Microsoft Surface Earbuds are worth a look

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Microsoft's new earbuds are worth a look. Apple fixes the
keyboard on the MacBook thirteen inch laptop, an app to
see all of your Apple Watch activity stats plus your
tech questions answered. What's going on? I'm Rich Dmiro and
this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk
about the tech stuff I think you should know about,

(00:24):
and it's also the place where I answer the questions
that you send me. My name is Rich Dmiro. I'm
the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
Joining me is producer Megan, who is mourning the loss
this morning of suit plantation.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Oh I didn't even hear about that. That's so sad.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Yeah, it's getting a lot of play. Have you ever
been to a suit plantation?

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Maybe once?

Speaker 1 (00:51):
It was popular on the West Side. When I lived
in Brentwood for a long time, they had a suit
plantation there and we would go. Probably only went three times,
but it was always good. And now apparently they're closing down.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
So are It's really sad?

Speaker 1 (01:05):
It is kind of sad. So how are you doing?
People wondered if you had COVID because you weren't around
for a couple episodes, so they wondered, are you okay,
just give us the debriefing.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yes, I'm okay.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
I had a migraine last week, and so when that happens,
you're kind of like out of commission.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
And then the week before you recorded later in the day.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Yeah, I missed that.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
That was yeah, So I tried to explain. I wrote
back to the emails. You got a lot of them,
so you are very loved on this show. So you
should know that a lot of people said they were
going to unsubscribe if you were not here this week,
so I made sure.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
No, I don't believe that you've just said fail.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
So how are things going? Because it's, uh, it feels
like groundhog Day. I thought this was going to be
a two week thing and it just continues to go
on and on and on.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Yeah, it feels I feel like it's just the same day,
over an overdone. But then it's the weekend and you
get a little break.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
But things are Things are fine.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
I mean, I'm trying to like stay active and trying
to like work out every day.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
I feel like that's what he is keeping me sane.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Do you feel like you're in better shape now than
you were before COVID, because I feel that way, Yes,
isn't that weird?

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (02:20):
I found like this this online like pilates class, and
I'm like loving it and I like look forward to
doing it every day. So I feel like there are
people that are like getting into wellness, and then there
are people that are like hating on that. Like I
just listened to a podcast, but they were just like
hating on people like getting into wellness. I feel like
that's what you should be doing to like keep yourself

(02:42):
from going crazy.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Yeah, and let's be honest. I mean, if you have
the time to watch a couple of Netflix shows a night,
I mean you should have the time to you know,
do some sort of exercise. That's and I'm not preaching,
I'm saying that's my personal belief. Like if I'm gonna
sit there like last night, you know, we had dinner,
we got CBK, and it's like if I can sit
there and spend an hour watching Jerry Seinfeld on Netflix,

(03:04):
like why can't I spend half an hour doing a
bike ride you know before that? And That's what I did,
and that's kind of been my mantra every day. So yeah,
my wife and I both feel like we're in better shape.
So anyway, it's great. Let's start with the first story
of the week, which is Microsoft. They announced several products.
There's been a bunch of tech products throughout this whole situation,

(03:24):
which I find really fascinating because not necessarily the best
time to be spending money, because who knows, you know,
with all the job uncertainty. But at the same time,
a lot of these things were planned before COVID, and
it kind of the show goes on. And so one
example that is a bunch of new products from Microsoft,
including the Surface Go Too, the Surface Book three, the
Surface Headphones two, and Surface Earbuds. I'm not going to

(03:47):
go into detail on all of these things except for
the Surface Go Too because that's actually particularly interesting at
this point because of work at home and the Surface Megan,
when I tell you, when I first did a story
on the Surface that came ATLA number one, we had
the guy in charge of the whole program, Panos Pene,
come into KTLA, which, by the way, he would never
even give me an interview at this point, right but

(04:09):
back then he was just starting and he you know,
he came in and you know, it was amazing and uh,
really nice guy. And anyway, so people didn't understand how
a computer could run Window, or how a tablet could
run Windows and also be a laptop and a tablet
and have a case. It was a whole big thing. Anyway,
Surface has been very popular for Microsoft, and now the

(04:30):
Surface go To is kind of their entry level model,
and it's three hundred ninety nine dollars and it has
a larger screen this time, so ten point five inch screen,
better battery life, better microphones, so if you're trying to
use this for Skype and all that stuff, and a
front facing five megapixel camera with a sharp video even
in low light. Now, the one thing I have to

(04:51):
take issue with Microsoft with these Surface devices, they always
show them in the commercial fully loaded, right, I'm talking
the cover with the keyboard and the pen. Now, in reality,
that three ninety nine price does not include those two things.
So you're talking three ninety nine for just the tablet.
Then the cover is an extra ninety nine dollars, and

(05:13):
then the pen. I'm not really sure how much that costs,
but I'm guessing it's another ninety nine to one fifty,
So realistically you're talking still four hundred five hundred, about
six hundred dollars if you want it the way they
portray it in the commercial. Now if I said, you know,
and the good news is this thing runs Windows, so
you can run like everything you need on here, and
that's what I really like about it. Second thing I

