Ask the Tech Guys Episode 1984 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

Leo Laporte (00:00:00):
It's time for Ask the Tech Guys. I'm Leo LaPorte coming up. What gear would you bring to the World's Greatest Hacker Convention? And

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:00:06):
I'm Micah Sargent, and we answer this question once and for all. Do I really need to worry about my laptop battery

Leo Laporte (00:00:12):
Plus it's toys with Dick de Bartolo? All that more coming up, I'll ask the tech guys. This show is brought to you by Cisco Meraki. Without a cloud managed network, businesses inevitably fall behind. Experience, the ease and efficiency of Meraki's single platform to elevate the place where your employees and customers come together. Cisco Meraki maximizes uptime and minimizes loss to digitally transform your organization, Meraki's intuitive interface, increased connectivity and multi-site management. Keep your organization operating seamlessly and securely wherever your team is. Let's Cisco Meraki's 24 7. Available support. Help your organization's remote, onsite, and hybrid teams always do their best work. Visit meraki.cisco.com/twit. Podcasts you love

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:01:04):
From people you trust.

Leo Laporte (00:01:07):
This is twit. This is twit.

(00:01:11):
This is asked the tech guys with Micah Sargent and Leola Port episode 1984 for Sunday, July 23rd. 2023. I am your fodder as the tech guys is brought to you by a G one. Take ownership of your health with a simpler, effective investment with AG one. Try ag one and get a free one year of supply of vitamin D and five free Ag one travel packs with your first purchase of a subscription. Go to drink ag one.com/techco and buy Cisco Meraki with employees working in different locations, providing a unified work experience seems as easy as Hering cats. How do you reign in so many moving parts? The Meraki Cloud Managed Network. Learn how your organization can make hybrid work work. Visit meraki.cisco.com/twi. Listeners of this program get an ad-free version if they're members of Club twit. $7 a month gives you ad-free versions of all of our shows. Plus membership in the club. Twit Discord, a great clubhouse for twit listeners. And finally, the twit plus feed with shows like Stacey's book club, the Untitled Linux show, the GIZ fizz and more. Go to twit tv slash club twit and thanks for your support. Well, hey, hey, hey. How are you today? Look at that. That's Micah Sergeant. Whoa. And that's Leo Laport. Did no one tell you striped shirts and television don't work.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:02:44):
<Laugh>? They tell me sometimes. And then I forget.

Leo Laporte (00:02:46):
Is re ray and name warez or buzzing? I guess it's all right. It's not, they're not tight enough to be here. If I

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:02:52):
Move very carefully Yeah. I only move my head and then it's fine.

Leo Laporte (00:02:56):
No, it's a good look at shirt though. I'm not knocking the shirt in person. It's fantastic. Right? For those of you at home who think you're tripping,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:03:03):
You're not. You're not. Well, you might be. I dunno.

Leo Laporte (00:03:06):
We your life. So today we get together every Sunday and I'm so glad to have you back. Cause frankly back, frankly, the show is nothing without you.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:03:12):
Oh, that's very kind. We

Leo Laporte (00:03:13):
Need you

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:03:14):
Here. I'm glad to be

Leo Laporte (00:03:15):
Here. I have to put tape, tape over the s <laugh>, the whole thing. It just falls apart. <Laugh> the today what we're gonna do is answer your tech questions. Don't worry, Tom. WOM scans (888) 724-2884 is the phone number. It's a regular phone number.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:03:31):
Yeah. You can also dial up. No, you type in a url. Call dot twit tv. We suggest doing it on your phone. If you do it on your phone, it's gonna have a little zoom link that pops up and say, Hey, would you like to do this Zoom call? It all happens right there. You give permission for your camera, for your microphone, and then you can talk to us. And we suggest that way because then there's no setup process. There's not a bunch involved. That's called twit tv. Did you see these

Leo Laporte (00:03:58):
Little tiny, you can't really, I don't know if you guys have enough Zoom <laugh> to see these. These are little tiny Leo's sitting on a ball with a fez that Patrick Delahanty 3D printed for me. For me. I don't know if it's for me, but he didn't paint them. So. And a

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:04:16):
Handheld microphone too.

Leo Laporte (00:04:17):
Oh yeah. It's a really, it's a good likeness. And I'm reading it looks like my phone.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:04:22):
Yeah, it might be a phone in hand.

Leo Laporte (00:04:24):
Yeah. Yeah. But you can't, you can't really Do we have a macro lens anyway, <laugh>. I'll take a picture and and upload it From your iPhone. From my iPhone. Oh, I could do that. No, that's true. I could airplay on my iPhone. Should we try that? Let's try

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:04:37):
That.

Leo Laporte (00:04:37):
Let's go crazy.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:04:38):
Wow. Look what

Leo Laporte (00:04:39):
We're doing. How else can people get on the show?

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:04:41):
If people would like, they can also email us. It's a, that's a good idea. At twit tv. You can send in text. You could also send in audio of what you wanna say. You can also send in video of what you wanna ask about. We ask that you keep it to around 30 seconds. And that way we'll play it back on the show and be able to take those questions and hopefully be able to answer those. We're always looking for new emails and calls. And of course I should also mention that while we're recording the show, that phone number (888) 724-2884 is live. But during the week, you can call in too and leave a voicemail.

Leo Laporte (00:05:18):
Look how good that looks. Can you pick up my areu Air? I'm airplane. Do you They have to run and press buttons and Burke has to go in the back room and crank up the generator and,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:05:28):
And put Lily on the spin

Leo Laporte (00:05:29):
Wheel. Put Lily on the little hamster wheel.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:05:32):
Hand you one of those. I will gladly. Which airplane did you choose? One or two. One.

Leo Laporte (00:05:37):
Of course, of course. It's the one because it's the first among ols, the only one working. That's the other reason. Oh,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:05:43):
That's right. I forgot airplane too. It doesn't have power.

Leo Laporte (00:05:48):
Aw, that's good. I don't Where did he get the source material?

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:05:53):
That is what I was wondering too. Did he make this or did he find some sort of 3D printer or 3D model

Leo Laporte (00:06:00):
Somewhere? I don't, I don't know. Somebody take a picture. What? Show me sitting on a ball with arguing. Get a microphone.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:06:04):
Leo 3D wearing Leo

Leo Laporte (00:06:06):
Laporte. Maybe I'm on the

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:06:08):
3D.

Leo Laporte (00:06:09):
The verse. The, what do they call the 3D verse?

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:06:12):
Leo LaPorte 3D models.

Leo Laporte (00:06:14):
Let's what thing? Thingiverse. Yeah, I mean, I'm on the thingiverse. You might be on the Thingiverse. So enjoy the little blue bird today while you can, it's going away.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:06:24):
Yeah. What's it gonna be? It

Leo Laporte (00:06:26):
Place it. Why is it sideways? So I should, I should do this, huh?

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:06:29):
Yeah. Maybe in your hand. Hi, Micah. Whoa.

Leo Laporte (00:06:32):
Hello. Hello. <laugh>. You know, go to the gym. Oh, he says he's got a good gym shot. Is it this good? It's getting there. Is it that good? Yeah.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:06:43):
Look at that little Leo. Look

Leo Laporte (00:06:45):
At that little Leo reading his phone. Look how tiny that is. It's so little <laugh>. Anyway, thank you Patrick, for sending those along. So Elon has in the middle of the night mm-hmm. <Affirmative>

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:06:58):
Tweeting. Starts tweeting last

Leo Laporte (00:06:59):
Night, middle of the night, says, I'm tired of the blue bird I wanna make we need, and then he's such a cheap escape because he's the richest man in the world. Yeah. And he says, the first person to tweet a good logo, I'll use, I

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:07:12):
Was so angry about this as a person who once was going to be a graphic designer for a living. This made me so mad.

Leo Laporte (00:07:19):
Somebody tweet a good one and I'll

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:07:21):
Use it. Hurry somebody send me one.

Leo Laporte (00:07:22):
Now I have to say, when we were starting out, our logo, the Twit logo was created by the wonderful Dorothy Yamamoto mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And, and I did that because I didn't, but I didn't have, I wasn't the richest man in the world at the time. Right. I didn't have the money. Well, I mean, I guess I could have paid somebody like you, but I thought, well, let's, it'll be fun. Let's let the listeners choose a logo. She came up with a great logo, and I thank you Dorothy, ever. She was a graphic artist who had quit to be a mom. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and was getting back into it. Oh, neat. So I was thrilled. I was really thrilled. Anyway we'll see. It's gonna have to have an X in it. Yeah. The one he's seems to like is horrible.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:08:01):
This is the one that was originally for a podcast.

Leo Laporte (00:08:04):
Yeah. It was originally for a podcast. ZZ

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:08:07):
Zzz. It just, it's, it's it's terrible. Very plain. Terrible.

Leo Laporte (00:08:11):
It's an X,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:08:11):
It's an X. Which isn't that kind of what this whole idea is. He just likes X as a place as a placeholder for things. Twitter

Leo Laporte (00:08:19):
Is owned by a company called X

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:08:20):
X. Yes. PayPal was called x.com before it became

Leo Laporte (00:08:24):
Paypal. Yeah. Still owns x.com. Elon, there's he even named, named his kid X. Yeah. Didn't he? Yeah.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:08:31):
He likes X

Leo Laporte (00:08:33):
He's demanded, he's a demanded billionaire. That's all I can say. Kid X <laugh>

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:08:37):
Burke said, which kid?

Leo Laporte (00:08:38):
X. X, you know, X Ah, so couple of weeks ago, it was 4th of July, we were saying, oh, get ready. Cuz fireworks are on their way out. They're dangerous. They blow up their expensive drone displays. It could be the next big thing. So, oh, in, in, in Australia, they're playing a big drone for the Women's World Cup. The soccer. Yeah. And hundreds of drones crashed. They said descended unexpectedly into the Yara River in Melbourne.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:09:06):
Wait, what's it called? When the, the spacecraft explodes.

Leo Laporte (00:09:10):
Yes. Its unintended.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:09:11):
Unintended.

Leo Laporte (00:09:11):
Or a rapid disassembly.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:09:13):
Rapid

Leo Laporte (00:09:14):
Unplanned. They didn't disassemble. They're actually fishing them out. Also, rapid

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:09:17):
Unplanned descend.

Leo Laporte (00:09:18):
I don't, I don't think fishing them all out here. They are descending into the Yara. Looked, looked good when it started. And then they said there was some sort of technical difficulty. And you know, I thought I like these drone displays. But yeah, they look great. But that's, if the, you know what, they probably were running on windows. Oh. And and then Oh.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:09:40):
And they said we need to

Leo Laporte (00:09:42):
Look, see, some are fall. Are starting to fall already. Oh. Oh, no. Oh, the, the humanity. Well, there's no humanity. Oh, the little chips.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:09:51):
Oh, are they supposed to be going into the water?

Leo Laporte (00:09:55):
Oh, they're going into the water.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:09:57):
Oh, that's

Leo Laporte (00:09:57):
An expensive issue. That's an expensive hundreds of drones. You must have been running ammer. That happens with fireworks. Right?

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:10:05):
Can you imagine? What if it, what if that is what happened? What someone was running a jammer and

Leo Laporte (00:10:10):
Oh, it could be, it could have been a hack. Messed did you messed it up. I didn't even think of that. You know, this. Nowadays you kind of have to think about that, don't you? Well, anyway I hope they save them. It's just a glitch. They are fishing them out. Can't be in good shape. Can't be in great shape. Just, you

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:10:25):
Just got a lot of rice. Yeah, just tons of rice.

Leo Laporte (00:10:29):
Biggest story of the week though. And I don't know how you Well, your local news station's gonna cover it, so we should cover it. You know, there's Venmo, you know, there's PayPal, there's cash. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, there are a lot of ways you youthful people share money with other people. Apple Pay. Yeah. You go out and you say, okay, we're gonna share drinks. And you all Venmo. Me, apple is big in this too. I paid for the bagels with Apple. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> just go like that. Well, many other countries, I didn't know this. They have a system for instant payment here in the United States. When you write a check, it goes to the Clearing Clearinghouse. And the clearinghouse says some guy with spectacles. And, and, and sleeve Guarders goes, well, it looks all right to me. And then three or four days later, the money clears. It's ridiculous. It takes

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:11:16):
Forever.

Leo Laporte (00:11:17):
So we have wires. You could send a wire, but that costs money. Usually like 20, 30 bucks. And then we have these third party apps, which really, you know, basically tap into your bank, move the money into their account. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, and then move the money into your, it's not a great system, but in many other countries, the government runs a system cuz the, the Federal Clearinghouse is run by the government too. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> a system for banks to instantly transfer money. Finally, we got one, it's called Fed Now, <laugh> not a great name. But it is an instant payment service. It will be free. Your bank will have to adopt it, and your bank may charge you Fed. Is, this is important. Fed is not charging for this. Your bank, though, probably charge you a quarter. Wow. Yeah. I hope they don't, I mean, Venmo doesn't charge. Right?

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:12:07):
Right. The only, so the way that those, the third party services work, the way that they get people to spend money is most often the people who are using it are people who need money now. Right. They need to have that money put into their bank account. So what they do is they say, if you let the the charge go over the course of three days to your bank, it's free to get that money into your bank. But if you want it right now, if you want it instantly deposit it into your bank, you have to pay 70 cents. It's, it's a percentage based on how much you have. And anecdotally speaking, a lot of my family who uses something like Venmo or Cash App, one of those services, they, when they get their money, they do that immediate thing cuz they can't wait. It's cost money three or four days for it to clear into the bank account. I didn't even

Leo Laporte (00:12:50):
Know you could do that <laugh>.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:12:52):
Right?

Leo Laporte (00:12:53):
I just thought, oh, I just put it in there. And the, of course, they make money on the interest. Yes. From holding all of this cash. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah, it's your 50 bucks. But for thousands and thousands of people, it adds up. So they either make money on the interest

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:13:06):
Or on those little

Leo Laporte (00:13:07):
Fees on the vig, I like to call it. The Fed though, if you think about it, they're already doing this. They're gonna have an instantaneous clearinghouse is essentially what they're gonna do. 41 banks, 15 service providers have already spent certified to use it. Including big, big companies like JP Morgan Chase, bank of New York, Mellon, Bankcorp and community banks. Some community banks have stepped up. 35 banks and credit unions are currently using the service. So look for Fed. Now, there is a bank run service called Zelle.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:13:40):
Zelle. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:13:42):
And I used to talk about Zelle on the radio show, and I would get a lot of people saying, well, you know I can't even remember his name. One of these, you know, finance guys on the radio. And, you know, you could trust everybody on the radio. <Laugh> says they're a scam and you shouldn't use them. But Zelle is the same problem with Zelle as there is with Venmo and Cash app, which is, if you are, if you give somebody money fraudulently mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, if, if some guy pretends to be Micah and says, Hey, I I'm in a Turkish prison and they took my wallet and passport, I just need $1,500 to get out. And I zeal it to 'em, the banks are gonna help you get it back. Right. You, you, you lost that money. Just as if you, somebody came up to you on, as you got money outta the ATM and said, can you gimme 20 bucks for gas?

(00:14:25):
And you gave it to them. The bank's not responsible. Right. And people don't like that. Dave Ramsey, that's his name, doesn't like that. But it's, it's kind of what happens. It's the way that it works. I can't, don't really blame the banks for not standing behind the fraud. In any event I pre, I don't know. I presume they're gonna have the same problem with this. I'm sure. Dam Dave Ramsey is already saying <laugh> on his radio show, don't lose Fed. Now he says probably write a check <laugh>. Yes. Because then the guy with the sleeve guarders is gonna make sure it's legit. Happens

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:15:00):
To be my cousin. It

Leo Laporte (00:15:01):
Is true that if I, if I wrote a check and it was fraudulently cashed, I can get, I can usually get to the bank and get that backed up. Same thing with a credit card and so forth. So it is true, but really I think the burden should be on the user to make sure you're not giving money to the problem is older people who fall for scams. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, frankly. So anyway, fed now. It's now. And perhaps it'll come to your bank. The thing to watch will be how much of the cost you'll have to your bank will,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:15:32):
I'm curious if this will have if this will play any impact on people with direct deposit and other types of, of transfers outside of person to person transfers.

Leo Laporte (00:15:44):
Well, don't you do

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:15:44):
Make everything faster? Or what do you

Leo Laporte (00:15:46):
Do direct deposit for for your paycheck? I do. I always have mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And that's nice cuz you don't, you

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:15:51):
Know. Yeah. You don't have to worry about it. It goes in. Yeah. Nothing to deal with. But for, so I can remember my previous coworker of mine, his bank was a military bank. And so because of the way that system worked, it was faster. So his paycheck would always clear two days earlier than the rest of ours who were with banks that were just, you know, national banks. And that had to do with the way that the payment system the clearing house worked where the military folks got their money quicker. Right. And so I'm curious if Fed Now is also going to impact those, that part of the, the clearing house

Leo Laporte (00:16:27):
Top amount, half a million dollars. Oh, wow. Next time I buy a yacht, I'll be using Fred. Now <laugh>. And and what do you use

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:16:36):
Last time?

Leo Laporte (00:16:37):
Well, cashiers show brought them piles of gold. Oh, I see. Here's some bars. <Laugh>. there're also some concern that it could supercharge a run on a bank because Oh. Cause you remember with Silicon Valley Bank, there was long lines out front. Gimme my money. Now you can just fed now it right out and it'd be gone. The Fed says, no, no, no, no. We got we got we got ways to fix that. They've downplayed those concerns. According to Reuters arguing, banks have tools available to mitigate a wave of outflows.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:17:09):
So it's on the banks. Do it

Leo Laporte (00:17:10):
Like Gebe Stewart did and lock the doors. Yes. All right. So that's the news across the nation. Everything you need to know now, you know, you know all of it. I I'm sure there are other stories. They're better because we've got a three hour twit coming up later this afternoon. We better find three hour twit something to talk about. Let's, let's take some calls, if you will. Should we start with our first call a day?

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:17:35):
We could, but I don't see, oh, I guess there is a call. Yeah, there is one call there.

Leo Laporte (00:17:41):
Wait number line five?

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:17:42):
It's phone number.

Leo Laporte (00:17:44):
Okay.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:17:46):
So yes, line five.

