Compute This 12-21-2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Shrock Innovations presents the midwest number one independent computer repair
company with service centers and Lincoln pall Maha a billion
des Moines and across the country via the Shrock desk.
This is Compute This.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Good morning, folks, welcome in to compute this. My name's
Thor Schrock. I'm the owner of the Shock Innovations computer company.
Feeling jazz to be here with you this morning. Would
love it if you joined me as well. Four zero
two five five eight eleven ten eight eight eight two
five zero two zero nine to one. If you're outside
of the metro area, We're of course going to have
a drawing here at the end of the program for

(00:35):
a twenty five dollars Shrock Innovations gift certificate, good for
anything your heart desires at the service center. You can
hang on to it, you can put it toward a
sofo's renewal, you can buy a computer with it. You
can do whatever you want to do with it. I
suppose you could give it away as a Christmas gift.
I don't know, no one's ever asked me that before.
I don't think you can actually transfer out of your
Shock account once it's in there. I think about it.

(00:57):
So now you can't give it away as a Christmas gift.
That's the limitation. Some restrictions apply. See store for details
for zero, two, five, five, eight, eleven ten. If you
missed the show last week, guys, it was actually, I mean,
if I do say so myself, it was a pretty
good program. Last week. We told you about the you know,
we went into more detail about the memory and SSD shortage.

(01:18):
For those of you who didn't hear the show, or
maybe perhaps don't care, You're gonna care real soon because
memory is already in dramatic shortage. I'm getting emails now
from another one of our supplies, from m A Laboratories
in California, and they're saying, this is the memory we

(01:38):
have available for sale today, not this week, not this month,
not here, this is what's coming in. This is what
we got left today. Supplies are extremely limited. Call to order.
In other words, don't place an online order. Don't email
me and think I'm going to get to your email
and I'll have something left. Pick up the phone, call

(01:59):
me so you were in front of me immediately and
I will book your order. You will make your payment,
and then you will get the memory no thirty day terms,
none of that stuff. We don't have time for that. Yeah,
it's crazy on memory. And from what I'm hearing from
my friends at Time Tech that larger capacity solid state
hard drives are going in the same direction. Last week

(02:19):
we talked about how Samsung is ending production of the
two point five inch solid state hard drive. Why is
that a big deal? These are the larger solid state
hard drives though the size of a laptop hard drive
like the old mechanical driven You know, they can fit
in older laptops to upgrade them, to make them faster.
They can go into very low end desktops came with

(02:40):
mechanical hard drives for a long time. Some still do,
so if you get one of those, you can upgrade
that very easily. If the motherboard doesn't support a current
Gen and VME drive, you can use these two point
five inch drives to bridge that gap. A lot of
our customers use these two point five inch drives for
backup drives or other applications inside computer. It's an easy

(03:00):
way to upgrade your computer without changing out the motherboard
and everything else. Well, if Samsung stops making those, that's
going they make the best ones like everybody agrees that
Samsung's solid state drives are the best in the business,
That's why they cost the most. Then you have to
make a decision do I need the absolute best? Do
I need the Ferrari or will the Mustang?

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Do?

Speaker 2 (03:22):
You know? It's like it's one of those kind of conversations,
you know, do I need the Bentley or will my
Porsche suffice? You know, it's like you, is there a
need to spend that kind of money to do what
you're trying to do with your computer? If you're using
it for like Facebook and bill pay, you know, probably
not so. High end people doing gaming rigs will buy
Samsung drives, and people who build regular everyday computers don't

(03:44):
use Samsung drives. But if you take the Samsung drives away,
if you remove them from the inventory picture, it creates
less available inventory. Now, high end people are buying the
highest of the of the low end hard drives, essentially
the best ones they can get, and everybody else is
left with what's left. And of course, if Samsung is

(04:05):
doing this, there's a financial or monetary reason they're doing it.
It is likely that other manufacturers will follow suit and
also discontinue the two point five inch solid state hard drive,
which will lead to even more shortages. So people who
can't get the two point five inch drives will instead
decide to get the new motherboard and get the NVMe
E drives, which will increase the sales of envm E chips.

(04:27):
Larger capacity drives two terabytes and larger require a lot
of chips. Well, guess what's going to happen. There's fewer
chips to go around, so the price is going to
go up, and we're already seeing that happen in storage devices.
So this is huge, massive upgrade or upward pressure. And
I'll get into that in the first segment because there's

(04:48):
yet another component now that we're going to talk about
this week that's going to go into shortage because the
manufacturer is cutting back on production for the same reasons.
So in twenty twenty six, we are looking at higher
computer prices, and it's not because of tariffs or because
of inflation or any of the things that pushed it
higher before. Those things are all factors that pushed it higher,

(05:09):
and most manufacturers like shock eate those costs because there's
only so much people are willing to pay for a
new computer. And when I'm going up against Dell or HP,
if my computer is one thousand dollars and an equivalent
computer from them is eight hundred dollars, even if mine
is better, some people just don't have the extra two
hundred bucks right now, so they're going to have to
choose the cheaper computer. So if I want the market share,

(05:30):
if I want the sales, I have to keep my
prices reasonable, so that means I have to make a
little bit less money on them. Hopefully I can make
it up in quantity. That's the that's the hope. Right now,
we're going to see this upward pressure again and it's
gonna it's going to destroy independent computer builders like this is.
This is going to be absolutely awful next year. So

(05:51):
there's a there's gonna be a theme on the program today,
and I want you to listen to it very closely,
because I do warn you guys before things happen. I
always try. Sometimes I'm a little about it. Sometimes I'm blunt,
and this is gonna be very blunt today. Do not
procrastinate your new computer purchase. Yes, I'm in the business
of selling new computers, and yes it does sound self
serving for me to say, hurry up and buy one now,

(06:14):
feel free to wait. You'll just pay more. You'll just
pay more, coming from the guy who sets the computer
prices telling you go ahead and wait, you'll just pay more. Hint, hint,
wink wink. Some conditions apply, all right. Also on that program,
we talked about live translation coming to Android devices and

(06:37):
we shared the three Secret Things. This was a really
fun segment. The guys in the shops were thanking me
for this one, like the three secret things that every
Shock employee wishes you would have purchased. And it was
really great because you know, the guys in the shop
are all supposed to listen to the program every week.
You know, I tell I tell the lead technicians. You know,
I get it. You know, some of your junior texts,
they got better things to do with their lives and
listen to their boss ramble on on the radio. So

(07:00):
I get it. I get it. So just play the
show like Monday afternoon, just turn off the music for
forty five minutes and just turn on the show and
just let it play in the room like I'm the
Boston here and I'm listening to the program like I'm
supposed to, and everybody else will listen because there's nothing
else to listen to. Then you can put the music
back on and everybody can have their their fun time again.

