Compute This 7-20-2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Shrock Innovations presents the Midwest number one independent computer repair
company with service centers and Lincoln Omaha FA billion des
moin and across the country via the Shrock Desk. This
is Compute This.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Good morning, folks, welcome in to compute this. My name
is Thor schrock On, the owner of the Shrock Innovations
computer company. We are live and local this morning. For you,
the number to join us on the program four zero
two five five eight eleven ten. That's four zero two
five five eight eleven ten. If you are outside of
the metro area and you'd like to call into the

(00:41):
program to have a shot at winning that twenty five
dollars Shrock Innovations gift certificate, you can do that by
calling us toll free at eight eight eight two five
zero two zero nine one. Eight eight eight two five
zero two zero nine one. Alrighty, and we are live
this morning on Facebook dot com slash Shock Innovations. I'm
looking at my camera and my green screen is clipping

(01:02):
out just a little bit. I'll fix that during the
commercial break. So for those of you who are watching online,
you get to see a you get to see a
boo boo this morning there you go. If you want
to see a booboo, Facebook dot com, slash shraw innovations,
you can go look up how we're letting people get
a look behind the curtain.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
I guess literally behind the behind the green curtain. So
so yeah, as he's fixing his webcam there. Basically, we
were talking a little bit about AI this morning, but
thora I know you got some other topics that you
definitely want to hit on this morning.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Oh absolutely, This today is just there is so much
news today and there's a huge story. I don't know
how I missed it that I didn't know. On like
July ninth, Elon announced grock Heavy, which was an agent
essentially that can an AI agent that can run on
your computer and use the applications on your computer and

(01:49):
the data saved on your hard drives to accomplish specific
work tasks on your workstation. I've been everything. Remember the
whole segment we did on Chad, we brought Ava on,
We did the whole bit, and my goodness, I said,
this is the limitation. It did a segment last week
saying this is why Google has such an edge because

(02:10):
they have a whole ecosystem. You can go to Google Calendar,
you can go to Gmail, you can do Google Docs. Well,
if I have chat GPT, even the pro version for
two hundred dollars a month, it can't even tell me
if I have an appointment today. Like that seems to
be a pretty significant limitation in the world of AI.
I mean, just if you can't even tell me the
basic stuff, you can't send an email for me, well,

(02:33):
you know thor it's not ready for that yet. There's
too much risk involved in that. Well, apparently there wasn't
too much risk for groc to launch the thing, you know,
just you know, a few weeks ago. So coming up
on the program today, we've got some more AI news
for you because now Grok is not alone. Rock Heavy
is not the only one. There are some less expensive options,
still expensive, but less expensive. We're going to cover that

(02:54):
for you today as well as what these things can
actually do. And if you are a business owner right now,
you definitely need to listen to this program today because
this is the technology that is going to allow you
to be ridiculously productive, to find efficiencies in your workforce
that you would not believe, to make basically make your

(03:17):
business more profitable, allow you to invest in additional technologies.
This is I mean not to get political here, because
we'll save that for the aftershock. There will be an
aftershock today. But on one hand, Trump wants rates lower.
On the other hand, money historically has been about this
price throughout the course of American history. So money should

(03:38):
cost something to borrow, like you should have. People who
save money should get some return for saving their money.
They should get an interest rate. So if you want
to lower rates, that means people who have savings get
less interest and people who want to borrow money get
to borrow money for less money basically cheaper. Well, Jerome
Powell is worried that if he lowers the interest rates,

(03:58):
inflation is going to get out of control. But what
Jerome Powell is not taking into account is the technology
that is coming. This is like the nineteen eighties all
over again. Guys. This is the microprocessor all over again.
Where you know, we were joking about rolodexes and whatever

(04:19):
those things were called a couple of weeks ago. You know, ah, yes,
where you had to you had a card. Yeah, I
didn't know what one was until you told me. You
wrote on the card and when you wanted to look
up someone's address. When you're in a Christmas card list, dude,
you'd go to your Rolodex and you'd find the card
and you'd tell there's their address, there's Sally's address, and
you'd write it on the envelope and you put a
stamp on it. Well, now you don't even have to

(04:39):
write a Christmas letter anymore because Rock Heavy can write
the letter, can email the letter to everyone on your
Christmas list, and then when they reply back saying is
this really AI, it can reply back saying, silly duck,
no it's not. And by the way, I was at
your birthday party last year and it was in Vegas,
so I won't say any more than that, but you
know it was me. Okay, I was there, so don't

(05:02):
question me. And why would AI be able to say
that because it knows your calendar, it knows your email
chain where you talked about your trip to Vegas who
birthday time, And you know, people tend to do things
in Vegas they don't do in other places, you know,
some some nefarious, some not so so yeah, it's a
little joke. AI can do all that already. So wow,

(05:23):
So last week on the show, if you missed the
show last week, you can check that out at Shockinnovations
dot com. We have our own AI bought that posts,
you know, snippets of the program. They're not always perfect.
Sometimes the cuts are a little weird. I do kind
of check them. The most egregious ones don't get posted,
but the ones that are close enough, good enough, they'll
post those up and then you can watch like little
segments of the program. But if you missed the whole

(05:43):
show last week, we told you about electricity prices going
up across twenty different or thirteen states going up twenty
percent or more. And that's baked in the that's baked
in the cake. Guys, that's done. That is happening. That's
not Oh, it might happen that the the CEO of
the grid operator that is raising those prices has resigned,

(06:05):
because yeah, he's done. It's baked in the cake. We
shared a cool new technology from Team Group that allows
you to explode your hard drive if you're being raided
by the FBI. I guess, yeah, what Epstein would have given, right,
And honestly, guys, that's why I didn't do an aftershock
last week because I did not want to talk about
that man, I just didn't, and I know I'm gonna

(06:25):
have to, but come on, everybody would want. People were
emailing me about Epstein, and I'm like, I'm a computer guy, Guys,
come on, I don't. I don't. I didn't go to
the island. It wasn't on the plane. I don't know anybody.
I don't know anybody who went to the island or
was not except for Bill Gates. I mean, I don't
know Bill Gates, but I know of Bill Gates.