Leo Laporte (00:17:50):
I don't know. I don't know which one that is. John Ashley. Okay, cool. He's, he's making it happen. Will you make it happen? Make it happen. I don't wanna be responsible. Hello. Line five. Welcome. What's your first name in City? Press star six to unmute there. Oh, I hear the puppy. Hello. Hello. Hello. What's your name and what city? <Laugh>. I think he's a little out of it. Why don't we try somebody else voicemail? Yeah, let's do a vo. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. <Laugh>. Let's do a voicemail. Oh, no. Fido. Why do you keep calling here? <Laugh>? I don't know what's going on. All right. When, when should I buy another yacht? Oh, I was waiting for the bags of gold or accumulate, but now I can just do it. John

Caller John (00:18:49):
From Burlington, Ontario. Hi

Leo Laporte (00:18:50):
John. Welcome.

Caller John (00:18:52):
My question is, I'm looking to transfer a Gmail account that I set up for a thing within our company. And I'm retiring so I want to be able to transfer it to the people that are running it now. And I was just wondering if there's a way to do it. I set it up in the personal site, so I'm not a hundred percent sure that that's

Leo Laporte (00:19:13):
<Laugh> both of us,

Caller John (00:19:15):
If you can on that side of it. Thanks and looking forward to

Leo Laporte (00:19:19):
Your answer, John. Bye. From Burlington. So this is why when we set up accounts here with various providers, I say it always has to be Lisa or I or the two owners of the company that set it up. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, because and not to use your personal Gmail for it, because that's problematic. Can you transfer a Gmail account from a personal account? Let's say I have Laporta Gmail, which I do, and I want to transfer it to Mica. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I'm not seeing some other than giving them the password. Right. I think this is all you can do is say, well, here's the password and if you have a second factor, you know, turn that off. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, they get it and immediately they change your password that locks you out, turn on two factor further locks you out, and now it's theirs.

(00:20:12):
I don't, it's theirs. And then if they wanted to go a step further, they could then set up a forwarding so that, you know, they wouldn't necessarily have to log into that except to troubleshoot every now and then. But yeah, it's, it's a little easier if you had a workspace account because they understand the business accounts. They expect that. Exactly. That happens a lot. Yeah. But to transfer a personal Gmail accounts to another person is not I'm seeing some chatter. Me too, in the chat room, but I don't like it. <Laugh>, I will tell you what I'm reading from what's been chattered, I'm not fond.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:20:47):
Yes. Because it involves downloading software that essentially is just copying everything from the Gmail and then bringing it to your Gmail. But that doesn't solve the, the problem of future emails being sent.

Leo Laporte (00:20:56):
Yeah. I think you can, you just basically give them the account,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:20:59):
Give them, give them the account.

Leo Laporte (00:21:00):
And if you give 'em the password I, I see no reason not to do that. You, if you're saying can we change the name of the account from my name@gmail.com to Micah's name@gmail.com? No. no, I don't think so. I think you have to make a new account. What

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:21:14):
I love lately, Leo, that you said that I think is very important is you said you need to hand over the account and then have them change the

Leo Laporte (00:21:23):
Password. Change the

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:21:24):
Password. That is not only because for them they should be the ones that have the access, but it's also so in the future, if something happens, you can't be held responsible for

Leo Laporte (00:21:32):
It. That's right. Another thing you should, they should do, and they need to do this, is go into the rec the recovery change the recovery email.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:21:39):
Yes. Recovery phone number, change

Leo Laporte (00:21:40):
Recovery phone number. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And incidentally, side tip, for anybody who uses Gmail, if you have a Gmail account, absolutely go into your settings and set up a recovery phone number and a recovery email. It's a different email address. It could be maybe your ISPs address your business address. Because if there things happen to Gmail accounts, and that is the backend way to recover that thing. I, I don't, let me think of what other problems there be. I'm looking at people who are saying how to do this.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:22:13):
Yeah. Other people are just saying change the recovery.

Leo Laporte (00:22:16):
Oh, you know where this is a problem. If this guy, it's is also his Google

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:22:20):
Account. Oh no.

Leo Laporte (00:22:22):
Then you really can't because your whole life is now in this Google account. You can't give that to somebody else. No. Your photos are there. Your everything, you do all your Google docs, your Google Drive. I think, I hope that this was only used for business. Yeah. So it would be legitimate for you to give this back to the business. Now they have a, but remember they're gonna access to all of that Google stuff. Cause that's all tied to that Gmail account. But if, if it was only used for business, I don't, I think that's gonna be okay. Yeah. The bottom line is don't do this. If you, if you business says we need you to set up a Gmail account, set it up for the business business account, and ideally have somebody with fiduciary responsibilities in the business, like the owners you know a c level executive do that because it's really, it's really should be in their name. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> I, we don't, I try to discourage any, any employees from setting up accounts at anything. Say No, no. Let me set that up and I'll give you the stuff so that I always have access to. Right.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:23:21):
Cause as you need to, cuz they may come and go.

Leo Laporte (00:23:24):
Yeah. okay.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:23:27):
Yeah, that's our best advice on that one. Yeah. Like there's no I would not recommend anything else. Honestly.

Leo Laporte (00:23:34):
It, this is the difference between a workspace account and a, and a personal Gmail account. Personal Gmail account is your, is your keys to your life. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, don't give that away and don't set it up for anybody else. I, you know, I set it up for my family members. My mom, I had to set up her Gmail account and other family members. But I, and the reason I did that is cuz I want to keep password cuz Mom's 90 forgets. Right. Exactly. But I don't look at it, I don't do anything with it. It's, I'm just kind of the, I'm the recovery code. Yep. That's with my grandma. Yeah. I've done that as well. Yeah. Same thing. Same different accounts. Yeah, same thing. Let's try Lynn on the line. Lynn is on the line. Lynn on the line. Hello Lynn. Welcome to ask the tech guys my sergeant and Leo LaPorte, your genial game, mass quiz Masters, <laugh>. Lynn, are you there? Remember star six. Tell you what, tell you what I see a finger raised. Hello Lynn. Hello Lynn.

Caller Lynn (00:24:39):
Hello.

Leo Laporte (00:24:40):
Ah,

Caller Lynn (00:24:41):
Hello.

Leo Laporte (00:24:41):
Hello. Where are you calling from? Hi. Hi.

Caller Lynn (00:24:44):
I'm calling from Thousand Oak.

Leo Laporte (00:24:46):
Beautiful to how hot is it today in TE or is it gonna be

Caller Lynn (00:24:52):
It's, it, it's 86 is supposed to be the high.

Leo Laporte (00:24:54):
Oh, I'm coming down there. It's Palmy. Yeah, yeah,

Caller Lynn (00:24:57):
Yeah. I have, I have a quick question. Sure. I misplace my iPhone on the way home from my trip.

Leo Laporte (00:25:06):
Oh

Caller Lynn (00:25:06):
No. So I called Apple and canceled it. I ordered a new iPhone. The airlines, I, I asked for the lost and found apartment to notify me if it was found a month later it was found. So I went and picked it up the other day and now I have an iPhone. That doesn't work. Is there anything that I could do? Like give it back to Apple or

Leo Laporte (00:25:30):
Apple can reactivate it for you if you have proof of purchase, which you probably do. Did you, where'd you buy it? I

Caller Lynn (00:25:38):
Bought it at Apple. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:25:39):
Yeah. But

Caller Lynn (00:25:40):
It, the, the, the insurance company says that it's bricked now or it,

Leo Laporte (00:25:47):
Or it is bricked. Because the insurance company gave you money.

Caller Lynn (00:25:53):
They gave me a new phone. Yeah. I gave them money.

Leo Laporte (00:25:55):
So from an ethical point of view, that's you, that you're, you have a replacement, get rid of that old phone. However, you could go to Apple, I don't know what Apple's arrangement is with the insurance company, but you could go to Apple and, and they know that you bought that phone that that serial number's associated with you. And you said, and you can tell 'em the story you just told us. Leave out the insurance part because that <laugh>, that's they paid you. I don't care. Right. But mm-hmm. It AppleCare, wait a minute. Was it AppleCare? The insurance?

Caller Lynn (00:26:25):
Yes. But, but AppleCare has Alliance, I guess is what it's of

Leo Laporte (00:26:29):
It. Oh, they, okay. Allianz was the insurer through AppleCare. They replaced

Caller Lynn (00:26:34):
Your phone. Maybe. Maybe.

Leo Laporte (00:26:35):
No, that sounds right. I

Caller Lynn (00:26:36):
Can't remember. I don't,

Leo Laporte (00:26:38):
Yeah, so they replaced your phone. If Apple knows that they're not gonna reactivate that phone, they're gonna take it and they're gonna either resell it or take it apart and use the parts. Because from their point of view, they gave you a new phone. It wasn't free, was it? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>

Caller Lynn (00:26:54):
No. $149. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:26:56):
That's, that's the AppleCare plus replacement. Yeah. No, that's, it's it's gone. You in fact, I'm surprised. I think what they, what Apple might have told you or might say in the agreement is you, and if you, if it shows up, bring it in. Cuz that's, it's theirs. They could, they could technically Go ahead.

Caller Lynn (00:27:14):
They told me I could use it for a doorstopper <laugh>.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:27:18):
Well that's something I honestly, what should be happening is Apple should take it and recycle it. Is, is what should be happening at this point.

Caller Lynn (00:27:28):
Point. That's why it's

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:27:28):
Open. Yeah. There is. They'll yeah, they'll, so if you, if the Apple store place that you went to was being a little bit cheeky as they were Apple's own website has a little page where you can essentially get a little envelope sent in the mail to you. There you go. That you then will recycle. And I'm trying to find the exact page for you here. Yeah. this,

Leo Laporte (00:27:48):
If, if you don't wanna bring it to the Apple store, you could also bring it to the

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:27:51):
Store. Yeah. You could say just,

Caller Lynn (00:27:52):
I can, I actually it was the Apple representative online. I can Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:27:56):
Some, some nitwit. That's not what they're supposed to say. <Laugh>. Exactly What they're supposed to say is, oh, I'm sorry ma'am. We will send you a return kit and it, because it's lithium ion battery, it has to be specially labeled box. It can't be air transmitted, it has to be underground

Caller Lynn (00:28:10):
And all that stuff. I bought the 14 Promax about two months ago.

Leo Laporte (00:28:14):
Oh, how frustrating. Yeah. Well, at least you got a new one. Did you get all your data off of it too?

Caller Lynn (00:28:20):
Yeah, yeah. Everything was perfect as far as the transfer. Good,

Leo Laporte (00:28:24):
Good. So what Apple did is they took care of you. That phone is salvaged now. It's theirs. They own it and you just need to return it to them so they can then either refu, if it's brand new, they're gonna refurbish it and sell it. Yeah. Probably. Yeah. Some lucky person's gonna get a hundred bucks off

Caller Lynn (00:28:39):
<Laugh>. Yeah. Good. Yeah, that's so much. Sorry. Almost so much I paid for. I just wanted to make sure I didn't have to use it as a doorstop. Do

Leo Laporte (00:28:47):
Not use it as that's a waste. Definitely. And you're right in your heart to say, I'm not gonna do that. Yeah. Yeah. Good Lynn. Yeah. Just give, get it back to them somehow. You could either call 'em and ask for a return box or bring it into the store.

Caller Lynn (00:28:59):
Great. Great. Thanks Lynn.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:29:01):
Thank you very much. Yeah, great

Caller Lynn (00:29:02):
Question. I know better about it. Good,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:29:03):
Good, good.

Leo Laporte (00:29:04):
Yeah. I would hate to, that's terrible. Yeah.

Caller Lynn (00:29:07):
One, one last thing. I have the new Snoopy on my watch.

Leo Laporte (00:29:12):
Oh, you're so lucky. How'd you get that? You're running the beta version.

Caller Lynn (00:29:18):
Beta version and it's fantastic.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:29:21):
It, it's, I'm so, it's genuinely one of my favorite stocks

Leo Laporte (00:29:24):
Sits on the hand. You have it

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:29:25):
Too? Yeah. It's so

Leo Laporte (00:29:26):
Cute. I'm so left out. Oh, it's, let's

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:29:29):
See it. And Lynn, I don't know if you know, but what they do is on Sundays, like well this is kinda hard to show on screen, but like Sundays day Yeah. In the newspaper, you know, that they print the funnies on Sundays in color. So they will actually do the watch face in color. No, the background comes in color on Sundays. It's the Sunday edition. Yeah. It's adorable. Oh, I love that.

Caller Lynn (00:29:52):
I, I I saw that. But my, I had it now for a day and a half or two days. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and it's been colored the other days. You can make it any color you want, you know, have a

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:30:03):
Palette. Yeah. There's, there's an option in the settings to keep it that way the whole time or not. I, yeah, I had it set up that way cuz one of my friends was talking about this. There's, there's Woodstock in his little nest. And depending on the activities that you're doing, Snoopy will have like a Frisbee. Like if you're walking around, if you're, if it's around lunchtime mm-hmm. You'll see food. It's so cute. Oh, how do I get that? Well, you can join the public baby now if

Caller Lynn (00:30:31):
You like a floor. There was something on the swimming too, but Yeah.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:30:36):
No way. Oh, this is cute. Yeah.

Caller Lynn (00:30:38):
It has a lot of fans.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:30:40):
Is this the first time Apple's licensed o other person's IP for their watch? Mickey. Mickey. Oh, there was a Mickey watch right. In the earliest days. Yeah. Oh boy. <Laugh>

Caller Lynn (00:30:49):
Toy Story.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:30:50):
Oh, that's right. Toy

Caller Lynn (00:30:51):
Story. Toy Story too.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:30:52):
So, wow. So you're obviously a, a sophisticated user. Yeah. Listen to you.

Caller Lynn (00:30:59):
Well I've been listening to you, you Leo for many years. Oh,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:31:03):
That's

Caller Lynn (00:31:04):
Great. That's why

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:31:05):
Lynn, it's, yeah. Great. Thank you very much. Very to talk to you and thank you. My great pleasure. Stay cool. And to and it's great to talk to you. Thank you Lynn.

Caller Lynn (00:31:15):
Okay. Bye-bye now.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:31:15):
Bye. Thanks for calling. Ask the tech guys. Yes. Thank you so much. So Micah, I, how do I get Snoopy on my watch? If you would like to get Snoopy on your watch, Leo, you can go to apple.com Yeah. Slash beta. Okay. And you will see an option that says sign up. That is the option that you would want to click as perhaps a non-developer. When you click that button, it'll ask you to sign in. So, so I did it for iOS 17. You can do it for iPad OS 17. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. These will both be out officially in the fall. And there are on iOS 17. Anyway, there are some bugs I found. Of course. Yes. Yes. Mac os Sonoma, the Mac OS version. Tvos. Oh. So I'm gonna click watch OS 10. Is it reliable? Should I worry? I have not had any trouble.

(00:32:04):
The only thing I've had trouble with of all of the systems is t v Os. Everything else has been pretty doggone good. Snoopy and Woodstock. I've been very impressed with Watch os this time around cuz usually watch os will have some issues. Battery. It tends to be one of the first problems that you'll have. I've not experienced anything like that. The one thing that now I'm thinking about it that I have had problems with is I've had to do a few restarts of the watch because it was not picking up on hand washing. If folks aren't, you know, you don't really have to wash your hands for 20 seconds. Well, I, I to <laugh> and I, I feel very good

Leo Laporte (00:32:41):
About it. You know, that was actually, it turns out a mistake. That's not how people got covid. I mean, it's good for No, no,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:32:46):
This is true. But yeah. It is good to keep your hands washed.

Leo Laporte (00:32:48):
Yeah. I washed my hands. I, you know, it's funny cuz I got in the habit of doing the whole surgeon's wash and, and all of this stuff I still do. After Covid, I watched Sanjay Gupta show us on CNN how to wash your hands. But it turns out that was not how Covid was transmitted. On the other hand, of course it's good to wash your hands. Some hands gers. But I always wash my hands. I just didn't wash it for 20 seconds. Exactly. Doing the whole Keisha Bja. Anyway, so how, so I'm on this page, I'm scrolling down.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:33:17):
Yeah. You don't wanna be on that page. No. You wanted to go back.

Leo Laporte (00:33:20):
This is just telling me all the wonderful things that are gonna happen. You

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:33:24):
Click on that sign up.

Leo Laporte (00:33:25):
Oh, I shouldn't have clicked the link. Yeah, that was the learn more link. That was the loin more Click sign up. You'll log in. Now you don't have to have a developer account.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:33:33):
Correct. You do not have to have a developer account. Basically when you log in, apple will see Are you a developer? If you're not a developer, then it's going to send you along to the public beta program. Okay.

Leo Laporte (00:33:43):
I do have a developer account that's 99 bucks a year. Yes. Because in the old days you had to, if you wanted to be, you know, first on your block. <Laugh> I don't recommend being first on your block. No. To be honest with you. But if, but if you must. If you insist. All right. Good. That's good. So

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:34:00):
Now anyone can have Snoopy and

Leo Laporte (00:34:02):
Woodstock. Snoopy. And if you don't want two months, it's all exactly in September. You're happy it's coming

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:34:07):
Around.

Leo Laporte (00:34:07):
Yeah. Whether you like it or not. Our show today. Let's take a little break for a mention of our great sponsor. AG one. I love my ag one Every morning. AG one is a daily foundational nutrition supplement that supports whole body health. For a long time I had a pill minder with 38 Fistful <laugh>, the pills in there. And it was costing me hundreds of bucks a month. I wanted to support my health, but I didn't want to incorporate more pills or, or frankly sacrifice my taste buds. Through a science driven formulation of vitamins, probiotics, and Whole Foods source nutrients. AG one delivers comprehensive support for the brain, the gut, the immune system. Everything I was doing with that fistful of pills in one delicious beverage, I drank first thing in the morning. Since 2010, AG one has improved their formula 52 times, constantly refining it in pursuit of making the best foundational nutrition supplement possible.

(00:35:10):
My mouth is watering cuz I can hear. Yeah. I love how it tastes. <Laugh> with high quality ingredients and rigorous standards, AG one has become a part of millions of daily routines. Individual supplements can very much add up. Believe me, I know AG one saves you time, confusion and money each serving less than $3 a day when you subscribe and then that's it. You, you, you're set. Ag one makes it easier for you to drink, drink the highest quality supplements. Whether it's improving digestion, supporting you with sleep. G one is the best bang for your buck. One scoop. 12 ounces of water can be cold water doesn't have to be hot. Shake it up, drink it down. It's, it's the first thing I do every morning. It really is the best simple, drinkable daily habit. If you're looking to take ownership of your health with a simpler, effective investment, start with ag one.

