warm in Rochester, home of Eastman Kodak.

Mikah Sargent (01:36:49):
Nice.

Leo Laporte (01:36:49):
That's one bad habit you get from doing radio for years. <Laugh> is, you've got one line about every town in the country. Yeah. <laugh>, did you notice that? Yeah. Did you pick up on that? Let's say hi to Taylor. Taylor's been hanging on very patiently. Let me push that button. Push that button now. Taylor, you should push your button and unmute. And you should be in our in our slack or whatever it is. Zoom and talking to us. Yeah, I think it's all right. He's still muted. There we go. Hi Taylor.

Caller 5 (01:37:19):
So Leo, speaking of radio, how many times have you out queued on this new show on a, on a course of habit

Leo Laporte (01:37:25):
<Laugh>? I, you know what, I, I wish I could, because one of the things I realized, as I've mentioned before, there were 19 minutes of commercials on the on the premiere radio show, on the Tech Guy show. And I wish we could take a break every eight minutes. <Laugh>

Caller 5 (01:37:40):
<Laugh>. We, we

Leo Laporte (01:37:41):
Can't. So we just keep on going. Taylor, it's great to talk to you again. Where are you calling from?

Caller 5 (01:37:47):
Cincinnati, Ohio. You actually helped me years ago. I have a L P F M here in Cincinnati, and I've asked you a few things about it several times on the radio show. I

Leo Laporte (01:37:56):
Remember. Are you still doing it?

Caller 5 (01:37:58):
Yeah, yeah. It's been up now. Shoot, nine years. Station's been on the air

Leo Laporte (01:38:03):
Low. That saves for low power fm, which is funny. The FCC gives and takes, they offered that license for a long time for free, and you could do it, obviously you took advantage of it last time I checked. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, they had stopped temporarily. I don't know. And they're gonna start again, or I don't know. It comes and goes, but if you can get it, it's great.

Caller 5 (01:38:23):
It seems about once a decade they opened it up <laugh> or if that, you know what I mean? Yeah. It's

Leo Laporte (01:38:28):
Very strange. Very,

Caller 5 (01:38:29):
It's very rare. Yeah. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:38:30):
But the idea is to let communities create inexpensively, create FM stations that are just to serve that narrow community. It only goes a few miles.

Caller 5 (01:38:41):
Oh yeah. Ours goes, I think five to 10 mile radius. Yeah. At the most. I

Leo Laporte (01:38:45):
Mean, but do you have listeners? It just covers. Do you hear from people?

Caller 5 (01:38:47):
Oh, yeah. I mean, if I put a call to action out there, I'd get a response. <Laugh>. That's awesome. If, if I'm on a site somewhere, I get comments constantly. That's great.

Leo Laporte (01:38:56):
Neat

Caller 5 (01:38:57):
About it.

Leo Laporte (01:38:58):
What do you, what do you, what kind of music do you play?

Caller 5 (01:39:01):
So we're predominantly eighties, but we cover anything from the sixties to the early nineties.

Leo Laporte (01:39:08):
And you must, you must automated, right? You're not sitting there spinning discs.

Caller 5 (01:39:12):
Oh, no. It's, it's, so I have it fully automated. It's automated across three computers. Wow. we use our software called Station Playlist. We categorized everything. We wrote scripts. It creates today's logs and everything automatically, it pulls in weather and other information in real time and puts it on the air and mixes it. So we can do a lot of things. The most recent success is we partnered up with a local university and we're broadcasting their football and sporting events.

Leo Laporte (01:39:43):
Oh, isn't that cool? That's like real radio.

Caller 5 (01:39:47):
Yeah. Oh yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:39:48):
<Laugh>. That's the real deal, man.

Caller 5 (01:39:50):
So if you ever want to get a taste of it again, Leo, the door's always open, my friend. That's

Leo Laporte (01:39:53):
Really fun. <Laugh>. So how do you pay the license fee for the music?

Caller 5 (01:39:59):
So since, so the organization I have is a non-profit, and since we're a secondary service and a low power FM and a non-profit, the royalty companies give it to us at a flat rate. So essentially they take how many possible listeners mm-hmm. <Affirmative> our covers can have. And then they give us a flat discounted rate for the coverage. Nice. Now for like streaming, we'll go through like Live 365, where royalties are covered in the subscription. Right.

Leo Laporte (01:40:35):
Right.

Caller 5 (01:40:36):
So we don't have to worry about it that way. Nice.

Leo Laporte (01:40:39):
Where can people find you if they're in within that 10 mile radi in Cincinnati? <Laugh>?

Caller 5 (01:40:45):
It's on the web at z 98 fm.com. Oh. And then it's on the radio dial at 98.1 fm

Leo Laporte (01:40:51):
98.1. See, that's kind of fun. So you, you know, I mean, nowadays everybody can stream over the internet, so yeah. There are plenty of internet radio stations, but I like the idea of, do, do you have a transmitter? 

Caller 5 (01:41:03):
Mass Tower? Uhhuh <affirmative> 40 foot high. 

Leo Laporte (01:41:08):
That's how you get 10 miles. That's great.

Caller 5 (01:41:10):
Yeah. Oh, yeah. And then we're, before TuneIn shut down their listings, we're listed on TuneIn. So we're grandfathered Nice. Before TuneIn. Shut that down. Very nice. So anyway, the reason why I'm reaching out today is just like all of us, we have relatives who are getting older grandma, grandparents, et cetera. And I am looking kind of, with the exception of getting good at describing what to do, <laugh>, <laugh> I'm looking for a way to help grandma with her phone and her iPad. Mm-Hmm.