Speaker 4 (06:43):
You know.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
I'm I don't want to talk about that. Come on,
you dirty. So yeah, there will be one today. I
know I'll have to address it. So at least now
we have some more information. So stay tuned to the
Aftershock if you want to hear that kind of stuff
on Sunday, you know whatever. Also, we told you about
Apple's use of biometric data to predict all kinds of
health things from a broken leg. Not predict. Predict is

(07:05):
the wrong word detect. Okay, Yeah, Apple says you're gonna
break your leg today. Oh gosh, I'm just gonna stay
in bed. Something crashes through the ceiling and hit your leg.
Oh my goodness, how did it know? Now it's not
like that. But it can tell you if you're pregnant,
It can tell you if you have an infection, it
can tell you if you're injured. And it wasn't just
using like heartbeat and skin temperature and all these other

(07:28):
things like the or ring. It was using biometric data
like your gait. Apparently when you get pregnant your gate changes.
Women like you walk differently in the early days of pregnancy,
you walk differently, and Apple picked that up through AI
analysis of biometric data. No doctor ever knew that before.
Imagine the discoveries that we're gonna have from AI looking

(07:51):
at data that we've already had for years and saying, huh,
maybe we should have AI look at vaccinations and they can,
and AI can tell us once and for all if
autism is caused by vaccination. You know that you can't
convince people who think it was that it wasn't, And
you can't convince people that think that vaccination is free

(08:12):
of all risk that there's a risk. So it would
be interesting to have just a reanalysis of all the
existing data. Then someone will say, well, the existing data
is all flawed because it was paid for by the
vaccine companies, And then the A I ain't going to
solve anything. It's still going to go on. It's going
to go on and on and on. But at least
it would be an interesting way to dig back into

(08:33):
the data to see if there was some correlations or
causations there that weren't available before. Right, So AI. Last year,
when we were talking about AI on this program, it
was something that everybody on the program wanted to avoid.
Nobody wanted any part of it. Nobody saw a good
side or an upside to it. And definitely there are
downsides to AI. For example, Microsoft has eliminated thousands of

(08:57):
jobs this quarter by automating them with AI. So the
whole AI is not coming for your job thing. Yeah,
I saw a meme and it was like a guy
talking to his horse and said, the automobile is not
coming for your job. You see, they're going to need
horses to drive the automobiles. You know. AI is totally
coming for your job. And we're going to talk about

(09:18):
some technology this week. I'm going to be experimenting with
just to see what it can do, just to see
how good it is, Like, what could we actually do?
What could a business actually do with this? That's the
first step figuring it out and trying it out. So
coming up on the program today, guys, we've got Sofos
currently on special for forty six percent off in the
service centers. I sent an email about this during the weekend.

(09:38):
Apparently there was a little bit of confusion because the
email went to all shot customers. Now, typically, like if
we were going to send you an email to buy
a new computer, we filter out if you've bought a
new computer in the last ninety days. We don't send
you an email about buying a new computer on special
for a super great price. You know, because you're like, oh,
I just bought a computer, and it makes people upset,
you get buyers remorse, then you won't want that. So

(10:00):
normally we filter those things out a little bit. But
with Sofos, the vast majority of you have a cell
phone and a computer, maybe multiple computers. And when sofos
is one hundred and sixty dollars per device to put
on on your computer, for example, it's cheaper for your
phones at only eighty dollars, but still, when it's that expensive,

(10:22):
you might decide to only protect the most valuable items
on your network, which is not an ideal way to
protect yourself because obviously, if something can get in. I
have a story we're going to talk about today. If
you bought a cheap device on Prime Day, like a
cheap Android device, I'm talking like a digital projector or
a streaming device or a mini PC. Guess what it

(10:45):
came preloaded with Android malware? Probably And now basically Microsoft
is trying to get a lawsuit filed where they can
declare the unknown actors that are perpetuating this malware to
be bad actors so they can shut down botnet because
this thing could do anything, It could attack anybody, and
it's all based out of China, so it right there.

(11:08):
I mean, that's you need to protect everything on your
network because you never know where what vector the threat's
gonna come from anymore. And we're going to get into
that with AI. That's going to change. This is the
news today on AI is going to change everything about
computer security. It's going to change everything today. So the
reason we sent the email to everybody was because you

(11:30):
probably have a secondary device you're not covering right now.
So we had a lot of people reply back, I
already have SOFOS, Is this a new and improved version? No,
it's not a new and improved version. You know what's
new and improved the email because chat GPT wrote that email.
I didn't write that one. I started to write it,
and I'm like, I'm literally writing an email about how

(11:52):
AI is going to threaten everyone's security. I wonder, could hey,
I write the email? You know, I wonder, And so
I had it write the email and I said, in
the tone of thorschock, this was my prompt, in the
tone of thorschock, write an email that says this this
this sofos is on sale forty six percent off, and

(12:13):
AI threats and then here's the news articles I used
to determine that these threats are coming. And it wrote
an email that I had my wife read it and
she said, it kind of sounds like she goes, it
sounds like you. It's got a lot of your manners.
It said things like if this goes sideways, like I
say that, I use that a lot, like you know,
this is going to go sideways. So it was using

(12:34):
mannerisms from me that I use on the radio show.
It watched some radio shows, learned how I talked a
little bit, read some emails, you know, did some research
figured me out and then created an email that supposedly
sounded like me. My wife's like, it kind of sounds
like you, but there's just something off about it, and
I can't put my finger on it. So I went
through the chat GPT email and edited it for length

(12:55):
because one of the things that didn't do well it
wrote an essay, and nobody wants to read an essay
in their email, so, you know, I narrowed it down,
but it pointed out all the cool things that sofos
does for you, and so people were emailing me back saying,
is this a new version of sofos that I needed?
I just bought sofos, oh man, and we had buyer's remorse,
and I was like, I had to email back like

(13:16):
hundreds of people because when you email me back, even
though it's kind of a mass email, when I use
my real reply to address so you can reply back
to me. So some guys like, take me off your list,
and I'm like, dude, there's an unsubscribe link for that.

