Unlimited cloud storage is now a thing

Hands-on with the OnePlus 9 Pro; OnePlus Watch; tiny Bluetooth speaker; AI dashcam; versatile phone mount; Verizon introduces free unlimited cloud storage; How to spot fleeceware apps; MacBook butterfly keyboard lawsuit; Disney+ price hike; setting recovery contacts for Facebook; tiny Blockbuster stores.Listeners ask about Arlo vs Ring, if smart bulbs have spyware, getting rid of a smartphone carrier splash screen, if the MacBook Air M1 is worth it, making photos available to various non-techy family members, using a mobile hotspot in an RV.Links:Follow Rich!OnePlus 9 ProOnePlus WatchBluetooth speakerAI dashcamTenikle phone mountVerizon cloud storageFleeceware appsMacBook lawsuitDisney+ price hikeFacebook recovery contactsTiny Blockbuster kiosks
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Is the one plus nine Pro five G camera? All
the company hyped it up to be unlimited cloud storage?
Is it too good to be true? My favorite new
phone mount? Plus your tech questions answered? What's going on?
I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich on Tech, the
podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think
you should know about. It is also the place where

(00:32):
I answer the questions you send me, whether via email
or Facebook or Twitter, or see me on the streets whatever.
I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
I hope you are having a fantastic day, getting ready
to do something awesome in life.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
A taking a breath. I got a.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Little bit of a late start this morning, had some
little tiny fires to put out, but all is good,
and you know, I can't complain overall. And I feel like,
you know, the kids are getting back into school, which
is just wild. I can't believe it. I never thought
that would happen. My wife is going back to work,
which is wild. I didn't think that would happen. I
am still working from home, so I don't know. You know,

(01:18):
I've been working from home for a year now, and
it used to be I would check in you know,
just say, hey, are you sure you don't want me
to come in? You know, do I need to come in?
And at this point it's kind of like, you know,
we've gone this far. Things are working out at home.
Actually it's kind of funny. I might have mentioned this
on the podcast, but working from home is actually infinitely
easier for my segment because I have all the tech

(01:39):
stuff I need. So a lot of the stuff that
I talk about on TV is gadgets that people are
using at home, or are gadgets that people are using
at home, and so I have basically a real life
set here with my entire house. Like yesterday we shot something.
Oh well, I can't talk about that well anyway, you
know what I mean. So there's different areas of my house,
like if I need an outdoor area, if I need

(02:00):
at an indoor area, or if I.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Need like a.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
What was I gonna say, a desk, like a what
do you call a desk office area? That's what the
word is, you know, if I need a kitchen area.
We have used every single area of my home to
shoot and it's kind of funny, but you know, it's
worked and it's been great. So in some ways it
is easier to be here. You know, I've got the
three smart speakers lined up and connected to Wi Fi

(02:26):
and ready to go. So if I need to compare
something boom, I can compare how the response is. I've
got the various cloud you know, or the various streaming
services hooked up so I can see, you know, if
I need to do a quick tutorial on something, I
can do that. So you know, I'm not like forcing
myself to go back to work. We have a new
boss starting April twenty first, I believe, so I think

(02:46):
you know, who knows. We'll see what happens then, and
you know, I'm sure he'll have some thoughts on things,
and you know it'll just be different because there's there's
you know, change is always in store, right when you
have new people start. I mean, hopefully they won't change
too much, but you know, there's always there's always room
for improvement, right. All right, let's start with my story

(03:07):
on KTLA today. I love this story because you know,
this is this is my secret weapon with my segment.
It is you so because I get so many emails
on a daily basis from viewers of my segment and
listeners to the podcast, and people on my Facebook, and
people on my Instagram and people on my Twitter. I

(03:28):
have literally you can't pay for an inside track that
I have. So when I do a story like Today's
story with three little gadgets, these are the things that
people want most. These are things that I get questions
about all the time. When we did the story about
the password Manager, I get questions about password Manager so
much so that story.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Was a huge success.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Today's story huge success because people are always looking for
great Bluetooth speakers. They're always looking for dash cams, and
they're always looking for cool accessories for their smartphone. And
I found three of them. Let me just go through them.
The first is the Lexon minno X. This was a
tiny Bluetooth speaker that I actually found on sale at Nordstrum.
I couldn't resist it. My wife was looking at bathing

(04:10):
suits and I'm sitting there like, I found this little
sale rack and I'm like, what is this electronics at Nordstrum,
And so I bought this thing because I couldn't resist
it was so tiny, and I brought it home. I
played a song on it, my current favorite song, Chris Stapleton's.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Oh My God.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
What's starting Over? I think it's called starting Over Chris. Yeah,
starting Over. Oh such a good song. So anyway, I
played that and I just couldn't believe it. I was
like stun I said, lindsay get out here.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
I was outside. I was like, come on out, you
gotta listen to this thing.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
And we both were just like sitting there in shock.
So it's a little tiny speaker.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
Now.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
I don't want to bum you out and tell you
that I paid twenty four dollars for it, because it's
selling for forty on Amazon. You know, maybe you'll find
it on sale at some point, you know, do a
price alert. You don't have to buy things, you know immediately.
But I just love it. It's water resistant, it's rechargeable.
It's USBC, which gives me, you know, hope that it's
like you know, current, and it sounds great.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
It's literally the tiny speaker.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
If you want to see the video on it, go
to my Facebook, Facebook dot com slash rich on tech.
Cool little speaker that is now a tool in my
toolkit when I when I bring my backpack of stuff
anywhere I go. All right, The next thing is the
nexsar Beam GPS dashcam and I had this thing, I'll
be honest, sitting here for about probably six months to test,

(05:26):
and I just didn't get a chance to test it.
And part of that was that my screen or my
my windshield and my car has been broken for a bit,
like there was this crack that formed and it just
kept getting bigger. And I finally one day was like,
oh my gosh, why am I taking so long to
fix this little tiny repair?

Speaker 2 (05:45):
And so I call up safe Light. You know, I
didn't even call him.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
I just did out on my computer and the guy
was out here within three hours, fixed it within an hour,
and boom. I waited probably six months to fix my windshields,
so don't wait to do things. And it was about
a quarter let's see. It was a third of the
price that I thought it would be. So I was like,
why did I wait so long to do this? Now
I have a great you know, I can see through
my windshield again. And now I was able to set

(06:10):
this up. And I fell in love with this camera immediately,
Like I'm talking immediately. It's so easy, it's tiny, The
GPS is integrated into the camera housing kind of like
into the little suction mount. It's tough to explain, but
it's just so easy to set up. You run the
wire to your you know, cigarette light or whatever they
call nowadays the power port, and you download the app.