(07:20):
But it was completely evident who listened to the show
and who didn't, because customers came in and they're like,
what are the three things that you were secretly wish
I would buy? And the people who didn't hear the
show were like, uh uh, and the people who did
were like, yeah, this makes a lot of sense. Like literally,
I could hear the nodding at a Christmas party and
I said the three things that everyone secretly buys or

(07:42):
secretly wishes our customers would buy, and everybody around the
room was like, yes, yes, if our lives would be easier,
Your lives would be easier, you would spend less money,
we'd have to charge you less money. You'd be happier
with us, you'd be thankful for the recommendations. We would
be the heroes in the room. Oh my gosh, this
would be amazing. Please Big get these three things. So

(08:04):
we covered that on the show last week as well.
Now coming up on the program today, I did mention
we have another component going into shortage. We're going to
discuss that. There are also some interesting let's call it
the invisible hand. When memory prices go up and storage
prices go up, it has a knock on effect on
other components in your computer build, and we're going to

(08:26):
discuss that a little bit. Also, we are running out,
almost almost entirely out of holiday specials, so we're going
to talk about that. There are Firefox extension if you
use the Firefox browser, well, heck, if you use Chrome
or Firefox or pretty much any browser, any modern browser,
you can add these things called extensions that allow your
browser to do things it doesn't natively do. If you

(08:47):
want to be able to download YouTube videos directly to
your computer when you don't have a YouTube premium account,
there's an extension for that. If you want to automatically
convert a website to a PDF, there's an extension for that. Translation.
If you're looking at a website and it's in a
foreign language and you're not using Chrome with its built
in translate feature, you can add an extension to give

(09:08):
you translation functions. There's an extension for that. It's kind
of like apps for your browser, right if you can
imagine it pop up blockers you don't want to see
the pop ups, there's an extension to block them. Well,
those extensions now are delivering malware to your computer. We're
going to talk about that on the program as It's
really interesting because the extensions are not malware themselves, but

(09:30):
they are vehicles that used to deliver malware in some cases.
So your antivirus software is completely powerless to stop it, unless,
of course, you have sofos and then you're good to go.
Just another example of why Daddy's antivirus from twenty twelve
doesn't protect your computer like it used to. Now. Also
on the program today, there's a this is controversial. My wife,

(09:56):
she has a belief and it's a deeply held belief.
Sometimes it's an inconvenient belief, but she strongly believes that
you cannot and should not, under any circumstances during the
holiday season give somebody a gift card by itself. No,

(10:24):
you can't go to Low's and buy somebody a Low's
gift card and just give them a Low's gift card
for Christmas, even if you buy that that cute little
mini bucket they sell like a gift card bucket. It's
like a five gallon bucket, but it's miniature, like kind
of like a miniature football helmet. You can put the
gift card in the bucket. It's kind of cool, right,
Your wife would be so disappointed in me. No, but
she'll she'll take that gift card and she'll pack the
bucket full of like she'll got She'll buy like a

(10:46):
real five gallon bucket, and then she'll put like, you know,
filling in the bottom of it, so there's like four
inches at the top, and she'll fill it with like
Reese's peanut butter cups or something, and then put a
gift card on top of that or stick it in there.
So there has to be something else in the gift. Right. So,
undoubtedly you're going to get some gift cards this holiday season,
and unfortunately they're not all gonna be gift cards, gift

(11:09):
cards or gift certificates for shock, They're gonna be things
that you might not actually want. Right. Well, I'm gonna
tell you during the show today how you can transform
those unwanted or even partially used gift cards into cash.
So you can you can sell the gift cards in
ten minutes or less and keep the cash. You have
my attention, Yeah, right, I mean, everybody's like, what am

(11:31):
I gonna give? Like, uh, thanks mama, a Victoria's Secret
gift card. I'll buy some perfume from myself. Uh thanks mom.
You know, not my cup of tea, but thanks mom.
Uh yeah. If that happens to you, then you can
you can take that Vicki's Gift card and sell it
for cash and somebody else can enjoy that and you
can enjoy the money to do whatever you want with.

(11:51):
We're gonna tell you how to do that, so stay
tuned for that on the program today as well. Four zero, two, five, five, eight, eleven,
ten is the number to join us on the show.
As we do every week, we are going to draw
that twenty five dollars Shrock Innovations gift certificate here at
the end of the program. We are also live right
now at Facebook dot com slash Shroc Innovations. I want
to let you know that this is the last live

(12:12):
Facebook show that you will see this year. So if
this is something that you enjoy, you you best get
your get your show on Facebook dot com slash Shock Innovations.
You can say hi, you can participate in the comments there.
During the commercial breaks. I try to jump in there
and answer questions and be a part of that Shrockville
experience as well. But yeah, check us out Facebook dot
com slash Shock Innovations. Now, we talked about shortages and memory,

(12:38):
which directly impacted the Holiday special. When you when you
have computers that you're selling with thirty two gigs a
RAM and a thirty two gig stick of RAM, you
when you start the saleut that you're selling the computers
for costs. That's the Holiday special. Is a computer that
we sell for cost that's it. And then when you
buy it, we do hope you add some things. We
do make a little money on the add on. So
I'm going to be completely transparent with you. That's our

(13:00):
hope that we you know, we key, we have to eat.
But the computer that you're getting for costs at Trock,
would it cost you like three thousand dollars to buy
from Dell or somebody else? Like it's it's ridiculous how
cheap we sell these things for seventeen ninety nine thirty
two gigs of RAM, a terabyte ENVM one of the
ultra fast hard drives. My gosh, the laptop comes with

(13:21):
a three K screen just a vibrant, pantone, correct screen,
it's insane, backlit keyboards. Uh, you know, digital readouts for
temperature and processor load coming out of the side of
your computer case, like just just crazy things that you
just don't get anywhere else. Processors then the rise in

