Compute This 3-9-2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Shrock Innovations presents the midwest number one independent computer repair
company with service centers and Lincoln, Omaha, Papillion, Des Moines
and across the country via the Shrock Desk. This is
compute this.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good morning, folks, and welcome in to compute this.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
My name is Thor Schrock. I'm the owner of the
Shrock Innovations computer company. We are here live, that's right live.
You know they keep saying the daylight savings time is
going away.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Every year we hear this.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Oh, the Senate wants passed the bill to get rid
of it.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
The House wants passed the bill to get rid of it.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
They can never get together and pass the bill at
the same time to get rid of it. But maybe now,
I don't know, maybe you know. Daylight savings time was
originally implemented as a wartime energy saving effort. We wanted
to make sure we were saving the energy that our
critical war machine in World War One and World War
Two needed to win the war, and so daylight savings

(00:59):
time was on mened to basically make sure the humans
were sleeping when you know, when the sun was not up,
so that you wouldn't use as much energy trying to
work at night, I guess, But now I mean, I'm
looking at my my eighteen year old son, and he
pretty much games through the night anyway. So I don't
know if daylight Saving Time is saving anyone any energy

(01:20):
or not. You know, I'm pretty sure that one in videographics,
card playing, you know, you know, Call of Duty is
using more energy than all the farmhouses of nineteen twenty
nine combined. I don't know, but yeah, either way, I'm
pretty tired. So if you're here with us this morning,
welcome in. I appreciate you being here live with us.
And you know, honestly, it was kind of odd because
I was driving in this morning and there was more

(01:41):
traffic on the road than there normally would be on
a Sunday morning at this time, at normal time. So
either there's a lot more people out earlier on Sunday
mornings and I'm just threatening the needle, or I don't.
I don't know what's going on, but all the same, guys,
I'm glad you're here with us, and we are here
live with you as well. Now you can join the
program as well. There are some ways that you can
do that. Primarily, you can give us a call four

(02:03):
zero two five five eight eleven ten is the number
to join us on the program. Four zero two five
five eight eleven ten. You can also call us toll
free if you're outside of the metro area at eight
eight eight two five zero two zero nine one eight
eight eight two five zero two zero nine one. I'm
going back and forth because I am pretty tired, so

(02:24):
I'm not sure if we're gonna do an after shock
today or soon. But Bill got me talking and then
I was like, no, no, there, there's these are questions
to be asked, there's a good there's a good discussion
to have here around this and whatever I aim to please. Yeah,
it's Bill saving you the after shock Right there. I
was like, I'm if I do have If I do it,
it'll have to be a short one because my wife

(02:44):
needs me to help frame a wall, my kid wants
to watch Iron Man two, my other kid wants to
go to eighty eight TAC and go shooting, and I
just want to nap. So I don't know what's going
to happen today, but I do know what happened last
week on the program. Last week, if you missed the show,
you can pick it up. Shock Innovations dot com. Just
click on radio show there. At two fifty two a m.
I received a critical email from Facebook this morning. This

(03:07):
is important for all of you watching at Facebook dot
com slash Shroc Innovations, all eighteen of you who actually
moved your clocks and got up. But you know you
don't worry about it because oh, even if I oversleep,
I can watch thor on Facebook anytime.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Later.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Well, I got an email that Facebook is now only
keeping live broadcasts for thirty days and then they're throwing
them out. So yeah, they're gonna delete every Facebook live
that was ever done on Facebook starting at the end
of this month, so they're gonna go back at anything
that's more than thirty days old just stops existing, So
that's good to know. Luckily, we have all of our
shows downloaded and then saved at Shrocannovations dot com. Click

(03:45):
on radio show. You can watch them there anytime. But
if you're gonna watch them live on Facebook, you can't
go longer than a month. So if you're rip Vamwinkle
and you're gonna sleep for the next month, you know
you're gonna miss something unless you go to Facebook dot
com Slashroc Innovations now or later on go to shroc
Innovations dot com. But last week on the program we
did launch officially launched the twenty twenty five Preventative Maintenance

(04:06):
Checkup Sale. This is a sale that we do every year, guys,
and we try to do it. We try to space
it out because when you come in for a maintenance
check on your computer. Number One, we have customers who
do maintenance like clockwork and their computers they tend to run. Really,
we had a caller last week who called in and said, yeah,
I didn't know everything seemed to be fine. It just
brought it in for regular maintenance. They found this. They

(04:27):
found that, and you know, instead of telling me all
it was going to be, you know, three four hundred
dollars to fix everything, turns out I have this warranty
that I bought that I kind of forgot I had,
and Shock just fixed it all for free.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
He didn't even know he had a warranty. And we
still honored. He was like, Hey, you have a warranty,
let's honor this thing. You know, when does that happen
when you go someplace? Number one who encourages you to
keep your computer running longer than eighteen months. You know,
Dell doesn't do that. HP doesn't do that. Sony, Samsung,
you know, they don't even want you to keep your
phone for eighteen month. It's let alone a computer. You know,

(05:02):
at Shock, when you buy one of our modular computers
or solid state laptops, you're getting six years up up
to six years out of them rather than eighteen months easily,
four years easily. And it's because of the way they're
constructed and the parts they're made from, and the fact
that people who buy computers from Shock tend to also
maintenance them, and other people who buy hps and Dells
and things like that, they tend to not maintenance them.

(05:23):
Sometimes it's because they say, well, this is a really
cheap computer and I don't really care breaks, I'll just
buy a new one. And you know, I guess that's legit.
That's our disposable culture that we live in today. But
you know legit now though, if you're going to buy
a new one, as we covered last week on the program,
it's going to cost you a little bit extra. The
tariffs are impacting pricing on hardware. We're seeing first off

(05:44):
it hit us on power supplies, we haven't seen it
on other components yet, we're seeing it on a memory
availability of all the weird things. Manufacturers are stopping the
manufacture of eight gig DDR five modules. So if you
want to put eight gigs of DDR five memory in
your computer, you can't. You have to put sixteen in instead.
The argument being that you know, people who have DDR

(06:06):
five computers probably already have sixteen gigs around. They're not
putting eight additional gigs in. They're probably just going to
put another sixteen or thirty two or sixty four or
whatever in, so we don't need to make these small modules.
It's kind of the same thing that happened to the
four gigabyte module and the two gigabyte module before that.
They're starting to phase out because nobody needs them anymore, unless,
of course, you're buying a bunch of you know, laptops

