Useful travel tips and gadgets

Amazon sets a date for the first 2022 Prime Day event; the travel tips and gadgets I used on my recent trip to Rome; T-Mobile wants to sell your data unless you opt out; how not to fall for a tech support scam; Google upgrades its password manager to work natively on iOS.Viewers ask about the best free antivirus protection, buying a cable modem, ditching wired home Internet for Verizon 5G home internet, if Amazon will contact you about a problem with your account, an alternative to iTunes, what to do if a cell phone number is exposed in a data breach and an alternative to Apple's AirTag for luggage.Follow Rich!richontech.tvMy Rome Instagram highlights!Prime Day 2022Travel tips and tricksT-Mobile opt outTech support scamsGoogle Password managerBest free antivirusVerizon 5G Home InternetiTunes AlternativeAirTag AlternativeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Amazon sets a date for Prime Day twenty twenty two.
My international travel tips fresh off my trip to Rome,
had to opt out of t mobiles, new plan to.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Sell your data?

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Plus your tech questions answered? What's going on on rich Damiro?
And this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I
talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
It's also the place where I answer the questions you
send me. Once again. My name Rich Damiro. My name
Rich Damiro.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
My name is Rich Dmiro, tech reporter at KTLA Channel
five in Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
So, as I mentioned in.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
The opening, I did just get back from Rome this week,
and uh, what a whirlwind trip. It's actually the longest
I've ever taken off from work in my entire life.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Maybe when I had my kids, I might have taken
off two weeks, but well, two week vacation.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
So anyway, I had already It's kind of a long story,
but I was already going to New York and New Jersey,
and then my wife had something come up in Rome
for work, and so then we decided, well, we're kind
of already halfway there, so let's just go to Rome.
But it required staying out for very long It required
my family watching my kids while we went to Rome

(01:24):
because their passports weren't up to date. And my family
when we were leaving, like they all said they would
I have a big family back in New Jersey, and
they all said, yeah, yeah, we'll watch your kids, but
no one would actually commit to anything specific, like where
they were sleeping, what they were going to be doing,
and so it was kind of a little bit of
a leap of faith to say, Okay, we're gonna leave
our kids here, like this is serious, Like we are

(01:46):
leaving them here, you are responsible for them.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
It all worked out. They had a fantastic time.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
They hung out with their cousins, their aunts, their uncles,
their grandparents, so it was really really kind of nice
for them. We went to Rome. I had a fan
fantastic time. It was amazing. It was only four days.
I need way way longer in that country. But I
did you know while I was there. It's just one
of these things. Number One, I love international travel because

(02:12):
it gives you so much perspective. I think any travel
gives you perspective on life, and it just kind of
resets you into new ways of thinking. It builds new
pathways in your brain. Big fan of that kind of stuff.
Any travel, I mean literally going to another city will
do the same, but international is especially special because it's

(02:32):
so different. You know, the language, the culture, the architecture, everything,
the history. So it really just puts your brain into
like overdrive. You're just thinking about a lot of different
things all at once. So I think that's a good thing.
The food was amazing. Everything was really fun. While I
was over there. It just occurred to me that I
should do a segment for KTLA on all of these

(02:53):
sort of international tech tips and tricks and gadgets and
things that I packed. I really tried to pack light.
I tried not to bring a lot of stuff. It
was one of these things where I wanted to just
enjoy and just have one phone, and you know, I
had to bring a tablet because I wanted to watch
stuff on the long plane ride. I watched that show
Severance on Apple TV plus. I binge that I haven't

(03:14):
binged a show in a long time, and I enjoyed
the show. I mean, I thought it it was good.
I mean it was really weird, and I think that's
what I liked about it. It was like I was just
waiting for something to happen and you kind of wait
until I'm not going to give away.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Any spoilers, but it was a good show. All right.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
I'm going to talk about my international tech tips and
tricks in a bit, but first let me just start
with with Amazon Prime Day. So Prime Day is happening
on July twelfth and thirteenth this year.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
And Prime Day, you know, it used to get a
lot of publicity, a lot of press.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
It probably still will, but it's just not it seems
like people are disappointed year in year out with Prime Day.
It seems like, you know, like already, like one of
the things I want to purchase on Amazon is like
half the price, so one of their products, and so
that's great. And so the thing is with Prime Day,
if you need something, it's great because it might be

(04:09):
on sale. If you don't need something, don't just go
looking around for stuff to buy, because you're gonna waste
your money. The forty eight hour event kicks off July
twelfth at three am Eastern, which I believe is midnight Pacific,
and runs through July thirteenth.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
This is not just in the US. They have it
in a whole bunch of countries.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
They've got brands, their brands, it says top national brands,
plus more third party sellers than last year.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Which you know, that's good news.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Already, Amazon devices are on sale. You can save a
bunch on the Echo Show five, the Kindle Paper White,
the Echo Dot, the Ring Alarm eight piece kit, and
euro Mesh Wi Fi routers. They've got a lot of TVs.
All the Amazon TVs are on sale wow, anywhere from
thirty seven to fifty percent off. So if you're looking

(04:58):
for a new TV, then definitely check out these Amazon TVs.
They're not the best quality, but they're pretty good for
the price. I mean, you can get a fifty five
inch Amazon Fire TV four k UHD for two hundred
and eighty four bucks two hundred and eighty four dollars
for a t for a fifty five inch TV, and

(05:18):
that includes fireTV, which I think is a great streaming service.
You know, we already heard about this whole Apple Pay
thing where they're letting you split payments into four equal
payments with no fees, no interest. Well, it seems like
that's already having some ripples through the industry because a
firm which is one of those buy now pay later
companies is working with Amazon to give you three monthly

(05:41):
payments with no interest. No, well it doesn't say no fees,
but it just has You could basically split up a
purchase of fifty dollars or more into three equal payments,
so it doesn't seem like there's any fees on that
unless you default. As always my disclaimer, I like to
use a debit card as much as possible, pay with
cash as much as possible. Yes, I used a credit
card overseas. Yes, the bill was really high and scary

(06:03):
when I got done. That's why I like to use
my debit card because the money is gone, it's done,
it's spent. I don't have to look at a bill
two weeks later that's really expensive and say, wow, that's
how much I spent. I'd rather just spend as I
go and check my balance as I go along.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
But I get it.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Credit cards are easier in a lot of ways, especially
for international travel, so I'm not going to fault you there.
There's this new Amazon Fresh store Prime benefit starting June
twenty ninth, which has elapsed, So now there's a twenty
percent off on select everyday essentials at Amazon Fresh stores.
That's kind of like what they did with with Whole Foods,
where they gave the Prime I think it was ten