(13:42):
nine ninety nine hundred x. I mean, it doesn't get
any faster than that, it doesn't get any more AI
equipped than that. Like this is this is the computer
that you're going to use for the next decade, hands down,
easy pas. So we've got thirteen laptops left to sell
before the end of the year, and we have twelve
desktops left. Now, what's going to happen is today we're

(14:05):
going to be a little slower. Sundays are always a
little bit slower. We're only open for five hours and
Lincoln's actually closed on Sundays, so you know, it's a
little slower. For that reason. Monday we explode higher every week.
Monday is an insane day. This Monday is going to
be more so because we're going to have a lot
of people. There's a lot of gentlemen out there who
are just now figuring out that there is something happening

(14:26):
next week and their significant others have been preparing for
this event for several weeks and with thoughtful for you know,
gifts that are things that you would never buy for yourself,
but things that you would that you want nevertheless, so

(14:47):
that you maybe didn't realize that you needed. But when
you get the gift, you're like, oh my gosh, that's
so insightful. This person knows me. Now, a lot of
you guys out there are just going to start realizing that.

Speaker 4 (14:58):
You got a.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
Problem and you're not gonna have the gift in time.
I ordered something for my wife and it was it
was in my It was like a last minute thing,
something that I know that she needs, something that I
know that she wants, and something that she has no
idea that I've noticed that she needs or wants. This
is the perfect setup, right, So I order this thing

(15:21):
and it's getting shipped to us, and it takes three
days in processing, like they haven't even shipped it. And
I'm like, uh, we're running out of time here, got
to the twenty fourth and to the twenty first doesn't count.
That's two days. Three days. Oh boy, Well, luckily it's
going to arrive tomorrow, so yay, it's gonna get here

(15:42):
in time. But if you're just now hitting that yourself today,
I'm sorry, you're screwed. That's just not to be blunt
about it. But there's a creak and you don't have
a paddle, and yeah, so you need you need a scapegum,
you need a huckleberry. So what's gonna happen is these

(16:03):
guys are going to come into shock and they're going
to realize that their wives need new computers. And they're
gonna say, I need the holiday special and I want
to get it, and I want to do this, that
and the other to it, and can you get it
to me before Christmas? And the answer is no, we can't.
We cannot. We just we're building what we're the orders
we have right now, we're taking new orders until we're
sold out. That's what we do every year. But we

(16:25):
can't be completed in the next twenty four hours for you.
I'm sorry, but you see, guys, that's not your fault.
You can say, here's this receipt for this thing that
I got your truck, and you never give it. You
never give a receipt by itself either. It's like the
gift card thing. It's got to be with something, right.

(16:47):
So let me give you an example. If you're giving
away a set of concert tickets for Christmas to somebody,
you don't just give them the concert tickets. You get
a shirt from the tour and you put it in
the box with the concert tickets, right, Yeah, those are
the things you do. So yet that's that's the lovely
Kimberly way. So guys, what you would do is you'd

(17:09):
get the little piece of paper from Shock that says
I bought you this holiday special limited edition computer that
is going to only increase in value because everything inside
of it is in shortage and getting worse next year.
And then you're gonna give that to your your wife
or your significant other and they're gonna say, oh my gosh,
I can't believe that you noticed that I needed this
and that you had the thought to go order it
for me, and those Shock bums couldn't get it done

(17:33):
in time. And that's not your fault, dear, I love
you still, But those Shock guys, if they don't get
that from me by the end of the week, let's
just cancel the order, you know, And that's how it'll go, right,
And that's what's gonna happen Monday and then Christmas Eve.
We're gonna have guys coming in who are really desperate,
like they really they really screwed up, and they're gonna

(17:53):
beg us to buy the display models. And it's to
the point we can't discount the display models because we're
selling them cost Yes, they've been on display for sixty
days and some of them have a scuff for something
and sorry, we can't discount it, but it's the last
one we got and people will buy them, and the
display models will be gone before the end of the year.

(18:15):
And that's how we sell out every year. Happens every
single year, guys. So that's what next week's going to
look like. At Shock thirteen Holiday Special Laptops left twelve
Holiday Special Desktops left four zero two five five eight
eleven ten eighty eight two five zero two zero nine
one taking our first break of the program. When we
come back, motherboard prices and processor prices are being impacted
by the shortages in memory as well as storage, and

(18:37):
now graphics cards are next. If you are thinking about
a gaming computer upgrade for you or someone in your family,
let me tell you why the clock is ticking coming
up next on Compute.

Speaker 5 (18:48):
This Right now, the biggest tech companies in the world
are diverting memory and storage production away from consumer electronics
and into AI chips. That shift is causing a tidal
wave of shortages and price increases. Memory and solid state drives,
the core components of every computer are skyrocketing, and when
the parts go up, the computer prices followed. Shock Innovations

(19:10):
has inventory in store today at pre increased prices. If
you need a new laptop or desktop, don't wait until
after Christmas when every retailer will be forced to raise
their prices by smart by local shop. Shrock Innovations are
online at Shrockinnovations dot com.

Speaker 3 (19:28):
Shock Innovations repair technicians also make house calls. Make an
appointment and let us bring our award winning computer support
right to your home or business.

Speaker 6 (19:37):
Laptops are subjected to some of the most stressful computing
situations imaginable. They get dropped, stepped on, slap shut, and
pushed until the battery dies. Sometimes through laptop works hard
for you, so when it has a problem, take it
to the laptop experts at Shrock Innovations. Shrock has four
convenience service centers in Nebraska and Iowa with more than

(19:57):
one hundred total bench spots to get your technology up
and running again. Shrock has the largest supply of replacement
components in stock, and we fix more laptops than any
other nearby repair center. Why wait weeks to get your
computer fixed when Shrock can diagnose the problem, provide you
with a friendly and accurate estimate, and fix it usually
in two days or less. Remember, if you have never

(20:19):
been into our service centers before, new customers get their
first hour of labor free. So the next time your
laptop screen gets cracked, the keys pop off your keyboard,
or your two year old decides a glass of milk
is exactly what your laptop needs to cool off, take
it to Shrock and let your local laptop repair experts
get it back in top shape again.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
All right, guys, welcome back into compute this. Looking at
the comments here on Facebook, Ron's in here and he's like, hey, Thor,
did you notice the Bard had a big recall and
your truck is probably on it? And you know I
own Ford Stock, I own my whole family owns Ford
vehicles like Ford guy. Right, I got a Mustang, I'm
got an F one fifty. My wife's got a Bronco,