Mikah Sargent (01:41:45):
<Affirmative>

Caller 5 (01:41:45):
Is there, I mean, I know Apple keeps things pretty locked down. Is there any tools that you guys have come across to help, you know, family, friends, et cetera? I mean, I You mean you

Leo Laporte (01:41:56):
Want remote, you want remote access? Is that what you wanna do? Or,

Caller 5 (01:41:59):
Pretty much, I mean, I, I'm, I work in the MSP world or the managed service provider world. That's what I do for a living. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So I'm familiar with a whole bunch of tools, but I've not found a good one.

Mikah Sargent (01:42:10):
And the phone piece, phone for grandma phone is iPhone for grandma.

Caller 5 (01:42:14):
I don't think iPhone. Is there

Leo Laporte (01:42:15):
Any remote access for phone?

Mikah Sargent (01:42:16):
So there are some technologies that are available, but what I'm going to suggest is something that I just used the other day. I, my mom was having an issue and FaceTime recently added the ability to share your screen. So, okay. I just placed a FaceTime call to my mom. Good, good idea, idea. I said, mom, share your screen. She shared her screen. I said, okay, you see they're on the right. You're gonna tap that and then you're gonna go here. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Oh, I see what that looks like. Oh, tap that, tap this. And that worked exactly as I needed it to. And so what I ended up doing was, before the call started, I went on my phone, swiped down to get to control center tapped to record my screen with the microphone turned on, and then I showed a FaceTime call, and I said, here is how you tapped to find that.

(01:43:06):
Share the screen button. So then she was already prepared when it came time to do the FaceTime call. She didn't have to go looking and try to find where that button was. So I send that video out first to her. She knows now what button to press. Suddenly the screen is showing up. And then I'm able to walk her through those steps and see live what's happening. So it's not the same of course, as being able to tap on the person's screen yourself. Right. Apple's own support team can do that. Which I wish that, you know, there was a way for us to access that through their system. But there are some third party tools that exist. I, yeah. Team Viewer is the one that yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:43:49):
Scooter X sent us an interesting article from help Wire, which makes one of the programs that does this best software for remote iPhone support in 2023. We'll put a link in the show notes to that for you, Taylor, this is the Help Wire program, which is interesting. It does, it does kind of a, it's a wild way of doing it. All

Mikah Sargent (01:44:10):
This is so expensive

Leo Laporte (01:44:11):
Since you're Yeah, that's probably part of the problem. These are, this is for, you know, tech support for a company. Right. team viewer I think has a free version. This is isl.

Mikah Sargent (01:44:21):
You end up having to install profiles, though. Like, those are the reasons

Leo Laporte (01:44:25):
Yeah. They monitor. Yeah, that makes sense though. They really modify the phone. Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (01:44:29):
That's why I think the screen sharing feature that Apple finally added is going to be the best thing that you can do because the person hears everything you are seeing their screen. So as long as the connection is good, then there's no problem with using that.

Leo Laporte (01:44:43):
Is grandma physically distant? Like mine? Mom is

Caller 5 (01:44:48):
Well, I'm in Ohio. She's just across the river in Kentucky, so. Okay. I mean, it's a 20 minute drive to get to her. It, it is just one of those things. Yeah. It's easier, you know, when, when, when the phone call comes in at random hours, you know, it saved myself a little bit of a trip. You know, I, I love grandma, but save myself a little bit of a trip of jumping in the car and driving across the bridge. You know what I mean? Just for, for a simple walkthrough

Leo Laporte (01:45:14):
Kind of. And you can't do, you can't, you have no plausible deniability your business. Is it <laugh>,

Mikah Sargent (01:45:20):
<Laugh>? I don't know

Leo Laporte (01:45:21):
Exactly. That's all, man. You can't Exactly. You can't say, I don't know <laugh>.

Caller 5 (01:45:26):
No, I can't. I Well, that's with all family and friends who call me. You're stuck. I can't deny any of

Leo Laporte (01:45:33):
It. It's like being a doctor, right? I, I, yeah, exactly. My wife is always asking me for help, and, and I say, I don't know. She says, you're the tech guy. You're supposed to know this stuff. I said, oh, all right. <Laugh>. Oh,

Mikah Sargent (01:45:46):
I guess I do know.

Leo Laporte (01:45:47):
Okay. A lot of times the answers aren't satisfactory. You know, there ought to be a better way. Right,

Mikah Sargent (01:45:52):
Right.

Leo Laporte (01:45:52):
Right. Roman. Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (01:45:54):
But I, I really, I've found that the screen sharing thing is quite good. The, the only limitation you have is just to not be able to press the button for them. So not, I, and I think that what's super important about this is whenever we think about how people learn, moving through the motions themselves is what helps teach them. So you tapping on the screen every time is not as good as them being able to do it themselves and sort of build in that muscle memory, build in that understanding now of how we get to different menus on the screen. So I, there there's an argument that it's even better that grandma's tapping instead of you.

Leo Laporte (01:46:32):
Although you should tell Grandma that you're gonna be pretty tied up in about two and a half hours for the rest of the evening. Because I think Cincinnati has a football game coming.

Caller 5 (01:46:42):
Oh, yeah. Yes. I, I, I hope, I hope to be versing your wife's favorite team in the Super

Leo Laporte (01:46:49):
Bowl. Wouldn't that be fun? We've played the Bengals a couple of times in the Super Bowl. That would be so much fun.

Caller 5 (01:46:55):
So, yeah. So, thanks guys. I, I appreciate it. And Mikah, you make an excellent point. And I think me just being able to see her screen on what she's doing will will help a lot. Yeah. Cause sometimes it's hard to describe what to do next. Exactly. If I can't, don't see what she's doing it. Right. Yep.

