026 Rich on Tech Radio Show - July 1, 2023 - Rich On Tech

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's going on on rich Demiro And this is rich
on Tech, this show where I talk about the tech
stuff I think you should know about. It's also the
place where I answer your questions about technology. You know,
I believe that technology should be easy, helpful, and sometimes,
while worthy, it could also be frustrating. I get that

(00:22):
phone lines are open at triple A Rich one oh one.
That's one eight eight eight seven four to two, four
to one zero one. Give me a call. If you
have a question about technology, email is also open. Send
it to hello at Richontech dot TV. Happy. Uh, fourth

(00:44):
of July weekend? Is that a thing is fourth? It
is fourth of July weekend, right, because fourth of July
is coming up, and this is the weekend that precedes it.
So it is fourth of July weekend. So good weather,
hopefully where you are. Hopefully you've got some plans, you know.
I was thinking about if Fourth of July has been
impacted by technology, and I think it has. And I'll

(01:06):
tell you how. Drone shows, so I think some of
you will be watching and I know this sounds wild,
instead of actual fireworks, I think you'll be watching drone
fireworks shows. I have not personally seen one of these
in the flesh. But I know they're happening, and i
know they're happening around town, and I'm sure they're happening

(01:26):
where you are, so kind of cool. I mean, you
don't have to pick up all the stuff afterwards. But
I think the standard I'm gonna have to do a
comparison of the traditional fireworks show and the drone fireworks show.
I think that the boom of the fireworks is probably
more fun. Although if you live in Los Angeles, and

(01:47):
I know this from personal experience, the fireworks continue for
about a week in the LA area. Even though somehow
fireworks are not allowed in this area, everyone has them.
And I think last year I had to go to
work the next morning and I wake up pretty early
and it was just all night long. I mean, you

(02:08):
want fireworks in your neighborhood, It's happening in Los Angeles.
So maybe the drone shows are better.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
All right.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
So I've got a lesson to tell you about this week.
That is a really you know, I'm not I don't
like to be a downer, but and this is not
like a downer story. Don't feel sorry for me whatever,
but I am going to tell you a story, and
I think there's a pretty good lesson to be learned
from it. So here's the story. I drove home from work,
parked my car on the street. My wife was leaving,

(02:38):
So typically I like to park my car in the driveway, right,
just because it's a sense of security. My car's in
the driveway, no one's going to hit it in the driveway. Well,
I park it on the street, and sure enough, you know,
I do my thing inside, my wife leaves whatever, and
I come outside. This was late late in the afternoon,
so this was all the way, you know, six seven,

(02:58):
eight hours later. And the first thing I do when
I come outside is look at my car. And it's like, literally, wait,
what the heck happened to this car? Someone clearly hit
my car and it was just totally messed up. And
I said, and they were all outside playing basketball in
front of the house, and I said, none of you
notice the car is just totally messed up. And they
all look at it like, oh my gosh. First thing

(03:20):
I do is look at my car. This is a
habit that I just look at my car to see
what has happened to it since the last time I
was in my car, and so immediately I've got one
of these cars that has the full DVR system, right,
so it records from all angles. And I was like,
oh my gosh, I didn't want this to happen in
my car, but it did. And I've got the best

(03:41):
possible outcome. I have got picture, video proof of what
just happened. And so I open up my car and
I go to the dash cam which is built into
the car to it's like a little DVR basically, and
I wait for it and it's slow. It's not the best.
It's just like it takes a while to get warmed up,

(04:01):
and it gives you a list of all the things
happened that all the things that happened in your car
while you weren't there. And sure enough it's not there.
Wait what I don't have this on video? The hit
and run driver, the license plate, whatever, it's not there. Ugh.
And I remember I turned off the DVR functionality when

(04:21):
I'm in my home area because I park my car
in the driveway. Why would I need that, right? And
so first off, I just think to myself, Okay, that
was really not a smart move. Rich, But the good
news is I've got some other cameras around the house.
So let me check the ring cam. So I go
to the ring cam, and the ring cam does not

(04:42):
capture it because guess what, there's a giant tree in
front of where I parked my car, so it captures
everything accept my car. I could literally see everything happening
outside my house except where my car is parked. This
tree is huge. Okay, let me try the other cameras.
I've got some nest cams that record twenty four to seven.
Let's check those cameras well. Sure enough they got Well

(05:07):
the tree again blocks it. But the audio is there,
but none, you know, it's just you can't see it again,
the tree is blocking it. So what are my lessons?
And actually I misspoke on the ring cam. The ring
cam seese my car, but the ring cam only does
motion alerts, so it actually didn't capture whenever this damage

(05:29):
happened to the car recorded either before or after or whatever.
So here's my lesson. And this is what I said.
Don't feel sorry for me. Look, the car is a
mechanical thing, right, so nobody got hurt. Yes, it's a
pain in the you know what to get this thing
fixed because I already brought it to a place and
all parts are a month, and you gotta do this,
and it's a whole big thing to get it back

(05:50):
to square one. And by the way, don't get me
started on spending money on things that gets you back
to where you were.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
Right.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
If you've ever gotten your tire replaced or something like that,
your car literally drives exactly the same, except now you
just spent a whole bunch of money on a new tire.
So don't get me started on that. But my point is, yes,
the car will get repaired. Everyone's safe, it's okay. But
here's the lesson I learned from this situation. Number one.
We've got these cameras. Check your settings. Know the limitations

(06:19):
of your cameras. So you probably set up these cameras
like your ring cam or your security cameras or your
car dash cam and you never thought about it ever. Again,
take the minute to go through the app, go through
the settings and see how this thing is set up.
For instance, on my ring cam, if I would have
had the setting to record motion events longer, maybe I

(06:41):
would have captured this. Because the way the ring cam
works is it starts to record and then it'll record
for like ninety seconds, it'll send that clip to the
cloud whatever. But then it stops and there's usually a
timeout period to save the battery where it doesn't record
right away, because if it just kept doing that, you know,
every time the tree moved in front of it, it
would just record the whole day and the battery'd be

(07:02):
done in like ten minutes. So check the settings on
these things. Also check to see the angles of these things,
so in the future, I will probably not park where
this big giant tree blocks the view from the cameras,
because this whole system would be a little bit easier
if I had some information about who hit my car.

(07:22):
So go through the settings. Know the limitations of your cameras.
Are they on at certain times, are they off at
certain times? When do they trigger? How do they trigger?
And also probably consider getting a dash cam because it's
one of those things where when something like this happens
to you, it's a big headache. And if you can
feel just a little bit better knowing that, you can

(07:43):
get maybe some recourse on your insurance or your deductible.
So go for a dash cam. And when you look
at dash cams, you want to find one that has
a motion sensor, so it can have some sort of
motion detection or some sort of G you know, G sensor,
so if it senses your car moves, it will start recording.

(08:05):
And uh, if you have ring already, they've got something
called the Ring Cam, which I really like. You know,
it's the first generation, so it's obviously they're going to
build upon it, make it better. But that one does
record if something you know, uh hits your car, not motion,
It won't do motion, but it will do if something
actually moves your car. So in this case, that would
have definitely triggered.

Speaker 3 (08:26):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
And if you have one of these cars that actually
has a system in it that records, and there are
several of them, just check out the settings, make sure
that it's actually recording, make sure that it actually works,
make sure they're familiar with how it works. Because in
my case, it's all too late. There's nothing I can
do at this point except you know, I even went
to my neighbor who had cameras, and I got I

(08:46):
made friends with my neighbor, and you know, he checked
all of his cameras and couldn't find anything either. So
maybe it was a mysterious uh you know self, maybe
the car just like self imploded. I don't know. But again,
just just be aware of this stuff and don't cry
for me. It's not a big deal. The car will
be fixed, but it does ruin my perfect record of

(09:08):
I guess hitting runs. I don't know, does that go
on your record? First thing, I asked the guy at
the car place. I was like, Hey, does this make
my insurance go up? He's like, oh, it'll just go
up a little bit next time you get your renewal.
But no, it doesn't really go up. I'm like, you
just said two different things, Like what all right? Coming
up on this show, We've got some great guests this week.
We've got Sam Rutherford, senior writer for n Gadget. He's

(09:30):
gonna have his review of the pixel Fold smartphone. Then
we've got Roger Anderson. You might have seen him in
the news. He came up with an AI chatbot system
that just messes with telemarketers and robo callers. Then later
we've got Buttam Laskin, the co founder and CEO of Swimpley.
He's gonna explain how you can make money renting out

(09:52):
your backyard pool, which they've been doing for a while,
but now also your backyard tennis court if you happen
to have one of those you're really fancy, or a
pickleball court. You're really on the cutting edge there. And
then later in the show, Jefferson Graham, friend of the show,
is going to join to talk about how to take
photos of fireworks or should you even bother taking photos
of fireworks? But first, as always, it is your turn.

(10:15):
Your call is coming up next at triple eight rich
one on one. That's eight eight eight seven four to
two four one zero one. Give me a call if
you have a question about technology. My name is Richdmuro
and you are listening to Rich on Tech. Welcome back

(10:36):
to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with
you talking technology on this holiday weekend. You know you
can follow me on social media. I am at rich
on Tech on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And if you
follow me on Instagram, you're wondering why haven't you posted
in a while? Well, I had something go viral, and

(10:59):
anytime something goes VI or you pick up a whole
bunch of new people that really don't know who you are.
And so I've been like paralyzed with fear about posting
something new because I just imagine all those people are
just going to be like, wait, who's this? Let me
unfollow them. So I'm just kind of letting it percolate.
Let's go to Shana in Brea, California. You're on with Rich.

Speaker 4 (11:21):
Hi, Rich, thank you for taking my call.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
Thanks for calling. What's up?

Speaker 4 (11:25):
You're welcome. So my mom had something happen this week
where she got text messages from her bank that she
banks with, but it was for charges that she didn't recognize,
and it asked her to click on a link to
talk about what the charges were. And thank goodness that

(11:47):
she called her bank with the number that she knows,
but she still was so tempted to click on those links.
And I was trying to explain to her that you
can't do that, and she pretty much knows that. But
I know that because I get training at work. I
have to watch tutorials for five minutes.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
And they're so boring, but they are.

Speaker 4 (12:05):
Helpful, they are, and that's why I know about those things.
And I find not to click on an email link,
even if it's somebody that I know, if I'm not
expecting the email and it's got hey have you seen this?
And it's got a link for me to click.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
I know not to do that now, even though you're tempted,
I know people.

Speaker 4 (12:25):
That aren't in the workforce that don't get that training.
Is there somewhere that they can go to.

Speaker 5 (12:29):
Get that knowledge?

Speaker 1 (12:31):
Great question, And I'm glad that your mom didn't click
on those links because and this is the thing they
you know, I get these texts my wife this morning,
we're sitting down for breakfast, and she like shows me
her phone. She goes, oh, I just got a link.
I need to confirm this delivery address for this shipment
that I didn't order. And so, you know, we had

(12:52):
a little laugh. But the reality is people do fall
for these They fall for them all the time. And
it's a great, great question about Yes, those of us
in the workforce, we are constantly being reminded if you
get an email from outside your organization, it's marked with
big red letters. This came from outside your organization. Do
not click on the links. Be cautious. And of course

(13:13):
we have to go through those training videos and those
little quizzes and things to make us more aware of
all this stuff. So here are two great resources I
think are perfect for anyone that's got a loved one
that they want to teach this stuff to the first
one is called scamspotter dot org. Scam spotter dot org

(13:34):
and this is almost like what you do at work,
where it lets you go through you can watch some
videos about some of the scams that are actually happening
out there. You can learn more about those scams, and
then you can test your knowledge about these scams. And
this is brought to you by the Cybercrime Support Network
and also Google. They work together to create this and

(13:57):
it goes through all the different scams that are popular nowadays.
It tells you can you spot these things, you know,
be skeptical of urgent pop ups, which I've talked to
people who get caught on those. Investigate the company on
usual payment methods.