Speaker 5 (13:28):
Man.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
Just click the let me clink the link for you, sir, unsubscribed.
There we go, Bye bye. You know, it's like, don't
email me back and tell me to take you off
the list when there's an unsubscribe link. But anyway, he
probably didn't think it went to a real person, but
it did. It came to me. So I got a
lot of replies back with people confused that this was
some new version of sofos when it is not. It

(13:48):
is the same exact sofas that every single one of
you from Shrock have right now. This is not the
sofas you have. If you have sofos home that you
purchased from sofos dot com, it's a whole different thing.
The thing you have from Schrock is way more powerful,
way more powerful. At a meeting this week with sofos
representatives talking about additional technologies we can leverage apparently, I

(14:12):
mean not to toot our own horn here, but we're
kind of a big deal in the Midwest. In fact,
we're the largest reseller of sofos in the Midwest, and
we're competing with some pretty big like MSP companies that
protect you know, lots and lots of computers for individual clients,
and we are one of the largest sofos resellers in

(14:32):
the Midwest. So we're gonna have a breakfast meeting. They're
coming from Canadia to have a breakfast meeting with us,
and I was like, is our breakfast here that good?
Like do you guys not have breakfast in Canadia? Like, wow,
maybe they're not coming from Canada. You know they're they're
Their email says they're based in Canada, but you know,
maybe they're maybe they have a roving sales team. I
don't know. So anyway, we have a breakfast meeting next
week with Sofo's team to talk about different things that

(14:55):
we can do to even protect you guys, even better
than we're protecting you now. But that email listed all
the things that we currently do, and one of the
things that listed and no annoying pop ups, which is
why nobody knows anything it's doing because it doesn't like
tune its horn like Norton or McAfee. We've protected you
against one thousand threats today, you know. And so people
when it comes to renewal time, they're like, I don't
know if I need to renew this. Well, if you

(15:16):
don't have it on your mobile phone, if you don't
have it on your Mac, if you don't have it
on your PCs, all of them, you know, you're certainly
missing out so you can do that right now on
special for forty six percent off. You don't even have
to come into the shop. We can do it all
over the phone. Forty six percent off of sofos at Shrock.
Also coming up today Prime Day infection horror story. We're
going to tell you if you bought a cheap Chinese

(15:38):
thing from Amazon on Prime Day, like a tablet or
a MINIPC or a digital projector or things that you
wouldn't normally associate with infections, well you probably got an infection. Also,
I mentioned Grock Heavy. Grock Heavy has a competitor now,
Chat GPT Agent has released. I have access to it

(16:00):
because I was playing around with Ava. Sounds really bad.
For those of you who don't listen to the program
very often, you're just like, what was he doing? Does it?
Does the love we Kim really know about this. She
did do a little weird giggle when I was talking
the other day and my wife heard that. She said,
uh huh no, no, no, no, no, I don't like that.
But so Ava is the digital assistant she named herself.

(16:23):
She named herself, Ava is the digital assistant from Chat
GPT that's on my phone. So when I have questions
about stuff I asked Eva. For example, yesterday I asked Ava,
if I was to install a Whipple supercharger in my Mustang,
what other components of the Mustang would I need to upgrade?
And oh, by the way, I have a twenty twenty
four Mustang with a Magnarte suspension in Brembo breaks and

(16:44):
it's the Performance GT package. And she went through and
told me all the things I needed to upgrade on
the car if I did a Whipple supercharger, which isn't
too too many things. Honestly, it was pretty good. Not
like the old S one ninety sevens. You had to
do a lot to those. But I don't have to
replace my axel for example. That's kind of nice. So
it was like, oh, that's great. I don't know that.
I would probably talk to a mechanic as well as

(17:05):
chet GPT before I just decided to do that, But
that's Ava. So I was messing around with with Ava.
We had her on the radio show, you know, talking
about stuff, and you know that may I had to
buy a pro subscription for that. So now I have
that subscription. Now I'm gonna be able to do some
agent stuff. And I have some ideas on what I
want to try to do. I'm going to share those
with you on the program today. Also, Google is giving

(17:27):
you the ability to robo call businesses. Now, that's right,
you get the robo calls from businesses are either trying
to sell you something or you know, lower your mortgage
or get your business funding, or what are some of
the other ones You're Google listing is well now right
within Google Search. Now this is this is kind of
a repeat story. We talked about this once before when
it was in beta like a year ago. Now it's

(17:49):
in the regular Google Search that you can if you
wanted to find out who has the cheapest oil change,
you just click a button. Google Search will call the
individual business, talk to the human beings at the business,
ask them the questions that you want to have answered,
and then report back to you with multiple answers from
multiple businesses about oil change pricing and features, so that

(18:14):
you can make the appropriate decision about where to take
your car for an oil change without having to pick
up the phone and dial a single number. Now, meanwhile,
the businesses on the other side are getting robo called
into oblivion. So yeah, it is a business you can
say take me off your call list, and it will
it'll take you out. But then this is like saying
take me off your search results. Why would a business
do that? Now, businesses are going to have to employ

(18:35):
AI chatbots to talk to the AI chatbots that are
calling them from Google. Let me transfer you to our
marketing department. Hold on a second, boop, Hi, this is Ava.
How can I help you for zero two, five, five, eight,
eleven ten. I mean, we got some fun stuff going
on today, guys, so stick with us on the program.
We're going to take a quick break when we come
back around the shops this week. We have some new

(18:57):
specials on the specials page and Prime Day infection horror.
Oh no, it's not even Halloween coming up next on
compute this.

