The Tech Guy Episode 1859 Trancript

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

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Leo Laporte (00:00:43):
Hi, this is Leo Laporte and this is my Tech Guy podcast. This show originally aired on the premier networks on Saturday, January 15th, 2022. This is episode 1,859. Enjoy no ads, just the content. That's what you get when you join Club TWIT, you even get like TWIT plus our new bonus feeds for members and exclusive access to the club. TWIT Discord community. Join now for just $7 a month and support TWIT as we continue to create topnotch podcasts you expect and deserve just getting started. So be one of the first to join. As we build club Twitch from the ground up, you could be an early member, go to twit.tv/club to learn more and sign up now. Thanks. Well, Hey, Hey. Hey. How are you today? Leo Laporte here, The Tech Guy. Yes, it's that time? The geek time on the radio, eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo is a phone number.

Leo Laporte (00:01:37):
If you wanna talk high tech with me, what's high tech versus low tech. I don't know. You know, I always say high tech. It's not even high tech anymore. It's just tech. I mean is a light bulb that senses your heart rate high tech, I guess it is really, but it's also kinda low tech. It's a light bulb for crying out loud. There is such a thing <laugh> by the way, the consumer electronics show ended last week and the right to repair folks, the right to repair folks came up with some worst of CES. You always talk about the best of CES, the worst of CES among other things you know, the new Mercedes electric vehicle whose hood you, no user serve parts in here. You can't open. Don't open that. And the light bulb that you could put all over the house and internet of things, device that can sense your temperature, your heart rate, your presence, not sure why you'd want that in the light bulb.

Leo Laporte (00:02:41):
I could see why the light bulb makers want that, or the, you know, they're selling your data to, there are six people in the house. Two of them are the living room. One of them is in the kitchen. Three of them are in bedrooms. One of them is watching TV and currently a football game. And they did stay for the ad. That's the kind of information they can have and probably do have, and probably do sell. So I think that might be the worst of CES that in the Mercedes whose hood you can't open <laugh> you could hurt yourself if you open this. It's not the first time Mercedes to a car a couple of years ago, they didn't have a dip stick. Why would you, if you can afford a Mercedes, why would you ever check your oil? Right. That makes sense to me.

Leo Laporte (00:03:30):
<Laugh> it seems logical to me. Have you played word yet? Oh, man. Wordle is all the rage. Wordle is a free app on the web from the UK, I guess. It's fun. I've been playing it, you know, off and on. For the last couple weeks it's been around for seven months, but you know how things are, they'll, they'll languish in obscurity for a while and all of a sudden everybody's doing it and know the smart thing to do. If you've got something like this just Google, w O R D L E you'll find it. The smart thing to do if you got a thing like this is after somebody plays the game and does really well, there's a button that says, share this on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, share it, share it. You wanna share it, right?

Leo Laporte (00:04:20):
<Affirmative> and unfortunately, the reason Wordle has been suddenly in the news is because apparently everybody is now sharing their Wordle score on Twitter. <Laugh> showing up. I see how well I know words. It's it's kinda like the mastermind game for words, you know, you have to guess a word, you have six guesses. It's, it's, it's fun. It's a good game. But and it's that seven months in all of a sudden, thanks to Twitter, everybody knows. And, and many hate <laugh>. I have a friend says, just get it off my Twitter feed. <Laugh> that's what you're on Twitter for that kind of fun stuff. Apple has a little bit of a problem because as soon as it became popular you know, as soon as it started getting tweeted, a lot, many clones of word, some pay clones word's free on the web.

Leo Laporte (00:05:11):
One of them $30 a year subscription appeared in the app store on the iPhone. Thanks to all the negative publicity apple got rid of it, but it really underlies a, a bigger problem. I think apple promotes and, and many of us believe that the app store is a highly curated store of excellent apps just for your iPhone. But we also have to remember apple makes 30% on fees, and they're probably eye in that $10 a year for, and the world will clone and going, oh, you know, it's not. So it's, it works. It's a program. It does the thing. It should say. It says it should just cuz there's a free one. Doesn't mean we should stop people from paying for it if they want to. Thank you very much for the $10. There's lots of stuff though. Mac world had an opinion piece this week, the author Jason Cross pointed out that there is a, there are many fake Samsung smart thing apps on the webs apple store. If you, if you buy a Samsung device, smart things as their home automation platform and you'll be encouraged to download the smart things app and there is a Samsung smart things app, but there's also smart things. TV, remote control, smart things for smart TV, smart things for Samsung TV app. There's a bunch of them that aren't from Samsung. Some of them yep. $30 yearly subscription, Samsung, Amazon apps free.

Leo Laporte (00:06:40):
The other ones are that are free, probably spying on you, right? Like, you know, there's, there's gotta be something in there. The weird thing is apple. Not only doesn't take those off. I could see why they maybe leave 'em on. Even though they have rules against that kind of thing, they allow them to charge and they even allow them to buy ads cuz it goes right in the pocket for apple, right? So if you search for smart things in the app store, you'll suddenly find an advertisement for something that's not Samsung's app that costs money, an Apple's app be to sell M an ad that kind of, this kind of bugs me. And it's not a surprise. Now that apple is starting to have, get a little heat. South Korea told both apple and Google, you have to allow other payment systems in your app store.

Leo Laporte (00:07:35):
You can't require the people go through you and pay. The 30% apple in the Netherlands now is gonna let a, a, a developer of a dating app offer alternative payment because they've been ordered to do so by January 15th that's today, by the way, happy bagel day. You know, <affirmative> it's I guess I only mentioned this to encourage caution when you purchase stuff, especially subscription stuff on the app store, just cuz it's there doesn't mean apples, you know, I guess apple did give it its seal of approval, but it doesn't. They have to look at hundreds of thousands of apps every month. Still. I think the really the scammy ones, my it for me because my, my 89 year old mom loves her iPad and her iPhone, like many of us was running out of room on her old iPhone and she wanted to clear up some space.

Leo Laporte (00:08:30):
So she went to the app store, she searched for an app that, you know, said cl will clean up your memory on the iPhone, downloaded it and was paying $5 a week, unbeknownst to her. She didn't, you know, she just said, yeah. And they said, would you like to get rid of the ads or whatever it says? And she said, yeah, and $5 a week, $250 a year for an app that, that deletes the, you know, stuff from your iPhone. What, and the only reason I know about it is cuz I'm a good boy. I'm a good son. And she's using my credit card on her iPhone. So I got the email from apple saying, you know, you just paid another $5. Wait a minute. Of course I called mom. I said, let's go to the subscriptions tab on your iPhone. In fact everybody, if you've got an iPhone, that's the one good thing about the app store is it's very easy to cancel a subscription and figure out what subscriptions you have go to your settings, tap your name.

Leo Laporte (00:09:29):
And then the, the, the entry in there under apple ID should there should be a subscriptions entry that shows all, all the things you pay for. Check that as I had my mom do, to make sure she wasn't paying for any other useless apps, I seems, feels like apple shouldn't should probably not allow this what it feels like to me, but well there you, you are, there you are. I'm I'm just looking through my subscriptions and I can't, if I don't use it, I cancel it. And that's I tell you the, if there's a saving grace, if there's a one thing I praise apple for is that if you, if you are a developer, you create an app and you have people pay for the app. The subscription has to show up and that subs tab, all right, it's buried three clicks into settings, but it's there.

Leo Laporte (00:10:19):
And in there you can see everything you've subscribed to and easily cancel the things you're not. And that's gonna be different. You know, if all of a sudden in South Korea now in the Netherlands, and I think it'll probably spread you, can you, you apple actually won a court case. The judge had said by December, you have to do that open up your app store to other payment systems and apple appeal and, and won the appeal. So it won't happen in the us anytime soon. But, but those countries, you know, that dating app in the Netherlands, I bet you just could be hard to cancel. It. Won't be as easy as going to a setting in your phone and saying, I don't want this anymore. And that is, I have to give apple credit for that. They do make it easy to cancel so many places. Don't right. They really discourage you. It's it's it's hotel, California. You could check in, but don't you can't check out. Eighty eight, eighty eight ask CLE the phone number, the website where we put all the links we're working out the kinks for all the links, but that's techguylabs.com also put transcripts up there and audio and video from the show. After the fact techguylabs.com. That's free. Leo Laporte The Tech Guy takes your calls next.

Kim Shaffer (00:11:44):
I've not heard Millie Vanil since the nineties. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:11:49):
I is stronger than thunder. The lip sinking Millie van vanilla, ladies and gentlemen, no rust in

Kim Shaffer (00:11:54):
Peace, milli or Vanilli.

Leo Laporte (00:11:55):
I'm not one of them milli or vanilli. We don't know. Isn't that sad that that's like, how they'll be remembered. Were you milli or vanilla? <Laugh> this is we are talking to Kim Shaffer she's our phone angel. I hope that on your tombstone. It doesn't say former phone angel. Now I don't think I'm now stone. No, maybe I think I'm gonna

Kim Shaffer (00:12:14):
Get scattered into the,

Leo Laporte (00:12:15):
You want somewhere. You wanna earn? I don't even want that. You gotta have that conversation. I had that conversation with my mom. <Laugh> what do you want, mom? She said a cardboard box. No,

Kim Shaffer (00:12:25):
I wanna be, I, I take me to Hawaii. Take me, take me to a tropical ocean somewhere

Leo Laporte (00:12:31):
And she, oh man, you see that all the time. People wait eating out into the waves with their little baggy of ashes. Do that with my aunt in Hawaii.

Leo Laporte (00:12:37):
And then throw it in the air and goes right in their face. Yeah. Oh no. <Laugh>

Kim Shaffer (00:12:40):
That part's not cool.

Leo Laporte (00:12:42):
Not cool. Not cool, man.

Kim Shaffer (00:12:44):
Don't need any ashes in my, my tie. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:12:48):
If this show had titles, that would be a good show title. So who should I talk to on the phone? On the telephone? I don't

Kim Shaffer (00:12:55):
Even know. Richard and LaQuinta, she's

Leo Laporte (00:12:58):
You're really going. You're really, this one really captured your imagination. <Laugh> no ashes in my, my time, man.

Kim Shaffer (00:13:05):
It's a good title. Use it for twin tomorrow.

Leo Laporte (00:13:07):
Yeah, I will. Thank you, Kim. Hello, Richard. And LaQuinta. Leo Laporte, The Tech Guy. Oh, I gotta turn this to talk to you. Nice to talk to you. Thanks for calling.

Caller #1 (00:13:19):
First of all, thank you very much for all that you do in trying to keep the old user group computer user group alive.

Leo Laporte (00:13:31):
I have a, I have very fun cause I'm an old timer, two very fun memories of computer user groups in the earliest days of technology. That's you know, the only way you could figure out how to use things and do things that apple was introduced at the at the home brew computer club. Yeah. In San Jose. And I used to go to the Berkeley Macintosh users group B mug and

Caller #1 (00:13:50):
Oh, B mug. Wonderful. It

Leo Laporte (00:13:52):
Was fun. You'd have these monthly meetings be hundred people there. They'd talk about stuff. You'd have speakers, you'd have a Q and a session. It's kind of, I think of this as a user group on the radio

Caller #1 (00:14:04):
And that's, that's why I'm thinking you for that. Well, you're welcome. That's where I would go to get the answers to problems. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:14:10):
Yeah. You'd stand up. It'd say it's question time. You'd stand up and say I, my IRQ, I got a problem with my IQs. My printer won't talk with my modems on and then people would help you.

Caller #1 (00:14:21):
Yeah. Yeah. That was great

Leo Laporte (00:14:22):
Time. Those were, those were the days.

Caller #1 (00:14:25):
So I have two, two questions, but the most important one is the one for my friend that it's a dear friend and she's had a business that she's been trying to build up over the last 10 years. And it's a decorating business. She uses Instagram to show her items that she does and she's been struggling for 10 years. And then in the last two months she had a, a video, a reel that she had go viral. She had about 500,000 views. Holy

Leo Laporte (00:15:01):
Cow. That's fantastic.

Caller #1 (00:15:03):
Yeah, it was great. She finally gained up to 13,000 followers. Wonderful. So it, it was, and in doing this, she's been getting more attention. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:15:17):
That's the downside of the internet

Caller #1 (00:15:19):
Of the hackers. Yeah. Yeah. So she has normally over the last 10 years with Instagram, been getting people to come and, and ask about her business and, and request information. And they would send her links to their own Instagram photos, that, of how they might want their wedding or their birthday party.

Leo Laporte (00:15:44):
Oh, nice.

Caller #1 (00:15:46):
So this January 11th at seven 18 in the morning, she had a link from somebody that she had a conversation with the month before and she clicked on it and instantly lost access to her account. Ah, they then went on and changed the password and changed the email address.

Leo Laporte (00:16:08):
Oh my God, how frustrating she, she got played <affirmative>

Caller #1 (00:16:12):
She got played. And that was terribly devastating for her. Yeah. She spent 10 years climbing this mountain to get to where she finally started getting some users. And well,

Leo Laporte (00:16:24):
I, you know, I don't want to be a finger wagging nanny, so I won't, but this is a cautionary tale for anybody. Who's building a business on a social platform, take every effort, you know, to, to protect it. Including if she'd had used two factor authentication, for instance, she probably wouldn't have lost it. She didn't

Caller #1 (00:16:44):
Even know about, she

Leo Laporte (00:16:44):
Even know it existed.

Caller #1 (00:16:45):
Yeah. Didn't know it existed.

Leo Laporte (00:16:48):
It's like opening a store downtown and forgetting to lock the door. You know, it, we all understand door lock, but we don't understand security in the internet yet. And and I'm so sorry that happened. She should be able to call Instagram or call there's nobody at the phone, but she should be able to contact Instagram and recover it. My concern is how did she, who

Caller #1 (00:17:08):
Do you contact? Well

Leo Laporte (00:17:12):
There, if you, if you look in Instagram, you might have to help her. I don't know if she's completely lost access to Instagram, but if you, if you, if you actually, you could Google Instagram recover account and it would give you the, it would give you this stuff. You need to know. It happens. It happens on Facebook. It happens on Instagram. It happens quite a, a bit. Please turn on two factor. My other concern, the Instagram help center is@helpdotinstagram.com. And there's even a one. I think my Instagram account has been hacked Uhhuh <affirmative> so she can go through that process. One of the things that's important is that she associates her phone number with it be so that they can send her an authentication code. I'm sure the bad guys, once they got access to account changed all that, but Instagram has her previous phone number. So you know her and so they can, they can then send her a links to verify that she owned it and they go, yeah. Yeah, it was stolen here. It is. Make sure you get her to turn on two factor. I'm a little concerned

Caller #1 (00:18:16):
On everything else right now.