(05:35):
want to tell you about is the surface earbuds. I
tried these on. Remember I went to that event in
New York City, the Microsoft event. I went by myself
and I shot it. So I did try on these
surface earbuds, and I will tell you they were one
of my favorite earbuds I tried on this year. So
I know they look weird. They're the ones that look
kind of like the Frankenstein like they have that big
kind of flat circle.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
They like stick out.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
They didn't really stick out. They actually were very flush
with the ear, but they were just big and like frankensteinish,
you know. But they were very comfortable, and so I
can I have not tried these. I apparently was not
on the list with Microsoft to get a pair of
review units.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
But they kind of look weird.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
They look weird, but they felt really comfortable. So I
have no problem recommending that you at least check these out.
They're mostly integrated with Spotify Android phones Outlook and Microsoft
three sixty five. So if you're full Microsoft, these are
something that you definitely want to check out. But I
will say they were very comfortable. Two hundred dollars by

(06:33):
the way.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
The buds, yeah, they kind of look like those ear rings.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yes, those big what are they called when.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
You stick the low bearring?

Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, my brother in law has those. He looks like
such a mean dude. You know, he's got tattoos everywhere.
He's got the low bearrings. I mean it's just totally
tatted up. And he is nicer than me. That's how
crazy it is said. Looks can be very deceee. Folks,
do not judge a book by its cover. That's for sure.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
This is true.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
Okay, that is your signal, Megan.

Speaker 3 (07:10):
Okay, so first question, Hi Rich, longtime, second time, curious
about your thoughts and reviews of Simple Safe versus Ring
home Security.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Thanks best, Ded.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
So, now do you know that reference? He said longtime?
Second time? Do you know that what that means?

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Has he asked you a question before?

Speaker 1 (07:31):
Okay? So that's yeah, the second time. I guess, Yeah,
he's asked me a question before. Long time. It's like
an old radio thing when people would call in radio shows.
They would be like longtime listener, first time guest or whatever.
First time caller, Oh, okay, okay, interesting, ask your mom.
I know your mom listens to a lot of radio.
Ask her about that longtime listener, first time caller, and
they're like, well, good to have you on the show.

(07:52):
So it's an old radio thing anyway. So he is
asking about my thoughts reviews of Simply Safe versus Ring
Home Security, So soll I, it's funny because I love
Simply Safe and I've been a big fan of them
since they started. We did a big video with them
at CS and I've used their system and I will
tell you I think it's very good. But here's what

(08:12):
I think the problem with Simply Safe and why they're
in kind of a precarious position at this point. So
Simply Safe is a very simple system. You install it yourself.
It's it's diy home security. They have everything you need.
You put the little sensors on your windows, you put
them on your doors. You got a base station, they
have cameras. They all have everything you need. But the
difference between Simply Safe and something like Ring and some

(08:34):
of the other competitors at this point is that the
other competitors are more integrated with sort of the smart
home devices, and Ring has got the backing of Amazon,
so it works with all the Alexis stuff. I mean
it really, it's everything is becoming very siloed in the
tech world. So Ring. I was actually thinking of switching
over to Ring because I was thinking, well, right now,

(08:55):
I've got a mix of a whole bunch of different
stuff in my house. And over the years, you know,
as I tried stuff and I use stuff, and I
liked it, and I would get it, and so now
I've like Nest, I've got some Ring stuff, I've got
some simply safe stuff. So it's all mixed up, and
I kind of thought about it. It's almost better to
be on one page. And I was looking at Ring

(09:15):
because the thing about Ring that they're doing right now
is they are doing their home monitoring for very cheap
and so it's ten dollars a month, which is really cheap.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
Now most of the other ones cost about anywhere from
fifteen to twenty five. If you do something like ADT,
you're talking fifty bucks a month. So this is the
reason why Ring is very appealing. And I was in
Costco the other day and they had a three pack
of ring cameras for two hundred and fifty bucks, so

(09:49):
again very inexpensive. So my thought, Dave is I would
see do you do you want the integration with other
products or you're just looking at price. I would price
out both systems, see how much they cost, and then
I would price out maybe five years of service or
three years of service, and see what comes out to
be a better deal, because simply safe might be cheaper,

(10:11):
or might be more expensive in the long run, or
you know, one of them might be more expensive in
the long run than the other. But I think that
ten dollars a month for a ring right now is
you can't beat it. But you might have to pay
more upfront for the different products. I'm not sure, but
that's the way I would look at those two products
to compare them. So hopefully that helps. But if you
are looking at one of these systems, even if you
have just a simple like apartment setup or you know anything,

(10:34):
you're renting a house, a room in an airbnb, you
know you can get one of these simple security systems
that kind of alerts you if someone opens your door.
You know, you don't have to go totally elaborate, and
I kind of like that because it gives you some
peace of mind, right, all right, So we did Microsoft,
let's talk about Apple. This week, they updated the thirteen

(10:54):
inch MacBook Pro. And there's not too much to talk
about with this MacBook Pro. It's just the fact that
they updated the keyboard. You know, they did the basic updates,
but the biggest one is really the keyboard. They gave
it the new Magic keyboard, which I will tell you
in personal experience, is leaps and bounds ahead of their
last keyboard. And I had the last keyboard on my

(11:15):
MacBook Pro thirteen inch, which was absolutely terrible. I had
that for three years. My son is now using it.
It was really bad. It felt like you were typing
on a piece of paper because the keys just didn't
push down very much. And there's a lot of mistakes
as well with those keys. And the new keyboard I
now have of my sixteen inch MacBook Pro, which is