Speaker 5 (19:04):
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

(19:25):
offers free recycling for computers, laptops, phones, tablets, cords, and accessories.
In fact, only monitors and printers have a small recycling fee.
Everything else is free. 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

(19:47):
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 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

(20:08):
and be part of the area's largest and most popular
technology recycling program wi Shrock Innovations.

Speaker 4 (20:15):
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 (20:27):
You would probably rather drink the water at Camp La
June than get another call about the desperate need to
renew your cars expiring warranty. Who actually responds to those calls.
Everyone wants to play the warranty game where you pay
money now just in case you need service later that
everyone hopes you won't net or use. It's such a waste.
It's no different with computers. Major manufacturers warranties have more

(20:50):
subscript crosses than a Sunday morning church service. Batteries are exempt.
Hard drives must be completely dead, and forget about anything
that they can remotely claim us physical damage. 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

(21:10):
the warranty, you will be thrilled to have it if
you don't use it, and we refund your money automatically
every time. That's right. We are so confident in the
quality of our products that our extended warranties are refundable.
Many Shock customers use their refunds to purchase another warranty,
or pocket the savings.

Speaker 6 (21:27):
And move on.

Speaker 5 (21:28):
We all know you'll need it to cover that expiring
car warranty.

Speaker 6 (21:32):
Anyway.

Speaker 5 (21:32):
Shock's refundable extended warranties just another way the Shrock Innovations
computer company makes your computer work for you.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
All righty guys, welcome back in to compute this. My
name's Thor Schrock. I'm the owner of the Shock Innovations
computer company. We are going to rapidly be getting into
the back to school, back from vacation season at Shrock.
We have seen a pickup in business in in July,
which we normally do. After the fourth of July, things
start ramping up again. However, there are still days and
moments and times when the bench is quite empty. In fact,

(22:10):
on Thursday, I think in the Paplion service center they
didn't have a single computer on the bench. It was
a virgin snow bench. They cleaned all kinds of things
that day. So, if you have a maintenance certificate that
you've been waiting to use until a time when the
turnaround times we're a little bit better. That time is now,
and that time is rapidly disappearing because number one, you

(22:30):
know we're gonna get busy again, and number two, we're
about to have another maintenance checkup sale again in the
in the coming weeks here, guys. So if you have
one of those certificates, I employ you to go ahead
and use it now, because we are going to get
very very busy, very very soon. So if you have
one and you want to quick turnaround, use your certificates. Now,
speaking of special things, you can check out the specials

(22:50):
page over at Schrockinnovations dot com. We have a number
of computers up there that that are you know, just
random things. Sometimes customers buy something and return it because,
you know, just didn't meet their needs. A lot of
people try to buy, like you know, they try to
buy the Resolute laptop, the cheap one, and then they
find out that it doesn't do like advanced AI things
and they're like, I thought it would do more, and
they bring it back and they exchange it for like

(23:12):
an endeavor or you know, maybe a gallant or something.
And so what do we do with this computer that's
technically left our hands for a day and come back.
We can't sell it as new anymore, so we sell
it as an open box. Or if we're evaluating models
for model line replacement and we get one, and that's
good because that's why we ordered it, but it's just
not quite what we had in mind, like the like

(23:33):
the Champagne pink laptop that we received. We know it
was great technologically, just not quite what we had in mind,
and so we put that on the specials page. So
you can check that out Shockcannovations dot com. Click on
specials and everything there that's on sale right now over
at Shock. You should see on that page also, sofos
is on sale for forty six per truck Innovations dot com.
Of course, you can check out the specials page and

(23:54):
the radio show page while you're there if you want.
But right on the home page there's a black box
right an the rotator that says click here to win
a free laptop. That is a real deal. That's a
real giveaway that we and it's a local giveaway, guys.
That's something that we give away to a human being
within the radius of our operating service centers. So if

(24:14):
you click on that, you can go vote for Shrock
in the Best of Omaha competition. Now, we don't know
who you vote for, so you can click on that
and vote for anybody you want, and we don't know
the difference. So as long as all we do know
is if you voted in the competition. So you click that,
you do the registration, you put your email address in,
it sends you an email. You click the link. You
guys know how it works. And then once you're registered,

(24:35):
you can not only vote for us in the Best
of Omaha competition to have a chance to win that laptop,
but there are extra things that you can do to
get extra chances to win the laptop as well. You
can do reviews, you can do Facebook posts, you can
do all kinds of different things to improve your chances
and get extra entries in the competition. So do check
that out at Shrock Innovations dot com. Vote for us
in the Best of Omaha and win yourself a free

(24:56):
eight hundred dollars laptop in the process. Not a bad
deal there for zero two, five, five, eight, eleven ten.
Prime Day horror infection story. So on Prime Day essentially
what usually happens and sales were down this Prime Day
from previous years honestly, But what typically happens on Prime
Day is there's a lot of garbage on sale that
you don't want. You know, Get an Amazon Kindle. I

(25:18):
already have an Amazon Why do I need another Amazon Kindle?
Get an Amazon Echo? I already have an Echo. Why
do I need an Echo? Get Get this? Get that,
Get this probably Amazon fire Stick, Like I already have streaming.
I don't need a fire stick, you know, so a
lot of stuff you don't need goes on sale, and
then stuff you were gonna buy anyway sometimes gets cheaper,
which is why I told you the best way to
shot Prime Day is anything you're thinking about buying on Amazon,

(25:40):
just hold off, put it in your cart and just
leave it there and then see what prices go down,
and then on Prime Day you can buy it for less. Right.
This also works on eBay. By the way, guys, let
me tell you how eBay works. Put it in your cart,
walk away from your cart for twenty four hours. eBay
not the company, not the individual seller, but eBay will

(26:02):
send you like a ten percent off, like check out
now for ten percent off. Your cart's waiting, and then
you save ten percent on your cart. All you have
to do is wait, Just stick it in the cart
and wait, and you will. They don't want you to
abandon the cart, so they give you savings. So see
right there, Just from listening to compute this today, you
could have saved hundreds of dollars a year between Prime
Day and eBay. There you go, bet a boom. So