Leo Laporte (01:47:11):
Exactly. I do, I do the poor man's version of that and say, mom, hold your phone up to the camera. That's what I

Mikah Sargent (01:47:18):
Did with my grandma before. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:47:20):
Yeah. I was doing that with the echo as I, was he helping her set that up? She was on her iPhone and I <laugh> and I'd say, mom show, show me the what's on the screen on the Echo Show me And sh she would just hold the phone up like this. And I'd say, no, no, mom, I'm looking at you. Turn it around. Turn it around <laugh>. And then she was, but we, it worked. It

Mikah Sargent (01:47:42):
Works. It works. I did. I will tell you, I we, that's what I used to do before this screen sharing feature happened. And I started to get nauseated. Cause I had it on an, i I had it on a big old iPad. And so then the, the whole thing

Leo Laporte (01:47:52):
Going, it's

Caller 5 (01:47:54):
Like, need to pause. I do that. I do that with grandma when it comes to helping her with the tv. Yeah. She

Leo Laporte (01:47:59):
Does that same thing. Same

Caller 5 (01:48:01):
Thing. But when she's using the remote control of the camera slides down <laugh>. And I'm like, you my guy. Get nauseated. And I'm like, okay, I'm falling now. I come back up now, you know, <laugh>. So, yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:48:12):
It's funny. Hey, Taylor, always a pleasure talking to you. I'm glad you found your way to the New Tech Guys show. We really appreciate it. And hope you'll keep listening.

Caller 5 (01:48:21):
Oh yeah, absolutely. Just renewed to the yearly club.

Mikah Sargent (01:48:25):
Thank

Leo Laporte (01:48:25):
You. Well, we'll see you in the Discord in that case. Nice. All right. Thanks Taylor. Thanks guys. Appreciate it. Yeah. We have a lot of MSPs managed service providers who listen to our stuff. They're basically the contract IT folks for a lot of companies we use Russell's a managed service provider. That's what our IT guy is a, is a contractor, not a, we've tried to hire him about a thousand times and he says, I don't wanna work for you, <laugh>. Oh. Although I notice he's always here on Free Lunch Wednesday. Do you notice that he's timed his visits very carefully, very cleverly. Very smart. We have some videos, right? Do you wanna play a couple of those videos for us? John Ashley, let's let's do the first one, which is the short, shorter one. First,

Caller 6 (01:49:16):
Hey, Ron Lewis calling from Suburban Chicago, Illinois. I'm a Club Twit member, and I visited the old Twit studios a long time ago. And I have a very easy tech question for Leo and Mikah. We'll be in San Francisco next week, cuz my son lives there. And we're gonna take a trip to Napa Valley and go through Petaluma on the way. And I'm wondering if you have any restaurant recommendations.

Leo Laporte (01:49:42):
<Laugh>. Thanks. That's the first <laugh>.

Mikah Sargent (01:49:47):
Where do you like to,

Leo Laporte (01:49:48):
You're not a foodie. You're not, you don't like all you, you don't I don't understand it, but that of course, look how thin he is. And look how thick I am. Husky. That's with two Cs, by the way.

Mikah Sargent (01:49:59):
<Laugh>. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. You can either be thick or you can be Husky. <Laugh>, T H I C C C. We

Leo Laporte (01:50:06):
We do enjoy eating out. And one of the nice things about being in the wine country in Petaluma, we're in Sonoma County, is it has become a food destination. In fact, Charlie Palmer, who is a local restaurant, turbo, you may know his name is some very famous restaurants in Las Vegas and elsewhere, is has announced he's building a 65 room hotel with a Charlie Palmer restaurant in the ground floor right in the middle of downtown, where the old Chevron Pet Station used to be. You might remember that in Petaluma, right on the Crossroads. Wow. On on the main street. Right now there are a few very, very good restaurants anywhere on that main street. It used to be called Main Street, you know, and now it's called Petaluma Boulevard <laugh>. I like Main Street and Main Street usa, right there on Main Street.

(01:50:52):
There's some very good restaurants. There're two our favorite Italian restaurants are there, which is cafe para Para. Now see, I'm, I'm Blanket, there's cbc, which I like. Paraic, para C Cafe, para Paraic. Both of those are very good. Go a couple blocks more, though. I think probably the best restaurant, one of the best restaurants in town is right there on the, on the corner of the Boulevard and Western. And that's central market. I highly recommend that. There's chef there. It came from Louisiana. He's, he's new Orleans's born. And Tony has his own pig farm. He raises his own hogs. Wow. He he's really, really a great chef. And I think I think you'd really enjoy Central Market. If you can get in, watch out. There's celebrities there. Occasionally you might see Tom Waits comes there from time to time.

(01:51:46):
 Another big movie star who lives just over the road in Belinas comes in, just won an Oscar for for that nomad Land. What is her name? And I can't remember it. Anyway, you, you, I, I've seen many Chelsea Handler was there one night. It's a very popular place that tells you it's probably good. Considered the best restaurant for breakfast. I like cafe or rather Del Fattoria, which is across the street. They're all in that same several block area. And there's a new restaurant, which a lot of people like. It's pricey. It's one of those fixed price restaurants with eight courses called Table Culture Provisions. Tiny little hole in the wall, also on the Boulevard. So there's a few recommendations for you. You don't like that as much. John Ashley's <laugh>. John Ashley's favorite. I know what John Ashley's favorite is cuz he says they have really good drinks. Is one of the newest restaurants in town. It's Southern Cooking,

Mikah Sargent (01:52:40):
That's what it's called.