(21:07):
my son's got a Bronco Sport. You know, it's all
the shock vehicles, they're all Fords. They're all American made forwards,
all the Fleet Rangers, f one fifties, Broncos like whole
bit and I'm like ron. Anyone who owns a Ford,
you know that Ford quality built, Ford tough knows that
you wait until there's at least three recalls before you

(21:29):
go in because you're just gonna be You never get
to drive your car. Otherwise you would always be in
for a recall because there's oh my gosh, there's always
a recall and there's never parts. Like my dear shift
selector of my truck doesn't really know that it's in
driver park. So I'm getting a check a service engine
soon light because the truck is really confused. It thinks

(21:49):
I'm driving it like eighty miles an hour down the
Interstate in park. It's like it's like something is not
right here. You should take this in for service. Yeah,
no kidding, I take it in for service. Like, ah,
you're yeah, your shift selector is defective, but we don't
have any of those, so we'll call you as soon
as that part comes in. That was like two months ago.

(22:10):
In the meantime, it just stopped doing it, and it
once in a while does it again. But you know,
when you have a four, you get used to those
things and you savy guys can laugh. It's okay, sor right,
I understand. Four zero two, five, five eight eleven ten
eight eight eight two five zero two zero nine one okay.
So graphics cards are going to be the next thing

(22:30):
that goes into shortage. So for those of you who
have a gamer in your life, if you're still struggling
for that perfect holiday gift, a graphics card upgrade would
be highly desirable. Those of us who live through the
the cryptocurrency era, where graphics cards were used to mine cryptocurrency.
People who were gamers were really upset about that because
it drove the cost of a graphics card from like

(22:52):
four or five six hundred dollars to eight hundred, nine hundred,
one thy twelve hundred dollars in some cases. And now
you're going to see that again, except there is no
mining happening this time. Nvidia is announcing they're going to
cut back production on their ground their own graphics cards.
Why because they need the chips for AI. They can
sell them to AI for way more than they can

(23:14):
sell them to consumers. So therefore, consumers, your graphics cards
are going to be more expensive and there is they're
going to be hard to get going into all of
next year. So from a computer guy perspective, the AI
bubble can't pop too soon, you know, like can we
I'm gonna sell my AI stocks now because I'm actively rooting,

(23:34):
you know, like, yeah, come on, let's go get But
one of the things that this is doing unexpectedly is
the cost of motherboards has come down and the cost
of processors has come down. Now, why is that. If
you're gonna upgrade your computer and you're gonna do it
at home, or you're gonna build it, or you're gonna
do something like that, you usually start off with saying
what processor do I want? And the processor dictates what

(23:58):
motherboard you get because it has to fit in the motherboard.
It's got to be the right socket, it's got to
be the right type. So if you're gonna buy, if
you're gonna upgrade your computer, you're gonna get a new processor.
That means you get a new motherboard. And if you
get a new motherboard. All the new motherboards use the
new DDR five memory. You probably have DDR four memory.
If you're upgrading, it doesn't work in the new motherboards.

(24:19):
That means you have to buy new memory. So now
you're sitting here with you know, calculating all the costs
of what it's gonna cost for you to upgrade your computer,
and you're like, motherboard, processor, and memory. Oh my gosh,
how much for how much for one hundred and twenty
eight gigs of memory or sixty four gigs of memory
for a gaming computer? Seven hundred dollars? Fourteen hundred dollars.

(24:39):
You got to be kidding me. That's more than I
paid for my graphics card. That's more than I pay
for my processor. That's memory is not supposed to be
the most expensive thing you put in a computer, but
right now it is. So what people are doing is
they're choosing not to upgrade their computers or they're choosing
to buy to say, okay, let's go back and look
at that processor. What is the best processor that I

(25:00):
can get that doesn't require me to change my motherboard.
As a result, nope, motherboard sales are down fifty percent
in the last month. In the last thirty days, motherboard
sales have been cut in half, and processors same thing.
No one's buying new processor chips because no one's buying
new motherboards because no one wants to buy memory. As

(25:21):
a result, the prices of motherboards and processors have both
come down. So if you're thinking about doing an upgrade
to your existing computer and you're trying to do it
in line, you're trying to say, what's the best thing
that I can get given the motherboard that I have,
those costs have come down twenty thirty percent, so you
can actually save some money there. It's kind of neat,
but graphics cards are going to be going into shortage
here soon, and that's not a fun thing for anybody

(25:44):
to have to deal with. Four zero two five five
eight eleven ten eight eight eight two five zero two
zero nine to one. The phone lines are popping over here, guys.
We've got a few calls coming in, so we're going
to take a break here to make sure we have
plenty of time for everyone to get their questions, and
so stay tuned with us, guys when we come back.
Firefox extensions seventeen of them found to be delivering malware

(26:04):
directly into your computer through your browser. Google Chrome has
the same problem. And also don't procrastinate your computer purchases.
We're gonna tell you what's happening in the market, especially
if you have Windows ten, what's going on right now
and why you need to get off the X and
make that purchase decision. No matter who you're buying from.
If you're buying from Shock, we love you forever. If
you're buying from a box store or something like that, Hey,

(26:25):
I get it. You know you're gonna make the choices
that you make, but make the choice. Get off the X.
We're gonna tell you about that coming up next on
Compute this.

Speaker 5 (26:34):
Right now, the biggest tech companies in the world are
diverting memory and storage production away from consumer electronics and
into AI chips. That shift is causing a tidal wave
of shortages and price increases. Memory in solid state drives,
the core components of every computer are skyrocketing, and when
the parts go up, the computer prices follow. Rock Innovations

(26:54):
has inventory in store today at pre increased prices. If
you need a new laptop or desktop, don't wait until
after Christmas, when every retailer will be forced to raise
their prices by smart by local shop. Shrock Innovations are
online at Shrockinnovations dot com.

Speaker 3 (27:12):
Update all of your third party apps on your computer
with secure updator. It keeps all your apps running smoothly
and helps block viruses. Download it for free today at
secure updater dot com.

