Ask the Tech Guys Episode 1985 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):
Well, hey, hey, hey. It's time for Ask the Tech guys coming up. More printer questions, really,
Mikah Sargent (00:00:06):
<Laugh>. Yes, I am Micah Sargent and I am gonna show you how to fix your printer.
Leo Laporte (00:00:11):
Plus Micah's got a new little friend. He's gonna share it with us next and ask the tech guys podcasts you love
Mikah Sargent (00:00:20):
From people you trust.
Leo Laporte (00:00:22):
This tweet, this is tweet tweet.
(00:00:27):
This is Ask the Tech Eyes. Episode 1985, recorded Sunday, July 30th, 2023. The pause that refreshes Ask the Tech Guys is brought to you by Cash Fly. Cash Fly delivers rich media content up to 10 times faster than traditional delivery methods and 30% faster than other major CDNs. Meet customer expectations 100% of the time and learn how you can get your first month free@cashfly.com. 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 TWI tv slash club twit and thanks for your support. Well, hey, hey, hey. How are you today it's time for ask the tech guys that there is Micah Sergeant.
Mikah Sargent (00:01:30):
Hello. And that there is Leo Laport
Leo Laporte (00:01:32):
And we are here to help you understand technology. We, I think that's what we do.
Mikah Sargent (00:01:38):
We aim to please,
Leo Laporte (00:01:40):
We aim to understand it ourselves.
Mikah Sargent (00:01:42):
Yeah, exactly. We start out going, now how does this work?
Leo Laporte (00:01:45):
But we share this journey together. That's really what we're doing. Yeah,
Mikah Sargent (00:01:48):
Yeah. Exactly.
Leo Laporte (00:01:49):
Yeah. In fact, you know, having done this show for almost 20 years, it'll be 20 years in January. A lot of it really has been, I don't know, but let's find out.
Mikah Sargent (00:01:59):
Right?
Leo Laporte (00:02:00):
And I think that's okay.
Mikah Sargent (00:02:01):
It's okay to say you don't know something. Yeah. And you work together to solve the problem.
Leo Laporte (00:02:06):
For instance, when I was buying all those Beanie Babies for my eight year old daughter, you know, the funny thing is, we, we were talking about the Beanie Baby movie, which just premiered this week on Apple TV Plus. And I'm watching it 'cause I bought a lot of Beanie Babies, not from my personal collection. Right. I wasn't an investor, but my daughter loved them. And she, she had, I dunno, it must have had a dozen of them. And we bought 'em in the old Brickhouse Studios. 'cause Before, long before we moved in, in the old studios, it was Tuttles Drugstore in Petaluma, and the whole thing was unified. You know, there's our studios and there's a restaurant next door. The restaurant was the Tuttles was was an extension to Tuttles where they sold the Beanie Babies.
Mikah Sargent (00:02:48):
No way. So
Leo Laporte (00:02:48):
I vividly remember there was a hole in the wall behind the tech news weekly set. I vividly remember walking through that hole, down the ramp, buying the Beanie Babies. And that was where the checkout stand wasn't your checkout. So
Mikah Sargent (00:03:01):
<Laugh> a little Beanie Baby side shop. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:03:03):
Did you have Beanie
Mikah Sargent (00:03:03):
Babies? No, but a lot of my friends did. I can remember them bringing them to school and showing them off, and Oh, I've got this special one and I've got this.
Leo Laporte (00:03:12):
Yeah, there was a unicorn. There was all kinds of different
Mikah Sargent (00:03:14):
Styles. A little bear and dogs and
Leo Laporte (00:03:16):
All sorts of, they all had names and a story and a birthday. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, which was very clever. It was well marketed.
Mikah Sargent (00:03:21):
I think they did a good
Leo Laporte (00:03:21):
Job. Fascinating movie. He turned out to be a jerk. But a very wealthy jerk. Now <laugh>, he is worth almost $3 billion still to this day. The Beanie Bubble was also a documentary. You can watch that, that came out a couple of years ago. It's a fascinating story. And Zach Alkis, who plays Ty Warner, the founder, is really good. But that is not what we're here to talk about. Although, I guess peripherally That is the internet story.
Mikah Sargent (00:03:49):
You did. Yeah. You did talk about, 'cause the
Leo Laporte (00:03:50):
Reason they were so successful is 'cause Well, they did a few things. Right. Sold only to small stores. They never sold to big box stores. Oh. Because they wanted to have it be rare. Right. So you had to go to Tuttle's Drugstore, and they only had four models and some got discontinued and you're trying to collect them all. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, that was very smart, brilliant. But they hired a young woman who was a freshman in college at the time, who was a computer science major and understood the internet. And this was 92 or 93. This is very early on. Created one of the very first webpages. Wow. For t But did another thing that was that later everybody's done, which is very closely watched the resale market on eBay. Ebay was brand new at the time and learned, which she was the genius who designed the strategy of being very restricted and cutting 'em off.
(00:04:41):
And so it was really interesting to watch. She is now a consultant. She's still around. But they changed her name in the movie. In fact. In fact, all the, all the people's names are changed except for Taiwan Warners. Wow. But it's a very, it's a very interesting story that does in fact, piggyback on the internet. I think Linux also is something that succeeded because it came in 92 at exactly the right time to, to take advantage of the growing internet, to take advantage of crowdsourcing and, and getting a lot of people working on it and distribution. So it's, you know, these companies that jumped on the internet early, were smart. Maybe these are companies in 20 years we'll be talking about jumped on ai.
Mikah Sargent (00:05:21):
Right.
Leo Laporte (00:05:21):
Okay. Right now. Yeah. And then, and then they, they did it right. And they took advantage of it. And now, 20 years later, when you and I, I'll be <laugh> 86 and you'll be 12. And we, and we could still be, we might still be talk. I hope we are. Yeah. I might be a little bit smaller.
Mikah Sargent (00:05:39):
<Laugh>. I might be a little bit grayer. So
Leo Laporte (00:05:42):
Elon, I gotta, I gotta do the Elon. He, he renamed, as we talked about last week, he renamed Twitter to X mm-hmm.
Mikah Sargent (00:05:48):
<Affirmative>. Well, here's the thing. Has he ever said it out loud? Oh yeah. It could be 10. Oh.
Leo Laporte (00:05:53):
Oh.
Mikah Sargent (00:05:53):
You know what I mean? He's never said it
Leo Laporte (00:05:55):
Out loud. I think he's X Yeah. He's always liked the X Corporation. We're doing the symbol. It's, you know, it's good for that reason. You can say the whole name like that. Yeah. It's bad for one thing because it turns out Apple won't let you have an app with one letter on the app store. Really? So he's got this little problem. He's slowly phasing out the word Twitter everywhere. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> it no longer says tweet. It says Post the blurred. The blurred, the blue bird is gone. Oh. I call him a blurred. That saves time. But you can't have an X app on i o s, which is a big deal. That is, it's already X on Android. So I don't know. I don't know what's gonna happen with that. He didn't, he really didn't think it out. Yeah. But I mean's the problem,
Mikah Sargent (00:06:31):
He's continued to say that he wants it to be the Everything app. Right? Yeah. So just call it Xen, the Everything app, the x
Leo Laporte (00:06:37):
The app store, everything. Yeah. He'll figure out a way to get on there. And so they <laugh> they brought in the cherry picker and took down the letters on the sign, which didn't do anything. 'cause The, the, the shadow, the letters is still there. I mean, it's, it's just looks like a really ugly sign. Yes. good, good thinking. And then in a really janky installation, put up a giant lit X on the roof. I saw this, which is strobing
Mikah Sargent (00:07:02):
And flashing at the buildings nearby.
Leo Laporte (00:07:04):
It. I feel so bad for the people who live in the neighborhood and you know, who else is mad at them? The city of San Francisco. Because you can't do that.
Mikah Sargent (00:07:14):
Yeah. Don't you have to get a permit for everything? Yeah. It's
Leo Laporte (00:07:16):
Dangerous. Well, the thing could fall off and hit somebody <laugh>. It's just dangerous. And if you look at it closely, it's held up by two. I mean, it's probably structurally sound, but it just, it looks, yeah. Anyway, the city's going after 'em. Now for that one,
Mikah Sargent (00:07:30):
It doesn't surprise
Leo Laporte (00:07:31):
Me. Interesting article, speaking of Elon in the New York Times about Elon Musk's satellite dominance. Did you know 50% of all the satellites above the earth are You're kidding. Starlink. You're kidding. One half. And the real concern is that Elon is kind of unpredictable. Right? And so on March 17th, the New York Times Rights, mark Mille, chairman of the George Chief of Staff met with the leader of the Ukraine's Armed Forces general Valerie Nini. And they talked about everything in, you know, battlefield and the progress of the war. And Elon, because the Ukrainian army depends heavily on starlink, right? For its battlefield communications and general za Luny asked if the United States has an assessment of Mr. Musk <laugh> because of his sprawling business interests and murky politics. He says like, can we rely on this guy? Or what American officials gave no answer. There is <laugh>.
Mikah Sargent (00:08:38):
I didn't say like, we, we can't, well, I dunno what
Leo Laporte (00:08:40):
4,500 starlink satellites are up there. That's half of all the satellites. Besides the fact that, you know, as astronomers are mad, 'cause it's occluding the night sky. By the way, he's not done. He's only got about a 10th of the total up there. He wants to get 42 satellites.
Mikah Sargent (00:08:56):
What is that gonna look like?
Leo Laporte (00:08:57):
Well, that's what astronomers are considerably worried about. I was excited. I remember I was very bullish about this because I thought, well, this is gonna give inexpensive internet access to every, every corner of globe. Uhhuh, <affirmative>. I was right about everything. But the inexpensive part.
Mikah Sargent (00:09:13):
Are those all, are those all of those dots, those yellow or green dots, those are all supposed to be satellites or his goal for what the satellites are? Or is that the network?
Leo Laporte (00:09:22):
This is starlink satellites launched through July 10th. This is 10 minutes of, of satellite. There
Mikah Sargent (00:09:29):
Are that many satellites.
Leo Laporte (00:09:31):
Right. Well, they have to be. Right. So this is not good <laugh>. And you see the lines that's new ones being launched. Oh my word. Those lines. The new star links going into position. So yeah, fascinating story. I don't know what you say about that, but certainly Elon has not given anybody confidence of the way he's run Twitter. Right. There might be legitimately some concerns about what his long-term politics
Mikah Sargent (00:09:53):
Are. Yeah. What if suddenly he's just like, you know what I feel like doing today, running these Starlights starlink satellites into the i s s? You know what I mean?
Leo Laporte (00:10:01):
I don't think that's the problem. But I think that Ukraine is very much worried that he has shown some support for Russia. And that he may at some point suddenly decide, you know, I don't like this war, which he's been saying we're just gonna cut you crane off. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And that would be devastating. That he could actually literally shape
Mikah Sargent (00:10:18):
Like
Leo Laporte (00:10:18):
War change. Politic resolve the war. Yeah. So I understand the concern there. I really do. I think
Mikah Sargent (00:10:24):
It's fair. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:10:26):
Let's see, what else is in the, in the news? Did you see anything you thought were gonna be a big story this week? Yeah.
Mikah Sargent (00:10:32):
I, speaking of space I am excited about NASA plus <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:10:39):
You got Apple TV plus you got Google Plus Plus is a good way to add a name. So what is NASA Plus?
Mikah Sargent (00:10:45):
NASA Plus is a streaming platform from nasa. Yes. sometime this summer we are supposed to be getting a NASA plus streaming service.
Leo Laporte (00:10:56):
We have. Well, how much is that gonna cost? Well
Mikah Sargent (00:10:58):
Apparently it's going to be free.
Leo Laporte (00:11:00):
We already paid for it, that's
Mikah Sargent (00:11:01):
Why. 'cause Yes, our taxes pay for it. Yeah. but according to the NASA's office of communications, he said, we're putting space on demand. And at your fingertips with NASA's new streaming platform, will
Leo Laporte (00:11:13):
They have Bruce Willis asteroid movies and Moonraker? Will they have other space stuff in there? 'cause There's not always some No. John Singh,
Mikah Sargent (00:11:22):
Stop it. Yeah. It's gonna be like research projects, updates about Artemis NASA's kind of, it, it's, it's an opportunity to take what is already in existence in many places in NASA's various websites and sort of make a streaming platform out of it. So you'll be able to keep up to date with what NASA is working on. And in some cases see you know, live video coming in from different places and get to watch launches and, and all that magic.
Leo Laporte (00:11:52):
Fascinating. The other shoe has dropped. Remember it was a few years ago in Phoenix, an Uber ran into a pedestrian and killed her. She was crossing the street with a, with a bicycle the safety driver who was apparently playing a game well and wasn't paying attention. There's some question about, you know, it was dark. The pedestrian was crossing in the middle of the block, not at the crosswalks. Phoenix has very big wide boulevards with high speed traffic. So there's some question about whether she would've been able to do anything anyway. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> however she went to court and she has been found guilty, the driver. Oh. And the reason that's interesting is because there was some question about, well, is it the self-driving vehicle software that's at fault? Is it Uber it's fault? Or is it this safety driver? An Arizona court has found her guilty.
(00:12:45):
She will not do jail time. However, she pled guilty. Oh, to endangerment, endangerment sentenced to three years of supervised probation, but no prison time endangerment in Arizona is recklessly endangering another person with a substantial risk of imminent death or physical injury. Pes pedestrian died. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So that's just a, another data point in self-driving vehicles in some of the issues. A couple of other things real quickly, Dr. Mom reminds me comic-Con happened in San Diego and there were a number of Covid cases. It was not a super spreader event according to the definitions of the C D C, but there were a number of Covid cases. COVID is, is a little bit on the rise. And these big conferences, nobody wears a mask anymore. Maybe think about <laugh>. Think, think about it. Yeah. If you're going to a conference, we have a good friend who is a rock and roll bass player.
(00:13:35):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And she just came down with it. And it's serious. She's very ill. And she's only, only 40 something. But you know, the lead singer and the guitarist were a couple. They got it. They gave it to the band. Ah. And then of course, they're going around and performing. So it's just, it's just something to be aware of. You know, there, believe it or not, there may be a summer surge. Oh, lovely. Isn't that good news? I know you're, I only mentioned it 'cause you're paranoid. So we'll both start wearing masks. What do you say, <laugh>?
(00:14:09):
I, I gave up, you know, we, I wear a mask going to Italy, and then at Lisa said, well, I'm not gonna wear it. I said, well, if you're not gonna wear it, I'm not, because doesn't, if you get it, I'm gonna get it. So, yeah. Doesn't make a difference. And then we just went all over Europe, went to the Sistine Chapel, packed in like sardines for half an hour with people from all over the world. Never got it. So, and I was unmasked. I, I confess, I confess one final story. The N ss a is not happy. This is a constant tension in the federal government. Lawmakers have, thank goodness, finally started looking at privacy mm-hmm. Controls. And in particular, what they are looking at and should be looking at is the fact that there are third party data in this country. Many of them, dozens of them who buy the information from the big companies and then sell it to anybody, including China, anybody. Right. And lawmakers want to close that loophole and say, you know, we gotta really control data brokers. That's really a problem. It is. It's the number one privacy problem, in my opinion. N Ss A says, Hey, you can't do that. We use that.
Mikah Sargent (00:15:12):
Yeah. Don't they buy it?
Leo Laporte (00:15:13):
Yeah. The Congress wants to stop law, make law, law enforcement from buying data about you and me. Oh, it's only about criminals. No, it's not <laugh>
Mikah Sargent (00:15:23):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:15:24):
Only to buy data from about you and me. They wanna stop 'em. And the N ss A says, well, yeah, no, you can't do that. So they've, the N s A has approach. This is a story from Wired magazine, has approached lawmakers charged with its oversight about opposing an amendment that would prevent it from paying companies for location data instead of getting a warrant, which I believe the Constitution strongly suggests.
Mikah Sargent (00:15:50):
Yeah. Just because it's there. Then they think, oh, well no. In this case, we don't have to
Leo Laporte (00:15:54):
Strongly suggest (888) 724-2884 is the phone number. You can call right now. We'll put you in the lobby and pick you up. And then you press star six to unmute if you call during off hours. Our, we're, we're live from about two to 5:00 PM Eastern every Sunday. If you call during off hours, you can leave a message. We have quite a few messages. Yeah, we
Mikah Sargent (00:16:13):
Do. We've
Leo Laporte (00:16:14):
Got quite a few voicemail. Thank you. You can also zoom in at call twit tv. Do that on your phone so we can see and hear you. And you can also email. We have a, what did you call it? A packet? A pass A parcel of emails. A a pile.
Mikah Sargent (00:16:29):
A pile of parcels. A
Leo Laporte (00:16:30):
Pile of parcels of email. ATG at TWI tv. Oh, a
Mikah Sargent (00:16:33):
Grab bag. That was the word we were using. We
Leo Laporte (00:16:35):
Have a grab bag of emails. ATG at TWI tv. What do you want to I have some, I
Mikah Sargent (00:16:41):
Actually, yeah, we should do calls. But I did wanna no, let's do calls and then I'm gonna tell you about a friend that I made. I made a f i I I, yeah. I found a new friend. Aw. But we'll, we'll go to a call first and a little friend, and then I'll show you my friend.
Leo Laporte (00:16:55):
Aw, that's so cute. I'm gonna pick up on a wireless caller. I get Well, does anybody call from a landline? I don't think so. I, I think they're all wireless
Mikah Sargent (00:17:03):
Callers. In theory.
Leo Laporte (00:17:04):
We picked up on you. How do they know that we picked up? Is there a sound? It says they're being moved to the room. It says you are, you are being moved to the room. <Laugh>. And then press star six to unmute. Hi there. What's your name and where are you calling from?
Caller Rishaw (00:17:20):
Hey, my name is Haw and I'm from North Carolina.
Mikah Sargent (00:17:23):
Oh,
Leo Laporte (00:17:23):
Hello. Is it Char?
Caller Rishaw (00:17:26):
Yes. Haw.
Mikah Sargent (00:17:28):
Haw Haw. Okay. Hi,
Leo Laporte (00:17:29):
Haw. What's up?
Caller Rishaw (00:17:32):
Hey, nothing much just came from cutting my grass outside. So now watching Ask the tech guys.
Mikah Sargent (00:17:39):
Love it. Awesome. Well, what, what can, what can we do for you?
Caller Rishaw (00:17:43):
Yes. So I'm in need of a new iPad. I have the iPad six generation, and I'm looking for a new one. I know that Apple's gonna release one probably in October, and I'm wondering which one I should get. I'm looking at the pros, but they're a little costly. So I'm trying to get, fill out which one I should get.
Leo Laporte (00:18:04):
I'm gonna let our iOS today host an expert answer this, but before you do this drives me nuts
Mikah Sargent (00:18:11):
That Apple. I watch it all the time.
Leo Laporte (00:18:12):
Oh, good.
Mikah Sargent (00:18:12):
Oh, that's
Leo Laporte (00:18:13):
Kind with Rosemary Orchard. But I just wanna say Micah, it drives me crazy that Apple doesn't have a name for each generation. I know. I don't know what the sixth gen Is that the latest? I don't even know. It's,
Mikah Sargent (00:18:24):
It's, so the sixth generation came out in 2018. It's still got a home button.
Leo Laporte (00:18:28):
Yes.
Mikah Sargent (00:18:28):
Okay. So you're rocking. Yes. It does. An older model of iPad and Big
Leo Laporte (00:18:32):
Bezels.
Mikah Sargent (00:18:33):
Yeah. Big old bezels. Of course there is still the ninth gen iPad that Apple is selling right now. That's the current one. That's the current one with the big bezels and the button.