(06:32):
And the real magic of this dash cam is the app.
The app is so nice, it's so well designed, it's
so slick, and I'm using on iOS, so it's really good,
and it's just unbelievable. And what this thing does is
it you know, it just records the road. It's one
hundred and twenty dollars camera, but it uses AI to
detect unusual events. So there's a little g sensor inside

(06:53):
the camera. You know, if there's a hard crash or anything,
or like a you know, someone hits your car while
you're parked, it's gonna spring into action and it's going
to record. And not only that, if your phone is nearby,
it's going to immediately send that data to the cloud
like that little clip, so that you know, for safekeeping reasons.
So it's really fantastic. The video is crystal clear. And
I know that one hundred and twenty dollars is a

(07:14):
little pricey for a standard dash cam, but honestly, I
think you're paying for the amazing design and smarts on
this camera. You can get a camera on Amazon for
like what forty fifty bucks. But I'm telling you the
software is what's going to absolutely kill you because you're
just going to be like, this is so annoying. This
is a pleasure. You want to sit there and look

(07:34):
through all your clips. Exporting clips is easy. Making a
clip is easy. You get unlimited cloud storage for your clip,
so if you want to upload them all to the cloud,
you can do that. It's really quite amazing. NEXSAR Beam
GPS dashcam is what it's called. And finally, this might
be my favorite of the bunch, the Tentacle three P sixty.
This is a phone mount slash tripod. I might have

(07:56):
talked about it in the podcast, but it's just amazing.
It's a forty dollars device. I've been using it as
a stabilizer, as a wrap around mount.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
It could be a tripod.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
It's it's you know, maybe six inches tall. It's not
the big, huge tripod. But you can literally wrap this
thing around tree branches, you can stand it up, you
can use this. I mean, it's just it's possibilities are unlimited.
So during the summer, you know, summer's coming up, you're
gonna be traveling, you're gonna be doing stuff outside the house.
This is like just a simple smart way to like

(08:26):
just up the ante, right. You take it on a hike,
you take it wherever you go on a boat, and
it's just seriously cool.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
I talked to the guy who invented it. Let me
get his.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Name because now I, of course I know his name
is Hans, but I have to remember his last name.
Oh my gosh, I'm so embarrassed right now, I am
so embarrassed. I can't believe it. Hans Dose, I should
remember that. So Hans does cool guy wore a wore
a Hawaiian shirt to my mazoom interview with him. He's
in a where is he's some short in like sank

(09:00):
any area kind of. But he came up with this
thing because he was on a hike and he tried to,
you know, prop up his phone on a tree branch
take a picture. Next thing, you know, the phone crashed
to the ground. The whole thing shattered, and what a
nightmare and boom. Now he's an amazing entrepreneur. So good
for you, Hans, And I'll never forget your last name. Again,
I'm sorry, cool guy. I mean, and you know, we

(09:23):
put this on TV today. He said it was amazing.
So many people bought one, and I just love that
because I love when I find things that I think
are just life changing and awesome and other people feel
exactly the same.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
So anyway, check it out.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
I've got a link on my I'll put the links
in the show note for all those gadgets. Okay, let's
get to the first question. Let's see not so much
question but comment. William says, Hey, Rich just wants to
let you know that my son bought the very first
Volkswagen ID four sold by Galpin Volkswagen, maybe the first
sold in California. He absolutely loves it, despite the fact

(09:58):
that some of the tech items origin only promised by
Volkswagen are not available on the first models.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Awesome, William.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
I don't know if I tell you know, I forget
what I talk about on the podcast, but I did
drive the Volkswagen, and I'll be honest, I fell in
love with it. But at this point I am going
to go with the Tesla three for my personal car
because I just feel like I love what Volkswagen's doing.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
It's amazing. I fell in love with that car.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
But at the end of the day, when I really
collect all my thoughts and all of my kind of
feelings about the situation, I love what what Tesla's doing
as much as what Apple's doing. They are an Apple
of the car world, and you're not just buying the Tesla,
You're buying into the entire world of Elon Musk and
the way he thinks and his smart brain and the
way they do things. And so for that reason, that's

(10:46):
the direction I will end up going when I buy
a new car. I just got my windshield fixed, so
that's not happening anytime soon, but you know what I mean,
when I'm ready for it. So, but you know, William awesome.
The Volkswagen the I four I was super duper impressed with.
I thought it was seriously cool, and I think it's
a strong contender if you are considering a Tesla, especially

(11:08):
the model hy which is like their little suv. The
ID four is a great alternative to that, and so
definitely definitely check it out. All right, let's get to
the first story. I guess, well we'll be on the
second story. I guess this is the second story. But
this is gosh, this makes me sad. So one Plus

(11:29):
launched the new one Plus nine series smartphones. And here's
the thing, I get a lot of this stuff early, right,
So I had the one plus phones for a couple
of weeks, and I'm sitting there and I'm using them,
and I've never been so excited to unbox a phone
and use it because I'm like, this might be my
next phone.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
Right.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
Well, after using it for a couple of days, it
became very clear to me that this was not gonna
be my next phone. And that's because the camera was
just so all over the place. I could not trust
it to take a consistent shot. And so I I
thought this, but you know, you never really know, and
so I decided I wasn't really going to cover it
for KTLA for various reasons. With that said, I kind

(12:07):
of was like, Eh, this is really a non starter.
I can't go on TV and tell people about this
phone that might be amazing and then it's like, oh,
by the way, it's only available through one carrier, Like, no,
that doesn't really work these days. So I kind of
held off, and I just did like some social media stuff,
like a little video on my Facebook maybe it's something
on my Instagram.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
I kind of forget and I just.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
I kind of like went through some pictures and I
was like, I'm not impressed with the pictures on this thing.
But I sat there like, oh my gosh, cause I
recorded this stuff before the you know, before everyone they
call them embargoes, before you're allowed to actually publicly talk
about it, and so you know, I sat there and
I'm like, I don't know, like, am I wrong? And
I'm like nervous. I'm like sitting up like what if
all the reviewers come out and they say, oh my god,
this is the best phone ever, this is the best

(12:49):
camera ever. And I'm sitting there saying, well, I don't
really like the fringing around the photos of flowers and
this photo is a little odd.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
And sure enough it came out. Well.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
I watched one review and exactly what I imagined, what
I thought, was exactly what was said in this review.
And so I was like breathing a sigh of relief.
I was like, oh, okay, so it was not just me.
It was And I read several reviews, and I looked
at several reviews and everyone was kind of saying the
same thing, like Oh my gosh, so much hype for