(06:40):
percent off sale items. So now they're doing that at
the Amazon Fresh stores. And so if you have an
Amazon Fresh grocery store near you, you'll save twenty percent,
not on everything, but just on certain things. And every
week Prime members will receive twenty percent off on a
weekly rotating selection of prepared foods and every day essentials
across the aisles.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
So that's kind of cool.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
And if you want ten dollars off Amazon, you can
do the Prime Stamp card. So from now through Prime
Day you can receive a ten dollar credit towards a
future purchase on Amazon. All you have to do is
for Prime activities, stream a Prime video, listen to a
Prime song, borrow a Prime reading book, and make a

(07:22):
Prime shipping eligible purchase. Seems pretty simple.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Ten dollars, pretty pretty easy to get. All right, Well,
I said I was going to do my Rome.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
Travel tips, but first let's get to a question and
then we will get to the Rome travel tips. All right,
Virginia says, hey, Rich, thank you for all of your
valuable tech info. My husband and I are empty nesters
and not very tech savy. One of our more tech
savvy sons live in northern California and they're not.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
Always available to help us.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
We just moved into a new home and it appears
our vast computer protection has expired. We just want to
know what's the best, non expensive program for our home computer.
We don't use it for business, just household bills and info.
Please advise, Sincerely, Virginia, Virginia.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
I don't think.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
I know this is a crazy thing to say, but
I don't think you need a lot of extra protection
on your computer outside of what Windows has with Windows Defender.
So there's been this whole push for anti virus on
Windows computers. I think a lot of it just kind
of bogs down the computer and it makes it pop

(08:25):
up messages all the time. It's always doing something, it's
always scanning. Do you really need all that?

Speaker 2 (08:31):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
If you're just surfing the web and getting most of
your apps from Windows or using the built in web
browser or even Chrome or whatever, a lot of these
systems now protect you from stuff. Realistically, the only thing
you really have to worry about is when you download
random files, Like if you're downloading a file from a

(08:51):
random website, if you're clicking random links that then download malware.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
But a lot of times we're not doing this.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
I mean, you have to be on the lookout for this,
but most people I think are not really doing that.
Maybe they are, I don't know, but I think that
Windows Defender, if you have that up to date, that
is an anti virus software that is built into Windows.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
I think that that's probably your best bet.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
Now if you want to have something else on your
computer as a as a backup or as an addition,
if you go to av test avavsdash test dot org,
you can look up the best Windows antivirus software for
home users. And right now the top one is on Lab,
which I've never heard of, ahn l a B. Number

(09:35):
two is a Vast, Number three is AVG and I
believe those are the same company. Now, then you've got Avira,
then you've got Bitdefender. Then all the way down. It's
funny it says you've got Microsoft Defender is pretty down there,
but it's only a five point five out of six.
The tops are six. Then you've got Norton Total av

(09:57):
Those are at the bottom of the list. But again
a lot of these products it looks like they're all
about the same because the protection is almost every one
of them is a six out of six in every category.
So I mean, realistically, I think you'll be fine with
any of these. I would just stick to something free.
I don't think you need to pay a lot for
this protection. I think the more important thing is to

(10:19):
just to be aware of what you're doing online. So
if you're just surfing the web, you're probably gonna be fine.
It really comes into play when you're downloading stuff. And
I think the bigger threat, or the biggest threat to
people today is phishing schemes. And so that means when
you're looking at your email and it says, hey, your
Amazon account is about to be deactivated, or did you

(10:42):
make this large purchase on your Amazon account because we're
sending it to you and if not, call this number
or click this link, that's what you need to be
concerned about, because those are things that are trying to
trick you into handing over your personal information. I think
that's a bigger threat than just random things taken over
your computer, which does happen. Believe me, We're gonna talk
about that a little bit later in the show. But

(11:02):
I think that that's the main thing, is just be
aware of what you're doing and just be very critical
of every single thing you are doing.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
On your computer. I'm not kidding the most the most
menial tasks.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
Just be super aware of where you're plugging, putting in
your passwords, the links that you're clicking, the software that
you're downloading. I think that's the most important thing. And
I think Apple really did an interesting service for people
when they came up with the idea of the App store,
where these the apps inside that store. I mean with

(11:33):
Apple they're sandbox, but I mean the way that you're
sort of trusting the store at large. And Windows now
does this with their Windows Store, and Chrome does it
with maybe their extensions. I'm not sure how vetted those are,
but you know, it's just one of these things where
it's just we've come a long way. But I think
the biggest thing is really the social engineering. That's that's

(11:55):
kind of the biggest problem for most people. All right,
let's get to the trip. So again, takeaways from Rome.
Food was awesome. I had no problems with my flights whatsoever.
I know the news it's scary, scary. Scary flights are
delayed flights are canceled.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
I had zero.

Speaker 1 (12:12):
Problems knock on wood. So our flights were on time,
they were smooth, they were great. You know, we got
the seats we wanted and it was fine. I mean,
it was really overall just fine. The travel was simple,
the luggage got there, and in Rome it was just
such a It's been a while since I traveled because

(12:34):
of COVID, like internationally at least, and so, you know,
it's one of these things where technology has evolved. This
was the first time I got to try out an
e sim On I phone. I had the iPhone thirteen Pro,
which is just a fantastic camera, the best camera I've
ever used on a vacation. So it's just like a
lot of things were new to me. And so while
I was on this trip in Rome, I was like,

(12:54):
you know what, I think I'm gonna share some of
these things that I've learned. Now, let me just go
through number one. I think the best trips start with
a lot of planning, and I think that with the
Internet and with social media, there are so many great
ways to plan trips right now, and it's getting you know,
it's just getting so much easier to like, go to
the place you want to go, do the things that

(13:15):
you want to.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
Do, avoid the tourist traps, all that good stuff.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
I think the best, single, best thing you can use
on a trip is Google Maps.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
And specifically the saved feature on Google Maps.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
So on Google Maps, there's this little row of icons
at the bottom. One of them says saved. That's where
you can create lists of things that you want to do.
I've got lists for restaurant recommendations. I've got lists for
the cities that I'm going to that I'm planning on
going to. I've got just random lists that you know,
if someone tells me something you should go to with
the kids, I put it in that list. And so

