Compute This 5-18-2025

Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Good morning, folks, and welcome in to Compute This. My
name is Thor Schrock. I'm the owner of the Shrock
Innovations computer company. We're looking for your phone calls here
this morning. Four zero two five five eight eleven ten.
If you're outside of the metro area, you can reach
us toll free eight eight eight two five zero two
zero nine to one. As we do at the end

(00:36):
of each program, we're going to draw one lucky person
who contributes to the program in some way, calls in,
makes a comment, asks the question, does something along those
lines to contribute to the program to win a twenty
five dollars Shrock Innovations gift card here at the end
of the show. And guys, I do want to take
a moment because sometimes people tell me when I'm in

(00:56):
the service center that they don't call into the program
like they asked me if question. I'm like, that's a
great question. You should have called in. Well, I didn't
want to call in. I was afraid I'd sound stupid
or you know something, something along those lines, And I
just want to remind you there is no such thing
as a silly question, guys, because in the service centers
we get the same questions over and over again, worded differently,
slightly different applications, but essentially the same questions over and

(01:20):
over and over. Is it a scam? Should I click
on that? You know? What do I do when this?
Is it okay to buy that?

Speaker 3 (01:28):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:28):
We get these questions every day, all the time. There
is no such thing as a silly question. So if
you do have any questions about your technology, how it's
working in your home, anything like that, don't hesitate to
give us a call. Four zero two five five eight
eleven ten or eight eight eight two five zero two
zero nine to one. We're also live this morning at
Facebook dot com slash Shock Innovations. I encourage you to

(01:49):
check us out there. If you're on the Book of Faces,
you can click like and click follow and do all
those things. And of course we do let you know
about things on Facebook before for the general public usually
hears about them, especially if you listen to the Aftershock,
which is the little show we do after this one
where it's not all computer stuff. There's a little current
events and other stuff mixed into it, a little technology

(02:12):
bend to it, but much more wide ranging. Fact, we're
gonna do and ask me anything today. My fellow fellow
listeners in Shrockville have put up with a lot of
shenan against for me for the last couple of weeks,
so I figured I owe them a little bit, so
we're gonna do an ask Me anything after shock coming
up after the conclusion of the program today. All right,
So if you missed last week's program, it was amazing,

(02:33):
you really should pick it up. It's over at Shrockannovations
dot com. You can click on Radio show and then
you can watch and listen to all the previous shows,
including the aftershocks everything there. Just in case you don't
do Facebook, where you can't listen to that stuff, you
can always pick it up there. It's on our YouTube channel.
It's on Rumble all out there. Last week we told
you about the three different types of power surges and

(02:54):
how they slowly destroy your electronic equipment over time. This
is something that nobody appreciates, realizes thinks about. You know,
every single day, especially in states like Nebraska and Iowa,
we have the largest temperature variants of any states in
the United States. So how many times can you say
states in one sentence? Really? Yeah, that was a lot

(03:15):
of states. So anyway, sorry the temperatures here. I mean
there are days, of course this time of year when
this morning you might be a little chilly, it's a
little chili out, maybe you're running that heater, and then
of course this afternoon it'll be warm, and then you're
gonna run the air conditioner. All these different huge appliances
pulling power, doing different things, they create surges. You're creating

(03:35):
surges within your home. It's not just hey, a squirrel
jumped on a transformer at Albuquerque and cause the power surge.
You know, they're generated within your home. Sometimes sometimes they
are external events. And sometimes the good Lord himself hit
decides to hit you with a lightning bolt to wake
you up from something that you need to be woken
up from. So three different types of surges that can

(03:56):
damage your electronic equipment. Some of them degrade at slowly
over time, and then one day it just doesn't have
enough juice to work anymore, and it feels like a
sudden failure, Like I hit the power button to day
on my computer and the fans turn on, the lights
come on, but nobody's home. It won't boot up. What's
going on? All your power supply just finally dipped below
the wattage required to boot that computer. So because of that,

(04:19):
we have to replace the power supply. Why did that
happen to you? Because you didn't have a surge protector.
Now some of you are saying, well, thor, I've got
a surge protector. I'm sure it's fine. This is what
we went over in that pro and on the show
last week. Even if you have a surge protector, that
doesn't mean it's currently working. So surge protectors don't heal,
they don't get better, they don't take a surge and
then bounce back. They damage themselves to protect your equipment,

(04:44):
and just like any other shield, once that shield is
degraded to a point of failure, the attacks come right
through to the meaty goodness underneath. So you don't want
your shield to fail. So you're gonna have a surge
protector protecting your equipment, But how do you know when
it's failed. We used to have the one's called audible
alert search protectors. Back in the day we could get them.
They would beep when they would fail, to chirp at you,

(05:05):
and that's great. It protected you against one type of surge.
It would kind of chirp when it failed, and you know,
there you go. Well, if you can't get those anymore,
which we can't, and now we know that there are
three different types of surges that are attacking your equipment,
not just one. You know, maybe we need a surge
protector that actually protects your equipment. Now, if you didn't

(05:25):
have one of our audible alert ones, maybe you've got
you know, if you have one that's made of metal,
it's too old. If you have a metal surge protector
strip like this one on the wall up here, it
is too old. It's bad. If the light is flickering
on the search protector, if the light is dim, if
the light has a dark spot, if the switch I
keep saying the light, If the switch has a dark
spot in the center, that means your search protector is

(05:46):
telling you it is damaged and it's no longer able
to protect you. How long do surge protectors last in
Nebraska and Iowa? On average? Bout a year. People are
shocked by that. Well, thor, I've got lots of search
protectors in the house, and they all seem to be
working fine. Oh, they'll keep working. I mean, it's a
glorified extension cord. I mean they'll keep working. They'll keep

(06:06):
supplying power to your TV and power to your xbox
and your computer and everything else. It's not like you'll
cut the power off. They just won't protect you from
surges anymore. Well, thora, I have a battery backup, isn't
that better? That is a surge protector. That's just the
same as all the other surge protectors with a battery
strap to it for backup power. That's it. All the