(06:28):
and desktops that come with memory in them, and then
you're swapping it out for actually good memory, fast memory. Well,
now you know, if you can't get eight gig sticks,
you got to put sixteen gig sticks in. What's the
difference between an eight gig stick and a sixteen gig stick?
You guessed it price sixteen gig costs twice as much
to make because of the chips. And so whether it

(06:49):
be tariffs, whether it be you know, the change of
the manufacturing because importing the smaller sticks doesn't make sense anymore.
And the fact that we just don't make this stuff
in America, guys, we don't. This week, we had a
caller some of the minis that we sell. It's really
interesting because if you go to the website for Blink
that manufactures the mini that we modify, you'll find that

(07:10):
they are a London based company. Pretty good, right, and
you dig. One guy called in and said, aren't you
concerned these things are made in China. I'm like, well,
if you're afraid of something being made in China, well,
you know, good luck to you. You know, I've seen
a lot of videos of people going through their kitchen
cupboards looking for anything made in Canada and not finding anything.
But you can find a lot of things made in

(07:31):
Mexico in your in your cabinet. And of course everybody
went through fresh fruits like they're like, oh, my avocados
and my big grapes are from Chile, you know, and
all this other stuff but nobody stopped and said where
are your computer's manufactured? A lot of people say, well, China.
Well a lot of them are manufactured in Mexico, but
b Link is actually manufactured in Europe. That's how they

(07:53):
get the high end chips that they can't export to China.
But it is a Chinese owned company. So no matter
how when you dig down into the things you buy
in the supply chain, somewhere, you're going to find some China.
It's going to be there. So as we work towards this,
this this dream, this process of on shoring our industry
again getting you know, Taiwan Semiconductor is going to open

(08:15):
four new plants in America. Now, as we work toward
building that back up again, there's going to be some
short term disruption, some short term pricing instabilities. You're seeing
it in the stock market, you're seeing it in crypto,
you're seeing it all over the place. Well, that's going
to happen while this process sorts itself out.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Into a new normal.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
The reason I'm bringing all this up right now is
because when it comes to maintenance, maintenance is keeping what
you have now running the way you want it to run.
So you don't have to buy another one. I do
understand if you bought a four hundred or five hundred
dollars PC, you're really even on sale, you know, sixty sixty.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
Bucks for a maintenance checkup. You don't want to spend that.
I get it.

Speaker 3 (08:58):
But we are not just talking about buying a new computer,
as we're going to talk about in the program today.
When you go to buy that new version, guess what,
Your Microsoft Office is no longer compatible with your new computers.
It was compatible with your old computer, but now they
turned off the activation service for that license and you
can't activate it again, So now you have to buy
a new one. I sure hope you weren't using this

(09:19):
one Microsoft program that is being retired Last week it
was Skype. This week they're killing another fan favorite. We're
going to get to that coming up on the program today.
So then you find out, oh, I have to buy
a new copy of Office too. Well, Shoot, the computer
was only four hundred dollars or five hundred dollars or
six hundred dollars, but Office was like three hundred dollars. Shoot,

(09:40):
maybe I should just get three sixty five and pay
every month for the rest of my life instead maybe,
And then you know, you want to get your stuff
off your old computer and transferred onto your new computer.
But then you find out that the way the new
computer is structured is different than the way the old
computer was structured.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
So is your stuff.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
Actually on the computer or is it on like one
drive or some other place where you don't know?

Speaker 2 (10:03):
Is it in the cloud? Is it on the computer?
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (10:06):
Well, when we transfer all that to your new computer,
you know, we move it all over to the computer,
so it's all moved the way and it works the
way it did before. When you get a new computer
and it says, oh, do you want to transfer your
one drive files? And you say sure, and you sign
into your Microsoft account. Well, if it's in your one drive, great,
it transferred. If it's not in your one drive, it
was on your hard drive, Sorry it didn't transfer. So,

(10:28):
I mean, there's there are so many variables that go
into buying a new computer, not to mention the fact
that when you get the new machine, the hardware difference
is is it compatible with your printers? You know, all
the things that go through your you know, you don't
think about when you buy the new computer. By the
time most people are done buying a new computer. They're
spending close to one thousand dollars. And what we're saying
is for like sixty five bucks, we can maintain what

(10:49):
you have so you don't have to spend that thousand
dollars that I know in your head you're only saying
is four or five six hundred bucks. I get it,
But you know, and so maybe you don't do it
every six months. Maybe you say you know thor I
hear you preaching.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
I hear you.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
I'm in the pews. I know what you're saying. But
I'm not gonna do that every six months on a
four hundred dollar computer. It's just not gonna happen. So
do it once a year, you know. Do We have
several customers who if I was your dentist, I would
be like I would be, you need to go buy
some some gental insurance because you're gonna need some rook canals.

(11:26):
It's gonna be painful in October. We're talking mega pain
when you haven't bought a computer for years and years
and years, and all of a sudden and you haven't
upgraded your printers, and you haven't upgraded your routers and
you haven't done anything else your technology picture. And then
in October Microsoft kills Windows ten. And when it's gone,

(11:47):
then you're gonna buy a new computer. And then everything
I just told you is gonna happen to you. You're
gonna need a router, you're gonna need a printer, You're
gonna need office. You're not gonna get all the programs
you used to have. You're gonna get You're gonna pay
the same amount for Office, but you're gonna get less
software than you can before.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
It's kind of like inflation in a way.

Speaker 3 (12:02):
Don't know. Inflation is back, by the way. So of course,
whatever you're buying six eight, nine months from now is
going to cost more than it does today. There is
the possibility that tariffs can impact that price, whether that
be a temporary increase or a one time increase, or
or whatever the case might be. There is the potential
for having a price impact there. So the odds are

(12:22):
what you're going to buy six eight months from now
is going to be more year from now is going
to be more expensive than it costs today. So why
not take care of what you have, stretch the value
of that thing. You know, everybody talks about how inflation
is the is the silent tax. It steals your purchasing
power every single year at a compounding rate. How can

(12:43):
you beat that? Will become less disposable. I mean, our
grandparents knew this. Become less disposable. My grandmother she grew
up during the depression, and I mean she would she'd
get she'd buy a loaf of wonderbread and we would
all eat the bread. And then she would have a
plastic bag left over that said Wonder on the side,
and she would turn it inside out and she would

(13:04):
wash it in the sink, and she would hang it
up on a clothed line and let it dry. She
had so many Wonder bags that the words Wonder were
wearing off the sides of the bag. Now, of course,
now we know about microplastics and all this stuff. You
don't want to reuse one time use plastic bags, Graandma.
Don't boil eggs in them either, That's not a good idea.
You know, just just don't do those things. You know,
the Dead Scout camp. Let's do eggs in a bag.

