The Tech Guy Episode 1938 Transcript

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

Leo Laporte (00:00:02):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is Tweet is Tweet. Hi, this is Leo LaPorte and this is my Tech Guy podcast. This show originally aired on the Premier Networks on Sunday, October 23rd, 2022. This is episode 1,938. Enjoy. The Tech Eye Podcast is brought to you by Collide. Collide is an end point security solution that uses the most powerful untapped resource and Id end users. Visit collide.com/twi to learn more and activate a free 14 day trial today. No credit card required. And buy Mint Mobile. Get premium wireless service for just $15 a month with no unexpected plot twists. You'll make your wallet very happy by going to mint mobile.com/tech guide. Well, hey, hey, hey. How are you today? Leo LaPorte here, The tech guy, your personal tech guy. Time to talk computers in the internet and home theater, digital photography, smartphone, smart watches, you know, all the gadgets and G Jaws and Jim cracks.

(00:01:19):
Now, after the, uh, Giff gift thing, I'm, I never know how to pronounce a hard G or a soft, Is it G Gs or G Jaws or G Gs or GE Jaws? It could be anything above. You know what I'm talking about? Uh, we've got home theater coming up in just a bit with Scott Wilkinson. Nope, it's Sunday. It's Sunday. I missed yesterday. Thank you to, uh, Micah. Sergeant here in a yelp of, No, from the other room. No <laugh>. Thank you. John <laugh>. It's Sam Will Sam coming up to talk cars in just a little bit. Of course it is. Chris Marwat, our photo guy, and Rod Pile, our space guy. That's, uh, that's the Sunday lineup for the tech guy show. But mostly it's all about you and your questions and your calls. 88. 88. Ask Leo is the phone number if you want to call in and ask a question or make a suggestion.

(00:02:15):
You know, try and understand what's going on in this wacky world of ours. 8 8 8 8 2 7 5 5 3 6. It's to free from anywhere in the US or Canada, outside that area. You could still call, but you, uh, need to use Skype out, something like that. Some sort of voice over the internet Du Hickey that I know how to pronounce. Du Hickey. 88. 88. Ask Leah website is tech guy labs.com. Audio and video from the shows past, uh, are there, there'll be links to the shows today, A transcript eventually, as to, you know, the computer has to sit down and it's a big procrastinator, so we have to force it to sit down and, and do it. And then, uh, and then we will put that transcript up. Uh, also on Sunday's, Professor Laura, our musical director's music log. So if you hear a song you like, you're gonna play any Katie Perry for me today, Professor Laura <laugh>. I was in, uh, Las Vegas, uh, yesterday and the day before to see the final show of a, or a semi-final show of Katie Perry's, uh, residency play. It was quite a show, quite a show. Um, looks like Elon Musk and Twitter are gonna make a deal by the end of the month, according to people familiar with the matter. Both sides, bankers and lawyers are preparing paperwork for the buyout to be completed by October 28th. That's the deadline the court has issued. Otherwise, it's, it's the courtroom for them.

(00:03:51):
Elon has said, You know, I'd hate to be working at Twitter. If you, if you listen to the show and you're a Twitter employee, you have my deepest sympathies had hate to be working there right now. The Twitter company, the current management says, We're gonna lay off 25% of the staff. Elon Musk says, I'm gonna lay off 75% of the staff. It's gonna be pretty quiet, <laugh> in the office as soon as this goes through. He also says, No more, you know, banning, we're gonna bring back President Trump. Uh, I, you know, and we're not gonna, and we're not gonna enforce, you know, it's unclear what he's gonna do to be, to be honest with you. I've heard a variety of things out of his own, out of the horse's mouth, as it were. So we'll just have to wait and see. I'm waiting and seeing.

(00:04:41):
I have, uh, pretty good following on Twitter, cuz I've been there forever. I joined Twitter when it first started in 2006. Quit it briefly. Uh, because I was concerned. My podcast network was called, uh, Twi. And, uh, I was a little miffed and annoyed and concerned. The people, I confused the two. They do. I often get asked, You mean Twitter? I said, No, no. <laugh> twi twi predates Twitter by years. In fact, I have the trademark to tweet, Uh, that didn't stop Twitter. Anyway, uh, so I've been a member and then I stopped for a few months, but I, but I've been essentially using it since, uh, the fall of 2006. You know, pretty consistently using it. Meaning what? Well, I read it all the time. Occasionally I'll post to it. Not a whole lot. I used to post, I used to post all the time, you know, in the early days of social media, when you'd post your lunch menu. Yeah. And as a result, you know, I have I think about 500,000, uh, followers on Twitter, which is a good late number. It's not, you know, the 18 million President Obama has, but it's, you know, it'll do five for, for a little old me. I have to think, though, you know, most of those people, you know, no longer are on Twitter, probably <laugh>. I mean, they're there, but they don't use it. I would guess at least half. And then a half of the remaining, uh, 125,000, those are probably bots and, you know, fake accounts.

(00:06:10):
I would, I doubt very much. There's more than 50,000 actual one 10th of the number actually a available present reading my tweets. If I tweet something, I should try that. I should say, Let's see a show of hands. How many of you read this? And then just count <laugh>. It won't be that many <laugh>. But, but the question is, do you stick around? Most people I know most of you listening don't, couldn't care less. Nope. Twitter, who cares? Nothing to me. It's nothing. And I guess it should be nothing really. Right? Really. Sh I mean, come on. Let's face it. What, what's the point of Twitter anyway? So we'll find out, You know, what I'm not happy about? And maybe we can use this to resurrect Twitter. There are programs out there to resurrect your dead relatives, uh, article in the MIT technology reviewed by Charlotte G.

(00:07:07):
She, her parents are still alive, but he, she had them, uh, do the four hour interview. That this company here, after AI does four hours of conversations with an interviewer about their lives and memories. And then they recorded the voice and they make it sound like mom and dad. She had conversations with them in the app. In the app. And she says, it's, it's weird <laugh>. She says, a a after a while. Well, let me just read a little bit of this article. My parents don't know. I spoke to them last night. They're still a live. Charlotte, you really should be just calling your mom. At first, they sounded distant and tinny as if they were huddled around a phone in a prison cell. But as we chatted, they slowly started to sound more like themselves. They told me personal stories. Remember, this is not her parents.

(00:07:56):
This is a machine that I'd never, her personal stories I'd never heard. I learned about the first, and certainly not last time my dad got drunk. Mom talked about getting in trouble for staying out late. They gave me life advice and told me things about their childhoods as well as my own. It was mesmerizing <laugh>, uh, uh, Look, I understand if you've lost a loved one, especially if it's unexpected and, you know, uh, sudden or what, that you really grieve them. And you would love to say one last thing. So maybe this is healthy, but for, it sounds a little creepy too, doesn't it?

(00:08:41):
Um, from what I could glean, Charlotte Wrights over a dozen conversations. Wow, that's a dozen times you didn't talk to your mom. <laugh> over a dozen conversations that my virtually deceased parents, uh, had. This will really make it easier to keep close to the people we love. Wow. Wow. Anyway, it exists. Is it a good idea? And I don't know. I <laugh>, I just, I just don't, I just don't know. Next week ads come to the app store more ads on the, uh, Apple iPhone. Just warning you ahead of time. Apple sent out a note to developers saying you wanna buy 'em? Huh? Huh? They're cheap, huh? So, uh, all this whole thing that Apple does about, Oh, we don't, you know, we don't, uh, we don't, uh, we protect your privacy. We don't sell ads against your information. Well, that's not true. They do. Okay. Just letting you know. Just letting you know. 88. 88. Ask Leo. Uh, we're gonna take a little break. Come back, take some calls. Sam Abul. Sam is in the wings, waiting with some sort of vehicle. Talk about cars and about 15 minutes. This is the tech guy. Don't forget my number. 88. 88. Wait a minute. Who's answering the phone today? It's either Kim Shaffer or, or a little puppy dog named Lily

Kim Schaffer (00:10:11):
Lilly's answering the calls.

Leo Laporte (00:10:13):
Lil's. Our house. Our house. Uh, Poodle. Poodle. Yes.

Kim Schaffer (00:10:17):
Little chicken. Chicken nugget. Berk's. Little baby.

Leo Laporte (00:10:19):
Little Berk did a thing, though. I'm not crazy about, He gave her a Mohawk.

Kim Schaffer (00:10:24):
<laugh>. Did he do it intentionally?

Leo Laporte (00:10:26):
I think so.

Kim Schaffer (00:10:27):
Oh, My friend has a poodle that has a major mohawk.

Leo Laporte (00:10:29):
This is an unshorn poodle for the most part, except for the middle of the head. Very cute. Lil, She's so cute. She's very sweet.

Kim Schaffer (00:10:37):
So cute and so soft and so

Leo Laporte (00:10:38):
Little. We, we love her. Yeah.

Kim Schaffer (00:10:40):
It's nice to have a moral support puppy at

Leo Laporte (00:10:43):
Work. <laugh>. I was a, you know, so I flew to Vegas over the weekend and I saw a lot of, uh, fewer than before. It used to be a lot of support animals on Oh, on board. But it's weird to see a dog walking through a Vegas casino. <laugh>. I've gotten used to all the children walking through, but the dogs, that's weird.

Kim Schaffer (00:11:01):
<laugh> think they maybe have put the kibosh on some of that. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:11:05):
<laugh>. That's a, your could be your companion could be your support animal. Yeah. Yeah. Who should I talk to, uh, on this show today?

Kim Schaffer (00:11:12):
Let's go to our friend in the chat room. Redacted, um, from Kent Island, Maryland. I

Leo Laporte (00:11:17):
Don't think I've ever talked to Redact.

Kim Schaffer (00:11:19):
I don't know that

Leo Laporte (00:11:19):
You have. No, I don't know his real name or anything.

Kim Schaffer (00:11:22):
<laugh>. Well, it's up there for you, but I didn't know if he wanted me to say

Leo Laporte (00:11:25):
It. Redacted. Leo LaPorte the tech. I thank you. Hey, you, Leo. Hey, Redacted.

Caller 1 (00:11:29):
First time. First time caller. Long time listener. Uh, thanks for taking my call.

Leo Laporte (00:11:33):
Yeah. You've been in our chat. How long you been, uh, chatting with us?

Caller 1 (00:11:37):
Oh, five years or so.

Leo Laporte (00:11:38):
Yeah. I feel like you've been there a long time and you've never called in.

Caller 1 (00:11:42):
No, I never had, but I never really had a question I wanted to, uh, go on the air with, but I do now.

Leo Laporte (00:11:47):
Good. What can I do for you?

Caller 1 (00:11:48):
So, so, uh, about 15 years ago, there's this thing called Facebook that came out and

Leo Laporte (00:11:54):
Joined it. I've heard of them.

Caller 1 (00:11:56):
And <laugh>. Yeah. So I joined them. And like most people, I went ahead and started looking up old high school friends. And that led to old high school girlfriends,

Leo Laporte (00:12:05):
Uhhuh. That's really, I would say at least 50% of the people on Facebook <laugh>. That's what they do. Yeah. So that's what I did

Caller 1 (00:12:13):
Anyway. I was, uh, I was talking to friends and, you know, things were going kind of south and I figured out pretty quick. I was on a fast train to Horseville

Leo Laporte (00:12:21):
Oh dear. And

Caller 1 (00:12:22):
I wanted to

Leo Laporte (00:12:22):
Get off. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. I'm so sorry. Okay. There's the cautionary tale. Do not look up old girlfriends.

Caller 1 (00:12:30):
Uh, yeah. Uh, we're to the wise mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So, I, I got off, uh, when I turned 50 and I never looked back and had not been on any social media for the last 10 years. Twitter, uh, Instagram, anything like that isn't

Leo Laporte (00:12:44):
A nice feeling. You know, you know that there's something going on when people say, I'm gonna do a detox and get off social media. Like, Okay, that's a sign that it's toxic.

Caller 1 (00:12:57):
Yeah. And it, and it was, but when my kids were going through college, they did their junior years overseas, and I'd have to shoulder surf my wife on Instagram to see what they were doing and all that kind. So that, that kind of stunk. But fast forward, I turned 60 a few days ago.

Leo Laporte (00:13:10):
Happy birthday. And,

Caller 1 (00:13:11):
Uh, Thank you. I had talked with Sam a while back. I had ordered a, uh, a lovely Ford Maverick from Hertrich Easton Ford over here in Maryland. Nice. And, uh, long story short, over the course of the year, I got a lot of emails from, uh, from Ford saying, Hey, sorry, it's delayed. Finally come September. They said, Oh, uh, your vehicle will be there in October. Said, Great. So after that, uh, I got a phone call from the, uh, sales rep at the dealership saying, Hey, we need to convert your order, even though I already knew that the vehicle was there. So I reached out to Sam, Sam helped me. They assured me that I would be getting my vehicle.

Leo Laporte (00:13:51):
Thank you, Sam. Sometimes a little, uh, pressure in the right area can make a big difference.

Caller 1 (00:13:57):
Absolutely. He was a godsend. Good. So, uh, Thursday, the dealership told me they got the vehicle Uhhuh. And Friday I called them to pick it up, and they said, We've sold it.

Leo Laporte (00:14:08):
Oh, those sons of guns

Caller 1 (00:14:10):
After, after 13 months. So

Leo Laporte (00:14:11):
I hate car dealers. I have to say, I've had nothing. And this is the one thing I think Tesla did right, Is they just have their own network. In some states, they're not allowed to sell directly because the car dealerships have such clout with state assemblies and legislatures that in many states, it's illegal to sell a car directly from the manufacturer. Isn't that weird? Yeah.

Caller 1 (00:14:33):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:14:34):
I bet Maryland's one of those states. I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Caller 1 (00:14:38):
I I wouldn't either. But, uh, so that's already water into the bridge. I know. There's nothing really I can do about it.

Leo Laporte (00:14:43):
It's so frustrating, so frustrating. Make

Caller 1 (00:14:45):
It painful for them.

Leo Laporte (00:14:46):
Did you have a deposit?

Caller 1 (00:14:48):
Oh, yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:14:49):
And they refunded it.

Caller 1 (00:14:51):
Not yet.

Leo Laporte (00:14:52):
Better then you, you might have 'em if, if they don't.

Caller 1 (00:14:56):
Yeah. So that's, like I said, I wanna make it painful for 'em. So I go to the Better Business Bureau, file a complaint, go to Yelp. Good. But I joined Twitter after never having been it on before.

Leo Laporte (00:15:07):
The number one best reason to use Twitter <laugh>.

Caller 1 (00:15:11):
I know. Talking to, uh, Sam, uh, he mentioned it, Johnny Jet, Hey, if you have airline problems, get on Twitter. So I got on Twitter and I realized I have no idea how to use it. <laugh>, how do I, how do I go and stick it to the man over at this dealer?

Leo Laporte (00:15:25):
You're in, you're in good hands, my friends, because I am the Twitter whisperer. I taught Regis Philbin how to tweet on, I, I remember that life with Kelly and Regis at the time. Uh, the tweet he put out was, I'm retiring, I'm getting out <laugh>. But, and by the way, I should mention, he got off Twitter about one week after I taught him how to use it. So you understand the basics of it, that, you know, it used to, uh, at the top of the page on when you go to twitter.com and once you sign up for an account, it would, it used to say, So what's happening? And you would type in something that's happening, and that would be that. But there, it's important to understand that, uh, times have changed a lot. If you don't have a lot of followers. Just typing something in there is only visible to people who follow you.

(00:16:12):
And if you know, you're new to Twitter, that's probably about five people, including your wife, who probably knows better than Twitter. Yeah. So, uh, the real useful thing for Twitter, especially for complaining about things, is the at reply. So the at, you know, you do the at sign, and then you need to know the account name. So at Ford, for instance, um, yeah, the best way to do that is to use the Twitter search. Go into your Twitter account and use the Twitter search and type in, uh, the name of the dealership. What's the name of the dealership again?

Caller 1 (00:16:42):
Hertrich Ford in east of

Leo Laporte (00:16:45):
Maryland. Hertrich Ford. And so you search for Hertrich Ford. Let me just see if they're on Twitter. They're probably not, right, because they're, they're stupid faces. Uh, so, and then when you hit return, you'll get, you can search for top latest people, photos and videos. You want people with that. And Yeah, they have an account, but there's no, there's nobody, they're not fi they, oh, here's what they did. They created an account. Oh no, that's Herrick Ford. That's a different Ford. Her trick. Yeah, it's, they don't seem to have a Twitter account, so you're not gonna be able to tweet 'em. But you can tweet at the big Ford company. In fact, that's probably the best thing to do. Right? Get them in trouble with the, uh, boss. So that's at Ford. That's at Ford. So you just type at Ford and then whatever you wanna say, These people at her trick, uh, Ford in Maryland are terrible. And, uh, do you see what they did? And, you know, can I tell you the truth of this? This is, this is useless. Nobody's gonna see this or care about this. However, <laugh> the, for some reason, big companies think that their reputation is, you know, being damaged. So you may well get a response from at Ford. Yeah. Uh, whether you'll get satisfaction is another matter entirely, but, you know, it's good to do this. I think

Caller 1 (00:18:04):
Just venting publicly is

Leo Laporte (00:18:05):
Satisfaction. Yeah. And it makes you feel better. Um, it's weird, I, uh, that a dealership doesn't have a Twitter account, but maybe that I would keep looking. Maybe I just did a cursory search, but at no problem at them at Ford. Now here's another little trick. Uh, when you at type, when you begin your message with at Ford, the only people who see it are at Ford or people who are searching for them. You know, it's not, it's not, doesn't become part of your, you know, regular routine. So start it with a period. You'll see this from time to time. That means this goes public as well as to Ford. So you start, if you type text, it's not the at part beforehand, it'll go to everybody. I'll give you some more tips off air. Leo LaPorte, the tech guy. I also found the official Lea Ford Twitter. I found Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario. <laugh> Tom Ford, I guess the designer. So yeah, you find a lot of Fords here. Ford Performance Ford uk. Yeah. You probably

Caller 1 (00:19:10):
Needed to expand on the Ford part a little

Leo Laporte (00:19:13):
Bit. Yeah, just keep looking. And then, um, you know, I wouldn't harass them. You certainly could. You could tweet every day.

Caller 1 (00:19:21):
No, no. Yeah. No, I'm not a harasser. I'm too old for that.

Leo Laporte (00:19:24):
Yeah. Good. Yeah. Uh, I think if Elon goes through with the plans, this will be even less useful than I believe it already is. But it's worth doing it now while you can. And then you're right. It gives you some satisfaction. You already went to the Better Business Bureau. That's good. Do it on their Facebook account as well. But Twitter, something about complaining on Twitter companies are very sensitive to that.

Caller 1 (00:19:47):
Yeah. And having watched your show for a number of years, I hear a lot of people mention that. And you've mentioned it several times. So I thought, what the

Leo Laporte (00:19:54):
Heck? Ah, ah, here we go. Rejected her Trick family. Oh, you can really go where it, it's spelled with an h I did not spell it with an H.

Caller 1 (00:20:02):
Oh yeah, I'm sorry.

Leo Laporte (00:20:03):
So that's why I didn't find it. Um, so yeah, there you go. Scooter X is the master of something. I don't know what it is, but he Thank you, Scooter. He's very good at finding stuff. Uh oh.

Caller 1 (00:20:14):
Yeah. His Google FU is awesome.

Leo Laporte (00:20:15):
His Google Fu. That's what it is. Hey, it's really great to talk to you.

Caller 1 (00:20:19):
Yeah, you too, Leo. Thanks so much. You've

Leo Laporte (00:20:21):
Been lurking for so long. Oh yeah. Here it is. Hertrich Ford Lincoln and Milford Delaware. Hertrich Ford in Eastern Maryland. And Hertrich Ford, Eastern Eastern Maryland. So they have three Twitter cats.