Leo Laporte (00:18:17):
Yeah. She's she's you learn? Don't you, you learn. Yeah. Yeah. You learn hard Instagram. You know, my wife says her Instagram was hacked to somebody turned on two factor without her knowledge. I, I think Instagram security, maybe lacks I'm I'm a little, I have a big question mark over my head. If you can imagine that over how just clicking a link gave them access to her Instagram. That was it on a phone.

Caller #1 (00:18:45):
Yes.

Leo Laporte (00:18:46):
On an iPhone or, or Android.

Caller #1 (00:18:49):
It was on an iPhone 13.

Leo Laporte (00:18:52):
So I'm really cons. I'm really confused about how you shouldn't be able to do that on an iPhone. So I'm, I, her story may has not have holes, but there may be more to it than we than meets the eye. It, you sh a sync simply clicking a link while you shouldn't do that. You gotta be careful. But that should not with just that action relinquish your Instagram account. There's more to that story somewhere. So you might ask her about that. Leo Laport, the tech kind. Yeah. That's a little, I mean, there shouldn't, it shouldn't be possible to click a link and lose your 

Caller #1 (00:19:38):
It's bizarre to me as well. Yeah. I was there when she actually clicked on it and it

Leo Laporte (00:19:44):
Just, oh, oh, you saw it happen.

Caller #1 (00:19:45):
Yeah. She sh it shut her out of her Instagram account. And then she started getting notifi email notifications that the password changed that the email address changed and that the phone number changed and the phone number changed to one that looks like it comes from Nigeria.

Leo Laporte (00:20:06):
Yeah. Well, yeah. That's probably where the, well, it may or may not be where the scammer ism mean. Yeah. you know, they can get a phone number anywhere. Yeah, I'm looking Instagram spam do not click the link will hack your account. Gosh, that's terrible security. If that's, if that's the case, there's a YouTube video on how this happens and she didn't when she clicked the link, it didn't take her to an Instagram page and then say log in. It just took it over. No. Wow. That's it honestly, that's a terrible flaw on Instagram that should not be possible. I'm looking, I'm watching this YouTube video that says Instagram do not click the link. It will hack your account. It also has in that video, how to fix it. So I'll put a link in the show notes, but if you Google Instagram spam to not click the link on YouTube, you'll be able to find that video.

Leo Laporte (00:21:04):
And I don't great. I'm just that be very helpful. I just found, I don't know if it actually is useful, but I'm just, I'm just curious to understand how it happened, to be honest. So I was just looking for Instagram one click hacks, and that's where I found that. So boy, that just really seems to me, that seems like, boy, it's very scary. The flaws for sure. On Instagram, if that's possible, it's terrible then maybe it is. So what's the answer to this? Well, you be very careful about the links you click. Yeah. Anywhere, but I've

Caller #1 (00:21:41):
Oh, I've educated her on that. Yeah. Even though she's had conversation with this person, the, it was clear that what they've done is they

Leo Laporte (00:21:51):
Scammers are very patient. They, you know these guys will take their time and of course they're not gonna scam you until you have something of value. And so she built something of value. So now they've, now they've soon as you get over 10,000 views, I'm sure that you start getting these I'm so sorry. There is a, in the Instagram help center, there is a whole page. We just put a link in our show notes. I think my Instagram account has been hacked what to do. And and there's a lot of stuff you can do. It may be that there is a third party app that she gave access to. She should, you know, once you, it gets it back, is she should turn off all third party apps in her Instagram, same for Twitter and Facebook. The, the bad guys are out there. In fact, this has become, you know, the number one pastime in the world is gaming the system. And I'm sad to say, that's a problem. Yeah. I'm sorry. It's happened to you, Richard, but I'm so yeah. Welcome to the user group. <Laugh> yes,

Caller #1 (00:22:52):
I appreciate it. That, and that's why I really appreciate all you do for us people out here that are still looking for user group kind

Leo Laporte (00:23:02):
Of support. Yeah. We just kinda have to do it for ourselves still, you know, good luck getting help from Google or Instagram or Facebook, cuz they're just so big. You know, we just have to do for

Caller #1 (00:23:12):
In that regard is what's the IRC chat room that I can,

Leo Laporte (00:23:16):
You can do it on the web browser. It's and they're very helpful to IRC TV.

Caller #1 (00:23:25):
Okay. That way I don't have to wait until the weekend to

Leo Laporte (00:23:28):
They're great. Yeah. They're that's the team tech guy. Pleasure talking to you, Richard. Thank you. Take care. What is hip this cat right here, Mr. Scott Wilkinson our home theater geek contributor@techhive.com. Soon to be Santa Cruz resident mm-hmm <affirmative> to be big screen TV surround sound guru and Santa Claus during the off season. Hello? <laugh> hello, Scott. <Laugh>

Scott Wilkinson (00:23:58):
Hey Leo,

Leo Laporte (00:23:59):
How you doing? Good to see you. I'm I am well good. Your excitement has held steady for the E Q D O led announced by oh yeah. Oh

Scott Wilkinson (00:24:07):
Yeah, absolutely. And, but, but I wanted to mention that there were other TV announcements at CES too, besides

Leo Laporte (00:24:15):
That let's get those in. Yeah, we focused on that, but let's get those in too. Yeah, there are

Scott Wilkinson (00:24:20):
Plenty of other ones. LG has its next generation of regular OED, which they've improved. They claim 30% more brightness. Wow. than last year, which was brighter than the year before. So they are greatly improving that.

Leo Laporte (00:24:35):
I'll tell you, I've been watching a lot of 4k content on my, I guess now five year old LG OED. Oh yeah. And it just looks so good. There's a so good documentary of 14 peaks on Netflix about the guy who scaled all 14, 8,000 meter or higher peaks in seven months, seven months. He's a Sherpa of course. And a lot of HD video from HYA at top, you know, Everest and K2 and, and Perna. And it's it

Scott Wilkinson (00:25:02):
Like 4k video. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:25:04):
I, I don't know what he was shooting. Yeah, because the, the snow is so bright. Oh yeah. And the lines are so crisp. You just feel like you're there. It's really

Scott Wilkinson (00:25:12):
Amazing. This is a great test by the way, for setting your contrast control, which controls the bright, the white level. And if it's set too high, all that snow is gonna be just a flat white. Right. And so you, you said it so that you see some variation in the, you wanna see

Leo Laporte (00:25:29):
The footprints in the snow. Yes. Yes,

Scott Wilkinson (00:25:31):
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Oh, it's it's gorgeous. Wow. Well LG announced. Believe it or not a 97 inch O lead. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:25:42):
Wait a minute, wait a minute. Let me do that. Math. That's big. Yeah. That's huge. That's really, how much

Scott Wilkinson (00:25:47):
Is that though? Well, they didn't say, yeah, <laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:25:50):
Well, let's put it this way. Their roll up. Ed's a hundred thousand dollars, so, right, right, right.

Scott Wilkinson (00:25:55):
It's gonna be, so this 97 97 inch is gonna be, is gonna be expensive. There's no question about it, but it's the largest OED certainly ever made for consumers anyway. Wow. meanwhile Sam announced a <laugh> consumer friendly version of their micro L E D, which is 8 89 inches. They also didn't announce prices. It's a, it's also a, a fixed size, you know, micro L E D comes in these tiles and you can basically they're modules and you can make basically any size or shape TV you want. But this is kind of a prepackaged deal. It's still gonna be very expensive. They didn't announce pricing on that either. But the, the, I think it was 109 inch that they announced last year was $150,000. Oh,

Leo Laporte (00:26:48):
Nevermind. Yeah. So

Scott Wilkinson (00:26:49):
<Laugh> this one ain't gonna be cheap. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:26:52):
I like we have that high sense short throat projector, which is about a hundred inch screen, a hundred inch screen, but it's a projector. I mean, it's nice. It's was expensive at the time. I think it's come down a few, four or 5,000. Exactly. But it's nice to have a, for like the football games, you know, mm-hmm, <affirmative> this weekend. It's nice. When people come over to watch it on a big screen, it's not as, oh yeah, good looking as the O led, but it, but it, you know, everybody can see it. Not

Scott Wilkinson (00:27:20):
Nearly as bright either. Yeah. you, if you, if you can afford a 97 inch OED or oh, go for it. Yeah. And 98, an 89 inch micro L eed, go for it,

Leo Laporte (00:27:31):
Check go. It, you deserve it. <Laugh> <laugh>

Scott Wilkinson (00:27:36):
Now at the other end of the scale, LG announced in its C2 line that 97 inch L led is in their G line, which is the higher end line at the lower end, the C2 line, they introduced a 42 inch, the smallest you could get. Yeah. You know, that's like a, almost a computer monitor, but that might

Leo Laporte (00:27:54):
Be very affordable. Yeah.

Scott Wilkinson (00:27:56):
I, again, I don't know what, when it's gonna be, they don't say

Leo Laporte (00:27:59):
I have an olded computer monitor and I have to say, I love it, but it's primarily for gaming and watching

Scott Wilkinson (00:28:04):
And, and they, that's what they say. They say this one kind of bridges, the gap between a TV and a gaming monitor. Yeah. Yeah. And they've got gaming presets with GSI variable frame rate and all they support Invidia, GSI and and free sync as well. So you know, it is, it is kind of aimed at

Leo Laporte (00:28:30):
Gaming. Yeah. Free sync is a gaming technology. Exactly.

Scott Wilkinson (00:28:33):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Now TCL introduced a 98 inch <laugh> quantum dot LCD TV for 8,000.

Leo Laporte (00:28:45):
See, that's now you're getting down there. I mean, it sounds like a lot, but that's a,

Scott Wilkinson (00:28:50):
It it's a lot of money, but it, you know, compared to a hundred thousand, it's nothing.

Leo Laporte (00:28:53):
And, and that's a big, I mean, that's a nice big screen. I mean,

Scott Wilkinson (00:28:57):
Oh yeah. It's the same size as your high sense projector. Yeah. Yeah. And probably for less than what you paid for your, it is projector it, you know, back in the day. So do you think

Leo Laporte (00:29:07):
People, I mean, there was a problem with a giant screen, of course is you have to have the place for it. You can't. Yeah. Oh yeah. But do you think there's, there must be a market

Scott Wilkinson (00:29:15):
Must be it's

Leo Laporte (00:29:17):
You know, part of the market is we're not people don't want to go to the cinema. Right. So they make a home theater

Scott Wilkinson (00:29:23):
That's right. That's exactly right now, a TV like that in a home theater with a dark, you don't necessarily need a dark environment. In fact, you'd have to really turn down the brightness. Yeah. If you were in a dark environment on the other hand, if you want to be immersive as in a movie theater, which is dark and, and really you're only focused on the screen then you, you do, you do want to turn down that brightness and you probably still wanna bias a light behind it. Yeah. Right. A bias light is a light behind the screen that kind of up the area around the screen so that your eyes don't get as tired. A and that's gonna be really important with, with TVs like this, with any TV, really high sense, announced a couple of mini L E D TVs that are probably gonna be really affordable. None of the, none of these companies at CES announce prices or specific availability, you know, it's gonna be in the spring or so, which is frustrating.

Leo Laporte (00:30:30):
It is. Cause it gets, you gets you excited and then you go, oh, <laugh> I can't afford, I'm never gonna be able to afford that. I never, I'm gonna be able to, even if I could afford that, I wouldn't spend that much on a TV, that kind of thing. Right, right, right, right. But the good news is in every case, these things come down over time. Quite a bit. Exactly.

Scott Wilkinson (00:30:47):
Exactly. Quite a bit.

Leo Laporte (00:30:48):
So patience is rewarded

Scott Wilkinson (00:30:51):
<Laugh> for sure. Exactly right. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah. Sony introduced their first mini L E D backlight TV 

Leo Laporte (00:31:00):
Mini L E D back. So who was it? Was it LG? Somebody said mini L E D is gonna be bad for your eyes, which is concerning. Cuz a lot of computers, apples stuff now is all mini L E D.

Scott Wilkinson (00:31:11):
I, I don't see how that

Leo Laporte (00:31:12):
Could be. They say the brightness it's brighter. And and then there's a lot of blue in it and we know that, you know, well, you know, that's for you. Yeah. I wear blue blocker glass glasses when I use the computer.

Scott Wilkinson (00:31:24):
That's interesting. Yeah. Can you get that in a prescription glasses?

Leo Laporte (00:31:27):
I want, they are prescription. In

Scott Wilkinson (00:31:29):
Fact, I might have to do that online then. Yeah. Ask

Leo Laporte (00:31:31):
Your ask your optometrist about taking your existing prescription. What I did is I had my existing prescription and I added a little to the diopter, so it was more like a closer to a glasses, so there's a little magnification and then they put the blue block in and it's wow. It's great for a computer. It's a little, you know,

Scott Wilkinson (00:31:51):
Wow. I'm gonna have to do that. Cause I sit at my computer a lot. Obviously you do

Leo Laporte (00:31:55):
Too. Yes. And there are companies that make com you know, computer glasses specifically and you can in fact have have, have a prescription as well as just like sunglasses. Right. All right. All right. But I, you know, gunner is the one that's well known. I had a pair of gunners for a while. G U N N a R. Okay. But I ask your optometrist. I think that's probably the best place to get that done. I will.

Scott Wilkinson (00:32:18):
I will. Yeah. just real quick. TCL also introduced an eight K TV. That's only like three 10 millimeters thick. So they're getting down to

Leo Laporte (00:32:30):
A razor blade. It's incredible. I know. It's incredible. Yeah. We just need that content sometime in the next couple of weeks, we should talk about the Olympics they're coming up. Oh, we should. Okay. How to watch 'em in 4k and all that. Yep. Scott Wilkinson tech hive.com our home feeder geek. Okay. Scotty, I'm gonna get you all set here for your exciting appearance on

Scott Wilkinson (00:33:08):
Radio. Thank so. Thank you so very much.

Leo Laporte (00:33:11):
You're very welcome. Here you go.

Scott Wilkinson (00:33:14):
I'm gonna get a couple Mike fee says 98 inches is roughly eight feet. That makes sense. Yeah, it's

Leo Laporte (00:33:20):
Huge. Yeah. My my high sense, you know, we have to, you know, it's we have a great room, so it's perfect for a great room. You need a big room.

Scott Wilkinson (00:33:29):
You need a big TV in that room. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (00:33:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Be good for the good it's good for the super bowl. That's my eye. Lisa watching. We'll be watching football all, all weekend. <Laugh> a big game coming up tomorrow.

Scott Wilkinson (00:33:43):
Oh, what's the big game.

Leo Laporte (00:33:45):
Cowboys Niners man.

Scott Wilkinson (00:33:47):
Oh, okay.

Leo Laporte (00:33:49):
49Ers.

Scott Wilkinson (00:33:49):
That's alright, go

Leo Laporte (00:33:50):
Niners. I guess you don't. Yeah, you don't need to it's I don't watch. I understand your, your position on sport ball. I won't.