(06:28):
power norming, power leveling, all the fancy words. The search
protectors we have at Shrock do that too. It's just
a surge of that. That is what is what a
good surge protector is. Now, that's better than the one
you're going to buy ace hardware for nine dollars and
ninety nine cents, that's for sure. Those search protectors have like,
you know, four hundred jewels of protection. That's it, you know,
And then they're they're you know, they don't make it
through a Christmas let alone a year. All I'm saying

(06:52):
is if you have a search protector and you don't
remember when you bought it, or you have a surge
protector and you need to make sure that your equipment
your valuable equipment. If you have a piece of equipment
at work, for example, we'll get this all the time.
Customers come in and they say I have to have
this Windows ninety eight computer fixed, and we're like, oh, well, sir,
you know this is Windows ninety eight. I'm sure you

(07:13):
loved your Windows ninety no Thor you don't understand this
runs a ten thousand dollars CNC machine. If I get
a new computer, I have to buy a new ten
thousand dollars machine. Ooh okay, I get it. So this
is like a fix this at all cost kind of
situation where we're fabricating a power supply, we're making a
power suppler. We're fixing the one that's in there rather

(07:35):
than trying to replace it. Got it, okay. So if
you're in that situation, if you have a piece of
equipment like that, a favorite embroidery machine or a sewing
machine or something like that, that would be irreplaceable if
it was lost, make sure you have it on a
surge protector now. Right now, we have those on special
twenty five percent off over at Shrock. You can pick
that up on the specials page. You go to Shrock

(07:56):
Innovations dot Com. Click on shopping Specials. You can see
everything there. If you need more than one. We are
still allowing people to buy as we're not putting a
quantity limitation on it. I went to restock yesterday because
we're down to about twenty five or thirty between the
service centers. So I was like, Okay, time to order
some more. We're getting closer to the end of the
month here, so it's like, yeah, we don't want to

(08:17):
have a couple hundred left over. You know, we still
need to order more. So I went to go order
another one hundred units yesterday and I could get two,
like in two individual search protectors two. I took the
two that I could get. Beggars can't be choosers. But
what we're seeing, guys, is the supply of some electronics
goods because you know, for the last thirty days, everything

(08:38):
from China has kind of stopped. And we're going to
talk about this a little bit on our weekly tariff update.
But everything has kind of stopped from China for about
thirty days, and warehouses have been selling through what has
already onshore before that happened. And we're reaching the point
on the surge protectors where we have gone through the
onshore supply and now there is far less available. So

(08:59):
I would encourage you if there's if it's something you
want to do, I wouldn't wait till the end of
the month to do it, especially because they're twenty five
percent off. I mean, everybody's talking about, oh, you know, Walmart,
we're gonna have to raise our prices because of these terriffs.
Trump eat the tariffs, and here we are selling things
for twenty five percent off because we're stupid. I guess
you know, we don't we don't know when to raise prices.
I guess I don't know. Four zero two five five
eight eleven ten eight eight eight two five zero two

(09:21):
zero nine to one. So we did all that last
week on the program. We can check that out there. Also,
while you're on the specials page. I mentioned last week
to keep an eye on this page because we are
going to be having interesting opportunities here for you. Now.
One of the things that the tariff situation has done

(09:41):
is it's it's causing everybody to kind of dig down
into the warehouse and say, what is this piece of equipment, Like,
for example, when we choose cases to build modular computers,
or if we're evaluating cases for a holiday special, for example,
and we might buy five or six different cases to test.
Now we the one we picked the best one. Doesn't

(10:01):
mean the other ones are bad. It just means there
was something about them we didn't like. One year, there
was a there was one that had the side panel
was hinged right, so it had a magnet class kind
of like a kitchen cabinet, and it would hold it
shut and when you wanted to open it, you'd grab
the loop and give it a tug and the door
would just pop open. And we thought, well, that could
be handy for people who want to work on the computer.
It could be handy for building and you're doing maintenance

(10:23):
checkups and things like that. Okay, let's check it out.
We order it in and we find out that the
magnet they put in it was too weak and the
door just pops open all the time. So obviously we
didn't pick that case. Now that case is gone. We
threw that one in the trash because it was pretty bad.
But there was four other cases that were perfectly find
cases that we didn't pick for one reason or another.
This one fingerprints too much. We thought it would be

(10:45):
too difficult to build one hundred and fifty of them
without getting fingerprints all over them. You know, this case
over here hasn't a place to put the sticker, like
shruck sticker has to go on the front, and there's
it's all mesh. We can't put a sticker on the
front of this thing. So we don't want to pick
that one. So different reasons. So we we got loose
bits of inventory laying around the service. Enter a case here,
a power supply there, a chip here, a board there.

(11:07):
And what we're doing is we're taking these loose parts
and assembling them together into full systems. Now, these aren't
builds that we can make a hundred of. You know.
It's not like the Boundless or the you know, the
Endeavor or the Venture where we can make them all
day long. This is like a onesie twosie kind of
more like an artisan computer kind of situation. And so
if you go to our specials page right now, you're

(11:28):
going to find a crazy deal. There's a laptop there
that's a Rising seven laptops. So for those of you
who don't know Riseing, the seven is almost the top
top top of the line. The nine is a little
bit faster, but it's kind of it's for people who
want to say they bought the fastest thing, even though
it only goes a little bit faster. It's kind of
like the reason I bought my my Mustang GT and
I didn't buy the dark Horse because the dark Horse

(11:50):
gave you ten more horse power for another like seven
thousand dollars. Like, I don't need ten horse power for
seven thousand dollars. That's stupid. Why would you do that? Well,
a lot of people did that, but not me. I
didn't do it, So sorry side there. But basically, this
laptop it's got it's amazing. I mean, it's it's an
Asus Vivo book. It's got the rise In seven chip,

(12:12):
it's got twenty gigs of RAM, it's got a five
hundred gig hard drive. It's essentially the same spec build
as our normal Gallant, but with a souped up processor
in it. It's not a touch screen, so there's no
touch screen there, but it's got all the other all
the other features, and typically, you know, a Gallant would
sell for about one thousand dollars. In fact, this one

(12:33):
with its rise in seven chip would retail normally for
about one fifty dollars. Well, it's on special over at Shock.
I was able to buy one. It was just it
was a weird somebody else's warehouse. Somebody's like, found this
laptop here. I don't know why we have this one,
but we have one. And so they said, hey, we
have one Shock, do you want it? And we said, yes,
we'll take it, especially because the price was very good
on it, and that's why the price to you is