Caller 1 (00:20:32):
Yeah. Like a lot of places over here and probably California elsewhere. You know, one family owns

Leo Laporte (00:20:38):
Yeah. You know dealerships. Yeah. The Hansel family owns all our dealerships. <laugh>. Yeah. So you can't get mad at, you can't say, Oh, I'm going across the street cuz it doesn't do any good. <laugh>, I'm gonna Santa Rosa. It doesn't do any good. They own it all. Yeah, it doesn't, Oh, they're te I mean, dealerships are terrible. Get a wait till you get an electric vehicle from Ford.

Caller 1 (00:20:56):
So I was thinking about getting, and I talked to Sam about this, the, uh, the lightning. Yeah. One 50 Lightning. Yeah. But for what I use it for, it's twice. Even with the tax rebate, it's twice the cost of

Leo Laporte (00:21:06):
That. Right. Yeah. The batteries are expensive. It saves you money in the long run, I think. But the batteries are expensive. Depends on your electric rates. Jerry, our, uh, our Chief Operating Officer here has a, a lightning. I took a ride in it on Thursday or Wednesday, and it really is beautiful. They really did a nice job, but, and he loves it. But you're right, they're pricey.

Caller 1 (00:21:24):
Yeah. And I saw the review that Sam did, uh, the Rivian versus Bill Lightning, I think was on your network of a, as a TWI special. It was really interesting.

Leo Laporte (00:21:31):
Yeah. Oh, it's so great to talk to you. Can I call you Ray?

Caller 1 (00:21:34):
You certainly

Leo Laporte (00:21:35):
Can <laugh> You could call me Ray <laugh>. It doesn't have to call me Ray. Yeah.

Caller 1 (00:21:39):
Just don't call me and tell me you sold my Maverick outfit front over

Leo Laporte (00:21:42):
Me. Oh my God. I'd be so, You sound so nice about it. I'd be so angry.

Caller 1 (00:21:48):
Oh, I, I vented for, uh, two days. But it's one of those things that's just going to eat it. Yeah. And yeah,

Leo Laporte (00:21:52):
Well, yeah, you're right. There's nothing you can do about it. And, uh, but how frustrating is that? You've wanted that car for a year.

Caller 1 (00:21:58):
Yeah. 13

Leo Laporte (00:21:59):
Months. Just terrible. Yeah, just terrible. Um, so disappointing. Yeah. Yeah.

Caller 1 (00:22:07):
Yeah. So, you know, there are people like that around everywhere. So just don't do business with 'em.

Leo Laporte (00:22:12):
Yeah, yeah. That's just, that's just greedy. And, you know, it's a mistake because how much more do they make? Maybe $10,000 more or something? Yeah. Uh,

Caller 1 (00:22:21):
Sam and a friend of his at Corporate Ford, uh, they said, Yeah, it sounds like they're trying to sell it out from under your

Leo Laporte (00:22:27):
Yeah. Cause they got somebody to pay more. They had

Caller 1 (00:22:29):
Already told me it was, you know, Hey, it's on, it's, it's on the car carrier and it's heading to Maryland jerks. And then two days later they call up and say, Hey, we need to convert your 22 to 23. You're not gonna get the first edition. You have to a different color. And then I just,

Leo Laporte (00:22:42):
This is why we really have to stop car dealerships and it, it's just horrendous. They're all horrendous. Uh, you know, uh, Jerry's ma uh, Ford F150 Lightning, they bumped up 10 grand over msrp. He paid

Caller 1 (00:22:58):
It. That's why I didn't want to, That's why I didn't wanna buy something off a dealership lot because of the markup.

Leo Laporte (00:23:02):
Yeah. Terrible. I'm sorry, Ray. Or is it, Should I call you redacted now?

Caller 1 (00:23:08):
You can call me whatever you want there,

Leo Laporte (00:23:10):
<laugh>. Thanks Ray. Have a good one. Thank you. Uh, yes. It's time as Mike B reminds me to talk about our fine sponsor. Collide, Collide. You've heard, I think you've heard me talk about Collide It, uh, in a nutshell is user centered platform end point security for teams that Slack. But let me unwrap that a little bit. Collide is an end point security solution that uses the most powerful untapped resource in IT end users. So often in it, we treat the end users as the enemy, or at the, at the very least as unwitting <laugh> tools of the enemy, right? So old school device management solutions like MDM put, you know, you're putting Asen what is essentially what the employees see is a disruptive agent onto their system that will slow their performance down, that maybe isn't as private as they would like, causes problems and, and, and limits them from doing things they want to do.

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You know, or let's face it, right? If you're, if you're the kind it professional who puts crazy glue in the USB ports, Hey, I, I understand <laugh>, I do, I understand. But Collide has a kind of a different attitudes toward this. Instead of turning your end users into enemies, and, and by the way, the end result of that is they end up using their, now that they're working from home a lot, they're using their own computers and their own devices. They're, it's all B B Y O D all the way down. And you don't want that, right? That's even worse. What Collide does is it sends users security recommendations via Slack. So obviously you have to be a Slack house. In fact, this is, this is so good. I would become a Slack house. If you're not using Slack, collide automatically notifies it. Your team, your team, when devices are insecure, tells the end user how to fix it.

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Why there's a problem. By the way, it really focuses on here's why this is a problem. Here's why it's a problem that your computer, uh, goes to sleep without locking, You know, or that you're storing your, uh, restore codes in your downloads folder unencrypted, things like that, right? And it will find them, it sees them, and then it gets, it gets your employees to fix it and understand why it's a problem. By reaching out to employees via friendly Slack DM and educating them about company policies collide can help you build a culture. This is really important where everyone contributes to security because everyone understands how and why to do it. Keeping your users in the dark is not a good solution in the long run. You know what? You could still use all your permitted offenses. You could still do a lot of the things you would, almost all the things you would do.

(00:25:56):
I just think collide is a great way to get users involved for it. Admins you'll lovely's single dashboard lets you monitor the security of your entire fleet. And by the way, truly cross platform, Mac, Windows, even Linux. So you can see at a glance, for instance, which employees have their discs encrypted, Uh, who hasn't applied the OS updates? Who's using a password manager and who isn't? Who's writing an UN PostIt notes <laugh>? Now it doesn't know that, but it knows they're not using a password manager, right? So it makes it easy for you to get things fixed to prove compliance to your auditors and your customers and your leadership. That's increasingly important, right? Collide user centered, cross platform, end point security for teams that Slack. Now, does it make sense? You can meet your compliance goals by putting users first? You really can. That's the hardest barrier here is to convince people No, no, your users are not the enemy. They can be your army. Visit K O L I D E kaly.com/twit to find out how. And by the way, some great goodies for you. They've got collide stickers and coasters and very nice. These are, these are really nice soft collide t-shirts. There's a couple of these, a couple of different designs just for activating a free trial. I think I brought, did I bring the other t-shirt home? I have one here. Oh, this is a nice Navy one k o l i d e.com/twit

Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:30):
<laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:27:30):
I love that one with Bon Nokia's. K o l i d e.com/twi. We thank collide for supporting the tech guy. You know, they believe that they're reaching out to some IT professionals out there. Show 'em they're right. Use that address collide.com/twi. No credit card required. Thank you Kale. He's our low riding fella, Mr. And he does read Low cuz he drives a Miata, which is as low as you can go. Sam ebus Samid, principal researcher at Guy House Insights wheel bearings.media. Hi Sam.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:28:04):
Hello Leo. How are you today? Ah,

Leo Laporte (00:28:07):
You heard Rays Taylor wo

Sam Abuelsamid (00:28:09):
I did. And you know, I, I tried to help him out, uh, with that. Uh, you know, he reached out to me in the chat, uh, about three weeks ago when he got the notification from Ford that his truck had been built. He had a VIN number, it was shipped, was on hiss way to the dealer. It was supposed to be delivered this past week. And then the next day he was called, he got a voicemail from somebody at the dealership saying, Yeah, you know, we're not gonna be able to get you 22, even though he already knew, you know, from Ford that the, the truck had been built. And as soon as he told me the story, I knew right away what they were, what was going on. You know, if Ford doesn't send out that notification until the truck is at, until the vehicle is built and it's on its way to the dealership for delivery, which means that the dealer would, you know, had probably already arranged to sell that ve

Leo Laporte (00:28:55):
For a

Sam Abuelsamid (00:28:56):
Hire somebody else, no doubt, for 10, 15, $20,000 over sticker. Right. And, you know, they were just waiting for the notification that it was on its way before they tried to cancel and, and redo.

Leo Laporte (00:29:08):
Is that illegal? Illegal? Is there anything you could

Sam Abuelsamid (00:29:10):
Un un un unfortunately, you know, unless you have, you know, unless you have a, a firm purchase contract for, with the dealer for that specific vehicle, there isn't much you can do. Because the, the prob the problem is dealers are independently owned businesses and the way it works is, you know, the manufacturer builds the vehicle, they ship it to the dealer that, that places the order. And once it rolls off the truck off the delivery truck, the dealer owns that vehicle. Ford or GM or Honda or Nissan, whoever it might be, they no longer own that vehicle at that point. So that dealer can do whatever they want with it. Hmm. And unless you have an a, a purchase contract with that dealer that says, I'm going to buy this vehicle with this VIN number for this price, they can do whatever they want, basically. Um, and you know, they, how come, how come

Leo Laporte (00:30:06):
It's illegal to sell directly to customers?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:30:10):
So, you know, the, the pro the reason why the, the franchise dealer network grew up the way it did in the first place is, you know, early on in the industry, you know, a lot of manufacturers, you know, they would build vehicles and then they had the problem. They had to actually sell them, you know, which is a problem that Tesla had for a long time. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, it, you know, with, with trying to sell direct, you know, but you know, back in the early 20th century, you know, they didn't have the internet to do this. You know, it was a lot harder. And so the, the manufacturers, you know, would have all this inventory of vehicles that were unsold and it cost a lot of money to, to maintain that inventory. And so, you know, they came up with this franchise model where, um, dealers, you know, would buy a franchise from the manufacturer giving them the right to sell that, that company's products.

(00:30:58):
And you know, over time dealers, dealers make a substantial investment in real estate and equipment and training and staff. You know, it's not a trivial thing. And it, it's not a trivial thing for a manufacturer to sell direct. You know, as, as much as people like the direct sales model from companies like Tesla and Rivian, it's really expensive for those companies to do that. Um, you know, because they have to have service infrastructure, uh, you know, they have to have the, the showrooms, they have to have the delivery infrastructure. And uh, you know, so over time, as you know, as dealers, you know, made, you know, viable businesses, they of course, as most businesses do, they contributed money to their local politicians to, you know, try, try to lock in that business. And one of the things that happened was laws across many, many states that say, Okay, these dealers have made a big investment in their, in their equipment and their, and their real estate and their buildings and their staff.

(00:31:58):
And we don't want the manufacturers to come in and try to undercut them and compete directly with them, you know, which is, it's not a totally unreasonable thing. But the problem then comes, you know, once you've locked in that kind of somewhat monopoly, a lot of businesses tend to abuse that monopoly, which is exactly what her trick Ford did here. Um, most dealers don't do this sort of thing, you know? Well, the problem is, we, we hear about, you know, the, these, these bad dealers that do this sort of thing. But the reality is most dealers don't engage in these sorts of practices. They don't put, you know, unreasonable markups on vehicles. Um, you know, and you know, we really need to call out businesses like Herrick Ford when they do this. I

Leo Laporte (00:32:46):
Notice, I notice saying the name a lot,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:32:48):
<laugh>. We need to, we need to make sure that people know that they should never, ever go to a her trick family dealership in Maryland and never buy a vehicle from these guys. Punish. Because there's a chance that, that you won't get. Could you, what you paid for. This

Leo Laporte (00:33:01):
Seems to be a big problem, uh, with electric vehicles that are in very high demand. I was mentioning one of our employees Yeah. Bought a F-150 Lightning from a Ford dealer. They marked it up, uh, $10,000. Um, that's pretty typical these days. I was lucky I got my mock at msrp, which is still a markup. Right. The dealer still makes money on that, right? They

Sam Abuelsamid (00:33:24):
Don't pay. They, they, they do, they do make some money on that, you know, cuz they pay a wholesale price and invoice price to the manufacturer, and then they sell it at a markup. But of course, as I said, you know, these dealers also have a substantial amount of overhead that they have to pay for. Yeah. So, you know, the margins that dealers actually make on new vehicle sales are actually fairly slim. They make most of their, most of their profit, you know, on, you know, selling accessories on service and maintenance. Um, you know, so it's, it's a, it's actually a really tough business. It's, it's not

Leo Laporte (00:33:53):
I understand that. Yeah. But maybe it's time now to abandon that model. Tesla does. Okay. Fact, Tesla's had to go into states and say, Can we please sell direct in this state? We do. I think Texas is one of those, right?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:34:05):
Well, you know, Te Tesla has had their challenges too. Yeah. You know, there have been times, you know, when Tesla makes their end of month pushes, you know, to deliver as many cars by the end of the court or end of quarter pushes. And, you know, there have been, you know, lots of reported cases over the years of customers that, because the way Tesla does it, you have to, um, pay, you know, upfront before the car's delivered in full. Uh, you know, online you do a wire transfer or, you know, paid on a credit card, however you're gonna do it. And then, you know, there have been reports of people that paid in full for their cars. They had a VIN number assigned to them. And then, you know, the next day they get a message from, from Tesla saying, Oh, we're sorry. We're not gonna be able to get you that car.

(00:34:48):
You know, and, you know, we'll, we'll get you another one in about three weeks time or four weeks time. Um, you know, we'll find another one for you. And, you know, while it hasn't been proven, it's, it's generally believed that what has happened is that Tesla, once Tesla's gotten that payment from one customer, then sometimes they've taken that car, reassigned it to another customer and gotten payment from that customer so they get paid twice, um, you know, so that they, it bumps up their, their end of quarter revenue numbers, you know, and then they deliver the car to that first customer several weeks later. And, you know, they've all, there's, they also have a lot of challenges with service and, you know, providing service to their customers because they have limited locations for service. So it's, you know. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:35:31):
I that makes sense. If you don't have a dealership in the state where you're gonna go, uh, for service. Yeah, that's, I

Sam Abuelsamid (00:35:37):
Interesting problem. You know, manufacturers are working to try and change the, the dealer agreements that they have with their dealers to, uh, you know, to try to, um, and, and they're doing things like, you know, what Ford has said, you know, that they're doing, when they find dealers that are doing these egregious markups, um, they'll actually, you know, on popular vehicles, they'll actually cut their, that that dealer's allocations in the future for those popular

Leo Laporte (00:36:02):
Could punish 'em.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:36:03):
Yeah. Oh yeah. They, they can punish 'em, You

Leo Laporte (00:36:05):
Know, it's not the other, the only business in mind about dealers don't ever try to buy a concert ticket Yeah. In the United States from Ticketmaster. Oh. Because their monopoly means they get to really, uh, upsell, uh, your ticket and just look at those service charges. So this is Right. This is not unusual. It's whenever monopolies happen, this is what happens.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:36:24):
Yeah. And, and the other thing to keep in mind, you know, I mean, this is a phenomen, you know, we've seen this phenomenon of dealers, you know, selling vehicles to other customers or putting big markups over the last year and a half because of the supply chain shortages and the shortage of new vehicle inventory. But most of the time what happens is dealers have too much inventory and they have to, they have to cut the prices. So it's a, it's a, it's a supply and demand model. Yeah. And when supply is tight, demand is high. You know, they're, the prices change,

Leo Laporte (00:36:53):
I'm sure in the dealers minds are saying, Look, we're just trying to stay in business, and sometimes we have to do, do this. Sam Bull Sam had a principal researcher at Guide House, listened to his Wheel Bearings podcast, and he joins us every week. Thanks, Sam.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:37:07):
Thank you, Leo.

Leo Laporte (00:37:12):
But I imagine, uh, that, uh, Herford, uh, is getting, uh, no

Sam Abuelsamid (00:37:17):
<laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:37:18):
Or her

Sam Abuelsamid (00:37:19):
Trick. Well, I, I tweet I tweeted about it. You know, they're getting a few

Leo Laporte (00:37:22):
Calls today or, you

Sam Abuelsamid (00:37:23):
Know. Yeah. Or tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow. Um, yeah. You know, I mean, it, it's, it's a, it's a challenging business to be in. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:37:31):
I think that that's good. It's, it's appropriate to mention that as well, that, you know. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:37:35):
I mean, it goes, it goes both ways. You know, we have markups right now, but a lot of the time, you know, in, in other time periods, you know, you go in and you negotiate with the dealer, and you can often get the, the vehicle for under sticker price. Right. Um, right. So it, it all depends on, on how much, how much availability there is. Yeah, that makes sense. Um, yeah. But, uh, yeah, I mean, definitely, you know, don't go to hurt, you know, any dealer like Hertrich Ford that, you know, you've got a contract with them, you know, you've specifically, you've ordered a specific vehicle and it arrives and they go and sell it to somebody else. You know, just don't even bother. Just go, there's 3000 Ford dealers in the United States, so there's 3000 Chevrolet dealers just to find another dealer. There's, you'll, you can find one that will treat you

Leo Laporte (00:38:18):
Better. There's a brisk, uh, business on Reddit, uh, from people saying, Hey, don't go to this guy. Go to this guy. He overcharged me here. You could find somebody. Uh, just

Sam Abuelsamid (00:38:27):
Going, Yeah. And there's, there, there's actually a website, um, that I think I mentioned a month or two ago. Oh, I think it's markups.org.

Leo Laporte (00:38:34):
Ah,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:38:35):
Um, that's crowdsourced. Um, I'll have to find it again. Um, yeah, markups.org, uh, where people are putting in information when, when about dealers that are putting in, you know, putting big markups on vehicles. Yeah. Um, and yeah, so like, yeah, I just pulled it up. Um, dealer name San Juniors 66 Kia, uh, mark up $9,000 on a Kia Telluride, um, you know, Toyota of Lancaster markup $6,400 on a Toyota Sienna, you know, and, and it goes on and on, you know, it's, it, it's, you know, Oh, here we go. Hertrich Ford of Milford, mark up $40,000 on a broker Raptor. Oh,

Leo Laporte (00:39:17):
Oh my God.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:39:18):
They're, they're like number five on the list here. Oh. So yeah, it, uh, it's pretty, you know, it's, it's a tough time to be trying to be buying a vehicle. So, um, Oh, next Sunday I won't be here. Okay. I will be, I will be on a plane to, uh, Palm Springs.

Leo Laporte (00:39:41):
Oh, nice.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:39:42):
Yeah. So going

Leo Laporte (00:39:45):
Make a note of that Professor Laura, Know Sam on Sunday. All right. Do you wanna stick around for the top of the hour or no? Sure.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:39:55):
Yeah, I can do that. I'll let you

Leo Laporte (00:39:56):
Have this a minute and

Sam Abuelsamid (00:39:57):
A half. I can, I can talk a little bit more about the, the cars I was going to talk about today, which are the, uh, uh, the, the foxcon EVs, um, that, uh, they showed off a couple of new EV concepts this week. Foxcon wants to get into the contract vehicle contract manufacturing business. They, they don't necessarily wanna be selling Foxcon branded vehicles, um, but they want to build vehicles for other companies that need some manufacturing expertise. Not that Foxcon actually has a whole lot of expertise manufacturing vehicles, but they, they build a lot of other stuff. They build iPhones and iPads and, and, and a lot of, uh, a lot of consumer electronics devices for a lot of different brands. Um, and, uh, they, uh, uh, they've developed, uh, their own EV platform, an open source EV platform that they call, they refer to as the, the Android for EVs. Uh, they call it M IH Mobility in Harmony. And, uh, we will probably be seeing the first of these vehicles built on this platform here in the us, uh, probably early 2024, first half of 2024, most likely, uh, from a company called Fisker. Uh, and I will talk some more about that in the next segment.