(00:35:58):
Try ag one and get a free one year supply of vitamin D. And I love these travel packs. Five free ag one travel packs with your first purchase of a subscription. Go to drink ag one.com/tech idr ag one.com/tech guy. And I think you will like us do check it out. AG one by a Sergeant. Yes. Leo LaPorte. What should we do now? Well, I do believe we have two callers. If we want to take one of those phone calls, I will. I will. What's we name Neil all the live I will try. Neil will try. Deal. I'm sending Neil Star six will open up the thing again. It's 88 8 7 2 4 2 8 8 4. What happens when you, we'll, we'll pick up immediately when you ring, put you in the, in a room where you'll hear what's going on. And then when we say, Hey Neil, you press star six to unmute. Hey Leo,

Caller Neil (00:36:50):
How are you doing

Leo Laporte (00:36:50):
Here? There we go. I'm great. Welcome. What's up?

Caller Neil (00:36:54):
Well, I, we've talked many times before, so I just, I actually called back for two quick points. One after seeing the question last week about the hearing aids, I also am a hearing aid where I was going to buy the job for hearing aids. You know, you know, the $2,000 hearing aid Yeah. And so forth. Yeah. And then I had my and I, and then I checked for my in cause I have insurance and actually I have very good insurance. So they cover a hearing. And they required me to go see an audiologist. Yeah. So, which was fine. Yeah. I got my hearing test and so forth and ended up getting a $3,000 set of hearing aids instead. But they, the plan actually covered all the 500 bucks. So it actually worked out. Ok. but I was curious. It looks like audiologists are not impressed with Java, although I'm not sure they're the, the manufacturer.

Leo Laporte (00:37:38):
Well remember that's eating their business up. Right. The way audiologists make money is they take a skim off the, off the top on the hearing aids. My audiologist anyway has never charged me, but I buy the hearing aids through them. And those $6,000 hearing aids, I have to think a good portion of that goes to the audiologist. So Jabra is in effect saying, don't go to an audiologist. Right. Just buy these and and you'll be fine. And I think audiologists are nervous. My, I asked my audiologist, he says, anything that gets people to at least try hearing aids from my point of view is a good thing. Most people, I think only one, one in five who need hearing aids use them. Wow. Most people for the stigma or just they don't mind not hearing their wives or whatever it is. They don't get hearing aids.

(00:38:27):
And my audiologist, who I think is pretty open-minded, he's very tech focused which is why I went to him, said as if people try hearing aids, these Javas or any of the over-the-counter things, that's a start. We know in the long run, as a hearing gets worse, they're probably gonna want to go to an audiologist. We just think it's important for people to get hearing aids who need them. And anything that gets 'em into hearing aids is good. We know we'll still get our share of business from people who really need an audiologist. It is true that, you know, the audiologist is gonna give you a better hearing a test than anything you could do yourself, obviously. So did you, so you didn't get the jobber, what did you get?

Caller Neil (00:39:05):
What are they? Oh, they are PHAC.

Leo Laporte (00:39:07):
Phac. Yeah. That's one of the big hearing aid companies. Oac, Starkey, resound Phac. Right. Yeah. Good. And you like them?

Caller Neil (00:39:15):
Yeah, they work very well. The only problem I have, which is not, I'm talking about 'em right now as I speak with you, the only issue I, you know, I also work from home. So I'm, I'm a, I'm a a trainer so I'm always on, on camera. So I try to signal to my computer, which worked fine, although they seem to not do as well say with the Bluetooth as far as in teams, Microsoft teams, there's a lot of they don't have enough audio. They can't maintain the stream, I guess to gimme good audio when I'm talking to, to a class. So

Leo Laporte (00:39:44):
I have tried so hard for I would far, I we wear wire headphones on our, on the sets and in all the shows and I've tried so hard to get Bluetooth even, you know, aptex low latency and all this stuff to work and there's just enough latency that it's echoing. And so I just can't use Bluetooth. Apple as you know, has a M F I program for hearing aids. I can use my hearing aids on the phone. They're not as loud those as AirPods or something like that. So Yeah. I, yeah. Right. Hearing aids are hearing aids. I'm on

Caller Neil (00:40:17):
The phone right now

Leo Laporte (00:40:19):
With Are you using the phone right now with hearing aids?

Caller Neil (00:40:22):
I'm using them right now. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:40:24):
I don't think apples using Bluetooth when it connects to the hearing aids. I think they have their own special hearing age set up. Mm-Hmm. I don't know. Are you using Bluetooth?

Caller Neil (00:40:32):
Yeah. The issue I was about was when I used a mic on my work computer with my, with Microsoft Teams, which is the Windows. It's not my computer so I can't alter it cause it's the

Leo Laporte (00:40:38):
Company. Yeah. And that's using Bluetooth and when

Caller Neil (00:40:40):
I called the man

Leo Laporte (00:40:42):
Right. Is

Caller Neil (00:40:42):
That right?

Leo Laporte (00:40:42):
And

Caller Neil (00:40:43):
So I that is using Bluetooth, I believe. Yeah. Said that's how I paired them. So when I called my IT department about it, they, they had no answer for that. They said the, they said the teams, well they didn't say didn't support it, but what I did say was that Michael Genesis does not support Bluetooth either or it doesn't both be ear ear aids, which is disappointing. They support Java, but I think they mean Java earbuds not job or hearing

Leo Laporte (00:41:05):
Aids. That's exactly right. So

Caller Neil (00:41:06):
I can't use them if I'm, if I was taking a call. Yeah. That so

Leo Laporte (00:41:09):
I have to,

Caller Neil (00:41:10):
That's exactly right. I have another ear Earp, a wired earpiece works fine. It's just, I usually, I get less of hearing aids with that. I just wanna throw it out there. I was thinking, Leo,

Leo Laporte (00:41:18):
I'm with you. I don't, I don't,

Caller Neil (00:41:19):
Those that have good insurance,

Leo Laporte (00:41:21):
I don't wear my hearing aids on Workday because I have to wear headphones. Right. And I can't use the hearing aids as headphones as much as I'd rather I can't. So I understand. You're absolutely right. But that's good to know that your insur Now who's your insurer? Cuz I, my insurance, I'm, I'm Medicare. You heard of that? It's a, it's a big company in Washington DC

Caller Neil (00:41:41):
No, but I'm still working.

Leo Laporte (00:41:42):
<Laugh>. So who's your insurer?

Caller Neil (00:41:45):
I've, yeah, I actually am. Yeah. I have health here. I actually worked, that's my, I my employer actually works out

Leo Laporte (00:41:50):
Well. Yeah, that's nice. Cause they have good insurance. Yeah, we have good insurance here. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But very few insurance companies will cover hearing aids for some reason. I don't know. They're expensive, I guess. So I'm glad that you got UnitedHealthcare to cover that. That's great. And I, and I wish, honestly, I don't understand why Medicare does not except that it's expensive. And I'm sure Congress said, well we can't afford that. What, what <laugh> Hey <laugh>. I didn't hear you when you suggested out there for Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that, Neil. Yeah. Yeah.

Caller Neil (00:42:21):
You know, I thought I pointed out because maybe others out there that may need the hearing aids and think, well they're really expensive after your, the check with your insurance to see if they do cover. Cause maybe they, maybe they're in healthcare plan, you know, probably not Medicare like you said, but maybe their commercial plan will, will we cover that. You know,

Leo Laporte (00:42:36):
We checking. I'm so jealous. I wish mine would, I've spent quite a bit on hearing aids. Yeah. I was gonna use question and ear trumpet, but I decided Micah shouldn't have to speak into the trumpet. What's the other, what's the other thing, Neil?

Caller Neil (00:42:51):
Okay. Simple question here. And this is just an opinion here. I have an Apple TV 4k, but I got this few years ago when I got my 4K tv, but now they have a new Apple TV 4k. So I get the quick, simple question is, is it worth the upgrade?

Leo Laporte (00:43:05):
Wait. Yep. Because I'm pretty sure they're gonna announce a new one this year. Yep. You agree?

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:43:10):
Yeah, I absolutely wait. There's no reason to, to make that upgrade. Especially if you're happy with the way that your TV looks right now.

Leo Laporte (00:43:21):
The only reason to make the upgrade, it's a much better remote. The new remote is so much better and I'm very tempt. But you can buy the remote standalone. So if you, if you, if you can't live with the bad re the Apple TV remote was the worst, the black one. Awful, terrible. If you, if you want a new remote, you can buy that standalone. I think it's 60 bucks on. That's

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:43:41):
What I did originally. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:43:42):
Yeah. But I would wait because there, I think there will be a jump. There will to a newer processor. Better capabilities. If you have any Apple tv, 4k, I don't think you're gonna get a big difference getting the latest one.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:43:54):
Agreed.

Caller Neil (00:43:57):
Well, thank you so much for the call. I really appreciate

Leo Laporte (00:43:59):
Thank you. We really appreciate it.

Caller Neil (00:44:01):
Love your

Leo Laporte (00:44:01):
Show. This, there's no reason for us to do this if people don't call in. Exactly. <laugh>. So you got, you bought the new remote, huh? Yeah,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:44:09):
Back, back when it first came out, I bought the new remote and then later I ended up buying the new 4k. So then I had the new remote for the older Apple tv and then the new right TV with the new remote.

Leo Laporte (00:44:21):
I'm so tempted. I hate this old remote so much, but I'm gonna live with it. All the, the problem is that we have in the living room a nice new Apple TV with a nice new remote. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And then I go into my office and I have that old black remote and I say, yeah, you can't skip ahead. It's just hard to use in general. But you can't buy that. I think all the rumors. Mark Urman, of course, is the king of apple rumors. All the rumors suggest that there will be probably not in September, that'll be new iPhone territory. But then in October there will be some new announcements, including an Apple tv almost certainly M three based 13 and 14 inch MacBooks. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> not the pros, just the standard MacBook Air and the MacBook 13 and maybe new IMAX based on the M three and not minis.

(00:45:17):
I'm just, this is what the rumor monger says. Right? <laugh>? Don't know. Don't know for a fact. Don't hold. So iPhone fifteens in September. Oh. And iPads perhaps. New iPads. Yeah. iPads in, in October along with the new Apple tv. But don't, you know, it could change. It could change. We don't know. Everybody says different things. Apple doesn't say nothing. Good memory. $59 for the serial remote. You said 60. Good job. Well, I it's 59 99 or something. I, I figure 60. Yeah. Is close enough. It was very good. I'm off by a few cents. Exactly. <laugh>. I'm, I'm impressed. I don't know, I don't know where my I don't know where my information comes from at this point. <Laugh> comes down from the from the ether and I try to catch it if I can. Should we do one more call and then I'll do the ad? Let's do one more call. Yeah, let's do one more call. We're gonna try again to see if I can get this working. So come on up anonymous into the, into the light if you're the individual with the dog. Hello. There we go. Now we can hear you. Hello. Welcome. What's your name? Hello. Yeah.

Caller Neil (00:46:24):
Is it John?

Leo Laporte (00:46:25):
Hi, John. Where you calling from?

Caller Neil (00:46:29):
I'm calling from Texas.

Leo Laporte (00:46:30):
Great. I'm sorry, we hung up earlier. I I don't think you could hear us. What's your question, John?

Caller Neil (00:46:36):
Yeah, I, I don't know what happened either. Yeah. So I had a burning question I was hoping to get your opinion on.

Leo Laporte (00:46:42):
Okay.

Caller Neil (00:46:44):
So if you were there to go to Defcon for any reason, you know, the hack convention would you feel more comfortable do doing, going with Apple lockdown mode? Like if you have an iPhone or a Mac, if you were bringing that with, or if you were bringing a Windows PC and you did everything within Windows Sandbox, which would you feel safer

Leo Laporte (00:47:09):
With? That's a great question. Interesting question. So I did ask that question of Phil Zimmerman, who wrote P G P, which is the definitive email encryption technology. He's a, he's a encryption guru. Now, this was a few years ago. He said, I would never go to a Def Con Black hat, the big hacker conventions in las coming up next month. I would never go,

Caller Neil (00:47:32):
Never

Leo Laporte (00:47:33):
Go. If I, I would never go with an Android device. I would only go with an iPhone. So he says he did trust the iPhone. Now this is before Apple Advanced Protection. Now he didn't, I didn't ask him about a Windows pc. Father Robert won't bring a Windows pc. He's going this year. I think he brings a Chromebook. Mm. That's a, okay, that's a good, good choice. The reason is there is something at the at Black Hat, is it Black Hat or is it Def Con? Mm-Hmm. Maybe it's a Def Con called the Wall of Sheep. Oh no, you do not wanna be Oh no. On the wall of the sheep. The wall of sheep is a list of people whose machines have been hacked No. At the event. Oh. And and they're data exfiltrated. And so what that tells you is there is an active community of people trying to break into any device they can see.

(00:48:24):
There have either been reports that Stingrays have showed up, these are fake cell phone sites that the, the the feds and other spy agencies put up to intercept cell phone traffic to look like a legit at t Verizon or T-Mobile Cell Site, your phone Go, doesn't know better goes Yeah. Hello and joins it. And then they can mo and of course then they connect you to the network, but they will see everything that's going on. There have even been reports that have been stingray in Las Vegas during these events. Wow. Whether it's set up by the Feds or, or I'm thinking more likely just hackers. It is, it is a threat rich environment. Wall sheep's at Defcon. Thank you. Mike B So I th yeah. Black Hat's kind of the corporate one where, you know, all the, all the CISOs go and, you know, and then the people who really want to have fun go to go to Defcon.

(00:49:14):
I think if I was dared to go, I would not go. It's, it sounds terrifying. Yeah. Terrify. So you know what I will ask Father Robert what he brings to Def Con, cuz he goes every year. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> I'll ask Alex Stamos, he goes every year. He's the director of Stanford's Internet Observatory. He's an expert on this stuff. Longtime security guru. I'll ask around, but I would say frankly, I would, I would bring a, I'm pretty sure Robert just brings a burner phone, if anything mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and maybe a Chromebook and nothing. And, and secondarily nothing of importance on it. Right. Yeah. Don't, don't bring your last will and testimony. Are you gonna go, John, do you get to go?

Caller Neil (00:49:56):
Well, I haven't worked, so that's gonna be a bit of a complication. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:50:01):
It would be so much fun to

Caller Neil (00:50:02):
Go. What about for general use cases?

Leo Laporte (00:50:05):
Like in general? I don't think Windows is very secure, to be honest with you. I think a Mac, even without advanced data protection, is more secure than Windows Period. Partly it's cause it's a smaller environment. It's a smaller target.

Caller Neil (00:50:18):
Okay. But let's assume you, you use the PC only for that web browsing purpose and nothing else.

Leo Laporte (00:50:25):
Yeah. Yeah. You could lock it down. Absolutely. Lock it down, make sure it's got all the updates. Yeah. Just for web browsing, I think

Caller Neil (00:50:34):
The root question is, is Colonel hardening more secure than Colonel Isolation? Which basically

Leo Laporte (00:50:41):
Comes, oh, that's an interesting question. That's a very interesting question. Huh. I don't know. I'm not, I'm not sophisticated enough to know. I know the difference, but I'm not sure which would be better. Hardening of course assumes that, you know, every possible avenue. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> every possible venue. And the risk with hardening, hardening is just essentially locking down an operating system is you miss something,

Caller Neil (00:51:09):
Hence apple lockdown mode.

Leo Laporte (00:51:11):
Right. But maybe you miss something. Isolation of course, is isolated. If you've got air gapped computer, it's ultimately secure. Kernel isolation again, though, can have flaws. You know, Microsoft does, in theory, isolate the kernel, but as you probably know, drivers and other software does have access to ring zero. So it's not a hundred percent isolated. Mike be in our chat room, who's been to Defcon twice, says, the other thing to do is once you've brought a device to DEF com, do not trust it ever again. <Laugh>.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:51:44):
Oh my God. Why does anyone go to this thing, <laugh>?

Leo Laporte (00:51:47):
Because what the worst case scenario is somebody got in and then didn't tell you and left it there. Uhhuh <affirmative>, and now you're taking it home because not

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:51:54):
Everybody there is just doing it for the funny hahas. Right, right. You might run into some folks who were there to actually cause some damage. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:52:01):
I mean, they get in very fast. And the problem, one of the problems with these events DEFCON particularly, is people all year save up exploits. They collect them, so they announce them at Defcon. Right. So there's stuff going around at Defcon nobody knows about. The companies have not been alerted to have not patched <laugh>.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:52:20):
I'm just gonna bring a pencil and paper if I'll bring

Leo Laporte (00:52:24):
<Laugh>. It sounds like a lot of fun. I'm sorry. You don't get to go, John. I have many have had many opportunities to go and have never gone.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:52:33):
Sounds terrifying. I don't blame

Leo Laporte (00:52:34):
You. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Don't bring your Tesla either. Somebody's saying,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:52:39):
<Laugh>, I'm gonna bring my beetle from <laugh>.

Caller Neil (00:52:41):
What a machine. A machine that runs cubes.

Leo Laporte (00:52:46):
Yeah. Cubes would be, cubes are tails, which these are lockdown versions of Lennox would be a good idea. But again, you, you take it home, you're gonna format everything. You're gonna kill the firmware. You're gonna do everything you can to, to erase that machine because you don't know what has happened to it. I think a Chromebook that you got for the purpose, <laugh> might be a good

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:53:04):
Idea. My Defcon Chromebook

Leo Laporte (00:53:06):
<Laugh>. I'm gonna, that's a great question I'm gonna ask around. We are not hackers. Alright. We're not the guys You should be. I know, I know. But you should be asking the guys who are actively trying to catch I just

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:53:18):
Play one on tv. I wear a hoodie,

Caller Neil (00:53:21):
Right? I do. Lemme just go

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:53:22):
Like

Caller Neil (00:53:22):
This. I do want to become a security researcher, and that's one of the things that I wanting. And another thing to do is to create, have a machine with multiple hard drives, with multiple installs of operating systems to compartmentalize. I didn't know that would be a good approach to security.

Leo Laporte (00:53:45):
There is a piece of software that will let you run on a single USB key. We'll have all the ISOs for all the linuxes you want. It's enough. Pardon me?

Caller Neil (00:53:58):
Vent.

Leo Laporte (00:53:59):
Yeah. Vent toy. So if you have vent to, you can boot into any operating system you want from an external drive. If, you know, vent toy puts up the menu and you say, yeah, today I'm gonna be a buntu tomorrow, I'm gonna be tails Thursday I'll be cubes. That's a really good idea. It's a great way to play with this stuff and get a chance to see all the different distros in action. So yeah. You know about vent toy. Good.

