December 21, 2023 • 9 mins
Did you know that many people have their router in the wrong place? There are quite a few ways to improve your WiFi, plus some other tips for tech!
Geoffrey Fowler is the Tech Columnist for Washington Post, he joined Jack to discuss. Read his full Wapo column, "On the tech days of Christmas, my true love gave to me: Better WiFi"
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now, also from the Washington Boast on the Tech days
of Chris miss my true love gave to me better
Wi Fi. We're big fans of Jeff Fowler. The guy
writes about tech stuff for the Washington Post, and that's
his title of his article today, Jeff, Welcome to the
Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
How you doing pretty good?
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Thank you for singing me?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Sure? So are you?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Are you done with your shopping? You got everybody purchased
for uh?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Pretty much?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I'm a solid do it on Thanksgiving and take advantage
of all of the discounts. I actually track prices over
the year because I'm a big nerd.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yeah, good for you.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I wish I was like I wait to the last
minute and then popular stuff is sold out on a
have to find the last one that's into luth Minnesota
and pay extra to ship it clear across the country.
That's the way I do my shopping. So this whole
Wi Fi thing tell us what we can do? It
sounds really interesting. I actually read the article.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Yeah, so here's here's the deal. We were sitting around
at the Post thinking like, okay, so what actually happens
with people's technology over the holidays and we realized, you're
stuck at home with your mom, your dad, your grandma,
your uncle, whatever, and it turns out probably they have
terrible technology going on in their house. They have a
(01:18):
lot of things that super annoy you or maybe even
make your life a little bit worse when you have
to hang out with them. So we wanted to give
some folks some like ideas of like, okay, what's like
some really simple things you could do when you're stuck
home with them to help them. And number one on
the list is fixing the bad Wi Fi in the house.
You know, we've all seen it, like the Netflix stutters out,
(01:40):
you have to stay in one room or go to
one corner. It's like America's number one tech problem. And
it turns out there's actually a super easy solution for it.
You got to just take that really ugly router box,
the thing that's all the blinking lights that might look
like it's an alien spaceship, and you got to move
it out into the open because a lot of people
think that that thing is somehow like magic and so
(02:01):
that they just you know, it can like work from wherever,
and it can't. It actually has to be out in
the open. For all those radio waves to make it around.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Okay, interesting, So a couple things on that.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
It clearly travels through some stuff, because like I have
my router box in the bedroom and I get you know,
good service out in the living room. So it's going
through the walls and the doors. Does that just slow
down the signal or is it certain kind like it
can't go through metal?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Tell me more about them.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
So the official nerdy word for what we're talking about
is attenuate the signal. And so yes, it still can
go through, but it's less strong. It can't reach as
far through certain kinds of materials. So you named you
named a big one metal. And here's the thing. It's
not just like just like any metal that is the problem.
Even things like wire mesh, like the chicken wire that's
(02:51):
like built inside a lot of people's plast master.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Right, I have a cock fighting ring in my and
so I get a lot of chicken wire.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Well, a lot of people not have it. And I
had this in my house in the stucco walls they
put that stuff. It turns out that that happens to
be the exact gauge that messes with Wi Fi other
things that mess with it, fish tanks, giant things of water.