(11:36):
kind of the primary reason I bought it, it's just
way way better. And so I do recommend if you're
looking at these things and you were kind of burned
in the past, the keyboard is way better and that's
kind of it. I mean there's other things that are
that are new on this which you know. Double the
storage two fifty six gigabytes is now the base storage.
It offers up to four terabytes. And my advice on

(11:58):
buying a laptop, oh get the most storage you can
afford and the most memory. And I will tell you
from personal experience, I was very what's the word impatient
when I bought my laptop, and so I couldn't wait
for it to be shipped because if you want certain storage,
remember this, remember this. Yeah, And so I ended up

(12:19):
walking into the store and buying the off the shelf version,
which was a sixteen gigabytes of RAM and one terabyte
of storage. And I wish I had thirty two gigabytes
of RAM and two terabytes of storage, which would have
cost me a little bit more, but I would have
been much happier. And so don't be impatient. You know,
if it takes a little bit to get your computer

(12:39):
because you want it in the configuration you want, just
just wait. Don't be a rich don't be a rich
on tech impatient. The laptop starts at thirteen hundred dollars
for the everyday person, twelve hundred dollars if you are
an educator, which is a pretty decent price. And my
other advice with these laptops everyone the most emails I
get Megan are I want a cheap laptop. But the

(13:01):
problem with cheap laptops is, yes, you're gonna spend two
hundred three hundred bucks on a Chromebook, but you're then
gonna want a new laptop in a couple of years.
These Apple laptops will last you. My sister is on
hers is ten years old and it's still working. Now, wow,
it's getting up there, and she says she kind of
wants a new one, but ten years.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
So yeah, they last a very long time.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
They last a very long time. And the best part
is even if you use it, like for me, my
life cycle is about three years. After those three years,
I give it to one of my family members and
so they get the benefit of using it as well.
So my dad got my last Apple laptop, my little
my son got my other one. So that's you know,
that's another side thing.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
You can be general do you normally say for MacBooks
though you say not to do the just like the
first tier, you go like up a tier, Yes, that's.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
That's kind of Apple's pricing game. So whenever you see
that first like you know, initial price hundred, it's usually
if you go with the next tier, you're gonna get
a lot more for your money. That's kind of Apple's
game with everything they sell, whether it's the iPad, whether
it's the iPhone. When you just bump up to that
next level for a little bit more, you get more,

(14:09):
a lot more when it comes to storage, process or whatever.
And I always tell people because they always say, well,
it's you know, you think about it. The next bump
up on this laptop, I don't know, maybe it's fifteen hundred.
They're like, well, that's fifteen hundred bucks. I'm like, well,
you've already gone to thirteen hundred, so really it's only
an extra two hundred. You're not not spending the thirteen hundred.
So good question, Megan.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
Okay, so this next question comes from Kenji. Good afternoon, sir.
I hope all has been well with you. You're definitely
the best and keeping up to date with technology. I
would like to ask if you could recommend the best
way to remove as much of my personal information from
the web as possible. I've finally contacted White Pages directly

(14:50):
and that response is pending. Is there a re reputable
company that can assist with this reasonable pricing that you
are aware of?

Speaker 2 (14:59):
So thank you.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
This is a good question and something that I actually
did myself recently. And if you've ever been on one
of these sites, there's a bunch of them, like My
Life White Pages, they have a whole bunch. Basically all
of your personal information is on these sites and you're like,
how is this legal? How are they able to have this? Well,
it's all public records, especially when you buy a house
or you know anything, anything you do, it creates a

(15:22):
public record that's in the public. So these companies just
scour the public databases and they just organize it in
a way that's much easier to access than say going
to the library and looking up the database for the
DMV or whatever. You know, like you worked on the
desk at KTLA, so you know what was the thing
they had lexis Nexus. Yes, like you were looking up

(15:43):
x's all the time, right time.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
No, you get so like there's a charge when you search.

Speaker 3 (15:51):
You know, it's not free to like look up an
X like KTLA would get like an eighty dollars charge.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
Right every time you get in trouble.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
Every time, Oh my gosh. But at least you knew
what they were doing, where they were and you could
just kind of keep an eye on them.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
But no, it doesn't track them. It just says where
they live.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
And what would you need for them, like a license
plate kind of thing. I'm just kidding.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
I mean, I know, you know for like, oh yeah,
you would.

Speaker 3 (16:15):
You would just do a first and last name and
maybe or like no round their birthday or how they are,
and then you like get a list of people that
I could be and then you pick who it looks like. Okay,
well that's difficult for.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
Yeah, that's almost exactly how these websites work. And they
just do the same thing except find all the personal
information that's available online. So anyway, I'll give you some
of the names. Spokio my life. If you go down
a rabbit hole of looking up yourself on these sites,
it's very scary. Just fyi, Spochio my life, Ridaris White
pages in tell Us and been verified. Now, what our

(16:53):
listener is asking, Kenji, is asking how he can get
rid of these. So there's a website called Join delete
me dot com and they will for I think it
was like twenty bucks a month take care of all
of this and get you off all these sites. But
as far as a month, well yeah, I mean, if
you I think that's how much it is, let me
let me see how much it is, you know, for

(17:16):
some people, and maybe you don't need it, you know,
every month, but let's see how much it is it is.
Join delete me. It's uh oh sorry, ten dollars a
month for one person for a year, so one hundred
and twenty nine dollars for the year. But it will
remove you from all the major data broker websites for
one year, so I mean that's not too bad. Ten

(17:36):
seventy five a month, so you have to pay for
the year. I'm guessing yeah, build annually for one thirty
but that's not you know, if you want to protect
your privacy, that's not that bad. But what I like
about this site and why I kind of trust them,
is because they have a post of how to do
it on your own, and they give you the manual,
step by step instructions for all of these different websites.