Leo Laporte (00:41:12):
There's a German company that does the white label manufacturing.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:41:16):
Uh, well, it's, it's Magnus year.

Leo Laporte (00:41:17):
Magnus year. That's it. Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:41:19):
It's a, it's a Canadian non-company. They have a factory in Austria.

Leo Laporte (00:41:22):
Thank you, sir.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:41:23):
All right.

Leo Laporte (00:41:25):
Leo Laport, the tech guy. 88. 88. Ask Leo the phone number DS on the line from Charleston, Rhode Island. Hello, Dee.

Caller 2 (00:41:35):
Hi Leo. Can you hear me?

Leo Laporte (00:41:36):
I hear you. Great. Thank you for calling.

Caller 2 (00:41:38):
Oh, good. I don't have to stand outside.

Leo Laporte (00:41:41):
<laugh>? No, Where are you?

Caller 2 (00:41:44):
I'm in Charlestown, Rhode Island.

Leo Laporte (00:41:46):
Yeah, Charlestown, I said 10 Charlestown. Okay. Yep. I think I know that growing up in Providence, but I, I just, I know it. Yeah. Foolish me.

Caller 2 (00:41:56):
45 minute ride.

Leo Laporte (00:41:57):
Nice. Yeah. All the way across the state, <laugh>.

Caller 2 (00:42:02):
I know, right?

Leo Laporte (00:42:03):
<laugh>. I'm surprised it's that long, to be honest. <laugh>, what can I, It's the small state. It's, it's the smallest. What can I do for you D

Caller 2 (00:42:13):
Leo, I'm just so grateful to get through.

Leo Laporte (00:42:15):
Thanks. Oh, yay. I'm glad you did.

Caller 2 (00:42:18):
Uh, you know, I, long time listener, uh, since 2012 maybe. Nice. Um, and anyway, you, uh, you sold me on buying a Chromebook instead of doing Windows anymore. Great. And so I, in March of oh 16, I bought an HP Chromebook Okay. For $225.

Leo Laporte (00:42:41):
Nice deal. You've got six years outta that. That comes down to pennies a day. <laugh>.

Caller 2 (00:42:47):
I know, right? Yeah. And I, I love it. I actually was able to talk my husband into getting one nice convincing cause he was hooked on Windows

Leo Laporte (00:42:57):
<laugh>. Yeah. But, um, you know, Windows, some people need Windows, but if everything that you do lives in the browser, then a Chromebook is definitely a more secure and simpler environment that does the job.

Caller 2 (00:43:07):
Exactly. Yeah. That's what was so convincing. He convinced me and I said, You know what? All I do is pay my bills online, shop online. Perfect. And I do use documents, you know? Yeah. Cause I'm self-employed. Good. But, uh, I have an issue. Um, and it's ironic because I can get on these websites on my husband's Chromebook, but not mine anymore. And one of them is, um, my track phone account I cannot get on for, It's been almost a year. I, I can't log

Leo Laporte (00:43:39):
On. So what happens when you try to log on?

Caller 2 (00:43:42):
Well, it tells me to put in my sim number or my phone number or my email and click, I'm not a robot, but the shade, the, the tab that says to continue won't light up so I can click on it. And I finally got some tech support from TracONE today. Um, spent some time on the phone with them and the technician told me that she could get on it, on her computer.

Leo Laporte (00:44:06):
Oh, interesting. So the first thing to do, uh, this is a useful tool. There's a couple of possibilities. Six year old Chromebook may be out of support. Your husband's is more recent, uh, and some Chromebook. This is the sad thing about Chromebook. Google decides not to support them after a period of time. And so you don't get updates. So maybe your browser is out of date, but bef so one thing to do is to check the version of Chrome you have have on there. And if it's pre 100, let's say, and it's not updating, then that's probably the case that your, your Chromebook is out of date. But the easiest thing to do right now, have you ever power washed your Chromebook?

Caller 2 (00:44:46):
No. I, I, I wanted to ask about that. I did on my settings and my settings said that my updates, I'm up to date, but every time time I go on my documents, it's when I go into my documents though, it tells me that Chromebook no longer supports. Yeah. This browser.

Leo Laporte (00:45:04):
So you're at, so you are not up to date. Yeah. You're up to date as far as you can get, but you're out of support now. And this does happen. Uh, yeah. Six years is probably is out of support. Yeah. In fact, your husband's, how old is your husband's?

Caller 2 (00:45:20):
Um, 18.

Leo Laporte (00:45:22):
Yeah. So he's got another year, but then ChromeOS stops getting updated. And what happens sometimes with some, uh, sites, banking and finance particularly, is they'll say, Well, you don't have the latest version of Chrome, so you cannot, uh, use our service. I don't know why track phone would do that, but maybe they have. So, um, well

Caller 2 (00:45:46):
The thing is, I, I re today and yesterday I've been trying to get on my Chase credit card account and I

Leo Laporte (00:45:52):
Can't, Same thing

Caller 2 (00:45:53):
In the wheel. Yes. And I got on it no problem. On my husband's lap. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:45:57):
Cause his is a little less old, but he's gonna have that same problem in a year. Uh, this is a real annoying, this is a real annoying thing, but it's, you know, it happens with all operating systems after a period of time, they don't want to keep, um, updating it. So, uh, there is a website that you can go to. Typically it's about six and a half years. I think that's probably what, what's <laugh> what's happened is your Chromebook has hit its sell by date. Um, there, there is a, if you go to about ChromeOS, uh, and then additional details, the, you'll see it u under update schedule a list of when you go out of, uh, update. And, and I suspect that's what's gone on. So the, the solution to that is buying a new Chromebook. I hate to say it.

Caller 2 (00:46:46):
Well, uh, I'm fine with that. I just didn't want to go and do it if it wasn't necessary.

Leo Laporte (00:46:51):
So go. So again, go to a to get through. So, you know, under, in, in your Chrome you'll see about ChromeOS or maybe it's in the menu, I've forgotten. Uh, and then under, in about ChromeOS, there's an additional details area. They kinda hide some of those details, including the update schedule. And it'll tell you if you've hit your end of support date, you'll say, When the end of support date is your husband, you should do it too, because he's gonna hit that date as well. It's around six years. It really depends on the, on the device. But I think that's exactly what's happened is your, your chromos is out of date, which at some point, uh, and by the way, that that number changes, I think, uh, Google's actually ex extended that a little bit. Um, that was, that was, but that's from your era, the 2018 Chromebook. So, Yeah. Um, I can, I

Caller 2 (00:47:45):
Can, when I get the new one, when I get the new one, yeah,

Leo Laporte (00:47:47):
You'll have the same, everything will work fine cuz you'll be using a current version of Chrome.

Caller 2 (00:47:53):
And I

Leo Laporte (00:47:53):
Just, let me see, Lemme me just look, I can look it up on the, uh, Google site. Your hp what model is it? Do you know?

Caller 2 (00:48:00):
Um, Chromebook 14, Intel sell Tron

Leo Laporte (00:48:07):
Cell on. Okay. 14. So it just depends. They make a lot of Chromebook fourteens. I think the easiest thing to do is I will put a link in the show notes to the Google page where they say all of the different models and when they expire. But I think you can just see that on your Chromebook if it has expired time to get a new Chromebook. Otherwise, what you could try is a power wash. Uh, power washing brings the Chromebook back to the day it came. So if there's some other issue, an extension installed on there that's blocking it or some other things that are going on, power washing is really one of the main features of the Chromebook because you can then get it back to the factory state. And because you use Google Docs and all that stuff, you won't have lost anything. All the settings will be there as soon as you log into your Google account.

Caller 2 (00:48:54):
Curious about,

Leo Laporte (00:48:55):
Yeah, as long as you log into your Google account, everything comes back. Right. The only thing a power wash will wipe out that you can't get back is anything you stored locally. That's why you don't, that's why it has such a small internal drive and you're really discouraged from storing anything there.

Caller 2 (00:49:12):
Okay.

Leo Laporte (00:49:13):
So if you do have anything there, copy it off onto a USB key or something and then do a power wash. But I suspect much more likely you're right at the edge. Uh, I think it's probably expired. So again, look, it looks fine. Yeah. Look in the about this Chromebook, uh, section of your settings and you can, and you can see this. Did, did you follow that? I'll put a link if you want more. It's just,

Caller 2 (00:49:39):
I, I was googling it, so no, now I'm in settings

Leo Laporte (00:49:41):
About ChromeOS, about ChromeOS and then additional details.

Caller 2 (00:49:48):
So I'm just gonna type in Chrome os

Leo Laporte (00:49:50):
No, no, no, no, no. It's uh, it's actually in the menu. So go down on the menu and look for about,

(00:49:57):
And then you should be able to, once you get there, you should then say additional, Do you be able to see additional details? And once you see additional details, it should send, send you one to another area where you'll get, uh, your end of life. And I, I think it's almost certain that that's what's going on the end of life date. Again, I'll put uh, links to uh, two pages. One that tells you how to find out what your end of life date is and then the other that tells you that Google's own pages saying for every Chromebook when that end of life, life is, and your husband should look up his there as well. Uh, because I think his is probably close. They are getting longer. So when you buy a Chromebook now find out before you buy when it's end of life is Leo Laport the tech guy. So I had to take a break there, but you still there, right?

Caller 2 (00:50:49):
I am. So I'm on that spot where I clicked on about Chromo West.

Leo Laporte (00:50:53):
Okay.

Caller 2 (00:50:54):
So now,

Leo Laporte (00:50:55):
And then do you see an additional details menu entry there?

Caller 2 (00:51:00):
Detailed build information?

Leo Laporte (00:51:04):
This is an old article, so it may have changed about ChromeOS. Pardon? Additional details. There should be a menu in there or a button in there. I don't have a Chromebook in front of me. Or I would be following along.

Caller 2 (00:51:20):
Check for updates tab

Leo Laporte (00:51:22):
Under about ChromeOS

Caller 2 (00:51:25):
Says get help with Chrome OS report an issue or detailed build information or all of my

Leo Laporte (00:51:32):
Options. Try the detailed build information, see if it's there.

Caller 2 (00:51:37):
Okay. So now it says platform firmware channel. Does

Leo Laporte (00:51:41):
It show you the

Caller 2 (00:51:42):
Eight user agent command line? Is

Leo Laporte (00:51:45):
There an update schedule here somewhere? Okay, we're gonna try.

Caller 2 (00:51:51):
There was on, on the previous, I did that already.

Leo Laporte (00:51:54):
Update schedule update. Well, no, not do an update. What you're trying to find is a, is an information about your update schedule and particular when it's end of life or end of support date happens almost certainly with a six year old Chromebook. You've hit that. That sounds like exactly the symptoms.

Caller 2 (00:52:16):
I think so because like I said, when I went on my documents,

Leo Laporte (00:52:20):
It yeah, Google's saying the same thing, no

Caller 2 (00:52:22):
Longer support.

Leo Laporte (00:52:23):
Yeah. And you've updated it as far as you can go. So yeah, I think it's time for a new one. The good news is 225 bucks anything, you will only lose stuff you've saved locally.

Caller 2 (00:52:35):
But I don't even understand what that means.

Leo Laporte (00:52:37):
I probably never, That's probably okay. Then sometimes when you're on a website and it says download this, you can download it to the internal storage of the Chromebook. You're really not. The whole idea of a Chromebook is you don't need to do that. We'll take care of everything. We'll put it on your Google Drive. You know, your docs are stored on Google Drive, so almost certainly everything you've done is stored on your Google Drive.

Caller 2 (00:52:58):
All right. So I shouldn't bother doing the power wash thing. I wouldn't,

Leo Laporte (00:53:02):
I think you need a new Chromebook and you deserve one.

Caller 2 (00:53:05):
I got it on Amazon. I'll just get another one on Amazon,

Leo Laporte (00:53:08):
Right? Yeah. And get one check the end of life. You don't want to get one that's, that's, uh, 2022. That way you know you'll get the maximum end of life.

Caller 2 (00:53:18):
All right. So I can Google that on. If I pick one out, I can just Google that.

Leo Laporte (00:53:23):
It should say, it should say when you buy it, it should

Caller 2 (00:53:26):
Say, Oh, it should,

Leo Laporte (00:53:27):
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it should be in the Thank you so much. In the specs. Yeah. I'm sorry this has happened to you, but you know, you got six years for 2 25 bucks. That's a pretty good deal. That's two bucks a month. Three bucks a month. I can't complain. I think you're all right. You know, But

Caller 2 (00:53:43):
I'm so glad I called. I'm so glad you took my call.

Leo Laporte (00:53:46):
Oh, it's great to talk to you. D how are things in Charlestown? Is it beautiful? Are you by the sea?

Caller 2 (00:53:52):
No, I'm seven miles from the coast and it's raining today.

Leo Laporte (00:53:56):
Oh. I always check in with my mom to see what the weather's like.

Caller 2 (00:54:01):
Yeah, I know. I I just love it that I found out you came from Rhode Island. I'm local,

Leo Laporte (00:54:06):
Local kid all the time. <laugh>. Thanks D. Have a great day. Stay dry. Thank

Caller 2 (00:54:12):
You. You too. All righty. Okay. Bye-bye.

Leo Laporte (00:54:14):
Bye-bye. Sorry, Sam, all yours.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:54:16):
No problem. Um, speaking of Chromebooks, I highly recommend the, uh, Lenovo Flex Five Chromebook. Uh, my wife's been using one for a couple of years now. It's excellent. Uh, really well built, uh, nice keyboard, back lit keyboard, really nice display. It's touchscreen. Uh, it's a two in one, so it folds around. Uh, and you can get them, uh, off on, on sale three on

Leo Laporte (00:54:40):
Amazon. On Amazon. Yeah. That's not better. Yeah. For the 64 gig version, it's,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:54:44):
It's, it's an excellent machine. Good. And that's with eight gig of ram. So, you know, that's one of the, the problems that a lot of Chromebooks have is they don't have enough ram. Right. And, you know, for, for 350 bucks with eight gig of ram, you, you're in pretty good shape without

Leo Laporte (00:54:57):
Chromebook. Well, I wish they would say, and I don't see this on the listing when the end of life is on this and the support.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:55:03):
Um, that one, I think the, the five eye came out last year, so I think it's 2028 or 2029. Cause it's typically eight years time

Leo Laporte (00:55:14):
It's released. It is now. Yeah. They've extended that. Yeah. Oh. Should really be clear about that. So frustrating. Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna give it to you for a few minutes while I get a cup of coffee. All right.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:55:25):
All right. Sounds good. Um, so, um, to finish off what I was, uh, mentioning here earlier about Foxcon, um, Foxcon couple years ago, uh, decided they wanted to get into, they wanted to expand their business. They do contract manufacturing, uh, for a lot of consumer electronics. They decided they wanted to get into automotive business. And so they, uh, uh, they designed, uh, a new EV platform that they call mih Mobility and Harmony. And, you know, basically they put it out there. You know, anybody that wants to get into the EV business, you can use this platform will build it for you. Uh, you can, you know, have whatever design you want put on it. And they've shown a few different examples. This, this past week at an event in, in Taiwan. Uh, they showed off the, uh, the Model V pickup truck and the Model B, uh, compact, uh, crossover.

(00:56:18):
And, um, you know, uh, these mo these particular vehicles, you know, there's no plans specifically to produce them exactly as they are. These are just examples of what can be done with their platform. But <laugh>, excuse me. Like, uh, one of the first companies planning to use, uh, the, uh, the Foxcon mih platform is a company called Fisker, Um, just based in California, uh, own, uh, it's, um, CEOs and designers, uh, Henrick Fisker, he's a famous, uh, automotive designer. And, uh, uh, Fisker back in, uh, 2008 nine introduced, uh, car called the Fisker Karma, which, uh, was gorgeous, but, uh, was woefully under engineered, uh, when Fisker was trying to do everything in house and, you know, trying to be vertically integrated, and it didn't work out so well for them. Um, and, uh, they ended up going bankrupt in 20 12, 20 13, 20 13. Uh, and so, um, current, uh, Fisker restarted a new company, uh, a few years ago.

(00:57:23):
Uh, Fisker Inc. And, um, they're working with another company called Magna, uh, Magna's, a one of the top three automotive suppliers globally. Uh, and one of their divisions is a company called Magna Steer, um, based in, uh, in Austria, in grass, Austria and Magna. And they, they're going to be, they did most of the engineering, and they're going to be building the Fiker Ocean, uh, that goes into production in a few weeks time, uh, in Austria. It's, it's a midsize electric crossover that Fisker is gonna sell. It should be arriving here in the us, uh, early in the new year. And, uh, the, uh, but Magna, you know, they, they have a history of building all kinds of stuff. They, they build the Jaguar Ipace. They build a variety of other vehicles for bmw. They've built vehicles for Aston Martin, for Chrysler Jeep, um, Mercedes-Benz.

(00:58:18):
Um, they build the Mercedes G Wagon, if you've ever lus it after a Mercedes G Wagon SUV that's built by Magna Steer and Graz. Uh, so they built stuff for a wide variety of automakers, You know, some that, you know, have, you know, the expertise to build on their own, most of which have the expertise to build on their own. They're mostly established automakers, but they just, you know, maybe needed some extra production capacity, not enough to justify building a whole new plant. So they go to, they go to Magna and do that. I think that's what we're gonna see happening with, uh, Fiker, uh, or, or with, um, Foxcon Foxcon recently bought, um, they, they bought the, uh, Lordstown assembly plant, which was formerly, uh, a GM assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio, near Cleveland. Uh, it had been basically given to a startup called Lordstown Motors, uh, during the prior administration in Washington, uh, under a lot of political pressure, um, and Lordstown Motors plans to build an electric pickup truck, which we'll see if it ever actually gains any real traction.

(00:59:21):
Um, but that Lordstown Motors was running outta money. Uh, so they did a deal with Foxcon to sell them the factory and lease back some of the floor space to do the manufacturing of the Lordstown Endurance pickup truck. But Foxcon also plans to use that factory for production of vehicles, for Fisker and potentially for other manufacturers. Uh, so FI's, second generation product called, uh, which is currently under the code name project Pair, which is an acronym. Uh, pairs an acronym for something that I can't remember. Um, but it'll be a less expensive EV that they plan to have Foxcon build for them in Lordstown, Ohio. Um, and, uh, uh, you know, if other, other brands, you know, come up and say, Hey, you know, we wanna build a a pickup truck, they, they have the option to use that same platform, and Foxcon could build it for them in Ohio or, or somewhere else as well. So that's Foxcon. And, uh, I'm gonna give it back to Leo. Uh, thank you, my friend. I'll talk to you all in two weeks.

Leo Laporte (01:00:25):
Appreciate your, uh, continued support, <laugh>.

Sam Abuelsamid (01:00:30):
My pleasure. And

Leo Laporte (01:00:31):
I will catch you on the flip flop. Well, hey, hey, hey. How are you today? Leo LaPorte here, the tech guy, Time to talk computers, the internet, home theater, digital photography, smartphones, smart watches, areas, if there is one negative to the Chromebook, uh, it is that they have an end of life. They call it end of support, end of life is kind of over dramatic. They have an end of support. Uh, and you can see it on any Chromebook in, at least in theory. I'm not sure why d was having, uh, trouble, but you could see it in theory, if you, uh, if you go to, I guess maybe it's under the, the help. I'm not sure exactly, but it is, it is absolutely possible to, uh, to find that information, um, in your about ChromeOS and, uh, mash potatoes posted this in our, uh, discord.