Speaker 6 (14:11):
You know.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
This person emailed me or I think it was through Instagram.
I forget what it was. But they're like, hey, Rich
I've got someone in the hospital. I need to get
them a gift card, but I can't make it to
the store and buy it myself. And I said, oh,
let me help you get that, just to mess with them,
and they said, okay, great, can you go to the
store buy an Apple gift card and send me the number,
and I said, no, no, no, you can easily do this yourself.

(14:34):
And I sent them the link to the Apple website
where they can buy a gift card. They stop replying. Now,
I don't recommend that you do that. In fact, my
wife said that she an eight hundred number or some
sort of number called her yesterday and she wanted to hear,
like was this person real? And so she pressed one.
And so I never recommend that you interact with these
whether it's a text, whether it's a phone number, whether

(14:56):
it's an email. Do not interact, even though I'm telling
you I do it. I do it out of research
and out of helping you, and I want to see
where these things go so I can understand these scams better.
But please do not interact with these things, because what
happens is imagine they're like we got a live one.
They send to a bunch of phone numbers. If you
reply back to them, now they know they can really
target you. And it may not be with that scam,

(15:17):
it may be with others. So again, scamspotterer dot org.
And the second one is actually from the Better Business
Bureau BBB dot org. Slash scam tracker. And this is
really handy because you can not only report scams, but
you can also understand the scams that are out there.
So you can look up a keyword. So right now,

(15:38):
some of the biggest scams going around are pet scams,
pyramid schemes, consumer fraud lawyers, cash app scams, and tax fraud.
And so you can literally type in a keyword usps
and see what other people are reporting about that scam.
Type in the word piano. I'm looking at all these
different things. Type in an app, blood work. I mean,

(16:01):
there's so many different scams. If you type in one keyword,
you can teach your loved ones that, hey, other people
are having these same exact texts come to them and
they are totally totally a scam. Great question, Shana, thanks
so much for calling in appreciate it. Phone number is
triple eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven
four to two four to one zero one. A lot

(16:23):
of people asking about this apple my photo stream. I
will explain what you need to know about that a
little bit later in the show. We talked about it
on a previous show. But for sure, I know it's
kind of percolating in the news media again, so I
will explain what it means that Apple is shutting down
my photostream. But coming up next, we've got a great guest.

(16:45):
We've got Sam Rutherford, senior writer for n Gadget. He
is going to have his review of the Pixel fold smartphone.
This is Pixel, this is Google's eighteen hundred dollars smartphone.
It's a foldable and he says it's got some good
things going for it, but also need to know the bad.
You're listening to Rich on Tech. Joining me now is

(17:09):
Sam Rutherford, senior writer at n Gadget. Sam, Welcome to
the show.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
Hey, good to be here. So let's talk about the
Google tax soel fold.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
There's a couple of foldable phones on the market, but
now Google is getting into it with this eighteen hundred
dollars phone. You have reviewed it, So what is your
first impression of this device?

Speaker 7 (17:30):
Yeah, I mean, and you think right away when you
look at the competition. What Google did with the design
is really interesting because they have a wider exterior display,
which has a lot of impacts on how you use device.
But most importantly, it just makes the exterior screen a
lot more usable when you compare it to something like
Samsung's Galaxy z Fold four the skinny. The skinny design
on Samsung's device feels really cramped, especially when you're trying

(17:53):
to type. But on the pixel Fold, it means you can,
you know, all your apps behave normally, and you know,
you never feel like you need to open it up,
which is kind of an interesting juxtaposition for a foldable device,
but it allows you to you know, do more with
the outside screen, and then when you open it up,
you feel like, hey, this is what I'm going to
use for you know, watching movies or multitasking and stuff

(18:13):
like that.

Speaker 1 (18:15):
So pixel Fold has a five point eight inch exterior screen,
when you open it up it has a seven point
six inch interior screen. Now, you set in your review
for nd Gadget that you have been using a foldable
device as your daily driver for three years. Now tell
me about that.

Speaker 7 (18:31):
I mean, I was really interested in, like the whole
flexible screen technology, and so I jumped on with the Galaxy.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
Z Fold two and I've been using their devices.

Speaker 7 (18:39):
For the last three years, partially because you know, I
like the technology, but they were also the only kind
of real game in town, especially outside of China, where
you know, our options are a little bit less or
more more limited when it comes to foldable devices.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Foldable devices are clearly going to be a thing because
we have upcoming foldables from one plus now Google has
one on. Samsung is of course going to launch their
new foldables at the end of July, and then people
are of course waiting for Apple to come out with theirs.
But what makes a foldable device so compelling to you?

(19:14):
For me, it's really all about adaptability.

Speaker 7 (19:16):
So you know, if I just want to do something quick,
or you know, check an app or check a notification,
respond to a text, whatever, you have the outside screen.
But when you want to watch a movie, everyone's talking about, Oh,
I always want to watch a movie or video on
the biggest display I can. So you open it up
and suddenly you have a significantly bigger screen. It just
makes everything better, you know, whether you're playing games, you're

(19:40):
watching videos, or you're trying to multitask, which is something
that like a lot of people don't necessarily think of
as possible on a standard device or a standard phone,
just because the screen is a little smaller, it's a
little more limited, and you don't really necessarily always have
the right controls to be able to manage multiple apps
at the same time.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
When I was testing the Samsung Fold for I really
fell in love with the idea that this phone did everything.
But the funny thing was, I ended up doing everything
on my phone. So I was reading my kindle ebook
on there, I was watching movies on there, and it
just seemed like I was, you know, even though that
time might have been divided between a phone, a computer,
and a tablet, it felt like, oh my gosh, I'm

(20:20):
literally using this phone twenty four to seven now. Because
it's so flexible.

Speaker 7 (20:24):
Yeah, because, like you kinda that's a group of good point,
because you it combines so many devices into one. Like
you said, it's an e reader, it's a movie watcher.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
You know. You have a little taskbar on both.

Speaker 7 (20:35):
The Samsung z Fold four and the Pixel Fold that
allows you to like, you know, do simultaneous multitasking. And
so to me, I love that simplification because I think
a lot of people nowadays they want less devices in
their life, less devices I have to.

Speaker 3 (20:50):
Worry about, they have to worry about keep charged.

Speaker 7 (20:52):
And so if you can get rid of, you know,
a tablet and an e reader and you only have
to worry about your phone and maybe your laptop two.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
To me, that.

Speaker 7 (21:00):
Simplification is just a great weight off my mind.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
So let's get back to the Google Pixel fold. So
the software is pretty much Google Pixel software. Anything notable
or different about the software that you liked in this phone.

Speaker 7 (21:15):
Yeah, I mean the main thing is for definitely per
power users. You have that taskbar, and Google is doing
something a little bit different with the taskbar because instead
of having something in that does permanently there all the time,
there's a new gesture that you can use to sum
in the taskbar. It's a you know, short swipe up
from the bottom of the screen and from there, like
you can open your app into a multi window mode,

(21:38):
and then once you're done with that, the taskbar disappears.
So it appears when you need it and then it
gets out of the way when you don't. And it's
a really interesting approach to make multitasking a little bit
more easier but also less kind of in your face
all the time.

Speaker 1 (21:52):
And what about the optimizations of some of these apps
because Android has kind of been all over the place.
You know, Apple, you've got the iPhone, you've got the iPad.
Developers are pretty pretty clear about what they do for
those devices, but Android it could be all over the place.
Did you find that apps were like that or were
they pretty much optimized?

Speaker 3 (22:10):
No.

Speaker 7 (22:10):
Absolutely, That's a big part of it, and I think
that actually speaks to part of the reason why Google
launched this phone in the first place, because you know,
with the introduction of the pixel Fold, Google was able
to get more than fifty first party apps optimize for
devices like the pixel fold that has a flexible to screen,
and that means you're talking about supporting things like adaptive
screen resolutions, but also more interesting UI and app layouts

(22:34):
that take advantage of the pixel folds design. So you know, say,
for things like YouTube, you can fold it in half
and rest it on the table and you'll get a
different UI that makes it you know, so, hey, you
want to sit down for lunch and watch a quick
video on your lunch, but you don't have the laptop
with you.

Speaker 3 (22:48):
This is perfect.

Speaker 7 (22:48):
You don't have to hold the device that sits up
on its own, and it's great for that. Unfortunately, the
problem with that is that it takes a little bit
of extra work on the developers part. You know, they
need to convince developers that like, hey, these optimations are
or optimizations are worth making, but also get enough devices
out in the real world that there are enough customers
demanding that developers like, hey, I love what your app

(23:10):
is doing, but hey, is there something else that we
can do to really take advantage of, you know, this
uncoming wave of foldable devices.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
What about the camera on this device? I mean, clearly
pixels are known for having excellent cameras. Is that any
different here?

Speaker 3 (23:23):
Actually?

Speaker 7 (23:23):
That's one of like the really big achievements with the
pixel fold is that, from you know, my testing, I've
to me, it seems like the pixel fold de delivers
pretty much a very very close experience to what you
get on the Pixel seven Pro.

Speaker 3 (23:37):
You still get a really great five x optical.

Speaker 7 (23:39):
Zoom, which is longer than what you get on the
Samsung z Fold four. And then on top of that,
you get Google's you know, really good image processing and
night sight low light mode, and so you combine that
and it's like, you know, that was one of my
big gripes about the z Fold four is that it
feels like Samsung had to cut a little corners to get,
you know, a good camera, but not as good they

(24:00):
can get on, say like the Galaxy S twenty two Ultra,
And so you know, the pixel folds cameras doesn't feel
nearly as compromise, which is a really big achievement because
you know you're working with a completely different design, different
form factor, and it's really hard to fit, especially something
like a five be ex tel photo lens on a
foldable device.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
You said one of your gripes was that it the
phone never fully opens. So yeah, is that like a
deal breaker or just something that Google work on for
the next one.

Speaker 7 (24:27):
I think that, you know, that's one of those challenges
because you know, Google has a lot of things that
they need to solve. Because you know, the pixel fold
when you fold it, it folds completely flat, unlike this
evil four And that doesn't sound like a huge difference,
but in practice it makes such a big improvement over
general usability. It just feels a little bit more waldy,
doesn't feel as clunky in your hand, and you know

(24:48):
they were able to move the hinges around. That said,
you know you do have to have those tight hinges
because you know, who knows how many times you're going
to open and close this thing over years, and you
know people are holding onto their phones longer, and so
at I think it's just one of those things that
you have to get used to. And it's sort of like,
you know, it is a flexible screen. It's made out
of plastic. You can't you know, it's a little bit
more delicate than your standard glass phone, and so that

(25:10):
means you got to kind of take care of it.
You got to baby just a little bit more. But
you also have to deal with things like a crease
because you know, Google wasn't entirely able to eliminate the
crease on their flexible display. That said they were able
to minimize it, and you know, from my perspective, I
don't really notice it at all. It's not you know,
it's just like you know, the notch on an iPhone
or puntole selfie camera in that you know, after a while,

(25:34):
you just kind of get used to it and it
doesn't even become distraction anymore.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
All right.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
So, knowing that we've got a new device from one
Plus coming up that's foldable, We've got several new from
Samsung that are foldable, what's your guidance on the pixel
fold This is an expensive phone. It's eighteen hundred dollars
and what's your guidance.

Speaker 7 (25:52):
Yeah, I mean that that's really the crust of it, right,
is like, you know, I would love this phone to
be in other foldable devices, to be warmer, widelyailable. But
you know, we you have to acknowledge that we're still
in the very early stages of you know, the whole
flexible foldable phone trend, and so this is you know,
it's still really for early adopters. You know, this is
Google's first phone, and you know they've been able to

(26:13):
take bits and pieces from you know, previous rivals and competitors.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
But yeah, that price is really.