Caller Neil (00:54:21):
Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>

Leo Laporte (00:54:21):
Good. I think you're on your way. Good for you, John. Yeah. These are good questions. Is it better to isolate a kernel or to harden it? I don't know. I think they're pro problematic with both. You know what? That's the problem. <Laugh>.

Caller Neil (00:54:37):
Well, I wanted to do what I wanted is the way to utilize both.

Leo Laporte (00:54:42):
Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that's the, that's the, I mean, that's the way basically cubes in tales os operate is, is cubes, especially, it cubes. Everything's running in a sandbox. So it's really an interesting idea. I tried playing with it for a while and it was not very convenient, but you know what? That's that's kind of the trade off, isn't it? Security versus convenience. Hey, we gotta run. Dick de Barno is waiting in the wings. John, it's a pleasure. I'm glad we could get you on. I'm sorry. You don't get to go this year. Next year. Yes. Let's hope. Okay.

Caller Neil (00:55:12):
I hope so. Hopefully one day,

Leo Laporte (00:55:13):
One day I can, a boy can dream <laugh> Father Robert is going, he's gonna give us reports from Black Hat and Def Con this year. And I will definitely see if I can ask around and see what people like Bruce Schneider and Matthew Green do when they go to these events. Especially if you're a big name in security. Cause then Right. They really wanna target you. They want to get you in that wall of sheep <laugh>. All right. Hey, I wanna take a little break. And then Dick DeBartolo, MAD's Mads writer has a gi gibo or a gadget. And really the trick is to see if he can get one of us to buy. Exactly. It works. Sometimes it does. I confess, our show today, brought to you by Cisco Meraki, they are the experts in cloud-based networking for hybrid work. Man, if you're listening to the show, you're thinking you're a business owner.

(00:56:04):
You're thinking, I'm at Def Con every day of my life. <Laugh>, right? They're always trying to break in. And here's the problem. Your employees are everywhere. Whether they're working at home at a cabin in the mountains, on a lounge chair at the beach, you wanna give them that same experience everywhere. That's what a cloud managed network does. The same exceptional work experience, no matter where they are. But you also wanna make sure they're secure. And that's a challenge. And let me put it this way, you might as well roll out the welcome map because hybrid work is here to stay. Hybrid work works best in the cloud and has its perks. And it's not just for employees. Leaders too. Workers of course love it. They can move faster. They can deliver better results with the cloud managed network. But leaders can automate distributed operations, build more sustainable workspaces, and of course, job one, proactively protect the network.

(00:56:59):
Meraki asked, I DG Market Pulse to do a research report for him. And it, it highlighted the top tier opportunities in supporting hybrid work for 78% of C-suite executives. Hybrid work is a priority. Leaders, understandably, they wanna drive collaboration forward. They wanna stay on top of boosting productivity, of course. And security as well. And that's one of the big challenges with hybrid work. The I d G report raises the red flag about security, noting that 43% of leaders report cybersecurity threats as a primary obstacle to improving workforce experiences. Always on security monitoring is part of what makes the cloud managed network so awesome. Your IT department can use apps for meraki's, vast ecosystem of partners. Turnkey solutions built to work seamlessly with the Meraki cloud platform. And it does. They do everything from asset tracking, location analytics. You can gather insights into how people are using your workspaces in a smart space.

(00:57:59):
Environmental sensors can track activity. They could track occupancy levels, stay on top of cleanliness. Your employees can reserve workspaces. They could do hot desking based on vacancy. You can even, which is really cool, have, if you have locations in restricted environments, make sure those spaces are booked in advance and include time-based door access. So only the people who are supposed to get in can get in mobile device management. Integrating devices and systems allows it to manage, update, and troubleshoot company owned devices. Even when the device and employee are in a remote location. The whole point is to turn any space into a place of productivity to empower your organization with the same exceptional experience no matter where they work. And it all happens with Meraki and the Cisco suite of technology. Learn how your organization can make hybrid work, work. Visit Meraki, m e r a k i, meraki.cisco.com/twit. Me thank Meraki and Cisco so much for their supportive. Ask the tech guys. You see him every Wednesday evening with the GIZ fizz. You see 'em on World News now overnight. You see him on his own podcast. Dick d Barolos Gizz podcast at gizz tv. And now you're seeing him right here on Ask the Tech Guys. Oh, let me see this

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:59:23):
Shirt. That is a great shirt. Yeah. Well, you know what it is, Leo, is that my medical plan doesn't cover hearing aids, but they said you could have a loud shirt <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:59:35):
The louder the shirt the better You can hear it.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:59:38):
Yeah. Don't you hear? Don't you hear me? Fine. Is that's working? What that ringing is <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:59:44):
Oh, that is, that is that new? Cuz I've never seen that before.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:59:47):
That is a creature. You know what it it,

Leo Laporte (00:59:50):
Oh my gosh. It's a Hawaiian sunset. Look at that.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (00:59:53):
You know what I actually, it could, it comes with a sun lotions noise. Nice. Because they tanger face <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (01:00:01):
For many decades. Dick DeBartolo has been MAD's maddest writer, and he joins us. He graces us every month with a gizmo or a gadget from his vasts collection. What do you got?

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:00:13):
Alright, so this is, I don't, I don't have this, it was from an event called Sweet. Sweet. Remember the Tamagotchi? Oh,

Leo Laporte (01:00:20):
I love Tamagotchis.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:00:22):
Okay, well, we have a new one now, and it's called the Bitsy. And the Bitsy, actually, if you go to the link on my website to Amazon, there's a picture of it. And then under it, there's a thing that says Zoom. It is, it's a little case. And, and the creature never leaves the case. And the the little creature comes to life when you open the cover. And it's one of those things where you know your eye Oh, so cute. Holds onto Yeah. Oh yeah. The lighting. Yes. Kinda like those fans that they used to sell where the, the, the little Holdable fans and the lights would spin at just the right speed and you'd get a little frame. Yeah. Well, th this is a single piece of metal that is vibrating very quickly. Oh, wow. And, and it actually looks better in per actually, the, the ad might be better because they could have slowed it down so the little guy pops up. There is a big learning curve curve.

Leo Laporte (01:01:23):
It's not gonna chop your finger off, is it? I mean, you

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:01:26):
No, no, no, no. The a actually it can, it goes to sleep. If you shake the box, it gets dizzy and it spins around <laugh>. You, you have to feed it. This is clever. It turn clever. This is really clever. It turn. Oh yeah. It can turn into other animals. It grows up. It becomes, oh, a bigger,

Leo Laporte (01:01:48):
I want one of these. Me, me too. The, the original Tamagotchi was just this little crappy LCD screen. Oh

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:01:52):
Yeah. No, this, this, this is and, and it's 29 Bo 29 95. Do you

Leo Laporte (01:01:58):
Have to go through all of this? Unbox it, though. That's crazy. I know.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:02:01):
You know what? Unbox know what I think that, I think they changed their mind because every ad I've seen for it shows it in just a little box with a picture of what it is. Okay. so it's that little cat. It can turn into a bunny, a unicorn. And the little bar on the bottom is how you control it. However, you can pet it at the top. And when you first unbox it, and I'm just doing all this from the demo I, I saw at the show, there's a little training video that you follow, and you'll get a big check mark if you've done it correctly. And if not, it'll tell you to do over again. So here you see a person petting it. You don't touch it from the bottom. Everything has to be done from the top. The, the green arrow. The blue arrow means you've done it correctly. It shows you the directions that the bo that the, the little bitsy will respond to. I think it's very clever. And then when you get to, I think it's called jumbo, super bitsy <laugh>, you can play, you can play games with it.

Leo Laporte (01:03:13):
Oh, so it's, it's gonna grow.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:03:16):
Yes, exactly. It, it gets to be bigger. How big is a kid? <Laugh>? it, it gets, it gets, maybe

Leo Laporte (01:03:21):
It's still fit in the box, right?

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:03:23):
It's got, yeah, it's gotta fit in the box. But when you get to the game thing, the dog can be roaming along and rocks are coming at it, and you have to have the dog bounce up and down and get through the rocks. So this quite, this is a very

Leo Laporte (01:03:36):
Innovative idea. Somebody came up with this. It's very,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:03:39):
It's very clever. It's a, it's a spin writer is the company that's doing it.

Leo Laporte (01:03:43):
Oh, Steve Gibson's not gonna be happy about that. <Laugh>.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:03:49):
So that is bitsy bitsy. And I found one other thing I thought was very clever. It's a company called Little Tykes, and they have something called Big Adventures. And there are four of them. They said the fourth one wouldn't be out till August. But today I noticed it was on Amazon. So what it is, it's little trucks that do other things. For example, the Jeep, you pull down on the bottom of the Jeep and the four tires come down and they're actually binoculars.

Leo Laporte (01:04:22):
Oh, so it's transformers, but into something useful.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:04:25):
Yes, exactly. That. The LEDs at the top of the Jeep pull off and it's a flashlight. Oh, nice. The spare tire at the back of the Jeep pulls off and it's a compass. Oh. it's for kids three and up. Yeah. I gotta get, that's my niece. And the the most expensive is the, the truck has a little magnetic grip on the back. There is a little, the bumper comes off and it becomes a grabber. <Laugh>. It's so cute. It's cute. And yet you stick something in that, in a little box, and then you look down through it, the, the, the back of the truck is actually a magnifying glass. Oh, wow. So these looking, this is great. I I think this is Love this as a kid. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So

Leo Laporte (01:05:14):
Really, really, the, this is so is this a toy event you were at? What was the event? Yeah.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:05:18):
Yes. Yes. It's called Sweet Sweet. And, and it's summer toys and things that are coming out for Christmas. And the biggest one, which is almost 40 bucks, the bumper comes off and it's a metal, a working metal detector. No. Wow.

Leo Laporte (01:05:31):
It's a dump truck with a metal detector.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:05:33):
Yes. And you can throw like a screw or a nut and sand, and this will find it for you. Then you throw all the sand into the back of the truck, and the truck spins around as you put water on it, and it separates your find from the sand. Wow. The

Leo Laporte (01:05:49):
Gold miners in 1849. Love. They could have used this. Hey, we bought this.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:05:53):
Yeah, exactly. It I I think it's very

Leo Laporte (01:05:56):
Clever. This is really interest. Boy, I'm impressed with the innovation. I, I have to say I felt like you're getting a little stagnant, but this is very clever. Yeah,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:06:05):
No, it, it is very clever. It is very clever.

Leo Laporte (01:06:08):
And sometimes you see innovation that doesn't really imp like it's just crazy. Yeah. There's

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:06:14):
No, no purpose to to it. But this

Leo Laporte (01:06:16):
Looks like a

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:06:16):
Kid with this. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I, I think it's great fun. So the line is for them, and it is Little Tyke's big adventures. And those are the four. The little submarine are underwater is, it's very, very cool. Niece loves un like water stuff. So I'm, oh, yeah. And they start, yeah, that one, those little binocular things are 15 bucks.

Leo Laporte (01:06:40):
So all of these you can get through Dick. He's got an Amazon links on his website, giz wiz.biz. If you click the Gizz visits the Tech Guys button, you'll see both the little Tykes Biggs adventures and the, and the Bitsy Tamagotchis. Which is so cool.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:06:58):
It's very clever. And then it's beyond me.

Leo Laporte (01:07:01):
Yeah. Oh yeah. It's way beyond me. You know, I'm a, I'm a, I'm less than a fifth grader <laugh>, but <laugh>, if you click the, what the heck is it Contest? Everybody could play this. This is a chance to guess. A gizmo or a gadget contest began afresh at the beginning of the month. So we you have till the end of August to figure out what this toilet tank thing is. I don't, I don't know what that is.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:07:26):
Oh, don't give it away. Don't give it away. Oh, shoot.

Leo Laporte (01:07:30):
If you, I'll tell you what, you don't have to get it right. There's six autographed mad magazines for the correct answer. There'll be a drawing if more than six people answer. Right. But there's 18 for the funniest Cleverest. Wrong answer. And you're playing for, I don't, are you playing for the the August issue of Mad Magazine?

Leo Laporte (01:07:48):
Probably not. No.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:07:48):
That's what, that's what they just want. They'll be, they, this, they'll playing for the October issue.

Leo Laporte (01:07:52):
Oh, wow. We don't even know what that is yet. But this is,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:07:55):
No, not yet. Not yet. This.

Leo Laporte (01:07:56):
You should still, it's probably still on newsstands. You should get this. Oh,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:07:59):
It is. It'll be,

Leo Laporte (01:08:00):
This is the Al Jaffey tribute issue. And Dixon and of course, but a lot of Al Jaffe, he passed away a couple of months ago. And this is a great tribute to a a, a mad magazine legend. Much like our very own Dick DeBartolo. Indeed. So go to gizz.biz. That's the website. You can play the game. You can see the, the, the gidgets, the gadgets. The gizmos. Very nice. Thank you. Dickie d and of course. Okay, buddy. Make sure Gizz tv, you've, you've subscribed to his podcast with, with the old redhead himself was no longer a redhead. Chad Johnson.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:08:37):
Thank you. Yeah. And Eddie Williams. Okay, guys, it's great fun. I'll see you next month. I think

Leo Laporte (01:08:40):
His, his shirt is actually red than red than Chad's hair was

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:08:44):
<Laugh>. Yes. <laugh>, I think of it. It is. It's Chad. It is Chad's hair.

Leo Laporte (01:08:48):
Oh, yeah. I had iTWO in. Okay. Oh good. Very nice. It's the old hair. Take your shirt made into a shirt. <Laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:08:56):
Dickie. Bang. Thank you. Okay guys. Take care. Bye. It's you too.

Leo Laporte (01:09:00):
It's hot in Manhattan. Stay cool. And, and humid as well as the whole world. Seems to be heating up. Alright. You said email next. I think I could reach back. That, that, that I've been, I've been going to stretch, you know, oh, three times a week. I, I go and they stretch me and lie on a table. I don't have to do anything. That's, and they just great. They stretch me. That sounds wonderful. Let's see if I can now reach the mailbox. Wow. Look at that. It's like, it works. Mr. Lindberger. <Laugh>. All right. We're gonna open up the email.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:09:31):
I eat Limburger cheese to stay

Leo Laporte (01:09:32):
Limber. That's how I stay limber. I don't know if it's working, but no one's coming near me. <Laugh>. This is from Lance. Oh, I know Lance. Hi Lance. Dumb. 4K TVs is the subject. Are there any companies that make dumb 4K TVs? It's, I want to get a 4K TV that doesn't have all that, you know, smart tv. Oh, that jazz video streaming pre-installed. And Lance, I completely sympathize. I understand. I wish they wouldn't make these smart TVs. And I think part of the reason they do this is consumer demand, but part of it is because they can make some of their money back by selling Exactly. Information about what you're watching to marketers. Yep. Some of 'em even have cameras built into them. I hate it. <Laugh>. Yeah. So I've asked this question many, many times of our friend Scott Wilkinson.

(01:10:20):
I don't, can I get a dumb tv? No, no. You can get a dumb monitor though. Exactly. And use that as a tv. They're not gonna be as big. I have a 55 inch, fairly expensive ol lead 4K ol lead monitor that I got from Alienware, a Dell company some years ago. And it's a beautiful TV's only 55 inches, which is big for a computer. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And it's got no smarts. It's, it's just a monitor. You plug in the htm I cable to your streamer and you're done. So I think maybe look at computer monitors, but no TV manufacturer that I know of sells a television that doesn't have smart. Now here's an alternative though, by the way. That's one of the reasons TVs are cheaper than monitors. Yep. Cuz they're subsidized. They subsidize mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. But the option is just not to connect them to the internet. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, they'll complain. In fact, some TVs will complain so much, it's not worth it. Like they'll pop up every time you turn 'em on. You're not on the internet. You're not on the internet. I can't get

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:11:16):
The latest

Leo Laporte (01:11:16):
Updates, but I don't connect my smart TV to the internet. Usually every few months they say, Hey, where's the internet? It isn't a bad idea. You know, I gave you that projection. Is it bugging you or did you connect it?

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:11:28):
No, it's not bugging. Okay. I don't have a connected, but, or I do have it connected, but what I have is it blocked

Leo Laporte (01:11:34):
In, oh, that's a good one. My firewall. That's probably a better way to do it because if you don't connect it, that tv

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:11:39):
Does it

Leo Laporte (01:11:39):
Bug you off every few months will say, Hey, I'm not connected. It isn't a bad idea to connect it once in a while to get some, so Yeah.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:11:45):
If you get software updates Yeah. From where updates. That's great.

Leo Laporte (01:11:48):
So how do you keep it from going out to the outside world?

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:11:51):
So it's just in this case, IRO has IP by IP blocking where you can say, I don't want this, this thing that's connected to be able to connect to the outside world. So

Leo Laporte (01:12:04):
You need to know what address that TV has. Correct. Which you can usually do in the menu of the TV when you go to the network connections mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, and then tell the Arrow. I see. Or your

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:12:12):
Router Yeah. Whatever router you have. And just let that, just that talk to the world.

Leo Laporte (01:12:15):
Yeah. once in a while, it's okay for it to down load firmware, but you don't want it sending. And by the way, if you monitor it, oh boy, it's talking to the outside world. It's wild. Wild. Thousands of times a day.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:12:27):
It is so much. Yeah. especially the TCL TVs.

Leo Laporte (01:12:32):
But that's why they're so inex in my opinion. That's why they're so inexpensive. Yeah. They're subsidizing that. That's always, that's kind of always the tell, isn't it? Mm-Hmm. Wow. This is a really inexpensive tv. Well, yeah. Why

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:12:41):
Is, why can I get this for some, why

Leo Laporte (01:12:43):
Is that? And Rokus are very, very inexpensive too.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:12:45):
Yep.

Leo Laporte (01:12:46):
Same thing, also talking. Same thing.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:12:48):
That's why there's the, that new TV that is, is out where folks can get it in their home entirely for free. But in return, there's a second monitor underneath the top monitor that is constantly serving you ads. And it only works if you have it connected to the internet. So people can make that choice to just have this completely free tv. But it is of course then monitoring what you're looking at, but also serving you ads the whole time.

