The Tech Guy Episode 1854 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word.

.. (00:00:02):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWiT.

Leo Laporte (00:00:10):
Hi, this is Leo Laporte and this is the last Tech Guy podcast of 2021. This episode aired on Sunday, December 19th, 2021. This is 1854. Next episode you'll get will be a Best Of Tech Guy and then we'll resume live programming on January 2nd. So this is my last opportunity to wish you a happy holiday, a happy and safe new year will see you in 2022. That guy podcast is brought to you by better help. Online therapy. Join over 1 million people. Who've taken charge of their mental health. As a listener, you'll get 10% off your first month by visiting better help.com/techguy. And by user way.org user way ensures your website is accessible. ADA compliant and helps your business avoid accessibility related lawsuits. The perfect way to showcase your brand's commitment to millions of people with disabilities.

Leo Laporte (00:01:10):
It's not only the right thing to do. It's also the law go to user way.org/twi for 30% off user way's AI powered accessibility solution. Well, ho hello. How are you today? Leo? LePort here. The tech guy it's time. Yes. The tech guy show time to talk computers, the internet, home theater, digital photography, smart phones, smart, you know, all that stuff. <Laugh> all the gizmos gadgets G cause all the things that are changing the world around us day by day. Constantly. If you wanna talk about tech that's what I'm here for. I certainly hope you too. Otherwise I'm gonna give Larry lonely. It's gonna be a long three hours, 88, 88. Ask Leo, come on, give us a ring. 8 8, 8 8 2 7 5 5 3. That's toll free from anywhere in the us or Canada, outside that area. You could still reach me, but it's gonna be take a little effort on your part.

Leo Laporte (00:02:11):
It's gonna take a little something, something like you're gonna have to use Skype or one of those programs. That'll let you use the internet to call it a landline and then it shouldn't cost you anything anyway, because it is after all toll free number 88, 88, ask Leah what's going on in the world of tech. Well, the holidays. Yeah. Yeah, we're getting ready. And Omicron. So that's a nice, there's a, there's a nice <laugh> collabo. <Laugh> you know, it's funny because so many companies which were about to, you know, bring people back to work and all of that stuff, suddenly rage, just like a cartoon rage. We're going the other way back up retreat. Now they're saying maybe you never come back. Maybe never come back. You know, I guess, I guess we'll just figure it out as we go. We're just gonna figure it out as we go.

Leo Laporte (00:03:21):
Where else is, what else is going on? I, this funny, I gotta, and everybody in the world who owned a pixel phone pixel six phone with, I guess with Android 12, I don't know if it was an Android 12 problem. Everybody in the world got a warning <laugh> four days ago that there was gonna be big cyclone hitting the Philippines. So we all knew it was the strangest thing to get up here. I am in California and seeing a public storm warning signal, number one from PAGASA who's PAGASA. So I looked it up and it's the Philippines weather authority. It's a, it's the it, the Philippines.

Leo Laporte (00:04:01):
I haven't seen anything from Google about that. You know what you know, even just like oops. And oops would be nice. Oops. The it's the strangest thing to, to be warned about a cyclone in the Philippines. I mean, I'm sure it was a bad one. It must have been why they warned the whole, the Philipp means atmospheric geophysical and astronomical services administration warned the entire world. Here it comes. Okay. Okay. Thanks for the heads up. We didn't even get rain that day. Come on, man. <Laugh> what's the deal we could have used. Some of that water here in California, coulda, coulda, woulda shoulda big exploit log for shell. Talked about it a little bit. On the last show log four J is a very widely used logging tool on web servers, servers of all kinds, Minecraft servers. It keeps track of what's going on.

Leo Laporte (00:05:01):
It turns out it had a terrible, terrible problem. And last weekend everybody was scrambling to fix it. They thought they fixed it and now we're learning, oh, it's really terrible. <Laugh> it's even worse. There's even more. So people have been fixing it and then it's been breaking again and then fixing it. Here's what wired wrote after some preliminary probing and exploitation from attackers around the world, defenders are bracing for a brutal next wave. They say vulnerable systems were lurk in networks for years, just waiting to be discovered and exploited. You don't have to worry about your home computer. It's not on your home computer, but in a way it does affect us because when servers are infected, they can do all sorts of malicious things in turning, including try to attack your computer.

Leo Laporte (00:06:01):
Meta the company formerly on his Facebook meta took down infrastructure and its platforms from seven companies that had been targeting 50,000 of the companies, users, and others. They keep doing that, letting bad guys in, you know? And so it's, it's one thing that you, maybe you trust or don't trust Facebook, but you're giving 'em all this information and then they can't be trusted to keep their network clean and safe. It's kind of not good, kind of not great. What else is what El something happy? Let's have something happy? Well, it's an interesting story. I don't know if it's a happy story. I don't know what the end <laugh> I don't know what the end game was, but the, do you know what a Tarda grade is? You eighth graders know they love these things. Tarda grades are little old, tiny they're water bears.

Leo Laporte (00:07:00):
They live in MOS and they're everywhere all over the world. In fact, they've been taken to space because they're very they're very tough. Even when dehydrated or in space, they just sink shrink down into a little freeze dried tar grade. They're alive. They can survive without water for decades. They can tolerate high doses of gamma and x-ray radiation. They can survive. Can you do this temperatures from minus 272 degrees to 150 degrees Celsius that's boiling plus they've 10 days in the vacuum of space and just like sea monkeys. <Laugh> when they get back home, they unfold and Hey, we're tired grades again. So what better animal to send into a quantum entanglement?

Leo Laporte (00:07:57):
This is the lot, the poor tar grade, the lot of the tar grade's life. <Laugh> a tar grade has been quantum entangled with a super conducting cubit. And there that sentence really tells you everything you to know about the 21st century. It survived. I wish they could talk so we could ask them, what was it like in there? <Laugh> Rainer dumpy and his colleagues at NA yang technological university in Singapore placed a har har hibernating. They were Haring already tar tar on a super conducting cubit. That's a happy story, cuz it, it lived, it lived we've. We have done everything we can to those port tar grades and nothing qu. So I don't even know where to start with this. I remember dimly from high school, something about quantum mechanics, quantum states, quantum entanglements. It's really the stuff of science fiction. How can you be two places in once when you're hardly anywhere at all?

Leo Laporte (00:09:09):
And if you're a tar degree, apparently can. Anyway, it's first time a multicellular, their organism has been placed in a <laugh> thank goodness, a quantum entanglement and live to tell the tale been a big year for mobile gaming this year eight mobile games games on your phone made more than a billion.in 2021, the top 10 mobile games by worldwide revenue, PUBG, player unknowns, battle grounds number one, 2.8 billion. Now these is what's funny is these are free to play almost. I think all of these are free to play, but then there's stuff in there. Like little stuff you might wanna buy, like special, you know, costumes and dance moves and things. PUBG player unknowns, battle grounds known as game for peace in China. <Laugh> of course it is the ultimate war game. It's the game for peace and battled grounds mobile in India. Number one tied though with honor of Kings.

Leo Laporte (00:10:21):
Have you played that? I know you've seen the ads I have. I've not played it. I don't. Cause you know, this is free. You're in download. You're gonna play it. And all of a sudden you're gonna enjoying it. And then it's gonna say, now that'll be $5 or something. Or do you wanna keep playing, watch this, watch this ad. I think that's almost worse. Watch this ad number one and number two programs, PUBG and honor of King's number three Chen impact kind of farther down though. 1.8 billion Amere Amir 1.8 billion in revenue. A although it came out in September of 2020, so it's a little bit younger than the others. So maybe, you know, I don't know. Maybe it's maybe it's coming on strong. You know, you know the one, the, one of the oldest games on this list, Pokemon go, which has been out for five years. Pokemon go had its best year ever. 1.2 billion candy crush saga that might be even older. How old is candy? Chris saga 1.2 billion Roblox. If you got kids, you know, Roblox 1.3 billion coin master 1.3 billion, the big hits and then rounding out the top 10. I've never of this one. Maybe you have go free fire. 1.1 billion.

Leo Laporte (00:11:47):
These are all the, the eight mobile games that made a not 10, eight mobile games that made a billion dollars this year. Last year, only five three the year before. So mobile gaming, of course you're stuck at home. You've got no nothing to do. Nowhere to go. What are you gonna do? Fire up the old mobile game. Of course you are eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number. We are talking high tech. I, you are talking to give me a ring. It's not too late to get that gift with the geek in your life. I've I can tell you about all sorts of inexpensive inexpensive gifts. You can get them 88 88, ask Leah website tech guide labs.com. Sammy. How are you?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:12:33):
Hey Leo.

Leo Laporte (00:12:35):
Good to see you.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:12:37):
See you too. Anxiously waiting for my shipment of salt to arrive.

Leo Laporte (00:12:44):
You ordered some salt.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:12:45):
I ordered some salt from salt, hank.com.

Leo Laporte (00:12:48):
Oh my goodness.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:12:50):
I'm watching his videos makes me so hungry. I wish he would just come over my lunch for

Leo Laporte (00:12:54):
Me every day. You think? I mean, how do you think I feel <laugh> oh, that's nice. Thank you for doing that. And I think you'll enjoy it. I've been using the oh man. I've been this morning. I made, I sliced an avocado sprinkled some of the truffle salt on it was very, very good. Very,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:13:10):
Very, I heard some of the truffle salt and was the other one, the, the

Leo Laporte (00:13:16):
There's the basic sea salt. The Laban pesto and the essential sea salt. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:13:20):
Yeah. The essential sea salt and the truffle Salter. The too

Leo Laporte (00:13:22):
I, and I don't know how he does it, but they seem saltier than regular salt. So be, be a, when you first start using it, be a, you know, just a little bit at a time and then you'll, you'll solely figure out how much to you use. But I even got a little, I, I told him you gotta start selling these little salt shakers

Sam Abuelsamid (00:13:40):
<Laugh> there you go. Yeah. Little salt, shakers, shakers shape shaped like his head. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:13:45):
<Laugh> man. All right. So we will talk your pictures. Good. Your sound is good. We'll talk about 15 minutes. All right. I'm so I'm a little distraught about the phone is key thing in the Ford Mustang. Ma I have to say that's broken. Oh really? Yeah. They now apparently they give people two fobs. I think they must understand that they really need to give people Fs because I only have one fob. Fortunately, Lisa's got her mini, so she doesn't need to drive my car anymore. But yeah, just, you know, the other day I was trying to go home. Is that with the iPhone or Android or both? Yeah. iPhone. Well, I have, yeah, Android too, but Android's worse apparently. Huh. I like, I couldn't. So you, I can never open the door. So you gotta open the app, press the button, open the door and then you can open the door.

Leo Laporte (00:14:33):
That's annoying. That's new. I don't know why that's changed. And now the, the other day I was trying to leave work, the alarms going off <laugh> I can't start it. It's just like, oh my God, I'm sitting there. It took me 15 minutes to kind of get everything, you know, the alarm was going off and people are coming out saying you okay? I say, yes, they gotta fix this. That's ridiculous. I'm sure I'll, I'll check with the folks I suspect they know anything they have at some point, but you know, I didn't don't have the latest update as you know, so I'm wondering, but I just feel like they, they keep the last update. I got said improved it, but it's just a broken system. I, you know, it's probably not their fault. I noticed every time apple pushes an update out when, when I used it, I, it worked fine. Yeah. Every time apple puts an us update out, I have to redo the whole thing. Something breaks, which is really annoying. No. Anyway. Right. Well talking a bit. All right. You can, could call me. You could call Kim Kim. Shaer our phone angel. Call me, you're wearing your 49ers. I am, please.

Speaker 3 (00:15:40):
I love that you got as fancy as possible today. And I went as casual as possible on this very final show of

Leo Laporte (00:15:47):
The year. A final show of the year. I am wearing a three piece suit. You are a, a clashing O tie that's in honor of the NFL. Those guys always, for some reason were clashing shirts and ties. I have to

Speaker 3 (00:15:58):
Represent my boys. Hopefully the, I mean, we thought they were out, but they're still in it. Still in the hunt.

Leo Laporte (00:16:03):
<Laugh> yeah. Yeah. So that's fun. Yeah, people are going, wait a minute. What? <laugh> so we are gonna be taking Christmas off obviously and new you years, day off and the boxing day, cuz I don't know. That's a big, important holiday, I guess the day after Christmas, these were big Brits <laugh> yeah. We will have reconstituted shows much like the tar grade <laugh> we will, we have shows that never die. That the professor Laura is putting together at extravaganza best OFS and then I'll be back and you'll be back on January for our first show of the new year. So yeah, this is the last show. Last show of the old year, Lisa this morning said, you know, first there was 20, 20 <laugh> and then there was 2021 and then there was 2021 w N and they

Speaker 3 (00:16:48):
Were much different.

Leo Laporte (00:16:50):
It's 20, 22

Speaker 3 (00:16:52):
And still in the thick of this

Leo Laporte (00:16:55):
20, 20, the year that never ends

Speaker 3 (00:16:58):
2020 the year that never

Leo Laporte (00:16:59):
Ends the tar grade of years. You can't kill it. Nope. So I'm a little worried today because it is so close to the holiday that people will be you know, doing things. And so whatever you can do to encourage the phones to ring, <laugh> keep, keep Kim cha busy, 88, 88, ask Leo who should I start?

Speaker 3 (00:17:17):
Let's start with our friend Julian. He wants to help a call from yesterday.

Leo Laporte (00:17:21):
Julian Vargas. Yes. Thank you so much. Kim happy holidays. Happy holidays. Hello, Julian Leo. Leport the tech guy.

Speaker 4 (00:17:30):
Hey, good morning, Leo. And, and first of all very Merry Christmas to you, you to Kim, to all the staff there, everybody who makes this show happen, this, this is wonderful. And it the last show of the year, I can't believe how quickly it's

Leo Laporte (00:17:43):
Gone. Yeah, I know. I know it really, it really has. This whole year has been kind of a blur, but thank you to, we gotta give a little credit to, to Julian because he does a really great service for blind users and we have a lot of blind listeners as you know, as one would expect with a radio show. And so they, we get a lot of callers from blind users and Julian's always there to to help and and, and help people get, give your give your web address and your and your email out again, cuz everybody should hear this.

Speaker 4 (00:18:18):
It's www.tech, jv.com. That's T E C H J as in John, V as in victor.com. All my contact info was there as well as other stuff I provide. I keep in a running list of recommended iOS apps that are good for for blind users and other resources there. So and thanks to your show. I've, I've heard from such wonderful people. I've had a chance to help out nice people, especially people that are newly blinded. It's been a great opportunity. So I wanna thank you you for that.

Leo Laporte (00:18:50):
Yeah. I mean, we that's, I hear a lot of, we had call her the other day that was gone, had been low vision for a long time and went fully blind a couple of years ago. And yeah, he was actually asking some recommendations. So I'm glad you, you called, is that why you calling

Speaker 4 (00:19:06):
Well, I'm calling cuz yesterday you had a blind guy that called in and I iPhone

Leo Laporte (00:19:11):
Success

Speaker 4 (00:19:11):
Success. Yeah. And he was wondering, was there an advantage to upgrading especially with rare to accessibility and the thing is absolutely kudos to apple for supporting the iPhone success a six year old phone. Yeah. It can't be set up a lot of companies like Google that, that gives the pixel three, the Android 12 and cuts off the security updates. I'll never understand that. Yeah. I don't get it earlier. Yep. Yep. But one thing though is the iOS 15 that you get on the iPhones like the success or really any phone that came out before 2018. So that would be like your 10 S your 10 hour and, and that series of phones, anything that came out before then just doesn't have the processor power to support some of this really neat stuff that apple has been putting into iPhone iOS, including things like screen recognition, image recognition, where you can get really detailed information on your screens, buttons that are not labeled by developers.