(01:01:32):
And, uh, I'm looking at it right now about ChromeOS. It's got see what's new, get help with chromos report an issue, diagnostics, firmware updates, and then un additional details with a little arrow. And then when you click that little arrow, you'll see which channel you're on, your update schedule. And then it says, This device will get automatic software and security updates until, and then that date, <laugh> is the key. And my suspicion is it stopped getting updates. I wish Google had been more forthright about this. I think they assume, Look, they're engineers. You almost always, I, I ascribe to, uh, any Google flaw the problem that it's just engineers. They don't understand how humans are <laugh>. They're just, they're just robots. And, uh, engineers understand, look, at some point, you know, we got a team that's working to keep this up to date, but at some point we're gonna have to say, Okay, enough every, I mean, you'd agree with that, but, but the question is, when that point is, is it 30 years?

(01:02:40):
Well, I'm probably not 10 years. Maybe five, four, three, two, one. You know, with your phone, you're lucky to get three years of Android updates and five years of security updates. That's pretty typical on a phone, right? On iOS it's about the same. It's a little longer, but every company, Windows, iOS, Android, every company, every operating system has some drop dead date where, you know, we can't keep working on this. We got, we got other things to do. So it's always important to understand when your end of support happens on the Chromebook. It's gotten longer. I think it's now up to eight years, uh, with Google's, uh, encouragement, but it's kind of up to the manufacturer as well. So it's worth checking that before you buy and, uh, be aware of it, so that when that day comes and suddenly you can't do banking or whatever, that's what's going on. It's just out of day 88. 88. Ask Leo. That's the phone number. We go back to the lines, and Lex is on the line from Richmond va. Hello, Lex.

Caller 3 (01:03:49):
Hello, Leo. I'm Genu genuflecting to the West,

Leo Laporte (01:03:53):
Your Honor. Thank you. I'm not worthy. I'm not worth, That's okay. You don't need to do that. <laugh>,

Caller 3 (01:03:58):
Pull up your security breaches. I've got another one that relates to end of life for you.

Leo Laporte (01:04:02):
Okay.

Caller 3 (01:04:04):
Uh, is there any way to safely use, I'm no longer supported phone, so in other words, if you don't do these three or four things, it should be safe to continue to use it. You know, a few moments of silence from my Pixel three A, but they've, they've cut that.

Leo Laporte (01:04:18):
Oh, it kills me. They did that to the Pixel four too. And, uh, what a great phone. The Pixel four was. Uh, so that's a perfect example. They've extended the, the, uh, support time now on modern pixel phones, but on the Pixel three A and the four, Yeah, your end of life. So can you use this safely? Well, that's an interesting question.

Caller 3 (01:04:42):
Uh, is it even safe to use it browsing at home, for example,

Leo Laporte (01:04:47):
Uh, on your wifi, you're saying? Yes. Here's the problem with this. Uh, most, I, I'll have to say, most of the problems that happen on, uh, smartphones don't come in through the internet. They come in through you downloading an app. In fact, we just learned, uh, that Google has yet another problem in the, uh, Android space. Um, let me, I forgot what the, uh, what the, Let me see where I can, uh, I just saw this article, um, Android ad wear apps and Google Play downloaded over 20 million times. Researchers at McAfee have pinpointed, I think, six different apps. Uh, that one's a currency converter. One is a barcode or a QR code creator. One's called high speed camera, one's flashlight plus. You can see these are kind of dopey apps. And what they do is they install in the background, uh, you don't even see it.

(01:05:51):
They, they download ads and click on 'em in the background. They're just using your phone. They're called clicker apps. They're using your phone to make money, uh, in fake, in fake ad clicks could slow you down. Doesn't really, it's not a security issue, but you don't want that having happening. So by the way, that happens, even if you have an absolutely UpToDate phone. So most mal malware now on, on Android comes through the app store. Hmm. Uh, so that's job one. I would be <laugh>, you know, these are all dopey apps. Get apps only from Google and other, you know, Microsoft, other well known places. And I'd be careful on a out of date phone installing apps. Surfing is a little bit of a problem in theory because you can go to a site that has some malicious software on it. Sometimes these are completely legit sites, by the way.

(01:06:39):
It's not safe, It's not enough to say, Oh, only go to well known sites. Cuz well known sites can also be hacked. And if it's been hacked, or there could be ads on it that are, that are malicious. Uh, and if those are malicious, in theory, you could have what's called a zero click exploit. Now, I don't think these are very common, even on Android, generally, if somebody discovers a zero click exploit, they sell it to a company like Pegasus, uh, like the Israeli company that then sells it for a million bucks to a nasty nation state, they're too valuable to just use against you <laugh>, in other words. Right. So I would still be very careful about clicking links and messages. You know, a lot of those messages, text messages or Facebook messages you get are really malware. You know, that already. You probably see a lot of them that are malware. Sure. Don't click those links. You know, don't, you know, those could be really deadly, uh, surf to, you know, stay with well known sites. You're less likely to get infected there. Uh, but the main thing is not to install malware. Now, what's gonna happen though, is the same thing that happened to Dee, which is your browser isn't gonna be up to date. So there, you may start and, and your banking app will stop working, things like that.

Caller 3 (01:07:57):
So having a phone is a spare just to get yourself home if you're out on travel.

Leo Laporte (01:08:01):
Yeah. That's a good use for it.

Caller 3 (01:08:03):
Yeah. As long as you use it as a phone and texting family.

Leo Laporte (01:08:06):
Yeah. That's a great use for it. The other thing you can do with many Android phones that will keep it up to date, believe it or not, is uh, is rooted, get root control over the phone, which you can do with most Android phones. And then install a more up to date firmware. There's lots of third party firmware for Android phones. Google doesn't really lock you out of these phones in the same way that Apple does. So depending on the make and manufacturer and how the manufacturer feels about you rooting the phone, this may be easy to do. Uh, usually involves connecting it to a computer running some software. And then you can put alternative, what they call ROMs alternative firmware on there. And there are lots of them. Yeah. Some of them are very, very good actually. Uh, most of, because Android is open source. They take the Android open source and they add features or so forth, and they keep it up to date. So that's another option. But if you just wanna put an emergency phone in the car. Yeah. Old Android, fine.

Chris Marquardt (01:09:02):
Well, that's, that's good help, Leo, thank you for

Leo Laporte (01:09:05):
That. Yeah, my pleasure. It's actually a very good question. I think this whole thing, it's funny that we're on this topic, but it's really true that, uh, uh, it's kind of too bad because the hardware, there's nothing wrong with the hardware on D'S Chromebook or on Lexi's Android phone. They're working, you know, it's, you don't wanna put 'em in the landfill. They're working, They're fine. That solid state electronics, if they don't go bad initially, there's no moving parts. They, the, they, they will last a long time. In fact, the only thing that goes out really on these is the, uh, is the battery. The chips themselves can go on for a century or longer. So if you can replace the battery, Yeah. That phone, you could keep using it. You could be using it in 2055. Uh, unfortunately the software does go bad. 88. 88. Ask Leo. It's a good idea probably to understand how that happens, what you can do about it. So, it's a good question, Lex. I appreciate it. Leo Laport the tech. I more calls to come right after this. Hey, Chris Marquardt.

Chris Marquardt (01:10:25):
Hello. How are doing

Leo Laporte (01:10:27):
Now? How are you? I am well.

Chris Marquardt (01:10:29):
I'm fine. Good.

Leo Laporte (01:10:30):
Very. What should we talk about today?

Chris Marquardt (01:10:33):
Do you have an email? I wanna talk about fall weather.

Leo Laporte (01:10:36):
Hmm. It's

Chris Marquardt (01:10:39):
Spooky season. This is getting gray and overcast and rainy and foggy.

Leo Laporte (01:10:44):
So do you, uh, you, did you get a new computer? It looks like you're still on the old one.

Chris Marquardt (01:10:49):
I am. I am. It's gonna be delivered tomorrow, as the next week. Whoa. It should be back to, back to the good camera and

Leo Laporte (01:10:56):
Everything. I think you jinxed me because I poured a cup of coffee into my MacBook Pro 14. What? With my n one MacBook Pro. Yes. Very sad.

Chris Marquardt (01:11:08):
And that is not nice.

Leo Laporte (01:11:09):
Not nice. And, uh, I, uh, I I brought it into the repair shop and the guy said, Ah, yeah, what you, I still smell the coffee? I said, Yeah. He said, Yeah, well, that, uh, usually means it's been marinating in it. What we, uh, what we have here is a tier four condition. I said a tier four. Huh? He said, Yes. That means, uh, you're gonna have to get a new motherboard, new logic board that starts at 1300 bucks. <laugh>. Uh, and I said, that's a, that's a, at least four tiers. That's quite a few tiers. So Burke, I, I brought a, I said, Okay, thank you. Nevermind. I brought, uh, to Burke. He took it apart and he sent me a picture. Actually, I was kinda looking for this. Sent me a picture of one of the chips that is very definitely melted <laugh>. What? Yeah. Well, you know, you, the problem with the lap, these Mac laptops, you can't remove power. So, uh

Chris Marquardt (01:12:09):
Oh. So, so you got a short circuit in that.

Leo Laporte (01:12:12):
It just melted the, uh, melted the switch. And that was that. So I have, I also had to order a new laptop. What did you get? Or are you getting yours fixed?

Chris Marquardt (01:12:23):
Well, no, no, no. I'm, I'm, I'm getting a, I'm, I'm, I'm tossing my iMac Pro out, which is my last Intel machine.

Leo Laporte (01:12:30):
Oh, that's right.

Chris Marquardt (01:12:31):
That's gonna be an M two MacBook Air.

Leo Laporte (01:12:35):
That's what I got too.

Chris Marquardt (01:12:36):
It's faster than the Amic Pro. It's faster than the Amic Pro.

Leo Laporte (01:12:39):
I know. Isn't that depressing everybody? Wow.

Chris Marquardt (01:12:42):
It's cool. I think it's cool.

Leo Laporte (01:12:44):
Everybody, uh, who has that M two Air is like, literally like romantically in love with it. Micah Fraud Doc Rock,

Chris Marquardt (01:12:55):
Probably. I don't have it yet. I don't

Leo Laporte (01:12:56):
Have it yet. Did you get midnight?

Chris Marquardt (01:12:58):
Uh, no. Of course not

Leo Laporte (01:12:59):
Because of the fingerprints.

Chris Marquardt (01:13:01):
So Course not.

Leo Laporte (01:13:03):
I still wanted midnight, so I got it. And I got a case, you know, a cover to put in it.

Chris Marquardt (01:13:07):
So, So what, why did you get midnight if you've covered it up? I got

Leo Laporte (01:13:10):
A clear case.

Chris Marquardt (01:13:12):
<laugh> still.

Leo Laporte (01:13:13):
I know it's dopey. I know. Mine comes Wednesday. That's sad though. I loved, I really did. I understand why people love it, because I loved that M one MacBook Pro. It was fantastic.

Chris Marquardt (01:13:26):
Well, I'm still on a M one MacBook Gary here, which is still wonderful to work with. Just not quite, Yeah. Fast enough.

Leo Laporte (01:13:33):
Are you at an Intel? I got the, is it Intel?

Chris Marquardt (01:13:36):
No, no, no. That's name one. But it's, it's the tiniest spec that I could get. Cuz I just needed a travel laptop. Nothing fancy for travel, but now it's my main machine and it's a too small with a gigabytes of real.

Leo Laporte (01:13:47):
Yeah. Oh yeah. You have the base model.

Chris Marquardt (01:13:50):
It still does the job. It still can stream.

Leo Laporte (01:13:53):
That's my, uh, my, um, excuse of, or kind of consolation of getting rid of the 14. In order to get it quickly, I got the base model. Uh, and now, which is totally,

Chris Marquardt (01:14:06):
Totally fine for, for most things you'll use. Yeah. But if you don't use it in a, in a, in a video editor fashion then.

Leo Laporte (01:14:11):
Right. That's totally fine. I'm looking forward to this air. So, All right. We'll talk a few next weekend. We'll exchange experiences with you. Yes. It'll be so much fun. <laugh> talk to you in a bit. Our show today brought to you by Mint Mobile. We talk all the time about wireless carriers. I really gotta say for most people, Mint Mobile is the perfect solution. Premium wireless for Mint Mobile, starting at just $15 a month. Now, just to put that into perspective, just go take a look at your cellular bill. It's probably seven or eight times higher. And now for the plot twist, there isn't one <laugh>, there's no catch. Mint mobile Yes. Charges a sixth of what the other guys do. Or less premium wireless. $15 a month. No trapping you into a two year contract. You open the bill, you're not gonna see a lot of crazy hidden fees.

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(01:16:43):
Mint Mobile. M i n t Cuz it's minty Fresh. Yes, that's the one Ryan Reynolds does the ads for. Same one. Mint mobile.com/tech guy. I guess he's the owner. Uh, and you know what I like about him? He's decided to make this do it right to a, a great company doing great service at an amazing price. Mint mobile.com/tech guy. Thank you Mint Mobile for supporting the show. Now back to the calls, Rosie. Oh, ah, it's Viva Las Vegas <laugh>. I actually like the Zi top version of this. Maybe a little better than No, you like the Elvis version better. Leo Laport, the tech I 88. 88. Ask Leo the phone number. Bill is next from Goleta, California. Hello, Bill.

Caller 4 (01:17:36):
Hello Leo. How are you? This fine day?

Leo Laporte (01:17:38):
I am great. How are you?

Caller 4 (01:17:40):
I am good. Good. I found a bargain on the internet and I got

Leo Laporte (01:17:45):
That's always, it's a bad way to begin it. Okay. I've Okay.

Caller 4 (01:17:50):
Okay. Oh, an O L E D tv. Oh good. Just playing with it. Yeah. And it says you can do Bluetooth. So I bought an adapter for my froze, uh, Quad Quiet Comfort fifteens. Oh, nice. That works. Good. Good. But it won't do the speakers and the blue.

Leo Laporte (01:18:10):
Oh, you want your wife to be able to listen to the speakers while you wear the headphones?

Caller 4 (01:18:15):
Yeah. You know,

Leo Laporte (01:18:17):
That's the, that's a sensible thing. Yeah.

Caller 4 (01:18:20):
Yep.

Leo Laporte (01:18:20):
They're, they're trying to do you a favor because, uh, lot of times one, you know, I also get calls from people saying, I don't want, I want to use my Bluetooth speakers. I don't want to hear the TV speaker. So they're cutting off the TV speaker. That probably is not something it has to do. So have you dug through the settings?

Caller 4 (01:18:41):
I tried and looked and didn't find anything. Yeah. The only thing, you know, tried to, I don't know what brand he has, but his wife has hearing aids that do Bluetooth and, you know, she can connect to her tv. I'm wondering if I can do that too, but it doesn't look like it.

Leo Laporte (01:19:00):
So, um, let me just look because Scooter X has given me an article from lg.

Caller 4 (01:19:07):
An lg

Leo Laporte (01:19:08):
Yeah. Using headphones and TV speakers at the same time. He has a 55 C six P.

Caller 4 (01:19:17):
Uh oh. I've got a 42

Leo Laporte (01:19:19):
C2. Okay. But it's probably the same. So according to lg, uh, settings, you go to settings, all settings sound, sound out, and there's an option at the bottom to select internal TV speaker plus wired headphones. You might try. Oh, I

Caller 4 (01:19:37):
Didn't see that.

Leo Laporte (01:19:38):
Yeah, you might try, try that.

Caller 4 (01:19:41):
Okay. Um, that sounds good.

Leo Laporte (01:19:43):
Then there's another, there's another, uh, guy I wanna, you know, what I'll do is I, we will put this in the show notes. So you can look at this thread that I'm looking at who says, if you wish to use Bluetooth and the internal speakers first pair the Bluetooth, uh, press and hold the cog button, select sound, select sound outs, scroll down the Bluetooth, select the device list, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. So it's in the sound configuration menu. Scroll down to Bluetooth surround sound plus internal TV speakers. So in both these cases you can go to the menu and make sure that the internal speakers are turned on. There's one other thing I would say that I discovered on my own. And I've seen since it con since seen it confirmed that sometimes when you're messing with the TV sound settings and the various things, it gets confused.

(01:20:37):
And there is also in the menu, a reset command. Don't do this until you've tried everything and you're actually tearing your hair out. <laugh>. But, but there is a reset command that resets all of the settings back to the factory original settings. Okay. And I have found with both my LGS and with my Samsungs, that occasionally it gets confused. I particularly have one tv, it's actually a Panasonic, but one TV that you'll set it up and I know everything's set right and it doesn't work. I do a reset. I now, you, excuse me, You have to go back through all the settings and redo them cuz that's what reset does. But then that works. So I do think sometimes a reset is required just cuz the tv it seems to get confused. So the first, but the first thing to do is go into the menu, the sound menu, and make sure internal TV speakers are turned on. And it looks like on some TVs you'll see Bluetooth surround sound plus internal speakers as a choice. And you click that. Uh, and it should work.

Caller 4 (01:21:39):
Cause these Bluetooths, Well I have these headphones. They're not really, you know, five plus one or whatever, you

Leo Laporte (01:21:46):
Know, That's fine. Left and no. Yeah, no, that's fine. Uh, and it'll sound great cuz you have the quiet comfort. You'll have the noise cancellation. Uh, I think that's a great way to do it. I do, I do that with my LG and my, uh, Apple AirPods. But I'm using the Apple TV and the AirPods pair to the Apple tv. And, uh, same idea. Uh, and I'm trying to remember if, uh, if that cuts off the speaker. I think it does, but in this case I'm doing it so I don't wake up my wife <laugh>. Oh, just tell your wife, Go to sleep and there won't be a problem, Bill.

Caller 4 (01:22:17):
That's true.

Leo Laporte (01:22:19):
So I think you can, I think you can do it. You just have to find the right setting.

Caller 4 (01:22:22):
<laugh>. Okay.

Leo Laporte (01:22:24):
Hey, a pleasure talking to you. One

Caller 4 (01:22:25):
More question. Yes, sir. DJ, on your DJ by mini three.

Leo Laporte (01:22:29):
Love my mini three. Yes, sir.

Caller 4 (01:22:32):
Uh, you haven't crashed it yet,

Leo Laporte (01:22:34):
<laugh>. No. You know why I've only flown it a few times. <laugh>, I'm too scared.

Caller 4 (01:22:39):
Are you, because of the weight, are you restricted by

Leo Laporte (01:22:44):
It's one gram less than the FAA limit. Yeah. So you can, you can't go near an airport. It still has those geographic, you know, geofencing. But you don't have to register it with the FAA to fly

Caller 4 (01:22:58):
It. But what about you 200 feet high? Are you limited to whatever the FAA says?

Leo Laporte (01:23:04):
Oh, that's an an interesting question.

Caller 4 (01:23:06):
It does up now if you can't go to the airport, so it probably doesn't,

Leo Laporte (01:23:10):
Yeah, probably two

Caller 4 (01:23:12):
Feet

Leo Laporte (01:23:12):
Or two's pretty high anyway. I generally, you know, at that point I'm losing sight of it. And that also makes me, I've flown it pretty high. I've flown it well over a hundred feet and then it's just a little spec. So <laugh>, I think maybe I've been reluctant to fly at higher. I'll try it tonight. You gave me a reason to. Somebody's saying it's limited to 400 foot rockabilly Hog.

Caller 4 (01:23:37):
That's faa. But

Leo Laporte (01:23:40):
Yeah, he says the mini three has a, it does have the 400 foot limit.