Speaker 6 (27:23):
You know your computer needs modern anti virus, and you
know using a VPN helps protect your identity online. But
did you know that all of that protection could be
useless if you're running outdated programs. We all run common
free software like Adobe Reader, Dropbox, Firefox, and Chrome. Every day.
There are critical security updates for these common programs that

(27:43):
don't get automatically installed for up to two weeks. That's
an eternity in today's world. That's why Shrock created Secure Updata.
Secure update or checks for and installs these critical updates
every eight hours, boosting your antivirus by closing off attack
vectors before they can be used to penetrate your computer.
Go to secure updater dot com and try it for free.

(28:05):
We are so confident in our product we don't even
ask for a credit card to start the trial. Go
to secure updater dot com today and start your fourteen
day trial and enjoy having the peace of mind that
your software is being updated quickly and safely. You will
be shocked at the number of programs that are out
of date on your PC right now. Get your fourteen
day free trial at secureupdater dot com.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
I was trying to explain the Whistling Guy to my
wife and she's like, who's the Whistling Guy? And I
was like, it's the Whistling Guy. I think that's actually
the name of the band, the Whistling Guy. And he
has some of the best bumper music. It's amazing. He
had some really good bumpers. Oh yeah, this guy. This
guy bumps four zero, two, five, five, eight eleven ten.
He's a bump and whistler. The other day, I'm at

(28:58):
the Papillion Service Center. Our front desk calls in sick,
so I'm gonna play front desk in Papillon today. It's fun.
So I get there. I'm a little early, and I
noticed that everyone's tracking salt in from outside, and like,
it's like sixty degrees for Christmas, so why do we
need the salt all over the concrete out there?

Speaker 6 (29:13):
Right?

Speaker 2 (29:13):
Now, so I'm gonna go sweep it off so keep
people from tracking it in so that I don't have
to mop so often. Big brain stuff right there, right,
I know how to dust there you go. Yeah. So,
so I'm cleaning out and the FedEx truck rolls up
and he's got a delivery for us. He's half an
hour before we open. Luckily. I was just there and
this FedEx truck is bumping like I mean, it sounds

(29:35):
like a ghetto blaster on wheels. I mean, if you
painted speakers on the side of this thing, it would
be like a radio station vehicle. I was like what,
And then the guy gets out of the vehicle and
he's got earbuds in, and I'm like, what does the
music follow you in when you do a delivery? Like what?
Why are you wearing noise? Is it that loud in
the FedEx men? You have to wear noise canceling headphones,
but you want to feel the music. I don't understand.

(29:57):
But anyway, I don't know how I got off on
this track, but it was just it was it's crazy,
like people will listen to Yeah, they'll listen to stuff
like this show. It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy for zero, two, five, five, eight, eleven, ten.
Let's get into those phones here, Greg, Welcome to the show.
How can I help you today? On compute this?

Speaker 4 (30:19):
I bought that.

Speaker 7 (30:20):
Excuse me, I bought the Holiday Special and I'm used
to having a little light that comes on when I
hit the capslock. But the is it accurate for me
to say that the Holiday Special keyboard does.

Speaker 4 (30:32):
Not have a light that comes on if you hit
the capslock?

Speaker 2 (30:36):
You know, honestly, I'm going to say in my head,
I have never actually looked at the capslock key on
the keyboard on that. So my guess is because the
keyboard is a backlit keyboard itself on the laptop, that
it's not going to have a light on the key
itself because there's already light coming up from behind the keyboard.

(30:56):
So yeah, I think you might be accurate there. Now,
when you do hit the capslock, you may get an
emblem on the screen that pops up instead of a light,
like indicating that the caps lock key has been depressed.

Speaker 4 (31:07):
But because there's there's no back.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
Light on the Holiday Special laptop, yeah, there there's no there's.

Speaker 7 (31:16):
No light that's coming through the big backlight the keys.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
Yeah, it's got an RGB backlight, like you can choose
the color like it's it is definitely back lighting. Yours
might be turned off. There's a function key you can
hold down function and I believe it's like F five
or F six at the top of the keyboard that
will turn the back light on and off for the keyboard.
Uh so yours might be turned off right now. But
but yeah, it's definitely a backlot keyboard hundred percent.

Speaker 4 (31:43):
Okay, well unless okay, yeah, it's so sophisticated, I can
only run it.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
But that's all right, No, that's that's what we're here for.
The charging ports have really have really like people aren't
used to the USB C charging ports. Uh, how you
you plug it in? One of the charging ports has
a little light bolt beside it, and the other one doesn't.
So if you plug it into the wrong USBC port,
it doesn't charge. So you have to plug it into
the one that's got the lightning bolt in front of it.
It's that's the charging port. Uh. It doesn't have like

(32:10):
a you know, a dedicated like ac adapter whole, you know,
like a like a pre like you'd see it all
your older laptops and Is it.

Speaker 4 (32:18):
Okay just leave the tower or whatever on all the time.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
Yeah, absolutely, it's just fine the if you leave it
plugged in all the time. The Asus UH computers the
Holiday Special actually comes with battery management software to mix
to maximize the life of the battery, the life span
of the battery. It tries to keep the battery charged
at roughly eighty percent all the time, never one hundred,
and never below twenty so that that's what it tries

(32:45):
to do. I don't know, I don't like that. I
like to, you know, if I'm gonna be on battery,
I want to know that I can go the distance
on battery. I want to have one hundred percent if
I go on, if I have to, you know, ditch out,
go to battery. I want one hundred percent power. So
I like to keep my at one hundred percent. But
that's hard on the battery. And so if you want
your battery to last more than eighteen months, you're gonna

(33:06):
let the ASU software do its thing, and you're gonna
be happy with an eighty percent charge. If you're like
me and your boogie like that, and you want to
have that battery at one hundred percent, you're gonna buy
the extended warranty so that when the battery starts to fail,
you can make us replace it for free. That's how
you play that game. But yeah, you can leave it

(33:27):
powered down all the time. The thing I tell my
customers is everybody gets so hung up on what's the
right way to use the battery. How do I do that?
The right way to use the battery is the way
you want to use the computer. Live your life, use
your computer. Let us worry about the technical stuff. That's
why we ask you guys to buy the extended warranties,
not because we make a ton of money. We give
you your money back if you don't use it. But if

(33:48):
you need a battery for that holiday special laptop, and
let's say you do everything right with your battery, congratulations,
at last two and a half years instead of eighteen months,
instead of a year and a half, you get an
extra year. Congratulations, you did everything right. You get one
extra year, and then you get to spend three hundred
bucks on a battery. Buy the warranty for one hundred
and twenty five bucks, please, because you're gonna spend it

(34:09):
on a battery. This is a ten year laptop you're
gonna spend it on a battery. You're gonna We're telling
you you're gonna have an issue sometime in ten years.
It's gonna happen. Have the warranty so that you're protected
from that. Some people do it, some people don't. You know,
there's nothing you can say to those people who don't
buy warranties to get them to do it, aside from
you know, we really appreciate your business and look forward
to seeing you in the next eighteen to twenty four months.