Speaker 7 (26:19):
A sticking point and I you know, it's something that
I really would like to see come down in the future.
And you know, I think you know, both like companies
like Google, Samsung, they're very aware that like eighteen hundred
dollars is a lot to ask for a phone, and
so hopefully, you know, future generations, so we will bring
that price down.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
Sam Rutherford, Senior writer at n Gadget. How can folks
find you online?

Speaker 7 (26:39):
Yeah, you can find me on Twitter at Sam Rutherford
and as always on engadget dot com.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
You are listening to Rich on Tech more of the
show coming up after this, plus your calls at Triple
eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven
four two four one zero one back after this. Welcome
back to rich on Tech. Rich Tomuro here hanging out
with you talking technology at Triple eight rich one oh one.

(27:06):
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four to
one zero one. Tanuga is in Pasadena, California. Am I
pronouncing that right? Tanuga at Tanusha Tanusia? Got it? Welcome
to the show.

Speaker 8 (27:22):
Yeah, thank you. I love you on KTLA. And now
that I know you have a podcast, you keep me
coming on my way to work.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
Oh, thank you, appreciate that.

Speaker 9 (27:32):
Thanks.

Speaker 8 (27:32):
I have a question for you.

Speaker 10 (27:34):
Uh.

Speaker 8 (27:34):
Recently, I was at a Dodgers game and I, like usual,
my sister and I put our stuff in the trunk,
move everything into the clear bag, but we leave stuff
in the trunk. Came back to find that someone had
gotten into my car, into the trunk, still my driver's license,
credit cards, all kinds of things. So when I talked
to LAPD, I said, you know, I'm not positive I

(27:55):
always lost my car, but maybe I didn't. They did
say sometimes people have devices they can override cars and
these locks and so I wanted to see if you
had any advice or ideas of how to sort of
prevent that as possible.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
Oh, sorry, that happened. It's like, that's the worst because
you did your due diligence of putting everything in the trunk.
It was out of sight, so and we don't know
if a car was locked or not, which obviously, you
know you probably did lock it because most of us
do that without thinking if you do that typically, But
unfortunate that this happened, So sorry to hear that. There

(28:30):
are several ways that people can get into cars. Obviously,
people just check, you know, to see if cars are unlocked.
That's one of the simplest ways. The other thing is
this thing called a relay attack, which is what I
think lapd was was talking about. And this is when
someone uses sort of a wireless relay system to capture

(28:52):
the code off of your key, your keyfob, and then
relay that to the car at a different time. So
your little key fob that you have in your pocket,
it's always generating like a code that will unlock your car.
And so there are systems out there that can capture
that information and then use that and sort of pretend
emulate that this device is your key and use it

(29:14):
to unlock the car. Now, this has been going on
for a long time. Obviously, manufacturers have ways of getting
around this. They use something called a rolling passcode, so
every couple of seconds the code changes on both ends
to keep this from happening. But it can still happen,
and obviously if someone is really targeting cars that this
just works with, it can happen and it's definitely a thing.

(29:37):
So couple things you can do. I think that the
number one is to just be aware that this can happen.
That's the awareness is number one. Number two, there are
Faraday bags you can get for your your keyfob, which
you can put them in so that when you're not
using the keyfob it is not emitting any sort of signal.

(29:58):
And some of the keyfobs may have a switch on
them to turn off the sort of emitting that signal
twenty four to seven, so maybe only when you're actually
using it it emits it. And of course it depends
on the car manufacturer too what they've done to mitigate this.
So there's a pretty famous issue with Hyundai's and kias
they have a free software update for millions of their cars. Basically,

(30:24):
cars could start low ard a fake KEYFOP and so
now there is a software update that's free to Kia
and Hyundai owners that will update the alarm software on
the car where the alarm will happen longer. And also
it requires the key to be in the ignition for
the switch to turn the car on. So that's that's

(30:47):
a little thing that they did in response to this
whole TikTok challenge. I don't know if you heard about
that whole thing. But the two bags that you can
get two companies that I've talked about in the past.
One is called Silent sln T formally Silent Pocket, and
the other one is the off Grid Fold. This is
like a little bag you can put your keyfob in

(31:08):
and it'll block all signals going to it, GPS, Wi Fi, cellular, Bluetooth, RFID. Now, look,
at the end of the day, I'm sorry this happened
to you. I think that this is something that does
happen in the world, and it's unfortunate, but it is
definitely something that is tougher than it sounds like like.
This is definitely more of a targeted sort of attack

(31:31):
where they have to get this information off your keyfob.
The other thing you can do if you have your
keyfob in your house, some of the things I'm reading
recommend that you don't keep it by your front door.
Of course, we all keep our car keys by the
front door, and that can definitely be an issue because
they could pick up the signal from the key and

(31:51):
if your car's in the driveway, they may be able
to relay that signal to the car in the driveway.
So those are just a couple of the ways that
you might be able to mitigate this. Definitely on fortunate.
It's definitely sad that people do this, but look, these
are crimes of opportunity, and if you look on YouTube,
you'll see all kinds of videos about this relay attack
and the systems that these folks can use to do it.

(32:14):
It's not an easy thing to do, but it can
be easy if you know what you're doing and if
you have the right hardware. The one story that I watched,
it looked pretty complicated to do this to pull this off,
but again, people do it all the time. So Tanuja,
I hope that helps you. I hope that helps you

(32:34):
figure out what you need to do in the future.
I would look first at your car and sort of
look up on the internet what type of car you have,
what type of system they have for theft, and see
if that is a known system that needs an update
or has something that may be able to help you.
That's probably the first place to start. If it's an
older car, it definitely is probably more susceptible to these

(32:54):
sorts of attacks, but it may have a software update
for the manufacturer, so definitely check into that. All right,
good question. Let's see here. Let's go to Steve. Steve
is in Mariata, California. Steve, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 6 (33:11):
That's right, Rich. I'm thinking about a Pixel of seven
or eight right now, I have a Samsung. What are
your comments on those two phones at seven or eight?

Speaker 1 (33:23):
Well, the Pixel eight hasn't come out yet, so it'd
be tough to give my opinion on that phone. So
the Pixel eight is typically launched in October. So right
now we're about halfway through the cycle with the with
the pixels, the Pixel seven, the seven pro, the sixth
A just came out. So my I guess question is, Steve,

(33:47):
what do you need to do on this phone. Is
there anything in particular you want to do on this device?

Speaker 6 (33:53):
You know, I already have I think two hundred thousand photos,
so I'm using it mainly downloading documents, okay away from
the computer, and you know, pretty mundane thing.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
Okay, so the basics. So you you know, you may
not even need What do you have right now? What
do you have for oh wow? Oh gosh, Okay, Well,
I think you'll you'll. I think, look, it depends what
you want. I've tested the Pixel seven and the seven
A sorry and this and the seven Pro. They are

(34:27):
excellent devices. They have everything you need. I think you'll
be very happy with them. I think it depends on
the size of the phone you want. I think that
the Pixel seven is a much easier phone to hold.
The six A or the seven A is going to
be a lot cheaper than the seven. It's not gonna
be as it's not gonna be as full featured as
that device. And then the Pixel A, if you want

(34:48):
to wait for it, is coming out in October. Obviously
that's gonna have some upgrades and some polish, But I
think I think you'd be very happy with the Pixel seven.
That's probably what i'd go with at this point, so
good question. Of course, if you love those pictures, you're
gonna get great photos off of the pixel, no matter what.
All right, coming up more of your calls at triple
eight rich one O one. That's eight eight eight, seven

(35:09):
four to two, four to one zero one. Please rate
and review this show on your favorite audio app and
share with your friends that you listen. That's the best
way we're gonna grow here, all right. Our number one
in the can our number two of rich on Tech
coming up right after this. Welcome back to rich on Tech.

(35:29):
Rich Tomuro here hanging out with you, talking technology on
this holiday weekend. Happy July fourth. Is it July fourth
or fourth of July? I think there's like a there's
a difference. I think it's fourth of July. Oh, there's
no difference, okay. Producer Adam says, no difference. Okay, Happy
fourth of July or July fourth, whatever you prefer. Eighty

(35:53):
eight rich one on one eight eight eight. Look at this,
Look at all the fours in our phone numbers seven,
four to two, four to one zero one. Grace is
in Rancho, Cordova, California. Grace, you're on with Rich hi rich.

Speaker 8 (36:07):
So I keep getting emails from Gmail that your Gmail
is out of storage despite the least oh no, so
asking me to buy storage?

Speaker 4 (36:22):
Will I lose all my.

Speaker 8 (36:24):
Emails if I don't buy the storage.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
Well, here's what's going to happen. What how much storage
do you have on there? The fifteen gigs?

Speaker 8 (36:34):
Fifteen?

Speaker 4 (36:34):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (36:34):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (36:35):
Do you use Google Photos at all?

Speaker 5 (36:38):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (36:38):
Do you use Google Drive?

Speaker 5 (36:41):
No?

Speaker 1 (36:41):
Okay? So it sounds like you are up against your
storage limit. And the way you can check to see
what's going on is go to one dot Google dot com.
Have you gone to that website?

Speaker 8 (36:54):
No?

Speaker 1 (36:54):
Okay, it's O n E, not the number O N
E dot Google dot And this will give you a
rundown of your storage and where it's being used. So,
for instance, I actually have five terabytes of storage because
I've got a lot of stuff on Google. So it
tells me that one hundred and thirty one gigs is
being used in Google Drive, thirty three gigs in Gmail,

(37:16):
which is just absolutely ludicrous because how are Gmail? How
are emails taking up thirty three gigabytes of storage? Like
that's wild? Google Photos two and a half terabytes. Then
I've got some family storage situations going on at two
hundred gigabytes. So here's what you need to do. You

(37:37):
need to go through your storage and figure out what's
taking up all of this storage. If it's stuff that
you can get rid of, then dump it. If it's
stuff you can't, then you're going to have to pay
for more storage to get to continue using this. Now,
your Gmail is not going to stop working. You're just
gonna not be able to receive or send messages because

(37:57):
it's gonna say sorry, storage full. There may be a
tiny little grace period in there, but the reality is
you're not gonna be able to upload Google Photos. You're
just not gonna be able to do a lot of things.
Storage starts at two bucks a month, I believe. For
I think two hundred gigabytes, which would be more than
enough for you at this point. But that's what you
need to do. So there are various ways to free

(38:20):
up account storage when you go to that area of
one dot Google dot com. And so if I'm looking
at my ways to do it, I've got items in
trash on trash or spam in Gmail. So I've got
one hundred and eighty one megabytes in trash one megabyte
in spam, and then I've got five hundred and seventy
megabytes of files and trash on drive. I can get

(38:44):
rid of all those, free up almost less than a gigabyte.
Then we've got large items, three hundred gigabytes of large items,
and I'm looking at emails with large attachments and I
can already tell I can review and get rid of
a bunch of these. Then I've got large files, and
I've got large photos and videos. So again you just

(39:06):
have to go through the storage manager on that Google
one area and clean up some of these files that
you may not need, that may be too big, that
are just you know, you just don't need them anymore,
or they're in the trash. Get rid of those. See
if that frees up enough space to keep you going
for a while. But it sounds like grace. Eventually, if
you're going to continue using these products, you're going to

(39:29):
have to pay up. And this all goes into my
theme for the tech world in twenty twenty three, and
that is the free ride is over. We have gotten
so used to all of these services that just want
to give us their services for free, and for many
years it was great. It was a free ride, and

(39:49):
now the free ride is over. The layoffs have happened.
In the tech world, the VC funding is tightened up.
People want to actually make money. It's not just this
free flowing thing where like, let's just get a whole
bunch of customers and hopefully the money comes later. No,
we've got to we've got to make some money now.
And Google, you know, they've got a lot of folks

(40:10):
using Gmail, They've got a lot of folks using Google Photos.
They want to make money on those products too. But
I do think they're pretty good about giving people the
fifteen gigs of free storage. If you look at Apple,
they only give you five. And that's been happening since
like day one. So really, if you're using an iPhone,
you're probably paying for iCloud storage immediately right off the bat.