(17:57):
And so that's what I did personally. I just went
through and most of the time. It requires verifying yourself
on the website, signing up for the website, sending them
an email, opting out, doing a confirmation. It's a whole
big process. They basically don't want you to do this,
but it did work, and I can tell you from
my experience at a lot of these sites. I was
able to get some my information off of there, and

(18:18):
a lot of it is confusing because it's not a
lot of it's not right. They had me as way
older than I really am, but yeah, exactly so, and
they didn't have the best profile pictures of me, so
I just wanted all of it gone. So you're like, nope,
so join delete me dot com. Check it out, and
I think that you will find exactly what you need

(18:39):
to get yourself off of many of these websites. Good question.
And there's another. We did a story about this a
long time ago, and you can hire someone to do
this as well. Haley Kaplan was her name, and let's
see what her website is, so if you want to
pay someone to do it more personally, her website is

(18:59):
what is dash privacy dot com And we interviewed her
for KTLA and she's great. She knew everything, and she
will go She's a lot of celebrities will use her
and they will pay her a lot of not just celebrities,
but you know, like CEOs and stuff like that, you know,
like big time people will pay her to get them
off of the Internet, and she can do that, you know,

(19:20):
and protect your reputation. Let's say there's a you know,
so anyway, she's she's very good. What dash is dash
Privacy dot com. But that's going to be a different route,
you know, a little bit more expensive obviously because it's
a one on one kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
But interesting, good question.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
Okay, let's talk about Sonos. You know, I love my
Sona's products, Megan, and now they have new products. They
have three new products. I told you there's a lot
of new products, right, so yeah, like what, yeah, three
new But here's the thing. The pipeline is is going
to dry up because this was all stuff that they
made before COVID, right, they have to sell it. Yeah,

(19:56):
but after like next year, there's not gonna be anything news.
Three new items. The number the biggest one is called
Sonos ARC and this is a soundbar and I have
the old version of this which I can't remember what
it's called but it's I've had it for years and
I love it. And I'll explain why this is a
problem for Sonos. But the son No's ARC has a
new design and it has Dolby at most support. And

(20:20):
I love my son Nos. I don't know what it's
called sound bar. Maybe I think it's just called son
No sound bar. And it's been sitting under my TV
for at least five years. And the new son Nos
Arc is eight hundred dollars. And I remember when I
bought my son No sound bar, it was like six
ninety nine, I think, And I thought that was a
lot at the time, But when you do the price
over the years, it's fine. But here's my problem with Sonos.

(20:42):
I still have their stuff that I've bought for I mean,
I don't think I well, I did buy a new
speaker this year, so that's not true. But their stuff
lasts a really long time, and so it's tough to
like say, I want to upgrade my stuff because why
But here's how they're gonna get you at upgrade. They've
got a new app and operating system that's gonna come
out June eighth, and it's only going to enable the

(21:03):
new higher resolution audio, updated interface, and more personalization, including
saved room groups, which is if you have sons that
is something that I never knew I needed, but now
that they say it, oh my gosh, because like, let
me give you an example. When I work in the
dining room, I want just the dining room and the
kitchen speakers on, and so I have to go into
the app every time and regroup those two because the

(21:24):
night before I had the whole house on. So it's
like little things like that. Then when the kids are
watching TV, they want just a living room on. So anyway,
my point is that this Sono stuff is amazing, but
it's number one is really expensive. So the other thing
they have is a new Sonas sub, which is a
subwoofer that's six hundred ninety nine dollars. And then the
Son's five, which is pretty much their most powerful speaker

(21:46):
for music, which I have the old version in my
dining room and I might think about upgrading that because
it's been many years since I've had that. But that's
five hundred dollars and the sound expensive. But I will
say that I bought the Sons move this year, and
I told you this, but It's my absolute favorite speaker.
I mean, I have gotten so much use out of

(22:07):
that speaker for four hundred dollars in the past three months.
I bring it in the backyard when I'm outside grilling,
we're playing with the kids in the front yard, I
bring it there. We're having dinner in the dining room,
I put it behind me so we have more music
in the dining room instead of just the one speaker.
Sono stuff is very expensive, but it is well worth it.
If you want a cheap alternative, you can just use

(22:29):
Google Home Products and or you know, and just linked those.
They're not going to sound the same, but it's gonna
kind of be the same, and it's a little bit,
just a little bit not as like the Sona's app
is really the magical part of it because it's so good.
It's so slick. You can find music across any service
you can imagine, and that's really what's so beautiful about them.

(22:49):
Connie wrote on Facebook, my kids gave me a pair
of Sona's wireless speakers. I used to use them with
music that I have on my phone. Now I can't
where can I find out how to make that work?
I believe they took away that functionality. It used to
work with music off of your phone, Connie, but now
it does not. So what I would recommend is uploading
your music to a service like Plex or Google Cloud Music,

(23:12):
and then you can play them through your phone. I
believe that way. So that's the way to get around that,
all right, Okay.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
Next question, Hi, rich I am thinking of trying out
last Pass as a password manager.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
I've never used one before.