Scott Wilkinson (00:33:56):
Yeah. Yeah. I, the only sport I actually pay any of tension to it all as baseball,

Leo Laporte (00:34:02):
I used to, it got, you know, it started with the strike many years ago. And then I dunno, I just kinda lost interest when players moved around so much. So now I'm and Lisa's a big NFL fan. So, you know, she had Nire season tickets and all that. So I follow the NFL though.

Scott Wilkinson (00:34:19):
Okay. In fact, Dr. Mom, grandma is asking with super bowl next month. What's the best time to shop for a TV. Yes.

Leo Laporte (00:34:26):
We gotta get ready for super bowl. And the Olympics, they, they start at the same time.

Scott Wilkinson (00:34:31):
Yeah. Yeah. I, I will do some research into that. I mean, generally speaking this is a great time to shop for 20, 21 model TVs. Yeah. Cause the 2020 twos are not out yet. And do you really need to wait for a 20, 22? Probably not. You know, unless you're one of those people who really has to have the very latest and greatest best LA most recent thing, which always ch I always get a little chuckle out of that because sure. You get the latest thing. And then six months later, it's not anymore. And something else, you know, next CES a year later or six months later, cuz when the TVs come out, it's gonna be spring or summer. And when you when you get it, then six months later, CES comes around and the next big new thing is, comes out. So unless you want this new QD lead, which yeah, that that's gonna be something special. And I would wait for that if you can, and then if you can afford it but if you can't or can't then getting a 20, 21 model TV is perfectly fine, perfectly fine.

Scott Wilkinson (00:35:50):
Phoenix warp one hockey is the only sport. Nah, well I'm not into anyway. Mike Case, like getting a grand piano into a New York apartment. How do you get these things into the home? A bend in the middle, but only once. <Laugh> so anyway. Yeah, I don't have you get it into the TV into the, into the home. Actually you take the roof off. Of course. Well, I heard, I heard when, when these giant TVs first came out, like the Panasonic hundred and hundred and eight inch plasma, you remember that? That was years ago. But people were talking about, well, you can only really put it in a house that you're building. Right. And you have to, you have to put it in there before the roof goes on. Right. <laugh> yeah. You have to

Leo Laporte (00:36:45):
Crane. Although here in California, a lot of us have big sliding glass doors and stuff. There might be ways that's true. You just have to look at the,

Scott Wilkinson (00:36:52):
See, this is the advantage of micro L E D because it's modular disassemble. It's all the panels are only like a foot, a foot across. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:37:01):
Stick around for the top. Sure. Happy to thank you. Leo Laport, the tech guy, eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo that's the phone number back to the phones. We go Christine from Laguna Hills. California's next? Hi Christine.

Caller #2 (00:37:17):
Hi Leo. How are you?

Leo Laporte (00:37:18):
I'm well, how are you?

Caller #2 (00:37:21):
I'm doing great. It means I'm a long time listener. Thank you. First time, caller. Wonderful. First time. First time nerve <laugh>. I just wanted to, I I've long enough listener that I remember you mentioning something I never heard of before called YouTu <affirmative> and that sent me down the Linux path for oh years now. Awesome. I've had a lot of fun. Awesome. I've learned a lot, so

Leo Laporte (00:37:48):
Very good. A Buntu Linux. Yeah, that was great. Well, you're welcome. Do you use it exclusively now or do you still use windows or Mac? No,

Caller #2 (00:37:57):
I've always dual booted. Dual

Leo Laporte (00:38:00):
Boot. Yep.

Caller #2 (00:38:02):
Yeah. Yeah. I use, I use two different two different drives that way. If I'm easy messing around and, and destroy one operating system, at least I didn't destroy both operating.

Leo Laporte (00:38:12):
Very smart. Very smart. Yeah. <laugh> yeah. I still, you know, I obviously for the show and everything else, half to use all three operating systems, but Linux, which is a free and open source operating system has over the last, especially the last couple of years become very easy to use. And I think for a lot of people might be a good third choice over windows or Mac, especially as they get more commercialized.

Caller #2 (00:38:39):
I think so. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm moving more online anyways. I've got an office 365 subscription and

Leo Laporte (00:38:46):
Yeah, everything's online these days. Yeah.

Caller #2 (00:38:48):
Yeah. I find more and more stuff is not on the device, but I, I do have a question about my laptop. Okay. I've got an ACEs VEPO book, which is about, it's gonna be four years old in the next few months. Yeah. And the, my, according to the windows little command I can run, my battery is at about 75% of it.

Leo Laporte (00:39:12):
Yeah. That's what happens. In fact, it's a cliff in the next couple of years, it'll go down very rapidly.

Caller #2 (00:39:19):
Okay, good. So that was, that leads me to my question. I've found they wear

Leo Laporte (00:39:22):
Out, in other words,

Caller #2 (00:39:23):
Buy replacement battery online,

Leo Laporte (00:39:25):
Get it if you like it. Okay.

Caller #2 (00:39:29):
I do. I like the computer. It's it's El it's running. It runs windows 11, no problem. You know, the TPM and all that stuff as an eighth gen processor.

Leo Laporte (00:39:38):
They're very nice devices, nice and thin and light and yeah, eighth generation, you know, we're now up to 12, but it's not much better to be honest with you. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I just, so what happens lithium ion technology wears out over time. There's a certain number of full tr large cycles. It can do typically around 500. And at that point it just will stop taking a charge. So if you're at 75, now it's gonna go down. It goes down gradually at first and then it suddenly just falls off a cliff and goes down to almost nothing. And you're at that age that not you personally, your Viva book is at that age. You might be at that age. I know I am where everything's starting to fall apart, but yeah, I'm, <laugh>,

Caller #2 (00:40:19):
You're falling

Leo Laporte (00:40:19):
Apart is now your Viv book. It happens a little quicker. So if you really like the laptop usually a, a new battery, if it's easy to replace is, is gonna cost under a hundred bucks, then it'll give you another, you know, 500 cycles, five years maybe. Okay, great.

Caller #2 (00:40:34):
Yeah, yeah. This, no, this laptop is great. Held together with Philip screws and you can pry the, the bottom open with just normal

Leo Laporte (00:40:44):
Fingerprint. That's one reason to, to, to value it is it's repairable in the last few years to get laptops thinner and lighter, they've start gluing stuff together. And most of the modern laptops, you can't replace the battery yourself. It's very difficult. So you're in a way this is worth keeping this thing around.

Caller #2 (00:41:01):
Okay. So my other, the last thing that, so if I get the battery, is it, does it have a shelf life? If I decide to put it in like no

Leo Laporte (00:41:10):
Six months from now, no, keep it at a half charge, which it probably will come at a half charge. Most companies, that's how they ship it and you can let it sit for a long time. If you want it to last a little longer, put it, wrap it in a waterproof bag and keep it in the freezer.

Caller #2 (00:41:26):
Oh

Leo Laporte (00:41:26):
Really? Yeah. That'll slow the chemistry down. It's all about, it's a chemistry. It's a chemical reaction, so yeah.

Caller #2 (00:41:31):
Yeah. It's a chemical. Yeah. Okay,

Caller #2 (00:41:33):
Great.

Leo Laporte (00:41:33):
Thank you. You're welcome. Good to talk to you now that you know the way, make your way back here soon. Okay. let's see, Joe on the line from Knoxville, Tennessee. Hi, Joe.

Caller #3 (00:41:45):
How are you doing today?

Leo Laporte (00:41:46):
I am. Well, how are you?

Caller #3 (00:41:48):
Pretty good. I saw or been listening on, on the air a while. Saw you hit 65 recently. <Laugh> my wife and I hit him this year. And after the last two years we've been going through, we just said, we're not gonna punch anybody. Else's time clocks anymore. <Laugh> good,

Leo Laporte (00:42:10):
Man. You're retiring our time now. Yeah. That's a nice feeling. I, you know, when you hit 65, you kind of I'll speak for myself, but I think it's probably true for you too. You kind of realize why that's the normal retirement age. It's a good time.

Caller #3 (00:42:24):
You still, yeah, we had, you know, health issues with elderly parents and then my wife got hit with, with breast cancer. Oh dear. And shes recovered from that last department said she's N E D no evidence of love it.

Leo Laporte (00:42:37):
She rang the bell. Huh? That's awesome.

Caller #3 (00:42:39):
So yeah, we're, we're doing great. That's awesome. She's into quilting. Big time. That

Leo Laporte (00:42:43):
Makes you appreciate life. Doesn't it? You go, you know what I'm gonna take advantage of the years left really enjoy 'em

Caller #3 (00:42:49):
She's into quilting big time. And she's doing probably a couple of quilts a month. Her group has given over a hundred quilts to children's hospital locally. So, so, but and you were talking about older computers earlier. My first computer was an Ohio scientific, super

Leo Laporte (00:43:08):
Too OSI. I remember those. Yeah.

Caller #3 (00:43:10):
Four KM <laugh> and it did not have RS 2 32 on it, but it had the provisions for it. And I added all the components and got a 300 ball acoustic, couple modem and put on it and started using comper. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:43:24):
People now are listening. The young kids are going, what, what are they? Those old timers? What are they talking about? We used to walk three miles in the snow.

Caller #3 (00:43:32):
I run into an issue on my computer and I've been, I used the windows, defender and software for virus, skin. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:43:41):
That comes with windows. And it's all you need for most people. It does a good job. I'm

Caller #3 (00:43:45):
Losing favor with that because I've got something that starts showing up. All of a sudden I've I use a wireless mouse and keyboard and I don't think it's that because I've, I've changed the batteries, make sure everything's fresh and that, but all of a sudden, you know, I'll be doing something and then everything slows down. I'll, I'll move the house and it won't move or I'll type something and it won't type. And then it'll start working and I've scan did the, the windows defender and scanned, and there's two things popped up. And I on, I do a full scan and I get a PUA colon 32 slash Crete was one of them. And the other one was like a, and I've

Leo Laporte (00:44:33):
What is it? Does it label those as anything?

Caller #3 (00:44:36):
It, it didn't say that there was anything major, but I've looked it up on Google. They say that they there's things that slow down the operation of the computer and, oh,

Leo Laporte (00:44:48):
Well, there you go. <Affirmative> so don't knock defender found it. But how do you remove it?

Caller #3 (00:44:56):
<Laugh> that's the question, because one of the things I found on one of 'em says you can't remove it. Yeah. So, you know, I had in the past, I cause you used, they used to be an advertiser with you. Is, was the the not 32. Yeah. From a set.

Leo Laporte (00:45:12):
That's a good tool. Yeah. And I'm

Caller #3 (00:45:13):
Wondering if so

Leo Laporte (00:45:16):
PUA aren't are, is not necessarily a virus. It's a potentially unwanted application. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so according to Microsoft, it's not considered malware but it might adversely affect performance. It, it is, it is mm-hmm <affirmative> so the reason they don't remove it, well, there are a couple of reasons that they might remove it or might not wanna remove it is you may have installed it. So in fact, you probably did as part of something else. So one way to see what you figure out what's going on is kind of look through your installed pro and remove anything that you don't particularly want. And a lot of times when you go out to a shareware site and you download software CBS interactive, notorious for this download.com, they'll give you a whole popup this, you need our downloader and then it'll pop up one. After the other things that's gonna install. Many of those are PUA. So what you wanna do is get rid of those, if you can by uninstalling Leo Laport, the tech guy.

Caller #3 (00:46:22):
Yeah. I know a lot of these programs that you download will want, wanna add in, you know, oh,

Leo Laporte (00:46:27):
There's, they're nasty, they're nasty and Vagos. One of them out

Caller #3 (00:46:30):
About that, you know, there's you, they wanna change your search engine or use

Leo Laporte (00:46:35):
Exactly. That's why they're not called a virus. Theu is an ad an ad thing. Yeah. So you're probably getting a,

Caller #3 (00:46:43):
Running into an issue with it is I've got a laser engraver and I use a program called light burn and I'll go to try to reposition something and then the mouse don't wanna respond. And I have to sort of shake the mouse and move it around or top, you know cursors on the keypad and then it'll on the keyboard and it'll, then it'll start responding again. The problem

Leo Laporte (00:47:04):
Is it can be other things. It, it may well be the malware, but it could be other things, including an aging hard drive that can cause this. So it's very hard to how old's a computer.

Caller #3 (00:47:15):
It's a few years old, but I've replaced the drives recently. I've got some solid state drives in it and, and stuff. And it's, it's just something that started in the last probably in the last three or four weeks.

Leo Laporte (00:47:28):
Yeah. It sounds like these two PS, these two poos could be what's going on. I don't normally recommend this, but it might be worth a try. The thing is it doesn't sound like there's malware on the machine. It's just these ad plugins. There's a program called malware bites. Okay. M a L w a R E B Y T S B Y T E S. And make sure you get it from malware bites directly as opposed to any third party. Yeah. There's a lot of people that do the add on. Yeah. They pretend they're malware bites. So malware bites.com. And it is good at removing these kinds of plugins. Microsoft is leery to do it because

Caller #3 (00:48:10):
You installed it and it isn't malware and they don't. I think maybe they're worried about liability. Although I think Vago is one that the defender will Nott install. So I'm not sure why it's not. It also, the other reason, sometimes in anti virus won't remove something, is if it's too tightly integrated into the system, it would break the <affirmative>. Yeah. So it may see that, oh gosh, you know we can't take this out cuz you're try malware by see what what'll it'll do you definitely wanna get rid of those? I would scan through your installed programs list and make sure nothing's in there that you didn't put there or want there Vago will have an entry there. That's what makes it not malware? Yeah. I've, I've gone through and looked at installed stuff and I'm, I'm not, I don't see either, either one of those listed okay. In installed apps. So I may try the malware by I've used that before. I just usually put it on there and run it and let it go through and pick things. And then I remove it after that. Yeah. And so I may go back through and do, yeah. I bought a laser engraver a few months ago and I've, I've had a lot of fun playing with that. That's

Leo Laporte (00:49:16):
Really fun. Yeah. Is it, is it, yeah, we had somebody come over with portable one and, and did all sorts of things many years ago. It's so much fun. What do you do with it?

Caller #3 (00:49:25):
Well, you know, since I've done some plaques, I've got nice, you know, friends with pets. I've had several friends that they've lost pet plaques with some, with, you know, before I can put a picture of their pet in and you know, some sort of verse next to it and stuff. Oh. And I started doing some coasters and how fun and some name tags for things you and your wife

Leo Laporte (00:49:47):
Are very crafty.

Caller #3 (00:49:49):
Oh yeah. We do. You know, we do some canning and stuff. And so if we can, certain things, I'll make wooden tags to put on the cans and I'm a beekeeper too. So I've engrave some tags to put on my jars of honey and things like that. So yeah. It's been a lot of fun to play with.

Leo Laporte (00:50:04):
See if I had all those things to do. I wouldn't mind retirement, but all I got is this it's pathetic. So I have to keep working. <Laugh>

Caller #3 (00:50:11):
I had to close my office door here a minute ago, because if you heard me start screaming, Leo, get the heck outta here. We've got a cat named lay off. Oh, <laugh> he's, he's a, he's a 10 month old kit and weighs 15. Oh my, I nicknamed him to terrace. Oh my into everything.