(12:55):
only eight ninety nine. So if you're looking for a
graduation gift, something for a student that maybe doesn't exactly
know what they're gonna do yet. Now maybe they're gonna
maybe they're going to be an engineer, or maybe they're
going to be a teacher. We're just not quite sure.
This is a great laptop to buy because it's got
the horsepower to do a lot of stuff, probably not AutoCAD,
to be clear, but everything else. It doesn't have a

(13:16):
dedicated graphics card. That's why everything else. I mean, it's
an amazing laptop for eight ninety nine. It is in
stocking the Papillion service center. Of course, we'll transfer it
to any service center you want to pick it up at,
but it's in Papillion. If you were looking for a
graduation gift this afternoon to pick up and purchase, if
you were thinking about that laptop, I would encourage you
to go to our website at Shrockinnovations dot com and

(13:37):
make your purchase there, because there is only one of these.
And I went back and checked to say, hey, this
was such a great deal, can I buy a couple more?
And the answer is yes, I can for three times
what I paid for it the first time. So there's
no way we have to sell you one for one
thousand and fifty dollars if we got another one. So, guys,
this is a great opportunity if you're looking for something

(14:00):
up an eye on the specials page where every my
goal is every week to have something new to put
up on the specials page for you, something that we
all a one off opportunity, something like that through the summer. Here,
just a just a fun thing to check because out
every computer repair company has a specials page and there's
never anything on it. It's always just dead. You know,
there's nothing there. I don't want it to be our
specials page. So we're going to throw a little life

(14:20):
on that for you. Four zero two, five, five, eight
eleven ten, Dan, Welcome to the program. How can I
help you on compute this today?

Speaker 4 (14:28):
Good morning? That question about a old laptop with Windows ten.
I know with that coming end of life it is
not compatible to upgrade to Windows eleven. Correct, But it's
a decent running laptop, and I wondered is it's still
usable after end of life? For example, if we keep

(14:50):
Wi Fi shut off as usable for downloading pictures, transferring
to external hard drives, doing just that kind of work,
not you know, checking email or anything.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
Yeah, it's not a y two k situation where you
know the gong is going to strike midnight on the
twenty fifth of October and the computer's just gonna gosh.
You know, it won't be like that, right, So first off,
even if you were gonna on the twenty six if
you turn the computer on and you thought, oh, biscuits,
I have something I needed to do, you can still
do it. I mean, you'll be just fine. It's just

(15:23):
the longer, the more time that goes by after October
twenty fifth, and by the time I mean weeks, the
more weeks that go by, the exponentially worse the malware
thread is going to be for that computer if it's
on the internet. So if you keep it off the Internet,
you could use it all day long for everything. Like
I mentioned in the monologue, we've got people running Windows
ninety eight computers and as long as you keep them offline,

(15:43):
I mean, they do what they're built to do, you
know they're fine. Now, the trouble you're gonna find is
almost all modern software requires an online log in, so
you can't run your photoshop if you can't log into it.
And all of your printers are wireless now, so if
you don't have your WiFi enabled, you can't connect to
the printer and print anything. So you're going to run

(16:05):
into some natural limitations, and that's where the obsolescence is
going to sneak up on you, because you won't be
able to get new devices, you won't be able to
get new drives for it. The software that you purchase
when you try to install it to put your backup
drive on there and you install the backup software to
say sorry with this version of Windows is not supported.
So you're going to run into some natural limitations like that.

(16:26):
But the immediate aftermath in October, you're going to be
just fine. But unless there's something you're doing with the
computer that is that is really kind of you know,
neat and special. You know, you can use it for
offline stuff where you can replace it eventually when you
know when a special or a special offer, or maybe
next year during the ultimate upgrade, you can trade it in.
You know, whatever you want to do to get rid

(16:46):
of that computer, you can. But there's no there's no
harm in running it offline for sure.

Speaker 4 (16:52):
Sure one figure in getting a separate one for the
email and online otherwise. But now good points.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
All right, So hey, thank you, thank you for the call.
I appreciate you calling. See you guys, how many of
you had that same thought, like can I use it
for anything? It just seems like such a waste to
throw it away? Right? Well, you can load Linux on it, Yeah,
nobody wants to do that. For zero two five five
eight eleven number to join us on the program today
we're going to take our first break. Guys, Linda Clyde
and Stephanie, please stay on the line, your calls coming

(17:22):
up next. On compute this.

Speaker 5 (17:24):
Everyone has experienced some form of data loss or no
someone who has. It's unfortunate, but sometimes the technology we
rely on simply fails.

Speaker 6 (17:33):
And the last question you want to hear at that
time is.

Speaker 5 (17:35):
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 Shruck Innovations to get
those pictures, songs, and memories back. 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

(17:58):
and the permanent loss of your important data.

Speaker 6 (18:01):
Sometimes you only get one shot at a successful recovery.

Speaker 5 (18:04):
That's why Shrock has invested in top of the line
recovery imagers, a Class one hundred clean environment, over ten
thousand dollar components, and a staff of recovery engineers that
are the best in the business. Shroc has a ninety
six percent recovery rate getting data back from failed devices.

Speaker 6 (18:20):
When the unthinkable happens.

Speaker 5 (18:22):
And you need your data back, turn to the experts
at Shrock Innovations for professional and affordable data recovery services.

Speaker 7 (18:30):
Drive Advisor is a free program from Shrock Innovations that
monitors your hard drives health and tells you if it's
going bad. Download it for free at driveadvisor dot com.

Speaker 5 (18:40):
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 your laptop works hard
for you, so when it has a problem, take it
to the laptop expert at Shrock Innovations. Shrock has four
convenience service centers the Nebraska and I with more than

(19:01):
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.

Speaker 6 (19:12):
Why wait weeks to.

Speaker 5 (19:13):
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 been into our service centers Before new customers.

Speaker 6 (19:24):
Get their first hour of labor free.

Speaker 5 (19:27):
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 (19:50):
All righty folks, welcome back into compute.