(40:31):
Great question, Grace. Let's talk about Apple for a second. Here,
my photostream this is percolating in the news once again.
We talked about a couple weeks ago. But Apple is
shutting down this my photostream feature, so it already it
already stopped uploading pictures as of June twenty sixth, and

(40:52):
now on July twenty six they're just going to eradicate
the feature fully. So everyone's whoa, whoa, whoa all these
headlines online. Let me just let me type this in
photo Apple shutting down. Okay, let me just let me
just look at the photo the headlines here. Okay, Apple's
my photostream shutting down. Here's what to do. Let me

(41:13):
actually take out photostream because a lot of these headlines.
Well okay, anyway, my point is these headlines are scary.
But the reality is, I would say ninety nine percent
of people are not using this feature, nor have they
used this feature in like five years. So if you're
using the feature, you probably know about it. And so
here's what you need to do. Bottom line. Look at

(41:36):
your iPhone, go into your photos app, go into your
albums and look for an album called my Photostream. If
you do not have that album, you do not need
to worry about this. Go on your Mac computer, open
up photos, look for my photostream. Go on your iPad,
open up your photos app, look for my photostream. If
you don't see that album on your devices, you don't

(41:59):
need to worry about it. Stop thinking about this. If
you do see that album, then you need to do
one of two things. If you're using iCloud, chances are
those pictures are already backed up to iCloud because they
were taken on one of these devices and they backed
up to iCloud. If you're not using iCloud, then what
you want to do is go into my photostream, click

(42:20):
that album, look in there, see what photos are in there,
and then if there's any photos that you want to save,
just tap the photo and then tap the share icon
and it says save image. Save that image to your
regular camera role, and then it will back up. However
you back up your photos, whether that's iCloud, whether that's
Google Photos, whether that's Amazon Photos, it's all the same.

(42:43):
It will go in there. You could select several photos
at once and do the same thing. So if there's
every photo you want to save to your camera role,
just go ahead and hit the select up in the
upper right hand corner. You can select a whole bunch
of photos at once and then just press save and
you should be good to go there. It's one of
these things where, yeah, it makes a it makes for

(43:05):
a sexy headline because it's scary when Apple changes anything,
but the reality is most people do not need to
worry about that, but at least you know what's going on.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (43:14):
If you want to see that information once again, you
can go to my Instagram. It is at rich on
Tech and I pinned this information, so it's the first
thing you'll see on my Instagram and it's an Instagram
reel that says will be shut down on July twenty sixth.
Tap that reel, listen to what I say, read, understand,
and then share that to your stories so that your

(43:35):
friends who are asking you about this and freaking out,
can you know since you're listening to rich on Tech,
you know what's going on. Now you can share that
wealth of knowledge with your friends. Niantic, the company behind
Pokemon Go, it's been it's been a rough run for
this company because Pokemon Go is such a great success.
It's like, how do you follow that up? Right? It's

(43:57):
like a It's like an amazing artist that has like
a one hit. They're under so much pressure to come
up with something that's amazing, and I feel like that's
been Niantic, the company behind Pokemon Go, for so long now.
They had this amazing thing, Pokemon Go. Nobody had ever
seen anything like it before, and now they've been struggling
to come up with something just as amazing ever since
they tried a Harry Potter game and didn't really work out.

(44:20):
They've got this new new game called Paradot, which is okay,
but again it hasn't seen the buzz like Pokemon Go.
With all that in mind, they are closing their Los
Angeles studio. They're laying off two hundred and thirty people,
and they're basically saying, look, our expenses were growing faster
than the money we're making.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
Now.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
We saw a lot of people playing these games during
COVID nineteen. Of course, people are at home. They had
nothing to do except walk around their neighborhoods. Now that
people are out and about, it's a little bit tougher.
So what is going to happen to Pokemon Go. It's
going to keep happening. It's going to keep going. But
Niantic is going to slow down on some of their
third party games that they're creating. I think there's one
for the NBA or something. They're not going to really

(45:01):
invest in those anymore. They're going to invest in their
first party games. So if you're playing Pokemon Go, you
see these headlines about Niantic. It's not going anywhere. But
I think what Pokemon Go is they're saying, Look, we
were onto something a long time ago, these augmented reality games,
and now that we see technology like Apple coming out
with their Vision Pro headset, these games are going to

(45:24):
be good in the future. People are going to want
to play these games. In fact, Pokemon Go may have
a whole new life inside the Apple headset, but it's
going to be a while. So they've got to kind
of get back to the basics, narrow down some of
those expenses, and you know, get ready for what the
future is, which is ar but it's just not here
just yet in a big way with these goggles. So anyway,

(45:48):
I figured i'd tell you about that because Pokemon Go
is so popular. Coming up, we're going to talk to
a guy who created an AI chatbot system for messing
with telemarketers and robo callers. I can't condone this behavior,
but it certainly is fun to talk about. You're listening
to rich on Tech triple eight rich one oh one

(46:08):
eight eight eight seven four to two four to one
zero one. If you want to get a hold of me.
Nobody likes getting spam calls. Robocalls and uh, one person
decided to do something about it. This company, Jolly Roger,
uses AI technology to troll telemarketers and waste their time.

(46:32):
They generate different characters that distract the telemarketers and keep
them on the line as long as possible. The goal is,
I guess the theory is that if they're on the
line with this this AI chatbot, they can't be calling
someone else. Roger Anderson is joining me. Roger, you came
up with this technology?

Speaker 11 (46:51):
Yes, Rich, how are you?

Speaker 1 (46:52):
I'm doing fantastic. Thanks for joining me. So it sounds
like you did this a while back, but it just
bubbled up in the New World. Was there like an
article or something that featured you. Is that what happened?

Speaker 3 (47:05):
Yes?

Speaker 11 (47:06):
The Wall Street Journal reached out to me and asked
if I was doing anything with chat GPT in relation
to this, which was quite timely because I have been
looking into it. So, yes, I plugged the Jolly Roger
telephone service, these these chatbots. I basically plugged them into
chat GPT, and it kind of opened up a whole

(47:27):
new layer and possibility and level of entertainment as these
chatbots now talk to telemarketers and scammers on the phone.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
So Jolly Roger is the company, and explain how it works.
So I sign up for this, How much does it cost?
And then what do I do? Do I forward my calls?
Or how does it work?

Speaker 11 (47:44):
Well, it's it's two dollars per month per line, so
less than twenty four dollars per year, and you basically
just forward your phone, forward your unanswered calls to us
and will either answer with regular voice if you know
who they are, or or will treat them kindly if
we don't know who they are, but if they're scammers,

(48:05):
if you tell us this numbers as a scam, or
if we we use some third party tools to determine
if the calls are are unwanted or not, and then
we'll pick up with robots. And the robots are kind,
they're patient, they're polite, but they will never divulge personal
information or financial information. But they sound gullible, so it's
just the right mix of gullible, funny, realistic, and the

(48:28):
telemarketers will will chat with them for as long as
they're willing and and your phone is clear, you can
keep making and receiving calls, or just go about your
day and our robots will chat with your scammers while
you while you do whatever you want to do.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
I'm looking at some of the names. Whitey Whitebeard is
a bumbling senior citizen, Is that right?

Speaker 11 (48:46):
That's right, another one of our favorites.

Speaker 8 (48:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
Another one is a salty sally, an easily distracted mother. Adam,
do we have a clip that that we got sent
about these things? Let's let's hear the clip.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
You're listening to Rich on Tech with Rich DeMuro. Follow
Rich for tech News, how to videos, gadget reviews and
useful tips and tricks.

Speaker 11 (49:11):
Well, there we go. You're doing a promo for you.
That's our Whitey white Beard.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
Oh, that's Whitey white Beard. Okay, so that's why do
you have Do you have another one? We have another
clip too, so we're gonna we're gonna play that one
to Roger Hangem. This is at white Beard.

Speaker 5 (49:23):
I am a robot from the Jolly Roger Telephone Company.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
He actually sounds pretty realistic, Like I'm quite impressed. So
how are you using chat GBT? How is the AI
mixed into this whole world?

Speaker 11 (49:36):
Well, it's so we've got a phone system and then
behind the scenes there's just a giant Rude Goldberg machine
of of you know, a bunch of tasks that are
frantically feeding the next thing that Whitey Whitebeard should say.
So it's using voice cloning technology from a company that
sound called play dot ht, which.

Speaker 6 (49:55):
Is very good.

Speaker 11 (49:57):
Just a short clip of Whitey white Beard. The voice
talent behind that is actually a friend of the family,
is the father of Steve Burts and our co founder.
So Sid is a farmer in Vermont, dairy farmer and
Vermont and recorded some stuff for us years ago, and
we just fed some of those old recordings into played
dot ht. They clone the voice and now we can

(50:18):
have Whitey say whatever chat GPT wants wants to say.
So we've kind of given chat GPT a voice by
using voice cloning technology.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
Do you think this is mean to the telemarketers, to
the scam artists, the scam callers.

Speaker 11 (50:33):
Well, I don't think that because the robots, again, they're friendly.
The robots are friendly. And sometimes we have telemarketers who
are just bored out of their minds and they're somewhat
delighted to get a laugh when talking because they don't
really know if it's you know, in some cases they
don't know what's going on. I think it's mean to
the industry. Our goal is to is to really fight
the industry of unsolicited telemarketing robocalling. There's certainly a lot

(50:59):
of scam and a lot of fraud taking place. So
our goal really is to entertain you, protect the network,
and really fight these telemarketers and prevent prevent them from scamming.
You know, the vulnerable out there, such as the elderly
or or anyone else that might be susceptible to be scams.
So really we're just we're it's sort of a whimsical service,

(51:21):
but a serious mission, and that is to fight telemarketing.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
All right, Roger Anderson of Jolly Roger Telephone dot com,
thanks so much for joining me today. I appreciate the information.

Speaker 11 (51:32):
Thank you, Rich.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
All Right, keep those robocallers busy so they're not calling me,
as we've all gotten those calls. All right. Coming up
a little bit later, we're going to talk about the
startup that can help you rent out your backyards. If
you have a backyard pool, you've got a backyard tennis court.
I mean, if you're doing that, maybe you don't need
the extra cash, but backyard pickleball court. Or you can

(51:55):
also use this website to rent one of these things.
So we'll talk to them a little bit later. First,
more of your calls at triple eight Rich one oh one.
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one. This is rich on Tech, your friendly tech show.
And No, I am not AI. No, I'm not a robot.
This is a real voice. I swear. How do I

(52:17):
prove this? I don't know if there is a way
to prove it anymore. You're listening to rich on Tech.
I guess because I make mistakes. Jay is in Guardina, California. Jay,
you're on with Rich Welcome to the show.

Speaker 12 (52:33):
Our age. Thank you for your great program. I have
a question about this iMac that I have. It's about
twelve years old, very good processor. I hardly used it.
I wanted to be able to reset it to a
point that I can only open the Internet to my banking,

(52:56):
pay my bills, nothing else. That's a question about Apple.
My other question is what happened to Maya Space. What
was the difference between my space and Facebook that just
become a region dollar company and the other one disappeared?

Speaker 5 (53:16):
Thank you?

Speaker 2 (53:17):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
Well the second question I think I need a whole
radio hour to answer because that's a little in depth,
but I'll attempt to do it. Jay. My Space was
simply before its time. It was the first of its kind,
and of course when you have the first of its kind,
it is emulated and people see the weaknesses in that
platform and they figure out what they can do better.

(53:39):
And I think, quite simply, Facebook came along and did
things better than my Space. There was a lot of
like Facebook did the feed, and my Space didn't really
have a feed, and I think that's what made Facebook
take off in such a big way, is that you
saw what your friends were doing versus going to their pages.

