Handy Websites & Pros and Cons of Smartphone Insurance

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hope you're having a fantastic day. The website for the
show rich on Tech dot TV. You can follow me
on social media. I am at rich on tech. So
I figured I would tell you some of the useful
websites that I have bookmarked. You know, I'm always on
the lookout for unique, interesting, useful websites that are also helpful,

(00:20):
and so these are a few that I've bookmarked over
the years that I think will help you out. I
know it's going to be a lot of information, but
I'm gonna link it up on the website rich on
tech dot TV. So you don't have to write down
these web addresses. All you have to do is listen
to what they can do. You can go get the
list and then you can bookmark these for yourself. So
the first one is Google dot com slash search slash images.

(00:43):
So you know that you can use Google to search
for images reverse search images, but did you know you
can use Google to create images? So yes, this is
an AI image generator and it's very simple. All you
have to do is go to the website. It says
make something new. Type something in like a let's see
giant delicious ice cream cone, and I just generated that

(01:08):
and it looks pretty incredible. You can use these pictures
as you like, and they give you four to choose
from and usually Google is pretty good. Next up, ten
minutemail dot com. So have you ever signed up for
something but you have to give your email address and
you don't really feel like using your real email address

(01:30):
because you know you're gonna get spammed. Well, this website
gives you a disposable email address. As soon as you
load up the website, it gives you an email address,
and it's a whole bunch of gobbledygook, but you don't care.
You're gonna copy, you're gonna paste it, you're gonna put
it into that other website. And it gives you a
countdown of ten minutes to use that email. And if

(01:50):
you need some more time, there's a big button that
says get ten more minutes, and it will reset the
clock to ten minutes again. Now, how do you check
this email because you're not logging in, Well, there's there's
a big giant inbox zero right at the top, and
when that changes, you will scroll down the website and
you can see the email.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
That you got.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
So maybe you just wanted to get a printable PDF
for some sort of confirmation. You can do that with
this website again, it is called ten minute Mail. Now,
this is a new one that I've recently stumbled upon
through one of the newsletters that I follow, Agenda hero
dot com slash Magic. I don't know about you, but
people send me calendar invites all the time. It's like

(02:28):
an email with a whole bunch of information about where
I need to be where at a specific time, at
a specific place, and sometimes that information is in an image. Well,
with this magic by Agenda Hero, you just either paste
in all the text or the image and it will
take all that information and parse out what you need

(02:49):
to do. So it will make a title, it will
make a date and time automatically the location, and it
will make a description. And then in one more click
you can have this email to yourself or you can
add it to your calendar of your choice. Again, this
is Agenda hero dot com slash Magic. Next up, this
is a travel website awards versus cash calculator. So if

(03:11):
you've listened to me for a while, you know that
I'm not a huge proponent of racking up miles.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Of course, I love miles.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
I love getting free upgrades, but I don't actively try
to get miles or a crew miles because it's just
a lot of I used to do that back in
the day and I just can't be bothered anymore. So, Yes,
I love when I have miles. I love when I
can use them, but I'm not sitting there trying to
put my two dollars Starbucks on a credit card to
get the points. But with that said, I do have

(03:37):
a couple of points programs that I'm a part of,
and I'm always wondering, like, is it better to use
my Southwest points or to pay for the flight?

Speaker 2 (03:45):
And so this awards versus Cash calculator lets.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
You do just that.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
So you put in the loyalty program the cost in
points and any fees they might charge you, and then
you put the cost in cash and you hit the
calculate button and it will tell you, Hey, you're better
off paying cash for this, or this is a great value,
You're better off using miles. It works with airlines, it
works with hotels. And this is from the points guy

(04:10):
dot com. Again, it's the pointsky dot com slash calculator.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Okay, this is a photo tool.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
It's called bgraser dot com. Bgraser dot com. And what's
handy about this is that it lets you remove the
background from a picture in just one click. It is
super fast. It is really good, and it is free.
So just drag and drop a picture on there. I
just did it as we're speaking, and you tap start.
You can even do a couple of pictures all at once,

(04:40):
and it does a great job. I'm so impressed. It
literally got me perfectly. It got the outline of my body.

Speaker 4 (04:48):
Look at that.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
I'm gonna check this out. Oh, it did such a
good job. It's so impressive. And then you can save
that picture and put a different background on it, use
a different tool or whatever you want to do. But
it's just kind of a very easy way, uh, to
recreate the background. Maybe you're selling something on eBay, maybe
you just want to, you know, show something without a
distracting background.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Again the website bg Eraser dot com.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Next up, and I know I'm giving you a lot
of these, but again I'll link them all on the website.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
Rich on tech dot tv.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Next up is a website that's called cleantext dot org.
So how many times have you gotten a bunch of
text that is just gobbledygook.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
It's got a whole bunch of arrows in it, or.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
Spaces in it, or lines in it, or something that's
just messing it all up. So all you have to
do is take it, copy it into this website cleantext
dot org, and then it's one click. It says pretty
it up, and it will figure out what it needs
to do. It will get rid of the extra spaces,
get rid of the extra characters, and it will give
you the output. You can copy and paste that to
where you need it. It's just one of those things

(05:49):
that you know, every once in a while it really
comes in handy. Okay, This next website is really handy
if you belong to a team or a club or
a group anything where you're trying to get people to
bring something to like a potlock. Instead of texting a
million different things and saying, oh, no, I got that,
I got that, or starting a spreadsheet. The website is
called who Brings dot com and all this does is

(06:13):
help you create simple group packing lists for your next gathering.
So you type in what you want, you know the
name of the group, and you type in the stuff
that you want, and then you send that link to people,
and there's no sign in, there's no registration. It is
free and it even has AI suggestions. Now that's something
new they added last time. So let's say you're creating,

(06:34):
you know, a picnic party or a potluck for you know,
and you want to have a theme.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
Even you can make.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
The list and have people say what they're gonna bring,
and you can even do different quantities up down, thumbs
it up, thumbs it.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Down, whatever you want.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
It's just super simple and it's just so everyone's on
the same page, nice and easy. Again, that is called
who Brings dot Com. Now, this next website has been
around for it is super handy. It is called just
Delete Me, and it's a directory of direct links to
delete your account from different services. So the popular ones

(07:11):
are available in one click. That's Amazon, that's Facebook, that's Instagram,
Go Daddy, Google, LinkedIn Netflix.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
And what I like about this website.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
Is that not only does it give you the direct
link to how to delete these, it gives you information
on how to delete them, including.

Speaker 3 (07:26):
Step by step.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
It also tells you how easy it is to delete
a website. So, for instance, a log into a website
for instance Amazon Easy, Instagram, easy, LinkedIn, Medium, Netflix, hard.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Skype, impossible.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
So it's a really fun website. It's just delete me
dot xyz. I feel like this website has gone through
a couple of owners over the years. It's just a
nice resource on how to delete a log in for
a website when maybe you don't feel like looking up
the directions or you might get some ideas on things
to get rid of. This is a website that I
also use on almost a weekly or daily basis. It

(08:05):
is a way to redact information from a photo. This
website is super safe, super private. It all happens inside
the browser, so it is browser based. You go to
redact dot photo and you drag and drop a picture
or a screenshot whatever you want in there, and then
all you have to do is kind of hover your
mouse over the area that you want to redact.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
I found that is it is the simplest.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
Way to redact information in the browser and know that
it's actually gone so that you can share that photo
safely on social media. So let's say you take a
picture of a screenshot of your Amazon receipt or something
like that, and you want to share something about it,
but you don't want your home address on there so
you can easily use this website. It is redact dot photo.

(08:51):
It works really well, it happens quickly, and it's great.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
All right. The website you.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Need to know for all of the links to these
handy websites I.

Speaker 3 (08:58):
Just gave you is rich on tech dot TV.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
My name is Rich dmiro.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
You are listening to Rich on Tech.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
We'll have some of your questions coming up right after this.
Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
out with you, talking technology. The website for the show
rich on tech dot TV.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Let's go to Thurman in Winchester, Massachusetts. You're on with Rich.

Speaker 5 (09:26):
Yes, I guess good morning for you. For me, I
was thinking about, especially from Verismon where I've had some
signal drops the last few months.

Speaker 6 (09:37):
To subby.

Speaker 5 (09:39):
I first I thought, I go AT and T, just
try out that network, But then I understand there are
things like pure Talk that use the AT and T network,
and they've now added foreign coverage, so that's good. So
I'm I'm tempted to make the punge, but I just
wondering if you've had an opinions on these discount woild

(10:00):
wireless carriers that are piggyback on the main network.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
Great question, and I will tell you this off the bat.
I trust one of these mv and o's to my mom,
So if it's good enough for her, believe me, I
think they are good enough for everyone. Now Here is
the main difference. Okay, So with the main carriers like
a Verizon, an AT and T or a T Mobile,
they want you on one of their fancy unlimited plans,

(10:26):
which includes a lot of stuff. It includes Netflix, it
includes mobile hotspot, it includes some sort of foreign roaming.
So it's all about getting you on that big unlimited plan.
And also they have a lot of discounts with phones,
and people get their phone through the carrier. I feel
like the mv and o's are kind of a play
on your budget, so you can get more for your

(10:49):
money if you're bringing especially if you're bringing your own
phone to the table. And a lot of these mv
and o's have their own phone deals as well. Now,
what's an mv and O Mobile virtual network operator. There's
only three networks in the US. That's AT and T,
T Mobile, and Verizon. All of these other companies that
you hear advertised are running on their networks now the

(11:11):
downsides of something like an mv and O is really
you have to check out the plan to see what
you get and what you don't get. So there are
some people that believe that AT and T or Verizon
or T Mobile will prioritize their highest paying customers first
and then so if you're in a really congested area,

(11:34):
you may not get the top speed or the top
service in that area. Now, I will tell you I
have a test line for Mint Mobile, and I find
that it is excellent. It really really works very nicely.
And I've tested many other mv and o's over the
years and they're really good as long as you know
what you're getting. Some of them have limited minutes, some

(11:56):
of them have limited data, some of them may not
have you know, all little perks of those unlimited plans.
But if you know what you're getting for that price,
it's a really good value. So Thurman, I have no
problem recommending that you switch to one of these, and look,
if you don't like it, you can always switch back.
Some of these, you know, or almost every single one

(12:18):
of them is month to month, so you basically pay
for it. You're kind of paying in advance, and that's it.
They just billy every month with something like a Mint Mobile.
Some of them give you a bigger discount if you
pay for more than one month at a time. But
it's a new year, a lot of these companies are
giving deals right now, and so I think you'll be fine.

(12:39):
And if you want to try an AT and T,
you can actually go to a website called whistle Out
whist l E whistle out dot com and they will
help you compare all of the different sell plans out there.
The website again whistle out dot com, and you can
say if you want it to run on the AT

(12:59):
and T network, or the Verizon network or the T
Mobile network. A lot of the mv and o's run
on T Mobile. That's probably the most common one. AT
and T is probably the second most common, and then
Verizon is probably the least common.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
For mv and os.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
The main one that they've run is their own, which
is called Visible, and that's basically and you know when
Visible first came out, I interviewed the CEO Visible, and
I couldn't even believe it. I said, how are you
offering Verizon's network at a fraction of the price. I
think it was like thirty bucks a month, and the
big thing was that it was limited in your speed,
so your speed was download limited to about five megabits

(13:37):
per second. They've since done away with that, but that
was kind of like the delineation. If you want the
fastest Verizon network speed, you got to go with Verizon.
If you don't really care and you want to save
a bunch of money and pay thirty dollars a month,
go with Visible. So great question, Thurman, appreciate the call.
All right, if you have Spectrum TV, you now get
Disney Plus for free.

Speaker 2 (13:58):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
If you have Spectrum TV, if you're paying Spectrum TV customer,
you get Disney Plus for free.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
This is traditional TV.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
You have to have the Spectrum TV Select package and
this is not something that you just have. You know,
you have to sign up for this. It's something you
have to activate. But it is a free perk. So
if you have Spectrum TV Select, you can go to
this website Spectrum dot com slash Disney Plus and you
have to log in with your Spectrum account and then

(14:25):
you can activate a free Disney Plus basic subscription. That
is the Disney Plus that has ads. I think it's
about I don't know six to nine dollars a month value,
and you are going to get ESPN Plus as well
for free in the next couple of months. So if
you have Spectrum TV, you're paying for standard you know
TV that comes in through cable for your house or

(14:47):
I guess.

Speaker 3 (14:47):
Even through the Internet.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
If you're doing the Zumo box, you now can activate
a free Disney Plus subscription. You can find more information
about that on my Instagram. I've got the step by
step Instagram. I am at Rich on Tech. Just look
for the Disney ears and you can find out more information.
Let's go to Eddie in Temple City, California.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
Eddie, you're on with Rich. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 7 (15:09):
Listen.