Leo Laporte (00:18:44):
And is that different from the
Mikah Sargent (00:18:45):
Air? Yes. The, there's iPad, iPad, air and iPad Pro. Which is silly. I know. It's
Leo Laporte (00:18:52):
Absolutely. And the Echo calls the iPad. The iPad, nothing. 'cause It doesn't as to distinguish it from the pro in the air.
Mikah Sargent (00:18:57):
That's, I think that's
Leo Laporte (00:18:58):
Pretty silly. So that's the first thing to decide, reha is if you want another iPad, nothing or you want an error or a pro, what do you do with your iPad?
Mikah Sargent (00:19:06):
Exactly. Yeah.
Caller Rishaw (00:19:08):
I mainly watch Netflix and search web and check a little bit of email.
Mikah Sargent (00:19:15):
Okay. Not really much. Not a whole lot. That, that to me says that there's not a reason. You, you, you also mentioned that the price of the pro is prohibitive. Wow. That's got a lot of P's in it. Yeah. so I would definitely suggest staying away from the iPad Pro given your concerns there.
Leo Laporte (00:19:32):
Yeah. Because it's only gonna get more <laugh>.
Mikah Sargent (00:19:34):
Exactly. Because then you, you'll start to go, oh, but it'd be really great if I got the keyboard for this. And it, yeah. So between iPad, air and iPad, you're coming from the sixth generation all the way up. Now, the current generation of iPad is the 10th generation. So regardless of whether you go for the air or you go for the iPad, nothing as not COAs wants to call it, you're going to be very happy with the improvements to the performance.
Leo Laporte (00:20:04):
That's the biggest difference. Exactly. But also you lose the home button. You have type C charging. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, the bezels are smaller. The first thing to say Isha is, is there any reason you don't, you're unhappy with your existing one? Because the truth is, the one of the reasons iPad sales aren't eating up the charts is people don't upgrade very often. Right. And if you feel like it's still working fine, I, you may not need to upgrade. And you, you probably, I'll be honest, even if it's faster, will you notice a difference?
Mikah Sargent (00:20:31):
Right. Well, sorry, I would love to hear the answer to your question then I'll have a little bit more to say.
Caller Rishaw (00:20:39):
Isha. Yeah. So with the latest version, it's very laggy. Okay. Slow. I'm, it's slow. I see a lot of hiccups with the iOS 16 and I know I can get iOS 17 on it, but I know it probably will be much slower. Right. on that six generation.
Leo Laporte (00:20:54):
Okay. That's fair. Alright. Okay.
Mikah Sargent (00:20:56):
Honestly, if it was me and I was thinking, you know, in the same sort of scope, I would just upgrade to the newest iPad. Nothing. you have been very happy for years with your iPad in sixth generation, and it has worked fine for you up to this point. It does what you need it to do. You're not really feeling the need to make a jump to something that's even more powerful, which the iPad air is. It has the ability to use that second generation Apple pencil, which
Leo Laporte (00:21:26):
Is kind of cool.
Mikah Sargent (00:21:27):
It's cool,
Leo Laporte (00:21:28):
But if you don't use it, if
Mikah Sargent (00:21:29):
You don't use it,
Leo Laporte (00:21:30):
Yeah. I don't even know where my pencil
Mikah Sargent (00:21:31):
Is. Yeah. And they're not cheap. At $129, I think is the current price. So this to me sounds like you would be happiest with the latest generation of standard iPad,
Leo Laporte (00:21:45):
Apple and thank you Scooter X for sending along the link to this. They have a great compare iPad models page. It's apple.com/ipad/compare. And you can actually put in your sixth generation next to, let's say the latest iPad 10th generation and compare. You see the bezel size difference immediately. But you can also compare the, the, the different features and so forth. The screen is much better Yeah. To the liquid retina these days. True tone as well. You go from an a 10 fusion to an a 14 bionic that is four generations. That's a big jump. Yeah. I think, you know, you could, you can at least see what you're gonna get if you, if you buy the newer generation. Now, of course, the question is, should, should you get Isha wait till October? 'cause We will probably see the 11th generation iPad in
Mikah Sargent (00:22:40):
October. Yeah. Let me see. The, one of my favorite places to go is to Mack Rumor's buyer's Guide, because they mm-hmm. <Affirmative> will talk about whether it's a good time to make a purchase. They keep track of how how long it takes for the company to, or like when the company's going to release different models and whether or not you should make a purchase of an iPad. And it's showing right now that the, they feel like it's a neutral choice to ma to buy an iPad, an iPad Air. You wanna be cautious about because they may announce a new model, an iPad. Many, they may announce a new model soon based on the rumors. But the iPad, we don't know if we're gonna see another standard iPad at this next launch. We just know that Apple is taking a look at some of the other iPad models.
Leo Laporte (00:23:34):
So just like Micah and me though, this is a guess. Yes,
Mikah Sargent (00:23:37):
It's exactly.
Leo Laporte (00:23:38):
Apple doesn't, to be
Mikah Sargent (00:23:39):
Clear, doesn't say yes.
Leo Laporte (00:23:40):
They don't know for sure. I think Mark Derman implied that there would be all new iPads,
Mikah Sargent (00:23:43):
Including in October, including standard iPad. I think
Leo Laporte (00:23:45):
He did. Yeah. Okay. It has been 285 days, not quite a year. They released the latest iPad, nothing in October. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So it would be a one year, and I think they might be on a one year cadence. Although you see here with Mac rumors that it's normally September 21. September, 2020. Yeah. It looks like it's every year. Yeah. So it could be 19, 20 19. It's almost every year. It's been September. It's been fall every year for the last four years.
Mikah Sargent (00:24:14):
Let's, yes. Let's have you, if you can hold out until September, October,
Leo Laporte (00:24:20):
The two reasons, one, you could get a newer one, two, there should be a price drop in the older
Mikah Sargent (00:24:24):
Ones. Right? Exactly. Absolutely. You'll see a price drop on the, the current model, but if it's
Leo Laporte (00:24:29):
Laggy and your Netflix is going, it might be worth just doing it now. Right? Yeah. You've had this thing for five years, right? Six years. It might be worth just, you know, getting this. You're not just understand that in October you're gonna go, oh, <laugh>. But that's something we have to live with with technology anyway
Mikah Sargent (00:24:48):
No matter what. Yep. Yeah. Yep. Oh, a little bit of remorse.
Leo Laporte (00:24:52):
We don't, what we don't think is that they're gonna release an iPad with a special retractable cloth. Right.
Mikah Sargent (00:24:57):
No. And
Leo Laporte (00:24:57):
Eyeballs or, you know. Exactly.
Mikah Sargent (00:25:00):
It's
Caller Rishaw (00:25:01):
Gonna be be an iPad <laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:25:03):
Self posing. Yeah. It's gonna a voguing iPad <laugh>. It's gonna be, it's gonna be just very much the next generation of the same thing. Yep. Absolutely. That kind of thing. And you would get so much benefit out of an eight 14 at this point. It'd be so fast.
Mikah Sargent (00:25:18):
That's what I'm really thinking. Yeah. Yep. That's
Leo Laporte (00:25:20):
Basically the M one.
Mikah Sargent (00:25:21):
Yeah. So I think you would be very happy situating yourself into a new iPad. Nothing the latest model. And I think you'll be happy with that. But
Leo Laporte (00:25:33):
Isha, at least you have the knowledge. Yes,
Mikah Sargent (00:25:35):
Exactly. Now you know for sure. And you can choose to wait or choose to go out today and get a, get a new iPad if
Leo Laporte (00:25:41):
You want. It's a pleasure to talk to you.
Mikah Sargent (00:25:42):
Thank you so much for your call.
Caller Rishaw (00:25:44):
Yes, thank you guys. Pleasure talking to you. And you have a great day.
Mikah Sargent (00:25:48):
Take
Leo Laporte (00:25:49):
You too. Take care. You too. Isha great to talk to you. I did. You don't, don't yell at me. I did buy the new Samsung flip phone.
Mikah Sargent (00:25:58):
Wait,
Leo Laporte (00:25:58):
Just because I'm kind the fan. So a Samsung announced two new phones this week. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> one that opens like this and one that opens like this <laugh>
Mikah Sargent (00:26:07):
<Laugh>. Is it hot dog
Leo Laporte (00:26:08):
Or hamburger? The is an iPad is a tablet.
Mikah Sargent (00:26:10):
So that's hot dog. Hot
Leo Laporte (00:26:11):
Dog. And the, and the flip is when it opens a regular size six point, I think six 6.2 inch screen, but it closes. Has a little screen on this. I got the flip. 'cause Cool. I don't, I have an iPad. I don't like the crease down the middle. Yeah. But I think the idea of something that's so small, it could fit here in my little breast pocket.
Mikah Sargent (00:26:31):
I think
Leo Laporte (00:26:31):
It's fine. It's cool. I had the I had the flip four and I liked it. So the flip five, we'll have it for review. I'll probably pass it around so you can see it and Jason can see it. Lisa, my wife is very interested in it. She says she wants something that small. I think a lot of a lot of people carry purses, right. Probably like something they could stick in their purse, but she also says, I wish it were an
Mikah Sargent (00:26:52):
Iphone. Yeah. I wish that there was something like that. I, I personally wouldn't use it, but I know a lot of folks who like small phones that are on the iPhone side who are worried about the future of small phones on the iPhone side. And it would be cool to have. And there's just something, it, it, it's a little bit nostalgic, but also the future at the same time. And I think that's, yeah. Also what's fun about it, although you
Leo Laporte (00:27:14):
Can't slam it close to hang. Yeah.
Mikah Sargent (00:27:15):
Don't go fuck.
Leo Laporte (00:27:16):
Because that would be a bad
Mikah Sargent (00:27:17):
Idea. I'm mad at you.
Leo Laporte (00:27:18):
I really wanna pick up, who's this guy walking around? Is that
Mikah Sargent (00:27:21):
Mike? Oh, out in nature.
Leo Laporte (00:27:23):
Las Vegas. That's Mike. That's Mike. Which Mike is that? I see a mike in Bonnie Lake, Washington. That's the one. Is that the one? All right. Yeah. Mike, I'm gonna pick you up 'cause I see you walking around and I just, I love the sunshine and the blue sky and the puffy little clouds.
Mikah Sargent (00:27:41):
Beautiful. Lake
Leo Laporte (00:27:42):
Washington. Let's say hello to Mike.
Caller Mike (00:27:46):
Okay. I'm unmuted. Can you hear me?
Leo Laporte (00:27:48):
Yeah. Yes. Oh, this
Caller Mike (00:27:50):
Is, I can't hear you through my headphones. Uhoh.
Leo Laporte (00:27:53):
Well, you have to now pull down
Caller Mike (00:27:54):
From volume then. Hey, I'm on a Samsung fold, Leo, and,
Mikah Sargent (00:27:58):
Oh,
Caller Mike (00:27:59):
Hang on. I gotta get you on the speaker here. It's,
Leo Laporte (00:28:02):
You know how to do it. Boys
Caller Mike (00:28:03):
Just have to be so hard. <Laugh>,
Leo Laporte (00:28:05):
<Laugh>.
Mikah Sargent (00:28:06):
This is what we say every day
Caller Mike (00:28:07):
Because everything's fine. It works. You know, I can hear you on my headset until
Leo Laporte (00:28:11):
Yeah. And then boom it goes
Caller Mike (00:28:12):
Yeah. Until I don't,
Leo Laporte (00:28:13):
This is really common with
Caller Mike (00:28:15):
Bluetooth. Yeah. So yeah. So I called about a month ago, and this is Bonnie Lakes. See how beautiful it is? Oh yeah. This is where you wanna move,
Leo Laporte (00:28:22):
Right? I'm coming. Oh, we're on our way. Look at that sky. We can see, you know, I think people in the Pacific Northwest tell us Californians that it's rainy all day so that we, so that we won't move. Yeah. Because every time I see it, it's gorgeous.
Caller Mike (00:28:38):
Look at,
Leo Laporte (00:28:39):
Look at that.
Caller Mike (00:28:40):
No. Bur, you know, there's no mosquitoes, there's no well, Lisa will like that, you know, no high humidity. It's about 70 degrees right now. Oh, okay. So two questions. One, I've, I've been an Evernote user for about 10 years now, and I'm hearing the chatter that it may not be as safe as, as as we thought. Are you agreeing with that even after some of the changes they've made? Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:29:01):
They got sold to a company called Bending Spoons. And I forgot where Bending. They're in Europe somewhere or Scandinavia. Yeah. I can't remember. But they've, they've closed down their US operations. They're gonna do it all from Sweden or wherever Bending Spoons is. Yeah. And I don't think that means it's going away. If you're really still attached to Evernote. I would, I would say you could continue to use it. The nice thing about Evernote is you can make a backup, you can export it. You might wanna do that from time to time just to make sure if they go away, but there are lots of great alternatives out there that you might wanna start playing with. Of course, if you're a Microsoft user, OneNote is basically free. Right? and, and, and it's a, it's very much like Evernote. All right. I'm not a huge fan of OneNote. I I would look at Notion, which is web-based notion. Do. So we love that we play with that. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> Paul RA's using Notion for his production of windows Weekly. That's what he likes.
Caller Mike (00:29:58):
Yeah. What I do is I take all the paper, I get all the bills all, oh, you scan it in? I scan it, yeah. And I scan it in. And there used to be on the Epson Epson scan. Smart. There was a button You could Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:30:11):
A
Caller Mike (00:30:11):
Onenote. You could save it as Save or Evernote. Yeah, yeah. And it was, it would save it right up there. And then I put 'em into folders, you know, by the topic or whatever. And I don't think Notion has that. No. I keep playing with it. Yeah. And I'm hopeful. And, and you know, this is one of the drawbacks, you know, you get pregnant, you know, with something like Evernote, and it's really hard to change <laugh>. And so then you pay, pay for 25 years. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:30:36):
I mean, I've had a number of Evernote dedicated scanners for receipts, bills, all that stuff. Every, you just get it, you scan it, shred it, and you're, and you've done it forever. I would say keep doing it until such time as the company folds. I don't think they're gonna fold. I just think that they've, they've, they're probably wisely cutting costs.
Caller Mike (00:30:58):
Yeah. Well, there's another trick too that I found because that button became disabled, you know, with a new version of Evernote, but there can be a folder on your desktop that then syncs to Evernote. And so when you save a file into that Syncable folder, then magically in about five seconds, it automatically uploads itself into Evernote. So that's, that's my workaround. And that could be why they disabled that button. It's probably more secure or something. So yeah. Here's my real question. Yes. So every morning, every morning I go into the print replica of the Seattle Times, and I go to the Wonder Word puzzle that's on page 25 or something of the Seattle Times. And then I print it, and then I put it on a clipboard and I take it to my wife in bed with a cup of coffee. Aw. Because I wanna start the day. Yeah. But see, I wanna start the day on the plus side of the ledger and the good deeds. <Laugh> very
Leo Laporte (00:31:59):
Wise, my wife and I do a crossword puzzle together. It is really a great thing to do
Caller Mike (00:32:05):
Together, I think. Well, so here's what I want to do. And I was around the Boeing company for 40 years and, and the thing called scripts. Is there a way that as a personal guy, I can write a script Oh, that's got a time and date stamp that automatically at five o'clock in the morning, let's say it goes to that website, it finds that page and then it if you click on it, then it enlarges and then I send it to the printer.
Leo Laporte (00:32:32):
That's the whole thing you would do by end.
Caller Mike (00:32:34):
Yeah. 'cause if I'm out of town, guess what I have to do? I have to use remote pc. You told me to buy <laugh> and I remote into my home computer. Oh,
Leo Laporte (00:32:43):
Gosh. Oh, you are a good husband.
Mikah Sargent (00:32:45):
Yeah. That's fantastic. <Laugh>.
Caller Mike (00:32:47):
Well, it's also a way that I can buy gadgets. See, I can buy gadgets and
Leo Laporte (00:32:51):
Tech. Oh,
Caller Mike (00:32:52):
Because, so I say, honey,
Mikah Sargent (00:32:53):
I need a, I bring in the morning. Yeah.
Caller Mike (00:32:55):
Well, and I take a portable printer on the road, you know, a little one. Just a little one. Yeah. And I take it on the road and well,
Leo Laporte (00:33:01):
You're all hooked up. Yeah. This guy is so hooked up.
Caller Mike (00:33:05):
I, so anyway, so I wanna do a, so how do I do scripts?
Mikah Sargent (00:33:09):
Yeah. This is a, this is a really cool idea. And there are a number of online tools that could help you get to a lot of this where you could sort of work with them with scripting, including if this then that they have some website parsing options. If you're wanting to do a completely local script, I will say, here's what we were talking about before, Leo. The, I will say that I don't know off of the top of my head how to make that happen, but I'm certain that it is possible because not too long ago, I needed a script that would go look at a website and pull some information from there, and then use the Google Docs, a p i to write it to a specific spreadsheet. And I was able to do that. I used, I had the help of chat G p t, honestly, <laugh>.
(00:33:57):
Okay. I, I wrote in to, to ask it kind of, how can I go about pulling this off? And then it, it helps me with some code. And then I, you know, modified that and I was able to do that. So what I will say is that you're on the right track in terms of the possibility of doing this. And depending on what that's a good thing about printers too, is that if you've got kind of a, a, a like business style printer or one of these kind of standard printers, the brother printers and the more recent HP office jet printers or office printers, they all have every single type of communication method built into them. So there's a lot of you know, it's got a local server where you can send information. So you should be able to do this. I just can't tell you, you know, A, B, C D E F right here
Leo Laporte (00:34:46):
On this call. Lemme, lemme ask though a couple questions. You're on Windows Machine?
Caller Mike (00:34:49):
Yes. Windows 10. And you're
Leo Laporte (00:34:51):
Using Samsung phone, so you're on Android. So yeah, I think the secret's gonna be automating a folder on Windows. The same thing that you're doing right now with Evernote, where if you scan something into a folder, Evernote picks it up. Yeah. You could probably do the same thing with a Windows script that says, if I see a file in this folder, print it. So that's, that's gonna be the last step of that. And then you just need a script that will once a day
Caller Mike (00:35:19):
Go get it,
Leo Laporte (00:35:20):
Go to the webpage and download it. Right? Mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, just in effect, automating the thing you do. There are a number of very good windows scripting tools. I mean, my inclination very good.
Caller Mike (00:35:30):
Okay. Would be Of course. Well, I'll check your show notes. You guys can put something in there if you need to take up your time. But this is, Hey, hey. There's a standing invitation. If you ever come to the Seattle area, I will look you, Monte Lake, I'll buy you a beer and you can sit on this patio out here. And
Leo Laporte (00:35:43):
How far is Belleville Lake from Seattle?
Caller Mike (00:35:47):
So it's Bon Lake. It's about, it's about 10 miles to the east and 10 miles to the south of CTAC International Airport. I
Mikah Sargent (00:35:57):
Was just in Seattle two weeks ago. Perfect. I wish. Alright. I wish 10 minutes is
Leo Laporte (00:36:02):
Perfect because we wanna be near SeaTac. Yeah, yeah,
Caller Mike (00:36:04):
That sounds great. Yeah, I know, I know. And is there an actual, so anyway,
Leo Laporte (00:36:07):
Is there an actual lake?
Caller Mike (00:36:10):
There is a, yeah, there is a lake. It's called Bonnie and d o n n e y. And it's got houses around it. There's also Lake Taps, which is a big water reservoir. Nice. That there's <crosstalk> because I
Leo Laporte (00:36:22):
Like a body of water. I need a body of water.
Caller Mike (00:36:24):
Yeah. So, well, I think Lake Taps would be a great place for you, Leo. I know
Leo Laporte (00:36:27):
You want to go, your walk is over, but I just wanna say No, no, your friends power Shell is your friend. That is a great scripting language on Windows. Okay, good to learn. Anyway, it's like, it's basically like the old com, you know, batch file, kind of command line scripting, but it's very powerful. And then, and then I think you're gonna have a a, a folder that's a watch folder that will automatically print all. I think it's actually pretty
Caller Mike (00:36:52):
Easy. Do I love you guys?