Leo Laporte (01:13:15):
Here is an article from Make Use of, which is a pretty good website, the 10 Best Dumb TVs Without Smart Features. And a few of them you may have heard of. The number one is Scepter. I've never heard of that brand name. 65 inch Komodo by Septer. Never heard of that brand. LG does make, I bet you this is a Monarch. Yeah. It's 24 inches <laugh>. That's not a tv. Yeah. <laugh>, that's a monitor. Here's another scepter. See, I think these scepters this is a company, but I think they're making honestly, computer monitors in their heads. Yep. I don't think, I think that calling them dumb TVs is there is a Samsung 55 inch Samsung. Samsung is now making a q It's, you know, I have a Samsung QD lead, which is fantastic. They are now making a Q D lead monitor. Oh. Which will make a great tv except it's aspect ratio is a little weird. So I don't think, yeah. Any of these TVs. Would I buy somebody in might be saying Scepter may be a rebrand. I think Scepter might be a house brand for one of the big electronics. Oh, like a Best Buy? Like a Best Buy or somebody like Insignia is a house brand, like a radio shack. Yeah. It might be the realistic of televisions. Time for a voicemail. I believe it is <laugh>.

Caller Mark (01:14:41):
Hi, my name's Mark. I'm from Murrieta, California. Hey, mark. I have a Trojan virus that I released on my computer, and now I can't really log in all the way I can get the bio screened open. I was looking for your help. Thank you.

Leo Laporte (01:15:00):
Yikes. So I wonder how we know that we had a Trojan Yeah, that's, that's the first question. Yeah. He's assuming it's a Trojan. It could be just a hard drive failure. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, it could be a lot of things. Right. what would be the best way to do this? At this point, if it's only launching to bios your hard drive is not responding. Okay. Yeah. First thing to do is look in the bios. I mean, look, Trojans can even infect your bios or, or your video card firmware. But that's, those are, those are pretty hardcore viruses usually aimed at secret agents and the government officials and podcast hosts. So you probably shouldn't, you probably don't need to worry about those. Yeah. I'm, yeah. Wondering what led you to believe that this is what it is. It might just be a dead hard drive.

(01:15:52):
So the first thing to do is see if the bio sees your hard drive. So you're, you're, you're getting into setup and, and can't get any farther s you can see what the hard drive are in there. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, if it says there's no hard drive here, your hard drive has failed, pull it out. You may be able to recover it. Probably not worth it. Especially if it's an older computer. Go out and get an ssd, a solid state drive and replace it. That will have two benefits. One, if there is a Trojan, it's on the old drive. Get rid of it. I Bye. Two, you're gonna have a much faster and nicer drive. Honestly, the fact that you can't get past bios usually doesn't mean a virus. Right. It usually means your hard drive has failed. Or, and it'd be pr be reasonable to look at this, the connection.

(01:16:35):
Maybe the wire fell off, open it up. If it's a laptop, that's less likely if, and I don't even know if you can open it, but if you can look at the cables, make sure they're all properly connected on a desktop, that's a lot easier. Open it up, make sure the cables are all connected. Maybe disconnect and reconnect them. Yeah. Cuz much like a virus in real life, it wants to keep its host alive to keep pulling resources from it. So if it's killing your computer entirely, then the, you know, the alleged virus is not being able to pull information from you. Oh, very good. Virus password. Yeah, exactly. That's a bad virus. They wanna keep it rolling along. Not that there aren't such things. There are,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:17:11):
Yeah. Yeah. Just malicious people.

Leo Laporte (01:17:12):
But so, so many other things that could be wrong. We don't really have enough information exactly to know Exactly. Maybe the motherboard isn't, maybe the drive connector on the mother or drive control on the motherboard is dead and it's not seeing the drive and the drive's fine. This is, this is one we just don't have enough information to solve. The cop king and the chatroom's asking a legit question. Do you see any error messages or hear any error messages on BootUp? There is a, on most computers, a power on self test, a early stage before you get to the bios of BootUp it in which it will tell you if something's wrong with beeps. If you're hearing a, a, a number of different beeps, or maybe you have some lights on the motherboard that tell you, tell you air codes, you gotta figure out what's wrong. Could be a lot of different things. I wouldn't jump to the Trojan unless he says he introduced it. So <laugh>. Yeah. Did

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:17:59):
You? He said, I just wanna see what's gonna happen. Maybe today I chaos.

Leo Laporte (01:18:04):
If that's how he knows. I don't know. <Laugh>. I don't know. Good question though. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yes. You can email us atg twit tv. You can call us if we're here, we'll answer. And we'll put you on the air. If we're not here, you can do what our last caller did and leave a message. 8 8 8 7 2 4 2 8 8 84. And if you do leave a message, keep it short like he did. First name and city. Give us as much information as you can. We'll do what I we can to answer it. Let's take a little timeout and we'll continue with more of your questions on ask the tech guys right after this.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:18:38):
Hey, there folks. Get ready for the Backbeat Media Podcast Network. Your new go-to place for top-notch podcasting fun. You're an Apple fanboy or fan girl. We've got you covered with the cult cast delivering all the eye news you could ever want. More of a literature lover. Bookworm is gonna rock your world. Gotta think for theater Broadway Radio's gonna hit you right in the fields while Matt Geek Gavin and Matt Cast are here to feed all your tech cravings. Punk rock your vibe. You're gonna vibe so hard with Jughead's basement. And for all the dinosaur nerds out there, I know Dino is basically your spirit animal, but hold up all about that mental health pop culture and tech life. Christina Warren and Brett Tutter are serving up your weekly dose. Love a good flying tale. Fig and repeat are about to take your imagination to new heights. And hey, to all you small business gurus out there, Dave Hamilton and Shannon Jean are dropping knowledge bombs every week. Backbeat Media Podcast Network folks. It's where your passions come alive and there's never a dull moment. Hit up backbeat media.com and get ready to binge.

Leo Laporte (01:19:38):
We are back with Ask the Tech guys, but I'm gonna ask John Ashley. It's a, it's a little show within a show. Uhhuh, what should I do, John? Ashley, what? Would you wanna take? A caller? Should I take a caller? Yeah, we have a

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:19:52):
Oh's.

Leo Laporte (01:19:52):
Do David. Should I do David? David? All right. Let's say hi to David. David, press six to unmute and say hello. Hello, David. Hello, David. David.

Caller David (01:20:11):
Hello, David. I'm unmuted.

Leo Laporte (01:20:12):
Hey, now we hear you David. Sometimes it takes a little while. Where are you calling from? David.

Caller David (01:20:17):
Okay. Philadelphia.

Leo Laporte (01:20:19):
Nice. How is it in the city of Brotherly love this afternoon?

Caller David (01:20:24):
Well, it's humid usually. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:20:26):
<Laugh> a little muggy.

Caller David (01:20:29):
Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:20:30):
Yeah, of course. You have to think of the founders sitting there in that stifling, muggy heat in July, 1776. Sinking, sinking, sinking. How can we get out of this? Just sign the damn thing in

Caller David (01:20:41):
The, in, in their wigs and

Leo Laporte (01:20:43):
Oh, oh wow. Yeah. <laugh>

Caller David (01:20:46):
Sc coat.

Leo Laporte (01:20:47):
Yeah. Big heavy. All smelly <laugh>.

Caller David (01:20:50):
Anyway, I it's another hearing aid question.

Leo Laporte (01:20:52):
Sorry. Oh, good. Ok.

Caller David (01:20:53):
I, I actually, I actually tuned in, in the middle of, of the last hearing aid call. And the thing that bothered me from last week was that you kept saying the hearing aids are $6,000, but a basic hearing aid is $2,000. Good. I mean, I, I got my hearing aid at in the hospital, so I just wanted to correct that because you probably got the, you know, the highest.

Leo Laporte (01:21:19):
I got the fancy ones and I over paid,

Caller David (01:21:22):
But, but I mean, if somebody's thinking of it, I mean, they're,

Leo Laporte (01:21:25):
I don't wanna You're right. You're absolutely right. It's not fun either. No, it's not fun either way. What brand did you get for 2000?

Caller David (01:21:33):
The O Oticon. Is

Leo Laporte (01:21:34):
That Oticon? Okay. Yeah. Very well known. And

Caller David (01:21:37):
It's, and there's a an app on the iPhone and you control it with the iPhone and you, you can change, you know, ways of hearing stuff like that.

Leo Laporte (01:21:50):
Good. And you, you're happy with it.

Caller David (01:21:52):
It's totally, it, it's totally integrated. And, and, and you have a choice of, of taking the calls on the phone or taking a calls in a hearing aid.

Leo Laporte (01:22:01):
I kinda like that feature.

Caller David (01:22:04):
Oh yeah. I, I hate to do it in the, in the hearing aid cause it's just too distracting.

Leo Laporte (01:22:09):
Right, right.

Caller David (01:22:11):
But, but mine was, I went to like Jefferson Hospital, you know, to get an audiology test. And I've had moderate hearing loss for many, many years. And I, I mean, I, I don't like wearing, I don't wear it that often, but it's there.

Leo Laporte (01:22:26):
I'm with you <laugh> <laugh>. I only wear it if, if Lisa says, where's your hearing aids? Uhoh <laugh>. And I go, oh no. I left them in the car. I'll, I'll go get them.

Caller David (01:22:34):
And then, then, and then they tried to do that thing where they measure the inside the I hated that. It, it felt like I was not connected to the earth. It was Wow. You know, too distracting for me. Yeah. So what are they called? You know, were they mold the mold inside?

Leo Laporte (01:22:51):
Oh, they did a mold.

Caller David (01:22:54):
Yeah. Well, you can buy a mold, separate mold

Leo Laporte (01:22:56):
For three. Oh. So the odor will, will, will, can also come in the fashion that they're molded into your ear. Yeah. Oh, that's kind of cool. You know, you know, I'd like to get that

Caller David (01:23:05):
As I thought I went to the hospital. Yeah. So I knew I wouldn't get screwed around.

Leo Laporte (01:23:09):
Yeah. Smart. And it's, but it was not covered by, it was not covered by your insurance.

Caller David (01:23:14):
No, no. Nothing.

Leo Laporte (01:23:15):
Yeah, nothing That makes me mad. I think insurance should cover that.

Caller David (01:23:18):
I know. Well, yeah. I'm, I'm excited about having the you know, the phone ones, but I'm just saying if somebody really needs it, it's not thousand

Leo Laporte (01:23:27):
Dollars. Thank you. I apologize. You're right. It cost me that much. I got star keys and then resounds. I know what it does not have to you. What was dumb with me, but I didn't, nobody audiologist said, or you can spend $2,000 and get the Oticon. Nobody mentioned that. Yeah. I think also there has been a downward pressure on these prices because the FDA approved over the counter hearing aids. So when I bought mine five years ago, it might well be that they were $6,000 and they've gone down since.

Caller David (01:23:56):
But I, I did have a choice. I had, there was one lower than that. A little less.

Leo Laporte (01:24:02):
Oh yeah. They're a thousand dollar now. They're a thousand dollar over the counter hearing aids and even less. And I hope we continue to see improvement. The other thing I hope is that you see 'em around more, even with younger people, because that will take the stigma away. Cuz I think that's one of the reasons people don't get 'em, is the stigma. Yeah. I, I wish,

Caller David (01:24:20):
But I would go to a hospital. I never trust the organizations. You know, because Yeah. There was insurance that will cover it and, but you have to deal with these organizations miracle here or whatever.

Leo Laporte (01:24:36):
Oh, yeah. Yeah. The ones I, I stay from the ones that advertise in late 19, they have

Caller David (01:24:41):
Hearing aid coverage, but you have to go through them. Yeah. Yeah. And it's usually more than what you pay for the basis.

Leo Laporte (01:24:47):
It's sad because as seniors we're taking advantage of, and you talk about too, when you aren't able to hear and you continue down that path of just continuing to not be able to tune in with what's around you, it is incredibly detrimental on the brain's ability to keep, you know, functioning at its, at its proper level. And so it's actually really harmful for folks to be pulled out of. Yeah. Reality in that way. Yeah. There's a good article I will refer you to from Johns Hopkins. I trust them, the hidden risks of hearing loss. And they talk about cognitive decline associated with hearing loss. And it's not the one causes the other, it's just that if, I think that as you get more isolated from the world you know, your brain isn't working as hard and it sometimes causes cognitive decline. I,

Caller David (01:25:39):
I have it syn, but

Leo Laporte (01:25:41):
Oh, so do I,

Caller David (01:25:42):
You know, it just seems, I feel like I'm outside. It's not a ringing.

Leo Laporte (01:25:45):
Oh, mine's the worst. It's like a loud alarm, but

Caller David (01:25:50):
Yeah. But but, but that's why they say you have to wear the hearing aid because it, it's, it, you know, treats the brain to comp, you know, to fill in what you're not hearing

Leo Laporte (01:26:02):
Something. Yeah. Like a phantom limb I had read. So, you know, sometimes when people lose a limb, they feel like they still are itchy on their limb that's not there. It's like a phantom limb in your ears. They don't really know. There have been, the FDA has recently approved a new treatment for some kinds of tinnitus. That's the ringing in the ears that involves nerve stimulation. Yeah. Something on the tongue. And then the listen in the head. And it does seem to help. There's actually, yeah. That's yeah. Anybody who has ringing in their ears is desperately looking for a fix for whatever. Yeah. There has been no fix yet. Mine's getting worse. It's very annoying. Just, you know, be nice to the older people in your life. Were suffering <laugh>.

Caller David (01:26:46):
I'm not. So, I mean, that, that started with me with the pandemic. I was sitting in my living room by myself all the time, and it sounded like I was outside.

Leo Laporte (01:26:57):
Oh, that's interesting. That's really interesting. It

Caller David (01:26:59):
Was like an atmosphere. I never thought of it. Yeah. So it's not a ringing, but

Leo Laporte (01:27:03):
It's a, it's like a white noise of some kind. Yeah.

Caller David (01:27:06):
Yes. Exactly.

Leo Laporte (01:27:07):
Huh. Yeah. There's all kinds, isn't there? And I, you know, I have, I have no idea what what kind mind is. I know. How I did it though, was just listening to loud music when I was young. And I, I very,

Caller David (01:27:20):
Can I say something? Sure. I used to watch you when you were first on television. Did you wear a certain sweater or lab coat all the time?

Leo Laporte (01:27:28):
Not all the time

Caller David (01:27:31):
Uniform.

Leo Laporte (01:27:33):
No. We never had a uniform. No. That must have been somebody else. That was Bill Ni, the science guy thinking Bill Ni the science guy. I, once, I did live with, sorry, live with Regis and Kelly. And they brought out lab coats for us to wear. And mine was a little small and it looked like, looked like a sausage and a, and a in a bad casing. Oh. And I, but I couldn't say No, this is, you know, they said, here, you're gonna wear this. Okay, thank you. I will. And well,

Caller David (01:28:00):
You must know a lot

Leo Laporte (01:28:02):
<Laugh>. Yeah. With a lab coat. You just, yeah. I think they were trying to give me a little bit of an elevation in a status there. Like, here's the doctor technology. That only happened once. <Laugh>. Yeah. Never again. And then at one point, tech TV made for me the, and I still have it, the worst Sleeveless V-neck. That's not a good look for anybody. Oh. They had a big tech TV logo on it, and I wore it out the day before for rehearsal. And Gelman, their producer said, what is that? I said, that's my special tech tv V-neck. He said, you're not wearing that Buddy. <Laugh>,

Caller David (01:28:35):
Thank

Leo Laporte (01:28:36):
God. So it's still hanging in my closet. Someday somebody will let me wear that. Not, not my wife. Not,

Caller David (01:28:41):
It's amazing. I'm, I'm still using some of the old stuff. Like Larry

Leo Laporte (01:28:48):
Larry,

Caller David (01:28:50):
There's a thing that cleans the computer Larry. Oh,

Leo Laporte (01:28:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We had a that's right

Caller David (01:28:57):
Before, I dunno, it's been on my computer. All this so i's still there, you know.

Leo Laporte (01:29:03):
Well, all right, well, I'm glad, I'm glad you watched back in the day. Somebody's saying maybe you're thinking of Alex Gump on our podcast too. You're right. He was one of our engineers.

Caller David (01:29:11):
No, no, no. It was you. There was something that I noticed that was,

Leo Laporte (01:29:15):
Alex would wear a blue lab coat all the time. I think that's who it was. Yeah.

Caller David (01:29:18):
Oh, okay.

Leo Laporte (01:29:20):
Whatever. Hey, it's great to, it's great to talk to you. I'm old <laugh>. Okay, thanks. A pleasure talking to you. Thanks for the call.

Caller David (01:29:26):
Yeah. Tell 'em go to the hospital to get their hearing aid if they really wanna do,

Leo Laporte (01:29:29):
Yeah. Check out the hospital, see what you can do with your insurance. Certainly don't do what Leo did and just say, okay, fine, here's a check you should definitely need out. Do your research. I, you know, I, I was doing it because I thought I should really understand as over-the-counter hearing aids are on their way. Absolutely. I should understand what the market is. And it certainly helped me understand it better, but I sure cost me.

Caller David (01:29:50):
Well, I think the expensive ones are some sort of digital. Yeah, they're digital. And

Leo Laporte (01:29:54):
The other one That's right. They're digital. Digital. Yeah. They're very fancy. They do all sorts of fancy things. I'm sure they're no better than anything else. Hey, a pleasure talking. Thanks so much for calling David. Thank you. Take care. Bye-Bye. Bye-bye. Here's my money down the tube. <Laugh>. Do we have any more voicemails? Let's do a voicemail.

Caller Alan (01:30:14):
Hey guys, this is Alan from Austin. My question is about Google one, I just signed up for it. And it looks like one of the benefits is dark web monitoring. And they let you put in, in addition to your name, email and phone number, obviously you can also track your social security number and address. And I see the benefit in that, but I'm sort of conflicted because, you know, is it safe to add my social security to Google? Am I inadvertently just like, potentially causing the issue? I'm trying. That's a question to monitor by putting my social security out there. And yet another place.

Leo Laporte (01:30:52):
Alan, a great question.

Caller Alan (01:30:53):
Yeah, I think that's my question. Is it safe to add my social security? And is it recommended to add it to Google? Dark Web Monitoring. Thanks.

Leo Laporte (01:31:00):
So there are a lot of companies offering dark web monitoring. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, part of the problem is if your social security number is out there, what are you gonna do? <Laugh>, it's already out there. What are you gonna do? <Laugh>? you, you ca you can with great effort, get a new social security number. I don't recommend it. Cause everything's tied to your old one and it's just, what are you gonna do? A lot of this dark, so-called dark web monitoring is, well, that's nice to know. My phone number, my email are out there. What are you gonna do? Right. what you should do even before you do. So my answer is it's probably safe. It's Google, probably safe. Don't, don't bother, cuz what are you gonna do? What you should do now, right now is go to all of the credit bureau, especially if you're older.