Speaker 4 (00:20:07):
But especially with iOS 15, we got this live text feature on the photos that's been wonderful. And this is something that you're missing out if you don't have a newer phone. So the iPhone success will not do this and it's come in handy. So for example, I, I subscribe to something called informed delivery from the post office, or if I'm getting mail every day, I get an, an image of that mail. So that way I know if I'm getting something really important just to, you know, be mindful of the mailbox in today's world, you, you have to be careful about not letting sensitive mail sit around a mailbox is too long. So this has been a wonderful thing. And now with this live text capability out of photos, I used to have to send that image to an OCR app, which would then open it and gimme that info.

Speaker 4 (00:20:52):
And now just from the mail app itself, I can focus on that image and get all the texts read out of that image. So it just makes life so much easier. The LIDAR stuff that's being put into the pro and max phones has a lot of potential for indoor navigation and even O object recognition, things like that. There are services that are already experimenting with that. So these are all wonderful things that you do not get, even though you have iOS 15 on a success you're not getting and, and you're missing out on. So I would say that absolutely if, if, if the person's willing to spend the money and update to one of the newer front studies, it doesn't even have to be the 13. You could go at the 12 either way. It's, it's worth the while.

Leo Laporte (00:21:38):
It's always a pleasure. Julian. Thank you so much. Tech jv.com. We appreciate it. Leo. Leport the tech guy, Sam IBU, Sam coming up next. I appreciate it, Julie. And it's great to talk to you again. Thank you for everything. Oh, likewise.

Speaker 4 (00:21:59):
I like, like I said, Leo, it's just, it's awesome that you'd let me come on the air and do this. I I've the, the people that have come to me and that I've had the chance to work with and, and just encourage and help. It's just been wonderful. I couldn't reach people without your show. Well,

Leo Laporte (00:22:13):
We couldn't, you <laugh> thank you for making yourself so available. I mean, that's really above and beyond, so that's great. I really appreciate it. Happy holidays,

Speaker 4 (00:22:24):
Likewise. Same to you. Thank you,

Leo Laporte (00:22:25):
Julian. Take care. Take care, byebye. Hey, I wanna talk a little bit about our sponsor for the podcast this week. Better help online therapy, better help.com/tech guy. This is a tough time of year for everybody, you know and it's been a tough year <laugh> and it's going, it's getting tougher. It, no sin to think about. Maybe getting a little, somebody to talk to better help online therapy makes it easy, makes it affordable and helps you find a therapist. That's right for you. The best way to think about therapy is not like there's something you're broken. There's something wrong with you. That's not the case. I've done therapy. Everybody I know has done be. It's so helpful in so many circumstances, you tune up your car, right, to prevent a bigger issue down the road. It's just maintenance. You get checkups, you go to the gym just to maintain your wellness.

Leo Laporte (00:23:20):
This is maintaining your mental wellness. And it's really a shame that it's been stigmatized, but I like the idea better help because it means without, you know, feeling weird or, you know, going to an office, you can get somebody to talk to that helps you kind of do the routine maintenance we all need to do for your mental and emotional wellness. And it's all about preventing bigger issues down the road. You wanna live a better life. You wanna feel better. And now I, you know, don't, don't feel bad. This is a time people struggle. It's not at all unusual to struggle during the holidays and better help is here. It doesn't mean something's wrong with you. It means you're investing yourself to keep your mind healthy and you know, to maybe get through some Rocky points, you have to go visit your family before you go.

Leo Laporte (00:24:10):
You might mind make a little session with better help. It's not just any online therapy, by the way, completely flexible. You can, you can do a video call. If you want a phone call, if you're a hesitant or nervous, they even have live chat sessions. So you really, it really helps kind of get you over the initial barrier of, oh, I don't know. I don't know. Should I be looking at this person, do it with chat. You don't have to see anyone on camera. If you don't want to, it still works. It's a lot more affordable than in person therapy. And by the way, if you go right now to better help.com/tech guy, you can start communicating with a therapist and 48 hours. You can really get the help you need by Monday or Tuesday. I don't know why we invest in everything else. We spend money on any sort of thing to make us feel better, right?

Leo Laporte (00:24:55):
Did it that ice cream cone, that new car did it no for three seconds. Here's something that really can make you feel better forever long term, better help.com/tech guy tech eye listeners get 10% off their first month. This is a really good deal, better help.com/tech guy. Very impressed with the onboarding what also I was impressed with. And I've always been a believer in this. You just, any therapist is not, you want the therapist is right for you. That really speaks to you. That understands you. That talks in a way. Some, some guys want a guy to talk to. Sometimes you want a woman to talk to some women want say, I only talk to a woman or maybe I wanna talk to a guy, cuz I want to get that perspective. You should get somebody who's as smart as you.

Leo Laporte (00:25:43):
Somebody's not gonna take your excuses, you know, or maybe you don't, maybe you want somebody general who kind of take care of you. You get to choose. And it makes it very easy with better help to say it was nice to talk to you, but you're not the right person. Nobody takes offense, move on and find somebody who's right for you whose schedule works with your schedule. You can, you know, you could do it multiple times a week if you want. It's really, I think a great way. Or just once, just a, just once to say you know what, I'm going to the, going to the family Christmas <laugh> and I just want somebody to talk to before I go, just to reinforce, you know, the things that you know are right that make you feel better. I think this is really a good service, better help.com/tech guy.

Leo Laporte (00:26:26):
You wanna check it out right now? 10 per percent off for your first month, B E T T E R better. It's gonna make you feel better. Help. Help is on the way. H E p.com/tech. I it's like a cozy, warm fire in the fireplace. It's just gonna make you just feel a little bit better. That's a great thing. Thank you. Better help for supporting the tech guy show. And now back we go, it is time as always on a Sunday morning to get the latest on automotive technology from our car guy. My car guy, Sam bull, Sam greenhouse insights, principal researcher there. He also does the wheel bearings podcast wheel bearings.media joins us every week. Hello Sam, happy holidays. Hello?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:12):
Hello, Leo and that's guide house. Not greenhouse.

Leo Laporte (00:27:15):
What I said greenhouse <laugh> I'm sorry. Yes. Principal researcher at guide house insights. I even have it written out in front of me and I don't know what's wrong with it. I do that sometimes I have Christmas brain. Yes. I'm ready to go on vacation. I haven't had a vacation in quite a while. Not, not like a whole month. What come to think of it. Yeah. what is up in the world of cars?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:40):
So about a week and a half ago, I was actually out in California, was in in San Diego. And so we're my, my co-host from wheel Barings. Also out there and we were there to drive a new electric vehicle called the Hyundai Ionic 5 EV. So this is the first of almost two dozen new EVs that Hyundai motor group brands Hyundai and, and Genesis will be launching over the next two and a half years off of a new EV platform that they've developed. And there there's gonna be a variety of different vehicles including larger three row SUVs and sedans and, and all kinds of stuff. But the on five is the first of these and they actually just started deliveries this past week. The first few customers got some this week and it's this is, they call it a crossover.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:28:32):
You look at it, it looks more like a, a hatchback, but you know, it's, it's about the same size as you know, the, the really popular compact crossovers, like the Toyota RAV4, the Hyundai Tucson Honda CR-V and it's all electric and it is a really, really good car. So, you know, if you're, if you're looking for another option in an EV was something that looks a little different, you know, it's got a little, a little funer styling, a little bit different from a Tesla or from a Maki or a VW ID, four, that's you distinctive? This is one I would definitely recommend. It's you know, you can get it the, currently the, the they're launching with the all-wheel drive versions with 320 horsepower, a larger rear motor, a smaller front motor and they'll have a rear drive version coming in the spring. But it, it has a range of up to, depending on the configuration up to 303 miles. Oh, that's good.

Leo Laporte (00:29:33):
Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:29:34):
It it's very good. And it's, it's roomy. It's got lots of cargo space in it.

Leo Laporte (00:29:38):
Yeah. It looks like a kind of a more traditional SUV a little bit.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:29:42):
Yeah, yeah. A little bit, little, a little bit of SUV, a little bit of nineties hatchback, but you know, very kind of a, a faceted design. It's got some really interesting design details. So like, if you're, if you're watching the live stream, you can see a picture next to my shoulder the taillights and the same, they've got the same thing in the headlights where they've gone with this isolated look, you know, very kinda eight bit it looks like a

Leo Laporte (00:30:04):
Little PackMan, PackMan, backup lights. That's Hyster.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:30:08):
Exactly. Yeah. If you're, if you're if you're a was it a Minecraft fan? You might you might enjoy that. Look <laugh>,

Leo Laporte (00:30:15):
I have to say, I notice as I'm driving around at night now and, and I don't know if this is a good thing. We might have to start standardizing on lights because they're all kinds of thanks to LEDs. I was thinking, you know, the, probably the most impactful invention of the last decade is the white L E D because it's given us the ability to use L LEDs everywhere. And man, the L E D lights, we're seeing everywhere now, a crazy,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:30:40):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's and, and with the electronic controls with the with the LEDs yeah. They're

Leo Laporte (00:30:46):
Dancing and singing <laugh>. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:30:49):
And it's, it's one of the ways that designers, you know, have a little bit of, of freedom to, to give a distinct look because you, if you look at most of these car, most of these new vehicles, especially SUVs and crossovers they, they are often have basically the same shape, you know, if you, if you were to take them and just put 'em in profile and take the badges off, you'd have a hard time distinguishing those think you're right.

Leo Laporte (00:31:11):
They all look. So one of basically like crossovers.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:31:14):
Yeah. Yeah. One, one of the places where they've got some, a little bit of freedom of design is in the lighting, you know, the lighting and,

Leo Laporte (00:31:21):
And the wheels. And I'm looking at this, I, and the wheels are kind of unique as well.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:31:26):
Yeah. And actually somebody oh, scooter X I think, was asking, why are the wheels on so many electric cars, ugly turbines? You know, obviously design is very much a, you know, it, it's very, you know, very much a personal thing, you know, if you think it's ugly or, or good looking, you know, they're, they're trying to make it look a little bit more you know, futuristic make it look like it's in motion, even when it's standing still you know, in the past, you know, in some vehicles they've used, you know, this kind of turbine look where they've actually had directional wheels. So on the right and left hand side of the car, they were actually in, there were opposite. There were mirror images of each other. And in, in those cases, you know, if you look, if you were to take off the wheel and look at the back, they actually had fins cast in there. They were using 'em to extract air out through there as the wheel rotates to help cool the brakes. Wow. In this case here, you know, it's more just purely for aesthetics.

Leo Laporte (00:32:23):
Yeah. Yeah. Getting back to the lights, the infrastructure bill made a difference in the way our headlights work, believe it or not, I guess, well, they will, they will haven't yet. Yeah. A law passed in 1967 required headlights to have separate high and low beam elements. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, which means that a lot of the adaptive headlights, which don't were not legal NITSA is now proposing a change that will make those legal. So we're gonna see more, what, what is adaptive headlights?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:32:55):
So if you remember last year, believe it or not, it was only last year, although it's almost two years now at CES, when, when you were there with an, and when we were at the Audi booth, we got a demo of these adaptive lights. Yes. What this so cool. Yeah. So the, the way they work you know, they use LEDs and they use basically a DLP type mechanism, like used to have in projection, projection TVs, you know, with little micro mirrors and what what these adaptive lights can do is it basically creates, uses a matrix creates a light a, a illuminated matrix. And so you can create different patterns. They can aim too. It can, can aim, but also for example when you're driving down the road, if there's a car coming towards you, the forward facing camera can detect that car. Yeah. And then automatically dim the, essentially dim the pixels where that car is so that you can have high beams all around that

Leo Laporte (00:33:54):
Car, the rest of the roads fully illuminated, just not blinding the driver coming on. You. Exactly. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:33:59):
Wow. And you can do things like specifically illuminate the, the lane edges use all kinds of interesting things you can do to help improve the driver's situational awareness. Didn't that Audi

Leo Laporte (00:34:10):
Actually aim them, show where you're going on the road. Like it put yeah. Lights on the road ahead of you. It, it,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:34:17):
It does. Yeah. And they, they actually sell those in Europe, had those in Europe for several years. In fact, most of the European premium brands have those types of adaptive headlights. They haven't been legal here. As you mentioned, the infrastructure bill actually has a clause in there that directs NITSA within the next 24 months to change the lighting regulations to allow for these new adaptive headlights. Good. Because they're, it could be brighter, better visibility for drivers. So for better nighttime safety.

Leo Laporte (00:34:45):
So why do they have to be commanded to do this? Why can't the national highway traffic safety administration NITSA, just do it.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:34:55):
<Laugh> that's a good question. They

Leo Laporte (00:34:56):
Have to be ordered to to keep up with the times. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:35:00):
Automaker at have been actually been lobbying NITSA for a number of years now, you know, working with NITSA, trying to get these regulations changed. And it, I think even without the, that particular clause in the law, they, they, they were on their way to making this change anyway. So it's, it's more of a formality than anything else. So this was, this was going to happen.

Leo Laporte (00:35:20):
<Laugh> I feel like there's all sorts of things we could do with modern vehicles and technology that we, that all outdated laws, for instance side view mirrors. We don't really need those. We could use cameras. Right.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:35:33):
We could. And again, this is something that you can get in other parts of the world have camera mirrors. So it would be safer cameras and displays inside the car. And yeah, it's safer. They're always aimed correctly. And also there's less aerodynamic drag, those mirrors cause a lot of drag. Right. and so you could actually get better efficiency, a little better efficiency with cameras instead of mirrors.

Leo Laporte (00:35:58):
Sam will Sam guide, house insights, guide, house insights, wheel bearings.media. Thank you, Sam Leo LePort. Thank you. Leo. The tech guy <laugh> guide house in greenhouse. What was I thinking? So if you have, instead of mirrors, actually, it's a great question. John's asking, instead of mirrors, you have cameras, where do this, where does the display go so that you, where you, where would you look to see what the side views are?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:36:26):
So it it's various different manufacturers have done different solutions. Sometimes there'll be an LCD display at the base of the, a pillar on either side. So basically very close to you would look for the mirrors today. In the case of the Audi, e-tron on European market versions of the e-tron they, they're actually just in the, the top corner of the door panel just below the, a pillars. So generally they're putting them somewhere in the, the same general with Cindy, where you're glancing anyway when you're glancing at your mirrors, which you should be doing before you make a lane change or backup or anything like that. And, and also scanning, scanning your mirrors periodically as you drive. So that's where they're, they're locating those those displays for that.