Leo Laporte (00:50:27):
My daughter's roommate had a cat named Leo, but it's but it means lion. So I don't take it personally. Yeah. Well we

Caller #3 (00:50:33):
Little lion cause we're my, my son and I are into astronomy and oh nice. I used to do astronomy outreach through the university years ago and going to schools and taking telescopes and doing programs. Oh cool. Parks and stuff like that. And so you know all the constellations and stuff. Yeah. Lee,

Leo Laporte (00:50:50):
Joe, I wish you were my neighbor. You sound like a really cool guy to get to know.

Caller #3 (00:50:54):
Oh, I've got, I've got about four telescopes right now. I've got cool. Eight inches up to 10 inch and some others that I've built and digital cameras that I've adapted and stuff.

Leo Laporte (00:51:06):
You're gonna stay very busy. I have a feeling.

Caller #3 (00:51:09):
I also a hammer. Ready go operator. Of course

Leo Laporte (00:51:11):
You are. <Laugh> of course you are. Hey, I have to run it's Scott's time now. I want to give him his time back. But it's a pleasure meeting. You call back again soon. Okay. I will. Thank you. Let me know what happens with VAA. The Vada dreaded Vago, all your Scotty. I'm like, thank God I get does sound like a really, really nice wouldn't you like to live next door? Come on over let's laser engrave some things <laugh> right. And

Scott Wilkinson (00:51:35):
Then look at the stars.

Leo Laporte (00:51:36):
Look at the star. Gosh, I wish I had a neighbor like that. Yeah. Yeah. We had to get your neighbors who had a party all night. Last night. It was hysterical. Oh, that was okay. They had a bouncy house. No, they're kind of the back 40. So they're not really direct neighbors, but boy, we heard their party. It was cute. It didn't bother me. They were partying all night. <Laugh> all yours. It's four 20. Go for it.

Scott Wilkinson (00:51:59):
Thank you. Thank you. Hello everyone. Nice to see you all or not see you, but see you in the chat anyway. Those are of you who are in the chat. I, I guess there are some people watching that aren't in the chat you should get in the chat. It's really interesting. Really fun. Great people. Chicago, Tim says, I need a new projector TV. I see some outdoor projectors for much less than home theater projectors. Can they be used indoors? Yes they can. They're generally not as good quality. I, I can't say that. Absolutely. But generally speaking they're, they're generally 10 80 P or less. They generally have a little, a little speaker built in which, you know, takes up room and ands sources from making it that you don't really need. Assuming you have a, if you're indoors, you have a, a sound system indoors and you really don't wanna listen to that funky little speaker inside a projector.

Scott Wilkinson (00:53:01):
You know, it's probably five Watts. It's probably a tiny little speaker. You're not gonna get any base at all. So I really, if you're, if you're going to use a projector indoors, I'd get one designed to be used indoors. Now you say projector TV. Does that mean an ultra short throw? Do you want, do you want it to be a TV replacement? Because that's what ultra short throat projector is. It's basically a TV replacement. It's a projector that you sit up next to the wall. Hopefully you put a screen on the wall rather than just showing it on the wall. Cuz I never recommend that. Cuz the surface of a wall is not real good for reflecting a high quality image, but UST ultra short throat projector is a TV replacement. So that would be a good option if really what you want is a TV.

Scott Wilkinson (00:53:58):
But if you want a true cinema experience with a long throw projector across the room, beaming onto a screen, many options for that lower cost lower, relatively lower cost. Eeps I always recommend in the mid and higher range JVC, I always recommend they're really the, the best consumer grade projectors. In my opinion, of course you can spend, that'll be, that'll cost you up up to 10 grand EPS are more in the three grand range, roughly, roughly if you wanna get way above 10 grand you can there are some SOS that are up there in the hundred thousand grand, a hundred thousand range. You've got and E see Christie, the professional digital cinema projectors.

Leo Laporte (00:54:58):
Runco

Scott Wilkinson (00:54:59):
Runco no, no more. Runco sadly Runco and viron are gone.

Leo Laporte (00:55:05):
Run. CO's gone. Yeah, no kidding.

Scott Wilkinson (00:55:09):
Yeah. God fam Runco retired.

Leo Laporte (00:55:12):
Oh, it was just like one guy.

Scott Wilkinson (00:55:14):
Well, it was, he had a whole company, but when he retired, I don't know if he sold the company. He, I think he might have sold it to planar

Leo Laporte (00:55:23):
I'm oh, maybe that's yeah. So they got absorbed. They

Scott Wilkinson (00:55:26):
Got absorbed.

Leo Laporte (00:55:27):
Cause they were, those were like $30,000. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Scott Wilkinson (00:55:31):
Oh yeah. And they were great. Yeah, they were great projectors,

Leo Laporte (00:55:35):
Scotty have a wonderful week.

Scott Wilkinson (00:55:37):
Thank you.

Leo Laporte (00:55:38):
And when are you moving?

Scott Wilkinson (00:55:41):
Mid February. Oh,

Leo Laporte (00:55:42):
Soon.

Scott Wilkinson (00:55:43):
Very soon. We are madly packing up the

Leo Laporte (00:55:46):
House once. Once Elmer Kron burns through and pandemic is over, we will get together. I'd love to, we're gonna go down. We're actually going down to Carmel in February to just for a little short vacation. Lisa Uhhuh. Well,

Scott Wilkinson (00:56:00):
Close enough. I'll be able to drive up and

Leo Laporte (00:56:01):
Yeah, I grew up, I grew up in Santa Cruz. I grew up in, I went my first radio commercial radio. I was in Monterey and Pacific Grove so I know that. Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow.

Scott Wilkinson (00:56:12):
Be beautiful. See you next week.

Leo Laporte (00:56:15):
Why? Hey, Hey, how are you today? Leo LePort here. The tech guy, time to talk computers, the internet, home theater, digital photography, smartphone smart watches, Johnny jet, our travel guru coming up to help you travel better with technology. Let's see, what else? The GIZ whiz or gizmo wizard, Dick T Bartolo with a crazy gadget or Gimo or something, probably something you found at CES. And of course, mostly your calls, phone number eighty eight eighty eight, ask Leo website tech guy labs.com. I know some of you are, are grunt and I apologize. I've gotten a couple of disgruntled emails from people saying what happened to our old website. We had to shut it down. It was just it was gonna get prohibitively expensive to keep going because it had software on it. And the new version would've required a complete rewrite, which would be very expensive.

Leo Laporte (00:57:10):
So we merged into the other site that I run my podcast network this week in tech@twi.tv. So you could still go to tech guy labs.com, but it'll take you to the, this week in tech webpage. And we're still working on ways of getting the information from the show in there. My Sarge, my producer will put links up on the web page there. Our editors will put the links up that we mention on the web page there. There's also and we're, we're trying this out. We're now using a artificial intelligence transcription service, which is transcribing the show. And so it's not perfect, but it's a boy they've come a long way. It's pretty darn good. It's got time codes in there and everything. And then we'll put the audio on the video show from the show there. So it'll give you a way to search for content in that transcription, jump to that in the audio, in the video, or maybe find the answer you want in the transcript. So I'm hoping all of that will give you some real value tech I ilab.com and still no charge. That's one of the reasons I don't wanna spend a quarter of a million dollars fixing it 88 88, ask Leo, Matt on the line. Tucson, Arizona. Hello, Matt.

Caller #1 (00:58:18):
Hey Leo. How you doing

Leo Laporte (00:58:20):
Today? I'm well, thanks for hanging on. What can I do for you?

Caller #1 (00:58:23):
Well, I have got a 2014 MacBook. And I'm looking to upgrade to a desktop typically we're, we're owning computers eight to 10 years before we swap 'em out.

Leo Laporte (00:58:38):
Nice. Yeah. These days that's sensible. There's not big. Well, yeah, they don't have the jumps in performance that they had in the early days of computers.

Caller #1 (00:58:50):
Yeah. Well, it's getting to the end of his life cycle and I wanna yeah, eight years, some other things on it. And especially

Leo Laporte (00:58:56):
For max, because they've entered a new era with apple with these new M one chips. And so you really do want to kind of start looking at upgrading all of your Intel based max to the new apple Silicon.

Caller #1 (00:59:09):
So what I was looking at was a desktop iMac you know, initially a 27 inch caught my eye cause

Leo Laporte (00:59:18):
Can you, here's the deal? Can you wait, can you wait just a few months because all of the new desktops are gonna be announced sometime between March and June. I think it's gonna be closer to March. But the, the app, at least by June, you never know with apple. And unfortunately the chip shortage is probably a factor in this as well, but apple will announce new, new IMAX. The current 27 inch IMAX are Intel based. They're the old model. And I, and I don't think it's wise at this point, if you want to keep it for eight years, I don't think it's wise to get an Intel based Mac. At this point, they do have M one based the new apple, Silicon based Mac minis, and they have small the little 21 dwell to 24 now, 24 inch IMAX. Those are quite beautiful, but I think that the, if you want a little bit more power waiting a couple months would be very beneficial. The, what apple has blown me away with the capabilities of this new chip platform, it's really good, really good. And I think you'd benefit. It certainly last a lot longer.

Caller #1 (01:00:24):
Well, that was actually what I was hoping for to, to hear cuz I, I heard a rumor that they were gonna come out mm-hmm <affirmative> with a new platform. And you know, I was wondering whether I should wait or not. So it

Leo Laporte (01:00:34):
Sounds like I should, I would, if you can wait a few months, it sounds like you might be able to I think you'll be glad you did expect new Mac minis, which V with a very high pro pro feature there. In other words, the M one max, they announced last year, they did a Mac mini and an iMac as well as some MacBooks are good, but they are about to leap again into the next generation. And it's just a couple of months off. They'll be bigger screens on the IMAX. That Mac mini will be more powerful. First Mac mini, they released with the M one chip was kind of a low end model. I think the high powered Mac minis will be great. The Ava, I I'm a little bit more in favor of the minis than I used to be because I had IMAX for years.

Leo Laporte (01:01:14):
I'm looking at iMac right now. I like the IMAX, but because the screen's built in and you want to keep it a years, the screen technology may advance. You may bigger screen. You may want two screens. You want better screens tying it into the whole computer is looks nice and it's I guess a convenience, but it's harder to repair and it limits your choices. Whereas you can get a Mac mini by your own monitor and get something a little bit different. So I would think I would consider anyway, the Mac minis <affirmative> but the I new IMAX will also be out at the same time, I think.

Caller #1 (01:01:48):
Well,

Leo Laporte (01:01:48):
Great. Thanks a lot. Hey, my pleasure weekend. Yeah. Worth waiting you. I mean, I'm always the standard caveat. You never know with apple they don't tell me or anybody ahead of time. All we have is the rumor mill, which is a varying accuracy. Here's what we do know. Apple has moved to their new apple Silicon platform, which are fantastic, especially for portable computers because they give a lot of performance at a much lower power curve. That means better battery life, cooler operation, better sustain throughput. Lots of benefits to that. In addition, they're doing some very interesting things by apple has an advantage. No other computer manufacturer has because they make the operating system, but they also make all the hardware. And now that they make all the chips, they can integrate them very tightly. So that the, for instance, one of the things, a lot of pros wanna do, and maybe even people like you and me wanna do with their Max's playback high quality video, instead of putting more horsepower in the general purpose CPU, or even in the GPU, apple now builds in a, what they call pro that's their standard format for video ProRes in coder and decoder in Silicon.

Leo Laporte (01:03:04):
It's a separate little thing. It doesn't slow your computer down. It's doing all the work of playing it back means you can play back very, very high quality video without slowing the computer down at all. It just offloads that that's something they can do because they control it all. And they know what Mac pro users especially are, are want to do or trying to do. I think this next generation of max, I don't know what the designation will be. The current generation is M one and then there's the M one, the M one pro and the M one max M two S will be probably this spring and summer will be M twos. They will be based not on the a 14 chip, which is what they were putting in iPhones and iPads a couple years ago. But on the current, a 15 chips, those chips are better.

Leo Laporte (01:03:54):
They're more efficient, but then what they're doing on the desktop is they're giving you a lot of other capabilities. They don't build an into the mobile devices. So more GPU, more CPUs. I think you're gonna start to see the power end of the apple line. We have only seen the low end in the first year of M one, next, this year's gonna be the year. We'll see iMac pros, Mac pros, and Mac mini pros. So if you're in a, into, into Macintosh and you want, wanna get a new Mac and you want it, especially if you want it to last for eight years, you're definitely gonna want to get apple Silicon. And I suspect it would be worth waiting a couple of months to see what they can do. I, you know, I have every expectation that these will be just as last year's were mind bogglingly.

Leo Laporte (01:04:39):
Good. I have an M one pro MacBook pro 14 inch MacBook pro. I got I dunno, a few months ago and it's blazingly fast. It's incredible and performance battery life. It's cool. The fans never come on. I mean, what they're doing is really remarkable and I can't wait to see what they're do in the desktops. So probably is worth waiting if you're a Mac fan Intel, you know, and announced 60 new processors at CES trying to compete. And in fact, they said, and they're they're right, that the, their new laptop processors, the Alder lake, what is it? 12Th or 13th generation processors are faster than apples. M one. That's true. If you run them, <laugh> with a lot of power, which means a lot of heat, a lot of battery drain big loud fans. So at peak performance, yes, the new Intel chips, they'll also be more expensive, can get very fast.

Leo Laporte (01:05:36):
I think what most of us will want is not that peak performance at a great price in energy and heat, but something closer to what Apple's doing. You know, the only drawback to apples, you have to use Mac OS, which you know is fine. It's I like it. But that, that is a show stopper for some 8, 8 88 ask Leo. Okay. I went way overboard on that conversation. I apologize. We take a break, come back with more of your calls in just a little bit. Leo LePort the tech guy, Johnny Jet, The Travel Guy also coming up, Travel guru, Johnny Jack coming up in just a little bit. Leo Laport, the tech guy, John on the line from Reno at our next caller. Hi John.

Caller #4 (01:06:40):
Hey Leo. Thanks for taking my

Leo Laporte (01:06:42):
Call. Thank you for very much for calling.

Caller #4 (01:06:45):
Yeah. Love your show and you you've got the best

Leo Laporte (01:06:47):
Ideas. Oh, you're very kind. Thank you.

Caller #4 (01:06:50):
And maybe you can help me out with one. I was recently going through a box of old cell phones and between my wife and I I've got about 10 old cell phones. Oh wow.

Leo Laporte (01:07:03):
<Laugh>

Caller #4 (01:07:04):
And they're split between the Samsung and the Motorolas and I'm just kinda looking, is there something I can do with them? You could sell 'em wireless applications, like on my barbecue and stuff like that.