(01:31:42):
If you're a young person like Micah, maybe this isn't a great idea, but put a lock on your credit. And you could do that on all three for thanks to the federal government, which passed a bill a few years ago for free. It's a credit, it's called a credit freeze. And what it does is, and they don't like it cuz it, what it <laugh>, one of the things they don't like is they can't make any money off of selling your information to credit card companies. You ever get it in the mail? An offer for a credit card yesterday, the day before <laugh>, day before that. Those are all because the credit companies, Equifax, TransUnion and Experian gladly sell your information off to these credit card companies. That's where they got your name and address. They say, well here's a got your people with a good credit score or you maybe send them a credit card.

(01:32:31):
If you do a credit freeze, they can't do that anymore. But they have to by law allow you to do that. So go to the big three. There are more than three. I've done it with five. But Experian, TransUnion and Equifax are the big three. All three of them offer a number of hoops to jump through. Not undoable, but you can freeze it. There's also an unfreeze, and this is important. They used to charge for that. They are not allowed to charge for that anymore. Here's the good news. So once you put a credit freeze on your account, nobody can take out a loan in your name, a credit card, in your name, nothing. Now if you're like Micah, you're a young guy, you still haven't bought that yacht and you might need a little credit get a new credit card, rent a house, buy a car. There are a lot of things you do that you do need a credit check. It's a good idea to have an unfreeze as well. Yep. So you can unfreeze prior to doing this. That's before you go to the car dealer, you unfreeze mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And then as soon as the car dealer pulls the credit report, you freeze it right back up again. Yeah. You do

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:33:28):
That. Yeah. And in fact they in many cases we'll have now they've even made it, they've improved upon it where you can say, unfreeze it for the next three days, the next two hours, the next. So then it'll automatically refreeze. So I think they've kind of given in on that at this point, which is

Leo Laporte (01:33:44):
Good. Yeah. They used to make money. Some of them would charge 35 bucks and more depending on the state. So now it's federal law can't charge for that. That is the best single best thing you can do. Better than a credit. You know, like Google one's dark web monitoring. The problem I have with dark web monitoring is, is the only thing you could do if you see that is put a credit freeze on. Right.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:34:05):
So do it now. Just do it anyway. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>

Leo Laporte (01:34:07):
Do it. It's okay. If if you're, you know, it's a little different with passwords. Yeah. So what I would suggest is, is, and this is by the way, Google's all using, they just announced that Chrome is gonna do this for all the websites you visit. If you turn it on, it will let you know, oh, there's a bad website. But the good news is all of this comes from the same place, which is a wonderful site from Troy Hunt called have I been pod I'm gonna go there right now. Have I been p And this is what's weird about it. <Laugh>. P W N E D cuz that's the hacker way to say Owned. Have I been pod are you on the wall of sheep in your neighborhood? Now here's what you, this is, this is how you should use this. You can enter in your phone number or email in here harmless to do so.

(01:34:55):
And they'll check to see if it's on anywhere on the dark web. This is dark web monitoring. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But you do it manually. But more importantly cuz so what your email and the phone numbers on the web, I guarantee you my email and phone number on the web, I guarantee you yours are mine are everywhere. Everybody's is. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> more importantly, see this button here? Passwords. This is the really the most important thing. I bet you have a password you've used on more than one site. You may even have a password you use on all the sites. That's a bad practice. You might wanna stop doing that please. But you can safely, this is absolutely safe if you're at the right place. Have I been pw n e d.com. Enter in that one password you use and just see if it's leaked out. Shall I try one?

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:35:39):
Let's do it for

Leo Laporte (01:35:40):
A long time. This is the password I used when I went to sites. Let's see if it's been owned. Oh no. This password has been seen three times before. The password has previously appeared in a data breach and should never be used. If you've ever used it anywhere before, change it. This is something that is actionable. If the password's out there, you can now go and change it on those sites. Right. Best thing to do, get a password manager. Let it pick a long, strong, unique. Unique, unique. It's only used in one place password. And it remembers it for you. The problem with this is if you've used anyone, any of these passwords more than one place,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:36:19):
Then you've suddenly got access to all of those. They've got access to all of those places.

Leo Laporte (01:36:23):
Right. And they, this is the

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:36:24):
Part you have to get through to folks.

Leo Laporte (01:36:26):
It's hard to, you know, cuz look, I try <laugh>.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:36:33):
Yes. You know that's a good shirt. They're close. I try, I

Leo Laporte (01:36:36):
Try. There are close people close to me who continue knowing perfectly well this is a bad habit. Yes. To do this. Yes. You too. Uhhuh <affirmative>, uhhuh <affirmative>, uhhuh <affirmative>.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:36:45):
We

Leo Laporte (01:36:45):
Try, we try, we try. So don't be that person. Listen to us <laugh> please

(01:36:52):
Do not reuse passwords. But if you have been go to this. Have I been po It's completely safe. The way I, I don't need to explain how it works. It works very cleverly to prevent that password from being transmitted out of your browser. It's in your browser, nowhere else. But it will tell you if it's been seen in a breach, read what's on this site. There's a lot of good useful information on this site about how this stuff is used and so forth. Have I been poone.com? It is your best friend in this. You you can, you can use Google ones dark web monitoring if you want. I think you do the same thing I do. Do the credit

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:37:28):
Freeze. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's

Leo Laporte (01:37:29):
Easy for me cuz I'm not buying a house car.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:37:31):
Nothing. And I, I, but I rarely have to use it. But I do. I just did You unfreeze it. I went into the apps and unfreeze them. Yeah. And then was able to do what I needed to do.

Leo Laporte (01:37:40):
If you search credit freeze, the federal Trade Commission has a very good page on credit freezes all the website. You can do it all on the web too, by the way. Which is really nice. You don't have to mail something out. There are some hoops to go through. Not too bad. But freeze your credit. That's the best thing you can do to protect yourself against breaches on the dark web. And then don't reuse passwords. 683 pod websites. 12 billion pod accounts. 115,000 pastes. 228 million paste accounts. The largest breaches the number one. You wanna know what the largest all time number one breach.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:38:21):
Yes.

Leo Laporte (01:38:22):
I'm curious. Here's the Roblox breach just happened, right? The largest is this collection number one. Oh that's just a collection of a variety of them. Verifications.Io accounts. Oof. Online or spam bot accounts, data enrichment exposure from PDL customer accounts. Don't even know what that means. Explo. Anyway, you can read all about it. Facebook is not more than more than half a billion Facebook accounts leaked in a breach. Jeez, Louis. So everybody look, we're all pod. Mm-Hmm

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:38:55):
<Affirmative> always <laugh>. Have you been pod? Yes.

Leo Laporte (01:38:59):
The dark web monitoring cracks me up because, oh, I've been my phone number's on the dark web.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:39:05):
Do I change my phone number? No.

Leo Laporte (01:39:07):
What do you do now? Yeah, nothing.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:39:09):
It just, I guess, but you should see that's the thing is what we're talking about. You should be wary of any phone calls and texts that you get that are coming from unknown numbers. I just got one the other day. What did it say? Hey pal. Hey pal. Is is the plan still on for today? Oh, I get those every day. They sent me a 3:00 AM Yeah, no, the plan's not still on.

Leo Laporte (01:39:30):
Don't listen to that.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:39:32):
I canceled the plan,

Leo Laporte (01:39:34):
So I, I'm always tempted to, to kind of get in a conversation like

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:39:38):
I know me too.

Leo Laporte (01:39:39):
Oh, you know, I forgot to tell Joey, do you have his number? Something like that? Yes. Just to, you know, just see what happens. Because what you don't wanna say is wrong number. Cuz then they can say, oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to wake you at 3:00 AM Golly. I'm just a rotten person. What's your

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:39:51):
Name? Yep. <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (01:39:54):
<Laugh>. Hey, you ever, ever buy any Bitcoin ever? <Laugh>, you know, cause I made a lot of money in Bitcoin. If you ever curious. I could tell you how. Oh

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:40:01):
Really? Yeah. Oh yeah. I'd like to know more about that.

Leo Laporte (01:40:03):
Yeah. I get these a lot. So many, so many. I heard

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:40:08):
About this Bitcoin.

Leo Laporte (01:40:09):
I've heard of it. Is it good? Should

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:40:11):
I do it <laugh>? Should I do the Bitcoin?

Leo Laporte (01:40:15):
All right. What do you wanna do next?

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:40:16):
I want to,

Leo Laporte (01:40:18):
Should we talk to coffee guy? Do you need a little energy?

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:40:21):
Let, let's do it.

Leo Laporte (01:40:22):
A little jolt. A little, a little giddy up in your go Long. Stand back ladies and gentlemen. All the way from May dials Miami, Florida. <Laugh> Miami. It's

Caller Chris (01:40:32):
Miami. Miami Beach.

Leo Laporte (01:40:34):
Where are you? South Beach.

Caller Chris (01:40:36):
I'm here. I'm okay.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:40:38):
Wait, where where are you? Herea? You're

Caller Chris (01:40:40):
Miami Beach. I'm, where are you live In Miami Beach. If you, I'm right here. Can you

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:40:45):
See me? No.

Caller Chris (01:40:46):
Oh my gosh.

Leo Laporte (01:40:47):
Ladies, gentlemen, this is Chris from Miami. Are you near? Hey. Yes he is from

Caller Chris (01:40:52):
Miami. The camera. On this iPad. How are you? You

Leo Laporte (01:40:54):
Know why I have Miami Beach in the head cuz of Glen? Cause of Jackie Gleason and the Honeymooners. Oh, love Jack. Do you remember the Gleason, the opening of the Jackie Gleason show?

Caller Chris (01:41:05):
I do the fireworks. I've seen episodes. Obviously you and I weren't there.

Leo Laporte (01:41:10):
No, but I'm talking about he had a show, which I did watch as a kid cuz I'm a lot older than you. Lemme see if I can, lemme see if I can find it because it starts from Miami Beach in Florida. Here we go. This is in the 1960s and it's this, it's this helicopter shot coming in. Let me see if I can, I can get this plan here.

Caller Chris (01:41:30):
Oh, okay. This, I don't remember the sun

Leo Laporte (01:41:32):
And fun, the capital of the world. Miami Beach. Miami Beach. That's it. That's all you get from the sun and fun capital of the world. Miami. Miami. It's Chris. I

Caller Chris (01:41:43):
Love how you do. Yeah, yeah. Let me help you out with that. If you're gonna do that, put some coffee in there. Oh yeah. You know, there you go. That works.

Leo Laporte (01:41:54):
That's it. Some infrared roasted coffee.

Caller Chris (01:41:58):
Red. No, I thought tell you I won't drink third party coffee, Micah. But it's all for you if that's what you like. So I won't touch this stuff.

Leo Laporte (01:42:06):
How are you Chris? How's life? How's life in Miami?

Caller Chris (01:42:10):
I tell you, I am absolutely crushing this summer. I'm having a great time. Well, it's been hot. Basically everywhere. It's like been a hundred, 110. 15, 22. Is it

Leo Laporte (01:42:19):
Hot? Chris? Summer? This summer. Hot Chris Summer.

Caller Chris (01:42:21):
It is a hot, it's a's a hot summer. It's a hot, well the, okay, so 4th of July, I'm, well I went for, I went for a run and I swear it was like pushing a semi in front of me. It was like, my God, the heat and the humidity. I mean, I run, I run, I work out. But I gotta tell you, it was the hottest, well, the hottest recorded day in recorded human history was on the 4th of July, unless somebody else has better information.

Leo Laporte (01:42:45):
Ation. But it wasn't in Miami. It was like in Death Valley.

Caller Chris (01:42:49):
Right. But it was still hot here that day. Hot. Yeah. It was like, oh my lord Jesus.

Leo Laporte (01:42:52):
You could feel the heat waves from Death Valley all the way across the country. It was, oh,

Caller Chris (01:42:56):
If people wanna go there, by the way, let's go to, let's go to Death Valley. It's only 400 degrees, but sure. Let's go do that for coffee

Leo Laporte (01:43:01):
People. This is weird. Let's become a tourist thing. Cuz they want to be there. Yeah. And the hottest temperature ever felt in the world. I never want to be there. I don't wanna be there.

Caller Chris (01:43:11):
Exactly. Yeah. Mm. So how you, how you Well, Micah, that vacation? Yes. Again, by the way,

Leo Laporte (01:43:17):
Hundred 21 degrees. Oh God. 121 degrees.

Caller Chris (01:43:21):
Yeah. That's a bit much. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:43:22):
I was in Portland.

Caller Chris (01:43:23):
Yeah. Yeah. Apparently it this's your second vacation coming up now, huh? Because you've been there for four years and you never took one vacation. That's, that's impressive.

Leo Laporte (01:43:31):
Thank you. I,

Caller Chris (01:43:32):
I remember what Leo says, you know, we have a relationship. <Laugh> I

Leo Laporte (01:43:35):
Found so bad. I feel so bad for anybody who knows me. Cause they're all fodder. Oh, I see. For the show. I see. Well, no, it's while I was there, I was talking to

Caller Chris (01:43:45):
Someone. I'm not fodder.

Leo Laporte (01:43:46):
You're fodder. You're all fodder. I'm not.

Caller Chris (01:43:49):
I'm

Leo Laporte (01:43:49):
Not. Hello fodder.

Caller Chris (01:43:50):
You're like right up near the angel. You and mom. I'm just saying right up there,

Leo Laporte (01:43:56):
<Laugh>. Sorry

Caller Chris (01:43:56):
Micah. Please continue.

Leo Laporte (01:43:58):
My poor wife, lemme put it this way. My poor wife, she says, can you not use me on the show? And I said, no, that's my, if I don't use you and Micah and everybody around me is fodder, I got no show. Yeah. What else do you say?

Caller Chris (01:44:11):
I do have a show. I'll

Leo Laporte (01:44:12):
Start talking about

Caller Chris (01:44:13):
You. Well, you pressed it last weekend. I you started last I didn't weekend. You were by yourself.

Leo Laporte (01:44:16):
Tried. It's good. Get, it's not good to do the show without Micah. It's just not. Well, I'm glad that

Caller Chris (01:44:19):
Well we, we, we have come to know Micah's sergeant is absolutely a big part of twit. And we, we appreciate him. But you know, you started at Bosque and that's amazing. You might me

Leo Laporte (01:44:30):
No one. I was all by myself. Oh, you

Caller Chris (01:44:33):
Were like a good old

Leo Laporte (01:44:34):
Day. And then John John's slammer, jammer slammer B came along fodder

Caller Chris (01:44:39):
<Laugh> jamer slammer B

Leo Laporte (01:44:41):
Is

Caller Chris (01:44:42):
An in the house today.

Leo Laporte (01:44:43):
I'm gonna call you Slammer B. Slammer b I like that. You should see what he was doing to T'S chair. But you're gonna be doing a mind chair too. Fodder, <laugh> fodder. We, yeah. So, so John says, cuz I have a, oh, you're getting your chair fixed. A Steelcase Leap two chair. Very expensive. Thousands of dollars. Office chair at home. But when I sit in his six, only six, cuz it's one of those pistons. Oh. And John says, I said, what am I gonna do? John says, oh no, it's easy. You replace a piston. We just did it. The aunt's chair, <laugh>. Lisa. Lisa comes home. Lisa comes home the other day. He says, I am so mad at the engineering department. They, aunt and Burke and John spent an entire day trying to fix, oh boy. An office chair. I said, she says, I said, how much does that office, office chair cost? That was a couple 500 bucks. How much, how much in your hourly rate have we spent? Oh God. Exactly. On you trying to fix,

Caller Chris (01:45:41):
Fix that chair. That

Leo Laporte (01:45:42):
Chair. Oh, Burke says it only took 15 minutes. Not all day. You end up getting a new chair, did you not? You couldn't fix it. 15 minutes. 15 minutes. All right. Well, Lisa might be exaggerating.

Caller Chris (01:45:54):
Lisa know, Lisa knows what's going on. She's smart.

Leo Laporte (01:45:57):
Somewhere in between 15 minutes and all day, all day, all day. You know, if you come out of your office and you see them working, and then you go back in and you come out again and you see them working, that's the problem. It was gonna fuel. It looks like they've been doing that all time. I, well, didn't tell

Caller Chris (01:46:09):
Her or didn't want anybody on camera.

Leo Laporte (01:46:10):
I didn't tell her, but I bought a piston and I'm bringing my office chair in. No. For them to fix no. Another 15 minutes,

Caller Chris (01:46:20):
30 minutes total. Stop it.

Leo Laporte (01:46:22):
How could they <laugh> Chris? I'm sorry. See Chris? Yes, sir. It wasn't even your fault. Completely derailed the show and it wasn't even your fault. No,

Caller Chris (01:46:31):
No. I'm okay. I'm, I'm okay. I just you know, I I love hanging out for a few minutes with some of the best people know. I

Leo Laporte (01:46:37):
Gotta say something though. One of my, one of my Leo's is missing. Did you take it? Oh, did you take it Chris?

Caller Chris (01:46:42):
I I had to take the one. Leo, I gotta have something from me now. Let's roll

Leo Laporte (01:46:45):
Back the tape and see where that third Leo went. Oh, there's, sorry. Reach out your No, it's all right. <Laugh>.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:46:51):
Oh gosh. It's a flying Leo

Caller Chris (01:46:53):
To have a little figurine of Leo LaPorte in my house. I'll tell you. That's Oh my goodness. My office, my, it's,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:46:58):
Yeah, it's about to be a Leo Trio. Oh my God. He just put it in his mouth from the floor.

Leo Laporte (01:47:06):
Ten second rule.

Caller Chris (01:47:07):
<Laugh>, close your eyes. Mic 15 rule. It's now where Micah, usually the hail Mary

Leo Laporte (01:47:12):
Micah is my mother. Please. Lemme just, all right, now, really?

Caller Chris (01:47:15):
Seriously. There you go, Micah. That's perfect. There you go.