Speaker 3 (19:52):
This.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
My name's Thor Schrock. I'm the owner of the Shrock
Innovations computer company, where we have four service centers to
help you out all through the month of Have you
heard that one yet? Macember May is like December as
far as how busy you are, Just there's no Christmas.
There's no Christmas at the end, it's just Macember. There's graduations,
there's eagle ceremonies there everything. Is that a real word

(20:15):
or is that one you created?

Speaker 7 (20:16):
No?

Speaker 2 (20:16):
I heard it. I'd love to take credit for it,
but I heard it somewhere and I thought Maycember. That's
pretty funny. So yeah, Maycember is a thing. Yeah, but
when you think about it, it makes sense because have you
felt busier than normal this month? Like running around doing
stuff and everybody wants a piece of you for something
like Yeah, it's pretty crazy Maycember, right, So all through
the month of Maycember, Search protectors are on sale at

(20:38):
Shock at all four locations. You can pick them up there.
You can jump on our website Shock Innovations dot Com
click on shop and specials. Also, just a little heads
up the summer months starting now to about I don't know,
through July fifth or so, the shops are slow. Everybody
in Macember in June and July, they're on family vacations.

(21:00):
When they're doing family stuff, they'reut in the gardens, they're
you know, they're they're doing things away from their technology.
For a lot of people, so we tend to slow
down a little bit. If you have a maintenance check
up certificate that you purchased because you were waiting for
a good time to bring it in with the turnaround
time would be very fast. That time is now, you know.
Right now, we're like, what can we have these technicians?

(21:21):
Yesterday I had Colin in the Papilion Service center building
me Linux computers. I don't even really enjoy running Linux
on anything, but I had him building me a couple
a couple Ubuntu machines because there's a crypto thing I
want to play with. And literally it was like I
want to play with something. Colin build me some computers
because he had nothing to do. So if you have
one of those certificates, please bring him in. Says, now's

(21:42):
the time to get him. The guys jump on it.
They're really thorough about everything and they get it back
to you very quickly for zero two five, five, eight
eleven ten eight eight eight two five zero two zero
nine to one. Really briefly here, I'm going to do
a quick tariff update with you, guys. There was a
lot of developments this week. President Trump his administration reduced
tariffs on Chinese goods to thirty percent unless you're, of course,

(22:04):
in the Deminimus category. That's all the stuff from Timu
and Shine. Anything under eight hundred dollars that you're going
to order from China, those are tariff at fifty four percent.
So your fast fashion choices that you were ordering from China,
they're still going to cost a little more. The way
you're seeing this represented, guys, is on Amazon, even if
you have Prime now some of these items. I ordered

(22:25):
a couple of power chords for bitcoin minors, and I
noticed that each cord had eight dollars in shipping for
a twelve dollars cord, And it wasn't like I ordered
two and they charged me sixteen dollars in shipping. So
it wasn't like kitch put two cords in the same box. Like,
it's not like they weigh a lot. Come on, it's
because that's not shipping cost, guys, that's tariff cost. So
these cords are coming directly from China and Amazon is

(22:47):
they don't. Nobody wants to tell anybody, hey, we're charging
you because of tariffs, because if you do that, then
you know, President Trump thumps you one, like he thumped
Tim Cook at Apple. We're going to talk about that
on the program today. He like he thumped Walmart's CEO
for saying that we're gonna have to raise prices because
of tariffs. You don't want to get thumped, so you
find other little stealthy ways to increase it. So you know,

(23:09):
you pay for Prime to get free shipping, free fast shipping,
and now you get slow paid for shipping on items
that come directly from China that are under eight hundred dollars,
like power cords at fifty four percent tariffs. Companies still
have received the memo, though Even though the tariffs have
been reduced, companies still have received the memo that diversifying

(23:30):
supply chains is a thing, and you need to get
out of China. Get out of China, go somewhere else.
Bring it back here, but go somewhere else. You can't
you don't have to go home, but you can't stay
there like you gotta go. Like I mentioned, Trump thumped
Tim Cook this week for friend shoring iPhones and iPads
to India, and he's he's pretty blunt. He goes, I

(23:52):
don't want you making your stuff in India. I want
you making your stuff here. Tim Cook is like, oh,
we ain't got the people, the skills are it's going
to cost to much. And all right, all right, mister President,
we're gonna we're gonna commit to doing more in America.
And so they're gonna they're gonna build more stuff here,
but most of it's gonna be built in India. Still,
as companies shift their supply chains, there's gonna be some weirdness.

(24:14):
Now weirdness whenever there's weirdness in a supply chain. Yes
it's turmoil. Yes it's a headache. Yes it's a pain
in the butt because it's not reliable, and it's not
the same thing you've always dealt with before as a
purchasing manager. But there's opportunity in weirdness, little opportunities that
pop up and you're like ooh, and if you're looking
for them, you can snag something for a ridiculously low

(24:37):
price that somebody wants to move to just get rid
of it. Like this a sus Vivo book laptop on
our specials page. You know, we got that thing for
a song, so we're able to offer it for a song,
eight ninety nine for a one fifty dollars laptop in
a world where everything is supposed to cost you more,
Why is it at a discount? Why are we even
selling it at a discount? We should just sell it at
full price and call it a special. Don't you feel special?

Speaker 5 (24:59):
Now?

Speaker 2 (25:00):
No, we actually like to have specials on the specials page,
so you can check that out there. So the weirdness
is going to happen. There's gonna be weirdness in packaging.
There's gonna be weirdness in selection and variety. I notice,
for example, when I go to buy clothes or shoes
or something, a lot of sizes aren't available, especially common
men's sizes like ten and a half eleven. They're not
available in the shoe. You know, if you have a

(25:21):
size eight man foot or a size thirty seven man foot,
you can get a shoe, but if you have a
normal size foot, you can't get a shoe. So just weird.
There's gonna be a little weirdness till things norm out again.
So a great example of this. I didn't even know
these printers existed un till I saw this story, but
there are. There's a printer company that sells directly out
of China, so you can go buy their stuff on Amazon.