Caller 4 (01:23:45):
Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:23:46):
That's fine. 400 feet is so high. Uh, Yeah,

Caller 4 (01:23:49):
You can't see it.

Leo Laporte (01:23:50):
Yeah, you can't see it. And it, you know, it's, I guess it'd be kind of cool to see the view from 400 feet up. But mostly I like to have a kind of a hundred foot view. You know, what kind of close, close to the earth. Yeah.

Caller 4 (01:24:02):
Yeah. It's, it's like a camera on a ladder. It's

Leo Laporte (01:24:04):
So cool. And I've, I've done the selfie thing. Do you have one bill?

Caller 4 (01:24:09):
I have a Phantom

Leo Laporte (01:24:10):
Four. Oh, you have a nice one. You have the fancy one.

Caller 4 (01:24:13):
Well, it's, it's big and heavy, you know. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:24:16):
<laugh>. Yeah. Uh, I turned off once being brave, the anti-collision system because it will prohibit you from flying into an area where it, it can't, uh, it's too close. It thinks it's too close to the trees. And I wanted to go in amongst the trees. That was a scary moment. <laugh>. I regretted it instantly. <laugh>. But I didn't hit anything yet. Um, so far. What do you use yours for, Bill?

Caller 4 (01:24:43):
Oh, just looking and doing, you know, not much. I know I was flying it and it semi crashed, but not really. Somehow it was landing where, you know, it pushed the button say to land. It landed, but it didn't land where it was supposed to. Yeah. Over a little ways. And it got entangled with a tree. Yikes. Broke one. Broke one for propeller. And then it, you know, I was able to control it, get it up, and I grabbed it and I landed it. It cracked the body a little. But you know,

Leo Laporte (01:25:15):
It, you know what they say, Any landing you can walk away from is a, is a good landing. <laugh>. Well, Gill, I hope you got it fixed up. It's a, it's a so much fun to play with. Leo LaPorte d tech guy Guy. More calls coming up. Chris Mark work too. You should do a segment on, uh, high altitude photography. Drone photography. That'd be kind of fun.

Chris Marquardt (01:25:37):
That would be

Leo Laporte (01:25:38):
Kind of fun. Do you have a drone?

Chris Marquardt (01:25:40):
Yeah. An air two.

Leo Laporte (01:25:43):
Hmm. Fancy. Do you use it?

Chris Marquardt (01:25:47):
Only when I travel. Yeah. Which means I haven't used it in two

Leo Laporte (01:25:50):
Years. Right, right, right, right. So you kinda have to have an excuse to use it. Cause I've seen, I've now seen neighborhood from the air <laugh>.

Chris Marquardt (01:25:59):
That's, that's the same thing here. We have some really nice forests and things and trees and stuff on out in the field, and that's nice and good. But then I've seen it in 12 different light conditions, so

Leo Laporte (01:26:11):
Exactly. Now I'm done. Yeah,

Chris Marquardt (01:26:13):
I'm done. And, and, and, and of course, aimlessly shooting drone footage. What are you gonna use it for? So you need an application for it. You need to have a project where you need drone footage, but then you can't make it all drone footage because then it's gonna get boring again. So drone footage should, in my view, be a supple. It's really supplements

Leo Laporte (01:26:32):
To now you're filmmaking, which is a whole nother thing.

Chris Marquardt (01:26:36):
Right. Uh, drones as much fun as they are, they, um, if people are not really, if people don't have a real need for them, they will turn into paper weights.

Leo Laporte (01:26:46):
Yep. Same thing for 360 degree cameras. I have several of those. Yeah.

Chris Marquardt (01:26:51):
You need a project for it. You need a project for it. Yeah. Otherwise it's not, it's gonna be fun for short while, and then that's it. Remember Lytro, the first one, the, the lipstick size of form factor refocusing camera. Um, that was fun for five minutes. Yeah. And then it was a cool, a cool technical tech demo. But I, everyone I know who got one of those didn't use it.

Leo Laporte (01:27:18):
Yeah, exactly. Well, in fact, I saw somebody who worked on the Lightro team tweeted about it saying the problem was you had to be per, you had, it was like, almost like macro, Right? You had to be pretty close to the subject to take advantage of the multiple fields.

Chris Marquardt (01:27:34):
Is that too? And yeah. And if you need, you need, uh, an application for it. No killer app yet for these, for many things. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:27:42):
Is there toys? In other words? <laugh>.

Chris Marquardt (01:27:46):
Oh, and it's fun to play. It's awesome to play, but yeah, not, Yeah. I mean, it's an expensive toy. That's what,

Leo Laporte (01:27:52):
Yeah. Uhhuh <affirmative> t All right. We shall talk in moments.

Chris Marquardt (01:27:59):
I'll be here.

Leo Laporte (01:28:02):
I, you know, seeing the iPad announcement. I think it was, they were right not to because that was all over. That was, that really wasn't worth doing an event for. And maybe the max won't be either. I don't know. I don't know. Or maybe they're not ready Mom. And don't take my coda Chrome. It's time for our photo guy. Chris Mark Hardy joins us every week to help us get better, uh, pictures. Thank you, Chris. Mark work for doing that. You'll find him@sensei.photo. And he still hosts the longest running right. Longest running photography show. On, on it is in the world of podcasts. Tips from the top floor. TF ttf. It's been going so long. No one remembers what the top floor was or why we got tips from it,

Chris Marquardt (01:28:48):
But I moved, I moved twice since <laugh>. It's no longer

Leo Laporte (01:28:52):
On the top floor. On the top floor. <laugh>.

Chris Marquardt (01:28:55):
I'm in fact on the ground floor in the villa right now.

Leo Laporte (01:28:58):
Tips from the viewfinder villa now. Yeah. Uh, but go to

Chris Marquardt (01:29:02):
The same ring.

Leo Laporte (01:29:03):
Go to no zen say.photo. S e n s ei.photo to find out more about Chris to see some of his lovely photos every week. He inspires us, uh, to take better pictures with a topic. What is the topic this week?

Chris Marquardt (01:29:16):
Well, I was out this afternoon. We did a little walk, um, just a Sunday walk. And I've noticed that well, we are heading into fall. Oh. And the weather is changing. So I wanna, I wanna bring, I wanna talk about three different weather situations. Weather conditions that you might come across in fall, at least on a northern hemisphere, hemisphere, um, that, uh, yeah, are very special. And what you can do with them photographically. What to look out for. So the first one I wanna talk about is overcast weather. I've put together a little gallery that, um, you can put on the website as a link. Um, so overcast weather. The general issue with overcast weather is that, um, it's not the flat light. That can be really lovely. It's the gray, boring sky very often. And a good way to deal with that is if you have something interesting in the background and maybe not even have to show the sky.

(01:30:09):
Um, here's a bit of a landscape shot and it has these mount, this little mountain range in the back. And, uh, if you, if you have something in the back that covers up the sky, that works well, also works well to, um, if you're taking pictures of let's say people and so on, to raise yourself up just a little bit above them so that you're not shooting at the sky. You're shooting from above and you hide the sky. That's, uh, that's a good, that's a good, um, way to not really show that sky. You can do a lot with photos that have

Leo Laporte (01:30:41):
Flashlights. I've done that trick several times. We did a photo, uh, safari to Tasmania in Australia and it was overcast the entire two weeks. So yeah, you gotta find something else to take a picture of <laugh>

Chris Marquardt (01:30:55):
Or you lean into it really well. Like this photo here of a bus stopped with a lot of, a lot of mt sky. But that is kind of the thing about this photo. It's more of a, more of a, of a negative space photo, even over overexposed the sky, which I think gives it really nice spacing in the photo. I love these kind of photos. Very reduced. Um, which is what happens.

Leo Laporte (01:31:18):
I get chilly when I look at these. I started was cold. It looks cold.

Chris Marquardt (01:31:22):
<laugh>. Oh, you are Californians.

Leo Laporte (01:31:24):
Yeah. I can't handle it, man. I can't handle it. <laugh>

Chris Marquardt (01:31:28):
Well, second, Second kind of. Uh,

Leo Laporte (01:31:30):
Oh. I

Chris Marquardt (01:31:30):
Like this situation that you might encounter in fall is rainy. Yeah. Weather. Yeah. And, uh, so, so one thing that I love in cities is, um, or in general in photos, is you, things that pop up multiple times in the shape. Same shot. So, uh, in this case, the umbrellas they have, it's like a unifying element between the subjects in the picture. Everyone's having an umbrella and that is pretty cool. Um, the other thing of course, is reflections. Um, I sometimes go out after the rain, just after the rain stop so I don't get wet. But still those reflections are there. And, uh, if you go out, um, in, in, let's say, uh, areas where, where there's a tiled floor, like, like rock tiles, you get these puddles standing on these that give you almost like a, like a mirror. Reflection. Reflection. Go low down.

(01:32:30):
That is so beautiful. Yeah. If you do that at night, you get this amazing look of colors, of different lights reflecting. And that's what they in, in Hollywood. They love doing that. It's called a wet down. When they shoot at night, often they wet the road because you get these gorgeous reflections and interesting kind of, uh, light effects there. So, uh, rainy weather, one of my favorites. And during the rain. Yeah, of course. Babe, your cameras, you and your camera are not made of sugar. Um, <laugh> still, well <laugh>. Some cameras do not like a lot of water. I confess <laugh> I would. Most cameras nowadays, especially the higher tier ones are, um, yeah, check first, I guess. Yeah. Um, of course check first. But, uh, I've seen, you know, what, what I usually have in my pocket. Usually I have in my pocket one of these, um, I don't, do I have one around?

(01:33:26):
No, I, oh yes, I do a little mini umbrella. No microfiber cloth. Oh yeah. Yeah. A microfiber cloth that you would usually use in the kitchen. And that is super handy to just dry on the camera after a few drops of rain. Carry that with you. So, um, yeah, that's the second one. Let's talk about, briefly talk about the third weather condition. That is fog. Ooh, fog. Ooh. I call fog the big cleaner cuz it cleans out pictures, it takes detail out of pictures and makes them, Yeah. Less busy, less distracting. It takes distractions out. Um, it can create beautiful silhouettes again against a foggy background. So you have a very different, uh, setup of contrast that you would usually have. Um, it adds a mystery to photos. Here's a, here's a windmill, and it kind of grows out of the fog. So, um, mystery, especially in this month, is very, very welcome. Um, the next thing that fog does, we talked about this in the past, is volume light. So it gives light a shape. Light becomes, you see the cones of light coming from light sources. You see halos around lights and that Yeah, it light has a, has a, a body that you can almost touch.

Leo Laporte (01:34:43):
I love this. This is very moody. This looks like it could be a Humphrey Bogart movie or something.

Chris Marquardt (01:34:49):
Yes. Um, fog also takes the background out so it makes, it, cleans it up. Um, and if you combine that, if you combine the, the almost natural black and white that you get in fog, because it, yeah. It takes out a lot of the color contrast with some strong colors. Then you have a winner.

Leo Laporte (01:35:08):
So's so do lamps. They're giving that orange cast. That's

Chris Marquardt (01:35:13):
Pretty cool. They few around, they're getting replaced with LEDs, but there's still a few around.

Leo Laporte (01:35:17):
Yeah. Very nice. It's so

Chris Marquardt (01:35:20):
Fun. So that's a combination.

Leo Laporte (01:35:21):
See, Chris is inspiring us to not be dismayed by gloomy weather, but to go out there and capture some gloom. In fact, this would be a good time to take your, uh, camera out and get your assignment shots because what is the subject of the month? Mysterious. Mysterious, Mysterious. So perfect for spooky season. Go out and take a mysterious picture now where there's no prize. This isn't a competition. We just want to give you an excuse to, to take pictures. And by the way, you don't need a fancy camera by any means. Uh, in, in, in months past, plenty of smartphone cameras have been selected. Uh, just take your, take your picture when you get one and you can only submit one a week. So really well, your best picture of the week, submit it to the tech guy group on flicker flicker.com. If you're not all, remember, join the tech guy group, Renee Silverman. Our moderator will accept your photo if you tag it TG Mysterious, so that she knows it's for this month's assignment. TG Mysterious. I, it seems like this one, it, you should have no trouble during spooky season fight. That

Chris Marquardt (01:36:32):
Should be, that should

Leo Laporte (01:36:32):
Be super easy. That should be easy. Yeah. Go to a pumpkin patch or something. There's gonna be something you could do <laugh>,

Chris Marquardt (01:36:38):
But this has to be a mysterious pumpkin

Leo Laporte (01:36:40):
<laugh>. Uh, Chris Marwat is@sensei.photo. He's got, there's so many things to, to plug for Chris besides the tips from the Top floor podcast. He has other podcasts, The Future Photography Podcast. He also has two more than two, but two books. I love the film book and the Wide angle book. Uh, you can find out about his workshops, uh, get his coaching. It's all@sensei.photo, s e n s e i.photo. And we will put a link to this great gallery of moody, mysterious, rainy, and foggy and gloomy pictures up on our website, Tech guy labs.com. Chris, do you celebrate Halloween in Germany?

Chris Marquardt (01:37:25):
Most people do. I'm not

Leo Laporte (01:37:26):
Really Not you though. <laugh>. Okay, <laugh>. Well, I'll see you next week for Halloween. Bye. <laugh>. Do they you have trick or treaters?

Chris Marquardt (01:37:42):
Yes.

Leo Laporte (01:37:43):
They come around, Huh? Wanting candy?

Chris Marquardt (01:37:45):
Yes, they do. It's amazing. Well, it's, it's, it's one of, it's one of those holidays that we imported from you Americans. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:37:51):
Although all Hall's Eve is, I mean, you know, there's a day of the dead in, uh, in Mexico.

Chris Marquardt (01:37:57):
Yeah, I know. But, but, but the, but the whole, the whole trick or treat the whole,

Leo Laporte (01:38:02):
The trick or treat I think is ours

Chris Marquardt (01:38:03):
Everywhere. That's a very

Leo Laporte (01:38:04):
American thing. That's ours. Give me candy or I'll egg your house. That's definitely ours. Yeah.

Chris Marquardt (01:38:10):
They're not quite that aggressive here. So

Leo Laporte (01:38:14):
<laugh>, it's all good. Well,

Chris Marquardt (01:38:15):
Half it's all good, but that reminds me that I have to get some candy in case kids

Leo Laporte (01:38:19):
Show up. Oh, I know. We're, we're lucky. We, I we have never had a trick or treater come to our house. Really? Yeah. We've lived there for almost 10 years. So else, um, No, it's just the middle of nowhere and and nobody comes that way. That helps. Yeah. Petaluma now does a downtown, You go around downtown with your kids cuz it's safer. So they do a downtown trick or treat. I think people are so nervous these days that they don't let their kids out as much as

Chris Marquardt (01:38:46):
They Yeah, it's interesting, isn't

Leo Laporte (01:38:48):
It? Yeah. We're really a scared, scared country and for good reason, probably <laugh>. Thank. Thanks Chris. Have a great week.

Chris Marquardt (01:39:00):
Thank you. You take

Leo Laporte (01:39:02):
Care week. Bye-Bye. Now. That's a happy song. Is that from 1938? This <laugh> Might as well be. This is episode 1938. Tech guy labs.com. The website. Leo LaPorte, your tech guy. If you wanna talk, let's talk tech. The good day to do it is when the NFL is playing. Sunday. Sunday. Sunday. Call 88. 88. Ask Leo. Darren is on the line from Portland, Oregon. Hello. D uh, Darren.

Caller 5 (01:39:30):
How are you sir?

Leo Laporte (01:39:31):
I am well. How are you?

Caller 5 (01:39:33):
I'm doing well, thank you. What

Leo Laporte (01:39:35):
Can I do for you?

Caller 5 (01:39:36):
I have a, uh, I've got some older equipment. I have a, you know, a standard $50 modem from five or six years ago, <laugh> and a hand me down router. Uh, the router seems to be in decent working order, but, um, every about, I've been working from home a little bit more. Um, every hour or so the signal will drop off. I get that freeze. I can count it down six, seven seconds. I'm back up and running.

Leo Laporte (01:40:04):
Interesting. My son once an

Caller 5 (01:40:05):
Hour, much bigger prob uh, about there. Yeah. Every, every 45 minutes or so. Yeah, my son, it's a bigger problem for my son because he's

Leo Laporte (01:40:12):
Gaming, gaming, <laugh>

Caller 5 (01:40:14):
Gaming is a big problem

Leo Laporte (01:40:15):
Yeah. For a few seconds later. And you're not there anymore. Yeah,

Caller 5 (01:40:20):
Yeah. Uh, and we've been just dealing with it. Inevitably, I think I just need to buy a new router or buy a new modem or one. They're so old. I figure it's time for both of

Leo Laporte (01:40:29):
Them. But there's a, is it a, is it, is it a cable, uh, internet or is it from the phone company?

Caller 5 (01:40:35):
Yeah. No, it's, it's cable. Cable.

Leo Laporte (01:40:37):
So there's a good reason to get a new cable modem and probably this is the solution. Uh, the cable technology, which is called docsis, D O C S I S changes. And it's all, in all likelihood, your, uh, cable provider is offering DOS three connectivity, which would be much faster than, uh, Doxy two or one. Uh, if you have a really old cable modem, I bet it's not doxy three or the current is DOS 3.1. And the newer doxys protocols allow them to go much faster. So that would be the compelling reason. A, a new cable modem will cost you anywhere from a hundred to $200. You save the money back if you're paying rent on the cable company's modem, and they're not allowed to charge you rent for your own modem. So that's seven to $10 a month we'll make it. So

Caller 5 (01:41:33):
Yeah, I've, I've always purchased, so I had it, you know,

Leo Laporte (01:41:35):
On my own. It's yours. I see.

Caller 5 (01:41:37):
Yeah. I'm, look, I'm looking at the stupid old modem right now. Uh, one of the, you know, it's, it gives all the, you know, recycled information. On the bottom is D 3.0. Is that DOCSIS 3.0? Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:41:50):
That's good. Okay. Okay.

Caller 5 (01:41:51):
Well,

Leo Laporte (01:41:52):
So, so that's probably enough. Although some cable companies have moved to, to 31 and there is a definite, uh, speed improvement. It, you know, remember you're only getting the speed you pay for, so mm-hmm. <affirmative> speed. It sounds like speed is not the issue. The dropout is this issue. The dropout can happen from either the router or the modem. It's interesting that it happens like clockwork and that it comes back is a little puzzling. It could be heat. Um, cable modems and routers are cheap. Computers basically usually fan less and they usually get quite hot. I'd feel I'd, I'd touch the router in the modem when they do go down just to see if they're, if they're burning blazing hot. If they are, then that's probably the cause of it. If, if it turns off for a few seconds, it cools off very quickly and then can go back to operation until it overheats again.

Caller 5 (01:42:45):
Uh, I figure it's time to throw both of 'em in the fire anyways.

Leo Laporte (01:42:47):
It might not be a bad idea. <laugh>, how big is your house? How many square feet?

Caller 5 (01:42:54):
Uh, I don't know, 1200 or so. Okay. It's a town home. It's three level town home, so I'm sometimes down in the garage.

Leo Laporte (01:42:59):
Three levels can be a problem depending on how it's built. You know, it's could be very hard if the cable modem is in the basement and and your son is in the third floor, he ain't gonna be happy.

Caller 5 (01:43:10):
Yeah, no, we, we have it positioned up here by him so he can plug in.

Leo Laporte (01:43:15):
He's a teenager, isn't he? <laugh>?

Caller 5 (01:43:17):
Yes. But we, we can plug him directly in Yes. And then the rest of us

Leo Laporte (01:43:23):
On wifi. Exactly. Um, that would be a good solution. Is he on ethernet? So wait a minute is yes, he is. So it goes down even on the ethernet.