(13:26):
And you know, you go to great value and buy
like the ninety nine cent box of bags that disintegrate
in hot water.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
That's not a good plan. Don't do that.

Speaker 3 (13:34):
So our grandparents knew how to be frugal and make
their purchasing power last longer, But as our society has
become more disposable, and honestly, I'm guilty of this too.
You know, did I need a new smart watch this year?
Was my old smart watch not telling time anymore? Or
was it just not as smart as I needed it
to be. Does my new smart watch do things that
my old smart watch didn't do?

Speaker 4 (13:56):
Not?

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Really?

Speaker 3 (13:57):
No, I probably could have put it off for another year.
Do you buy a new cell phone every year? Do
you try to make it two years before you buy one?
Do you even buy a new cell phone every two years?
I know some of you are rocking that crack screen
for like eighteen months, thinking I maybe next month I'll
replace it. So don't treat your computers any different. There's
some guys. Some of the things that we've seen coming
from maintenance have been atrocious. Like you know, people who

(14:19):
keep an immaculate house, They're like, was it really dusty
in there? And I mean we're blowing out dust bunnies.
It looks it looks like a Western blowing across the
surface of the benches. We're using the vacuum, and we're
just like, no, it's fine, it was great. You know,
there's some there's some dust. We cleaned it out, you know,
nothing major. But you know, the computer, the inside of
your computer is probably one of the dirtiest places in
your house because no one ever cleans it. Want to

(14:40):
find a dirty thing in the hospital, go look in
the back of one of their computers. Nobody ever cleans that.
I don't know what hospital. What are hospitals? They got
people doing it maintenance. What are they doing? I don't know.
So we're gonna talk on the program today about Microsoft
killing this new program, that it's not a new it's
actually a old program. It's almost thirty years old that

(15:02):
everybody kind of loves. Additionally, I found out this week
that those of you who don't do the streaming thing,
you want to have your collection of DVDs on the
shelf so you own the movie, so you can play
the movie any flipp in time you want, and no
one can take it away from you. It's people who
want paper books. They don't want to do ebooks. All

(15:22):
that there's a problem with your DVDs called laser rot
I had never heard of this before, but I'm going
to tell you which DVDs are impacted by this and
how you can possibly get them exchanged for new DVDs
that are not rotting. Did they just stop working? Can
you imagine your DVD just dying that the disc itself,
it just stops working. Also, Google Chrome has been upgrading.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
Yeah, that's right. So Google Chrome says, you know, you like.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
To put all these add ons in your browser, And
one of the ones that we recommend heavily at Shrock
is you block Origin. You block Origin blocks all the
pop ups that you see on your screen. It's not
going to work in Google Chrome. Soon, we're going to
tell you what's going on there and what you can
do about that, and why you might actually get more
pop ups because you're getting an upgrade. Isn't this great?
So we had a lot to cover on the program today.

(16:11):
Four zero two, five, five, eight eleven ten is the
number to join us. We're going to take a quick
break here when we come back less your call is
coming up next on compute.

Speaker 5 (16:18):
This shock innovations. Solid state laptops are engineered locally for
speed and reliability. You just can't get from the major
national brands. Each of our laptops starts off with an
A ZOOS chassis. We remove the stock drives and memory
and upgrade them with higher performing components. This unlocks the
full potential of the laptop, making the unit up to

(16:38):
twenty five percent faster. This is why Shock solid state
laptops last so much longer than the competition. If your
laptop starts out twenty five percent faster, that means over
time it doesn't slow down nearly as fast.

Speaker 4 (16:52):
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 update dot com.

Speaker 5 (17:03):
When your computer has a warranty and you have a problem,
don't call the manufacturers for help, call Shrock Innovations. Shrock
will contact HP, Dell, a Zeus, Samsung, or any other
manufacturer to arrange a warranty repair at no cost to you.
We know how these companies work. We know the loopholes
and the tricks to get your system repaired under warranty

(17:25):
as quickly as possible. Even so, manufacturers can take up
to twenty one days to fix your computer. We'll give
you the option of a fast local repair in one
of our service centers, or provide you with a loner
laptop to use while you wait. We can even back
up your data before we ship your computer, just in
case the warranty fix includes a hard drive wipe. Throck

(17:45):
tests your computer when it comes back from repair to
ensure the problem was solved properly and all of your
hardware works like new. There's a reason Shrock Innovations has
consistently voted the best in town. Whenever you need help,
wherever you need it, truck and makes your computer work
for you.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
Alrighty folks, we got some requests coming in at Facebook
dot com slash Shock Innovations where people are starting to
wake up. We're up to twenty seven viewers there. Thomas
is asking how is the drive Advisor release coming? And
I want to let everybody I do have an update
on this. We have finalized the the base code for
version two of drive Advisor. It is going to be
released in the coming week. Everything seems to be working

(18:29):
perfect with it. We've got all the bugs ironed out
where you're going to change the interface up. We're going
to redesign the interface because I just I'm not happy
with it. But right now is not the time to
pick about how it looks. We're just gonna deal with
how it works. We want it to work, and then
we're gonna work on how it looks pretty. And so
you know, it's beauty's on the inside, right, and so
we're gonna we're gonna deal with that. So we got
the code finished, we had a test build. The test

(18:51):
build did great. The only problem is it wasn't assigned
test build. You know, when you when you build software,
you have to have a signature, like a certificate that
says this is a legit piece of software from Schrock
Innovations and it allows it to get through anti virus
scanners and things like that. So because we're trusted, so
when you're building the test builds, you don't sign them.
And so antivirus was flagging it listening is doing virus

(19:13):
like activity because it's checking your hard drives and stuff.
And so obviously we just programmed all the antivirus to
ignore it on the test machine so that we could
just test it. And so we went to build the
final version. We have the code finished, we build the
version it builds just fine. We sign it, it's signed
great by Schrock Innovations. You click install and it goes
boom and it blows up. We're like, the only thing
we did different was sign the frickin' program.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
What is going on?