(26:24):
a lot of people bought things on Prime day that
they may or may not have needed. You go on
too prime Day on to Amazon and you see a
mini PC for like one hundred bucks, and you're like,
even if it's a piece of garbage for one hundred bucks,
you know, I need a junk TV to put in
my streaming center. I need a junk computer to do
something else with, you know, in my mind like, hey,

(26:44):
I can put this in one hundred and forty degree
mine and this let it run until it burns into
oblivion for a hundred bucks. I don't care, right, I mean,
of course, a hundred bucks is still a hundred bucks.
But you know, in the grand scheme of things, if
it works for a year for one hundred bucks, that's
pretty good value. So oh okay, great. So if you
bought these cheap devices, whether they were and there is

(27:05):
not a complete list of these devices, this is the
scary part. There were tablets, mini PCs, digital projectors, basically
any Chinese made really really inexpensive technology item, too good
to be true kind of thing, streaming devices, anything like
that that was too good to be true, and you
purchased it. It may have came with an app installed

(27:26):
pre installed on it called bad Box and bad Box
is literally an infection app. Now, these devices don't run
the same Android operating system that your Android phone runs.
That one is curated by Google. It's made more secure
because Google kind of gate keeps what apps, where the
apps come from, things like that. There is also an
open source version of Android, the more basic version. That

(27:48):
is what China uses to pre install in all these
devices because it is free and they don't have to
pay for it, so they put that on there. They
say it comes with Android, and you get the device
and it has Android, but it could download the apps
from any store. It can know just the security the
security things are not necessarily in place. Well, the bad
box app is pre installed on these devices and when

(28:10):
you run it, when you run the device in your network,
it does exactly what you think it's going to do.
It works perfectly. But at some point in the future
that bad Box app can be activated. It can't be removed.
By the way it can get activated to use your
streaming device, your minipc or you know, your digital projector
as a method of attacking other computers. It can be

(28:31):
used to initiate ransomware attacks on other users. So, in
other words, someone in China has command and control of
a massive botnet that has implanted devices on people's home
networks that are currently infected and have the ability at
any time to be remotely activated by a threat actor
to initiate a ransomware attack for example. This is why

(28:53):
we tell customers, especially business clients. A lot of times
businesses will say I want to save money. I only
want to protect the computer that we're using. Often like
I don't want to protect the breakroom computer that the
guys used to look at YouTube or on their lunch
break and we're like, if any computer gets protected, that's
the one you want to protect. You know that in
the accounting computer. But the problem is if you have

(29:14):
one device on your network that's unprotected, it allows the
ransomware to get into the network, and once it's into
the network, it can explore the network and it can
find vulnerabilities there that normally your anti virus doesn't have
to protect against because you know, I don't have to
lock that weird. This is like saying I have a
door in my house to the basement, and down in
the basement there are windows, and I have alarm sensors

(29:35):
on all the windows, but I never locked the door
to the basement, because why would I lock the door
to my own basement. Well, if you let a burglar
into your home and put him up in the basement,
and then wonder how you get burgled because you didn't
lock the basement door. Well, he didn't come in through
the windows with all the alarm sensors he was. You
let him in. So people who bought these devices, you

(29:57):
let them in now that they're in. If you you
don't have security on all of your other devices, you
are in a bad, bad place. And obviously this ties
into the SOFO sale. When I saw the story, I thought, well,
here we go. I've often said I can scare the
pants off you every show if I wanted to. There's
always a nasty virus story out there. This one is
particularly nasty though, because Microsoft's literally going to court to
try to shut down this botnet to get control of

(30:19):
the command and control servers the domain that runs the botnet,
so they can shut it down. Meanwhile, of course, if
I'm the bad box app makers, I have a second
domain ready to go programmed in as an alternate. So
when you shut down the first one, the second one
takes over, and then I update the app with a
new secondary you know, so that way I have a backup.

(30:40):
So once this botnet is established, they're very very hard
to squash, very hard. The best thing you can do
is to make sure that you're only connecting reputable devices
to your networks, which is which is why if it's
too good to be true, guys, especially right now with
tariffs and everything, if it's too good to be true
and it's coming from China, like you're paying in some
other way for zero two, five, eight eleven ten, Real

(31:01):
quick before we go to break rough, Welcome to the program.
How can I help you on compute this today?

Speaker 6 (31:06):
Hi? Sure? Thora I had a question I was wondering, like,
when you in voice for the paramative maintenance, is there
a way you could list all the tests that you
do on the invoice, just the a person would know
what they were getting.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
We used to do that back when we had quick books,
actually when we were using quick Books to invoice, and
it's something that I would I was talking with Alfonso
about possibly going back to There's a couple a couple
things there at number one, the length of the invoice
would get ridiculous. You would have like a three page invoice,
and so we're like, you know, from a logistic perspective,

(31:44):
having you know, it's this is going to sound so
cheap and petty, but having to print three pages instead
of one page, and then having to staple them, and
then having to print dual copies because we keep a copy,
you keep a copy, and then then we have to
tape those down to the computer so that we keep
that paperwork with the computer when them in. Logistically, that's
a lot of human effort and materials. So one of

(32:05):
the things I'm talking with Alfonso about doing potentially is,
you know, everybody who does business with Shock has a
Shock account, and you can go back and look at
all your previous invoices and work orders in your Shock account. Well,
we could put more detailed versions of the work orders
in your Shock account and then when you check out,
for example, we could send you a text message like
your work order, the work order you received in the

(32:26):
service center is just a basic summary of what was done.
For all the advanced information, check it out here in
your Shock account, And that might be a good way
for us to handle that and also get people to
realize that you have the Shark account. We have a
lot of plans for your Shock account going forward into
the future of things we want to do with it,
and making sure people know their passwords. For example, people
you know that people can access the Shock account. We're