Also microwaves. If you ever turned on a microwave near
near your WiFi router, like the whole thing cuts out
because it uses the same the same radio wavelength, so
(03:23):
it kind of it gets in the way. Certainly. The
point is lots of things can mess up Wi Fi waves,
including just like putting it inside a shelf or behind
the TV. That's a big piece of metal.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
So the idea is take.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
That thing, move it out into the open, and let
it really do it. It's it's business, and you're just
going to immediately get a lot better WiFi.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Well that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
I mean, I won't mention the three lettered company that
I have mine with, but they're the ones that wired
this thing up and put a tiny short cord on
it so it's right behind the dresser in the bedroom.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Why don't they tell you that. I would think they'd
want you to get better.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Service because these there's a reason these are the East
favored companies in the United States of America. They're not
really focused on customer service. They're just focused on trying
to raise your prices every year by tricking you into
having to go negotiate with them again.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
To get the movies.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
So one more thing on this. Does it matter whether
it's down on the ground or a pies up high better?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
It should be kind of as close as possible to
the middle of your space. So if you have like
a two story house, Pies is probably a little bit
better if you're on the lower floor. Other than that,
just just a clear open space is what its. Think
of it a little bit like a light bulb, right
where would you put a light bulb if you wanted
to like maximize the amount of space that would.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Would get the light.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
You know, it was it was insulting, but true your
your comment of people who think it just has this
magical ability to go through anything.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah, because that's what I've done.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
I've got it tucked behind the dresser in the corner
of the house.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Down load. No wonder my wife. I's so crappy.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Yeah, it's but it's an easy fix. And look, if
the cable's really short, just go buy a little coaxs cable,
you know, ten bucks, stretch it out.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
You're good to go. Yeah, Oh what else can we do.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
On Wi Fi? Are other things while you're seck texting
where you stack with the.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Family, whatever you want to talk about, I don't care.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Okay, all right, So here's another one. This one's a
little bit more of a downer, but I swear you'll
thank me. There's this thing called legacy contacts that are
built into your phone, your Gmail, your Facebook, all that
stuff you use. You got to set those up so
if you're with elderly relatives, you're with your own kids, whoever,
(05:36):
when take a minute, you got to just tap into
the settings and choose them and turn it on. Here's why,
when somebody passes away, you got to have access to
their digital life now right, that's where That's how you
get to their bank account, that's how you get to
their emails, you get to all this sort of stuff.
And if you don't have access to it, oftentimes these
companies won't give it to you because it's a privacy violation.
(05:58):
So they made these things called legacy contacts. iPhones have them,
Google has them. You name them and you can go
in pick a person.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Just set it up.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Takes a minute. You don't have to talk too much
about death with your lot one, but just enough to
get it set up and you'll you'll you'll thank me
later because it will come up at some point.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
So you say to Grandma, you have been looking so good?
Can I see your phone? Is that the way you
want to approach you?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Maybe not, Maybe that's not the Christmas message. But the
way I to my parents is as I said, Hey,
there's a thing on your phone that will help me
help you if we ever need it.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Where do you find Where do you find that?
Speaker 3 (06:34):
It's under settings? You can just if you're using an iPhone,
for example, you can go to you can just go
to settings and pull down a little search button a
type of legacy okay, and.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
It'll pop up.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
And we're gonna actually you have a whole story on
this coming out in the post tomorrow, so we'll have
all the step by step instructions part of our extended
Tech Days of Christmas. Uh special. So yeah, do this one.
Trust me, you'll you'll it's like we're to think about now,
but when you need it, you'll really be glad you
had it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
I just looked on a my iPhone. Is that man,
that was worth the price of admission right there? That's
a good one because I had somebody deal with that
recently and it was a nightmare.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Oh yeah, I mean anybody. We've all had someone, we've
all lost someone in our lives who is important. And
you know that the digital life is just key to
all the stuff you have to do after they're gone.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah, okay, so before Grandpa checks off skydiving on the
bucket list, maybe go into his iPhone and get that
taken care of.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
What else, one more thing, one more thing?
Speaker 1 (07:34):
You know what?
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Here's here's another one that's much more upbeat.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Clean the damn camera on your.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Family member's phones. Like I don't know, like do people
have crisco on their fingers? I don't know what's going on.
But if you look at the camera on the back
of the phone, the thing is covered in like crud.
And guess what. Cameras also are not magic and they
cannot work as the lens is covered in crud. So
just get a little micro five or anything you'd used
(08:00):
to clean your glasses and wipe it off, and all
of a sudden, the pictures will look so much better.
You don't need to buy a new camera, You just
need to clean your phone.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Awesome, Hey, what phone do you use right now?
Speaker 3 (08:16):
I'm talking to you from an iPhone fifteen? But I'm
the kind of guy who keeps multiple phones around, So
I also have also have one of those fancy Samsung
folding ones.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Did you upgrade to the fifteen because you need to
write about it and talk about it, or because you
thought it was worth it?