(34:34):
All right, Hey, thank you for the call.

Speaker 4 (34:35):
Greg.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
I really appreciate you joining us today. Have a merry Christmas,
and if I don't talk to you before then a
happy New Year as well. For zero two, five five,
eight eleven ten, Keith, Welcome to the program. I understand
you have a question about computer memory. What can I
do for you on compute this?

Speaker 4 (34:49):
Yeah? What is it?

Speaker 2 (34:51):
Why can't we just put all our memory into the cloud?
Number one and number two?

Speaker 7 (34:56):
I got an upgrade on my phone and now I
can't send pictures to other people because it says it
doesn't have it's undownloadable.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
Interesting. Yeah, I'm not sure about the picture things. You
have an iPhone or an Android.

Speaker 4 (35:15):
I'm sorry say that again.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
Do you have an iPhone or an Android iPhone? Okay,
so I'm not exactly sure why. I know my wife
can send pictures with hers and she's got the you know,
she has the latest iPhone with all the current updates
and everything on it. So I know that it's not
a programmatic thing that Apple is restricting you from sending pictures.
It sounds like that's more of a of a situation
on the device itself. If you have if you have

(35:37):
the time to come in, Keith, if you want to
just bounce into one of the service centers, we can
just take a look at that on the front desk.
We don't really you know, work on phones per se,
but everyone of my employees pretty much has an iPhone,
so they're going to look at that and it'll be
one of those things where the kid grabs your things
and says, oh, yeah, just do this, dad, and you
have no idea what they did, and they hand it
back to you and it just works, and you're left

(35:58):
with like, do I want to understand and what they
did or do I want to just be thankful that
it works and along with my life.

Speaker 4 (36:05):
I will do the ladder.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Most people do.

Speaker 4 (36:10):
Now.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
Regarding the computer memory, there's a difference between memory and storage.
So what we can put in the cloud right now
is storage, and there will come a day someday in
the future where your computer doesn't really have any more
hard drives in it. It doesn't have that storage capacity
because when you turn on your computer, it's going to
boot and it's going to go to the cloud for
even your operating system.

Speaker 7 (36:32):
So what chromebooks do in school kind.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
Of they still run Chrome OS off of a hard
drive inside the computer. So what I'm talking about is
if you were to get rid of the hard drive entirely,
so you just have a ROM chip in there that
says this is I am a computer. Boot and go
to this you know this web address and install my
operating system. Well, now we're basically in subscription computer land,

(36:57):
where you just have a terminal and you're paying a
subscription fee for all the storage and everything else. Your
computer does all of your you know, you're not using
any edge computing. It's not like your processor, like the
Holiday Special, is super rigged out to do AI work itself.
Most of the AI stuff that people do right now
is done in the cloud. But if you're looking five

(37:17):
years into the future, like we are at Trock, we're
seeing that there's not enough data centers, there's not enough power,
there's not enough cloud processing to do the AI stuff
that we're gonna be doing in five years. So they're
gonna be pushing toward what they call edge computer. That
means you're gonna use your own phone, your own computer,
your own device to handle the clock cycles required to

(37:38):
do your AI work. So if you have a piece
of garbage computer or even just an entry level computer,
you're not gonna be capable of doing AI work, and
you're gonna be buying a new computer even though you
don't think you're gonna use AI. Now, trust me, you're
gonna use AI. It's gonna seep. The other day I
pulled in I pulled up a document. It was a PDF,

(37:58):
and I needed it was for it was for the
radio show. I was like, I need to send in
the marketing bill. We had to write a check and
I have a new guy doing accounts payable, so I
wanted to copy the address of our marketing firm off
of the invoice and paste it into the email saying
please send a check in this amount to this address
for the radio stuff. But the invoice they sent me

(38:18):
was a picture. It was a PDF that was a picture.
We've talked about this on the show before. You couldn't
select the stuff on it. So Adobe pops up and says,
would you like to convert this using AI into selectable text?
And I just said let's try this, and I said yes,
And it thought about it for ten or fifteen seconds
using my computer's edge processing power and converted that PDF

(38:39):
document into something that was text. Now I could highlight
and copy and paste out of it, which I couldn't
before because it was a picture. That's an example of
how AI is going to seep into your life and
use your device's capabilities instead of working from the cloud.
So yes, memory and storage are different. Memory is what
allows your computer to make, manage and run stuff from storage.

(39:03):
You're always going to need to have memory. Always storage.
You could offload that to the cloud, but memory not
so much. For zero, two, five, five, eight, eleven, ten.
Real quick, guys, there are seventeen Firefox extensions that are
currently delivering malware to your computer. If you use Firefox,
or if you use Google Chrome for that matter, or Edge.
They have extensions as well, and this has been a

(39:24):
long known problem with Chrome and now of course Edge.
Because Edges is essentially Chrome, it runs all the Chrome extensions.
Firefox can run extensions also. Firefox is widely perceived to
be better than Chrome from a privacy standpoint and better
from a security standpoint. However, when you start putting extensions

(39:44):
in there, the whole game changes. So let me give
you some examples. There are seventeen extensions right now that
are currently active. Like, you could install them right now
as I'm talking to you in your Firefox and they
would deliver malware to your computer inconsist instantly. It's not
like every time it loads it gives you malware. They
do things. They do little things like they the links

(40:05):
that you click on. Sometimes they are affiliate links where
people create content and they say the top gifts for
Christmas this year, and if you click the links, it
takes you to Amazon and like the guy that made
the article gets a nickel for every person that orders,
or something like that. Well, these extensions will hijack those
links so that the criminal guy gets every nickel that
you know. It's dumb stuff like that pop ups, you know,

(40:28):
capturing your passwords, stealing your identity. These are the kind
of things that these extensions can do through your browser.
Number one most commonly like do not do this is
any free VPN software, and I'm specifically talking about free
VPN Forever. It's currently available in the Firefox extensions, and
it will infect the you know what out of your computer.