Speaker 3 (19:36):
So we're actually digging through that right now with our
signature service to make sure that our Komodo certificate for
some reason is blowing up Drive Advisor. We're trying to
figure out why. So that is what has stopped us
from having that launched this week guys. So I would
anticipate that we're going to have that launched pretty quickly
for you here, so stay tuned for that. If you
have a current copy of drive Advisor, no matter how
old it is or new it is, it will automatically

(19:58):
update to the new version of drive Advisor. Also, if
you have secure updater, your secure updator will also update
your version of drive Advisor to get you the most
recent copy that's available as well. So we're going to
make sure that everybody gets that and you will hear
on this show and all over the place. Probably send
a mass email to just let you know, hey, it's free,
it's available. If you don't have it on your computer,
you can install it. If you do have it, you're

(20:19):
going to see it update when something changes. This is why,
you know, because people kind of freak out when things
change on their computer. Four zero two, five, five, eight
eleven ten less. Welcome to the program. How can I
help you on compute this today?

Speaker 6 (20:32):
I run Firefox YEP and Mozilla offered me a VPN,
and so I'm wondering if that's a good VPN or
does Shock offer something different? And I do have a
Shock computer.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Sure, well, thank you for that.

Speaker 3 (20:54):
Yeah, so Mozilla does offer a VPN service and I'm
looking at it right now. It cost it's an annual subscription.
The annual is five dollars a month plus tax sixty
bucks a year. So sixty bucks a year is not
terrible for a VPN. I use Express VPN and it's

(21:14):
kind of one of those things where Express VPN is
a company that's owned by a guy who used to
be a hacker. So a lot of people are like,
you know, would you really trust this hacker guy you
with your security? And on one hand, I totally understand
what you're saying, But then there was if you don't know,
if you remember this. There was this TV show like
How to Catch a Thief, and it was a criminal
who said, this is how I would break into your house.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
Oh, you have a big dog. You know what I'd do.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
I break into your kitchen and I open your refrigerator
and I open the meat drawer and I throw it
on the floor and then I rob you while your
dog eats the meat. So it's like, this is how
I rob your house, and I can rob. People would
challenge him, they'd say, you can't break into my house,
and they'd send him like a challenge, and he would
come randomly to these people's houses and just break into
them and then show them like a video it and
everything was a whole TV show.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
So it's kind of like that.

Speaker 3 (21:58):
If you want to have a good a good sect
security piece of software, the best guy to write it
is actually somebody who's broken into your software before, because
he knows how to get in. So I don't know.
ExpressVPN works really well for me. It also allows me
to connect to multiple servers across the country, including inside
the United States. The big problem that you have with
VPNs is always speed, and so the cheaper the VPN is,

(22:20):
the fewer servers they utilize. Typically, so ExpressVPN is often
ranked one of the fastest VPNs when that's enabled on
my phone, especially if I'm connected to someplace outside the country,
like if I'm doing crypto stuff and so I need
to be connected to like Singapore or Hong Kong or
something like that. When I'm connected outside the country, my
phone noticeably lags, like my device is noticeably slower on

(22:43):
the Internet, Like if I try to load a web
page or try to reload my email, I have to
I can count to ten before my email refreshes. If
I do it on my computer connected locally, it refreshes instantly,
and so going from instant to a ten second delay
is pretty substantial. If I have the fastest rate service
you can have, and I pay about one hundred and
ten dollars a year for it, so it's about double

(23:04):
what the Mozilla one costs. Regardless of that, the purpose
of a VPN is to protect your identity, to protect
your privacy. The VPN prevents any man in the middle
from knowing what you're accessing. So a lot of people
call it a man in the middle attack because you
are going to a website and some guy in the
middle intercepts your request to get the website and then says, oh,

(23:25):
you want to look at You're trying to look at ESPN.
You want to get some sports scores. Okay, we're going
to mark you down as a sports interested person. And
then they go to ESPN, they grab the sports statue wanted,
and they pass them back to you. From your perspective,
you don't even know what happened. But there's a man
in the middle watching everything you do. And everybody has
a man in the middle watching everything they do. In fact,
there's two of them. One of them is your internet

(23:45):
service provider, who buy law is required to keep a
record of every single thing you access on the Internet
for ninety days. The second one is the US government,
who can tap into those records with or even without
a warrant that you know about to get the data
from the internet service provider. So if you don't want
that data out there, In other words, if you're a criminal, right,

(24:06):
you're trying to hide your tracks, less I know what
you're doing. Then you get a VPN and now all
of a sudden, all your Internet service provider knows is
you got a request that went to Mozilla and then
Mozilla sent you some data back and it was all encrypted,
and they don't know anything. They don't know what you
looked at. They don't know how you looked at it.
They don't know how long you looked at it.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
They don't know.

Speaker 3 (24:26):
And so then when it's time to you know, when
the government comes as snooping, they look at what you're doing,
and they don't know you're a conservative trying to get
conservative news.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
You know, they can't track you down.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
So unfortunately, we live in a world where whether it's
your own government, you know, especially if you have other
foreign governments, whether it is a foreign government or a
foreign actor, whether it is a criminal, there are lots
of people looking to invade your privacy, and a VPN
is one way that you can use to protect your privacy. Now,
Schrock doesn't make a VPN, We don't offer a VPN

(24:57):
a lot of times. If you have an iPhone, for example,
you probably don't even know this. If you use Safari,
all of your traffic is being routed through Apple dot com.
Apple is effectively your VPM when you use Safari. So yeah,
I mean it's built, it's built into the product, it's
part of their encryption package. So a lot of a
lot of this privacy protection stuff is getting more and
more accepted. It used to be, you know, people would say, well,

(25:19):
if you're not a criminal, you don't have anything to
worry about. And then all of a sudden everybody realized
over the last four years especially, it just depends on
how you define criminal. Sometimes praying outside an abortion clinic
can make you a criminal. And so it just depends
on you know, how do you how do you define criminal?

Speaker 6 (25:36):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (25:36):
And so all of a sudden people realize that maybe
it would just be better if my business stayed my
business and my side. Literally it was it was the UK,
I think that that passed the law that said it's
illegal to pray in your house about certain things. If
they find out what's what you're praying about that in
your own home, they can charge you with a crime.

(25:58):
It's like, it's like thoughtful stuff. Well, your first defense
against that ever happening down that slippery slope is a VPN,
not for prayers. God, God doesn't need encryption.

