The Tech Guy Episode 1861 Transcript

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

... (00:00:02):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWIT.

Leo Laporte (00:00:11):
Hi, this is Leo Laporte and this is my Tech Guy podcast. This show originally aired on the premier networks coast coast on Saturday, January 22nd, 2022. This is episode 1,861. Enjoy don't forget, you can support our show by joining Club TWIT, go to twit.tv/clubtwit seven bucks a month. Get you ad free versions of this show and all of our programming. Plus a special twit plus feed with stuff you don't even get anywhere else, including the GIZ fizz, the untitled Lenox show, Stacey Higginbotham's book club and more. And of course the amazing Discord join Club, TWIT seven bucks a month. It helps us out an awful lot, and it's a lot of fun. Twit.tv/clubtwit. Well, Hey, Hey. Hey, how are you today? Leo Laporte here. The Tech Guy. Yes, it's that time again? Talk computers, the internet home, the digital photography, smart phones, smart watches.

Leo Laporte (00:01:13):
All that jazz. Eighty eight eighty eight ask Leo is the phone number eight eight eight eight two seven seven five five three six. Toll free from anywhere in the us or Canada. When you call that number, the lovely Kim Shaffer will answer the phone. Lovely and talented. Kim Shaffer will answer your phone. She will help you fashion your, your question and and then put you on the dash layer waves and all that stuff. 88 88 ask Leo, you can still call that number if you're not in the us or Canada, but you'll have to use Skype, outer. I don't know something like that. The website still techguylabs.com do not be alarmed. It does look different. We we closed the old site and moved it all over to the TWIT site. My podcast network for a variety of technical reasons, most of which involve cost because of security, cuz we care.

Leo Laporte (00:02:12):
We care about your security. And so we didn't wanna run a insecure site and we didn't also, we didn't wanna pay <laugh> to, to run a secure site. So now we're running a secure site over at techguylabs.com and I mean twi.tv, which techguylabs.com forwards to. And so you'll be safe, but it will look a little different if that all makes sense. Anyway, everything's there. You don't have to write it down and it's free and there's no sign up. So there 88 88 ask Leo. Let's see here. Let's see here. Samuel boun. No that's not right Scott. Wilkinson's coming up. Our home theater guy, Saturday home theater guy in just a little bit. Then Johnny jet, our travel grew then the GiJWiz Dick DeBartolo should be a fun day today. Bitcoin <laugh> wow. <Laugh> Bitcoin down. In the last 30 days last month, 14,000 and dollars.

Leo Laporte (00:03:20):
It's down to $34,633. That's a loss of $7,580 per coin in the last five days. Even today, just today alone, it's lost $1,823, which makes me feel for the people who decided Bitcoin was gonna be the next big thing. And they were gonna pour their little life savings into it. I hope that's not you. I do hope that's not you. And it just underscores what you know, I probably should have been more vocal about this, but I was, I'll be honest. I was afraid. I was afraid of the Bitcoin bros cuz they there, there are people who've made much money. Some bill millions, mostly millions investing in Bitcoin who'd they make it from you or anybody who bought Bitcoin when it was $60,000. I bet you, I hope that they got out. Some of them are drinking the Kool-Aid. They probably still holding it, which case they're watching their value plummet as the president of El Salvador is he, he moved El Salvador from the their currency from the us dollar to Bitcoin.

Leo Laporte (00:04:28):
Then in hindsight might have been a mistake <laugh> who could have, who could have known what a mistake that would be. I probably should have been more vocal about my opinion, about point NFTs cryptocurrency in general. There's a lot of people got very rich on this and I think that what happens when people are highly invested in something they wanna get richer and, and they need more suckers. I mean investors involved. So there's been a big drum beat, oh this is the next big thing. It's going to change the world. And now, you know, take a look cuz it's almost half what it was just a few months ago. And you know, you don't wanna invest in something that's gonna lose half its value. People freak out that we've had, what was it? 7% inflation of the last year. And they're freaked out.

Leo Laporte (00:05:23):
How about 50% deflation? How about that? Or I guess that's inflation. That's what inflation is. Isn't it? Same amount of money buys less 50. So 50% inflation <laugh> okay. My math's terrible. Another reason not to buy Bitcoin NFTs, same thing, right? Twitter just announced, oh I like this. That you can actually, you don't have to buy these though. So that's the good news. If you're paying for Twitter blue, you can put as your profile picture, your favorite NFT, you know, the, the zombie that you bought for a hundred thousand dollars, you didn't, you didn't, you don't wanna have it on the wall while anybody can have it on the wall. Just print it out. You, but you own a link to it somehow and means you own it and you can resell it. It's very, it's silly. And I think maybe we're coming down from that high.

Leo Laporte (00:06:18):
I hope so. Be careful. I guess just be careful if you're, if you're, don't put your life savings into this thing, it's a, it's a scary, scary thing on this downhill slide. A lot of, you know, a lot of people screaming as the, as the hill, you comes up and they go sliding down and IRS is gonna require facial recognition to access your taxes. Id.Me. Are you familiar with that? Starting this summer. If you have an irs.gov account, you can't just use your username and password, which is good. You know, that's, that's, you know, kind of an insecure method. I think we've learned that it's a start, but you need usually to have a second factor of authentication. That's what the IRS is gonna want. A government identification document, driver's license, passport, state ID, a selfie copies of your bills. And you're gonna them to a Virginian based identity verification firm id.me to confirm your identity.

Leo Laporte (00:07:25):
You have to in effect, provide biometric information, a, a picture of yourself. This isn't, you know, we're seeing this more and more. Some of you may have been received that request from Facebook post upload a picture of yourself with your driver's license and, and a today's newspaper or something. I can't <laugh>, it's not what they do with ransom notes, right? If you have an existing IRS username, please create a new id.me account. As soon as possible says the IRS. We're bringing you an improved sign, improved, more secure I'll grant. You improved. Well, guess it depends on what way, how you're looking at it. You won't be able to log in with your existing username and password starting this summer.

Leo Laporte (00:08:11):
Now I am sure we're going to trust id.me with pictures of our driver's license, right? I mean the government wouldn't send us anywhere. UN untrustworthy, right? ID me by the way is maybe you've heard that name because many states use it to help track down the billions of dollars they're losing in UN you know, fraudulent, unemployment and pandemic assistance claims. And who does it? Identity sees pretending to be you, but they don't have your driver's license ID. Me has 64 million users has gets about 145,000 new users every day. I think that number will go up some 27 states are already using it. You know, I'm sure it's trustworthy, but boy, doesn't that make it a a target for the bad guys. Wow. If we could just crack that database, just imagine what you'd get.

Leo Laporte (00:09:13):
Just imagine now, if you don't have a driver's license or a utility bills or, you know, the kinds of things that could prove you are who you are, who apparent, apparently you can use details about your mobile phone service to verify yourself. Then you may require, they may ask you for a live recorded, live video chat. When they look you straight in the eyes, are you really? You you, you you've gotta verify yourself with a live video selfie, which kind of leaves out a lot of people. Doesn't it? It means you have to have a modern day smartphone with a selfie camera could computer with a, with a webcam. That's not universal. Is it? I have to watch this one with interest, with interest, an ID. That me, I hope you're. I hope you're locking up. When you leave the office please. Eighty eight eighty eight, ask Leo the phone number (888) 827-5536, toll free from anywhere in the us or Canada. Kim's ready. Open the lines, Kim. And we will take your, oh, they're all open already. And we will take your calls next

Leo Laporte (00:10:39):
You are definitely <laugh> you came to play. I did as did I you're wearing my jacket. I love it. 49 ERs now. Yes, I will not be coming in and seeing you today because I know, you know, you saw the message from no, I, John told me, John told me don't I don't get, you don't get the slack. We we'll tell everybody Michael, our step, my stepson, our, our 19 year old has COVID. He got tested yesterday positive. He said he was playing with sore throat. So Lisa and I ran out of course immediately to get tested both negative. Thank God. You know, we we've been observing pretty good protocols, I guess, but I'll keep this. One's getting everyone. Yeah, I'll keep getting tested. Michael's now locked in his room. Poor guy has to watch his green bay Packers go down all alone. I know. It's so sad. He's a Packers fan Packers fan. I know. Anyway, so I can't I'm I am in now in what you call the quarantine, right? Yeah. So I have to stay away from you. I'm wearing my mask, but I can use my studio cause nobody comes in here and thank you, John, for not turning on the lights. <Laugh> not doing, not coming in, not doing anything. That's right back to the back to the early days of the pandemic basically. And Leo.

Kim Shaffer (00:11:58):
Yeah. I've been dealing with what you were just talking about all week Bitcoin kind of mine. Well, no, a friend of mine's business, Instagram account got taken over. Oh yeah. And

Leo Laporte (00:12:09):
They happens a lot on Instagram, a lot.

Kim Shaffer (00:12:11):
They're posting all on her stories about how, oh, I got all this from my crypto wallet and this, that, and the other thing. And they're trying to get $2,000 in Bitcoin from, to give her her account back. I go do not

Leo Laporte (00:12:25):
Do that. No, no, no. You can recover it. We're

Kim Shaffer (00:12:27):
We're trying. I know. It's I sent reports. She sent reports. It's been since Wednesday and we haven't heard it. She'll

Leo Laporte (00:12:33):
Back. They're just, it's, you know, there's a lot of people. And unfortunately I think Instagram is really insecure cuz I think people get hacked a lot in Instagram. Oh, it's bad. Somebody called last week about this.

Kim Shaffer (00:12:41):
She even got the email that says your email and phone number have been changed. If this isn't authorized you know, click here and, and by the time she did that, her account was already compromised.

Leo Laporte (00:12:53):
Yeah. <affirmative> it's kind of amazing. Isn't so I don't like,

Kim Shaffer (00:12:56):
I we're we're at a loss. She's just like, I haven't been able to do business for three days. This is my livelihood.

Leo Laporte (00:13:02):
So

Kim Shaffer (00:13:03):
Sorry. I don't, I don't know where I I've done everything. I'm kind of her it department and 

Leo Laporte (00:13:09):
Oh, I'm sorry. You're you're you'll get it back. It just slow. It takes a while. They're not jumping on it. Well, there's, you know, you have

Kim Shaffer (00:13:16):
To be a celebrity in

Leo Laporte (00:13:17):
Working it's billions of users, I think. Yeah. It's billions of users. They care. It's just, you know, there's only, you know, a million people working on it. So it's take a while it's only a million. They probably don't even have it. The scale is unbelievable. And, and that's why they're not gonna respond very quickly. But I hope she hope she gets it fixed

Kim Shaffer (00:13:33):
And yeah, they said, oh, oh then they, she said, I'm not giving you any money. And they said, okay, well we're blocking you for, from her other account. We're blocking you now. And your, your entire profile's gonna get deleted. Well,

Leo Laporte (00:13:45):
It's still there. Right? I am. I've been watching. I am guessing she didn't have two factor on

Kim Shaffer (00:13:50):
Her account. She did until I told her to

Leo Laporte (00:13:52):
Now she does, but

Kim Shaffer (00:13:53):
It's too late. Now I put out on my Facebook the other

Leo Laporte (00:13:56):
Day, everybody two factor, two factor, two factor. We said at some, at the very least. Yeah,

Kim Shaffer (00:14:01):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then if you're sophisticated, like Leo, you do ay or

Leo Laporte (00:14:05):
Something like that. Yeah. I bought not only AIE I have a UBI key. Yeah. UBI key, the little hardware thing. Well, I'm a target, right. So yeah. Anyway, I don't have any symptoms. I'm negative. I think though, we've Lisa and I both have been, had kind of like allergy symptoms and we just assumed of all I've lost for years. Well, that's the thing it's well, the last two years, it's the same thing. This time of year, we always have them. Yeah. But I also think that might be us fighting off the plague. So yeah. Anyway, we'll keep, we'll keep testing and I'll I'll

Kim Shaffer (00:14:39):
Well, if you're testing negative and you think you already had it, then

Leo Laporte (00:14:42):
You might. No, I don't think we had it. Oh, I was just boosted a month ago. I think I'm fine. Well, don't you don't, I don't know. She might give you some love, but mostly she'll just give you hug 49ers fan. I could tell Kim Shaer happy.

Kim Shaffer (00:14:59):
49 her day.

Leo Laporte (00:15:00):
It is a, I've been waiting all week for tonight. I have too. And I was so pleased that they scheduled this playoff game after Saturday hours five. Right. So I could see it cuz I missed the last one. I was afraid it

Kim Shaffer (00:15:09):
Was gonna be another Sunday at one. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (00:15:12):
We miss those. Yeah. Hi Kim. Hi. I'm a little toasty in my gold 49ers jacket. I'm definitely toasty. Can I take it off

Kim Shaffer (00:15:19):
Now? You can, but you, you have something

Leo Laporte (00:15:21):
Underneath, too underneath it. I'm wearing a pretty special kind of a cool story. Yeah. The story many years ago, I met a guy named Tom. I was, we were doing a radio show in in, in Marin at what they called the Marin computer house. This was in wow. 1995, I think. Or maybe six or seven, but it was in the nineties and you know, the internet was brand new and this was, they were, the developers were so proud. They'd made this house so techy. Right? So we did a show from there and the guy pulls up and, and I have to say, I've been telling this story for years. And I said, in a rolls, it turns out it was Jaguar X, K E still a very nice car <laugh> points at the car says you bought me that car. And I said, what?

Leo Laporte (00:16:01):
<Laugh> I said what? He said, yeah, you, I, you, I was listening a radio show. You were talking about this cool new thing called get ready. These pubs get ready for this is the zip disk. Oh, zip. So I bought, I bought in to the, I omega company made a lot of money. Right. I hope he sold the stock. I think. Maybe not. Cause he is now working as a realtor. Yeah. <Laugh> so, or, you know, anyway, he still has the XKE I think. But he also had this sweatshirt from the 1995 super bowl, the last one, the nine years won. And it's actually on my wife's birthday, January 29th, 1995. So he just said it to me. That's all saying I don't, you probably don't remember. But I came and say, say it hi to you and Marin in 1995. Would you say his name is Tom? Tom? I said, Tom, I not remember you. I, I owe you. I've been dining out on this story for years. <Laugh> thank you Tom. So he stayed in touch and thank you Tom, for sending me this beautiful shirt. Enough of that or sweatshirt. It's a, it's a commemorative super bowl. What is that? X? I think I've

Kim Shaffer (00:16:59):
Seen that before. That's all. Yes.

Leo Laporte (00:17:01):
Oh yeah. He says I only wore it twice.

Kim Shaffer (00:17:03):
My mom still has hers from one of the eighties super bowls.

Leo Laporte (00:17:06):
This is the last one. The Niners won. So it's a perfect one to wear today. Yeah. On their way to the next super bowl

Kim Shaffer (00:17:12):
We due. We're definitely due

Leo Laporte (00:17:14):
Hope lives eternal in the fan. Doesn't it. Who should I

Kim Shaffer (00:17:19):
Talk to first? Let's go to John and Stafford, Virginia. He needs to print out a text conversation. Is

Leo Laporte (00:17:24):
This, is this a printer question? Cuz

Kim Shaffer (00:17:26):
Not a printer question, but he does need

Leo Laporte (00:17:28):
To print. Okay. Thank you Kim. Hello John Leo. Leport the tech guy.

Caller #1 (00:17:34):
Hey Leo. Thanks for your time. I appreciate

Leo Laporte (00:17:35):
It. Oh, I'm so glad you called. No it's it's my pleasure. What's up? Yeah.

Caller #1 (00:17:40):
Yeah. So I got a conversation I wanna record or get a record of hard copy. 

Leo Laporte (00:17:46):
Is it, is it a, is it an upcoming conversation?

Caller #1 (00:17:50):
Yeah, it's coming up in about a week.

Leo Laporte (00:17:52):
Okay. Do you have a way to record it? Just normally record it.

Caller #1 (00:17:58):
Well it's, it's a text conversation. So like

Leo Laporte (00:18:01):
A text. Oh, oh I see. It's a chat, not a, not a verbal conversation. Cause I was gonna recommend a service I use called auto AI, which will take an audio recording and make a very good transcription of it. But you, you actually don't need that because you have a transcription it's this is a chat, but the is now the chat is probably one of those customer service style ones where it's on a webpage.

Caller #1 (00:18:24):
No, this is like a SMS messages.

Leo Laporte (00:18:27):
Oh well that's easy iPhone or Android. Iphone. Okay. So there are a number of programs that will copy your iPhone data off, including your text messages for saving on your computer. At which point you could do whatever you want. The one I've recommended for a long time is called IAZ, which I really like, but I, it's not cheap. It's 50 bucks. And the folks at ease us do make a free one. I would, I don't, I'm not familiar with this, but I would try it and see if it, if it'll do what you want it to do, they sent me a note saying, Hey, you always recommend, I amazing. You ought try R iPhone recovery program or iPhone it's iPhone backup, I guess is what you'd call it. So E a S E U S like ease, ease, ease your mind.

Leo Laporte (00:19:24):
And they call it mobi mover. M O B I M O V E R anyway, worth a try. This windows are Mac. You can do download it. It's free. See if it'll, you know, I would do it with today with an existing text conversation just to make sure of course the nice thing is you can have that conversation. It's gonna be in your messages, so it's not gonna go away. So if you, if it doesn't, you know, if, if, if this isn't the right thing, try amazing. And of course you can always go to your eye iCloud account. I think you could see messages there.

Caller #1 (00:19:54):
Well, so the person that was texting me was not using an iPhone. They were using an

Leo Laporte (00:19:58):
Android phone. Yeah. It doesn't matter because it still comes into Apple's messages. So it's treated. Yeah, I guess

Caller #1 (00:20:04):
I just realize that I was trying to troubleshoot it, that I don't, I, I hadn't set up my phone to forward my messages to my like that. So, or just on my phone, that's fine.

Leo Laporte (00:20:15):
That's totally fine. The, the, you know, all you need is a way to copy what's on your phone onto a computer so you can print it. And, and those are the two programs, mob mover from ease us and IAZ both have free trials. I think mob move's free, at least limited version of it's free forever, but amazing is, is the one I use to back up to copy, not just text messages, everything that's on your phone. It's a very useful utility Moby mover will do it as well. Great. Okay. Yeah. It's not none. Nothing is lost. As long as you got it in messages and it doesn't matter how it got into messages, that's pretty much the same for any messaging program. As long as you can back that data up, you know, you can recover it. Steve, on the line from Costa Mesa, California legal port, the tech guy.

