Emergency phone setup & smart holiday shopping

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's going on.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm Rich Demiro and this is rich on Tech broadcasting
live from Los Angeles, coast to coast. This is the
show where I talk about the tech stuff I think
you should know about. It's also the place where I
answer your questions about technology. I believe that tech should

(00:21):
be interesting, useful, and fun. Phone lines are open at
triple eight rich one oh one. Oh wow, that rhymes.
I never realized that that's triple eight seven four to
two four one zero one. Give me a call if
you have a question about technology. There is no such
thing as a stupid tech question or a question that's

(00:44):
too small. No job too big, no job too small.
Here on the rich on Tech Show. Email is also open.
Just go to Richontech dot tv hit contact. You can
send your message straight to my inbox. I will read
some of the on the show, and of course you
can also put your feedback in for the feedback segment

(01:05):
at the end. Now, I know there's gonna be a
lot of good information in this week's show. You're gonna
be tempted to write it all down, but you don't
have to. All you have to do to see what
I talk about in real time is go to the
rich on Tech wiki that is rich on Tech dot
tv slash wiki wiki. Look for the latest show number,

(01:29):
and that is where you'll find everything I talk about
today in real time. We've got some great guests this week.
Julie Ramhold, consumer analysts with deal news dot com, is
going to talk Black Friday strategies for shopping. Then we've
got Edgar Dwarski, founder of Consumer World. He's gonna share

(01:50):
top tips to get a deal on Black Friday. And
Vitally Pacharski of Slick Deals is gonna highlight some of
the top deals out there for the holiday shopping season.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
You see the theme in this week show.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yes, it is holiday shopping season in full swing, and
I want to make sure that you get the best
deals and don't.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Get ripped off.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
So this week, like many folks that are a little
bit early, I set up my holiday lights and I
just wanted to tell you a funny little story about that.
So I set up my holiday lights and I just
did the inside because this is a big project. You know,
I didn't even do the outside yet, but I did
the inside. You know, you lug all the boxes in
from the garage, you go through what you have number one.

(02:37):
You think you're going to remember the changes that you
made from the year before, like did I get new lights?
Did I get this? How did I put that away?
You forget everything. As soon as you put that stuff
away in the garage. You do not remember a thing.
You're like, oh, next year, I'll remember that I bought
these new lights, or I put these lights on the tree,
or I put these lights outside. Now you forget everything.
So from now on, number one, I'm keeping a holiday

(02:59):
lights journal, and I'm going to write in that journal,
like here's the stuff I bought this year, Here's what
I changed this year, Here's what I did. But that's
besides the point. What I wanted to tell you is
that I set up, of course, everything on the smart
home system. So I plugged all the lights into smart plugs,
and then I set up with Google a command so
I can just say H Google H stands for hey,

(03:22):
turn on the Christmas lights, and boom, all the lights
in the house turn on. And I had them set
up two ways to go off. I had it set
up to go off after twenty minutes of no motion.
And that actually turn out to be kind of a
problem because it turns out I don't walk through my
kitchen where the motion detector is every twenty minutes. And
so I was sitting there scratching my head because the

(03:43):
lights would go off in the house. I'm like, did
you just turn those off? Did you turn them off?
Who turned off the Christmas lights? And I remembered that
I had them set on this motion sensor, so I
disabled that. But I did come up with the command
of turn off the plugs. H Google, turn off the
smart plugs, and that would just turn off all the
smart plugs in the house, which the only ones we're

(04:04):
using are the ones with the Christmas lights. Well, anyway,
I told my wife this and I guess she forgot
and so I come home from work and I say,
you know, turn on the Christmas lights whatever, And they're
not working. Nothing's coming on, and I'm like, what is
going on here? And I'm getting angrier and angrier because
I'm like, this is why technology, this is why it's

(04:25):
so tough for people, because a simple thing just doesn't work.
I set this up yesterday and none of it works. Well,
it turns out after much much anger on my part,
and I wasn't really angry. I was just like this
is so like, this is what I need to talk
about on the show, Like you set this stuff up
and it really doesn't work, Like people need to know
that they're not alone in this stuff. And so I

(04:47):
get a text from my wife and I forget how
this all went. But long story short, she's like, oh,
by the way, I forgot what the command was last
night to turn off the lights, so I just unplugged
them all.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
What.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
I go around to all of the holiday lights and
I see all the plugs pulled out of the wall
because she couldn't remember what the command was to turn
them off. And I am I at this point, I'm
actually my anger went to just laughing out loud because
I said, this is this is hilarious. This is the
reality of tech in our world. Yes, thank you Bobo.

(05:21):
Oh so, anyway, I got a good laugh out of that.
I thought that was just so funny because here it
is all the planning in the world, all of the
technology in the world, and still my wife just goes
ahead and unplugs them, and you know, I'm sitting there
trying to figure out what the heck is going on. Oh,
I thought that was pretty funny. Anyway, just know the
commands for your smart stuff. I thought this was interesting.

(05:42):
This week, I got an email from AMC. I'm part
of that Stubbs thing, and they said, oh, here, thanks
for being a member, and here's how many movies you've
gone too. I pay like twenty five dollars a month
to see as many movies as I want. I thought
it was a good idea, and I looked down the
list and it's like, you've been a member since February
and you've seen nine movies. So I did the math

(06:03):
in my head. Okay, February to now whatever it is,
ten months, I don't know. Times twenty five dollars a month,
two hundred and fifty dollars divided by nine movies. I was
paying like double the I was paying more for movies
than a movie ticket.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
And so I realized something.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
This same exact thing happened to me a couple of
years ago when I got this same exact email for
my gym membership and it was like, hey, Rich, thanks
for being.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
A member of the gym. Here's how many times you
went this year.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
And it was like, I did the math, and I
was like, wait a second, I just paid like this
much per gym session.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
Uh huh, and I canceled that day.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
Now the stubs I haven't canceled yet because I'm still like,
I'm like, Okay, we're getting into the holiday season.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
I'll have some time off, maybe I'll see like two
movies a week. Whatever.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
But it made me realize that if you run any
sort of service where people are paying a subscription to you,
do not send them an email with how many times
they've gotten a use out of that subscription, because no
matter what, someone's gonna do the math and they're going
to realize, hold on, this is not a very good deal.
Like can you imagine if NETFLI send you an email
that said, hey, here's how much you pay, and here's
how much hours you've watched, and you do that math,

(07:05):
You're like, wait, I'm paying like twenty dollars an hour.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
Now.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
Netflix, I think is a bad example because most people
are getting their value. But let's say like one of
these other services, maybe it's like a music streaming service,
maybe it's like one of the lesser streaming services. People
don't want to know this information. Don't give us the
information because then we'll keep paying. So that's a little
tip for your companies out there that want to get
that subscription revenue. Don't give us the numbers. We don't

(07:28):
want to know them. Yesterday at work, we had this
friends giving which was really fun. I was kind of
dreading it just a little bit because you know, when
you get a whole bunch of TV people in a room,
it could be interesting. You know, TV people have a
lot of big personality. So I'm sitting there like, Oh,
what's this going to be?

Speaker 3 (07:43):
Like?

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Is there going to be booze? The answer to that
was really no.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
So you know, we were literally at a brightly lit
bar in Hollywood with no booze and a bunch of
us are just standing around for like forty minutes, and
it actually turned out to be really fun.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
We had a great time.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
I'm all the KTLA folks that I work with, we
just had a great time. Even though there was no
booze flowing. We had such a good time, and so
it was a lot more fun than I thought it
would be, and we didn't want it to end. In fact,
we had a nice Thanksgiving dinner at this restaurant called
Gwen in Hollywood.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Curtis Stone is a big celebrity chef. He hosted us.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
But anyway, the reason I tell you this is because
it was a given that everyone around the dinner table
was taking pictures on their iPhone and they're like, oh, let
me just air drop you those. And I will talk
about how Apple is sort of bridging the gap between
iPhone and Android in the next segment. But it's just
it's still sad to me that people just use these
proprietary eponyms like let me just air drop you, like

(08:44):
everyone in the world has air drop and has that
make someone feel that has a Samsung or a Pixel?

Speaker 1 (08:48):
Not very good.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
So again, number one, don't assume people have it, especially
as the holidays come up. I know you're going to
be exchanging pictures with folks, so let me just go
over the three ways to share pictures. It's not just
air rap, so you can say, let me send you
those pictures.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
What do you have? Do you have an Android? Do
you have a Samsung? Do you have a Pixel?

Speaker 2 (09:05):
So on iPhone, obviously it's air drop and you'd be
surprised how many people don't know how to activate this.
You swipe from the upper right hand corner that will
bring up control panel. Then you tap, just tap like
a press and hold on like the Bluetooth icon, that
will bring up a menu that says air drop. You
press and hold on that and it says everyone for
ten minutes, and that will enable you to share stuff

(09:27):
with everyone that has an iPhone for the next ten minutes. Now,
if you're on Google, they have something on Android for
all Android phones called Nearby Share, and this is really handy.
So if you go into Settings Google Nearby Share, you
can turn it on, set it up, name your phone,
all that good stuff. But then when you want to
share something, just use the share menu and look for
nearby Share and that will share it with other Android

(09:51):
users and they will be able to accept that as well.
They might have to toggle this on in their quick settings,
but it's very simple and it's basically Android's version of
air Drop.

Speaker 1 (09:59):
Now, if you're on.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Samsung, they have a really cool feature that is called
quick Share, and this is a feature that actually works
with both iPhones and other Androids. And so you go
into the gallery okay, and you press share and you'll
see something called quick Share and you can share with
other Samsung devices. But what's neat about this is that

(10:21):
there is a little icon with a QR code. You
can hit that and it will generate a QR code
that the other phone, no matter what phone they have,
can scan, and that QR code will easily have your
photos and videos that you want to share in that
link and so anyone can download those.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
That is a very simple way to share stuff.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
I know people get a bad rap for having an iPhone, Android, iPhone, Samsung,
Samsung whatever.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
So that is three super simple ways.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
To share your photos and videos this holiday season that
does not require airdrop or iPhone to iPhone.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
All right, coming up, what the heck happened to Open AI?

Speaker 2 (11:01):
We'll talk about that plus your calls at Triple eight
rich one O one. That's eight eight eight seven four
to two four one zero one. This is rich on Tech.
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
out with you, talking technology at triple eight rich one
oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two

(11:24):
four one zero one. You can follow me on social media.
I'm at rich on Tech on Instagram, Facebook and threads.
And if you want to link to something I mentioned
on the show, you can go to richon Tech dot
tv slash wiki. Let's kick things off this hour with
Morris in studio City Morris, you're on with Rich Yeah,

(11:46):
good morning.

Speaker 4 (11:46):
I have a situation here. I have a one target drive.

Speaker 5 (11:50):
CD burner and uh, I'm burning making copies of CDs
and they're skipping. They're skipping on the from the drive mechanism.
Is it I'm burningham too fast? Should I slow the
speed down? I don't know what to do about it?

Speaker 1 (12:07):
What? What kind of CDs? Are these? Just standard like
audio scenes.

Speaker 4 (12:11):
Standard the music CDs and but the CD burner I
have also burns Blue Ay disc and DVD also okay,
but I'm not burning Blue Ay Disc or DVD right now,
just standard CDs and make them duplicates. But they're skippy, okay?

Speaker 1 (12:26):
And are they skipping when you play them?