Speaker 3 (23:28):
A couple of questions I could not find the answer
answer to is what happens if I decide to no
longer use a password manager? Do I have to go
back and reset all of my passwords in each of
my individual accounts? Or will last Pass revert back to
my original passwords? Also, how would I or any of

(23:49):
my family members log into streaming services on our TVs
like Netflix? Since I assume it would be asking for us,
It would be asking us for a new log on. Thanks,
and I really enjoy your rich On Tech podcast, Bill.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
Oh thank you. Bill. Let's see, so he wants to
switch to last Pass, He's never used a password manager before.
What happens if I decide to no longer use it? Okay,
So if you number one Last Pass does not change
your passwords for you. You kind of load them into
last Past. Like let's say you have you sign up
for last Pass, you have ten accounts, you have Netflix,

(24:25):
you have Google. At the beginning, you sort of copy
your passwords into the app to load them up into there,
and then you can decide if you want to use
last pass to help you change those passwords to become
stronger passwords. But it doesn't automatically just do that for you.
But well, there might be a functionality on last pass
that can do that. I know on Dashline there is,
I forget if there is on last Pass. But so

(24:48):
the question is if he ditches last Pass, what happens.
You can export a list of your passwords in various ways,
so you can export them as sort of a text
file as you know, a CSV whatever, so you can
see your passwords. It'll say like here's your passwords. You
can do that. You can bring them into a different
service like last like a dash lane or one password whatever.

(25:10):
So that's that's kind of the beginning question is yes,
all the accounts you can you can see your passwords
at the end. It doesn't just like if you delete
your Last Past it's like, oh, sorry, you have no
more access to your passwords, so you can do that,
but again, you have to do that before you delete
your account. So don't delete your account before you export.
That's number one. Number two, how would my family members

(25:32):
log into the streaming services? Which I love that he's
just like putting it out there that, like everyone's sharing accounts.
Did I tell you that right now? With my Netflix?
Have I told you this? I mentioned this in the
last how many everyone? But I'm I personally can't use
my Netflix account because it does not work. But everyone
my dad's works, my mom's works, my kid works. Mine

(25:55):
does not work. So I have to do I don't know.
It just says error every time when I go to
use it. So I have to like reset my whole Netflix.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
Account, right, and then they're all going to lose I know.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
And then I have to And then that means I
got to sit there and I got to talk my
mom through logging in on her Fire TV stick and
you know, and the password is going to be complex
because I use a password manager to create it, so
it's not just easy. No, I can't make it easy.
I used to have an easy one on Netflix and
now I don't anyway. So let's see his question is

(26:27):
the family members would have to log in if you
changed it, but you don't have to change it. So
but if you're using it, if he's asking because he
wants to start using better passwords, then yes, you'll want
to use last pass to create stronger passwords. That's kind
of the whole point of these things, and that's what
I would recommend doing. But the reality is you start
using it and you can just change things over time.

(26:49):
You don't have to change it all at once, and
you can also evolve. So what you can do is
then you know, you can take one week at a
time and maybe change your Netflix password one weekend and
make it a little bit strong longer. And the Last
Pass manager and all the other ones, they will actually
when you're creating this is the best part of them.
Let's say you're creating a new account, like you sign
up for Hulu, you sign up from the website, it

(27:11):
will say do you want us to create a strong
password for you, and it will save it into last Pass,
so you don't have to kind of do all that.
It's it's very much automated towards the end, but it
is more work. I mean, believe me. Like I I
complained about it all the time with my wife. I'm like, ah,
this is so like to download a game on my
kids I Pad, it probably takes like ten minutes because

(27:32):
of all the different procedures in place passwords.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
But it's safer.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
It's safer and more secure. So I think I answered
that for the most.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
So you use Dahlane, I like Dashlane.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
Yeah, so I think that. But I use last pass
as well, and I thought that was great. I mean
it really, there's one password I've experimented with that. I
mean it really, I've tried them all just to kind
of see which ones they all. Now here's the other thing.
You can also if you only have Apple devices, you
can use the pass word manager that's built into iOS,
which is like keychain. It's called iCloud keychain, and we

(28:05):
use that for the iPad because we only save like
one app on there, the Peloton app. And it's super
easy because it's built in. You don't have to think
about it. It's so if you're only using Apple products,
you can just use the Apple you know, like I said,
the one that's built into Apple. If you only use
Google products, you can use Google smartlock or whatever they
call theirs, but I personally, I think it's better to

(28:26):
use one that works across all of them. I just
think it's it's just planning for the future. Speaking of Google,
I discovered something today that I think is pretty helpful.
It's Google cloud Print. And I was aware of this
for a while, but I never set it up, nor
did I ever put much stock into it. But now
that I think about, it's actually quite brilliant. So a

(28:49):
lot of people have a printer in their home that's
connected to Wi Fi, and I get this question all
the time about rich how do I print to that printer.
It's a pain. It doesn't work with AirPrint.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
Well.

