The Tech Guy Episode 1880 Transcript
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Hi, this is Leo Laporte and this is my tech guy podcast. This show originally aired on the premier networks on Sunday, March 27th, 2022. This is episode 1,880. Enjoy. The tech guy podcast is brought to you by CacheFly. CacheFly's, giving away a complimentary detailed analysis of your current CDN bill and usage trends. See if you're overpaying 20% or more, learn more at twit.Cachefly. Well, Hey, Hey. Hey, how are you today? Leo Laporte here. Yes, it's tech guy. Time. That moment. You've all been dreading the geek with the radio show. Eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo is the phone number. If you, if you need a team geek to talk to, you know, somebody who can talk the talk, walk the walk 88 88, ask Leo doll free from anywhere in the us or Canada outside that area. Well, you could still call, let's go take some geekiness to do it though. You have to you have to use Skype or something like that. 88 88, ask Leo. Now I'm mad. Now I'm mad. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has taken another victim, a historic computer museum in Mary Paul. I didn't know this. There was a guy collecting Soviet era computers more than 500 pieces dating as far back as the fifties.
Leo Laporte (00:01:43):
It's it taken its collector a decade to put together this collection of it's called club eight bit. Fortunately the the, the created the museum is fine. He's lost his home and he's lost the collection, which is, is sad. It has been reported that the Mario poll computer museum in Ukraine, a privately owned collection of over 500 items of retro computing consoles and technologies from the fifties to the early two thousands, the tweet read a collection nearly 20 years in the making been destroyed by a bomb. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's that's just, just one more reason to be mad as heck.
Leo Laporte (00:02:39):
There are some great computer history museums in the world, mostly in, I think it's Silicon valley, although I I'll never forget in Tokyo seeing a collection of old Japanese calculators, including one, a digital calculator that had a Abacus attached to it so that, you know, to make the transition easy so that people were used to using Abacus or Abaki. I don't know what the Japanese word is, but we're able to you know, I can still use the Abacus. Oh, look, let's check the calculator. See if it's right. Oh, it is okay. It is FCC is placed Kaspersky more Russian news, the Russian antivirus company on its security risk list.
Leo Laporte (00:03:25):
There's always been a lot of talk about Kaspersky. Is this really safe to use? This is the first non-Chinese company placed on this list. China telecom and China were also added once a company's on the list. Federal subsidies can't be used to purchase the equipment or services from that company. You know, Kaspersky himself is there's a guy Eugene Kaspersky has always said, we are not Russian. Well, we are Russian, but we are not slaves to the Russian government, blah, blah, blah. But if they're in Russia, of course, you know, how much choice do they have? 400 million users, 240,000 companies use Kaspersky antivirus. The company says we're disappointed. Yes, I can't. I can't lie. Would've disappointed a response to the geopolitical climate rather than a comprehensive evaluat of the integrity of kabuki's products and services. Well, yeah, that's probably true, no smoking gun, you know, Kaspersky, the company said, well, continue to assure its partners and customers and the quality and integrity of its products, but really come on, come on.
Leo Laporte (00:04:37):
Really? You can't Russian law work choirs, a company to cooperate with the FSB, the big spy agencies, like the CIA of Russia, actually. Yeah, I guess it's like the CIA's closest analog. And so back in 20 17, 20 17, the white house said kabuki's software is an unacceptable risk on March 16th. The chairman of the FCC, Jessica Rosen morsel said the agency had completed a review of Russian interest in us communications networks and shared findings with national security officials. That's all. We'll, that's all we'll tell you. Okay. I won't use it. I, you know, it was, it was a very good, I guess, still is antivirus in it's time, but you're right. One of the things it does many antivirus do this when it finds something suspicious, it sends it back to the servers in Russia for analysis. And at least in one case that included NSA hacking tools, an NSA contractor had brought home first, eh, first, first black mark on his on his record brought it home, not supposed to do that. And then he had Kaspersky running on his personal computer. Kaspersky says, well, these are suspicious. These look like they could be used for hacking, send 'em back to Russia. The Russians got 'em and it's believed that was the, that was how those tools leaked to the public. So maybe that was the red flag. I don't know, big worry for apple and Google. I guess the EU European union has agreed on a law that would force apple to allow third party app stores on the iPhone side, loading and iMessage interoperability.