Caller #2 (00:21:08):
Hi, Dr. Leo. Hello?

Leo Laporte (00:21:11):
Hello patients

Caller #2 (00:21:11):
Steve. Hey my PC wants to, Microsoft wants to give me a health check on my PC. <Laugh> you know, I got enough. 

Leo Laporte (00:21:23):
As long as it doesn't say Ben over and cough, I think you're gonna be okay.

Caller #2 (00:21:27):
Oh good. Yeah. So anyway mouse is working good. My mouse Jer is working fine. All the,

Leo Laporte (00:21:35):
Are you really using a mass Jer? Tell me the truth. Are you

Caller #2 (00:21:39):
<Laugh>? I built one. That's awesome. It's on standby. People. Look at it and go. What the heck? What is that?

Leo Laporte (00:21:45):
So two CDs, you may were a few months ago on the GWI. Dick mentioned these mass Jers and we couldn't figure out. We thought, well, is it? So it doesn't go to sleep. I found out later people use it to pretend they're still working. Yeah. <Laugh> if, if your, if your work from home and your boss has put something on your computer to kind of monitor you, you use a mass Jer

Caller #2 (00:22:05):
To, I, I made my own, I took two C and put 'em together and put a quartz clock in the middle. Oh, a tin foil on the second hand. And it goes by every minute it jiggles the mouse.

Leo Laporte (00:22:17):
How clever is that?

Caller #2 (00:22:19):
I, I never, I didn't see one. I've seen people hook their mouse onto their oscillating fan with a rubber band and do all kinds of

Leo Laporte (00:22:28):
That's hysterical. Anyway, that's the health check is a, is a feature of windows. Yeah. You just run it. It'll tell you things like how your battery's doing. You know, whether your storage is full. It's a pretty primitive tool, but 

Caller #2 (00:22:45):
For the windows 11,

Leo Laporte (00:22:47):
Say again, oh yes, it will check for windows 11 eligibility too. I would personally, I'm not a fan of windows 11. I would stay with windows 10 until they force you to move, which is not till 20, 25 Leo Laporte, The Tech Guy.

Caller #2 (00:23:00):
And I tell you my, what I, so I get you get the rat act, you know? Yeah. I've got six PCs. So I think I have a <laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:23:11):
You do?

Caller #2 (00:23:12):
And I'm not scared of fiddling around with them. I got two old vistas that I could I'm running Lennox. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:23:18):
Oh good. I was gonna say don't run Vista, but Lennox is fine. Oh no. Yeah.

Caller #2 (00:23:22):
I'm not scared to 

Leo Laporte (00:23:24):
Mess around in other words. Yeah, I got it. Yeah. I'm gonna

Caller #2 (00:23:27):
Do, I'm not gonna hurt anything. Yeah. So when, when windows said your, your PC doesn't currently meet does that mean there's hope for some of them?

Leo Laporte (00:23:37):
No, here's Microsoft and I, you know, I, this is their right and privilege, I guess, but Microsoft has decided that in order to run windows 11, you'll have to have a fairly modern PC. That includes among other things that TPM 2.0 security module, right? Some older PCs don't have that. And eighth generation or later Intel processor. Now that's actually not a technical requirement. It's just, they wanna do that because they kind of wanna kind set a security standard, I guess.

Caller #2 (00:24:10):
Yes. Well, so my th so I go looking through, I've got six species. One of 'em my wife, luckily for me, hers is gonna, hers is good to go. Yeah. And down the road, I'm not interested in hitting the, but until many years from now anyway. Yeah. You know,

Leo Laporte (00:24:28):
<Laugh> but I feel the same way. Although, you know, we don't always get a choice in that.

Caller #2 (00:24:33):
The James Webb Telescope, go, Hey, what's this button, do you know? <Laugh> So, anyway. Yeah. So some people, you know, some people might try to get this TPM 2.0, they be eligible.

Leo Laporte (00:24:47):
In some cases you can do it in firmware. Yes.

Caller #2 (00:24:50):
Okay. What about the secure boot thing? Is that gonna be a

Leo Laporte (00:24:54):
For your, well, it's not an issue cuz you're, if you're already running Linux no,

Caller #2 (00:24:58):
These are all windows and you want,

Leo Laporte (00:25:00):
Yeah. It's part of secure boot. So actually make secure, boot more secure. Are you disabling secure boot on your windows machines? You don't need to, no, I haven't got

Caller #2 (00:25:08):
That far yet. I wouldn't you know, D-Day going down you know, the Normandy invasion, the what? All the instructions, it looks like it's pretty. <Laugh> yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:25:18):
I, you know, windows 11 is merely cosmetic is not. Yes. I know. It's not like previous updates of windows, you know, big number updates. It's just cosmetic. I think staying on windows 10 is a very sensible,

Caller #2 (00:25:31):
That's what I'm gonna do. Yeah. I'm going back at these six. So I go pop the hood on all these computers and looking device manager and get into security devices. And my bottom of the line laptop is an opinion process. Right. It's right on the, it doesn't even have a yeah. You're

Leo Laporte (00:25:50):
You're you have to be eighth generation Intel. That's <laugh> that's a lot later, you know, that's Haswell or later.

Caller #2 (00:25:59):
So not that old, but guess what's in there on, on TPM. What point? Oh

Leo Laporte (00:26:04):
Yeah. Yeah. So that's the other thing is TPM two for that. And the first T TPMS been around forever. Yeah. A trusted platform module. It was a Microsoft Intel initiative to make computers more secure with a hardware, basically hardware secure enclave. Right. You don't need that. Well, the

Caller #2 (00:26:21):
Rest of mine are all 2.0. Except for my wife. So you

Leo Laporte (00:26:24):
Do have one that's that owns well yeah. You know, on it. Yeah. So that's probably is not upgradeable cause that's probably hardware.

Caller #2 (00:26:30):
That's what I'm thinking too. Yeah. It's just just one of those things, you know, that pops up, you know? Yeah. What about, I got an Plex with a pro on it.

Leo Laporte (00:26:40):
Nice. I think we're using still using plexes here for our editors actually. <Laugh>

Caller #2 (00:26:45):
And it's two point at 1.2. Yeah. Maybe that one might have hope

Leo Laporte (00:26:49):
<Laugh> Nope. No hope. No hope.

Caller #2 (00:26:51):
No hope. Hey, you know what? I'm gonna have me a lot of really nice Lennox machines coming out. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:26:57):
And you know what? You'll be happy. I, I

Caller #9 (00:27:00):
Think I will be too. And plus there's always a bright light to the end of this thing is we're gonna all get new hardware <laugh> for

Leo Laporte (00:27:09):
Windows. Well, I think that was really secretly Microsoft's intent is to stimulate the PC market. Hey, I have to run pleasure talking to you. Thank you for calling Steve.

... (00:27:20):
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Leo Laporte (00:27:51):
Leo Laport, the tech guy, Scott Wilkinson the home theater geek is here. Time to talk big screen TVs, surround sound, all the things that make a happy home. Hello Scott Wilkinson <laugh>

Scott Wilkinson (00:28:05):
Indeed. Happy home is, is what I'm about.

Leo Laporte (00:28:09):
You know, it was funny super bowls coming up. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so are the Olympics. Yep. I pay since the last Olympics and additional $20 to YouTube TV for their 4k stream. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, which is extremely limited, cuz almost no broadcast televisions in 4k. But last week during the football playoffs, one of the games on Fox was streamed, not was not just on Fox local stations, but was also streamed on Fox sports, the app in 4k, really? So I was able to watch one game in 4k.

Scott Wilkinson (00:28:44):
Why in the world would they do

Leo Laporte (00:28:46):
Well? Am I wonder, well, I guess cuz it's better. <Laugh>

Scott Wilkinson (00:28:51):
Well, yeah,

Leo Laporte (00:28:52):
For one thing, but and honestly, you know, once you pay 20 bucks a month and see how limited 4k is, you kind of say, why is it more stuff in 4k for all? I know that NFL game was upscaled 10 ADP because they'd have to put new cameras, new switching, everything would have to be upgraded mm-hmm <affirmative> to support 4k. I doubt they'd do it for just one game.

Scott Wilkinson (00:29:13):
Well, I, I agree. And it could be that they're experimenting and they might have 4k cameras on the field and they're down scaling it. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:29:23):
Yeah. The, I think there's well, because you know, it's in Beijing, they're probably gonna do eight K, right? Yeah, yeah. I'm sure that how would I watch? Well, I don't have an AK TV, but right. I'm sure there's some people who, for some reason bought one and, and then how would I watch it in? Let's see, wait a minute. Fox is doing some of the playoff games in 10 80 PHDR Uhhuh. But NBC is not this Mike Heis in our chat room doing any 4k either for the super bowl or the Olympics. NBC is I guess a 4k denier.

Scott Wilkinson (00:29:58):
<Laugh> a 4k denier. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:30:01):
So that's a bummer. That's a bummer. Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Wilkinson (00:30:04):
The in, in the us, I don't know if there's any way to, to view eight K yeah. You can do it in Japan. You can do it in Korea, I think. Or China and Brazil, interestingly enough, their state run broadcast system is, is did eight K anyway in the in the last Olympics. Yeah. Or only last year. Yeah. Yeah. So I, but I don't think there's any way to see it in the states. I'm not a hundred percent sure about that. Mike Case might have a good

Leo Laporte (00:30:34):
Idea about, I do believe that YouTube TV is gonna do 4k mm-hmm <affirmative> for the Olympics as they did for the summer Olympics last year. Right. So I guess people are thinking maybe I think isn't this the biggest time to buy a new TV is in the super bowl, you know, timeframe.

Scott Wilkinson (00:30:50):
Yeah. Black Friday and super bowl timeframe are the best times to buy a new TV, a 20, 21 last year's models. Yeah. Which I've said many times, and I'll say many times again there's is nothing wrong with that. Yeah. you know, the new models. Sure. They generally have incremental improvements with the exception of course, of this new Q D O lead, which we talked about, which is a major improvement in flat panel technology, but it's gonna be really expensive. And you know, for most of us it's gonna be too expensive and, and normal OED or, or LCD TVs, even I prefer EDS, but you know, LCD TVs they're they all look great. And so, and now's the time to buy 'em because the manufacturers want to, and the retailers want to get, get rid of the 20, 20 ones in order to make room for the 20, 20 twos. You remember those car commercials? Yeah. So many we've

Leo Laporte (00:31:49):
Got, they've gotta move, we're blowing it up to the bear walls. Come on down, bring your wipes, your checkbook in your pink slip.

Scott Wilkinson (00:31:55):
That's right.

Leo Laporte (00:31:56):
<Laugh> used to do those ends the same that you did. Well, of course I did. Everybody in radio has.

Scott Wilkinson (00:32:02):
Yes, indeed. Well the same thing is true of TVs.

Leo Laporte (00:32:05):
Yeah. They're blowing 'em out to the bare walls.

Scott Wilkinson (00:32:08):
That's right. Yes.

Leo Laporte (00:32:10):
<Laugh> so this is a good time to buy. In other words, it is, it is absolutely a good, so what should we look for Mr. Scotty? I mean, I, I don't want, I don't, I know it's last use TV, but I kind of want to think for the future too

Scott Wilkinson (00:32:22):
Well. Sure. And, and except for this QD led technology, the, the same technology is gonna go ahead in the future and it's gonna be just fine. The processors are wonderful, the upscaling and and so on are just fantastic. These days they're using AI for that. And it works really well. So I, I recommend getting the, the largest size you can, the largest

Leo Laporte (00:32:48):
Size you can okay. You can

Scott Wilkinson (00:32:50):
Afford. And I prefer OED over L C D because it, it avoids a lot of the complications.

Leo Laporte (00:33:00):
I love it. Lot of the problems, I love it.

Scott Wilkinson (00:33:02):
You have a much wider viewing angle. Each pixel is brightens or darkens as needed. It's not a, a zone system. If you're gonna get an L C D get one that is F a L D full array, local dimming which more and more of them are these days and they're, but they're generally in the mid to higher range of each manufacturer's lineup. So in the TCL lineup, for example, it's in the six and eight series. I don't think the five series has falled. I might be wrong about that, but lo lower than that, it's not it's the L led DS are, are, are array around the edge of the screen and it just doesn't have as good uniformity as good black level as good contrast. So that's, that's gonna be what you, what you're gonna want to get. If you get an L C D for the inexpensive models. And I recommend TCL and Visio generally are the ones to, to, to

Leo Laporte (00:34:00):
Look ATCL and VI okay. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> visios still good. Huh? Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Scott Wilkinson (00:34:05):
Good to know. High sense is also is also a good Chinese brand. They they've been making good inroads for the more expensive lineup. Sony is generally excellent. LG O LEDs are excellent. I, I highly recommend OG LGO LEDs. Sony OED is fine too. Samsung at the higher end is fine, but they're only their QN seven, eight and nine series are fall. So that those are kind of at the high end of things. So look for those kind of TVs and you won't be disappointed. The Sue, the writer in the chat room just bought a TCL on my recommendation and she loves it. I think they're

Leo Laporte (00:34:53):
Very good. Yeah. They're very good. Something we should, we should talk about these smart TVs and some of the marketing shenanigans that are going on. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> for instance, I've seen a number of people with TCL TVs with Roku built in are getting banner ads, not during a com not, I mean, while they're watching TV, not what, yeah. So,

Scott Wilkinson (00:35:17):
Oh, I haven't heard of that if I gotta look

Leo Laporte (00:35:18):
Into that, for example, and I don't know if it's this company, but if, if a it ad is on because they know you have a smart TV, they'll pop up a banner, you could click for a coupon and

Scott Wilkinson (00:35:30):
Well, during an ad. Okay. I guess see that, but during the show,

Leo Laporte (00:35:34):
I guess, and, and then some say, oh, you could turn this off, but then some say, no, it's on. And maybe it's on by default anyway. And of course they're putting cameras and TVs with the ostensibly, so you can, you know, you're there now you can zoom with them or Skype or teams mm-hmm <affirmative>, but really it's to see if there's anybody in the room watching the ad. I mean, and they've got microphones, listening to what you're watching so they can,

Scott Wilkinson (00:35:54):
Oh man, that's a whole, I'm sure. I'd love to hear you talk more about that. My

Leo Laporte (00:35:59):
General that's scary advice. This is just one more reason why I say, you know, too bad about the smart TV, but don't connect it to the internet because it's phoning home. Right. So that's why I use a standalone Roku box. I mean, it's still phoning, but, or an apple TV, maybe you're, you know 

Scott Wilkinson (00:36:17):
An Envidia if you're

Leo Laporte (00:36:18):
A gamer. Yeah. But they don't have a camera, a microphone on 'em and right. Exactly. Yeah. It's just something I'm kind of hyper aware of. I totally

Scott Wilkinson (00:36:25):
Agree with you.

Leo Laporte (00:36:26):
And as far as I can tell, you're gonna have to buy a smart TV. It's just, you don't have

Scott Wilkinson (00:36:30):
To, well, there there's no such thing as a,

Leo Laporte (00:36:32):
A dumb TV anymore. No such thing as a dumb, a expert. No Siri. We've got him the king home theater geek, Scott Wilkinson. He's a contributor@techhive.com and probably will, are you gonna watch the puppy bowl this year instead of the super of course, yes. I thought so. Of course

Scott Wilkinson (00:36:53):
The puppy bowl. I can't

Leo Laporte (00:36:54):
Wait. Not a sports fan. I can tell. Hey, thank you, Scott. Leo Laport, the tech guy. <Laugh>

Scott Wilkinson (00:37:15):
Thank you very much. You're good to see you all. So somebody here put up a, a, a note. Oh, Mike B apple TV. Remote has a mic. So do Roku remote.

Leo Laporte (00:37:25):
That's true. But I trust apple. I don't think they're, I don't think they're, they're spying on us. Roku. I obviously doesn't mind.

Scott Wilkinson (00:37:34):
Right, right. Right now, normally, I mean, ostensibly, you're supposed to push a button on a Roku remote, and I think on an apple TV remote as well.

Leo Laporte (00:37:44):
Yes. You have to push a button. So even though its it's microphone to listen. Yeah. Right. I mean, but there's no game now. Whether or not that that may just be saying, Hey, Siri, pay attention to what Leo's been saying all this time. Right, right, right, right.

Scott Wilkinson (00:37:57):
Exactly. You can't trust that. That it's actually the, the case that they're not listening when you don't push the button. But it's a good question. Dr. Mom, grandma team rough or team fluff. <Laugh> I don't really care.

Leo Laporte (00:38:16):
See, now I know how you non-sports ball fans feel when we talk about at it team rough or fluff. I take it. That's a puppy bowl thing. Huh? That's

Scott Wilkinson (00:38:23):
A puppy bowl thing. There's team rough and there's team fluff. Oh geez. <Laugh> <laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:38:30):
Yes guys.

Scott Wilkinson (00:38:33):
Yeah. My Mike Mike Klein, by the way, Mike Mann in the chat room will be watching right along with you this evening. He's a big 49ers fan. Oh yeah. We're excited.

Leo Laporte (00:38:44):
We're all very excited.

Scott Wilkinson (00:38:46):
That excited. Yes. The Sue, the rider says Samsung remotes have weird setups now by the way, play and pause are two different things. Oh, that is weird. That is weird. Play and pause should be

Leo Laporte (00:39:03):
They probably in their studying realize people don't can't tell what's going on <laugh> or something. I dunno. There might be some reason for that.

Scott Wilkinson (00:39:13):
Doug M says he's super happy with a Fort K LG U N 8 80 32 inch monitor. They make good monitors. I've never been that happy with their LCD TVs. Yeah. Their EDS I'm super happy with. Yeah. let's see, judge. I trust apple famous. Last words. I prefer the kitty bowl personally. I don't know the kitty bowl. I do know that that at the puppy bowl cats are the, normally the halftime show kitty kitty halftime show a couple years ago they had kitty Perry. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:39:57):
You wanna stick around for the top, sir? Sure.

Scott Wilkinson (00:40:00):
Happy to thank you.

Leo Laporte (00:40:03):
Leo Laport, the tech guy, eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number. Bob is on the line from Haynes, Alaska. Hey Bob.

Caller #3 (00:40:13):
Hey, good. Good, good mornings. K seven SK here. Oh wow.

Leo Laporte (00:40:16):
Hi. I w six T WT. Nice to meet you.