Speaker 1 (28:57):
I always recommended in the past downloading the manufacturer app
for your printer onto your phone so that you can
print from your phone, and that's an easy way to
get around the whole air print thing or Google whatever
on Android, cloud print, whatever. But I was looking at
this cloud print thing and it actually works pretty well.
I set it up on my printer. All you have

(29:18):
to do is make sure your printer is connected to
the Wi Fi network, and then you go on your
Chrome browser on your desktop and you type in like,
let's see, that's what was it? Hold on, let's see
connect a printer that's not. You go Chrome colon slash
slash devices and press enter and then you just click

(29:39):
ad printer under Classic Printers, you find your printer, you
select it, and now you can use Google Cloud Print
from any of your devices, which means your Android phone,
your iPhone, your Chrome devices, anything, your Chrome book and
it just kind of connects your your printer to the
Chrome cloud Print network and now it's super easy to print. Now.
The only caveat to this, and I check, is that

(30:01):
you have to have your computer on and Chrome kind
of open on your computer for this to work, because
it kind of goes through Chrome as like an intermediary.
But if you're having printer issues or you have an
older printer and you just want to be able to
print from all your devices, definitely check out Google Cloud Print.
It's it's pretty cool. I set up this morning in
about two minutes.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
Oh wow, that's fass.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
This next question comes from Rita Rich. What do you
think is the best QR reader to download for an
Android phone?

Speaker 2 (30:35):
I have a Samsung three.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
Oh wow, that's an older Samsung. Oh Samsung three. That's
that's I'm impressedive that's still kicking.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
That is.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
Let's see, when did the Samsung Galaxy S three come out?
I think it was twenty twelve. Oh my gosh, eight years.
That's pretty good. Huh oh wow, eight years. So with this,
I there was an app that I really liked for
QR scanning now number one. QR code scanning is built

(31:08):
into pretty much every modern smartphone. QR codes have a
funny thing because they've been trying to take off for
about ten years now, and nobody actually uses QR codes
but they do. You see them every once in a while,
but nobody actually uses them. So it's this weird thing
that they They are around and they are cool, but

(31:30):
it's just no one, like they never really took off
in a big way. With that said, they are very useful.
They're the QR code that kind of looks like a square,
that's what or sorry, they're like the barcode that looks
like a square. Kind of weird, you know, it looks
like very futuristic. So with ninety nine percent of smartphones today,
you can just hold your camera, like hover your phone's

(31:52):
camera over it, like obviously open up the camera app,
hover the phone over the QR code and on your
screen it will display a message do you want to
to open the link that is behind this QR code?
Most QR codes contain a weblink and that brings you
to the website. And almost every phone, iPhone, Android, whatever, Samsung,
they all do that. Now you have an older Samsung Rita,

(32:14):
so you don't have that built in because these things were,
you know, back in the day. QR code scanning apps
are pretty big. Anyway, the one I liked was purchased
by Snapchat. It was called I think Scan and it
was super easy, super nice. It was just very simple.
But then Snapchat bought them. I think it became the
snap codes. Have you ever used Snapchat just to like,

(32:35):
when you add.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
Someone you used to take a picture or you like
hover over their phone or something.

Speaker 1 (32:40):
So I think they use that technology that they bought
from that company Scan to build those snap codes. So anyway,
that's gone. But the one I found that I liked
is actually from Kesperski, which is a this is a
anti virus company, and they have QR code reader for
Android Keasperski Lab, and that is the one I recommend

(33:02):
because it's simple, it's easy, and it scans the code
for anything malicious before it gives you the link, so
it makes sure that because you there, there is a
thing where people can be malicious with these QR codes.
They can try to get you to go to links
that are that are not very they're evil, and so

(33:23):
that's that's you got to watch out. And it was
updated on April sixth, So I think that's fine. So
QR code Keasperski Lab. Just search for that inside Google
Play and you should find that. All right, all right,
let's see here I found an app that I thought
was pretty cool. Speaking of apps, and this is an

(33:44):
app that you don't have an Apple Watch?

Speaker 3 (33:46):
Do you?

Speaker 1 (33:47):
Did you get one yet?

Speaker 2 (33:48):
No?

Speaker 1 (33:48):
Okay, so on Apple Watch it becomes very you really
want to complete your rings every day. It's kind of
like the main It gets you very much motivated to
do whatever you can. I've talked about on the pot cast.
How if I see that I got two minutes of exercise,
I will do like twenty eight minutes just to complete
the rings for that day, and not a minute more. Well,

(34:08):
a developer named let's see, where is his name? All right? Well,
I don't have his name, but a developer came up
with a app called Activity Stats, and it is super simple.
All it does is show you your lifetime totals of
all the fitness things you've done on your Apple Watch.

(34:29):
So it just adds it all up, so you can
see how many calories you've burned, how much time you
spent exercising, how many steps you've walked, how much you've
walked and run distance, total swimming, cycling, indoor cycling, elliptical
workout time, and how many workouts you've done. This it's
just kind of a fun thing if you just want
to see, like, oh my gosh, I've walked one thousand

(34:49):
miles in my Apple watch'd be kind.

Speaker 2 (34:51):
Of fun, right, Yeah, it's just is it similar to
just Health on your phone?

Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yes, but now Health doesn't necessarily because I was thinking
about that, it must be Health doesn't necessarily tallly it
all up forever, right it's or maybe I don't think so.
I think it does by days and by weeks, and
like it gives you trends. But I never open that app,
by the way, like ever ever ever.