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Not because I thought it was worth it. I'm a
little bit of a strange case, right because I do
have to use this stuff to write about it. So
I upgraded because AT and T gave me an incredible
deal this year. In particular, the carriers were all pretty
desperate to people locked in, and so they gave people
tons and tons and tons of money if they agreed
to stick around. So I was like, sure, AT ANDT,
(08:53):
you can pay for my phone.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, I noticed that too. Yeah, I like the idea
of titanium.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Anyway, you are fantastic, GARU really appreciate coming on, and
I hope your whole holiday season is fantastic.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Armstrong and Getty
Now, also from the Washington Boast on the Tech days
of Chris miss my true love gave to me better
Wi Fi. We're big fans of Jeff Fowler. The guy
writes about tech stuff for the Washington Post, and that's
his title of his article today, Jeff, Welcome to the
Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
How you doing pretty good?
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Thank you for singing me?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Sure? So are you?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Are you done with your shopping? You got everybody purchased
for uh?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Pretty much?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I'm a solid do it on Thanksgiving and take advantage
of all of the discounts. I actually track prices over
the year because I'm a big nerd.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yeah, good for you.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I wish I was like I wait to the last
minute and then popular stuff is sold out on a
have to find the last one that's into luth Minnesota
and pay extra to ship it clear across the country.
That's the way I do my shopping. So this whole
Wi Fi thing tell us what we can do? It
sounds really interesting. I actually read the article.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Yeah, so here's here's the deal. We were sitting around
at the Post thinking like, okay, so what actually happens
with people's technology over the holidays and we realized, you're
stuck at home with your mom, your dad, your grandma,
your uncle, whatever, and it turns out probably they have
terrible technology going on in their house. They have a
(01:18):
lot of things that super annoy you or maybe even
make your life a little bit worse when you have
to hang out with them. So we wanted to give
some folks some like ideas of like, okay, what's like
some really simple things you could do when you're stuck
home with them to help them. And number one on
the list is fixing the bad Wi Fi in the house.
You know, we've all seen it, like the Netflix stutters out,
(01:40):
you have to stay in one room or go to
one corner. It's like America's number one tech problem. And
it turns out there's actually a super easy solution for it.
You got to just take that really ugly router box,
the thing that's all the blinking lights that might look
like it's an alien spaceship, and you got to move
it out into the open because a lot of people
think that that thing is somehow like magic and so
(02:01):
that they just you know, it can like work from wherever,
and it can't. It actually has to be out in
the open. For all those radio waves to make it around.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Okay, interesting, So a couple things on that.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
It clearly travels through some stuff, because like I have
my router box in the bedroom and I get you know,
good service out in the living room. So it's going
through the walls and the doors. Does that just slow
down the signal or is it certain kind like it
can't go through metal?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Tell me more about them.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
So the official nerdy word for what we're talking about
is attenuate the signal. And so yes, it still can
go through, but it's less strong. It can't reach as
far through certain kinds of materials. So you named you
named a big one metal. And here's the thing. It's
not just like just like any metal that is the problem.
Even things like wire mesh, like the chicken wire that's
(02:51):
like built inside a lot of people's plast master.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Right, I have a cock fighting ring in my and
so I get a lot of chicken wire.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Well, a lot of people not have it. And I
had this in my house in the stucco walls they
put that stuff. It turns out that that happens to
be the exact gauge that messes with Wi Fi other
things that mess with it, fish tanks, giant things of water.
Also microwaves. If you ever turned on a microwave near
near your WiFi router, like the whole thing cuts out
because it uses the same the same radio wavelength, so
(03:23):
it kind of it gets in the way. Certainly. The
point is lots of things can mess up Wi Fi waves,
including just like putting it inside a shelf or behind
the TV. That's a big piece of metal.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
So the idea is take.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
That thing, move it out into the open, and let
it really do it. It's it's business, and you're just
going to immediately get a lot better WiFi.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Well that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
I mean, I won't mention the three lettered company that
I have mine with, but they're the ones that wired
this thing up and put a tiny short cord on
it so it's right behind the dresser in the bedroom.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Why don't they tell you that. I would think they'd
want you to get better.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Service because these there's a reason these are the East
favored companies in the United States of America. They're not
really focused on customer service. They're just focused on trying
to raise your prices every year by tricking you into
having to go negotiate with them again.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
To get the movies.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
So one more thing on this. Does it matter whether
it's down on the ground or a pies up high better?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
It should be kind of as close as possible to
the middle of your space. So if you have like
a two story house, Pies is probably a little bit
better if you're on the lower floor. Other than that,
just just a clear open space is what its. Think
of it a little bit like a light bulb, right
where would you put a light bulb if you wanted
to like maximize the amount of space that would.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Would get the light.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
You know, it was it was insulting, but true your
your comment of people who think it just has this
magical ability to go through anything.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah, because that's what I've done.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
I've got it tucked behind the dresser in the corner
of the house.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Down load. No wonder my wife. I's so crappy.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Yeah, it's but it's an easy fix. And look, if
the cable's really short, just go buy a little coaxs cable,
you know, ten bucks, stretch it out.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
You're good to go. Yeah, Oh what else can we do.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
On Wi Fi? Are other things while you're seck texting
where you stack with the.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Family, whatever you want to talk about, I don't care.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Okay, all right, So here's another one. This one's a
little bit more of a downer, but I swear you'll
thank me. There's this thing called legacy contacts that are
built into your phone, your Gmail, your Facebook, all that
stuff you use. You got to set those up so
if you're with elderly relatives, you're with your own kids, whoever,
(05:36):
when take a minute, you got to just tap into
the settings and choose them and turn it on. Here's why,
when somebody passes away, you got to have access to
their digital life now right, that's where That's how you
get to their bank account, that's how you get to
their emails, you get to all this sort of stuff.