Speaker 6 (26:12):
Okay, So Mozilla.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
Is not that bad, right, Oh no, not at all, Mozilla,
as as far as browsers go, I like I use
Mozilla a lot. I've seen some articles that they might
be slipping a little bit on the privacy front because unfortunately,
you know, they're primarily funded by Google, so that's where
they get their money. But I mean, if you're if
you're worried about Google and you know, use Chrome like
everybody else, Well, you have your own problems there with Chrome.

(26:35):
So Firefox gives you a one degree of separation and
then and the VPN gives you a second degree. So
it's kind of nice if it's you know, if it's
controlled by Mozilla. I suppose you're you're trusting Mozilla to
keep your data safe, but you've got to trust somebody
and you're paying for it. If you're getting a VPN
for free from somebody, If that's the case, I would
not trust that as far as I could throw it,
because nobody, nobody gives it away for free. There is

(26:57):
no free lunch. So they're making their money somewhere. Maybe
they're aggregating the data and selling it. You know, these
are people who are running VPNs and think they're safe,
and this is what you know. Less is interested in
sports scores, so it could be something like that. So
as long as you're paying for it less, I think
you're in good shape.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
All right, Hey, thanks for the call.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
I appreciate you joining us for zero, two, five, five, eight, eleven,
ten is a number if you'd like to be like
less and get in that drawing for a twenty five
dollars Shock Innovations Gift certificate real quick before we go
to break. Laser rot is coming for your prized DVD collection.
What is laser rot? Well, it's a condition that afflicts DVDs.
We're over time, the DVD surface, the media surface area degrades.

(27:40):
DVDs are literally burned with a laser. There's a little
it's basically a little thin piece of foil inside of
a plastic shell. The laser light goes through the plastic
and basically burns the foil in a pattern that can
be read by the computer that then or by a
DVD player that then puts a picture on your screen.
So if that foil starts to degrade, so it can't

(28:02):
be read anymore effectively, it's like scratching the plastic. If
the laser shoots its laser light through the plastic and
the laser light scatters because there's a scratch, it can't
read the foil. If it can't read the foil, you
can't play the DVD. Looks like this impacts primarily Warner
Brothers DVDs, So any DVD made by Warner Brothers, specifically

(28:22):
between two thousand and six and two thousand and eight
was a real bad year for this. All DVDs can degrade,
but these from two thousand and six in two thousand
and eight are very susceptible to this. Blu rays and
hddvds are not impacted. So this is just your standard
DVD disc that is impacted by this. Now, Warner Brothers
will replace these discs for you under certain conditions. Those

(28:43):
conditions are number one, they still are making the DVD,
so they're not going to go make you a new
DVD when they don't make the movie anymore. And if
they're not putting it out on DVD anymore, then you
just can't. If it's in the vault, you can't get
a new one, and they still have the rights to
make the DVD for it. So sometimes some of these
older movies, especially the Warner Brothers, the old the Looney
Tunes collections, the og Looney Tunes collections that were put

(29:06):
on DVD. Those were done during two thousand and six
and two thousand and eight, and so all your old
school cartoons from when you were a kid, all your
old black and white movies that were done by Warner
Brothers back in the day that they put on DVD,
all those DVDs were done during two thousand and six
in two thousand and eight, and they are at huge risk.
So if you have old movies, you have old cartoons
on DVD as part of your collection, take a look

(29:27):
at at the disc and if they're Warner Brothers, you
might want to check out. Just do a quick search
for Warner Brothers and Laser rot. They have a website
where you can actually go to request a replacement DVD
to replace that disc that's rotting away on you for
zero two five five eight eleven ten eight eight eight
two five zero two zero nine to one. Taking our
second break of the program here when we come back,
Google Chrome is pushing an update requiring all plugins to

(29:50):
conform with the Manifest V three standard. I'm not going
to bore you with what the Manifest V three standard is.
I'm just going to tell you the consequence of that
and all the plugins that are going to stop working
in Google Chrome coming up next on compute this.

Speaker 5 (30:03):
Everyone has experienced some form of data loss or know
someone who has. It's unfortunate, but sometimes the technology we
rely on simply fails. And the last question you want
to hear at that time is you have a backup Right?
When you're a hard drive, memory card, backup drive or
flash drive fails, you turn to the data recovery experts
at Shrock Innovations to get those pictures, songs, and memories back.

(30:27):
You know, not all data recovery companies are the same.
Having the right tools and knowledge to get the job
done right on the first attempt makes all the difference
between a successful recovery and the permanent loss of your
important data. Sometimes you only get one shot at a
successful recovery. That's why Shrock has invested in top of
the line recovery imagers, a Class one hundred clean environment,

(30:49):
over ten thousand dollar components, and a staff of recovery
engineers that are the best in the business. Shrock has
a ninety six percent recovery rate getting data back from
failed devices. When the unthinkable happens and you need your
data back, turn to the experts at Shrock Innovations for
professional and affordable data recovery services.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
Now you can.

Speaker 4 (31:10):
Configure and purchase laptops, desktops, tablets, and more all at
the new Shrock Innovations dot com. Check out our specials
for one of a kind discounts and deals.

Speaker 5 (31:20):
Laptops are subjected to some of the most stressful computing
situations imaginable. They get dropped, stepped on, flap shut, and
pushed until the battery dies. Sometimes your 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

(31:41):
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

(32:02):
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 (32:29):
All righty guys, welcome back into compute this.

Speaker 3 (32:30):
My name is Thor Schrock. I'm the owner of the
Shrock Innovations computer company. Four zero two five five eight
eleven ten eight eight eight two five zero two zero
nine to one. Want to say welcome to everybody on
Facebook ron types. The prayer app Hollow will be banned
in the In the EU, however, porn apps are okay.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
You know. Europeans have their own issues. They've always been special.
That's why.