Speaker 8 (15:09):
I have an iPhone ten, which is the ex YEP,
and when I go to the setting, it tells me
that I still have like twenty or thirty gigabytes of Sage, right, Okay,
but Apple keeps bugging me, sending me messages telling me
that I'm running out of space. I'm asking me to

(15:33):
pay a monthly fee, which I refuse because I don't
want my pictures in the cloud. Okay, So the main
question is maybe two questions. The first one, if I
switch to samsum, would they be bothering me with the
same thing? No, or what can I do with iPhones

(15:54):
to download my pictures like every I don't know, like
every month somewhere.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
Yeah, okay, so I mean you could do that if
I mean the thing I recommend for that is called
the I expand And at this point you can really
plug any hard drive into the iPhone.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
But I think the sand disc I that's the letter
I X P A N D.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
I think they have the best software for downloading your
photos from the phone. If you're an Amazon Prime member,
you can sorry you didn't want the cloud.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
So okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
But you know, iPhone seems to have this weird thing
with like the storage situation where people are getting that
message that you're out of storage, and you know, they
really just try to push people to getting cloud storage
because the way the iPhone is set up, you can't
really access the files that are on your phone, so
you can't really know like what's going on, where things are,

(16:44):
what's taking up space, what's not taking up space. But
the thing I would do before you make any changes, Eddie,
is go into your settings, go into your Apple ID.
I'm assuming you have some sort of iCloud on your account.
Maybe not, but there's this thing called recommended for you,
and there are a couple of ways to free up
storage on there, so you can look at that under

(17:06):
your recommendations. But if you want to see the storage
that's on your phone, you can go to iPhone Settings
and then General and then storage. Where is that? I
just saw it there? Why can't I find it about?
And then it will tell your storage how much things
are taken up. But I find the iPhone to be
really complicated with the storage situation. And believe me, it's

(17:29):
just like you know, they just they want people to
go to the cloud because they make it confusing on purposes,
seems now, I don't know that for a fact. But
on Android, I feel like it's very much more straightforward.
You can look at the storage on your phone, you
can see where things are stored, you can.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
Plug in a drive, you can move things around.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
And you know, Samsung they're in the hardware business mostly
where if you look at Apple, yes they're in the
hardware business, but increasingly services and software are a huge
which part of their.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
Revenue, and so they're looking to get.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
People to upgrade to these You know higher iCloud plans
and all the other things in Welcome back to rich
On Tech. Rich DeMuro here talking technology with you at
triple eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. The website is
rich on Tech dot TV. Cybersecurity is such a huge

(18:27):
deal in our lives privacy. If you're online, you know,
chances are your information is out there and it is
yours to protect. So let's bring on Lisa Plagamaire, executive
director at the National Cybersecurity Alliance, to talk about some
of the ways we can protect our privacy. Lisa, thanks
for joining.

Speaker 9 (18:46):
Me, Happy to be here.

Speaker 10 (18:48):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
So, explain to me what the National Cybersecurity Alliance is.

Speaker 9 (18:54):
So, we're a nonprofit organization.

Speaker 11 (18:56):
We're actually the founder of the Cybersecurity a wareath month
every October, and our is around empowering a more secure,
interconnected world. So what that means is empowering consumers and
everyday people with the information they need to stay secured,
to keep their information private when they choose to.

Speaker 9 (19:12):
And so it's stay Safe online dot org. We have
a lot of very.

Speaker 11 (19:15):
Plain spoken advice. You won't find a lot of techt
speak or legal ease. On our website, we have all
kinds of advice for the average average citizen easy to understand.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
So let's first talk about kind of like where we're
at with cybersecurity, like how much are we at risk
on a daily basis? Like we always hear about hacking
and you know these data breaches and all that stuff,
Like how much is the average consumer kind of what
are they up against?

Speaker 11 (19:42):
They're up against highly highly sophisticated organized crime in nation
states like the Big Four, so Russia, China, Iran in
North Korea.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
What are kind of like the first steps we can
take to protect our privacy online?

Speaker 9 (19:55):
So there are a couple of things that are really
really basic.

Speaker 11 (19:57):
There's four main things that everybody can do, and if
we all did them, they would make a massive debt
in the problem.

Speaker 9 (20:04):
So the first one is passwords.

Speaker 11 (20:06):
We have some really bad habits about using the same
password on multiple websites or a similar one.

Speaker 9 (20:12):
Those are really easy to hack.

Speaker 11 (20:14):
They're using software to hack them, password cracking tools. So
don't use the same password on everything. You probably need
a password manager to help you to keep it all straight.
Then multi factor authentication, that's that thing where you go
to sign on to your bank account. You have to
have a text or a push notification from authenticator app
before you can get into your bank account.

Speaker 9 (20:34):
So turn that on on every single account that offers it.

Speaker 11 (20:38):
Keeping things up to date, so when you get that
remind me later option, do not take that. Make sure
you run whatever update is trying to run, whether it's hardware, software,
the firmware and your router operating system on your phone
or any device. Keep everything up to date, especially your
anti virus, and then watching out for phishing and social engineering,

(21:01):
so not every you know, instant message you get is
going to be from a legitimate person.

Speaker 9 (21:05):
That you really know.

Speaker 11 (21:07):
We've all gotten, you know, phishing emails that are really obvious.

Speaker 9 (21:10):
They're not so obvious anymore. With the help of AI.

Speaker 11 (21:13):
The bad guys are getting a lot better at creating
phishing emails, texts, phone calls that make it harder and
harder for us to tell that somebody's trying to trick us.
And I'll add one more, and that's checking your privacy
and security settings on your devices and all the apps.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
That you use.

Speaker 11 (21:31):
Those are not usually set to, you know, to have
a default to be maybe the most private option, so.

Speaker 9 (21:40):
You might not be comfortable when you start doing am
to those settings.

Speaker 11 (21:43):
You might be sharing stuff that you don't feel comfortable sharing,
and so maybe dial those things to a level that
you feel more comfortable with, for example, making your friends
less private on Facebook.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
Now, when you say that these aren't made private, you
know they're not the best interest of the consumer generally
when they're at their de faults. That's probably because these
companies want to collect as much information on us as
they can, right so that they can monetize it.

Speaker 9 (22:10):
Yeah, because that their core.

Speaker 11 (22:12):
Most social media companies are essentially advertising vehicles, and so
the more information they have on us, the more targeted
those ads can be, the more they can charge for
that advertising.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
Now, the big, the big kind of flip side to
all of this I get from many many people when
I say you got to use good passwords, you got
to use multi factor, you got to update your software,
you got to do all this stuff. They say, look rich,
I got nothing to hide, They got nothing to worry about.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
It's not a big deal, Like who wants to come
into my you know?

Speaker 3 (22:40):
Uh so I was.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
I got one of my accounts I used to make
like a Christmas card one year and that like, that
account was hacked, right, and so the password that I
used there, and my address and my phone number and
my everything is just out there on the web because
they were hacked. And so that's kind of like the
thing that I don't think people realize is that when
you share this information with one company, it can be

(23:03):
out there in a multitude of ways if that company
is packed right.

Speaker 11 (23:08):
And a lot of these criminal organizations are creating massive
databases that where they they're trading in your data, just
like you know the data companies and the legitimate ones
in the business world. They're building these massive data warehouses
with a lot of information. So if your password has
already been compromised, you might think, well, I don't have
anything in that specific account that had the breach.

Speaker 9 (23:30):
I don't have anything in their value, Like you said,
who cares.

Speaker 11 (23:33):
The problem is they're going to take that password and
versions of it, you know, click it a little bit.
Using software. They can do this at scale really quickly,
and they're going to try that on every other account
out there, and they can do it in minutes using technology.

Speaker 9 (23:47):
To do it.

Speaker 11 (23:48):
Because these are businesses and time is money for them,
so they're going to use technology to their advantage, and
that's why it's so important not to use the same
password or similar password on multiple accounts and to use MFA.
The other thing that can happen. You might think, oh,
this doesn't matter to me, I don't have anything avalue
there when they take over one of your accounts.

Speaker 9 (24:09):
If they have access to one of your accounts, they
can use that account to try and to harm to
somebody else.

Speaker 11 (24:14):
Right, so we've all seen the Facebook instant message that
looks like it's from your Aunt Betty, but it's not
Harriet Betty or Aunt Betty had her Facebook account taken
over because she's probably using a weak password and no MFA.
So you don't want to be the launch pad for
somebody to go try and defraud other people. You also
don't want the Chinese coming into your house using your

(24:35):
router to lob an attack on your local power company.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
And can you explain the concept of the dark web.

Speaker 11 (24:43):
So basically, the current Internet was not designed to be
secure or private.

Speaker 9 (24:47):
It was designed for the free and open flow of information.

Speaker 11 (24:50):
And if they could build it all again today, they
would not build its own the way it's developed.

Speaker 9 (24:56):
You need a special browser to get there.

Speaker 11 (24:58):
What's on the dark Web is essentially marketplaces, mainly the
deal in data, credit card information, social security numbers that
are for sale, bank account credentials so somebody including your
bank balance so that somebody knows where they're you're.

Speaker 9 (25:14):
Worth trying to deal from.

Speaker 11 (25:16):
And also things like drugs, guns and humans, human trafficking.
Every bad, possible criminal thing that you could think of
to buy and sell is available on the dark club.

Speaker 9 (25:28):
Unfortunately.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Wow, it sounds like we're up against a lot of
stuff here, Lisa, But I like the couple of tenants
that you mentioned about, you know, keeping our stuff private
at the end of the day. I mean, this is
stuff that we need to stay up on, right, and
we need to stay aware of this stuff because I know,

(25:49):
I just I keep hearing in my mind over and
over people say, come on, they're not what do they
need to do with me? But when you build this
profile of someone, there's a lot you can do that
and it and the time and energy it takes to
dig out of that if something happens to you is
really just not worth it.

Speaker 9 (26:08):
We need to think about.

Speaker 11 (26:09):
Our loved ones too, So older folks, aging Americans, they
don't get defrauded as often, but when they do, the
dollar amounts are high.

Speaker 9 (26:17):
The bad guys are going to go where.

Speaker 11 (26:18):
The money is, right, why do I steal the bank
Because that's where a round the bank is, That's where
the money is.

Speaker 9 (26:22):
And our aging loved.

Speaker 11 (26:25):
Ones have accumulated their life savings and so when they
get defrauded, and it happens way too often, it's for
large dollar amounts. So I spend a lot of time
with trying to keep my mom safe online, for example.

Speaker 9 (26:35):
And then younger people gen X.

Speaker 11 (26:37):
Gen Y, they click a lot, they move really fast
through the technology and so they're actually more likely to
click on something malicious.

Speaker 9 (26:47):
But the when they suffer.

Speaker 11 (26:48):
A loss of their data or money, those losses are
much smaller. But they're moving pretty fast and sometimes not
quite paying enough attention.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
Lisa Plagamaire, executive director at the National Cybersecurity Alliance. The
website staysafeonline dot org. H really really good information. Thank
you so much for joining me today.

Speaker 9 (27:10):
My pleasure.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
All right, that just this stuff, And I'm telling you
since since I'm here and I get all the emails,
I know for a fact that this stuff happens on
a daily basis. People are getting hacked, they're getting scammed,
they're falling for tricks. Please tell your loved ones, Please
get educated on this stuff.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
It really will make a difference.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
Eighty to eight rich one O one eight eight eight
seven four to two four one zero one. Welcome back
to Rich on tech. Rich Demiro here talking technology at
triple eight. Rich one O one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. Let's go to
John in Palm Springs. John, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 12 (27:56):
I bought a new S twenty three phone, and when
they copied everything off of the old phone, I am
missing hundreds of photos. I still have the old phone
and they are missing there now as well. And so

(28:16):
I read that they are probably still there and I
can hire somebody to retrieve them.

Speaker 13 (28:22):
But if true, I have no idea who that would be.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
Okay, where do you store these photos? Are they just
on like your phone or they go to the cloud somewhere.

Speaker 13 (28:32):
No, they're just on the phone. Unfortunately, I'm I am
the most illiterate tech guy in the world.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
So okay, and you're sure you're not using because on
Samsung devices they like to send these to one drive.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
Are you sure they're not sync to one drive in
some way.

Speaker 13 (28:50):
Well they could be. I see one drive on my phone, okay,
but I never knew what it was. I didn't never even.

Speaker 14 (28:58):
Clicked on it.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
Okay, well click on it and and uh, there's a
there's a there's a section of the Samsung phone in
the settings that is called I'm trying to look here,
accounts and backup and if you look there, let's see
backup data. So so in here it's it says where

(29:21):
these things are backed up. I'm trying to find this
while we talk live. I know it's tricky, but there's
a couple of places. A couple of places I would look.
Number one, I would on a website.