(13:20):
this smartphone because of this camera, and it kind of
fell flat. Now, don't get me wrong. I think that
it's still a good camera. I think it's a great camera.
It's just not a consistent camera. And that's the problem.
You might get a great shot, you might not get
such a good shot. And that's like, you know, when
I was using this thing for the couple of weeks
i was testing it, I just kept going back to

(13:42):
my iPhone when I really wanted to make sure I
got the shot right. And that's a problem. So anyway,
I'll just give you the top level stuff about the
one plus nine series. There's two phones, the nine Pro,
which you know is the main one, and then the
nine which you know that's I don't know why you'd
want that one, but anyway, they've got all the specs
you need. So, I mean, the specs on this thing

(14:02):
are just phenomenal. Like this is my perfect Android phone, right.
The screen is big, it feels great in your hand,
it's a perfect size phone. It's got a great color,
it's got a great camera setup. It charges phenomenally fast.
I'm talking thirty minutes to charge the entire phones. You
never have to worry about charging. It's got you know,
tons of megapixels, big sensor. The telephoto lens is terrible,

(14:25):
it really is, is just not good. But the other
two lenses are really nice, but they're just again, they
don't create shots that are as good as something you
can get off the Samsung or the iPhone. And that
makes me really sad because I've loved this company for
so long and I just feel like they're kind of
falling apart and I don't know what's happening. And I
just read today that the main marketing guy, the CMO,

(14:48):
is leaving. And he was a oh, big, big supporter
of this company for so many years. I met him
many times, Kyle, and it's just, you know, it's just sad.
So anyway, it is IP sixty eight. It's got the
one and twenty hertz display, the best software on an
Android phone. The software on the one plus is like
butter it's so good, it's perfect. But yet again I

(15:13):
come back to it. It's just I can't use it anyway.
I don't want to totally, you know, be a bummer
about it. Maybe they can fix things in a software
update and we'll keep an eye on that, but it
was a little bit overhyped. They've got this new hastle
blot on I say, Hasselblad partnership, and.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
It's just, you know, it just did not do much.
I don't. I think the colors on the pictures are
just kind of.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
Very very muted and very dim and dingy looking compared
to like the iPhone or Samsung, where it's like it
just pops, you know what I mean. And some people
might like that, I personally don't.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
So there you have it. It's going to be available.
Let's see, uh.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
Nine hundred and sixty nine dollars for the Pro and
it's available April second. Now, the other thing that one
plus came out with is a watch, and I'm a
little a little concerned about this because this seems like
the perfect watch for Android people. But again it's like,
are they promising a lot and then not delivering.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
We'll see.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
So it's a it looks like a Samsung kind of
that design where it's got the round face and it's
got you know, notifications, it's got the ability to make
an answer calls, play music, you can store up to
five hundred songs on it. It's got bluetoothe you can
connect wireless earbuds. It's got great battery life. You can
get a you know, charges in twenty minutes for a

(16:28):
week's worth of power. Let's see two weeks of use
or a week worth of use if you're really like,
you know, big active user. It's got water resistance IP
sixty eight. It's got all kinds of workout types on there,
including automatic detection for running and jogging. It's got built
in GPS, blood oxygen monitoring, stress detection, breathing training, rapid

(16:48):
heart rate alerts, and sedentary reminder. So I mean amazing
for one hundred and fifty nine dollars, I mean sounds
like a winner. But again, we're just gonna have to
see what the deal is with this thing. So I'm
a little bit I'm treading lightly on that because I
want to believe that's my dream watch. If it had LTE,
it would be my dream watch. It does not, unfortunately,

(17:09):
But there you have it. Erica writes in Hey, Rich,
I hope you're well. I recently bought some fight feet
fit feet electric smart bulbs from Costco. I've seen them
there for sure. I just don't know how to pronounce
some feet. I'm guessing I really want to get them
set up, but my husband thinks they're unsafe to use.

(17:30):
He believes we can be jacked or get spyware. Is
this the case with smart light bulbs? Thanks Erica.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
It's a good question, Erica.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
And we often hear how the weakest link to any
network is really an Internet connected device. That is, you know,
the software might be outdated, it might have a bug
or some sort of hole in the software security hole.
And so I think your husband is being cautious, but
I also think he's a little bit like, come on, like,

(17:59):
I don't think you're gonna get hacked or spyware from
these things. Now, with that said, what I always recommend
with any of these smart home devices, especially the ones
that seem innoculous, right, the ones that seem like, oh,
I'm just put.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
Plug it in a light bulb, no big deal. Well,
that's where you need to worry.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
Because the nests of the world and the you know,
the Google homes and the Apple devices, they're they're all fine.
They're gonna your password is gonna be you know, as strong.
They've got everything encrypted, they've got the best software teams
it's these random brands that are creating stuff that's super
cheap that you need to be concerned about. Now, I'm

(18:36):
not saying you should not use it. I do have
some stuff like this in my home. But you need
to make sure you do not use their default password,
and you need to make sure that you.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
Keep the software updated.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
If there is a thing on a light bulb, I
mean you know, if you have a Hue bulb, Yeah,
they're updating the software all the time. If you have
a Lifix bulb, they're updating. If you have a nano
leaf bulb, they're updating that stuff all the time. With
fight or feet or whatever it's called, it may not
be updated. So you just do have to be concerned.
But I think you're gonna be Okay. You plug these
light bulbs in and I think you're gonna be fine.

(19:07):
But again, just make sure that you're being smart about
this stuff. Don't just plug them in and you know,
take for granted that they're going to be safe. Just
take the proper precautions, and that way you can protect
your entire network, because your network is only as secure
as you know the device that someone can break into
it on. So just be careful with that. All right,

(19:27):
good question there. Let's see what should we go to
the quickie? Let's do a quickie story. Disney Plus has
hiking prices for the first time in the US. Disney
Plus now stands at seven ninety nine a month. This,
according to Variety, went up from six to ninety nine
a month. Now it's seventy nine ninety nine a year,
compared to sixty nine to ninety nine for the annual
plan before. First time the company has raised rates since

(19:50):
Disney Plus debuted in November twenty nineteen, which, by the way,
can you believe it's already been a year.

Speaker 2 (19:56):
In November, December, January, February.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
March a year and almost six months that Disney Plus
has been available.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
I cannot believe it.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
It feels like just yesterday I was recording my segment
and planning my segment for KTLA on Disney Plus, and
when I went back to cut some video on this
for TV to talk about the price hike, I had
to go back into my files and I was like, wait,
twenty nineteen, what so I think we've gotten our use
out of it. I would say for the family movies

(20:23):
like The Sit Down Friday night thing. I wish they
had a little bit more because we're not, Like, it'd
be awesome if there's something every Friday night, like a
new like Pixar movie.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
I get it. That's that's really tricky.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
I mean, is it too much to ask for like
a multi you know, a six hundred million dollar budget
movie or a billion dollar budget movie every week?