Leo Laporte (00:06:30):
Apple has, it was even revealed in a discovery in the epic versus apple trial. That email messages from apple executives saying we can't let we can't put iMessage on Android phones cuz then parents would buy cheap Android phones for their kids instead of expensive iPhones. So we can't allow that, which is pretty much admitting that they're doing it for competitive reasons. Okay, that's fine. I guess that's legal. I guess it's good for customers. Good for business. Finally, on a sad note, the inventor of the Jiff has passed away actually two passings. This week, Steven Wil height died from COVID last week at the age of 74 war, he invented the GI F graphics interchange format for Compeer remember that CompuServe. It was a 19 and in the eighties it was a, the big online service before the internet was widespread, was public people would use CompuServe even before AOL.
Leo Laporte (00:07:38):
He was looking for a way to distribute images without losing a lot of bandwidths. Cuz in those days you had 300 bit per second modems. He invented the, the Jiff in his spare time. Notice I'm saying Jiff, not GIF that's because will height from the rest of his life insisted it's printed G he won a Wey award and that was his acceptance speech. It's pronounced G not GIF. So in honor of Steve Wil height, I will I will from now on, if I remember Knight said one of his favorite gifts, the dancing baby, you remember that it started on what was that lawyer show ally McBeal because she would have, you know, she, her biological clock was ticking or whatever. And so she'd see this image of a dancing baby, which actually didn't originate there. It was a, it, a demonstration graphic with a, that came with a 3d program back in the day, turned into an animated Jiff, then made it to ally McBeal and spread around the world.
Leo Laporte (00:08:51):
The he's not the creator of the dancing baby. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say that, but but he is the creator of the Jiff. And so his passing is noted. Jiffs are, are still widely used actually another passing this week, John Roach, who was the CEO at Tandy when they decided to create the T R S 80, which is for many of you and many of us, the first computer, I wasn't my first computer, but for many people, the first computer, a desktop microcomputer that retailed for under $600 in the seventies. That that was the first introduction for many people, including some kind of very important computer scientists today, their first computer, the trash 80, they called it 1977 by 1981, the best selling computer of all time, beating out apples apple two computer John Roach passed at the age of 83, couple of sad notes, but you got, you know, these people are pioneers. And as you know, as we, as the computer evolution gets older and longer in the tooth, this is gonna happen. I'm sad to say. Eighty eight, eighty eight ask Leo that's the phone number tip of the hat to both of them will Heen Roach 88, 8 8 2 7 5 5 3 6 website tech guy labs.com. I am here. I am ready,
Leo Laporte (00:10:14):
Fire your computer questions at us. Take you calls right after this. Wow, is this. This is not easy. This is not, this is not easy to get this thing out. Holy moly. See that's what Dick was saying is watch out, cuz that is the joystick. Don't cut that. Holy cow. I don't know where to cut. There we go. There we go. It just fell right out. Boy. This is do not give this as a Christmas present to a child under 12. Okay. Okay. Okay. Almost free. It even comes with double a batteries says Dick must be inside. Look at that. Isn't that cute? I'm all tangled up. Okay. There's the joystick. Oh look, there's a little 20. There's a little, oh yeah. Look at that little guy. Right? Switch it on. Oh, that's a fake switch. That's the RF switch. These are all just little. Here's the, here's the on off button. Do I have to put batteries in it? That's the reset button. I guess I have no, I hate it. When they do that, put a screw on the back of the battery thing. I even A screwdriver that goes with a,
Leo Laporte (00:12:16):
I hate it when they do that. And he said it comes with double a batteries, but it does not pull the plastic strip out. He said, okay, does that do? Oh, it did it. You're so smart. Tiny arcade press to start. Press what? Press the red button. Huh? Oh, there we go. Asteroids. Call me maybe it's time for Kim Shaer don't call me. Maybe, definitely call me. No, you're not a dancing baby. I'm just putting that on the screen. Do you get visions of that though?