Speaker 3 (32:54):
That's why we kind of left, you know. It came
over here and then the wanted to kind of run
this and we're like, uh, there's this song called Tame
the American Horse, and I popped up in my workout feed.
For some reason, Amazon tries to play me all kinds
of weird stuff, Like I one time I searched for
the the Wolverine soundtrack, uh, for the for the most

(33:17):
recent Wolverine Deadpool movie that came out, and now it's
trying to play me like, you know, like a prayer
from Madonna. It's in the movie, and I'm like, I
really don't want to hear like a prayer while I'm
working out. And then you know, as I'm hearing this,
I'm like, Madonna really was irreverent for her time, Like
that song is really I mean think about in the eighties,
Like you know, she was dressed as a nun in
the music video and it was just like it was

(33:38):
really irreverent for its time. But anyway, I digress. So, yeah,
Europe's got its own issues with stuff, guys, and we're
never gonna understand them.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
We're they're never gonna behave like we do.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
And that's okay. It's okay for people to be different.
Gary says, I've been here all morning listening to uh,
listening to the radio. Well, good to have you. Thank
you for being with us.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
Gary. I hope it's Gus. I hope it's not.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
Because we were having trouble sleeping due to daylight savings time.
So one of the things that we've been talking about
here on the program is maintenance on your computers. Things
like that I would be remiss if I didn't mention
for everybody joining the program a.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
Little bit later, you know, for whatever reason that might be.

Speaker 3 (34:13):
Today that the maintenance checkup sale is currently going on
at Shrock Innovations. Now, the way that the maintenance checkup
sale works is the first week to ten days we
get pretty slammed. Now this time around has been different.
Our certificate sales are trending way higher than they normally
do at the start of the sale. Lots of people
are purchasing certificates and far fewer people are coming into

(34:36):
the service center in the beginning of the sale. Now
that's primarily I think because of the weather. It's been cold,
it's been snowy, it's been rain, it's just been icky outside,
and so people don't want to go out there. Some
people bring their computers into us and they put them
in plastic bags, or one person put theirs in a pillowcase.
You know what that was going to do. Do you
take your pillow out in the rain?

Speaker 2 (34:55):
Do you see what happens to that?

Speaker 3 (34:56):
You know, so I digress. You know, bring your comput
right now. Guys, if you wanted to get into the
service centers to have a maintenance check up done. We
have open bench spots and Papillion. We have open bench
spots in Omaha, we have open bench spots in Lincoln.
We have open bench spots in Des Moines. So we
have bench spots that we can put your computer up
right now and start working on it. So it's really

(35:16):
a great time to come in if you're going to
get that preventive maintenance done, if you have better things
to do, It's gonna be beautiful today and tomorrow. So
if you have better things to do in the sunshine,
you're gonna take down your Christmas lights or something, maybe
you know important stuff. Hey, it's gonna be almost seventy
on Monday. What are you gonna get a better day
to take down your Christmas lights?

Speaker 5 (35:36):
Usually my mother when she when Christmas is over, she
actually takes them down in January.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
But maybe she's weird. Weird it was too cold. I
wasn't getting on the roof in January.

Speaker 3 (35:45):
If I could make the safety argument, Sorry, honey, I'm
want to fall off the roof. You know, maybe your
grandma gets up on the roof. I don't know, it
could happen, but you know, if you're going to be
too busy and you don't want to screw around with it.
For even if you're on the roof whatever you're doing,
you can go to schocking com you can buy a certificate.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
This is what a lot of people are doing.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
The certificate allows you to bring the computer in anytime
in the next six months when it's convenient for you.
A lot of times what ends up happening is over
the summer when you go on vacations. For example, maybe
you're going on a spring break trip. Right now, you
can drop the computer off at the service center while
you're gone, get the maintenance done, and then when you
get back your computers ready for pickup, and it's like
nothing ever happened. You just you get your computer back

(36:23):
and it's maintenance and it's good to go. So a
lot of people are choosing the certificate route. Whichever route
is right for you. It's on sale right now for
thirty percent off. And I mean, I hate to bang
the drum, guys, but when is one of the things
that retailers do rather than raising prices, the second way
that they can increase margins is to reduce discounts. They

(36:45):
can put things on sale less often, so one of
the weird things that we're seeing. I've heard about this
on Fox Business is that companies during the holiday season
had a lot of sales on things and a lot
of product. Movie had a pretty good holiday season, but
then in January everybody kind of stopped the sales. They
all the clothing manufacturers, the retailers, they took all their
sales offline. And my wife saw this too the other day.

(37:07):
She just bought something the other day. She said, well,
it was on sale, then they took it off sale,
and I wasn't going to pay full price for it,
so I just waited, and now it's back on sale again,
so I'm going to buy it.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
And she bought it. It was a powerwasher or something. You know.

Speaker 3 (37:19):
Okay, you know, so people buy things when they're on sale.
So if you reduce the discounts, you're going to see
a lower volume of sales. So it are you putting
things on sale because you want to move volume or
are you putting where are you taking them off sale because.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
You want to make more money?

Speaker 3 (37:33):
Do you really make more money if you don't sell
the item? You know, it's a quandary right. Well, at Shrock,
we do sales, you know, we try to do one
kind of special offer or sale every month when we can.
This month it is the maintenance check Up sale going
on through the end of the month. You can save
thirty percent off you can. We have people who come
in now that haven't had maintenance in a year or more.
They'll come in and have it done right now on

(37:54):
the bench, and then when they're heading out the door,
they'll buy a certificate so they can come back six
months later and get it on the sale price a
second time. So there's a lot of different ways that
you can hack this sale to save a bunch of
money on your computer maintenance and make sure that your
devices are working the way you want them to work.
I will say this is really really important for you,
really important for you. If you have a warranty, if
you have a shock warranty, or even if you have

(38:15):
just a warranty from HP or Dell or somebody for
your computer, if we find a problem with it, you
don't have to pay us to fix it. If you
have a warranty through Dell and we find out something
like your power supply is bad, we'll contact Dell for
you and they'll come to our shop and do the repair.
On our bench. You don't have to be at home.
You don't have to let the weird technician guy in
to replace your power supply on the arm of your couch.

(38:38):
He can come into the shop. He can do it
in our shop. He can do it with a proper
bench and tools and everything else, And then you can
pick up your computer from us, and we don't charge
you anything extra for that. We didn't do the work.
Dell came and did the work. We just gave him
a place to do it. So we're a service company
that happens to sell computers and computer services. So if
we can make your life easier by doing something like that,

(39:00):
we're going to do that. And we're going to check
before we call you to tell you, hey, your power
supply is bad and you need to pay us to
fix it. We're going to check to see if you
have a warranty, if your Dell is a new Dell,
if you have like a fourteenth gen Intel processor, We're
going to say, there's a good chance this is under warranty.
Let's check this out before we just quote them a
repair price. And sometimes it is under warrantin we can
get it fixed for free, So check it out Shockinnovations

(39:21):
dot Com, click on shop and then specials to pick
up a certificate or just pop into the service center.
When it's convenient for you, we can get you in
and out, usually twenty four to forty eight hours max
four zero two, five, five, eight eleven ten eight eight
eight two five zero two zero nine to one. One
of the things that happens over time, we get a
lot of updates. You know, for example, this was a

(39:42):
really intense week for Secure updateor there were several updates
this week.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
You know.