Caller #3 (00:40:19):
I'd like to know if there is any way to spoof an IP address location in order to correct it, not in order to fake it. And I cannot use a VPN because there are no VPNs in Alaska <laugh> 

Leo Laporte (00:40:32):
So the reason your problem is that the, and by the way, this is why IP geolocation is a terrible solution. Somebody thinks you are somewhere else. Is that right? Correct.

Caller #3 (00:40:42):
Yeah. P plus will not provide me a local CBS station out of Anchorage because they're saying I'm in Seattle, 1700 miles away through, through Canada.

Leo Laporte (00:40:51):
And that's probably cuz of your internet service provider. They probably are in Seattle, themselves. And so

Caller #3 (00:40:57):
Well, yeah, south, Southeast, Alaska at and T cellular I use at T cellular hotspot. They use microwave links between all the islands here in south Southeast Alaska. And it ends in Seattle at 5, 5, 5 PI. Wow.

Leo Laporte (00:41:13):
Wow. That's an interesting problem. You know, geo location using IP, you address is traditionally horrible because there, isn't a very, it's not a very reliable mapping between your IP address and your actual location. And in fact, there's a very famous story of a, of a family that lives at the geographic center of the United States. I think it's in Kansas. And because for a long time, one of the firms that does location where it'd say, well, that IP address is is in Anchorage or whatever. When it didn't know an IP address would just do a dummy loca location of in the middle of the country, which makes sense, geographic center of the us, except that that's where this family lived. So for years they would get irate people knocking at their door saying my iPhone is here or <laugh> you know, I mean just all sorts of random nonsense because the go location company said, well, we don't know where you are, so you must, you know, it must, I'll just do the dummy address in the middle of Kansas, which turned out in the not to be such a dummy address, they've stopped doing that.

Leo Laporte (00:42:15):
So it's a terrible way to do it. I don't think there's really any way you could use a VPN by the way, they're VPNs anywhere. And there must be a VPN with a point of presence in Anchorage I've

Caller #3 (00:42:32):
I've called all of the major ones. None of them do, huh? Anything in Alaska,

Leo Laporte (00:42:36):
Nobody, nobody wants to serve Alaska. So that's how that would work. You would use a VPN, you would emerge into the internet through the VPN server. If it were in Anchorage, then no problem. It would, you know the cable company would think you're an Anchorage. I think it, it, all you could do is call a cable. They say, look, you're using the wrong geolocation. You have to fix this. They could put an entry in your customer record or something.

Caller #3 (00:43:02):
Yeah. Pair paramount plus says that they, the only way they can do it is based upon IP address.

Leo Laporte (00:43:07):
They're morons. They ought to know better. I guess it's cuz there is no other way, right? It's not with your phone. They know where you are, but you know, if you come in over the over the internet all they know is your IP address. That's the only identification they really should fix. Their, the real problem is not that they are well, partly it's that they're using it, but they should be able to say, oh no, no, this range of IP addresses it. It is, it is in Alaska. So mm-hmm <affirmative> I'm trying to think who you would, what you wanna know is who's paramount plus using cuz they don't do it themselves. They use a firm that does it. There are a lot of them like sky hook and stuff and then go to sky hook and say you got the wrong IP addresses.

Leo Laporte (00:43:53):
There must be a method. Cuz this happens all the time. Re let's see report incorrect location. I'm just Googling <laugh> via IP. There must be Google can do it. Ah, this is interesting. Century link has a page there, there are another they're like another cable company. So there are some pages if you search that there, there are ways you can perhaps correct that database. I think, you know, IP location tools.com is one where you can, where you can report an incorrect location. You've gotta find the company that paramount plus is using, who knows paramount plus is new. And they're obviously <laugh>, haven't learned their, all the ins and outs of this thing called the internet, right? Yeah. <laugh> yeah. V VPN is the only way I'm trying to think. How else could you split your IP address? I mean, there are illegal ways to do it. They're like fully illegal hackers use it. They use techniques like raw sockets, but, but I'm not gonna recommend doing that. You can spoof your IP address. It's a little complicated. And the, and what do you watch the paramount plus or what do you trying to watch it on, on a, on a computer?

Caller #3 (00:45:12):
Well, I I'd like to get the, at least Alaska news. I mean I'm 700 miles from Anchorage, but, but K Ys is the only, only CBS station that paramount provides in. So I should be getting that

Leo Laporte (00:45:23):
One, you know? I'd be curious. You can do a trial of YouTube TV, see if they get it right. I'm just curious cuz they do locals via a location, but I think they do other, they use other other means to figure out your location. It's foolish to just use IP address for the reasons we've we've talked about. Right? Yes. So if, if you could figure out who these people MaxMind is one IP location tools is another. If you could figure out who they're using you could report it. I wish reporting it's a paramount plus would work at ought to they're the customer and they ought to tell the company they use, Hey, this is wrong. They don't care though. Right? They don't really

Caller #3 (00:46:03):
Care. Yeah. They don't, they don't seem to no, no, they don't care. And they're actually providing me with a television station that I'm technically not legally

Leo Laporte (00:46:11):
You're getting the Seattle's stations, but you just want the local news. Right? Yeah. I understand who cares about those Seahawks? Let me think. Yeah, so there is a way, and this is a well known hacker tool cuz when hackers are attacking, they generally don't want to be seen as their real IP address. So they'll use something called raw sockets, which allows them to and insert a dummy address. But I don't, I really don't think this is a good technique for you to, are you on a windows PC? Yes. Yeah. So my friend, Steve Gibson is quite famous. In fact, for yelling at Microsoft way back, I think this was in the XP days because they allowed this technique on windows and he said that you're gonna, this is gonna breathe a whole new class of hackers. It did Microsoft finally backed down and turned that feature off many Linuxes will do it, but windows won't let you do raw sockets. Let me think. What could we do? You might you might try, are you on cable? A cable system. You said it's at and

Caller #3 (00:47:16):
T I use at and T cellular. I get a hundred gigabyte.

Leo Laporte (00:47:18):
Oh you're using, that's why you're using cellular. Yeah. Cellulars boy at and T should really use your cell location. Your cell tower. Are you on a cell tower? That's in Washington state.

Caller #3 (00:47:31):
Oh no. I'm 1700 miles. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:47:33):
You're yeah, that wouldn't work. So you are on an Alaska cell tower. Yeah. So it's annoying that at and T is not using the, the, actually much better location information. They already have. They're doing it by IP address. I think they do that maybe because they don't want, you don't don't know. And your credit card says you are where you are. They know that too. It's your, are you as a paid account? Yes. Well for crying out loud, ah, this is, this is, comes all, comes from the paranoia of content creators about you stealing their stuff. See they don't want to use your home rest because you could be, you know, in Britain with a, with a Alaskan credit card trying to watch free Alaska TV. How dare you. So they don't want to use that. They just do do it by your IP address. That's so annoying. It's it's broken. I don't know of any way without really extreme hacker tool measures to, to phony up your IP address. I would try

Caller #3 (00:48:35):
The closest I've gotten to a possibly a solution is well, I, I tried contacting the FCC and they said contact the federal trade commission <laugh> and I filed a complaint. Oh, good luck

Leo Laporte (00:48:46):
With that. Oh, well get right on that with a are four inspectors. Yeah. <laugh> yeah, I, yeah, I think you're gonna have to take this matter into your own hands. I just, I, you know, if, if you can't get paramount plus to jump, if you could get them to tell you who they use for IP location, database say, look, your, my IP location is wrong. I would like to correct it. Who do you get that in for? From what company you could then go to that company. You might even, you might even go, you know, there's a number of companies that do this. If you get the big five, it might be sufficient and you, by the way, you're doing your neighbors in favor. The other thing I would certainly try is rebooting everything. Cuz maybe the system will relocate you sometimes that happens to Leo Laport, the tech guy, or you could get a friend <laugh>, you could get a friend in Anchorage to set up a VPN on their router.

Leo Laporte (00:49:40):
You could go through it. Yeah. <laugh> cause most, you know, you need, you need a techy friend, but most routers, a lot of, lot of computers and stuff have the capability of being a, a private VPN server. You'd be using their address. In fact, you wouldn't even need to use a VPN. If you could remote access their computer, you could watch it on their computer. What you need is a little Pieta tear in Anchorage. You put a TV set there <laugh> American vpn.org/state/alaska will list VPN services that have servers in Alaska. So apparently there are some, I'll put that link in the show notes@techilabs.com American vpn.org/state/alaska. So that's another solution. Maybe find a VPN provider in Anchorage. Hey, thanks for the but that's a good question. An interesting puzzle you've yeah. <Laugh> yeah, but it's, you know, it's it's actually a great question cuz it kind of forces us to understand how all F works and why it works so poorly and I'm sure the guy you call it paramount plus has no idea

Caller #3 (00:50:53):
<Laugh> well a at and T doesn't even know how their cell phone system works in

Leo Laporte (00:50:58):
Alaska. It's interesting. So you're on a, you're on a cell tower in the islands and that cell tower definitely is Alaska, but at T's reporting it well, no, actually that's not what's happening at, T's giving you an IP address from their pool of IP addresses at the Seattle headquarters, which is probably the nearest headquarters.

Caller #3 (00:51:19):
Yeah, yeah. That, that's probably what it's doing. Cause it's, it's all done. That's you know, between the islands here and south Southeastern Alaska, it's all done by microwave tower. So

Leo Laporte (00:51:28):
How interesting, so are you, how many people live on your island?

Caller #3 (00:51:32):
Well, well I'm not on an island. I can actually drive to Canada from here 40 miles to Canada and from hay Hayne sway and, and H so you really Southeast that are on the road system. That's

Leo Laporte (00:51:43):
Very interesting. Okay. Is it still pretty remote?

Caller #3 (00:51:49):
Well the there's 15 1800 people live here. Okay. And

Leo Laporte (00:51:53):
How close are you to like ke a can

Caller #3 (00:51:56):
Oh, ke a can. Yeah. 800 miles. Oh, okay. So I'm way up at the top north of Juno. Okay.

Leo Laporte (00:52:03):
Yeah. I've, I've been to Juno and ke a can. And I've been to those peninsula Southeast Alaskan areas on cruises. In fact, we're going again in July.

Caller #3 (00:52:14):
Are you coming up the

Leo Laporte (00:52:15):
Segway or no, not that far, but it's beautiful. I, I love where you live. It's gorgeous. Yeah. It's is it freezing now though? Isn't it cold?

Caller #3 (00:52:23):
Oh no. It's well, we've gotten several inches of rain and it's 43 degrees, right? Oh wow.

Leo Laporte (00:52:28):
You're probably warmer than we are in many, many days. Yeah. You had the se you were in the seventies recently. I, I seem to remember

Caller #3 (00:52:36):
Not that was I think Kodiak. Kodiak. Okay.

Leo Laporte (00:52:39):
Yeah. Crazy. That's just crazy. Well, I'm sorry. I can't be of more help, but I'm it was great question because it gave us a chance to talk about this whole problem. So thank you. Yeah. And there's some places you can look try that Amer I'd be very curious if that American VPN link works, it gives you something.

Caller #3 (00:52:55):
Yep. Okay. Right. The last time I talked to you was on call for help. You're kidding.

Leo Laporte (00:53:00):
<Laugh> you're kidding. Wow. What did you call then about? Do you remember?

Caller #3 (00:53:06):
I don't remember that funny years ago. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:53:09):
Oh, that's great. I love it. That's one of the best parts about, about being on tech TV is all the people who remember that it was so much fun. Gosh, what a great, what a great place to go. Maxmind does it oh, if you go to what's my ip.com it will, it will show you places. You can go, oh, this is good. What's my ip.com. You can, then they give you three different IP location companies that you can update or alert them. It says it might take as long as a month.

Caller #3 (00:53:45):
Okay.

Leo Laporte (00:53:46):
So IP lo address, location. Incorrect. What is my IP? Why is my I P G a location? Incorrect et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That's good. We'll put a link there. This

Caller #3 (00:53:58):
One's showing me. I P V four is in Seattle. I P V six is in Oregon. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:54:03):
Oh, even worse, even worse. Well that's yeah, that's just at and T you know, they're, they're using the, a pool of IP addresses that are associated with their Seattle location or their, or location. Hysterical, hysterical. Hey, a pleasure talking to you. Yeah. Nice talking to you too. All right. Take care. Sorry, Scott. We used your time a up it's okay. I'm putting you back. I apologize.

Scott Wilkinson (00:54:30):
No problem.

Leo Laporte (00:54:31):
You are on, you got five minutes left. Have fun. Five minutes.

Scott Wilkinson (00:54:35):
Woohoo.

Leo Laporte (00:54:36):
Woo.

Scott Wilkinson (00:54:37):
<Laugh> go get a cup of Joe.

Leo Laporte (00:54:40):
That's what I'm gonna do. I got mask up though. Yeah,

Scott Wilkinson (00:54:43):
Yeah. Yeah. I'm so sorry to hear that. You've been sorry. I say I'm so, so sorry to hear you were exposed.

Leo Laporte (00:54:51):
Yeah. Poor Michael. I mean, he has to stay in his room. He's he only has a sore throat and a headache, but he's vaccinated, right? Yeah. He's boosted, boosted as they're all. Yeah. He's not gonna get any worse, but at the same time still, you know, I don't want him to give it to his grandparents. You know, that kind of his friends. Yeah. He then might give it to somebody else. He has a, he has a friend whose father's an anti vaxer. I don't want him to give it to him. Oh, all of that. You know, you just don't wanna spread it. So we're locking him in his room. <Laugh>

Scott Wilkinson (00:55:22):
Right. Go, go. Thanks. Hey everybody. Nice to see you all. Yes. those of you who haven't heard my wife and I are indeed moving out of LA where we've lived for 30 plus years and it's my hometown, but we've just gotten tired of how big it is and how long it takes to get anywhere. And we have plenty of friends here, but we hardly ever see him cuz it takes forever to get anywhere. So we also have good friends in Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, California, where I went to college at university of California in Santa Cruz and also at Cabrillo college, the local community college. And so I have a lot of friends from that time who never left. And I was always jealous of them that they stayed in Santa Cruz all that time. I came down here to go to music school cuz they didn't, you know, they didn't have as good a music school, music education up there as I wanted.

Scott Wilkinson (00:56:22):
And so I came down here for that and got married and stayed here for all that time. But then, but now I also stayed to tell you the truth to help take care of my mother which I had promised I would do now that she's gone. We can move wherever we want. And we thought a lot about where were we gonna go? And Santa Cruz turned up to be the best choice cuz we already have friends there, good friends and a, a, basically a three generation family that we can plug into is aunt and uncle. So we are looking forward to tremendously. It's very expensive to live there at least as much as here, but we don't have any kids. So we, we can do it cuz we don't have to like, you know, save all of our money for our kids.

Scott Wilkinson (00:57:17):
So there you go. Wizarding, what did I study? I studied physics. I have a degree in physics from U C S C. I also played music the whole time and studied music. I studied electronic music with Gordon Muma who worked with John cage and Mer Cunningham, a dance company. He was a big name in electronic music. So I studied with him there and played in the Santa Cruz symphony and a bunch of other gigs and did a lot of music at Cabrillo college. But my degree at, from U C S C is physics. Yes. Loquacious. Exactly right. It's nice to go back to home turf. I've always is considered Santa Cruz. My spiritual home LA is my physical home. I mean it's where I was born and grew up and have spent most of my life. But Santa Cruz is my spiritual home. It just has a very special vibe to it that I really resonate with. And so does my wife, so, so I think spending the next chapter of our lives, there is gonna be a very good,

Leo Laporte (00:58:29):
I think you're gonna love it. I miss Santa Cruz.

Scott Wilkinson (00:58:32):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:58:33):
It's it's gonna, what year were you at? U C S C. What was your graduation?

Scott Wilkinson (00:58:36):
71 to 75. Oh yeah. That's when we were

Leo Laporte (00:58:39):
There. My dad was a professor in the geology department

Scott Wilkinson (00:58:41):
There for you and this geology department. Okay. Well I didn't take any geology was also, I would now

Leo Laporte (00:58:47):
He was provost. But that was after your time and then he

Scott Wilkinson (00:58:50):
Might have been provost at which college? 

Leo Laporte (00:58:52):
I think Cal

Scott Wilkinson (00:58:54):
Uhhuh. I was a crown.

Leo Laporte (00:58:55):
You were a crown? Yeah, my, yeah. Crown was the sciences one. We lived in the married student housing at Kresge. Oh yeah.

Scott Wilkinson (00:59:04):
Over on the other side of campus. Yeah. We're the G

Leo Laporte (00:59:06):
Where the GDIC dome was. Right, right.

Scott Wilkinson (00:59:09):
The GDIC dome that was built by a physics professor actually.

Leo Laporte (00:59:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have to talk about some, one of my professors. Yeah. Have a great one. Thanks.

Scott Wilkinson (00:59:17):
See you next week.

Leo Laporte (00:59:19):
Well, Hey, Hey. Hey. How are you today? Leo? Leport here the E tech guy, time to talk computers, the internet, home theater, digital photography, smart phones, smart watches, all that jazz. 88 88 ask Leo. We found a, the chat room found a really good place to go. What is my IP com, which will report your IP address for you and tell you what location that IP address thinks it's at. Okay. What is my ip.com? And then there is a tool there which is actually very handy if that location's wrong as it was for our last caller. So I would say, what is my ip.com? And then if you go to, let's see, trying to find the link. I think under tools, you should be able to find, you know, why, what what's going on, why is my, why is my IP wrong?

Leo Laporte (01:00:25):
And what can I do to fix it? They have a link there to three different companies. I, I would guess the three largest companies that do that kind of thing. And a way to report to all three of them that this is wrong. This is wrong. Now you may not be able to do anything because it is at, and T's pool of addresses and those are located in Seattle. And, but anyway, it's worth a try. 88 88 ask Leo, Carolyn is in Sedona as far as I can tell via her IP address. Hi. Hi Carolyn.

Caller #4 (01:01:00):
Yeah, actually my IP address is somewhere in Kansas. Really? Is it? Oh wow. It's to apple. Oh my gosh. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so, but that's okay. I like to be hidden. It's good to

Leo Laporte (01:01:13):
Be anonymous. Yeah.