(13:49):
if you're searching Google Maps, what I like to do
is create a new list for the city you're going to.
Let's say you're going to Paris, and then you start
putting things into that list. When someone says, oh, you're
going to Paris, you got to see the Eiffel Tower,
bookmark the Eiffel Tower. So you go on Google Maps,
you type in Eiffel Tower. It says save, and you
save it to your list, and now it's in that list.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, Eiffel Tower. I get it.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
You're not gonna forget to go to that. But then
someone says, oh, you're going to Paris. I know this
great little cafe. You gotta go to it, and you
look it up on Google Maps, you bookmark it. Oh,
this restaurant is excellent. Get the croissant there. It's the
best raspberry croissant you'll ever have. I don't even know
if that's a thing, but I'm just saying. And so
now to take it a step further, when you bookmark
that little item inside your list, there's a little place

(14:34):
that says notes, and you can type in my friend
Jan said that this has the best raspberry croissant in Paris.
And now when you go there, you'll have perspective on
that restaurant. Oh yeah, Jan said to get the raspberry croissant,
or you know, my friend said to get this type
of pasta, or get this steak or you know whatever.

(14:55):
And so you just keep doing that and you finally
have this list. I had like sixty five items on
list for Rome. And when you go to these places,
you can read your little notes about them. And then
also you know, for me, like I pulled people on
Instagram and said where should I go? You can also
thank people on Instagram, like, hey, you know, I had
a couple of viewers and you know followers that gave

(15:16):
me some recommendations. I tag them on Instagram because I
remember that that's where they.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
Told me to go. So that is my ultimate tip.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
The other tip is if you google whatever city things
to do, there is like this magically generated Google kind
of travel guide that is just I don't even want
to tell you about it because I feel like it's
the best kept secret online. So if you google any city,
like if I put in Paris things to do, look for,

(15:43):
scroll down a bit until you get to this top
sites in Paris area on Google Search, and then you
click more things to do, and it literally gives you
everything in that city based on all the Google knowledge
that they have from what people search and where people visit.
It's just such, it's just amazing. I mean, you don't
even need these travel guides in these travel books anymore

(16:04):
because Google has so much data that's even more real
time than anywhere else. I mean, if you're looking at
a map of Paris, it will tell you this is
a popular area because it knows that there's a bunch
of cell phones in that area at any given time.
I mean, it's really really fantastic stuff.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
All right, let's see.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
Oh, the one other thing I wanted to mention about
that saved list thing. The best feature about it is
that when you're walking around town, you look at your
saved list and Google will order it based on proximity.
So let's say, for instance, we got out of the Vatican,
right Cistine Chapel, whatever, we were hungry. I went to
my list and I saw here are the three restaurants
that are closest to my list right now. Because what

(16:42):
happens is you fall into a tourist trap because you're hungry,
you're tired, you're you're hot, and you just want to
duck into the first restaurant you see that has food
and drink. And so that's how you get stuck with
a tourist trap. And so if you have a list
of places and you know, okay, this one is three
blocks away from the Trevy Fountain, but it's not a
tourist trap, and we can go there and someone recommended it,

(17:05):
it's on my list. Let's go walk there, and you
have kind of a purpose rather than trying to find
something in the moment, which.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
Is very, very tricky.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
All right, So when you're flying, definitely download the app
of the airline that you're flying, because a lot of
times to get the entertainment, you have to use that. Also,
I would even look into connecting to the inflight Wi
Fi even if you're not using it or paying for it,
because a lot of these airlines offer free messaging through
apps like I Message and Telegram. It's funny even notifications

(17:34):
will come through a lot of times on your iPhone
because somehow the way the notifications are sent through it
just bypasses, sort of like the paid Wi Fi. So
you may not be able to like see, you know,
activate your ring doorbell, but you might get a notification
that someone's in front of your house and you can
see that, which is kind of cool. Now, when it
comes to money, I always skip the airport exchange the

(17:54):
money exchange stations. I just don't think you need them
in this modern day and age. Now here's my reason.
The best way to get money out at a foreign
location is to use your ATM card at a local
ATM when you arrive. Now, I've only had a problem
with this exactly once in my entire life, and I
think it was in Japan where my ATM card was

(18:17):
not working at the ATMs and I had to like
find a specific one. But otherwise this works almost every
single time. And so what I do is to make
sure that you have a little cash on you just
in case is I make sure I have some American
dollars on my person when I fly, and so when
I land, I'll bline it to the first ATM and

(18:37):
take out local money. Now, if the ATM doesn't work,
or it's out of order, or I just can't access it, whatever,
I will take those American dollars and begrudgingly exchange them
on the wherever I'm landing. And you're not gonna get
as good as an exchange rate. You're you're gonna pay
some fees. But it's just a really you know, it's
a backup method that Okay, if you have a hundred

(18:58):
bucks on you, at least that one hundred dollars can
get you from the airport to your hotel. You can
settle down, figure out what's going on, figure out how
to get some more cash, or maybe find a different
ATM that does work. One of the things about the
ATM is they're going to try to trick you into
taking cash out with a conversion, and when they convert
it says like, oh, accept conversion. It's you're like, oh yeah,

(19:19):
because I'm doing American dollars, Like, of course I want
to accept the conversion. No, no, no, you want to
decline the conversion because then you're going to take out
money in their currency using their rules, and your bank
is going to do the conversion on the back end
to US dollars. Your bank is going to give you
a much better deal and they're not going to charge
you any sort of extra fees for that, which the
ATM will. The other thing is tap to pay. Definitely

(19:42):
set that up on your phone. I was reading about
Rome and it said, oh, a lot of places like
to accept cash this and that. I did not find
that to be the case at all. Every single place
I went to accepted tap to pay. It was so easy,
it was so fast. In the restaurants they bring they
bring the check whatever tapper thing to you. So when

(20:03):
you pay a restaurant here in America, you give them
your credit card, you put it in a little folio sleeve,
they take it away and then they come back ten
minutes later with the receipt you sign it give them
a tip. In Europe, they just bring this little machine
to your table, you tap your card, you're done. There's
no tipping in Europe, which is really cool, even though
I did tip certain places and certain things, because I