Speaker 15 (29:30):
I would do use Google at all, I I guess, yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
Okay, so if you have a Google account, I would
try going to photos dot Google dot com on a
website on your computer, so on a desktop browser, and
see and log in with your Google and see if
any of the photos made their way there. Then I
would go to one drive dot com again from a
computer and log in with either your Samsung account or

(29:56):
your usually it's linked to a Microsoft account if you
have that, and see if they're there. Otherwise, on your
old phone, I would go into the files app, and
there's a there's like an app on the old on
the Samsung that is lets you see all the files
on that phone. And so I would go in there

(30:19):
and look for one a folder that says camera, and
see if you can find them in there. Let's go
the line too melody is in Carl's Bad Melody You're
on with Rich.

Speaker 16 (30:31):
Several years ago I retired and during my tenure as
a worker for forty some years, I had to use
I used the Microsoft Word program to do a lot
of documents and newsletters, et cetera. And those were on

(30:54):
my home computer. And so I've continued with a software.
But at some point, maybe about three or four years ago,
they changed it to a subscription program where I have
to pay sixty some bucks a year to continue to

(31:16):
use the software.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
But sure, I no.

Speaker 16 (31:19):
Longer have to do documents and newsletters, and I really don't.

Speaker 17 (31:25):
Use it that much.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
But yes, you don't want to pay that money.

Speaker 16 (31:29):
Right, But will I be able to reference the documents
I have previously made with Words if I do not
have this subscription?

Speaker 1 (31:41):
Absolutely? Absolutely. Now this used to be very complicated in
the past. It is not anymore. Thanks to so many
free tools out there, so you'll be just fine. You
can continue to make these documents in the word format
as much as you want, and there will be many
ways to access them later. The easiest way do you
have a Gmail or a Google account? Yeah, okay, easiest

(32:02):
way Google Docs. So take these.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
You can actually do this right now if you want.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
You can go to Google Drive, or you can go
to Google Docs and you can drag and drop one
of these files into the screen and it will put
it into Google Drive, Google Docs, and then you can
open it and Google will make it so that you
can edit that file, you can read that file, whatever
you need to do. It will convert it for you

(32:27):
on the fly, and so you'll be able to edit,
you'll be able to read it, you'll be able to
access it. There will be no there will be no
issues here whatsoever. So Melody, you can continue to do this,
but I would recommend that there are many other ways
as well. If you have a Mac computer, you can
use pages. There are some free office suites online. There

(32:47):
are some popular ones like open office and things like that.
So I mean there's a lot out there, but I
think that Google Docs is the easiest that's the one
that I use, and I think that you're gonna find
it very very simple to just open these documents, edit
them right in your web browser and have no problem
with that whatsoever. Thanks for the call, Melodie, appreciate it.

(33:08):
Steve is in Glendale. Steve, you are on with Rich.

Speaker 3 (33:11):
Welcome to the show. Hello Rich, Hello Steve. What's up?

Speaker 13 (33:15):
So?

Speaker 7 (33:17):
I got a Facebook business page. I'm a professional handy
man in Glendale, California, and I made a post and
I've gotten this message before I got a message, I
actually got four separate messages. Your Facebook page is expect
to be permally removed due to post the post violating

(33:38):
our trademark rights. Blah blah blah. You know it's going
to be removed, and then you know it's but it's from
it's at the top, it heads it's from Katie Estes
and it shows this weird logo like support and I
think it's probably fishing and ships trying to skip and

(34:00):
I'm not. I'm I've learned not to click on strained blinks.
And it's from Facebook dot p.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
R O okay, and it sounds like a website.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
So how can I help? Did you get hacked.

Speaker 7 (34:13):
Well, I mean, I have it. I'm just I'm just
should pay tention to that.

Speaker 3 (34:19):
Okay, Okay, good question. Spam yep, yep.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
One hundred percent ignores spam.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
These are these are very I'm telling you, Steve, there
are so many scams happening with social media it is
it's almost become untenable to deal with all this stuff,
and especially if you have a business account, any sort
of Facebook page. So a couple of things. Number one,
these are notifications that they're sending you. This says, hey,
you're you're violating our terms and conditions, and they seem

(34:45):
scary because you're running a business. You might be getting
some clients from this Facebook page, right, and so you
don't want your page to go away. And so what
they want you to do is see this notification, click
that notification without thinking, and then and either log in
or somehow do something that will either take over your account,
hijack your account, or you know, otherwise steal your personal information.

(35:09):
So you can safely ignore these, I can guarantee you
ninety nine percent of the time, ninety nine point nine
if there's something truly amiss with your Facebook account, Facebook
will get in touch with you through a legitimate means,
which is probably through some sort of pop up notification
in the app or an email.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
So believe me, I do a lot of things.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
On my Facebook page, Facebook dot com, slash rich on tech.
I see these things all the time. There's a lot
of scam artists also that post on your page, so
when you comment something, they may comment and say, hey,
we can help with that, and those are scam artists
as well. Those I would block, but really these are
mostly bots. But it's a good lesson to learn. And

(35:52):
the thing that I would do is make sure if
you have a Facebook account, two things I would do.
Number one, set up two factor authentication, and this means
that you need a separate code to log in once
you log in.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
With your password.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
So let's say you fell for one of those notifications,
you logged in with your password, they got it, they
immediately try to hijack your account. They wouldn't be able
to because there would be a secondary code that is
texted to your phone and that would make it so
that they wouldn't be able to get in. The other
thing to do if you have a Facebook business account
is to get an admin on that account, someone you

(36:26):
trust that is not you, and that way, if there's
ever a problem with your Facebook account, because these are
usually linked to a personal Facebook account, that way that
other person will be able to help you get back in.
And if you have a personal Facebook account, there's other
others some excuse me, there's some other things you can do,
which is called trusted contacts. You can set those up

(36:48):
to help you regain access to your Facebook account. And
if you have a problem with your Facebook and it
is hacked, the best place to go is Facebook dot com,
slash hacked, Facebook dot slash hacked.

Speaker 3 (37:02):
Thanks for the call. My name is Rich d'miro.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
You can follow me online at rich on Tech, the
website for the show richon Tech dot tv. More rich
on Tech come in your way right after this. Welcome
back to rich on Tech.

Speaker 3 (37:16):
Rich Demiro here.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
Hanging out with you, talking technology, the website for the
show rich on Tech dot TV. There you can find
me on x on Instagram, and on Facebook and my email.
Just click the email icon to send me a message.
That's what Jessica did. She says, my daughter just sent
me something on Disney Plus slash Hulu now cracking down

(37:39):
on sharing. My daughter is a college student out of
state and uses our account. Will this be an issue
like Netflix? And will they offer an added upgrade to
be able to add her to the account or will
she need her own account. We are having to upgrade
our Netflix account so she can continue using it. Thanks
for any insight to this, Jessica. Well, Jessica, My overall

(38:02):
advice is to continue sharing your account until they somehow
block or restrict it.

Speaker 3 (38:07):
So.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
Disney Plus and Hulu have both updated their subscriber agreements
to ban account sharing for new subscribers. This happened earlier
this year, and for existing subscribers it just started around
mid March. Now, that does not mean that they are
enforcing this across everyone's account just yet. Disney Plus says
starting in the summer, they will introduce new features to

(38:29):
allow account sharers to start their own subscriptions or add
individuals outside of their household foreign additional fee, just like
what you noticed on Netflix. I think Netflix charges seven
to ninety nine to convert someone on your account to
their own account, but preserving all of their.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
Watch history and things like that. Why are they doing this?

Speaker 1 (38:50):
Well, Netflix sort of started this and they said enough
is enough.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
No more sharing accounts.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
And by the way, when they turned off the account
sharing on Netflix, they turned on a lot of money
because a lot more people said, Okay, fine, I will subscribe.
I will pay my own money to do this. And
it's not a ton of money, but across a whole
bunch of millions of subscribers, that does add up to
a lot for Netflix, and for the average person, Okay, fine,

(39:16):
for eight bucks a month, I'll get my own account whatever,
and the free ride is over. I've said this many,
many times. These companies all started out letting us do
all kinds of things with our accounts and not really
caring about this. But now that the money has slowed down,
they want to increase that revenue, and so Disney's doing this.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
Netflix did it.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
A lot of the other streaming services will end up
doing this as well. But again my advice is just
to continue sharing until you're forced to not share. Now,
there's lots of signals on how they figure out if
someone is indeed sharing their account.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
They might look at your IP address.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
They might look at how many devices you have on
your account where those devices typically access your account, whether
that device is a.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
TV or a tablet, Because if it's a TV.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
You know, they're thinking, Okay, how many TVs does this
person have across the US. But if it's a tablet,
they might understand, Okay, this tablet does travel to different cities,
and this phone travels to different cities. Now, with your
daughter in college students, I do think that's a bit
of a tricky area because college students, you know, they're
sort of in the household, but they're not watching in

(40:23):
the household. So maybe if they access this on a
device that's an iPad or a tablet that they bring
home once in a while and access that on their
home Wi Fi network, they might allow them to continue sharing.
But again, I would continue to it, doing it until.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
You can't anymore.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
But as we know, Netflix came down on this really fast,
and it was very swift when they made that change.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
So thanks for the question, Jessica, appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
Next up, June says, Hey, Rich, I volunteered to be
the DJ for a party event, and I'm looking for
a free software or an app I can assign a
key on the keyboard that will play a sound effect,
for example, a drum roll, a bell, ring, a gong, etc.
I'm using a Mac I plan to use VLC media
player and load all the sound effects and just double

(41:13):
click to play them.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
But maybe you have a better suggestion. Thanks very much,
Best June.

Speaker 3 (41:19):
June, great question.

Speaker 2 (41:20):
What you want is called a soundboard.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
This is something that many people in the audio industry
are familiar with. It's what DJs use, it's what radio
stations use. We use one here and it's just a
great audio production thing to have. So it's a little
piece of software that makes a board that almost looks
like a bunch of squares. Each one of those squares
is loaded up with a certain sound or maybe a song.

(41:44):
And what's nice about these sound board applications is that
they let you do different things. Not only can you
trigger these sounds with different keystrokes and also external devices,
but you can also do different things like start the
sound but stop it immediately, or just solve it out
or fade it in, or you can you know, rapid
fire that sound.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
So there's a lot of different options.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
So if you want the paid app that does this,
the company I like that makes a lot of great
little handy apps like this is called Rogue Amiba and
their app is called Farrago fa r r Ago and
that's going to be a really nice supported app, but
it's gonna cost some money. You'll get a free trial,
so I would say definitely try the free trial and
see if it works for you.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
If you like it, you can pay for it.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
But as you know, there are always alternatives to everything.
So the two alternatives I have not tested, but they
are available for free.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
One is called.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
Sound show s o U n D Show sound Show
and this is a free tool for Windows, Mac, Os, Linux,
and Android.

Speaker 3 (42:47):
Now I say free.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
It is a name your own price download.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
So a lot of these independent developers will allow you
to download stuff for free, but you know they ask, hey,
do you mind paying just something? You can support them
with any that you like, And that one seems to
have all of the features that you need.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
And it does work with Mac.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
The other one is called soundplant soundplant dot.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
Org and again this is a free download. You can
download it for free.

Speaker 1 (43:15):
It works on Mac and Windows, and it looks like
it was last updated in April twenty twenty three, so
it's pretty recent. But again, these are the type of
apps that you need. So I just gave you three
good examples.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
I think it's so fun to do this.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
I used to do this show that you're listening to
off of a road mixer that had sort of a
soundboard built into it. So I had a couple of
if you ever listened to the show we're talking you know,
four years ago, if you ever listened to my old
old podcast. I used to have a couple of main things,
like a ding that's right, just a couple of basic

(43:49):
sounds that we would use.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
For our show.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
One of them actually drove people nuts, and whenever I
did a question like this, like an email question, we
would have the sound of a keyboard clocking, and it
was very controversial. Some people loved it, and some people
really were bothered by the fact that I would have
that sound because it threw them off.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
Thanks for the question, June, appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
E says, I have a couple of spectrum technicians over
at my house and they mentioned something about a high
split update.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
Do you happen to know anything about that?

Speaker 1 (44:17):
Had to look up the answer to this one because
I'm not really sure what the high split update is,
but E, the good news is it sounds like the
internet in your area is about to get a whole
lot faster. High split moves the return spectrum allocation higher
to around two hundred and four megahertz, giving more bandwidth
to the upstream for more speed. This is normally combined

(44:38):
with the one point two gigahertz extended spectrum doxis for
the downstream to offer much higher upstream and downstream data rates.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
So what does that all mean?