Leo Laporte (01:07:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You could turn 'em into wifi devices you know, take the Sims out. They no longer have cellular access, but you, you just have 'em at home. You can use 'em for music playback or to control your grill. Of course. Anything that that phone could do not on the cellular network. It could still do that there's also, you know, you can also sell them. That's that's what we try to do. We have a lot of old phones cuz I buy 'em I don't, you know I don't have the companies don't send me phones if they do, you know, to review if they do, I send 'em back. So I don't have anything like that, but the ones I buy do accumulate and we, we sell 'em, there's a number of places to sell old phones. Samsung will buy 'em and apple will buy theirs. I don't know if they get the, the best prices. Gazelle was a, a sponsor for a long time, gazelle.com. They buy and sell. What I would do is go around and if you wanted to sell it, check the various prices at SWAPA is another one S w a P P so get rid of nine anyway, you don't need 10 of them probably sell nine of them. You're gonna get 20 or 30 bucks if they're really old, but you know, it's something.

Caller #4 (01:08:33):
Well, here's the thing on 'em I'm I'm trying to you know, erase the data and then I go through a factory restart on 'em they're all, they're all Android phones. Yeah. But then when I, I try to, they bug you access the phone, it, it asks for my Google account that the phone was initially

Leo Laporte (01:08:52):
Registered to. Oh, that's interesting. And you don't know what that account is.

Caller #4 (01:08:57):
I have no clue.

Leo Laporte (01:08:59):
<Laugh> that's interesting. You know, apple started that kill switch technology because there were so many iPhones being stolen that they decided, well, what we're gonna do is tie each iPhone or apple device. Now it's all of them to an account. And in order to sell it, give it away. You have to deactivate it by entering the account credentials and saying, remove this. They, they, they have a fine, my features remove this from fine. My which takes it outta the account. And then you can reuse it. I didn't realize Samsung's apparently doing the same thing. Oh,

Caller #4 (01:09:33):
That's so I have to know that account then in order to,

Leo Laporte (01:09:36):
To give back, I don't think so, but it's gonna take a little extra effort with apple. You absolutely do. They've they've really locked it down. I can't imagine any Android devices that locked down first place. I'd recommend going. I send people this forum all the time is the XDA developers, forum, xda-developers.com. And that is a place where Android FICS hang out and there's all sorts of stuff there you can. I would search the forms first for how do I deactivate a Samsung phone, but you can also look in that phone, every model, every phone model down to the, you know, the, the, the actual model number has a, a thread in that forum where people talk about what to do with that phone. And, and, you know, in these cases, you'd, you'd go into your about Samsung phone and you'd look for the model number, cuz it's different for every region.

Leo Laporte (01:10:35):
For instance, enter that model number, XDA dash developers forum. And the very first thing they'll tell you is how you can root it, which is maybe what you would need to do, which is rooting. It means I want full administrative permissions. You don't normally have that on the phone, but with most Android devices, you can get it with a little effort. Once you've rooted it, then you can change the firmware, which probably be a good idea anyway, to, there is lots of third party operating systems you could put on these phones like lineage OS, which is probably the most popular calx, which is security focused. They won't bug you for one thing. In fact, many of them don't have Google in 'em at all, which is one of the reasons people like them cuz they don't, there's no Google intrusion on it and it'll let you use that phone as a wifi device.

Leo Laporte (01:11:20):
So I, again, you, I don't know if you need 10 of them <laugh> I guess you could use them as remote controls in every room. And I guess you could, you know, you'll find a use for, but I think if I were gonna try to reuse an old Samsung phone, I would root it. If you can, I would root it. Not all phones can be rooted most can Google doesn't mind it. I mean, it's part of the Android eco ecosystem. There it's an open source operating system. I would root it and put open firmware on it, which would give you just lots more that you can do. You're not worried so much about security now cause you're not carrying it around. You know, it's not, it's just a remote control or a, a grill monitor or whatever you're using it for your air conditioning sensors.

Leo Laporte (01:12:01):
I think it's actually a good idea. If you think about it, these phones we were watching I was watching an old movie the other day and I saw a super computer circle about 1973 in it it's an old, it was an old Cray super computer. And, and my wife said, I wonder, you know, what is that? I said, well, it's a C craze, super computer. And I wonder how that compares to the phone in your pocket. And that supercomputer, which costs millions in 1973 is half as powerful as the phone in your pocket. You have a super computer, you have 10 of them. So yeah. Do something with them. Excellent. Do something do so much for have some fun with it. Yeah, you could put 'em in airplane mode. Somebody's suggesting this is, this might help turn the wifi on, but nothing else.

Leo Laporte (01:12:48):
And then it might not try to get onto the network anymore. Maybe that'll do. I know I've never seen this activation lock on a, on a Android device. I didn't realize they'd started doing that. It's you know, everybody copies apple <laugh> unfortunately great resource. If you wanna become an Android hacker and if you've got 10 extra phones that you don't have anything to do with, and you don't want to go to swapa.com or gazelle.com and sell 'em hack 'em hack, 'em have some fun with it. You can put Linux on 'em. You can do all sorts of things you can make. 'em A dedicated doom computer that only plays the game doom. <Laugh> there's all sorts of, if you, if you have that kind of mindset, all sorts of things you can do for fun and a great place to learn about the things you can do are the forums@xda-developers.com. That's the resource for modifying hacking, playing with Android devices. They're they're very good. Yeah. Samsung has a reactivation lock on it. That's interesting. I did. I was not aware of that. It would behoove us keep track of our logins when we set up a phone now. Hmm, eighty eight, eighty eight as Cleo Johnny. That's my phone number. If you wanna call, we've got lines. Open 8, 8, 8, 8 2 7 5 5 3 6, Johnny jet coming up right after this

Leo Laporte (01:14:14):
16 million for the Cray a RA. This is great. I love that. Thank you. And for BFR, <laugh> so 16 million for a Cray, a raspberry pie B plus with specs is now $35. What would come a long way, baby? That is fantastic. That is fantastic. But unlike the raspberry pie that crate could be used as furniture, it had a sofa bench. So there is that to consider the Cray could heat your living room. <Laugh> I think those craze in that day were hand wired. It's funny. This articles from 2014, we've come, you know, a lot farther, frankly. Wow, wow.

Leo Laporte (01:15:29):
Twice the Ram, twice the power. <Laugh> fascinating. Oh yes. He's been everywhere, man. Johnny jet, the traveling guy. I hear that song Johnny and I get excited. I want to hop in my RV and see the country. I want to get outta here. And soon I, you know, I've come to, I'm not an expert. I'm not an epidemiologist. I have no knowledge. Just read a lot and I've come to the opinion that people are just done that because O Macron's gonna infect so many people. I think in the next few months, we're just gonna finally go, Hey, it's not going away, but we're gonna, we're gonna end the pandemic now and it'll just be pandemic. And we're just gonna go in out about. And I, I, people are already traveling like crazy, aren't they? Oh, you know what?

Johnny Jet (01:16:21):
Actually, I was just looking at the numbers for today. Well, they report yesterday's numbers, obviously yesterday 1.7 million people went through, which was more than pre pandemic on the same day in 2019, it was 1.6 million.

Leo Laporte (01:16:34):
I was shocked. It's called pent up demand. They can't wait to get outta the house. Well,

Johnny Jet (01:16:38):
That's really surprising because there's not much business travel going on right now. And I'm supposed to be at a convention next week in New York city. But I pulled out and I think they're gonna have to either cancel it because I know a lot of my friends did too.

Leo Laporte (01:16:49):
E CES went on last week and had about a quarter of the normal. It's only 40,000 people showed up E three, the big gaming conference, which is next month has canceled. So I think people are, are still a little and I don't blame him. I know who wants to get sick, a little gun shy. Right. But I'm just, I'm gonna go on the record here. I know nothing, but I feel, I feel like people just had enough and enough people have gotten it and the vaccines are widespread enough. Now that people, people are just gonna say, you know, I'm gonna take the chance and I have a feeling we're gonna head back out.

Johnny Jet (01:17:25):
I, I mean, I think we will. I just think it's a little early right now since it's is

Leo Laporte (01:17:28):
Everywhere. Not now, not today, right?

Johnny Jet (01:17:30):
No, no, no. I understand next month I think, I think next month it's gonna do.

Leo Laporte (01:17:34):
Yeah, we'll see.

Johnny Jet (01:17:36):
But today

Leo Laporte (01:17:36):
Was shocking. You know, we have a cruise plan for the TWI, the, the, you know, members, our podcast listeners in in July to Alaska, I'm crossing my fingers, but I think it's gonna be back to kind of normal. Oh,

Johnny Jet (01:17:50):
I think so. I hope so. I hope so. <Laugh> I mean, for

Leo Laporte (01:17:52):
Sure. And again, if you're working in a hospital, you know, it's not an, you know, now is not the time, but uhoh. Can you hear my baby crying?

Johnny Jet (01:18:00):
You're little baby crying. Oh, you know, let me shut the door real

Leo Laporte (01:18:02):
Quick. She says, don't talk about that. Darn old pandemic. I don't want hear about it. Kids know nothing else lived, lived in their whole life with a pandemic. Sorry, Johnny. I'll give you a plug while you're while you're a bunch of that

Johnny Jet (01:18:16):
Doesn't happen too often. No, I I, I shut the door. My wife's up there. Johnny

Leo Laporte (01:18:20):
Jet.Com is his website newsletters free. He's on he's got podcast there. He's also got a YouTube channel and he's got great photos in Instagram, soon, soon photos of the world. I hope

Johnny Jet (01:18:34):
I hope so. So you know, the big news this week, I mean, there's a lot of big news, including the tsunami today, which yeah, she's

Leo Laporte (01:18:40):
Got a tsunami alert. Why what's that all about? There

Johnny Jet (01:18:43):
Was a big underwater volcano in Togo off of the coast of Toga and all over the LA whole way coast, 14 million people were affected, but it was just, fortunately it was not anything just prudent big

Leo Laporte (01:18:56):
Here just being prudent. Yeah. But

Johnny Jet (01:18:58):
Hawaii, they just issued a statement. I just got an email from them saying that, you know, the beaches are now open, but you know, swimming be careful from boaters. You need to be careful because it's not typical. The waves are act acting a little bit different in the currents. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's that, but also this weekend is on Mondays Martin Luther King's birthday and it's the first holiday free first free day at the national parks. So all some of the national parks are free to get into, but not all, but on five days of the year, including Monday is one 'em. So you either, that's a great day to go or it's a bad day to go depending, cuz it'll be a lot more crowded. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:19:38):
Depends how you like crowds

Johnny Jet (01:19:39):
<Laugh> yeah. So that, and the next one after that is April 16th and August 4th, September 25th and November 11th, which is veterans day. So three day weekends. Yeah. But encouraging news is that Alto airlines this week said that, you know, all future credits will be extended another year, which all the airlines should be doing, but they haven't. And they also said that, you know, if you buy a ticket, now it will be good for travel through 20, 24.

Leo Laporte (01:20:08):
So wow.

Johnny Jet (01:20:09):
Because they're, you know, they're trying to get people to buy because a lot of people are spooked and I think this will work and I just hope the other airlines follow because I've had credits. I had, I had an American airlines credit that was expiring in two months. I emailed them and they, they, they said, okay, we'll extend it, but they should be doing that for everybody. No matter what <affirmative> because you know, a lot of people don't want to travel right now, but I think they will this summer.

Leo Laporte (01:20:32):
I agree if the time.

Johnny Jet (01:20:34):
Yeah. So if you are booking I would go with Delta airlines right now for those you know, the flexibility. And also I've been telling people if you are traveling internationally again, I prefer inter of carriers for the most part, but now I'd be booking on us carriers because if you decide you don't want to go to Europe, Asia, south America, or wherever, at least this way, you won't be stuck on that foreign carrier. And you can use this credit to go somewhere domestically. So you go to Hawaii, you go to California, Florida, wherever. So book domestic for now is my nice, how

Leo Laporte (01:21:08):
Are the, how, how are the flights going? Cause I know we had a lot of cancellations over the last couple of weeks. I'm not sure if that was cuz of illness or what, but as stuff settled down a little bit, now

Johnny Jet (01:21:20):
It has the last couple days it has settled down big time. So actually today I'm looking at the numbers right now, you go to a flight aware.com and it will show you, you all the delayed and canceled flights and you can even click the airline. It will show you the specific flight. So right now today, so far 422 flights in or out of America have been canceled in 1,776 have been delayed. So

Leo Laporte (01:21:43):
Is that a normal amount? That seems

Johnny Jet (01:21:45):
Like a lot. Well, this is a lot less than it has been. Right. So right.

Leo Laporte (01:21:49):
What was that because of pilot shortage, cruise shortage, what

Johnny Jet (01:21:52):
Was number one? There's a couple issues. One was because of staffing issues. It was the end of the month. But the biggest reason was because OCN was just running rampant through all these crews. Right. And, and also a lot of senior ones did not want to travel. So they didn't go into work and they just couldn find replacements. Plus when it's in the end of the month, you know, the senior people have already maxed out the hours and the junior people just, you know, they wanna be home with their friends and family. So yeah, but it's gotten better. Also, winter weather obviously was a huge problem in Seattle with Alaska airlines. They were, you know, they, they took a beating less to weeks, but they're all, they're all getting better right now. I'm looking at the number of 63 flights. So far canceled is with American airlines, 59 on Southwest. Those are the most in out of the us carriers. If you

Leo Laporte (01:22:40):
Get delayed, I have a friend who got delayed, had a sit in the airport for five or six hours because of her flight just kept putting off, put off, put off. Is there any recourse or you just have to kind of

Johnny Jet (01:22:52):
If it's weather. No, but if it's because of mechanical or staffing issues. Yes. So if it's more than two hours, they gotta give you they either gotta put you on another flight to, to where you can arrive within then if they can't, you can get up to a thousand dollars, you know, for being delayed. So, and, and make sure you tell them that and ask them they won't volunteer credit. Yeah. Yeah. They, they won't tell you that information. So yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:23:19):
Yeah. I depends. And the worst thing is that would every half hour they would say, okay, we're delayed another half hour. They wouldn't just say, Hey, we'll be back here at 6:00 PM.

Johnny Jet (01:23:28):
Well, in, in their defense. Cause that drives me nuts. I, you can see that coming cuz it's usually every 15 minutes. Yeah. And I, I, at one time I was in the Dallas airport and after like two hours, I was like, you know what, I'm outta here. I just booked my own hotel. And then I went to the airline and, and later and got them to cover it. So these days the airlines do not have to cover you by the way for a hotel as well. If, especially if it's weather related, but most of them will do just BEC or at least, you know, the main carriers like American and Delta and United will. And if you're a top customer, they definitely will. Yeah. So

Leo Laporte (01:24:02):
Keep that in mind. So go to the gate agent after the first couple of hours and say, Hey, what's going on? I want my money. <Laugh>

Johnny Jet (01:24:08):
No, always be nice. Number one, tip always be genuinely nice and do it before there is even. That's why I bring boxes of chocolates for the crew, the gate agents just be genuinely nice and they will do whatever they can for you. Yeah. Don't but if you're not, not their fault. Yeah. It's not their fault. Yeah. I mean, I did it a flight attendant for a long time, so I know how difficult their jobs are.