Speaker 3 (35:12):
But well, I started using it because I like want
an Apple Watch. But I was like, I'll just use
health for now, and I like try to keep track
of steps that way.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, and it's fine. My mom does it that way
because she doesn't have a wearable, but it it's probably
you know, number one, your phone has to be on
you for that to work, which is fine if you're walking.
It's not going to be as accurate as an actual wearable,
but it's still it's a good kind of stop gap,
like you've realized, like it's it's good enough for Okay,
you know, if I take a walk, it'll kind of

(35:42):
give me an idea of how far I've gone. But now,
can you use the there is no workout. I guess
you could start a workout app on your phone.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
Do you do that or no? Oh I do the Yeah,
run keeper. Okay, so how far I've gone?

Speaker 1 (35:57):
Okay, So it is using the GPS, so it is
actually very act so that's not bad. That's fine. Yeah, yeah,
I forget about the days when I used to have
to run without an Apple Watch. I used to run
with my phone and there was a time before GPS
in the phone when it would just kind of estimate
by your stride, so you would just you would see
how far you ran based on your stride and you'd

(36:17):
have to set your stride in the app and the
Nike app. And now, of course all of that is
moot because GPS is like super accurate to like the millimeter.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
Okay, so crazy, Okay. Next question comes from Catherine. Greetings.

Speaker 3 (36:32):
I am reading chapters to my students and recording them
on my iPad. Then I am uploading them to YouTube
for a twelve minute video. It takes approximately four hours
to upload. This seems extreme to me, but I cannot
find any way to speed it up.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
Please help. My students are waiting for videos, but I
cannot do any more than one to two per day.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
Number one, I give major props to you, Cat and
every other teacher out there, because Megan, you don't have
kids in school distance learning. But but let me tell you,
these teachers, I feel so bad for them because it's
it's kind of like what I have to do here,
and yet you know, I have an understanding of technology,
so it's a little bit easier for me to make
the transition of going from like the KTLA studios to

(37:16):
like working from home. But imagine you're, like, you know,
you teach in front of a class every day, and
then all of a sudden, they're like, oh, by the way,
you need to like record yourself on a phone, set
up a tripod, make sure you're in good light, make
sure the audio sounds good. Then upload it to a website,
get it to these kids, put it in Google classroom.
Everything just got so much more complicated other than drive

(37:38):
to work, get in front of your class and talk
to your kids and then collect papers. Right, It's it's
like teachers are really good at that. They're not necessarily
performing artists that know all this tech stuff of how
to like upload and do all this stuff. And I'm
not saying they can't figure it out. They have been.
But I'm watching my kids and all these videos. These

(37:59):
teachers have to learn how to you know, they've got
to do like a whiteboard whatever, like they're drawing on exactly.
It's it's a pain, and I'm sure that they all
think that, and so kat I feel your pain. Number One,
the whole upload thing iPhone, the process of uploading a
video to YouTube from the iOS platform is the biggest

(38:21):
nightmare in the world. And I'll explain why because the
app does not work in the background, so you can't
just and I'm sure every teacher in America has figured
this out the hard way. You can't just sit there,
press upload on YouTube and then close out your iPhone.
Guess what, when you come back to the YouTube app,
it's still sitting there. It says oh, one percent progress.

(38:42):
Because the YouTube app has to be open and functioning
and not working in the background to actually upload the
video file. So my number one piece of advice is
if you can upload from an Android, find it because
guess what, it lets you upload in the background. You
don't have to be sitting there babysitting your phone. That's
number one. Number two, these files that you're recording are

(39:04):
probably huge, and that is the reason why they're taking
even longer because even if you babysit your iPad, screen
on lock, leave YouTube open, it probably still takes a
long time because we're all using so much internet. And
the video is really a big video because if you're
reading to them a twelve minute video, I mean, that's
that's a long video, right, Yeah, So I would recommend

(39:24):
using a smaller video quality when you record the video.
You can do four eighty. Just go into the camera
settings on the iPad or the iPhone and that is
under the general settings and you can switch to a
lower quality resolution. I'm not even sure if that does
the iPhone offer four eighty. I think it may not.
Let me look in there. I'm going to go under

(39:45):
camera and let's see, can you record in that terrible
seven twenty is the lowest. So I would think that.

Speaker 3 (39:52):
There's some sort of website where you could like live,
not live, but like record yourself and then you pause
the video and then you like save it and it
doesn't have to be like through your phone, you know
what I mean.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
You can do that right through YouTube. But I think
the problem is a lot of these teachers kind of
have their setup. You know, they have a tripod, they've
got their iPad on there. You know, it's like easier
to it's easier to set up a phone than to
you know, cause these teachers, you know, you have to
also have to find a nice place in your home
to like set up. So it's a whole big yea.
Believe me, I've seen so many of these videos. I
feel so bad for these teachers because I'm just watching

(40:27):
and I'm like, she's on her patio and you know,
she's in her It's like you're trying to find a
little spot to work in your house that you never
really needed before. But continuing with the thought, I would
say that's the number one. Record it at the lowest quality.
Number two, I would export it in a third party
program to make it even smaller. The best program for
this would be Adobe Premiere Rush, and you can export

(40:50):
it to YouTube and you can choose the quality you want.
So I would choose like the lowest possible quality, like
four eighty, not lower than that, because you want your
kids to actually be able to see your face. Like
if you go lower like three sixty, it's gonna be
I might just see like old you know, like a
tiny little like thumbnail video of you. Yeah, so I
go four eighty or seven twenty, even seven twenty with

(41:12):
some good compression will still be way better. And then
you can upload it to YouTube that way. But that's
the advice. It's just these video files. A twelve minute
video file is pretty big. That's that's the large file.
You know, it could be a gigabyte, you know, it
could be more than that.