Speaker 5 (12:29):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (12:29):
Okay, so when you play them they skip? Okay.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
So it's been a while since I have since I
have duplicated a CD. I mean, I'm talking it's got
to be ten years at this point, maybe eight nine,
ten years. But I think a couple of things could
be playing could be at play here. So number one,
the CDs themselves could be damaged, so they could be scratched.
I mean, CDs have been out for a while, so

(12:51):
these CDs. Your source CDs could be scratched, they could
have dust, they could have dirt on them, they could
just be deteriorated because they're kind of old. So maybe
that's that's one problem. I think the second side of
this is maybe the software and or the hardware. So maybe,
like you said, you can try doing a slower duplication

(13:15):
because I know back in the day these DVD drives
and they used to have like one x two x,
four x eight x, So it might be that your
computer can't handle the higher speed duplication, so maybe try
lowering down.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
I would assume you've tried that.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
The other part is really the software, so make sure
all of your software is up to date and make
sure that you are running the latest software for no
matter what you're using for both the drive, the drivers
for that, and also the duplication software. And just clean
the CD so you know, use like maybe a microfiber
cloth or something to gently wipe the CD before you

(13:51):
do it. If it's happening with every CD that you try,
I would assume it's a hardware or software issue. If
it's happening with just some of the CDs that you're dupating,
that I think it would be a dirt issue or
an issue with the lens on the drive or something
like that. But that's what I would do. That's what
I would try see if that helps. And you know,

(14:13):
it's hey, you know what, some people are still using CDs.
I guess it's been a while for me, but I
remember how simple they were. It's like you popped one in,
it played the ten songs that were on there, and
you moved on to the next thing. And I played
the heck out of some of my CDs back in
the day. I mean I really did. It was like
it was like, man, those things. Thankfully they didn't wear

(14:35):
out because I would have worn them out. Thanks for
the call, Wars appreciate it. So this is huge, huge,
huge news.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
In the world. Apple.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
Let's file this under can I say hell Hell freezes over?
Because it has. Apple has announced our CS support for
the iPhone coming in twenty twenty four. This means that
the big vide between iPhones and Android when it comes
to text messaging has been bridged. I can't believe that

(15:09):
this is happening. It is such a surprise that Apple
made this announcement. So what's gonna happen. Apple is basically
bringing the standard which is called RCS Rich Communication Services
to the iPhone. This is a standard that has been
on Android phones for a while. It brings I message
type messaging between the iPhone and Android.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
What does that mean?

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yes, the bubbles are still gonna be green when someone
texts from an Android to the iPhone, but they can
now send full resolution pictures, full resolution videos, and you'll
be able to see when they're typing. You'll be able
to see when they've read something if you want. You'll
be able to have just all the features that you
would expect from modern messaging things that we have now

(15:55):
turned to messaging apps like Telegram and WhatsApp that will
now be cross platform. Now, I message is not going away.
Apple still says I message is the best and most
secure way to message between iPhones and that's still going
to be the default. That's also end to end encrypted.
So far, it does not look like the RCS messages.

(16:17):
The text messaging between these two you know, Android iPhone
is going to be end to end encrypted, but it
will be encrypted to a certain level, so.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
It's not going to be the most secure messaging.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
But I think for everyday message messages, it'll still be
pretty good.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
So why did they do this?

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Well, I think there's a lot of pressure on Apple
right now because people are noticing that they are very
proprietary with their systems, especially over in Europe, and Europe's
been passing a lot of regulations. That's why we got USBC,
That's why we may see a more open app store
over there. But I think Apple is seeing what's happening
and they're saying, you know what, We're kind of sick
and tired of being the odd man out at this point.

(16:54):
Let's just give the folks what they want, and what
we want are more open systems and more cross platform systems.
So this whole thing of if you have an Android
and you're sort of lesser than that will no longer
be the case because your messages will go through like
they should, your pictures will look nice, your videos will
look nice. Thank you Apple for doing this, finally getting

(17:16):
on board with what the rest of the with the
providers are doing. All right, Coming up, Julie Ramhold, consumer
analyst with Deal News, gonna join us to talk Black
Friday strategies. You are listening to Rich on Tech. Welcome
back to Rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out
talking technology with you at triple eight rich one oh

(17:38):
one eight eight eight seven.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
Four to two four one zero one.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
I see you're already taking advantage of the website messages
at richontech dot tv, so keep them coming. I'll get
to a couple of those in a second, but let's
bring on my guests. Julie Ramhold, consumer analyst with dealnews
dot com. Julie, thanks for joining me me So deal
news is one of my first stops each day. I

(18:05):
check it each and every day. It's a great website
for finding deals. Can you tell me a little bit
about it? What you guys do there?

Speaker 3 (18:12):
Sure?

Speaker 6 (18:12):
So, we're kind of like a shopping comparison site, and
basically we have a team full of live curators that
go out online every day and sign the best deals
so that we can list them on the site, and
we provide a little extra context about why these deals
are worth shopping. So we'll tell you that something is
twenty percent off, or maybe that something's full price, but

(18:34):
it's been out of stock all over the place, so
now you can actually get whatever that item may be.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, that is my favorite part about the website. Is
that each and every post has a little bit of
perspective with it. So, for instance, you've got this Black
Friday headphone deals at best Buy, and it says we've
pictured the Bows Quiet Comfort forty five bluetooth noise canceling
headphones for one ninety nine, which is one hundred and
thirty dollars off, and so or it'll I'll tell you like, hey,

(19:00):
this is ten dollars less than we've ever seen this product.

Speaker 6 (19:03):
Things like that exactly, And that's really helpful, especially this
time of year when you're trying to decide if the
deals are worth shopping or.

Speaker 7 (19:12):
If you can safely wait until later.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
So I guess that's my number one question. I've already
started sort of making my list and checking it twice,
but I mean, it's coming up. So how do you
think we come up with our strategy for Black Friday
shopping lists?

Speaker 6 (19:28):
So Black Friday has kind of become this elongated season now,
so I feel like if you haven't started making a
list yet, you might be a little overwhelmed, just because
some stores have already started their sales, some have been
rolling out early Black Friday deals, so ultimately the information's
kind of out there and your approach now maybe a

(19:49):
little bit more reactive rather than proactive, but it's not
too late by any means. It's just now's a good
time to start browsing the ads and checking out your
favorite retailers to see what kinds of deals are available.
And then also that'll give you a heads up on
what's coming later in the week as well.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
So do you guys post the actual ads or do
you just post like the best parts of the ads?

Speaker 6 (20:11):
We go through all the ads and basically pull the
offers that jump out at us as being the best
that they're offering, and so we'll post those to like
our store guides as well as the general site too.
So we don't list the ads in their entirety, but
that's probably a good thing because some of them get
really really long and can be kind of convoluted. So

(20:31):
we pull all the best parts out of the ads
and put them up so that our users can have
an easier time of tracking it.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
And I love how you list You've right now, You've
got three hundred and ninety five total offers. Biggest discount
ninety two percent off, average savings two hundred and fifty
three dollars and fifty three cents coupon codes fifty three,
and you can also filter out kind of the three
hundred and ninety five Black Friday offers that you've identified.

Speaker 7 (20:57):
Absolutely.

Speaker 6 (20:58):
Yeah, we've definitely made a lot of strides in the
last five years or so to make the site even
more user friendly so that you can get as broad
or as granular with your searches and your deal alerts
that you want and spend as much time with us
as you'd like to.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
It's so interesting to me that Black Friday used to
only mean waiting in line at the store in store,
and now it is kind of both. It's online and
in store. Have we seen that shift in recent years?

Speaker 3 (21:28):
It is.

Speaker 6 (21:29):
It's definitely shifted more online in recent years because of
the pandemic. I think we were already sort of seeing
things like in store doorbusters disappear.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
I think those videos from uh Walmart, We're not going
to see those this year because those are always so fun.

Speaker 6 (21:49):
We definitely have not seen any stories about tramplings in
the last few years, at least.

Speaker 7 (21:54):
That I can recall.

Speaker 6 (21:56):
But it's true like retailers have kind of already moved
away from that to some degree, and the pandemic really
just accelerated that whole situation.

Speaker 7 (22:04):
So you basically can.

Speaker 6 (22:06):
Find doorbusters online now, and you have a bunch of
major retailers that are closing for Thanksgiving Day, so the
pressure to do at least your initial shopping in store
has kind of disappeared.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
So you deal with this stuff on a daily basis.
What do we need to know in year twenty twenty
three for Black Friday?

Speaker 6 (22:25):
So first of all, I would say check now, because
some major retailers have already started their sales. Amazon started
theirs yesterday, Best Buys started theirs yesterday.

Speaker 7 (22:35):
Targets is due.

Speaker 6 (22:36):
To start tomorrow, Walmart's will start on the twenty second,
So if you haven't started looking at the big eaes yet,
it's a good time to do so, just to get
an idea of what's coming. But also know that most
stores are probably gonna be closed on Thanksgiving Day, and
so that doesn't mean you have to wait until Black
Friday to do your shopping. The sales will start online

(22:57):
if they haven't started already, so be sure to carve
out some time in between carving the Turkey to take
a look at what's online and take advantage of any
early deals online that you can so that you can
kind of avoid the chaos that can.

Speaker 7 (23:12):
Come with Black Friday shopping.

Speaker 2 (23:13):
Where are we seeing the biggest discounts? Is it across
the board? Is it on electronics? Is it on TVs?

Speaker 1 (23:19):
I heard laptops are going to be pretty hot this
year with the discounts.

Speaker 6 (23:23):
Laptops are definitely seeing good deals. I will say one
thing that really stood out to me about TVs this
year is it's become apparent how much more affordable they are.
So a few years ago, I know that we were
all really excited to see like a seventy five inch
name brand TV for six hundred dollars or so, and
that's kind of become a mainstay thing for Black Friday

(23:45):
since then. But it's not six hundred dollars anymore. It's,
you know, five hundred eighty dollars, five hundred and fifty dollars,
depending on where you're shopping and what brand you're looking at.
So in general, TVs have gotten so affordable that you
should be able to find something on Black Friday that
fits any budget. But if you don't, you can also

(24:05):
shop at other times of year. So check back again
in January if you don't see a TV that fits
all of the boxes that you want. But the truth
is that there's so many on sale, and it's so
many different price points. I would be surprised if you
can't find something to fit your budget.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
What about getting taken because this is an easy time
to see a deal that's too good to be true.
You do a search on Google, it comes up with
the price, it's some retailer you've never heard of. You
end up pressing by and next thing you know, it's
not what you expected or I don't know.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
Does that happen these days? And how do you avoid
that it does?

Speaker 6 (24:40):
And I generally say that it's best to kind of
make a list of stores that you know you want
a shop for Black Friday, or the ones that you're
comfortable with visiting if you need to. So maybe you
want to do all of your shopping at Target, but
they sell out of an iPad or something. Rather than
rely on this potentially shady business online that you've never

(25:02):
heard of, be ready to go to Walmart and best
Buy and even check warehouse clubs if you're a member
of like Costco or Sam's Club or BJ's Wholesale. Just
because they may not officially price match, but a lot
of retailers essentially will charge the same prices for the
really popular items this time of year.

Speaker 7 (25:20):
So if it does sell out at one.

Speaker 6 (25:22):
Place, you absolutely should be able to find it at
another reputable retailer without having to go online and do
some heavy hunting.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
I've heard that a lot of these retailers, if it
says Black Friday deal, they won't price match. So can
you touch upon the return, exchange and price match policies
we should know about.

Speaker 6 (25:41):
Yeah, So in general, I say that if you're shopping
for Black Friday, it's a safe bet to just assume
that there will be no official price matching. Like I
said before, that doesn't mean you won't be able to
find the same prices elsewhere. But if you see something
at Target and Walmart is closer, and you try to
get Walmart to price match for Black Friday.

Speaker 7 (26:00):
That's not going to happen.

Speaker 6 (26:01):
So instead of taking that step, what I encourage people
to do is look at what holiday price guarantees some
retailers are putting into place. So, for instance, Target has
its holiday price guarantee that started on October twenty second,
and essentially anything you buy at Target.

Speaker 7 (26:20):
Okay, I shouldn't say anything.

Speaker 6 (26:21):
Most things you buy at Target from October twenty second
through December twenty fourth will fall under this guarantee. So
if you bought them at Target and then they drop
in price before December twenty fourth, you should be able
to get a price adjustment. There's going to be some exclusions,
of course, but for the most part, you should be
able to safely pick up these items now, even if

(26:42):
they have Black Friday Deal on them or whatever, and
know that you're getting a good price, especially because I
don't think Target wants its associates to be doing a
lot of price adjustments later on.

Speaker 7 (26:54):
So the author kind of good that if you see.

Speaker 6 (26:57):
Something labeled a Black Friday Deal at Target, that's probably
the lowest price on that item you're going to see
this season.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
All right, I've got about thirty seconds left. Should this
be fun? Is this a fun time of year or
is it super stressful for the shopping I think it.

Speaker 7 (27:10):
Should be fun.