Leo Laporte (01:24:29):
There you go. That's Johnny jet. He dated a flight attendant. So he knows he's a, that's why he's Johnny jet man. Johnny jet.com. No, I'm just teasing Johnny jet.com/newsletter. If you wanna subscribe to the newsletter slash podcast for his podcast is YouTube channel 39 questions. I'm on there a couple of times. And of course, Instagram and Twitter and every week right here. Thank

Johnny Jet (01:24:51):
You, Johnny. Thank you.

Leo Laporte (01:24:55):
You going anywhere? Well,

Johnny Jet (01:24:58):
I, I was supposed to be coming you from Hawaii right

Leo Laporte (01:25:00):
Now. Oh,

Johnny Jet (01:25:01):
I know. But, but we postponed it. So, and I'm supposed to be in New York next week, but I I've canceled that. No short answer is no, not for right now, but you know, I think once February comes around, I mean, we have tickets to go to Hawaii. We have, and we plan on going and also I we'll go pop in and see my dad in Connecticut.

Leo Laporte (01:25:21):
Our cruise was gonna begin in 14 days, two weeks from today, but that's gone. But Lisa and I decided to drive down the coast. We're gonna go to Carmel for a few days. The first week of February. Yeah. Yeah. I think that'd be nice. There's a nice restaurant there. We'll go there for dinner and we'll explore a little bit Leo. Leport the tech guy? Eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number. Let's go to Eric on the line from Vista, California. Hello, Eric.

Caller #5 (01:25:55):
Hey Leo. How are you doing today?

Leo Laporte (01:25:56):
I'm wonderful. How are you?

Caller #5 (01:25:59):
I've been following you since took TV

Leo Laporte (01:26:02):
Days. I've saw somebody who was following me. I okay. <Laugh> thank

Caller #5 (01:26:07):
You. Welcome. That's been a long time 20 years now. Yeah. We're about the same age. I have one drive on both my laptops. I love one drive because I can put a file on there and then go to my phone and find it. Or I can put a file on one drive on my phone and find it on my computer

Leo Laporte (01:26:26):
It's Microsoft's cloud solution. And it comes with all versions of windows. Yeah.

Caller #5 (01:26:32):
Yeah. I love it. Yeah. I'm having trouble getting it to sync up with one of my computers. When I put a file on there, it doesn't show up anywhere. And when I put a file on my phone or my other computer, doesn't show up on this computer and I can't seem to get it to sync

Leo Laporte (01:26:47):
Up. That's interesting. 

Caller #5 (01:26:51):
<Inaudible> little button I need to push or

Leo Laporte (01:26:53):
<Laugh>. Do, is it in, is it a, does it have a OneDrive folder? Is it the OneDrive folder? That's not synchronizing. Yeah. Huh. Correct. And nothing in the OneDrive folder is synchronizing or just that file.

Caller #5 (01:27:09):
Nothing in it is syncing up. Okay.

Leo Laporte (01:27:11):
So that whole folder's just not working. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I would check the settings on OneDrive, make sure that that folder is, is actually your OneDrive folder for one thing. And you can check that in the settings, OneDrive has, now this is much needed selective sync where you can say sync other folders as well. It doesn't have to be the OneDrive folder, but make sure that that folder, even though it says this OneDrive is actually being synchronized by OneDrive, it isn't necessarily automatic. That's the only thing I can think of. What would, what could it be? Could it be if OneDrive looked at that folder and didn't the proper permissions it's possible OneDrive would get confused. So you might look at the folder permissions, you know, you right. Click on the folder, select properties and you can see who owns it, make sure that you have full read and right permissions to that folder. Onedrive has the same permissions you have as the logged in users. So you make sure that you have read and right permissions, OneDrive should be able to do that. 

Caller #5 (01:28:08):
I don't, should it be under sharing or security or

Leo Laporte (01:28:13):
It should be properties and yeah, I guess it's security because that's where you'll see a, what you'll see is read, write and users and there's check boxes. You might make sure that everything is checked properly. Somebody's saying, okay, I'm looking at a support. Mike has found us a support document on one drive. This just describes how to, how to do it. You signed in of course on that computer, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I, I think it's probably, there are obscure things that can go wrong, like permissions and it must be something I would guess it's something like that. So look at permissions. Somebody's saying you have to go to outlook.com. I'm not sure why they, why are you saying that? Jojo, Jojo dancer in a chat room you also could try up maybe <laugh> we call it percusive maintenance, banging on the thing by uploading those files to one drive. Do you see that computer in your one drive? Do you see that that's one of the computers that's logged into one drive, maybe that's that's part of the issue. Yes, it does show up there. It does show up. That's good. Okay. That's a good sign. That means it knows that computer it's one of the devices it's supported. Boy, you got me, you found something obscure. Keep listening. Maybe somebody will we'll call in and, and say, oh, I had that happen to me.

Leo Laporte (01:29:47):
Okay. Yeah. And, and Jojo's saying the one drive is set up from outlook.com. Yeah. You go to outlook.com and you'll see, OneDrive is one of the menu items there. I'm puzzled. I'm not sure. I'm not sure why that's not happening. If you've done all the obvious things, you don't gone into settings, make sure that's the right folder. Make sure that folder says it's synchronizing with one drive. You see it in the one drive. When you go to the one drive on the web, you see it. Then it must be something about the files that are in that folder. So I would look at files permissions as well to just a couple of ideas, maybe keep, and the best idea, keep listening. We have a vast trove of knowledge out there in our IRC chat room where there's a couple hundred members of the team tech guy, racking, their brains for solutions, our discord server for our club, TWI members, same thing there. And of course the hundreds of thousands of listeners. One of you listening is going, I know the answer. So call 88 88, ask Leo Clyde from Torrance, California. Hi, Clyde.

Caller #6 (01:30:55):
Hello? Yeah. Can you hear me?

Leo Laporte (01:30:58):
I can hear

Caller #6 (01:30:58):
You. I'm on my cell phone. It plays through my hearing aids.

Leo Laporte (01:31:02):
Oh right. Isn't that a nice feature. I love that.

Caller #6 (01:31:06):
Yeah. it, it doesn't distort like listening to my chief radio. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:31:12):
You've, you've spent a lot of money on those hearing aids. Better not <laugh>.

Caller #6 (01:31:18):
I'm looking for a, a reliable, reasonably simple car maintenance program. Something that maybe I could put on my computer and I could access it from my cell, from my smartphone.

Leo Laporte (01:31:35):
Do you have how, what year is your car?

Caller #6 (01:31:40):
21.

Leo Laporte (01:31:40):
So is brand new car. And you wanna keep track of like when it's time to change the oil, that kind of thing. Or would you like to know more about what's going on in the car?

Caller #6 (01:31:50):
It, it, it claims it'll tell me <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (01:31:53):
Yeah, so there's a, there's a lot of vehicle maintenance software, but what I love to do, and I would recommend doing, you have all, all cars in the last 20 years have a little port. You may not even know it's there. It's underneath the steering wheel called the online di onboard diagnostic port, the O B D port. And it's if you, you know, you remember the old RS, 2 32 ports kinda looks like that's got the pins and go online for 20 bucks, Amazon sells 'em lots of companies sell. 'em Buy an O B D. You probably want with a, with a two it's a brand new one. So you want the O B D O B D two device that you'll put, it's just a little plug that you put in there. Now that's there for the dealers to plug in their diagnostics off for, and they do have scanners, but I'm not saying get a scanner, just get something like the O B D link, which is a Bluetooth device.

Leo Laporte (01:32:47):
You plug it into there at just a little stub that's, you know, on there. And then you can put on your phone, you can put the software that goes with it, and it'll tell you all sorts of stuff. All the, that the, the dealer or the car repair guy would get from the cars. Diagnostics will appear on your phone in an EAs, not just his codes, but an easy to read. It'll also tell you what your mileage is. It'll it gives you all sorts of great information. So if you, for me, that, that's the best thing. If you just want kind of more inform how your car is operating just get an OB D two device that, and, and I don't mean the handheld device. I mean, you can get those the cheaper thing, just get the little Bluetooth dongle that you plug in and then get the software. That'd be handy. Yeah. It's really good to know then there's, there is plenty of software that, you know, you enter in the data manually. It says, well, time for an oil change, but I like the idea of getting, asking the car <laugh> yeah. Ask it what it's all about. Some my,

Caller #6 (01:33:49):
My old cars had maintenance manuals in the back of the manual, but this

Leo Laporte (01:33:53):
Doesn't. Oh, oh, you mean just like those check boxes and what you've done and all that stuff. Yeah. Nowadays it's funny. Cars are, are, so I tech nowadays that the dealer just figures, you're not gonna, you're not, they, I mentioned they stopped putting dipsticks in some models of Mercedes because they just figure you're, you're not gonna go under the hood. They can't even open the hood on one model of Mercedes. You're gonna bring it in. And so the dealers kind of, and it's, you know, cuz it's a big profit center for dealers, frankly. We'll let you know when it's time, but I think, you know, you and I are kind of old school. We wanna know ourselves, somebody's recommending blue driver, blue driver.com, which is software. Do you have a smartphone? Yeah. Yeah. Right. I, well, yes, it's a software you of put on your on your phone, it connects to the OB D do port and it tells you everything, all the enhanced diagnostics, which is great blue, driver's not cheap. It's a hundred bucks, 120 bucks. But there are a lot of devices like this and it really is a great idea. Leo, LePort the tech guy.

Leo Laporte (01:35:27):
Why, Hey, Hey, how are you today? Leo LePort here. The tech guy tied talk computers, the internet, home theater digital photography. We've got your smart phones, got your smart watches. You know, augmented reality, everything with a chip in it. It's not high tech. It's just tech tech, 88, 88, ask Leo, what is high tech these days? It's like quantum computers. That kind of, I mean, I don't know if I talk about that. Eighty eight eighty eight ask Leo is the phone number (888) 827-5536. That toll free from anywhere in the us and Canada, outside that area, you could still call, but you need Skype out or something like that. Something, some internet thing that can do Hickey that can call the landline in the us. And it should, but it should still be free because it's a toll free number, 88, 88 Lia website tech guy labs.com. I try to put all the links that I mentioned up there.

Leo Laporte (01:36:19):
There's a transcript of the show. In fact, there's audio and video of the show as well after the fact tech guy labs.com. This is episode 1859, a very good year eight. I don't know, eight, maybe not for everybody. 1859 Netflix again, raising its subscription prices, buck 50 for the basic plan 1549 now for the standard plan for Netflix. Wow. That seems like a lot. First increase since October 20, 20 prices for the basic and premium subscriptions rose by one and two bucks, respectively a but if you think about it, it's still a great deal. There's so much good stuff on Netflix and gosh knows we, we, we need it. I don't know, 1550 seems like an outrageous amount of money for, for what we get. If you think about boy, when I, I don't like to, but when I think about what I pay for the cable, Netflix is a very deal. <Laugh> right. So heck of a price 88 88 LIO. Let's go back to the phones. Shall we and angels on the line from Woodland, California. Hi angel.

Caller #7 (01:37:32):
Oh, hi. I was really addicted to your old website that

Leo Laporte (01:37:38):
Listed. I'm sorry.

Caller #7 (01:37:40):
I know that, but what I really miss is like where all, all the radio stations you play on all around the

Leo Laporte (01:37:47):
Country. Oh gosh. You know, we should that's. I didn't even think about that. That's a fairly important thing. Yeah, you can, of course. That's a really good thing. We should, I'll figure out a way to get that back. We'll make a page for that. I didn't even, I forgot about that completely. So

Caller #7 (01:38:04):
I like to, I like to spend 11 to two with you on the west coast. Thank you in, in real lifetime. But when I miss you, I like else in the country so I can log on and listen to it live.

Leo Laporte (01:38:19):
I'll tell you that all you really need is the iHeart radio app because we're on there. So you can stream it anywhere in the United States from there. And that, and of

Caller #7 (01:38:30):
Course I should get, I should get up to date with doing podcasts, but I, oh,

Leo Laporte (01:38:35):
That's all right. I'll be glad you listened in any way, shape or form. We do make a podcast outta the show. Yeah.

Caller #7 (01:38:43):
You've taught me so much through the years and I really am.

Leo Laporte (01:38:47):
Thank you. Yeah, I apologize. So what happened? I've explained it, but I'll explain it again for those who missed it. We were running on a software called Drupal, which is a content management system, but we hadn't updated in years. And Drupal has finally said, we're not gonna give you security, just like windows XP. We're not gonna give you security patches for that version of Drupal anymore. You need to update, but it's such a big update. I gotta quote from our web support company canopy, that'd be about a quarter of a million dollars to keep that site safe and secure. And I don't wanna keep a site online. That's not secure, right? So I thought a quarter of a million, well, we do have this other site, which we are gonna spend that money to update on which is the podcast site. So tech guy labs.com now redirects to twi.tv to the tech I page there.

Leo Laporte (01:39:37):
And we've always had that page. We've always had audio and video there and place, you can subscribe to the podcast and we're trying to make those show notes more valuable, but you know, that's, there are a few features we are losing like the app of the, or the pick of the week and the question of the week, things like that. But we, but I forgot about the shows. I apologize. I don't know if you know, we're syndicated by premier radio networks. That's a iHeart subsidiary. I don't know if they post that anywhere themselves. So I'll have to just I think what we would do is get a spreadsheet from them once in a while that we would update, I don't know how accurate it was anyway, but I will, I will figure out what we can do to get that back. It's a very excellent point. Cause I want you to be able to listen.