Caller #4 (01:01:14):
Yes. I'm an apple crazy apple fan girl and I have all the things and I have been using a Mac mini and a couple of them actually. And it's a late 2014, four gigabytes in memory running Catalina. The last two updates have made it impossible to use. Sari

Leo Laporte (01:01:40):
Four gigs is pretty low. You won't be able to buy a new Mac with a, anything less than eight, I think at this

Caller #4 (01:01:45):
Point. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of unresponsive apps and then a few days ago I got the black screen of death. Oh. So

Leo Laporte (01:01:54):
There may be something else that may actually be that it's starting to die on you. That, that usually is a hardware problem.

Caller #4 (01:02:00):
Yeah. That's what I'm thinking. I thought about putting Linux on it, but then I said, well, I just, I think it's gonna be a door stop now, but but I wanted to ask you, I know that apple is coming out with another Mac mini. Yes, yes. Here. Yes. But I don't need a pro version. I do like to tinker

Leo Laporte (01:02:24):
Well, you know, well, there is a Mac mini with the M one chip in it, which they started selling last year. That's excellent. The right. The, you know, there are a couple things, there will be a pro version of that. I suspect by spring, if not by June the latest would be the w E w D C, but the pro version of that will have an M one pro or M one max, not instead of just the plain old M one, shouldn't be, that's not a massive difference in speed. The biggest difference could be the ports. It'll have a lot more capabilities, a lot more ports, maybe the capability to have more Ram in it. The current M one Mac mini tops out 16 gigs of, of Ram, right. As do all the first generation M one devices. I, but I have to say there, especially since you're moving from a 2014 iMac, it's gonna be a massive improvement. You're gonna be very happy. Yeah. What kind of tinkering is it? Hardware or software?

Caller #4 (01:03:17):
Oh, you know, I like to go on keynote, create things and,

Leo Laporte (01:03:21):
Oh, this will be more than adequate. If it's software, this will be more than S yeah, no, no, you're gonna be fine if you need it. So there are some things that the next generation will have a video playback chip, which is already in the M one pro and max second generation max. And that makes a big difference if you're doing video editing or eight K video or 4k video, or yeah. You don't need that. Not no mm-hmm for, for numbers or Excel or PowerPoint or keynote. Fine. It's fine. Right. In fact, Microsoft just announced that Excel is now M one native. So but you, of course you're better off using. Oh really? Yeah. Not, not PowerPoint or word yet. Just Excel. <Laugh> they're slowly working their way up. Okay. <Laugh> okay. But of course Apple's own I work is, is really good. It's totally native. And if you like number, if you like keynote, stay with it. Yeah,

Caller #4 (01:04:13):
Yeah. Yeah. I use you know, I, I went yesterday, I spent half a day going through the whole, all of my documents and everything and do leading everything and making sure everything wast backed up and because it could get the black screen. And again,

Leo Laporte (01:04:27):
Yeah, it sounds like that's prudent to back up. Yep. That's very prudent at this point. It might be fixable and might not, you just don't it's, you know, you'd have to, there is a systems diagnostic and Catalina that you can run under the apple menu. You might run that just to see if it can find anything wrong. Could be just a hard drive failure. You've got a spinning hard drive in there. Which would be easy to fix. I'm thinking it.

Caller #4 (01:04:49):
Yeah. Cause it's on again off again kind of thing. You know, sometimes it works beautifully and other times it's like nonresponsive. Yeah. You know?

Leo Laporte (01:04:58):
Yeah. It's just, it's elderly. Yeah. It's frail. Like me. <Laugh> like us. Right, exactly. I am very impressed with even the first generation M one S even more impressed with the M one pro if you have pro needs, it'd probably be worth waiting a few months to see what apple announces. I'm almost certainly gonna get the new Mac many when it comes out. I'm very excited about it. But I had, yeah, I had the first M one laptop. I've given that to my wife, cuz I got an M one pro to replace it. And it is faster. Absolutely. but these are, these are such good chips and, and you're buying for the future. And the other thing that's important is 16 and gigs of Ram on this new architecture is it's, it's not the same as 16 gigs of Ram on the Intel architecture. The, this new architecture is much more efficient. So 16 is while it sounds low is fine. So I think you'd be fine to buy the current M one, if you have patience, mm-hmm <affirmative> if you're not in a hurry, then wait. Yeah.

Caller #4 (01:05:57):
Well, yeah, I can. I'm I'm gonna hold out as long as, cause I'm gonna have to buy a new printer too. This is not a printer question. Do not buy

Leo Laporte (01:06:04):
A printer. Do not <laugh> why do you print things outta curiosity?

Caller #4 (01:06:09):
I, well, I have a, a can I like to print you know, some recipes and sometimes yeah. You know,

Leo Laporte (01:06:16):
When I'm cooking, sometimes it's the nice to have the, the hard copy. Yes, exactly. Occasionally you need to print. I found myself printing less and less Canon gotten a little little <laugh> little SNA food because of the chips shortage. They had been building copy protection chips into their inkjet cartridges. They couldn't get 'em. So they had to start build the cartridges without the copy protection chips, which means if you have a can printer, you have to do a workaround to use official Canon cartridges.

Caller #4 (01:06:45):
Oh my God.

Leo Laporte (01:06:47):
DRM. Yeah. Digital rights management. Copy protection. What a nightmare.

Caller #4 (01:06:51):
Yeah. Yeah. Well I love my little can paid 20 bucks for it years ago. Oh wow. Got it. Plugged in. And it's a

Leo Laporte (01:06:59):
Great little printer. Yeah.

Caller #4 (01:07:01):
But I don't know if it'll be I did. I haven't upgraded to is it USB operating system? Is it

Leo Laporte (01:07:08):
USB? Yes. Yeah. It should be fine. Yes.

Caller #4 (01:07:10):
It'll work. Yeah. So anyway, now I have another Mac mini in the closet, which is running snow leopard. Wow. 

Leo Laporte (01:07:20):
Another frail elderly computer.

Caller #4 (01:07:23):
Yeah. But it was a fantastic computer. I just couldn't upgrade. I love

Leo Laporte (01:07:27):
The minis. I'm more of the opinion to buy a mini than an iMac these days. Cuz I had an iMac and I felt like it got older sooner because I couldn't replace the screen. I wanted a different, better screen. So if you don't tie at the screen of the computer, I think it gives you more flexibility. I, I

Caller #4 (01:07:42):
Like that. Yes it does. Yes. Yes. The mini

Leo Laporte (01:07:45):
Is Apple's most affordable Mac and I think for good reason, it's a great little Mac.

Caller #4 (01:07:50):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. I'm gonna go ahead and get, well, I'm gonna hold out as long as I can, but I'm ready either

Leo Laporte (01:07:58):
Way, you know, either way. And remember when they can, I'm out with a new Mac minis and I mean probably a price drop for the old Mac minis. So oh, not, you know, apple, apple doesn't discount a lot, but it might.

Caller #4 (01:08:08):
Yeah. You know, you're right. So I I'll just hold on as long as I could, as long as I can and best case

Leo Laporte (01:08:16):
Scenario right now, best case scenario is March. They will absolutely be having a March event, but it may only be iPads, Uhhuh. And then if they don't announce it in March, I think it's about a 50, 50 chance. They won't it's the chip shortage of what's killing this. Right. then will be in June at the worldwide developer conference. They will have to announce it by then because this at the end of the year, they're gonna have the new Mac pros. So I think I, new iMac pros, new Mac mini pros will be available by June for sure.

Caller #4 (01:08:46):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative> okay. All right. Well we'll keep our fingers crossed. I can, if worst comes to worse, I can plug my phone in <laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:08:55):
Oh my like an animal. Okay. Yeah. <laugh> plus you're talking to you Carolyn. I'm a Mac fan too, as you probably can tell.

Caller #4 (01:09:04):
All right. Yes I do. I, I listen to Mac break weekly here. Oh good.

Leo Laporte (01:09:08):
Every week. Good. Well you that's, this is the kind of stuff we chew on, you know, every week. What should, should you do? Yeah. What should you do? I am? And I've said this on that show and I've probably said on this show, I am in love with a 14 inch M one pro that I got not the top of the line, M one max, but M one pro 14 inch laptop is so fast. So nice. Does everything. I want amazing battery life this morning. I woke up and I, of course, as always got up, open it up in his, it was said low battery. I hadn't seen that in probably ever. I just hadn't charged it in days and days and days. So I plugged it in. I'll have another couple of days of operation. When I get home eighty eight, eighty eight, ask the phone number where take a break, come back with more of your calls. Don't forget. Bottom of the hour, Johnny jet travel guru coming up me. Oh, I'm Leo LePort you're a tech guy.

Leo Laporte (01:10:19):
Yeah. I think the new Mac mini the Promac mini will be a very capable replacement for the trash can. Mac pro you got your polishing cloth. Yeah. They're back in stock, baby. So the 5k and the iMac. Great. Absolutely. I'm looking at one right now. But what if you want a bigger monitor then now you have to connect a second monitor to it, which is what Lisa does. And that's kind of UN gainly cuz you're I mean just UN gainly. I honestly think it's better to get a, a CPU that's separate from in the monitor and then you can have your monitor choices if you want. I, for instance, when I get my new Mac mini will be plugging in into a 55 inch old led gaming monitor from alien wear. That is 4k, not 5k, but it's 55 inches. It looks great. It's amazing. So It's gonna be a good Saturday night tonight. I can tell you that right now. Leo LePort the tech guy, eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number Jose on the line. Our next caller. Modesto, California. Hello Jose.

Caller #5 (01:11:34):
Hi, Leo. Welcome. Yeah, I have a quick question. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> I'm about to get the <inaudible> and before I do, I want to ask you if I do get it, how will I sign into services? Like Google you to whatever using devices like? 

Leo Laporte (01:11:58):
Yeah, let me explain how this all works. Cuz I use one and I'm a big fan of it. It's called the UBI key. Y U B I K E Y. It's from a company called UBI, co Y U B I C O. And it's one of, there are many companies that make these Google even sell their own keys. They're called the Titan security keys. The UBI key is a little devices. You can keep it on your so little. You can keep it on your key chain. And the idea is it plugs into the USB port and to the computer. It appears to be a keyboard. So every computer will rec and the world recognize it, cuz oh, they just say, oh, use a USB keyboard. In fact, sometimes when you use it on some devices, they pop up a little screen saying, what's that keyboard you're plugging in.

Leo Laporte (01:12:41):
You just cancel that out. Then it has buttons on it or a, a one or two. Mine has two that you press and it will spit out a very long 20 or 30 character string of letters, but they're is a processor in the UBI key. So those letters change every 30 seconds, just like your Google authenticator does. So it's basically a one, a one time authenticator time-based T O TP, we call it time-based authentication and that time-based authentication is tied to that key. So unlike say a Google authenticator, maybe somebody steals your phone and figure that out or whatever this thing they'd have to have this, this little key. Now there's a couple things you should know about it. First of all, your question is, you know, how do I use it? Not everybody supports it. So Twitter does Facebook does all the password managers do.

Leo Laporte (01:13:36):
And that's actually the main reason you'd want to use this. Cuz your password manager is like the most important thing of all right. You don't want anybody to get into that. So have this is what we call two-factor authentication. You still need your password and login. That's one factor, something, you know, the other factor is either something you are by, by, by like your fingerprint or your Iris or your face recognition or something. You have like a physical device like your phone or a UBI key. So the UBI key fits into that. Something you have category as a second factor of authentication. The nice thing is only you have it. So a bad guy trying to get into your password account or your bank account might even know your password. They, but they don't have this special authentication key UBI key can be used for a whole lot more than just that.

Leo Laporte (01:14:27):
But that's the initial use for it as this T O TP or time based one time password authentication. Not everybody supports it. Oh the other thing you really need to know is you don't ever just buy one. You gotta have two one you can keep with you keep on your key chain or whatever. I keep it on my key chain. But the other one you wanna keep somewhere safe in case you lose the first one <laugh> cause and wherever you can use a UBI key or a hardware authentication device, you can usually register multiple of them. So when you first go to Twitter and you say, yeah, I want to use a hardware authenticator. You can add two, make sure you add two and keep that second one safe. I actually always buy three because I'm cause if you lose this, it's really tough to, to, to recover it as it should be right as it should be.

Leo Laporte (01:15:19):
So this is the this is the black diamond tip for. So the first thing everybody ought to do, everybody would get, hear from people all the time. Ah, I just, my Facebook account got hacked. My Instagram first thing you should do is turn onto factor authentication on everywhere that lets you banks, password managers, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, anywhere that allows you to have two-factor turn it on. Get used to that. You can use just Google authenticator the software or AIE, which is the one I use a U T H Y that's from a company called Twilio. They're both free. If you want this a little slightly better protection than you can use a physical authentication key which is even harder for a bad guy to spoof. Obviously Google has a high end extra secure system for Gmail users. They, they, they started this after the Russians hacked the democratic national committee, John Podesta's account email account.

Leo Laporte (01:16:19):
And of course all those emails leaked out. And it was because John Podesta was only using a log in a password. In fact, not a very good password. Had he been using to factor? Probably would've never been cracked Google real well. We need stronger security for people who are targets. We can't, you know, we can't, you know, just rely on a password and authentication. So they have something called the advanced protection program and the way it works, you get to hardware authentication keys. They're from Google, they call 'em the Titan keys <affirmative> and it is, and they also turn off some features that you might want, and it's not intended for you and me. It's intended for politicians, public figures people who might be more likely to be attacked, activists, journalists, and conflict zones, that kind of thing, and good on Google for doing it.

Leo Laporte (01:17:17):
I'm not recommending advanced protection. I turned it on and even I found it a little onerous. It was a little hard <laugh> it was a little much and I don't think I'm that targeted. I I'm happy to just use two factor, but I should say every one of you should be using two factor. So I'm glad you asked about it, Jose. If you want you, but keys are not cheap. They're 50, 60 bucks each, but if you want the added protection of two factor, and it's not just a little authentication application running in your phone, but it's, it's an authenticator on your key chain or in your pocket. And as an extra burden there, you can't lose it. That's why you get two, keep one at home or in your safe deposit box. I strongly recommend it. I think it's a very, very good idea. We're gonna start to traveling someday <laugh> but at least we can talk about it. Johnny jet coming up next, Leo Laport, the tech guy,

Leo Laporte (01:18:21):
Johnny jet. How you doing Leo? So I was so sad to see that crystal cruises, crystal. I, I have it in my notes cuz I figured well and you know, we've done. You take your money back, right? We didn't, we weren't on crystal. So that's the good news. Oh, oh, okay. I thought you were on. Did you ever, I've never taken a crystal cruise. That's why I'm sad. We've done Seaborn. We've done silver sea. We've done. Regent loved all three. Okay. And I was gonna do crystal to make sure that we've covered all four of the, these, the six. And was that the one in Hong Kong you were doing? That was silver sea. Okay. We did get money back. I thought it was crystal. Okay. No, no that was silver sea. We pretty much settled on silver sea. I really like silver sea. We really liked Regent too though.

Leo Laporte (01:19:04):
So I don't know it's it. And it was, we were gonna try crystal too, cuz you know my, my secret plan, which is never gonna happen, retire on the cruise ship world. Cruise, take the show to the world. No, take the show, take the show to the road. I would, if maybe that'll happen, who knows? I'm not gonna retire for a long time. So who knows? I might have a star link I have in my backpack. I don't know. But I do want, when I, I, the only thing keeping me from this is I have a job, but as soon as I don't have a job, I want to go on a six month world cruise, listen, I'm with you. And I, I used to be afraid to go on a cruise ship. I was like, I'm gonna be, feel trapped. Oh, people are afraid now cuz of COVID right, but still the COVID rates I just right at today was like 0.2% on cruise ships and everyone on the cruise are vaccinated.

Leo Laporte (01:19:54):
So those right, most of the cases are very, not our to Alaska is still on. That's not, you know, Holland. America's fine. Good news, Dr. Mom's asking me if I've ever done TA we did. We did TA Japan. We did takin France, but I'm I think Lisa and I are not guided tour fans. We, I think we realized this because we, what we, that's why we like cruises. Cuz we have a choice like today you want to do the tour or you wanna stay on board or you want just walk into town and do it yourself. And I don't like having is so regimented. And do they make you do the cruise? The tour? Well, you don't have to, but there's nothing else to do. You're in a hotel room. No, they don't make you, but they really it's really, they you're part of a group. And if you no, but

Johnny Jet (01:20:38):
I mean, I've been on TA tours, but I've

Leo Laporte (01:20:40):
Never been on their cruises. I've never, well, we did the Japan trip. You did the river one too. I remember that. Yeah. France one was river and the, the, there was a, the Japan one was a ocean cruise. That's the other thing I don't like their choice of the ocean cruise was on a, a French cruise line. I didn't like I see they were very snobby <laugh> they would bring the wine menu to the French customers, but not to the Americans. It's like, oh my gosh, that's ridiculous. We do not have a wine man. And then the other family sits down and bring it. Oh Hills are one menu. The curl. You can take it. You are, you have tastes. We were tell the Americans what's a drink. Sounds like a, it was not great. But and so that's the problem is I don't like to be that regimented the cruise ISNT. Nice. Like we can have tours by locals in that port if we want, we can, you know, I just like we can eat where we want when we want. And mostly we're not stuck with the same 20 people. He's been everywhere, man. He's making me very jealous. He's our traveling guy, Johnny jet. He lets nothing stop him. He has seen the world, even though he's terrified of airplanes and he's here to help us travel like a rockstar. Hello Johnny? Hello.

Johnny Jet (01:21:53):
I used to be terrified of airplanes. I got a little fear of flying now. I'm I'm most comfortable in a airplane.

Leo Laporte (01:21:59):
I think there's upgrade's, there's a cycle. So I didn't fear airplanes. Then when I was flying a lot, I started to fear them more. And then I got kind of accustomed to this thing and now it doesn't bother me at all. Fact, I fall asleep during takeoff. Almost always

Johnny Jet (01:22:11):
My wife can, I cannot, I love looking out the window,

Leo Laporte (01:22:14):
But yeah, I love that too. But I get sleepy <laugh> I I'm conditioned to get sleepy <laugh> but that's good. But I haven't gone anywhere in, well, we went to Mexico. That was fun. We went to Hawaii that we did a couple of trips last year. This year we're gonna stay closer to home until COVID breezes through. And then, then we're gonna do an Alaska cruise in July. But I was very sad to see that one of the luxury cruise lines, a, a company in Hong Kong called crystal cruises is belly up. Yeah. They ran outta money. Is that COVID that's COVID isn't it? I mean, it had, you can't operate. They were, they were in

Johnny Jet (01:22:52):
Trouble before COVID. Mm. But but 

Leo Laporte (01:22:56):
So people who've been on it. I've never been on one bill handle a KFI. One of them just love it. They says the best the service is the points guy was saying, you know they know what you want before, you know, and they, and it's there the minute you want it. So it's sad. I guess we'll never, well, maybe they'll be bought,

Johnny Jet (01:23:16):
Right? They, they, they might be bought and they'll use the same brand name possibly. Otherwise carnival

Leo Laporte (01:23:21):
Bought everybody else up. Might as well buy them too. Well,

Johnny Jet (01:23:23):
I don't think it them, but you never know. You never know. But if you did have, if you do have a cruise booked with crystal, make sure you try and get that money right now because, and hopefully you booked it on a credit card and hopefully

Leo Laporte (01:23:35):
You bought travel insurance from another, a third party.