(54:01):
My Space was sort of like a glorified personal website
that lets you see how you were connected to your friends.
And by the way, that was the best feature ever
about MySpace was it gave you how you were linked
up to someone, because you could look up anyone on
that platform and it would show you exactly how you

(54:21):
were linked to them. It would say, your friend Jan
knows Jim, and Jim knows Bob, and that's how you
know Frank. Wow, that's amazing and I've always wanted that
feature on Facebook. The degrees of separation, let's call it,
and it just never never came. So that's to answer
your question. And I don't know if that's the full answer.

(54:42):
I'm sure there's people that could write a documentary about
how Facebook took over my Space. But with that said,
and I think that all major platforms are always at
risk of It's almost like the Roman Empire, right, you
have this thing, you built it up, and there's some
sort of a achilles heel that someone else figures out

(55:03):
and they take over. And so we've seen the major
platforms at this point kind of keep their rain for
a while, the YouTube's of the world, the Instagrams of
the world. But when you look at something like TikTok
that came along, it rocketed to the top very quickly.
And who would have thought vertical video on an app
would take over the mind space and mind share of

(55:25):
all these other apps so quickly, and then the government
tries to take it down. But anyway, that's a whole
another talk for another day. But let's talk about your
first question, how to make this mac wow? You have
a twelve year old iMac. iMac twelve years old, that's
a that's doing the math that's yeah, that's a long

(55:46):
time ago. So I was gonna say, the new Macs
have a way, and you want to kind of clear
this thing out to get it nice and fresh and
clean and just just surf the web on it and
do your banking on it. And that's that's understandable. You
want to get rid of all the crud. So the
new Max actually have and all new computers, the Windows
computers and the Mac computers have a very easy way

(56:06):
to reset to factory settings, just very similar to the
way the cell phones have it. In your settings. You
can go back to eraseol factory reset and it just
brings it back to that factory finish and the way
it was set up. There's nothing there except the out
of the box software. So the Max have that feature.
The new Max do, and also the new Windows computers do,

(56:30):
but the old Max do not. Now they have it,
but it's a little bit more. You got to look
for it. So what you have to do, and you
may not have this, but you have to reinstall the
entire operating system from scratch. So what you have to
do is you have to start up your computer into
what's called mac os recovery mode and the max are

(56:52):
a little unique. The way you do this. You turn
on your Mac and you immediately press and hold. When
you see the app, press and hold command plus R,
and when you see an Apple logo, then you can
let go of those So command R, turn on the computer,
hold down command R, and just hold that down until

(57:13):
you see your Apple logo. Once you do that, you
unlock this magic disc utility. And when you're inside disc utility,
you can then use that to erase your entire disc.
And then once you erase it, you can reinstall your software.
And now this is where it gets tricky. You may
have that software available on the computer and maybe on

(57:34):
like a partition. I know it's getting very complicated, but
you may have to use the original disc that came
with your computer. So if you still have that in
the box, that'll help. That's all very complicated, and I
don't think that's something the average person wants to tackle.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
Now.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
I've done this in the past on computers. It's a
pretty straightforward system. I used to. I actually still do
wipe my computers once a year to get them back
to whenever I do a new install of the latest
software update, like if it's you know, the new Mac
operating system. I will factory refresh my computer just to
get all the little things off of there and then

(58:12):
start fresh again. I don't recommend you do that, but
I like to do it. I'm a nerd and I
like to start fresh because I test a lot of stuff,
you know, So it's like all these little programs that
are all just lingering on there anyway. So I tell
you all that because it's probably not something that's very
simple to do, but it is doable, and it is
Once you do it, it's done. And you can find

(58:33):
the instructions on the Apple support website. You can find
YouTube videos. But just make sure you sort of like
print everything out before you tackle this, or you have
a second screen nearby that you can use to follow
these instructions, because there will be something that happens that
you will not expect and then you will be scrambling
to try to figure out how to recover from that.
Believe me, it has happened to me, and I'm like,

(58:54):
wait a second, this took way longer than I expected
it to take. The other thing you could do, and
I've talked about this a lot, is you can just
turn it into a Chromebook, and you can use what
Google has for free software. It's called Chrome os Flex
and you can install that on your old iMac And
what that does is it just turns it into a

(59:15):
basically a Chromebook and you'll just have Chrome on there.
You'll be able to, you know, do basic things that
you could do on a chromebook, surf the web, just
whatever whatever you could do on a basic Chromebook you
could do on there. And that would probably be a
nice way of using it. You said, the processor is
pretty good, but that'll run really fast and speedy, and yes,

(59:36):
you'll be able to do your banking on there. So
great question, Jay, thanks for the question. I've told you this,
and I told you how this Tesla charging standard continues
to just become the charging standard and another company has
now signed on, so Electrify America. If you have an

(59:57):
EV you've probably heard of this company. They make charging
stations around the US. They've got eight hundred and fifty
charging stations, four thousand individual chargers in the US and Canada.
And they said, you know what, Okay, fine, we're in.
We're gonna start building these Tesla chargers into our charging stations.
So by twenty twenty five, they will add what's called
the North American Charging Standard connector to its charging network. Now,

(01:00:22):
they're not going to drop support for the other charging standards,
which is the cs CCS one. They're just going to
add this new connector. So when you get up to
their charger, you're gonna have the option to charge via
the Tesla charger or via the standard chargers that have
been on the other evs for a while now. So
again Electrify America. By twenty twenty five, they will start

(01:00:44):
adding these things to their network. So the reality is
Tesla came out with their own charging system, and now
other companies have adopted this charging system. The first out
of the gate was GM. They said, okay, fine, we're
switching over to TESTS. Then Ford said, okay, we'll do
the same, Volvo okay, we'll do the same, Rivian Okay,

(01:01:07):
we'll do the same. Who does that leave two of
the biggest car companies out there, Hondata I just mixed Honda, Honda,
and Hyundai. So you got Hyundai, You've got Honda, You've
got Toyota. Out of those three companies, only Hyundai has
really shown interest in EVS. Toyota and Honda still have

(01:01:29):
yet to have a mainstream ev car, and so we're
still waiting for them to come out with even an
ev car. In general, they still think hybrid is the
way to go, So Electrify America jumping on board. And
before we go, finally to break YouTube limiting video views
if you have an ad blocker. So, if you have

(01:01:50):
an ad blocker on your computer and you're trying to
use YouTube and getting around those ads, guess what. YouTube
is doing an experiment where they are only letting you
watch three video before they show you a message that says,
you know what, buddy, enough your ad blocker, stop blocking us,
or else you can't watch any more videos. And so
you'll get to watch three with your ad blocker before

(01:02:13):
you have to allow YouTube to show you ads. It
also suggests that you subscribe to YouTube Premium, which is
what I do. It's very expensive, but then you don't
have to deal with any of the ad situation on
YouTube in general. But again, if you're wondering what's happening
with this whole YouTube situation when you have an ad blocker, yeah,

(01:02:33):
it's it's by design. Google's saying enough of you getting
around our revenue source here, stop blocking our ads, so
you'll get three videos before they give you that warning
that you got to pay up or disable your ad blocker.
All right, more rich on Tech coming up after this.
The phone number to call in triple eight Rich one
oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two

(01:02:56):
four one zero one. Coming up next, we're going to
tell you about a website that lets you rent out
your backyard and make some money doing it. It's the
Airbnb of swimming pools and more. Coming up. Welcome back
to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you,

(01:03:16):
talking technology, and you know, the gig economy is a
big part of our world. It started with Uber, it
continued with door dash, and now people are renting out
all kinds of things, including their cars and their backyard.
Swimply is a startup that lets you rent out your
backyard pool. They've been doing that for years now. They're

(01:03:36):
expanding into backyard pickleball and tennis courts. Recently I chatted
with swimpley co founder and CEO Buham Laskin about how
people are renting out their backyards to make some extra cash.

Speaker 13 (01:03:49):
Somebody's an app where if you have a beautiful ribbit pool,
they spend a lot of money on it, you barely
use that. You get to actually earn a passive income
by sharing it with local families and friends in the
area that are just looking to get together and celebrate privately.
And if you don't have a pool, you could actually
go on the app and find different private pools. Different
you can put in filters so how many people you are,
whether you want to bring your pet, whether you want
to be child friendly or event friendly, and then you
can just preserve it by the hour. Since twenty nineteen,

(01:04:12):
we've hosted over a million people and over one hundred
and twenty five cities and now we're we're available also
in Australia and.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
Canada, and so it's been quite successful. People like this idea.

Speaker 3 (01:04:21):
Yes, we've been.

Speaker 13 (01:04:22):
Going every year obviously, people love swimming, people love spending
time together, and as the pandemic is eased, that is
only accelerated.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
What gave you the idea to expand to pickleball and tennis?

Speaker 13 (01:04:32):
From the beginning, we've been about democratizing luxury and finding
creative ways of bringing people together in ways they could
only have dreamed of. And with the rise of pickleball
growing so fast, and the people not being able to
build courts fast enough for people, for people to even
find one to play in. It was something that we
felt like it's our mission to provide, and so we've
taken the formula we created with pools and we simply

(01:04:54):
brought it to the pickleball community.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
And what do you know about pickleball? And we all
know tennis, but pickleball is like this kind of people
are discovering it.

Speaker 7 (01:05:01):
Well.

Speaker 13 (01:05:02):
The reason why we love pickleball so much is because,
like pools, people from all ages love it. Right. A
pool is friendly for kids, parents, senior citizens, and pickaballs
has the same origins where it actually started in senior
citizen community and has trickled this way downwards and now
everybody's playing pickaball. Everyone gets together and it's something that's
healthy and gets people outside and puts.

Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
Their phone away.

Speaker 13 (01:05:22):
So that's enough for what we needed to know for
us to be proud to be able to bring that
to some point.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
Obviously, whenever you do a story like this, there's always
that idea of strangers coming to your house or you
as a stranger going to someone else's house. Do you
have any problems with this everything work out most of
the time.

Speaker 13 (01:05:37):
So I launched swimply because my mother had her twelfth
child and we need a way to get out of
the house, and so we paid my neighbor to let
us use her pool without needing to bother her. And
so safety has always been a priority from day one,
and as we've grown, it's become more and more the
epicenter of how we operate. And so with pickleball, we're
applying pool level safety standards to pickleball. We verified but

(01:06:00):
sids in the marketplaces reviews. Most of our owners are home,
but you don't have to be home. We've hosted over
a million people with no incidents today.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
How much money are people making doing the pool thing
and how much can they make.

Speaker 13 (01:06:11):
Host them so big an expect to earn anywhere between
fifteen hundred and three thousand dollars a month passively. Some
of our owners actually get so passionate about their business
that they've earned the six figures on the platform. Today,
owners are in full control. They can set up all
the rules. There are charge of their own pricing, how
many guests they allow, how experience they need to be,
how many adults versus kids, ratio so we give the
full control to the owners to operate their business however

(01:06:32):
they want to, and guests gearable to see previous reviews
from other players in the area, the families that have
enjoyed the experience, and for even more peace of mind,
simply offers up to two million dollars per reservation and
protection and free of charge.

Speaker 1 (01:06:45):
I then spoke with bell Air resident Aubrey Stark. She
rents out her home for film shoots. Now she's renting
out her backyard pickleball court through Swimply.

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):
This court, I.

Speaker 14 (01:06:55):
Think is pretty unique because it has the Thrive sound
speakers which are top of the line. We have a
seating area that can fit twelve people, mini fridge, We
have a pickleball machine which you can use, fire pit
with included propane. And then we have a couple add
ons like our sauna area we called our zen Zone,

(01:07:16):
but it includes a sauna and a cold plunge. It's incredible.
I actually have made that into a full on business myself.
I am renting out the house, the property, the court
usually like three times a week now, so it's become
a major avenue of revenue for us.