Speaker 1 (44:48):
In Layman's terms, It sounds like your internet is going
to get faster in your area, especially the upstream, which
means when you're uploading stuff back to the network that
will be faster, and that's an important thing for a
lot of people if they're working from home like myself,
I'm always uploading large files and sending them to the cloud. Typically,
when you're looking at Internet, they're only advertising the download speeds.

(45:12):
That's important for most people, and they're usually pretty fast,
but they kind of hide the upload speeds, especially with cable,
because they're usually much slower. Fiber will typically have upload
and download speeds that are similar or even the same,
but with cable Internet typically the upload speed is much
slower than the download speed. But starting April tenth, it's
going to be a lot easier to see key details

(45:33):
about an internet service provider's plan because they have to
have a new label called Broadband Facts.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
Yes, it is modeled after Nutrition Facts.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
It tells you the name of the plan, how much
it costs every month, including any introductory pricing plans, and
also any monthly fees you might have to pay, any
discounts you might be eligible for, plus the speeds provided
with the plan upload, download, and the latency. They'll also
tell you how much data you get included in your
monthly pricing plan, and the network management policy, which is

(46:05):
if they reserve the right to throttle you, and the
privacy policy how they share all that information they are
collecting on you. Again, this is mandated by the FCC.
It starts on April tenth. You are listening to Rich
on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro
here hanging out with you talking technology at triple eight

(46:25):
Rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to
two four one zero one. This is a show where
I talk about the tech stuff I think you should
know about. So you'll find that I don't talk about
all the tech stuff. I don't answer all the tech questions.
It's really consumer focused. It's the everyday user. If you're
not a tech person, this show is perfect for you

(46:46):
because it helps you understand what you're up against. So
much technology in this world. I'm helping you understand it.
You can find me on social media. I'm at rich
on Tech on Instagram, where I hang out a lot.
Facebook X. Let's go to Ellie. Ellie is in your Belinda, Ellie,
You're on with Rich.

Speaker 4 (47:05):
Hi, Good afternoon, Rich. How are you?

Speaker 3 (47:07):
I am doing fantastic. How about you?

Speaker 4 (47:11):
So far, so good? But the day is young?

Speaker 3 (47:13):
Uh?

Speaker 15 (47:14):
I like that?

Speaker 3 (47:15):
Outlook? All right, what can I help you with?

Speaker 1 (47:17):
All Right?

Speaker 4 (47:18):
I have a problem. I live in a two story home,
and I replaced my router that was provided by the
cable company Spectrum because the signal was just interrupted. I
also live next to the mountains. I live in the
home of President Nixon the city.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
So I'm President Nixon's home.

Speaker 4 (47:41):
Yes, the library, and yes, yes he was born here.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
Correct, Oh my gosh, Okay, sweet.

Speaker 4 (47:46):
So I had an interruption the signal because I'm really
close to the mountains and I have a two story property.
So I replaced the router from the Spectrum company, the
cable company, and I bought my own.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
Okay, and would you get I got.

Speaker 4 (48:01):
This one from this company called the l NKSYS link sys. Okay, yes,
And it gave me two towers to put one in
the you know, above and one below the levels, and
I still get interruption, and so I'm wondering what I
can do to change that because when my kids come

(48:22):
over and they're using their WiFi and stuff like that,
they don't get the signal. And I don't know what
I can do to change that.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
Okay, Well, what so number one, the mountains don't have
anything to do with your signal, so that is not
causing the issue. What's causing the issue is the material
of this home. So I'm guessing this is an older
home and it has probably thick walls that are really
tough to get this signal through. That's what I'm guessing.
It also sounds like it's pretty large if it is

(48:51):
a former president's home, So that is the problem. You've
got a lot of space and you've got a lot
of challenges for a Wi Fi signal.

Speaker 4 (48:58):
That is being it was in the president's home. It's
said he's the city, he was born here.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Oh, he was born there.

Speaker 4 (49:05):
Okay, but it is an older home and there is
a lot of bricks involved.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
Okay, there you go, that's the issue.

Speaker 3 (49:13):
Okay, Yes, that is the issue.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
So you you sort of halfway solve this issue by
going with the Linksys system. It sounds like you have
a mesh system, but that is what you need here,
and you it sounds like you may need do you
know how many square feet this house is?

Speaker 4 (49:30):
Well, the lot is is big, but the house itself
is thirty two hundred square Okay.

Speaker 2 (49:36):
That's that's pretty large.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
So I would recommend are.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
You trying to get internet on the lot or just
in the house.

Speaker 4 (49:44):
Well, I already have it in the house, but it's
still an interruption, that's signal.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
So here's what I would do. You need a mesh system,
the system that you have already. I would go online
and look up the name of it and see if
it is a mesh system that you can expand with
more what are called access points. Let me explain what
a mesh system is. So typical internet you get from
Spectrum is just a router that sits below your TV

(50:12):
and it just stays there, and that's basically it. It sends
out the signal. It does not reach very far because
it's just the walls and everything else.

Speaker 2 (50:20):
Kind of mess with it.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
So what most people are upgrading now to these days
is called a mesh system, and a mesh system is
kind of like think about the home base under your
TV sends out the signal to all these little access
points around your house, and they all talk to each
other to kind of make sure that the signal completely
blankets every corner of your home. And with two of

(50:43):
these and I'm not sure links is you know, I
think the companies that I typically recommend for this are
either ORB RBI or ero E E r O. Those
are two of the best, and so I would look
into maybe getting one of those systems. And you want
probably three access points, so that would that would be

(51:04):
three of these little devices that you would put around
your house, and you know, I think that that's probably
gonna solve. The other thing you can do if you
really want to get this solved, is you know, you
can hire someone to wire an Ethernet cable from the
home base system, you know, buy your TV or wherever

(51:26):
your your internet comes into your house, and then you
can wire that to another room that is pretty far
away and you can plug one of the access points
into that and that way it's going to get a
nice strong signal that is actually like a really good signal,
and it's gonna put that out through your house as well,
But that's gonna be a lot more expensive because you
are getting someone to come to the house and drill

(51:47):
and all that good stuff. So I would say you
could probably solve this problem with a better mesh system
that has three points to it. So again, look up
and see if the mesh system that you have will
allow a third access point. If it does, I would
get that third access point, and I would also look
at where you're placing these. So with Internet, you really

(52:08):
want to place the main signal in kind of the
center of the house and also up off the floor
and not obstructed by anything. And then the other two
you want to put in different areas that are not
too far away but far enough where it can still
get the signal and put it in that area of
the house, but also reach the third one and put

(52:29):
the signal there as well. So if they're unobstructed, that
would be ideal. Like if it's up like a staircase
that you can see something like that, that would be ideal.
But yeah, Wi Fi is it's tricky. It's not the
signal we are really stretching this signal to its maximum
capacity at this point. It was really not intended to
do all the things that we're doing with it. There

(52:51):
is a new standard coming up called Wi Fi seven.
It is very much emerging. I don't know if you
need to upgrade to that just yet because a lot
of devices don't take advantace that just yet. But a
lot of these problems hopefully will be solved with Wi
Fi seven that handles this stuff a little bit better.
All right, Thanks for the question.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
Melody are Ellie and or Belinda.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
I thought it was odd that you lived in the
President's house, but I get it orball innda okay president
from there.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
I do have a warning though for you.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
If you got gift cards over the holidays, check the
balance immediately. This happened to us and it's quite scary.
It's happening to a lot of people based on the
comments on my Instagram and Facebook page. But basically what
happens is scam artists go to the stores, they write
down the numbers from gift cards, so like somehow open

(53:43):
up the back of them, write down the number, and
then they'll record that number, keep it at home, and
then I guess. They check on a daily basis to
see if any money got charged up onto that card,
and as soon as it does, they drain the funds.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
So what happens when you get gift cards? Right, you
give them, you buy I'm.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
At the store, You hold on to them for a week,
You give it to a person at a birthday party
or the holidays, that person gets it, they hold on
to it for a couple of weeks. So, as you
can see, there's a lot of time here for the
scam artists to do their work. And so I've noticed
that a lot of registers they will look at the cards,
they will visually inspect them to make sure that they
have not been tampered with, but it doesn't always catch them.

(54:22):
And so what you need to do if you have
a gift card that you got over the holidays, Number one,
check the balance and make sure that it is valid,
because if it's not, the quicker you do this, the
more of a chance you might have of recovering those funds.
The problem is gift cards are pretty much treated as cash.
But if you have the receipt and you've got your information,
some people say they are successful in getting the money

(54:44):
back but this is a very very big issue that
again it happened to us, and you know, it's just
one of those things.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
Where there are so many gift cards.

Speaker 1 (54:54):
Gift cards are almost their own currency, and it's just
it's very simple for these scams artist to do this apparently,
and people buy these carts. They don't look at the back,
they don't notice that numbers are scratched off, and he reported,
and they put the money on it and it's gone.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
Welcome back to rich on Tech.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
Rich Demiro here talking technology, hanging out with you at
Triple eight Rich one oh one eight eight eight seven.

Speaker 3 (55:21):
Four to two four one zero one.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
Joining me now, Titanya Jordan, author and founder of Parenting
in a Tech World and Bark Technology's Chief parent Officer.

Speaker 10 (55:34):
Welcome to the show, Titanya, Hi, thank you so much
for having me.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
I should say, welcome back to the show. You were
one of the early guests last year, so thanks for
joining me again. Uh so you post all about child
and teen safety online, So first off, tell me what
Bark is all about, the company that you work for.

Speaker 10 (55:54):
Sure, So Bark launched the safest smartphone for kids within
the past year, which is incredible and what's so incredible
about it is that it has our tech baked into
the smartphone. And so in twenty fifteen, Bark launched as
an AI based software solution that alerted parents and caregivers

(56:16):
to dangers happening in their children's social media, text and email.
So we started with an app, and then we moved
to a smartphone.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
Okay, Now, now when parents think about you know, like
I get this question, like, how do I monitor what
my kids are doing on their phone?

Speaker 2 (56:31):
Right? So what can Bark do?

Speaker 1 (56:34):
And I know with iOS and Android things are a
little bit different, right, like what you can search and
what you can just get? Can you explain the difference?
Like what if a parent has if a kid has
an iPhone, which of course a lot of kids want
the iPhone?

Speaker 2 (56:45):
Like what can parents monitor on that?

Speaker 10 (56:49):
Ooh great question? So yeah, I will say, if you're
listening to this and you have not yet bought your
child a smartphone, please avoid the iPhone. That's the equivalent
of giving your child a Ferrari when they turned sixteen
instead of a very sensible Honda or Toyota. Apple is
great for adults who need privacy, but it's very cumbersome

(57:09):
for parents to try to manage that. Said, Bark can
monitor your children's iPhones and iPads and Apple watches to
an extent, whether it's text, message, email, social media, camera, roll, video,
all kinds of things, we can monitor it. I will
say one of the most popular apps that children eventually

(57:32):
want is Snapchat, and Bark isn't able to really monitor
Snapchat on an iPhone, not because of Bark's limitations, because
Snapchat has decided it doesn't want to open its API
to a platform that could help keep kids safer on
the platform. The good news is that with Android phones
and the Bark smartphone, we can connect to and monitor Snapchat,

(57:55):
which is just one more reason why androids and the
Bark phone are a better option for parents.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
My wife works with teens, and she was telling me
that Snapchat is everything. I mean, text messaging is not
even They don't even care anymore, Like I thought it
was all about, you know, for adults, this whole blue, bubble,
green bubble I message thing.

Speaker 2 (58:15):
But for teens it is all about Snapchat.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
And I think it's because of I'm guessing the fleeting
nature of the chats, which.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
I'm laughing, but it's really serious.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
It's like they you know, they like it because things disappear, right,
It's very serious.

Speaker 10 (58:29):
They do like it because things apparently disappear. But you know,
one thing that we've really got to get across to
everybody that uses tech is that anything you do online,
even if the platform tells you it disappears, doesn't actually disappear.
It lives on a server somewhere. You know, if you
recycle your phone to get a new phone, like, there's

(58:50):
still data that lives on that phone even if you
wiped it clean. So it's important to get that message across. Also,
you know, kids love Snapchat not only because it has
purported disappearing messages, but it also has for my eyes only,
so if a parent does go into the app to
try to see what's going on, they might not be
able to access certain things that the child has hidden

(59:12):
in the my eyes Only vault. Snapchat also has snap maps,
which essentially gives anyone that you're connected to your real
time location, which is not a problem if your child
is only connected to three of their friends that they
know and who are good people. It's a bigger problem
if your kid has two hundred contacts and they only

(59:32):
know twenty of them.

Speaker 3 (59:34):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
Yeah, that's an interesting one too.

Speaker 1 (59:37):
What do you think is the most pressing kind of
situation affecting teens and children right now when it comes
to technology?