Johnny Jet (01:23:38):
That's that's why we, that's why I talk about third party travel insurance. Don't buy it through the cruise lines when you're booking through cruises. You buy it through a third party. Yeah. For instances just like this. Yeah. Yeah. It's very important. So 

Leo Laporte (01:23:51):
Cause if they're bankrupt and I think they are in receivership, you're not the first creditor that's gonna get paid back.

Johnny Jet (01:23:58):
No, but your credit card company will give your money back if if they held onto it, which hopefully, you know, when oh cruise companies or a companies in trouble, they do hold onto the money and then release it once you get on. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:24:12):
Yeah.

Johnny Jet (01:24:14):
So, but let's hope, let's hope they come back.

Leo Laporte (01:24:19):
But the cruise industry also just really struggling. I think they must be,

Johnny Jet (01:24:23):
You know, I mean every travel industry right now is they're struggling. They're all. Yeah. Except, you know, Florida's doing really well. Florida's had record numbers. Yeah. In terms of hotel occupancy, hotel rates. Yeah. So, but I mean, and also I just heard like Switzerland's having record numbers right now for their ski season. Oh, nice.

Leo Laporte (01:24:44):
So, I mean, there

Johnny Jet (01:24:45):
Fun, there are some bright spots, but also OB obviously national parks are hitting it out the ballpark cuz everyone wants to be outdoors. Yeah. So places like that. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:24:55):
We're going down. I was just, it's kind of a big sir Carmel area just for road trip just cuz it's safe and it'll be fun. Although there's fires right now. I know I heard we'd be on the wildfires.

Johnny Jet (01:25:05):
Yeah, that's a problem. But this week there's a couple things. First of all the good news is actually, this is really not good news. Domestic airfares are gonna increase increase 7% each month, according to hopper, which is a travel app. Wow. So if you're thinking about looking for the summer, they say by April rates will be, our fairs will be at 2019 numbers. So get on it. Wow. and with, you know, these days with all the cancellation policies, so lenient anyway, I'd be booking flights now using your hotel miles and points before they start devaluing them, which a lot of people predict they will. So lock them in. You can always change. 'em Get your, get your points or, or, or miles back. So consider that mm-hmm <affirmative> according to hopper, by the way, the number one destinations for searches domestically, Orlando, Vegas in Miami in that order,

Leo Laporte (01:25:58):
Is that different from the way it's been though? I mean, it seems like that's always

Johnny Jet (01:26:02):
That, that that's pretty much yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:26:04):
For decade or so Orlando for Disney world, New York,

Johnny Jet (01:26:08):
New York would be in there. I think New York would

Leo Laporte (01:26:10):
Be one of the, really the people go to, I guess some people

Johnny Jet (01:26:12):
Do. Oh new York's I think number one in the country for the most tourists

Leo Laporte (01:26:16):
Really? Oh, I think so. Or they were before COVID yeah.

Johnny Jet (01:26:20):
I'll have to double check on that. But international, I always thought it was Cancun, but according to these guys, London, then Cancun and then Paris. So that's

Leo Laporte (01:26:28):
Well, I'll go to Paris any old time. I mean,

Johnny Jet (01:26:32):
Yeah. I love Paris. Yeah. Also in the news this week, the FBI came out. I'm not, not sure if you talked about this, but QR code scams and this is affects travelers, especially because, you know, did you read about that with the FBI?

Leo Laporte (01:26:46):
Yeah. It's possible to have a your, a QR code, bring you to a fraudulent site cuz you can't, this is a big problem. I've always thought with QR codes, you can't look at a QR code and know that it actually is legit. Right. So if you if you see a billboard with a QR code and you're a bad guy, you just go pay your QR code over it and people can't tell they

Johnny Jet (01:27:08):
Can't. So they say, make sure, you know, if it does bring you to a site where you're supposed to put in your

Leo Laporte (01:27:12):
Make sure it's the right site. Yeah.

Johnny Jet (01:27:15):
Actually don't do it through the QR code. Just type it in normal. Good idea. Yeah. So keep

Leo Laporte (01:27:19):
That in mind. Well, you see 'em everywhere now at restaurants for the menus they're everywhere.

Johnny Jet (01:27:24):
Hotels for hotels for, for room service. Yeah. For even for using your phone as the remote for the TV. Yeah. You can just so I mean, but you don't have to worry about QR codes in those places, especially either indoors. I don't think you have to worry about that.

Leo Laporte (01:27:40):
It'd be easy to have a, you know, little sticker you put on every

Johnny Jet (01:27:43):
Q it is. But, but the ones on a TV

Leo Laporte (01:27:45):
Where it's actually no, that that'd be harder to broadcasting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That'd be

Johnny Jet (01:27:49):
Harder to fix. Yeah. But also speaking of fake sites there was also been a warning about fake COVID sites popping up, which for testing. So I mean, I was like really

Leo Laporte (01:27:59):
Well, like you give 'em money, but then you go and there's nothing there. No, actually

Johnny Jet (01:28:03):
There's a whole popup 10 you go and they test you. Yeah. They're just taking your information and you'll never get the results.

Leo Laporte (01:28:10):
Oh, that's terrible. Yes.

Johnny Jet (01:28:12):
So how

Leo Laporte (01:28:14):
Low is that also seems like a lot of trouble to go to just to get your information.

Johnny Jet (01:28:19):
It, it is, I, I was shocked when I heard about this. So what they do say is if you are traveling, make sure you, you know, go at city or that state's official website and they have a list of official testing sites. So don't get scammed. I, I think it will be difficult to get scammed, but there it is happening. So I just want people to be known. I hope

Leo Laporte (01:28:39):
Everybody sent for their four free COVID tests. Every residential address in America gets four of 'em. We did that in my notes. Yeah.

Johnny Jet (01:28:47):
Yeah. Yeah. But they can't be used for travel, unfortunately like, oh, they can't back into the states, not for coming back into the states that has to be proctored.

Leo Laporte (01:28:56):
Somebody has to watch you do it and exactly. Yeah. These are more just to know if you're okay, but

Johnny Jet (01:29:01):
What's important. What's important about these. If you are traveling, you take the test before you get on the plane. I had a friend, I think I might have talked about it. He lives in California. He had to go to New York for a two day conference. He didn't test when he was in California. So when he landed in New York and went into the Jacob JT center, they tested him for this conference. He tested positive. He had to go to his ho. His company made him quarantined for 10 days in his room. So a two day trip turned into 10. Oh that's terrible. But if he tested using these tests before you got on the plane, you'd know, and that way, at least you're saving money and

Leo Laporte (01:29:33):
You're home. So COVID tests.gov. Make sure you go to that. Not some scammy site

Johnny Jet (01:29:41):
Could even have a scam site for that. I heard

Leo Laporte (01:29:43):
Sure they do. They do scammers. You know, this is the national pastime. How can we game this stuff for our benefit? So you, we all have to be extra careful COVID tests do Dr. Mom says, they're the Binx test. Not proced, not monitored good for your own benefit, but not necessarily. So you should always check to be used for travel or you know, other requirements, other restrictions, right? Because there's nobody looking over your shoulders. So,

Johnny Jet (01:30:10):
And, and speaking of travel, Spain came out this week saying that starting February 1st, everyone has to be fully vaccinated no more than 270 days before actually it says no less than 14 days and no more than 270 days prior to arrival. So that means, you know, if you got vaccinated last year, you're not getting in. Yeah. The summer, get that booster, baby. You gotta get, you gotta get boosted. And I think you're gonna see this with a lot of different destinations. We

Leo Laporte (01:30:36):
My stepson has it, but Lisa and I are boosted. We didn't get it. He's locked in his room. Him the boosters work get 'em Johnny jet.com. Thank you Johnny.

Johnny Jet (01:30:49):
Thank you.

Leo Laporte (01:30:58):
No, I shouldn't. I shouldn't be mean about T but I, you know, I heard all these great things about T you, you had told me many great things. So we did a couple of tap trips, but I, I don't think we'll be doing anymore. It's just not my kind of travel. I,

Johnny Jet (01:31:10):
I listen. I can understand. I, I, I do remember when we were on these tours, they are regimented.

Leo Laporte (01:31:15):
Yeah. You have to. It's important to know what kind of travel you like and not, and not necessarily be swayed instance. I think Mike ELGAN and Amira probably look down their nose cuz we like to take cruises, right? They go, that's not travel. You gotta live in country for three months. Get to know the people. And that's true. You know, I would probably enjoy that. But for now that's not the kind of travel I get to do. I could take two weeks off for a cruise and I actually like it as somebody makes my bed has there's you know, on the silver sea, there's seven restaurants. We can have all kinds of different stuff. I like the flexibility. And then we decide when we get the whole idea is you get to a port. Now you can decide what you wanna do. True. Although

Johnny Jet (01:31:56):
With COVID things have changed a bit. Oh I know you've heard. So you have to do usually the ships 

Leo Laporte (01:32:01):
Tours. Can't just wander in. Huh?

Johnny Jet (01:32:04):
Some port you can't. So it'll so you need

Leo Laporte (01:32:06):
To find this stuff, but we'll be in the Alaska, which is America. So freedom.

Johnny Jet (01:32:10):
Yeah. You, you won't have any problem Liberty,

Leo Laporte (01:32:12):
But yeah.

Johnny Jet (01:32:13):
Yeah. So I do have a quick question for you if you don't mind. Yeah. Certainly my wife asked me that my mother-in-law just got a new TV in her bedroom and it's smart TV and she, the WiFi's not strong enough. Should she get an arrow? What should she do? And her apartment's not that big. I think it's like

Leo Laporte (01:32:29):
720 feet before she buys anything. Just try and moving the base station around, make it higher. Sure. Bought the,

Johnny Jet (01:32:35):
Okay. The base station of the 

Leo Laporte (01:32:37):
Of the, of the wifi make higher you know, even small changes can make a big difference. Okay. That's good to know. Let's move it around. Make sure she's joining the 2.4 gigahertz, not the five gigahertz network. Two point. If she has a multi-band router, 2.4 travels better and is all the TV needs? It doesn't want five gigahertz. So do 2.4 if you can. But if

Johnny Jet (01:33:00):
She, but if she wanted to get a extender,

Leo Laporte (01:33:03):
Do you? Euro's great. Euro's great. That's what I recommend. Yes. Okay. But that's too small to need mesh. She just needs to rearrange her route of she. That's what I thought

Johnny Jet (01:33:11):
I said. I said, I don't think you need it because your

Leo Laporte (01:33:13):
Apartment's not that big. She needs. The router is the higher, the route of the better. Okay. Cause humans are big bags of water. We block it. So as high as possible, it may be. She has metal walls. Yeah. She may have metal walls. Metal. If she has metal walls, metal doors, it may be. She does, you know, she might be outta luck in that case, depending on how much work you want to put into it, the next best thing would be instead of an era, get a power line networking, which allows you to use the, the power in the apartment. And then she could put a plug next to the TV and a plug next to the router. And that would probably be sufficient. And that would get through anything. If she has cable drops everywhere she could use MOCA, M OCA, just like powerline networking, acceptance to be using the power lines that uses the cable. Both of those are good solutions, probably better than trying to get. Y if she's got metal, it might be a modern, modern apartment. That's got, you know, metal everywhere that might,

Johnny Jet (01:34:06):
It's not modern. It's she's an older apartment then

Leo Laporte (01:34:08):
They should probably just try repositioning the route. Okay. Yeah. All right. We'll do that. Put it higher. That's always, the biggest thing is get it high, high in the air. Well, my friend, well, you have a

Johnny Jet (01:34:20):
Good week. You you're watching the 49ers

Leo Laporte (01:34:23):
Games go Rams, I guess for you. No, that today's designers game today.

Johnny Jet (01:34:27):
Okay. Yeah. You didn't notice I'm over the Rams, Rams and Buffalo. I'm going for all right.

Leo Laporte (01:34:33):
Niners. It would be a miracle if we beat the Packers.

Johnny Jet (01:34:36):
Yeah. I I'm rooting for the 49ers today, but I'm

Leo Laporte (01:34:39):
Hoping for a miracle. <Laugh> like the jacket I'm wearing my miracle jacket. Holding out for a miracle. He's getting his Rams gear. Probably.

Johnny Jet (01:34:51):
No. Well, I had my giants.

Leo Laporte (01:34:53):
Oh, look at that. I forgot. You're a giants fan. Yeah. I'm Aja fan. Yeah. And somebody brought sent me this from 1995, Tom. Thank you. This is the super bowl. Last time the Niners won the super bowl. 25 years ago, 27 years ago. Don't forget. You can support our show by joining club TWI, go to twi.tv/club TWI seven bucks a month. Get you ad free versions of this show and all of our, our programming plus a special TWI plus feed with stuff you don't even get anywhere else, including the GIZ fizz, the untitled Lenox show, Stacy Higginbotham's book club and more. And of course the amazing discord join club, TWI seven bucks a month. It helps us out an awful lot. And it's a lot of fun. Twit.Tv/Club TWI. Now back to the tech guy I'm wearing my rock lobster hat Leo LePort the tech guy, 88 88. Ask Leo people ask me, why are you wearing a lobster on your head? Cause I'm a rock lobster. George is on the line from Encino, California. Hello George.

Caller #6 (01:35:59):
Hi Leo. I got a problem. I got a window. 10 outlook, Microsoft 365 mm-hmm <affirmative> and the display, the message area is like sort of like in the portrait portrait portrait setting instead of the landscape and I, how to change that? <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:36:22):
Wait a minute. No idea how

Caller #6 (01:36:24):
Ithappened just one.

Leo Laporte (01:36:25):
So there's sideways.

Caller #6 (01:36:28):
No, it's not sideways. Oh, they're

Leo Laporte (01:36:29):
Just shrunk. They're narrow.

Caller #6 (01:36:33):
Yeah. Like shrunk in the center only. So like maybe three inches wide.

Leo Laporte (01:36:38):
Big is your screen?

Caller #6 (01:36:42):
19.

Leo Laporte (01:36:42):
Oh, it's a big, so it's a big screen. So you're getting like, it looks, sounds like it's like almost like on a mobile phone. The, the messages

Caller #6 (01:36:50):
Something. I dunno, but I, I don't remember doing anything.

Leo Laporte (01:36:53):
That's really weird. That is really weird. And you did you recently <affirmative> and it's only an outlook. It's not in anything else,

Caller #6 (01:37:02):
Right? Nothing else. Everything else is fine.

Leo Laporte (01:37:05):
So every other program, all the dialogue box is completely normal, but for some reason mm-hmm <affirmative> I think it sounds like outlook thinks you're on a phone is what it sounds like. Are you, when you say outlook, do you mean outlook the program or outlook? The website? Oh, the program. It's always very confusing. Cause Microsoft has multiple products named outlook <laugh> so you say, you said your Microsoft 365 outlook, which the one that came with the rest of office. So it's a program. It launches, but for some reason the dialogue boxes are still are, are the wrong ask backed ratio.

Caller #6 (01:37:41):
Well, it, it was good for, since I installed it, what a year, two ago, two years ago, whatever, you know.

Leo Laporte (01:37:46):
Yeah. And all of a sudden

Caller #6 (01:37:48):
Last week just flipped this way and I spent hours and hours and couldn't figure it out.

Leo Laporte (01:37:55):
I have never, I don't blame you for calling George. I've never heard of such a strange thing. And I mean, you could still use him. Right. You could still read him. It's just annoying.

Caller #6 (01:38:07):
Right, right. Yeah. That's about, so

Leo Laporte (01:38:10):
That is the strangest

Caller #6 (01:38:13):
And I, instead of or email that is, you know, like to be displayed five lines, you know? Yeah. You know, just the 20 lines straight on, you know, so <laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:38:27):
Okay. Oh, I get it. So, okay. So you know that in outlook you have a choice of various pain arrangements, right? Window pane arrangements. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so I would go to that menu item. I think it's under view. But I can't remember off the top of my head and, and look at the various way. Like I think I call 'em layouts, maybe choose a different layout just to see if that's a layout related issue. I suspect it might be. So you're saying, see, now I, I understand a little bit better. It's not the popups that say, would you like to save this file? Cancel. Okay. It's not those, those are, we call those dialogue boxes. They're asking you a question with buttons. It's not those. No, no, I get what you're saying. It's it's one of the pains. The, and it's for the message pain. That's going all the way down. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> ah, yeah, yeah. That's in the, that's in the layouts, the multiple

Caller #6 (01:39:20):
Lines out there instead of let's say. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:39:22):
Yeah, yeah. Now when you said that, I thought, oh, I think I know what he's talking about now. Yeah. That's a layout. So you could choose different layout layouts and you, it might, it's a very easy thing to accidentally change the outlook layouts. And I do that because there, some people wanna see more of the message. For instance, some people wanna see more of the you know, the list of messages. So you can change how your inbox looks by going to the view tab. Actually the ribbon if you've got a ribbon will do it. And then there's a cha range view button in the current view. And actually now that I realize it's in the ribbon, that would be a very easy button to accidentally click. So, so go to change view in the current view group and select different views till you find one, you like the other thing you can do, and this might have happened as well. You can rearrange them manually by moving your mouse to the border and dragging it.

Caller #6 (01:40:23):
So what's did one work. I try that. You

Leo Laporte (01:40:25):
Tried that. Yeah. Sometimes with the lay, there are some layout views where for instance, the message list, the list of messages disappears completely. You wouldn't be able to recover it that way. So you have just folders on the left and then you have your on the right. And there's no message list. Things like that. That's all controlled by layouts. I would just try some different layouts.