Speaker 2 (20:41):
I mean, come on, Disney.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
But nonetheless, look, Disney Plus is still pretty cheap compared
to the other services. They've got one hundred million subscribers.
You know, if you look at Netflix or you know,
HBO Max, those are all much more expensive. Hulu, it
depends on what you have. If you have like the
ad free Hulu, like I do, think it's like twelve
bucks a month. But you know, so oh you can
get a bundle though, if you got Disney Plus, cause

(21:04):
that's all the same.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
So you know, look it's going up.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
I put this on my Facebook page and people were
you know, people get angry on the Facebook page.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
You're like, oh, how dare they?

Speaker 1 (21:13):
But then you know, at the end of the day,
they're probably keeping it, I would say, and yeah, they'll
probably lose some people, but I don't think it's gonna
be enough to, like, you know, totally go from one
hundred million subscribers to fifty million overnight. I think Disney
is going to be okay.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
All right.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
Question from Marcella says, hey, rich, does Arlow doorbell offer
better security than the Ring app?

Speaker 2 (21:36):
Why the price difference? Thanks?

Speaker 1 (21:39):
Well, I assume when you say Ring app you mean
the Ring video doorbell. So if you look at Arlow,
you know, here's the thing. You have to think about
the fact that when you buy one of these devices,
these little smart home devices, right, it seems like an easy,
innocent purchase. Okay, you know, you get a doorbell video camera,
but what you're really doing is buying into an ecosystem.

(22:00):
So you have to be very thoughtful and strategic about
this because you have to look at all the products
that ar Low offers and all the products that Ring
offers and see which one you like better. You have
to see the subscriptions that they offer and see if
you like r low better or or Ring better. Now,
I will be honest, I'm not too familiar with the

(22:21):
rlow stuff. I know that a lot of people like it,
but I just don't know. I'm not familiar with like
their subscription situation, if they even have one. I think
a lot of the Arlow stuff does like onboard recording,
and I think that's why people like it, because it's
like it is cheaper over time, right than it is
for for for the Ring stuff. And so let's see

(22:45):
let's see Arlow Smart. Okay, let's see what Arlow Smart is. Okay,
smart subscription plans. So they do have a subscription plan
for ar Low and if you look at it, it
is single camera okay, So there's no plan which gives
you live video streaming. And then there's the single camera
plan which is three dollars a month, and up to

(23:07):
five cameras which is ten dollars a month, and then
the Elite which is up to four K video, which
is up to fifteen. So that's the main thing you
need to look at. So if you look at the doorbells,
they're pretty much the same price. The wireless doorbell is
one ninety nine for the r Low. It's currently one
sixty nine for the video doorbell three plus. But if
you go on the website for Ring, I mean, they

(23:31):
just have so many products at this point that it's
like everywhere, I mean, so you can get a video
doorbell for as cheap as eighty five bucks, and it
might not be as clear as you know many features
as the newest one. But again, I think that's what
you mean when you're saying this price difference is why
should I pay two hundred dollars for the r Low
when I can get a Ring for like eighty five bucks.
And it's a valid question, but personally, I mean, I

(23:54):
think these are both really good companies and I'm looking
at Arlow like what they have They fucked cameras, doorbells,
floodlke camera. I think Ring has the larger scope of accessories,
and I've been slowly but surely installing more Ring stuff
because I just think they're just coming out new stuff
so often that I love it. And their plan, I
think is ten dollars a month for like everything, which

(24:16):
is really reasonable, and that I think that includes the
alarm system. I think it's only three dollars a month
for the other like if you just have a bunch
of cameras. Don't quote me on that because I've not
subscribed just yet. But oh yeah, here it is Ring.
Let's see where is it ring Protect. Here's how much
ring Protect is. Ring Protect compare plans three dollars a

(24:38):
month or thirty dollars a year for basic. Yeah, plus
is the Ring alarm, so that actually disregard that unless
you're doing their alarm system. So yeah, three dollars a
month or thirty dollars a year for as oh for
one device, Oh okay, so all devices is.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
Ten dollars a month. Okay, so yeah it's ten bucks
a month.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
So again you kind of have to decide like which
ecosystem do you want to do you want to be
a part of, And that's really what it comes down to.
So take a look at all the products. You know,
Ring is coming out with stuff like it seems like
every day Arlow they've been a little bit slower and
steadier with their products, but they have the basic stuff
you need doorbells, cameras, floodlights, you know, those kind of things.
So it just really depends what you want and the

(25:19):
ecosystem that you want to get into. And let's be honest,
after you know you're not going to stick on the
free plan, probably you're going to end up buying the
subscription plan, So you got to think about how much
that's going to cost you and whether you want to
pay that each month.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
All right, let's talk about MacBook.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
So this is just another quick story MacBook owners that
bought a MacBook between let's see basically twenty fifteen to
twenty nineteen, whether MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, MacBook you had
this thing called the butterfly keyboard design. And this was
the topic of many, many a conversation in the tech world.

(25:57):
People hated this keyboard Apple, of course. You know, they
go on stage saying how great it is. When you
actually get it, you're like, oh, this is horrible. And
I know from personal experience because I had a MacBook
Pro with this laptop with this keyboard and it was
the worst typing experience ever. Now, it did do the thing, okay,
so what people are saying, So basically, there's a class

(26:18):
action lawsuit now in a bunch of states against this keyboard,
and who knows, you'll probably get like a check for
twenty five dollars. But the reality is it kind of
it makes you realize that, you know, all these people
were complaining about it for so long and Apple just
kept dismissing it. You know, they never really came out
and said that this was a horrible design. They tweaked it,
you know, every couple, you know, every year they would

(26:39):
tweak or every two years they would tweak the design
just a little bit, but they'd still say it was
so great.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
But we all knew using it that it wasn't.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
And now you know, I actually was pretty much, pretty
much pushed to buying the new MacBook Pro sixteen because
I just couldn't deal with the keyboard on the old one.
Now my son has it, and he's fine, you know,
he doesn't really know any different. But the reality is,
this was just a really not fun keyboard to have.
So there was a famous column in the Wall Street

(27:06):
Journal from Joanna Stern. She talked about she wrote the
whole column with the double keypresses. So a lot of
people would say that when you got like some dust
or crumbs in this keyboard, it would stick, and so
the keys would type instead of like oney, you it
would type two. And I had this problem and it
drove me nuts, and I'm like, is something happening, Like
what is going on?

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Why is this happening?