(20:23):
think no matter what culture you're in, you still enjoy
a tip if you're doing your job well with a smile.
When it comes to wireless service, Verizon AT and T,
we'll charge you ten dollars to use your phone overseas.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
AT and T has a.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
Pretty good international plan, So if you just want to
stick to the easiest possible thing, just let AT and
T charge you ten dollars a day. However, that's going
to add up really fast. Verizon's international plan is not
very good. They only give you half a gig of
high speed data a day for ten dollars. That's not
very good. I think you can do better than that
with an eSIM and so this was the first time

(20:57):
that I purchased an eSIM right for my phone. It's
supported on newer Samsung iPhone and Pixel models. I used
an app called Errolo air Alo, and you buy the
SIM card right from your smartphone. It pops it into
your esimps. There's no physical card, it just activates the
eSIM on your phone. I paid sixteen dollars for ten

(21:19):
gigs of data. In fact, I might have only paid
thirteen dollars because Aerolow has like a referral thing, so
if you put in a referral code, you get three
dollars off. Mine is rich five three seven five. You
can use that for three dollars off, and it was
just fantastic. The data lasts thir thirty days, so I
got ten gigs of data for the price of less

(21:42):
than two days that Verizon wanted.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
To charge me.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
So now my wife is a little scared of the
eSIM so she stuck with Verizon. She got charged ten
dollars a day. She doesn't do as much social media
as me, so it was fine. But realistically I would
definitely check out the eSIM thing.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
It's so much better.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
The only downside to them is the fact that you're
going to want to turn off your primary simcard, which
is your US one. You can do that right from
your phone, and that just means you're not gonna get
phone calls or traditional traditional text messages you'll still get
I message, but you just won't get regular texts all right.
The other thing turn off cellular uploads for things like
Google Photos or Dropbox, because you don't want that to

(22:20):
be gobbling up all of your data. Power adapter. I
use this model from a company called Epica. It was
top rated on Amazon. It's got a standard plug which
you can plug stuff into, along with four USB ports
and a USB C port. That was twenty three dollars. Siri,
I gotta say, really, really did well. I use Siri
the entire time to convert money, to convert text, like

(22:43):
to say, like, Hciri, how do I say, can I
get the bill please? In Italian? And boom, she just
comes up with the answer. It's very very good. Google
Assistant will do the same thing. Make sure you have
an external battery pack and walking directions if you have
an Apple Watch. I got to say, I'm not a
huge fan of Apple Maps, but it came in real

(23:03):
handy with the Apple Watch because you can just tap
the little crown on your Apple Watch and just say,
you know, give me walking directions to the coliseum, and
it will just spring into action, give you those walking
directions right on your wrist and your watch will just
vibrate when it's time to take a left or right.

(23:24):
It's a really really cool system and it's fantastic for that.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
So anyway, I hope you enjoyed my tips.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
I've got it all on my Instagram at rich on Tech.
I literally did the entire trip from start to finish
on Instagram.

Speaker 2 (23:38):
Now.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
I didn't do it live in real time because I
wanted to enjoy my trip, so a lot of people
were confused or like, wait, rich how am I seeing
you on TV when you're posting about Rome right now?
It's like, well, I posted after I went because I
was like a couple of days behind with my post.
Because while I was in Rome, I truly wanted to
just be immersed in what I was doing, and so
I took a lot of pictures with the intent of

(24:00):
later instagramming them. Typically I do things in more real time,
but I tried something different this time where I just
kind of just lived in the moment, took a bunch
of pictures and said, oh, that'll be interesting for Instagram later,
and then I posted them all as one big story.
So you can see my entire Rome highlights on my
Instagram go to my profile page and just click under

(24:20):
the highlights it says Rome and it's right there.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
It's pretty awesome.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
All right, Let's get to the next question from ron.
Ron says, Hey, I'm a senior looking for a three
and one device that will act as my voice, cable
telephone modem, cable modem, and Wi Fi router, all in
a single unit slash device. Currently have three devices and
would like to move to one. I've contacted my cable
company for assistance. They were no help at all. Oh, surprise, surprise.

(24:47):
I've searched the Internet and it's frustrating to figure out
what to buy that would be compatible with my cable carrier,
which is Cox. Can you direct me to someone who
sells a three and one device? Ron Ron, You need
to just search COS approved modems, Cox approved modems, and
when you go there, what you want to do is

(25:07):
look for a modem that provides how do you say it, telephony.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
So if you go on that site.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
So now I'm on that site and I type in
telephone T E L E, P H O N, and
now it says combination Internet and telephone modems purchased are
not certified for use with the cocks Network. Let's see,
oh interesting, Oh so hold on, interesting, that's combination.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
Received a new from third party retailers.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
If you'd not I said, okay, it's weird because it
says there is one that.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
Says that there is one that.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
Works with it, the RS Surfboard TM thirty four O two.
It says, oh see, hmm interesting. Okay, yeah, Ron, I'm
not sure you're going to find something from a third party.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
It looks like you have to get it. Let's see.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
Oh yeah, it looks like you have to get it
from them, and you're not gonna it's either it's either
telephone and modem or Wi Fi and modem. You're not
gonna get all three in one, it looks like from them,
So I think that's why you had so much trouble.
So it looks like I would just get one of
these if you want to purchase it, do the math
on the break even. Otherwise, maybe just continue with what

(26:24):
you're doing. It looks like you can consolidate a non
Wi Fi Internet and telephone modem into one, but then
you'd still need to put a Wi Fi router attached
to that. I'd recommend VILLO v I L O or
eero E E r O as.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
Your solution there. But yeah, this is it's tricky stuff.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
These cable companies don't really they don't like when people
use their own stuff because it's more work for them.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
It's kind of it's kind of annoying.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
If there's trouble with it, they say, oh, they put
their hands up and they say, sorry, we can't help you.
That's not ours, that's not our equipment. Sorry you went
you went out and bought your own stuff.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
For me, I feel like mine's included. Whatever I have
is included in my internet service. It's not like it's
not a line item that says I'm paying ten bucks
a month to rent this thing. So if you're not paying,
then just stick with what they're giving you. But if
you are paying, yeah, do the break even if you're
If it's ten bucks a month and the new one
is uh is you know, one hundred and twenty dollars,

(27:21):
that's twelve months. If you're gonna stick with them for
twelve months, then you're all good. So it's it's often
these tech things are often a math equation.