Leo Laporte (00:37:10):
I will let you have your time web shorts wants dearly to hear about the ionic five. Okay. And I distracted you with the talk about lights, but I always try to make it more generalized.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:37:20):
Well, I mean, I started it cuz I talked about the matrix lights on or the pixel lights on the, on the ionic five. Yeah. So yeah, the ionic five is is really a fantastic car. You know, I said it's shaped a little more like a, like a nineties hot hatchback you know, like a golf GTI or something like that, but well, the distinct look to it it's, you know, the base setup is rear wheel drive. Like what VWs doing with the ID three ID four and their other ID platform vehicles. And it's, it's actually surprisingly roomy inside. So it's, it's the same length as the Hyundai Tucson. So if you're familiar with the Tucson or Toyota RAV4 or Honda CRV, those are all about the same length, about a hundred. And was it 176 or a hundred hundred eighty two, a hundred eighty three inches long?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:38:09):
Just a couple inches shorter than a Maki or a model Y so very close in size to those vehicles. But the wheel base is 118 inches. So it's about 10 inches longer. We wheel base than the Tucson. So it has a lot, they've really pushed the wheels out to the corners, which both has the effect creates a physi or a a I'm blanking on the word now creates an optical illusion that the car looks smaller than it actually is, but it's actually a pretty decent size as very roomy inside, very comfortable inside. Lot of fun to drive, not quite as quick as a, as a Tesla not as powerful but you know, a 320 horsepower with the all wheel drive 2 25 for the rear drive version. It's more than quick enough for, you know, pretty much anybody's needs.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:38:57):
And because it's electric, you've got that instant on toque, very responsive. And it's, it's a, it's a fantastic option base price for the standard range. Ionic five with rear wheel drives starts at just shy of $40,000 before Del delivery. And you can still get the full $7,500 tax credit on that. That version has a range of about 225 miles the extended range rear wheel drive versions about three, a little over 300 mile range. And it's it it's going for about $45,000 and then a fully loaded version of the the limited with all the available options on it Maxs out about $55,000. So about 47, 48 after the tax credit. So it's, it's a really, you know, if you're looking for an EV and you maybe be tired of seeing Teslas everywhere or, you know, any, anything else you want something a little different? This is definitely one I would seriously take a look at. There's also Kia is gonna have a their own model called the EV six that is based on the same platform. It's about the same size and it's gonna have completely different kind of design to it. You know, there's, there's a lot, a lot of new options coming to the market for for EVs over the next couple of years

Leo Laporte (00:40:26):
Mall. Kport the tech guy, eighty eight eighty eight, ask Leo the phone number art in Phoenix, your next, Hey art. Yay. Yay. Hello, to talk to you, Leo. Nice to talk to you. What's up.

Speaker 5 (00:40:41):
I hope you can help me with my problem. Yes, for years I've been using all past pro and I had like 150 passwords in there. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> I just got a new iPhone, 13 pro I upgraded it to the latest, whatever <laugh> and now all my passwords are gone.

Leo Laporte (00:41:05):
Well, that's not

Speaker 5 (00:41:06):
Nice. No, not, not at all. Now the odd thing is I haven't updated my iPad and everything's in there.

Leo Laporte (00:41:15):
So maybe you shouldn't at least until we've figure out what the heck is going on. I'm glad you only updated one at a time. So you updated to 15 two or what, what, what, that's the latest two. Okay. So everything was working right up until 15 two. Yes. For years and all pass pro still works. It's just, there's no passwords in it,

Speaker 5 (00:41:39):
Correct.

Leo Laporte (00:41:40):
Hmm. That's an interesting conundrum. Is it still available in the app store would be the next thing to check?

Speaker 5 (00:41:49):
Yeah, it is because one of the I tried was that I, I deleted the app and then I you know, reentered it and it was still in the app store. Okay.

Leo Laporte (00:42:03):
I'm not, I'm not familiar with it. It's a password vault. And it uses its own. I'm just checking. Cuz the first thing I was concerned about is maybe it had been using apples key chain to store the passwords and that might have been affected by Apple's upgrade, but it looks like it keeps its own vault. So that wouldn't be it, I, I think, I mean that would be the first thing I would, I would wonder is gosh, that's a really terrible result. I agree. <Laugh> and I don't know if I should blame all past pro or if I should blame iOS 15 two there, you know, there may be a reason apple did that. It's 

Speaker 5 (00:42:53):
Yeah. Now it, is it possible that another update might fix that?

Leo Laporte (00:43:01):
Yes. Although if I were you I would not update your iPad. Thank goodness you didn't right. And does all pass pro have a way to export those passwords to save them somewhere? Well,

Speaker 5 (00:43:13):
Yes. You, you can do a backup, which I, I used to do all the time.

Leo Laporte (00:43:18):
Okay. so I would, I would do that get it off the iPad, get it somewhere, you know, on a hard drive somewhere and, and verify that it is all your passwords, that way, whatever happens. <Laugh> I, I'm thinking it's a problem with, it's gotta be a problem with I'm looking by the way at reviews of all past pro and they are not very good. Oh, so

Speaker 5 (00:43:47):
What is a good well, I have two questions then. Yeah. First of all,

Leo Laporte (00:43:56):
I would,

Speaker 5 (00:43:56):
Here's the thing, reentered everything. If I reentered everything

Leo Laporte (00:43:59):
Well, you don't wanna reenter it unless you only have a handful of passwords. What I would do is export look at the export good password vault. There're very, very many. The number one password vault probably for iOS is one password there's last S I use pit warden, which is an open source one. I like the idea of it being open source because you know you can verify it's doing what it says it would do and all of that. It's also free. So all of those would be a good alternative. What you should do do though, is check and see if you can export your all pass passwords in a format that these other ones can import Mo every password manager I've ever used. And I've used many of them, cuz I, you know, part of my review process I have yet to use all pass pro.

Leo Laporte (00:44:45):
So I apologize. But all the ones I've used have a way to it in such a way that another password manager can import it easily. Usually that's with something called CSV or comma separated values. That's a text file format that is kind of very generic. And a lot of a lot of apps can, can do this, this all pass pros developed by one guy. And, and it may be Alexander, Troy ski who wrote it. You know, I noticed it hasn't been updated in a, in a year. It may be, he has not kept up with there have been some massive changes. Oh, I look, you can export, you can export it via mail, iTunes and CSV text files. If you do it with CSV text files, then you can use use last password, one password, bit warden, a variety of password managers import them and you won't lose your data. You won't lose your data. Okay. Yeah. I think that there must be a bug in this Alexander hasn't kept up. There was some massive changes in iOS. Since 15 something happened, it's not a good thing. Very, you know, that's not good. Does look like it uses its own vault which is a good thing. That's very strange that they all disappeared. That's got, that's a bad bug, whatever that is.

Speaker 5 (00:46:03):
Yeah, cuz I, you I'd been using it for, as I say years and never had a problem

Leo Laporte (00:46:08):
With it. Here's a review. I'd give it zero stars. If I could love the program until I put 'em my iPad and it overwrote the database, deleting all my passwords. It's been more than a week since your update, which results in not being able to access the data in the app, lot of negative reviews. So I think maybe time to move to a better password manager, password manager is one of those things really better work. You're putting a lot of trust into it.

Speaker 5 (00:46:36):
Yeah. what if you were me, what, what one will you gravitate toward?

Leo Laporte (00:46:42):
Well I use bit warden it's free it's open source. They are a sponsor of some of our podcasts, but last pass was to, I used last pass for many, many years. They're very good. And a lot of apple people prefer one password. That's an excellent choice too. There's another one that is very Mac, an iOS friendly called dash lane. I would say, I would say your choices are between one password and bit warden. Take a look at both. Both have free trials. Bit warden is free forever cuz it's open source. They have a kind of a pro version that's less than a buck a month. I think it's warden bit warden B I T w a R D E N. And I should say every pastor manager I use has one key feature. It works on windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android, because I use all of those.

Leo Laporte (00:47:32):
You may not care. In fact, if you don't care, if you're all apple, if you use max, you're all apple, then apple has a built in password manager that really probably does everything you need. And because it's apple, I think it's probably much more trustworthy than any third party. And that's just the key chain and the password manager built in. You probably noticed that when you enter a password on iOS, I've used it. I I've never used it. Yeah. It offers to write a password. It'll use the fingerprint reader or face ID to automatically unlock it. It's tightly integrated in the biggest negative. It's very well done. The, my only reason I don't use it and the biggest negative is it's you gotta only be used apple products, max and iOS. But if you're all Mac, if you're all apple, I think it's, I'm all, I'm all Mac, I'm all apple good way to go.

Leo Laporte (00:48:17):
The cult. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah. If you're in the cult <laugh> and honestly, you know, the reason I use all of these is cuz it's my job. I have to use everything. Yeah. But you know, for that reason I use bit warden, but honestly if you're in the cult, just use the built-in password manager. It's really good. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. My pleasure. I'm sorry. You got bit, I'm glad boy, it's really a lucky thing that you only upgraded your iPhone and not your iPad. And it may be that you could upgrade the iPad and you wouldn't lose a password database that kind of unrelated. It's just a bug in the software. In fact, that's my guess. Looking at these reviews, this they, your password manager is such a critical part of your infrastructure. There are just some things I don't, you know, I, I wanna be very careful about and I can't think of anything more important to be careful flip out then your password manager, maybe one other thing. <Laugh> your backup? Let's take a break. We're going come back, take more of your calls. 88 88, ask Leo and ladies and gentlemen from GHouse insights. The Sam ball salmon enjoy your eight minutes and 30 seconds my friend.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:49:35):
All right. So continuing on for just a little bit more with the the five couple other things I didn't get, I didn't get around to mentioning one of the really cool features of this car is got an 800 volt electrical system which means that supports we really fast charging. It can charge it up to 235 kilowats so it'll go on a three 50 kilowat charger, it'll go from 10% charge to 80% charge in just 18 minutes. And in five minutes you can add about 68 miles of range to it. So it makes it much more convenient. With fast charging and Hyundai is bundling in for the first two years, you get unlimited 30 minute charge sessions at electrify America stations. So the, you know, basically for the first two years, you can pretty much do all your driving for free with without having to pay for any charging.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:50:31):
And then one of the other cool features of this platform is something that Hyundai is calling vehicle to load capability. So it's got bidirectional capability. You can, you get an adapter that plugs into the charge port, and that gives you an AC outlet with up to 1.9 kilowats of output. So if you wanna do some glamping or anything like that, or, you know, power some devices around your home, or, you know, a tailgate party, things like that, you can plug in a whole bunch of things to the car and charge them or run them off the battery of the car. So that's a, that's a, a very handy feature. In fact, you can although it's not really recommended and probably not the most efficient way to do it, but you can actually charge up another EV off of this using the optional, the, the available charging cable that comes with the car.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:51:23):
So if you run across another EV that has run outta juice, you can plug in that debt after plug in your cable and charge up another EV it'll be a fairly slow way to do it, but you, you know, you can get a, you know, in an hour you can get a few miles of range into there, and that might be enough to get that other EV to a charging station without having to call for a flatbed to, to tow them in. The, the other thing that was coming up in the the chat earlier on in the show was some discussion around key fobs and key fob batteries and emergency keys. You know, at the beginning Leo was talking about his using his phone as a key with his mock E some challenges with that.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:52:11):
Almost all the vast majority of modern vehicles have keyless entry systems. So you've got a little RF trans receiver in your key fob that comes with your car and you can remotely lock and unlock the car with that. And you know, of course, you know, because that's got a little radio transmitter receiver in there it's gotta have some power, so there's a battery in there. And sometimes those, eventually those batteries die <laugh> and all of a sudden you can't get into your car. So one of the things that you will find, and most people you, chances are, you've never noticed this. You never realize this unless it's come up. Every one of these key fobs has a physical key embedded in it. And, you know, if you look around, if you look closely at your key fob or, you know just take a look at your owner's manual, you will find that there's usually some kind of little button or something somewhere.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:53:07):
You press that, and it releases and it'll act, you can pull out an actual physical key. And even though if you look at your car you'll, you won't usually see a keyhole on most modern cars. And if you look carefully, you will find somewhere where there's a little cover, that's covering up a keyhole, that's there for emergencies, you know? So if either the battery on the car goes dead, or the battery in your F goes dead, you can use that, that physical emergency key in the case of the ionic five if you're looking at the, the stream, you see the picture, you see how the, the door handles are popped out there. Once, once you get in the car and start it, those fold back, flush with the door. But underneath that is actually you'll find the keyhole. In some cases, there's a cover. My, my key

Leo Laporte (00:53:52):
Is not cut. So I'm thinking that the module, the key in your fob. Yeah. So I'll show you. Yeah. I'm thinking there is in fact, no no, no special hole.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:54:08):
Another that's unusual that, that that I would call a manufacturing defect. No, no, there actually should be really for safety. Oh yeah. There should be a hole somewhere. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:54:19):
Oh, for I I've seen other people say theirs is not cut as well, so I think, oh, okay. Yeah. It's weird. You're right. There should be some, if there's no electricity, some physical manual way to, to at least get in.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:54:35):
Yeah. And almost every vehicle I've seen there, there, there is one there. Yeah, this is

Leo Laporte (00:54:39):
But it's a good, you know, if I've ever get in prison, I can make a shank out of it. So <laugh>, there's

Sam Abuelsamid (00:54:44):
That, as long as I let you bring the key with you. Oh yeah. That's a key fob with you. I need my key fob.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:54:51):
Okay. and also, you know for occasionally you, you, you will have to replace the battery in that fob. And those, you know, those can be, those are generally relatively easy to replace. Sometimes there's a little screw that holds the case, the two halves, so that the fob case together, sometimes it just snaps together on our Honda. That's the way it is. You'll find there's a little slot somewhere. You can stick a screwdriver in there, pop that open and replace the battery. If you don't feel comfortable doing that you can you can usually go to the dealer and they will replace it for you for generally a very small charge. Cause it's something that'll only, only takes a couple of minutes. And then let's see who was it here? Somebody in the oh, Jarvis Lori was saying it would appear Mercedes-Benz the head of Tesla and self-driving technology.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:55:37):
Is this a valid statement? You know, neither one of them is really self-driving. Tesla certainly is not truly self-driving it's driver assist technology. And even what I think what drivers Lori is referring to is the new drive pilot system that has just recently gotten approval on the new Mercedes S class in the EQs in Germany. This is what's known as a level three conditionally automated system. So the systems we have today including on Tesla so-called level two, which means that, you know, for the driver, you can take your hands off or, well, not in the case of Tesla in some cars like super crews and blue crews, you can take your hands off the wheel, you can take your feet off the pedals, but for the driver, you still have to be eyes on the road and brain on level three systems.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:56:24):
You when they're operational, the driver actually doesn't have to watch the road a hundred percent of the time. You still have to remain awake and alert. So you can't climb in the backseat and take a nap, but you can do things like Reed or text or watch a video. The regulations in Germany for this actually across Europe limit the maximum speed where this can be used at up to 60 kilometers per hour or 37 miles per hour. And it has to be geofenced to divided highways. So this is really more of a traffic jam assist system. So if you're in stop and go traffic, you can engage this and it will, will do the steering and breaking. You don't have to constant constantly be watching the road ahead. And then you know, once you get to 37 miles an hour, then the driver has to take over full control again. So it's partially unsupervised. Let's see see Jim for is asking, what do I think is the best and safe fist EV auto you know, pretty much all modern vehicles, you know, have pretty close to the same level of safety. They, you know, they all have to meet the same crash safety standards. I don't think anybody has any particular advantage. Right now I will hand it back to Leo. Thank

Leo Laporte (00:57:42):
You, Sam.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:57:44):
And I'll talk to you all in two weeks, I

Leo Laporte (00:57:46):
Guess, and a happy new year and I'll see you on January 2nd. All right. Fabulous tech guy, Merry Christmas guy. All right,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:57:58):
Bye. See you.

Leo Laporte (00:57:59):
Well, ho, ho, ho, how are you today? Leo Laport here, the tech guy time. So our computers, the internet, home theater, digital photography, smart phones, smart watches, all that jazz. Eighty eight eighty eight, ask Leo the phone number (888) 827-5536 to free from anywhere in the us or Canada, our website tech I labs.com. And I'm very sad after 13 years to have to say this is the last day for our scribe, our official scribe, James DVO. It's a complicated, long story. James didn't want to go, but we had to let him go because we the website is changing dramatically. So I guess I'll say, I'll tell you the story. Otherwise, you're gonna think I'm a Scrooge. We, the tech iLab website runs on a content management system called Drupal, D R U P a L. Been on. I've been using Drupal since since, oh, let's see.