Leo Laporte (01:52:41):
No, no. So

Mikah Sargent (01:52:42):
They have a really good brunch. As I keep

Leo Laporte (01:52:44):
Egging. I keep trying to get some egging. Egging. It's a puns, Kevin. The fried chicken's very good, but it's got a terrible name. I can never remember the name. Easy Rider. Easy Rider. Oh, that is a terrible name. It's the worst name. <Laugh>. Because what do you think? What do you think? I'm not gonna say what I think. You think it's a bike bar? Becker bar, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm. <Affirmative> That it's not, it's actually very good southern food in Northern, they call it southern cooking in Northern California is what they call it. Because it quite literally Is that, yeah. So it depends what you're hankering for. But if you want a very nice adult beverage, oh, Hankin and fried chicken, I think that's a good place for some harmony grits for some hominy. Poor Dan is falling asleep here. I'm gonna go to you, Dan. So, wake <laugh> Dan. Wake up. Wake up Dan. You know, is it? You got your hand raised there. All right. He's got his hand raised. I'm gonna push that button. Put that button there. I'm gonna have some, I should have brought some fried chicken today. Ooh. I keep trying to tell my wife. Let's go to Popeye's. That's what I want. Hey Dan, how are you? Welcome to the show. Dan, where are you calling from? I'm,

Caller 7 (01:53:47):
Can you hear me? Yeah, yeah. Terrific. I am calling actually from a little bit Overcast Kona, Hawaii.

Leo Laporte (01:53:55):
Oh. From beautiful. It. Now that's not real what's behind you, but that's probably the Wi View out the window, right? <Laugh>.

Caller 7 (01:54:02):
It, it is actually Kona Village, a resort that up this, this summer after being,

Leo Laporte (01:54:10):
Is it coming? Is it coming back? Oh my gosh. So, Kona Village, it was a legendary, all-inclusive resort. It completely remote. You couldn't have a tv, couldn't bring your phone where Steve Jobs was staying when the iPhone four scandal happened. Oh, he was there with his whole family. He had to fly, but he didn't wanna, he had to fly back from Kona Village to tell the world you're holding it wrong. <Laugh>. He brought his little son, young son Reid, along with him. He says, I wanna show you how business is done, kid. I, I have a good friends who used to go to Kona Village regularly, and I, I never went and I always wanted to go. And it got blown away in a hurricane about 10 years ago. So they're rebuilding it.

Caller 7 (01:54:54):
It is, it's been under construction or reconstruction for three or four years now. And the intention is to be opening this, this summer,

Leo Laporte (01:55:03):
Dan. I will be there the minute they open. I've all my life wanted to stay there cuz Steve Jobs, my, the other person I know stays there is William Randolph first III <laugh>. I'd like to go to go. He told me it's a good place to go. So I want, I want to go there. Do are you affiliated with it in any way? Can you get me in?

Caller 7 (01:55:24):
I, that's why I'm here on Island. In fact, I am, I am part of the opening team getting the place. Oh. Wow. That's cool.

Leo Laporte (01:55:32):
I have a friend in the business, <laugh>. I'm very excited. Will it continue to be all inclusive?

Caller 7 (01:55:38):
It will have components that will be very similar. You know, the, it's under new ownership after being out of commission for so long. And so the, the, the new company in there is spending quite a bit of money to get it back to its grandeur. So there's, there's more and more elements, you know, to be honest with you, some of the programming is still under, under debate. But you

Leo Laporte (01:56:03):
Tell 'em No phones, no TVs, <laugh>,

Caller 7 (01:56:07):
I'll tell you there are no TVs.

Leo Laporte (01:56:10):
I love it, for sure. I love it. Oh, I'm so glad it's coming back. I, you know, I checked the Facebook page every five years, crossing my fingers. I knew that it, you know, really got devastated by which hurricane was that? I can't remember.

Caller 7 (01:56:23):
But, you know, it was, it was actually a tsunami that came in. Yikes. Took

Leo Laporte (01:56:27):
It out even worse. So I, it was, I know it was devastated and and that the, the owners at the time just couldn't rebuild it. It was just too much to do. So I'm glad somebody acquired the property. That's great. And I hope it has a, what I liked about it were, what people seemed to like about it, was that the, it was an authentic Polynesian experience. They tried to really be as authentic as possible. Not a big resort hotel, but just stayed in was it Hall? And I hope that they, they're gonna keep it kind of like that, Dan.

Caller 7 (01:56:57):
It, it, it is though, actually 150 individual holiday. Oh. and we are definitely going for authenticity and genuine. So we're working very closely with a lot of the lineal descendants here in Hawaii that actually had family hundreds of years ago working there and living there at this village. So it's a very special place to the Hawaiians here especially. Absolutely.

Leo Laporte (01:57:22):
Absolutely. That's one of the things. I just read an article that said you know, for Walk the Club Meds of the world, the Sandals of the world, the all-inclusives where you were really isolated from the culture were popular. But now, millennials, when they travel, they want the culture they want to experience. They don't want to be disconnected from the, the, the place that they are. And so there is a growing market, I'm sure you know this Dan for resorts that you can go to where you could participate in the culture. And I love the Polynesian culture, not the, not the, you know, the Don Ho <laugh> style Hawaiian culture. But I love the real Polynesian culture of Hawaii. And I, I love it that you guys are gonna honor that and make a place to go. When do you think you'll open next year?

Caller 7 (01:58:09):
Actually this summer.