(40:50):
Free VPN forever. They're free VPNs. Got VPNs cost money
to deliver. I have to have a computer somewhere that's
taking all your traffic and then redirecting it. And if
I have a lot of people using my VPN, I
have to have a lot of computers in a lot
of different places. That's why people pay one hundred bucks
a year for a good VPN. A free VPN forget

(41:11):
about it. That's why Google stopped doing it. It's too expensive.
Any extension that allows you to download a video off
the internet. Anything that allows you to capture a Netflix
show and download it, anything that allows you to grab
a YouTube video and download it. Most of them are
actually malware. Any extension that gives you weather reports. I
don't know why you need a weather report right in

(41:32):
your browser when you could just go to weather dot
com or just look at your phone or whatever. But
if you have an extension that gives you the weather,
it's probably malware. Language translation extensions. Google has a built
in translation function where you can translate just about any
website you go to. It's built right into the browser.
It works very well. Firefox does not have that. So
to replicate that, people will download language extensions. Language translation extensions,

(41:56):
they're malware, most of them. A specific one that allows
you to watch videos online called libretv that is malware.
Do not install libretv. It is not libra office, completely
different thing. Libretv not good. And most of the ad blockers,
specifically one called addsh stop ad stop is malware. It's

(42:17):
currently available, you can download it right now. So the
problem we have is these things don't continuously deliver malware
to your computer, and the extensions themselves are not malicious.
So if an antivirus company starts clipping these things saying
these things are malware, they get sued because these pieces
of software are not malware. What is the malware is

(42:38):
what the makers of these extensions choose to do intermittently
to your computer at random times. Those activities are unauthorized activities.
But this software is not technically considered viruses are malware.
So if you have Norton nanavirus like the Norton three
sixty stuff, or Norton LifeLock, if you have McAfee, if

(42:59):
you have malware bytes, none of these things are going
to be detected as malware because they're technically not malware. So, folks,
the thing that we sell is a different animal. This
is corporate security. This is the same kind of stuff
that like the ConAgra is going to use and the
Department of Defense is going to use to keep their
computers safe. They do not mess around, right. I was like,

(43:25):
careful there. I saw you reaching for that delay button.
You're like, yeah, you don't say it thor they don't
fudge around. Let me tell you no, they they will.
They will. This stuff gets in your computer clipped and
we don't, and we're not we're gonna say it's malware.
We're just gonna say this is a potentially harmful piece
of software that does not comply with your computer's security protocols.

(43:48):
I'm gonna sue you. Feel free. We didn't call you,
we didn't call you a virus. We just said you
didn't comply with our security protocols, and with what you're
doing to people, you can't comply with the security protocols.
So no suit for you. Guys, get sofas. Quit screwing
around with this garbage malware. I know, Hey, I paid
for it. Hey I can run five devices off of it. Great,

(44:09):
you can. This is like saying I pay monthly for
one car and they give me five, but none of
them run. Isn't that a great deal? No, you can't
drive anywhere. It's not a great deal. No, you have
no security if you have this Norton VP or the
Norton three sixty or Norton liflock or McAfee. And yes,
I could be sued for saying that you have no
security if you have those things, because technically it's better

(44:30):
than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.
But I really don't want to get poked in the
eye with a sharp stick. And I really don't want
to get busted for saying O fudge on the radio
because you just won't install good security software. Four zero
two five to five. He reached for the button again.
Four zero two five ey eleven ten eighty eight two
five zero two zero nine to one. You're gonna take
our final break. Guys, when we come back, you're gonna

(44:52):
probably get a gift card for Christmas. Someone is gonna
give you a gift card. They may package it the
way the Lovely Kimberly does with a delicious snap or
a T shirt or something else. More than likely, they're
gonna give you a little paper envelope with a gift
card in it, and it's gonna be a gift card
for something you don't want, and you're gonna have to
pretend like you like it. Well, once you get home
with that gift card that you really didn't want and

(45:13):
you would have rather just had the cash anyway, I'm
going to tell you how you can turn that gift
card into cash in ten minutes or less and keep
eighty five percent of the value of the gift card.
Coming up next on compute this.

Speaker 5 (45:25):
In the last thirty days, the price of computer memory
has jumped over five hundred percent. Why manufacturers are shifting
production from consumer electronics to AI data center chips. That
means that the cost of laptops, desktops, phones, tablets, all
of it is about to surge, and once the increase hits,
experts don't expect relief until after twenty twenty seven. If

(45:46):
you're even thinking about a new computer, now is the time.
Tarroc Innovations has the systems you need before the price
is high. Get the computer you want at the price
you want while you still can visit Sharroc Innovations or
shop online at Shrockannovations dot com.

Speaker 3 (46:03):
Now you can configure and purchase laptops, desktops, tablets, and
more all at the Newshrock innovations dot com. Check out
our specials for one of a kind discounts and deals.

Speaker 6 (46:14):
You would probably rather drink the water at Camp La
June than get another call about the desperate need to
renew your cars expiring warranty. Who actually responds to those calls.
Everyone wants to play the warranty game where you pay
money now just in case you need service later that
everyone hopes you won't neet or use. It's such a waste.
It's no different with computers. Major manufacturers warranties have more

(46:37):
subscript crosses than a Sunday morning church service. Batteries are exempt.
Hard dripes must be completely dead and forget about anything
that they can remotely clean us physical damage. That's why
Shrock warranties are different. When you purchase a module or
PC or a solid state laptop and extend your warranty,
we offer a no risk money back guarantee if you

(46:57):
need the warranty, you will be thrilled to have that
if you don't use it, and we refund your money
automatically every time. That's right. We are so confident in
the quality of our products that are extended warranties are refundable.
Many Shock customers use their refunds to purchase another warranty
or pocket the savings and move on. We all know
you'll need it to cover that expiring car warranty anyway.