Speaker 3 (39:46):
It's kind of funny because my studio computer, I don't
turn it on during the week until I get back
into the studio every every weekend, so I turn it
on and Secure Update are fires up, and it's like, okay,
you got like fourteen programs that are out of date.
Boom boom boo boom boo, boom boom. It goes through
and does them all and I don't have to think
about it. I don't have to worry about it. It's
kind of neat. There were a lot this week. There
were updates also for Google Chrome. One of the things

(40:06):
that Google Chrome has recently changed. Let me see alphabet
is the company that owns Google. Alphabet also makes the
browser Google Chrome, which more than fifty one percent of
people in the world use to browse the Internet on
their computer, by far the most dominant browser in the world.
Alphabet also owns several advertising networks that are responsible for

(40:30):
displaying advertisements on your computer screen while you're browsing the
Internet through the Chrome browser. Now, Google Chrome is very
conscious of your personal privacy and security. Of course, they
want to keep you safe, and part of keeping you
safe is making sure that the plugins that you might

(40:51):
be running to modify your Google Chrome browser to do
different things. And before you say thor I don't know
what you're talking about, you may not know what you're
talking about what I'm talking about, but you've asked us
to install a plugin in your Google Chrome and we've
done it. I can't tell you how many times a
day we get a phone call from somebody talking about
I got to pop up on my screen that says this,

(41:11):
that and the other, and we're like, you know, press
all F four to close the window and make it
stop talking to you. Now, you need to install a
pop up blocker, and we recommend you block Origin. You
block Origin is one of the best pop up blockers
you can get to put on you on your Chrome
browser to stop pop ups from interrupting your work. The
problem is, you block Origin is no longer a maintained

(41:34):
plug in the don't they're not writing active code for
it anymore. It works so well, it does the job. Right,
when's the last time that's ever happened?

Speaker 2 (41:41):
Right?

Speaker 3 (41:42):
The software works, so they just stop screwing with it
and just let it work. Isn't that amazing? Well they
did that, so Google Chrome had to change the rules.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
You see.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
They made it a safer environment for plugins by implementing
something called Manifest version three. And the Manifest version of
three is a guide, a framework that says, this is
how your plugin needs to work to be as safe
as possible for your browser to protect you, you see,
to protect your privacy, to make sure that you're not
being victimized. Well, it turns out because U block Origin

(42:14):
is not currently being developed anymore and it's not compatible
with Manifest V three, it's going to be automatically disabled
by Google Chrome, who is owned by Alphabet, who also
owns the largest advertising distribution networks on the planet, and
they don't like pop ups either. But they're going to

(42:35):
make sure that all those ads that blocks on your
web pages they get through because they're just going to
disable you block Origin. You won't even have the choice.
It's just going to be disabled if it is not already.
In fact, as zd net did a test. One computer
they tested it on it was automatically disabled. Another computer
it was allowed to run. So there's not too much
rhyme or reason right now. But what's going to happen eventually?

(42:56):
Is there all going to be disabled?

Speaker 2 (42:58):
So what can you do? You still need to pop
up blight. You still don't want.

Speaker 3 (43:01):
To get those You know you are infected with poor
on augar RUFFI you know you know they it starts
talking to you and saying weird things. I know what
you did last summer. You know You're like, what, I
don't know what it's talking about. So I swear like
we know, we know, press all to F for it
closes the window. Next we go through and do this.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
Well.

Speaker 3 (43:19):
One of the next best one out there is ad
block Plus. So if you use you block Origin right now,
you really want to switch to ad block plus. Ad
Block Plus is V three compliant Manifest V three compliant.
It's actively developed. They do have a partnership with Google,
you see where they allow some of the Google ads
to come through, but the most egregious ones get blocked.

(43:42):
You know, if you've ever been on your phone trying
to read a news website and every time you scroll,
something else pops up on the screen and it like
takes over your screen. It makes it impossible, Like there's
a there's a bar on the bottom of the screen
with an AD, there's a bar on the top of
the screen with an AD, and then there's a pop
up in the middle of the screen and you got
no screen left. Bill just checked his phone. He's like,
oh my gosh, my screen. He's like, is that happening

(44:05):
to me right now? Oh no, that was an urgent
grab on the phone there, you snatch that up like
something somebody is everybody.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
Okay, everybody's all right? F on my head?

Speaker 3 (44:14):
Oh okay, good good, Like that was a sense of
urgency there, all right. So if you do use u
block Origin as a pop up blocker, or you ever
had Shock install a pop up blocker for you, the
chances are we installed u block Origin because it was
the best. We only give the best to you. Well, now,
The best is gonna be ad block Plus. It's not

(44:34):
as good as you block Origin, but it's the best.
The best we can do. Four zero, two, five, five, eight,
eleven tens And I'm gonna join us on the program.
We're gonna take our final break of the program, and
I'm gonna do an after shock. All right, all right,
all right, We're gonna do an after shock, and I'm
gonna ask you some questions about NATO.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
I just had some.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
Random thoughts about NATO, and there's not a right or
wrong answer here. Bill and I were discussing it before
the show and and Bill was like, you know, I
was like, tell me one bit of Russian propaganda that
was actually false, Because this week there's all these stories
about ai AI. Russian propaganda is infecting AI chatbots. I'm like,
how's that different than the New York Times infecting AI

(45:15):
chatbots with false information?

Speaker 2 (45:18):
You know, really, does.

Speaker 3 (45:19):
China not have disinformation? Does America not have disinformation?

Speaker 6 (45:23):
Like?

Speaker 4 (45:23):
What?