(25:43):
It's called Pro Colored. Now, what it does, this particular
printer is designed to print you know those iron on
T shirt transfers that you can make your own custom
T shirt at home. That's what this printer prints. And
so Pro Colored for somebody who's doing an Etsy business
or something like that, is a pretty good value, very
inexpensive printer. The ink is cheap, it comes straight from China.
Everything is good back in the old days, right except

(26:07):
this printer straight from China, for some reason, for the
last six months has been just absolutely jam packed chalk
full of malware. So the drivers, the software from China
that runs the printer. It had multiple malware infections in it.
One of them was a back door for your Windows
computer that would allow someone from China to remote into

(26:27):
it and look at your data and steal whatever they want.
Another one was a cryptocurrency wallet stealing application that did
keystroke recording when you were logging into your crypto wallet,
so that could your wallet could be accessed remotely and
your crypto stolen. Some big stuff, guys. So if you
have a pro colored printer, you definitely need to have
sofos on your computer. In fact, there's a story that

(26:50):
we put on Facebook this week. The security experts are
finally figuring out through your phone is a computer too,
and it needs anti viral. Now the security experts are
telling you your phone needs the antivirus. And by the way,
you need to reboot your phone every day because the
way that phones get infected it's different than computers. They
get infected in their memory, and if you reboot the phone,

(27:13):
it clears the memory. The problem is is if your
homepage that your browser goes to is what's infecting your phone,
the next time you open your Internet browser, you're just
reinfected again unless you have sofos on your phone or
sofos on your computer. Sofos, for example, would have caught
all the malware from the pro pro cloud printer and
removed it, and then you could have used the printer
without the malware. But instead, this Chinese company left the

(27:33):
malware up for six months before they finally pulled it down. Now,
so there's just weirdness in the supply chain right now, guys,
there's something we're just gonna have to get through. Four
zero two five five, eight eleven ten. Linda, Welcome to
the program. How can I help you on compute this today?

Speaker 8 (27:46):
Well, good morning, So it's a pleasure to speak with you,
and thank you for taking my call. I want to
tell you, first of all, I'm a Hall of Fame,
a Hall of Fame listener, and I'm a Hall of
customer as well, So I want to thank you for
always being there you and your employees to help me

(28:06):
with my MacBook. Okay, Dawson, did my Mac transfer all
my new MacBook care and it was perfect. I was worried.

Speaker 9 (28:18):
Thank you, I was worried.

Speaker 8 (28:20):
Trenton has been there always taking care of my Mac
and answered my question everything. But he's gone now and
Dawson Stead stepped up to the plate and it was perfect.
He called and left me a very detailed message and
said everything that we had talked about was not an issue.
It was working fine, and I was not to worry.

(28:42):
So that was very very helpful. Emily two, she helped
me carry in my things, my printer and all my
stuff that I had to carry in. I loaded my
car with everything. And she has a very very calming voice.
That's that's important. Call me down.

Speaker 10 (29:02):
I was concerned, oh.

Speaker 8 (29:03):
Boy, and so and then she told me ahead of time,
you know what it was going to cost. And so
everything worked out just fine. I'm home, I've got it
all set up and I'm good to go. And I
wanted to ask you too. I've heard you mentioned that
you could bring food and things into the employee So
that does that still go?

Speaker 10 (29:23):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (29:23):
Absolutely, I mean if you want to bring treats and
other big goods. I mean, the only thing we asked.
There's there's one request that we have. If you want
the dish back, you have to tell us, Okay, i't.

Speaker 8 (29:33):
Want I don't need the dish. I don't need the
dish back. But there's a lady here out here where
I live that's baked pies and she's outstanding. In fact,
there was an article regarding her pies and her business
out here in this little community here in the World
Herald about a year ago. And so I asked Emily,

(29:54):
and I asked Dawson what kind of pie? And so
I have an idea now of what of what Dawson said,
he like anything. So she makes a peanut butter one.
That's her specialty. So I'm going to bring that in.
And Emily mentioned PRIs uh French silk, and so I

(30:16):
can't get him right away because she's busy with graduations
and all kinds of things out here. But what it's ye, yes, yes, exactly.
So it's kind of funny.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
That won't be Oh, go ahead, I'm sorry, I didn't
mean it her up.

Speaker 8 (30:35):
That's all right. It won't be uh until after yes, Maycember,
and some of this is all over with, but it
will be. It will be soon. It won't be till
sometime in June because she's just swapped. And I know
she delivers pies to a restaurant in Omaha, but I won't.
I'm not gonna I better not mention that on the air,
but she but she does and she has for a

(30:57):
long long time. So anyway, okay, I take care and
thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
All right, well, thank you Linda. And a quick story Linda.
You those of you listening don't know, is Linda was
really nervous about Trenton not being around to help her
trent and Trenton moved with his family to Florida, and
so you know, he's not with us anymore. And so
Trenton had helped Linda on everything, and so she asked
Dawson some questions about it if her printer was gonna
work on the new computer. And Dawson doesn't know her

(31:23):
printer from Adam, so he's like, well, I'll do everything
I can to make it work. I can't guarantee it's
gonna work. But also depends how old the printer is,
what kind of printer it is, how it's hooked up,
how it's connected. And it turns out it was that
it was the best printer ever to connect. It was
the simplest possible. It was a USB connection. It was
like old school, you know, here's the cable. It was
super easy. So Linda wrote a letter she hand wrote
a letter. Now, some of my guys can't read cursive,

(31:44):
So if you're gonna write a letter to us, I'll
warn you ahead of time if you write it in cursive.
The young uns, they don't they don't know how to
do that, you know, so you know, but I still
speak cursive. And so I read your letter, and I
walked up to Dawson and I said, Dawson, is that
Linda's MacBook right there? Because I got the letter the
same day you brought your MacBook in. And so he says, yes,

(32:06):
that's hers. And I'm like, she's a little concerned that
you're not really up to the task here, Dawson. I
think she thinks that you're not as good as Trenton.
Sure would be a shame if you if I found
out you weren't as good as Trenton. You know, you're
the head guy in the service center, you know. So
there may have been a little undue pressure to make
sure Linda's computer got done exactly perfectly right, But I'm

(32:29):
really glad that it did. Thanks for the call, Linda.
We appreciate it. Got to take a quick break, guys
when we come back. April is known for its showers,
but May is becoming known for its leaks. Data leaks
are everywhere. It was ridiculous this week. So we're going
to tell you all the information about you that's been
leaked on the internet. Coming up next on compute this.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Remember the good old days when virus detection worked like
where's Waldo? Spot the virus and the striped shirt and
you win. Today's infections are changing hourly to avoid detection
and you social engineering to trick you into making mistakes.
Using yesterday's security to defend against today's threats is like
using leeches to stop an infection. It just doesn't work.