Leo Laporte (01:47:19):
I try. We're gonna get a shirt. I try,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:47:22):
I try. I

Leo Laporte (01:47:23):
Focus. What can we do for you,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:47:25):
Chris? I cry because I tried. All right. Yeah. What

Caller Chris (01:47:28):
You cried because you tried, well, you didn't call me while you were on vacation, so I'm just saying back to walking up the dogs again anyways. Yeah, no. You know, so I, I love my ring doorbell. This whole thing is basically, it's, it's okay. I mean, you know, we all know about tech and I'm just, I'm really not impressed with it. But I ended up with a Ring Pro for 1 79. I couldn't get it to fit in that space because you need a back plate. So I went and got the doorbell ring, which is okay, but I lost quality of the camera. Then I said, what would Leo do? Maybe go with Simply Safe. No, don't do that, Chris. Cuz that's only for Wired doorbell. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So if you have a wire configuration, you're good to go. I'm thinking simply safe. Right. That can't be a bad idea. So now I'm back to ring again and I have to put the, you know, the one with the peephole in the kitchen. And then I'm gonna go to Best Buy and get the other one. So I'm, I'm with Ring now. It's good, but I don't know if it has 24 hour monitoring. I like Simply Safe. Leo used to talk about it all the time. And so I'm stuck with Ring. It's not a bad deal, but I'm just like, there's gotta be something that, how is better? But none of the cameras are good. How'd you

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:48:31):
Put the peephole in the kitchen?

Caller Chris (01:48:33):
<Laugh>? I didn't. Well in the kitchen. Well, that's funny because the former owners here about 20 years ago ago had the kitchen door, but they didn't, it's a

Leo Laporte (01:48:42):
Back door.

Caller Chris (01:48:44):
Well, it's a side door. Side door. And they, they kind of, they removed all the hardware, Micah, and then they kind of sealed it up. They sanded it real nice. But you can still see the outline where one of the people things went for that particular feature. Uhhuh <affirmative>. So I'm gonna probably drill through that. Yeah. Then put this in. You know how the rest of that goes. I'll say, and then put the other one over there. Then I'll have complete coverage. But I was kind of thinking more along the lines of like, security. I like simply safe. It's, it's, it's amazing. But the problem is, is that I talked to them, I spoke with them yesterday and they said, Chris, right now we do not have a battery operated device. Really simply say big company. I'm

Leo Laporte (01:49:26):
Shocked cuz a lot of their stuff is battery operated. Wow. That's interesting.

Caller Chris (01:49:29):
Yeah. But not for the, not for the Ring doorbell. Leo. That really disappointed me. And I said, you know what? I gotta drop that to because you know everybody you

Leo Laporte (01:49:36):
Like going. Most doorbells, most doorbells, yeah. Or many doorbells are powered. They have a little transformer and they have a low, low voltage wire that leads to the doorbell that lights it up and it rings a chime elsewhere in the house. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so a lot of the doorbell manufacturers ring nest and so forth. And apparently simply safe assume that you got that one line of power coming to that place so that you can wire up the doorbell. But there are a few like ring that make battery powered ones for areas that don't have that wire, including your pee poll. In fact, you have a pee poll. Mm-Hmm.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:50:07):
Yeah. I've got a pee hole.

Leo Laporte (01:50:08):
Yeah. Yep. So he's got a pee poll. We all have pee polls. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So <laugh>, so sorry. Well mean. So what is the question you want me to talk to? Simply Safe. I don't have any friends.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:50:19):
Simply, you like the safe, low quality.

Leo Laporte (01:50:21):
I don't know what to talk to. What was

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:50:22):
The

Leo Laporte (01:50:23):
You want something that is battery powered? That's good.

Caller Chris (01:50:27):
There you go. Really? And, and I don't mind Ring, ring is good. You know, I think, well I call them, I call Ring and I said, how come you brought back the peephole camera system but you didn't enhance the, the the camera feature? Okay. That seems kind of weird. What was the answer you brought back the pro? They said we're not coming out with one yet. Well, it was, it was there and then it was gone. Oh. And then apparently it became popular somehow because people wanted, they wanted the people with the ring and everything. But it's only 10 80 p I believe it is. It's not as advanced as the pro for 1 79. And I'm like, if you're bringing something back, wouldn't it make sense to enhance the camera? Even if you increase the price? It's only a buck 29. So if I'm paying 1 79, I most certainly can afford one 20.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:51:09):
Can I ask you though, are you sure? Are you wanting to make a feature film with these people? Can like, need,

Caller Chris (01:51:15):
I just want quality. I'm tired 1080p, it's not needed anymore. But for what? Think we need to be above that. But what do you Well, for, for good quality for the videos and everything and people, and I'm paying for cameras. I'm paying 1 29. I want a decent camera. I don't think Kennedy. P's good.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:51:28):
Okay.

Caller Chris (01:51:28):
It's not new. It's not good. It, it's good quality for what it is. I guess it's okay. But I mean we're so far along now. You think they have a better quality camera?

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:51:35):
I agree. I agree. I think that it, yes. Okay. It would be greater. It would be great if it was better. But you also have to keep in mind that when it comes to these battery powered cameras, they're doing everything they can already to try and keep it running for as long as it possibly can. So you're not having to constantly swap outside to

Caller Chris (01:51:52):
Swap out batteries.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:51:53):
Yeah. So the, but you, you, you think about someone who maybe hasn't had as much coffee as you. And so it's, it's a lot of work to have to come.

Caller Chris (01:52:02):
I'm not you up, man. He's swapping up the I know exactly what that office is. Leo, let me in <laugh> <laugh>.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:52:07):
I

Caller Chris (01:52:07):
Know, but I I, Leo's gonna be, he's gonna be by himself next weekend. <Laugh>. I

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:52:11):
I get the complaint. I get, I understand the complaint, but I do wonder if it is gonna be a matter of having to settle in that way as long. Cuz look, let me be clear. If you went to court Sure. And because you had 10 80 p video and not, you know, 4K video and so they weren't able to see the, the tiny slim crowbar that the person had as they were trying to get through your door, then suddenly I think you have a really good argument for why it needs to be higher quality. But if they're able to see what they need to see on that 10 80 p video, and that does enough. I

Caller Chris (01:52:43):
Don't settle. I've never been one for settling. And I know Leo also knows about this and you probably do as well, but I'm not one for settling when it comes to technology. I think that we could definitely doing a lot better. And I always send feedback on any company and product which I use. I mean, there's been a lot of

Leo Laporte (01:52:55):
Sponsored. Somebody in the chat room said it's like driving up to the McDonald's drive-through and saying, Hey, why don't you have guys have steak? It's like <laugh>, they got one the same thing. They got what they got and they're not gonna do one with a battery for whatever reasons. Get it? They decided they, so is there

Caller Chris (01:53:12):
Another one beside Frank? I mean, sorry to cut you off

Leo Laporte (01:53:14):
Off. No, no, that's a good question. Oh, I'm sure there's lots there. Doesn't anchor have a doorbell that's battery anchor. Yeah, but I there's no way they're doing more than 10 80 p I was gonna say U fee, U fee's only doing 10 80 P mm. 10 80 p That's all you want. Otherwise it's gonna use up all the bandwidth on your router. And I just don't think that you can do 4K recordings without taking up a lot of battery. So you're gonna be constantly swapping out that battery. I'll tell you what, we're gonna just keep listening. Chris, I'm gonna let you go. <Laugh>, apparently he let himself go <laugh>. And if anybody has a suggestion, let us know. I mean, I think the reason they don't do that is to what's next 4k, right? Yeah. That's gonna use so much bandwidth.

(01:53:58):
Remember, and I think people, I didn't really think about this when I put cameras throughout my house, each camera, even a 10 AP uses like a megabit a second. So it really adds up very quickly. If, if you start putting high quality video streaming video Yeah. On your, on your, on your system. I don't think it's probably a very good idea. 10 80 should be enough for anyone. I agree. Yes. we gotta take a little time out. Let's take, let's take a time out. We'll take a breath. I just need to, I just need to fan myself for a moment. The Miami Heat and Humidity 121 degrees. All right. Back we are with ask the Tech guys. I'm Leo LaPorte. He's Micah Sergeant. Hello. phone call. Should we do? Yeah, let's do a phone call. I think it's Vicky on the line. Vicky, is that you? Star six. So unmute. How did it get over there the little later Burke whenever he was using the jib to try to ah, he was setting up a close shot of it. I get it. Yeah.

Caller Vicky (01:55:14):
Hello? Can you hear me?

Leo Laporte (01:55:15):
We hear you. It's not Vicky though, or is it?

Caller Vicky (01:55:18):
Hey, Vicky in Memphis. Hi Vicky. Hi. Hi. I just have a very deep voice.

Leo Laporte (01:55:23):
You do. You have a great voice. What can we do for you? Vicky

Caller Vicky (01:55:26):
<Laugh>. Thank you. All right. I'm Braille teacher in the Discord, so Hello.

Leo Laporte (01:55:32):
Oh, we know you so well, Vicky. It's so good to talk to you. Yes,

Caller Vicky (01:55:37):
Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

Leo Laporte (01:55:38):
Thanks for the good work that you do teaching people braille. That's really

Caller Vicky (01:55:42):
Cool. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Yes. Well, I recently retired and as a birthday present and a retirement present for myself, I bought me a MacBook Air, the new

Leo Laporte (01:55:51):
Nice. Nice. Did you get the 15 or the 13? Yeah,

Caller Vicky (01:55:56):
15. I was waiting for it. I have, I'm old. Me too. I need the big screen.

Leo Laporte (01:55:59):
Me too.

Caller Vicky (01:56:01):
So, yeah, <laugh>. Anyway, so here's my question for you. How, what do I do with my battery? I, I'm not on the computer like I used to be. I used to, you know, I would unplug the laptop and rag, drag it around with me and plug it back in at night. Yeah. But now it's, it's like a desktop replacement. I don't unplug it anymore.

Leo Laporte (01:56:24):
I say

Caller Vicky (01:56:24):
My, the question is,

Leo Laporte (01:56:25):
Here's I'll, here's what I'll say. And by the way, this comes up a lot. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> people wanna fiddle. Yep. So Steve Gibson was talking about how, well, what I always turn off windows swap swap drives and you would never want to put a swap drive on an ssd. And my answer to all of that is just let windows be windows. Don't mess with it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, same thing with your battery on your laptop. There's all sort Apple put all sorts of circuitry in there to protect that battery. If you keep it plugged in all the time, it shouldn't harm it,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:56:56):
Right? Yeah. In fact, I used to have a MacBook Pro that almost was never unplugged. I used it as if it was a desktop computer for almost all of its life. And I never had an issue with it. I, this is the thing, Vicky, this is such a great question because I hear this anecdotally so much, that that idea that we need to be fiddly with batteries is still put out into the world there. We have people who work at cell phone companies, at, at, at cellular carriers who are teaching people that they need to be fiddly with their batteries or else the battery is going to be harmed and it's not gonna last as long. And it's just plain not true these days with these, these very well known manufacturers that are making these devices. In this case, apple, you don't have to worry about it.

(01:57:41):
You don't even think about the battery. Honestly, it, it's gonna be just fine. The only thing that I would say, the only bit of advice that I would give is don't take the laptop and say like, stick it into a drawer and have it, you know, connected is if you're trying to kind of tuck it away. Because heat is the one thing that can harm the battery. So if you have it in a place where it can't do any breathing at all, that is a possibility for harming the battery. But as long as it's sitting on a table or you've got, even if you've got it up or even on it side or wherever else, it's fine If it's not in an enclosed space as a best thing that you can do for it. Other than that, don't be fiddly. You don't have to

Leo Laporte (01:58:17):
Be. The truth is your battery's gonna outlast the computer. That's the real bottom line on it. It's very rare that the battery doesn't nowadays, that the battery doesn't last as long as the computer does. So apple,

Caller Vicky (01:58:28):
That's great news. Thank you.

Leo Laporte (01:58:29):
Yeah, it's good to talk to you Vicky. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Wait a minute

Caller Vicky (01:58:33):
More. I have one more, one more slightly related question, please. Yeah. Okay. Along the same lines. How about off my computer? A thing that I have not done literally for decades is turn it off. I'm in it all the time. Right. Why do I need to turn it off now? You don't. I'm not in it for a week or 10 days. You

Leo Laporte (01:58:52):
Don't? Yep.

Caller Vicky (01:58:53):
I don't hide it away. I'm not gonna hide it away anywhere in my love. Just shut

Leo Laporte (01:58:57):
The lid looking at it. Go on about your life. Open the lid and there it is again. That's all you ever have to do. I never turn mine off. You

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:59:03):
My same. This you know, it could be in, in my bag for three or four days, then I pull it out again. I'd never turn it off unless I need to do a restart for a software update or Right. If something, you know, is definitely giving me a problem.

Leo Laporte (01:59:16):
Periodically, all all computers do need to be rebooted. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> you know, even your smartphone you'll know when it's time. I mean, if you want to every few weeks you could reboot it, but I don't think it needs to be rebooted particularly. Yeah. And it certainly doesn't need to be turned off.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (01:59:29):
Yep. Keep it running.

Caller Vicky (01:59:31):
Perfect. Thank you so much. I feel so much better about my habits and how I deal. Normal,

Leo Laporte (01:59:37):
Normal people don't have to worry about this stuff. If you're Steve Gibson and you really wanna be neurotic, there is a great website called Battery university@batteryuniversity.com where it, you can get crazy neurotic about, you know, batteries and what they need and stuff and how to make lithium ion battery last as long as possible. But before you start reading this, cuz it will make you crazy. <Laugh>, before you start reading this, my just, my strong suggestion is this is the 99th percentile. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, this is like the, this is the one little thing, but most, but you don't need to do it. It's right. It's, they put so much energy into battery conditioning and doing everything you need to do. These aren't nyad s these aren't nickel metal hydride, these lithium ion batteries. And the circuitry built in, especially high quality products like Apple mean you don't have to worry about it at all. And, and or turning it off or any of that stuff, it goes into a good low power mode. I think you spend too many cycles worrying about

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:00:40):
It. Yes. These two tech guys are saying, don't worry about it. Don't worry. Have fun.

Leo Laporte (02:00:45):
Don't worry.

Caller Vicky (02:00:46):
Enjoy. Thank you again for being my two tech guys.

Leo Laporte (02:00:49):
Anytime Vicky. Take care. Bye-Bye. I see some hands raised. I see Bruce. Bruce, I see Joe. I see. I don't know who I picked up. I think it was Joe. Hello Joe. Our favorite. Hey, are you photographer from New York? New York? Who is telling us the best bagels in Manhattan are in Queens? <Laugh>.

Caller Joe (02:01:13):
Hey Joe. I dunno about the best, but they're, they're pretty good.

Leo Laporte (02:01:15):
How are you? I'm great. How are you?

Caller Joe (02:01:18):
I'm well, thank you. I had a question and I had some some tips for Chris actually on the doorbell stuff. Oh, great. So first, well, let me start with the doorbell. So a few things. One is one battery powered doorbell that I recommend that I use is called the Aqra, G four A Q a R a. And one thing that I like about it is that it works with pretty much all of the smart home ecosystems. So whether you have an Echo or if whether you use home kit, and I believe it's the only doorbell, battery powered doorbell that supports home kit secure video's. So if that's something you

Leo Laporte (02:01:54):
Add, that's good. I think that's why I got it. Apple's, apple's home kit is really the, the gold standard for security. So

Caller Joe (02:02:00):
Yeah. Good. Yeah, you, you can also throw a microSD card slot in there if you don't want to go with the cloud at all. And I believe it also supports recording to a na and more importantly it's it's battery powered and you can wire it. It's

Leo Laporte (02:02:14):
Pretty Oh, so it does both. Yeah,

Caller Joe (02:02:16):
It does both. Yeah, it runs off, it's big because it runs off of six AA batteries. So I just got some rechargeable batteries that I throw in there and that, that little box that you see next to it in that photo is the chime kit. And that's how they got around the, the power requirements for home kit because that's connected via u s BBC to a power adapter at all times. No, and that's what actually does the processing. Ah, clever passes it over to, to your home kit hub. Clever. Good. And I, in my router, I actually disconnected its ability to connect to the internet because home kit just takes care of everything. Right? Yep. So that's a nice way of, of doing it. Again, I know that he, he's in a different ecosystem and he was looking for a resolution higher than 10 80 p I don't know what the resolution is of this. Looks like it's 10 80, admittedly Okay,

Leo Laporte (02:03:04):
Everything's gonna be 10 80. Yeah,

Caller Joe (02:03:06):
That's, I think that's a requirement that we're gonna have to load live with not, not having cool. So I had a, my, that was the tip. Oh, and one more thing, and someone mentioned this. Yeah, thanks. Really quick in Discord, someone mentioned that you can actually get power adapters for a wired doorbell to just plug it into power. If you, if you're willing to run the cable either through a door jamb or something, you can just plug that in. So even if like my apartment doesn't have doorbell wiring either. I just go with a battery powered doorbell. But you can wire one in if you're, if you find the neat way to run the cables to a outlet somewhere indoors.

Leo Laporte (02:03:40):
How long does it go on that battery? The batteries?

Caller Joe (02:03:43):
I just swapped the batteries actually, and the lasted me for four months.

Leo Laporte (02:03:46):
Oh wow. Wow. That's pretty good. But Oh, that's

Caller Joe (02:03:49):
Plenty. Well, right, but that was not, they have a low power mode that was not in the low power mode. And also keep in mind that that was af that was, that included me installing it and upgrading the firmware a bunch of times and playing with it. So I think I'm probably gonna get five to six months the second time around.

Leo Laporte (02:04:03):
And there's a weird feature, but I really like it when you use the intercom, there's a voice changer, <laugh>. And so it doesn't have to be your voice coming out of the doorbell. Just leave that

Caller Joe (02:04:13):
Package. You need to use their app if you want to use those features. I don't, I use Home Kit, so I don't have that. I can use the intercom just via a home kit, just a standard home kit. I ability

Leo Laporte (02:04:23):
Can see if you're a woman home alone, you don't want to answer in a, a a, you know, young girl voice. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, because that's just asking for trouble. So you use Mr. Robot or a clown or whatever, and the UPS guy may think you're weird, at least you're safer. Yes. this is really interesting. Customizable ringtones face recognition. This looks like a, I'm not familiar with a car, but they've, they, this

Caller Joe (02:04:48):
Rosemary really likes a carra. Okay. Yeah. They make good stuff that's affordable and works with Home Kit, not just Home Kit. This one I think works with the Echo ecosystem and Google and I th I wanna say Samsungs, they're a little like wise in that

Leo Laporte (02:05:02):
Way. We have, you know, the, and I I would like to get off of the Google ecosystem, but we have the Home Nest home doorbells. And the nice thing is it will, our Google devices will say someone's at the front door. <Laugh>. Yeah. Really loud. We do like that. Yeah. which is better than this

Caller Joe (02:05:18):
Rings this. Yeah, this rings my home pods. And what's nice too is it'll actually with Home Kits, because it's home kit, if you have an Apple TV while you're watching tv, it'll pull up the video of who's at the front door on the Apple tv.