(47:20):
Shocks refundable extended warranties just another way the Shrock Innovations
computer company makes your computer work for you.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
All right, guys, welcome back to me. Sorry, I got
distracted by something on the TV up there. I'm like
types of hair loss, but is this like a news
story like to today in the news the three types
of hair loss. We have thinning, we have non scarring
thinning that's reversible, by the way, and then now it's gone,
so I can non scarring like so if you lose

(47:53):
your hair scarring because it's scar like. Is that why
new hairs can't get through? There's a scar and the
I don't know. These are the things you're talking to
the wrong. I think we need to talk to a herologist.
Isn't that what they're called? I don't know. An optometrist
works on eyes, A herologist, A dermatologist works on your dermis, right,
A follcologist that actually sounds like it could be a thogist.

(48:16):
I don't know what what is a hair doctor called.
I don't know, a hairstylist. I don't know. Four zero two.
These are This is why there is an aftershock, guys,
because things like the questions like this pop up and
it's like squirrel and then thor goes down a rabbit
hole and then before you know what, we're talking about
ukraine or something and that that's that's not what this
show is about. So after this program, we're going to

(48:38):
have an aftershock. It will be the final aftershock of
twenty twenty five. It is going to be an ask
me anything after shocks, So you know, I'll basically I've
got no plan. It's it's it's gonna be a ramble.
And so I'm gonna go in. I'm gonna say this
is what I'm seeing, this is this is what I'm
this is what I'm feeling like. I was talking to
my wife the other day and I said, you know,
do you just have that feeling that there's something not right?

(49:02):
Like maybe it's just me and what's going on with
everything in the in the world and the insurance claims
for the Lincoln Shop and all this other stuff. But
it's just like it feels like there's this thin veneer
on society and it's getting thinner and thinner every day,
and everything kind of feels fake, doesn't it. Like you're
looking at what's going on in the world around you
and you're like, this doesn't make sense, Like this AI

(49:25):
bubble doesn't make sense. This economy doesn't make sense. Like
why is silver rocketing up to seventy dollars an ounce
for no apparent reason when interest is under control? Everything
is fine, you know, I'm hearing the lego. Everything is awesome,
you know, and everybody's going about their business and let's
have a great Christmas. And you know, there's a K
shape economy. I don't know what that means, but hey,
k what's wrong with the letter K. You know K

(49:47):
is great, Okay, It's part of the best word in
the you know in the English language. That's what we
talk about on the Aftershock. And we're gonna have the
last one of twenty twenty five coming up. After the
conclusion of this program, will end this broadcast and start
another one, usually five or six minutes for a reset.
You can find the broadcast at Facebook dot com slash
shrock Innovations. Of course, your phone may not alert you,

(50:09):
your Facebook may not alert you that if the broadcast
has started. You can manually look for it at Facebook
dot com slash shrock Innovations. On your computer, the F
five key is refresh. If you're on a phone, just
drag down from the top of the screen and it'll
refresh the page. And when it starts, it'll pop up
and say it's live right now, and you can just
tap on it and watch it. Good stuff for zero, two, five, five,

(50:31):
eight eleven ten. So really quickly, before we get into
the gift card story about how you can sell those
unwanted gift cards for cash this holiday season, I want
to remind you what you can do with that cash
and do the thing you need to do is not procrastinate.
If you are one of these people who is still
using Windows ten for whatever reason. If you have a computer,

(50:54):
you know, I got Scott here in the chat telling
me that, you know, his solid state laptop is running
slower than ever. But Scott hasn't had a maintenance checkup
that I can see in a very long time, and
I'm like, the maintenance checkups are real, they actually are good.
We're going to check your computer out now that it's
in the service center for this Win boot bad. There's
a bad update going around that's causing people's computers to

(51:14):
boot loop forever, and we're seeing a lot of it
in the service center. Yes, we're going to evaluate that
walle it's in there, and if you need a little
bit more memory, or if you need a little bit
bigger hard driver, if you're something in your computer that's
not functioning properly, especially if it's under warranty, we test
everything when we see your computer, and if there's anything
that needs to be replaced, we just fix it and

(51:34):
then we tell you about it. But we just fix
it and it doesn't cost you anything because it's under warranty.
So so yeah, it's one of those things where we
definitely want to keep that stuff protected. Because number one,
if you don't have the computer that you want right now,
the computer that you want tomorrow is going to be
a lot more expensive. So by the computer that you
want right now, right now, if you can, it's going

(51:56):
to be cheaper now than it will be next year,
or you're going to get more computer now for the
same price then you'll get next your Just like the
cereal boxes, like they can make the box smaller or
put the smaller bag of cereal inside the box, more
air in the bag. Whatever computer guys can do the
same thing to your computer. We can sell you the
same computer for the same price with a little bit
less memory in it. So that's what's gonna happen next year.

(52:19):
So by now. Second thing is is if you have
a modular computer from shock or a solid state laptop,
keep it under warranty because you're gonna you would be
very thankful if something goes wrong, because the prices are
getting stupid on all this stuff, all right. So if
you have one of those gift cards that you get
for Christmas, that even if it's beautifully packaged and you
didn't want it, there are lots of websites that you

(52:40):
can go to to change that gift card into cash,
but which ones pay the best and do it quickly
for you? So there's basically five big ones out there,
but the most popular one is a website called Raise
Raise r ai s e Raise like to Raise up
Raise and card cash are the two most popular ones.

(53:00):
They usually are going to take about fifteen percent of
the value of the gift card as a fee, so
you're gonna lose fifteen percent off the top. But you
can sell the gift card and get cash in your
PayPal account or your venmo in as little as ten minutes,
and you can You don't have to mail the gift
card in. It's all digital, so you type in the codes,
it checks the value online, sends it in and boom,
You've got yourself eighty five percent of the cash in

(53:22):
your bank account ready to spend on your new modular
computer or solid state laptop. It's that easy, guys. So
so yeah, if you get one of those gift cards,
that's how you can turn it into cash on the
website Raise or card Cash. Today's winner is Keith. Congratulations Keith,
you got yourself a twenty five dollars gift certificate that
you can't sell for cash, but you can use it
at shock for anything you want. And we'll see you

(53:43):
all again next week for another edition of Compute This