(33:11):
We recommend Sophos intercept x anti virus backed by Shrocks
Virus free guarantee. Sofos uses the power of AI to
detect the patterns of a virus attack and responds with
Shrock's custom actions that stop it fast. With Sofos on
your PC, Mac, Android, or iOS device, you get the
state of the art protection you need to defend against

(33:33):
the most advanced attacks 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 7 (33:53):
Shrock Innovation's Data Recovery Labs saves the data the other
guys can't. The next time your hard drive, camera card,
or flash strive fails, let Shrock get your data back.

Speaker 5 (34:03):
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.

Speaker 6 (34:18):
And Chrome. Every day.

Speaker 5 (34:20):
There are critical security updates for these common programs that
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 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

(34:42):
to secureupdater dot com and try it for free. We
are so confident in our product we don't even ask
for a credit card to start the trial.

Speaker 6 (34:50):
Go to secureupdater dot com today and.

Speaker 5 (34:52):
Start your fourteen day trial and enjoy having the peace
of mind that your software is being updated quickly and safely.
We 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 secure update dot com.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
All righty, folks, welcome back into compute.

Speaker 3 (35:15):
This.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
My name's Flora Schrock. I'm the owner of the Shock
Innovation's computer company where we fix computers, we build computers,
we do technology work. We come to your house, we
come to your business. We have the best business support
you've ever seen. In fact, once in a while, you guys,
I think maybe once every two weeks, somebody from this
radio show calls in or sends in an email and

(35:35):
they're like, I need to talk to Jeff. And everybody knows, oh,
this isn't this is a business. They want to talk
to Jeff because Jeff is the guy that will take
your IT budget and cut it in half. And that
that's not an exaggeration, that's not that I'm not speaking
in hyperbole. He will literally take whatever you're spending on
it and pretty much cut it in half. When you

(35:57):
move to shock and you get better levels of service
then you're getting from your current business IT provider. I
will guarantee that because we treat you the same way
we treat our individual customers, and we treat our individual
customers pretty darn good. So if you have a business,
check it out. We got an email here that came
into the website that says, I have a Rico printer

(36:19):
that is no longer used. Your website mentioned you recycle computers.
There's no mention to printers. Would you be able to
recycle mine? If so, what do you charge? We charge
nineteen dollars to recycle printers or monitors. The main reason
is basically we get charged a lot to do printers
and monitors. Now we don't get charged for all the
stuff that they want like circuit boards and motherboards and
things like that. So we take all the money that

(36:41):
we make from giving the recycling company say it off
recycling those things, and we use that to subsidize the
recycling of the things that we have to pay for
like monitors or printers. We still have to charge a
little bit, though it's just nineteen dollars to recycle a
monitor regardless of size, or a printer. Now, we do
not take TVs. I don't care if you had the
TV hooked up to your computer and now you think

(37:02):
it's a monitor. No, no, no, no, no, no, we don't
take TVs because you probably had your forty two inch
oak cased rear projection television hooked up to a computer
and you're like, now it's a monitor. I guess it's
a computer monitor. But particular for nineteen dollars, I'm just
gonna leave it out in front of their front door
so they can't open the door. I know that seems
oddly specific, guys, not that that's ever ever happened at

(37:25):
multiple service centers ever, But yeah, we don't do TVs, no,
or satellite dishes, VCRs. They're not computers. Just because it
has on other board, it doesn't mean it's a computer.
Cordless phones, no, we don't do that for zero two, five, five,
eight eleven time. What we do is we answer your
questions though, Clyde, welcome to the program. How can I
help you and compute this today?

Speaker 9 (37:47):
Hey, good morning morning, good morning, I got it. I
got a question on your website. But first, real quick
on the weirdness factor having to do with packaging.

Speaker 3 (37:58):
I bought a box that cheesed it some as simple
as cheese.

Speaker 9 (38:01):
It's from one of the grocery stores.

Speaker 4 (38:03):
All right.

Speaker 9 (38:04):
I bring it home and I still have a box
in my in my pantry yet, and I compare the
box because the new box said more on the box
that cheesse it.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (38:15):
What they did is they changed the shape a little
bit of the box, but the same ounces, funny ounces
printed on the box.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
You get one hundred percent more box, one.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
Hundred percent more in the box, say.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
More volume in the box. But it's just empty. It's
empty volume.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
I mean, these guys are shysters, all of them.

Speaker 9 (38:36):
You know anything, they can do my question on your website.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
After I'm on your website, you know, okay, and if
you can hear me okay, because I have to use
the speaker phone. Is the after shrock labeled under in
case you missed it? And then it says from Facebook,
is that the after shock program?

Speaker 2 (39:01):
All right? So when you're on the compute this page
and you scroll down, there's all the stuff. This is
how you listen, this is everything else, and then down
below if you keep going down, there's three different channels.
It says YouTube iTunes and rumble. Do you see that
at the bottom of the page if you scroll all
the way.

Speaker 3 (39:18):
Down on the homepage. I'm gonna go all the way down.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
Oh so on the home page, you at the top,
you have to click on the radio show option up
there in the menu.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
Oh jeez, I'm in. I'm on my phone too, dog
got it?

Speaker 2 (39:33):
Oh okay, yeah, well it's yeah. So when you when
you when you go on your on your device, you
click on the radio and you might have to open
up a little Hamburger menu or something to get the
radio show. Click on radio show and go all the
way to the bottom there. Now here's the thing, the aftershock.
We say things during the aftershock that have historically gotten
us in trouble. In fact, YouTube will give us strikes

(39:55):
for the aftershock because it's so good. So if you
want to hear the content before they ben it. We
can't post the aftershock to YouTube anymore because it was
getting us strikes and we didn't want to lose our
YouTube channel for everyone who listened to compute this, because
we want to say things like masks don't work.

Speaker 5 (40:11):
So I just.