Caller #6 (01:40:45):
Yeah. Well, I went through them. I didn't fix it, but I I'll try again. Okay. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:40:49):
CLO. Yeah. I mean it could be, it could just be BR you know, there's a, so all saves all this in a file on your drive. These are called preferences, right? And saves 'em all on a file. If the file gets corrupted, your preferences could be corrupted. So there is, there are, there's kind of the next step after this if few options don't get you back to where you want, you can actually reset Microsoft outlook to its default. Now this, I wouldn't do this unless there's no other way to do it because you don't, you know you don't want to lose all the fun stuff you've put in there, but you can reset your outlook profile and it'll basically set it back to the way it will as when you installed it. If nothing else works, this is your last gasp George, you can exit outlook.

Leo Laporte (01:41:43):
You actually, I think you do this in the control panel for mail. There's a, this is weird, but there's a mail entry in the, in the control panel might be the old control panel. I'm trying to remember, but you can delete your profiles. They call these settings. The, the preferences is a profile. You can create a new profile. You can delete the old one. You could even actually back up the old one might be a good idea. So open control panel, this may be, you know, at windows 10, they've changed so many things. So this is maybe out of date information, but look in your, look in the mail control panel. See if you can reset your profile. Cause I, that may also be it. You may have a, what we call a corrupted or damaged profile. That's unchangeable like outlook says, well, I can't change this.

Leo Laporte (01:42:31):
It's locked in. So try to fix it with a layout, dragging the mouse, moving things around. If that doesn't work, you can even just Google. Let's see. In windows 10, I just did a Googled, a reset outlook profile control panel mail. It's the old school control panel. What's the old one. <Laugh> and then under profiles in the mail setup, you can show your profiles. You, you have one, I would make a new one start using that and see if that fixes it. At least that way you haven't lost everything. There we go. There we go. Now we found something, create a new profile. That's where that stuff's stored. Ray is on the line. Denver, Colorado. Hello, Ray. Hello, Ray. I believe you might be muted. Ray. When I had dead silence on the phone, I usually hello.

Caller #3 (01:43:27):
I'm sorry about that. That's okay. <Laugh> I was doing something and you caught me up. Yeah, no, no, it's fine.

Leo Laporte (01:43:32):
No problem. We figured it out, right? What's up? All

Caller #3 (01:43:35):
Right. Right. So, so I do kind of custom wooden signs, American flags, nice corporate signs.

Leo Laporte (01:43:42):
Use a router to do that, or a laser cutter. What do you do?

Caller #3 (01:43:46):
I use my my glow floor, laser cutter to cut out the logos or, or whatever the image is. Yeah. And what I do right now, if I get an image that isn't an SV, I'll take, I'll use in Inscape and I'll try to trace it. Yeah. To turn it into an SVG. Yeah. You want, and sometimes, sometimes that works. Sometimes it doesn't ideally.

Leo Laporte (01:44:09):
So most image images that we see are a bit maps of one form or another, turn that dot on, turn that.off bit maps, maps of the bits, but what you want for any laser cutter. And a lot of design work is a scalable vector graphic, which SVG, which means it will look the same at any size font done that way. That's why you can make fonts big and small. A lot of drawings are, and there are, so you have a bit map of an American flag. You wanna make a SVG, a scalable vector graphic of the American flag. There are tools that will do that. For instance Adobe illustrator, which is the king of SVG tools, has a trace basical trace a bitmap to turn it into Beier curves so that it's a scalable vector map. So there are ways to do it. There are tools that will do it more automatically, but if you think about it, it's a challenge. Cuz it's gotta find the outline. It's gotta ignore color. I would try illustrator, Leo Laport, the tech guy. What, so what are you using right now?

Caller #3 (01:45:12):
So right now, what I, what my process is is if I get an image from a customer, then I will trace it through Inscape and that works sometimes. Yeah, yeah. And that works sometimes. And then

Leo Laporte (01:45:23):
Somebody is recommending in the chat room, vector magic. Okay. So it easily converts. It says JPEGs gifts into PDF or PDFs are also scalable or SVG or EPS, all three formats are standard scalable formats and I'm sure your laser cutter could handle any of those. And this will actually do it online.

Caller #3 (01:45:48):
What was the name of that one again? Vector

Leo Laporte (01:45:50):
Magic.Com.

Caller #3 (01:45:50):
Vector magic. Okay. Cause right now know if I, if it's something that, that I can't do or I don't like how it turns out, then I send it out to somebody that, and they, and they'll, they'll, they'll do it for me, you know, for a fee obviously. And I kind of wanna kinda wanna take that out. Yeah. I wanna take that step out if possible it can be, I've done

Leo Laporte (01:46:09):
It and it can using illustrator or a tool like that, or incap is little fidly you gotta draw those bids, the curves and all that stuff. This one looks like, and I don't know, you know, how well it's gonna do will depend a lot on it's using our, you know, AI to figure out where the edges are. Cuz that's basically what happens. This is an edge, make a Beier curve there. Cuz if it's, it's gotta to scale, I'll have to do that. So this is interesting. I don't, I don't let's see, it looks like there is pricing 10 bucks a month for the online edition or you can buy it for one time fee. I would try it, you know, obviously on the website first to see how well it does. Right. but this Corll draw will do it. A lot of programs will do it. The question is how much work you'll have to put in. Exactly. Yeah. Do you have to draw these curves and kind of tweak it and so forth? I would try this vector magic. This looks pretty cool. Actually.

Caller #3 (01:47:04):
Is there a, either a, a website or a service that, that you know of or somebody else knows of that kinda has tutorials on, on, on that kind of stuff, as far as, you know, once you move it to an SEG kind of tweaking it and playing with the paths and cutting paths out and, and all that kind of stuff.

Leo Laporte (01:47:22):
I'm sure there are Adobe has a ton of excellent tutorials. Just look on YouTubes because so what you, you wanna look for is creating SVGs from JPEGs or pings. And I bet you, there's a hundred YouTube videos on this. This is the kind of thing, but this is an, this is interesting. This is an auto tracer of this program. I think you can use it on the website. This might be exactly what you're looking for. Okay. Yeah. I, I think it's really designed not to be, so you're sending off to design shop where the guy's gonna spend, you know, hours tweaking it, you know, right. Closely. but maybe you can get all the way there depending on how high resolution your laser cutter is. You're not doing color. So that makes it a little easier, right?

Caller #3 (01:48:07):
Yeah. No, all I'm doing is all I'm doing is cutting it out. ASAPS wood you know, for each little, yeah. Basically whatever logo has it, whatever the design is, each color, I cut it out, paint it and then put it back together as a puzzle and it kind of gives it a cool look. Nice. Oh,

Leo Laporte (01:48:23):
It's a puzzle. Oh, that's really cool. Yeah. KA zero law or Kala and our chat room says I've been vector for 30 years. Vector magic saves me hours. So he was the one who suggested that. So I think that's the one to look at anyway, vector magic and yeah, if you search YouTube, you don't have to pay any money for YouTube stuff. There'll be a ton of videos giving you tips on how to do that.

Caller #3 (01:48:45):
All right, right. Cool. I

Leo Laporte (01:48:46):
Appreciate it. Thank my pleasure. Have a great day. I, we have a guy who does really nice job making placards for us here. I'll show you. He uses a his router. He's in Hawaii. I'm trying to remember your name. I'm sorry. I know I know you. I know you ma'am. These are beautiful. Cause they're they're raised, but I think this is all done by hand. I don't know. Maybe not. It's it's very high quality. It is a really good job. So the mini Cooper, some of you are interested yesterday morning. Oh, Nick's in trouble. Love you. M I hope everything's right. Oh, M yeah, winding down.

Leo Laporte (01:49:52):
There's a great book. Everybody should read called being mortal. It comes to us all. Hang in their. Lots of love. Lots of hugs. It's a CNC router and paint. Okay. <affirmative> yeah, that makes sense. So yesterday morning I get up I wanna move Lisa's car, cuz we're gonna do some work in the garage, unplug it, get in. And all these warning lights, come on. Say drive, train malfunction, pull over slowly. <Laugh> brakes, not working airbags, not where everything's like the whole thing, like massive electrical failure. Probably related. I wouldn't be surprised if during charging or maybe during removing the charger, there was a short that fried some circuit board, but here's the problem. We can't get it into neutral cuz it all electric. It's the electric mini Cooper to pull it outta the garage. So a tow truck can get it. And the tow truck say, we can't get it outta your garage. So two tow trucks came one after the other and said, no, yeah, sorry. So we can't get it. The dealer, the dealer Lisa called the dealer. They said I don't, well, we don't don't know <laugh> I dunno, least. Well, you gotta send a tech out then to fix it cuz you know, it's only a month or two old.

Leo Laporte (01:51:20):
So it is basically a hunk of metal in the garage right now. I'll talk about it with, to Sam. You know, I think this is a problem with modern vehicles is they're so computerized. If you fry the board there's gotta be a manual override to put it in neutral. There's gotta be. But I went through the whole manual. I looked online, none of the things it says to do work. So yeah, they gotta get skate and put it on skates. But anyway, M I love you, man. Just hang in there. You're you rock you rock. I'll never forget meeting you out in Athens and we love you.

Leo Laporte (01:52:08):
You know, I think it been my experience with a lot of these electric cars, especially the ones that are the first, you know, first for this company, they don't, the dealers don't know what's going on. So it's just, you know yeah, it's a, it's a very nice paperweight. Well, it says you may not. It says do not. It will damage the car. I, I, I saw somebody who got his mock toed and it destroyed the battery cuz of regen. You gotta get the all four wheels off the ground. You cannot tow it by lifting up one end. Yeah. Being mortal. Incredible. We should all read it. Especially people with older parents. Mustang's fine. Except there is a recall for the windshield and the, and the roof flying off. Cuz the glue's not good. And the, this in other cases, the other goes, yeah, I've been calling em every two weeks for the last two months since I got the recall.

Leo Laporte (01:53:10):
Yeah. We're trying to figure out what to do. You know, well, I think because of region, you really don't want to, my ma is all wheel drives, got motors in both axles. So, but I think I, I read also that you don't want to tow the mini, even if you know, it's front wheel drive. So even if you could get it on the, get the front wheel, front up and tow it, the real wheel drive, you don't want to do that. Yeah. I think if we could get it on skates and out of the garage, they could put it on a flatbed and do it, but nobody wanted to do that. So yeah, that was the story. Scooter X, I was paid close attention to that one. Well it's glass. It has to be glue <laugh> so they to re glue it, I guess. I don't know. Then they don't know what to do. We can't figure it out. Then the manual scooter X is specifically says do not tow. You must put on a flat in. Yeah. Dealers are the problem. I,

Leo Laporte (01:54:38):
Well, Hey, Hey. Hey. How are you today? Leo? Leport the tech guy. Time to talk computers, the internet home theater, digital photography, smart phone owns smart watches. Jeremiah on the board today. He's our musical director. Thank you Jeremiah professor Laura taking a little time off. Good for you, 80, but we've got Kim Shaeffer in the phone booth. Eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number (888) 827-5536 is we, we, we attempt to navigate this crazy crazy world of tech. Nothing works. I was in the break telling the chat room about our, our woes with our mini mini Cooper. My wife loves we all. We, my wife and I love electric. I have a Machi. We have a bolt for our 19 year old, a couple of segways, all electric bikes. She wanted to get an electric car for herself. She got the electric mini loves. It had a great time.

Leo Laporte (01:55:36):
It's bright red fits her personality. PEPY fast. Doesn't go very far, but that's okay. <Laugh> she just used it for getting around town yesterday, unplugged the vehicle all charged up, gonna move it outta the garage. Bur all the alarms go off. Every light lights up and it says, drive, train malfunction, pull over. So we're not going anywhere, pull over. So we call all the mini Cooper dealer in Marin and say, Hey, <laugh> help. Help. They, they send two different TRO trucks, both of whom looked at it and shook their heads and drove off because it's in the garage. And I guess they figured, well, we can't get it. Basically can't get into neutral. This is a problem, I guess, with some electric vehicles, maybe, I don't know, maybe it's just electric vehicles, but it there's. No, it doesn't seem to be any manual override to take the wheels outta gear so you can just roll it.

Leo Laporte (01:56:35):
We can't get outta the garage and nobody wants to tow it. So yeah, thank goodness she wasn't on the road. So anyway I, you know what my take on it is being the tech guy cars. These days are essentially computers, right? Computers do everything. It's all fly by wire now. And especially an electric vehicle like this mini. So my guess is during charging or maybe when I was unplugging it, there was a short electric city goes down the wire and into some circuit board that just gets fried. It just failed. The car is probably mechanically, perfectly good. It's just, it's runs on a computer and the computer is fried. That's my guess. Anyway, I will we'll talk about it tomorrow. Sam bull Sam, my car guy. You bet you, my Lisa's favorite part is when she called the dealer and the guy says, I don't know <laugh> what do you mean? You don't know? I just bought it a month ago. Yeah. I don't know. There's nothing we can do. What do you mean <laugh>, there's nothing you, yes. There's something you can do. You can fix it time to install Lennox, right? Yeah. Now we're talking Richard's online from St. Charles, Illinois. Hello, Richard Leo Laport. The tech guy.

Caller #7 (01:57:57):
Hi Leo. Hi. I'm I'm interested in getting a a super cheap maybe Chromebook or something. All I wanna do with it is to pick up internet stuff. Yes. I would like it though, to have a a printer so I can hook my Chiera printer to it. Ah, and 

Leo Laporte (01:58:22):
So this Google kind of messed this part, that printing part up a little bit Chromebooks are designed for picking stuff up on the internet because if you should happen to pick up a bad thing, a little bug from the internet, Chromebooks are almost impervious. They don't they, they're not like windows or Mac. They're not general purpose operating systems designed to, you know, work with whatever you pick up on the internet. They don't work with anything on the internet. They're, it's basically a browser. So good choice for surfing the internet securely they're lower cost. They're simpler. You don't have to become a security guru to run them safely printing <laugh>. On the other hand is a Google kind of messed this up early on. They created something called cloud print, which was a great solution. It would allow you to print to most printers using the internet.

Leo Laporte (01:59:19):
You know, Chromebooks aren't much good with out the internet anyway, that that's really their design to be on the internet. So they figure, well, you must have an internet. In most cases, most printers. These days are internet enabled. You can get on wifi. And because Google was supporting cl cloud print, apple has something similar called air print. Most printers come with cloud print and air print built in. Then Google killed it January of last year. Google decided. Yeah, no, <laugh>, isn't that just another thing in the Google graveyard. So modern Chromebooks can print directly. If you have a wifi printer, you're not gonna do you plug your Kiara via USB port or is it on the network? Is it wifi enabled?

Caller #7 (02:00:07):
It's USB port.

Leo Laporte (02:00:11):
So that means it needs a driver on the Chromebook. That might be more tricky. I don't know if you can print direct, we call that direct printing. Let me see if you can print directly. I, you know, the, the ID, the Google's idea is, oh, no problem. We'll just, you know, work. You can set your wifi printer up to work with the Chromebook. But I don't know if you can do it with USB, anybody know off the top of my off top of your head. I'm looking to the chat room. That's a really interesting conundrum.

Caller #7 (02:00:54):
I, is it possibly use one of these little plugin memory devices and pull it off of that and plugin.

Leo Laporte (02:01:00):
Yeah, you could wifi enable your key ASER pro for, you know, when we went to start going through this transition, a lot of companies HP would sell these little boxes. You put on your laser jet to make it print, I guess maybe you can. So the problem is you wanna make sure you can print with that particular printer. I'm looking at a Google document. It says you can connect your printer via a USB cable. When you use a cable and notification will appear follow onscreen instructions. So you don't have to use wifi. That's good news to connect it, you'll do, do the standard control P to print and it will then show you what printers are available. Of course it has to understand your Kia, Sarah, how old is that Kia Sarah? Oh, I'd say about four years. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:01:53):
Chances are good. It'll work. But I understand you want some sort of guarantee before you buy a Chrome book. So if, if you buy a Chromebook, buy it from somebody with a good return policy is probably the best bet. I am looking at Google's. And I'll put a link to this in our show notes. Google's support pages for printing from USB to a Chromebook. It sounds like it would work with most printers. It may not have all of the printers features capable, but if you're just doing standard printing I don't think you'll have a problem with that. Right. So I'm gonna get, I'm gonna say 90% chance it'll work. So just make sure you have a good return policy go to a big box store somewhere like that to buy your Chromebook. My recommendation, if you buy a Chromebook, if you can get it with an Intel processor and eight gigs of Ram, if, if they've got it, storage is not as important because everything is happening in the cloud.

Leo Laporte (02:02:51):
You'll be using Google drive to store your documents more than local storage, but a Chromebook is a great choice. And then, you know, printing, unfortunately, thanks to Google dumping cloud print your Kia, Sarah probably supported cloud print, but I'm gonna guess that it's gonna be able to use it just in a kind of standard USB printer. It does support USB printers. That's the good news. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, that's good. Can't guarantee that particular printer, but it's, I would guess it's using a Linux printing driver system called cups, cuz actually Chromebooks are are in fact Linux running Linux cups actually came from apple, but it's widely used on Linux devices now. Cause it's a standardized print driver system that works with almost all printers. So I I'm gonna bet you're you're gonna be okay. I would say 90%. Hey, thanks for the call. You know how much I love printer questions. Eighty eight eighty eight, ask Cleo. That's the phone number coming up in just a little bit about half an hour. It's the GIZ Dick D Bartolo, but meanwhile, more of your calls. 8 8 8 8 2 7 5 5 3 6 show notes. They're at tech guy labs.com. Yeah. PCL, which is of HP's standard printer control language.