Speaker 6 (27:11):
I say to you, all your shopping online, and if
you want your item sooner, opt for in store pickup,
and then that makes the whole thing significantly less stressful
in my book.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
All Right, Julie Ramhold, consumer analyst with dealnews dot com.
Thanks so much for joining me today. I really like
the website. Any any feature on the website people should
look for first, just click that big banner that says
Black Friday.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
Huh, I would.

Speaker 7 (27:33):
Say, click that big banner and check out all the
Black Friday deals.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
All right, thanks so much for joining me today. Appreciate it.

Speaker 7 (27:39):
Thanks for having me, all right.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
More of your calls at triple eight rich one O
one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one. My name is Rich d'miro and you are
listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at

(28:02):
triple eight rich one on one.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
That's eight eight eight.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
Seven four to two four one zero one website rich
on Tech dot TV. I got a message from Jen
She said, what the heck? Whose side are you on, Rich,
The wealthy companies, not the people who are forced to
pay subscriptions. Of course, we should know how much per

(28:26):
item view we're paying, and then we can make an
informed choice or continue or not.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
Very strange. Yeah, I was kind of joking.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
I mean, Louck companies could do whatever they want, but
I just thought it's funny. I think it's funny when
they send something that I think the reality is they're
trying to show you the value you're getting out of
your subscription, and in some cases like mine, you realize
just how bad of a value it is. So it's
kind of tongue in cheek. Jen, thank you for listening,

(28:56):
Thanks for the feedback.

Speaker 1 (28:57):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
But you know, sometimes I kind of you know, you
have to have a lighthearted sense of humor. Here, Bob
from Oral Valley, Arizona, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
Hi.

Speaker 8 (29:08):
Rich, I have a question the Higher App. I've got
everything enabled, everything blocking. Every few weeks, I get one
call after the other, maybe twenty or thirty calls within
a minute from a Chevrolet dealer in California. So I
don't want to mention them because they might legitimate. Well

(29:28):
they can't leave a message, but it's annoying. It's just
I can see all the numbers of the calls on
the Higher App. So is there any way to even
block those or just let them come through? And what's
the reason for that same number coming through every few
weeks twenty or thirty calls at a time.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
Well, do you have a car that they're trying to repossess.

Speaker 8 (29:50):
Well, it's funny, you know. It's funny because the day
after I get those messages, I get a message saying, hey,
it's not my name. They say, hey, Johnny, are you
ready for a car alone? So I just send that
to I think it's seven seven two six When that's
reported as a spam.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
Yeah, I mean I think that. I think that it
could be. So it's the same number every time that's
calling you, same.

Speaker 8 (30:12):
Number as the Chevrolet dealer in California, and I checked it.
Although that number for this Chevrolet DIY it'll looks different
than this one. It has their name. So I don't
know how they got my number and why they just
send twenty sometimes it's you know, thirty calls at a time,
just an a loop.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
Wow, that's that's weird. I mean, I don't think the
dealership would be calling like that unless.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
It is I think so, unless it is a case.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
Of mistake and identity and they are trying to reclaim
a car or something, and that could be you know,
they could just have your number popped in for someone
that they're trying to reach.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
I have gotten those calls in the past. Are you
on an iPhone or Android iPhone?

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Okay, So I think even though you're using this high app,
if it's coming from the same number every time, I
would just recommend using iPhones built in ability to block
a number. And so what I would do is go
into your recence, tap the little I that is next
to the phone number, and then scroll all the way

(31:13):
down and it says block this caller. And once you
block that caller, they will not be able to I
believe they It won't even ring your phone once it's blocked.
It's just not going to come through. So again, go
into your dialer app, tap the recens find this phone number,
tap the I next to it, and then tap block
this caller, and that should do it. There are similar

(31:35):
ways of doing that on both the Samsung devices and
the Pixel devices. So again it's the difference between using Hya,
which you're using a third party call screening app, and
using the built in kind of dialer on the phone
to just take care of that call before it even
reaches anything. So that's what I would do, and I
think that should take care of it. Otherwise on the

(31:58):
High app when and just in general with these spam calls.
My recommendation is number one, generally, don't pick them up.
So you don't want to pick them up, because when
you pick them up sometimes it will register your number
as a live number, so they just dial a whole
bunch of numbers and if they see that someone picks
up that number, they're like, oh, we got a good one,

(32:20):
and they may try to call that number again. So
that's generally what I would try to do is avoid
picking up these spam calls at any rate. But for you,
I think getting this number over and over and over,
just go ahead and use your phone dialer to block
that message. Let's go to Jim in Hysperia, California. Jim,
you're on with Rich.

Speaker 9 (32:41):
I ain't Rich.

Speaker 10 (32:41):
How are you doing?

Speaker 1 (32:42):
I am doing great, good good.

Speaker 11 (32:45):
I have a question.

Speaker 10 (32:46):
I ask some speakers from Nests Well that's actually Google.
You know, they're called the Nest Audio Speakers.

Speaker 12 (32:55):
You know.

Speaker 10 (32:56):
I bought them from the Google Store.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
It's like a it's like two speakers basically, they're like
different colors.

Speaker 3 (33:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (33:03):
Yeah. So I have a Wi Fi Spectrum and I
have a six E. It's one of the updated routers,
and it's a it's called the six E router.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
That's the slatest.

Speaker 10 (33:21):
Yeah, so every time that I connect the speaker, it
goes all the way through it and it catches it
and it connects.

Speaker 11 (33:30):
But then.

Speaker 10 (33:32):
That it does something about an ap isolation where it
has to be enabled or disabled called and I've called
the spectrum and they've they've said, you know.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
Uh, you know, they can't help.

Speaker 10 (33:50):
You can't do that or something.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
So on your router.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
So ap isolation is basically a way to ensure that
the items on your network are sort of isolated, almost
like sandbox from other items, so that way they can't
ruin things on your network. They can only access certain resources.
So I think what's happening is it sounds like if
it's giving you that message, either a you're connecting to

(34:16):
a guest network on your router, which I don't think
you would be doing, but if you are, that could
be the number one thing is switched to the standard network,
not the guest network. But if you're on the regular
network and you're still getting this error message, I would
go into your router settings and see if you can
turn off the AP isolation. And there could be different

(34:37):
names for this. It could be wireless isolation, client isolation,
any of those settings. Just look for that and toggle
that off. So the way to find your settings for
any router, they're typically printed on the bottom, and so
you flip your router over and that's the box that
the cable company gives you. Printed on the bottom of
that is usually an address. It usually starts with like

(35:01):
so it's like one nine eight one six eight something
like that. You type that into your web browser. That
will bring you to the settings on your router. And
usually there is a log in username and a password
that is from the factory printed on the bottom of
your router. So once you log in there, you can
look for your settings and look for that AP isolation.

(35:23):
It may take a little bit for you to find it.
You have to go through all the Wi Fi settings
and be careful because you don't want to change a
lot of stuff because these things come from the factory.
If you don't know what you're doing, it could be
detrimental to your wireless setup. Now, if you mess something
up and it's totally not working, there's usually a little
push button on the bottom of your router that you
can press and hold for like twenty or thirty seconds

(35:43):
and it will put everything back to normal factory settings.
So if worst comes to worse you mess something up,
you can do that. But I would look into your
settings and see if you can do that, and once
you turn off this ap isolation, then hopefully these speakers
can be able to get onto your network properly and
talk to each other. The other thing I would do
is just make sure the software on these speakers is

(36:06):
up to date because these have been around for a while.
But the problem is you may not be able to
update them unless you get them on the network, so
it could be a game of chicken and egg here.
So good question, Jim, Thanks for the call today. Triple
A rich one O one eight eight eight seven four
to two four one zero one. This is rich on Tech.

(36:26):
Welcome to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out
with you, talking technology at Triple eight rich one on one.
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one. You can find what I talk about on
the website rich on tech dot tv. If you want
to see what I talk about in real time, go

(36:47):
to rich on tech dot tv slash wiki wiki. All
the show notes are updated in real time. So if
I mentioned something and there's a link that you want
to get, you can get it right from there.

Speaker 1 (36:59):
The show was available as a podcast as well.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
Just go to rich on tech dot tv to subscribe,
or just search rich on tech in your favorite podcast app.
Of course, you can always listen to it right here
and live, which is always the best way and the
most fun. If you're listening to the podcast, by the way,
do me a favor, rate and review it. That way
more people will discover it, and that way we can
be around here longer. So it's always a nice thing

(37:25):
when people do that. Triple eight rich one on one
eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one
zero one big, big, big surprise change at open ai.
This is wild. Now we know that ai is changing
things day by day, but little do we know behind
the scenes of open ai there were some issues. Sam Altman,

(37:45):
CEO of open Ai, is gone. They booted him out
the board of directors. Why they said, based on a
review process they found he was not consistently candid in
his communit locations with the board, which hindered their ability
to fulfill their responsibilities. What does that mean? What's that crypticness?

(38:08):
We don't know.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
All we know is that the board did not like
what this guy was doing.

Speaker 2 (38:13):
This is the guy who invented chat GPT, the thing
that has single handedly changed the world in the last year,
and now he has moved on. Now he did tweet
x whatever you want to talk about and he said, look,
something's next.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
But this was not of his own doing.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
And it's very odd for a company that is yeah,
they've been around for a bit, but just with their
public product of chat GBT, that's only been around for
about eleven months now or I guess almost a year.
And by the way, they just did their developer day
last week, which means this guy was on stage talking
about how great this company is and all the great

(38:52):
things that are coming.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
So he did not see this coming.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
He should have asked chat GBT, what's my future because
he would have found out. Maybe maybe chat GBT knew
before he did.

Speaker 3 (39:03):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
So we don't know what's gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
We don't know what this means for the quality or
future of chat GBT, or if they had something like
you know this, Uh, maybe they had like some humanoid
that they were building that he was secretly hiding in
like a you know, like one of those like alien tanks,
Like maybe he had one of those in the office
and they found it and they're just like, Okay, you
gotta go, dude, this is getting weird. Chat GBT is
getting too human. Anyway, I joke that is a joke, Jen,

(39:31):
don't email me.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
Just kidding.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
Anyway, So we'll see what happens with chat GBT. But
this was a big, big surprise. And I usually don't
talk about, you know, employee changes on this show because
that's not really consumer focused. But it's just very odd
and it is definitely the story that is getting the
most discussion I think I've ever seen on a tech
story in recent years, because it is just wild for

(39:56):
this guy to start such a transformative product and be
booted from his own company.

Speaker 1 (40:02):
Let's go to Jack in Anaheim. Jack, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 12 (40:07):
Hi.

Speaker 11 (40:07):
Rich, I have a primary question, but then when you
talked about chat g TP, I have a second follow up question.
My first question is very simple. I was looking at
some property on Zillo and the picture comes up in
it's it's blurred or digitally sneered out, and I noticed
when I went to Google the same thing. Is there

(40:29):
that the house, the front of the house or the
front of the property is is.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
Yeah, it's blurred. Yep.

Speaker 11 (40:36):
How would I do that for my property? That properties
that I own?

Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yeah, you can do this pretty easily. I actually did
this for Zillo a couple of weeks ago, and I
couldn't believe how fast they did it. So when I
bought my house, all the pictures were on there, and
even though I edited. I claimed my house and I
edited and I said take these pictures off, they still
just remain there like they just every time I said
edit and remove photos, they still were there. And I'm

(41:01):
not talking about the exterior. I'm talking about the interior.
I was like, you know, you could just see in
detail every single room of my home. And so I
was like, eh, I don't really need that, Like why
do I want people to take a tour of my house?

Speaker 3 (41:10):
Right?

Speaker 2 (41:11):
And so I emailed Zillo and I just sent them
my link to you know, the house, and they literally,
within I think it was like an hour, they said,
all right, your pictures are gone.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
Now.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
I didn't blur the outside. I didn't go that far.
But you can do that. So on Zillo, you have
to claim your house. If you've done that, you go
through that process of just going to the website sign
in claim your house and I don't know what it's
been a long time since I claimed it, but basically
you put in your address and somehow you get to
be the owner. I think they check like the property,

(41:42):
like some little bit of info, and you confirm it
with like a couple of questions, then it becomes yours.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
So that's the first thing you have to do.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
If you haven't done that, you do that, and then
you can edit the facts from the owner's view. And
there's a box that says hide photos displayed on your
home's Zillo page and you can save those changes and
those photos will be blurred out and your your photo
of your exterior of your house will be blurred out.
So that's the number one way to do it.