Speaker 2 (27:30):
Just just figure out what the math is.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
But good question, Good luck, with that, all right, T Mobile, Oh,
these cellular companies, there's there's only three of them, three
big ones, and they are tricky because even like with
the with the data, with the international data, it's just
like it's just it's so tricky that Verizon charges you
ten dollars at and T charge you ten dollars. T

(27:54):
Mobile doesn't charge you anything to use your phone internationally,
but then they charge you for text, or not for text,
but for phone calls. It looks like so if you
look at the T Mobile International they charge it's it's free,
free data and texting while traveling without roaming fees, but
they're going to charge you for phone calls. And yeah,

(28:17):
you're probably not going to get that many phone calls,
but it's twenty five cents a minute, so unlimited basic data,
unlimited texting, and twenty five cents a minute calling. That's
not so again, it's like all these little things and
that's up to five gigs of high speed data, which
is pretty good, but that's only over you know, like
I guess however long you're over there a month, I
don't know. So it's it's so tricky. This's why I'm

(28:38):
saying it's just so nice to have the e SIM
thing such a better option. Anyway, this is unrelated to
what I'm talking about with T Mobile. T Mobile is
now going to sell some of your usage data to
advertisers unless you opt out. So this was first noticed
by a website called ad Exchanger, And the bottom line

(28:59):
is that you know, we we've heard of third party cookies,
we've heard of tracking online, but your ISP, the person
who actually supplies your Internet to you, whether it is
Wi Fi, whether it is cellular, whether it is your work,
whoever is giving you that connection to the Internet, they
see everything no matter what, unless you're using a VPN,
but that's for another conversation. But if you're just connected

(29:22):
to the Internet, pretty much, whatever website you're going to,
whatever you're doing on there, that activity is visible to
your ISP Internet service provider. Now, the level of detail
may not be one hundred percent available to them. So
they may see that you go to Google, but once
you start searching on Google, they may not be able
to see the actual search term because Google then encrypts

(29:45):
what you're doing between them and your computer, so they
may not be able to see exact details. But that's
where those third party cookies come into play. So those
third party cookies are on websites, they report back to
the big marketing companies and say, oh, Rich was shopping
for a comforter on overstock, so you should sell him
comforter ads. Things like that. People are getting hip to

(30:06):
those or blocking more of them. The web browsers are
blocking more of them. But again, at the end of
the day, your ISP does have a lot of information,
and so these ISPs are sitting there going hmm, can
we sell this information? And sure enough, T Mobile is
one of those companies that's doing that. I think verizon
Ate and T are also doing same things. But what
T Mobile is doing that's a little interesting is that

(30:27):
they're doing what's called App Insights, So they're layering on
top the apps that you have installed on your phone.
And before you get all bent out of shape, this
is primarily gear to Android users at this point because
iPhone is a little bit more locked down when it
comes to these privacy things. I think that Android has
gotten a lot better, but the iPhone is not included

(30:50):
in this program. So it's called App Insights, and it
pretty much layers on top of all the stuff you're
doing on your T mobile connection, the apps that are
installed in your phone. So if they see that you
have a furniture store app on your phone, another furniture
furniture store might say, hmm, Rich just installed two furniture
app furniture store apps. Let's send him an advertisement for

(31:12):
our furniture store app, because clearly he's shopping for furniture.
So again, it's just one more way of selling you stuff.
If you want to opt out of this, and I
probably think you should, you can download the Magenta Ads
Platform Choices app. It's available on both Android and iOS,
and so that will let you opt out of this program.

(31:34):
You probably should if you care about your privacy. My
thing is, you know, look the whole privacy thing online, Like,
I get it.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
It's scary, it's.

Speaker 1 (31:43):
It's you know, there's definitely a lot of implications about it,
and you can say, well, I'm not doing anything that
anyone cares about.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
Big deal.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
At the end of the day, they're selling you stuff.
And so if you want to save your money and
not be berated and what's the word barraged with ads,
then you know, as much as you can keep yourself
private online, I don't think you need to use a
VPN twenty four to seven. You know, that's kind of
like the most secure I guess you can be. But

(32:13):
I do think that, you know, blocking third party cookies
is good blocking a lot of these ads that are
online using you know, private search engines if you want to.
I think that Google is still the best search engine.
But again, the little ways that you can protect yourself,
especially with the blocking third party cookies, is.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
A good thing.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
I talked about this, I think in my last podcast.
But if you on Chrome can block third party cookies
by going to the settings, which is by clicking those
three little dots next to your username or your user
profile I should say, in the upper right hand corner,
then clicking settings. Then you go to Privacy and Security
and it says cookies and other site data, and then

(32:53):
you say block third party cookies. And that's just a simple,
simple way that you can kind of protect a little
bit of your web browsing online. And so that's just
one thing you can do. I think there's a lot
more that you can do as well, but that's just
one simple, simple way to do it.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
All right, Let's get to the next question here.

Speaker 1 (33:17):
Let's see Paullette says I've been thinking about ditching Spectrum
and getting the Verizon five G Home Internet. The only
problem is it's not offered at my address. The Verizon
LTE Home Internet is offered. I was wondering if I'd
be okay with the LTE version instead of the five G. Also,
how often does Verizon expand the availability of their five
G home Internet? Great, great question, Paulette. So number one,

(33:41):
Verizon five G Home Internet. If you're not familiar with
what that is, it is basically a giant hotspot.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
For your house.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
So you call Verizon or I guess you go online,
you order the service. They send you this box, which
is pretty much a glorified Wi Fi hotspot for your
entire home. You plug it in and I mean plug
it into an outlet and that's it. It pulls in
a cellular signal, it turns that cellular signal into a
Wi Fi signal. And the reason why this is so
great is because five G, especially five GUW with Verizon

(34:13):
is a really fat pipe, which means you're getting a
really good Internet connection wherever you are. And so the
fact that they have this now in the in the
air and they can pull it out of the air
and broadcast it into Wi Fi. Is a really cool
thing for your house because now they can compete with
wired internet connections like the likes of Fiber and you know,

(34:35):
Spectrum and Cox and all these other companies that offer
Wi Fi you know at your house or I guess
wired connections that you turn into Wi Fi. So Verizon
five G Home Internet definitely something that is excellent and
I would recommend it. I tested it. It was fantastic.
I tried it in three different locations at my home.
Just like your home PAULTT. I do not get the

(34:56):
five G Internet so signal, so I only got an
LTE signal. The Verizon LTE signal is not better than
the wired signal I can get from my internet service provider,
which is one thousand down. The Verizon was like, I think,
seventy five down. So I think that I'm gonna stick
with what I've got. Now, if I had five GUW

(35:19):
it's much cheaper. It's only fifty bucks a month. It's
cheaper if you're a.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
Verizon customer, So definitely look into that. I would go
for it.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
So the LTE Internet, my thought process on that is
I don't think it's as good as the five GUW.
But it all comes down to the speed that you get.
So if you do a Verizon speed test, So if
you don't have a Verizon phone, get someone that's a
friend that has it. Stand right in the middle of
your house, in the center or where you might put this.