And if you don't have access to it, oftentimes these
companies won't give it to you because it's a privacy violation.
(05:58):
So they made these things called legacy contacts. iPhones have them,
Google has them. You name them and you can go
in pick a person.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Just set it up.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Takes a minute. You don't have to talk too much
about death with your lot one, but just enough to
get it set up and you'll you'll you'll thank me
later because it will come up at some point.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
So you say to Grandma, you have been looking so good?
Can I see your phone? Is that the way you
want to approach you?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Maybe not, Maybe that's not the Christmas message. But the
way I to my parents is as I said, Hey,
there's a thing on your phone that will help me
help you if we ever need it.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Where do you find Where do you find that?
Speaker 3 (06:34):
It's under settings? You can just if you're using an iPhone,
for example, you can go to you can just go
to settings and pull down a little search button a
type of legacy okay, and.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
It'll pop up.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
And we're gonna actually you have a whole story on
this coming out in the post tomorrow, so we'll have
all the step by step instructions part of our extended
Tech Days of Christmas. Uh special. So yeah, do this one.
Trust me, you'll you'll it's like we're to think about now,
but when you need it, you'll really be glad you
had it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
I just looked on a my iPhone. Is that man,
that was worth the price of admission right there? That's
a good one because I had somebody deal with that
recently and it was a nightmare.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Oh yeah, I mean anybody. We've all had someone, we've
all lost someone in our lives who is important. And
you know that the digital life is just key to
all the stuff you have to do after they're gone.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah, okay, so before Grandpa checks off skydiving on the
bucket list, maybe go into his iPhone and get that
taken care of.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
What else, one more thing, one more thing?
Speaker 1 (07:34):
You know what?
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Here's here's another one that's much more upbeat.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Clean the damn camera on your.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Family member's phones. Like I don't know, like do people
have crisco on their fingers? I don't know what's going on.
But if you look at the camera on the back
of the phone, the thing is covered in like crud.
And guess what. Cameras also are not magic and they
cannot work as the lens is covered in crud. So
just get a little micro five or anything you'd used
(08:00):
to clean your glasses and wipe it off, and all
of a sudden, the pictures will look so much better.
You don't need to buy a new camera, You just
need to clean your phone.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Awesome, Hey, what phone do you use right now?
Speaker 3 (08:16):
I'm talking to you from an iPhone fifteen? But I'm
the kind of guy who keeps multiple phones around, So
I also have also have one of those fancy Samsung
folding ones.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Did you upgrade to the fifteen because you need to
write about it and talk about it, or because you
thought it was worth it?
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Not because I thought it was worth it. I'm a
little bit of a strange case, right because I do
have to use this stuff to write about it. So
I upgraded because AT and T gave me an incredible
deal this year. In particular, the carriers were all pretty
desperate to people locked in, and so they gave people
tons and tons and tons of money if they agreed
to stick around. So I was like, sure, AT ANDT,
(08:53):
you can pay for my phone.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, I noticed that too. Yeah, I like the idea
of titanium.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Anyway, you are fantastic, GARU really appreciate coming on, and
I hope your whole holiday season is fantastic.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Armstrong and Getty
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Joe Getty
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