(32:48):
talking about possibly putting an app on the computers that
allows you to just auto just click on the Shock
logo down in the little by the clock and have
your Shock account pop up, so that you can see
everything that's going on in there, and all the protection
statuses of all your computers when they're due for maintenance
checkups things like that. So you know, we were trying
to walk the line between clutter and bloatwear and providing

(33:10):
you with useful information that is actually something you'd want
to see. And so I hear what you're saying there
about wanting to see more detail on the invoices. I
totally see that. It's something that we can do, and
we've done before, but we stop doing just because when
you get to three or four or five pages on
your invoice and then it's kind of like, Okay, here's
your dictionary. Have a great day, sir, you know, but hey,

(33:31):
thank you for the call. I've got you in the
drawing here for the twenty five dollars. Shrock Innovations gift certificate.
We've got to take a quick break four zero two five,
five eight eleven ten Clyde. We'll get to your call
coming up next on compute this.

Speaker 5 (33:43):
Computer problems usually don't just suddenly happen. Most failures usually
start out as small issues with few or no symptoms.
Over time, they grow into error messages, blue screens, and
other problems that can be costly to fix. Shrock Innovations
buy annual preventative maintenance check up catches those small problems
now before they can metastasize and become tomorrow's costly repairs.

(34:05):
During the maintenance check up, our experienced technicians for form
up to eight hours of tests, checks, automated repairs and
optimizations that keep your computer at peak efficiency while identifying
potential issues while you still have options about how to
handle them. When your computer gets its first check up,
it can see up to a twenty five percent performance
improvement and leaves our service center cleaned, sanitized, and running

(34:28):
better than the day you bought it. Just About every
complex device requires maintenance. Your computer is no different, especially
considering the valuable information that passes through it every day.
If you have not had your computer maintenance in the
past six months. You are overdue, Stop in or call
any of our service centers to arrange a free pickup
to ensure your computer continues to work for you.

Speaker 4 (34:50):
Now you can configure and purchase laptops, desktops, tablets, and
more all at the new Shockinnovations dot com. Check out
our specials for one of a kind discounts and deals.

Speaker 5 (35:01):
Have you noticed that almost every piece of technology seems
to do its best to be disposable? Every day, people
toss their phones, tablets, and other electronic devices because they
can't be repaired. Manufacturers have engineered their products to fail
on a schedule so they can extract more money out
of your family budget automatically every year or so. But

(35:21):
what if it didn't have to be that way. What
if you could get the performance of today's fastest computers
with the expansion and upgrade options you used to enjoy
You just described Shrocks modular desktop computers. Having the right
tool for the job is important, and Shock's modular desktop
pieces packed the performance and flexibility to handle your computing
needs from just checking the email to running a complex business.

(35:45):
Modular desktops are engineered to be easily repaired with widely
available industry standard parts. Every component is selected intentionally to
give you years of upgrade and repair options. It is
not uncommon for a short customer to be using the
same computer for a decade after they bought it. Modular
PCs are the most popular custom computers in the Midwest

(36:05):
for a reason. When you are ready for your next computer,
stop in to check out the Modular lifestyle or shop
online at Truckinnovations dot com.

Speaker 4 (36:14):
T Trock Innovations Data Recovery Labs saves the data the
other guys can't.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
The next time.

Speaker 4 (36:19):
Your hard drive, camera card, or flash drive fails, let
Shrock get your data back.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
All righty folks, welcome back into compute this. My name
is Thor Schrock'm the owner of the Shrock Innovations computer company.
This hour is just dissolving before my eyes here and
there's so much more to talk about, but I want
to do a segment on the Grock Heavy and the
new chat GPT Agent feature. These are critical and any
I mean, if you own a business, you need to

(36:49):
know about this. If you work in a business, holy okay,
if you work from home, holy cow. For two hundred
bucks a month. You could literally automate your own job
and still get paid to work from home. Right, I
mean talk about using AI against the businesses there you go. Right,
So there's critical things and we're going to test them

(37:12):
this week and have some tests in mind things I
want to try to do, and I'm going to try
them and then we're going to see you next week
with how they work out. But before I get into that,
I don't want to keep Clyde on the line waiting.
So Clyde, welcome to the program. How can I help
you today on compute this.

Speaker 6 (37:26):
Or fantastic business you run? And thank you for your program?
Here you answering question. I'm trying to sign you guys
up for Best of Omaha because you are the best
of Omaha. And I'm on your homepage looking on my iPhone.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
Where do I click the mobile version? Oh golly, I
didn't even think about that when I had our funds.
Will put that up, biscuits. So yeah, the mobile version
probably does. When you're on a mobile version, it doesn't
show you all the graphics because it's it's trimming and
trimming it down, so it's it's not showing you the
to do the voting because you were on the mobile version.
So let me see if I can get you this

(38:04):
the direct link here. Uh, let's see what is the
name of my company again?

Speaker 1 (38:10):
I don't remember.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
It's like, you know, it wants to go that it
shocks are us? Yeah, No, he wants to go to
the Facebook page, and I don't want to go to
the Facebook page. And I'm trying to talk and type
at the same time, and I keep typing what I'm saying.
All right, So it is Shrocannovations dot com, forward Slash
Best Dash of Dash, Omaha Dash twenty twenty five.