Speaker 10 (59:47):
Ooh, that's uh, we need a lot more where we start.

Speaker 3 (59:52):
Yeah, right.

Speaker 10 (59:54):
Overall, it's the fact that parents and caregivers and ed
and physicians and legislators currently cannot help protect kids digitally
like they can in real life with seat belts and
sunscreens and healthy diets, et cetera. There's a world of
danger living deep in children's digital signal, and it is

(01:00:16):
harming them, not at low rates, but at frequent rates.
And it's the worst of the worst, whether it's exposure
to extreme violence, graphic sexual content, suicidal ideation, disordered eating,
you name it. Kids are encountering it at a much
younger age, at a much more frequent rate, and parents who

(01:00:37):
care about them have no idea. So that's that's the problem,
and it's not getting better.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Do we have a solution or do you know.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
What what is the solution?

Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
Because parents, you know, they want, like you said, we
do all these things for our kids, you know, teach
them how to you know, walk and ride their bikes safely,
and all this stuff, But when it comes to the
phones and tablets, most of the kids are actually more
advanced than the parents.

Speaker 10 (01:01:02):
They are, and that's why it's a multifaceted approach. While
the Bark app and the Bark smartphone are one key
component to it right because at least we're giving you
insights and helping you help your child have a healthier
relationship with tech, it's not the total solution. It starts
with education and awareness. As parents and caregivers, we need

(01:01:25):
to know what is happening and the rate at which
it's happening. We need to have multiple, candid conversations with
our children much earlier than we might think, at a
more frequent rate, because it's all about that relationship that
you have with your child will help you navigate these
rocky waters as they grow up. So using tech like Bark,
having that conversation and those relationships, understanding you know, just

(01:01:49):
the nuances, and then advocating for change. Right now, the
laws aren't set up to protect children from the harms
that social media causes them, and so reaching out to
your local legislator to advocate for change and reform that
will hold social media companies more accountable. I mean just
over the past year, social media has generated over eleven

(01:02:12):
billion dollars in revenue off of minors children under the
age of eighteen, So they do not have a vested
interest in minimizing the amount of time children are spending
on their platforms.

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
It starts with us, Wow, that's a lot of money.

Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
Okay, you posted something the other day about incognito mode.
People think that they're protected or private. Tell me what
we need to know about incognito mode.

Speaker 10 (01:02:36):
Essentially, children are using incognito mode because they think it's
completely anonymous, when in fact, this goes back to the
Snapchat conversation we just had that information lives somewhere. Just
because your parent can't get on that computer and see
your browser history. The internet service provider, the websites and
apps that you visited, they know where you went, and

(01:02:59):
if needed, that information can be shared with your parent
or let's say, employer when you get older. So it's
an important and misunderstood concept that does get abused. Certainly,
it's a very cool aspect if you're trying to, you know,
hide search history when you're trying to shop for a
present for somebody, but it's obviously used for more nefarious purposes.

Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
What's your advice to parents about the safety tools that
are built into some of these products?

Speaker 10 (01:03:28):
Oh my gosh, well cut me off at any time,
but here we go, lightning round. Don't give your kid unfettered,
unmonitored access to the internet. Keep connected tech and common
areas at the home, not in their bedrooms. Don't let
them access it overnight. Don't let your child have access
to things that you have not spent time on yourself.
Make sure that you just take a like one minute

(01:03:49):
literally to google whatever your child can access, plus the
term parental controls and see what free built in options
you have right at your disposal that you might not
even know about. And then finally, just talk to your kids.
Let them know that they are loved unconditionally and they
can talk to you about anything and you won't freak out.

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
T Tanya Jordan, author and founder of Parenting in a
Tech World and Bark Technologies Chief Parent Officer. Please follow
Titanya on Instagram. T t a n Ia Jordan on Instagram.
She posts great rules about all this stuff that you
need to know. At least it'll get you thinking. At
least it'll remind you that you have to do this stuff.

(01:04:29):
I know it's tough as a parent, Believe me. It
is so easy to hand our kids our phone or
their phone or let them play these games for a
half an hour, an hour and it just continues to
go more. Rich On Tech, come in your way right
after this. Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich Demiro
here hanging out with you at Triple eight Rich one
oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four

(01:04:51):
one zero one h and also find me on Instagram
at rich on Tech. That's where I hang out the most.
You can check out my stories. Let's go to Terry
in Seal Beach. Terry, you're on with Rich?

Speaker 5 (01:05:03):
Hi, Rich, how are you?

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
I am doing fantastic.

Speaker 3 (01:05:05):
How are you well.

Speaker 6 (01:05:06):
I'm getting ready to go out of the country for
a couple of weeks, and obviously I can't use an
e SIM on my phone. I have to actually physically
swap out sim through each country I go to. And
I'm just wondering, is there a way, even if I'm
using a foreign SIM that I can still text and
receive in sentex the folks.

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
Back here, is this an iPhone or a different type
of phone?

Speaker 6 (01:05:31):
No, it's a it's a Google Pixel five A five G,
which is not you know, I heard your recommendation a
long time ago about using a SIMS. Unfortunately I can't
use an SIM on this phone.

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):
Okay, yeah, that might have been before. Is that before
the SIM started on those yes? Okay, all right, So
you've got so you basically have a carrier here in
the US, like a T Mobile, Verizon, whatever it is,
and you're going to pop that SIM card out, and
then you're going to pop in a SIM card for
the country that you are in. Correct, Okay, your text

(01:06:03):
messages from the other SIM will not still get delivered
to that phone because they are dependent on that SIM card,
and the I'm trying to think if there's a solution.
The only solution I can think of is sometimes these
carriers have an app, like a Verizon Messages or a
T Mobile Digits that will deliver the messages digitally to

(01:06:25):
your phone, But that is carrier dependent, and I don't
know if you have the SIM card in there or
out of there, if that would still work.

Speaker 3 (01:06:33):
Like, like, I.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
Want to be able to check my text messages on
a different device, and it's really tricky to be able
to do that. So I think It's one of those
things where once that SIM card is out, it's just
that those texts are not going to come through on there.

Speaker 6 (01:06:48):
Let me ask you this. I have a backup phone
that I take with me because I learned the hard way.
If you drop a phone on a remote island, Yeah,
and it cracks, you're out of luck.

Speaker 18 (01:06:59):
Yep.

Speaker 6 (01:06:59):
But you can still use a backup phone via Wi Fi.
So I was just wondering if I bring my backup
phone with my US domestic SIM in it, will I
be able to text by a Wi Fi?

Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
Oh yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
Does that?

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
Does that phone have Wi Fi calling on it?

Speaker 4 (01:07:15):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
Yeah, yeah, turn on the wife. So here's what you do.

Speaker 1 (01:07:18):
Turn on the Wi Fi call, put the take the
SIM out, put it in that phone. It will activate.
You know, usually it's pretty automatic. It just switches over
if you if you pop the SIM in there, uh,
it will activate. Once that's activated, your old phone will
have no service, you know. Now you can use that
on your trip. But this old phone, this other phone,
you will turn on Wi Fi calling and then once

(01:07:39):
you're over in the other country, just make sure your
roaming is off and uh it as long as this
carrier supports Wi Fi calling, your text will come through
and your phone calls will come through on Wi Fi calling.

Speaker 2 (01:07:50):
Now here's the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:07:51):
I learned this actually from a friend when I was
in Japan, because I had my phone off and I
was like, oh, yeah, I've got my I don't want
to use my US carrier. He's like, dude, He's like,
why don't you just turn on your Wi Fi calling.
I said, well, text messages won't come through. He goes, yeah,
they will, and sure enough they came through as soon
as I activated that Wi Fi calling on that but
kept the roaming off. So I want to report back though, Terry,

(01:08:12):
when you get back, you got it all right, good luck,
have fun. And it sounds like a nice place you're
going to.

Speaker 6 (01:08:18):
If it's a it's called Fiji.

Speaker 2 (01:08:20):
Oh okay, well, enjoy Fiji.

Speaker 6 (01:08:21):
It's actually even warmer than southern California right now.

Speaker 1 (01:08:25):
I've had water from there and it's it's pretty tasty.
So I imagine the whole island is even better. Thanks
for the call today, triple eight rich one on one
eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
You know, the Fiji water is so good. Even my kids.
My kids are nine to twelve, and even they know
the quality of Fiji water. When they're in the store

(01:08:45):
and I'm like, look, you can pick out any water
bottle you want. They're like, Dad, we want Fiji. I'm like,
what kind of kids am I raising that they're drinking
Fiji water? When I was a kid, I drank out
of the hose right and it was cold and delicious,
And you know what Fiji water is very is very similar.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
I guess you know you find things at CS.

Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
I'm gonna give you a recommendation of a product that
I really found there and I've been using ever since.
It's called the Gator Grip. This thing is so simple,
it's so easy. It's literally a almost like a clothes
pin for your phone, and it has a very simple functionality.
You put this thing on your phone and you can
now prop up your phone so you can watch videos

(01:09:25):
on it. It's like fifteen bucks rich on tech dot
TV slash Shop if you want the link to that.
I love when I find little things like this that
I actually use.

Speaker 3 (01:09:35):
Triple A.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
Rich one on one is the phone number eight eight
eight seven four.

Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
To two four one zero one. 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 tech questions.

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
Gina in Venice. You're on with Rich.

Speaker 19 (01:09:53):
So I'm wondering. I'm an Apple person, I have across
the AU platform, and I'm wondering if there's a way
to think applications that I have like to sink Gmail
across all applications. So when I i'd wather it a
message or email and on my iPhone and delete it,

(01:10:16):
it's all also deleted on my Mac or my iPad
or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:10:24):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:10:25):
Yes, So there's a couple of ways you can do this.

Speaker 1 (01:10:28):
If you download, like specifically for Gmail, if you download
the Gmail app, you can install that on your various devices,
and if you delete a message on one device, whether
it's the web, whether it's the iPhone, whether it's the iPad,
it will delete on all the other devices as well,
if you're using the Apple Mail app, as long as
you set up the email using kind of like their flow,

(01:10:51):
which if you haven't done this in a while, like
if you set it up a long time ago, you
might have. You might have set it up as what's
called pop three. And if you're setting up is pop three,
that means that the email is kind of downloaded to
your device and everything happens locally, so you want to
set it up as what's called imap imap, and when
you make a change there, it is reflected on the server,

(01:11:12):
which means it'll be reflected anywhere else. So if it's
not deleting, Like let's say you've got the mail app
on your phone, you delete an email from Gmail and
it doesn't delete, then that means I would go in.
I would delete my entire email account from the mail
app and set it up fresh, and your your email
will be safe because it's it's going to be on
the server from Gmail. Yes, yeah, I think the Gmail

(01:11:34):
app is the easiest way to go. That's what I
use because it does work across everything.

Speaker 19 (01:11:38):
Perfect and I learned stuff. And I have one teenie quick.

Speaker 2 (01:11:44):
Question famous last words on this show, Gina.

Speaker 6 (01:11:47):
I know.

Speaker 19 (01:11:50):
When you click the box trust this device, yes, does it?

Speaker 3 (01:11:58):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:11:58):
You should only click that box when you are attaching
the device a trust the device to your computer or
like if you see that message when you are plugging
into like an outlet at the airport, run as far
as you can, because that is why they put that there.
That is only for your phone to your computer, and
that is because it means that you can transfer data

(01:12:20):
between those two things. If you see that message anywhere else,
if you're at a library, public computer, you do not
want to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:12:26):
You don't want to trust that device.

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
Your device can still charge off of that computer or
that outlet, but it will not send data. So trust
this device is Take that very seriously when you see it.
That's there for a reason.

Speaker 19 (01:12:40):
All right, Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (01:12:41):
Rich.

Speaker 19 (01:12:42):
I really appreciate your program and all the information you provide.

Speaker 1 (01:12:46):
Well, Gina, I appreciate you listening. You are the best
part of the show.

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
Thanks so much.

Speaker 1 (01:12:51):
Speaking of being out and about and traveling, if you're
a nerd like me, the first thing you do when
you get to any new place, whether it's a hotel
room or or you know you're traveling in an airport,
you want to download something. I'm always doing a speed test,
so I wanted to share just the app that I
really like that does this easily and fast, and I
kind of like just the animations on it. It's called

(01:13:12):
Meteor meteo R. It's available for iOS and Android and
all you have to do is download the app and
you'll see a big button that says speed test and
you can do the speed test. And what I like
about it is it shows you both the ping, the
download and the upload, and when it's done with the test,
it will actually show you some apps and how those

(01:13:34):
apps are expected to perform.

Speaker 2 (01:13:36):
Based on this speed test. And the neat thing is.