Speaker 11 (42:08):
But I don't want to delete the other photos of
the injurior because I've done so much so I want
to be able to compare that when if I sell. Well,
I like those photos, but I just want to blur
out the front.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
Well, there are different there's you can there's options for
the different photos, so you would just blur the photos
from the outside, so you're doing the opsode what I did.
Now on Google you can do the same thing on
Google Maps. And on Google Maps you can. I'm looking
at the directions here, let's see, so you've got to go.
I don't have the actual directions on how to do it,

(42:39):
but there is a way to do it.

Speaker 11 (42:41):
Yeah, you did great. That's all I need is I
need a a sign pointing me the right direction. You've
done that answer quick question.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
But hold on.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
Here's here's here's the main thing I want other people
to know about. About the whole Google Maps and blurring
out your house. You can never get it back once
it's blow or it does.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
Not come back. So okay, you just need to know that.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
And the way you do it is actually you go
to street View, you go to your house and there's
report a problem, and then you can, you know, go
through the steps and you can say my house request blurring.
I didn't go that far because you know, I just
I once I got to think about that, because once
you do it, it's it's gone. And I have been
on street View and I've seen some of that stuff.
So I'll put those links on the show notes. But

(43:25):
what's the second question.

Speaker 11 (43:27):
You just were talking about artificial intelligence, and I went
on about two weeks ago to chat GPT or whatever
it is, and I needed to ask you. They want
so much information for me to upload it or access it,
and I there was also actually like pictures of you know,

(43:50):
black background with white letters, okay, like copy and paste
to get it to work, okay, And it just seemed
like to INVASI to me, is that How is that
how I would sign up to use it?

Speaker 2 (44:03):
I don't think so, because I signed up in one click.
So I think you're on either a third party site
that is trying to hijack the chat GBT name.

Speaker 1 (44:11):
But the only.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
Website to access chat GBT, and it's free, by the way,
is chat dot OpenAI dot com. So Jack, if you
weren't going to that website, I would go to that website.
I signed up. I rarely do this, but I did
sign up. I signed in using my Google account, so
I just signed in with Google. It gives you the

(44:34):
option of signing in with a couple of different ways,
but I just did that. Now, I did say, let
me see if I see sign up. Okay, Yeah, it's
just you know, ask you for email address. I do
think you have to confirm your phone number though, for sure,
because you know, they want to keep this from being abused,
so you know. But you can also use Google, Microsoft
or Apple to log in as well. I don't typically

(44:55):
recommend that, but for trusted websites like an open ai,
I think that's fine. But I would check out chat
dot OpenAI dot com. That is the official website. They
also have an app for the iPhone and for Android.
But keep in mind there are a lot of what
I call kling on apps. These are third party apps
that are using the Chat GBT name, and you just

(45:16):
have to be careful. And it gets a little confusing
because here's the thing. Many products use GPT for or
GPT that is a product from CHATGBT, and companies have
the option of using chatgpt's technology to build their own
AI products, and so it gets very confusing because yes,

(45:37):
a product like Notion or a product like Everno or
any app that you download nowadays, it says, hey we
have AI and it's usually a GPT and usually on
the back end it is being powered by OpenAI's GPT technology.
But the official CHATGPT lives at chat dot OpenAI dot com.
That is the website you want to go to and

(45:59):
I actually have been using chat GBT more. I was
using Claude by Anthropic, but with this latest I pay
for the twenty dollars a month for chat gbt the premium,
and it is just quite incredible what it can do.
If you want to see an example, I actually posted
a picture today on my Instagram uh and my stories
at rich on Tech, and I ask people if they're

(46:20):
watching the USC or UCLA game, and the picture I
have on there is actually AI generated. It is just
wild what this thing can do. All right, great questions, Jack,
Thanks so much for the call today at Triple eight
rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to
two four one zero one. This hour, we've got Edgar Dwarski,

(46:41):
founder of Consumer World, coming up, plus more of your
questions right here on rich on Tech. Welcome back to
rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you,
talking technology at Triple eight rich one on one eight
eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.

(47:01):
Coming up this hour, we're going to talk to the
founder of Consumer World, one of the websites that I
visit every day, Edgar Dwarski. He's going to share top
tips on how to get a deal on Black Friday. Plus,
I'm going to tell you how to set up emergency
services on your smartphone. Very very important. Let's go to
Ken in Aurora, Colorado. Ken, you're on with rich All.

Speaker 13 (47:24):
Hi, thanks for taking my call. Well, I'm just calling
on behalf of a friend of mine. Her relative is
planning to buy her a brand new phone smartphone and
then put that phone on the relative phone service company,
and then the relative would then be paying that.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
Phone bill for her nice relative?

Speaker 13 (47:50):
Yeah, what's that?

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Nice relative?

Speaker 13 (47:53):
Yeah really, I've been I was a petted about that myself. However,
my friend has a fairly new Moto Gen Android smartphone,
and that of course has her photos and her phone
list and all the apps that she enjoys. And so
here's my question of instead of that relative buying a

(48:13):
brand new phone and shipping it to it, would it
be doable for my friends to ask her relative to
use the I M E I numbers from the Moto
g at the phone store to switch my my friend's
phone service over to the relative's phone service by computer
at the phone store without having without having the relative

(48:37):
buy a brand new phone. Is that doable?

Speaker 1 (48:40):
Oh? You lost me? I'm confused.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
Okay, So so the okay, you've got you've got the
Moto G phone.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
Is that already? Is that the old phone or the
new phone?

Speaker 12 (48:50):
That's the old.

Speaker 13 (48:50):
Phone okay, once she had that at this moment.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
Okay, she's got that phone, and then she's she's going
to get a new phone.

Speaker 13 (48:58):
Yeah, her, her, her, the relative wants to buy her
a new phone.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
Okay. And the relative lives somewhere.

Speaker 13 (49:03):
Else correct, yeah, her relative of Oh.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
And the relative is going to pay for the phone,
and she's going to pay for the service.

Speaker 4 (49:12):
Correct.

Speaker 2 (49:13):
Yeah, So the relative should buy the phone where she lives,
buy the phone, go into her carrier, activate the phone,
and then ship it to the person that's going to
use it.

Speaker 13 (49:23):
Okay, Yes, that's correct. That that that is the plan
at the moment. Okay, but what but what I'm asking
And to save this relative some money? Yeah, and to
make it more straightforward for my friend to hang on
to her her photos and her apps and the phone
that that are on the old phone. Uh can uh?

(49:45):
And my friend's relative takes the I N E I
numbers from the Moto G to the phone store where
she was planning on buying the new phone, and then
just the employee there using those I am I numbers
just uh kind of by remote controls with the phone

(50:08):
service from the old phone.

Speaker 1 (50:12):
I'm sorry, Yeah, it's possible. It's possible.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
I'm a little confused, but it's one hundred percent possible
that you can you can activate a phone using just
the Imei numbers. That's that's pretty much how all of
the carriers do it nowadays. But what's confusing is your
friend has to procure the new phone. How's she getting
the new phone?

Speaker 13 (50:30):
Okay, Well, the plan was, like you said a few
months ago, the rug is going to go and buy
the phone and put that phone on the relatives phone
service and then then ship it to my friend. Yeah,
well and but uh uh but that but there's nothing
in that plan about saving my friend's photos.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
Well it's a friend, okay. So when that's on on
the Moto G, when.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
The friend gets the phone, she transfers the stuff from
the Moto G to the new phone. She's going to
have both phones, so it'll be easy to transfer the
stuff over. So it's whether the phone is activated or
not doesn't really matter. I mean, it's going to be
activated when she gets it. Now, if you're asking me
if the if the relative, if the person that's getting
this phone can go out and buy it themselves and

(51:16):
then activate it like remotely on the other person's account,
that could also be an option. And it's not that nothing.
The carriers don't require a physical phone in their hand
to activate it. If it's if it's being activated without
a SIM card, usually it's it's being activated nowadays with
an eSIM So you can do that online.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
You can do that on the phone.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
In fact, they don't want you to come into the
store anymore because guess what that costs them money because
they got to use one of their employees, so they
would they would rather do this online. And yes, it
can all be done online. But the question is, because
this phone is being used by a third party that
is not the person. Your your friend is not going
to be able to active this phone on their own

(52:01):
because she's not the account owner. So it may come
into play where you have to put your the person
who's getting this phone has to put the other person
on the phone third party, and they have to get
permission and be on the line to activate this phone
because otherwise, you know, and I could just say, oh,
I know your account number, and I can activate a
bunch of lines.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
But that's that's how I would do it.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
I mean, it sounds a little complicated, but the bottom
line is that your friend has this Moto G phone
unless they're trading it in, which you didn't say that.
Unless they're trading it in, she's still going to have
that phone when the new phone arrives to her, whether
your friend is sending her that phone, whether she's going
out to Best Buy and purchasing that phone. But usually

(52:41):
if you purchase a store like that, they want to
activate it in the store. So your friend who is
getting the phone or giving them the phone needs to
buy this phone online from like an Amazon or an
Apple dot com and just ship it directly to this person.
And that's what I would do. When the person gets
the phone, they can call their friend and you know,

(53:01):
activate it with them on the line, call the you know,
do a three way call whatever, and activate it through
the cell phone company on that. But no, the phone
does not necessarily need to be in the physical presence
of the store to activate. Many of these activations could
be done online unless the phone doesn't support an eSIM
and then it would be a little bit of a problem.
So Ken, thanks so much for the call. Hope they

(53:23):
get that sorted out. But it sounds pretty straightforward. I mean,
it's obviously it's easier to be in person, but these
things can be done. Kids are at college all the
time they get phones activated by their parents that are
in different states that are still footing the bill. Because
that's the best part about being in college. Your parents
probably still pay for your stuff. Edgar Dwarski, founder of
Consumer World, joining me next right here on rich on Tech.

(53:47):
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here talking
technology with you at Triple eight rich one on one
eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one one.
Another website I check on a daily basis, Consumer World. Yeah,
I check a lot.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
Of websites on a daily basis.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
This is run by Edgar Dwarski, and Edgar is on
the line.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
Edgar, thanks for joining.

Speaker 12 (54:14):
Me, Hi, Rich, thanks for having me on the program.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
Thanks for doing this.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
You posted about let's see ten tips to bag a
Black Friday bargain. Now you've been covering this stuff for
a long time. First off, just tell me about the
website consumerworld dot org.

Speaker 12 (54:31):
Well, I started Consumer World probably back in nineteen ninety five,
you know, three months after Amazon and eBay who were born.

Speaker 13 (54:39):
I should only.

Speaker 12 (54:40):
Make half their money, oh Man, or a tiny percentage
of their money. It's basically consumer education website. I'm a
consumer lawyer. I've worked at the AG's office in Massachusetts,
and I try to teach people how to be smart
with their money, don't get taken by scam. And since

(55:01):
I'm a bargain hunter at heart, I always look for
a bargain of the week and once a year I
do my top tips to find Black Friday bargains. And
let me tell you, it's getting harder and harder every
year because of the way retailers have kind of jumped
the gun.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
What do you mean by that?

Speaker 12 (55:20):
Retailers used to have Black Friday novel idea on Black
Friday itself, and then they started offering deals on Thanksgiving,
and then they started on Wednesday before Black Friday, and
then Sunday before Black Friday. Now as soon as November
rolls around, they do multiple things. I mean, for example,

(55:41):
Walmart did part one of their Black Friday sale and
it began I think on the eighth or ninth of
the month, and it's already over, and those deals are
not necessarily being repeated, so you don't know when to strike.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
Like the old days, you knew that you were getting
the best on you know, Black Friday, if it was
a doorbuster or whatever. Now it's just getting tougher because
the time is getting longer, and so you're like, wait,
do I get it?

Speaker 3 (56:08):
Now?

Speaker 1 (56:08):
Do you think it's gonna be better closer to the holiday?
So I understand that exactly.