Speaker 1 (01:07:34):
And what do you think about the people that come here, like,
are they pretty nice for the most part?

Speaker 14 (01:07:39):
Yeah, everyone's pretty nice. We have a couple bad apples
here and there, but for the most part, everyone's amazing
and really respectful of the property.

Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
What do you think makes pickleball fun?

Speaker 14 (01:07:49):
It's great because it's really competitive. I think just about
anyone can pick it up and learn it pretty quickly.
But if you play one on one then it's actually
a workout as well, so it kind of encapsulates all
three of those things.

Speaker 1 (01:08:01):
And what is a court like this rent for? What
do you what do you put this on swimply for?

Speaker 14 (01:08:06):
I believe our court is currently I mean there's a
range depending on a number of people in number of
hours that I think we're currently around eight or ninety
bucks an hour with maybe a two hour minimum.

Speaker 1 (01:08:16):
Are people renting it?

Speaker 14 (01:08:18):
Yeah, people are renting it. And they just launched this
platform on Swimplea, so it's very very new, but we've
had consistent rentals just about every week.

Speaker 1 (01:08:27):
And do you think swimpley is gonna have to change
their name now that they're doing all these other things
sides swimming pools.

Speaker 14 (01:08:31):
It's a really good question. I don't know I guess
it depends on how much press they do. Potentially. I
think pick a Ball is a major I mean, it's
the fastest screen sport in America right now, So it
wouldn't surprise me if there had to be a little
bit of rebranding around the name.

Speaker 1 (01:08:47):
And what do you think of you know, like, what's
your advice to other people that may have an asset
at their home that they can rent out, whether it's anything,
I mean it's strangers coming to your house.

Speaker 3 (01:08:56):
Yeah, it's always a little bit of trepidation there, absolutely.

Speaker 14 (01:09:00):
I think you just have to design around what you're
comfortable with. I was candidly, very nervous about it in
the beginning, but I do a good amount of research
and make sure to get to know the person. I
always do the check ins myself, make sure I feel
comfortable with a person, and for the most part, we've
had really great experiences. I would say that definitely keep
someone on site at all times.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
All right, there you have it, swimply renting out your
backyard pool. I ran that idea by my in laws
and I said, you know, you can make a couple
thousand bucks a month, and they were like, no way.
So your mileage may vary. If you want information on
swimply how to rent out your pool, your tennis court,

(01:09:42):
your pickleball court, or if you want to rent one
of these things, you can go to my website. It's
rich on Tech dot tv. Look for rich on Tech
Radio show and then look for the show notes and
I will have the link in there. Swimple dot com
is the place to go. By the way, did you
know you can listen to this show as a podcast.

(01:10:03):
Be sure to subscribe so you never missed an episode
just searching your favorite audio app. Rich on Tech. All right,
coming up, we've got much more of the show. Many
the phone lines are still still filled up. Eighty eight
rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two,
four to one zero one, rich on Tech. Back after this.

(01:10:30):
Welcome back to rich on Tech, kicking off our number
three of the show. Thanks for joining me at triple
eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four
to two four one zero one. Coming up in this hour,
we've got friend of the show Jefferson Graham. He's going
to talk about how to take photos of fireworks? Should

(01:10:50):
we even bother? I'll ask him that question. Also, he's
got a hot tip for travel that is a little
low tech, so I'll ask him about that as he
embarks on a thirty day road trip. Then we've got
this app that I think you should download. It's a
life saving tool. Tell you about that and the new

(01:11:12):
password manager that also protects your email. But first let's
kick it off with Mark in Lomita, California. Mark, you're
on with Rich.

Speaker 11 (01:11:20):
Hey, Rich, thank you for what you do here.

Speaker 1 (01:11:24):
Thanks for saying that.

Speaker 11 (01:11:25):
My question, Yeah, my question is I'm going to Switzerland
next week and I've heard about an e simcard, but
I don't know anything about it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
What do you recommend I want.

Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
To when I'm obile in Switzerland?

Speaker 11 (01:11:39):
I want to post on What's app Facebook and maybe
call back a couple of times.

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
Okay. And who's your carrier for your phone? Okay?

Speaker 11 (01:11:47):
I have an S twenty one Verizon.

Speaker 1 (01:11:50):
Okay, so you're on Verizon? Yeah, okay. And have you
checked to see if you get any free days on
your international travel?

Speaker 4 (01:12:00):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:12:00):
I have none?

Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
Okay, So first thing you got to do call Verizon
and say do I have any travel past days? And
so that's number one. So for instance, on my account,
I've got four travel past days which means I can
roam for free for four days. Usually that's ten dollars
a day, and I will get that for free. So
that's the first thing you want to do is see

(01:12:22):
if you have anything available on your account, and it
depends on your plan, how long you've been with them,
all that good stuff. But if you use your phone,
just you know, standard you turn on your phone and
open it up in a different country, like they're going
to say, okay, welcome to Switzerland. You're now paying ten
dollars a day for your your global pass and that'll
only give you I think it's half a gig of

(01:12:43):
data a day, which might be enough just to get
through what you need. But that's ten dollars a day,
so that can that can add up quickly. But if
you're only there for you know, three four days, if
you don't mind paying the extra forty bucks, it's very
very simple. You don't really have to change anything at all.
That's number one. Now you're talking about is an eSIM.
So an eSIM is built into the new phones. You've

(01:13:05):
said you have a S twenty one YEAP and have
you confirmed that that does have SIM?

Speaker 12 (01:13:12):
No, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:13:13):
Okay, Okay, so I'm going to look this up and
see if it has an eSIM. Let's see the S
twenty one does have SIM support. Okay, so you're good there.
The newer iPhones, I think it was iPhone thirteen and up.
Don't quote me on that, but I they came out
with them and kind of standardized this technology which is

(01:13:34):
in most of the new phones. But what eSIM is,
instead of a physical SIM card, you can activate a
SIM card through your phone, so you don't need to
do anything except just download, download an app, sign up
for the app, and it'll say, okay, let's activate a
phone line. And so what you do is you can
either turn off your other SIM, your standard SIM which

(01:13:56):
is your Verizon, and that way you don't get charged
or anything. Or better yet, you can just turn off
the data portion and turn on Wi Fi calling and
you'll be able to use your phone if you have
Wi Fi, and you'll be able to make and receive calls,
send your text, all that good stuff. So that's kind
of the options now with the eSIM. There are two

(01:14:18):
ways I recommend doing the eSIM route. One company is
called US Mobile, and you download the app and you
sign up for a plan that is pretty inexpensive. So
for instance, you're going to Europe, this is twenty dollars,
will give you ten gigabytes of data for thirty days.
So for twenty bucks you can roam all around Europe

(01:14:40):
for thirty days and get ten gigabytes of data, which
is more. I think that'll be more than enough for you.
So that's very very simple. The other app I like
is called er low air Alo. Now their ten gigabyte
plan just for Switzerland is going to cost twenty four dollars,

(01:15:01):
and so again you buy that through the app and
then it leads you through the step by step directions
on how to install that on your Samsung phone. I've
done this a dozen times. It's very very simple. I've
only had one problem with it when I was in
Japan on an Android phone. It worked fine on my iPhone,
but it would not work on my Android for some reason.
But I've not had that same problem in other places.

(01:15:23):
That was just a specific problem I seem to have.
Otherwise it works pretty well. But again, Mark, that's what
I'd recommend. Call Verizon first, see if you have any
travel past days, see how many days you have use
that first. If you want to just have the simplest process,
or if you don't mind paying. Let's say let's say

(01:15:44):
you have three travel past days, you're going for a week,
and then you don't mind paying the ten dollars every
additional day you're only there, you know, three extra days.
That would be thirty dollars total to use your phone
as you use it in America. Otherwise, I would look
into the eSIM from US Mobile or Ara Loo. I've
got both of those linked up on the website, and

(01:16:05):
I think those would work for you. Does that sound
like something you could do?

Speaker 11 (01:16:09):
Yeah, yeah, I'm going there for three weeks, so oh
check all that just okay.

Speaker 1 (01:16:13):
So for three weeks that that definitely changes things. I'd
probably I'd probably steer away from the Verizon situation because
twenty one days times ten dollars a day, that's two
hundred and ten dollars. I would not do that. I
personally would go with the US Mobile twenty dollars for
ten gigs for thirty days. That'll be more than enough data.
And just obviously hop on a Wi Fi network whenever possible,

(01:16:35):
don't do your banking on the Wi Fi. Always use
a VPN when you're doing any sort of banking, or
just use a cellular connection disconnect from Wi Fi whenever
you're doing something like banking.

Speaker 11 (01:16:45):
All right, gotcha, Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (01:16:48):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:48):
All right, Mark, have a safe trip and a fun
trip over there. I've heard Switzerland is beautiful. I've been
there when I was a kid, but only to fly
in and then drive out to another country. But it
was as far as I remember. Maybe I'm just making
this up in my head, but I just remember mountains
with snow. That's probably just what I've seen on TV.
All right, I think we have time for another call here.

(01:17:10):
Let's go to uh Jan in Orange County. Jan you're
on with Rich.

Speaker 9 (01:17:15):
Oh, Hi, thank you Rich.

Speaker 12 (01:17:18):
I just was wondering.

Speaker 9 (01:17:19):
I have a Samsung and I've always been an Android user,
and I'm thinking of switching the iPhone and I was wondering, well,
everything from my Samsung transfer over to an iPhone?

Speaker 1 (01:17:30):
Ooh, yes, the short answer. The short answer is yes,
and I'm someone who uses both platforms on a daily basis,
much to my wife's what's is chagrin a word? Okay, chagrin? Yeah,
that's what she feels is She's like, which phone are
you using today? So, Jan, why do you want to

(01:17:52):
switch to the iPhone?

Speaker 9 (01:17:55):
Basically because my son's saying, just get an iPhone, so
much easier. But I'm used to, you know, my Samsung.
So will it be easy for me to learn an iPhone?
I'm not. I mean, I'm pretty I feel I'm a
little maybe a little above average in technology.

Speaker 1 (01:18:10):
Okay, well I like that. So here's the thing. Everyone says,
just get an iPhone, Just get an iPhone, Just get
an iPhone. It's easier. So you change your whole life
just to make their life easier. Okay, I mean, I look,
I'm not going to debate the merits of that conversation,
but I know what happens across the US on a
daily basis, and it's mostly to do with I message.

(01:18:32):
Everyone wants their messages to, you know, go between these
phones easily. And the one thing you have going for you.
I will tell you if you switch over to an
iPhone because of your son, is that many people have
an iPhone and they will be able to help you
with that iPhone. So when I wrote a book, I
wrote one hundred and one handy tech tips for the iPhone.

(01:18:54):
Why did I choose iPhone because it's almost universal here
in the US. People have an iPhone, they know how
to they have it, and they know the basics, but
they didn't know all the little things you could do
on top of the basics. And so I wrote the
book because it would reach so many people with that phone.
Android devices are all very different. If you have a Samsung,
it's different than a Motorola, it's different from a one Plus,

(01:19:17):
it's different than a pixel. So that's the reason why
these tips and tricks and people helping each other out
with the Android side of things doesn't happen as much
because you know, chances are if your friend has an Android,
they have a totally different model than you have, Whereas
if they have an iPhone, it's running pretty much the
same software. So they can say, oh, yeah, I know
how to turn on the hot spot here, let me
show you. So I do think in that case you're

(01:19:39):
going to be better off. But what type of Android
phone do you have?

Speaker 9 (01:19:44):
H it's a Samsung A forty two. It's not a
very good one.