Speaker 1 (01:13:38):
You can select the apps that you use the most,
so you can see if the things that you do
will work. Now, I will tell you, having done many
many speed tests over the years, internet speeds out and
about on cellular and Wi Fi have gotten way better
than they ever have been.

Speaker 3 (01:13:53):
So I think for ninety nine percent of things you want.

Speaker 1 (01:13:55):
To do, you're going to find the speed that you
need just about anywhere you are, unless you're trying to
download a movie.

Speaker 2 (01:14:01):
Welcome back to another hour of Rich on Tech.

Speaker 1 (01:14:04):
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. My name
is rich Demiro. The website for the show Richontech dot tv.
If you want to get in touch with the show,
you can tap the email icon that'll send a message
right to my screen. And yes, you send a lot

(01:14:26):
of them. Thank you for that. I do appreciate it.
Let's get to the first question this hour. It comes
from Chris. Chris says, Hey, Rich, I listened to your
radio show on one oh four to three radio when
I can in Caerville, Texas. I would like to buy
my handicap brother and Android pad so he can play
Solitaire and maybe a few other easy games. We would

(01:14:47):
like him to also be able to get emails and
so we can zoom with him. As the six siblings
are scattered all over the country, I can't tell if
any of the pads come with games. I really don't
want to have to subscribe to anything at all possible.
I think if he can download game apps from the internet,
but once it's downloaded, will he need to be hooked
to the.

Speaker 2 (01:15:05):
Internet to play?

Speaker 1 (01:15:07):
There are restrictions in the group home that he lives in.
Thanks for any input you can offer, Chris.

Speaker 2 (01:15:13):
Well, Chris, it really depends on the game.

Speaker 1 (01:15:15):
So most of these tablets do not come with built
in games. You may find that some of them do,
but I think typically tablets just come kind of without
anything installed on them, and you install the apps that
you want, so you probably will need internet access at
least for the initial setup. That's the way it works
with most of the tablets that I've set up, and
you'll probably need internet access at least to download the games.

Speaker 2 (01:15:38):
The first time.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
But if you search in Google Play, you will notice
that some games are marked offline play. So if you
go into Google Play, if you have an Android phone
and just go ahead and search offline games, and you
can search for that, and you will see a whole
bunch of games come up. And if you tap into
one of those games, it says about this game, and

(01:16:02):
there's a couple of little kind of boxes underneath this
one says Strategy Simulation Casual offline, So that tells you
that this game works offline. It also tells you up
at the top of the listing if it's available for phone,
chromebook and tablet, and so you can see which games
will work on the different devices.

Speaker 2 (01:16:20):
If you tap offline again, you can see a.

Speaker 1 (01:16:23):
Whole list of games that are offline games, and you'll
find a whole bunch of them.

Speaker 2 (01:16:27):
That is probably the best way to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:29):
Set up the tablet, download the games at your place,
and then hand it over to him. Now, when it
comes to tablets, you didn't ask for any recommendations, but
I'll give you a few that I like. I think
it depends, of course, how much you want to spend.
I know that the Amazon Fire tablets are always very inexpensive,
and so people are drawn to them. The thing to
know about that is that not every game, not every

(01:16:52):
app is available, and you do not have access to
Google Play, at least not easily on the Fire tablet.
So if you want Google Play games, that's something that
you would probably want a different tablet for.

Speaker 2 (01:17:03):
So what do I recommend?

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
The one plus Pad is a really nice tablet that
starts at four hundred and seventy nine dollars. It often
goes on sale, so I would definitely look for that
at a cheaper price. But that is a fantastic combination
of really high end specs and a great price, so
I do like that one. The other one, if you
want to go on the cheaper end, is the Nokia

(01:17:26):
T ten. Now, this is a small tablet, it's just
about eight inches, but it's a very inexpensive price. So
it's about one hundred and twenty nine ninety nine, and
maybe you might even be able to find that one
for cheaper. It doesn't have the best screen, it doesn't
have the best specs, but I.

Speaker 3 (01:17:42):
Have tested this.

Speaker 2 (01:17:43):
It's easy to hold, it's fine for basic things.

Speaker 1 (01:17:47):
You know, some of the games might be a little
sluggish on it, but that is another option. If you
want something that's going to be the best combination of
price and performance and features, I think you go with
a Galaxy tab S nine FE and that starts at
three hundred and eighty nine dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:18:02):
That is from Samsung. It is great. It's water resistant,
it's dust resistant, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:18:07):
Got a nice big screen, it's got an spen included,
it's got a nice long lasting battery. That is a
really solid tablet. My only downside of that it is
a little bit on the heavier side. But those are
some great solutions. And thank you for listening in Texas.
Next up, Tony says I have an iPhone fourteen plus
limited warranty ending very soon. I currently pay fourteen dollars

(01:18:30):
a month for Assurion with Verizon. At what point is
insurance protection no longer worth it? And is there better
insurance protection elsewhere? Thanks for all the wonderful information you provide, Tony.
Oh no, Tony, you're gonna make me kick a bee's
nest here with your question, I am probably.

Speaker 2 (01:18:47):
Gonna be very controversial in my answer, but I am.

Speaker 1 (01:18:50):
Not a huge fan of these extended warranty programs.

Speaker 3 (01:18:53):
I never have been.

Speaker 2 (01:18:55):
And I get it.

Speaker 3 (01:18:56):
Retailers, the carriers.

Speaker 1 (01:18:58):
The phone companies, they all make a lot of money
off of this. What are they making money off of.
They're making money off of fear. Fear that you're gonna
drop your phone, and fear that you're gonna break your phone,
and fear that you're gonna not have the money to
replace it or repair it.

Speaker 2 (01:19:12):
But in many instances, and I will tell you this,
I just don't.

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
Think that the insurance is worth it. Let's just do
simple math. So you're talking fourteen dollars a month times
twelve months, that's one hundred and sixty eight dollars you're
paying on top of your expensive smartphone. And by the way,
that does not include any deductibles. And so when you
go to get your screen repaired or if it's a
bigger repair, it's gonna cost even more money. So now

(01:19:37):
you're talking just for one year. Let's just say you're
up to two hundred dollars. So how much would that repair.
Be if you got one repair at full price and
you went to someone in the mall that replaces the screen,
or if you went to the Apple store and got
the screen replaced, you know it might be cheaper than that.

Speaker 2 (01:19:53):
Let's see how much does Apple charge hold on?

Speaker 1 (01:19:56):
Okay, so checking the Apple Support website, it is to
get a screen repair if you're out of warranty.

Speaker 2 (01:20:03):
Now keep in mind this is from Apple. They're going
to charge the most.

Speaker 1 (01:20:05):
You can go to a third party repair facility that
may charge less, but it's three hundred and twenty nine
dollars if you have no coverage on your phone. Now,
if you have an Apple Care Plus plan, it is
twenty nine.

Speaker 2 (01:20:16):
Dollars to get that repair. That sounds a lot better.

Speaker 1 (01:20:19):
But how much is the Apple Care Plus Well, for
two years, it is one hundred and seventy nine dollars,
So do the math. Two years one hundred and seventy
nine dollars plus the twenty nine. Now you're up to
two hundred and ten dollars for that screen repair. So
just under that three hundred and twenty nine dollars cost. Now,
I will tell you I have tested hundreds of phones.

Speaker 2 (01:20:40):
Over the years okay, and I bring them everywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:20:43):
I have them in my car, they fall out of
my pants pocket whatever. I have broken, maybe maybe two
or three screens in my entire lifetime. Now, if you
have a good case on your phone and a good
screen protector on your phone, ninety nine percent of the
time your phone is going to be protected anyway. And

(01:21:04):
what does that leave Well, that leaves theft. So if
your phone is stolen and you don't have it, now
you're paying even more for.

Speaker 2 (01:21:10):
Your coverage for your insurance.

Speaker 1 (01:21:12):
So I feel like my advice is always to take
that fourteen dollars a month, put it in a separate
savings account, and before you know it, you will be
self insured against anything that happens to your phone. And
by the way, you may even save up enough money
to buy a new phone completely.

Speaker 2 (01:21:28):
So that is my thought.

Speaker 1 (01:21:30):
If you feel better paying that fourteen dollars a month
for that insurance plan, by all means, go ahead and
do it. I'm just giving you my perspective on this,
and I will tell you over the years I have
had to you know, since I don't buy the Apple
Care on my laptop computers either, I have had to
repair my laptop computer twice, and both times the repair

(01:21:51):
is worse. Six hundred dollars, which is a lot. Probably
would have been cheaper with Apple Care, but that's twice
in probably fifteen years that.

Speaker 2 (01:21:58):
I've had Mac.

Speaker 1 (01:22:00):
So you know, you got to do the math on
these things. If you feel good having it, go ahead.
But my feeling is that you're paying a lot for
something that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:07):
You may not use.

Speaker 1 (01:22:09):
One more quick one here, Jennifer says, Hey, Rich, do
you know if Amazon does anything with the how is
your delivery responses after each delivery? I hope to reward
the drivers who manage to deliver my packages to my
door rather than to my neighbors. I've been diligently responding
each time, but wonder if it's worth the effort. I'm
a devoted follower. I've learned so much from you over

(01:22:30):
the years. Thank you for providing interesting, useful information in
easy to understand terms. Jennifer in Laguna Hills, California. Jennifer,
thanks for the kind words. I did ask Amazon about
this and they did say, long story short, this is
a very important mechanism for our delivery service partners to assess.

Speaker 2 (01:22:48):
Their driver's performance.

Speaker 1 (01:22:50):
It's also the best way for customers to show their appreciation.
So let your listener know that those responses are important
and are linked to the driver who delivered their packages,
not their neighbors.

Speaker 2 (01:23:01):
Well, there you go, Jennifer.

Speaker 1 (01:23:02):
It sounds like every time you leave a good review,
it is doing good things for that driver.

Speaker 3 (01:23:06):
Keep them coming.

Speaker 1 (01:23:07):
My name is rich Dmiro.

Speaker 3 (01:23:08):
The website for the show.

Speaker 2 (01:23:10):
Rich on Tech dot TV more rich on Tech come
your way.

Speaker 3 (01:23:14):
Right after this.

Speaker 1 (01:23:23):
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
out with you, talking technology at Triple eight Rich one
O one eighty eight seven four to two four one
zero one. Marshall and Risita, you're on with Rich I.

Speaker 14 (01:23:37):
Shi in the Jersey It.

Speaker 2 (01:23:39):
Hey, how's it going.

Speaker 14 (01:23:40):
Hanging in there?

Speaker 20 (01:23:41):
I hope you doing on?

Speaker 14 (01:23:42):
I twitched over from that note twenty Ultra I had
that you saw me and Amazon Fresh. I have a
twenty four. I'm sorry I didn't know twenty Now we've
got the twenty three, but you know that it doesn't
have a standal my memory. I got a five twelve
memory when I bought the phone. Because they doubled your memory.

Speaker 18 (01:23:57):
Tell them whoever you talk to the jam come to
put the expandable memory back in because they did this
back in the five or six senteries, and I don't
know if you remember, Oh yeah, Marshall, they put it
back in and on the seven or something like that
because people can brained, yep.

Speaker 2 (01:24:14):
And then they took it away.

Speaker 3 (01:24:16):
Yeah, here's the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:24:18):
People love the expandable memory. But these phones are getting
to the place where they have the phonemakers want no
ports whatsoever.

Speaker 20 (01:24:27):
I need a good success from your part. I want
a tangible thing. I could put it, take it like,
you know, because if I put the micro c car
once I filled it up, you know, I could take
it out and put a fresh one in, sure, but
take it with me and then.

Speaker 18 (01:24:40):
Whatever I want to do with that car.

Speaker 17 (01:24:42):
I don't want to put myself up in the cloud.

Speaker 20 (01:24:44):
I don't want to put it onto a laptop.

Speaker 17 (01:24:46):
And like I want something I could take and put
into the you know, plug into the phone, download all
the stuff from you know, the pictures and videos. However,
I have put into something candile that I can put
you know, Terry Ren with me because it's got five
twelve told memory on it, so it probably needs to
be considered something large to you know, you know, not
physical arts, but like you know, data largs.

Speaker 3 (01:25:07):
That's what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:25:08):
Well, the good news is, look, the good news is
with these phones with the USBC, you could plug any
drive into them. Just get a hard drive if you
want to do it that way, that's the cheapest. If
you want something small, get a flash drive. And the
phone actually has an app built in called my File.
Let's see what it's called here files my files. So

(01:25:30):
if you go into the my files app, if you
plug in a hard drive or a flash drive, it's
going to show up under storage and you could just
go ahead and copy and paste all the stuff that
you want from your phone into that drive. And I'm
sure there's some apps that can help you do that
as well, but it's it's built into the phone.

Speaker 2 (01:25:46):
It's very simple to do it that way. If you
don't want to go to the cloud.