Leo Laporte (01:58:11):
Wow. I'll be giving you a little call Dan. I don't expect any special treatment. I just want, I know it'll be impossible to get in for the first five years, <laugh>. It'll be fucked up. Solid. What can we what? I love it. You're reclining Dan in front of the beach in Kona. I'm so jealous. So

Caller 7 (01:58:30):
I am, I am the 49ers game off, off to my right. Paying attention to that. So,

Leo Laporte (01:58:35):
Well, I'm, I'm impressed that you were able, as I was, not to leap with joy minutes ago, but okay, we will <laugh> we'll pretend nothing else is going on. What's what's on your mind right now?

Caller 7 (01:58:47):
So, I, I, I don't wanna be redundant, and you may have answered this question, but I know you know, apple just launched their M two 16 inch MacBook Pros a week or so ago. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And I don't know if you've given your feedback. I don't even know if you probably haven't even gotten your hands on

Leo Laporte (01:59:04):
One. I have not. Jason Snell has, he did a good review on six colors, and I've been reading a number of reviews. Actually, the best review I read just came out a notebook check. These guys have taken the mantle, perhaps away from a non-tech for the most thorough benchmark based reviews of, of all. And they did a very, very good, very thorough review of the M two. And I can synopsize it for you. Not having I, we, Mike and I own the earliest M two, the, the MacBook Airs, which we're very happy with, super happy with excellent battery life, Mac I've ever had for sure. The first thing to understand really is that these are not gonna be the same performance leap that the M one was from Intel. You know, now that we're in Apple silicone, we're only gonna see 10, 20% jump.

(02:00:00):
There is some thinking, and I, I give this some credence. In fact, it's what I've decided to do. Elisa is waiting, it's gonna be her late birthday present tomorrow. Or the next day she'll get her 14 inch MacBook Pro. Nice. She got the max, she got the right John, do you know? Yeah. She got every, she got, how much Ram did she get? <Laugh>? She, she has no, no need for this. I was gonna say, what's she going do? She's got the most powerful computer in the house. She's got the Max Studio Max, but she, you know, anyway, I'm thrilled. I'll get to play with it and j drool over, but I decided not to because I'm gonna wait for the M three. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. This rumor is, and the story is on this apple's a little bit stuck on that five nanometer TSMC process.

(02:00:42):
So the M one and the M two are not so very different. In fact, the M one was what the A 14 chip and the M two is the A 15 chip that you see in the current iPhones. But all if all goes well, and the process works, we're expecting them to use the new three nanometer process for the M three. And that is maybe where you see these larger jumps in performance battery life and so forth. One thing Apple did do with the M two is they increase the number of efficiency cores. So I think we're gonna see very good battery life on these. Not a huge jump in performance. The GPUs did get a real boost. I think it's, you know, it's the same exact physical design as the M one 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pros. So you're not gonna see any change in that regard. You are gonna see wifi six E mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. So if you have six E I'm sure you're gonna put six E all over Kona Village if you hadn't No, do actually do, you probably won't put wifi in will you?

Caller 7 (02:01:43):
There, there, I think there's probably, at this day they

Leo Laporte (02:01:48):
They have to

Caller 7 (02:01:48):
Right. Gonna need to have wifi. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:01:51):
I don't think Lisa would go if they, if she couldn't, you know, check in daily with the business. So Yeah. Good. You gotta put it in wifi. So 60 is the latest. And, and by the way, that was one thing. Notebook check noted. A vast improvement in wifi performance on these. That's the single biggest jump. Almost double the wifi performance of the M one MacBook Pros. Otherwise very similar. In fact, if it's because you need a laptop right now, you might look at getting a lower cost one. Exactly. Yeah. Because you're not gonna see a huge difference. Depends on what you, what you do. Are you an architect or you a designer? What? What do you do Dad?

Caller 7 (02:02:27):
I'm actually a food and beverage guy and it's around

Leo Laporte (02:02:30):
Nice <laugh>. That's why you're relaxed <laugh>.

Caller 7 (02:02:35):
I have my 10, 11 year old MacBook, 17 inch has finally given up the go. Oh. Oh,

Leo Laporte (02:02:43):
You're gonna be happy with any, you're gonna see. Yeah. It's night and day from that. Yeah. Yeah. Get this, you know what, I would get the 16, if you can afford it, the M two 16 might as well get the latest one. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you certainly don't wanna wait for next year's in M three. That, that would be crazy. So get the get the, you owe, you owe it to yourself. You've got a big job up ahead of you. So you're gonna run the whole food and beverage operation in there?

Caller 7 (02:03:07):
Yes, sir.

Leo Laporte (02:03:07):
Yes, sir. Wow. I'm liking this guy more and more. I know <laugh>. I can't wait. Are they gonna have a luau Kona Village?

Caller 7 (02:03:15):
Oh, there will be a, a luau. Yes. Or will keep a grounds actually is what it's called. And we will have a, an authentic luau there.

Leo Laporte (02:03:22):
They'll do the real deal. I love that. Neat. And you know what deal? I will even eat poy just for you.

Caller 7 (02:03:27):
<Laugh>. <laugh>. Well, good. You can have mine. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (02:03:31):
<Laugh>. I know it <laugh>. But the pork, a luau pork, there's nothing like it. A little kalua pork. And that is i that is to die

Caller 7 (02:03:40):
Fork. It's, it's that, that is definitely my favorite. Yeah. So, so in, when configuring this M two, I know there's all the multitude of upgrades from RAM to storage size and all that, and there was a recommended configuration when they went to the M two MacBook Air. Is there an ideal configuration that maximizes its performance? 