(35:47):
Technically you're supposed to put these Wi Fi hotspots in
you're a window or the cellular hotp whatever you want
to call it, cellular hotspot and so and I would
do a test. So download the app called medior met em.
How do you spell that MEI medior met e o
R app m e t e o R medior app.

(36:08):
Download that app, do a speed test. Make sure you're
not on your Wi Fi. Make sure you're on specifically
the LTE connection from Verizon.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
Do a speed test.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
See where the upspeed is, see what the downspeed is.
If you're doing just basic things on the Internet like
watching Netflix, surfing the web, checking your email, you know,
any connection, even a seventy five connection, will be fine,
like I have at my house. The problem is, why
deal with seventy five for fifty bucks when I'm paying
just a little bit more for a thousand and so

(36:38):
I would say, you know, stick to that. It's just
it's just again it's a math problem. See what you're paying,
See what speed you're getting. Again, if it's fifty dollars
for Verizon and one hundred dollars for your Spectrum and
you're getting two hundred on Spectrum and seventy five on Verizon,
go with the Verizon. You may not need all that
extra speed and it's going to be just fine. And

(36:58):
also the price they've got to I think guaranteed for
two years. So again it's just kind of like weighing
what's best for you. I can't give you that answer,
but I will say if the five G was in
your house and it was a really good speed and
it was that fifty dollars a month price point, that's fantastic,
and it's wireless. I personally love the idea of going

(37:18):
with the Verizon five G home Internet because it's it's
like there's no wire so it's one less wire. It's
one I mean, I get it. It's just an Ethernet
cable from your house. But you know, I've lived through
many times. I've moved so many time. For these internet
installers have to come to your house, they've got to
run the cable under the house, they've got to put
it in. You got to ask the person if they

(37:39):
could run a new cable because I don't want to
use the one that's existing inside the house, because you know,
I want a fresh, nice cable that's not gnawed by
any squirrels or anything. And all these things take time,
they take effort, they take convincing. And if you have
this wireless connection, it's like, Okay, it's coming from Verizon's
tower straight to this little box, no middle man, no wiring,

(38:01):
no nothing, and now it broadcasts that signal throughout my
house as Wi Fi's that's pretty cool to me. So
starlink same thing. It's like a very cool way of
getting Internet.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
Paultte also said here thanks in advance, your trip to
Rome look divine.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
Well, thank you, Paultte.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
So that's my answer. But again it's a math problem.
Just do the math. Do the basic needs situation, Like,
depending on if you're telling me you're running a home
based business and doing zoom calls twenty four to seven
and live streaming and all this stuff and your connection
on Verizon's twenty five, then no, that would not work out.
But if you're just doing basic emails, web surfing, and Netflix,

(38:40):
and there you go. That'll be just fine on a
seventy five to fifty one hundred connection from Verizon. But
just see what that connection is good question.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
All right, let's.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
Get to the next story of the week. Let's talk
about this tech support scam.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
Now.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
Look, I know that you're listening to a podcast. You're
a little bit tech savvier than the average individual because
somehow you figured out how to find me.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
You downloaded this podcast, which is.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
You know, ahead of a lot of other people, even
though podcasts are very popular.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
But clearly you're a little step ahead.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
So what I'm talking about right now maybe something that
you roll your eyes at and say, Rich, I'm not
going to fall for that.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
Come on, give me a break.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
But I'm telling you because people do fall for it,
and you need to look out for the other people
in your life, the people that you love, the people
that are your friends. I was home in New Jersey
for a week, and I'm not kidding you. It is
such a gut check when it comes to what the
average person knows about technology. When you just talk to

(39:44):
regular friends and family members about things that you just
take for granted that you know how to do on
your phone or on a computer or with a router,
and they're just sitting there looking at you.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
Like, what are you talking about?

Speaker 1 (39:55):
So do not take for granted that everyone has the
same level of tech ex expertise that you have. Consider
yourself very lucky that you have that expertise, and share
it with other people, enlighten them and really help protect
them against this kind of stuff, because this is garbage
tech support scam. It's been happening for years. And here's
what happened. So I got an email from a viewer

(40:18):
who actually did not fall for the scam, but they
were quick enough and smart enough to record their computer screen.
So a lot of times these things happen, people get
caught up in them, they pay money to some sort
of scam artists, they feel really ashamed, and they never
want to talk about it again. This person, Beverly Morse,
down at Redondo Beach, she grabbed her camera. She's an

(40:40):
older woman too, she grabbed her but she's a smart cookie.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
Let me tell you that she grabbed.

Speaker 1 (40:45):
Her cell phone camera, she started recording the screen. So
she sent me this amazing video of these scam artists
at work, saying you know, if you got to watch
the video, go to my Instagram at rich on Tech
and just look for it.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
You can see it.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
It looks like a blue Windows screen, but the Windows
you know, it pops up all of your computer screen.
It looks like it's a Windows Defender message.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
It says there's a virus detected illegal activity. Do not
shut off your computer. You're gonna lose all your data.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
Call this toll free number and someone from Microsoft will
be happy to help you.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
Well, she knew better.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
She didn't call. All she did was turn off your computer.
And by the way, that's the right thing to do.
If you're tech savvy enough, you might be able to
do control all, delete and force quit the browser that's
running this giant full screen program. But realistically, if this happens,
if they take over your computer, they're not really taking
over your computer most of the time. It's just they're

(41:38):
taking advantage of your web browser and making it full
screen and putting you know what we call toast notifications
over your screen, which are like these kind of just
messages that live on top of every window. And so
just realize that you can turn off your computer in
these situations unless you actually have ransomware on your computer.

(41:58):
That's a whole nother story. But most of the times
these things are just they're somehow popped up on your
computer through an ad, malware whatever, and they sort of
take over your screen, even your computer speakers, so the
speakers might say, please do not shut down your computer. Warning, warning, warning,
and it's just all bogus. So turn down the volume,

(42:20):
turn off your computer, restart it, and you should be okay.
I talked to Microsoft about this. They said, yeah, they've
been tracking this for years now, since twenty fourteen.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
It's scary.