Speaker 3 (40:15):
I know the times short on the show. I just
want to go to your website on my phone and
find the aftershock. Okay, I can't. I don't know this
is it.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
All right? Do you have the Rumble app installed on
your phone?

Speaker 3 (40:28):
No? No, I just want to go to your website
and find Can you find the aftershock on your website?

Speaker 2 (40:34):
You can through Rumble only. That's where I was going
with them. It's not available on YouTube, it's not it's
not saved on our website. It's it's on our Rumble channel.
So if you have Rumble installed on your phone, you
can just subscribe to the Shock Innovations channel and then
every time there's an aftershock or a radio show, it'll
just pop into your feet. Otherwise, you can go to
our website. You can click on radio show and tap

(40:57):
on radio show and then scroll all the way down
to the bottom and tap on Rumble and it will
give you all the different episodes that you can see.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
How do you find the radio show on your website
on the iPhone?

Speaker 5 (41:08):
Here?

Speaker 2 (41:09):
Well, it's it's the menu at the top. So you're
you're in the you're in the mobile version, so there's
probably going to be a hamburger menu like three little
fours on the line.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
Is that the three bars. Okay, man, I didn't know
what a Hamburger menu was.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
There, you got it, all right, and then and then
you'll you'll find it. You'll find it in there when
you when you click on the Hamburger menu, uh for
special services, computer repair, shock, business, and contact.

Speaker 4 (41:38):
Just those six.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
You're saying you don't see it in there. It's not
a sub menu.

Speaker 10 (41:44):
No, no, check it.

Speaker 3 (41:46):
Pretend you're me one day and check it out. See
if you find it top you're on your iPhone or
I guess you got them hand right, No, don't you.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
That's all right. It's all the same stuff.

Speaker 3 (41:55):
Oh, it is all right.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
Well as far as brow, as far as Hamburger menus go,
the menu is the menu. No, no, you're right, you're
absolutely right. When you're on the mobile, the mobile versions,
and well it's by design because you can't put every
option on the mobile menu because it's too small. But yes,
I suppose radio show would be a good one to
put in there, So I'll ask aw fonds that to

(42:16):
pop that one in there for you.

Speaker 3 (42:18):
God bless you, brother.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
YouTube client, have a good have a good one, all right?
For zero, two, five, five, eight to eleven ten. So
I mentioned that May is going to become known for
data leaks this month because there's a couple of big
ones that have happened. Number one, if you may not
have heard about this one, but if you have a
Steam account. What is Steam? Steam is a gaming account,
So if you buy games online, there's a good chance

(42:44):
you have a Steam account. Most of your kids have
Steam accounts. Okay, so if you have a Steam account.
Steam is emphasizing that there's no need to change your password.
There's not been a breach of their systems. It's just
eighty nine million users accounts have been leaked. But I'm
sure it's fine, no need to do to do anything

(43:08):
funky there. Now, that just seemed weird. So I was like, shit,
my son, Jacob, change change your Steam password anyway, just
roll the password just for just for just for funzies,
let's do that. So he did. Now the next story
made the first story make more sense. Coinbase is reporting

(43:28):
that customers are being targeted in phishing schemes. Now phishing,
it's the it's the phi sh not not the Jesus
type of fishing, but phishing phih, which is where people
send you fake messages and try to trick you into
logging into fake websites or giving up your passwords so
they can steal your stuff. Someone bribed somebody in their

(43:49):
overseas call centers to give them information on users accounts. Now,
these call center employees don't get all your information. They
see the email address that you're using for your account.
They get to like the last four digits of your
account number. You know, things like that, you know, anonymized
not almost anonymized information, but specific to your account. This

(44:11):
has no threat to your coin Base account. No one's
going to log into your coin Base account, get past
your two factor authentication and steal your crypto. That's not
going to happen. What can happen here, though, is if
I am crafting these tricky little email messages, someone is
trying to log into your coin base account. Click here
to check the status of this log in, and in
the message, I can I send it to the correct

(44:32):
email address. I say, someone is trying to log into
your coin Base account ending in four one two seven.
Oh that's my coin Base account. This must really be Coinbase.
I guess better click the link. Oh no, you just
gave them your password. Way to go, Way to go,
rocket man. So be careful with these phishing emails. The

(44:53):
phishing emails from Coinbase made the first one makes sense.
How did eighty nine million accounts get leaked if there
wasn't a breach of your system Steam because somebody bribed
your overseas call center support. You think the call center
just works for Coinbase. No, they work for all kinds
of places. Somebody got bribed in these call centers and
is giving away user information to nefarious sources. So just

(45:15):
a heads up if you get weird messages that seem
really authentic. If if you get a message from Coinbase,
from your bank, from your credit card company, from anybody
saying something weird is going on, there's a breach, you
know whatever. We need you to click here to log in.
Never click the link in the email. Never ever ever
click the link in the email. Always go directly to
the website. So if Shrock Innovations sent you an email

(45:37):
and said click here because your Scholk account has been compromised,
you would always go to You'd open up your browser,
you type in Shrocinnovations dot com, and if you're on
the Hamburger menu, the option won't be there. As we've
established four zero two five, five, eight, eleven, ten. Got
to take our final break. Guys. When we come back,
we're gonna get Stephanie Gregg your calls coming in also, Garrett.

(45:57):
We're going to sneak you in there if we can.
And you guys have heard that you need to have
a VPN for security, and some of these VPNs are
offering lifetime subscriptions. That sounds pretty good, right, That almost
sounds too good to be true. Sometimes it's because it is.
It's a scam, and we're going to tell you why

(46:18):
it's a scam. Coming up next on compute this.

Speaker 5 (46:20):
There are enough unused computers in storage to give every man, woman,
and child in the US an old, outdated, and useless
computer system. Obsolete tablets and smartphones are nearly as bad.
Most people know not to throw them into the landfill
where they leak and contaminate, but it's hard to find
a place to safely recycle electronics. That's why Shrock Innovations

(46:40):
offers free recycling for computers, laptops, phones, tablets.

Speaker 6 (46:44):
Cords, and accessories.

Speaker 5 (46:46):
In fact, only monitors and printers have a small recycling fee.

Speaker 6 (46:49):
Everything else is free.