Caller #7 (01:40:18):
Yes. And I, I try and listen to you on AMFM if I can, you know? Yes. And there are some questions close by that at certain times. I can catch you on that. So thank you so much. Thanks,

Leo Laporte (01:40:30):
Angel. Thank you. Oh, I'm so glad you listened. I really appreciate it. So there is a Wikipedia page. I didn't know that has the radio affiliates and I don't know how up to date that is, but if you search for the tech guy, I didn't know that. Thank you, Mike, be in our chat room. If you search for the tech guy in Wikipedia, I mean, we're gonna find a way to get that up cuz we should have that information, but there is a a link to the affiliates, I guess. Does, is there no, no, no. That doesn't have all of all the affiliates. And it's actually not accurate. <Laugh> so nevermind. We'll we'll we'll get you an accurate list. A on on our website, we really ought do that. I will, I will check with the authorities, whoever that is. Ray Redlands, California. Hi Ray, Leo Laport, the tech guy. Hey

Caller #8 (01:41:27):
There. Leo. How are

Leo Laporte (01:41:28):
You doing today? I'm great. How are you, Ray? Very

Caller #8 (01:41:31):
Good. Hey the reason for my I'm gonna go back into a little history here. I have an aspire ACE aspire 69, 20, and keep running into promise with so slow boot. But the number one issue is that I keep getting the network w L V 32 error with a BS O D who? Yeah. And

Leo Laporte (01:41:52):
What version of windows we using

Caller #8 (01:41:54):
It's I'm using windows 10, my bid on it. It was the, you know, this one here, just to give you some background on it. It's one of those that had the core two dual thet, 9,300 mm-hmm <affirmative> and it's a four gig max Ram on it. It was came with windows, Vista 32 bid on it. And I'm one of those that I hate to see something like, especially cuz it does have an optical drive on it and it had great graphics. Great sound. But after I went ahead and reloaded a windows tan on it the graphics drivers kind of went away the surround sound that was there, gone. Can't get those drivers back. Wow. I'll access. I can boot up, but it's a slow boot. And when I get back on what happens is so

Leo Laporte (01:42:40):
I go ahead. Were you able to use windows 11 prior to this without any problems? No.

Caller #8 (01:42:46):
You mean windows? 

Leo Laporte (01:42:47):
No. 10. I mean, I'm sorry. No, never worked well with windows 10. 

Caller #8 (01:42:52):
Well it works okay with it it up. It's just slow

Leo Laporte (01:42:56):
And yeah, I think it's just the, it's such an old system. Yeah. That windows 10 is not compatible with it.

Caller #8 (01:43:03):
Yeah. I mean it's running, it's just, I'll get on there for a while, but I bring up a video. The moment I bring up a video for a little bit, then I'll get the BS O D otherwise it could run. Okay. Yeah. And

Leo Laporte (01:43:12):
I, so I mean, this is, this is when did you buy this computer?

Caller #8 (01:43:16):
Oh God, this woman's given. Oh man, we're going back here.

Leo Laporte (01:43:20):
So I often say the computer age, you know, they say dog years seven, seven dog years seven human years is one dog year. Computers is more like 15. So if your computer is 10 years old, it's 150 years old in human terms. You get my me here. I know the knees are given out <laugh> the hair is falling off. I'm one

Caller #8 (01:43:41):
Of those that I hate to see something go

Leo Laporte (01:43:43):
The way of, I understand. I think it's not, I think honestly, windows 10 is never gonna run well on this and you don't want to use windows seven because it's gonna be a security problem. Exactly. So I've, you know, you can, you can try to make this work well by trying to find drivers. This is, I think mostly the problem is drivers. Yes, I do too. You might try putting in a new hard drive as Dr. The one thing that really does fail first on most computers is those old spinning hard drives, which you've got. Right. because they're moving parts, it's got bearings, those bearings, you know, heat and cool heat and cool for decades that they start to wear out. You could put another drive in there, or maybe even better yet an SS D a solid state drive thought I was looking at. Yeah, because that'll speed up boot times immensely.

Caller #8 (01:44:34):
Well, let me ask you one question in regard to the drivers. Cause I've tried using some third party to find the drivers for it. And I can't seem to find something that seems to work. There

Leo Laporte (01:44:44):
Will be, there will be that problem that you have hardware in that older computer that no one supports on modern operating systems.

Caller #8 (01:44:51):
I know. And that's where the problem comes in. So I thought I'd just throw it out there. I know some people in the chat room, probably just going, what, but you know, no,

Leo Laporte (01:44:59):
No, no, no, no. I, you know what it's, if it works, it works. Yeah. I think this is a really good candidate and this is gonna depend a little bit on your nerd. Yeah. I think this is a really good candidate for putting Linux on,

Caller #8 (01:45:11):
You know, that's idea too. Cause I was thinking, should I just dump windows and just go over to, I

Leo Laporte (01:45:16):
Would because Linux is supported by its users. And so it has better support for older hardware often than it does for new hardware. Right. Because there's a lot of people like you that say, I am not gonna give up this machine. It runs perfectly well, it just doesn with the modern version of windows. Linux will have you. I would start with Ubuntu, U B U N T U that's. Right. I have it. Good. And they have lower end versions for older systems like ex Abuntu that you could try if Ubuntu doesn't run well. Right. The best thing to do with all Lin modern Linux is have a live boot capability. You can put 'em on a CD, you've got an optical disc in there, or you could put it on a USB key. If you can boot to that on your older system and boot it up and run it.

Leo Laporte (01:46:02):
Not on your hard drive, not even touching your hard drive, but running it off the optical media or CB and see if it works. See if everything works well, it won't be as fast cuz it's not running off a fast disc. No, it's not, but it will run if it runs and the screen looks good and the mouse works and the keyboard works and all that, then install it. And you'll probably have a better experience. That'd be my guess. There are smaller versions designed for older machines. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> but, but you've got Abuntu I'd try it first. If not ex Abuntu, which is designed to it's a derivative designed for older or slower machines.

Caller #8 (01:46:35):
That's fine. And you pointed me to another question I would ask if I may, I wanted to find out from you in your opinion, because I know there's been all the announcements about windows 11. I'm not trying to step any sponsors, something like that, but I'm just wondering for those of us out there who are on windows 10, we like it. But we see all these features that are being taken out of windows 11 that we're now used to. What do you see for people who don't necessarily wanna go ahead and trash? Their perfectly good working Linux

Leo Laporte (01:47:05):
Or now one I'm increasingly dissatisfied with Microsoft. They're showing, you know, ads in the stuff they, they, I mean, they've become more and more commercialized. I think there's some issues in my opinion, with how Microsoft runs windows, they really force you to use their browser edge instead of another browser. I just, I'm not happy with windows. And I have to say Linux in the last few years has just really improved dramatically. It's my main operating system now. Oh, very good then. So I, I think that that's really our only choice at this point for older hardware. Right.

Caller #8 (01:47:40):
Well, you know, I'm just one of those, like you're talking about getting into nerd and I will get back at two there. So

Leo Laporte (01:47:45):
It depends on your nerd, but if you have sufficient nerd Linux, I think it is it better experience, more secure, more robust, it'll run better than windows 10. It should run just fine in your hardware. How much Ram do you have

Caller #8 (01:47:56):
On that one? It has, the max is four. Someone told me that I can go ahead and increase it to six and it might help a little bit. Nah,

Leo Laporte (01:48:03):
No four is not great for windows 10. That may be the source of the problem, but it's fine for Linux. Again, you're gonna want a, a minimal Linux, like a small dog Linux or something like that, that doesn't, you're gonna check you need one that has 32 bit support and support for four gigs of Ram. Exactly.

Caller #8 (01:48:17):
So we're good on that, but I just wanna double check with you and that's my choice. Okay. Well, now that I've gone to the source here, you know, I'm, I'm satisfied now.

Leo Laporte (01:48:26):
Puppy Linux is not small dog puppy Linox is the one I was there. That's designed for minimal hardware, smaller hardware. All right. Very good.

Caller #8 (01:48:35):
Then enjoy. All right. Hey, thanks a

Leo Laporte (01:48:37):
Lot. Leo you're nerd factor just increased by a order of magnitude Ray <laugh>. OK. I'm not worthy how you are more than worthy. Leo Laport, the tech I more of your calls coming up. I think we've invented a word here. <Laugh> yes. Puppy Lenox is really probably a pretty good choice. Actually. It's got a lot of flavors. It's it's probably a good place to start and it's free.

Leo Laporte (01:49:09):
I don't know, peppy. They come and go, you know I, I didn't even know we were on P O I grew up listening w P R O in fact the big star and w P R O was Leo Laport, not no relation. People would always say when I grew up in Providence are you related to Leo Laport on the radio? No. Maybe that's why I got into radio though. Come to think of it. I mean, what are you gonna do? Microsoft is not gonna support that older hardware period. It's they're just not. So I guess you could take a chance of running an older version of windows. Windows seven is a very nice version. But that's, you know, and there are ways to kind of keep running windows seven. I wouldn't run windows eight, I guess you could. It at least is, you know, updated. I just feel, I feel like, yeah, salty Bryan. I grew up salty Brian. He was on the TV too salty. Brian, I forgot about that. Yep.

Leo Laporte (01:50:21):
You wanna see more discord loquacious one or loquacious two? The problem with a discord, which I can, I can totally show is actually I should do it this way. Huh? Is it's kind of small. I guess I could zoom in <laugh> maybe that, yeah, I'll do that. How about that? It is, it is certainly more entertaining. <Laugh> yeah, the gags and laughs come fast and furious and this fun feel bad of the sex is <laugh> it's time for the tech eye <laugh> and now caller number one, Rick into Juga California. Come on down. Hello Rick.

Speaker 14 (01:51:23):
Hey Leo. Thanks for taking my call. And I think that your screener main reason for putting me through was to see if you could pronounce the name of the city I'm calling from and you did wonderful. So

Leo Laporte (01:51:32):
I it's not Tunga

Speaker 14 (01:51:34):
It is

Leo Laporte (01:51:35):
Toga. It is Tunga. I dunno why I said Toga <laugh>

Speaker 14 (01:51:39):
That's OK. You're close enough. Hey Leo, my, my call's a little off the beaten path, cuz I didn't even know if they would put this through.

Leo Laporte (01:51:49):
I like ones off the beaten path. I that's the ones I want. So there you go. Well, it

Speaker 14 (01:51:53):
It's, it's somewhat related to car audio. Here's the deal. I just upgraded cars. I got rid of my 18 year old Honda and I picked up an 11 year old Honda, except it's only got a factory radio in it and sunshine something new. But my number one feature I'm looking for in car audio is that it pairs well with my Android phone. Okay. That's the number one thing just so I can send and receive calls, you know, little microphone in there it'll do podcasts from the phone to the, to the audio follow ways, that kind of stuff. And rather than going into a store and relying on a salesman, I, I don't know why I don't trust these commission sales guys.

Leo Laporte (01:52:26):
Yeah. I don't know why. Why don't you trust them? Mm.

Speaker 14 (01:52:29):
I, I have no idea. So how can I get educated on how can I get smart? I

Leo Laporte (01:52:32):
Think it depends. Are you gonna do the install yourself?

Speaker 14 (01:52:35):
No, no, no, no, no. I'm gonna pay whoever sells it to do the install. Okay.

Leo Laporte (01:52:39):
So what I would look for Alpine makes some pioneer makes 'em is a head end head unit. You know, that replaces the factory radio. That's called the head unit and, and you know, it's gotta fit in your dash and stuff. Although there are ways to make it work, but I would look for one and there are a number of them, as I said, Alpine and pioneer make em that support Android auto, which is oh, okay. The, the a, you know, apple with CarPlay and Android with Android auto have, or Google with Android auto have created these interfaces that I think are the right way to go. You're you, you, the problem with cars in general is they there speed of innovation is about five times slower than the computer industry takes five years to design produce and sell a car. If it took five years to design produce and sell a smartphone, we'd still be stuck back, you know, in the dark ages.

Leo Laporte (01:53:35):
So what you want, I think is a head unit that uses your smartphone, which is more up to date than your car to do all of those functions. You can only get a head unit that just supports Bluetooth, that you could pair your phone with. You'd be able to play music back. That's easy on any head unit you buy these days will do that. But I would look for one that supports and it, it, that you are gonna need some help from the salesperson, cuz it has to work with your Honda has to support the den it, to fit in the dash and all of that stuff. But I would, I would, if he suggests Alpine, for instance, they make a pretty up to date. In fact, they just announced some new ones at CES mul, they don't play CDs. They they're really designed to play stuff from your phone and that's what I want.

Leo Laporte (01:54:25):
Yep. That's what I want. And they give you a big screen with icons. So it's not just, you know, use fiddle with the phone, make the music, come outta your speakers. You actually have a screen on your dashboard that you can choose the, the music system you want. Or if you wanna listen to this show iHeart or whatever and play it back from there. And some of them will read you text messages will I mean, it really is kind of, it's not the full functionality of the phone it's designed for a driver. So be less distracting, bigger icons, that kind of thing, but as much of the functionality phone on your dashboard. And I think that's the way to go. Alpine has one that's 400 bucks, which is the least expensive one I know out there. The ILX w six 50, but there'll a number of them from Alpine and pioneer that are really good. A Crutchfield. If you go to crutchfield.com, they've got reviews of all of these. It's a very good place to get. I appreciate that. You've given me so much more than I had to work with. So thank you. Thank you. Have fun. Thanks. All right. Bye Leo. Leport the,

Leo Laporte (01:55:30):
Some of these, the more modern ones do wireless CarPlay, some of the older ones you'd plug in your phone to, and you might wanna do the same way to charge it. You plug in your phone to type C cable and then you get the get you, get the picture on your <laugh>. You get the picture of the phone on your screen. But some of them like my new Ford mock Maki Mustang, I just get in the car and wirelessly. The CarPlay shows up on the screen, which is really, really convenient. Almost as convenient as that. <Laugh> Mr. Bean. <Laugh> the power of love. The power of professor Laura. You are under my power, Leo Laport, the tech. I know you're not 80. Some people might take that seriously. Eighty eight, eighty eight, ask Leo the phone number (888) 827-5536. As I mentioned, the website has changed and I know it's less valuable. Now. I apologize. Tech guy labs.com. We're doing our best to beef it up. Hey, we do have something new we never have before, which is full transcripts of the show, which you can search. Find the, it has time codes in it. You can jump to the hard that you want to hear and then watch or listen on the website, tech guy, labs.com back to the phones we go DT. Barolos coming up in just a few minutes, but meanwhile, Don from Sunland, California. Hello, Don.

Caller #8 (01:56:58):
Hi Leo. Been listening to you for years. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, a question. The computer. I have a Sony laptop, which is running windows 8.1. I just heard what you said about windows eight. You didn't like it,

Leo Laporte (01:57:12):
Not a fan, but if you like it, that's not my problem. I mean, you, you get to use it.

Caller #8 (01:57:17):
Well, 8.1 seems very good. It had some things that seven used to do that it won't do anyway. The problem is I must have gone somewhere dangerous. And now when I try to log into email at outlook, when, when you get to the link where you type your password, then it spams me with junk and I can't figure it out. Uhoh I use bit defender. I've run that. I've cleaned the registry. I've tried everything.

Leo Laporte (01:57:49):
When you say spans me the junk, it doesn't take you to the email page that you expect. You get other pages.

Caller #8 (01:57:55):
No, it goes to the outlook page. Okay. And your username, but then when you hit enter it to enter your password or, well, actually when you try to pin you're using name, that's when it hits you.

Leo Laporte (01:58:09):
So popups

Caller #8 (01:58:12):
Yeah. Sort of fishing, popups,

Leo Laporte (01:58:13):
You know, little windows pop up. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that's usually pretty easy to get rid of you know, windows 8.1, unfortunately is you know, out of may mainstream support and has been for years. So that means you're a little more vulnerable, unfortunately to this kind of stuff. What browser are you using?