Speaker 1 (01:19:49):
I don't really like it, Okay, so okay, well there
you go. Now you don't like it, So I in
that case then the A forty two is sort of
their basic models. You know, I think you'd probably be
happy with an iPhone and being on that group message
chat with your kids and your friends and the blue
bubbles and all that stuff. So to answer your original question,
will things transfer over? Yes, there is an app that

(01:20:12):
you would download called move to iOS, and this is
what you download on your Samsung. It's called move to iOS.
And once you download that, this will help you transfer
everything over to your iPhone. And so once you have
your iPhone, you will literally just connect these two devices
and you can move them over. And so it's a

(01:20:33):
very simple, simple process and it basically just connects these
things over a Wi Fi network that it creates between
these two devices. So what will transfer over? Your contacts,
your message history, your camera photos, your videos, your photo albums,
your files, your accessibility settings, your display settings, your web bookmarks,

(01:20:54):
reading this off the Apple support page, your mail accounts,
your WhatsApp, your calendars, and any app that is available
on both platforms will transfer over. Now, not the actual app,
but it will just download that app to the iPhone.
So if there's any app that you don't see, you
can just go ahead and download that later. But from

(01:21:14):
what you're telling me, if you're not really happy with
this Samsung phone and it's a pretty basic phone, I
say get a new iPhone. You can go with the iPhone.
I would probably go with the iPhone fourteen at this
point and just get the standard iPhone. I think it's
going to be leaps and bounds ahead of what you
have already. And you could even go to the Apple

(01:21:34):
website and see if they'll give you any money for
that trade in. I don't think they will give you
much for that phone, but you may get something now.
If you also go through a carrier, they may try
to give you a free iPhone. Just know, if they're
giving you a free phone, it's not necessarily free. It's
pretty much a three year contract where you have to

(01:21:55):
stick with that carrier for three years. And yeah, the
phone you won't be paying a payment for, but you
will be paying to stay with that carrier for the
time being. So good question, Jan, Thanks so much. But yes,
Apple has created an app again called move to iOS
that will help you transfer an Android phone to an iPhone.

(01:22:17):
Switching phones these days is quite quite simple, all right,
Coming up? More of your calls at Triple eight, Rich
one O one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two,
four to one zero one. We got my friend Jefferson
Graham on tap. He's going to talk about taking pictures
of fireworks, and then we've got some more news. I'm
going to tell you about a new password manager that

(01:22:39):
actually looks pretty good and an app that you should
download that I use probably on a weekly basis. You
are listening to Rich on tech. Rich Demiro here, rich
on Tech, hanging out on the holiday weekend, talking technology,

(01:22:59):
technology arrests. The phone line is U eight eight eight
rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two,
four to one zero one. Let's go to Jack in
uh Riverside, California. Jack, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 5 (01:23:15):
Hey, Rich, how you doing.

Speaker 1 (01:23:16):
I'm doing fantastic. How are you?

Speaker 5 (01:23:20):
I'd be great if you can help me and tell
me what I did wrong with my Windows desktop?

Speaker 2 (01:23:24):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:23:24):
Oh, what happened?

Speaker 5 (01:23:27):
Well, it used to be a Windows seven. Then I
rolled up the Windows ten. So but I was using
a Sea cleaner and it said I have programs slowing
me down, so I turned them off. Then I couldn't
get into my Yahoo at and T mail, so I
tried to restore to an earlier day, and now I
won't do anything. I tried hitting this, turn it out

(01:23:47):
and hitting the state they were restoring it to an
early day, but he says, there's no restoring dat and
it still won't come back up.

Speaker 12 (01:23:56):
What did I do wrong?

Speaker 6 (01:23:57):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:23:58):
So, where does your computer stand right now? Is it?
What's on the screen?

Speaker 2 (01:24:04):
That? Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:24:06):
Nothing? Okay, Well, it sounds like you might have it
sounds like you're in the middle of a restore, but
it but it stopped and then it now it doesn't
know what's what it's doing. Is that sound about right?

Speaker 5 (01:24:20):
Sounds like it, yeah, because I was trying to restore
it from an earlier date, but it never gave me
a date. And then I took a couple hours. Then
I said, oh shoot, so that's when I hit turned
it out, turned it back on. It started hitting the
skate and then I was able to get that little menu.
But then it said there's no restort point.

Speaker 1 (01:24:41):
Okay, so it sounds like you might have lost what's
on this computer. The first thing I would do is, uh,
unplug it from the wall, let it sit for a
little bit, and then plug it back in and then.

Speaker 2 (01:24:54):
Start it up.

Speaker 1 (01:24:55):
If you're still getting an error message, then it sounds
like you you've lost some data on this drive. I
would probably boot it up in safe mode, and so
safe mode will let you see what's happening on this
computer if there's anything that is you know, if you
can still somehow boot up this computer into a basic

(01:25:16):
Windows shell and see what's going on there and then
see if you're you know, and then once you get
into there, you can troubleshoot a little bit more. But
that is probably what I would do. Now if none
of that stuff works, If you really can't rescue this,
I'm hoping that you're backed up, because that's uh, sounds
like you're gonna have to reinstall Windows on this thing,

(01:25:38):
or at least restart Windows into a uh, you know,
a factory. You've got Windows ten on there, you said,
So hopefully you should just be able to go into
safe mode and restart or reinstall this program. But I
I this is why I recommend always having a backup,
because it just you never know when something like this
is going to happen. You're using a program, you're deleting something,

(01:26:00):
you're changing a little setting here or there, and next
thing you know, the world goes dark, and now you're like, uh,
what do I do? So again, unplug it, let it
rest for a minute, plug it back in, see if
it comes back to life, if it doesn't, go into
safe mode, and see if you can troubleshoot from there.
But otherwise, if that, if none of those things work,

(01:26:21):
you might think about bringing it in somewhere that they
can troubleshoot before you delete anything off of this computer.
You don't want to, you know, fully lose everything. So
that's what I would do, and maybe bring it into
a place like a Shurion or you know, find a
local you know, local data doctor and if you have
stuff on this that you need, maybe they can help.

(01:26:42):
Let's go to Stella in Santa Monica. Stella, you're on
with Rich.

Speaker 13 (01:26:46):
Hi.

Speaker 1 (01:26:47):
Rich, I'm doing fantastic. How are you?

Speaker 10 (01:26:50):
I'm doing well. I just want to to say thank
you for everything that you do. I love your show
and it's awesome because you help all of us that
don't know anything about what you know.

Speaker 1 (01:26:58):
Ah, thank you. Well I try. I'm coming up against
a break. So what's going on? Stella?

Speaker 10 (01:27:03):
Okay, my phone's getting hot and also my battery is
like running like really low, like really fast. Is it
time for new phone? Is it time for a new battery?

Speaker 1 (01:27:14):
What kind of phone do you have?

Speaker 10 (01:27:15):
It's an iPhone Mini twelve, okay, So what you need
to do is figure out why it's running hot and
why the battery is running out so fast.

Speaker 1 (01:27:24):
So what I want you to do is go into
settings on your iPhone, go into battery and the first
thing you got to check is the battery health. See
what your maximum capacity is, and then go in there
and make sure that it says optimized battery charging, and
see what's running down your battery. So for me, I
can tell what's been running down my battery. It'll give
you a list of all of those things inside there.

(01:27:47):
If something is making your phone run hot, delete that app,
get rid of it, or update your apps and figure
out what's going on with that battery. Stella all right,
Coming up Jefferson Graham, we'll talk fireworks photo. So you're
listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.

(01:28:12):
Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology and
on the line my friend Jefferson Graham, formerly of USA Today,
now of Photo Walks TV. Jefferson, thanks so much for
joining me.

Speaker 2 (01:28:27):
Thrilled to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:28:28):
Hey, you sound great. Photo Walks TV on YouTube. Definitely
subscribe because Jefferson is you are everywhere. You are all
over the US traveling taking pictures, and the best part
is you're doing everything with your smartphone. I think it
was a couple of years back when you told me
Rich I'm ditching the giant DSLR and I'm going with

(01:28:52):
the smartphone. How is that going?

Speaker 2 (01:28:54):
It's doing great. I actually I have a video that's
going to run next week where I did it back
back on the iPhone video versus the Canon DSLR the
eos R six, and I defy you to see the difference.
If there's anything, you're getting a better video quality from

(01:29:16):
the iPhone on a smaller camera that does not make
people get their backs up when you walk in the door.
That is small, it's portable, it's light. It works in
so many great situations, and it has been fantastic for
me as a run and gunner going all over the
place from France and Japan and solve it. You know,

(01:29:38):
Solvang I was in Columbus, Ohio, and I'm about to
go on a big thirty day shoot between LA and
South Dakota, stopping in Colorado and Utah and Arizona and Nevada,
in Wyoming and Idaho, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
And I'm going to be doing a lot of episodes
doing it this way. So I just got my box
full of smartphones and accessories.

Speaker 1 (01:29:58):
I love it. And I will say tell you we
shoot a lot of our TV segments on the iPhone
because it's easier, it's simpler, it can go anywhere. Nobody
bats an eye because it's an iPhone versus a big
old camera.

Speaker 3 (01:30:12):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:30:12):
We started out with that on the shoulder camera. Then
we went to a DSLR, which we still use primarily.
But now with the wireless mics and all the iPhone,
the quality of the iPhone is just so good. It
really is the gold standard in video and in photos
too in a lot of ways. Okay, so first off,
you mentioned your thirty day road trip, so you had

(01:30:33):
a tip in your newsletter today. Jefferson is very prolific
with his newsletter, and I'm very jealous of how good
you are at writing these things. But you had a
tip this week about booking hotel rooms, which is sort
of anti to everything we would think of tell me
what that tip is.

Speaker 2 (01:30:50):
Okay, the tip is and I learned it from the
hotel rep in Deadwood, South Dakota. Okay. She said, never
look online at the hotel site booking dot com, hotels
dot com, you name it, because you're being you're being
asked to pay a giant commission. And it started because

(01:31:14):
I was on the Windom site. Windom owns super eight.
It's hard to find hotel rooms right now, and so
you know it, particularly if you're going for thirty days,
you've got to go cheap, right. Yeah, So it was
two hundred dollars a night, I believe on the Windom site.
When I called, she said one fifty, and I said,
what gives? And she goes, Oh, the commissions. The commissions

(01:31:35):
are built in, and they're baked into all the sites.
Even when you go direct, the commissions are built in.
So you always got a call and I'll tell you
go ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:31:45):
One thing I learned about those commissions, so the website,
there's some sort of weird agreement with like you know,
all these like third party websites that the hotel can't
be cheaper because then basically they could put the websites
out of business. And so the agreement is that the
website from the hotel will have the same price as
like Booking dot Com or Expedia. And so what you're

(01:32:08):
saying is when you call, of course that's a one
to one transaction. They can do that for you and
save you that money. Now, fifteen dollars may not sound
like a lot twenty bucks, thirty bucks, but if you're
going for thirty days like you just mentioned, that's you know,
I cut add up to like one thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:32:22):
Well, wait a minute, I'm talking about five oh fifty
dollars less for two nights. It was one hundred dollars.
The place I'm staying in Monument Valley is seventy dollars
less a night. I'm staying there two nights. That's one
hundred and forty. Every hotel I called was cheaper I
I when I called instead of doing the online thing.

(01:32:42):
And the other knock we have to give on booking
and hotels is you get to the place you hate it,
You're booked for four nights, you say I want out,
and they say, sorry, there's nothing we can do because
you went through Booking dot Com. Had you gone direct
with us, it would have been no problem. Right.

Speaker 1 (01:32:57):
Well, it's a little more work. So I get it.
People want to do everything on the line, and they
want to you know, book things and you know, but
I get it. If you want to, if you want
to save money at a hotel, just call them direct
and the best you can do is just ask them
and see what they say. If they give you fifty
bucks off times two nights, three nights, you know, that's
a little extra spending money for food or drink or whatever.
So great, great tip. All right, so let's talk fireworks.

(01:33:20):
I know people will love to share their fireworks photos
this coming weekend. Do you even bother taking pictures? Can
the can the average person get a good fireworks photo?