Speaker 3 (41:26):
So it's like classes are you know, an hour, and
like school is eight hours a day, so if like
teachers are trying to record classes, I mean, I get
why they're twelve minutes because they just shorten it.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
Like, oh yeah, school's not eight hours a day. That
was when you really like, you know, with the parents, everyone,
every parent right now feels really guilty with their kids
working at home because if you can get your kids
to do a solid hour and a half of work
every day, it's fine. And it sounds like a little
bit Megan, but it's really not because when you think
about the way the school day is structured. In school,
there's a lot of not fluff time, but a lot

(42:00):
of time built into the day. Right You're you're not
teachers are not sitting there drilling students for eight hours.
You know, Like here's what you need to know. That's
not what's happening at school. You know, there's there's creative time,
there's played time, there's outdoor time, there's solo time.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
There's meditation time, right, meditation time.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, they do mindfulness, Oh.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
For sure, that's amazing.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
Yeah, Like does he sits there and he does his
little no mistake.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
And he like is like closed eyes and like does
this moment?

Speaker 1 (42:31):
Yeah he does? Like what is it? Cosmic kids is
like the big one and so that's oh yeah on YouTube.
Yeah that's funny. Okay, So that was the question. Let
me go to another another app that I thought was
pretty cool is you tried this out, Megan so you
can comment on it. Onyx This is the home workout app.
What it's so onyx o n y x it it

(42:55):
It records you in real time while you're doing the workout.
He uses the camera on your iPhone. You have to
have a newer iPhone with true depth, but it kind
of sees you in three D and it corrects you
as you do it. What did you think of this workout?
It was like a five to seven minute workout?

Speaker 2 (43:08):
Yeah, I thought you heart.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
I mean I was doing like beginner and I was
using my sister's phone and I just did like a
lower body workout. So it's a ton of like lunches
and squats and always the toughest I thought it was.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
I thought it was great.

Speaker 3 (43:24):
I mean it was correcting my form. It was saying
like your knee is going too far, you know, like
little things. I understood how to make those corrections and
then I actually had to record it twice.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
So I was so sore the next day. I was
like okay.

Speaker 3 (43:39):
That app is the app crash, Yeah, because I was
trying to save and then it just like crashed happened.
Then I can save the video. So I was like, okay,
I have to, you know, but I think it's I
think it's great.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
It's a very cool concept. It's it's it just goes
to show what the future can hold. When I mean,
you did story on that other website, remember like open
fit I think it was where they have a trainer
actually watching you. This is oh yeah, this is kind
of like an automated version of that. Like I was
doing like a I was doing a thing where I
was doing a plank and then I kind of put
my arm up, you know, to the sky like that,

(44:15):
and the little trainer was like, make sure that you
look up at your arm when you're putting it up
to the sky like so instead of just going like this,
I you know, knew to now look up, which I
thought was a great I would have never gotten that
if I was doing an audio guided workout or just
a peloton you know, where you're just watching the person
on the screen. So it is really fascinating. The app
is called Onyx. It's free to start. There is premium

(44:37):
stuff which costs fifteen bucks a month, But if you
want to just get started, I would I would download
it and check it out. It is a very cool
take on the workout, and the workouts are only I
only found five to seven minute workouts in there, but
they were very, very efficient.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:51):
There was a point where I was like, like, I
don't know, I guess I wasn't going low enough for
like a lunge.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
And it was like that's okay, you can take a break. No,
I'm working. I just it's just I'm not that good.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
And it counts your reps too, which I thought was
really cool. Yeah, because like unlike the other ones where
they just power through it, like whether you do them
or not, this one I was doing push ups and
I realized halfway through that it was not just gonna
keep going to the next exercise. It was counting me
out ten push ups and it wouldn't go to the
next exercise without ten. And so I was like, oh,
that's pretty interesting. So anyway, O n y X check

(45:25):
it out. It's for the iPhone only if you have
a newer iPhone. You have to have an iPhone ten
and up to get that. The counting and all the
virtual stuff. That's that's the phone you need for that.
Can you believe that's gonna do it? For this episode
of the show. If you'd like to submit a question
for me, all you have to do is go to
rich on Tech dot tv hit that email button at

(45:45):
the bottom of the page. Also, we would love it
if you would rate and review this podcast to help
other people discover it. Just go to rate this podcast
dot com slash rich on Tech producer Megan Where can
folks find you on social media?

Speaker 2 (46:01):
I am on Twitter at producer Meggett, and.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
I am at rich on Tech. I had so many
other things to talk about, but I guess I can't
because this show is over. But I am watching a
show on QUICKI I was gonna mention that which I
can't believe. I got really all birds running sneakers, which
I love. I have new thoughts on honey, which is
the website that helps you save money. Oh my, I

(46:25):
guess I'll have to get that all to another another show.

Speaker 2 (46:29):
We should do shows next week.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
I'm Richie smire On behalf of everyone that gets this
show to your ears. Thanks so much for listening. We'll
talk to you real soon

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Rich DeMuro

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