Caller #8 (01:58:36):
Well, I have edge, which I'm using now to go into the mail.

Leo Laporte (01:58:41):
Okay. I also have other things behind you does edge work. Okay. Or you get the popups there too? No edge is where I get the pop up. Okay. So look in your extensions because what happens and it's not, it's an easy thing to ever. It happens to lots of people. There's something called a browser Hijacker object or be show it's a kind of extension that's doing this. If it's only happening in your browser, then that's where it's coming from. The problem with edge it's so tightly integrated into the windows. That it's very, I don't know about windows, a one. You're probably okay. In windows a one, but it's very possible to get a, a browser Hijacker object that will then infect all of your windows because everything uses edge on windows 10 and 11 windows eight. You might be all right, but I would go in, you can look in the settings, look at, you have to dig around.

Leo Laporte (01:59:29):
I can't remember exactly how you get to the extensions, but you wanna look at all your extensions disable, anything that you don't recognize that you don't know, you absolutely want. There's another way to do this, which is to start up edge without extensions entirely. And then see if it goes away. That'll actually, that'll actually prove my point if it does go away. Let me see. I used to be you'd hold down the the, the shift key. Let me see what it it's called. You know, it's just kind of like safe, safe boot on windows. Let me see how you get an edge safe mode here. How to open Brandon open a new imprint. No, that's not. That's not it. Maybe they don't have a safe mode anymore. That wouldn't be surprise me. That's, you know, you need to use a come and line.

Leo Laporte (02:00:23):
It looks like which is a little frustrating. Boy, that's a really annoying, it used to be, you could hold on the shift key and start it. And I guess you're just gonna have to buy hand, go in there and and find it. You are, I guess you're an extended, you're gonna continue to get security updates for another year. Right. But at that point you're gonna wanna start, you know, finding something else updating at some point. Right, right. Yeah. So I'd look in the extensions. If, if you don't see it in the extensions, I'm trying to remember if windows eight had micro yourself defender installed by default, or if you had to go get it you might run. If you have defender, you might run a defender and do a thorough scan, cuz it should find those things and give you a chance to remove 'em.

Leo Laporte (02:01:17):
But manually you could be able to just go into the edge extensions. Okay. I'll I'll certainly, it's possible. You have of something worse. This is, I don't know if you heard earlier in the show, I was talking about unwanted apps PS, potentially unwanted apps. These are something in between good software and malware, not quite a virus, but it's from your point of view, it is cuz it's popping up windows. You don't wanna see. Right. but Microsoft and antivirus companies are loathe to call it malware because eh, I don't know. Maybe they don't wanna get sued. You proper chances are you agreed to install it when you were downloading something, you didn't know. It, it, it is uninstall. It doesn't have to use, you know, you don't have to use special tools to get rid of it. So they call it a PUA potentially unwanted app, which means the good news is if it's that you can find it.

Leo Laporte (02:02:12):
You can remove it either in ad remove programs, you know, see what's installed or in your browser extensions. If it is actual malware, won't have an UN uninstalled feature and then defender should be able to get rid of it. Okay. I'll check that out. Well, thank you. Thank you for the call. I appreciate it. Nice to have you listening. Bye bye. Thanks Don. Yeah, I just I don't, I really don't know what the answer is. We wanna use computers. I mean, these things are really useful. You don't see these kinds of problems on mobile devices. Do you on your phone so much, right? You don't have hijacking objects. You don't have popups and that's cuz mobile operating systems were designed more recently in an era when these things existed. And so they took great pains to keep them off your device, both Android and iOS, make it really hard to, to hack these systems.

Leo Laporte (02:03:14):
And, and, and there's no, there's no PUA on either of those platforms. The problem is with general purpose operating systems like windows to maybe a little bit lesser degree Linux and, and Mac Mac OS because they're general purpose, you can, it's presumed <laugh> that, you know what you're doing and they give you a little more latitude to screw things up, frankly. And so a lot of us are running computers with very powerful operating systems that we don't need just because that's what everybody bought for years. That's Hey, you know, you get a computer, you're gonna have windows, right. What else are you gonna use nowadays? I think, unless you have some special needs, if you're just getting web-based email, you're shopping online, you're using a messaging program using Facebook, that kind of thing. You probably don't need windows. You probably don't need Mac OS.

Leo Laporte (02:04:09):
You don't need Linux. You don't need a very powerful operating system. You need something simple because the simpler, your operating system is the harder it will be to install these kind of hostile programs. They're installable because you're as given more power and including the power to mess your system up. So generally what I tell people, if you, when it comes time for you to buy a new computer, maybe pause, don't just automatically get the next version of windows in the next windows machine. But look at something like a Chromebook. These are laptops running, a special version of, of Lennox called ChromeOS from Google that is designed to be more locked down. It's much simpler. It doesn't have these problems. And if it does, it's easier to fix them much easier than it would be on a general purpose operating system. And iPad's a very good choice for the same reason mobile platforms. We just don't have these problems cuz they're more locked down. And the presumption is with a general purpose operating system like windows, Mac, OS, and Linux that you know what you're doing, want the power, but with great power comes great responsibility. You, you also now have the responsibility. I'm sorry to say, to be a security guru. Most people don't do that. They don't wanna do that. And so that's why we get into trouble. It's not your fault. Just somebody to be aware of Leo Laport, the tech guy.

Leo Laporte (02:05:48):
I love the disco. I love the night live. I love to boogie with Dick de Bartolo, Matt writer and our gizmo wizard. He joins us every week at this time to share a gizmo gadget. Did you feel bad? You couldn't go to CES this, this year, Dickie D

Dick DeBartolo (02:06:06):
You know what I didn't.

Leo Laporte (02:06:08):
I know you love it though.

Dick DeBartolo (02:06:09):
I, I do love it. It just seemed with the masks and it, it just seemed like it was gonna be a nightmare. Yeah. And you know, Chad went and, and Josh, Chaney are a, a producer and camera guy went. So I figured that's close enough. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (02:06:25):
So I just stayed home. Let them, let the kids go. Let

Dick DeBartolo (02:06:28):
The kids. Yeah, that's

Leo Laporte (02:06:29):
Exactly right. That's let the kids go. Let them enjoy.

Dick DeBartolo (02:06:32):
Let the young kid go. Yeah. Yeah. So, but I reading press releases and, and talking to Chad and Josh, I found two things I thought were really unique from CES. One is from Samsung and Samsung is on a, on a green binge making things green. So last year they introduced a remote with a little solar panel in the back. So it would just stay charged.

Leo Laporte (02:07:01):
But you have to put it in the window.

Dick DeBartolo (02:07:03):
<Laugh> well, no, it, it would stay charged from the light in your room. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So now they're introducing. I'm not sure who it's out yet and you'll have to tell what you think of this. It, it doesn't have batteries at all. Just has a capacitor, which gets it's energy from the router and the TV RF waves. What?

Leo Laporte (02:07:26):
Yes. It's, it's powerful. See, we've been for years, people have been talking about wireless battery charging, like the idea that there must be power in the air and there'd be enough juice flowing through the, I figure if there's enough juice to charge something, it's enough juice to fry your brain. Maybe I'm wrong. <Laugh> maybe I'm wrong. So you're saying this well, this, this thing charges up

Dick DeBartolo (02:07:47):
From according to the

Leo Laporte (02:07:49):
Hanging out in the room, cuz there's enough. The room enough RF going through the house that it

Dick DeBartolo (02:07:55):
Charges up. Yes. It says from your router and your TV, there's enough that the remote can stay charged.

Leo Laporte (02:08:02):
This should scare people who are worried about all the, all the re waves going through the house. <Laugh> if they can charge up a battery,

Dick DeBartolo (02:08:10):
Well, there's no battery in it. A capacity capacity

Leo Laporte (02:08:13):
Battery, battery capacity is like a battery. It just, it holds a charge and then lets it no

Dick DeBartolo (02:08:17):
I'm thinking if there's that much energy in the room, why am I paying con all their,

Leo Laporte (02:08:20):
Exactly. <Laugh> but it's amazing. I guess partly it's cuz a remote doesn't need a lot of juice.

Dick DeBartolo (02:08:26):
No, exactly. I and yeah, you don't use it that much. Right?

Leo Laporte (02:08:30):
So where, so are they they're not selling this yet, right?

Dick DeBartolo (02:08:33):
No, no. That that's gonna be available on, on high end Samsung sets. Oh wow.

Leo Laporte (02:08:38):
Okay. So you never charge it. You never put batteries in. No, it just gets it outta the air.

Dick DeBartolo (02:08:44):
Exactly. Wow, exactly. Now the other thing, I don't know if you <laugh>, I don't know if you're gonna find this crazy or I don't think it's ever gonna come out. Do you know about the BMW? Flow

Leo Laporte (02:08:57):
The B BMW flow. This is the, the color changing car.

Dick DeBartolo (02:09:02):
Yeah. It's it's an, it's an E ink car so that you can from the dashboard in the sum of you can make it white so that it reflects sunrise in the

Leo Laporte (02:09:16):
Oh. And the it's dark in the winter. So absorbs the heat of the sun

Dick DeBartolo (02:09:19):
Absorbs heat.

Leo Laporte (02:09:20):
You, you know, when I think of, when I see this though, this, so it's a car coded in the same kind of display that's in your Kindle. It's E ink. So it's take a lot of power. Exactly, exactly. But what if like you're at a gro on the grocery store? Somebody you park in the lot, somebody bangs a grocery cart in the side of your E ink car. Are you gonna have like a, a, a E in plat, forever where the gross, the grocery car hit the door?

Dick DeBartolo (02:09:44):
No no I, if I had this, I would have it set up so that when that car hits the door, the door suddenly says, why you,

Leo Laporte (02:09:53):
Why you are <laugh>

Dick DeBartolo (02:09:55):
Write your right. Write your name here.

Leo Laporte (02:09:59):
Could you then, by the way, this is a concept car. I don't know if the sells, but could you like have like control it so much that you could have put messages on the car? You know what,

Dick DeBartolo (02:10:10):
That, that's very interesting because in the little video I put the little video off on my website is they, they, you can put designs it. Okay. Well you can't. But that, that, that was my thought was suppose you could put the TWI logo on it. Yeah. When you were on your way

Leo Laporte (02:10:27):
To, or flip somebody off when they cut you off that

Dick DeBartolo (02:10:31):
That was in my notes. I thought what a great way to a driver behind you is really annoying you back off, buddy. It's exactly on the trunk. You know, <laugh>

Leo Laporte (02:10:45):
This will never, this will never hit the market because it's gonna be, I'm sure too expensive. It's gonna be wildly expensive. And if somebody send to you, it's gonna break. 

Dick DeBartolo (02:10:55):
Yes. And, and you, you know, someone said to me, can you turn your car red? Well, you can't because it's E ink, it's black or white, black, white, and, and all the Grady gray gradient in between, but you can't just make your car, the color you want. But I thought

Leo Laporte (02:11:10):
To me, this is why I don't feel bad about missing CES. <Laugh>, there's a lot of just jokey gadgets, you know, that nobody intends to make.

Dick DeBartolo (02:11:22):
They're fun things to talk about. And, and that's what I

Leo Laporte (02:11:25):
Like for a while. And one of our staff members fell for it. A couple of years ago, we interviewed somebody who had made digital E license plates and they were trying to get approval. I think they had approved it in California. And so your license plate would have, it'd be a regular license plate, except it'd be E Inc. And it would have your number on it, but you could put other messages on it and stuff. And it was very expensive. And you had to pay a monthly subscription for your E ink license plate. One of our producers got it. And of course immediately got pulled over by California highway patrol officer who had no idea that this even existed and said, what the heck is that on your <laugh>?

Dick DeBartolo (02:12:06):
Oh my gosh. So

Leo Laporte (02:12:08):
I, I don't E Inc. I don't know.

Dick DeBartolo (02:12:10):
Okay. Okay. Not you. I don't know,

Leo Laporte (02:12:13):
But I like the Eddie of the self-charging. What else you got?

Dick DeBartolo (02:12:15):
Yeah. Yes, no, from that Samsung, I didn't realize they had done this in, in, in 2020, and I assume they're still doing it with the boxes for their giant TVs. It comes with plans with little things you can make with the box. <Laugh> like, like a little bookcase. Yeah. A little mess,

Leo Laporte (02:12:34):
A little that other people do that they say your cats would like this. Yeah. I,

Dick DeBartolo (02:12:39):
I think that's very clever. I think

Leo Laporte (02:12:42):
Would love that I bought a trader grill when it came a big old box and it had cutouts and stuff to make it a little Playhouse for the kids. Yeah.

Dick DeBartolo (02:12:50):
You know what? I should get some of those boxes. I could rent space in Riverside. Yeah. Good. Probably could make a, I could make a killing.

Leo Laporte (02:12:57):
The other thing Samsung announced, which I'm less excited about. And it makes me question this so-called environmental awareness that Samsung has. Okay. They're gonna, they're gonna build NFTs into their TVs so you can generate and sell these tokens based on the blockchain from your TV, which of course is a huge waste of energy. I mean, a giant waste of energy, so, oh, okay. I'm gonna question their environmental commitment. Just a, okay. Just a little, okay. Just a little bit. And I don't think anybody's saying, gosh, you know, this TV would be perfect. If I could only display my zombie monkey NFTs on it, everything would be happy. So anyway, say, you know, I think this is again, it's crazy season at CES. They announce a lot of stuff just to see what what people use. No, absolutely. Absolutely. I am glad you didn't go.

Leo Laporte (02:13:57):
I'm glad you're healthy and well, and, and, and Chad and his producer, they, they survived. They are, they are fine. Good. They are fine. Good. Well, there's a tons of room. I, I saw videos of, there were only 40,000 people. There was tons. Yeah. You exactly go to giw.biz. That sticks website, GIZ, w I Z dot B I Z. If you click the blue button that says the tech guy, you know, the GWiz is the tech guy. You could see links to all of the things we just mentioned. He's also got links to the products he shows off on ABC's world news. Now he's got of course the very famous, what the heck is a contest, a chance to identify a closeup picture of a GSMA gadget when an autograph copy of mad magazine. And if you're curious about his podcast, the GWS podcast, it's at gwiz.tv D have a wonderful week.

Leo Laporte (02:14:48):
You too, buddy. I'll see you next week. See you next week. Maybe we could figure out a way to charge my brain wirelessly. That would, that would be nice. Ah, that's it for the tech eye show for this weekend, at least this Saturday. I hope you'll come back the next episode and we'll see you then have a great geek week. Well, that's it for the tech eye show for today. Thank you so much for being here and don't forget. TWI T w I T it stands for this week@techandyoufinditattwi.tv, including the podcasts for this show. We talk about windows and windows weekly, Macintosh, a Mac break, weekly iPads, iPhones, apple watches on iOS, today's security and security. Now, I mean, I can go on and on and on. And 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.