Speaker 1 (42:30):
But you can turn off your computer, or you can
go to Microsoft dot com slash report a scam to
explain what happened. You know, maybe you'll get some satisfaction
that way by them kind of going after these people.
But realistically, this happens day in, day out. If you
see a pop up window that urges you to call
a tech support number or a tech support operator.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
Calls you, do not fall for it. It is bogus.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
Google does not call you. Microsoft does not call you.
These companies do not call you. Instagram doesn't call you,
Facebooked doesn't call you. They don't make you call them.
It just doesn't happen. The other thing is that if
you do fall for one of these scams, what they
try to make you do is install some sort of
remote desktop software on your computer. They say, look, we're

(43:14):
gonna help you work through this. Go to this address
one nine to two dot six eight dot two four
dot nine to two and download this software and then
we will Okay, now give us the code on the screen. Okay,
now we're gonna access your computer. We're gonna help you
get rid of this program. We're gonna help you get
rid of this malware that is actually the scam.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
They're gonna lock up your computer. They're gonna hold.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
It hostage until you pay them money. Do not fall
for any of this, Tell your friends and family about it,
share the Instagram story on your story so that people
can see this, and just just take care of these
less tech savvy people in your life and let them
know that it's scary, it's frustrating, but it's just not
a thing like. Don't call these numbers, do not accept

(43:57):
these calls. Don't let anyone take control of your computer.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
Please please, please, please please, Oh wow, speak of the devil.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
Cheryl says, Hello, does Amazon have a security center that
will call you and walk you through the process of
clearing your computer and showing you your screen. Also wanting
to install the app on your phone called any Desk.
They want you to go to Target and get a
card to clean your computer of the mess. They tell
you someone ordered something your name, They show your bank account.
I do have a phone number, Thank you, Cheryl.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
Do not do it. Stop stop, stop, stop stop. All
of this is exactly what I was talking about. I
didn't even plan this in my.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
Program here, like I didn't plan to have this right
after what I was talking about, but it just so
happened to work out that way.

Speaker 2 (44:41):
But don't do it. This is what we're talking about.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
Any Desk that's an app that will it's a legitimate app,
but they use it for nefarious purposes. So they're making
you install something like Team Viewer or any Desk on
your computer. She's saying your phone, just don't do it.
Amazon will not call you. They will not say hey,
you have you know. The only thing Amazon will do
is say we're not gonna ship you out this product

(45:04):
because your your card was declined. That's it, And they'll
make you go to your Amazon account. But it is
tricky for Amazon because they do send those kind of
alerts and.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
You sit there and you say, okay, well what do
I do?

Speaker 1 (45:15):
So what I think Amazon should do in this case
is just say, we're not even gonna give you a
link in our emails.

Speaker 2 (45:20):
We're never gonna give you a link.

Speaker 1 (45:21):
You have to go to Amazon dot com log in,
and when you log in, they should put a big
banner on your.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
Page that says, hey, please update your card.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
For this account. But again, this is what I'm talking about.
You don't want to fall for these tricks.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
Cheryl.

Speaker 1 (45:36):
I'm not sure if you fell for this, but please
do not install any software on your computer. Just ignore
these these things from Amazon and Microsoft and all these
different companies. That's that's the bottom line there. All right,
Since that was a question that was kind of related
to the last thing, let's go to the next question.
Roger says, Hello, Rich, a longtime fan and viewer. We
enjoy your informative segments. You're the only one I trust

(45:58):
for tech advice. Well, that's very common. I'm kind of
over iPods and iTunes. Is there a good alternative device
to download device and download platform like iTunes?

Speaker 2 (46:08):
Thanks? Well, yes, there is.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
And so there's a company I've mentioned them on the
show many times called soft Reno. They are based in Ukraine.
They have a company or they have a.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
Piece of software called walter Pro. Walter Pro.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
Is a program that will let you put any file
onto an iPhone or an iPad.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
I'm talking. You can drag and drop a PDF.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
You can drag and drop a photo, a video, an
MP three, pretty much a photo or video or MP
three or music or anything in any format, and it
will figure out the format, it will convert it, and
it will put it into the right place on your
phone and in the native place on your phone, which
means it'll put it in your photos, it'll put it
into your audio player, it'll put it into your video area.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
So that is what you want to use. I think
it's I don't know how much it is.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
They change the pricing on this stuff, but that's the
program that I've used in the past. It is fantastic.
It's easy, drag and drop, it'll convert it. Now, you
mentioned a platform like iTunes, so I'm not sure if
you have the music that you already want to put
on there, or if you need to locate music now
there are third party music stores that.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
You can download music from.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
I am not really privy to the names of those things,
but they are out there. I'm not sure if they
sell music like, you know, mainstream music like a Coldplay album,
but they probably have third party music from like independent
artists and things like that. So you're gonna have to
find the source of where you want to get these

(47:38):
files from. But you can use walter Pro to actually
get them onto your iPhone if you find a good
you know, I think, what's the one SoundCloud? Like if
you download music from SoundCloud, sound Cloud, you can just
drag that into walter Pro and it will place that
into your music player on the iPhone.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
So great question.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
Definitely something that is possible, and it you know, it's
a little bit of you know, I'm not going to
say it's a little bit of reverse engineering by this
company to make this possible because Apple would rather you
go through iTunes. iTunes I think is such a pain
to use that I just don't even use it. I'll
use this program instead. All right, let's talk about Google's

(48:20):
password manager. I'm always talking about the importance of a
password manager, but ninety nine point nine percent of people
do not want to use a password manager because it's
so complicated and it's just.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
Kind of a pain.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
Now there are password managers built into iOS, built into Android,
built into Chrome. The problem is, in the past I've
only recommended those if you're only using iOS or if
you're are sorry, if you're only using Apple products, you're
only using Chrome or a combination of Chrome and Android.
But Google has done something very, very smart. They have

(48:53):
now made what might be the best free password manager
because they're just expanding the available ability of what they've
already had for years, which is a really good free
password manager that's built into Chrome and Android. But now
they're expanding that to work on iOS as well with autofill.
And so if you have Chrome installed on your iOS device,

(49:17):
you can now go into your settings on iOS, go
into passwords, go into autofill, and select Chrome or Google
as your autofill of choice for your passwords.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
What does that mean.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
It means you can now use Google Chrome Androids password
manager on iOS devices as the default, which is a
huge deal. In the past, I have recommended third party
independent password managers, something like dash Lane, something like one Password,
something like bitwarden, because they were platform agnostic. They worked

(49:52):
across all platforms where they're using Windows PC and then
an iPhone, whether you're using an Android and then a Mac,
these platform agnostic password managers will work everywhere. But now
Google is making something that also works everywhere, and I
think that is a huge win for passwords. So all

(50:14):
you have to do is start using it. And I've
tested this out. It works fantastic, it's great. I may
switch to it myself because now that it's free and
it works on everywhere, why not. Right now I'm using
a paid solution and I'd rather use free. I think
it's just as good to use the free version from Google.
You got to put a little bit of trust in Google.