Leo Laporte (00:36:52):
Hey, great to talk to you. Been forever. I'll see you up in Bell Lake. Alright, take
Caller Mike (00:36:56):
Care. Luck Bonnie. Bonnie,
Leo Laporte (00:36:58):
If I have to remember the name, I'll be, be there <laugh>.
Caller Mike (00:37:01):
Okay, thanks. Bye.
Leo Laporte (00:37:02):
By Bonnie Lies over the lake. Yeah, I'll remember that. My
Mikah Sargent (00:37:05):
Lies over the lake.
Leo Laporte (00:37:08):
He's all hooked up. He's got all that stuff going. So a little more automation and I think if you're gonna do it, I agree with you if this, then that or Zappy or there are lots of kind of systems, but I think if you're gonna do it, you might as well do it. Right. He sounds like he's an engineer. Yeah.
Mikah Sargent (00:37:21):
So he can pull it
Leo Laporte (00:37:21):
Off, be able to do some PowerShell. It's not gonna be complicated. It's gonna really be a very simple script that you'd probably be able to find if you look around.
Mikah Sargent (00:37:28):
And I like the idea of how you said, let's split it into two things. Yeah. We do the, we'll get it into that folder or the folders is going to do the printing. Yeah, yeah. That's gonna be
Leo Laporte (00:37:36):
Awesome. Yeah. I don't, I not too hard to get that wonder word printed out. I don't know. The trick is gonna be getting the wife to go to the printer to pull off. Yes. That's the one thing she's used to you bringing her coffee in the wonder word. I don't, I think that may be a, the toughest
Mikah Sargent (00:37:50):
That you can't automate <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:37:53):
Alright, let's take a little break and we will have more of your calls. We've got some voicemails, we've got some videos, we've got some emails, we've got lots.
Mikah Sargent (00:38:00):
Yeah. And I think I'll show my friend after this,
Leo Laporte (00:38:02):
And Micah has a new little friend, but our first, before we do much more, our show today brought to you by Cash Fly. And I mean literally brought to you by Cashflow. When we first started the TWI Network, we were kind of just putting the audio files on a website and letting people download it, but it, it crashed the website every single time we put out on a new show. I mean, it just, it didn't work. Then I started saying to people, please, you know, well we're gonna use BitTorrent, which back in the day allowed, you know you to distribute the downloads and, but we had to get people to see it. It was, it was a struggle. Then Matt Levine, who's one of the founders of Cashflow came along, said, Leah, I think we've got a fix for you. And we've been using cashflow ever since, I think more than 15 years.
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Mikah Sargent (00:41:50):
Thank you. Cash fly.
Leo Laporte (00:41:52):
Let's see what else I forgot to ask about the flip. Darn it. He's gone now. He had the flip four. Oh,
Mikah Sargent (00:41:58):
That's right. Yes.
Leo Laporte (00:41:59):
I had the flip four and I, I enjoyed it, but I wasn't using it much, so I sent it along to Stacey Higginbotham. So but I'm, I'm kind of, can I change from an iPhone to a Galaxy? Oh man,
Mikah Sargent (00:42:11):
It you sure can try.
Leo Laporte (00:42:12):
I can try Now what do you got there? Is that your little
Mikah Sargent (00:42:14):
Friend? This is my little friend. So you may remember last week that Dick DeBartolo joined us and he revealed a new toy called Bitsy. And Bitsy was sort of a tamagotchi style tool you morning. And I had to order it. Oh,
Leo Laporte (00:42:33):
I'm excited. You've got it and you haven't used it yet. It looks like
Mikah Sargent (00:42:36):
I've got, I've got bitsy here out of the box. Maybe that's just a little bit of a, of theater perhaps. I've taken outta
Leo Laporte (00:42:41):
The box, put back in the box. So I do the same thing. So give it a go.
Mikah Sargent (00:42:43):
So Bitsy comes in a little container here,
Leo Laporte (00:42:46):
Say hello to my little friend.
Mikah Sargent (00:42:48):
And what we'll do is open it up and there's this Oh, it works. Yes. It actually came with batteries too, which is pretty rare for toys these days. So, so
Leo Laporte (00:42:55):
What is it? It's a little wand going back and forth really fast.
Mikah Sargent (00:42:58):
Yeah, it's a little flexible l e d display that has LEDs along the outside of it and it just flaps up and down at a speed and as it's flapping and you do different things like touch it. So that's like petting it and Can I touch it? Yeah, please. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:43:14):
Tickles.
Mikah Sargent (00:43:16):
And right now we're going through the tutorial. So it's saying, I need you to rock me back and forth. Rock
Leo Laporte (00:43:22):
Me baby.
Mikah Sargent (00:43:24):
And then you're going through, you're just kind of seeing the different things it can do up This is a tilt down. Yes. Up and down. Just got
Leo Laporte (00:43:29):
A little accelerometer in there.
Mikah Sargent (00:43:30):
Exactly. And then we'll get a shake. Whoa. It's making little sounds as it gets shook up. Oh man. I made it easy. Does it does, it does all sorts of little Oh, this is where you go like that. You kind of jump it up. Oh, see? And then it jumps up. And then this is where you're actually swiping across this little touch pad here.
Leo Laporte (00:43:50):
Does everybody get a different looking one or are they all the same? They,
Mikah Sargent (00:43:53):
You do. So there are multiple versions. It's like
Leo Laporte (00:43:56):
Beanie Babies
Mikah Sargent (00:43:57):
And now and, and depending on which one you get, you might get a rare creature.
Leo Laporte (00:44:03):
Of course, yeah. Keep buying 'em till you get a rare one.
Mikah Sargent (00:44:05):
Exactly. And so now I've completed the tutorial, so now bitsy is alive and real, and now you can do
Leo Laporte (00:44:13):
Well bitsy wither and die like a tamagotchi if you don't feed it and play with it.
Mikah Sargent (00:44:17):
So they don't have that thank goodness built in. It will get sad, it'll get bothered after a period of time. It's ac in fact, this one's kinda looking a little sad right now. There we go. Let's feed it to food. Oh, it's hungry to food. Yes. so that's I think on this side.
Leo Laporte (00:44:34):
Oh, you don't know how to feed it?
Mikah Sargent (00:44:35):
Yeah, I dunno how to feed it. Look, it's, it is a, it's a silly little toy available. Oh, I just pet it. I think kids
Leo Laporte (00:44:42):
Would like it.
Mikah Sargent (00:44:43):
Exactly. And then you can, when you're done, you just kind of tuck it away and it makes it quite clever. A sound clever. I do. I think it's very clever. But I thought it'd be a good little set dressing, perhaps <laugh>. I guess you could, you could propose with a, with a bity. Will you bitsy me? So this is $30 of, you know, available on Amazon. It is,
Leo Laporte (00:45:07):
It does look like a ring box. It'd be hysterical if you wanted to punk your
Mikah Sargent (00:45:11):
Yeah, it's like, oh, let me just kneel down real quick. There are cats and dogs and bunnies and all sorts of different little creatures that you can get and Oh look, bitsy sleeping ultimately. Oh, oh wow. Running away and coming back. So yeah, that's the bitsy <laugh>. It's, it's kind of fun. Kind of fun <laugh>. So yes, there's my new little friend the bitsy and thank you Dickie D for coming across that toy.
Leo Laporte (00:45:43):
The itsy bitsy spider.
Mikah Sargent (00:45:45):
Aw. That you can actually touch.
Leo Laporte (00:45:48):
I I don't wanna be responsible for who's the next caller.
Mikah Sargent (00:45:51):
Oh.
Leo Laporte (00:45:52):
Should I do email?
Mikah Sargent (00:45:53):
I think we should do, yeah. An email or voicemail even. I know we've got a pile of John email
Leo Laporte (00:45:58):
Dealer's choice. We're gonna do an email. All right. Oh look, he's op pre-op it for me so I don't have, have to go through Tommy John's surgery. Reaching back on my rotator cuff. Oh, you printed it upside down,
Mikah Sargent (00:46:11):
<Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:46:12):
How am I supposed to read that? Oh, wait a minute. Nevermind. I like how, I like how you put the logo on there. I just read record from the Oh, you're printing letterhead, that's
Mikah Sargent (00:46:22):
Why. No, no, no. Don't you say Yes. That's exactly what I did. Okay. <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:46:26):
Hello from Woonsocket. I know Woonsocket, Rhode Island. Just up the road
Mikah Sargent (00:46:31):
From, from
Leo Laporte (00:46:32):
Where I grew up in Providence. Well, everything in Rhode Island. Just kidding. <Laugh>.
Mikah Sargent (00:46:35):
It's all just up the road.
Leo Laporte (00:46:37):
My mom and sister live in Cranston and my daughter's here right now. And that's,
Mikah Sargent (00:46:40):
That's just down the road from
Leo Laporte (00:46:41):
Yeah, it's down the road. Wood soe one socket printer problem.
Mikah Sargent (00:46:46):
No, this
Leo Laporte (00:46:47):
Is from Fred Ins socket oh 2 8 9 5. Thank you for the zip code. Please help. I have an Epson WF 70 16 76 10 printer problem. The blue cyan will not work at an a nozzle check and a print alignment and seven head cleanings. Last head cleaning I did was after I changed the blue ink cartridge test prints showed all the colors and black are okay except still blue. He even changed the cartridge. I I've been talking with Epson via email. Spoke with an Epson tech in San Diego. The tech said it was a mechanical problem. The repair cost would be prohibitive. I should just buy a new printer.
Mikah Sargent (00:47:25):
What I'm gonna say first is I don't care how much noise is made, how long it takes, how involved they say it is. The built-in print head cleaner, he did it
Leo Laporte (00:47:40):
Seven times
Mikah Sargent (00:47:41):
Is nonsense. Oh,
Leo Laporte (00:47:43):
<Laugh>. That's why
Mikah Sargent (00:47:44):
You essentially what it's doing is squeezing a bunch of ink out of your cartridge and trying to brush it away to clear out any clogs you need to do your own print head cleaning. Uhoh with 99% isopropyl alcohol,
Leo Laporte (00:48:02):
Not rubbing alcohol. That's
Mikah Sargent (00:48:03):
GCE alcohol, not rubbing alcohol. Pure alcohol, not 70% rubbing alcohol, which
Leo Laporte (00:48:08):
Is actually what you need
Mikah Sargent (00:48:09):
For, for cleaning your hands. Sterilization. Sterilization, you can get you can find it anywhere. They usually call it tech U. They, they, they'll have like tech use on it or technical use on it. Oh. as opposed to healthcare use. Don't drink it. Don't drink it. It wouldn't taste good. It would make you sad. You take that, you take a little dropper like a little glass dropper or plastic, it doesn't need to be glass. And you squeeze it onto the print head and you let it sit until it evaporates. Then you take a Q-tip and you dip that into the, again, alcohol and you rub the print head with it, don't it to your bitsy, not feed it to your bitsy. And then you do a print head cleaning after you've done those two things. If at that point it's still not working, then checks, notes. It's a manufacturer, but it's a, it's a mechanical error. And I understand the cost is prohibitively expensive. He
Leo Laporte (00:49:04):
Didn't say if it's still, you know how old it
Mikah Sargent (00:49:06):
Is. Right. This
Leo Laporte (00:49:08):
Is the problem with in my opinion, inkjet in general Yeah. Is if you don't use it at least once a week mm-hmm. <Affirmative> it is gonna happen. And I don't actually recommend inkjet for nowadays we don't print as much as we used to unless you're printing out the word puzzles every, every day from the Seattle Times. And actually that's a good idea. Maybe you should just do
Mikah Sargent (00:49:25):
That's true. That do a, do a weekly puzzle
Leo Laporte (00:49:27):
Or something. Do a puzzle. If you don't print, I would get a laser printer. Absolutely. Now the color's not as good and he clearly wants color. So they have, you know, they call it business color, but it's kind of a faded out color. But a laser printer is designed for a, you know, a zero duty cycle where, you know, you use it once a year, it's never gonna clog. I just think that inkjets problematic and, and the inkjet industry epson's the best of the bunch I think. But in general, the inkjet industries economics are terrible. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, they charge very little for the printer and they charge a lot for the ink. And the idea is we're gonna make it up in the ink and then they do copy protection all, it's just a terrible business. Yeah. especially the ink jets like I said, absences the best of the bunch. The problem is, I'm not sure with that printer, you wanna replace the print head with each cartridge replacement. And if your print has clogged and you're not replacing it, which I think in this print case, you're not, you're kind of, you kind of have to do what Micah said. You
Mikah Sargent (00:50:29):
Really have to get in there. I
Leo Laporte (00:50:30):
Think they discourage you from doing that. But I guess it's
Mikah Sargent (00:50:32):
Worked for me in the past. When I did have, 'cause I back in college, I bought an HP inkjet printer, and then I would go periods of time without using it and I would have to do the alcohol treatment. It would start working again. Then I finally realized the error of my ways and stopped with that horrible, horrible
Leo Laporte (00:50:52):
Printer. I know the more modern ink jets, the, the, the Super Tank Epson calls 'em Eco Tank printers do not change the print head. And that's, you know, that's a flaw frankly.
Mikah Sargent (00:51:03):
Right? If you're not having the cartridges that have the head built into it. But even with the kind that have the cartridge with the head built into it, it's still getting seeded into something that has a fine mesh on it that can get plugged up to, and that's what gets dried out and plugged up. Yeah. And as someone was saying in the chat when you do, a lot of times these printer head cleaning systems, they will do it once. They'll print something out and it says if it's still an issue, then do the more advanced one. All that's doing is pushing even more ink through. Yeah. So you're just wasting so much ink doing that. Like your point, if you don't use the alcohol, especially
Leo Laporte (00:51:38):
If the only option is getting a new printer.
Mikah Sargent (00:51:40):
Right. If if
Leo Laporte (00:51:40):
Exactly. Because, because I guess worst case, maybe it does screw things up. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But you were gonna get a new printer anyway, right?
Mikah Sargent (00:51:45):
Yeah. And for me it worked a bunch of times without ever screwing anything up. So it was, it was good.
Leo Laporte (00:51:51):
Oh, good. I like that. That was fun. Now, because this is a long month, this is week e right? Our fifth week in the month of July, which means we don't have any visitors.
Mikah Sargent (00:52:03):
The fabled fifth
Leo Laporte (00:52:04):
Week. Yeah. There's, so normally at this time we would be talking to a contributor like Sam Bull Salmon daily Gizz, Dickie Bartolo Rod pile about space. I kind of wish Rod Pile were here about space to talk about that Elon Musk's story. So we got more calls though. We do. That's the, that's the good news. John Ashley, producer extraordinaire. What do you want us to do next? I'm gonna pick up on Joe. You're gonna pick up on Joe Esposito. Yeah. That Joe. That Joe. All right. We like Joe. Joe is a a regular on the show. And then I want to pick up on whoever that is. And
Mikah Sargent (00:52:42):
I think John, it says, is that John?
Leo Laporte (00:52:43):
I can't read the fine print, but, hello Joe. What are you laughing at?
Mikah Sargent (00:52:52):
Discord meme Pro Illustrator er
Leo Laporte (00:52:55):
Oh, this is the guy who makes those crazy memes in our club. Twit Discord. Yeah. Can hear They like the stamp. Can hear that ant disapproves or ant approves or, yes, I hear you Joe. How you doing?
Caller Joe (00:53:07):
Okay, good, good. I'm great. I don't know why my camera decided not to work it, but
Leo Laporte (00:53:10):
I like your border
Caller Joe (00:53:12):
<Laugh>. Well, thank you. I, here, I'll put my logo back up since my camera is deciding not to. Thats your, I have no idea why. So are you
Leo Laporte (00:53:17):
A are you a commercial artist? Are you design a graphics design guy?
Caller Joe (00:53:22):
Well, not, I mean, I'd love to be, but being an professionally is not the easiest job to get. So I just do little stuff all over the place. I, I've done little work here and there, but you're
Leo Laporte (00:53:32):
Really good. Not be able, I mean, did you hand, hand illustrate those car, those comic book characters?
Caller Joe (00:53:36):
Oh yeah. No, it's all, it's all hand illustrated. Wow.
Leo Laporte (00:53:38):
That's impressive. I'm impressed. He does. Here's our seals.
Caller Joe (00:53:41):
Oh, I figured it out. I figured out why my camera's not working. I will get my video working. Oh. Oh,
Leo Laporte (00:53:47):
You were up in the corner. I'm
Caller Joe (00:53:48):
Be in Focus
Leo Laporte (00:53:49):
O ozone. You even have a lower third now. Oh yeah. Is ozone nightmare.com? Ozone art foundry and link dot linker dot e or link tree <laugh>.
Caller Joe (00:54:03):
Link tree. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:54:03):
Can't really read that. It, I like linker e It's not linker. E linker e slash ozone Art Foundry. Yeah. And so, so, but you don't do it commercial, you just do it for fun?
Caller Joe (00:54:15):
No, I, I, like I said, I've done little commercial work, but it's not my full-time job. Okay. So I've done, I've done commercial work, like for Magic, the Gathering. I've done little cards and stuff like that. Neat. Work. Work. So I do it appreciate, but I can't. Well, I appreciate
Leo Laporte (00:54:27):
The, the work you've done for Look at these stickers that he made for us for
Caller Joe (00:54:31):
Oh, I make shirts that have stuff I like on them. I love it. 'cause Why not?
Leo Laporte (00:54:35):
We actually made the stickers. But these are the, these were design. I've got my camera in focus if you want. These are, these are designs here. You can show it off. Hold on one second. Oh, maybe not. Okay, go ahead Joe. What do you want to talk about today?
Caller Joe (00:54:47):
So, I have two questions. One is OSS agnostic and one is Max specific. Which one would you like first?
Leo Laporte (00:54:52):
I like OSS agnostic for 200. Alex. Okay. <Laugh>. Alright. So
Caller Joe (00:54:57):
Like a lot of people, I am my mother's tech support line, like Ilio. So whenever something happens, it's a phone call. Usually panicked as if the world's gonna end. Usually it's very simple. <Laugh>. Yes. And she's on a Windows machine. And what I'd like to do is at some point move her to a Mac because I think it would be easier for her for what she does. She's not a power user, it's email, web browsing basic stuff. So at some point I'd like to get her a MacBook Air. But what I need to have, and I've played around with a couple, but I've never really been satisfied with any of the ones I've tried before, is a remote PC piece of software that can live on both machines. So OSS agnostic so that I can gradually move her. Yeah. Be able to say, okay, what is not working on this machine? Let me look how you have it set
Leo Laporte (00:55:38):
On the Yeah, I did that for a long time with mom when she was still using computers. She's kinda moved to the iPad 'cause it's simpler.
Caller Joe (00:55:44):
I've been trying that too, but it's just she
Leo Laporte (00:55:47):
Wants a computer. She a computer. I don't blame her. Yeah.
Caller Joe (00:55:49):
She's like, she's used a keyboard, mouse. It's that simple. She's used to that. That was her whole life. Keyboard, mouse. That's
Leo Laporte (00:55:53):
Fine. Yeah. My mom as she's gotten older, she's 90 now. Really? It, it's not, it's become less of an issue. But I used, I'm trying to remember what I, I used GoToMeeting or go to my PC for a while. Team Viewer is free. I was thinking Team Viewer. That's cross platform. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> LogMeIn does a number of commercial tools somewhat like that. Let's see. Let's see what our Yeah 'cause it's gotta be platform agnostic. Scooter X can, scooter X, can you use Apple Remote Desktop with Windows? Maybe you can. Yeah. Maybe there's a tool
Mikah Sargent (00:56:23):
Team viewer. Oh, okay. For sure.