Speaker 12 (56:12):
So it's very difficult to know. And this year the ads.
You know, there are several websites that get the ads
leaked to them so you can do your comparison, but
even those were late this year. I mean, for example,
home Depot and Low's still haven't put their ads out
for Black Friday itself, so who knows what kind of

(56:32):
great deals they're going to have then.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
Well, so your first tip is to read the ads.
And so, like you said, it could be tough to
get some of these, but to look at the ads
that's obviously number one.

Speaker 12 (56:44):
Then look at the ads. Go to Blackfriday dot gottadal
dot com. Most of the ads are there, so you
can kind of let your fingers do the walking and
begin to write down model numbers of ones that you're
interested in, and then you say to valuate the deals, right,
you know, getting getting a good price on allows your

(57:05):
product is no bargain. So there are TV's galore, you know,
go to I happen to Like r things dot com,
r T I n G s dot com. I'm sure
you've recommended to your listeners other places to check reviews
and see is this really a good TV or not?

(57:26):
And the same thing with other products, you know, go
to consumer reports, read reviews, you know on Amazon and
best Buy and Target. They want to be educated and
not just be lured by, you know, forty percent off
fifty percent off list price when no one ever pays
the list price.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
Yeah, and the website that has the funny name camelcammelcammel
dot com. That's a great one for Amazon because you
can pop in a ur L and you know, a
product and you know, let's say Amazon is selling something
for you know, eighty dollars. You can look at the
price history. How has it been eighty dollars seventeen times
this year? Or is this the lowest price it's ever been?

(58:04):
And so that's a really good way to do it.

Speaker 12 (58:06):
Oh, absolutely, that was That was my third tip because
most of us don't track product prices all year, so
how do you know if what they're advertising really is
a good deal or not. And as you say, you know,
look at Camel, Camel Camel, see what the price history
was at least at Amazon and some of the third
party sellers.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
What's this triple play you're talking about?

Speaker 12 (58:27):
This is mostly at JC, Penny and Coal's. The idea
is to maximize your savings. Look for great deals. To
start with, is there a coupon so you can get
an extra twenty percent off or five dollars off a
twenty five dollars purchase, and then see if there's a rebate.

(58:48):
So if you get all three, even though it's technically
a triple play, I think that's a home run.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
Now, what about these you say to you know, the
early bird gets the lacklustered doorbusters, and then you say
to beat the early birds.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
What do you mean by that.

Speaker 12 (59:02):
Well, basically you need to be early. These are limited
quantity deals, particularly on the better bargains, and sometimes you know,
some places like Walmart, for example, puts the items online
prior to it being available in the store, and you know,
there's not unlimited quantities. You're not going to be able

(59:22):
to get a rain check, so you got to be early,
whether it's going online to get it as soon as
the sale begins or going to the store when the
door's open. I tell you, I miss the days that
you have to get up at four in the morning
and go out to Cohl's or Staples for a five
am or six am opening.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
And I did that many many times in my earlier
years because it was so fun. It was almost like
you had this camaraderie with folks that were standing out there.

Speaker 12 (59:50):
Because absolutely you bonded with the other crazy people like
you exactly and the doors open and to be this
mad dash, all that's gone. As I said at the top,
retailers have taken the fun out of Black Friday by
stretching it out all month.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
Any other tip that you want to mention.

Speaker 12 (01:00:10):
Just, you know, get a gift receipt if you're going
to give the thing as a present. And one of
my big tips be sure you keep checking prices just
because you think you've you know, filled most of the
items on your shopping list. The shopping in comparison pricing
doesn't end. There many stores have price match guarantees, So

(01:00:31):
keep looking at the ads, and if there's a better
price before the period runs out at the particular retail,
go back to the store and get back the difference,
and if they balk at it, return it and then
repurchase it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
There you go.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Do you think people are getting scammed more now or
back when you started? Consumer World?

Speaker 12 (01:00:51):
In general? I just think scams are far more prevalent.
I mean, in nineteen ninety five, the internet was very new,
you know, so we're talking about so many years later.
I think scammed, particularly around the holidays. Just be careful,
don't click on links, and I'm sure you've taught your
listeners hover over the links, see where it's really going.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
My favorite the stuff, my favorite thing that you post,
by the way, is the shrink flation stuff, because I mean,
I'm not kidding, every product that I remember from you know,
my childhood or whatever, it's all just smaller. Everything's just tinier.
But it's like the same price, if not more, right.

Speaker 12 (01:01:30):
And if you don't pay attention to the net weight
or the net count and size of sheets on paper
towels and toilet paper, you're really getting less for your money.
It's a sneaky way to pass on a price increase.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
All right, we're going to leave it there.

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
Edgar Dwarski, founder of Consumerworld dot org.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
Check out his website.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
It is definitely a great a great stop each and
every day to kind of see what the world is,
what the world needs to know about shopping and deals
and all that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
Okay, that's fine, I'll take I do it every day,
but you know, but for yeah, once a week is great.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
Thanks for joining me today.

Speaker 12 (01:02:07):
Thanks.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Ch All right, let's see. Let me tell you about
this quickly before the break. Apple is extending its Emergency
SOS via satellite for an extra year for free. So
when this first came out on iPhone fourteen, they said
users were going to get it for two years. They
have now extended that for a third year. And this

(01:02:27):
is available on the iPhone fourteen and fifteen models. This
allows you to text with emergency services even if you
don't have a cellular or Wi Fi signal. It will
reach up into space and find a satellite and get
your message for help through. And I actually interviewed a
woman who was on a hike and she fell. Actually

(01:02:47):
she didn't fall, she just stepped on some ground that
gave way and her ankle popped and broke basically, and
she was stranded, and her friend tried dialing nine one
one on their phone and it didn't work, and she
goes here, try my phone, and lo and behold, it
had this new feature. She even know about it, and
it connected to the satellites. I interviewed the first responders
and they said, yeah, these things are literally saving lives

(01:03:10):
on a weekly basis. So I'm still waiting for Android
to get this feature. But if you have it on
your iPhone fourteen or fifteen, get familiar with it. It's
called Emergency SOS via satellite. It could definitely save your life.
The other takeaway I had from interviewing the first responders
is don't discount texting nine one one, Like a lot

(01:03:31):
of places will let you text nine one one, And
even if you don't have this satellite feature, try texting
nine one one if you don't have a signal, because
sometimes that'll go through and it sounds like when you
text nine one one, a lot of these places will
get your location and other data about you that can
really help them find you. So obviously calling nine one

(01:03:52):
one still kind of like the gold standard, but texting,
if it's available where you are, if you ever needed it,
that's a really good way to get in touch with
first responders. And a lot of people don't even realize
that's a thing. So check it out. See if the
city that you live in or the county you live
in offers texting to nine one one. A lot of
them do, which was very surprising to me. Coming up

(01:04:13):
after the break, I'm gonna tell you how to check
the emergency settings on the Samsung, on the Pixel on
the iPhone, so you are fully prep no matter which
phone you have for an emergency, hopefully you never need it.
Plus your calls at Triple eight Rich one o one
eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one.
This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.

(01:04:34):
Rich Demiro here talking technology at Triple eight rich one
oh one eighty eight seven four to two four one
zero one. Karen in Orange County, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 14 (01:04:51):
Hi, how are you? I gotta tell you I listened
to Leo Laporte for yours and you were killing it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:58):
Oh thank you, I mean so much.

Speaker 14 (01:05:00):
I don't want to put him down. No, No, Leo
it's justos for what you're doing.

Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
Thank you. I just take a little different approach. I
love Leo.

Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
I think that he did a great job and still
does on his.

Speaker 14 (01:05:12):
Show, an excellent job. I'm just yeah, it's pretty hard
to step in somebody else and shoes and do that's
a fine job that you're doing well. Thank you, And
I'm very very untechi. You're gonna probably tell me in
the second one I'm doing wrong. But I acquired a
new credit card a few months ago for the bonus
points of course, like those of us cent are into

(01:05:34):
that du so, I could use it towards a airfare
or a hotel and I always paid off within the
next month.

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):
Okay, good this time.

Speaker 14 (01:05:43):
I mean I would never get a credit card unless
I did that. I learned my lesson medi.

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
So did I.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
I yeah, I got the free T shirt in college,
and next thing you know, I had five thousand dollars
worth of debt and I don't know where it went.
I have no idea how I acquired it, but it
took me.

Speaker 14 (01:05:58):
My friend talked me into doing it, and I could
have killed him when all of a sudden, all these
charges show up. That's why he's an X anyway. I
you know, I study religiously my credit card statements, just
like I do my checking out every morning. The first
thing I do when I wake up, after I make

(01:06:18):
my coffee is to see if there's any unouth right charges.
So on this new credit card, and I don't know
if you want me to mention the bank or not.
There's this unouth right charge and it's PayPal. I don't
use PayPal. I did years ago only to help out
my nephew in another city because he needed money and
I didn't. I didn't have a way to. I wouldn't.

(01:06:41):
I don't send checks or I don't do anything like that,
so it is right. I called the credit card company.
Usually this is taking care of in a split second.
They go, well, we have to call the party you
paid the money to, And I said, why did you
know who they are? And I do donate to several
animal organizations, but that's why I've never heard of They're

(01:07:03):
not even in the United States, They're in counter and
so they go, well, we'll call them. I said that
I'm telling you right now, it's not an osright churne.
So they insisted on doing their thing, and then the credit.

Speaker 1 (01:07:18):
Card or the or PayPal.

Speaker 12 (01:07:20):
Credit card okay?

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
Good? So credit card okay?

Speaker 2 (01:07:22):
So, I mean at the end of the day, since
it is a credit card, you just don't pay if
it's not, you know, you just dispute it.

Speaker 14 (01:07:28):
Look figure, But they keep putting it. They reversed charges
and put it back on my billigin and I said,
I'm not paying for something I never all run okay,
And then I called the company and they're going, well,
you know, we don't we can't control it. PayPal this
you know they charged us to see if we reverse it.
I excuse me, anyway, I still don't. I called back

(01:07:51):
this credit card company and I said, are you kidding me?

Speaker 13 (01:07:55):
How how do you.

Speaker 14 (01:07:56):
I've never in my home and I've had I have
a have a Who cares that my credit rating as
above eight hundred? I said, who done this?

Speaker 12 (01:08:05):
Though?

Speaker 14 (01:08:06):
I said I didn't own ra take away all the
company said that it went through faith.

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):
Now all right, well here's here's here's what I think
you should do, Karen. So a couple things. Number One,
ditch this credit card because they suck the fact that
they are questioning your dispute is just absolutely insane to me.
So you got to get a new card or no
card at all if you want to avoid stuff like

(01:08:30):
this in the future. And I understand it's scary to
use debit because you know, if something like this happens
with a debit card, it's on you and it's not
on your credit card. So you got to this card
is no good because there this company is really really bad.
So that's number one. Number two, you got to go
into your PayPal account. So it sounds to me like
your PayPal account was either hacked or you did make

(01:08:54):
some sort of payment on this account a long time
ago and it turned into a recur or authorized payment,
and this can happen, and this is what you know.

Speaker 1 (01:09:03):
These companies are set up like this.

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
They want you to they want this to happen, and
so they make it really easy to make these transactions recurring,
and they make it really tricky to find the root
of them. And I just logged into my PayPal to
kind of see where all this stuff lives, and it
took me a bit to find it. And I do
have a couple of recurring payments on my PayPal and
so you know, these are things that every year they

(01:09:26):
surprise me. I go, oh, yeah, I forgot I put
that on my PayPal And of course we all do this,
and they love that we do this because everyone gets
a little piece of these payments. So log into your
PayPal count. If you can't remember what your information is,
you got to do a password reset whatever. Get into
your account, press the settings. First thing you need to
do is just look at your your activity and see

(01:09:49):
the activity on there. And if there's any activity that
you don't recognize, like me, I've got a payment in
August for thirty eight dollars. You can look at this
payment and there's a re or a problem. So that
is the number one thing you can do to figure out,
you know, if that payment was wrong, you can press
that button. The other thing is to see if these

(01:10:10):
are recurring payments. So go into the settings. That's the
gear icon upper right hand corner, and you will see
what is labeled as payments up at the top, and
you click that and you're gonna see online purchases, in
store purchases, and then you scroll down it says automatic payments,
View and update all of your subscriptions and automatic payments.