(50:34):
Of course, you got to continue to use Google. I
think overall, I would still recommend an independent third party
platform if you are very tech savvy. If you're not,
I would definitely one percent just recommend using what Chrome
is doing, what Google is doing. If you are just Apple,
if you're only using Apple products, if you use a
Mac computer and iPad, Apple TV which doesn't really have

(50:59):
the password manager on it anyways, don't worry.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
Disregard that, and.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
An iPhone, just use the built in iCloud keychain, that's
what they call it.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
Just use that. It will work like a charm.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
It will suggest passwords when you need to make one,
it will fill them into apps.

Speaker 2 (51:12):
It will use face ID. Just use that across your devices.

Speaker 1 (51:15):
You don't have to get fancy if you're using If
you're a Google person and you're using Chrome, you're using
you know, maybe you're just like you just like Chrome,
and so you're using Google Chrome on your computer as
your web browser, and then on your phone you're using
an iPhone, but you also have Chrome installed.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
Go ahead and use this. It's very simple, it will work,
it's great, it's free, highly highly recommend it. Definitely check
it out.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
I think that is a pretty big win by Google
that people are just going to sort of get savvy to.
All right, let's get to one more question before we
close out the show.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
Here.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
Steven says, I've been getting messages from my Experience Complete
ID monitoring service that we subscribe if you telling me
my cell phone number has been found on the dark web?
What do I do? Do I need to change my
phone number? Thank you so much for your help. I
don't think you need to change your phone number. It's
pretty commonplace that cell phone numbers are out there. Sadly,

(52:13):
it's just the norm nowadays that our information is leaked
and breached day in, day out. The main things that
are out there are your email address, your phone number,
your address. Credit card information is leaked a lot, but
your data birth is out there. So this information is
out there. It's the reason why you get so many

(52:34):
spam phone calls, it's the reason why you get so
many phishing emails. It's the reason why hackers are having
a field day right now because there's so much information
about us out there, they just merge it all together
and send us these emails, send us these phone calls
and say hey, we know you have a mortgage with
this company, or we know you have a credit card,
or we know you have your car. There's just so
much information floating around there about us. So I think

(52:57):
it's good that you have the experience complete ID. I
don't think you need to change your cell phone number.
I do think you need to be d vigilant about
the phone calls that you get. So if you notice
an uptick in sort of spamy calls, that's where they're
originating from. Just don't trust people that say, hey, we're
calling you about your American Express, We're calling you about
your you know, mortgage company, We're calling you about your car,

(53:19):
we're calling you about this your bank. Just just be very,
very vigilant about understanding that those are probably scams. All right,
let's one more question from Marcia. She says, I leave
for a cruise in Europe in less than two weeks.
I'm interested in getting luggage tags.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
Are they worth it?

Speaker 1 (53:35):
I've heard about Apple tags, but I do not have
Apple products. What I probably can't use them? Can I
what other brands of luggage tags are good? What's the
distance that they work? Which ones have the longest distance?
The distance is not a problem because of the way
these things work. It's more about the Bluetooth network that
they are on Apple tags, the biggest competitor is Tile,

(53:57):
so I would go with Tile tags. The way that
these wars, and the reason why Apple is really so
great is because Apple has turned every single Apple device
around the world into a beacon station for these little tags.
And so when one of these Apple tags sees one
of these Apple devices, and there are billions of them

(54:17):
out there, I mean there's a lot. It says, Oh, okay,
here noted location of this device of the little tag.
And so for that reason, whether you travel to Italy,
whether you travel to Tokyo, whether you travel to wherever,
even though your phone is not near these devices, chances
are someone's Apple device is near these devices, which allows

(54:39):
them to check in and send their location to your device.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
And so that's how they work. Tiles the closest.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
The biggest difference between Tile and Apple is that every
product that is sort of a beacon for the Tiled
products has to opt into that, and so someone had
to physically install the file app on their phone to
get that functionality. Now, Tile did a deal with Amazon
and specifically there I think it was their Echo devices

(55:10):
and their ring devices, So there are more of them
on the network, sort of unwittingly, and so there are more.
I just think you're going to get a lock on
an Apple device way faster than you will on a
Tile device. But if you want the biggest competition, go
with the Tile devices, and you know you're taking a
little bit of a chance there.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
I don't think they're going to be as great as Apple.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
You can also activate the Apple tags with any Apple device,
whether it's a Mac, computer or an iPad or an iPhone.
So can you do with a Mac computer, I'm not sure.
I know you can do it with the iPad. So
if you have an iPad, you can definitely activate the
Apple tags as well.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
So those were amazing.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
Music came in a little bit earlier then I anticipated.
You know, I get a lot of these Apple air
tag alerts on my phone. I kind of ignore because
it's like, I haven't really lost the stuff. I guess,
knock on wood, maybe one day if I did lose something,
which hopefully I don't. But I did track my stuff
all throughout Europe and on the plane and all that,

(56:11):
and it did work. So I got to say, Apple
really really built a special device with these Apple tags,
these air tags.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
They really really do a good job of helping you
keep track of your stuff, all right. That music means
that's gonna do it for this episode of the show.
If you'd like to.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
Submit a question for me to answer, go to my
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(56:46):
me on all social media. I am at Rich on Tech.
Please go ahead and give me a follow there. I
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You can scroll to the tech section and watch all
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(57:08):
so please do that. My name is Rich Deimiro. Thank
you so much for listening. There are so many ways
you could spend an hour of your time. I really
appreciate you spending it right here with little old mate.

Speaker 2 (57:20):
I'll talk to you real soon.