Leo Laporte (00:59:00):
Since I started the podcast network, which was 2005, originally the tech ILI was a, a Wiki, which I really liked the idea was everybody could add to it, but I realized the, with the modern internet that <laugh> everybody mostly included spamers. So we had such a spam problem with the Wiki. I had to kind of make it a, just a normal website. And then eventually we moved it to Drupal, which we'd been using for the podcast network for some years. Unfortunately Drupal has changed a lot over the years and has now released a new version that is completely incompatible with the old version and to top it all off they're gonna stop supporting the old version next year, which means it'll be full of security flaws as anyway, drew I not to knock Droople, but you know, it's gonna leave us out in the cold.

Leo Laporte (00:59:56):
We, we approach to the company does the support for the website canopy and said, well, how much just outta, you know, outta curiosity <laugh> how much would it cost to move the old website to the new Droople? So that would remain secure. And they gave me a quote that well made me spit out my coffee. So at that point we decided, you know, we're already, we're running a tech guy website, we'll update that site cuz you know, we're gonna have to anyway, we're gonna update the, the podcast site and we'll just move the tech eye site over there. So starting next year, like basically now after this show the whole tech eye site will still be tech eye labs.com, but when you hit it, it will go over and you'll notice on twi.tv, which is our podcast website.

Leo Laporte (01:00:45):
And of course we have a bunch of people running that and they're just gonna take over the scribe portion of it. So James, thank you for your years of service. He said 13 years I blown away practically since the beginning I really appreciate all you've done. <Affirmative> he said he was, he was hoping to retire with me. Well, dude, <laugh>, you're retiring roughly at the same time. Let's put it that way. Thank you for your great service. And here's a tip of the cup to James duo, our official scribe last day today. But stay, you know, we'll, we'll stay in touch and starting I guess with the January 2nd show when you hit tech guy labs.com, it'll, it'll be similar but different, not quite as, probably not quite as voluminous. We're not gonna have the pick of the week and the, then the app of the week and the tip of the week and all of that stuff.

Leo Laporte (01:01:39):
I think basic show notes, which means the links to everything we talk about kind of a summary of the show, questions and answers, but the most important thing will be there, which is the audio and video from the show. So you will be able to go to that any portion of the show and, and see the question and the answer there replay. So thank you Mr. James DVO, a good man. It's the end of an era? He, he says it's been a great ride in our chat room. You can say hi to him in the chat room, if you want IRC TP now on with the show Brian in Marietta. California's next? Hi Brian. Hey, how are you? I'm great. How are you? Pretty good.

Speaker 6 (01:02:19):
Let me I'm at Costco <laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:02:21):
Oh, okay. Pick up a giant bag of Doritos for me, if you will.

Speaker 6 (01:02:26):
Oh, I, I was gonna pick up thing of apple

Leo Laporte (01:02:30):
Pie for you. Oh, they have those. Nice. Are you gonna get one of the big ones?

Speaker 6 (01:02:34):
Of course. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:02:36):
There's no small apple pies. Well, and maybe if there are, you have to buy a hundred of 'em. I don't know how it works, but yeah. Yeah. The, I, you know what

Speaker 6 (01:02:43):
Here and taco is

Leo Laporte (01:02:44):
Small. The, yeah, nothing is small, but the food's good there. I actually enjoy it. Good apple pie. So what can I do for you today?

Speaker 6 (01:02:52):
Okay. I have two questions. I have a high schoolers starting college next year went to do graphic design. Oh, exciting apple.

Leo Laporte (01:03:02):
Yes,

Speaker 6 (01:03:03):
Apple computer or laptop. That's not gonna kill me in

Leo Laporte (01:03:07):
Mac <laugh> so the good news is all of the apple laptops now are running essentially the same processor, the M one, the N one pro and the M one max, there are D but it's essentially the same. It's all based on the a 14, which was in last year's iPhone and iPad. So the good news is you can't really go wrong. I have some knowledge about this because my nephew is a graphic designer. He just graduated from the Rhode Island school of design. We wanted to give him a, my mom and I wanted to give him a nice graduat and present. We gave him a new MacBook pro one of the big 16 inches which he, he needs because he's going out into his professional life. And he needs a lot of GPU. A lot of, lot of horsepower. The biggest difference between the least expensive Mac laptop.

Leo Laporte (01:03:56):
You you're definitely gonna get the M one chip. I you could still buy less expense of Intel based Mac laptops, but you're buying the old technology. And I just think you wanna get him through the four years of school. Let's, let's get him an M one, the least expensive is the MacBook air, which I think is a great choice for a college kid. It's light it's E it's very good, easy to use. It starts at a thousand. That's probably be closer to your budget than the top of the line. The one I end up getting from my nephew, which was almost as expensive as you can get was over $4,000. So there's the range 1000 to 4,000. You can pick your poison anywhere in there, but all of them will be good. Do you wanna spend a, are you willing to spend a little more than a thousand?

Speaker 6 (01:04:41):
Well, Costco is having a M one chip with a 13 inch, I think $200 off. Good.

Leo Laporte (01:04:47):
That's a great one. That's a great

Speaker 6 (01:04:50):
One. I think it's running around $1,100.

Leo Laporte (01:04:52):
Yeah. That's essentially, in fact it is identical to the MacBook air, but with one exception, it has a little more battery, cuz it's a little bit thicker, little bit not and it has a fan in it and that means that the processor can run at peak performance a little hotter, little faster. So yeah, if you are willing to spend the extra a hundred bucks, get the 13 inch, it's also, you know, it's a little bit bigger. Is it a bigger screen? Yeah, it's a little bit bigger screen. More battery life is of course great for any student. So yeah, that's I had the MacBook air MacBook pro 13 inch when it came out last year I bought it and I love it. My wife now has it. She's thrilled with it. And I moved on to the M one pro, which is also very, very good.

Speaker 6 (01:05:35):
So basically for, for a freshman, that's starting out, you have to need most powerful one. Yeah. So as long as it has an M1 chip, absolutely apple

Leo Laporte (01:05:47):
Pro. Yeah. And I'll tell you the other thing that really is fairly important. If for the, for a lower price of the same price, you can get more memory with an air, get the air. So it may be, and then you'll have to look at the specs that, where you're gonna sacrifice on that is how much Ram you want. 16 gigs. You do not want the eight gig one. You want the 16 gig one and how much storage, how much hard drive. And they start at five 12, which is probably okay for him. So, so would say whatever you can afford that has 16 gigs of Ram five, 12 gig hard drive and an M one chip of some kind, some Stripe. Got

Speaker 6 (01:06:27):
It. You're gonna be good. Yeah. I figure Ram's gonna be more important than anything. Absolutely. Yeah, but apple, the apple doesn't have an external can I hook up, can she hook up, pay external hard drive?

Leo Laporte (01:06:39):
She can. And she can also hook up an external monitor. So for Valentine's day, you can give her a hard drive <laugh> for her birthday. You give her an external monitor. This is the gift that keeps on giving.

Speaker 6 (01:06:51):
So I have one chip, what

Leo Laporte (01:06:53):
Both 16 gigs of Ram. And actually I think the minimum, I don't think they go lower than five, 12 gigs. That's plenty the, of storage. You know, you can get a terabyte or two, but as you point out, she can add an external hard drive. The stuff she's gonna work on day to day will be will be on the hard drive and five twelves in a what's the

Speaker 6 (01:07:12):
Difference between a 13 inch and a 16 inch. The, the, the so they've,

Leo Laporte (01:07:19):
They've upgraded the processors gig. Yeah, there's more Ram possible. You can go all the way up to 64 gigs if you want, but they've also upgraded the processors to have more, more, faster, more got it. They're not faster. I, oddly enough, they just have more cores. And then the max, the M so there's the M one pro and then there's the M one pro M one max, which has more GPU in it. And ultimately, you know, this is what we gave my nephew, cuz ultimately when you're using heavy duty graphics software having more GPU is, is gonna help a lot. Let's put, let me make this cl clear though. It'll all work on any one of them and it'll all work very, very well on any one of them. But if you're what you're buying is time. So it's how long it takes to render the project she's working on. And she's a student. She could go get a cup of coffee <laugh> she can relax. Right? She can watch an episode of the office and then come back. If you're working in industry, if you're a com programmer or a designer, an industry and time is money, that's different, but she's a student time is not money yet time. She's got lots of time. So I, I think you're, I think you're gonna, she's gonna be so happy. These are excellent systems. Really highly recommended.

Speaker 6 (01:08:34):
One quick question. Sure. Mom also wants to get her since she's going to graphic design or she's very artsy. She wants to get her a DSLR camera. I said, well, I think that's going out as airless. Of course they're all expensive. Yeah. What would you recommend as far as brand? That's not gonna kill me on my bank either.

Leo Laporte (01:08:53):
So the everybody now is making me, this is the future of digital photography in, in the high end. I'm a Sony guy and Sony does make some inexpensive mirrors like the a six thousands or some very kind of less expensive Sony mirrors. That would be a good choice for her. The, the other choice is cannon and you know, frankly, you know, if you're willing to spend thousands, this is me more expensive than the computer. If you're willing to spend thousands of dollars, the Sony, the cam and R five and R six, they're amazing R six is less expensive. Those are excellent as well. Nyon also has me less at this point, I think it's really down to Canon Sony. And then there are some, you know, kind of outline in there, but I would say the big, the big, the, the reason this is important is not for the body you buy today, but for the lenses you're buying and the future, she's, you know, you kind of buy into one lens style or another Canon or Sony. So I, I think for her, I think as Sony the lower end Sonys would be just fine.

Speaker 6 (01:09:55):
I mirrorless or MI

Leo Laporte (01:09:58):
Mirrorless. Absolutely. Yeah, no, absolutely mirrorless, much more flexible and, and all of that. And there are 6,000. Yeah. I'm sure Costco will have an a 6,000 in stock. That's fairly inexpensive. It is. They interchangeable lenses. It's under a thousand. So I, I, you know, with the, with the kit lenses, it's about 950 bucks. And that's a, I think I know, I'm sorry. <Laugh> well, I felt your pain, man. <Laugh> you gotta pay for college too. Let's not forget. And there and wait till you see how much textbooks cost. So maybe just say, honey, let's wait a little while on the camera.

Speaker 6 (01:10:37):
It's it's called Cal state university. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:10:40):
<Laugh> great school. Hey, look, she's going to a great school. She's gonna have a great time in four years, dad, you're gonna feel much better after it's over. <Laugh> I just put it that way. I really appreciate it. You got I've been through it. I had two kids put through college and it's but afterwards it's a great feeling. Good job. Sony. A six, a 6,000. Yeah. A 6,000. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:11:05):
Oh, by the way. And your segment on halogen lights. I, I can't wait until they, they pass the role just for the fact that I hate halogen because it, it blinds me. I can't see. Oh, they're terrible.

Leo Laporte (01:11:17):
Pass that call. Yeah. They're terrible. These new L E D lights. The only thing I didn't really get into with Sam is they're distracting as hell. They're all so pretty. And <laugh> I notice these days I'm looking at people's lights, this backup lights, taillights, my wife's new mini Cooper. Her lights look like the British flag. They're just too. They're distracting now. I think dad, you're, you're a good dad. Congratulations to your daughter. That's really exciting. Really exciting. I'm gonna go

Speaker 6 (01:11:47):
To the computer section. Yeah. And you have a great day. And holiday.

Leo Laporte (01:11:50):
You too go spend some money. It's only the big thing. Wait, he sees what textbooks cost. Eighty eight, eighty eight as that's the phone number? We're talking high tech. Chris Marquardt.

Chris Marquardt (01:12:08):
Hello? Hello. Hello.

Leo Laporte (01:12:10):
How are you? My friend. Doing

Chris Marquardt (01:12:14):
Good. Good. Doing good. You do not have an email today. We will talk about stuff. I we're not show anything.

Leo Laporte (01:12:20):
I'm shocked.

Chris Marquardt (01:12:21):
Yes. I'm shocked here. Shocked. No. Wanna talk about family Christmas with a smartphone.

Leo Laporte (01:12:26):
Oh, nice. Now you heard me talking with a dad about his college bound kid. Wanted a camera DSLR. Yeah. And I said, mirrorless. Absolutely. I know you agree with me on that.

Chris Marquardt (01:12:38):
I, I felt, oh, that's that make, make, make her get a used DSLR. That's a good idea. These are coming down in price massively right now. And a DSLR is, is it forces you to, to ramp up skills where, where the mirrorless cameras will give you a lot of what you see is what you get. Like, you don't really have to learn exposure well, in these kind of things, cuz the camera does a lot for you. That DSR will kind of force you into that. And that's a good thing to have. So that's a good

Leo Laporte (01:13:10):
Point used

Chris Marquardt (01:13:11):
In fact, a icon.

Leo Laporte (01:13:12):
In fact, if she's gonna, she's gonna study graphic arts, probably take a photography class. Wait till then. Oh yes.

Chris Marquardt (01:13:18):
Wait till then my, my brother studied, studied graphic design, I think for the first, well they had to shoot. That was 10 years ago. He had to shoot with a film DSR and he had to use a pencil for a year. He didn't, wasn't allowed to use a for you here. Yep.

Leo Laporte (01:13:36):
My other nephew Grady, who's still at, RDY taking, he's gonna be a photography major and they let you rent a camera, which is nice. He's been written a Pentax K 1000 or an Olympus. K 1000. And no, I guess its Pentax, which is a film camera. So this is so cute. My mom just bought him one. I said, mom, oh no. Where did you, where did you find that? I don't know. She said I paid 120 bucks for it. I said, well, that might be a little more than it's worth, but you know what? It's a good gift. I said, and I said, show it to me. And she shows me it doesn't have a lens. I said, you're gonna have to get a lens. <Laugh> oh, but the good thing is film cameras are cheap

Chris Marquardt (01:14:18):
20 without a lens

Leo Laporte (01:14:20):
Is a little bit, she got, she got robbed, but that's okay. That's okay. That's actually a classic camera. Pent X K 1000. It's a classic.

Chris Marquardt (01:14:27):
Oh yes I, yes.

Leo Laporte (01:14:28):
Yeah. So the that's what he'd been renting.

Chris Marquardt (01:14:32):
There's there's there's a lot in the, in the, in the medium range Canon, even the five DS fived, mark twos are still good.

Leo Laporte (01:14:40):
Oh, so that's interesting. So people are selling off, they're selling off their old mirror, mirrored DSLRs to get mirrorless aren't they? Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Marquardt (01:14:48):
Absolutely. Lot of people are switching. Yeah. And that saturates the market pretty quickly.

Leo Laporte (01:14:54):
And so I got Henry in R five, but I also got the adapters so he can use all those nice Canon lenses from the five D yeah. That's a good, you know, the ones that you have. Yeah. Well that he has your lens stash. Yeah. I gave him my stash. He's got the best stash ever stash ever. Awesome. Yeah. Awesome. All right. We'll talk in few. The show today brought to you by user way.org. You heard, we talked earlier to Julian Vaga who is all about accessibility helping a blind users, access the phone, access the computer and most important access. The internet that is really job one for anybody who owns a website. And fortunately the good news is it is the legal responsibility, by the way, according to the Americans with disabilities act, the ADA oh, any website is a public entity and so has to be accessible.