Speaker 1 (27:27):
And so now it all, you know, it all makes sense.
Apple abandoned the design in twenty twenty, according to the Verge,
and you know. It's just one of those things where
I just feel like, okay, I actually know that I
was not I was not the one that thought that
this was a little bit weird and everyone else thought
it was fine. No, it was really weird. So now

(27:48):
we know whether you get your money or not, at
least you feel like you know.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
Okay, let's move on to this. Let's see here.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
Bill says, First off, I really like your segments on
the Morning News, very informative.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
Thank you, Bill. Is there a way to.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
Remove the annoying provider boot splash and sound that happens
every time you turn on your phone? If you do
not know, can you steer me to someone who might thanks.
My particular phone is Samsung Galaxy S nine. In case
that matters, Keep up the good work and stay safe, William. Well, William,
I assume you're talking about because your email says sent
from the Samsung Galaxy No. Eight and AT and T

(28:28):
five G evolution capable smartphone. You're talking about the boot
up screen that basically flashes like AT and T makes
their little sound and it's like ah, and it's every time. Now,
I don't know how many times you're restarting your phone
and seeing this, But yeah, I agree, it's one hundred
percent bogus, annoying, bl bloated, lame, no need for it.

(28:49):
Why these carriers love to brand their phone so much,
I don't get it. It's not like they're giving us
a discount to have all this branding on it, but
it happens. And the only phone that you don't I
get that on is the iPhone. And maybe you know
some of the things like one plus. Actually if you
buy a one plus branded from T Mobile, you might
get that too. But anyway, I don't know of a

(29:10):
way to get rid of that. I used to RHM
phones all the time, which is, you know, installing like
new operating systems on them, and I'm not even sure
that that got rid of it. I think I can't remember, honestly,
but I think Bill, I don't think it's something for
the feint of heart to do. Like I don't think
like the average person that just has a Samsung Galaxy
S nine can just like you know, go into some

(29:31):
settings and change that. This is like a a real
like you know, you would have to do some serious,
heavy duty stuff on your phone to get rid of this.
And I don't think that that's something that I could
recommend on this consumer podcast. But I mean, and I
don't even remember the websites I used to go to
for like the I think it was like cyanogen mod
that I used to use. Like, you know, there's all

(29:52):
these ROMs. I used to love installing those. I used
to think that I can make the Android phones so
much better with all these ROMs. And I used to Oh,
it was such a nightmare because nothing worked properly. And
you would just install one and like you know, their
phone calls wouldn't work. You'd install another one and the
camera wouldn't work. You'd stall another one and it's like
some other cool thing you could. You know, It's like
none of it ever worked properly. And I just I

(30:15):
stopped doing that many many years ago, probably five years ago,
I don't know, but I got over it. So Bill,
I don't think there's a way to really do this easily.
So I would just you know, restart your phone and
just put it in like a corner while it restarts,
so you don't hear it or see it.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
That's that's my advice.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
Oh, speaking of carriers, Verizon has a pretty good deal
and I am skeptical of this deal because it is
from Verizon, even though I'm nothing against them. You know,
full disclosure. My service is with Verizon and it's fantastic.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
I pay a lot for it, but it's great. They
have Verizon Cloud for unlimited storage. Yes, you heard me correct,
unlimited storage with Verizon Cloud. There's a brand new plan
for twenty dollars a month unlimited. Now, I would make
the joke that all these carriers have unlimited cell phone

(31:13):
plans which are anything but unlimited, except T Mobile. They
do have one that actually is unlimited. But TIMO know, Verizon,
AT and T unlimited does not really mean the same
thing to you and I that it means to them
with their plans. So that's why I'm a little bit hesitant,
because I'm like, what's the fine print on this? Is
it really unlimited or are you limited in some way?

(31:34):
But they say no, it is unlimited. Store as much
as you want automatically upload files from iOS, Android, Windows,
and Mac. The first month is free. It's not just
for photos and videos. You can store anything files. You
can even store your texts on Android, which is kind
of cool, like a text backup feature. You can set
up private folders which keep them private. You can share

(31:57):
with family and friends. You can share Verizon Cloud with
up to four or other users, whether or not they're Verizon.
That's really interesting because it has family and friends. That
means they don't even have to be on Verizon. Like
I could share this unlimited cloud with my brother, Like,
that's really cool.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Twenty dollars a month.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
I meant to download this before I did the podcast
so I can kind of check it out.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
I did not get a chance, but I will.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
But then it got me to thinking, Okay, twenty dollars
a month is amazing, But I already pay ten dollars
a month for my Google storage, which is two terabytes.
If I bump it up to ten terabytes, it's fifty
dollars a month, which I know sounds like a lot.
But if I'm paying twenty for Verizon and ten for Google,
and now I have to put my stuff in two places,
I can just put thirty dollars towards Google, and now

(32:42):
I'm only paying twenty extra for my to ten terabytes
on Google? Are you following me? But that still only
gives me ten terabytes, not unlimited, but is ten terabytes
enough probably.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
I'm up to two, but I mean, you know, ten
would took me a couple of years to get to two,
So I mean, I don't know how long would it
take me to get to ten? And then maybe I
can just wait until I get to that ten and
then switch. I don't know, So this is the way
I think. So I think that, you know, it sounds
amazing that Verizon's offering this, and I think it's cool.
The only thing I don't like is that it links
you to Verizon indefinitely. And of course that's the name

(33:17):
of the game with these add on services. You know,
they want you to have all these things on one
bill so that you stick with them. And if you're like, oh,
I want to change my provider, and you're like, oh,
now I don't get the Verizon Cloud for twenty dollars
a month unlimited, Oh, I'll.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
Just stick with Verizon.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
So there's a reason why they do these things and so,
but at the same time, it is a very compelling.
It's very compelling twenty bucks a month for unlimited that
I would never have to think about my cloud storage.
I'm also curious how good the apps are how good
the search is. I can find anything in my Google
Drive within reason, very quickly, and everything's indexed and sliced

(33:52):
and diced, and images are all indexed and PDFs are
indexed everything. I mean, you could find stuff in there,
you know, type in Sunrise and everything with Sunrise pictures, videos, whatever, documents.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
So you know, it's a good deal.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
But I personally hope that their offer forces some of
these other cloud service providers or cloud storage providers to
bring down their prices or increase their storage. It's been
a while since we saw Google double from one terabyte
to two. Maybe they'll bump that up to a little
bit more. All right, Tommy says, hey, Rich, good morning

(34:34):
to you. How are you doing. I'm doing great. I'm
just wondering what's your take on the new MacBook air
M one. Will be good for basic use like Web
office and very little photo and video editing. Would you
advise to go for two fifty six or five twelve storage?
Thank you, Tommy, Tommy, I think the new MacBook air
M one is amazing. I was a little bit wrong
on this because I was kind of thinking it would

(34:56):
not be that great, but I have not tested.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
It, but people love it.