Leo Laporte (02:05:32):
I'm now very interested in Cara a Q a R a.

Caller Joe (02:05:36):
Yeah. yeah. And last thing on it before I go on, and by the way, I don't have any affiliation with them. It's just, I just bought one and like it, if you hook it up via battery and via the wiring, which you can do, it will use the battery as a backup in case you have a power outage. So it, it kind of can Oh, that's nice. You know, fall back to that. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, so that's enough about the doorbell question, if I may. So I use next dns I have, I, I pay for the subscription because I quickly ran out of whatever the quota is for free. Dns whatever they call it. If you, if you don't

Leo Laporte (02:06:15):
Pay for it, yeah. You get a certain number of hits and then after that you've gotta,

Caller Joe (02:06:19):
Yeah. So I pay for it, which is fine. It's like 20 bucks a year or something. Shoot. Yeah. And yeah, and I usually, I do it for privacy and security reasons, mostly privacy. But I also have a VPN that I use from time to time. And I'm wondering whether that's, is that Belt and Suspenders or is that just kind of redundant in a waste if like, cuz the DNS takes care of a lot of the privacy.

Leo Laporte (02:06:38):
They're different. They're completely different, basically. So even when you use Next dns, which is a alternative DNS provider from your I S P, which is what most people will use. So by itself that kind of keeps your I S P from knowing everything you're doing, although they still ho host the traffic so they can watch what you're doing regardless Right. Of what you're using. And that's where a VPN is gonna protect you a little bit better because they, they, they'll, they literally can't see what you're doing with next dns. Your IP address is your IP address. So when you go out on the internet, that's you with a vpn, your IP address is suddenly the VPN's IP address that has, that's a mixed blessing that can cause problems for, you can't get into our I rrc with a VPN IP address. You need to use your own for our own security reasons.

(02:07:24):
So, and there are a lot of providers that will block VPNs and so forth. They're just different things. I use next D N s to, for kind of malware prevention because they keep you from going to bad sites for ad blocking. They can use the DNS lookup to prevent ad servers from getting access to your network and things like that. It's like a pie hole. It isn't exactly a security device and it isn't, it is a privacy device, but not as complete as a vpn. The negatives on VPNs are, you know, they're, they, they're, they're complicated, costly, and can break stuff. And so not everything works with the VPN and so forth, like our chatroom. So I, you know, I use both

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:08:05):
Me.

Leo Laporte (02:08:05):
Yep. Depending on the, on the requirements of the time. I keep next DNS running all the time in the background because I really, I really like it and it's worth to me, it's well worth it for the malware protection if nothing else. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I mean, it literally, it blocks a lot of malware sites which is really great, you know you can use it for parental protections and restrictions as well. That's another good reason

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:08:30):
Also to just troll anyone else who lives in the house. If you just want like their favorite website, you can just block that.

Leo Laporte (02:08:36):
Yeah, you could do that. <Laugh>

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:08:39):
Block bagels.com.

Leo Laporte (02:08:41):
Yeah, you could do that. That would be a mean thing. That

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:08:43):
Would be a mean, mean thing to do <laugh>

Leo Laporte (02:08:45):
That you could do that. So Yeah, they're just different, I guess is the answer.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:08:49):
Yeah. Both worth having depending on what you need. Yeah, that makes sense. So yeah, not like

Caller Joe (02:08:54):
<Crosstalk>, I have the next DNS running in the background all the time, but I notice that when I activate my v vpn, its own DNS takes over.

Leo Laporte (02:09:01):
Yeah. That's

Caller Joe (02:09:02):
The next DNS

Leo Laporte (02:09:02):
Operation's usually the case. And that's, I guess that makes sense because you're now tunneling they nothing's Yeah. They have to use their own servers for for the DNS lookups. That makes sense. Yeah. Huh. I wonder if there's a way to use next DNS with a vpn. That's an interesting question. I guess it depends on the vpn. Never really thought about that, Joe. Thank you, Joe. Yes. Good tip. I'm gonna go look at the Icara, especially since Rosemary says it's good.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:09:30):
And I think Christopher Miami was showing us that at the very least he's looking at the Icara camera on Okay. Amazon. Good. So seems like he's excited about that. So thank you Joe. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (02:09:41):
Sure. Have a good one.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:09:43):
Have a good one. Thank you guys. Appreciate

Leo Laporte (02:09:44):
It. I'm looking at it, I'm thinking I'm gonna replace my Nest home with the car. It sounds like it does everything that, you know, the Nest, the Google Home device says it'll do face recognition. It does a little bit, but not very well.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:09:54):
Not great. Hmm.

Leo Laporte (02:09:56):
Plus then I'm sending that information to Google. Not thrilled about that.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:09:59):
Yeah. I like with Apple's, it's essentially using your photos library as the means of determining what people, and then anyone who's part of the Apple Home can share their photo library as well. And so you get these people. We have to take Bruce's call because of the magnificent mustache. <Laugh>,

Leo Laporte (02:10:19):
It's time for a magnificent mustache on. Ask the tech guys. Hello Bruce. Hi guys. Welcome to the show. Where are you calling from? Las

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:10:30):
Vegas,

Leo Laporte (02:10:31):
Nevada. Ah, not just a mustache. This is a fully bearded individual on the show. Hello, Bruce. What's

Caller Bruce (02:10:38):
Up? I got a, a suggestion for you if you get a chance, listen to Alan Aldis podcast. About two months ago. He did one where he interviewed three of the a like chat G P T. But the interesting thing about it was he asked that particular one to write a scene for Mash.

Leo Laporte (02:11:05):
Oh wow.

Caller Bruce (02:11:06):
And then he got Mike Farrell who played BJ Hunting.

Leo Laporte (02:11:10):
No.

Caller Bruce (02:11:13):
And they did a table read of the script that the chat G P t wrote. Oh. And I thought it was fascinating to listen to. Plus the three interviews that he did with the chat, B G P T and, and a couple of the others was really interesting to listen to.

Leo Laporte (02:11:31):
I dearly love Alan Alda. He is a true geek. Remember he did the Scientific American Show for a long time. Is it Clear Plus Vivid? Is that the name of his podcast?

Caller Bruce (02:11:42):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:11:42):
Okay. Clear Plus Vivid Alan Aldi's podcast. One of the, one of the great gentlemen of show business and a and a smart,

Caller Bruce (02:11:53):
Smart guy. But if you get an extra 45 minutes, it's really worth listening. Listening to Ill, cause it's, it's fun.

Leo Laporte (02:11:59):
Wow.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:12:00):
It sounds fun. <Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (02:12:01):
I love it. BJ and Hawkeye together again. Fantastic. I'm looking for it in here. He's, he interviews great people.

Caller Bruce (02:12:12):
Wow. It was about two months ago, I think. Okay. All

Leo Laporte (02:12:16):
Right. I will find it and I will listen. Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks for the tip, Bruce. Okay, thank

Caller Bruce (02:12:22):
You. No problem. My problem is I had a harmony the hub that was running off of my echo Dot mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and for some reason the harmony quit working properly and won't work with the echo anymore. So what I'm looking for is another device that will work the same way where I can come in and tell the Echo turn on my TV and it'll turn on my AV receiver, turn on the TV and set the the H D M I to the proper, the proper one.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:13:06):
So

Caller Bruce (02:13:06):
The first, and I can't find one, the

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:13:08):
First thing that I would suggest it's not inexpensive, but the Fire TV Cube,

Leo Laporte (02:13:14):
I love the Fire TV Cube would be, except for I hate Fire tv. So, which is, because it's a big freaking ad for Amazon

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:13:23):
<Laugh>. Yeah. So you,

Leo Laporte (02:13:24):
It is so cool. I have it in my house. And you'd say to it exactly what you want to do which is, you know, hey.

Caller Bruce (02:13:32):
Yeah. But I'm, I'm not looking for something that has services on it. I just wanna be able like the hub just to talk to it. Yeah. You just came in and all it did was handle the turning the TV on, turning the TV off.

Leo Laporte (02:13:46):
Right. You know,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:13:47):
There was there was a company that that made something. Let me see if there's

Leo Laporte (02:13:55):
Harmony has a little puck that let's see.

Caller Bruce (02:14:02):
Yeah, I tried, I I looked at that, but when I tried, I tried calling Harmony to get tech support and they don't even wanna talk to you. There's no anything here.

Leo Laporte (02:14:12):
Well, they stopped. They went outta Bus. They didn't go outta business, but Logitech stopped making them, so Yeah.

Caller Bruce (02:14:17):
Yeah, I know. And I went on, I went online to Amazon and to get a new one, they still want $250 for the thing and they're still selling it. I'm not spending that. No.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:14:26):
The same company we were just talking about a Cara. They make a device called the Smart Hub M two and the Smart Hub M two has IR Blasters built into it. It works with A L E X A with Amazon's virtual assistant and gives you the ability to have everything get turned on if it's via ir if you were, which is what Harmony did. Right. They didn't have an H D M I harmony didn't do anything.

Leo Laporte (02:14:52):
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:14:53):
It was all IR blasting. It was all ir. Yeah. So this will do that. Exact thing. I've used this before. I had a couple of fans that had little ir, you know, spots on them and I would say turn on the fans and it would turn on the two fans in the room by using the Echo to talk to it. So this would work for that purpose. It's the Acaa Smart Hub M two it

Leo Laporte (02:15:15):
Looks like as part of winding Down harmony Logitech has discontinued the support for Alexa. So they had to do that, I guess on their end. Yeah. And in fact, here's an article from Make Life Click Logitech. Harmony Hub No Longer works with a, a word question mark. And I think that he, he, it says a lot of people reporting at this point that they've just turned that sir, that feature off. So it's, you're gonna, it's gonna take some other hardware to interface with it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, unfortunately it was, it's a nice feature of the cube, I have to say, to be able to walk in a room and say you know, turn on the Niners game and it knows exactly because it's harmony, what, you know I mean it's actually, this is the cube, so it's Yeah. But it has those IR blasters, it knows exactly what to turn on, just like the arm

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:16:06):
And which app to launch too.

Leo Laporte (02:16:07):
Which app to the whole thing. Yeah. That's what's cool about it. And it and your TV after a lot of will be showing the Niners game and that's a, that's a pretty nice feature. Yeah. I don't use it that often.

Caller Bruce (02:16:18):
I got one more quick question for you. Yeah. And it's gonna be, take you back a little ways. Back in the day when you guys were in the cottage. Oh boy. You

Leo Laporte (02:16:27):
And Alex wasn't Mark, Chris Micah wasn't even born at that point. So go ahead. <Laugh>. Probably not me and Chris Mark, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Caller Bruce (02:16:34):
Yeah. You guys did a thing where you took a disposable camera Yeah. And you gave it to somebody and they were supposed to go to their hometown, take a couple pictures and pass it off to somebody else. And I wanna know if you ever got any of those films back.

Leo Laporte (02:16:51):
Oh, I'm gonna have to ask Chris cuz I did not. This was part of a larger project. That's cool. That was really kind of, it was almost like you know when you do orient, not orienteering geocaching. Yeah. We have a little geocache out front. If you find it, you're supposed to write in the log book. You found it. You can take something if you leave something. And so it's kind of a pass it on thing. This is the opposite, which is you would bring the camera to places and hand it on. And I don't, you know, I'm gonna have to ask Chris cuz I didn't get anything back. No. I wanna do this with like a group of friends. Yeah. Sounds

Caller Bruce (02:17:26):
Idea. I just thought it was a fascinating

Leo Laporte (02:17:27):
Idea. What a good idea idea though. Yeah.

Caller Bruce (02:17:29):
Especially at that time you were taking people that were from out of, out of the country. Right. To watch the show live.

Leo Laporte (02:17:36):
We had people from all over the world said

Caller Bruce (02:17:38):
You were gonna hand it to a couple people.

Leo Laporte (02:17:39):
I think I did a little Yeah.

Caller Bruce (02:17:41):
With a little kit that had a envelope that was prepaid and they were supposed the last person was supposed to put it in the envelope and then mail it back to you. Oh. I just wanted to know. Oh wow. If he ever got any of them back. I

Leo Laporte (02:17:53):
Don't think I ever did. I don't think I ever did. And then maybe it was Chris's address on there. I will ask Chris. Cause he'll remember. Yeah, I'll ask him. Chris will be on in a couple of weeks. Will remind me and we'll that's a great question. I forgot all about that. I think it must have been Chris's idea. I know. I never got any disposable cameras back. That's such

Caller Bruce (02:18:13):
A cool idea. And one more thing, would you please tell your car guy? Thank you very much for the background he gave me on the EV vehicles and I took a suggestion and bought an EV six and just absolutely loved the

Leo Laporte (02:18:28):
Car. Yay. I'm so happy to hear it. That's fantastic.

Caller Bruce (02:18:33):
He, he was so much help on the Mastodon. He, he got back to me, which most people don't. Same. And gave me his suggestions and I'll tell you what, it was a big help in my car shopping and I ended up taking his advice and bought the e B six and I'm just, I've had it a month now and I'm just absolutely thrilled with the vehicle.

Leo Laporte (02:18:53):
It's a Kia. And I think it's, for some reason I'm thinking it's related to the Iconic, but I'm not sure. I feel like Kia. Yeah, it is.

Caller Bruce (02:19:00):
It is. And that's their sister because it's Kia Hyundai. Right.

Leo Laporte (02:19:04):
Our

Caller Bruce (02:19:04):
Are same

Leo Laporte (02:19:05):
Company. Same company. Yeah. Oh, that's so pretty. Right. Lot of, lot of love. Oh,

Caller Bruce (02:19:08):
It's a gorgeous car.

Leo Laporte (02:19:09):
Which color did you get?

Caller Bruce (02:19:12):
I got the silver. Woohoo.

Leo Laporte (02:19:13):
Very nice. Very

Caller Bruce (02:19:15):
Nice. I got the wind. It's got a 315 mile range on it, which works fine for me and with the level two at home now, it just absolutely beautiful car. Nice, nice. I mean, nice. I just love driving it. Nice.

Leo Laporte (02:19:28):
You start your day with a full tank every day. Did you get the crossover?

Caller Bruce (02:19:33):
No, I just got the two wheel. I just got got the basic model. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:19:37):
I think a lot of times you know, they give you those options cuz that's how they make their profit. But honestly, you're gonna do just fine. With the base

Caller Bruce (02:19:44):
Model, the driver assist on this thing is absolutely fantastic.

Leo Laporte (02:19:49):
Isn't that great? It really is. Oh, that's f I'm so glad to

Caller Bruce (02:19:52):
Hear that The Otto Park. But you tell him the that Sam that that he was a big help and I appreciate how much he works.

Leo Laporte (02:20:02):
Sam Will, Sam that is deeply committed. Not only does he love it, but he loves his, he loves our community and he's really very helpful and I'm so glad to hear that he helped you out. That's great.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:20:10):
That's wonderful.

Caller Bruce (02:20:12):
Wow. Okay guys,

Leo Laporte (02:20:13):
Take

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:20:13):
Care. Thanks so much for your

Caller Bruce (02:20:15):
Questions. You guys take care. Everyth Thanks.

Leo Laporte (02:20:16):
Wraps up our our, our show for the week.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:20:19):
That's that on that, how

Leo Laporte (02:20:20):
About that?

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:20:20):
How about them Apples?

Leo Laporte (02:20:22):
Mr. Micah, Sarge Sargent's gonna be back on Tuesday with iOS today with Rosemary Orchard

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:20:27):
In Dubble

Leo Laporte (02:20:28):
And on Thursday with Tech News Weekly with Jason Howell,

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:20:31):
Absolutely. <Laugh> and on Thursday with Hands on Mac for folks that are part of

Leo Laporte (02:20:35):
The club. Well, if you're in the club now, this is actually a great time to mention club members get all this special access. The kind of things Bruce was just talking about. Yeah. to our hosts, to our shows and even shows we don't hand out in general. So here's what you get for mere $7 a month. It's the best deal out there right now. You get ad free versions of all the public shows including this show, no ads at all. Not even this, not even this plug for Club Twit. You get shows we don't put out anywhere else but the club like HandsOn Macintosh with Micah, Sergeant Paul Barratt's, HandsOn Windows. We have brought back Scott Wilkins's Home Theater geeks. Thanks to club members like you. Well not like you, but soon to be like you <laugh> we're, we're gonna do an AI show.

(02:21:20):
Jason Howell's working on that right now. And he has weekly meetings with the club to kind of decide to flesh it out. The club is really the place where people who are devoted to our content and wanna support it can, can, can be a big part of what we do. Not only supporting new shows, but talking about them in our discord, which is our little clubhouse. And so much fun. If you are not yet a member, I strongly encourage you to join. Oh, they've set up. Ann has set up, I knew he wanted to do this, so he talked to Hugh Howie had a great interview with Hugh Howie, the author of the Silo series.

Mikah Sargent & Dick DeBartolo (02:21:54):
I went through those books so quickly. They're so good. His,

Leo Laporte (02:21:57):
It's called Wool, right? Yeah. Wool Pilot. His chat with the Rod Pils coming up this week, but he is set up for early September. Look at this. We got a photo walk. He's gonna do live photo critiques and is our community manager, Stacey's book club at the end of August. But coming up in September, turns out Howie's good friends with Daniel Suarez, who we also love and the three of them are gonna have a conversation. Wow. that is a sci-fi powerhouse. That is September 7th at 2:00 PM Pacific. Daniel Suarez. Hugh Howie in conversation. I might join that one. That's cool. I might have to be there. I'm love, love Suarez. I would love to meet Hugh. This is why I think the club is the best deal going seven bucks a month and you get all of this, I hope you will join. We would, we would be very grateful if you would.

(02:22:48):
All you have to do is go to twit tv slash club twit. You can buy it weekly. You can buy it yearly monthly, rather yearly. There's family plan, there's corporate plans. And it really does make a big difference to our operating expenses. Frankly, it's, it's kind of critical at this point to going forward, please twit tv. I don't want to say that to scare anybody. I just wanna encourage you. Yeah. T TV Please slash Club twit. I will be back in minutes. <Laugh> <laugh> with this week at Tech, our big show coming up the Sunday show. And of course on Tuesday and Wednesday with Mac Break Weekly, windows Weekly this week in Google and security now. I hope you will be back. I hope you'll move in with us and join the club and be part of the family that that is this week Tech. Thank you everybody for joining us. I'm Leo Laport. And I'm Micah Sargent. Have a great geek week. Bye-Bye.