Leo Laporte (00:56:25):
But Screen Connect, ConnectWise, RETCON five is an IT professional. So he probably is wired up with a bunch of these different ones. He likes Screen Connect. Okay. ConnectWise Team Viewer. We're looking at our I R C. These guys are all exactly the the kind of nerds that would be doing this. Exactly.
Mikah Sargent (00:56:43):
Yeah.
Caller Joe (00:56:43):
And the one other thing about it is it would probably have to, and I don't mind paying, so it's, if it's it's not free, that's okay. 'cause It'd be worth it to be able to make sure she gets what she needs. 'cause I'd have to run it on two machines
Leo Laporte (00:56:53):
Probably once. Almost all of them. If they're free, they're freemium and so you'll end up paying anyway. Okay, that's fine. And actually, you know, you, do you zoom with her when you talk to her?
Caller Joe (00:57:04):
I've tried, but Zoom has had problems on her machine, which is one of the things I'd like to solve. Okay. And then ideally that's what I mean is that, and with Windows, as you both know, there's all those little things mm-hmm. <Affirmative> that it's easy once you know what you're looking at. But her trying to describe it to me. Right,
Mikah Sargent (00:57:18):
Exactly.
Caller Joe (00:57:18):
She'll tell me something isn't there when I know it's there. The red X in the corner's not there. Now maybe it isn't, but I'm pretty sure it is. It's right
Leo Laporte (00:57:24):
Here Mom. It's right here. Right.
Caller Joe (00:57:26):
So rather than frustrat her for 20 minutes saying I know it's there, mom, go find it. If I can just see it, okay, I'll take care of it. Just sit back and we'll get it working. And
Leo Laporte (00:57:34):
I'm gonna, I'm gonna go with re con 'cause he is an IT professional and a good friend. And I trust his judgment. He's, he says go to Screen connect.com and look at the ConnectWise. They have a free trial. He says it's really reliable. You know, zoom does have screen sharing. So, so if it's just from time to time, if you're That's true. If you're using one of those, any of them Google Meet, all of them have screen sharing. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> just for, for occasional use. Like, mom, the X is there now show me the X. See, it's right there, mom. That might be enough. But if you wanna do this a lot, it's probably a good idea.
Mikah Sargent (00:58:12):
Yeah. 'cause you can even tell us straight on the other person's screen in Zoom. Exactly. So yeah, you may not have to go all the way. You can just draw a big arrow. X
Leo Laporte (00:58:20):
Is there isn't working
Mikah Sargent (00:58:21):
<Laugh>. Oh right. That's right. Zoom's not working that.
Leo Laporte (00:58:22):
So
Caller Joe (00:58:23):
Well once it is. So it, if it can get me and it'd be a good backup. Yeah. Maybe
Leo Laporte (00:58:26):
Try the free trial trial, do the free, get
Mikah Sargent (00:58:29):
Zoom working, get working and then you can,
Leo Laporte (00:58:30):
And then the reason being, you know, obviously fewer, it's easier for her if you only use one program for a number of things. And if she's already used to Zoom and you're already zooming each other who's Zoom? And who is the question?
Caller Joe (00:58:44):
<Laugh>? Well, she's used to FaceTime, but that's not available on Windows. I know. So it's one of those things where trying to bleach the two until I can move her, once I get her around Mac's, a lot of these problems go away.
Mikah Sargent (00:58:52):
Exactly. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:58:53):
Yep.
Caller Joe (00:58:53):
Yeah. And that's fine. I can be patient, but that's why I want something I can use on both to make sure that if she suddenly says, oh, this is missing. Okay, lemme go look. Oh, I found it. I, let's install Outlook. I'm sure. Something like that. Something easy.
Leo Laporte (00:59:05):
So Team Viewer is a great one. A lot of people use just for, for time to time, IM just gonna fire it up 'cause it's free for personal use. You get more serious, like an IT professional screen connect from ConnectWise. And ultimately maybe just try TeamViewer viewer, I think promise you, you know, there's this burden of getting Mom to use something and now we're gonna use something else. And so you wanna make it as simple as possible. What, let me ask the chat room this. 'cause They're so good at this. And I, I know you're in the Discord or a club twit, so if they have some suggestions in there, you'll see that as well, Joe. But what is the easiest for the end user? What would you suggest? That's a good question. An older person might prefer, like, have the simplest time getting up and running. Ah,
Mikah Sargent (00:59:53):
Someone says, I use Team Viewer to support my mom and her
Leo Laporte (00:59:56):
Computer. Okay. Okay. I think Team Viewer is,
Caller Joe (01:00:01):
But I'll look in, I'll look in there for, for
Leo Laporte (01:00:02):
Suggestions. At least you can try that there. And then, you know, what you wanna do is before you even suggest it is, play with it yourself. Maybe get another machine Right. And make sure that the end user experience is good enough so that mom doesn't have to jump through hoops just to
Caller Joe (01:00:15):
Yeah. And I can do that. 'cause I, I have a couple machines so I can, I can play around,
Leo Laporte (01:00:18):
If you get Mom to use Zoom or MS Teams or Google Meet, all of those have screen sharing and and then, and Teams is available on the Mac too, believe it or not. And then you'd have, and those are all free, and then she'd be using it to talk to you and, and you can for help out. So
Caller Joe (01:00:35):
I think Zoom is gonna be the ultimate goal. I bet you it's once I can figure out what's happening with it. And that way you just move to Zoom with that as a backup.
Leo Laporte (01:00:43):
Reccon five says, we have all of our third party contractors use Screen Connect. It's secure. It works. I used to use team version viewer, but version differences made it keep changing the goalposts. The problem is, of course, screen connects an enterprise solution. So maybe a little harder to use and may be a little more expensive. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> Team Viewer is probably the one that most,
Caller Joe (01:01:03):
Well, I have options most of our, so thank thank you. Chat room and everything. Yay.
Leo Laporte (01:01:06):
That's great. Now you said you had a Mac question, Joe.
Caller Joe (01:01:08):
Yeah, this is a little bit more specific to like what I do, which is I do a Twitch stream that I do my artwork on. Oh, nice.
Leo Laporte (01:01:15):
That's part of that.
Caller Joe (01:01:16):
What is it? What I'm, what I'm doing. I'm
Leo Laporte (01:01:17):
Guessing it's Ozone Art Foundry, but I might be wrong. Well,
Caller Joe (01:01:22):
It's Twitch tv slash the Ozone nightmare because I made that for my podcast originally and now I've converted over to an art stream. So.
Leo Laporte (01:01:29):
Good. All right. It's,
Caller Joe (01:01:30):
You know, the names are sort of aligned, but they're always Ozone.
Leo Laporte (01:01:33):
Link Tree has the ozone nightmare. All right. I'm following
Caller Joe (01:01:35):
You with the D in front. Yeah. so for that I'm mirroring my iPad Pro onto a Mac. I'm not using the, I don't want the entire, 'cause when you do the native mirroring, it takes over the whole screen, which is what I don't want. I just want like an isolated window with the iPad in it that I'm then using through O B S. And I have a program I'm using now called Reflector, which is okay. But it's very feature light and it tends to disconnect a lot. So I'm wondering, and Micah, this maybe this is no iOS today question, it's maybe it's better for that. But if you know offhand something that would allow me to do a, a third party program, uhhuh, that would let me just take the iPad screen, put it in its own window on the Mac that then I could use in O B S and, you know, connect to it and do the artwork on. So it's just not taking over the Mac. It's just an isolated iPad screen. 'cause I don't think it does that now. Right.
Mikah Sargent (01:02:25):
Oh, so you essentially want to be able to see on your Mac what you're doing on your iPad screen, and then have that be served up to O B S as an output?
Caller Joe (01:02:40):
Well, yeah. So as his own isolated prob, so yes, his output would be correct, but that, but I don't want to take over the Mac because I know now when I've done the traditional one, it just takes over the whole thing and it's like, well then I can't do other things, respond to chats. I can't, yeah. I can't do other things. That's what I want. And the, and Reflector does that. It's just not the best program I've ever used. So I didn't know if there was something that might be superior to it. So, but like I said, maybe this is an iOS today type question. I don't know.
Mikah Sargent (01:03:04):
Yes and no. You could, so if you plug your iPad into your Mac and then you open up QuickTime I'm pretty sure then you can go and choose file new screen recording and then okay. It, and then you in the little down carrot that's down at the bottom next to record, I'm fairly certain then you could choose your iPad as the screen recording that you're wanting to do again while your iPad is plugged in. And then you can basically use that QuickTime as you
Caller Joe (01:03:42):
Know. So the QuickTime window would be isolated then with it within it? Yes,
Mikah Sargent (01:03:45):
Correct. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So I would try that first and then if that doesn't work for you, which you could do, is the solution that Rosemary Orchard and I use every week on iOS today, which it would be a whole change for you. So that's why I don't wanna recommend it first, but Ecamm live because it does everything that you're talking about, plus it, it would basically replace O B SS entirely. Now it's not as, it's actually better than O B S I think. I, it absolutely. Yeah. It is a hundred pro it. As long as you're on the Mac, it's great. It's fantastic. The only difference is, of course, that is Windows course O Bs. Yeah. O b s you don't pay for, right? This you do pay for. Yeah. But it is it's got all of the stuff that you're talking about. It's got integration. So your chats would actually be in one of the windows with eca. Like all of it's there. It can stream to YouTube, it can stream to Twitch, it can stream to all these different places. It also has a builtin like interview feature. So Yeah. You may check.
Caller Joe (01:04:43):
I'm not opposed to paying for I if it works. So I, I pay for reflector, so I'll pay for it if it works. Okay. Ecamm is, is really, yeah. So I used ECA a long time ago for my audio recording for my podcast, but I, I have never tried to you've
Mikah Sargent (01:04:55):
Probably used EAM m's Skype call recorder. Yeah. Yes.
Caller Joe (01:04:59):
When I was using that.
Mikah Sargent (01:05:00):
Yeah, me too. So I used to use that. Yeah, so definitely check out it's E C A M m.com and then they, everything about everything that they do, how ECA live. But yeah, try the QuickTime thing first. 'cause You know, it might save you some time and money having to move everything over. But then ECA can be your, your
Leo Laporte (01:05:16):
Backup. You using procreate on the iPad for your art? Yes. Oh,
Caller Joe (01:05:20):
Nice. Procreate. Yep. Yeah, I'm watching, yeah. For 99% of it.
Leo Laporte (01:05:23):
Yeah. I'm watching your stream from this morning. It's really
Caller Joe (01:05:26):
Fun to watch. Oh yeah. That's what I was doing like two hours ago. Yeah. And that was me trying out o B s for the first time because I was using the Twitch beta software. Yeah. And for whatever reason, it just choose the max C P U up for no reason. I can figure out. And O B S maxed it, maybe 15% at one point. And Twitch would regularly hit 40 and it would spike to a hundred. And it just wrecked the system. I, it's
Leo Laporte (01:05:48):
Weird. Dunno what's wrong with, it's when I, maybe they've changed it, but when I was using Twitch software, it was O B ss, it was a white label branded version of O B O Bs. Mm-Hmm. But maybe they're using an older version or maybe they've switched to their own software, which would be,
Caller Joe (01:05:59):
They've done some updates to it that have made it what I think is worse, too bad. So I don't know if they're trying to branch off and they're having problems. I don't know it, I don't know what's going on. I'm not technical enough to know, but I just said, okay, I need something else 'cause this is too much of a headache and it's literally causing my screen to black screen and reset. Oh, that's terrible. So I'm like, no, I'm not
Leo Laporte (01:06:16):
Doing that. And scooter X says if you buy Cam now, and this is not spam 'cause he doesn't work for them. Although of course Stock Rock does rock Stock Rock does. Yeah. 30% discount on the site right now. 23. July 30. Oh, nice. So this would be a good time to snf it up. Yeah, yeah. I'll look at it. I never use it. And I pay for ECA Pro. Oh, <laugh>. Just, just 'cause I, I don't know why I bought it because I thought someday during Covid I thought maybe I'd have to broadcast from the house. And now I figure well, I got it. And if I ever do have to broadcast from the house, you'll have it. I'll have it if the studio falls into a sink hole or something. Hey Joe, great to talk to you. Thank you for the artwork. You do do for Hold
Mikah Sargent (01:06:53):
On. 1 1, 1 last thing. Oh no. One more thing. Oh yeah, there was a question.
Leo Laporte (01:06:56):
Benito is weighing
Mikah Sargent (01:06:58):
In. Hi. Hi Joe. This is producer John. Oh, it's John Ashley. I just wanna say Benito, I love your artwork on the shielded card from Magic The Gathering.
Leo Laporte (01:07:06):
Oh, they know your card.
Caller Joe (01:07:08):
Everybody loves that one. Yeah, no, thank you. That's the, that's the popular one. Everybody loves that one. How
Leo Laporte (01:07:13):
Do you know that? That's Joe's. Oh
Caller Joe (01:07:15):
My name's it.
Leo Laporte (01:07:16):
We just looked it up. They looked it up and they both apparently play that silly game.
Caller Joe (01:07:22):
Well, I have, it's
Mikah Sargent (01:07:23):
A very intense game.
Caller Joe (01:07:25):
How big are your,
Leo Laporte (01:07:26):
How big is your deck? Do you have a giant stack of cards, <laugh>?
John Ashley (01:07:30):
No, but I have maybe a collection of over 10,000 cards at least. And it's maybe worth maybe like, at least $10,000. I don't know.
Leo Laporte (01:07:38):
Oh, you just scared Joe out of the No, no, no, no,
Caller Joe (01:07:40):
No. I'm gonna show you, this is the binder of all the artist proofs that I've got. You have
Leo Laporte (01:07:45):
All the artist
Mikah Sargent (01:07:46):
Proofs. Wow. That's your,
Caller Joe (01:07:47):
Yeah, they send them to you. So John and Benito, if you message me on Discord and I will do a little Doodle and I'll send 'em to you. 'cause I have about 300 of 'em. So I'm, I'm happy to do that. So you send to DM me? Yeah. I'll not say, I'll send them up there.
John Ashley (01:08:01):
Really nice shiny artist proof children.
Leo Laporte (01:08:04):
<Laugh>. And I will give you a Beanie Baby <laugh> from 2 19 95.
Caller Joe (01:08:10):
Excellent. The one thing I'm missing from my collection stuff,
Leo Laporte (01:08:13):
<Laugh> from the nineties. Excellent. Joe, always a pleasure you for all you do. We love your illustrations. Take care. Yep. Take care. Yep. That is a very nerdy
Mikah Sargent (01:08:23):
Game. The whole situation there. It's the very game That's a
Leo Laporte (01:08:26):
Billion dollar. It's a lot of fun. No, I, I agree.
Mikah Sargent (01:08:28):
By the way club twit members twit tv slash club twit, you can check out an, a very early episode in Club Twit where I interviewed John Ashley and one of the things we talked about was Magic the gathering. So I learned a lot. I it was a bad interview. It was a good interview. John. You did great. I'm much of on camera person, so Yes. You can learn a little bit about John who is apparently like a renowned magic the gathering player.
Leo Laporte (01:08:55):
And Scooter X admits that he has teeny beanies from the McDonald's Happy Meal.
Mikah Sargent (01:09:00):
I remember those.
Leo Laporte (01:09:01):
Yeah. The teeny beanies were much, were a few years later. Yeah. On his desk. <Laugh>. Alright, John Ashley, dealer's Choice. Voicemail, producer's choice. We're going to voicemail software. Yes, indeed. Elaine
Caller David (01:09:17):
Software. This is David Tcht. Streaming
Leo Laporte (01:09:19):
Software is doing, wait a minute, hang on. It's doing it at a, wait a minute
Mikah Sargent (01:09:22):
Corner. Is that from you? From Twitch?
Leo Laporte (01:09:25):
Oh, I'm playing Twitch. That's from me. Sorry about that. I will mute my audio and then we can start. Oh, go ahead
Caller David (01:09:34):
With the laptop. Elf in Redondo Beach, California. Hi
Leo Laporte (01:09:37):
Dave, the laptop Elf.
Caller David (01:09:38):
We're anticipating donations of End of Life Chromebooks. You wanna refurbish them with a new operating system. Where do you recommend for an approach to installing a Linux distro on these machines? Es you really want distro that is geared to the novice user. We now use Linux Mint on Old Windows and Mac units. Thank you for all of your help. And we really like the new format for Ask the Tech, tech guys.
Leo Laporte (01:09:59):
Thank you, Dave. I'm glad
Caller David (01:10:00):
You're a member of Club Twit. I want care. Thank you.
Leo Laporte (01:10:04):
I, an
Mikah Sargent (01:10:05):
Audio from Dave is
Leo Laporte (01:10:06):
The laptop. I know. I love his voice. Yeah. He works outta la He helps schools and others with refurbished laptops. He used to be a, there's actually a great article about him in the registers Daily Breeze at daily breeze.com. So he takes old, old old computers and refurbishes them and as a, you know, as a, just kind of a,
Mikah Sargent (01:10:31):
A gift. A kindness.
Leo Laporte (01:10:31):
Yeah. A kindness. Yeah. that's a really interesting question.
Mikah Sargent (01:10:36):
Yeah. Because Chromebooks specifically are relatively low powered, right? So a Linux distro for Nubes <laugh> that can run on a Chromebook. You
Leo Laporte (01:10:51):
Know what I really wonder? So Google bought a company called Never Wear. Okay. That was designed to put Chromium OSS is open source, just like Chromium is the open source version of Chrome. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> Chromium OS is the open source version of Chrome oss. And Never Wear was taking Chromium OSS and putting it on Windows PCs. Google bought 'em and they call it Chrome OSS Flex. Oh, yes. And it is a standalone version of Chrome OSS that you can install on PCs. I don't, would it be Ora Boros to take ah, promos Flex and put it on a Chrome, an old Chromebook to make it more up to date? I don't, I don't know. Maybe that's the right thing to do. Yeah. They say PC and Mac, but of course it's Google. They wanna sell you a new Chromebook. I'm really curious if that's the case.
(01:11:46):
It's just, it is Linux. Let's first of all say that Chromos is Linux. It's just a, a, a lockdown version of Linux that only allows you to run the Chrome browser. And that's one of the reasons you can run Linux easily on Chrome oss of course any Chromebook can, there's a developer mode you can turn on, which will allow you then to rewrite the firmware and to put Linux on it or anything else you want on it. You could even put Windows on it, but you're right, these have very little memory. They're usually cheap, slow processors. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. They're really good for Chromebooks. So he was putting Mint, mint probably isn't the best choice for a computer like that. Right. But his chief interest is ease of use. And one of the reasons you like Mint is 'cause it looks like Windows.
(01:12:34):
You know, I mean, I would look at something like s small Dog Linux or damn small Linux. There are a lot of Linuxes that are designed to be very lightweight and to run on, you know, four gigs of Ram and an older processor and stuff like that. And I think what you're gonna wanna do, Dave almost is small dog the same as puppy. Linox puppy Linux. Yeah. I think of, yeah, sorry. It is a small dog. Puppy is a small, it's a small dog. <Laugh> puppy. Linux is one. I think it's called Damn Small. If you go to the what is the name? Oh boy. My brain is failing me. You know, I have a 70 year old brain. I know. I just wanna warn you, this is why we have to have Micah here. <Laugh>. what is, there's a great site that say Linux distro site distro watch.org I think.
(01:13:20):
Yeah. if you go to Distro watch, you can find some really small, Linux is designed for slow machines. Even, you know, I'm sad to say even the Linux project and, and Linus Tour Vaults are kind of abandoning those old processors because there's a limited amount of cycles they can use to develop and so forth. Puppy Linnux would be a good choice. But what you'd want to do, yeah. Is is then I think customize it yourself. Hmm. So, and any Linux that can do this, I don't know how sophisticated you are, Dave, but any Linux you can, you could make it as Google has done with Linux for Chrome oss very straightforward. You can lock everything else out, get rid of the installers, have it be an automatic upgrade. Maybe just lock it into Firefox or Ice Weasel or whatever open source version of a browser you want to use.