Leo Laporte (01:15:50):
Fortunately, I can take all burden of that off your shoulders by just telling you about user way. I know, look, I'm sympathetic, I run websites. And and I'm always, you know, confronted with this thing. I wanna make it accessible. I know it's my legal responsibility. It's also I, what I want to do. I don't want anybody to feel like they can't use our website. I want to, if you're blind, I want you to be able to use a screen reader and so forth, but then there's this cost issue, right? The idea that, what is it gonna take to make this accessible? Well, user way has solved this for us. Let me tell you, it's an incredible AI powered solution that tirelessly enforces the hundreds of web content, accessibility guidelines, woo keg. They call it and it does it, it does more than an entire team of developers with just one line of JavaScript.

Leo Laporte (01:16:38):
That's the thing it's so easy. And I doesn't matter if you're what, how you're, you know, are using WordPress or Shopify or Wix or AEM or site core SharePoint doesn't matter. You know, there's plugins for some and others, just, just a line of JavaScript for my hand, coded site, just a line of JavaScript user way seamlessly integrates. It helps your business meet its compliance goals and it improves the experience for all your users. I think that's pretty darn important with one line of JavaScript. Now you can go to the user way site. There's a little scanner there. That'll tell you if your site is ADA compliant, it'll tell you what's wrong. What needs to be fixed. Then it's just a matter of putting in that line of JavaScript. It's very affordable. It's actually was very relieved at how affordable it was. You know, it's less than we pay for, you know, I don't know what the, the special fonts, the web font we buy.

Leo Laporte (01:17:29):
It's, it's not expensive. And it is used by so many more than a million websites trust, user way to make their site accessible, including some of the biggest businesses in the world. Coca-Cola Disney, eBay, FedEx, UNICEF uses user way. And when you need to scale, you know, they're gonna scale line, along with you, auto generate image Ts using their computer vision. It writes image descriptions for you. It remediates complex nav menus. Those are really a problem for screen readers. Popups are accessible, vague link violations, and you'll get a detailed report of all the violations that were fixed. And you can interact with user waste software to add more. If you wanna make those alt tags even more descriptive, you can easily do that. And it works with everything. Wordpress, Shopify wicks just asks Susan Bennett, the voice of Siri, what she thinks of user way, Susan, hi,

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I'm Susan Bennett, the original voice of Siri. You won't hear me say something like this too often. I'm sorry. I don't understand what you're looking for, but every day, that's what the internet is like for millions of people with disabilities user way fixes all of that with just one line of code

Leo Laporte (01:18:43):
User way can make any website fully accessible, 88 compliant with user way. Everyone who visits your site can browse seamlessly. You can, they can customize it. It's this, it's this, you know, layer, this accessibility layer in the browser, all browsers do it. Your site needs to do it too. 60 million Americans with disabilities will thank you user way.org/tweet. You'll get 30% off user ways. AI powered accessibility solution, great way to showcase your brand's commitment to all those millions of people with disabilities user way. And it's the right thing to do. And it's the legal thing to do user way.org/making the internet accessible for everyone. Thank you user way as our very own red bearing James ARVO sales off into the sunset. This was his request. That's for you, James, Merry Christmas, my friend. Isn't that great. I love it. Rex in Vista. California's next? Hello, Rex Leo Laport. The tech guy.

Speaker 9 (01:19:43):
Hello Leo. Thank you very much for taking my call.

Leo Laporte (01:19:45):
Thanks for calling what's up.

Speaker 9 (01:19:47):
Well, I've been a windows user forever, and I have recently decided to jump ship to the Chrome operating system. I went out and bought a very, very nice Chromebook that I'm incredibly happy

Leo Laporte (01:20:03):
With. Nice. Which one did you get?

Speaker 9 (01:20:05):
I got the Acer spins seven, 13. Perfect,

Leo Laporte (01:20:08):
Neat little machine. Isn't that nice. All aluminum body. That's a, that is the one I would've told you to get. That's great.

Speaker 9 (01:20:14):
Okay. Okay, good. So anyhow, I've been, you know, doing the old side by side, trying, you know, what I could do with windows and, and the Chromebook does everything that I need to do at this point. There's one, one out point that I have with the Chromebook that I'm trying to solve. I really, really, really like Microsoft outlook. I'm running a very old version, 2007. Yeah. so I've been looking for something

Leo Laporte (01:20:42):
There's nothing like outlook. <Laugh> I gonna say that right now. So with ChromeOS essentially you have to use apps and extensions that work with the Chrome browser. That's, that's what that does. You can't add Android apps too. And, and by the way, if your your spin should support the Android app store, if you haven't installed that, and there is an outlook on the app store.

Speaker 9 (01:21:07):
Yeah. I tried that. I I've installed a few of the different apps. I installed the, the outlook Android app. And it's very nice and I it's the

Leo Laporte (01:21:17):
Same is it though that

Speaker 9 (01:21:18):
Yeah, but I'm looking to see if there's something even better. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:21:21):
It's just not the same. No. So you can go to office.com. I'm sure you've done that. Microsoft. you obviously you have a Microsoft account, so you'd log in with your Microsoft account. And Microsoft has web versions of the entire office suite, including outlook. Again, not quite as powerful as the standalone. It may be a lot closer though. It may be close enough. And that is a lifesaver, frankly. I think actually office.com for word PowerPoint, Excel, outlook.com for now see that's though that's their outlook mail. I don't think that's anywhere close to the, the same thing, but but that's what Microsoft wants you to use if you're using it a Chromebook. Maybe they don't, maybe this is a subtle way of saying you shouldn't have bought a Chromebook dude. I think that's really your, your best bet. I'm, I'll, I'll look around and see if we can find anything else. Leo Laport be tech guy. It's just not, you know, Microsoft, isn't gonna make it as good as the office that you buy. I'm trying to think of like the, the, the only good news is there are a lot of other male programs you can try, especially in Android that might have features you like, but nothing is gonna be like outlook. Let's I guess that's the way to say it, Rex.

Speaker 9 (01:22:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a, it's a fantastic program. That's I've been using it forever. And like say though, I'm, I'm kind of over all the windows drama. Ah,

Leo Laporte (01:22:58):
No kidding. No kidding. I've just annoyed. We're fired. So here's somebody's saying now this is cop king in our chat room says he really likes em, client, em, client, but I don't know if you can run that in a Chromebook it's it is very outlook. Like, you know, you have your calendar, your address book, everything's all in one. But I don't know if that works on Chromebooks. I think it does. Maybe it, maybe it has a web interface. Let's see Mac OS Ms. Exchange outlook office 365 iCloud G suite. Well, if it works with G suite, must have a web interface. Anyway, look at the em client. This is he's right. This is very close.

Speaker 9 (01:23:45):
Ooh,

Leo Laporte (01:23:46):
Okay. Very close. 

Speaker 9 (01:23:50):
Em, client,

Leo Laporte (01:23:50):
Em, client.com. I'm not sure how you would use that in a Chromebook cuz it, but if it's available for it, it'll, there'll be a way it must be a web interface cuz it says it works with Google's G suite, but maybe they mean on a Mac windows machine. I hate to hate to do this to you because now I'm getting your hopes up. But <laugh> <laugh> you know, this is, this is what you give up with a Chromebook is you give up some of these desktop apps that are that you kind of reliant on.

Speaker 9 (01:24:21):
Yeah, yeah. But like say I, I really enjoyed, there's been several times where I've, I've fired up the, the laptop and it it's choked for some reason. And I pull out the Chromebook and bingo I'm in and doing my work. So

Leo Laporte (01:24:37):
No security issues they don't push an edge on you every three seconds. You know, I mean I just, I think it is a, I think it's a cleaner choice. If you really need standalone desktop apps, then you can go full bore Linux cuz basically a Chromebook is a, a stripped down Linux and you can, you can within the Chromebook run Linux and then you have a lot more choices, you know, I guess my suggestion would be to wean yourself off of outlook. <Laugh>

Speaker 9 (01:25:08):
I think, I think that's quite honestly, half, half the battle I've I've used the interface a couple of times. I'm like, okay,

Leo Laporte (01:25:16):
I know you it's hard cuz you're so used to the features of outlook. Oh yeah. But outlook is a really, it's an outlier in email programs. It does much more than any other email program. It's really it's really kind of old school and and it's very corporate, you know? So it's not, that's why you don't see it on other platforms so

Speaker 9 (01:25:35):
Much. I see. Okay. Well I'll, I'll check around. I just thought I, I, I listened to your, to your show when I'm out working on my car. Nice. And just enjoy what kind of car Rex. I have a 60 Chevy Chael that I'm oh, restoring you're restoring it.

Leo Laporte (01:25:53):
Aw. Yeah. That's nice. A lot of fun. My wife completely restored a Camaro from that era. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. What fun.

Speaker 9 (01:26:06):
Yeah it is. And I, I, I'm not a, a mechanic by training, but the, these old cars are so simple mind you can, you know, Google, YouTube and a little bit of reading

Leo Laporte (01:26:16):
And well, that's why I asked because no modern car. Can anybody work on it? <Laugh> no, no. I knew it had to be. I knew it did well. Rex have a good afternoon working on your car. What? That sounds like a perfect way to spend the day. You got you. Thanks Rex. Okay. Well thank you. Thanks for listening. Take care. All right, Mr. Quat, let's get ready.

Chris Marquardt (01:26:38):
Yes.

Leo Laporte (01:26:40):
It's time for the photo guy. Chris quat. My personal photo sensei is here@sensei.photo. He joins us every week to help us take better pictures. He's not, he's not, he's not a digital bigot. He he likes film. In fact, your advice for that father the college girl going into a graphics design was not to get a yeah, not to get a monitor, get camera

Chris Marquardt (01:27:09):
<Laugh> yeah. Get a, get a, a digital S SLR one with a mirror. And the main reason as well, there are two reasons. First of all they are, people are switching to mirrorless. So those are getting sold as use cameras. Yeah. People are selling

Leo Laporte (01:27:25):
Their old ones and they, what, what costs $3,000 new is now, you know, a third of that

Chris Marquardt (01:27:31):
Much less. Yeah, much less. And the second reason is it, it's a really good tool to learn, to really learn the things cuz it won't do everything for you. So you, you have a chance to, to, to practice that muscle, that creative muscle and the tech muscle. And that's all a good thing.

Leo Laporte (01:27:51):
It may even be. And for that reason, a lot of graphics design programs. When you take photography classes, start you with a, a film camera, kind of a very primitive <laugh> like my, my, my nephew K one th Pentax K 1000, you know, camera, they stopped making 25 years ago. But you're gonna really learn then <laugh>

Chris Marquardt (01:28:11):
All right. So very true. Very true.

Leo Laporte (01:28:13):
This week, we are talking about any kind of camera taking, taking those holiday photos,

Chris Marquardt (01:28:20):
Taking those holiday photos, a family Christmas, well preferably with a smartphone, cuz I guess the majority of, of people listening are going to use a smartphone. You have

Leo Laporte (01:28:29):
Eddie modern smartphone. You have an amazing camera in your pocket

Chris Marquardt (01:28:34):
Made freeze of this. Now, now here <laugh> yeah, here are a few tips. The, the most essential one really at the top of the list is wipe that lens. And I mean it because cuz with your, with your mirrorless camera, with your, with your DSLR, you wouldn't touch the lens. Would you? And if you would, you would probably take out a cloth and be very careful wiping this off with our there's

Leo Laporte (01:28:56):
Smarts on my lens. Look at that. You're right.

Chris Marquardt (01:28:59):
We have greasy fingers. We are touching these things and, and especially around the Christmas tree with Christmas lights, there's high contrast. You will see those streaks. They will really get in the way make it, make it. I, my, my habit, but the motion I do all the time, I have the camera. Yeah. And I wipe it on my shoulder. You can do this. The, the, you don't

Leo Laporte (01:29:18):
Have to, you don't have to go fancy. You just it off with anything. No.

Chris Marquardt (01:29:22):
Why wipe it off your pants off your shoulder. Those lenses are S so far coded. They will, they will take it. So don't, you don't have to have a class with you. Second thing is background background background. With any photography you want to take pictures, you wanna kind of be aware of what's going on in the background. You have a candle growing out of someone's head or the Christmas tree making antlers with, with someone's head. That's the kind of stuff that is. Yeah. There's something to watch out for a third tip flash, do a test. See what your phone does when you use its builtin flash, because some of them are fairly good with, with making the colors right. And everything. Some of them are not. So do a test with, with some of your friends, just take a picture of them with the flash on, with off modern smartphones are good without the flash. They don't.

Leo Laporte (01:30:13):
Yeah. Both the iPhone and the Google, the pixel six, they have these dark modes, these night modes that, that are designed not to use the flash. And I think they look a lot better. Sometimes they do. They're too good. The pixel six makes dark rooms look like they're lit <laugh>

Chris Marquardt (01:30:29):
So almost too much. Almost too much, too much, right?

Leo Laporte (01:30:32):
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Marquardt (01:30:34):
Next to use those lenses, you have a camera. If you have something like a, a, a 13 pro and I iPhone or something that has a wide angle lens, it has a Teleo lens. It has a normal wide lens and it has a macro lens. And those make really, for really interesting photography a wide shot for over an overview, a macro of some details maybe of the Christmas tree, some ornaments, some candles, stuff like that. And then use the modes. The phones give you a lot of different modes. Again, I, I use an iPhone. So I'm using that as an example, portrait mode, for example, you can nicely blur that background or cinema mode. If you should, video where you have the focus, move between different people and and, and make it a bit more expressive or night mode, or even, even time lapse mode that's been on, on the phones for ages. But if you, if you put that smartphone in a holder and I don't know, do a time lapse of, of setting the table for the Christmas dinner or something it's gotta be memorable. So that's a good, good idea.

Leo Laporte (01:31:41):
That's my suggestion. Yeah. The Google phones have a really nice feature. They wait to take, you could put, 'em set 'em up on a little tripod or something and they wait until people are smiling and then they take the photo. They're automatic. They wait for a smile. I think that's so cool.

Chris Marquardt (01:32:00):
Yeah. So, so another one with people, especially with with fast motion kids, I'm thinking kids, I'm thinking pets fast motion you have your camera has, or your smartphone has a burst mode built in in, on an iPhone. It's don't even have to enable it. You, you touch the shut and swipe it to the left and it will take a burst of pictures. And what that does is, but with, with a fast moving subjects, you'll get a bunch of, I don't know, 10, 15 pictures, and you can then just choose the one, the one that is the best one out of those, you could select the one and dump all the others. And that's, that's wonderful with fast moving subjects live mode, one more live mode on iPhones. I, I know Android there's apps that do that li on the iPhone it's built in. If you enable that every time you take a picture, it will actually shoot a short snippet of video a few seconds. And that is it's gonna create interesting memories, different ones then forms from still photos. You can still use them as still photos, but you have short video snippets without even noticing that. So it's a pretty cool feature in there. It's, it's 

Leo Laporte (01:33:12):
What's amazing. Is everybody has a camera now at all times, a high quality, good camera. And

Chris Marquardt (01:33:20):
I think multiple cameras. Yes. That's the thing. Every event

Leo Laporte (01:33:24):
Is getting documented, like crazy. It made me what made me think of this Disney plus in the us has a, a very long, like nine hours of the Beatles recording. Let it be that that is Peter Jackson, the director award this video. And it's amazing cuz you're seeing the Beatles in 4k from, you know, 50 years ago. And it looks like they're right there. And it's unusual because this was all filmed cuz they were the Beatles. But nowadays everything is filmed with multiple cameras from multiple angles in, in ultra high quality, everything is documented. So it's nothing special. Right? We got it all. So record every Christmas. I don't know. Who's gonna watch this in 50 years, but

Chris Marquardt (01:34:09):
You know, if they want to, ah, you might be surprised you might be surprised. Do you shoot any

Leo Laporte (01:34:13):
Video at all? Or do you just do stills?