Caller 5 (01:43:32):
Uh, so he says yes. Okay.

Leo Laporte (01:43:33):
That's good.

Caller 5 (01:43:34):
Playing his game on his pc. Um,

Leo Laporte (01:43:37):
That's good to know because it means it's not the wifi, which, you know, wifi will go down sometimes, but it's not the wifi, it's the internet. So it could be, again, it could either be the cable modem or, or the, uh, or the router. Um, yeah, it wouldn't be bad to get a new one. I, I use a net gear cable modem, a CMS 1000 that I like a lot. They're, uh, just under two, just south of $200. Uh, and they do support docsis uh, three. One you should check with the cable provider before you get a, uh, cable modem just to make sure that it's compatible with what, what they're offering. Very. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but almost all, as far as I know, every I use, I'm Comcast. Almost every cable provider I know works with the very nice net gear CM 1000. Uh,

Caller 5 (01:44:27):
And, uh, kudos to kudos de Micah, uh, for covering free every time, every time you're out. He does great.

Leo Laporte (01:44:33):
Yeah. I'm really, Yeah, he's, uh, he's the, you know, the future <laugh>. I'm the past <laugh> and as I, as I get older and older, it gets important to, I think he gets somebody with a younger perspective on, and Mic is great. Uh, he's half my age and twice as smart, so it's exactly what I'm looking for. Well, good. I'm glad you, I'm glad you liked him. Yeah, I appreciate him filling in, uh, yesterday so I could go to Las Vegas with my wife. That was very nice. Oh, nice. Yeah.

Caller 5 (01:45:00):
Wonderful. Well, thank you.

Leo Laporte (01:45:01):
Yeah. And maybe get a new, uh, you know, it might even be a good case, uh, for getting a mesh router so that you could have, uh, satellites on the other two floors giving you a little bit better, uh, internet on the other two floors. But he's got, he's hardwired. He's getting the best internet you've got. And, uh, and if it's still dropping out, Yeah. It's time to get one of the, one of those two is Superannuated. Probably get both of them. Get new ones. It's fine.

Caller 5 (01:45:26):
Can do.

Leo Laporte (01:45:27):
Thanks sir. Yeah, I like the Asus, uh, ASU s uh, routers. But if you're gonna get mesh, I think I is probably the way to go. I or Netgears Orbi, uh, the Orbis are slightly faster. The Euros are slightly smarter. So there are a couple of recommendations. And it might even be worth going to the wire cutter, uh, wire cutter.com. They are, uh, the New York Times kind of consumer reports like service and they do, uh, I think a pretty good job. They're not super, super, super technical. So sometimes I think they maybe miss the boat on some of their uh, uh, reviews and ratings. But I think you can trust them for, uh, for routers. Let me just see what they recommend the gear to get reliable wifi in any home. Ah, but see wasn't updated till Feb. It's more than a year ago. It's February 16th, 2021. Oh. But they have updated it with new picks. They like the TP link Archer. They've always liked that one. Hmm. I wonder what they like for mesh. 88. 88. Ask Leo. I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader. Jim is on the line from Calabasas, California. Hi Jim.

Caller 6 (01:46:37):
Hi Leo. Just wanted to compliment you on your great program.

Leo Laporte (01:46:41):
Thank you. I appreciate your listening.

Caller 6 (01:46:44):
And I do have a question if you have a moment. Sure. I'd like to ask about when does one need to update their drivers on their computer? I was under the impression that Windows 10 updates when you get the Windows updates for 10, that they, uh, update the drivers in the computer at the same time. Every time I turn my computer on, I get the ad for, uh, from update your drivers.com about

Leo Laporte (01:47:15):
No. So that's malware do not, do not do not do that. Uh, if you're getting drivers from anybody but the manufacturer, there's always the risk. It could have malware and, uh, a ba a malicious driver is really a bad news situation cuz drivers have access, full access to the, the memory of the computer, including Ring zero. So that's really a bad thing to get a malicious driver on there. Do not get drivers from uptight drivers.com or anywhere else. Get 'em either from Microsoft or the manufacturer and nowhere else. Microsoft Windows does update drivers, but they do some interesting things. So it's good for you to know running your Windows update. And I think, you know, Microsoft says you don't have to run it, uh, you should just let it go and it'll update itself. And that's probably true, but I run it every once in a while.

(01:48:06):
But here's what I would do. There's an optional updates section mm-hmm. <affirmative> and a lot of times drivers are put in the optional updates. In other words, you don't have to do this, but we offer 'em. I always do it. So go to the Advanced Options and Windows update and go to the optional updates. And I would do those every time. That will get you the most recent driver. Leo LaPorte, the tech guy. The only downside to brand new fresh drivers is, you know, if it just came out, sometimes they're buggy. Uh, and then that's worth maybe rolling back and it's not too hard to roll back. But I think it's worth getting updated drivers when they're available.

Caller 6 (01:48:43):
Yeah, I certainly agree. But I was wondering about the best way to do it. But the, uh, Windows Can updates, uh, should include, yes,

Leo Laporte (01:48:53):
They will include, uh, all the updates. And then if you, I guess the rule of thumb is if you're not having problems, don't update drivers <laugh>. That's the rule of thumb. But I like to be fresh <laugh>, so I always do. I always look at the optional updates. Uh, those are often driver updates are put there as well. The Windows update will absolutely give you the critical, the driver updates you have to have. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So if, so, if there's a bug discovered in a driver, uh, or a security flaw, Windows update will push the updated driver. Do not go to a third party.

Caller 6 (01:49:29):
Good to know. Thank you very much,

Leo Laporte (01:49:31):
Sir. Great question. Thank you. Have

Caller 6 (01:49:33):
A great

Leo Laporte (01:49:33):
Afternoon. You too. Take care. Bye Jim. Well hey. Hey, how are you today? Leo LaPorte here, the tech guy. Time to talk, computers, the internet, home theater, digital photography. We've got smart phones, we've got smart watches, we've got all that jazz. 88. 88. Ask Leo. That's the phone number if you wanna talk High tech tomorrow. Big day for Apple users. The new Mac OS is coming out. Mac OS Ventura and tomorrow the new iPad OS 16. So, um, back up, back up, back up. Prepare yourselves. You don't have to do it by the way, <laugh>, you don't have to do, you'll still get security updates if you don't update. Most Mac users, most iPhone users do in fact update very high percentage update immediately.

(01:50:25):
Uh, we are already on iPhone OS 16, but they delayed the iPad OS 16 because both the new iPad OS and the new Mac os have this thing called stage manager that I hate. <laugh> I think is so dopey. Uh, and I just, I don't think it's gonna take off, but, you know, Apple's always looking to do something new and interesting. And this is about Windows management, Window management, not Windows Window management. And that's, it's an idea. I, I can't fault them for coming up with an idea, but, uh, you know, you'll be the judge tomorrow. We'll all get the new Mac Os and iPad os Ken is on the line from Houston, Texas. Hi Ken.

Caller 7 (01:51:08):
Hi, Leo. Welcome. I'm from the past too.

Leo Laporte (01:51:12):
<laugh>. Most of us from the past have to hang together. I

Caller 7 (01:51:16):
Love Roger Waters music. I love Freeman Real Cream in my co I mean, you know, you

Leo Laporte (01:51:21):
Are my man. I love it. You, you remember going inside a bank. You remember dialing a phone. You remember the good old days.

Caller 7 (01:51:31):
I remember Christmas Club when I was a kid paying 50 cents a week for my, I know. I

Leo Laporte (01:51:39):
Remember when grocery stores gave you green stamps and you could buy an encyclopedia,

Caller 7 (01:51:43):
<laugh> and, and, and, and, uh, accessories for the kitchen and that That's right.

Leo Laporte (01:51:50):
Dishes, grocery stores. Yes. Yes. You would get as a, as a reward for shopping there. You can get a set of dishes or a set of encyclopedia. Uh, we still need dishes. I don't think encyclopedias, uh, are very popular anymore. Not, not really.

Caller 7 (01:52:04):
Well, no. I was a librarian when, uh, they kind of stopped buying, not

Leo Laporte (01:52:09):
Competing. Yeah. I bought, I was foolish for my, when I grow as a kid, I remember in 1965, my mom and dad bought the World Book and I loved it. I went through it, you know, cover to cover would read, you know, volume. I'm gonna read volume 10 now. And, uh, and I loved it. So when my kids were the same age, I bought 'em the World Book shortly before the internet took over <laugh>.

Caller 7 (01:52:33):
I never, and they never

Leo Laporte (01:52:34):
Used it. They never used it. But I still have it on my shelf as an old timer. It's part of my, my job to represent the good old,

Caller 7 (01:52:41):
Well, I was angry that my parents didn't buy me the inside Peter Hanah <laugh>. But I was happy to get it because I did what you did.

Leo Laporte (01:52:48):
Yeah. You learn. That's how you

Caller 7 (01:52:50):
Knew something else. I wish I was as, as competent as you was dealing with your employees, dealing with callers who need nudging a little bit or, you know, you're not arrogant. It's just, Oh, it's your part of the past

Leo Laporte (01:53:06):
<laugh>. It is part of the past, isn't it? And you know, it's funny, I've been talking to people now that we're kind of coming out of Covid and we, I thought people would be kinder and gentler coming outta Covid. And they're not, They're jerks. <laugh>. Yeah. We forgot how to relate to one another. I don't know what

Caller 7 (01:53:22):
Their social skills are all online. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:53:26):
That's exactly right. I, I fear that that's the way it's gonna be from now on.

Caller 7 (01:53:31):
I know. I'm glad I'm old <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (01:53:33):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're, let's shout at the clouds together. Ken. What can I, what can I do for you?

Caller 7 (01:53:39):
I need, I've got Why is, why is Apple Mahir to go from an apple to Apple than Android is? From Android to Android. It,

Leo Laporte (01:53:50):
Are you moving from one Android phone to another?

Caller 7 (01:53:53):
Yeah, I've got Apple to Apple's fine.

Leo Laporte (01:53:56):
Yeah. Apple makes it very easy. Android now is copying, or I don't know if they're copying. I don't know who came up with it first, but they're doing something similar where, uh, when you first turn on a new Android phone, I did this with my Pixel seven. When I got it, it said, All right, Do you have an old Pixel phone? Would you like to I

Caller 7 (01:54:12):
Have exactly the same phone. I'm moving from one to the other because I broke

Leo Laporte (01:54:16):
The Oh, okay. And then it says, Well, if you got the cable that came with a phone, plug it into both. And it was just a few matter of a few minutes, it copied it right over. And, uh, this phone was basically, the new phone was basically the same as the old one. Are you moving within from one manufacturer to another? No, It's the same phone. No,

Caller 7 (01:54:33):
Same phone. Exactly. Now do I,

Leo Laporte (01:54:36):
Do I, So that's one thing I have to say. That's one thing that's an issue. In the Android world. Apple is the only company that makes iOS. And the only company makes iPhones. Right? So you get an iPhone, It's an, it's an Apple product. Android, you could get Samsung, you get Shami, you could get Huawe, you can get Google, uh, a hundred different manufacturers. And so each of them, it's kind of up, up to up to them to how they're gonna make how easy or hard they're gonna make it to move. It's not up to Google, unfortunately. So I had no trouble moving from Google phone to Google phone. Whose phones are you moving? From

Caller 7 (01:55:08):
Motorola to

Leo Laporte (01:55:09):
Motorola. And, and so it doesn't say when you get, And is the old phone still working, or no?

Caller 7 (01:55:15):
Yeah. Oh yeah. It's just broken screen and battery running

Leo Laporte (01:55:18):
Up. Okay. So generally, what I tell people, if they're on Google, first of all, is use all the Google services. Use Google Calendar. Use Google Contacts, because then it's gonna copy that all up to the Google Cloud. So even if you lost a phone or a phone died, all of that stuff is stored safely and can be downloaded. Similarly, turn on the Google backup. It's in your settings. And have it back up to Google. That'll back up most of your settings to Google. Uh, if it, But it doesn't, when you turn on the new Motorola, it doesn't say, Do you have I I seem to remember it. Does that you, you have an old Motorola you'd like to connect over?

Caller 7 (01:55:53):
Well, yeah. I mean, no, I, I got one through, uh, unclaimed luggage and <laugh>. It came and it looked brand new.

Leo Laporte (01:56:03):
Make sure you start from scratch. Do the factory reset. Okay. <laugh>. No, that's fine. It's somebody's old phone, but that's why you wanna wipe it. I hope you, I hope you wipe it first. Oh,

Caller 7 (01:56:12):
It was already w Yeah, it was

Leo Laporte (01:56:13):
Wiped. Somebody wiped it. Okay. Uh, so it should, when it starts up, say, you know, what country are you in? What language do you want to use? All of that. Right?

Caller 7 (01:56:22):
Right.

Leo Laporte (01:56:23):
And then at no point does it say, Do you have a previous phone you'd like to copy the data from?

Caller 7 (01:56:29):
I don't think

Leo Laporte (01:56:30):
So. That's disappointing. Yeah, it might not. Um,

Caller 7 (01:56:33):
I'll look for it. I haven't,

Leo Laporte (01:56:35):
What I would do is you have your old phone. I know it's hard to use, but you can, if you can, you know, get around the screen cracks and say back up to Google, then just restoring from Google on the new phone will get you 99% of the way there.

Caller 7 (01:56:49):
Now the question for me is the SD card, should I leave it in the old phone and

Leo Laporte (01:56:55):
No, you can take it over. You can bring it over.

Caller 7 (01:56:58):
Okay. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:56:58):
Cause that, it depends on how you set it up. But usually when you put an SD card in, uh, the first time you take a picture, it says, Oh, oh, would you like me to start pictures there instead? And you say Yes, then all your pictures are there.

Caller 7 (01:57:12):
Thank you, sir.

Leo Laporte (01:57:13):
Yeah, I think it should be easy. I think it's clever, though. How do you know what they've got at the Lost and Found to buy it? Is there a website?

Caller 7 (01:57:21):
Yeah, it's called the Unclaimed Plate. I think that's hysterical. Alabama,

Leo Laporte (01:57:26):
What a great idea.

Caller 7 (01:57:28):
And the Sloan is brand new. I mean, it's, it was a Google iPhone, which works on T-Mobile, which is who I use. And uh,

Leo Laporte (01:57:38):
Oh yeah. I like Google Five. Yeah.

Caller 7 (01:57:40):
Yeah. It was so I'm not on Google Fly. But

Leo Laporte (01:57:44):
Yeah, my only concern would be if, uh, that phone was marked as lost or stolen. There may, uh, the, Im e I may be locked somewhere that mo that it may be that that phone is, uh, unusable. You know, they do that. Apple does that, uh, Right. With activation Lock.

Caller 7 (01:58:03):
I, and I can return it that there's no problem with

Leo Laporte (01:58:06):
That, does it? Is it otherwise operating Okay.

Caller 7 (01:58:09):
Oh, it's wonderful.

Leo Laporte (01:58:10):
And you were able to get it onto Google Fine Network and everything?

Caller 7 (01:58:14):
No, I'm going to go to T-Mobile with my same cars. Okay. Because it's the same network.

Leo Laporte (01:58:19):
Yeah, it's the same network as, as long as it works, uh, then it wasn't deactivated. It's just, you know, maybe you have to, It works fine. You have to knock on some things. It's good to talk to somebody of my generation. I just saying that Ken,

Caller 7 (01:58:31):
Information. You're in

Leo Laporte (01:58:32):
A great, My pleasure.

Caller 7 (01:58:35):
As you're

Leo Laporte (01:58:36):
Well, Ken, Ken have, have you, you've retired from the librarian, uh, position. Yeah. How is retirement?

Caller 7 (01:58:43):
Well, you know, I miss the kids. I bet they, they had librarian hated kids. They all came to me. Aww. The kids are honest up till about 10 or 12 years old. I

Leo Laporte (01:58:54):
Agree. That's right. <laugh>. Yeah. They're great. Until they hit Team puberty and then it's all over about

Caller 7 (01:59:00):
Yeah. Sex or whatever, you know, It's hilarious. And you have to be careful, you

Leo Laporte (01:59:06):
Know, you have to be careful. Well, I, you know, maybe you could find a volunteer job that'll get you, get you, uh, back in the library. I bet you they,

Caller 7 (01:59:13):
They're, Well, I'm onto dogs now, so,

Leo Laporte (01:59:14):
Uh Oh, okay. Dogs are like, uh, kids before they're, uh, 12. Yeah. Yeah. They're all love,

Caller 7 (01:59:20):
Good kids.

Leo Laporte (01:59:22):
<laugh>, Ken, I'm, I'm right. I'm right after you. I'm r I'm coming, I'm coming to retirement myself. Okay. That's why I ask. I just, just wanna make sure I I might go crazy. I might say, might be like Sinatra and Unretire three or four times. You never know. Well

Caller 7 (01:59:36):
Get a train. Said, I think he had a bunch of men

Leo Laporte (01:59:38):
Electric trains. There you go. Used to have those as a kid.

Caller 7 (01:59:43):
I like real trains, but I don't know why he would be fascinated

Leo Laporte (01:59:47):
By Sinatra loved trains. I did not know that.

Caller 7 (01:59:50):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:59:50):
I, And then meanwhile, people like, uh, like Mike is saying, Who's Sinatra?

Caller 7 (01:59:56):
Yeah. Right.

Leo Laporte (01:59:57):
Thanks

Caller 7 (01:59:59):
Ken's. You

Leo Laporte (02:00:00):
Have a wonderful weekend. Uh, Leo Laport, the Tech I 88. 88. Ask Leo. Uh, we will, uh, we will have more of your calls right after this. Stay here. It's a little, uh, music from, uh, the Katy Perry concert I went to, uh, the other night. She had a whole <laugh>. Oh, big band. Leo LaPorte. No, that's not what that's from. That's from 1938, isn't it Professor Laura? Yes. Music from the episode number every, uh, we're getting into the, into the thirties now. Soons can be the forties. Yeah. Will we make it to the sixties? That's the <laugh>. That's the question. 88. 88. Ask Leo. Is the phone number? (888) 827-5536 Tollfree from anywhere in the US or Canada? Neil is on the line from Santa Monica. Hi, Neil.

Caller 8 (02:00:56):
Hey, how's she doing, Leo? I'm

Leo Laporte (02:01:00):
Great. How are you, Neil?

Caller 8 (02:01:03):
Well, uh, you know, you got another dinosaur on the line. You know, this must be a, this must be a Jurassic Park, uh, show. I guess.

Leo Laporte (02:01:11):
I think honestly, um, I probably attract dinosaurs, so, Yes. I just, I'll live with that. I guess. What can I do for you?

Caller 8 (02:01:21):
I,

(02:01:21):
I talked to you one time before, and I reminded you that every time I think I'm smart or clever, I just think about you and think, Well, I'm an idiot.

Leo Laporte (02:01:29):
Oh, not so, not so. No,

Caller 8 (02:01:32):
No.

Leo Laporte (02:01:32):
Don't know about that. I bet there's something you're a genius at.

Caller 8 (02:01:36):
Well, maybe in my own mind, mind,

Leo Laporte (02:01:39):
What's your super, What's your superpower?

Caller 8 (02:01:42):
Well, I'm the author of the, the book, The Conscious Planet. And the reason I'm calling is about my, uh, website that I'm,

Leo Laporte (02:01:49):
Uh, I'm pretty impressed right now. I'm pretty impressed. What is the conscious planet about?

Caller 8 (02:01:55):
Oh, it's a hardcore vegan, uh, environmental.

Leo Laporte (02:02:00):
I wanna go that way. I wanna, I don't, I, I, I, I, I think that that's the right way to be, but it's hard for me to give up meat.

Caller 8 (02:02:09):
Well, it's very, you know what? It's easier now than ever in history.