Leo Laporte (02:04:02):
So notebook check, we, in the earlier last year's MacBooks, there was some concern about the, the base model hard drives. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, they weren't as fast as they possibly could be because they only used a single unit instead of dual units for the storage. And you can't, by the way, these are not upgradable in any respect. You're gonna get what you get and keep it and you're gonna like it <laugh>. So the, they did note that this year's model still has one unit for the hard drive storage, but they got a two terabyte version. They said it's screamed. So it's probably the case that you would, I just would not get the lowest. But you're not gonna want a 256 giger. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's five 12 these days. Yeah, I

Mikah Sargent (02:04:46):
Get more storage space.

Leo Laporte (02:04:47):
That's the one I'd say if you get the terabyte or better, you're gonna get the performance boost. We weren't, we weren't really able to, to figure that out on Mac break weekly on Tuesday. Even though Jason, Jason had the higher end one, he had a loaner. I would say, you know, you don't, you probably don't need you, you won't even use the highest end chip. You know, you can have an eight core cpu, 10 core gpu, I would say you can go with the base model chip and put that extra money into a little more ram. Yes, that is. So let's spec this out right now for you. So we'll see how much you can spend. Well,

Mikah Sargent (02:05:29):
This is the air though. You

Leo Laporte (02:05:30):
Wanted a pro? Did I say air? Oh, let's go to the pros. Sorry about that. Thank you for correcting me on that. I thought that seemed there's three models. Yes. Like why is that so inexpensive? Yeah. Well, there's also three models. I was gonna say that's a screaming deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is a screaming deal. And not, not the deal. You're gonna get, they started $2,000. So you want 16 because you had a 17. You want to go a big screen, right? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Now this is more likely we see the three different configurations. Actually, is there a fourth? No, there's just three different configurations. Of processor 1219 or 1238. Go with a 1219 <laugh>. You don't need. Yeah, you do not, you don't need 38 car gpu. You're gonna select that. I'd say, you know, the base, the base model ram is, oh, and here's, and once you're within there, you can see, you can still upgrade these, but stay at the lowest end processor, I'd say. And with the lowest end, you can't go higher than 32 gigs. I would go for 32. Really? Yeah. Sixteen's gonna be plenty, honestly. But if you're spending this kind of money on an empty, yeah. If it's an investment,

Mikah Sargent (02:06:38):
It's gonna last you many, many

Leo Laporte (02:06:40):
Years. You kept that 17 inch for 12 years, my friend. This will, yeah, those signatories out. Well, I don't think you need two terabytes. That's up to you. It starts at one terabyte. I'm pretty sure that's the faster disc storage. So I think you're fine on that. But if you want more, you're gonna have to get it because you're not gonna, the one thing we have learned with these apple silicone models, because the storage is right on the motherboard, it's significantly faster than any external storage, even with Thunderbolt four. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So for a long time we said, well, thanks to Thunderbolt three and external drive on a Mac, these intel max could be as fast as the internal drive. That's not true anymore on this Apple silicone you, you, you, the fastest by far storage is the storage that comes with it.

(02:07:25):
So get as much as you're gonna need for, if you're doing a lot of video editing as my son does you want to, you'll probably want to get two or four terabytes because you want to keep all the files that you're working on internal. You can move 'em off later as Mikah does with his photos. But you want to, so that's up to you how much storage you need. I don't think that's gonna make any difference. That's $3,000 with a terabyte drive and 32 gigs of ram. I think that's a good configuration. That's a pretty pricey device. But if you're gonna keep it 12 years you know, that's, that's a pretty good deal. We're talking about about $10 a month. $20 a month.

Mikah Sargent (02:08:00):
Yeah. Well, it's at $250 a year.

Leo Laporte (02:08:03):
<Laugh> <laugh>. It's less than 20 bucks a month. Yeah, I think you're pretty good. Or about 20 bucks a month. That's pretty good. So amortize it out. Is it worth it to you? Okay. I'm gonna spend your money, Dan, if it's me, because you're gonna be you know, responsible for this fine resort where the entire twit staff is gonna go next year for our offsite <laugh>.

Mikah Sargent (02:08:23):
Lisa just screamed on her birthday <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (02:08:26):
I think I think you should absolutely get the, the very fines. I don't think you need a, I guess what I'm saying is I don't think you need a max. You probably should get a pro. That's gonna be so much screaming fast

Mikah Sargent (02:08:37):
Compared to what you absolutely doing right now. The only thing I've ever regretted not doing was not getting more storage. So get more storage. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (02:08:46):
Yeah. Okay. And read you know, read this notebook, check review. I thought it was very useful. Or, and also for kind of a more general look at what it feels like to use it. I think Jason Snell's review at Six Colors is is quite good. Notebook Check said it's the best multimedia laptop, actually. That was their M one review that they've ever seen. I think their M two, they think it's even incrementally even better. Highest a very, very high score. I think a 94% score. So you're getting a nice machine. That's great. When does it get crazy for you? Is it crazy now or is it already 

Caller 7 (02:09:21):
Well, the, the pre-opening of a resort is, is pretty, pretty intense with, you know, anything and everything that you might enjoy at a resort from China Glass and silverware to, to, you know, the linens in the room. So it's, it's you know, creating experiences and, and dreaming up how we're gonna make people really enjoy their visit.

Leo Laporte (02:09:43):
Well, I'm so glad Rosewood came along and and bought this beautiful, what is, you can see the lava beach and all that. It's just, it is, it is old Hawaii and I'm thrilled that they're gonna keep this as close to the original as possible. And I cannot wait to stay there. I am so excited. One of our favorite places in Hawaii is in Hana. The used to be a traversal resort. Now I think it's a Marriott or somebody, but the over on Maui, going out to Hana really is like going back in time. Yes, sure is. I'm so excited that this is opening and and, and I've never been to the big island, so I'm very excited. This is gonna be great. I can't wait. Dan, have fun. Looks like, looks like you got a, you've got a job cut out for you. What did you do? What did you do before this?