Chris Marquardt (01:34:15):
No, I do. I do video and, and I, again, I use something like live mode that shoots short video. Love that whenever to like a photo. Yeah. That is, that is just brilliant because it will create different kind of memory from just the still photos.

Leo Laporte (01:34:29):
Although I have to say, I often I I'll cuz on the iPhone, you press and hold it and you, it starts moving and you get a little bit of sound it's too sh it always is too short. I always say, oh I wish there were a few more seconds of that. So one of the things I've always done is shot a bit out five seconds. Not more, not less, about five seconds of video that I can intersperse with stills. It's just enough to get the flavor without being boring. Right.

Chris Marquardt (01:34:54):
And by the way, shortcut for the iPhone, if you're on photo mode, swipe the, the shutter button to the right and it'll shoot video. So yeah. Don't even have to change that mode. Yeah. So

Leo Laporte (01:35:03):
Shoot a little, you know, take a lot of stills we're gonna do tonight. We're doing Christmas cookie making bunch of stills. Nice to have, but just one or two little five second, three, three to six, second clips just, you could stick in there and then you just get, literally hear the music. You hear people laughing. You're not gonna get a hold of conversations or anything, but it's just, it's kind of fun. I like it. It's good. Inspiration. I hope you have a, a wonderful Christmas. Chris is in Germany where Christmas was invented. So <laugh>, I'm joking, obviously not, but, but you know, the Chris Christmas tree still a knocked. I mean we, you know, there's a lot of great traditions there, so I'm sure you're gonna have a wonderful oh ton bomb.

Chris Marquardt (01:35:43):
Yes.

Leo Laporte (01:35:44):
Ton bomb. You're gonna have a wonderful holiday. We will see you again. January 2nd, Chris mark photo guy go to sensi.photo and keep taking those pictures. So yes. Not your next week is off. Yes, of course. Cuz of Omicron. You're probably not doing any get togethers or anything. You're probably just gonna have a quiet. No,

Chris Marquardt (01:36:11):
None of that.

Leo Laporte (01:36:12):
Yeah. Oh my God.

Chris Marquardt (01:36:14):
Wearing for quite a ride. Oh my

Leo Laporte (01:36:16):
Yeah. What happened? It and you, and you know, in Germany, it's the vaccination rate. Very high. I just, I guess it's just breakthrough.

Chris Marquardt (01:36:26):
No, no, no. 70%. Well that's

Leo Laporte (01:36:28):
High for, for me, not

Chris Marquardt (01:36:30):
Enough. It's only 60 far. Not enough. It's not enough. You're right by far. They, they, they are, they are doing the booster campaign now and they are pretty aggressive, but won't do anything for me son, at least not until no until January, February. So I'm

Leo Laporte (01:36:44):
Reassessing everything. All my plans <laugh> excuse me, didn me to cough on you. All my plans. Geez. Geez. Yeah. Well stay safe. You and Monica. I hope you have a wonderful holiday. Thank too. Yeah. And we'll see you, you enjoy next

Chris Marquardt (01:37:01):
Year. Happy new year. Enjoy the holidays and see you then take care. Thanks. Thanks for everything. You too. Bye

Leo Laporte (01:37:07):
Now. Bye. Well, it's not just Germany. It's all of Europe. It's <inaudible> is what it is. And the problem is, is a there's you know, the 30% as far as I know, we're still doing the Alaska cruise, but boy, everything is up in air right now. Big island. I don't know what the, yes, as far as I know, and they have you know the cruise lines are still are operating. Of course they have heightened precautions. Everybody will have to be vaccinated. They may by then even say, everybody'll have to have a booster. They are reducing the capacity on the cruise. But as far as I know, still playing and I think Holland America's sailing right now. So I don't, I don't anticipate that being changed. I'm looking forward to it. I can't wait. That will be, maybe we can celebrate by then. I hope anyway, Leo, LePort the tech guy. I like this time of year. I do. It's always, it's cozy. It's fun. We got a nice pseudo fire in the televis screen behind me. It's just <laugh> it feels it's, you know, it feels cozy. I'm just saying <laugh> it's digital cozy. It's a new kind of cozy Louis on the line from Dayton. Oh, Ohio O hello Louis.

Speaker 10 (01:38:27):
Hi, Leo got a question for you. The local broadcasting here, 700. I'd rather listen to Dan ward and Dave Lapham and listen to the, you know, the broadcasters on the TV. Is there a way to hook up my transitional radio to <laugh> advance or, or slow the cause I'm usually like 45 seconds for a minute. I

Leo Laporte (01:38:50):
Know exactly what you're thinking. Cause I was, you know, when, when our team, the giants were in the a world series some years ago, I hated the national broadcasters. I wanted to hear my hometown euros. So what I did is I, I would, if you're using a TiVo or some other device, I paused and, and a lot of modern DVR cable boxes TiVos you can do this, pause, the broadcast <affirmative> and, and, and, and then start listening. Remember audio's faster, it's ahead of video. So start listening to, and I, I would listen to the the local broadcasts on the internet, not even through the radio, through you know, tune in radio or your CBS or iHeart, whatever you use to listen to your local station. So I'd tune in the local station there and I'd wait for the crack of a bat <laugh> and I'd synchronize it on the crack of a bat. And you're actually able to get pretty darn close. It doesn't have to be perfect, cuz there's not, you're not worrying about lip sync. You just, you just want the crack of the bat to be roughly equals when the ball hits a, a ball. And I don't know what you do it for football, maybe you'd have to time it to that crazy lady. He's always screaming in the background at football games. I don't know what you would do. You'd find some, some audio moment to synchronize it to obviously

Speaker 10 (01:40:09):
I, I do listen. I do listen to iHeart radio as I'm approaching the, the football stadium. But once the game starts it goes to a default to prerecorded

Leo Laporte (01:40:20):
Show. Isn't that isn't that frustrating. And then that's of course, due to the NFL's regulations about local market they, they, they don't wanna, I think this is crazy at this point, they don't wanna lose ticket sales because it's being broadcast locally. SI

Speaker 10 (01:40:37):
Looks like any option, then it looks like

Leo Laporte (01:40:40):
If it's, if it's being blocked, blacked out in your area yes, there are options, but you're gonna have to play some tricks. For instance, use a VPN to pretend you're not, you know, in Dayton, I'm in green bay, they'll black out the Packers games. Instead

Speaker 10 (01:40:58):
I subscribe to your VPN that you

Leo Laporte (01:41:00):
Yeah. Express VPN, our sponsor, that would work. So

Speaker 10 (01:41:04):
It still, it still will not let me,

Leo Laporte (01:41:06):
Oh, they're too smart. They're too smart. They must be using. So you're doing it on your phone, huh? Yeah, they must be using the GPS, the location of the phone. Here's another thing to do, go into the settings on your phone and, and retract location settings from iHeart. Okay. So iHeart and all apps have to request of the operating system, location information and both Andrew, right. And iOS have ways to disable that, you know, for privacy reasons. Well, it also happens to be handy if you're approaching the stadium, are you a Browns fan? What, who are you following? The bangles bangles, of course. So yeah, I think as you approach what I would suggest is retracting locate permissions that might even be sufficient. I'll be curious though. It may be they're smart enough to say, well, without location permissions, we're not gonna let you listen to anything. I don't know. So see what happens. Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:42:06):
So even if I, I don't, I don't pay a fee at iHeart radio if I paid to feed iHeart radio, we think that would,

Leo Laporte (01:42:13):
I don't think so because it's the NFL's rules, it's these blackout rules. So the same thing happens, you know? And now here, there is one other option you could pay a fee of the NFL. Actually I have to ask about this is yeah. So a table in our chair and says, if you, for, as far as major league baseball, if you if you deny location permissions, the MLB app stops working. <Laugh> I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same for iHeart. Can you pay the NFL and eliminate blackouts? I think honestly, I think you probably can't because again, there's so worried about ticket sales, which is ironic because as far as I'm, I'm concerned, I'm sure the Bengal sell out every, every Sunday.

Speaker 10 (01:42:59):
They did last week.

Leo Laporte (01:43:00):
Oh yeah. Well, there you go. That's probably why. Okay. So if your team is not selling out, right you can also, so this is a good one from G cool. The Bengal and every team has what they call the, you know, the Bengal radio network your, you know, your Cincinnati station may be blacked out, but you might find a station farther out on the network. That's rebroadcasting the game that isn't blacked out. Oh,

Speaker 10 (01:43:29):
I

Leo Laporte (01:43:29):
Didn't think of that. Yeah. James also says, now that's what I'm asking, James. Does the NFL app, if you buy the app, does it still honor black Scouts or do they figure, well, you're giving us some money. We'll let you hear the local game. I'm that, you know, I'm not sure about that. I'm not sure about that, but that might be another one to investigate NFL's own app and see, but you know what, they may not have the local broadcasters. So you want the local broadcasters don't you, right?

Speaker 10 (01:43:54):
Yeah. Yeah. Cause they're, they're favorable. Just like when I listen to, to

Leo Laporte (01:43:57):
I want the homers

Speaker 10 (01:43:59):
Yeah. Was a homie. So he, he gives me a fair,

Leo Laporte (01:44:03):
I want the, no, you know, you listen to the network. I said, half the time they're against your team. I know at least at that way. Oh, the Niners are gonna lose again. No, I don't wanna hear that. <Laugh> that's right. <Laugh> I am very sympathetic go Bengal. I wish you the best. We had a good game last week. Wow. What a game? And I, I yeah, I think they're think the trick is, and you know, maybe one of the ways to find out what the, you know, there are probably many tricks is to go somewhere like the Bengals fan forum. I guarantee you there's conversations about this. And there might be some tips there as well. Online is your best friend on stuff like this. Or, or on Reddit dot slash R slash Cincinnati Bengal.

Leo Laporte (01:44:54):
See if you can find the, you know, the local, the local experts who have figured out ways around this, cause I guarantee you, somebody has, but there's some things to try. Anyway, turn off location permissions, use a VPN and then maybe look for a smaller station out of the market. That's rebroadcasting and it won't be blacked out. And maybe the paying the NFL a little, a little VI for the NFL app that ought to give you, you know, access. But I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't, you know, these teams are really trying to protect local ticket sales. That's that's the reason for those blackouts. And I think if you're a fan, eh, I figure there's gonna be a way to black it out. Hey John, is there any way we could have some crackling sounds from the digital fire? Cause I just feel like it's it it's it's nice. It feels warm. Looks good, but I don't get the crackling.

Leo Laporte (01:45:51):
Okay. Okay. You telling me that you can bring up <laugh> some, some crackling let me, let me figure out where I could put that crackling sound you say Skype four has crackling sounds on it. Let me, let me just try this here. And am I gonna get some crackling? Oh, that's nice. Oh yeah. Much, much nicer. Now I feel like the holidays are here. <Laugh> 88 88. Ask Leo the website tech guy. Laughs.Com. Boy. That's good. I can really it's it's really feel that now I need a hot chocolate. <Laugh> John, can you, can you get, can you get a digital hot chocolate out here? 88, 88, Ashley, the website tech guy labs.com. That address by the way, continues to work with, I, sorry, we're losing James DVO, our scribe, and we're losing the dedicated site, but what that address now will bring you to twi.tv, where we will have the show notes for you tech guy labs.com.

Leo Laporte (01:46:54):
Least that is not going to change. Oh man. That's nice. Well, Hey, Hey. Hey. How are you today? Leo LePort here. The tech guy final show of 2021 onward and upward to 2022. This is the show we talk about computers, the internet, home theater, digital photography, smart phones, smart watches, all things digital, including my digital fire in the digital fireplace behind me. If you hear the crackling logs, that is also digital, do not fear <laugh>. The studio is not on fire. In fact, the only warmth radiating from this digital fires from the the heat of the processor, <laugh> running it eighty eight, eighty eight. Ask the phone number. If you wanna talk high tech. Very good news. If you are a YouTube TV subscriber, we talked about this yesterday, ABC Disney ESPN all pulled from UT TV over the weekend because Disney, which owns all of the above, couldn't make a deal with Google, which owns YouTube TV.

Leo Laporte (01:47:56):
Well, they've made a deal. And the good news is ESPN FX. Your local ABC station, all be coming back to your YouTube TV live and on demand content. And the thing that was really an eye opener if you had been using Google, YouTube TV's DVR feature, which is I think a great features. One of the reasons I like YouTube TV, you could just say, yeah, remember, you know, anytime my 49ers play, you make a recording of that. All of those that on the John channels owned by Disney, just disappeared. Well, guess what, they're coming back. <Laugh> all your previous recordings in your library and your DVR magically it'll reappear. The price goes back. Youtube TV is expensive to 65 bucks a month, but because they did promise a $15 discount for people we're affected by this, they say everybody who was impacted will receive a one time $15 discount.

Leo Laporte (01:48:57):
So you kind of get a deal for, for the month, but it's as always with these, it's just crazy. You know, these it's these carriage disagreements. I want you to pay me this much. I don't want to pay that much. I'm gonna pay you this much. And they go back and forth. It's a game of chicken, usually the game of chicken resolves before anybody get, you know, any we users get impacted. This was one of the few that actually broke through and on, on Friday all 18 channels owned by Disney disappeared from UT TV. But go, who has made a deal. They've solved it. And you should have everything back. If you are a YouTube TV subscriber, I don't does. I suspect this is bad for YouTube TV because it just makes people feel like it's unreliable, but I guarantee you the same thing happens everywhere with cables, cable systems with Roku, with apple TV, maybe not apple TV, but it happens with <laugh> actually, I'm sure it does with apple TV happens with everybody because this is a constant back and forth negotiation and it is really the best thing to liken it to as a game of chicken, somebody's gonna blink.

Leo Laporte (01:50:05):
And you just hope they blink before you, you don't get to see your football game or something like that. 88 88 ask Leo. James is next from Harpa valley, California. Hello, James.

Speaker 11 (01:50:17):
Hello Leo. I'm a long time listener.

Leo Laporte (01:50:20):
That's nice. Where's HERPA

Speaker 11 (01:50:23):
It's between Fontana. Okay. East Vale and R river side would be the 15 freeway in the sixties. Freeway. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:50:32):
I know where that is, but I think you're the first person ever to call from HERPA valley. So welcome.

Speaker 11 (01:50:36):
Well, we're kind of backward out here. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:50:40):
Don't have a lot of computers out there. No, of course you do. Yeah, we got a lot of, of course you do. What can I do for you?

Speaker 11 (01:50:48):
I'm stymied by these QR codes. I don't understand them. And how do they work and why do we have 'em and all that? Oh,

Leo Laporte (01:50:55):
That's such a good question. You know, when it first, when it first emerged these QR codes and you started to see 'em on first place I saw 'em was not even in the us was overseas, especially in Japan. You'd see 'em on ads in the trains or on the subways and stuff. And I thought this is never gonna catch on. This is a terrible idea. It's a it's its a block, a gobbly go. It looks like right. And the idea is you aim your phone at it and it will then there'll be information stored in it that your phone will display most often. It's a, it's a web address. It was invented in 1994, of course, by a Japanese company. You see various kinds of barcodes, like all your food. In fact, we call 'em a, a, a bar code because all your food has bar codes that look like bars, right?

Leo Laporte (01:51:46):
The QR code. Is this not just another kind of barcode? It's a machine readable code. QR codes tend to be square. QR stands for quick response, but is it quick? I don't know. Cause you have to pull out your phone. The good news is both iPhone and Android, the modern versions of them. You don't need to have a special app used to be in the old days, you have to download a QR code reading app. But if you just open up the camera and aim it at a QR code, the camera itself will, will pop up a little pop up where the QR code is. If you tap that, it'll bring you to that website. So it started with the automotive industry UPC, barcodes appear. I think you're doing it right now. I hear the sound. You, you barcodes part of the universal product code, the UPC appeared in grocery stores.