Speaker 1 (35:00):
All the reviews I've seen, all my you know, tech
friends on Instagram and Twitter love it, and I've I've
found little fault with it, and so I say go
for it.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
Very little photo video and editing.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
I think it can handle any photo, video and editing
that you're going to be doing. If you're saying is
very little, it's probably just personal use simple stuff. I
used to edit on my MacBook Air all the time
for video and it was fine. It couldn't really handle, like,
you know, the big, big stuff, but for every day
basic stuff. Yeah, And whether two fifty six or five twelve,

(35:34):
definitely go five twelve. Get the most memory. They offer
the most RAM and the most RAM, so you want
the most storage and the most memory. So if five
twelve and sixteen is max, go for five twelve sixteen.
You will be happy later. Because no, these are expensive.
And I always tell people you're already going. Let's say

(35:56):
this MacBook. I don't know how much the M one is.
To see how much it is, it's probably like nine
ninety nine or eleven ninety nine. Let's see it is
dun it is not eight oh eight ninety nine education stores,
So that means it's nine ninety nine. Okay, so nine
ninety nine, they have two configurations, they've got two fifty

(36:18):
six or five twelve.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
Two fifty six.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
Is nine ninety nine that comes with eight gigs of memory,
and then what five twelve is is uh, twelve forty nine.
So people are always like, oh, twelve forty nine so expensive,
but you're already going the nine ninety nine, Like you're
already spending that, so that the little distance is two
fifty and you know, just don't eat out for like,
you know, a bunch of meals and you know, don't

(36:40):
eat out at like you know, fast food for a
couple of months, and you'll be fine. You know, that's
the way I see it. You know, there's there's ways
that you know, we all have. You know, if you're
buying a computer for nine ninety nine, you're I get it,
you're going it's expensive, but you're going that far. So
if you go a little bit more for the five twelve,
you're doubling your store for two fifty more. So you're

(37:01):
not doubling your storage for another thousand more five hundred.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
It's two fifty. So if you don't need.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
All that storage, like if you literally do everything in
the cloud. You don't really have a lot of stuff
that you're gonna be dealing with. Then by all means,
just go up to two fifty six.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
She'll be fine.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
So, but I think for maximum use over the years,
I like the the five twelve. You're also getting a
slightly better GPU. It's eight core GPU versus seven core.
Let me see if they can if you can update
or upgrade the memory on this. Oh you can, yeah,

(37:34):
two hundred dollars. Oh wow, you can even go up
to two terabytes of storage. Ooh, that would be my
configuration MacBook Air sixteen gigs of storage, two terabytes. That
would be a whopping twenty forty nine, which is actually
it's not too bad for two terabytes. Ooh, that's getting
me thinking. But I don't want the MacBook Air. I

(37:56):
would want the MacBook Pro thirteen with But see now
I'm on a sixteen inch. I just can't go back
to thirteen. There's no way that screen would be just
too small. So let's see if I max out the thirteen,
which is, let's see Intel.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
I don't want Intel, I want M one.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
There we are, so base price is fifteen hundred and
then if I add the sixteen gigs of memory plus
the two terabytes, now you're talking twenty three hundred.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
Now that's a lot. Yeah, not spending that right now?
All right, good question. All right now.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
I thought this was a really, really good tip. This
comes from the datadoctors dot com. They do a radio
one minute quick tip each day for non tech people.
So they're they're talking to me and not well, they're
talking to the people that I talk to, right, you know,
non techies per se, people that are watching the local news.
They just see my tech segment and they go, oh,

(38:48):
that's interesting. I thought this was brilliant. And I get
questions all the time about, you know, people getting hacked
on Instagram and Facebook and you get locked out and
there's no way back in, and there's really nothing I
can tell you to do except just go to the
help you Facebook help page and just kind of follow
the directions they give you. Sometimes you get back in,
sometimes you don't. But this little tip from data Doctors

(39:09):
is perfect. If you go into your Facebook security settings,
and this is before you get hacked, do this today.
There is a trusted contacts section. Okay, let me get
this because I actually went in here and looked at
this and I thought it was amazing because mine's not
set up.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
And so you go into your Facebook page.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
You go into let's see let me see how you
find trusted contacts, go to security and log in. Okay,
go to your Facebook page and then go to your
security and log in tab and then you scroll down
and it says setting up extra security. Choose three to
five friends to contact if you get locked out, and
they will get a code. If you ever get locked out,

(39:52):
if you're trying to say, hey, this is my account,
I can't get back in, it will send a code
to your friends and they will say, yeah, I know
rich trying to get in. Yeah, click the code and
boom or I think so it happens is they send
a code to all three of your friends. You have
to use that code to log in all three of
those code, not just one. So you can choose three
to five friends. I've not chosen any friends yet to

(40:13):
do this. I'm gonna do this.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
Today, but what a good idea. It's brilliant.

Speaker 1 (40:20):
Do this before you get hacked. So again, go to
Facebook dot com slash settings, then go to your security tab.
So go to settings in privacy and let's see, see
it's easier just to go to the link. I'll put
the link in the show notes. But it's Facebook dot
com slash settings equals slash tab or gosh, this is

(40:42):
why you can't say this on the radio or podcast.
Facebook dot com slash settings, question mark tab equals security,
So it's basically your security tab inside the settings and
then scroll down toward says setting up extra security.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
I'm gonna do a video on this so I can
explain how to do this. But this is a brilliant,
brilliant thing.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
If you really want to protect your Facebook account, that's
what you got to do. Set up those trusted contacts.
All right, Lisa says, dear Rich, I love your show
and your podcast. Really appreciate how you answer listeners questions
in a way non techies like me can understand what
I just say. We have about one hundred family members.
We'd like to make historic photos of family members available

(41:25):
to all, no matter their tech ability. I know a flicker,
are there others out there? Some relatives are in their
eighties and nineties. Your help would be appreciated, sincerely, Lisa. Well, Lisa,
I think any cloud storage would work for this. And
you basically want to send a link that does not
require any sort of login. That's the magic here, because
you're talking eighties and nineties. You don't want to make

(41:47):
them jump through any sort of hoops to see these pictures. Now,
if you want these pictures to remain private, that is
a little bit trickier because you are going to have
to password protect them if you want to do that.
But if you just want to give, like, you know,
a random URL, and it's going to be pretty private
just because it's a random URL, and you send it
to these family members and they get to see all
these pictures, download them, do whatever. I think you can