Kim Schaffer (00:13:16):
You just took me back 20
Leo Laporte (00:13:18):
Some years.
Kim Schaffer (00:13:19):
Oh, I love that show.
Leo Laporte (00:13:20):
Yeah. Speaking of twentysomething years, did you see this? I bought Dick DeBartolos miniature Atari. I'm playing space invaders. Wow. That is so cool. Right. I'll turn it off. It's just this little teeny weeny Atari thing. That's so cool. Hi, Kim Shaer
Kim Schaffer (00:13:38):
Takes me back about 40 years.
Leo Laporte (00:13:40):
Yeah. There you go. Exactly. alibi was the eighties. This is the seventies. I think
Kim Schaffer (00:13:45):
The nine
Leo Laporte (00:13:46):
The nineties maybe was the nineties.
Kim Schaffer (00:13:47):
Nineties. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean they, Hey, they revolutionized the what was it? The co-ed toilet. The
Leo Laporte (00:13:54):
Co that's right? That was, was the first place I saw a crowed bathroom that made it OK for the world. I guess.
Kim Schaffer (00:14:01):
Low control bowl. Gotta have a fresh bowl.
Leo Laporte (00:14:03):
Wow. You remember a lot from that? Yeah,
Kim Schaffer (00:14:05):
I watched it.
Leo Laporte (00:14:05):
It was a good show. It was a
Kim Schaffer (00:14:06):
Good show.
Leo Laporte (00:14:07):
I, I liked her. So should I talk to somebody today or no? Should we just do the whole show ourselves? You and me?
Kim Schaffer (00:14:13):
Yeah, that would actually be
Leo Laporte (00:14:14):
No can not allowed.
Kim Schaffer (00:14:17):
Let's go to Jack in Glendale. Goldendale Washington. And this, if you can't answer this question, this might be a good Julian question.
Leo Laporte (00:14:25):
Oh, okay. From what's his website again? Tech JV tech, jv.com. I always forget that. Thank you. Kim Jack in Goldendale Washington. Hello, Jack.
Caller 1 (00:14:38):
Leo. I praise your every word.
Leo Laporte (00:14:40):
Oh my thank you.
Caller 1 (00:14:42):
Thank you. I've only been listening for about a year and I haven't heard this question asked before.
Leo Laporte (00:14:47):
Well, that's good. That's good. I like new questions.
Caller 1 (00:14:50):
Yeah. Well I've heard the, the, the site impaired guy talk before.
Leo Laporte (00:14:55):
Yeah. Julian Vargus.
Caller 1 (00:14:58):
Yeah. Julian. Yeah. I haven't found an answer to this. I talked to my sister. She's a techie. She said that's a great idea. Somebody needs to make an app for that.
Leo Laporte (00:15:05):
Okay. Good,
Caller 1 (00:15:06):
Good. I'm vision. I have a little vision impaired. Not much more than anybody else that wears glasses.
Leo Laporte (00:15:11):
Oh, okay.
Caller 1 (00:15:12):
But if I don't have my glasses on, yeah. I can't read what's on my smartphone. I mean, not at all.
Leo Laporte (00:15:18):
Oh, I know. I know.
Caller 1 (00:15:20):
So here, here's the thing. I, you know, I did all the searches.
Leo Laporte (00:15:22):
That's the, that's the age? That's age related. Pres what is it? Presbyopia where you, right. You can't farsighted this, you can't read close up stuff. Actually. I have to wear, when I use my I have a 55 inch screen at home now that's big. It's like a TV set. And if I'm using that, I have to wear my computer glasses, which are slightly it's like readers just to see the screen. So that just shows you, and of course, a, a phone screen's tiny. What phone are, what operating system you're using iPhone or Andrew, right?