Leo Laporte (01:52:38):
It's why, you know, I think it's really why you saw the rise of scanners in grocery stores. Now when you check out, you know, no clerk doesn't have to enter the, you know, amount in a, in a keypad, maybe they do in HERPA valley, but <laugh> out in the modern world. They just scan that thing over that you know, that played a glass in the checkout counter. And in fact that's why grocery stores started to add a check yourself out things which never work <laugh> I don't think they save anybody anytime. They certainly save no money. Cuz you have to get employees over there to fix it, et cetera, et cetera. How is a QR code generated there's software that does it that you can even go online. If you search for QR code generator you can make your own QR codes.

Leo Laporte (01:53:24):
It'll say, well, what's the message. The message can be just plain text. It could be Merry Christmas. It could say Merry Christmas from James, you could put that on your credit, on your Christmas card. And then people go, oh, I wonder what that QR code is. And they aim at it and it just says Merry Christmas from James. It could be something like that. Most often though, like I said, it's a website. Sometimes it's an application. This is another common use. A lot of times when you go downtown the parking meters will have a QR code on 'em aim your phone at it. It downloads an application which you can use to pay your parking meter. I, you probably don't care how it's generated. <Laugh> it's just done. It's done by computer. And by the way, it doesn't have to BES square.

Leo Laporte (01:54:08):
A lot of applications have created, attempted to create barcodes that are less, you know, weird Snapchat for instance has its own kind of barcode. I think apple does as well for its messages circular and other things. But ultimately there's always kind of a, kind of a chat board of black and white squares. And that's actually binary code. That's the code the computer can read that tells it that's where the message is encoded. So we see QR codes everywhere. Now I thought this no way, this is gonna catch on. This is crazy. Maybe your first experience with a QR code was with something they called. Do you remember the Q cat? This was a terrible idea that did, in fact flop, they were, you could get 'em free at radio shacks. They were, they looked like a cat, but really was a barcode reader that you'd plug into your computer with a USB key.

Leo Laporte (01:55:00):
And for a brief moment, magazines would publish little QR codes. And the idea you was instead of typing in a web address from the magazine, remember magazines, they used to print stuff on dead trees and, and mail it to you. Not, not email, no, no. They, somebody would come to your door and give it to you. And then on it, there would be a QR code and you'd have this little Q cat and you'd run it across the QR code. It had to be connected by USB to your actually I think in the day it was serial ports. I don't even think it was USB. And then your computer would go, oh, and open up a webpage, a lot of work for very little payoff that, that, that did die. I did not think we'd see QR codes all over the place. But we do now they're everywhere and that's what they are. It's it's essentially a link to a website, could be a message, could be could be, you know, there are other ways to use it. There are for instance contact managers, address book programs that will give you a QR code that you can show to somebody. They can aim their phone at it and get all of your information that way. That's kind of a good use, right?

Leo Laporte (01:56:12):
It's funny how sometimes technologies, which you at least I, I look at and go, no, nobody's gonna wanna do that. And they take off and there's a good example. So I hope that helps James. You can explain that to the everybody else in Harpa eighty eight, eighty eight, ask Leo, that's the phone number? (888) 827-5536. It's a great question. That's the kind of, I love that kind of question cuz it's something we all see all the time, QR codes, you know, and we take 'em for granted and where did this come from? Well, Japan of course. Hmm that's right. QR codes and restaurants. Now I forgot about that. I hate that because of COVID the, they don't want to hand out menus. So you go to a restaurant in the, is a QR code taped onto the table and you have to use the phone to see what to order rod, rod pile, famous person on bill Shatner's show. Woohoo. Did you get to meet bill?

Rod Pyle (01:57:18):
No, no. We just shot in the house up in Mount Washington and LA, but I have to tell you of, I've done a bunch to those things. And as you know, I used to work for history channel and this was a, a big really incredible crew. I think there were 11 or 12 people there and I'm used to three. So this was pretty cool. Wow. And

Leo Laporte (01:57:35):
It was fun. Can people, people can see it right now in the history channel, right?

Rod Pyle (01:57:40):
Yeah, it, it ran, I guess for the first time on Friday night they didn't tell me, somebody called me and said, Hey, you're on TV. I

Leo Laporte (01:57:47):
Know I got, I got, I got so many messages from people saying I saw rod

Rod Pyle (01:57:51):
It's it's on Amazon prime. So you can go buy it for two bucks if

Leo Laporte (01:57:54):
You're happy to watch. Nice standard death. Yeah. We'll plug it. We'll plug it on the show Mike B saw. Okay, great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool. What do you wanna talk about today?

Rod Pyle (01:58:03):
I think, you know, I, I, I hate to come off as an Elon fanboy all the time, but this person of the year thing has caused quite a few ripples, both some plus and some minus. So I think we gotta talk about that.

Leo Laporte (01:58:15):
Yeah. It's okay. Cuz Sam hates Elon. So between the two of you, <laugh> it all balances

Rod Pyle (01:58:23):
Out why? You know, but I

Leo Laporte (01:58:24):
Don't know what to think. I'm starting to think. He's just nutier and nutier well I, you know,

Rod Pyle (01:58:30):
He's kind of, yeah, he's, he's almost socially neutral by the time you factor everything in, you can hate him, you can love him. But the balance is he's changing

Leo Laporte (01:58:39):
The world. He's changing the world. The world cannot deny that. Yeah, he's doing stuff, a rich guy, that's doing something other than just counting money and, and making more. I wish he'd just keep his nut nutty ideas to himself. That's all <laugh> get off the Twitter. Right. He's not the first guy that, to, that we would wish off Twitter, right? No. Oh man. You know, if I have one gripe against Twitter, you know, everybody, I know, you know, everybody in the tech journalism loves Twitter, right? This is like, oh, it's the greatest resource. I love it. But if there is one thing I blame Twitter for it's this it's just, it gives us, it lets us see the worst, you know, the feats of clay in our heroes. Yeah. And, and the self-control is problem. Nobody has it. I learned that early on, I got in a, a Twitter TIFF, a Twitter TIFF that I regret to this day and you know, lost some relationships as a result. And, and you know, and I learned you don't, you don't, you know, just shut up <laugh> you don't have to react to every tweet. Mike B thinks, I look like Steve Wosniak it's the jowls. I know he got the beard chinos out, eat Cheetos by the palace. So there's that <laugh> yeah. I never thought of it, but he's right. You do. Steve's a good friend and I've spent some time sitting in his lap. And so I know, I know, but that's metaphorically speaking. All right. Okay. Talk in 10.

Speaker 13 (02:00:05):
Thanks for listening to TWI podcasts. If you'd like to take it up a notch, you can get all of our shows without ads by joining club TWI, whether you're a loyal fan or once to give your employee something special with our corporate plan, you'll get the bonus TWI plus feed with extra behind the scenes outtakes access to a members only discord all for just seven bucks a month. It's a great way to get just the content support TWI TV and be a part of the tech community. Learn more and join club TWI at twi.tv/club TWI

Leo Laporte (02:00:38):
Leo LePort the <laugh> tech guy, eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone of man rod pile coming up in just a little bit. We're gonna talk about time. Magazine's person of the year, a little bit of a controversial pick, but first let's go to York PA and say hello to Jay. Hello, Jay. Oh,

Speaker 10 (02:01:00):
Hello. You're on

Leo Laporte (02:01:01):
The air.

Speaker 10 (02:01:03):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:01:04):
I, somewhere in my collection I believe have the key to the city for York, Pennsylvania. <Laugh>

Speaker 10 (02:01:13):
I'd be curious to see what that

Leo Laporte (02:01:14):
Unlock. I know nothing. I'm sure, but we many more than, I think it's 20 years ago, we went out there for a public appearance for this screensavers show and they gave us the key to the city. 

Speaker 10 (02:01:29):
Yeah, we should have known that we were, I was watching you back then.

Leo Laporte (02:01:31):
Yeah. Yeah. It was the screensavers on tech TV. Yeah. You could have comes to the high, well, what can I do for you today?

Speaker 10 (02:01:38):
Well, I think this is gonna be an easy question. Basically I've on Verizon currently and I'm thinking about switching over to visible. I have an unlocked Samsung phone

Leo Laporte (02:01:51):
S 21. And I'm concerned about the if I still will get the security and the Android updates. Yes. The answers. Yes. So the fun thing about visible is it is Verizon. What Verizon realized is there are a lot of people who don't think of their smartphone as a phone, think of it more as a computer. And I'm one of those people. I, I don't want phone calls. I don't answer the phone. And so those people care more about the price of data than they do about the price of phone calls. So the, the whole point of visible, I think, is to be for the, the folks who are data, data focused. But as far as I know you get all the benefits of being a Verizon. You still get, you know, it's, it's, it's the Verizon towers. You're gonna get all the 5g, the, any of the security spam call blocking things like that. The Verizon offers you still get. The whole idea really is you get a, a better deal if you don't care so much about phone calls.

Leo Laporte (02:02:59):
All right. I think it's actually a great idea. Verizon's also responding. Remember Verizon was, has always been the high priced carrier and their response was, yeah, but we're the best. So you don't mind paying more, you know, we have the most coverage, the best towers, best speeds. They certainly are leaders in, in these all millimeter wave 5g. It's, you know, it's definitely the, they're the best at that. But what they realize is a lot of companies like T-Mobile that some of the M V N OS the smaller companies like mint mobile are eating their lunch because they're offering lower prices and people, you know, go for the price. So Verizon's trying to find a way without, and everybody does this without diminishing the main brand, the Verizon brand take care of people who would otherwise go to T-Mobile. And I think visible is there. And I, by the way, I pronounce it visible because the eyes in, in it is visible.com, but the eyes in the logo are missing <laugh>. So I always think of it as visible I think absolutely check, you know, just check rules because it's, it's, it's, the plans are a little different than the plans on Verizon. But I think ultimately if you are a data focused person, it's a better deal.

Speaker 10 (02:04:11):
Yeah. That's I looked at the plan details and they did say something about the prioritization, you know? Yeah. Peak times and that sort of thing that

Leo Laporte (02:04:23):
Happens with all mvn OS even company run NVN OS you know, every at T has cricket T-Mobile has oh, I forgot what they have, but they all have their own like house brand. And that is one thing that happens is that the people who pay the big price get access to the tower priority access. But unless you live near a congested, a very congested tower, it's, I've never experienced it. I use mint mobile. I've never experienced that. So I think it's, they put it in there so that, you know, if a hundred people are trying to use that one tower downtown you know, in downtown York and they can only support 90 of 'em. They're gonna slow down the visible people. That's basically it. And it's not, I don't think you're gonna see it. Right. Yeah. It's not gonna happen.

Speaker 10 (02:05:08):
Okay, great. Well, that's that's, what's really looking to find out. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:05:12):
Sounds like good news. My, my, my my, my, I think it's just a good idea. It's a it's Verizon's way responding to the market, which usually means lower prices. Right? How do you, how do you respond to competition? Well, you lower prices. That's why competition's a good thing. You know, now somebody Joe's in New York city, he's using mint mobile again, mint mobile is a, a M V N O a mobile virtual network operator. They resell T-Mobile service. And that's one of the things mvn OS, you know, will say, is, look, if if T-Mobile comes along and says, we need all the bandwidth on that tower, you're gonna get slowed down. But Joe says, I live in New York, which I would imagine are the most congested towers in America. And he says he never sees a problem as just he and he saves money.

Leo Laporte (02:05:59):
Right. I think that that's the idea visible. Yes. There're gonna maybe be some negatives. You, some interest, I don't know about specifically about, you know, some of the security features they spam blocking and stuff. I'm wanna guess that's the same, but you probably should look, they are always gonna try to they're are gonna somehow try to make it less good than the high priced one. Okay. visible says we keep costs low with really smart people. Oh, please. <Laugh>. Oh, are you saying the people at Verizon are not as smart? No, it's the same people and digitally simple, yet extraordinary experiences. And all the extra savings goes to our members. Okay. I don't know what that means. No one should have to trade quality for price. Okay. <laugh> I guess you're gonna have to dig deep in the fine print to figure out what you don't get with visible.

Leo Laporte (02:06:54):
I think prioritizing towers is generally the big thing I, you know, it's really interesting to, to look at once, you know, that visible is owned by Verizon. You can see the difference in marketing is really aimed at a younger generation. That's, you know, it's fun. They say are a moticon says it all. <Laugh> okay. So this is the fun Verizon. I got it. Okay. Leo LePort the tech guy space guy, spaceman rod pile comes down to earth for us next. Stay right here. It's time to head into space with our spaceman rod pile the author of so many great books, including first on the moon, all about the Apollo landing, interplanetary robots, true stories of pace, space, exploration, amazing stories of the space, age blueprint for a battle star. And that's just a fraction of his output. He's also the editor in chief of a Astra, the official magazine of the national space society at space, dots.org. But you know what the most important thing Mr. Pile does is joins us every week to talk about space. My dear friend. Hello, rod.

Rod Pyle (02:08:10):
Good to see you. And you're looking very dapper today. I have to say another crummy. T-Shirt

Leo Laporte (02:08:16):
<Laugh> that's. Another thing rod does is send me, make the run joke t-shirts rod is of course the guy to go to when you're talking about space exploration we saw you on unexplained Friday night on the history channel unexplained. Do you know bill Shatner? I mean, I feel like man, I'm sitting here with a star

Rod Pyle (02:08:39):
<Laugh> I wish, you know, I've met a lot of guys from the from the Trek cannon, Patrick Stewart and the guy that played WARF and, and so on and so forth just from working around the show,

Leo Laporte (02:08:51):
He will always be known as the guy who played WARF.

Rod Pyle (02:08:53):
I know, but I never met Shaer. But I know a lot of people that have worked with him and he's a very colorful man.

Leo Laporte (02:08:59):
So explained, which is unexplained, I should say, which is a history channel show. And what were you on talking about

Rod Pyle (02:09:07):
Mars? Mars? That's like my third Mars documentary. And, you know, as I was saying on the break, it was really interesting cuz I used to work with history channel a lot and we had crew of like three or five people and this show had a crew of, I think 12. And they took over this craftsman mansion up in oh fun, not Washington and LA and yeah, it was a great shoot. And I got to blather on for

Leo Laporte (02:09:28):
Hours. It's on Amazon prime, the latest episode of unexplained. If you wanna couple of bucks, if you want to see rod pile in action. Now this week one of the big stories of the week and it happens every year around this time, time magazine names, their person of the year, one year, it was you not, you rod pile you, the people using the internet. And, and I have to point out it's not always the best person of the year. It was Hitler in the thirties this year. It, and honestly, I thought it would've been better maybe to give it to the people who invented the mRNA vaccine. That's maybe saving some lives, but no, they decided that Elon Musk was the most influential person in the year. I think you can make that case, love him or hate him. He's done so much, not just with Tesla, his electric vehicles, but with SpaceX.

Rod Pyle (02:10:20):
Yeah. And Neurolink and add a bunch of other things

Leo Laporte (02:10:24):
Don't that's see. So neurally, the idea is you're going to attach something to your head and you're, and it's gonna give you, I don't know what a headache it's gonna somehow they've attached it to a, a rodent or something. And anyway, that's pigs. I think pigs. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think that's one of his shining moments.

Rod Pyle (02:10:45):
Well, neither is the boring company

Leo Laporte (02:10:47):
Nor the company boring holes under Vegas. No kids.