Speaker 1 (01:25:50):
The drives that I recommend, if you want to just
get a regular hard drive, just go on Amazon search
you know hard drive Western Digital and you can get
like a probably a two terabyte drive for like sixty bucks.
At this point. Make sure it's USBC. But if you
want to get a flash drive, PNY has what's called
the duo link and this is a USB three point

(01:26:13):
two C drive USBC. Plug it into the bottom. They
make it in one twenty eight gigabytes or two fifty six.
One twenty eight gigabytes is twenty bucks. Two fifty six
is twenty five dollars. That's that's a pretty good value
if you want to get sand disk. They make some
products that are USB flash drives under the I expand

(01:26:35):
name and same thing. You can get these things very cheap.
Just look for USBC there. They're kind of dropping the
I expand. It looks like so it's uh. They call
it the Ultra dual drive. Go and USBC. You can
get it all the way up to a terabyte. Okay,
so one terabyte is going to be one hundred and

(01:26:57):
nine to ninety nine. You said your phone. I think
you said it was two fifty six or five twelve
thirty six ninety nine for a five hundred and twelve
gigabyte drive flash drive. This thing is tiny. It's it'll
fit on your keychain. So go ahead, you can get
that and sync all of your photos, videos, files, whatever

(01:27:19):
you want. Marshall, And yes, I remember you. We met
outside the Amazon Fresh store and I think it was
Woodland Hills. Maybe when it was first opening. You showed
me your phone and you said, Rich, you made me
get this. And when people say that to me, I'm
always like hesitant. I'm like, do you like it? And
you said yes, Thanks for the call today, eighty eight
rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to

(01:27:41):
two four one zero one.

Speaker 2 (01:27:44):
You can find me on social media.

Speaker 1 (01:27:46):
I'm at Rich on Tech on Instagram, Facebook X, all
the places online, the website for the show rich on
Tech dot TV. You can also watch the segments that
I do for television there, and you know, just a
lot of stuff you can do. Listen to the podcast.

(01:28:07):
You can download this show later to listen again. You know,
maybe you didn't catch something. You're like, what did Rich
say about that? Let me listen to all three hours
once again. Just search Rich on Tech in your favorite
podcasting app or your favorite audio app.

Speaker 2 (01:28:21):
I should say, Katie is in.

Speaker 1 (01:28:24):
La Century City, Century City, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 21 (01:28:29):
If we change carriers on our cell phones from one
to another, from AT and T to something else, can
we keep our phone numbers the way they are?

Speaker 3 (01:28:42):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:28:43):
This is called yeah, This is called poorting out a
phone number and basically all the cellular all the cellular
companies use a system that allows them to grab the
phone number from your old account bring it to the
new account. Now, how easy that is can sometimes be
a little tricky. So the thing you need to know
about porting a phone number out number one, do not

(01:29:06):
cancel your old service. That is the number one thing
to know. So you need to have your old service active,
and you have to also kind of set up that
service for the port out, And with AT and T
specifically you can Basically you need a pin you need
your account, You need your account information very perfectly for

(01:29:28):
the new carrier to be able to grab that phone number.
And with AT and T you need to get a
special pin code because phone numbers are our lives, and
so you don't want to just be able to have
a stranger take your phone number from you. And so
these cellular carriers have gotten pretty like strict about porting out.
They want to let you do it easily, but they

(01:29:48):
also want to make sure you are who you say
you are, and so you basically need to get a
pin number with AT and T so that you can
give that special pin number to the new provider and
get them and that way they can grab that phone number.
So on AT and T you can dial from your
phone star Port p O R T and you can

(01:30:12):
get a number transfer pin sent to you via your
text message. You'll need your account passcode to generate that,
so just keep in mind you will need some of
that information. If you have the AT and T app,
you can go into the people and Permissions and it
says transfer port transfer phone number and you have to
request a PIN there and it will display on the

(01:30:33):
screen and that pin number is what's going to get
that new carrier the ability to grab your phone number.
So it's you know, porting is not tough, but you
do need to have all of your information in a
line and also some of these code numbers before you
can allow that port to happen. And that's for a
reason because again people do these things where they steal

(01:30:55):
your number and then they can get your codes for
logging into various websites, you know, the two factor authentication
codes and or they you know, there's a lot they
can do a lot of damage they can do. So
that is the way to do it, Katie, And just yeah,
make sure you don't and by the way, once you
once that number is transferred to the new service, it's
automatically canceled at your old provider. So once that number

(01:31:18):
is pulled out of your account and you have it
with your new service, your old service will be disconnected automatically.
There's usually nothing you have to do after that. It
should automatically disconnect. Thanks for the call, Katie. I'm glad
you heard good things about me. You must have been
talking to my family now.

Speaker 3 (01:31:33):
As you know, it is.

Speaker 1 (01:31:34):
My goal to make this show as useful as possible.
That's why I do a mix of things. I talk
about the tech stuff I think you should know about.
That includes the news of the week. That includes reviews,
that's tips, that's useful apps, And a big part of
all of this is my website, rich on tech dot TV.
You might know that I do have a job as

(01:31:55):
a TV reporter in Los Angeles for ktlaight Channel five,
So of course I have my articles on there as
well on the website, and I have my TV segments.
So if you go to the website rich on tech
dot tv, not only can you follow me on social media.
I'm on Twitter now X, I'm on Instagram, I'm on Facebook.
You can find my email address there. You'll always see

(01:32:16):
my latest story. Plus you can get my newsletter. I've
been putting a lot of effort into my newsletter because
that is kind.

Speaker 3 (01:32:23):
Of like this show. It's the best way to keep
up with me.

Speaker 2 (01:32:26):
I will send out one to two emails per week.

Speaker 3 (01:32:29):
One of them is my main newsletter.

Speaker 2 (01:32:31):
One will be an audio version of this show, so
that's nice and easy to listen to later.

Speaker 1 (01:32:35):
And get all the links to everything I mentioned. Plus,
like I said, you could watch my latest TV segment.
You can see links to all of the previous shows.
So I've got all the episodes lined up in.

Speaker 2 (01:32:45):
A wiki for the radio show What's Going On?

Speaker 1 (01:32:48):
Rich tamiro here rich on Tech, Welcome back to the show.
Joining me now is Jose Brionez. He runs a website
called Dumb phone Finder. He is a digital minimal Jose,
welcome to the show.

Speaker 15 (01:33:02):
Thank you for having me. Rich.

Speaker 1 (01:33:04):
You embraced digital minimalism a couple of years ago.

Speaker 3 (01:33:08):
Tell me why and what that journey's been like.

Speaker 22 (01:33:11):
So for me, I think the idea is that I
was spending too much time online and that's because I
went from one environment to another. So I got out
of college, I went to university, and I had a
very structure life, going to school, going to work hours,
and then going home. But then I went out of

(01:33:32):
that structure life to the life that I had to
build myself, and I found myself spending too much of
that lifetime online.

Speaker 15 (01:33:41):
So when I got my first.

Speaker 22 (01:33:42):
Job, I was spending roughly about twelve to thirteen hours
online work and leisure altogether, and I did not want
to do that. So I started to find alternatives in
my life that will allow me to live what I
call a better life, a more balanced life, and interact
with technology but not be overcome by it.

Speaker 1 (01:34:03):
Okay, so the first thing you did in this journey,
I assume was get rid of the smartphone.

Speaker 3 (01:34:08):
What tell me about that aspect you switched.

Speaker 1 (01:34:10):
What did you try to do, Like, what was your
goal in Did you try to reduce your time on
the smartphone or just get rid of it all together?

Speaker 22 (01:34:18):
So I think at first I was trying to keep
my smartphone and use the tools that are with it,
so screen time or other you know, kind of like
little hacks. But at some point in time I realized
that I am not a smartphone person. If I have
something available and I have the technology available to me.

Speaker 15 (01:34:35):
I want to use it. If I have a smartphone
in my hands, I want.

Speaker 3 (01:34:38):
To use it.

Speaker 15 (01:34:38):
I want to get the most out of it.

Speaker 22 (01:34:41):
So taking that and going to a simpler phone at
the time, I tried a Life phone too, which has
been my device for the past four years, and it
had enough.

Speaker 15 (01:34:51):
It had enough things that I liked.

Speaker 22 (01:34:53):
I liked the company, and it wasn't perfect, but it
had the things that I wanted and appreciate it, and
I started to look for alternative ways to do all
of the other smart things that I had become accustomed to.

Speaker 1 (01:35:06):
And real quick I have tested the light phone. It's
basically a Kindle like a Kindle screen on a phone.
It's really small, it's very minimalistic. It's not a color
screen as far as I know. The one I tested
wasn't and it's very basic. I mean I had a
couple of functions on it. I can't remember everything it did,
but you know, you could text on it, you can

(01:35:26):
make phone calls, and I believe Verizon for a while
was allowing you to add it as a secondary line,
so theoretically you could have your smartphone during the week
and then your light phone on the weekends or nights
when you go out to dinner. What has been the
biggest challenge in transitioning away from a smartphone.

Speaker 22 (01:35:43):
I think the biggest challenge for me is that you
have to relearn how to operate in the twenty first
century but with twentieth century principles.

Speaker 15 (01:35:51):
So when you go to a.

Speaker 22 (01:35:52):
Restaurant and they have a QR code, you need to ask, hey,
can I get a paper menu? Or when you go
to the airport and instead of having the QR code
ready for you to use and board your plane, you
have to be mindful of printing it at home or
going to the kiosk and talking to somebody so that
you can get those things. And of course navigating that's

(01:36:13):
a new thing, right Like you know GPS, so we
don't have the bulky ones anymore, so you kind of
have to go back a couple of years and say, Okay,
I'm going to bring this bulky GPS on my car
instead of having my phone with Android auto and everything
really nicely laid out. It's difficult in the beginning because
we're used to all of this convenience, but over time
you start finding and you start asking more questions, and

(01:36:37):
you find the alternatives that you need to find for
the things that you need to do, and you live
a normal life as normal as it is. It's definitely
simpler and less convenient. But for me at least, it
has been quite a improvement in my personal life, my relationships,
and my work as well.

Speaker 2 (01:36:54):
What have the improvement's been.

Speaker 22 (01:36:56):
I think the main improvement is that I can have
a conversation with my wife and not be distracted by
the notifications on my phone because I'm not deeply attracted
to it anymore.

Speaker 15 (01:37:09):
Even when we go on a trip.

Speaker 22 (01:37:11):
I do have a smartphone that I keep for international
trips because when I'm international, I don't know the language,
you know, I may not be able to figure it
out all the things that I have figured out here
in my local context. But even when we go international,
I'm definitely more present, more available, you know. In my
personal relationships, I can go to a place and not

(01:37:31):
take my phone and I don't feel wow, oh my gosh,
like what's going on in the world out there, because
I get to cherish the experiences.

Speaker 15 (01:37:39):
When it comes to.

Speaker 22 (01:37:40):
Work, I finish work quite faster, you know, just because
I don't have a lot of distractions pinging me or
grabbing my attention. You kind of remain more focused in
your work and you do it faster, and then you
get more time for relaxation and other activities that I want.

Speaker 3 (01:37:54):
Do you ever feel like you're missing out?

Speaker 22 (01:37:56):
I do miss out, but I think that's a mindset
that you have to accept. I did not start this
in order to have the niceties of the twenty first
century and the principles of the twentieth century and then
you know, kind of like interact back and forth between them.
I started this as a lifestyle change. I wanted my
lifestyle to change. I wanted to start interacting more with

(01:38:16):
print media. I wanted to kind of have a little
bit more of a slower life. So, yes, I am
missing out, but I'm okay with that. I have accepted that,
and that's one of the hardest parts.

Speaker 4 (01:38:28):
You know.

Speaker 22 (01:38:28):
I've missed out on a couple parties that my friends
organized because I'm not in the group message or I
don't have that app that everybody has. I missed out
on quote unquote posts that are important. And one time
I did miss out on some email communication that was
pretty prompt. It wasn't a super emergency because This is
something that I tell everybody. If it's a true emergency,

(01:38:50):
somebody will find you somehow someway. They will call you,
they will get your coworker, they will try to find
your family member.

Speaker 15 (01:39:00):
Because when it's a real emergency, they will do that.

Speaker 3 (01:39:02):
You run a website called dumbphones dot org. Tell me
about the website and what that helps people do.

Speaker 22 (01:39:09):
So about three years ago I started this website and
the animus or the idea was to help people find
their perfect phone.

Speaker 15 (01:39:18):
When people hear dumb phones, they usually.

Speaker 22 (01:39:20):
Think, oh, it's an old flip phone, it doesn't have
any capabilities, but actually they do.

Speaker 15 (01:39:26):
It's just that, you know, it's not in the media
as much.