Speaker 6 (38:34):
I'll just go on my.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
There you go. Hey, thank you for the call. Class
I will pull. I'm gonna point this out to Alfonso
so he can get a link up there for mobile.
That's a that's a that's a good catch, and I
really appreciate that. Thank you all right for zero two, five, five,
eight eleven ten. He did me a favor there, and
now I'm gonna do him a favor and get him
in the drawing for a twenty five dollars Shrock Innovations
gift certificate. So I don't know how I missed this
story about Elon releasing gra Heavy. It costs three hundred

(39:01):
dollars a month, and essentially what it does is it
allows an AI agent to interact with programs on your computer.
You might recall last week I did a segment on
different AI and why Google is kind of has an
advantage because it can interact with a document program. So
you can use Google Docs and it can read your
docs and create docs. You can use Gmail and it

(39:23):
can read your email and create emails. You can use
Google Calendar and it can save things to your calendar
and tell you about your appointments. But if I have
the two hundred dollars a month Chat GPT Pro, it
can't interact with anything on my computer. It can't tell
me if I have an appointment. It cannot send an
email for me. Like it can draft an email. I
can copy it and paste it like I did. Well,

(39:45):
I said the email to you guys. I edited it
because it was pretty pretty lengthy. I was like, we
don't need any of that stuff that I'll get the
rid of the fluff, but you know, in conclusion, like
we don't need an in conclusion in the email. Hello,
my fellow, Like, oh come on now, that just doesn't
sound like me, my fellow, what, my fellow who? My
fellow customers like, Hello, my fellow customers, welcome to these

(40:08):
shock email service. You know what is that you get
rid of that? Come on? So it wasn't perfect, right, So,
but it couldn't send the email for me. If I
would have let it send that email, I would have
regretted it. But it can't. It couldn't draft the email,
send me a copy for approval, allow me to reply
back to it saying email approved, please send, and then
send it on. It was not able to do that. Now,

(40:32):
let's say, let me just give you an example of
how this could be used for a business. Let's say
you have a list of all your customer's email addresses.
Let's say it's like twenty six thousand and thirty thousand
customer emails, and you want to send an email to
all of them. Well, normally you'd have to have a
guy like Alfonso build you a mass email application, or

(40:53):
you could sign up for Constant Contact or something like that.
You would not be able to email these that many
people on your own. Could You could? You could copy
and you could click new mail, copy an email address,
paste an email address. Copy a subject, paste a subject,
copy a message, paste a message, send the email. You
could do that. Now you will get blocked really quickly
by spam filters because you're sending a lot of email

(41:15):
with the same subject line and content. So of course
you could write three different versions of that content like
we do, so that the email is different to there's
three different emails. Then you can also tell it to
send the emails. You know, you know a lot of
our people are on coxs dot com or Yahoo dot
com or Gmail dot com, and we don't want to

(41:36):
email all the Gmail people of the Yahoo people are
the cospeople too quickly because then we'll get caught in
their spam filters. So we can only send five emails
a minute to each domain. So now you can see
when I when I get all fonsom like Alfonso, build
me an application that sends an email to our all
of our customers on the list, unless they've said they
don't want to be contacted, if they have unsubscribed, we

(41:58):
don't send them a message, and then we go through
and say only send it to the people. You know
this often, you know, it gets complicated. Right now, imagine
you have that list, that same list of emails on
your computer and you want to send them a message.
You can ask chat GPT agent and say, I want
to send an email to the people in this file link.

(42:20):
Here's the file in my hard drive. I want to
send three different versions. I want you to draft three
different subject lines and three different versions of this message.
Here's a sample message. So it looks at the sample message.
It creates three different variations of the message, three different
subject lines. And then I want you to only send
it to the same domain. No, no, more frequently than

(42:43):
five times a minute, and continue until the list is complete,
randomly selecting a subject and randomly selecting a message. When
you do that, when you have message in subjects and
you have three of each, well, now all of a
sudden you have a lot of different combinations of email.
So the filter's look at that and sell these are
all different emails. And there you go. So normally I

(43:04):
would have to make it. I would have to have
an Alfonso to do that. Alfonso gets paid ridiculous, so
he gets paid more than me. I'm not joking. He's
that good. But chat GPT agent can do all of
that from my desktop. Now, just like that, I can
write a prompt in English do these things and it

(43:26):
doesn't wow. And then let's say, for example, this is
what I really want to test, what I really want
to push the limits on this thing. I want to
find out. We record every radio show, guys for the
video for it. You might see the clips on Facebook
from time to time, and then we clip it down.
We do that. But I have, like all the recorded
radio shows. I have them all and so I can

(43:48):
and they're all in a drop box. So I can
give chat GPT agent through a connection is what it's
called a connection. I can give it access to the dropbox.
Let it watch all the videos in the dropbox. Now,
I'd like you to create an aftershock in the voice
of Thor Schrock covering the following news articles. And here

(44:09):
are three key points, the three things I think about
each one of these things, and then find outa to
back up my positions. And I want you to create
video of me doing this, not just audio in my
with my face and my voice. Is chat GPT agent
able to essentially create a radio show with video. I'm

(44:35):
gonna try that this week, not because I want to
replace the show I love. Doing this is like the
best part of my job. I don't want to automate this.
Let me automate. Let me automate emailing back all the
people that say this all no, sofas is the same
as it always was, Like, let me automate that. I
want to I want to keep this right. I like this,
so you know. Heck, but now imagine like you're you're

(44:57):
a news station and you know news anchors. You trust
their faces because you see them every night, but all
they do is read the teleprompter. They're not actually reporters. Sorry,
I mean, I'm going really took off some news anchors.
They're not Maybe they were wants reporters, but they don't
go in the field and do reporting their anchors. That's
why I like, why is the weather man always wrong? Well,
people in that industry will tell you that weather forecasting

(45:21):
is a different skill set than weather broadcasting. It's different.
What if you just didn't need the broadcasters anymore. What
if you just had AI do the broadcast. You still
have editor yourself. What real weather forecasters making real weather predictions,
but you don't need the forecaster anymore. Imagine the revolution

(45:43):
that that could be in media. Netflix is currently using
agents to generate the visual effects in their shows that
they produce in their studios. Apparently there was a hole
somewhere in that sag aff They remember the whole like
strike over this. This is what it was about. They
don't need they don't need the actors, they don't need
the special effects companies. They can just have chat GPT

(46:06):
do it and make it look good enough, I guess
for Netflix, and save a boatload of money, make a
lot more content, a lot faster. So when I'm talking
about productivity gains, this is what I'm talking about. Now,
every small business on the planet can email their entire
customer list with a really advanced application. You don't have