Rod Pyle (02:10:50):
Yeah. But, but you know what I mean? He tried nice things and if they don't work, he moves on and I think that's, what's so amazing. And as you know, since we're talking about space is we've seen a space flight. He tries things that nobody else will try. And if they fail, he tries 'em again. And if it keeps failing, he tries something else. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:11:07):
I get, you gotta give him credit for putting his fortune on the line. Now he's now the richest man in the world, but he

Rod Pyle (02:11:13):
Took a chance quickly,

Leo Laporte (02:11:13):
By the way. Yes it did. But he took a chance. He could have been bankrupt several times over. So yes. You know,

Rod Pyle (02:11:21):
So he, he really puts his money where his mouth is and the way time described him in their, their article, which I loved was clown genius, edge, Lord visionary, industrialist, showman, CAD, a mad cap hybrid of Thomas Edison PD. Barnham Andrew Carnegie. And watchman's Dr. Manhattan. <laugh> that's they covered

Leo Laporte (02:11:40):
It all. You're at there. I would agree with them in every respect. That's exactly right.

Rod Pyle (02:11:45):
I I'd say Dr. Manhattan was kind of sociologically neutral and I guess we'd say the same thing about Musk and as somebody at the American, wait a

Leo Laporte (02:11:53):
Minute enterprise. OK. Manhattan saved the earth by, as I remember invading New York city with a robot octopus. So it's not so far from Elon. Right? <laugh>

Rod Pyle (02:12:07):
As, as, as the American enterprises said, he's not politically right or left, it's a politics of progress, which I thought that's pretty, I don't know what it is. So, and I mean, you know, there was some concerns about Tesla operating during the, the pandemic shutdown and, and as Musk pointed out, you know, he was one of the only auto manufacturers not able to operate then because of where it was in the bay area and their restrictions versus what was going on in Michigan and other places. So there are always use ameliorating factors like

Leo Laporte (02:12:36):
This. Yeah. But he risked the lives of his employees by swoting public health regulations. I don't know if that's

Rod Pyle (02:12:45):
Okay. And, and, and very publicly, you know, came out against COVID restrictions. Although at the same time saying he believes the science and so forth. So he is a gotta say at the new of this is, he's a very complex guy, but he has revolutionized space flight. I mean, love him or hate him. There's just no way around that. He has completely not just changed the playing field, but basically picked up the chess board, shook all the pieces off and restacked him his way. And I think the telling part is it made all the other folks in that area in particular, the older aerospace companies completely reshuffled their decks to keep up because he was doing it so cheap. Yeah. So efficiently. And they just flew back. They just flew one of his boosters, the 11th time. First there's so many firsts. It is

Leo Laporte (02:13:34):
Amazing what he's done. I mean, yeah.

Rod Pyle (02:13:36):
They space 15 hour, 15 hour turnaround for launches. They launched 30 times this year as of today. And you know, another starlet launch, he does this very smart thing where he builds a rocket booster that is still not retrieving to the upper stage of the, of the Falcon nine. But I think that's probably, he's not after that. Now he's after Starship. Cause the whole thing come comes home in one piece, right? The two pieces, the booster in the top, but he uses these boosters first sometimes for crude launches, other times for important launches, like big NASA payloads and space station resupply, then he uses them for commercial customer. And then when they start getting old, he uses them for Starlink cuz if they lose a bunch of star links, well that's their own stuff and he's willing to do that. But I think, you know, critically he's willing to do that. Right.

Leo Laporte (02:14:21):
Yeah. But critically, he's also willing to do something that maybe isn't the best for society star. Link's a great example. It's on the one hand's gonna put internet everywhere in the world. That it's amazing. On the other hand, it may be blocking out the light of the sun. So between the two of them, oh wait, wait, wait, all right. It's

Rod Pyle (02:14:39):
Not gonna block out the light of sun. Okay. The astronomers get upset. And I, I, I feel their vibe. You know, I used to work with a lot of astronomers. They are working to mediate that by making them darker,

Leo Laporte (02:14:49):
They're painting them black. Right.

Rod Pyle (02:14:51):
And to, to keep them from having as much radio interference for the radio astronomers. But you know, he's not the only one he's just in the, in the head of the race. There's gonna be at least 2, 3, 4 other companies China's coming up behind with their own version of Starlink. And there's gonna be a lot of those things up there. Let's see how those people behave now that the Pathfinder has gone out and set up his system, which works by the way. And you know, if we have one Mozart or one Einstein or one other magnificent person emerged from the third world that never had connectivity before, true, that might end up being a really good trade.

Leo Laporte (02:15:28):
I guess society does need Mavericks like Musk to cuz he live, you know, he lives outside the box and it's certainly provocative. And you can't say everything he does is good, but nor is everything he does bad. He's a care, he's a piece of work is what he is and <laugh>, and he's our piece of work. So <laugh>

Rod Pyle (02:15:50):
Well, and, and you know, all, all these companies trying some kind of public relations, positive spin because they all need it. The one thing Tesla, the Tesla one of the Tesla I think was the chairman of the board said about Musk, which you could say for most of his endeavors is we don't have to spend any money on advertising. It just happens. Yeah. He's and part of that's his tweeting is we talking about, right. He's good at that. You know, even if he tweets something small and silly it's major news, but he did announce the company announce the a hundred million dollar climate prize, which I'm sure you read about which includes direct capture CO2 from the atmosphere, which some experts say is probably a boon dog, but we'll see

Leo Laporte (02:16:33):
Ordinary. We'll see a lot of what Elon does. We'll see rod PI we'll see him at space, dots.org on the unexplained and Merry Christmas. Thank you rod.

Rod Pyle (02:16:47):
<Laugh>

Leo Laporte (02:16:48):
We'll see

Rod Pyle (02:16:50):
<Laugh>

Leo Laporte (02:16:54):
Rod it's yeah. Have a wonderful Christmas. Next show is January 2nd. Okay. So you don't have to come back next week. Are you doing anything fun for Christmas?

Rod Pyle (02:17:05):
We are getting away to blustery Ventura, California four days. Cause that way I can go to a hotel and enjoy their Christmas decorations. Absolutely. On my own. And you know, Musk pushed all my, I had a whole news rundown of the amazing things the Mars helicopters

Leo Laporte (02:17:22):
Been doing. I know, see this is the problem

Rod Pyle (02:17:25):
Samples. China's new moon rockets.

Leo Laporte (02:17:27):
Good PR. Yep.

Rod Pyle (02:17:30):
But you know, we just had to do it so next time,

Leo Laporte (02:17:32):
Next time, next time. Hey, thank you, rod. Have a great holiday happy new year. We'll you know, do something fun and we'll talk again. January now you staying home. Are you, are you oh yeah. Cuz of ALN. I don't dare. We were thinking all these things we were gonna do and hotels we were gonna visit. Yeah. We're just gotta stay home. Yeah. I go to

Rod Pyle (02:17:52):
A hotel and kind of just

Leo Laporte (02:17:53):
Spray it down with just, you know, even the hotel, although we we're looking there's, there's places you can go where you don't run into people and you know, you know, so we're gonna try to find something like that. Cuz Lisa and I really would like to do that, but it's just scary.

Rod Pyle (02:18:08):
Well, we just need a couple of space suits So we can just put 'em on and wherever we go, people will think we're cool or really weird and right. We're just breathing our own air so we can only infect ourselves. Right. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (02:18:22):
All right, rod, have a great week. Great. Two weeks. Take care. Happy new year. Thanks. Bye bye. Have eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number. Last few minutes of 2021 for me next week. We'll have a best of thank you to professor Laura for putting that all together. Christmas day, the day after Christmas, I will be back January 2nd though. So there's, there's some good news Williams on the line all the way from Michigan. Hello William. You're next.

Speaker 11 (02:18:53):
Hey Leo. Great to talk to you. Thanks for calling. Hey, no problem. So I'm curious as to what might be going on if it's just maybe my phone or if it's the towers or something going on with the atmosphere or what's going on. <Laugh> if my smart phone has gotten really stupid or it cannot find towers anymore. I mean, I can, I used my open single app and it'd be like a tower right next to me or 50 miles down the road. It doesn't matter where they're at. It's like I got one bar if I'm lucky, but then it's also lately it's just been just shutting down. So almost a wondering if maybe I got a bug that's

Leo Laporte (02:19:28):
Doing it interesting. Yeah. That I don't think that the towers have all suddenly stopped working. So unless something's going on? Who's your carrier?

Speaker 11 (02:19:40):
Well I've got the us mobile, which is a Verizon.

Leo Laporte (02:19:43):
Yeah. See if you were on sprint maybe. Okay. But yeah, you're on, on a Verizon network. So I think you're probably still in touch with your towers. It's probably your phone and there are things that can happen to a phone. Have you put a new case on the phone or changed it in any way?

Speaker 11 (02:19:59):
No, I haven't done anything like that.

Leo Laporte (02:20:00):
No. So, you know, I mean, let's not forget the way these things work. It's like a radio, it's got an antenna in it. Okay. Remember the old of cell phones you'd have an external antenna. You'd always break it off. You'd have to pull it up. Right. And, and, and then it would break off and you'd have to get a new one. Phone manufacturers pretty quickly realize people don't want external antennas. And even though internal antennas don't work as well, they moved to internal antennas. Remember apple had a big problem with its iPhone four because they had a metal you know, rim all the way around it. That was the antenna. And if you held it like you would normally hold a phone, although Steve jobs says you're holding it wrong, it would attenuate the signal so much that would actually drop calls. So they had to ship out a rubber bumper. For what phone do you have?

Speaker 11 (02:20:50):
I've got I got a dinosaur. I got the Samsung note nine.

Leo Laporte (02:20:54):
Oh, I love that phone. That's a great phone. It's

Speaker 11 (02:20:57):
That phone, but I'm wonder it's cut out. Absolutely. So I'm wondering if that might be part of the problem too.

Leo Laporte (02:21:00):
Yeah, it could be. It could be, as you probably have heard and carriers are telling you older phones using the three network will stop working at various times in the next year. That's not one of them though that should, that should continue to work. It's not too old. It's sad cuz Samsung's not gonna make these notes anymore. And I think it's one of the best yeah. Big phones ever. They really created the big phone market with the notes. So you have, I mean the last note was I think, so you have, you know, you have a relatively recent note. I don't think it's that. I think though it could be damaged, you know, there's an intent. So there is, as I said, an internal antenna, that's connected to the motherboard of the phone with a wire, just like anything else if that's shake loose or broken that could be part of it.

Leo Laporte (02:21:48):
I'm trying to remember on on the note how they did this, there always is on a modern phone. There's always, so the wireless signal does not go through metal and many of these modern phones are made of metal. So there's always a way for the signal to get out <laugh> or I should say really the signal to get in and out to the phone on some phones that are metal they'll have a plastic rim or a plastic line along it I'm thinking Samsung uses glass on the back of the note, which would eliminate that problem. Is it like a glass back or is it like a metal back?

Speaker 11 (02:22:22):
Yeah, I think it's glass.

Leo Laporte (02:22:23):
Yeah. So glass, it can go through, it's just the metal that it can. So, you know, I, I don't think the note had any particular antenna problem, so, and it sounds like your phone worked fine until recently? Yes.

Speaker 11 (02:22:35):
Yeah. Yeah. Just four weeks ago it started doing this and then like a week and a half ago it started dropping just, I said it just completely shuts down as if I'm turning it off. And then I got started back up and yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:22:46):
And oh, restarting it, does that fix it?

Speaker 11 (02:22:49):
I, well, no. Cause it restart itself and it, that doesn't do it and it's still bad. I'm not

Leo Laporte (02:22:55):
Doing it sometimes if a restart fixes anything on any computing device, then it's a software issue usually. But this sounds like it's a hardware issue. Like the phone itself is cap

Speaker 11 (02:23:07):
Put. So they think maybe going to factory reset might fix it. That'd

Leo Laporte (02:23:10):
Be the next thing to try. Certainly if you called Samsung or or Verizon support they would say that first that's the very first thing you always do do a factory reset. Just to see if it's a software issue. If it's a hardware issue, a factory reset, won't fix it. You still won't get a good set, but do try that. And don't re immediately reinstall your apps in case an app is interfering. Just do a factory resets, get back to the state that it came outta the box, you know, with, and then see if that works. And if it does then judiciously re add the applications, cuz maybe there's something interfering. Truth is though this sounds like it's a hardware issue, which means you might be able to get it repaired. But almost certainly, you're gonna have to just get a new phone, these things they're not made, they're not made to be fixed. They're made to be thrown out sad to say,

Speaker 11 (02:23:55):
Yeah, well I'm kind of waiting for the 21 to come out and, and go with the newest that's

Leo Laporte (02:23:59):
Reasonable. I think it's imminent. I don't think it's too far off. Samsung usually has something in the spring for you.

Speaker 11 (02:24:05):
They're talking January. So yeah, I think

Leo Laporte (02:24:07):
Sir. All right. Thanks William. Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but sometimes, you know, he just, the sign, the sign is gotta get a new one. Tom and Medina, Ohio. This is our last call of the year. Hello Tom.

Speaker 10 (02:24:23):
Oh, I am so honored.

Leo Laporte (02:24:27):
Happy new year. What can I do for you?

Speaker 10 (02:24:31):
Well you told me last week about buying that Sandis clip, which I've ordered it. Hasn't got here yet. Excellent.

Leo Laporte (02:24:38):
Remember that? Yeah. Cuz you wanted for your autistic child, you wanted a in an expensive music player that he, that he could easily listen to and and and destroy if necessary <laugh> cause you know how you know how kids are and and it wouldn't break the bank. Yeah. So good. What can I do for you this time?

Speaker 10 (02:24:58):
It's it's a, her and her name is Heather, but

Leo Laporte (02:25:00):
Oh, I remember Heather. Yes. Hi Heather. Yes. Okay.

Speaker 10 (02:25:03):
I, her, her nickname is Helen wheels. Did I tell you that

Leo Laporte (02:25:08):
We used to call my daughter El Destructo so I, yes, I I'm kind of familiar with that notion. I still have to buy her a new phone every few months. <Laugh> oh, well and she's 30.

Speaker 10 (02:25:21):
Oh my daughter's 39, but she's like a kid, a grade school kid though.

Leo Laporte (02:25:28):
Anyways. Now the music you wanted to get the music on, I'm running outta time. So I'll just quickly jump to it. You'll see when you get it, it's got a USB port. You could just drag music onto it. Just connect it to your computer and drag music onto it. It also has a micro SD card slot. So probably the easiest. So that's one thing you can put it on the device itself or you get a micro in fact, you do it right now. Get a microSD card, copy music onto it and then put it into the device. I would actually wait till you get it. So you format it in the format that, that Sandis can use. The whole reason Sandis makes it is to sell S microSD cards. That that's what they make. So a great solution. You can even have a variety of choices, happy new year to Heather and to you, Tom.

Leo Laporte (02:26:10):
I appreciate your listening. Thanks to all of you. Happy new year, Merry Christmas, professor Laura, Kim James. We'll see you next time. Leo. Leport the tech. I have a great new year. Well, that's it for the tech I show for today. Thank you so much for being here and don't forget TWI T w I T. It stands for this week at tech and you'll find it@twit.tv, including the podcasts for this show. We talk about windows and windows weekly, Macintosh on Mac break, weekly iPads, iPhones, apple watches on iOS today. Security and security. Now, I mean, I can go on and on and on. And a of course the big show every Sunday afternoon, this week in tech, you'll find it all at twit TV and I'll be back next week with another great tech guys show. Thanks for joining me. We'll see you. Next time.

Speaker 14 (02:27:04):
I.