(01:10:32):
Now I think this should be on the front page
of PayPal. Of course, it is one, two, three, at
least three clicks in and a scroll. So you go
there and you can now see all the different things
that you have linked to your PayPal, and for me,
it's a whole bunch of stuff. Some donations I've done. Netflix.
At one point I must have had connected to hear

(01:10:52):
Skype Doctor Squatch, which I do like. I like their soap.
I'll admit I made fun of them during the Super
Bowl commercials and I end up buying it and I
love it. So that's on my PayPal apparently. And then
you can go to your inactive so if you want
to get rid of those payments, go in there and

(01:11:12):
make sure they are either stopped or disconnected. And then
that will you know, says remove PayPal as a payment
method on my bill aer here direct TV, and so
you can remove that as a payment method, and it
says this will cancel your auto pay for Direct TV.
You can do that and then you can make sure

(01:11:34):
that that will never be charged again. The other thing
I would say to do is go to your wallet
on PayPal and remove all of your payment methods. So
right now I have at least one, two, three, four
payment methods on there. You can go through and remove those,
and they may be tricky and they may not let
you remove like the last one, but hopefully you can
remove all of those. And if that credit card that

(01:11:55):
you're talking about is on there, you should remove that
as well.

Speaker 1 (01:11:59):
So, Karen, that's what I'd recommend.

Speaker 2 (01:12:02):
And if you listen to this show, which just sounds
like you do, you know, I'm not a huge fan
of credit cards. I do try to default to cash
and debit as much as possible, but I understand they
are sort of a necessary evil, especially when you're playing
the points game, which can be kind of fun, but
you can also get burned. So just be careful out there,
rich on Tech. That closes out this hour. We'll be

(01:12:23):
back with more rich on Tech at Triple eight rich
one on one eighty eight seven four to two four
one zero one right after this.

Speaker 1 (01:12:33):
Welcome back to rich on Tech.

Speaker 2 (01:12:35):
Rich DeMuro here talking tech at Triple eight rich one
oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four
one zero one. You can find me on social media.
I am at rich on Tech on most of the media.
I Instagram, Facebook threads. Oh I did something on Instagram

(01:12:56):
which is kind of fun. I'm still trying to figure
out what the point of it is. But it's called
a broadcast channel, so it's called rich on Tech Direct,
and if you join, I can basically send you links
in your messages of you know, stuff I think is
important or interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:13:15):
So I don't really know how you sign up.

Speaker 2 (01:13:18):
I guess you just go to my Instagram and just
somehow on there it says join the broadcast channel. I
think you can go to my stories too, But anyway,
I got a couple thousand of you on there, and
like last night, on a Friday night, I just sent
a I sent a voice memo and so I could
just like literally talk to you.

Speaker 1 (01:13:38):
It's so weird.

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):
It's kind of like, I guess it's kind of like
the radio because you can't talk back, though that's the
weird thing.

Speaker 1 (01:13:43):
You can't respond, so it's like a one way street.

Speaker 2 (01:13:46):
So I'm still trying to figure out like what the
point of it is, but it's kind of fun, I
guess for links anyway, So if you're on Instagram at
rich on Tech, check out the rich on Tech Direct
And if you want a link to anything I mentioned here,
just go to.

Speaker 1 (01:14:00):
Rich on Tech dot tv.

Speaker 2 (01:14:04):
I'm coming up and going to tell you how to
set up the emergency settings on your Samsung, on your Pixel,
on your iPhone. But first, let's Bill's been on hold
for a while, So let's get to Bill in Altadena, California.

Speaker 1 (01:14:16):
Bill, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 3 (01:14:18):
Hey.

Speaker 9 (01:14:18):
Rich, So I have an Alexa and we got a
smart plug and we gave it a command to go
on at a certain time, and it's been the wrong
and we've been unable to cancel that instruction keeps going
on at the wrong time of day.

Speaker 2 (01:14:40):
Okay, I lost you a little bit there. So you
basically set up a smart plug. You you gave it
a routine, and now you can't get rid of that routine.

Speaker 3 (01:14:51):
Correct.

Speaker 1 (01:14:51):
Okay, have you gone into the Alexa app, Yes, and.

Speaker 9 (01:14:56):
Deleted the routine, but it still continues on.

Speaker 1 (01:14:59):
Oh wow, on even after the routine is dead.

Speaker 15 (01:15:03):
Uh yeah, Well you sound like my story at the beginning,
because these things seem to have a mind to their own.
An Alexa specifically, it seems to really like root its
way into a lot of stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:15:15):
Now, there's a couple of things that could be happening here.
Number one, have do you do you want to just
remove this plug altogether from your Alexa or do you.

Speaker 9 (01:15:24):
Still want to be able to remove it and reinstall it?

Speaker 2 (01:15:28):
Yeah, I mean that's an option that's like the nuclear option.
If you want to try that, that might be the
best way to do it if you can't figure it out.
But there's a couple of things. So Alexa does this
thing called hunches. I don't think it's that because it's
happening at the same time every day, the exact time that.

Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
You set it.

Speaker 8 (01:15:44):
Correct.

Speaker 2 (01:15:44):
Okay, So it sounds like either this plug is sort
of like hard coded to turn on and off. Did
you use the Alexa app to create this routine or
did you use the what's the brand.

Speaker 1 (01:15:55):
Of this plug?

Speaker 9 (01:15:57):
Amazon?

Speaker 1 (01:15:58):
Oh, it's Amazon's own plug Okay.

Speaker 9 (01:15:59):
So it is the but use we use the Alexa
to create it?

Speaker 1 (01:16:02):
You did use the Alexa to create it? Okay?

Speaker 2 (01:16:05):
So I think, uh, it sounds like you want to
remove this from your Alexa altogether. Have you tried doing
that by going into devices and then and then settings
and then trashing that device?

Speaker 1 (01:16:15):
Have you tried that?

Speaker 12 (01:16:17):
Uh?

Speaker 9 (01:16:18):
Oh, trashing the whole Alexa device?

Speaker 1 (01:16:19):
No, well, the the just the smart plug.

Speaker 9 (01:16:23):
No, we haven't.

Speaker 1 (01:16:24):
So that's the.

Speaker 2 (01:16:24):
First thing I would do. So open up the app
and open up go to all device or go to
devices and then go to all devices, select that device
whatever that plug is. If you have a bunch of them,
it may may take you a little bit to figure
out which one it is. Uh, select that plug and
then choose settings, and then there's a way to trash
it and that will remove it from your Alexa completely,

(01:16:45):
and then you want to go through the repairing process
of setting it back up with your Alexa, which.

Speaker 1 (01:16:50):
Should be pretty quick and easy. Yeah, yeah, added device.

Speaker 2 (01:16:55):
That would be probably what I would do first. The
other thing you can do is just factory reset the
actual plug, and usually that will erase all of the commands.
The problem is if once you repair it and Alexis says, oh,
it's the same plug, it may just send it that
command again, and that that could be a possibility. So

(01:17:17):
I have some of these smart plugs, and I'm not kidding, Bill,
I have set up like five, six, seven years ago,
and they still every year I plug them in for
the holidays and they still just follow the routine that
I put on them, like literally eight years ago. And
so these things do last or like a you know,
it's like a zombie, they just continue to follow the
same thing. And then the other side of this is

(01:17:38):
that some of these devices, like a Weimo or a
Genie or a Greenie, whatever the name is, sometimes they
have their own apps, and if you set up the
routine or the time on off through those apps, they
may continue to follow through with that routine even if
you're not using that app, or if you delete it
from your phone. So it kind of hard codes the

(01:18:01):
device to say, hey, go in on this time, going
on that time, or does it from.

Speaker 1 (01:18:04):
A server level.

Speaker 2 (01:18:05):
So there's a lot of different ways that these things
can get very very confusing, very fast. But what I
would do is just delete that device altogether, maybe do
a factory reset on it, and you can just Google
for the instructions on how to do that for that
specific device, but I think that should help. Once you
repair it, it should be gone. But just make sure
you go into your routines and make sure that those

(01:18:29):
that that routine is not still in there, because these
things have a way of kind of like living on forever,
and Alexa has an interesting way of finding these devices
even when you've sort of said stop doing stuff with them.
So it's meant to make things easier. Sometimes it can
make things a little tougher. But Bill, keep me posted. Okay,
give me an email on the website. Let me know

(01:18:50):
if you got it figured out, because I do want
to help you change this from happening. Okay, I promised
you instructions for this, so I talked about Apple extending
the Emergency SOS. But on any phone, whether you have
an iPhone, whether you have Samsung, or whether you have
a Pixel, there are emergency settings that you need to
set up on your phone. So number one, iPhone, go

(01:19:12):
into your settings, go into Emergency SOS, and there's a
couple of things you need to do. Number one, there
is an option called call after Severe Crash. So the
recent iPhones have a way to detect if you've been
in a crash, and they will alert your emergency contacts
and or nine will one, So you want to have
that turned on. The other thing you want to have

(01:19:33):
turned on is your emergency contacts. So if you have
not set up your emergency contacts, set those up. Take
a second to do that. And the way that you
do that is right underneath emergency contacts. It'll say edit
in health and that'll bring you to add an emergency
contact add someone and they can get a text with
your location, the fact that something happened to you, and

(01:19:58):
they can hopefully help out if something or did happen.
The other thing you want to do is, if you
have an iPhone fourteen or fifteen, get familiar with this
emergency SOS via Satellite demo. So scroll all the way
down under Emergency SOS in the settings and if it
says emergency SOS via Satellite Demo, try it out. It
won't actually call nine one one, but it will look

(01:20:20):
into the satellites in the sky and help you, you know,
kind of coordinate your phone because you do have to
have a clear vision of the sky or a clear
view of the sky, and you do have to move
your phone around to get that clear view.

Speaker 1 (01:20:31):
And so you can just try that out.

Speaker 2 (01:20:33):
And then in the health app, so open up the
health app on your iPhone and set up your medical ID.
So to do that, you go to your profile which
is in the upper right hand corner. You tap medical
ID and you put in your information your basics. You
know your height, your weight, and also any allergies you
might have. And then you want to make sure both

(01:20:53):
of those emergency access options are enabled, and that will
enable a first responder to access this information from your
home screen or I should say your lock screen, even
without being able to unlock your phone. Very very important
on Samsung. Go to Settings Safety and Emergency again, Settings
Safety and Emergency, tap Medical Info, hit the pencil in

(01:21:15):
the upper right hand corner, add edit your Info. Make
sure that show unlock screen is enabled again, that will
enable a first responder to access this information without unlocking
your phone. Then tap Emergency Contacts. Add those again, make
sure show onlock screen is enabled, and finally, under Emergency SOS,

(01:21:35):
make sure share info with with Emergency Contacts is enabled,
and then just check the settings under emergency Sharing. I'll
share a funny story real quick. I was setting this
up on my Samsung device and I put my mother
in law in to test it out, and I'm not kidding.
I hit an option that actually sent her a text
that said something had happened to me, and it sent

(01:21:56):
a picture and the picture of was my legs like
between my life thanks because that's where the phone was.
Thankfully I was wearing pants because that would have been
really embarrassing. She goes, what's this picture you just sent me?
And I said, oh my gosh, what and sure enough
the phone had sent a picture. So be careful when
you set up these settings that you're not actually doing
the test on pixel. Go to settings safety and Emergency

(01:22:20):
and make sure the medical information and emergency contacts is
set up. Make sure emergency SOS and car crash detection
is turned on. Yes, the pixel has car crash detection.
Then you want to open up the personal safety app
on the pixel. Fill out your medical information and your
emergency contacts, and make sure that emergency info access is
enabled so that nine will one call centers will get

(01:22:42):
your location if you ever called them or texted them.
All this information is on my Instagram. Go to Instagram
at rich on tech and you'll see it is pinned
to my profile. It says, don't wait, set up these
life saving phone features today. All those instructions I just
gave you you on Instagram at rich on tech. All right,

(01:23:03):
coming up, we've got more of your calls, more of
your questions. Plus we're gonna talk to Vitally Pacharski of
Slick Deals to highlight some of the top deals out
there for the holiday shopping season. Eighty eight rich one
on one eighty eight seven four one zero one.

Speaker 1 (01:23:21):
This is rich On Tech.