Speaker 5 (46:51):
More importantly, Shock will securely delete any data from your
devices and hard drives before they are sent to a
certified recycling partner, who will then repeat the wiping process
just to be saved. When you recycle your old technology
at Shrock, you know your identity and privacy are protected
and your equipment is being actually recycled by a certified
recycling partner. Shock is proud to recycle more e waste

(47:14):
than we produce annually, making a positive difference to our
economy and ecology. Do your part by dropping your old
gear at any Shock service center and be part of
the area's largest and most popular technology recycling program.

Speaker 6 (47:28):
Wish Shock Innovation Shrock Innovations.

Speaker 7 (47:30):
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 5 (47:39):
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.

Speaker 6 (47:46):
Who actually responds to those calls.

Speaker 5 (47:48):
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 meet or use. It's such a waste.
It's no different with computers. Major manufacturer's warranties have more
subscript crosses than a Sunday morning church service.

Speaker 6 (48:05):
Batteries are exempt.

Speaker 5 (48:06):
Hard dripes must be completely dead and forget about anything
that they can remotely clean.

Speaker 6 (48:11):
Us physical damage.

Speaker 5 (48:12):
That's why Shrock warranties are different. When you purchase a
modular PC or a solid state laptop and extend your warranty,
we offer a no risk money back guarantee. If you
need the warranty, you will be thrilled to have it
if you don't use it, and we refund your money
automatically every time.

Speaker 6 (48:29):
That's right.

Speaker 5 (48:29):
We are so confident in the quality of our products
that our 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. Shocks refundable extended warranties
just another way the Shrock Innovations computer company makes your

(48:50):
computer work for you.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
This just in from the intrepid reporters at KATV Channel set.
Dehydration means that water isn't leaking out of you, and
you might have the overwhelming desire to consume water, perhaps
even sixty four ounces of water. I don't know. Sixty
four isn't oddly? Is that? Is that the size of

(49:18):
the cup. Well, that's just how much you need. That's
what science tells us. So if you feel like you're
dehydrated and you feel the urgent need to drink and
you're not peeing, you might be dehydrated. So just a
just a quick summertime heads up PSA for you. There
must be a slow news day to day four zero, two, five, five, eight,
eleven ten. It's oh my gosh, it's not a slow

(49:39):
day here, Stephanie. Save us from ourselves. How can we
help you on compute this today?

Speaker 10 (49:46):
You want to talk dumb questions? Okay, I bought I
bought one of your Surge Protectors, and I got one
of your routers that's hooked up to you know where
I'm going to plug in the new Surge Protector. I've
got a TV and everything good. Good Is that going
to mess me up as far as passwords or resetting

(50:08):
anything or.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
No, ma'am, you can. You can plug every one of
those outlets and including the USB outlets on the search
protector can be used for any device you want, and
it will provide stable, reliable, smooth power to those devices
so that they can work the way they're intended to work.
So your TV will still work just like it worked before.
It'll just have nice, stable power so it's not damaging

(50:29):
its power supply. Same thing with your computer or any
phones or tablets you hook.

Speaker 4 (50:33):
Up to it.

Speaker 10 (50:34):
Okay, I was just worried about having to redo a
password and all that kind of cloud.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
No, no pains in the butt. We got you covered.

Speaker 10 (50:41):
Okay. One last one, last question. What's it costs to
renew sofos on your phone?

Speaker 2 (50:49):
Sofas on the phone is sixty five dollars? Okay, thank you,
No sweat, have a great afternoon. All righty guys, Well, wow,
I saw this article about VPNs, and you know, I
don't know. I don't do a lot of stories about VPNs.
If you want to maximize the security on your electronic device,
you should use a VPN. The problem is from a

(51:10):
support perspective, when you when you're in the business of
providing computer support to people, and I have to explain
to you why when you have your VPN turned on,
you can't order a pizza, which is a real thing.
Or when you have your VPN turned on, you can't
log into your credit card account, that's a real thing.
Or when you have your VPN turned on, there's any

(51:30):
number of things you can't do. You're super secure, but
because you're so secure, nobody can identify you. And because that,
I'll tell you know. It's working, even the pizza delivery companies.
So Papa John's is like, if you turn on your
VPN and try to go to Papa John's, it sends
you to like the twenty twelve version of their website.
I don't know, it's like some ghost in the machine
page that they forgot existed, and it doesn't work and
you can't order a pizza. So we don't talk about

(51:52):
VPNs a lot because the more I tell people to
get a VPN, the more they call me with problems
from using the VPN. My Apple CarPlay doesn't work anymore
because your VPN is turned on. Turn off your VPN, Well,
I don't want to turn it off. I'm paying for it.
That's to be I want to be safe, Yeah, I know,
but you gotta be a little less safe if you
want stuff to work sometimes, So that's it's weird. But
if you're gonna get a VPN and you have one
that says lifetime subscription, pay wants get it for life,

(52:17):
that is a scam. So here's the tricks. Lifetime does
not mean the rest of your days now, huh. It's
like back in the day when I worked in the
clothing shop and they said free alterations for life. What
they meant was the life of the suit. If you
put on four hundred pounds, they're not going to alter
that suit to fit you.

Speaker 4 (52:37):
Though.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
The suit is dead. It's gone, it's no longer alive.
That could mean five years for your subscription, or it
could mean until we sell you to another company when
we get bought out. Lifetime subscriptions are offered often by
smaller VPN companies. Larger companies know the costs and they
don't screw around with that. But the few that do
make you renew your lifetime warranty every so many years.

(53:00):
This is like pure VPN. Every five years. You have
to renew your lifetime subscription. Doesn't cost you anything, but
you have to log in and renew it, and if
you don't, you'll lose your lifetime subscription. And the renewal
process is terrible. By the time you're done trying to
do it, you're routed from department to department to department,
and you're not renewed and your subscription expires and you're like, ah,

(53:20):
now I have to pay again. So watch out for
those lifetime subscriptions on the VPN. I like ExpressVPN. It
costs about one hundred and ten bucks a year, but
it works well. Linda, congratulations, you've got yourself a twenty
five dollars Shock Innovations gift certificate. Stay tuned, folks for
the after shot. Give me six or seven minutes here
to reaqueue and get set up, and then we will
see you all again next weekend for another exciting edition

(53:42):
of Compute This