(01:14:13):
And have it only be that there it's absolutely doable. If you are not up to that yourself, maybe go on Reddit or one of the Linux forums and ask for some help. I bet you there'd be somebody out there given that you're doing this for good, for a good reason and good cause who could help you make a custom Linux of your very own. If you might be starting instead of Poppy Linux, say with Arch and building it up from scratch and only install the stuff that's absolutely needed, design a user interface that is very simple. You can take one of the existing desktop interfaces and maybe dumb it down or lock it down. I don't wanna use the word, dumb it down. Lock it down.
Mikah Sargent (01:14:56):
The laptop Elfs os like
Leo Laporte (01:14:59):
The
Mikah Sargent (01:14:59):
Yeah. Elf
Leo Laporte (01:15:00):
Os ultimately that might be the solution, but it also is the case, and I'm sure you already have done this, Dave. There are some laptops that are just not worth reclaiming. Right. And it may be older Chromebooks with so little hardware support are just not worth, you know. Thank you. It's very kind of you. But we're gonna have to grind them up because there's no market. There's no way we can really make these usable. Let's take a little pause. A little pause that refreshes what do you do when you take a pause yourself? Do you, do you use that time to chew some bubble gum? <Laugh>?
Mikah Sargent (01:15:35):
I, sorry, I was paused. Yes, indeed. I do chew some bubble gum. I am guessing that you're making a reference to an old chewing gum commercial. No, no. A paw that refreshes is not chewing gum. That's
Leo Laporte (01:15:48):
Soda paw. Really? Yes. I think that's Pepsi. Isn't it the paw that refreshes? I believe it is. No, I was just thinking, you know, normally I would say smoke 'em if you've got 'em. <Laugh>, but nobody smokes anymore.
Mikah Sargent (01:16:01):
<Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (01:16:03):
Okay. I know you don't smoke, so maybe do you do a little, just a pinch between the cheek and gum? Y
Mikah Sargent (01:16:10):
No, no. Actually I'm, I was going, I was gonna Yes. And you, but then I thought, I really don't want anyone out there that doing that. Don't
Leo Laporte (01:16:17):
I have a friend who's picked up the habit when he lived in Scandinavia.
Mikah Sargent (01:16:22):
Oh, is it more common? There's,
Leo Laporte (01:16:23):
Yeah. Apparently there's a kind of a, I don't can remember. I think it was, yeah, there's a Swedish chewing snuff. What? Yeah. Snuff. What do you call it? It's not, is it chewing tobacco?
Mikah Sargent (01:16:34):
Chewing tobacco. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:16:35):
That's a terrible, oof.
Mikah Sargent (01:16:36):
It's so, I mean, you're literally just putting the horrible things right on your gums, which are already so prone to absorption. That's not do, it's just very bad's.
Leo Laporte (01:16:47):
Alright, that was the pause.
Mikah Sargent (01:16:48):
Oh, right. The pause that refreshes,
Leo Laporte (01:16:50):
That's so that they can stick something
Mikah Sargent (01:16:52):
In there. Now I realize what's going on, <laugh>. Yeah. So my brain is going to, yeah.
Backbeat Media (01:16:57):
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 fangirl. We've got you covered with the cult cast delivering all the I 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 Gabb 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 Terpstra 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 (01:17:57):
We're back and we never left. If you, if you, if we didn't, and if we did, then welcome back. We're back <laugh>. And you told me to take a call, I believe. Phone call. Yeah, phone call is what you would like me to do. Now, how do I know? Is Las Vegas, Nevada a phone call? Yes. All right. We are at Las Las <laugh> as as Larry King used to say Las Vegas. You're on. Hello. Las Vegas.
Chef Guy (01:18:24):
Hello. Las Vegas.
Leo Laporte (01:18:25):
Hello. Welcome to the show. What's your first name
Chef Guy (01:18:29):
Calling All the way from San Fri Santa Rosa. I'm not in Las Vegas. Whoa. That's what threw me off. Oh,
Leo Laporte (01:18:35):
Well your phone
Chef Guy (01:18:35):
Says old
Leo Laporte (01:18:36):
Guy. You know what old chef guy? You must have lived in Las Vegas when you got your cell phone. 'cause It says Las Vegas. It does say Las
Backbeat Media (01:18:41):
Vegas.
Leo Laporte (01:18:42):
Did you know that?
Chef Guy (01:18:45):
No. Actually I'm calling from Skype because I'm the computer and I'm talking to my microphone.
Leo Laporte (01:18:50):
Yeah, you sound really good. So maybe it's says Thank you. Skype has a 7 0 2 area code or something. Yeah. I don't, must be, anyway.
Chef Guy (01:18:58):
I have to have people think I'm calling from Vegas. That's perfect. Yeah. now I have an extra hour of questions now that I held all that time. Oh, thank you. My first one is because of the Linux conversation, I have the original Chromebook plex. The original LSS 20 15 16 gigabyte Ram I seven Chromebook.
Leo Laporte (01:19:21):
Wow.
Chef Guy (01:19:22):
Which was a beast for me. Yeah. It was just a beast.
Leo Laporte (01:19:25):
That was kind of great keyboard. That was kind of almost a demo version of the Chromebook. Right? Yeah. They would just show how powerful it could be. Right. This is
Backbeat Media (01:19:34):
What you could
Chef Guy (01:19:34):
Have. Yeah. And it's still on my favorite keyboard, so that
Leo Laporte (01:19:36):
Would be
Chef Guy (01:19:37):
Fine. Evening surfing.
Leo Laporte (01:19:38):
Yeah, that would be fine to run any version of Linux. 'cause It's a nice seven in there. And how much Ram 16,
Chef Guy (01:19:45):
16 gigs.
Leo Laporte (01:19:46):
Yeah. See that that, but that most Chromebooks sold these days are $200, $300, $500 machines that don't have anything like that. But yeah, you've got a nice machine that's, I have an old Pixel book, one of the, one of Google's pixel books. There's no reason that shouldn't keep running except Google after a certain period of time says we're not gonna give you new. Yeah, there it is. I brought, I, I'm, I'm, I'm bringing it to Abby because she prefers a Chromebook. It's
Mikah Sargent (01:20:14):
Very pretty. This
Leo Laporte (01:20:14):
Is a, this I wish Google would still make these, these are really, wow.
Mikah Sargent (01:20:17):
Look how thin it is. Really, really nice. And this is like thin before we had the i, the MacBook hes and everything. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:20:25):
This was a nice machine. So anyway, yeah.
Chef Guy (01:20:26):
This 2015 is heavy enough that you could hit somebody in the head <laugh> Yeah. With it and knock them out. Yeah. But in terms of a laptop machine or an evening surfing machine, it's really nice. But I'd like to update it. I'm gonna go look at the Chrome OS Flex and see if that might be an info.
Leo Laporte (01:20:41):
I bet you can't put it on there. I'm just be my guess at Google somehow prevents that. But, but Linux is fine on that. It should be a, an awesome choice actually.
Chef Guy (01:20:50):
Great. So my original call is, I live in an area west of Santa Rosa where when the power goes out, I have no cell reception. I have no internet.
Mikah Sargent (01:21:00):
Whoa.
Chef Guy (01:21:01):
And when I'm producing a show, my other handle is talk to me guy. And so when I'm producing a show for somebody or an online event, I'd like to have a backup. Like a hotspot or a something. Well, you
Leo Laporte (01:21:14):
Can't, if the cell goes out, that's how the hotspots work. So
Chef Guy (01:21:18):
You I know. No, but I'm talking about a separate hotspot from a different provider. My, my cell is with T-Mobile.
Leo Laporte (01:21:23):
Well, t T-Mobile and Verizon both offer a residential service. But if the power goes out, it's my guess that Verizon would also go out. That the cell towers are losing their power. And, and you're, I'm gonna guess that, you know, neither one is gonna, no cell providers gonna work. Why would T-Mobile go out but not Verizon?
Mikah Sargent (01:21:42):
Yeah. You'd almost have to test every single cell
Leo Laporte (01:21:44):
Provider. I guess it depends where the outage is. If the Verizon Tower is just outside that area, it would still work. But there's no promise of that. That's kind of a problem. I don't know. Yes. No, but the problem is the base station needs power. No. You could have some sort of battery operated. Right?
Mikah Sargent (01:22:03):
Yeah. You'd ultimately have to have power
Leo Laporte (01:22:05):
That keeps the base unit running. Yeah. Starlink would be one choice. I think you can get it up here now. Another choice maybe. Is Sonic available in your neck of the woods?
Chef Guy (01:22:16):
No, I have bad words for Sonic. Yeah. Uhoh and I love Sonic. Yeah. But they won't, they haven't come out here yet. I'm west of Fulton Road in Santa Rosa. So you're, and they're not here.
Leo Laporte (01:22:25):
The, the IRC is saying, oh no, don't worry, because cell towers have backup power. But you just told us the cell cell service goes out.
Chef Guy (01:22:32):
No, no. I can have cell service for about 10 minutes and then their little 12 volt battery, auto battery, that's a backup for their tower goes out.
Mikah Sargent (01:22:40):
Got it. So,
Leo Laporte (01:22:41):
So maybe Verizon would be better in that they might have a generator <laugh>
Mikah Sargent (01:22:45):
Something stronger.
Leo Laporte (01:22:47):
I mean, this is for years. And you know, this for years, I told people on the radio show, make sure you have a landline. Because back in the days of Ma Bell, the landline was designed to power itself from the central office, which did have backup power. And so in an emergency, when the power is out, a regular phone would work. Mm-Hmm. When a cell might not. But that's not gonna help you with your podcast <laugh>, you
Chef Guy (01:23:13):
Know? No, thank you. You
Leo Laporte (01:23:14):
Know, we've, when I was at Tech tv, we had a, an entire, a generator the size of this room, practically in the back so that, because it was a TV channel, right. So that if the power went out in San Francisco, the diesel generator would go and would power the whole studio. 'cause It had to be huge to power all the lights and every, I mean, this was a huge amount of power. Yeah. for redundancy. Even then, I remember one time we're standing, we're doing the, the screensavers, the lights go out. Even with this big, you hear the generator. P it's nothing's happening. And the reason I knew we were dead in the water is 'cause we had a jib camera. It's on a, it's a crane, it's on an arm. And the camera is powered so that the operator at one end can power the camera.
(01:24:02):
And the camera went and started pointing at the floor. And I thought, oh, I guess we're done. And it, even with the generator rear out. So we thought at one point when we set up the the studios, actually, we, we thought about it with the brick house. We've thought about it here in the East side studio. Maybe we should have a big generator. But then I realized it's gonna go out. It's a podcast. Oh yeah. It's not mission critical. If the power goes out, guess what? If we suddenly go dark, the power went out and we'll see you whenever it comes back. I see you. When we see you. How vital is this that you old chef guy keep your podcast going?
Chef Guy (01:24:42):
Well, it's not just for me. It's what I'm producing for other people in other countries or in other states.
Leo Laporte (01:24:47):
Oh, so it's part of your business. So it really is mission critical.
Chef Guy (01:24:50):
Yeah. It's, it's my business. Yeah. Well, not enough where I'm gonna spend a couple grand on a stupid diesel generator.
Leo Laporte (01:24:56):
Yeah. 'cause that's one thing you can do. And they actually have now liquid natural gas powered generators. Mm-Hmm. That'll hooked up, be hooked up to the gas lines in your house. Oh, really? And those are fairly quiet. Yeah. They, they're low polluting. And they will in fact keep you going forever. Because, you know, even when the electricity goes out, the gas usually does not. But you know, we bought Tesla power walls, which are $6,000 each or something. We to, to keep the house online. Yeah. not because of mission critical, but just because we're on a well, and when the power goes out, so do the toilets, <laugh>, and that's mission critical pump <laugh>. Yeah. You have the, the water's pumped up from the ground. So if the power goes out, oh yeah. We don't have any water. Yeah. That's awful.
(01:25:41):
And while I can survive without my computer for a day or two Yeah. W the Yes. Exactly. I need to take a shower. So that's the least of the water. The least of the word. So if you don't want to do a big old battery or a power backup like that yeah. I mean, I You could try Verizon. I like the Verizon service. It's really gonna depend on whether the Verizon cell tower is close enough to get good bandwidth, and whether it's battery backed up or, or generator backed up at the cell tower so that the power goes out. How often does your power go out?
Chef Guy (01:26:19):
We have, during the heat wave, we've lost power to three times now. Oof. Times. Just recently. Yeah. So we, it just, we seem to be in that weird fringe area. Well, although we're surrounded by large developments of homes, you'd think there would be power out
Leo Laporte (01:26:32):
Here. But remember, remember during the wildfires coffee Creek or whatever it was destroyed completely Nice residential
Chef Guy (01:26:42):
Store. Yeah. I'm three miles from there. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:26:44):
Oh my. So what happens, pg and e goes, oh God, we can't do that again. So they turn off the power. It's a public safety power shutdown. Yeah. It's not about the power going out. Since
Mikah Sargent (01:26:55):
Some of them are planned, what I would suggest is, see if Verizon 'cause a lot of these cellular, they'll let you know, they have a try it for free, like for a week thing. So the next time you hear about one of these mm-hmm. <Affirmative> actually planned ones coming up, get the sim from Verizon or the EIM from Verizon. And during that week where you're gonna experience the power outages, you can try it. And if Verizon stays up longer than you'll know. So that way you're not having to go all in on, like, getting a Verizon phone to see if Verizon or a Verizon hotspot. You can at least just try it. 'cause They, yeah. Many of them have, like T-Mobile does a, they'll have a trial service for a
Leo Laporte (01:27:30):
Week. Yeah. Just go to your Verizon store. See, I want to try the residential service, by the way, if you're already a Verizon customer, it's 25 bucks. My, my, I still have the, the, my daughter moved. But I have the unit, I'm trying to decide if I wanna do this for redundancy, for backup. Yeah. Yeah. At that price, it's almost worth it. It's, it's 120 down and 30 up. I mean, it's good. Good. Speed.
Mikah Sargent (01:27:51):
Yeah.
Chef Guy (01:27:51):
That's, yeah. That's, that's enough. I'm an audio only producer, so that's enough. Yeah. You need
Leo Laporte (01:27:54):
To be, but it's gonna really depend on how close to a Verizon tower you are. How close to 1 0 1? This, the freeway. Are you, are you pretty close to 1 0 1
Chef Guy (01:28:03):
Mm. Three or four miles. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:28:04):
You know, you just gotta try it. 'cause It really depends on that. Yeah. You know, it depends on how A, whether you're gonna get good service from it and B, whether they're gonna back it up if the power goes out. I would bet <laugh>, I'm surprised T-Mobile last 10 minutes, that's just T-Mobile. Their infrastructure is really variable across the country. I would bet Verizon has good backup power generation.
Chef Guy (01:28:25):
It's too bad. They have really good customer service. I love
Leo Laporte (01:28:27):
T-Mobile and I'm just willing Yeah. You know, to put up with, it's fine in Petaluma, just down the road from you they just put in a five G Ultra capacity cell very nearby. So while we didn't have T-Mobile at all in this studio, when we moved in, we had to get a Femto cell. Now we're getting ultra capacity, very high speed. So it, it's just nice. You know, it's, it's iffy. They're, their infrastructure is not as Verizon really pays a lot attention, I think, to infrastructure. That's why they're more
Chef Guy (01:28:56):
Expensive. Yeah. Currently that's how I have t that's how I have T-Mobile now, is I have a Femto cell myself. Yeah. And when the power's out, that's it. Everything on
Leo Laporte (01:29:04):
I'm all for. Well that's why you lose it. Okay. That's why you lose it. You're using a Femto cell. Yeah. Well, there you go. Yeah. So you're not getting it from a T-Mobile battery power backed up.
Chef Guy (01:29:13):
No, I'm getting it from a, I'm getting from
Leo Laporte (01:29:15):
Your internet <laugh> that gets it from the internet that's plugged into your ethernet. So that's why Now I understand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get the get either get, you might even the T-Mobile might even be, yeah, it might be fine. Well wait a minute. The reason he's got a femto cell ness. Oh. 'cause it's too far away. Yeah. Okay. Try the Verizon. I was very happy with it. I was very impressed with the Verizon.
Chef Guy (01:29:36):
Okay. And then one very short question, is there a simple pathway from Simplenote, which I have years of notes in from shows Love Simplenote. Yeah. Into Notion. I love Simplenote.
Leo Laporte (01:29:48):
The Simplenote. I How does it store its data. It's Bet you it's a SQL Light database. Lemme look it up. Simple note's. Great. And it was, it was free right? For a long time. Yeah. I think you have to use Still Free's still free. It's still free. I think you have to use Simplenote to export. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And you can't export into text or markdown. Notion will read markdown. But I have to say, it's still gonna be a lot of work to get it all Exactly. You want. You want. Yeah. Yeah. And this is frankly why I don't use Notion personally because it's server based. So Notion stores your data on their servers. I and it, and it doesn't have a very good backup solution. I prefer something that uses plain markdown files. This might be easier for you that you store locally.
(01:30:38):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So Obsidian does that. And I think it's a very good note taking solution as good as simple note using Markdown. So you would export from simplenote, import to Obsidian, and you can use Obsidian for free. My current personal favorite, it's a little quirky. It's absolutely free and it supports local storage. But you could also use gi like GitHub or something like GI to back up your data or Dropbox or whatever. And that's called Loge. L O G SS E q. Loge is free to use open source, which gives me, look, I'm looking for something that I don't have to export ever again. So because it's open source, I know it's not gonna go away. Even if the people who do it give up, somebody will pick it up and it stores it locally as pure markdown, which means you can use it in a variety of things and you're never gonna have to face this again. So it's not as elegant, you know you don't have beautiful fonts and all that stuff. But I would try that. Are you on a PC or a Mac?
Chef Guy (01:31:41):
I'm on a Mac. I produce on a Mac. I use an iPad. I have an Android phone.
Leo Laporte (01:31:45):
I would look at Ba Loge is nice because it works on Android, windows, Mac, Linux, everywhere. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So look at Loge. Okay. If you want something prettier on iOS and Mac os there's Bear. Do you bear?
Mikah Sargent (01:31:59):
Yeah. I love Bear. I just, they just recently updated it and it's pretty great.
Leo Laporte (01:32:02):
It's really gorgeous. And it does the same thing. Plain markdown files on your hard drive. So you're, you're kind of, if you're using Markdown, that's just, you're always gonna be able to go into something else. Exactly. And, and so get the, get the stuff out of simple noting to mark down and then you can try various things.
Mikah Sargent (01:32:20):
Yeah. There you go. This should be okay. You are assign good because I would like something, I'd like something that's cross-platform.
Leo Laporte (01:32:27):
Yes. Well, Loge is aggressively cross-platform and their iOS and Android apps are fantastic. I pay a little bit. Okay. I, I donate to the program so I can use their sync. 'cause They have their own encrypted sync and that works. It works incredibly. Okay. Yeah. So, you know, if I, wonderful. I have it on my iPhone. I have it on my Android devices. I have it on Mac, windows PCs, and it syncs almost instantly. I'm, I'm a huge fan of Loge. I don't know if it's that well known, but it's a really great program. So there it is on my iPhone. Okay, great. Yeah. Hey, it's good to talk to you. Old, old chef guy from, not from Las Vegas. Oh, thank you, <laugh>. Alright, take care. <Laugh> not from Las Vegas. Now John had his hand up, but then it went down and it went up and it went down. I don't know. Should I, I think it's John there though. Yeah,
Mikah Sargent (01:33:15):
Let's go to John. Let's
Leo Laporte (01:33:16):
Go to John. He's it's been getting darker and darker in this room, so we better go to John before, before lights, before it gets too dark. Lights. Completely. Yeah. John, welcome to ask the tech guys. Leo LaPorte, Micah Sergeant, and coming into our Stargate. John, welcome.