Speaker 3 (45:23):
Why is Russian disinformation like the gold standard of disinformation? Like,
if you want to say disinfo, it's got to be Russian.
I mean, American disinformation is like beer brand beer. I mean,
it's so basic. I mean, come on, it's got a
white label. It pretty much says disinformation on the can.
I mean, you can just look at it and no,
it's from the New York Times. Of course it isn't true.
And come on, but the Russian disinformation, Holy kel, it's

(45:47):
like that's like, I mean, it's the most delicious disinformation
you can buy. I'm pretty sure RFK is investigating them
right now for dopamine manipulation. I mean, it's it's crazy, right,
it's they're better than she. Everybody loves them.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
Who doesn't like Jesus?

Speaker 3 (46:04):
I'm not a big fan either, But buy snacks for
the shops, and what do the guys ask for? They
ask for little bags of cheese? Its not goldfish. I
don't know what the difference is. Do goldfish taste that
much different than cheese?

Speaker 5 (46:14):
Its?

Speaker 2 (46:14):
I don't know. Maybe it's because they think it's like
a fish and you don't like to eat fish. I
don't know.

Speaker 3 (46:18):
But anyway, I'm going down to deep end here. So
we're gonna do an after shock. We're gonna talk a
little bit about that. We're gonna ask some questions. Now,
there's not they're not questions that have an answer. I'm
just some thoughts occurred to me. Does NATO need Russia? Like,
if Russia stop being the enemy, why would NATO exist?

(46:41):
Who would they protect everybody against?

Speaker 2 (46:46):
Who else? Is? Is Russia a big threat? Or do
we just need them to be a big threat?

Speaker 3 (46:52):
So interesting, interesting, weird thoughts for the aftershock coming up.
It's gonna be a short one, guys, because really, I'm
I'm I'm I'm really poofed tired, But but I want
to do it for you. So when we come back
from our break here, there is a Microsoft Office product
that you have had for thirty four years on your
computer that is going by bye. Microsoft says it's redundant.

(47:13):
It's old technology supplanted by all the new technology we've
given you.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
That's so much better.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
But I think a lot of people are going to
be a little ticked off when they find out that
Microsoft Publisher is being sunset forever in twenty twenty six.
What is it with October? It's October of twenty six,
not twenty five. That's Windows ten October of twenty six.
So if you need something to look forward to the
following Halloween, we're going to kill publisher. So if you
were going to make Halloween invites or send Halloween letters

(47:41):
with a special envelope or print some Halloween labels, don't
use publisher to do it. After twenty twenty six, we're
going to tell you how it's happening, why it's happening,
and what you can do to get around it.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
Coming up next on compute this.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Remember the good old days when virus detection worked like
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(48:14):
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(48:37):
out there. In fact, if your device gets a virus
while running Sofos antivirus Shock will remove it for free,
guaranteed it hasn't happened yet, and we intend to keep
it that way. Ditch your dad's anti virus and keep
your device, data, and identities safe with Sofos and Shrock innovations.

Speaker 4 (48:55):
Today's fragile computers need maintenance more than ever. Your computer
needs a meet this check up every six months to
last beyond it's eighteen month expected lifespan.

Speaker 5 (49:04):
You know your computer needs modern antivirus, 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
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There are critical security updates for these common programs that

(49:24):
don't get automatically installed for up to two weeks. That's
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(49:46):
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Speaker 3 (50:20):
All righty guys, welcome back in final segment of the program.
But fear not, we'll do an aftershock here. Well, we'll
talk about all kinds of interesting stuff, you know, interesting
we'll do. We'll touch on crypto, what's going on in
the crypto markets, We'll touch on what's going on with
the Russia Ukraine situation, what's new in Trumpville. You know, interesting,
interesting times, interesting times for zero two, five, five, eight,

(50:40):
eleven ten number to call us on the program today.
One of the things that you know, people don't like change.
That's I think that's one of the reasons why people
are so freaked out about what's going on. You know,
when Donald Trump is like, we're going to change everything here,
and what are we going to change? And he's like
he's talking about taking staffing levels back to what they
were in twenty nineteen, and people are at like he's

(51:00):
rolling up the government and it's gone. I mean, these
are all people that have been hired in the last
five years. So did our need for government increase by
two hundred percent five years? You know this is crazy, right,
but so but people don't like to change. So you've
got state's attorney generals suing the Trump administration because this
is going to mean more unemployed people.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
In their districts.

Speaker 3 (51:23):
This is going you know, the housing market in Washington,
d C is being completely upended because most of the
people who took the deferred compensation, the fork and the
road compensation packages lived in Washington DC. Now there's no
reason for them to be in DC anymore, so they're
just selling their houses. So the housing market is collapsing
in Washington DC. So there's there's tons of there's tons

(51:45):
of change going on right now, and people just don't like.
Change makes people nervous. Well, Microsoft didn't get the memo
on that, and they've decided that they're going to make
some additional changes. We brought you this story a few
weeks ago when we told you that if you wanted
to get Microsoft Publisher, but we found during the holiday
special is Microsoft stopped offering Microsoft Office Professional. Microsoft Office

(52:06):
Professional usually gave you at you know, access the database program,
which no normal person uses, and Publisher and lots of
people like to use Publisher. Publishers used for things over
the years like making branded templates, printing envelopes, making labels,
making customized calendars, and even business cards. You could do
all this stuff in Publisher. It's kind of neat, making

(52:29):
letterhead the whole bit. Microsoft's argument is all these functions
are now available in Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel. Literally Outlook
has most of these functions now, so why do we
need Publisher to do this anymore? We have other technology
that's better than Publisher. Microsoft is saying it's not worth
the cost of maintaining it. So when we reported this
last time, Publisher was being revoked from all the software

(52:51):
that you could buy and own, they were leaving it
in Microsoft three sixty five so you could subscribe and
still use Publisher. Now they have announced that even in
Microsoft three sixty five, Publisher is going to be sunset
in twenty twenty six in October. So if you have
Microsoft Publisher and you use it on a daily basis.
You want to start making plans to use another program,

(53:11):
you nothing urge it here. You have until twenty twenty six,
But of course, if you don't do it on Monday,
you're gonna forget, and then twenty twenty six will be
here before you know it. There are open source alternatives
for publisher We talked about those a couple of weeks ago.
I won't bore you with all those again, but just
be aware that even if you're subscribing to Microsoft thirty
sixty five, you're still not going to get to keep
publisher less. Congratulations is the only caller on the program.

(53:34):
You've won yourself a twenty five dollars Shock Innovations gift certificate.
The drawing was hard, all right, Stay tuned for the aftershow.
Give me about five minutes to reset, and we'll see
you again next week for another edition of Compute This