Leo Laporte (02:02:13):
That's true. That's true. It really is. That's true. I'm gonna get your book. Where can I find it?

Caller 8 (02:02:19):
Excellent. Well, it's available through Trying Day Publishing. Okay. And it, and it, it's gonna be out in like one week or two weeks. It'll be available.

Leo Laporte (02:02:29):
How exciting. What's the website? What's the website?

Caller 8 (02:02:33):
My website is the conscious planet.org. And that's what I'm creating the, I'm revising it right now that it's, it re see, I have a second edition. I have the first edition in 2012. So my website reflects my old edition right now, The Conscious planet.org. See,

Leo Laporte (02:02:51):
I, you know, I might be good at this stuff, but you're good at that stuff. We all have our superpower. I'm very impressed.

Caller 8 (02:02:58):
And I'm a nationally published artist.

Leo Laporte (02:03:00):
See, see? Yeah, You got, you got your genius going in here. You should see my stick figures. They're not so good

Caller 8 (02:03:09):
<laugh>,

Leo Laporte (02:03:09):
So, Well,

Caller 8 (02:03:11):
I dunno.

Leo Laporte (02:03:11):
Let me, lemme tell you what, from my domain, my sphere, what can I do to help you?

Caller 8 (02:03:16):
Okay, Well see, I'm gonna prove what an idiot I am.

Leo Laporte (02:03:20):
<laugh>. Uh oh.

Caller 8 (02:03:21):
All right. So now, okay, so this really puts me in my place, you see? So anyway, so this,

Leo Laporte (02:03:27):
Well, by the way, there's all, for every human alive, even Albert Einstein, there was something where he would feel like a six year old, I guarantee you.

Caller 8 (02:03:35):
Well, maybe when it was coming to getting a haircut. There

Leo Laporte (02:03:38):
You go. You see.

Caller 8 (02:03:39):
But other than that, um, okay, so here, here, it's okay. Uh, we've been, I've been emailing for 25 years. I'm sure you've been emailing for like 30 something years.

Leo Laporte (02:03:51):
Yeah, I remember my first email account. Yeah. I was on MCI mail, and you could only email other c mail users. So it would've been about 30 years ago, I think you're right. Yeah.

Caller 8 (02:04:02):
92.

Leo Laporte (02:04:03):
Yeah. Somewhere along like that. Yeah.

Caller 8 (02:04:04):
Uhhuh. Well, yeah, I've been emailing since 98. There you go.

Leo Laporte (02:04:08):
97, whatever. There

Caller 8 (02:04:09):
You go. But anyway, so, okay, so here we are. I'm, I'm trying to, you know, I'm doing my email. So what I, I've done is created, I, my, my website has six pages, right? Yeah. So I'm emailing one page at a time. You know, I say webpage one, webpage two, I, I title it on the subject matter. So I send, I'm, you know, I'm gonna send it. I haven't done it, send it yet, but I'm gonna send it to the webmaster one, each page, one page at a time. Okay. Okay. So I'm creating the pages.

Leo Laporte (02:04:42):
What are you using to create the pages?

Caller 5 (02:04:45):
Um, I'm

Leo Laporte (02:04:46):
Sounds like some piece of software that you're using.

Caller 8 (02:04:51):
Um, well, no, no. The, the webmaster creates the,

Leo Laporte (02:04:55):
So you're just sending him text and images and letting him make it a website?

Caller 8 (02:04:59):
Yes. I'm just sending him emails. Got it. And that's the whole point. I'm just, it sending him emails.

Leo Laporte (02:05:04):
That's nice. You got somebody who understands how to code it up. You're just putting the, giving him the content. That makes sense. Right,

Caller 8 (02:05:10):
Exactly. So I'm just emailing him one, it says, it says web page one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm emailing them. So I, I, I create the, the one, the first page, let's say. And I, and I send it to myself because I'm gonna edit it, maybe, or, you know, I'm gonna look at it. And so I send it to myself. So I notice that the photographs, um, it, like, they, they disappear. Like, and what,

Leo Laporte (02:05:37):
Uh, so you're emailing them. And it may be that your email program using Outlook,

Caller 8 (02:05:46):
Um, you know

Leo Laporte (02:05:46):
What? It may not want you to send attachments, as you've probably heard me say a few times. Attachments can be dangerous. What I would recommend, instead of trying to email all of this, is create a free account with, let's say Dropbox. Or if you're using Microsoft, you've got some space on one drive. Put the images and text there and send your webmaster the link. Say, make it public or make it, you know, make it shared. And then send your webmaster the link. That way he'll get the full quality images. You don't want the email program to damage the quality anyway of the images, Right? Right. So you wanna upload 'em to a shared folder. In other words, on the cloud, um, Dropbox, if you're on Apple iCloud, uh, uh, if you're on Windows, uh, one Drive, Google, if you Google user has Google Drive all of these, and almost all of 'em offer, uh, at least five gigabytes for free. So you can, you don't even have to pay for an account, but your webmaster, you could even ask him, I would like to send you this via a cloud account. Do you have one you like to use? Almost certainly. He will mention Dropbox. That's probably the number one cloud system.

Caller 8 (02:06:55):
Has, has the, has the technology changed? Because I used to do this all the

Leo Laporte (02:06:59):
Time. Yeah. The tech, the reason is email, uh, attachments are a very common vector for viruses. So that's what's changed is security has gone up on email. Email is always a bad way to do this much better. Create a folder in the cloud, upload all the assets, and then send a link. And that's the best way to do it. Leo LaPorte, the tech guy,

Laura (02:07:23):
Is Rod here today?

Leo Laporte (02:07:25):
Why are you jumping up and down? Yes. Rod is here today. He's on the phone. <laugh>, why are you jumping up? Are you cold in there? What? What? The game just started. Oh, the game game just started. Oh boy. They sure took their time. We had to watch the, the Packers lose. And so they, But

Kim Schaffer (02:07:40):
Did you see the end of that game?

Leo Laporte (02:07:42):
Yeah. I don't mind Green Bay losing, even though. No,

Kim Schaffer (02:07:45):
I don't mind them losing, but it was an entertaining

Leo Laporte (02:07:47):
America. Yeah. They're more and more, you know, that's Mahomes. I think <laugh> because Mahomes likes to shovel the ball. Oh, nice. More and more we're seeing people do these laterals and shoveling and Yeah,

Kim Schaffer (02:08:00):
They threw it backwards about 10

Leo Laporte (02:08:01):
Times. Yeah. I thought you couldn't do, I thought you always had to throw it forwards. But I guess

Kim Schaffer (02:08:05):
No, you can throw it backwards. You just can't throw it forwards more than once.

Leo Laporte (02:08:08):
Ah. So it's not a forward pass if you lateral it, explain it. Ah, that makes sense. Got it, got it. You can't pass it forward. You have to pass it sideways. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Yeah, that was quite an entertaining end to, uh, to a very disappointing game for Green Bay. I think Michael is a huge Green Bay fan. And, uh, Oh, Jimmy still don't understand. See, I'm Lisa hates Jimmy.

Kim Schaffer (02:08:33):
I he's so hot.

Leo Laporte (02:08:35):
He's so cute. Maybe that's why she hates him. Cuz she's not married to him. He's so attractive. No, she thinks he's a terrible quarterback. He's

Kim Schaffer (02:08:42):
Not terrible. He's just not the best

Leo Laporte (02:08:45):
<laugh>. I, I think with McCaffrey, we might have a chance of winning this game. We'll see.

Kim Schaffer (02:08:50):
I hope so.

Leo Laporte (02:08:51):
She'll see.

Kim Schaffer (02:08:52):
We better not let him get hurt. I hear he gets hurt a lot.

Leo Laporte (02:08:55):
Well, he won't be the only one on the team.

Kim Schaffer (02:08:58):
Everybody got

Leo Laporte (02:08:59):
Hurt. I know. That's why they had to trade for him.

Kim Schaffer (02:09:01):
I've never even seen the blue tent on the sidelines.

Leo Laporte (02:09:04):
I know. They just take him out. Everybody into put him, put him on the, Yeah, put him on the stretcher and get rid of him. All right, let's see if we can run. Oh, oh yes, he can. He can run, he can run. And he gets a verse down. It's

Kim Schaffer (02:09:16):
Faster

Leo Laporte (02:09:16):
In there. Yeah. Here. Okay. We like McCaffrey now. Now how do you like me?

Kim Schaffer (02:09:22):
He's like three seconds ahead of us,

Leo Laporte (02:09:25):
<laugh>. Oh, you're just seeing it now? Yeah. You we're both on YouTube tv, right?

Kim Schaffer (02:09:31):
No, no, no, no. This is through,

Leo Laporte (02:09:33):
Uh, some VPN to Singapore or something. Oh,

Kim Schaffer (02:09:37):
It's just through, uh, fox.com.

Leo Laporte (02:09:40):
Ah, no, I'm watching on YouTube tv. Oh, that's why. So they're in, they're they're on the line. You hike. He hands it off. McCaffrey run. Oh, this is another, Wow. Almost, almost another first down. Got nine yards. McCaffrey <laugh>. Now, now you just saw that? Yeah, I just saw that. Okay. So it's about five, 10 seconds. So that's the new guy? That's the new guy. Oh, okay. The former Panther. He's got big muscles. He's got big muscles. Not

Kim Schaffer (02:10:08):
As big as Bos, but he's got

Leo Laporte (02:10:09):
Big muscles. Don't running backs. Really? You just need to be like a tanks tank. Yeah. Yeah. Well that's pretty good. He just had some excellent runs. Now let's see what happens. Let's see if Jimmy can throw a interception. He's very good at that. <laugh>. Yes. Look at that. Oh, oh, oh. Very nice. Leo.

Kim Schaffer (02:10:29):
You're spoiling it for

Leo Laporte (02:10:32):
Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. <laugh>. All right. I won't spoil it anymore for you or the audience. Don't have to go on the air with Rod. I gotta talk to Rodney. Hello, Rodney. Oh, wait a minute. I gotta pick him up, don't I? Yes you do. Hello, Rodney. Ah, now I, I had to push all the buttons. Hi, Rod

Rod Pyle (02:10:56):
<laugh>.

Leo Laporte (02:10:56):
Hi, how are you? I am well. How are you?

Rod Pyle (02:10:58):
I'm calling in from beautiful Joshua Tree,

Leo Laporte (02:11:01):
California. Oh, I'm so jealous. I've never been there. I've always wanted to go.

Rod Pyle (02:11:05):
Oh

Leo Laporte (02:11:05):
Really? Joshua

Rod Pyle (02:11:06):
Tree. You know, it's, it's desert, so it's pretty scrubby. But the thing that makes Joshua Tree so amazing, I, we came, my son did this as my birthday treat, brought me out to see the, the Orionids meteor shower. Oh.

Leo Laporte (02:11:18):
Cause

Rod Pyle (02:11:18):
It's an official

Leo Laporte (02:11:20):
Guy by Oh, that's really nice. What a gift. But

Rod Pyle (02:11:23):
The hills here are, are all bolded. So it's, it's this very interesting rock for me. So this work, we're checking out, we're tagging this place called the Bonita Domes. It's an Airbnb and B and some guy built this house out of all these beehive domes connected with tunnels and around it, he has this little kind of mini theme park of hot tubs and little separate outbuildings. You can sleep in enough fire pit in a bar. I mean, for two or three guys, it's kind of wasted. But I can see if you brought, you know, 10 or 20 employees of the Leo network out here.

Leo Laporte (02:11:56):
<laugh>. Wow. <laugh>.

Rod Pyle (02:11:58):
It's, it's wild. I'll send you a picture. It's really kind of, you walk in there and you sort of tilt your head like, what <laugh>

Leo Laporte (02:12:04):
That's cool. I think I saw that in an Airbnb ad. I think.

Rod Pyle (02:12:09):
Yeah. Maybe.

Leo Laporte (02:12:10):
Here we go. Here

Rod Pyle (02:12:11):
We are.

Leo Laporte (02:12:13):
It's time for our rocket man who is landed in Joshua Tree. Where, uh, where was that a uh, was that a botched recovery or did you just decide you wanted to be there? Rod pine,

Rod Pyle (02:12:25):
It was a spur, spur of the moment thing to come out and see the Orion s Meteor shower. Oh, nice. On Friday morning. You

Leo Laporte (02:12:31):
Were talking about that last week. Did you see some nice shooting stars?

Rod Pyle (02:12:35):
We did. You know, it's, it's, it's famous for having very fast, very bright, um, meteors. And we saw probably, depending on the evening, probably about five to six an hour, which is about average. A little less than average, but about average. And it was clear as a bell. And of course, cuz we're out in the desert, it's pitch dark. You can actually see the Milky Way, which is something I had forgotten existed practically. And, um, it's fun, you know, so if you ever get a chance, there's three or four big showers per year. The main ones are this one, uh, the, the, the, uh, Geminis in December and the Percys in August. And if you can find somewhere dark, which is increasingly hard to do, but there's a website called Dark sky org where you can punch in your zip code and try and find a, a spot that's dark not too far from you. Um, it's fantastic. It's just, uh, it's really something you should try

Leo Laporte (02:13:27):
Once and what a great place, I would imagine to see it. Uh, there's not a lot of Nat artificial light in Joshua Tree, right?

Rod Pyle (02:13:34):
Well, there's not, Although there is a little town a couple miles away, and then there's 29 Palms and further Palm Spring. So there's really no getting away from it unless you literally go to the northern extreme of Death Valley or somewhere in Wyoming or Canada or out to sea, which I think I'll try next time is just, you know, go way offshore. But it's dark enough that you can see most of 'em. And that's, that's the trick

Leo Laporte (02:13:56):
We should mention. Rod has a boat, so <laugh>, he's not, he can do that.

Rod Pyle (02:14:02):
We're not gonna swim out.

Leo Laporte (02:14:03):
Rod's the editor in chief of the National Space Society's official magazine at Astra, author of many books, talks about space every week, uh, on this show. What's going on in the, in the world of space besides, Well,

Rod Pyle (02:14:16):
Let's talk about your favorite topic.

Leo Laporte (02:14:20):
The Artemis, Huh? Oh, Elon Musk.

Rod Pyle (02:14:23):
Elon Musk.

Leo Laporte (02:14:24):
What's he up to when he is not buying Twitter?

Rod Pyle (02:14:27):
Well, now I've missed most of your, uh, podcast this week, so I apologize if you discussed this at length, but this whole thing with starlink and Ukraine.

Leo Laporte (02:14:35):
Yeah. So, uh, he initially said, I'm gonna send Ukraine a bunch of starlink terminals, which will give them internet access via my satellites. Uh, thank you very much. I am a wonderful human being. And then it turns out it's not for it, it's not a cheap thing. Uh, he's estimating it'll cost him $400 million and went to the Pentagon and says, Hey guys, can you help a fella out? The Pentagon had, didn't say anything, but Elon got a lot of hate online, so he has decided. All right. All right, I'll, I'll absorb the cost. Is that a fair thumbnail of the action so far?

Rod Pyle (02:15:14):
Yeah, I mean, just some details, you know. So on February 26th, reportedly Ukraine asked SpaceX for some help. Okay. A couple days later, Musk said he would, and he's done this a few times, and he did it with the, the cave in, in Thailand where the kids are trapped and so forth with mixed results. But, you know, there is a soul in there somewhere. There's a conscience, I guess. So he's trying, you know. Yeah. I don't think it's all, personally, I don't think it's all just about appearances. I think there is some Jason,

Leo Laporte (02:15:41):
He, he let, I think in Haiti, they, uh, Starling was set up, uh, and the fires up in the Pacific Northwest, he sent Starling. So this was of course, in the early days of Starling. Um, right now is it, why is it so expensive?

Rod Pyle (02:15:59):
Well, that's what's interesting. If you do the math for just revenue, it should be like 3 million a month. But he, he does talk about, you know, there's more cost. You know, I, I guess maybe it's a lost leader right now for them because they're still building out the system. Who knows how they do their math. He's claiming it's more like, uh, what did you say? 20 million a month? Yeah. So you know that that's by many factors more. But, but maybe there's a case there to be made.

Leo Laporte (02:16:26):
You know, what's interesting is Iranian dissidents, you know, there's a little revolt going on in Iran are sneaking starlink into Iran. Not with the help of Elon, but just sneaking it in, hoping to get some internet access in a country where an internet has been cut off.

Rod Pyle (02:16:43):
Well, so here's my take on this. You know, there's a lot of people giving a blow back about, you know, how dare you go to the government demand money. Well, it was requested, you know, they said, Look, we, we didn't intend to this. Definitely, who knew eight months ago that this thing was gonna go on for the better part of a year? Right. I don't think people thought it would last that long. Um, and uh, he claims he's spending a lot of money to guard the system against Russian hacking, which I can imagine is true

Leo Laporte (02:17:09):
<laugh>. Yeah.

Rod Pyle (02:17:10):
Yeah. Because they probably have their best people.

Leo Laporte (02:17:13):
Well, one of the biggest issues I remember when, uh, he first proposed this was those terminals are like a beacon to Russian air attack. Uh, you know, it's just saying, here we are, we're right here over here. So, um, maybe it's not the best way to stealthily get internet access

Rod Pyle (02:17:29):
<laugh>. Yeah. And I wonder if, if their frequency, if their uplink frequency is software driven, or if that's baked into the search. Yeah, I dunno if that's something they can switch.

Leo Laporte (02:17:38):
I would bet with Elon, everything software driven,

Rod Pyle (02:17:41):
You know, they switch radar, uh, signals. Yeah. So, so maybe that's a thing. But it is reported that other companies and nonprofits are starting to pitch in and covering maybe as much of a third of this. So we'll see. Yeah, yeah. You know, but I personally, you know, the guy drives me nuts and it's like, okay, this is great. Stop messing with Twitter, build your rockets, you know, let, let's move on. But

Leo Laporte (02:18:01):
Whatever the news is that I knew, and Twitter will me making a deal in the next five days, otherwise it's back to court. So there's a lot of incentive for them to make a deal. Ah, in the next five days you should hear an announcement. Uh, I don't know if they'll need regulatory approval. I assume they will, but, uh, Elon may take over pretty quickly from here and then it's, then the fireworks should be very interesting. <laugh>.

Rod Pyle (02:18:25):
Well, speaking of the, the fireworks then, uh, last Friday they stacked the upper level of Starship on top of the super heavy booster again using

Leo Laporte (02:18:34):
The giant

Rod Pyle (02:18:34):
Chopsticks in October using Maxzilla. Yeah. And that's good cuz you wanna make you test that thing and make sure it's good for catching stacking and unstacking suddenly fully tested the catch mechanism yet. But they are, you know, making sure the thing works is your arms terms

Leo Laporte (02:18:48):
That in theory could capture, uh, this, the capsule as it's landing and then can restack it for the next launch, which is wild, wild science fiction. Brilliant.

Rod Pyle (02:19:03):
Hose it down, fill it up and off you go again, in theory. But, um, so we're thinking, you know, and, and everything is guesswork, right? Cause you know, they make their announcements on Elon time and then we try and do our math at factor in maybe three times as long. And then there's, there's literally dozens and dozens of people permanently living around star base with their noses pressed to the fence every day, flying drones and watching and reporting from there. So we're thinking, you know, now they're, they've come to an accord with the FAA and so forth about launching these things finally, that maybe in the first two months of next year they'll get that orbital test to SAR ship, which is a big set for them.

Leo Laporte (02:19:39):
Pretty exciting.

Rod Pyle (02:19:40):
We still don't know if it'll work, right?