Speaker 2 (01:23:24):
Welcome back to rich On Tech. Triple eight Rich one
O one eighty eight seven four to two four one
zero one. Coming up this hour, we're talking to Vitally
Pacharski of Slick Deals.

Speaker 1 (01:23:37):
He's going to highlight some of.

Speaker 2 (01:23:38):
The top deals out there for the holiday shopping season.
Buzz is in Walnut Creek, California. Buzz you're on with Rich.

Speaker 16 (01:23:47):
Hey, Rich, So I'm not here on I five actually
driving along with all the other not yet. And it
could to be that a dash cam would be kind
of a nice add on, not a test list. So
it just because do you have any I don't know,
Buyer's guide suggestion, something that will help filter the million
reviews and that sort of thing. I'd like to be

(01:24:08):
able to see the front camer just in case here
is a collision, I can at please put that video evidence.

Speaker 2 (01:24:17):
Yeah, and here's the thing. The interesting thing about the
rear camera is that unless it's on your bumper, you're
not really going to get a full kind of rear video.
So there are some cameras that I've seen in the
past that do attached back there, but most of them
just have like a front facing camera and a camera
that faces inside the car. And so, of course, the

(01:24:39):
one time that I needed this, and I do have
a Tesla, the one time I needed it, I wasn't
rolling and so it wasn't recording when I got hit
and run on my car. So yes, I do think
a dash cam is definitely I'm just gonna mute you
there because here's some I hear the I five in
the background there. But you know, I do think that
the dash especially in California or anywhere. I mean, it's

(01:25:02):
just it's kind of like peace of mind. And so
I agree. There are many many reviews out there, and
I've tested a couple of these over the years. I've
test tested a company called Nexsar, which is which makes
some really nice dash cams and they connect nicely to
the iPhone that's any Xaar. I've also connect tested a

(01:25:24):
company called Vava va Va and they have some really
great dash cams as well, and they're pretty inexpensive, so
and I thought they were really This one was really great,
the Vava ten ADP dual dash cam. And so I'm
looking at this dash cam. It actually looks like you

(01:25:45):
can put the front lens. It's interesting. It looks like
there's a little lens that you can put kind of
in the back, which they didn't have when I had this,
so that may be able to go, yeah, into the
rear of your car. So that's one hundred and nineteen dollars.
The other brands that some of the other review sites like,
and I know you said there's a bunch of reviews
out there, Yes there are, but some of the brands

(01:26:07):
kind of come up over and over, and that is
Van True v A N T r U E. Wirecutter
has them as a top pick. And then another brand
that a lot of reviewers seem to like is called
Thinkware T h I N K W A R E,
Nextspace n E X T B A s C that's

(01:26:28):
another one that a lot of them like.

Speaker 1 (01:26:29):
And Garmin Garman.

Speaker 2 (01:26:31):
You might know that brand name from other products, but
they apparently make some decent dash cams. But you want
the front and back cameras for sure. Some of the
features I would look for is, you know, it's really
comes down to the software, the ability to download the
video from these cameras if you ever need it, and
the SD card. So you want to have expandable memory.

(01:26:55):
You want to have nice software. You want to have
high quality video, because some of these the video is
just not very good, Like if you ever needed to
get a license plate or something, you wouldn't be able
to see it. So those are the things that I
would look for personally. The one that I really like
is actually the Ring dash cam, and I know it's
gotten kind of mixed reviews, but I really like it

(01:27:18):
and I think it works pretty well, and so I
would check that one as well if you do have
Ring devices in your house.

Speaker 1 (01:27:23):
If you don't, then don't worry about it.

Speaker 2 (01:27:25):
But the Ring, what I like about it is it
has cellular connectivity, which means if something happens to your car,
it will upload that video to the cloud, and so
even if they stole the camera or something like that,
you'd still have that video. And so it's a little
bit more on the pricey side, but it looks like
it's out of stock actually, but all of these cameras

(01:27:45):
are going to be on sale for the holidays, so
it's probably a good time to get them, and they're
probably going to be a good a good stocking stuffer
this year. So the other thing is I would look
for a G four sensor so if someone knocks into
your car, it will automatically start recording, So you want
to have one that does that as well. And the
other thing to look out for is really the power.

(01:28:07):
Some of these can be kind of bulky. You do
have to run a power cable to your you know,
to your car somehow, and they all kind of connect differently, like,
for instance, the ring one connects to the oh gosh,
I always get this name wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:28:20):
OBD Gosh, is it the OBD two port? I think
that's what it's called.

Speaker 2 (01:28:26):
But it's like this little kind of plug in the
lower left hand corner of your car, near the near
your your driver's side like foot, and so that gets
its power from there. Other others go into like a
USB port or what you would call twelve volt used
to be called the cigarette lighter.

Speaker 1 (01:28:44):
Now it's called the twelve vault.

Speaker 2 (01:28:45):
So buzz. Hopefully you got some good suggestions. They are
good things to look for. Also, keep an eye out
for deals, because I'm sure a lot of these things
will go on sale throughout the holiday season. Zell this
is important. Zell is finally going to start refunding people
if they get scammed. This is a big, big change

(01:29:06):
for ZEL. So if you've tried Zel, it's the one
that's built into your bank account. It's the one that
the big banks started to combat all the people using
venmo and PayPal. So this was started by all these
big banks like Chase and Bank of America. They said, hey,
we want a little piece of that, and so they
started ZEL and they made it really easy because Zell

(01:29:26):
is built into your app on your phone that you
already have from your bank, and the money goes straight
into your bank account. And there really are no fees
that I've seen on this. But the problem is because
it's so easy and because it's so integrated into your bank,
the scammers love it because as soon as they got
the money from you, there is nothing you can do
to get that money back. At least with venmo and

(01:29:48):
PayPal you might have a little bit of a fighting
chance of saying, hey, wait a second, this wasn't fair.
But now Zell has kind of gotten with the times
and they said, okay, we are actually going to start
refunding victims of it imposter scams. And I think US
regulators were kind of pressuring them to do this. But
now people who are duped into sending money to scammers

(01:30:08):
that are pretending to be government agencies, banks or service riders.
Now you can ask Zel for your money back and
they will actually figure out a way to go into
the other person's bank account that you send it to
grab that money back out and give it back to you.
It's not gonna be instant, it's not gonna be every
single time, but you definitely have a better fighting chance.
So thank you Zell for doing something good for the consumer.

(01:30:29):
Coming up next, we'll talk slick Deals on rich on Tech.
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here talking
technology with you at Triple eight Rich one oh one
eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one.
If you want links to anything I've mentioned throughout the show,
just go to the wiki rich on Tech dot tv

(01:30:51):
slash wiki. Joining me now is Vitally Pacharski of Slick
Deals and uh, welcome to the show.

Speaker 3 (01:31:00):
Hey, Rich, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:31:02):
Thanks for joining me. I know we talked.

Speaker 2 (01:31:04):
The listeners don't know this, but we talked this week
at KTLA. We did a segment that's going to air
Monday on TV. But you were such a great resource
for TV that I said, Hey, can you come on
the radio show and talk about some of the top
deals out there. So thanks for joining me today, and
let's talk about slick Deals number one. Because I've mentioned

(01:31:25):
throughout all the guests today have been from websites I
visit on a daily basis, Slick Deals is another one
of those. Explain what slick Deals is all about.

Speaker 17 (01:31:34):
Well, stick Deals is really all about helping shoppers. It's
not just a website at this point. We have the website,
of course, which has been with us for quite some time.
We have a very active mobile app, and we also
have a browser extension to help you fill coupons and
find the best deals. But really what we are is
a community of twelve million strong shoppers who come to

(01:31:55):
the site or to the platform daily posting, sharing, vetting,
voting up commenting on the best deals from your favorite
retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Dell, Lenobo.

Speaker 2 (01:32:07):
That's what I love about the website is that anyone
can submit a deal and it can be voted up
to the top. And that means that since you have
all these crawlers out there on the web, and I
mean crawlers by like regular people that are always just like, oh,
I found something really good. They post it and other
people kind of vet it and say, Okay, this is

(01:32:28):
really good, let's vote it up. And then a lot
of times those things sell out because they're so popular.

Speaker 3 (01:32:33):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 17 (01:32:34):
I think that's that's the most powerful feature that we
have is the community. Without them, the site would be
not nearly as stressworthy. I said, it's twelve million people, right,
I think of them as toll million friends, the good
friends that will tell you how good your product or
your deal that you found is or how bad it is,
and provide unbiased feedback.

Speaker 2 (01:32:55):
So how can people use this to find the best
deals this holiday season?

Speaker 17 (01:33:00):
Depending on how you like to shop, we have probably
something for everybody. If you are on a portunistic shopper,
the website and the mobile app are your best destinations.
Mobile app is something to keep on the go. The
website is something that you keep with you on your computer.
But if you're more of a casual shopper, consider also
using a browser extension. It kind of lives with your browser,

(01:33:21):
whether it's Chrome, edged Safari, or Firefox, and once you
install it, we'll let you know if we have additional discounts.
Anytime you browse the popular shopping site, or if we
have amazing deals happening right this moment, as you're shopping
on Amazon, Macy's, Coals, you name it, we'll pop up
a little small notification saying, hey, by the way, while

(01:33:42):
you're here, we have a couple of amazing community vetted deals.
If you're interested, you can absolutely participate.

Speaker 2 (01:33:48):
Okay, So how are the deals shaping up this season?

Speaker 1 (01:33:53):
Are they better than yours past?

Speaker 17 (01:33:56):
The deals are really good this Friday. We've already seen
a lot of retail this block Friday, in Cyber Monday,
we've seen a lot of retailers start early as they
have done in the years past. We definitely are seeing them,
have seen them as early as October. And one thing
that we are noticing is you already mentioned rich deals
do tend to sell out. So if you come to

(01:34:18):
the site of the mobile app and if you see something,
grab it. But guess what, we're not only about in
the moment shopping. If you're looking for something that we
currently don't have today, we also provide an amazing feature
called deal Alerts. So if you're looking for something like
Legos or PlayStation five, or Airpod's pro or a new grill,
or as me, I'm building a home theater, I'm looking

(01:34:40):
for speakers and receivers. Right now, come to the site
or the mobile app and set yourself a deal alert
and we'll let you know through either email, SMS if
you sign up with a phone number, or a push
notification on the mobile app the next time a good
deal drops.

Speaker 2 (01:34:54):
So this is always sort of a debate, But what
do you think are some of the best categories this
time of year? Employees wondered do I buy a TV
during Black Friday or during the Super Bowl season.

Speaker 17 (01:35:05):
Electronics is usually a great thing to buy and Black
Friday in Cyber Monday, and really majority of categories are
on sale, whether it's apparel, whether it's grills. But what
we usually see gaming, smart home devices, headphones, video games,
lots of tabletop kitchen appliance is everything from the most
basic five dollars toaster, which we can actually have a

(01:35:27):
few this Black Friday, all the way up to the
higher end appliances like maybe a Ninja blender or maybe
even something more even more expensive like a really nice
kitchen aid mixer.

Speaker 3 (01:35:39):
Discounted gift cards can batteries.

Speaker 17 (01:35:41):
Can never have enough of those, especially for that holiday
morning when you opened your boxes. Streaming and subscription services,
this is a great time to get those. A lot
of them will come out with you know, significant discounts,
especially if you prepay for a year, security, cameras, sporting goods, equipments,
really anything.

Speaker 3 (01:35:58):
It's it's a really broad thing.

Speaker 17 (01:36:00):
One thing that we don't see as much of is
major appliances, you know, washers, dryers, dishwashers, probably not the
best time to buy, but we'll see an occasional deal
here and there.

Speaker 2 (01:36:10):
Are you seeing any new trends with the way retailers
are discounting things? You mentioned that with the streaming services.
I've noticed that, Yeah, when you pay in advance, like
I just paid for like a year of Disney Plus
and I got a pretty good deal on that. So
any kind of pricing trends you're seeing with discounts.

Speaker 17 (01:36:29):
You know, I think a lot more and more merchants
are thinking about sort of creating a premium customer segment.
We've seen this with Amazon Prime many years ago, and
now Amazon Prime is sort of like almost a must
to have if you're an Amazon shopper, Walmart Plus has
been doing the same thing. In fact, some of the
best Black Frieda deals get early access if you have
Walmart Plus.