Leo Laporte (02:04:24):
Oh, that's what I need. <Laugh> hydraulic. You guys love this. I need a two piece 1500 pound hydraulic Dolly Jack lift for hoisting that vehicle <laugh> so disconnect the 12 volt battery for 30 minutes and reconnect. I'm gonna wait until the dealer calls it on Monday and, and says to do that. But yeah, that like a basically reboot. Right? And maybe I'll try that tonight. If I can figure out where the 12 volt is, how to get to it. It may be the 12 volts dead. Although yeah. I don't know. You can't open the hood on this one. <Laugh> yeah, no, you can. The hit, the hood is physical. You'd think there. So they, you know, and the manual says, oh yeah, you can override and put your car neutral if you press and hold the start button and put the, put your foot on the brake and then move the gear shift to neutral. But that doesn't work. That doesn't work. So I think maybe if I disconnect the 12 volts just like reboot it. Right. I feel like the dealer should be doing all that heat. Basically. What they're they're calling mini and saying <laugh> what do we do now? Yeah, it's a brand new car. It has 800 miles on it. It's not it's their problem. Oh, we could just grease the floor and slide it out. Yeah. Yeah. The Franco I can open and cuz it's mechanical. I haven't looked for the 12 volt

Leo Laporte (02:06:10):
<Laugh> that mini was made in the UK, but it's basically a BMW I three Chas. So I even looked on the I three forums and stuff to see if anybody I tried the I three technologies, none of that techniques to, if I can get in neutral, we can get it to a tow truck, but oh, there was a frontline, honestly. The book is worth reading. It's so good. It's so good. I don't think it's a lemon. I think something went wrong. You know, it's electronics. It's only a lemon if they can't fix it. Right. They're probably in the same place on the electric minis because they didn't change anything. They just took the engine out and put the battery and <laugh> everything there. <Laugh> that's why it's front wheel drive. Yeah. I don't know why the tow truck guy didn't do that. I think they didn't wanna do that. Yeah. I've seen the repo guys do it. Yeah. What if they wanted to repos? That's what we should call and say, Hey, if you wanted to reposess this vehicle, how would you do it? <Laugh> and then when they tell me do that <laugh>

Leo Laporte (02:07:54):
It's UN unbelievable that Google clip cloud print. It's like what? After you got all these printer companies to install it, I'm gonna tell Lisa that next time she talks to 'em. Okay. Well, if you wanted to reposess this car, how would you do that? It is a rollercoaster. Isn't it? The the world of technology. Leo LePort rollercoaster of tech, eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo to call and talk tech with me. Kelvin is on the line. One of my favorite temperature scales from San Diego. Hello? Kel.

Caller #8 (02:08:39):
Hey Leah. How

Leo Laporte (02:08:39):
You doing? Right? I am. Well, how are you, sir?

Caller #8 (02:08:42):
And like my name says there's no negative in my life, so Hey, keep <crosstalk>

Leo Laporte (02:08:46):
<Laugh> that's really good. That's right. Kelvin is AB starts at absolute zero. Wow, exactly. There's no, I love that. Kel. So you've heard this joke before obviously.

Caller #8 (02:08:59):
Oh no, I made it up. I love it.

Leo Laporte (02:09:01):
There's no negatives in my life. Beautiful. Exactly. <Laugh> I love that.

Caller #8 (02:09:07):
So last time I called, I called about trying to get music to my live stream. And then so I finally, oh yes. A mixer. Yes. And good. I'm gonna tell you mean death and trying to navigate <laugh> down is not easy. So I was on a live stream last week and I had no idea that the microphone was so bad on the mixer that I lost all my

Leo Laporte (02:09:32):
Audience like, oh man. Yeah. The worst. The, one of the first things learned in podcasting we do video is it's the video is secondary to the audio. Audio's everything. Yeah. People will put up with bad video, you know, not great video, but they, if the audio's bad, they're gone. Yeah. So get the, get the audio. Right. Does your mixer have an input for a microphone? Does it have a XLR input for a microphone? Yes. So

Caller #8 (02:09:58):
I got the zoom P four podcasting. Oh

Leo Laporte (02:10:01):
Yeah. I have that too. I love that. Do you like it? Yeah,

Caller #8 (02:10:05):
I'm loving it. I love, I love the, and so I have the, so what I'm really trying to understand is what is the difference between like just a normal headphones, Jack, that you just put your headphones into the three I guess the 3.5 porch at the bottom. Yep. And then it has the T T RS, T R RS port, where you can plug in and then you can connect your phone to it. Right. and you can take the phone call. You can do that. I what's the difference between like the normal, like, you know, when you plug in the, the, a, the AXC cable, whatever you plug into your car. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:10:45):
The ox ox cable. Yeah, yeah.

Caller #8 (02:10:48):
Yeah. So what's the difference between that? Can I just buy an ox cable and it still work or 

Leo Laporte (02:10:53):
<Laugh> so, so TRS stands for tip, ring and sleeve. I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna over answer this a little bit. So <laugh> on, on and on that little plug that Jack you'll notice there's black bands, right? If there's just one, then you only have a tip, which is above the band. It's tip of the, of the plug and the sleeve, which is below the band. It's the cylinder below it. If there's two, then you have the tip, the what's in between the two bands, which is the ring that's TRS. And then the sleeve there's even T w RS the, the, when you see those three lines, that means it can do a microphone. Yeah. That's the difference. It's a,

Caller #8 (02:11:40):
Okay, so that was for a loop was yeah. Two,

Leo Laporte (02:11:45):
One line means mono two lines means stereo tip is tip is positive. There's the left speaker, the right speakers in between the two and then the ground is the bottom three gives you left and right. Speakers plus a microphone input. So you can, in generally you can use TRS, you know, headset, Mike jacks as headphones. It just ignores, you know, the third part. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, so, and so that's, that's why they'll say, okay, you use this for your phone. If you wanna record phone calls, cuz it, it will take audio in as well as just audio out. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> does that make sense?

Caller #8 (02:12:29):
Yeah, it makes completions. No. So yeah. Time for one more question. Yes. Okay. So also it take XR. So I'm trying to see, can I plug an XR into a phone for like, with an adapter, like the 3.5 adapter and receive the audio or the phone call into the mixer and they can be able to hear me from that or,

Leo Laporte (02:12:54):
Oh, now you're getting fan see, honest <laugh> so, so there is a, there is a trick to this. It's a little complicated. What kind of phone is it? A cell phone or a landline? Yeah, my

Caller #8 (02:13:06):
It's a iPhone. Yeah. Iphone.

Leo Laporte (02:13:09):
Oh, that's even more complicated. Yeah, cuz you want, the iPhone will work. If you had a headset plugged in like the, you know, AirPods or, you know, the wired AirPods, those would have a tiping sleeve, they'd have a TRRS adapter and then they would work as a microphone on the wire there. And so both, both in and out audio on, on the iPhone. And so if you have a TRS you know, connection on the zoom you would, how would you do that? Yeah, I think you would need an adapter for the iPhone, a lightning adapter mm-hmm <affirmative> and you might even get that from apple just to be sure. Others will probably, we make it, but you want a lightning adapter that probably is designed to do that. I would guess that they will have something for recording. Otherwise you're gonna have to buy a box <laugh> we used to, in the old days with landlines, we used to buy something called a Henry because the landlines had unbalanced output and you may need to make it balanced for your mixer. I don't, I wouldn't, I don't know if what they do with the smartphone though. That's an interesting, maybe even Bluetooth would work to be honest with you. Well, and

Caller #8 (02:14:25):
Zoom makes a Bluetooth Dongo that

Leo Laporte (02:14:27):
Goes in. That's what they want you to do. I bet you so that'll have TRS, but you'll pair it to your phone. So there's no wire between your phone and the dongle. The dongle goes into the TRRS Jack and that's providing the audio and the microphone. There's one more complicated thing. And I don't remember if the P four does this or not. It's called mix minus. And this is the single most mind bending fact that you'll need to understand, to do what you wanna do. You've probably experienced this when you're talking to somebody and your audio comes back to you, but it's delayed. So you hear your voice. This happened to me. First time I did a hit up when Ms. NBC launched Brian Williams had me on and they had screwed up the mix minus. So I heard my voice going out to Brian Williams.

Leo Laporte (02:15:16):
I heard Brian Williams voice coming back to me, but I also heard my voice coming back to me from New York a second later. And that is the hardest thing to talk. You can't cuz you're saying something and then you say the same thing comes back and it's worse than an act. It's insane. And of course we're on the air and there's nothing I can do about it. I just have to keep talking through it. So you don't wanna do that to your guests. So what you wanna send them is the audio mix minus themselves. Okay. That's why they call it mix minus. You don't wanna send them their own audio back. And somebody at MSN B see and press the right button. So they were sending me a full mix, which included my own audio. And that's very hard to use. I bet you, the P four will do mix minus, but that's what you wanna look for a good, any, any bigger mixer certainly will. It's a tricky thing to set up. 

Caller #8 (02:16:11):
I I'm learning. I mean, I can can't see it and I can't really hear it very well. So I'm trying and

Leo Laporte (02:16:17):
I love it. How are you able to hear me? Is it hearing aids or

Caller #8 (02:16:21):
Yeah, so I'm, you're from my hearing aids and so long as,

Leo Laporte (02:16:24):
So you're not profoundly deaf. You can hear

Caller #8 (02:16:27):
Well without the hearing aids that's for

Leo Laporte (02:16:29):
Sure. Not without the hearing aids. Okay. Yeah. So yeah. Good on you though. Keep, keep doing the good, the good work, man. That's impressive. Thank you. Leo Laport, the tech guy. What's the name of your your show?

Caller #8 (02:16:43):
So Def Def blind potter.com.

Leo Laporte (02:16:46):
Oh it's you. Of course. I should know. Yes. I gonna remember your name from now on Kelvin. I will cuz you have no negatives. <Laugh> I know that. How could I have forgotten that? Yeah. We've given you many plugs. I love it. I hope you got a lot of traffic.

Caller #8 (02:16:59):
Well, the last one that we did and that's why I don't really wanna give out the website. I got scammed

Leo Laporte (02:17:04):
Cause the Audi you got scammed

Caller #8 (02:17:07):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so the, the person that ordered a mug and then canceled their credit card. Once it got delivered,

Leo Laporte (02:17:13):
They did a charge back. Yeah. Yeah. Big problem with fraud. Big problem. Yeah. So I'm I hope it wasn't one of our listeners, if it is, I am so sorry, Kelvin. Yeah,

Caller #8 (02:17:25):
It was the exact time and I have no way to track em from

Leo Laporte (02:17:29):
The, oh it probably was. Oh, I am so sorry.

Caller #8 (02:17:33):
So, but it's all right. We challenges, right.

Leo Laporte (02:17:37):
Did you lose a lot of money? Well, you didn't lose money. You just lost pottery. Right?

Caller #8 (02:17:42):
I lost. Yeah. I lost. Well, no, I had to pay a $15 fee. What a

Leo Laporte (02:17:46):
Dick who, who would do that? That is so evil, especially cuz you're raising money for charity. That is so evil.

Caller #8 (02:17:55):
Yep. Well speaking of charity, I just started a, a new charity thing where I'm making Memorial pieces so you can contact me.

Leo Laporte (02:18:05):
Oh good. So when I die you could put my ashes in this.

Caller #8 (02:18:09):
Oh no, I won't do that. That's too much liability. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (02:18:14):
I'll not make it with my ashes. I just need an earned to put them in

Caller #8 (02:18:18):
<Laugh> back over.

Leo Laporte (02:18:20):
Although you could make actually that's an interesting idea. Make some pottery with my ashes.

Caller #8 (02:18:25):
That part,

Leo Laporte (02:18:26):
That plate there that's Leo

Caller #8 (02:18:29):
<Laugh> <laugh> that I have to do that actually would work that. Yeah. I use the right lasers and

Leo Laporte (02:18:37):
The right. Yeah. Cause you need an alkaline substance. Don't you for the <laugh> gosh, you know I'm a big guy. You probably get enough ashes to make a whole dining room set. That'd be great. Oh <laugh> oh man. Hey, I am so happy to hear from you, Calvin. I apologize for not immediately recognizing I will from now on. I remember you as the guy with no negatives and I'm sorry you got ripped off by our stinky bad guy. Well, I,

Caller #8 (02:19:08):
I I'd be happy to give you the name, but I don't think we need to burn anybody, but so

Leo Laporte (02:19:12):
Well do you think it was their real name?

Caller #8 (02:19:15):
Oh yeah. Could I have their credit card information and their address? I mean, I need to go, go to the person's house and like email

Leo Laporte (02:19:21):
It to me, email it to me. I'll see if I recognize it. Leo@Leoville.Com. I wanna see if I recognize it. All right. We do. Cause anybody in, nobody in, in my audience would do that to you. But if they do, I want to, I wanna know it.

Caller #8 (02:19:36):
Right. Wow. I'll send it all over here.

Leo Laporte (02:19:38):
So. All right, Kelvin. All right. Take care. Keep doing the good stuff. How's the see me? Kae going well.

Caller #8 (02:19:45):
It's going. Yeah, we, we just got it. Collapsible. And then we're gonna send out the first round of testing. Next

Leo Laporte (02:19:51):
Month you are such an inspiration dude. So you're amazing. I'm glad you liked that. P four. I got one for my son for Christmas. Oh, I think I might have told you that. Yeah, he hasn't opened it yet. That's so good though. Yeah. I think it's a brilliant idea.

Caller #8 (02:20:07):
I thought about sending it in and then I can play the applause.

Leo Laporte (02:20:13):
Good audio. Is it really matters? It's funny how you can have great video and if the audio's bad, the TikTok people just swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe. Yep. Yep.

Caller #8 (02:20:22):
Sure. All right, man.

Leo Laporte (02:20:23):
Take care. Calvin stay cool. Bye.

Leo Laporte (02:20:31):
Yeah. Cuz it's an electronic shifter so you can't get it neutral. If I could put a Moo neutral, I could do it. We BA we even baffled the head of repair at the mini mini are in oh no. UN fixable. Leo Laport, the Barco of tech, eighty eight, eighty eight asked Leo the phone number. Let's get back to the phones. I'm having some fun. It was nice to talk to Calvin. I forgot all about, oh, now he said he doesn't want me to play his his thing on, on the air. So it won't when he comes back. When he is, got it all worked out. We'll figure it out. Henry is next on or I'm sorry, Harry, on the line from Upland, California. Hello Harry.

Caller #9 (02:21:21):
I good morning.

Leo Laporte (02:21:22):
Good afternoon. How you been on hold that long?

Caller #9 (02:21:26):
Oh, is it? 

Leo Laporte (02:21:26):
<Laugh> it's okay. I'm just teasing you. Isn't just teasing you. Sometimes people are on hold for hours. I hope. No, I haven't been on hold.

Caller #9 (02:21:35):
Oh, thank

Leo Laporte (02:21:36):
You. Good.

Caller #9 (02:21:37):
Since you, when you gave out your number, you said 5, 5, 6, 6, which I guess helped me out because it was seven, five, six, six, six on my phone. Oh

Leo Laporte (02:21:46):
Dear eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leah. That's the only one I know it's 8 2 7 5 5 3 6, I think. Anyway, it worked. <Laugh> so, so welcome. What can I, what can I do for you, Harry?

Caller #9 (02:22:00):
I have a, a problem with I wanna buy a new cell phone and the primary purpose is to travel overseas. When I travel over sees I get off the plane, let's say in France and I need to find a motel or a hotel. So I need a cell phone that works fairly well. I have the option of two providers. One provider will gimme a very good price on the phone. Almost half price. I could buy a apple at $199. Wow. se 1 28 GB. I don't know if that's any

Leo Laporte (02:22:32):
Good or not. It's okay. It's their inexpensive phone. That's a good price. It's subsidized. It means you. They you'd have to be a customer for a couple years. An iPhone is a good choice for an international phone because, so what do you want for an international phone? You want number one, you want it to work on all the radio frequencies and iPhones do. They're very good about that. A lot of phone companies, Samsung's a good example will make different models for different regions, which means different antennas and different radios and different frequencies. And so you have to be careful. You can easily buy a Samsung phone it for Europe and the middle east that in the United States won't get some kinds of LTE. So the

Caller #9 (02:23:10):
Problem with this provider is that they told me that none of their phones will work overseas. Oh, there you go. Because they have at and

Leo Laporte (02:23:18):
T yeah. So here's the deal with that? This provider straight talk or something like that is reselling T and T often. That's, what's called. They call that in the business in M V O N O a mobile network, virtual operator they're buying at and T coverage, but they don't buy it for international. So if you are an at and T customer, you can go international. No problem. But you can't with this company. Oh, okay. You see that's the problem at and T works fine overseas. So what you want is a carrier that provides overseas coverage.

Caller #9 (02:23:51):
There is another carrier. They provide overseas coverage. All they have to do said I have to just use a mobile T SIM card, but their, their cell phones are,

Leo Laporte (02:24:00):
I'll tell you what I, I tell you what I do. And I would, I will recommend for you their Google has its own phone service. They're also an mvn O Mo they call it GoogleFi and they, but they're an, an interesting mvn O cuz it works on a variety of services, including consumer cellular sprint when sprint was around T-Mobile and wifi. But furthermore, their pricing is interesting. It's the same in the us, as it is everywhere. It's always the same. So no matter where you are. In fact, whenever I travel, I take my GoogleFi. That's the name of the service? I, my GoogleFi phone with me because I know not only will it work, but I won't be paying a penny more than I do. Normally for data phone calls, maybe cost a little bit more. They're still very affordable. So if you go tofi.google.com, they offer a variety of phones.

Leo Laporte (02:24:49):
I would recommend a four, a or a five, a, they even have a five, a 5g that works with all the 5g networks. That's a few hundred bucks. And then their services, 20 bucks a month for unlimited voice and text and then 10 bucks per month per gigabyte with a cap at six gigabytes. So it's not gonna be more than 80 bucks a month. And it's usually most months I pay 20 or 30 bucks a month. I don't, you know, it doesn't, it's not too expensive. Cause it uses wifi. You know, a lot of the times when you're traveling overseas, you're at the hotel, you're at a coffee shop. Even the airport you'll have wifi. And it'll prefer that

Caller #9 (02:25:26):
Well in president, I'm only paying $10 a month.

Leo Laporte (02:25:29):
Well, $10 a month is not gonna get you an international coverage. I could promise we don't use it for anything. Yeah. $10 a month for international coverage. That ain't gonna happen.

Caller #9 (02:25:38):
Well, I mean, I mean that's for that's for statewide.

Leo Laporte (02:25:41):
Yeah. yeah, you're using, MVNOs like straight talk. Fact, I bet it's is it straight talk? No, it's called pure talk. Pure talk. Okay. yeah, a lot of times these guys won't offer international plans because they don't buy, they buy at T us only for instance. I get that. Yeah.