(42:10):
use Flicker. I think that would work just fine. I
think Dropbox is perfect for this. I think Dropbox will
give you like a I don't know how much they
give you at this point for free storage, but like
a gig. And then you've got let's say, you could
use Microsoft one Drive, you can use Google Photos, you
can use Google Drive. I mean, there's so many ways
of doing this. I think any of these cloud services

(42:32):
would work. I don't know how many pictures you have,
but I think you want the easiest thing. I think
probably the easiest thing would be Dropbox. But the only
tricky thing that all these providers do these days, which
could trip up your family members is you know, when
you do these free links, they always try to get them.
They always try to trick them into like signing up
or even logging in to download, even though you don't

(42:55):
have to. I get this all the time with like
box and like all these other services. I get links
to pictures that people send me, like press people, and
it's like you press download and immediately up pops a
box to log in or sign up, and you're like, oh,
I got to sign in, and the download kind of
waits five or ten seconds, and then it happens in

(43:15):
the background, which you know, they call it a dark pattern,
you know, where it's trying to trick you into doing something.
And for the uninitiated, for the less techie, a lot
of times they'll just do it. They'll just log in
or create an account, and then you know, they realize
they don't really have to do that, or they may
never realize that.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
So I don't like that, but I get it.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
They're trying to make their free services worth your time,
and you know, trying to get people to convert. But
if I had to pick one, you know, I'd pick
one that you're already a member of. So let's see,
how'd you email me? I don't have your email address, okay,
so I don't know what email or what service you're using.
But you know, like Google Photos makes it pretty darn
easy to send links to people. I mean I exchange

(43:56):
pictures with my photographer all the time, like little videos
and stuff that all. So we use Dropbox primarily, but
then if he needs like a video that I shot
that's already in Google Photos, I will literally just generate
a link and boom send it to him and he
can just download the photo from the link or the
video and it's super duper easy. So that's what I'd recommend.
Check him out, and I think all those will work.

(44:17):
And get those pictures scanned and share them with your
friends and family. It's beautiful. It's beautiful when you can
do that. Let me tell you about flee swear. This
is from a vast They say that flee sware apps
have earned over four hundred million dollars on Android and iOS. Ugh. Again,
this is preying upon people that are less tech savvy.

(44:38):
Researchers out of vass have discovered two hundred and four
flee sware applications with over a billion downloads and four
hundred dollars four hundred million in revenue on both Apple
and Google Play. The purpose of these applications is to
draw users into a free trial to test the app,
and then guess what you forget to cancel and boom
you're charged, and even if you cancel after that, they've

(45:00):
already made the one nine four ninety nine. Sometimes these
things go up to very very expensive free trials. I
mean it could be like ninety nine dollars and then
you got to try to get your money back. Flea
swear consists predominantly of musical instrument apps, palm readers, image editors,
camera filters, fortune tellers, QR code readers, PDF readers, and

(45:23):
slime simulators. The applications generally do what they're supposed to do.
They scan QR codes, but you don't need to pay
for QR code scanner. They target younger audiences through playful
themes and catchy ads on social networks with free installation.
And so this is interesting because it's it's actually targeting
the teens. And my kid yesterday gave me a screen

(45:46):
time request to download a VPN, and I'm sure he
saw it as an ad on one of the games
he's playing. So these apps also take advantage of the
fact that users are not familiar with how subscriptions were,
which means even after you've deleted the app, the subscription
keeps going, and a lot of people don't know how
to cancel subscriptions. They made it a lot easier on iOS.

(46:08):
On Android, when you uninstall, it says, hey, do you
want to cancel the subscription? I believe it says that
every time on iOS. I think that was a feature
they were thinking of introducing. I'm not sure if it
ever was introduced, but they've made it easier to find
your subscriptions on iOS anyway. It's like two clicks now
versus like ten before. So I think this is again
one of those things that you just kind of tell

(46:30):
your friends and family about, you know, just you know.
My trick with free trials is you go in, you
cancel it immediately. So I subscribe to Paramount Network the
other day to watch the new SpongeBob movie, which I
thought was fantastic by the way, I really really enjoyed it.
And now I'm gonna watch. You can't do that on television.
But they gave me a free trial of one month,

(46:52):
and that's on my through my Apple TV and through
iOS or you know, through Apple subscriptions. And so what
I did was I always let them eat email me,
and then as soon as I get that email, you know,
when I check my email the next morning, whatever, I
go in and I cancel that subscription immediately.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
Now you may say, Rich, why would you do that.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
That's so mean to the developers, like you're just using
them for their free trial and you're canceling it without
even trying it. No, what I'm doing is protecting myself
from myself. And so if I want the if I
want Paramount Plus, after my free trial, I can go
ahead and resubscribe at any time. It doesn't really hurt
anyone in the process. So what I always do is,

(47:28):
as a rule, just go ahead and cancel your subscription
immediately after you subscribe. And if you feel like you're
being mean, you're not. You're You're just protecting yourself. And
the best part is, let's say you want to continue
the subscription and on the twenty seventh day, when your
subscription is supposed to renew, and it's not, and all

(47:48):
of a sudden, you're trying to access the app, you go, oh, yeah,
I cancel this. So it's it automatically canceled out. All
these free trials, you can continue to use until the
free trial runs out, even if you cancel it. The
only the exception, ironically, is Apple's own free trials. If
you cancel them, a lot of times they just stop
working immediately, which is you know, talk about dark patterns,

(48:09):
but whatever, I digress. So I think you just do that,
and that's the rule that you make. And again I'm
talking you know, if you're techy and tech savvy. But
there's a lot of people like my dad just subscribed
to Hulu, and I can guarantee you he will forget
to cancel by the time the free trial, not to
you know, single out my dad, but it just happens.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
It happens to everyone. I did it the other day.
What I do.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
I forget what the what the app was, but I
signed up for my kid and I say, oh, they
got me. They got me for an extra month because
I forgot to do this, and it's this was a
specific app my kid needed like immediately, Oh it was Minecraft.
Realms and it was like eight bucks. But he wanted
me to like do this, and I had to do
it fast, and I just kind of forgot. And I
actually know why I forgot, and it was because I

(48:54):
talked about this another podcast. My emails from Apple were
not arriving to my inbox. They were going to like
SPA or something. So now I've got them arriving.

Speaker 2 (49:02):
So now when I.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
See, oh, you subscribe to a free trial, I say, oh, cancel,
and then I'll resubscribe if I end up loving it,
and you can always go back and do that. Just
remember that, all right. Next question, Nancy says, hey, Rich,
hope all is good with you.