Caller 7 (02:10:36):
I've been doing hospitality resorts for a while. So I was in Tahoe at another resort previously. And I've moved about a dozen times, so I've been, been benefiting from the, the, the career that I've been, been in. Lived in some beautiful places.

Leo Laporte (02:10:52):
I bet. I bet CO is the most beautiful though, man.

Caller 7 (02:10:56):
It's my favorite.

Leo Laporte (02:10:57):
So pretty. All right. Hey, it's great. It's great to meet you. Expect a call. <Laugh> <laugh>. Okay. Thanks Dan. I thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Wow. We have some great useful li I mean nice listeners. I say useful. Nice. Very nice. Listeners. did, let's see, what else did we want to do? David? Running outta time. Let's, should we run that last video? Run that beautiful run that last video. Ask the tech guys at twit tv. Is the email send us your video questions.

Caller 8 (02:11:27):
Hello Leo and Mikah. This is Dan in West Orange, New Jersey. My AirPods are in the wrong ears. <Laugh>. See they're stick funny. Reverse the ears cause they don't fit. But that's not why I'm calling

Leo Laporte (02:11:43):
<Laugh>. That's

Caller 8 (02:11:43):
Hysterical. My father has recently moved into assisted living. I had previously phoned you and asked you how to set up an A device so that he could make phone calls using that. You also suggested using a home pod. Well, what I found out though is be because he could only make 10 calls with the, I tried to set up the home pod only to find out that that would not work on his wifi network. Oh. Because now he has moved into an institution and apparently institutional wifis don't allow Oh. Devices to interact with each other. Right. Oh. So I'm trying to figure out how to, so I've kind of given up on the HomePod basically. However, he also has a printer and he can't print wirelessly from his iPad. That's what he uses as an iPad. And also you cannot connect to that external device via the wifi network in the institution. Ugh. So I'm trying to figure out a workaround so that he can print to his printer. Now, I used to have, if I could remember the name of it correctly, some Apple Extre expresses and extremes, which are someplace in the storage someplace where I could create a separate network in the home. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> just for printing. Yep.

Leo Laporte (02:13:10):
That's

Caller 8 (02:13:10):
Exactly what I had. So that if I wanted to, I could get on that network, print my documents, and then go back to regular wifi again. Is this possible? Is there another way of doing that besides digging out my Apple Express device someplace in the attic? I was wondering if you could help with this. I look forward to hearing from you and thanks for all your service.

Leo Laporte (02:13:34):
Thank you. Thank you for

Mikah Sargent (02:13:35):
Calling

Leo Laporte (02:13:35):
And I really like how you've got your AirPods

Mikah Sargent (02:13:38):
Stucking out

Leo Laporte (02:13:39):
<Laugh>. Wow. so a couple of things. First of all, we did bloop out when he said A L E X A cause we didn't want, that's, that's why that sound dropped out. But he was talking about echos. So the printer's easy to fix. So this is yeah, it's unfortunate when you're in institutional setting, you don't have full access to the wifi. Almost all printers will allow you to print direct. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> wirelessly. In effect, you're creating an ad hoc wifi network with the printer. So go into the printer settings and look for usually it's called direct printing. Yeah. Where it creates its own or wifi direct. Yeah. It's own wifi network. And then the iPad joins that network and I think air print will work that way. Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (02:14:15):
Air print does that. Apple will, yeah. Air print will work that

Leo Laporte (02:14:17):
Way. Okay. That would be the only question. Cuz Apple's air print is kind of a,

Mikah Sargent (02:14:20):
It is weird. It's insane. Yeah. It gets a little, but it, yeah, it should work that way.

Leo Laporte (02:14:24):
Okay. So that's the first thing. Look at the printer. Wifi, direct printing. If that printer doesn't do it, very few don't. You could buy a, a newer printer. Most, most certainly do it. And then, so basically just as you'd kind of described, you're joining that printer's network to print. And then when you want to get back on the internet, you obviously you have to move over back to the regular internet. That's for the calling thing. That's one of the best features of this echo that I got. My mom. Yeah. I

Mikah Sargent (02:14:50):
Didn't know what is this 10 call limit that he was talking about? I've never heard of this limit.

Leo Laporte (02:14:57):
I do know that that might be something that the carrier is imposing. I do know that Echo has decided to turn off the partnership with Verizon and at and t where it uses your phone number to make the call. It may be that that's how he had it set up. That's not gonna be long term, that's not gonna be the solution. But I wonder if cuz as long as you can get that echo on wifi mm-hmm. <Affirmative> you should be able to use drop in and the, and the echo to Echo calling Unlimitedly.

Mikah Sargent (02:15:33):
Yes.

Leo Laporte (02:15:34):
So if he was trying to call a phone number, that's probably, that limitation probably is the carrier's limitation.

Mikah Sargent (02:15:39):
Thank you. Squire. So the limitation is to 10 contacts. It's not 10 calls, 10 contacts. Contacts. Oh. So I don't know if that was what you meant when, or if you maybe read that and you thought, oh, there he's only gonna be able to make 10 calls. But now that's clarified. It's 10 contacts. Yeah. So if your parent has more than 10 people that they want to call regularly, then it is an issue.