Speaker 3 (01:36:50):
We suspect that more and more.

Speaker 17 (01:36:52):
Merchants will have similar programs coming out in years to come. Additionally,
a lot of the times, having a credit card that
is issued by the stores, such as an Amazon Prime
Visa or say a Target Red Card, we'll get your
additional benefits, whether it's discounts or free shipping.

Speaker 3 (01:37:11):
So it's worth looking into as well.

Speaker 2 (01:37:13):
It's interesting with the Walmart Plus and the best Buy
or sorry Walmart Plus and Amazon. Best Buy is also
doing that with their drops. And so I've noticed because
they've been sending me emails about some of their deals.
A lot of them you get, like if you have
to like their I think it's like total something.

Speaker 1 (01:37:30):
It's like best Buy.

Speaker 2 (01:37:31):
It's like some sort of membership program that best Buy
has you can get a bigger discount on some of
their deals, so that.

Speaker 3 (01:37:37):
It's called total tech almost like rich on Tech.

Speaker 2 (01:37:39):
There you go, rich on Tech, Total tech. All right,
what about travel deals?

Speaker 3 (01:37:43):
Is it? You know?

Speaker 2 (01:37:44):
I know people are just trying to get through their
budget with their gifts they want to get, But is
it a good time to book travel.

Speaker 17 (01:37:50):
It is it, actually, it is, especially if you live
near a one of the major airports like Los Angeles
or New York or Chicago. Lots of deals going on.
I'll give you one example right now. Short short trip
fairs like LA to San Francisco on Jet Blue or
United are down to seventy eight bucks normally and ninety
eight dollars. If you don't live next to a major airport,

(01:38:14):
don't you know, don't worry. We actually have a deal
on a Southwest gift card that is discounting twenty percent off.
It's a five hundred dollars Southwest gift card on sale
for four hundred bucks, and that's happening at Sam's Club.
So you do have to have a SAMs Club membership,
but if you already do and it's actually not that expensive,
you can get this deal. There's another one if you

(01:38:34):
like vacations and if you like staying at places other
than hotels or maybe having some fun activities.

Speaker 3 (01:38:40):
We do have a their BnB gift card at best Buy.
It's a four.

Speaker 17 (01:38:45):
Hundred dollar Airbnb gift card and comes with an additional
seventy five dollars best Buy gift card for free, so
you pay four hundred dollars basically for four hundred and
seventy five dollars value.

Speaker 3 (01:38:55):
And then always check your credit cards that you have.

Speaker 17 (01:38:58):
There are some credit cards that are scifically geart to travelers.
American Express, for example, always will run different promotions, but
also check the rewards. A lot of the times, credit cards,
especially today, will offer sign up bonuses, so look for
additional sign up points, and you can always come to
Slick deals. We actually have plenty of interesting offers on

(01:39:19):
credit cards specifically too.

Speaker 2 (01:39:21):
I just went to your website and I always check
out the front page deals, and one that made it
there is this Uber one. So a year, I pay
like ten bucks a month for Uber one, and you've
got to Slick deals here for forty seven to fifty
for the whole year, which is a huge savings. Now,
some of these deals, and this is probably something we
should talk about, are sort of what's called targeted, So

(01:39:43):
these companies will only offer them to a certain segment
of their customer base.

Speaker 17 (01:39:47):
Right, that's true, and that's what our community does really well.

Speaker 3 (01:39:52):
They'll quickly explain to you.

Speaker 17 (01:39:53):
It's like, hey, if you're not a new customer, then
you won't qualify, so you can kind of look through
this bypass those deals if you know.

Speaker 3 (01:40:00):
Longer are eligible for these promos.

Speaker 17 (01:40:02):
And again, that's kind of one of the biggest powers
that the superpower of flictos is having this community of
people who do this, who sort of completely demystify and
really let you understand what's for you and what's not.

Speaker 2 (01:40:13):
Well, look at this, I just found this deal inside
my Uber app sixty percent off for the year. So
that's I love it. And it's like one of these
things and we'll kind of end on this. But when
you get a deal, even though we are spending money
at the end of the day, why does it feel
so good to get that deal?

Speaker 3 (01:40:31):
You know, I'll give.

Speaker 17 (01:40:32):
You a quote that one of our shoppers left with us.
We do regular shopper interviews and this is verbatim. My
biggest happiness from online shopping is not the shopping itself,
but finding a really good deal. I think a lot
of us are either sports fans or are just competitive
people by nature, and I think it always feels like
scoring when you find that amazing deal. And yes, as

(01:40:55):
you said, you still spend money, but it makes you
feel good that you spend your money smartly.

Speaker 2 (01:41:00):
I'm paying right now one hundred and nineteen dollars a
year for this uber plan, and this deal that I
just found on your website is forty eight dollars for
the year. That's four dollars a month, so sixty percent off.
So it was money I was going to spend anyway,
and now I'm spending less of it, so it does
feel good. And again, the website is slickdeals dot net

(01:41:22):
and my guest Vitally Pacharski of slick Deals, thanks so
much for joining me today.

Speaker 3 (01:41:29):
Thanks so much for having me Rich.

Speaker 1 (01:41:30):
I know you have your eye on something. What do
you have your eye on this this holiday?

Speaker 11 (01:41:33):
See?

Speaker 1 (01:41:33):
What are you shopping for?

Speaker 3 (01:41:35):
I'm shopping for a home theater setup.

Speaker 17 (01:41:37):
I'm building kind of a closed room, dark everything home
theater so receivers, speakers and a really nice for K projector.

Speaker 1 (01:41:45):
M very nice.

Speaker 2 (01:41:46):
I was just looking at my Sonos today thinking, hmm,
I wonder if I should update my soundbar.

Speaker 1 (01:41:50):
It's been a while, all right. Thanks so much for
joining me on the website.

Speaker 2 (01:41:54):
If you want a link to it, just go to
Rich on tech dot tv slash wiki and you can
get the link to Slick Deals again. Slick Deals front
page is a great place to start your day if
you like that hunt, you know, if you like shopping,
and if you like these deals and if you like
finding stuff that you might want to purchase. And the
explanations are the best because they make it really clear

(01:42:17):
as to why this is a good deal and why
you might want to jump on it, and how to
do it most importantly, all right, coming up, we'll close
out the show with a couple more stories and your feedback.
You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to
rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you,

(01:42:38):
talking technology, and it's time for your favorite segment feedback.
But before we get to that, let me get through
a few other stories. I wanted to mention Verizon now
offering unlimited individual cloud storage for fourteen bucks a month.
So this is a new cloud storage plan for individual

(01:42:58):
person fourteen dollars a month month. Let's you store photos, videos, documents, PDFs,
whatever you want from both your phone and computers. So
it's basically a cloud drive that's unlimited.

Speaker 3 (01:43:09):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:43:10):
According to the Verge, individual files can exceed ten gigabytes
daily uploads or limited to fifty gigabytes, but for most
people this will pretty much be unlimited. They also have
a group unlimited plan for twenty dollars a month, which
lets you have five friends and family have their own
unlimited storage. So I actually signed up for that just

(01:43:30):
to test it out. For some reason, Verizon was offering
it to me for fourteen dollars a month. I don't
know why, but I signed up. But you get one
month free, So I just pulled the you know, just
decided to do it and see what it's all like.

Speaker 1 (01:43:43):
And so I installed it on my computer.

Speaker 2 (01:43:46):
I have not installed it on my phone, but basically
it lets you back up. I'm trying to figure out
if you can drag stuff into this and drop it in.
It seems like you can, but it's a little I'm
still working on it, but anyway, it's kind of a
good deal for fourteen dollars a month unlimited, it's not bad.

Speaker 1 (01:44:04):
So if you want to back up your photos or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:44:07):
The only thing is it is linked to a carrier
like Verizon, so not everyone wants to link their online
world to their cell phone carrier. Amazon is going to
start selling cars online. Yes, Hyundai and Amazon have teamed
up to offer online vehicle sales, which is just incredible.
I hope this is as good as it seems. So

(01:44:30):
Amazon is going to launch online vehicle sales starting with
Hyundai in twenty twenty four. You can purchase a car
on Amazon and pick it up from your local dealer.
The question is will this be a nice kind of
experience or will the dealers muck it up? I hope
they don't. I really really hope this is like you
see the price, you pay it, and you go pick

(01:44:52):
up your car. Let's hope it's just like that. But
that's a great start. And one of the things I
did buy my car online last time, and it was incredible.
The entire process was online from start to finish, and
then they just delivered it to my driveway. And it
was such a great process because guess what, I didn't
have to go in that back room where the guy
sits there with the four squares and starts writing down

(01:45:14):
payment monthly, this, that, and then you got to go
back how much you offer them. It's like buying a
car is the worst experience in the world. And I
always say, these people that are selling the cars, they
are doing it every single day, and they know exactly
how to do it. We go in once every three

(01:45:34):
to six years to negotiate and guess who's gonna win
in that circumstance.

Speaker 1 (01:45:38):
Yeah, they are.

Speaker 2 (01:45:40):
And I got an email from a listener that said
they got an email from Spectrum.

Speaker 1 (01:45:46):
Here's what the email says.

Speaker 2 (01:45:47):
During the week of December twelfth, twenty twenty three, We're
going to introduce a new default video resolution setting a
four to EIGHTP for our unlimited plus mobile customers, allowing
better data management over the cellular network. Uh huh, better
data management for who? For Spectrum, they buy their service
from Verizon, So this means they're going to switch this

(01:46:07):
setting to be lower for all of their customers, which
means they have to pay Verizon less because they're using
less data. It does not benefit the customer in any way.
And Spectrum says, if you want to change the video
resolution back to seven to twenty P once the feature launches,
please visit our support page to learn more. So this

(01:46:28):
actually inspired a post on my website, rich on tech
dot TV. All of the carriers AT and T, Verizon,
T Mobile, they all have a dirty little secret, and
that is they reduce the quality of the video that
you get on your smartphone, even if you pay for
a higher resolution. But you can go in and change
this if you're on an unlimited plan that allows it.

(01:46:50):
So it's four eighty which is DVD quality by default,
you can go in and change it to either ten ADP.
Most of the time it's just ten ADP or four
k T and Verizon T Mobile. You can do it
from the website or from the app. I've put all
the instructions on my website. Rich on tech dot tv.
If you're paying for unlimited, you might as well get

(01:47:11):
the HD streaming, all right. Now, let's get to the feedback. Oh,
I only have a minute here. Hey, Rich, loved hearing
your report about Korea. I've been an Apple guy for
a long time. As you were discussing the Samsung Fold,
I was walking past the best Buy yep, I walked
in in real time you were speaking with the Samsung guy.

(01:47:33):
My initial impression was the resolution was impressive. I'm an
iPhone fourteen Pro Max owner doing a side by side
unscientific evaluation. They are pretty close and clarity and definition.
Upon closer inspection, I realized the screen attached to the
body looked a little honky tonk technical term cheap. I
cannot unsee the crease in the fold, which I can

(01:47:53):
only envision cracking. Finally, that improved hinge looks glaringly to
my eye like an obvious workaround. Do you love the
idea of a foldable device? I remember innovations attempted by Sharp,
but that usually ended up half baked. Love your show, Greg,
Thanks for the feedback.

Speaker 1 (01:48:08):
Greg.

Speaker 2 (01:48:08):
Yeah, foldable phones. They're making in roads, but they're not
there just yet. If you can believe it, that is
going to do it for this episode of the show.
It always goes by so fast. Once again, you can
find me on social media. I am at rich on tech.
I'm on Instagram, Twitter, all the good places there Actually
not Twitter, what am I saying? That's on autopilot, No Instagram,

(01:48:30):
Facebook threads, and honestly I'm starting to phase out Twitter
or at X whatever they call it. Next week we're
going to talk to Matt Swider of The Shortcut. He's
going to talk tech deals plus the latest report from
Privacy not included. Thanks so much for listening. There are
so many ways you can spend your time. I do
appreciate you spending it right here with me. Thanks to
everyone who makes this show possible. My name is Richdmiro.

(01:48:52):
I'll talk to you real soon, Happy Thanksgiving,

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Emergency phone setup & smart holiday shopping