Speaker 2 (01:33:32):
Oh, the average person can get a great fireworks photo
on their smartphone. I got some great ones last December
because in the city that I live in, in Manhattan Beach, California,
we have our fireworks in December, not in July.

Speaker 1 (01:33:47):
So that's okay. So what so so heroes I see
are never good, They're always blurry, they're always how do
you get a good one?

Speaker 2 (01:33:55):
Okay, go there with your smartphone, use the wide lens,
which is the one X that's the sharpest. It's the
lens that's the best in low light. Don't go ultra wide,
don't go close up. Just use that one X lens
and then shoot video of the of a segment. You know.

(01:34:17):
I used to tell people they had to use a tripod.
Now they don't because the image stabilization is so good.
You can handhold a two minute shot, believe it or not,
and run videos. So you have the whole thing. And
on the iPhone the minute you start recording with the
red button. Right next to the red button is a
white button and that's for taking pictures. And you could

(01:34:40):
just hit that over and over again while you've got
your backup video going and you can get some great photos.

Speaker 1 (01:34:46):
Oh okay, I like that. The so the one two punch,
you've got the video because everyone wants the video with
the oohs and ah's, and then you get the actual
still shots. I would actually you gave me an idea
because you're taking the video anyway. You can also go
into Google Photos if you use that, and then they
have a feature called export frame. Now do you think

(01:35:08):
that frame would be clear with the You know, if
you try to do that with the fireworks photos or
no with the video.

Speaker 2 (01:35:14):
I think it'll be fine. The people at Apple told
me that you're always going to get a higher resolution,
better photo if you take it as a photo this way,
and if you do the frame grab. Now. I do
frame grabs all day, every day. And for web work,
it's fine. And I don't know that you're going to
hang fireworks shots on your wall, but you know, the

(01:35:36):
safety thing is run the video because you can't go wrong.
You're gonna get the shot right.

Speaker 1 (01:35:43):
Yeah, I love it. Any other tips for this for
the fireworks specifically.

Speaker 2 (01:35:48):
I get there early, if you can grab your spot,
you know, get your best spot, Get as close as
you can to the front of the line. You don't
want people's heads in the shot though you are going
in the sky, so it's okay, but they're always you know,
scouted out, and don't run all over the place. Just
pick your spot and you're probably not gonna have a

(01:36:09):
tripod and do several video clips. Do you know? Remember
the best one is the last one, right, So do
it a few times and you're gonna get some great stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:36:19):
And what do you do with these pictures if you
don't put them on your wall? What do you social media,
social media, Okay, social media is where it's at. Okay.
So you're going on this thirty day trip. You're going
all different places. You have a whole bunch of stuff
that you pack, and I can't go through it all
because you've got a lot of it.

Speaker 2 (01:36:36):
But I love how do you find the newsletter? Jefferson
Graham dot substack dot com. I'd love to have you
as a reader. Many people are charging I do not.
It's free and it comes to your indocks every Saturday
and Sunday.

Speaker 1 (01:36:49):
Yeah, and like clockwork, I get it every Saturday and Sunday,
and I go, oh, I wish I would have started
mine again. You're the one who made me start this
in the first place. Okay. So some of the things
that you carry, the inst three sixty x three, the
Go Pro Hero eleven, a Dji, Mavic Air. You've got
your USB car adapter, which I think is very smart,

(01:37:11):
AirPods Pro, You've got a selfie stick, You've got a microphone.
Let's see the other thing you're you're carrying now is
a Samsung S twenty three? Is that the Ultra?

Speaker 2 (01:37:22):
Yes? Okay, so at the Ultra, but recently the question
is why.

Speaker 1 (01:37:26):
Well, I'm just curious what your thoughts are on that,
because I know there's always this big debate of the
iPhone versus Android with photo quality. How are you noticing
the pictures are coming out from that Samsung?

Speaker 2 (01:37:37):
All right, Well, first of all, I just got it
the other day. Okay, so it's new. There's two features
in here that I'm very excited about. One is that
they have a way better telephoto lens. So you have
basically the equivalent of a two hundred millimeter that's a
ten X right now, you have a three X on
the iPhone. So I used the S twenty one in

(01:37:58):
Japan when I was there. I got some really nice
telephoto work. I got the new one because of the
astro star lighting start us. What's it called, Yeah, the
astrophotography feature. Yeah, photography. Sure, Well, a three hundred X
you can and you can run it for one hour.
I'm going to be in the bad Lands National Park

(01:38:19):
in South Dakota doing star trails and I really wanted
to get it for that. I also like the fact
that you can do varial speed time lapses, which you
cannot do on the iPhone. I am a time lapse freak.
I do them all the time, and basically put you
put the camera on a tripod, you press record, and
you let us stay there for an hour. But you

(01:38:41):
don't have any choices. So with the Samsung, they're giving
you a choice of five X and ten X, basically
making it much faster. And I think that's great. And
the other reason I bought the camera, just so everybody
knows is I do lead a lot of photo workshops
and seminars and I say, here's how you do stuff
on the iPhone, and there's always somebody who says, yeah,
but how do I do it on the Galaxy? So

(01:39:02):
I want to be better well versed.

Speaker 1 (01:39:04):
Okay, I love it. I love it. The other thing
I was going to mention is that there's a huge,
I don't know if you know this, like over a
two gigabyte update for the S twenty three Ultras. So
just before you head out, if you haven't updated it,
it's it's literally with like in the past three days.

Speaker 2 (01:39:19):
Okay, check that out.

Speaker 1 (01:39:21):
All right, Jefferson, We're gonna leave it there. Thanks so
much for joining me. Where can folks follow you?

Speaker 2 (01:39:27):
Well, lease come to my YouTube which is YouTube dot
com slash photo walks TV folks, I'm going to go
live to three o'clock if you're listening live today, and
I'm going to show off all the gear in my box.

Speaker 1 (01:39:37):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:39:38):
You can find me on Twitter at Jefferson Graham. Ditto
for Instagram and the newsletter Jefferson Graham do stufstack dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:39:45):
All right, thanks so much for joining me, Ja jeff
and have a great road trip. Thanks all right, appreciate it.
Coming up, it is the end of the show and
your favorite section of the show. I guess we call
it the feedback. I got a couple more stories to
tell you about, plus your feedback. Right here, you are
listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on

(01:40:14):
Tech feedback time. Not to be confused with feedback feedback.
This is the section of the show where it's kind
of like rapid fire. It's probably too fast for any
of us to understand, but I'm going to do my
best because there's a lot to get through. First off,
a couple stories. Proton Pass so new password manager from

(01:40:36):
the folks that make proton Email, which is a secure email,
encrypted email service. They've been running that since twenty fourteen.
Proton Mail now they came out with a password manager.
And what I like about this password manager is it
is free. Now, of course it's limited in the free scope,
but it's still free, and I think it's actually pretty

(01:40:56):
good for what they offer for free. So what they do,
what their thing is proton password Manager. I want to
just make sure I have this on here. Okay, So
it's open source number one, but it also covers your
email address. So that's the main difference between this encrypted,

(01:41:18):
open source password manager from proton mail and the others
is that this one also generates a one time email
address for your login, similar to what Apple does. They
have a program that does that, but then you're linked there.
The more hidden email addresses you generate with Apple, the
more you are linked to Apple forever. And that's why

(01:41:39):
they do that, because they want you to stay in
that walled garden for as long as humanly possible. And
I'm not knocking Apple. It's a very smart method of
getting you in there and keeping you there. But if
you're using third party apps and websites, I always prefer
those because then you can switch when something better comes along.
Right now, the iPhone is amazing. What if in in

(01:42:00):
three weeks, some phone comes out that's just incredible, and
you want to get out of the Apple ecosystem. Well,
it's going to be tough if all your passwords and
email addresses are all linked to Apple iCloud. So anyway,
proton pass check it out. Let's see. It creates email aliases,
so it's a randomly generated email address. And their argument

(01:42:20):
is that you know these email If a website is hacked,
not only do they get their password, your password, which
should be random, but then they get your email address,
and they say it could be embarrassing depending on the
email or the website rather, but it does all these things.
The free version of proton pass supports unlimited logins, unlimited
encrypted notes, and a limited number of hide my email

(01:42:43):
addresses and two factor authentication logins. So if you want
everything unlimited, you can subscribe. They're offering an eighty percent discount.
It's available for just a dollar a month with an
annual subscription until the end of July forever, they say,
so basically twelve bucks a year. That sounds like, and
it's gonna go up to its regular price of four

(01:43:04):
dollars a month, so forty eight dollars a year. After July,
so check it out. It's called Proton Pass and I
have not used this personally, but I actually think it
looks pretty good. California State Parks teaming up with What
three Words. If you watch me on KTLA, you know
I've talked about this app in the past. It's called

(01:43:26):
What three Words. They have divided up the entire world
into ten by ten foot squares. Every one of those
squares has a unique three word label. So the label
for and why would you need this when we have GPS, Well,
when you're in a national park, or you're in anywhere,
there may be a space in that area that you

(01:43:49):
want someone to meet you at. Let's say you need
help your stranded hiker. You're not gonna say, oh, I'm
at Dunswood Park. I'm at this ten by ten square
foot area, and that way you can find me a
lot easier. And so that's why California State Parks is
teaming up with this What three Words app, so dispatchers
can find exactly where you are if you have this

(01:44:12):
app and you know how to use it, So download
this app What three Words to your phone. And this
means every park bench, every parking space, every camp site,
any remote spot on a parking trail or a hiking
trail has its own what three words address, so you
can tell someone exactly where you are with precision down
to ten by ten. How do you use this in

(01:44:33):
the regular world if you're not stranded. Let's just give
you an example. My photographer and I we meet at
Anaheim Convention Center. There are ten million places you can
meet at the Anaheim Convention Center. I send him my
what three words for the exact bench that I'm sitting on,
and he can navigate right to that bench. It's brilliant.
Let's see what else here? Two minutes here, Jose says,

(01:44:57):
can you help me with a free video editing? And
what kind of connection do I need to play the
video from an iPhone to a TV for free video editing?
I'd recommend cap cut. They also have an adapter Lightning
AV adapter that'll give you an hdm MY output on
your iPhone. You plug that into your TV. Otherwise, you
can use an app called Replica to wirelessly beam the

(01:45:19):
content from your phone to the TV if you have
a Smart TV or an Apple TV. Jeremy, commenting on
last week's story about Uber, how my driver said, Oh,
I don't live here. I'm just filling in for my
brother on his app. He said, hey, rich, Uber does
have facial recognition for drivers. It's not every time they
log in, it's just occasionally a request to verify who

(01:45:40):
they are through facial recognition. So yeah, they should probably
do that every time they get in the seat. And finally,
Angel last week was asking about earbuds with no microphone.
He said, yeah, I need to find these for my
wife because I still want to live in my house. Haha.
I asked my friend Lauren Dragon over at Wirecutter. She
took time out from her vacation to find these best
Buy sleep A ten earbuds. She said these are pretty

(01:46:03):
much the only things she can think of that do
not have a mic because are meant for sleeping. All right,
that's gonna do it for this episode of the show.
Check out the show notes at richontech dot tv. Next
week the app that can take your vitals just by
snapping a selfie once again. You can find me on
social media at rich on tech. My name is rich Dmurro.
Thanks so much for listening. There are so many ways

(01:46:23):
you can spend your time. I do appreciate you spending
it right here with me. Congrats to Bobo who got
married today, Producer Bobo, thanks to Kim on the phones,
Adam filling in for Bobo, and everyone who makes this
show possible. Thank you so much for spending part of
your weekend with me. My name is rich Dumuro. I
will talk to you real soon

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026 Rich on Tech Radio Show - July 1, 2023

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Host

Rich DeMuro

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}026 Rich on Tech Radio Show - July 1, 2023