Speaker 2 (49:21):
Hopefully you can help me.

Speaker 1 (49:22):
My question is, we have an RV with a Wineguard antenna.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
Can we connect it to a.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
Verizon mobile Wi Fi and have our Samsung TV work
off Wi Fi instead of having a contract with Dish
TV or Dish Network or Direct TV or Dish Network.
Thanks for your help, Nancy, Yeah, I would say so.
I mean, you don't exactly. I don't know what the
Wineguard antenna is. I'm guessing, let's see, is that like
some sort of special RV antenna.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
I'm guessing it must be. Okay, yeah, so.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
Oh interesting, Okay, Well, I don't know what kind of
antenna this is. This is taking in satellite TV, that's
I'm guessing, But I don't think you can connect that
antenna specifically to a Verizon hot spot. But I think
you can have your Samsung TV work off Wi Fi
if you get a Verizon hot spot. My solution would

(50:16):
be get the Verizon Mobile hop Actually, maybe before you
do any of this, just cancel the Direct TV or
Dish network, use your iPhone as a hotspot if you can,
if your mobile service allows it, and get a little
streaming stick for your TV. So I know Samsung TVs
have some sort of smarts built in, but just bypass

(50:36):
that and go with like either I personally would go
with the I'd go with the Amazon Fire TV stick.
Get that plug that into the back of your TV.
Use your phone to set up the Wi Fi so
turn it into a hotspot. Connect the Amazon fireTV stick
to your phone's WiFi, and take a trip and see
if you can live with the apps. You know, the

(50:57):
streaming apps you know, Netflix I'm guessing as one of
the popular ones, or whatever else you're using. See if
you can deal with those over your Wi Fi and
then if you like it and it seems to work,
then go ahead, invest in a mobile hotspot, get Verizons,
whatever you want to do, especially if they have a
five G one. I mean that would be amazing because
you get you know, good signal and just hook that

(51:18):
up in your RV, put it near a window, run,
run it to a power strip and turn it on
and boom, you have Wi Fi twenty four to seven
in your RV. Add it to your cell phone plan
and you know, now your little your Amazon Fire TV
stick is running to that Wi Fi and you'll probably
save a bundle in your you know, Direct TV or
Dish network fees.

Speaker 2 (51:38):
That's what I would do.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
I think that's the best solution there. All right, let's
do one more story before we go. This is this
was just something that was kind of fun free Blockbuster
dot org. So I saw a tip on Instagram from
one of my friends that they had a free Blockbuster
Kiosk in Tarzana, California. So I drove over and I,

(52:01):
you know, I love check, you know, I saw I
checked the date. It was like, oh, it's only been
there for a couple of days. So I had to
go run over there. And my wife was like, where
are you? And so I like, I was like, I'm
in Tarzana shooting a free Blockbuster kiosk. She's like what,
and so like, I'll be home soon. I'll be home soon.
And I went and I shot this thing. It was

(52:23):
so cool. It's this little, uh, you know, newspaper vending
machine that of course is not used anymore, and people
go and they repurpose them, so they they spray paint
them blue. Then they use stencils to make it look
like a Blockbuster you know logo, and then they put
little DVDs in it or see or you know vhs,
and they it's like that whole give one, take one
kind of thing. And then they advertise it on Instagram.

(52:45):
It's all volunteer, it's all free. And I went and
I went to the free Blockbuster dot org website and
sure enough, there's a bunch of these all over the
US and it's just done by volunteer. It's just kind
of fun, kind of getting entertainment into people's hands for free.
And so in the Blockbuster video box that I saw,
there was the office space on DVD. There's a pianist

(53:07):
on VHS Wow Old School, and there was a couple
other movies as well, and I just thought it was
so cool, such a fun idea, very nostalgic, and if
you want to check it out. I've got the video
on my Instagram at rich on Tech. And you know,
people of course on my Facebook were like, oh, just
gonna take one bad apple before everyone ruins this. But
you know, hopefully people are good and there's enough good

(53:27):
people in the world to outdo the bad people in
the world, right, and so these it's just a fun idea.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
You know.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
It's like, are you gonna get all your entertainment from this? No,
but it's kind of fun if you can. You know,
if you go there every Friday and just pick out
a movie, I mean, it's just fun.

Speaker 2 (53:42):
You pick out a movie, you leave a movie. The
only thing I was.

Speaker 1 (53:45):
Wondering about is, you know, what's the deal with them
using the Blockbuster logo?

Speaker 2 (53:50):
Because the logo is very.

Speaker 1 (53:51):
Much inspired by Blockbuster, and on the website it says
do you have permission to use this name and logo?

Speaker 2 (53:57):
Couldn't you get sued? And the free.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
Blockbuster dot Org folks say we received a letter from
Blockbuster and have responded by requesting a license to continue
using their trademarks. It's not like Blockbuster is really being used.
But honestly, Blockbuster is still a very big brand name.
I'm not sure if they can ever revitalize it in
some way, but Blockbuster is still very recognizable and still

(54:21):
a I mean, for me, it just conjures up images
of going into Blockbuster, you know, Friday night with my
family and just being like, oh my gosh, this is amazing,
you know, like this is so cool, and picking out
a movie and going This was my pro tip that
I shared on TV is you know you would you
would grow to grow.

Speaker 2 (54:41):
I'm reading text messages as I'm doing this.

Speaker 1 (54:45):
You would go to Blockbuster and you would ask the
cashier if anyone returned the movie that you want, you know,
that new hot release, right, and that was like do
they have it? And they look at those little movies
that people dropped off of the cashier and they say, no,
it's not here.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
Or maybe once in a while it would be there,
all right.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
That music means it's gonna do it for this episode,
or that's gonna do it for this episode of the show.
If you would like to submit a question for me
to answer. Two ways to do it. Go to richon Tech,
dot tv, slash podcast and hit the microphone button to
leave a voicemail, or go to my Facebook page Facebook
dot com slash rich on Tech hit the big blue
send email button. Also, I would love it if you

(55:26):
would share this podcast with your friends. Take a screenshot,
put it on Instagram, say that you love listening. Let
your friends listen to it, rate and review it to
help other people discover it. You can do that at
podcasts rate this podcast, dot com, slash rich on Tech.
You can find me at rich on Tech on social media,
and no matter where you live in the US, you

(55:47):
can download the free ktla plus app on fireTV, Apple TV,
and Roku. Then scroll to the tech section and watch
all of my TV segments on demand.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
I love it. My name is Richdmiro. Thanks so much
for listening.

Speaker 1 (56:02):
I know there are many ways you can spend an
hour of your time, so I do appreciate you spending
it with me. Stay safe, I will talk to you
real soon.