Caller #9 (02:26:00):
Yeah. So

Leo Laporte (02:26:01):
I didn't know that. Yeah. That's why it's not that it won't work. Their phones will work fine. They sell iPhones. That'll work fine. It's just, they don't have service. They don't have roaming deals in Europe. For instance. Is there any

Caller #9 (02:26:12):
Kinda card I can buy over? Listen, I land, get off the plane. There's something I can buy locally to put in

Leo Laporte (02:26:17):
The, well, you can always do that, but then your number changes suddenly you've got a French number. Oh really? Yeah, because that SIM is not just the data SIM it's the number. I would, one thing you can do get any phone, even the phone you've got right now, Google five for 10 bucks will send you a SIM. You don't have to use it in the us. You just pop it in. When you get there, it's a it'll work just fine. You can replace it, but you're gonna have a Google fine number. So to keep your existing number, you'd have to port it over. What you can do to the new carrier. The problem is you go with Verizon at and T T-Mobile it's more expensive. T-Mobile does have an international data plan. They're the best for traveling international, but it's still, it still can add up. I would, I would look at somebody likey that that supports international travel. The nice thing about F is you can stick with your cheap phone in the us and just pop in the fi SIM when you get into Europe and you have it with you, you don't have to find somewhere to buy one and pop it in and get a new international number. That kind of thing. I mean, I,

Caller #9 (02:27:19):
I currently have a Moto E six. I mean, it is a cheap phone. Yeah. And it'll work fine. I can a

Leo Laporte (02:27:25):
Little pop the little SIM card out, put in the Google fi SIM and and you're good to go. Oh really? Yeah, you can. And you can,

Caller #9 (02:27:35):
As my provider in the states though. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:27:37):
Is it, is your travel mostly in Europe?

Caller #9 (02:27:40):
No, not necessarily. So it's all over

Leo Laporte (02:27:43):
All over. Yeah. Yeah. So Europe you know, the EU has roaming agreements so that you, any European carrier will work in every every Ang in country in every, in Europe. That's new, relatively new last few years. And that's nice. So you don't have big roaming charges as you go from Lipton Stein to Monaco mm-hmm <affirmative>. But you still are gonna have to get a SIM when you get in country and that's gonna have a European phone number. So I like the idea of there are, you know, there are, like I said, Verizon, T-Mobile, T-Mobile's probably the best carrier for international coverage. You could get a T-Mobile SIM put it in your, I don't know if your E six will work internationally probably will. That you'd have to check too. If you go to GSM arena.com and look up the E six, it'll tell

Caller #9 (02:28:35):
An E three. I'm

Leo Laporte (02:28:36):
Sorry. E three. Okay. That's pretty old. Yeah. Yeah. But if you go to G M arena.com, you can look up that any model phone, it'll tell you what radios it has, where those will work. So you can see which countries it'll work in you. It sounds to me like you probably do want to get a newer phone. If you

Caller #9 (02:28:55):
Would you recommend an iPhone or maybe a Samsung or a

Leo Laporte (02:28:59):
Well, you're used to Android. I see no reason to of change. I mean, I like iPhones. I think they're great. They all work internationally, which is nice. You never have to worry with an iPhone if it's gonna work in any country. Well, I'm

Caller #9 (02:29:11):
At, I could spend a little money. I mean, I might as well move up a

Leo Laporte (02:29:15):
Little yeah. I think an iPhone, the se is their least expensive.

Caller #9 (02:29:19):
Would you say NC

Leo Laporte (02:29:21):
SES, special editions, simple edition, silly edition. I don't know. It's the small one. It's not expensive. Yeah. I think its list is 300. So that's why you were getting a deal that they wanted to keep, but they, they don't have inter national coverage. So no, no value there. If you like Android, you will love the pixel five, a 5g <affirmative> and you can get that from Google five directly and make Google five, your carrier. And I honestly think that's a good choice from there.

Caller #9 (02:29:51):
The, a 5g,

Leo Laporte (02:29:52):
It's the five, a 5g they'll. If you go to five.google.com and shop, you can see all the phones, they've got the prices and so forth. You don't need the latest. You can just get a, in fact, they even have some motos, the Moto G power that's 99 bucks. Leo Laport, the tech guy. That's what I get my daughter. <Laugh> that's a 99 bucks. Pretty good. That's the latest Moto really good battery life that should work internationally as well. In fact, anything you get@fi.google.com should work internationally. Just fine.

Caller #9 (02:30:24):
Thank you very much. Hey, you're

Leo Laporte (02:30:25):
Welcome. Where are you going next?

Caller #9 (02:30:27):
I wanna go to a place called Albe France. It's on the Tara river.

Leo Laporte (02:30:32):
Is this just for fun?

Caller #9 (02:30:34):
Yeah, it's just for laugh,

Leo Laporte (02:30:36):
Man. I'm so jealous. Well, I'm

Caller #9 (02:30:39):
I'm I gotta spend my time moving. I'm 76, so I, you know, enjoy it. Yeah. Waste my time here in the states. No,

Leo Laporte (02:30:45):
Enjoy it, man. I think if you really do travel that much fi that's what, that's why I have a Google fly phone. It works everywhere I go. I don't have to worry about special arrangements or anything like that. My phone number doesn't change. People can reach me from the states. How long do you spend when you, when you go to Albe? How long you, you stay there?

Caller #9 (02:31:06):
This next trip I want, I wanna start in lb then I wanna move. It's in Southern France, and then I want to go to Italy.

Leo Laporte (02:31:13):
I am so. And is it just you?

Caller #9 (02:31:16):
Just me? Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:31:17):
How fun is that Harry?

Caller #9 (02:31:20):
So that's why I need a good phone so I can find cheap right. Cheap places to stay. Yeah. Yeah, because you're walking around the St. The streets. You just run into a very high price hotels.

Leo Laporte (02:31:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, you you'll find a little B and B somewhere and yeah. That's the best way to do it anyway. Exactly. Yeah. In fact, now that now that we can do that, we've got apps. You never get lost. I think a smartphone is the best possible travel companion. Do you? Okay. Oh, so it's, and that's why it probably is worth getting one that has good data. Good coverage,

Caller #9 (02:31:49):
Smartphone five, a 5g. I think that

Leo Laporte (02:31:52):
5G it's a 5g uses 5g networks. 5G. Yeah. Go to five.google.com. Okay. I will. It's their pixel phone. That's their homemade, but the five, a 5g, I th you know, I think is probably the right phone for you. And then with Google five service in the states, you you'll pay a little more, it might be 20 bucks a month or 30 bucks a month. But as soon as you go overseas, you'll be glad to have that. Or just have it a, a separate phone for your travel, right?

Caller #9 (02:32:19):
Yeah. Really. I called you because I asked a lot of people and I get different answers

Leo Laporte (02:32:23):
From everyone. Well, I'm like you, Harry. I, I love to travel. That is my thing. So I'm with you on this and I'm, I think you're doing exactly what the right thing.

Caller #9 (02:32:35):
Well, thank you very much, sir. Have fun.

Leo Laporte (02:32:38):
Okay. Good. Talk to you. Good. Talk to you, byebye. I'm so jealous. I wanna go to lb its a UNESCO world. Heritage site is the, the city around the cathedral, the San Al cathedral. The first cathedral built in the aftermath of the lb genian crusade. Hello? Dickie. D Leo. How you doing pal? I am fine. I am rooting for a thing called the 49ers. I I could tell by your jacket. Yes. You could wear this at the disco. Yeah, I could. Does it light up? No, but it doesn't need to, it reflects the light of a million sons. Oh, okay. Just wearing it looks like you're on fire, but yeah, it does. No, I do. I it's good. It's great. Yeah. So what what's going on in the Disneyland? It's cold. So Michael got COVID what he's he's so it's a breakthrough case then, right? Yeah. Yeah. He's boosted. In fact he just got boosted two weeks ago. So he is like maximum, but he was hanging out with somebody <laugh> who had a sore throat headache and then think anything of it. And of course Michael got it. And we told this person, you get tested, he got tested. We got the results this morning. Yeah. He had it. He just thought, well, you know what happens? We've heard like people are dying from COVID. So you don't. Yeah. You don't think, oh breakthrough. In fact it's just a sore throat. That's just a cold, but, and that's all, Michael has a sore throat, but we locked him in his room and we got tested. We're negative, but

Dick DeBartolo (02:34:30):
Oh my gosh,

Leo Laporte (02:34:41):
Leo Laporte, The Tech Guy.

Dick DeBartolo (02:34:45):
Hi,

Leo Laporte (02:34:47):
It is time. Oh, he's coming in. He's dancing in. It's nice. When you dance in that's fun. Dick D Bartolo. That's it. That's it. He's got the moves. He's man. Magazine's mad writer for more than five decades. He's also for the last couple of decades, been our gizmo wizard and he should always be dancing. Hello? Dickie. D

Dick DeBartolo (02:35:08):
Leo, how are you pal?

Leo Laporte (02:35:09):
Oh, I am feeling fine. I'm in fine fiddle.

Dick DeBartolo (02:35:13):
Oh good. Yeah. You look good in a pedal. <Laugh> are you ever in a gold? It's one of

Leo Laporte (02:35:18):
The nicest pedals

Dick DeBartolo (02:35:19):
I've ever had. Oh the golded is really you <laugh> so you know, you were, you were talking scams earlier. Yeah. Two hours ago. This is new for me. I, I got a call. This is ConEd. You are behind in your bill. We are going to shut your electric with in the next 30 to 45 minutes. That's

Leo Laporte (02:35:41):
How that's that's the giveaway because they're trying to scare you so bad that you don't think.

Dick DeBartolo (02:35:46):
No, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And if this wasn't radio, I was gonna have Dennis shut all the lights. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (02:35:54):
It's awfully dark in here. What happened? Yeah. Did you, did you not take on ed?

Dick DeBartolo (02:35:59):
Yeah. so that, that was, that was really a shocker. Normally, you know, they, they say in 48 hours when they had to do something, but this is in 30 to 45 minutes.

Leo Laporte (02:36:11):
We're gonna yeah. Yeah. And that's how you know, it's a scam.

Dick DeBartolo (02:36:13):
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Leo Laporte (02:36:15):
We and I think this is very widespread. Now. I actually mentioned this. So people will know periodically we'll get emails saying thank you for your purchase of some thing for $800. We appreciate it. It's it looks like we've paid it. So it's not like asking for money, but the idea is you're gonna go wait a minute. I didn't buy something for $800. Call them and they'll say, oh golly, maybe we charge you in. What's your credit card number? Wait, let me check. Yeah.

Dick DeBartolo (02:36:43):
Yes.

Leo Laporte (02:36:43):
It's terrible.

Dick DeBartolo (02:36:44):
Yeah. No it's ridiculous. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:36:47):
So it was a nice economy to tell you anyway. No,

Dick DeBartolo (02:36:50):
Absolutely. Absolutely. So Lee I'll have a new way to make coffee.

Leo Laporte (02:36:54):
Yeah. How many is this now? A dozen

Dick DeBartolo (02:36:57):
Two dozen a do, probably. Okay. So you know how to make French press,

Leo Laporte (02:37:01):
Right? Yeah. I love French. I have a French. I have a Bodom French press maker. Yeah.

Dick DeBartolo (02:37:04):
Okay. But do you have a versa reverse travel French press?

Leo Laporte (02:37:11):
No. Is that upside down? <Laugh>

Dick DeBartolo (02:37:13):
Yes. Well, I

Leo Laporte (02:37:15):
Guess from the name,

Dick DeBartolo (02:37:17):
It is bizarre. So, so what you do is you put the water and the coffee in. Yeah. And then the strainer is at the top, at the top. Okay. At the top. And then it it's actually, it's quite ingenious. And then you get this thermal container, like a little

Leo Laporte (02:37:37):
Thermo. Okay.

Dick DeBartolo (02:37:38):
All right. Yeah. Now you put that in there. Yeah. And then you turn it upside down.

Leo Laporte (02:37:43):
You turn it upside down.

Dick DeBartolo (02:37:45):
Yes. And so it screws in tightly and you turn it upside down and now you pull up on the strainer. Do you have

Leo Laporte (02:37:54):
To wear the funny hat? Is that part of the

Dick DeBartolo (02:37:56):
The funny hat is optional, so <laugh> okay. What? I wanna

Leo Laporte (02:38:00):
Glad you have a chefs hat I'm watching video for this. He's got a chef's hat. Cause he's gonna make some comment shows. Let me see if I can visualize this. So the, you put the coffee in, obviously it's right side up and you put the coffee in a row. Just fall.

Dick DeBartolo (02:38:13):
Exactly. And you pour the water in. Okay. Then

Leo Laporte (02:38:17):
You it up then before you turn it upside down.

Dick DeBartolo (02:38:20):
Well, what you do is you put the strainer at the top of the hot water. Okay. Then you get the Thermo that you're going to take your coffee in. Yeah. You turn the thermos upside down, screw it onto this first device and, and turn it over.

Leo Laporte (02:38:37):
Oh, that makes sense. Cuz that's where the coffee's gonna go. Exactly. So it's so now

Dick DeBartolo (02:38:42):
I, instead of pushing through the water and having the grounds at the bottom of the

Leo Laporte (02:38:47):
Pot, which you don't want to carry around with you, that's what I don't like about French presses is the grounds stay in the coffee.

Dick DeBartolo (02:38:54):
Exactly. And can make it bitter more, more bitter. And as time goes on, yeah. This, you pull the, the grinds up through the hot water <laugh> and so what, the reason I mentioned, not only that Leah, the reason I'm mentioning it is it must have been a giant failure because it was $40 on Amazon. Yeah. I paid 25, a thing called until gone. I just checked until gone 20 minutes ago. It's $16. Oh,

Leo Laporte (02:39:26):
I'm buying it at that price. So the

Dick DeBartolo (02:39:28):
Neat thing is you have a, you end up with a wonderful thermal stainless steel mug. Even if you don't wanna use the, the grind the

Leo Laporte (02:39:39):
Down, I can do four interest free payments. So it's only $4 a month. <Laugh> really? No. Yeah. But you have to be buying two

Dick DeBartolo (02:39:49):
Yeah. 300% interest. That's where the that's where the key is. That's good. No, it's very clever. And the coffee was delicious and it's a bit of a hassle the first time you do it. But then the second time you sort of know how it works at first, you think is this ridiculous? I'm gonna turn this thing upside down with,

Leo Laporte (02:40:07):
I'm buying this right now. This is so cool. Yeah. How often does that happen? Where you mention something and I buy it right away.

Dick DeBartolo (02:40:14):
Oh, probably just 80% of time. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (02:40:18):
But the, what got me is, is it's 60% off. So do you think it's, there's something wrong with it?

Dick DeBartolo (02:40:24):
No, I, mine. Mine came from until gone. I have no, I have no deal with until gone, but then when I saw it down, the 16 bucks I'm tempted another one just so I can have one in blue. I got one in, I got the one in red. 

Leo Laporte (02:40:39):
And I don't know I'm gonna get the red one because Lisa,

Dick DeBartolo (02:40:42):
The red one's really nice. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:40:44):
Yeah. That's the one you got. That's awesome. Yeah. I just bought it. It's that's

Dick DeBartolo (02:40:48):
Oh, good. Okay. What did they add for shipping seven?

Leo Laporte (02:40:52):
Why? Well, maybe I bought two of them by accident. Wait a minute, hold on, hold on. I'm gonna stop right now. You shouldn't do this while <laugh> why you doing it?

Dick DeBartolo (02:41:02):
Yes. I remember one time we were on doing a show and we were kidding around and, and the next week he said, did you know that while we were talking, I ordered six of

Leo Laporte (02:41:13):
Those, whatever I do, I have 12, because the next week you talked, these are the little clamp on lights. Then the next week you came on and said, don't get those. I'd already bought six. <Laugh> get these. So I bought six more. I literally have a stockpile of clip on lights. If anybody needs anything. I got 'em. But you, but

Dick DeBartolo (02:41:30):
You, my stuff is always cheap. So you don't, it's not like you bought no, it was really 300, three, $500 phones, so,

Leo Laporte (02:41:37):
Okay, so now I'm buying three of them. Let me cut that down to one. Oh, okay. Okay. <laugh> yes. Continue. Okay, good. I think I got it now. If you wanna know more about this or see the video of Dick in his chef's hatch, go to GI whiz.biz. That's his website. Shipping is a buck 95 for one of them. Whoa.

Dick DeBartolo (02:42:01):
That's great. Yes.

Leo Laporte (02:42:03):
Under $20. Yeah.

Dick DeBartolo (02:42:05):
I'm getting another one for a gift. Yeah. I won't give it to you. Don't you? I know. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:42:09):
I already know how much it costs. Don't give it to me. <Laugh> that's awesome. That's really awesome. Is this until gone site? A good, what is that? Like

Dick DeBartolo (02:42:18):
It's not bad. It's not bad. It's the, the only grip I have against them is they have this thing where at the bottom of every ad every day, it says, if your email is here, you want a $50 gift certificate. Well, so far I won twice and I have never gotten anything.

Leo Laporte (02:42:33):
They just, they just want you or information. Of course. Yeah. Gaz, whiz.biz. That's the website. You click the button that says the GIZ visit is the tech guy. You could see this and all the other things, including those clip on lights that he has sucked me. I mean, convinced, I mean offered to me to get enhanced my life with yes, there you word. I was

Dick DeBartolo (02:42:55):
That's what, what sort, you'll

Leo Laporte (02:42:57):
Also find a link to the, what the heck is at contest. A chance to win autograph copies of mad magazine. MAD's memorabilia. Cuz he's worked at mad for so long and I guess he never threw anything out. Anyway. It's all there. GI w BI wonderful podcast. Gwiz.Tv. Thank you. Dickie de okay buddy. See you next week. All right. Take care and thanks to all of you for joining me. Thanks Jeremiah. Good job today, Jeremiah. Thanks to Kim Shaffer for answering the phones. Most of all, thanks to you for calling in and listening. I really appreciate it and I hope we can do this all again. Time will you, will you come back? Okay. I'll be looking for you. I'll be celebrating a 49ers victory, maybe. Meanwhile, I am Leo LePort the tech guy have a great geek week. Well, that's it for the tech guy show for today.

Leo Laporte (02:43:45):
Thank you so much for being here and don't forget. TWI T w I T it stands for this week at tech and you'll find it@twit.tv, including the podcasts for this show. We talk about windows and windows weekly, Macintosh on Mac break, weekly iPads, iPhones, apple watches on iOS today. Security and security. Now, I mean, I can go on and on and on. And of course the big show every Sunday afternoon, this in tech, you'll find it all@twi.tv and I'll be back next week with another great tech guys show. Thanks for joining me. We'll see you next time.