Canadian David (01:33:32):
Yeah, well I was done because my computer crashed
Leo Laporte (01:33:36):
<Laugh>. Oh, I saw you wander off. Well, good welcome. Yeah,
Canadian David (01:33:40):
So I had to reboot and I actually, my, I use David, my middle name. Oh, David. Okay. And I'm from Barry. I, I'm from bi Ontario, Canada.
Leo Laporte (01:33:52):
Hello Canadian, David.
Canadian David (01:33:55):
Okay. My question is, I use a, a wifi extender because I don't have access to the router. Yeah. To do a wire. Yeah. And my X extender, which is a net gear, ex 7,000, and I've had it for almost 10 years and it started to crash on me.
Leo Laporte (01:34:24):
Oh
Canadian David (01:34:25):
No. And I, yeah, I need to find a solution because I use a NA finishing NAS between my main computer and my, for my backup, my videos and all that. And I,
Leo Laporte (01:34:42):
David, do you know what brand of router? The, the main router is? The main
Canadian David (01:34:48):
It's a Roger. It's a Rogers, basically it's
Leo Laporte (01:34:51):
From Rogers. Okay. Yeah. So
Canadian David (01:34:54):
It's a really good Rogers.
Leo Laporte (01:34:56):
Yeah. Normally what I usually say is the best extender to use is the one is from the same manufacturer. Yeah. And the reason I say that is because it, there's, it's a loose standard. Yeah. You probably, is it a, do you, you don't control the router at all? It's
Canadian David (01:35:13):
No, I, no, I'm in, I'm basically in a rooming house, so I don't have So
Leo Laporte (01:35:19):
You're attaching to their router? Yeah.
Canadian David (01:35:23):
And the only way, and the reason I do that is because I have to have wire between the na and my main computer.
Leo Laporte (01:35:31):
Right. No, I understand. Because I, yeah, no, it makes sense. I get it. I'm trying to think, since you, I don't know what Rogers uses for hardware, but the neck gear worked f fine for you? Yeah. It,
Canadian David (01:35:44):
I, I, I used two places to go. It was the same setup. Okay. The neck worked great. It worked great, but it is getting old and it yeah. Crashes once in a while.
Leo Laporte (01:35:56):
And even though Mike b and our I R C says routers don't wear out, I'm of the opinion they do <laugh>. Mm-Hmm.
Canadian David (01:36:02):
Oh, I think they do too.
Leo Laporte (01:36:04):
Yeah. See they get hot.
Mikah Sargent (01:36:05):
They get hot.
Leo Laporte (01:36:06):
Yeah. They get hot into wear the mouth for solid state electronics.
Canadian David (01:36:09):
And I already looked at seeing to go to the next version of it. Uhhuh. I just figured I asked you if there was any other solution.
Leo Laporte (01:36:20):
I think Netgear is a good, is a very good product. Looking at a wired guide to the best wifi extenders of 2023. They like TP Link. Nice thing about TP Link. They're in it relatively inexpensive, although I see that the Linksys is even less expensive. And TP link even makes an $18 extender, which
Canadian David (01:36:42):
Yeah. But I, I need, like, I paid, I paid almost $300 for this
Leo Laporte (01:36:48):
One. Yeah. The neck year's
Canadian David (01:36:49):
Expensive. It's like a high end. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. Yeah. But it is like, it's still working after 10 years.
Leo Laporte (01:36:57):
But I, but I have to say, David, it's, they're gonna be better because the standards have changed. I don't know if the rooming house updates. It's Roger's equipment very frequently. Oh
Canadian David (01:37:05):
Yeah. It's all up to date. It's okay. I just moved here a couple of weeks ago and it's like day oh
Leo Laporte (01:37:12):
Oh, oh, oh good. So then you might benefit from getting a more modern extender that can support all the, all the bands and so forth. Yeah. I would say take a look at the TP links. I really like their gear. And this one's $18 dual band, five gigahertz 2.4. But you know what, you may not want it because it doesn't look like it has an ethernet port. It just plugs into wall. Yeah. Well,
Canadian David (01:37:35):
I have to have, you
Leo Laporte (01:37:36):
Have to have that ethernet, don't you? Yeah.
Canadian David (01:37:38):
I have to have at least two, but four is better.
Leo Laporte (01:37:42):
I go with stay with net. I agree. You're having good response with Netgear. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, Netgear continues to make excellent equipment. I think there's no problem with staying with Netgear. Yeah.
Mikah Sargent (01:37:52):
They, the, the most recent one looks great.
Canadian David (01:37:55):
Okay. Just put, I've been listening to since the tech day tech TV days and all that. And did you, I'm in this hot room. Are you,
Leo Laporte (01:38:07):
Are you from, are you from Prince Edward Island originally? Are you wearing a p e i shirt 'cause of that?
Canadian David (01:38:11):
Oh no. I've been, I've been basically in Ontario all my life. Nice. I'm David under Shepherd in the chat room. Oh
Leo Laporte (01:38:20):
Yeah. I know you David.
Canadian David (01:38:22):
Okay. Yeah. I don't text often, but when someone has a problem and I know the answer, I will put my 2 cents worth spin and
Leo Laporte (01:38:34):
I really appreciate it. Yeah, we thank you for that. We love having you in our community, David. Thank you. I
Canadian David (01:38:39):
Appreciate it. No, thank you.
Leo Laporte (01:38:41):
Yeah. And best of luck. Yeah, I think you made a choice with the net gear. I can, I have
Canadian David (01:38:45):
A quick little question. Sure. Because Okay. Because my session I'm using right now, I use four displays, but I'm only using two wires. Why I do, I use two with a Chromecast and a Fire Stick and an app called Space Desk.
Leo Laporte (01:39:05):
Oh, interesting. Holy cow. What do you need four displays for David? Are you day trading
Canadian David (01:39:10):
Well be Well no, because when I'm at home I don't touch my phone or my tablet.
Leo Laporte (01:39:15):
You just have it all there.
Canadian David (01:39:17):
Yeah, I have it all there. I love it. I don't want, I don't wanna touch anything.
Leo Laporte (01:39:22):
It's a command center. I
Canadian David (01:39:24):
Love that. And I, yeah. And I just wanna know it or options to doing that. Hmm.
Canadian David (01:39:33):
You guys know
Leo Laporte (01:39:36):
Would you like to be all wired?
Canadian David (01:39:39):
Yes, but I, on a budget, I don't wanna spend thousand the dollars by Yeah. And graphic or all the parts. I just like it worked. It worked. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:39:55):
I wouldn't mess with it if, if, you know, if you wanted to simplify, you can get the same real estate with a single screen. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. There are a number of really nice de sells them. Samsung just started selling an OLED one, which I'm mouthwatering over, but it's very expensive. But they make 49 inch, so that's gonna go all the way, like this 49 inch displays, that's a single display. And is it gonna be a little simpler to operate than having these four different displays? So then, so when it, maybe you don't need it now 'cause you're, it sounds like everything's working fine. No, but when the time comes, I would look at a larger single display. That's a good idea. Yeah. Because then it's gonna be a lot simpler for configuration. You don't have the bezels in between. And when you want do a fortza, it's a really great driving experience.
(01:40:46):
<Laugh>, it's just, I, I like the why. I, I really, Lisa, my wife's convinced me of this. She, she says, no, no, I need a 49 inch display. So at home and at work, she has a 49 inch display. And it really is good at home. I, I have a 55 inch, it's all, it's a TV, basically. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. That is, is the equivalent of 4 10 80 P displays, right? Yeah. Because it's four K. So that's another way to do it. It depends on whether you stack 'em up. Do you have 'em wide or do you have it tall?
Canadian David (01:41:15):
I think I have a computer table and I have actual clamps that go on the back for the tech instead. You
Leo Laporte (01:41:23):
Have the arms. Yeah.
Canadian David (01:41:25):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:41:26):
And you have two per arm. So is it 1, 2, 3, 4?
Canadian David (01:41:29):
No, it, no, it's two set on the, on the actual surface. And then two are on the I see. On the arm.
Leo Laporte (01:41:37):
Okay. Yes. That wide screen. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that 49 inches is gonna give you the equivalent of those four displays in a single display. So, not now. But when, when the time comes for a new one, I think that's probably a really good way to go that way it's, you don't have bezels. You can drag a window here, drag a window there, have, have different places and stuff. But
Mikah Sargent (01:41:56):
Also props to you for the, the method that you've done that. I love this idea of using these little dongles as clever means of Yeah. Sending videos.
Leo Laporte (01:42:06):
Excuse.
Canadian David (01:42:07):
I, because I, being <inaudible> back a condo pet, if you can remember that far back, I've been, and I had no one to go to, so I had to basically learn.
Leo Laporte (01:42:23):
Right. Basically that was my story too. It was, yeah. You just start from scratch back in the early days and Yeah. And try to keep up <laugh> and now people
Canadian David (01:42:31):
And people come to me for tech support. Nice. Like, I must say, support for a swallow, clients repair company in this area. Nice. And I've been doing that for 30 years now.
Leo Laporte (01:42:45):
The only concern I would say nowadays, the only trouble you're gonna get in with these wifi extenders is make sure you don't get a mesh extender. Those are designed to extend a base mesh, mesh base station. You want a plain old wifi extender. And I noticed Netgear now. Yeah. Selling a lot of Yeah. Well, mesh extenders. And that's not the same thing. Right? Yeah. So stay away from those.
Canadian David (01:43:06):
I always, I always research anything before I buy.
Leo Laporte (01:43:09):
Smart man. Yeah. Hey, it's a real pleasure meeting you David, finally, after all this time in the chat room.
Canadian David (01:43:15):
Yeah. And it's the first time I've had to use Zoom. I hope my audio is fine.
Leo Laporte (01:43:21):
Yeah, no, it's perfect.
Canadian David (01:43:23):
Good. Because I'm just using Bluetooth hip right
Leo Laporte (01:43:27):
Now. Works great. Yeah. It looks, looks sad. We see you. We hear you. You're in the Stargate.
Canadian David (01:43:32):
Okay. Yeah, I see that. So above
Leo Laporte (01:43:35):
The mini Leos,
Canadian David (01:43:37):
I'm going, yeah, I'm gonna say thank you.
Leo Laporte (01:43:40):
Thank you, David. Thanks so much. Have a great day. Okay. Take care. We love our Canadian viewers. Indeed. I found out that these little Leos are online. You can, if you wanna download and make a bigger one. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> Patrick was cheap with the p l a <laugh>. If you wanna make a bigger one, this, who designed it? Do we know?
Mikah Sargent (01:44:02):
He designed it using Hero Forge. He,
Leo Laporte (01:44:04):
He designed it on Hero Forge. So you can go to Hero Forge. They'll actually print it for you. Yes. So, or you can get the design and print it yourself if you want to. So, I don't know. Well,
Mikah Sargent (01:44:14):
We can get the link from him. 'cause It's, yeah, they're basically, you can share it from a custom link. And so we'll get the link from him and let me
Leo Laporte (01:44:21):
Show notes. Let me, I want show it to you 'cause it really looks good, but I don't know. Pretty cool if I could find it. Let's see, let see if I can Google. Hero Forge. Leo LaPorte. Leo check. Andy and Ko did one two of remember Jim Dow Rimple. He did a really nice Jim Dow Rimple at Hero Forge.
Mikah Sargent (01:44:43):
Do you have Slack or something open over there? 'cause I can, yeah, I can send you the link. Slack. The keys I have too.
Leo Laporte (01:44:48):
I have Slack. I I have Slack. Whereabouts in Slack? Would it be
Mikah Sargent (01:44:53):
Perhaps a dmm?
Leo Laporte (01:44:54):
A dmm. A direct message from John Ashley and Micah Sargent both.
Mikah Sargent (01:45:00):
Yes. We're covering our bases.
Leo Laporte (01:45:01):
There you go. Here's the hero. Forge. See, I have the screen of little Leo. Let me accept. And it's downloading 'cause it's a big model. Oh, it's a slow download. Maybe a bunch of other people are trying to get little Leo,
Mikah Sargent (01:45:16):
Leo. They might be trying to get little Leo
Leo Laporte (01:45:19):
<Laugh>. All right. As soon as it loads in I'll do that. Voicemail, email break. We could do that. Break. Break. Oh,
Mikah Sargent (01:45:30):
There we go.
Leo Laporte (01:45:31):
We'll be right back with Little Leo and Hero Forge after this word from our sponsors. Here is here. It's hero forge.com. And it is Patrick Delehanty designed. This doesn't look at all like me, but it's okay. <Laugh>. He's sitting on a ball and he is wearing a twit. Fz. That's all you really need to know. Look at that. And and I believe you could, can you get it?
Mikah Sargent (01:45:57):
Yes.
Leo Laporte (01:45:58):
In color though? Yes. And what I wanna know, you can
Mikah Sargent (01:46:01):
It's, there's like an option for, oh,
Leo Laporte (01:46:03):
Look at this color plastic. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> Excel three D coded printed color. I should get a few of these. Oh, but they don't, and it's extra large, but what is extra large?
Mikah Sargent (01:46:13):
Well, so they call it extra large depending on the feature set. Basically if you do a lot of colors or something, then it costs extra because they are having to use more
Leo Laporte (01:46:20):
Central b l the price. What's extra large?
Mikah Sargent (01:46:22):
Yeah, exactly. Not,
Leo Laporte (01:46:24):
Not the size. Okay. Well I'll order one, A bigger one.
Mikah Sargent (01:46:28):
You know, they also come in bronze and other metals you can get,
Leo Laporte (01:46:31):
Does it come with a 25 sided dice as well? What's the deal there?
Mikah Sargent (01:46:35):
It's showing you the size. It's,
Leo Laporte (01:46:36):
Oh, that's the size
Mikah Sargent (01:46:37):
In comparison to a 20.
Leo Laporte (01:46:38):
Oh, you know all about hero forge.
Mikah Sargent (01:46:39):
Yeah. You're
Leo Laporte (01:46:40):
A hero forged
Mikah Sargent (01:46:41):
Guru. I am. I am a hero forge guru. Actually, I didn't
Leo Laporte (01:46:44):
Know that. Yeah. Oh, very cool. Alright, I'm gonna reach back.
Mikah Sargent (01:46:47):
It's, it's, the reason site exists is to create miniatures for like Dungeons and Dragons and stuff.
Leo Laporte (01:46:53):
Oh, so they're all, they're all this size or,
Mikah Sargent (01:46:55):
Yes, exactly. That's, that's the proper size for playing different miniature games. But that's actually not easy what he did, because typically you've got elves and humans and, and, but they're all, you know, they're wearing adventure gear for Dungeons and Dragons. So the fact that he was able to create a modern person sitting on an exercise ball with a fez on is actually, well,
Leo Laporte (01:47:17):
Andy created a Jim Dow Rimple with beer bottles at his feet.
Mikah Sargent (01:47:21):
Yeah, beer bottles. That's easy. 'cause You have a lot of adventures. Drinking beer. Like he, you could have a, yeah, you could have a a, a dwarf you know, craftsman who makes beer on the side or something. Every adventure starts in a tavern. Leo. Yes.
Leo Laporte (01:47:36):
Every adventure starts in a tavern, says bonito. And again, John Ashley printed it upside down. <Laugh>, I swear to God. Twice now. Twice. Question for a t t g from Jimmy.
Mikah Sargent (01:47:49):
Jimmy Drun.
Leo Laporte (01:47:50):
Jimmy. Hello, Leo and Micah, thank you for doing various shows. <Laugh> welcome. And I enjoy them all. Welcome. Good. Thank you. Do you have any suggestions for an expense tracker and record? Oh, record car maintenance items for the iPhone. I mean, everybody uses Expensify and there are car trackers too. He says he's been using car report for Android for the past five plus years. It's worked great, but I recently switched to iPhone and I'd like to continue car record keeping. Wow. Thank you for considering the question. Advanced Jimmy from Texas. Yeehaw. He says, I'm not, I'm reading pss still in cowboy mode. Took my kids and cousins on a train ride yesterday to the Fort Worth Stockyards and bought me a big hat. <Laugh>. He's big hat and cattle. All cattle. Jimmy from Texas. Yeehaw, <laugh>. You know, I have and maybe you do too. Jimmy. An O B D two device plugged into my O B D port on my car. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, all, all, all modern vehicles have that port. If you look under the steering wheel, it's usually down there and it records a lot of the stats, like mileage and so forth, which then has an OB two Tracker app. And there are quite a few of those on the iPhone. Mm-Hmm. That makes the car record keeping easy. Of course you could add maintenance and stuff. Do
Mikah Sargent (01:49:11):
You, did yours come with your vehicle or did you buy this? Bought this separately. Bought one. Okay. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:49:16):
Because, and I saw on, on Reddit that there was somebody was gonna make, now I have an ev which doesn't have as many stats, of course, as a, as Alec as a gas vehicle. But somebody was gonna make a mock e software tool that worked with the OB two. Got it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and I, they still have it, but I've got the <laugh>. You're ready? I'm ready. But almost, you know,
Mikah Sargent (01:49:38):
This is an interesting thing I have to say. I never, that's one category I have not explored on IOS's car. I do. I've got house records. I've got basically everything else. You
Leo Laporte (01:49:49):
Don't really care. Is that what
Mikah Sargent (01:49:50):
You're saying? That is what I'm saying. Ultimately, yeah. But now I care 'cause I'm interested in what's out there. There
Leo Laporte (01:49:56):
Are at least 20 <laugh>. I've just done a search O b D two phone device apps, I mean tracker apps that you can run on your iPhone. I I think I use Dash command for a while. Now I don't know if you have an O B D too, but I think that I would look at that if 'cause it tells you what the lights mean when the lights come on and, and it
Mikah Sargent (01:50:20):
Exactly. It's very handy. It
Leo Laporte (01:50:22):
Gives you lots of information about the efficiency. I've seen this one Blue driver it's an OB two. So what happens is the, your phone pairs to the device that's plugged into your O B two port. Now remember, you're gonna have to pay extra for the b d two device hardware, but then we'll record it and it's pretty, it's pretty cool now and I used to do this for, for years. I did it on my on my ICE vehicles. I think I used E Engine link. You should, you should also look at when you look at O B D two, I'll show you the one I bought. When you look at O B D two dongles on Amazon, many of them have their own software. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So, and often because you bought the $90 device you know, you're, you're gonna get a free version of the app. So maybe better to figure out which BD two dongle you're gonna buy. Let me just search my orders and I'll show you which one I got. I got,
Mikah Sargent (01:51:21):
Ah, see the
Leo Laporte (01:51:22):
O B D link, MX plus O B D two Bluetooth scanner for iPhone, Android, and Windows. Ladies and gentlemen, they're all about the same. I don't think there's a a strong difference between the hardware here. This was a little pricey. $139. Yeah. But it really gives you a lot of information about what's going on in your vehicle, including, you know, you could put it up on your, on your dashboard. You'd see it is phenomen. Oh,
Mikah Sargent (01:51:49):
It's got, yeah, it's got, yeah. All stuff, all
Leo Laporte (01:51:52):
Sorts of information. And then, and then they do offer an app for that one. So Simply Auto is one that the chat room
Mikah Sargent (01:52:00):
Wants. Yeah, I just saw that, that actually it's got the service reminders. It's got your fills if you're looking at <crosstalk>,
Leo Laporte (01:52:08):
But you gotta record everything manually, right? Yes,
Mikah Sargent (01:52:10):
Exactly. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:52:11):
So yeah, there's certainly are. And you're already doing something manual on Android. This is one that's on Android but is also now on the app store. So that's one somebody likes here. I just like the idea of not having to do
Mikah Sargent (01:52:23):
Exactly. I have it all just
Leo Laporte (01:52:25):
Sink too much stuff manually. Right. you still have to do, you know, when you go into the service and stuff, they, you'd still have to do that.