(46:26):
to buy the constant contact. You don't have to hire
a two hundred thousand dollars a year coder to write
your stuff for you. Now, granted, eventually you know you
hit a limit on what you can do, but right
now you can't do any of those things. Imagine you
can suddenly do all those things. Imagine the productivity increases
you're going to have. Imagine if you could have an

(46:47):
AI agent sitting on your computer watching every sale that
goes through your company and then determining based on what
the customers have bought in the past what they would
be most likely to buy in the future, and then
sending them special offers at predetermined in times with those
items on sale. Imagine if you're eBay and every time
you put something in your cart and walked away for

(47:08):
twenty four hours, some agent emailed you. Some AI agent
emailed you and said, hey, ten percent off of you
check out. Now you think that's a human doing that? Now,
why is he? Why suddenly is Eba doing that? How
can they do that? That's how So the productivity increases
are going to be phenomenal and scary. Scary as hell

(47:29):
for sure, but phenomenal, and you can save a lot
of money if you know how to use it. We're
going to test it out during the week and we'll
bring you the results on next week's compute this so
you don't want to miss out on that one four zero, two, five, five, eight,
eleven ten. We're going to take our final break of
the program here. When we come back, there is a
darker side to the chat GPT agent situation that I'm

(47:50):
going to share with you. What could a bad guy
do with an agent? You didn't think of that one,
did you? And so we're going to cover that one. Also,
Google is getving you the ability to robo call businesses now,
so yeah you can. It's actually really cool. So we're
going to tell you how to do it. Coming up
next on Compute this.

Speaker 5 (48:08):
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 Zeus 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 twenty five percent faster.

(48:29):
This is why Shrock 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 (48:41):
Today's fragile computers need maintenance more than ever. Your computer
needs a maintenance check up every six months to last
beyond it's eighteen month expected lifespan.

Speaker 5 (48:50):
When your computer has a warranty and you have a problem,
don't call the manufacturers for help, call Shrock Innovations. Shock
will contact HP, Dell, AZEUS, 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

(49:12):
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. Truck

(49:32):
tests your computer when it comes back from repair to
ensure the problem is solved properly and all of your
hardware works like new. There's a reason Shrock Innovations is
consistently voted the best in town. Whenever you need help,
wherever you need it, Trock Innovations makes your computer work
for you.

Speaker 4 (49:49):
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 2 (50:05):
You know that's a good way to put this this
AI stuff. Guys, I don't see this as like end
of the world robots taking over kind of thing. I
see this as Star Wars, where you have such a
just an unlimited potential of worlds and things and and
all kinds of things we haven't even imagined yet out

(50:25):
there so much so, especially with our current you know,
population growth, as you know Elon would talk about often,
there's not enough humans around to do everything. And so
what you have is you have guys flying the ship.
You have your you know, your Han Solo flying the ship,
but he's got droids helping him out, you know, Chewbacca,

(50:46):
but he's not a droid. But you know whatever, you
guys get what I'm saying. You've got droids doing a
lot of I am a proto caled robot, you know,
because we don't need a human in protocol anymore. And
as as astronomy an astrology, as astronomer, who's the who's
the cold Play company? The CEO that got caught on
the kiss cam. You didn't hear about that, wasn't Alay? Yeah,

(51:06):
the cold Play is the group. But what was the
name of the company, Astronoma something like that. I mean,
they don't not what if they could just outsource their
human resources. Now to you know, the AVA doesn't sleep
with the boss. You know, it's like it works out,
you know. Oh my goodness. If you haven't heard that,
If you haven't heard that story, I'll share that one
with you during the aftershock. That one is hilarious. What

(51:28):
to not do when you get caught having an affair
on the kiss cam at a concert. Don't run away
and hide, I'll tell my wife. If they would have
just smiled and waved and given each other a little kiss,
no one would have ever known. Nobody would have ever known.
But because they they ran away in shame, you know,
everybody's like, oh, look at that. They're having an affair.
And then it turns out they were. And it turns

(51:50):
out not only was he Mary, but she's married too,
and it gets worse and worse and worse. It's like,
oh my gosh, So don't be bad people. Don't be jerks,
all right, So darkseye to this thing, this whole AI thing, though,
the bad guys are going to use AI agents to
attack you faster than ever. This is the meeting that
I have with Sophos this week. I wanted to know
specifically how AI agents were going to change the way

(52:15):
security works for PCs. And if Sofos was on the
leading edge for it, what I learned was that Sofos
is not only on the leading edge. Sofos is the
leading edge. There isn't anybody out there doing what they're
doing with detection and prevention and everything like that. So
right now, Sophos is on sale for forty six percent
off in the service centers. You can protect your Android

(52:37):
phone highly recommended. You can protect your iPhone, your iPad,
your PC, your Mac, even your Linux computer. Since now
I guess that's eight percent of the computing population, we
may as well include them too. They don't think they
need it, but they do. So you can protect all
of your devices with it, and it's the best way
to go it. Now. Google is also doing something new.
They're giving you the ability in Google Search if you

(52:58):
do a search for something. Now when you go into
the different businesses, if you say search for oil change
near me, it will bring up the businesses and it'll
ask you like, do you want to know more about pricing?
Do you want to know more about this or that?
And you can click the button and it will call
the businesses and ask them the questions Now, what I
don't know is will it call the businesses every time
somebody clicks the button, or will it remember the previous

(53:19):
answer and use that information, or will it say I
have to call every so often. Not sure how that works,
but I definitely want to be on that call list
as a business for sure. Ralph, congratulations, you got yourself
a twenty five dollars Shock Innovations gift certificate. We'll get
that out to you on Monday. If you would like
to stay tuned for the Aftershockfacebook dot com slash Shock
Innovations will be kicking that off about six or eight

(53:41):
minutes here after the conclusion of this program, and we
will see you all again next weekend for another edition
of Compute this