Speaker 22 (01:39:29):
You don't get the shiny new announcement from Samsung or
Apple out there. So if you go to the dumbphone Finder,
you can find the perfect phone for you. So the
website just runs different filters and you can explore it
and it has a lot of other useful resources for
people to start the journey.

Speaker 1 (01:39:46):
What's a dumb phone run these days? And do you
have a top pick?

Speaker 15 (01:39:51):
Yes?

Speaker 22 (01:39:51):
I do have three top picks, and they all range
from different price points. I think most people associate the
sub one hundred dollars, but they can go all the
way to three hundred dollars, like the light phone. You know,
the light phone is more of a minimal device, you know,
something that you really want for a lifestyle change.

Speaker 15 (01:40:10):
The CATS twenty two.

Speaker 22 (01:40:11):
Flip is more of the smarter device. You can still
have apps and you know, all of the nice city
and convenience of the world. That one runs you about
seventy nine to one hundred dollars, depending on the condition.
You can get them on Amazon. And then something more
like in the middle will be a Nokia. You know,

(01:40:32):
there's still Nokia devices out there. The twenty seven to
eighty can run you eighty bucks or so, and there's
everything in between. You know, different companies are coming out
with different concepts, and I'm really excited about the space
growing in the next few years.

Speaker 1 (01:40:46):
If I'm not ready to give up my smartphone and
I'm not ready to get a dumb phone, give me
a tip to sort of be more intentional and have
less screen time.

Speaker 15 (01:40:56):
I'll give you two quick tips.

Speaker 22 (01:40:58):
The first one is give your screen time password to
someone else. So that's one of the biggest things that
has helped me whenever I go, you know, and I
have to use my smartphone for whatever reason. My wife
has set up the screen time passcode, so if I
try to bypass it, I can't because I don't know
the passcode, And if I really want to do it,
I'll have to factor you reset, and I really doubt

(01:41:20):
you're going to do that. The second one is find
an app that works for you. There's one that is
called unpluck with a queue or Brick, which is the
Brick app.

Speaker 15 (01:41:32):
They both lock you down with physical devices.

Speaker 22 (01:41:35):
You tap the physical device and it blocks everything from
your smartphone, and if you tap it again, you have
access to it again, so you can leave it at home.
You can have a relaxed day. You come back, you
may not need to have to check email. You tap
and then you have access to all of the things again.

Speaker 3 (01:41:51):
All right, Jose, this has been great.

Speaker 2 (01:41:53):
Tell folks how to find you online.

Speaker 22 (01:41:55):
So the best way is to go to the don't
phone Finder Downphones dot org is my website where I
run all the things for digital minimalism. I also have
a personal website at Jose Brionez dot org and you
can find email and different ways in there to contact me.

Speaker 1 (01:42:10):
My special thanks to Jose who really got me thinking.

Speaker 2 (01:42:13):
Could I even go a day without my smartphone? No email,
no Instagram, no maps, no photos. I'm not sure I
could do it. More rich on Tech coming your way
right after this.

Speaker 3 (01:42:23):
Welcome back to rich on Tech.

Speaker 1 (01:42:25):
Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology.

Speaker 3 (01:42:29):
It is time for the feedback segment.

Speaker 1 (01:42:31):
These are the emails, the comments and the questions I
get from you. If you'd like to submit yours, just
go to the website richon Tech dot TV. First up
is Gwendolyn. She says, Hi, Rich, I trusted the Mohu antenna, However.

Speaker 3 (01:42:46):
It didn't make a difference on my TV.

Speaker 1 (01:42:48):
I also talked to a representative as I went through
his instructions, yet I was informed that I would have
to pay return postage to return the antenna that was
not explicit in the box or upon receiving my payment.
I want my money that I paid for the antenna
returned in full.

Speaker 3 (01:43:05):
Gwendolyn, I am sorry this happened to you.

Speaker 1 (01:43:08):
I love the Mohu antenna, but antennas are finicky. They
don't always work, they don't always get every channel, depending
on a wide variety of variables in your case doesn't
sound like it worked out. But here is the lesson
learned from this situation, and I do this myself anytime
I shop at a store that is not Amazon. Amazon

(01:43:28):
makes returns very simple and easy, but many other retailers don't,
and so we've come to enjoy this Amazon return policy.

Speaker 3 (01:43:38):
But when you shop at a different store, it may
be different.

Speaker 1 (01:43:41):
And so what I always do is before I shop anywhere,
whether it is a bricks and mortar store or an
online retailer that's not Amazon, I will always check to
see what the return policy is. Sometimes you have to
search in the tiny print down at the bottom of
the website, but if I'm at a retail I will
literally ask before the cashier rings me up. I will say, hey,

(01:44:04):
what's your return policy, even if it's a storelike best
Buy where I've purchased stuff before, because these retailers are
changing things rapidly. So I'm sorry this didn't work out
for you. I'm sorry that you lost some money on
the transaction. But hopefully we can all use this as
a learning process to remember to ask or to look
for that return policy before we purchase from a website

(01:44:27):
we are unfamiliar with.

Speaker 3 (01:44:28):
Thanks for the email Gwendolen.

Speaker 1 (01:44:30):
Next up, Tony says, just want to let you know
Samsung is trying to pull a fast one. If you
go to their website and search twenty twenty five, you'll
see that their AI is free only until the end
of twenty twenty five, but when you click on the
actual S twenty four by page, it is not there.

Speaker 3 (01:44:47):
I just want to mention this to you.

Speaker 1 (01:44:49):
I heard only one tech YouTuber talking about this. I
hope this cautions anyone looking to buy the S twenty four.
I hope that Apple doesn't follow suit. Tony, thanks for this. Yeah,
I did see something about this going around. So what
you're talking about is the AI functionality on the Galaxy
S twenty four, which Samsung has, you know, Live Translate,

(01:45:12):
They've got the photo editing features, and I think what
they're doing is just protecting themselves moving forward, so in
case they want to end up charging for some of
this functionality or limiting that functionality as we go down
the line. But I don't think that's the case here
because we just recently saw a rollout of a lot
of these features on the S twenty three, and so

(01:45:36):
you know, users of the older Samsung phones are now
getting these great AI features for free. We're seeing Google
do something similar. They said the Pixel eight wasn't going
to get some of these AI features, and that's getting
them now. So I think these companies are in a
race with these AI features and they're becoming very competitive
about it. So again, I think that Samsung just wants

(01:45:59):
to kind of reserve the right to get rid of
some of these eventually or change the way they offer them.
But I don't really see that happening, because they said
they want to get the AI features in the hands
of over one hundred million Samsung users by the end
of this year, so that's probably part of the plan.
Thanks for the comment, Tony. Next up, Gary says changing
my credit card number did not work for me. I

(01:46:21):
did that with Bank of America and the bank had
an unpublished policy of routing charges for subscriptions to the
new number. I had to dispute it and change banks. Gary,
this is an interesting one. So we were talking about
this on the radio show a while back. But yes,
this is when you have your card number hacked or

(01:46:42):
changed and all of a sudden you notice your subscriptions
continue to charge and I don't know what the back
end system is, but somehow there's some level of trust
between these major banks and reoccurring subscription retailers like a
Disney Plus or an Apple Music or a Spotify. Somehow

(01:47:04):
they actually just transfer those numbers over and your subscription.

Speaker 3 (01:47:08):
Doesn't miss a beat.

Speaker 1 (01:47:09):
Now that's convenient, but sometimes you want that fresh start,
and you know, if your number gets compromised or if
you switch cards, you're like, okay, fine, I won't have
to deal with all these cancelations and changes. But then
you realize, so I noticed, if you go inside your
app on at least on some of them, it will
give you a list of all of the recurring charges

(01:47:31):
that are on your account, And I guess that's kind
of the basis for what they end up sharing that
number with. Next up, Christy says hi, I have never
used rice to dry out any of my devices. Instead,
I always save those little packets of silica gel that
come in nearly everything and store them in a large
sealed Mason jar. Whenever anything gets unexpectedly wet, I dry

(01:47:54):
it off and stuff it into that jarro packets, and
within twenty four hours at most it's dry.

Speaker 3 (01:48:00):
I've saved earbuds.

Speaker 1 (01:48:01):
That my husband has dropped in the pool more than once.
Bonus keep the packets out of the landfill. Thanks Christy.
Well that is a great idea. Wow, I never thought
about doing that because we just tossed those little silica
packets in the trash. Next up, Dan, this is a
long one. Hi Rich, love the podcast. I've been listening
since the first episode. Very helpful. I wanted to say

(01:48:23):
that I agree with you when you said you kind
of wish you had gone with an OLED TV. I
had an eleven year old forty six inch Samsung led
TV that went great.

Speaker 3 (01:48:32):
For Christmas, I bought a fifty five inch High Sense
U eight K. I was really unhappy.

Speaker 1 (01:48:38):
Cable looked horrible in the morning, some channels, the people's
lips looked purple. No amount of playing with the settings helped.
I returned it and went with a Sony x nine
to y L another LED. Things are slightly better, but
not normal. Streaming looks good, but live TV is bad.
I've learned my mistake with the High Sense. I was
putting the brightness too high in trying to make live

(01:49:00):
TV better. Keep the brightness way down helps. All right,
I'm not good with Terminology, but OLED definitely has the
best color.

Speaker 3 (01:49:08):
I would agree with that, Dan.

Speaker 1 (01:49:09):
I think that OLED overall has the best color my TV.
I ended up going a little bit cheaper at the end,
I was gonna go O LED. I went with LED
Micro Led and at first we were really stunned at
the picture, like it was vastly different than our old TV.
But then after a couple of weeks we got used
to it and now I've really grown to love.

Speaker 3 (01:49:28):
My new TV.

Speaker 1 (01:49:29):
And that says I teach at the high school level,
and kids bully for everything, not just iPhones.

Speaker 3 (01:49:35):
All the anti bullying rhetoric does nothing.

Speaker 1 (01:49:37):
It's just so difficult to be around them as everything
is driven by their social media and what others think
of them.

Speaker 3 (01:49:43):
They are so addicted to their phones.

Speaker 1 (01:49:45):
That is all they think about constantly, and they cannot
stop a net And I.

Speaker 3 (01:49:50):
One hundred percent believe this.

Speaker 1 (01:49:51):
I think that the phones are the most amazing thing
ever invented, but at the same time, they are really
not very good in a lot of situations. Kids are
very much addicted to these things, so are adults. And
you know, the tech companies and the social media companies,
you know, it's in their best benefit to have us
stare at these things as much as humanly possible. And

(01:50:12):
then you add in all the challenges on TikTok and
stuff like that, and I agree. I think you're referring
to the green versus blue bubble situation. But yeah, it's bad,
and I don't know where we're going to go from here,
Steven says, Hi, Rich, enjoy your show KFI on Saturdays.
I'm a seventy three year old San Diego retired non
techie but learning from you every time I listen. I

(01:50:33):
will probably never afford to buy a new EV. I
would especially worry about buying a used DV because of
the concern of the expensive battery dying on me.

Speaker 3 (01:50:42):
That would be my luck.

Speaker 1 (01:50:43):
I would like you to consider having an EV car
battery expert on your show explaining the pros and cons
of buying a used EV, especially that.

Speaker 3 (01:50:51):
Used evs for sale will be increasing forward.

Speaker 1 (01:50:54):
As it stands now, the only car I would consider
if I were in the market for a new car
and I could afford it, would be a hybrids Steven, Steven,
that's a great idea, because yes, we are going to
start to see a lot of evs on the market
that are used, and what is the deal with the battery.

Speaker 3 (01:51:08):
I'm not sure now I will tell you with mine.

Speaker 1 (01:51:10):
When I first got it, I was very concerned about
the battery, and I actually purchased my car to not lease,
so I was very concerned about the longevity of the battery.
And now, of course I got lazy and I'm just
charging it whenever I feel like it, with no real plan.
So I'm not sure what the effect is on my battery.
I have noticed that it has gone down in mileage
over the years, but I kind of feel like, you

(01:51:32):
know what, I guess the next person is gonna have
to deal with that, or hopefully one day I can
give this car to my kid and he'll just have
like a range of five miles on it. Well, if
you can believe it, that's gonna do it. For this
episode of the show. You can find links to everything
I mentioned on my website. Just go to rich on
tech dot tv. You can find me on social media.
I am at rich on Tech. Thank you so much

(01:51:53):
for listening. There are so many ways you can spend
your time.

Speaker 3 (01:51:56):
I do appreciate you spending it right here with me.
Thanks to everyone who makes this show possible. My name
is rich DeMuro. I will talk to rail sick

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Host

Rich DeMuro

Popular Podcasts

Crime Junkie

24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Handy Websites & Pros and Cons of Smartphone Insurance