Mikah Sargent (01:52:33):
I just use the little sticker. Yeah. The little sticker on my car that they give me that says, come in now it's time for a service.
Leo Laporte (01:52:39):
I have an electric vehicle. So whenever I get that postcard that says you need an oil change, that's when I go in. No <laugh>. Scooter X says he uses Simply Auto. He has, it has every vehicle service in Philip. I even imported the data from previous apps I used on my Newton message page. Wow. You've Scooter, you've been recording data for a long,
Mikah Sargent (01:52:59):
Long time. And I just, I would love to know how often have you needed to use that information and how did it help you? I'm not asking that aggressively.
Leo Laporte (01:53:11):
No, because you keep
Mikah Sargent (01:53:12):
Track
Leo Laporte (01:53:12):
Crap too. Yes. <laugh> crap. Crap. You're crap in your house. My house. Crap. I know this one. I've used this one before. This is actually very good. Mileiq. This would be, this is for if you wanna deduct for business, I don't like fees, travel and stuff like that. Don't,
Mikah Sargent (01:53:26):
Because a lot of them are using your G P Ss data. Sure. Yeah. And it's, that's
Leo Laporte (01:53:31):
How it works.
Mikah Sargent (01:53:32):
Grosses me out.
Leo Laporte (01:53:33):
Yeah. So maybe there's a little more privacy with an OBD two dongle, especially
Mikah Sargent (01:53:38):
Yours where you paid more so it didn't have fees and stuff. Yeah. It so you're not tying it with an account where you're continuing to pay.
Leo Laporte (01:53:45):
Right. Right. But MileIQ might be another choice if you don't, if you're okay with it. Yeah. You're to be turning on tracking. They're gonna sell your location information to a data brokers. The cs a
Mikah Sargent (01:53:57):
The, yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:53:58):
Yeah.
Mikah Sargent (01:53:59):
Simply Auto though. I think that seems like a pretty cool app with everything that someone who tracks this stuff would want.
Leo Laporte (01:54:06):
Scooter says, I look at it when I, to see when I last replaced a lamp or services, you know, when I last replaced a lamp.
Mikah Sargent (01:54:12):
Never,
Leo Laporte (01:54:13):
Never <laugh> what? Okay. <laugh>, I guess we're just different kinds of people,
Mikah Sargent (01:54:22):
I guess. Okay. There in my old car, I would always have, one of the headlights would end up going out after X amount of time. And if I had been keeping track of it, I could see if it was happening more often, often than it should. Yeah. In which case then I could go, oh, this is some sort of electrical error. What's the
Leo Laporte (01:54:39):
Oldest car you've driven?
Mikah Sargent (01:54:41):
My, the oldest car. A 64 Chevy Impala. Oh, that's
Leo Laporte (01:54:45):
Pretty old. Yeah,
Mikah Sargent (01:54:47):
My dad's 1964 Chevy Impala.
Leo Laporte (01:54:50):
Yeah. So that's where you might have to replace stuff. Yeah. A lot of stuff. I think when I was in college I was driving a 64 Opal Cadet. Oh, I think it was 64. That was, that was the year. L B J Beat Goldwater <laugh>. That was the year. Okay. what else? What else do we have to do? John? Ashley? I
Mikah Sargent (01:55:15):
Think John wants us to do a Zoom slash phone call. Well, it looks like we have a Zoom
Leo Laporte (01:55:21):
Call. I'm trying to, bandit. Yeah. Bandit. I don't think Bandit should be our next caller. What do you say, bandit? Come on down. Bandit's in West Palm Beach. Okay.
Mikah Sargent (01:55:32):
Beautiful. Allegedly.
Leo Laporte (01:55:33):
Allegedly. We don't know. Yeah, that's right. That's just what your phone says. Hello, bandit. Hello. Can you hear me? Yeah. Yeah. Welcome to the show. Are you in West Palm?
Caller Bandit (01:55:46):
Yes, I am.
Leo Laporte (01:55:47):
Nice. What's up?
Caller Bandit (01:55:49):
I, I've got a question for you, by the way. I have a 2012
Leo Laporte (01:55:52):
Way say hi to Smokey for me. Okay. Sorry. Go ahead. <Laugh>.
Caller Bandit (01:55:58):
I, I've got a 2012 MacBook pro Retina that I'm going to need to replace. Yes. soon. Yes. I am looking at a, at a Mac Mini. 'cause I don't really use it as a portable device. But I don't wanna pay you know, Apple's high cost on storage. So can you guys recommend some sort of external storage device that would give me close to the internal throughput of apple's storage?
Mikah Sargent (01:56:29):
So there are a few options that will get you somewhat close, obviously. We're always going to encourage getting as much as you can internally. I think Leo's is probably going to mention some very well-known brands and
Leo Laporte (01:56:44):
Very expensive
Mikah Sargent (01:56:45):
And very exp I want to mention one that I I trust quite a lot and have used so many of their products. It's called Cal Digit.
Leo Laporte (01:56:54):
And I love Cal Digit
Mikah Sargent (01:56:55):
And Cal Digit. Do they make hard drives? They do. They make, oh, I didn't know that. These little hard drives called Tough Nano. And so they've got a tough nano and then I like, it's a, a, a smaller one and a bigger one. And their right and Reed speeds. It's a tough nano. And the tough nano plus their right. And Reed speeds are incredible. A capacity goes up to two terabytes and they are tiny little drives that you can kind of carry with you wherever you need to. So I did wanna get into mention for Cal Digit because I've used a number of their drives over the years and continue to, 'cause they, they still work, they still are great, they're super fast.
Leo Laporte (01:57:32):
But Bandit has a need for speed.
Mikah Sargent (01:57:34):
A need for speed.
Leo Laporte (01:57:35):
And I have to say most drives, most of the inexpensive drives are gonna be U S B. They might be U S B 3.2. Your Mac, you're getting a New Mac Mini can handle Thunderbolt Thunderbolt three, or even Thunderbolt four U SB four. The faster the drive, the faster the connection, the more likely you won't see a difference between external and external. I think that's, by the way, not a bad way to go. Because one of the advantages of these externals is if your internal drive fails mm-hmm. <Affirmative> you just reboot, hold down the option key boot to the external drive. And if you've been using super duper or carbon copy clone or some other tool to keep it up to date, it's identical to the internal drive. You have zero downtime. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so for mission critical en environments where you really can't afford a, a dead hard drive, that's a nice backup.
(01:58:23):
It's not only a full backup, it's a backup you can boot. I'll show you what I use. It's not cheap, but it's not super expensive either. This is from other world computing. So they're designed for Mac and this is a Thunderbolt which is why it's relatively expensive. A container ex, it's only 250 bucks, but that's without any storage <laugh>. So 250 bucks, it's, it's, you could put up to four N V m e m two SSDs in there. Wow. So those are gonna be fast. And because it's Thunderbolt, it's gonna be nearly as fast, will not be as fast as internal, especially on the new M two max. The they, they use storage that's kind of on the, on the chip. So practically it's on the motherboard directly connected. So it's super, super fast. But this would be, you know, one of these, a thunder, basically if you get a Thunderbolt three or a Thunderbolt fold device, it will be as fast as you're gonna be able to get external externally. And it will be certainly fast enough to boot from and use. But you're gonna have to make sure you put SSDs in there, not spinning drives to take advantage of this. This is what I use. I really like it. And because you add it, you can get it unpopulated for 250 bucks. So that's just the enclosure. And then you add the M two drives. I had some lying around, so it was easy. Oh,
Mikah Sargent (01:59:46):
Nice. It didn't end up
Leo Laporte (01:59:47):
Easy for me to costing you up front to do it. Right. it, it has its own raid software I did not use. Apple has its own raid capability. I use the built-in Apple raid capability. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. It's not, I mean, what do you mean by cheap <laugh>, I guess is the question? It's, I mean, what Mike has suggested will be a lot less expensive. That'll be a hundred bucks for the drive. Yeah. You know, for everything. But it won't be as fast.
Mikah Sargent (02:00:16):
Although what I've, and I will, I've run betas from these tough nanos before and yes, it's not going to be Thunderbird speeds, but it was still pretty good. Oh. Looks like you might be cutting out on this. No.
Leo Laporte (02:00:35):
Yeah. We're having a little bandwidth problem. I will show you what Scooter X uses. This is those, go ahead. Now we can hear you.
(02:00:45):
Other world computing makes relatively inexpensive single drive enclosures that are Thunderball three. Oh no, that's about the price. Brings it up. Yeah. This one, you know, depending on what S S D you put in it is as little as $400. He boots from this, he says, and you're right. Anything with thunder, that's, but the problem is Thunderbolt is so much more expensive than u sb and that's what's really frustrating. It's so frustrating. I don't know if that's a licensing thing or a technology thing. I suspect it's a little bit of both.
Mikah Sargent (02:01:14):
That is actually my understanding. I was just doing some reading on Thunderbolt the other day. Yeah. And yeah, it is, it's unfortunately, it's a little bit of both. Yeah. Intel's licensing paired with actual technology, that does make a difference. Yeah. But they're coming closer U S B four and Thunderbolt four coming closer and closer to where it's just going to be a licensing thing.
Leo Laporte (02:01:34):
So this is the Envoy Express. This will get you for 400 bucks for a TE four terabytes, which is a lot, you probably could just put a terabyte in there and it'd be 200 bucks. This will get you 1,553 megabytes per second. The one I was talking about the enclosure is up to 2,800 minute megabytes, 2.8 gigabytes. That's double what you would get with the cal digit opportunity. And that's fast enough to really use full time. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So I have this, the way I've set up my Mac studio, which very much like a MAC Mini is I use the internal disc on the Mac Studio for applications and operating system. But my data drive, most of my data is stored on the other World Express. That way I have more capacity. So you keep your photo library there, photo music documents, ev you know, it's possible on a Mac to say your home directory is off the computer.
(02:02:31):
Not advisable. In my experience, it causes problems. So I did for a while do that. And it was kinda weird. So I, my home directory is still internal, but what I do is I alias documents, movies, music I think and photos, pictures, all those four big data di directories are just alias in the home directory and the internal drive to the other world computing drive. And you can't tell the difference. No, it's absolutely not. In fact, backup and everything works exactly the same time machine works the same. So it really depends on how much, what your budget was. I think his bandwidth is back. What, how much did you wanna spend?
Caller Bandit (02:03:11):
That was about what I was looking, looking at spending. You know, everything that I've kind of read was about Cal Digit and I love the other devices from o wc, but I just wanted to get your input Yeah. On that.
Leo Laporte (02:03:22):
Yeah. Those are two really good Mac focused companies. They're exactly companies that they're Mac focused is what, and they make excellent hardware. I use a Cal Digit Thunderbolt three doc. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. That's that, you know, we had to wait months to get. But it's really great. It's the best that there is. Yeah. It's, and really expensive. And yes. That's the technology that you're, you're paying for the, the Thunderbolt technology. If you're willing to use SB two or SB three, it'll be a lot less expensive, by
Caller Bandit (02:03:48):
The way. No. Definitely wanted to do with Thunderbolt. Yep.
Leo Laporte (02:03:50):
Yeah. I would say, since you said Bootable Yeah. I would say that's the way to go. It's really nice. And it also this, the one I have, the O WC Express has a display port in the back. Oh. And another Thunderbolt port. So I actually drive my monitor off. Nice. So <laugh>, there's enough bandwidth on that pipe that you can both have a hard drive and monitor coming off of that. Excuse me. Hey, I thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.
Caller Bandit (02:04:17):
Yeah. Thanks a lot. Appreciate you guys.
Leo Laporte (02:04:19):
Alright. Alright. Yeah. We're glad you listened. What was his, what was his name? Bandit. Bandit. Bandit. Bandit. Yes. Glad you listened. Bandit. It's great to talk to you. Take care. I won't make the smokey joke again. I should have saved it for the end. Yeah. <laugh>. I should have saved it. See timing's, everything in comedy. I should have said. And say hi to Smokey for now. Who's next on the show?
Mikah Sargent (02:04:38):
Edit that. Edit that.
Leo Laporte (02:04:40):
Can you edit that? Can you
Mikah Sargent (02:04:41):
Fix that? Yeah. I'll take it. Sound like that
Leo Laporte (02:04:43):
John Ashley says, no. <Laugh>. I cannot. One more. Let's do another upside down email. What do you say? Let's
Mikah Sargent (02:04:49):
Do it. Love.
Leo Laporte (02:04:50):
It's like, it's like a puzzle. Reading these upside down. It's good for my brain. Oh, shoot. He printed this way up. Oh
Mikah Sargent (02:04:55):
No, that one's correct.
Leo Laporte (02:04:56):
Ipad purchase question. Oh, this is from Michael. I'm a high school teacher. I have a sixth generation. This is the same. Is
Mikah Sargent (02:05:04):
This the same person?
Leo Laporte (02:05:05):
It's the same one. We already answered this. Wow. He That's good. He emailed Andy.
Mikah Sargent (02:05:10):
He really wanted to make sure. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:05:11):
Now let's see if this one's upside down. Oh, it's not either. Oh, this is a good question. Something you said on episode 1984 last week. Right. We're in 1985. Now won't
Mikah Sargent (02:05:20):
Be like
Leo Laporte (02:05:21):
1984. Reagan is president. No. Who's president? 1985. Reagan. Reagan. Yeah. <Laugh>, you said.
Mikah Sargent (02:05:30):
So such, such a my
Leo Laporte (02:05:31):
Dad. Happy birthday. My dad is celebrating his 90th birthday today. Wow.
Mikah Sargent (02:05:36):
Happy birthday.
Leo Laporte (02:05:36):
Dad. And I was thinking about born in 1933. He was born when F D R was president. Wow. 1933. He actually, my grandpa, his father is a cartoonist. Or was he passed away before I was born. And dad sent me a cartoon that his father drew to give to my grandmother when my dad was born. Wow. So this is a, a cartoon from 1933, I guess. And it really is very much in that style.
Mikah Sargent (02:06:11):
Was he a cartoonist on the side or was that on the
Leo Laporte (02:06:13):
Side? He was an architect. Okay. And he actually designed one of the chapels at the St. Paul's Cathedral in sa in New York City. Sweet. Which I've been to see. He was really, really wonderful. And if my email cooperates, I will show you this cartoon. Oh my goodness. The problem I have is my dad's name is the same as mine. <Laugh>. And so, oh, I didn't know that.
Mikah Sargent (02:06:42):
Yes. Wait, so are you a junior?
Leo Laporte (02:06:45):
I, I, well, my middle name's different. Okay. Which makes me nothing. Right. Had my, which I'm, I'm actually grateful to. Yeah. Had it been the same, I think I'd be the sixth or the seventh.
Mikah Sargent (02:06:57):
Oh, no way.
Leo Laporte (02:06:58):
Yeah, there are quite a few. My father was Leo f Laport. My grandfather was Leo f Laport. And I believe my great-grandfather and great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather were all
Mikah Sargent (02:07:13):
As
Leo Laporte (02:07:13):
A Leo f Laport
Mikah Sargent (02:07:14):
As a person that's essentially been given the same name through the family. How did, how do you feel about that? Is that something that you think is cool? Because some people are like, wow, I don't know how my own name.
Leo Laporte (02:07:23):
Well, my whole life I've had to been be little Leo. Okay. So that's not good. That
Mikah Sargent (02:07:29):
Was my little brother whose name is the same as my dad. They call him little, my dad's name. Little
Leo Laporte (02:07:33):
Dad's name. Yeah. This the birthday greeting.
Mikah Sargent (02:07:37):
Oh, that's so cool.
Leo Laporte (02:07:38):
From 1933. Wha I want my mat at the Englewood Hospital, Englewood New Jersey. Baby LaPorte, that's my dad use no hooks. It says on the little carriage. He's got a baby bottle in the 1930s. Style Is that
Mikah Sargent (02:07:54):
Castor
Leo Laporte (02:07:55):
Oil. Castor oil. And paraic, which were, you know, before medicine. That's all we had. <Laugh>
Mikah Sargent (02:08:02):
Go get you some castor oil.
Leo Laporte (02:08:03):
It looks like, it looks like this is actually a postcard. Yeah. That grandpa drew for grandma. He was sent by my father. My dad writes to in to my mother in the hospital a week after my birth, July 30th, 1933. Although an architect by profession, he continued cartooning all his life. He died too early before I, as an adult could get to really know him. He he died when my dad died when my dad was 17. Oh. today in 2023, I'm sending my 90th birthday. Greetings to all, wishing you an equally long and satisfying life. Dad. I'm sorry. I couldn't, I'm doing this instead of being at his birthday party. And I apologize, but I love you more than my dad, <laugh>. No,
Mikah Sargent (02:08:43):
I can't handle that pressure. <Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (02:08:46):
Well, I also think it's probably better that there not be too many people at the party. Yeah. Because he is 90 and I, you know. Yeah,
Mikah Sargent (02:08:51):
Absolutely. Yeah. And you went to wherever with no mask on, so you really
Leo Laporte (02:08:55):
Shouldn't be there. Yeah. I've, I've been wherever with no mask <laugh>. So isn't that a great cartoon? That's so cool. We have quite a few of grandpa's cartoons.
Mikah Sargent (02:09:04):
That's awesome. That's really
Leo Laporte (02:09:05):
Awesome. Oh, wait a minute. That whole thing just derailed me from the email <laugh>. I'm sorry. Anyway, welcome to 1985 updating TV firmware. Oh, that's right. That's why I put this aside already.
Mikah Sargent (02:09:15):
'Cause You thought, I don't wanna read it.
Leo Laporte (02:09:16):
I don't wanna read this. This is from Bill and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada,
Mikah Sargent (02:09:21):
Which is just up the street from Rhode Island.
Leo Laporte (02:09:23):
Yes. Canada, by the way, I wanna thank all my Canadian friends because Canada was a category on Jeopardy the other day. Oh. And I aced it. Nice.
Mikah Sargent (02:09:31):
<Laugh> nice.
Leo Laporte (02:09:32):
I know Canada. Hi guys. I have a question about something you said in 1984, you said that you don't let your TV connect to the internet, which I understand. I don't connect mine either. But then you said it's a good idea to connect the periodically let the firmware update. My question is why, why update the firmware? It's never online at all. There are no security risks or stability problems to fix. I doubt if there'd be any feature updates either. Wouldn't the firmware updates just introduce potential problems? Especially since, well, we know this TV makers aren't very good at software. Why isn't it better just to keep it offline completely. That's actually a great point, bill. And you could probably do that.
Mikah Sargent (02:10:08):
Yeah. So the, I will be clear, the reason why I've done it is because we got, we've gone from a period of time where Airplay was locked off to pretty much Apple's devices to where they've slowly introduced it to other devices. And my T C L Roku TV ended up getting not only airplay support, but also HomeKit support. And I wanted to have those features to try them out and be able to talk about them. So the only way for me to do that was to do the firmware update. But if you don't want any of those features, if you're not concerned about that, care about that, then yes, it is true. Because normally, as we've talked about, the reasons why we update are for those security fixes, those bug patches. But if you're not connected to the internet, yeah. Don't need point of issue.
Leo Laporte (02:10:49):
I think there may be some improvements in stability UI and maybe improvements in capabilities in ui. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I, I, you're right. You don't need to for security for sure. But, but I don't, I don't mind once a, a year or twice a year plugging into the internet and just getting the latest
Mikah Sargent (02:11:08):
One. I do it. 'cause I just wanna see what they've done that's changed. Yeah. I'm, yeah. I, that's why my
Leo Laporte (02:11:13):
I update my AV receiver. I mean, there's no reason to update that probably. Right. But what the
Mikah Sargent (02:11:18):
Hell? You never know.