Leo Laporte (02:16:01):
Yeah. It's, it's really nice to use that echo for calling, especially for older parents who just you know, they don't wanna hold a phone, they can't even dial on the phone. Yeah. it's so easy for them to just say, you know, call Dan. I want to talk to him. And then, and that's done. The, maybe the another solution to look at, and they may or may not allow you to do this in the institution, is one of the residential cellular connections offered by T-Mobile or Variety.

Mikah Sargent (02:16:32):
That's what I was thinking.

Leo Laporte (02:16:33):
Those things work surprisingly well as long as you're near a 5G tower. I've told the story before, my daughter is very near. She's near the highway in central California. And so she is getting 5g, uc from both T-Mobile and Verizon. I'm a, I have accounts with both for Verizon, cuz I, Verizon customer I was able to get for 25 bucks a month. A mobile hotspot just sits in her apartment. She's gotten 150 gig 50 megabits down, about 30 megabits up. And I was worried it might not be consistent if the tower gets busy, but it's consistent day and night. Nice. It's really a good service. T-Mobile offers something similar. Both of them are really trying to beef up their their customer base. In fact, it looks like they're really starting to beat the cable companies. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> cable companies subscriptions are dropping dramatically.

(02:17:30):
And I think part of the reason is people have discovered for a lot less they can get internet from these companies. So if you're lucky enough that he's lucky enough to be in a Verizon or T-Mobile area where he can get 5g and you're already a customer, it should be fairly inexpensive. The institution may or may not allow that. That's gonna be up to them. I honestly think that the echo's the best way to do this. And if you can get the echo on the network and it sounds like you can, I think that's really pretty much all you need. I need to know you can make calls with the home pod.

Mikah Sargent (02:17:59):
It's basically just doing it through your phone and you know, it's piggybacking. Oh,

Leo Laporte (02:18:03):
It's like a Bluetooth device? Yeah. Well,

Mikah Sargent (02:18:04):
Yeah. It uses I believe Airplay, but, okay.

Leo Laporte (02:18:08):
We did buy two of the new Home pods. I'll have those for review. Oh nice. Make a stereo pair, see how it goes. That was a early anniversary or late anniversary gift cuz they're not gonna come for a couple of weeks. I guess it's a, it's actually a late Valentine's Day gift at this point. <Laugh> <laugh>. But that's great. Hey, we are, we've, we've, we've done a whole show. We have, we've done an entire show. Wild. How, is there anything more to say? Next week we will get Alex's demonstration of mid journey, cuz I think it's fun to create AI drawings. In the meanwhile, if you've got a question, ask the tech guys@twit.tv is our email address. We love the emails, but you can also even better leave us a video call as those callers did. That's great. Keep it short. If you can try to get your EarPods stuck in the right way, <laugh> round. So it doesn't look silly. Anything else?

Mikah Sargent (02:19:00):
Yeah. this is your last chance to,

Leo Laporte (02:19:02):
There's just a few more days.

Mikah Sargent (02:19:03):
Go to the survey and fill it out for us. Twit.Tv/Survey 23. We would like to know who all of you are out there, who are listening to our shows and what you think of what we're making and maybe share some ideas for what could be down the road. It's also an opportunity for us to let our sponsors know who you are. We don't wanna track you, we don't wanna do all of that. This survey is very quick to fill out and it is our way to gather that information and get an idea of who you are, what you like, et cetera. So please head to twit tv slash survey 23. The last day to take it is January 31st. So that's right around the corner. So we'd love it if you did that.

Leo Laporte (02:19:43):
We like we want to get every listeners to every show in there. And because this is a new show, we particularly want to get you guys in. Absolutely. So, because you, listen, ask the Tech guys TWIT tv slash survey 23. We would really like to get you represented in our survey results. If you are a Club Twit member, I thank you. It's because of Club Twit. We're able to do this show. It's expensive to do anything on this network because we've got lights, cameras, staff, there's seven people who come in to do this show. And and honestly at this point, it's really Club twit that's keeping this on the air. If you're not yet a Club Twit member investigate by going to twit tv slash club twit ad free versions of all the shows, including this one shows that we don't normally put out in public yet because they're not, you know, ready for primetime.

(02:20:29):
They don't have a big enough audience, including Mikah's Hands on Macintosh show. He brought back hands on Macintosh and I'm very grateful to him. It's a great show. Paul Throt does Hands on Winnows. We have the Untitled Lenox Show. We got a lot of great stuff. And the Club Twit Discord, which is a great, wonderful place to hang again. Twit TV slash club twit. Seven bucks a month. I think it's a a pretty good deal. I think it's a really good deal actually. Well, that's it for us, the tech guys. I hate to shut it down, but we, we gotta go.

Mikah Sargent (02:21:00):
Got stuff

Leo Laporte (02:21:00):
To do. Got stuff to do. Got a football game to win. We're loose <laugh> right now. It's

Mikah Sargent (02:21:08):
Oh. Is it not going well? Well, oh no, it's not over.

Leo Laporte (02:21:11):
It's

Mikah Sargent (02:21:11):
Not over,

Leo Laporte (02:21:11):
But it's over. It ain't over till the the guy in the Eagles helmet

Mikah Sargent (02:21:17):
Says. So

Leo Laporte (02:21:18):
Why Eagles?

(02:21:20):
Thank you everybody. Have a great week. We'll see you next time on Asthe Tech guys. Bye-Bye.

Jason Howell (02:21:25):
If you love all things Android, well I've got a show for you to check out. It's called All About Android and I'll give you three guesses. What we talk about, we talk about Android, the latest news, hardware, apps, we answer feedback. It's me, Jason Howell, Ron Richards wins with Dow and a whole cast of awesome characters talking about the operating system that we love. You can find all about android@twit.tv/aaa.