Leo Laporte (02:19:42):
Yeah. One of the reasons that, uh, that we have Rod on, and one of the reasons we do, uh, the, this week in Space podcast with Rod and te Malik from space.com is cuz things are starting to heat up in space and getting, uh, very interesting, uh, very quickly, very exciting. So

Rod Pyle (02:19:59):
It is, and it's getting the point. We can barely get through our headlines and time to bring our guests on on the podcast cause there's so much to talk about At is Great cuz he's, you know, I do a quarterly magazine and in your show, which is wonderful, he's gotta do space news hour to hour. Yeah. On space.com. So he's, you know, really in the groove. So when I, when I need the very latest the news, I turn to him and he says, No, Rod, that's not true. It's X, y, and z. And I, they

Leo Laporte (02:20:24):
Have actually an excellent video@space.com on the chopsticks picking up the, uh, the booster placing on top. It's kind of amazing to see. Um, yeah, we'll give them a little plug, but mostly give you a plug for this week in space twit.tv. That's my podcast network twit.tv. And the show is t w i s. So the full length url, twit.tv/t i s for this week in space. If you need even more space talk than we have, than we have on this show. Ron and J are you, how long are you gonna stay out at Joshuas tree?

Rod Pyle (02:20:58):
Uh, we're staying through tomorrow night. Very

Leo Laporte (02:21:00):
Nice. Are the, are the shooting stars done? Are they over with?

Rod Pyle (02:21:05):
They go on. They, they diminish after the peak, but don't go on for the next week or so. So going on, taking away

Leo Laporte (02:21:11):
Make a wish for me. Okay.

Rod Pyle (02:21:12):
Well

Leo Laporte (02:21:13):
Thank you so much. Thank you. Rod, pa, Leo LaPorte, the tech guy. Awesome.

Rod Pyle (02:21:24):
Well, I wanted to put in a plug for you for taking a gamble on us, so thank you

Leo Laporte (02:21:29):
<laugh>. We didn't, we didn't take a gamble. It's no gamble my friend. This is all winnings <laugh>. Thank you Rod.

Rod Pyle (02:21:37):
I've got Tiger Blood. Thank you.

Leo Laporte (02:21:39):
Have a great one. See ya. Most of all, I wanna thank Mike Sergeant for filling in for me yesterday. Thank you, Mr. Sergeant. Mike, I'll be back next Saturday, as will I with the Tech Guy show. Thanks as always to, uh, Professor Laura, our musical director for her great work, Spinning the hits from all the way back to 1938. Thanks, uh, to Kim Schaffer, our phone Angel for answering the calls. Of course, your calls are what make this show happen. We couldn't do without you. And, uh, and, and all of you who listen, I really appreciate it. Uh, I am your personal tech guy. Your your guy on the radio. Leo LaPorte, back to the calls. We got time, I think for a couple more. George is on the line from Rochester, New York, former home of Kodak. Hello George.

Caller 9 (02:22:25):
How are you today, Leah? I

Leo Laporte (02:22:27):
Am well. How are you?

Caller 9 (02:22:29):
Uh, very good, thank you. Uh, funny you should mention Kodak. Perhaps there was some parallel to my question. Uh, it seems like, and I know we're gonna have a photo, uh, a discussion later in the show, maybe it could be touched there, but it seems like every time I go to a pharmacy to get my four by six prints, the quality is much better than what I would be able to achieve. Ah,

Leo Laporte (02:22:55):
Yeah.

Caller 9 (02:22:56):
<inaudible> printer. And so now are we able to get printers that utilize this film as opposed to inkjet? Maybe

Leo Laporte (02:23:07):
You can actually get, uh, the same quality you get at the drug store, maybe even better. Uh, but you need a special kind of printer. So an inkjet is a start, but they make inkjet photo printers, which do a better job. And if you then buy better paper, you'll even get a better result. And I would say with the right photo printer, uh, and the right paper, you can get, uh, at least as good a print, uh, as at the drug store, the drug store's using another technology, I think called dye sublimation. And you can get dye sub printers as well. Uh, they're more expensive per print. And, uh, and they, and the, and the, uh, what they call it, consumables, the ink costs more. But you can, you can get a dye sub printer. I don't think you need a dye sub printer. I think just a good Canon photo printer or an Epson photo printer and the right paper. Um, that's the biggest issue I think with photo printing is if you're using the same kind of paper that you use to print documents on the, kind of like the copier paper, you're never gonna get a good result out of that.

Caller 9 (02:24:16):
I, I didn't go to that extreme, but I guess they didn't take paper into

Leo Laporte (02:24:22):
Consumeration. Yeah, it's a big part of it. They sell Matt, they sell glossy, uh, the, the drug store is probably using a glossy photo paper. They might be, they might be using, uh, a traditional inkjet printer, but I think more likely they're using a dis sub printer. You can get dis sub printers for six and 700 bucks. They're not super expensive, but that's why they charge it 20 cents a print.

Caller 9 (02:24:44):
Yeah, I've seen then load up the, uh, the materials. So I think you're, you're acting what they're utilizing.

Leo Laporte (02:24:51):
Yeah, the ink is even more, uh, you know, so it does add up. I honestly think, uh, a Canon pma, which is a, which is their photo printer, um, and, and Canon sells the paper, but you can get it from other, uh, companies. In fact, the same companies that used to make photo printer paper, uh, for people who did their own developing like Elford also make paper for photo, uh, uh, printers. So good paper makes a big difference. Uh, I would get, you can get samples, you know, get five and 10 sheet samples of the, of the glossy and the matte and see what you like. I bet you at your local, uh, drug store, you can choose glossy or matte. Um, so some people prefer one or the other. Uh, Epson,

Caller 9 (02:25:37):
Am I corrected in assuming that if I go to eight by 10, 11 by 14, I'm still gonna achieve a pretty good

Leo Laporte (02:25:45):
Quality? Yes. Yeah. I used to have an Epson photo printer that did 14 by 19. And, uh, you'd buy big, big sheets of 14 by 19 paper. It was expensive, but boy, it would look good. Just make sure when you buy the printer that it says it's a photo printer, cuz that's specifically means it'll use that, those kinds of inks. Um, epson's expression series is the photo series and those are very, very good. In fact, uh, you know, I've, I I've done photos safari as we went to, uh, Australia some years ago, um, with some of the best photographers in the world, including a National Geographic photographer. And we used Epson, uh, big format, 14 by 19 Epson printers to print the prints that we sold in a gallery show afterwards on, on, uh, gallery quality paper with gallery quality, uh, inks. And it would, the image quality was better than you'd get at a drug store because you control it, right? So you can make sure that the color is exactly right and so forth. Sometimes, you know, you'll go to the drug store, you'll get prints back there, a little blue, uh, or a little weird, you know, it's, it's not cheap to do it yourself, but you, if you are a photographer, most photographers do their own printing and they probably do with ink jets,

Caller 9 (02:27:00):
Okay?

Leo Laporte (02:27:00):
Right. So yes, absolutely you can do it. Little expensive, little time consuming and there is some skill involved, but if you're serious, you're gonna get a much better, I think much better result getting a good photo printer. Epson or can. Uh, I, you know, I'm a little, uh, prejudice towards Epson for a long time. Epson is the only one that could do decent black and white Ansel Adams quality black and white out of a inkjet printer. Amazing. Amazing. You're not looking for speed <laugh>, right? Uh, you're probably not looking for low cost, although the printers themselves are for the most part, you know, three, four, $500, they're not super expensive. Uh, and if you get the, uh, inkjet that has the EP tank, they'll be a little more expensive, but the ink will be cheaper. You're gonna get a great result. Go to the, you need to, What you need to do is go to, uh, where could you go? There used to be you could go to a camera store, I don't know anymore, but it'd be nice if you could go somewhere. I doubt it'd be staples where you could see some samples. Uh, the other thing they do, of course, these photo printers will have more than three or even five cartridges. They'll have many cartridges, which give them a much, uh, higher quality, uh, choice of colors. But you can do it. John and St. George, Utah gonna be the last call day. Hi John.

Caller 10 (02:28:26):
Oh, hi Leo. I'm the last in your conga line of idiot dinosaurs.

Leo Laporte (02:28:31):
<laugh> my favorite people. Are you kidding? Don't knock it.

Caller 10 (02:28:35):
Well, you so yeah, you, your show. So great. I've learned so much from working to it. And one of the things is the importance of keeping things up to date. Yes. Which is my concern here. Um, I have a really old Android phone and, um, uh, I have an excuse. I was taking care of my mother in the last few years of her life and, uh, Aw. I didn't have a lot of time and energy to keep things on top of things, but, um, anyway, I'm considering, I couple concerns. One is I'm thinking I might wanna change to an iPhone, try to decide between that and an Android. Um,

Leo Laporte (02:29:14):
I'm a big iPhone fan. Some might say an iPhone sheep or sheep o as they're called. But I

Caller 10 (02:29:22):
Think I do have an I, uh, Mac mini.

Leo Laporte (02:29:24):
Yeah, if you're already using a Mac, you're familiar. I think the iPhone is the easiest to use, the best ecosystem. It is a walled garden, you know, uh, it is not as open, but to some degree that makes it a little bit more reliable and secure. But

Caller 10 (02:29:38):
If I wanted to ever switch back to Android, would it be difficult? No,

Leo Laporte (02:29:42):
No. I, I go back and forth. In fact, I use both. So I have a Pixel seven, The pixel, if you're gonna get an Android phone, in my opinion, you should get one from Google. Uh, either get the Pixel six A or the Pixel seven, which they just came out with. The six A is a good, is a good price, uh, and excellent performance, best camera, just fantastic. And it's the Android ecosystem. I just think the Android ecosystem is a little loosey goosey, a little bit more open. That's why some of us love it, but it may be as a result, a little bit less secure. I think if really I'll, I'll hear, I'll tell you one of the things that was a deciding factor for me. I, there's a big hacker convention in Las Vegas, just happened every, uh, every summer. And I once asked the guy who invented email encryption, Phil Zimmerman pgp, he goes, every year. I said, Would you go with an Android phone? He said, Not in a million years. I go with an iPhone <laugh>, you don't want to go somewhere with a lot of hackers and an Android phone, <laugh>. It's just a risky ecosystem. So for ease of use, familiarity, uh, privacy and security. iPhone's great. The only negative is it's Apple's way or the highway. And some people just don't like that.

Caller 10 (02:31:00):
What do you mean?

Leo Laporte (02:31:02):
Well, the apple apple's a locked down ecosystem. It's one of the reasons they're safer and more private, but they're very locked down. You have to do it Apple's way. Uh, other than that, if you can live with that, I think it's the way to go. Leo LaPorte, the tech guy, have a great geek week. If you've, you know, you used an Android phone for a long time and you feel come more comfortable with, I think there's no harm in going with Android at all. I would get a Google phone, um, because I think they're, they're the cleanest Android Samsung's Okay. Too.

Caller 10 (02:31:34):
The problem is, is going away from 3g. Right. So my provider's offering me a choice of, ah, free and discount phones. Right. And a couple of them are older model iPhones.

Leo Laporte (02:31:46):
Yeah. My mom got sent an iPhone 11 because it supported the new Fi, uh, lte uh, networks.

Caller 10 (02:31:51):
The two they have are at, at a discount are, um, the xr, I guess it's 10. 10. Yeah. And, um, se second generation, um,

Leo Laporte (02:32:02):
The se second generation is more up to date than the 10 R. Um,

Caller 10 (02:32:07):
I know that, but then again, when I look at the valuation online, uh, the, uh, XR is higher valuation.

Leo Laporte (02:32:13):
Yeah. Cause it's a bigger screen and people want bigger screens. They like Yeah. Uh, the 10 R is a great phone. It's just a little old as a few years old. Um, that's why they're, they should be offering you that for free. I would expect,

Caller 10 (02:32:26):
Well actually it would be like $105 and the SES second generation would be 115. That's after a $75 discount. Wow. Um, and then, you know, they have, uh,

Leo Laporte (02:32:37):
What do they offer for Android?

Caller 10 (02:32:40):
Well, of the free ones, I think the, the only one I would consider for free would be the Moto g Pur. But then they have a Moto, uh, G Power, maybe 20, 21 models.

Leo Laporte (02:32:52):
I think the Moto Gs are very good. They're very clean. They're as close to a Google phone as you can get. I don't have a problem with the Motos at all.

Caller 10 (02:32:59):
And then, um, there's, uh, Nokia

Leo Laporte (02:33:02):
Don't get a Nokia. Yeah. I would get the Motos the purest Great. Uh, of the, That's an interesting question. I think I'd probably prefer that to the iPhone. It's more up to date.

Caller 10 (02:33:13):
Okay. And this my, my other concern, um, which might be a consideration here cause I do have some special considerations and, um, I'm con, so one thing I'm concerned about is, uh, first backing up all my, uh, data, the, uh, contacts and text messages and photos in case anything goes wrong in the process. And then the process of transferring it to the new phone. Um, and so, uh, like the, the Android I have on, uh, is Android 4.4 0.2. I discovered that by

Leo Laporte (02:33:49):
Ooh. Oh wow. You know, we're at 13 now, right?

Caller 10 (02:33:53):
<laugh>. I know.

Leo Laporte (02:33:55):
<laugh>. Ow. Yeah, you really do wanna get rid of that phone. It won't work anymore on the networks. Uh, are you on Verizon? Who are you on?

Caller 10 (02:34:03):
Well, it's track phone, which was Spotify by Verizon.

Leo Laporte (02:34:05):
Verizon, Yeah. So Verizon is the end of the year. Yeah. So you have till December 31st, but still, Yeah. It will stop working, uh, as a phone soon. Yeah. Uh, you definitely wanna make the upgrade. I, I think I would of the phones you described the Moto GP I would take

Caller 10 (02:34:22):
And then, um, uh, just, um, you know, I then I discovered it hasn't backed up.

Leo Laporte (02:34:29):
Um, so you go into the settings and go to Google and you make sure that the backup is, uh, enabled and then you press the button back up. Now it's so old. I don't, I I'm hoping, I'm assuming they have that capability back up now and then that'll back up. Uh, most of what you care about, you should, you know, uh, if, if your email is on a provider that, uh, stores the email for you, you'll be good there. Um, you'll have to re-download the apps you want. I don't think that's a bad discipline. Get, you know, don't just download everything willynilly download apps as needed. Um, I don't, I think that that's, that's, that's gonna give you all the backup you need. Just use the Google backup.

Caller 10 (02:35:10):
So I you I've got low memory. It's about 45 megabytes. Oh yeah. That could make more by deleting like the Google Plus app

Leo Laporte (02:35:17):
<laugh>. Yeah, you can, you can delete Google. Plus they discontinue that a few years ago. Yeah,

Caller 10 (02:35:21):
Yeah. Um,

Leo Laporte (02:35:23):
You don't need to delete anything. Just back it up. Get the new phone.

Caller 10 (02:35:26):
But I, what I'm wondering is, can I, uh, I mean track phone suggested I Bluetooth, um, in with my computer to back up stuff. No, then I'd have to transfer one file at time. I'm wondering if I can con, and they were saying because of concern about malware, but I really don't think I have an malware. I had Avast on there. No,

Leo Laporte (02:35:46):
No, don't, don't back up your phone. Just do the Google backup. It's all you need.

Caller 10 (02:35:50):
Well, can I, as extra security just take the cable and connect it to my computer and

Leo Laporte (02:35:57):
Drive. You have Windows or Mac, you said Mac, right?

Caller 10 (02:36:00):
Yeah, I would connect it to a Mac.

Leo Laporte (02:36:02):
So there's a program you need on the

Caller 10 (02:36:04):
Mac to the Mac and then maybe drag and drop it to the new phone. Will that work?

Leo Laporte (02:36:10):
Yeah. There's a program you need on the Mac called Android file transfer. The Mac does not understand Android phones without that. So you put Android file? Yeah, Windows does, Mac does not. You put Android file transfer on there, then you can see the phone. Just like a drive when you first plug it in the phone will say, Do you wanna be, do you want me to be a camera or do you want me to be mass, mass data storage, say Mass data storage. It'll show up as a hard drive. You can drag it and drop it from the phone to the new phone. Absolutely.

Caller 10 (02:36:42):
I need that Android file transfer on the computer, not the

Leo Laporte (02:36:45):
Phone, right? Yeah, on the computer. And it's free. You could just search for it and get it from Google. Um, if you got an, there's also Android backup programs, but I think that's fine. Just use, just use the uh, Android file transfer. Yeah.

Caller 10 (02:36:59):
Okay. And I can do that with, uh, and then for transferring it to like, suppose I want to then drag and drop it onto an iPhone. Will that work? Uh, it wouldn't work with Android file.

Leo Laporte (02:37:11):
No, with the iPhone you need a third party app to copy it onto the iPhone. But when you get the new, if you decided on the iPhone, the new iPhone would say, Okay, do you have data you want to copy over? And I think it would even work with an Android device mostly of the time. In fact, I think this will be true of the Motorola phone as well. It'll say, Do you want me to copy data from your old phone? And you say, Yes, I appreciate your, uh, desire to make a backup. That's a very good idea. Independent of that. So you can use Android file transfer to do that.

Caller 10 (02:37:45):
Okay. Um, I know Trac phone has a transfer, uh, Wizard. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:37:49):
Everybody does this. Yeah.

Caller 10 (02:37:50):
But then you have to put it on both phones and uh, like, you know, my version of Android, so old I went on the Google Play store, I couldn't find the, their Transfer wizard. So maybe it,

Leo Laporte (02:38:03):
Yeah, I wouldn't use anything for don't use track phone's version of that. Just use Google's version of all that stuff.

Caller 10 (02:38:09):
Which

Leo Laporte (02:38:10):
Android file transfer android.com/file transfer. The Google backup built into your phone. There's a checkbox and the button to push. Um, and then, uh, I think if you go to an iPhone, there's a switch program you download that I Apple has that will automatically pull it over from the Android side. Also suggests you use Google's contacts and calendar. Do that now. Set up that now he probably already have. That way Google is always keeping your contacts and calendar and your, uh, and, and basic information on the cloud anyway, so you won't, That's the main thing you don't wanna lose is your phone numbers. Yeah. Yeah. And I use Google Photos, back up the photos and you don't lose those. So Google has solutions for all of this. I would just go with the Google solutions. I think that's the best way to go. In fact, if you use Google to back up your calendar contacts and photos, when you get your iPhone, you just log into Google and it'll all reappear on the iPhone. Yeah. You don't have to do this transfer thing. Yeah.

Caller 10 (02:39:10):
Oh, how do I log into Google on the iPhone?

Leo Laporte (02:39:13):
Do you have a Google account? Yeah. Yeah. So you go to accounts on the iPhone and press the Google button.

Caller 10 (02:39:21):
Oh

Leo Laporte (02:39:21):
Yeah. iPhone supports Google very well.

Caller 10 (02:39:25):
Oh, okay. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:39:27):
Hey, I have to run.

Caller 10 (02:39:28):
Oh, great. Well, thanks, uh, thanks so much.

Leo Laporte (02:39:30):
Okay. John, I'm sorry about your mom and I'm, I'm glad that that's all over and now we can move on. Yes.

Caller 10 (02:39:37):
Yeah. Thanks.

Leo Laporte (02:39:37):
Yeah. Take care. Well, that's it for the Tech Eye Show for today. Thank you so much for being here. And don't forget twit, T W I t. It stands for this week at Tech and you'll find it@twit.tv, including the podcasts for the show. We talk about Windows and Windows Weekly, Macintosh, a Mac Break, weekly iPads, iPhones, Apple Watches, and iOS Today. Security and Security Now, I mean, I can go on and on. And of course, the big show every Sunday afternoon this week in tech. You'll find it all at twit.tv. And I'll be back next week with another great Tech guys show. Thanks for joining me. We'll see you next time.