Leo Laporte (02:11:19):
And as long as we're talking about TVs, Angela was hopping mad. Hopping mad Uhoh. She, she wrote, she said hi. It really drives me nuts.
Mikah Sargent (02:11:28):
Uhoh. <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (02:11:30):
I love emails if begin like that. It really, it crossed my gears. <Laugh>. It really, what's another phrase? It
Mikah Sargent (02:11:38):
Really scratches my buttons. <Laugh>,
Leo Laporte (02:11:43):
When you and Wilkinson kind of claim you weren't here. Okay. You and Wilkinson claim <laugh>. You can't buy a dumb tv. We talked about this last week, didn't we? Yeah. And I was of the opinion you couldn't. Well, she says that's bss. Go to a Best Buy. Walmart. There are plenty in this house. There are three brands. A Toshiba and R c a and a Sanyo.
Mikah Sargent (02:12:12):
And when did you get them <laugh>? And are you certain that they do not have an ability to, it's, it
Leo Laporte (02:12:19):
Is very possible that we are just r noses are just a little too high. Yeah. Me and Scotty's. And we don't wanna buy anything that's not state of the art. And of course those are mostly, you know, almost all in fact all smart TVs these days. But if you're willing to buy an R C A tv, you know, which is gonna be a lower end. Yeah. TV with not a great screen. Hold on. You probably
Mikah Sargent (02:12:45):
Can get a hold up your nose if you're willing to buy,
Leo Laporte (02:12:47):
If you don't mind.
Mikah Sargent (02:12:48):
RCA TV
Leo Laporte (02:12:49):
Buying something inferior. Oh,
Mikah Sargent (02:12:51):
He's an rca. A man. <Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (02:12:53):
R C a TVs are not made by R C A anymore. I don't believe. I think they're made by some Chinese company that bought the, it
Mikah Sargent (02:12:59):
Really collapses my gopher holes. When you <laugh> talk about it
Leo Laporte (02:13:03):
Ices my buns. <Laugh> it chips my hide. When you and that Wilkinson fell off, it
Mikah Sargent (02:13:10):
Crusts my bread. <Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (02:13:13):
I'm sorry, Angela. You're absolutely right. It's fair. It's completely fair. And your buns should be frosted <laugh>, in which case, take 'em out of the oven and enjoy them
Mikah Sargent (02:13:21):
And collapse those gopher holes too.
Leo Laporte (02:13:23):
Yeah. What are you guys looking at me here now? I've
Mikah Sargent (02:13:25):
Got, there's a lot going on. We
Leo Laporte (02:13:26):
Did our third breath. I thought we did three. We have four.
Mikah Sargent (02:13:29):
Oh, wow. You know what? Really chaps,
Leo Laporte (02:13:33):
You know what frost
Mikah Sargent (02:13:34):
My lips,
Leo Laporte (02:13:35):
My chapstick <laugh> is when we don't do a break. So let's take a small, just a little
Mikah Sargent (02:13:42):
Tiny, just a tiny one
Leo Laporte (02:13:43):
Break. And we'll be back to describe our socks.
Mikah Sargent (02:13:46):
Will it refresh
Leo Laporte (02:13:47):
After this? This break? I am wearing mint mobile socks. I don't know if you noticed. They're very
Mikah Sargent (02:13:52):
<Crosstalk>. I do notice the fox. There's a fox on with the glasses.
Leo Laporte (02:13:56):
I believe in wearing free socks whenever possible. <Laugh>. Amen. As you know, yours are cute. They're gray with dots, gray
Mikah Sargent (02:14:01):
With blue and white and yellow dots. Mostly my socks are free too, because I made the mistake. Wait, hold on. Where is it? Oh, there we go. <Laugh>. I made, I'm doing yoga now. Are you trying
Leo Laporte (02:14:13):
To hurt Micah <laugh>?
Mikah Sargent (02:14:17):
I made the mistake of telling people that I like cool socks and they send you socks. And so now every Christmas, my whole family, it's not a mistake. I really do. That's good. I love getting socks. I do.
Leo Laporte (02:14:29):
It's, you know, I think you're, this is where I think you're a really great human because I know what's going on in your mind. You're thinking my family struggles to figure out what to give me. And I don't want them to suffer. Exactly. So I'm gonna give 'em something, you know, it's inexpensive, it's fun. They know then that I will be happy even if you're not. And this lets them off the hook. It
Mikah Sargent (02:14:52):
Real truly, that is the behind the scenes. I know
Leo Laporte (02:14:54):
That, you know, I know that that's, see, he's a good person because it's
Mikah Sargent (02:14:57):
Hard. Like for us, it's hard for people to shop for us because what do we do? We do a lot of research before we buy something. Yeah. We tend to try to go for something that is of certain quality. So you're not having to buy multiple. And I think that that makes people kind of scared to buy things for you as gifts. Yes. 'cause it could be that it's the wrong thing. Right. And I really do. I've, I've, I have more than a hundred pair of socks because I love socks and all different colors and shapes and everything. I think great. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:15:26):
You know Peter O'Toole, the great Irish actor, the star of Lawrence of Arabia and many other wonderful movies. In fact, if you haven't seen the movie in which it's called I can't remember it. He plays a actor. It kind of a, a, a show of shows style show. It's it's about oh gosh. I'm I'll, I'll find it. I'll look it up for you. Anyway. Peter O'Toole famous for wearing green socks. That was his trademark. Really? Always wore green socks. Never wore the same pair twice.
Mikah Sargent (02:15:58):
That's impressive.
Leo Laporte (02:15:59):
Which eliminates laundry to
Mikah Sargent (02:16:00):
Choose a shade, but then never wear the same pair twice. <Laugh>. Both
Leo Laporte (02:16:04):
My favorite year. That was the name of it. My favorite
Mikah Sargent (02:16:06):
Year,
Leo Laporte (02:16:06):
If you have not seen my favorite year. It is, it is an absolute wonderful movie. He plays a a famous celebrity himself, basically. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and mark, and I can't remember his last name is a writer.
Mikah Sargent (02:16:23):
Lynn Baker,
Leo Laporte (02:16:24):
Mark Lane. Baker Lynn Baker. You are too young to remember the famous show with SSID Caesar and Imaging and Coca called my show of shows. Yeah. Way too young to remember that. But it was one of the great skit comedy shows of all time informed skit comedy, including Saturday Night Live and every other show that follows. It was a brilliant show. So this was a takeoff on that. Peter O'Toole was the SSID Caesar character. Markly Baker was a writer. And it's his favorite year. 'cause Of the year he wrote for this guy. And Peter O'Toole is, is hysterical in it. 'cause He's talking about nose in the air at one point. He says, I'm not an actor. I'm a movie star. <Laugh> <laugh>. Highly recommend it.
Mikah Sargent (02:17:07):
Yeah. From the little green synopsis. It's something I'd like to
Leo Laporte (02:17:11):
Watch. Sure. I think you'd enjoy it. Yeah. There are a lot of movies that came out that probably came out in the seventies or eighties that are lost in a way. You know, there for a long time, I, I was trying to find Steve Martin movies on iTunes. You can't buy movies anymore, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you can only rent them on iTunes. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> for, you know, 20 bucks. Theoretically you're buying it, but if they decide to yank it, it's gone. Right. you can't go there. There aren't DVDs of a lot of movies. There aren't, certainly not Blu-rays of a lot of movies. For a long time, I couldn't find any Steve Martin movies. Somebody at some point said, let's put these up on iTunes and you can buy 'em now. And, and I think there are a lot of movies that are great that just have disappeared. Anyway, I Is that enough? Long enough break for you, <laugh>?
Mikah Sargent (02:17:53):
Oh, I thought that was the
Leo Laporte (02:17:54):
Show. Bill Macy was the writer, producer. Peter O'Toole played the washed up guest star. That's what I said. Mark Lynn Baker. Wasn't he in it? Was it Bill Macy? But anyway, I might have that wrong. Great, great movie. I see a wonderful person on video, but which one is that? Is that Susan? Susan? I think it's Susan. Oh, I remember Susan. Oh, we talked to Susan. Save a memory. Susan. Susan. Save a Memory. Susan. And now we get video of Susan. I don't think we, we had video last time. I can't remember. Susan, join us in the Stargates.
Caller Susan (02:18:29):
Hello.
Leo Laporte (02:18:30):
Hi Susan. Welcome. Susan. Tell us where you're from.
Caller Susan (02:18:33):
Longmont, Colorado.
Leo Laporte (02:18:34):
Longmont Colorado. We did have video now 'cause I remember you showed us stuff. Welcome. What can we do for you?
Caller Susan (02:18:42):
I'm actually calling I've been meaning to follow up on one of your previous callers. And gosh, I'm sorry, I think it's now been maybe <laugh> three shows ago. His name was Sean. He's from bueno Brain. Buena Park. Yes. And he was scanning in old photos mm-hmm.
Leo Laporte (02:19:03):
<Affirmative>. Oh, with the different
Mikah Sargent (02:19:04):
Sizes of the photos.
Leo Laporte (02:19:06):
Yeah. Oh my gosh. This guy has gotten more airtime. Last week we ran an eight minute answer from Rosemary Orchard <laugh> to help him. But maybe you've got a better idea. 'cause This is what, now we should say you used to be a school teacher right? Or administrator. You retired and now
Caller Susan (02:19:22):
I I was in it. Yeah, it that's right. Was a local government webmaster. That's what social media manager. Yep.
Leo Laporte (02:19:28):
And now as kind of a hobby for fun, you scan people's photos. So you have more expertise in this than anybody. Mm-Hmm. I wish we'd had you when he called. So what can you do to help him? He scanned them in with an office scanner, basically that didn't, wasn't smart enough to eliminate the borders and just give him the image. So he has a bunch of images that are even at five 11 with paper around it and then the image in the middle.
Caller Susan (02:19:54):
Yes. And, and so actually, I, I created a business out of this. We, I think I mentioned the photo managers. It's an association and it's, it's, it's quite the up and coming industry. And so I've learned so much by learning from other members and professionals in our industry. And one of the things that he may want to do because when he scanned it on a copier albeit probably not your best way to do photos, but you use what you can. And so what happened is that the, the document scanner gave him a lot of white space. Right.
Leo Laporte (02:20:32):
I thought it was a document, not, it didn't narrow it down to just the image.
Caller Susan (02:20:36):
Correct. Now what one of the tools I use, and you're probably familiar with it, is Lightroom Classic. Yes. Now, that is, that's the program that gets installed as a client on your computer. And when you're in there, it's a very powerful software. And many people get confused by all the options. But one of the fabulous things that you can do in there, and this is why I thought it would be the simplest for him, and he can get one of the simple Adobe subscriptions that just gives him Lightroom or does Lightroom and Photoshop. And he can pay monthly until he gets his, his project done. And, and then he can migrate his images somewhere else. But what I would suggest is that he pull all of those images into Lightroom. So make a copy of wherever they are, copy them into a new catalog. And then when he creates his initial crop, this is what I love about Lightroom, you can just sink that crop with tens or hundreds of other images that are aligned and facing the same way. Ah, okay. And it will mimic that crop down to that original
Leo Laporte (02:21:53):
Brilliant
Caller Susan (02:21:55):
Crop that you, you created. Now he then can go into each one and slightly adjust it if his image was not exactly in the same place, but oh, that would save so much time. So much time. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and color correcting, he could do the same thing. So if he's got a batch of say, those images from the eighties that may have turned pink he can do the color correcting in there.
Leo Laporte (02:22:20):
You know, I wish I had thought of that. 'cause I've used Light Room Classic to do exactly that with White Balance and other photo features. You find a photo, you white balance it, you color correct it, and then you can copy those settings to every other photo that was shot that day or in that folder, or even all year. So yeah, I should have remembered that. So I didn't realize it would do that with cropping though. That's a really nice nice tip. Thank you.
Mikah Sargent (02:22:44):
Yeah. And I can, I have a question for you. I have heard a number of people who have said that they, the way that they get old photos into a digital form is by taking a photo of the photo. They'll like, use a D S L R and take a photo of the photo. And you just mentioned that the way that he was doing it using that scanner was not the best way to do it. What is the best way to digitize, digitize a photo? And why do some people take photos of photos? Doesn't that run into, you know what we highlight issues. Well,
Caller Susan (02:23:18):
I have a camera scanning station, so I have a very highend Nikon D eight 50. And so I am taking a picture of it.
Leo Laporte (02:23:27):
Yeah, we talked about that You use an easel. Correct. And you have lights, so it's consistent lighting and, and Correct. You can easily take a picture off a stack, put it on the easel, take the picture next.
Caller Susan (02:23:37):
Exactly. Take it's much faster. And, and then I have a light box for my slides and negatives that people may give me. Good. Now one of the things that, you know, I always tell people, use what you have and if you can afford to do a little bit better I would get an Epson flatbed scanner. I think the V six 60 or something is a, the latest model. I, I don't use a flatbed. I I really once you use a camera scanning setup, you don't wanna go
Leo Laporte (02:24:05):
Back. It's so much faster. Yeah. It's instant.
Caller Susan (02:24:07):
It's flexible. Yeah. And I can change my level of where the camera is so it can you know, zoom in on a slide or go all the way up to the top and I can capture eight by 10. And if I've got photo albums or, or say 12 by, you know, 14 size images, really large images, then I, I take six images or more of it. Mm-Hmm. And then I, I stitch it together and you can do all of that in Lightroom. And yeah, so I, you know, I tell people, use what you have. And of course he was using his document scanner from his work or wherever and, and that, that does an okay job. And of course, some of the older things your older images have a lot of noise and they may, depending on the type of film he used, may not be as sharp and clear as you're used to from your iPhone or Android phones today.
(02:25:01):
But y you know, there are apps out there that they advertise on a lot of social media sites where you can download this special app on your phone and, and take an image of it. And so I just tell people, you know, if you, if you're really concerned about having a backup of a, of a print, do whatever you can to a copy. Yeah. But if you're not in a hurry and, and you can hire a professional, then we recommend, of course, hiring a professional. 'cause You will get a really good quality image. And we backdate them. I think I mentioned that to you. We, we do a lot of things, things that you general user may not. What's your
Leo Laporte (02:25:40):
What's your website?
Caller Susan (02:25:43):
It's save a memory.photo. And I, I just wanted to tell you too, as a another just comment, I have always wanted to do a podcast. So I wrangled another photo manager. Yay. And she and I, <laugh>, thank you. So she and I are going to be doing inside Photo organizing a podcast for DIYs and Prose. Wow. Congratulations. So thank you. I'm very excited. You know, I've been listening to you, Leo, for ages, as I've said, and I just, I, my mind's going well, I'd love to do that. I love to talk to people, I love to answer their questions. And so I'm just hoping that you know, it grows and people are interested in learning from us and hearing about the latest technology and, and maybe some of the gotchas, like when Costco stopped offering their digital scanning solutions or, or Shutterfly got rid of their team sites, or, you know, Amazon changes their, their policy on, on their their file structure or downloads or whatever. So yeah, we, we hope
Leo Laporte (02:26:48):
To keep our, oh, we can talk about stuff too. Okay, cool.
Caller Susan (02:26:52):
Yep.
Leo Laporte (02:26:52):
Save a memory.photo. And, and do you recommend the photo managers? This is a good place
Caller Susan (02:26:58):
If you're serious. Yeah. Yes. If you're serious about curating and archiving and backing up your, your your memories, whether that's physical photos, digital photos, it can even be physical items. We show you how to you know, capture and, and document artifacts or you know, those tchotchkes that people may mm-hmm. <Affirmative> have purchased along the way that are important to them and they wanna pass it down. They can document it. So that should, you know, the, the awful thing happen and your home gets destroyed or gets some, somebody enters it and steals your computer. You, you, you know, you have your information backed up. And so the Photo Managers is a, a great resource for a lot of great training. We have annual conferences, and if you're looking for a, a business because you love photography and, and technology that's, that's what I gravitated to.
Leo Laporte (02:27:56):
So, yeah. So Great, Susan. Awesome. Save a Memory. Photo is your site and that's probably the first place people should go if they want a, a little bit of help. You can book a free consultation there. And what's the name of the podcast gonna be
Caller Susan (02:28:11):
Inside Photo Organizing? So we have our first trailer out there right now and I just finished mixing using Adobe Edition. Our first episode, which will drop August 1st, I'm hoping,
Leo Laporte (02:28:25):
Oh, well call back when? Next month. Well, actually August 1st is day after tomorrow. So, yes. There's your plug <laugh>.
Mikah Sargent (02:28:32):
I found it. Alright, I'm subscribing. There's
Leo Laporte (02:28:33):
Your plug. Subscribe in your favorite podcast player. And there's one more question we have for you, Susan. The chat chatroom's, dying to know what that good boy is back there. Yeah, the pup. He's, he seems like a very sweet patient fella. <Laugh>.
Caller Susan (02:28:47):
That's Abby.
Leo Laporte (02:28:47):
Oh, she, oh, she's a he, she's a, she she. Sweet. Abby. That's my daughter's name. <Laugh>. Oh, Abby, you sweetie. Aw, she's such a good girl. Tail. Who's your good girl? <Laugh>. Who's your good girl? She's your good girl. Aw, that's great. She just turned 11. Aw.
Mikah Sargent (02:29:05):
One of my dogs just turned 11.
Leo Laporte (02:29:07):
That's sweet love. Thank you Susan. Have a great day. I really appreciate it all. Thanks guys. Yeah, thanks so much. Great advice. Lightroom again to the Rescue Light Room's an amazing program and it really kills me that Adobe is desperate to move you to the creative cloud. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> because they don't like it that you might buy Lightroom and then never give them another dime. Wow. I think we've we've, we've worn out our welcome here,
Mikah Sargent (02:29:27):
<Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (02:29:28):
I hope you're all gonna go watch my favorite ear. Yes. I got all the details wrong. <Laugh> the casting wrong. Anyway, it is about Markly Baker, who is Benji. He's a young writer for a show. Joe Bologna plays a Sidd Caesar character 'cause he's a spitting image of Sidd Caesar. And and Peter O'Toole was the guest star Swan movie star who everybody idolized. He was kind of an Errol Flynn character. He shows up and he's not all he was cracked up to be. Got it. But a fun show, at least from my memory, it's now 30 years ago, but <laugh> 30 40, I was gonna say it's 40 year old movie. Holy cow. Thank you everybody so much. Such a pleasure to talk to you. Remember, you can call anytime, leave a voicemail at 8 8 8 7 2 4 2 8 8 4.
Mikah Sargent (02:30:22):
Yes. You can also head to call twit tv. Just go on your phone if you can. When you launch the browser, you'll get a little popup. You will give audio and video permission and then there from your phone you'll be able to talk to us. It's a great way to get in touch. And of course, that phone number that Leo mentioned, (888) 724-2884 or 8 8 8 7 2 4 A T T g is available during the week. You can leave a voicemail for us and we'll be able to play it back on the show and answer your question.
Leo Laporte (02:30:53):
Yeah. Or email us at atg. At twit tv. Thank you. People sent us videos, right? We never got to 'em. We will get to them next week. Who's our guest next week on the show? John Ashley, Mr. Producer man Scott Oakson and Johnny Jet.
Mikah Sargent (02:31:09):
Alright, so you'll have to bring up that email again and say, <laugh>, when Wilkinson and you,
Leo Laporte (02:31:14):
You knit with <laugh>, Scott Wilkinson and Johnny Jet both week. Micah, you'll be here. Yes, I'll be here Micah and me next week, and I hope you will be too. Join us on Ask the Tech guys for Micah, Sergeant and Leo LaPorte. Have a great gee week. Bye.