Caller 1 (00:15:52):
It's an Android Moto E kind of a cheap cell
Leo Laporte (00:15:56):
Phone. So Android. So both operating systems have zoom settings that will help you with this.
Caller 1 (00:16:03):
Yeah. It doesn't work.
Leo Laporte (00:16:04):
It's not enough for you. I can,
Caller 1 (00:16:06):
I can blow it up as one word per screen and I can kind of make it out. Oh, wow. And read an email or a text. Yeah. I can't read it if I don't have glasses. So yours, what my idea, if somebody, or maybe it's already out there. If somebody could make an app where if a person doesn't have their glasses with them, they, they can set their, you know, have some icon on their, wherever you call it background and, and adjust it. And cuz like mine is a plus 2.25. And without that I can't see anything. So I had this on the app that I could turn it on so that my screen would appear as whatever I said it to plus 2.25 or whatever it might be.
Leo Laporte (00:16:52):
So if you go, if you go in to the phone, there's two settings, make your font the largest. And then in the display, there's also, you can also zoom it in a little bit. I'm making it pretty big on my phone. It's still not big enough for you.
Caller 1 (00:17:08):
It, you know, it's not big it's focus. I can't
Leo Laporte (00:17:12):
Ah,
Caller 1 (00:17:12):
Yeah. It's
Leo Laporte (00:17:14):
It's like when you go in a restaurant and you say, boy, are the restaurants getting dimer when you look at the menu, that kind of thing.
Caller 1 (00:17:21):
So another part of that
Leo Laporte (00:17:23):
Is it ma are you, are you, are you suffering from macular degeneration or is it just normal age related? Far side.
Caller 1 (00:17:29):
Yeah. Old age.
Leo Laporte (00:17:30):
Okay. All right. Yeah. Past 40, we all have to deal with this.
Caller 1 (00:17:34):
So another piece of that I was wondering about is if maybe that app could also use the camera. So if I'm in a grocery store and I don't have my glasses on, but I need to read a label, you know, maybe the ingredients on a label, I could turn on the camera and use that same app.
Leo Laporte (00:17:49):
I do the same thing in restaurants for menus. In fact, yeah. The flashlight in the camera helps and then you can magnify it. So there's one more thing to check in your settings. And it sounds like it's exactly what you're looking for. It's called magnification and it's I tried it. You even, that's not enough for you.
Caller 1 (00:18:07):
No, it may words really big so I can get one or two words on my little smartphone. Okay. But try doing that when you've got a paragraph to read. So
Leo Laporte (00:18:16):
Yeah. Well I understand so bigger. Isn't better for you.
Caller 1 (00:18:21):
No,
Leo Laporte (00:18:22):
You want focus.
Caller 1 (00:18:25):
Exactly. I'm not sure. So if there was some app where a person could adjust it, some people are minus levels. Some people are plus,
Leo Laporte (00:18:34):
And you don't wear eyeglasses for this, for this condition.
Caller 1 (00:18:38):
Oh I do. I do all the time.
Leo Laporte (00:18:40):
But even then have it's not enough
Caller 1 (00:18:43):
Skin pairs of glasses, my car, there's two in my car. There's at least five through house and with the computer.
Leo Laporte (00:18:51):
Yeah. But, but that's not sufficient if you're using the phone, you want the phone to act as eyeglasses. It sounds like
Caller 1 (00:18:58):
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Cause sometimes I don't have my glasses on and you know, I can read street signs half a mile away, but I can't read anything.
Leo Laporte (00:19:07):
Yeah. It's close up stuff. Yeah. Yeah,
Caller 1 (00:19:09):
Exactly.
Leo Laporte (00:19:10):
So it's for when you don't have your Dr. Dean and Dell readers on Okay.
Caller 1 (00:19:16):
My dollar stored cheaps. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Dollar stored GPS work better than without glasses. So
Leo Laporte (00:19:24):
I don't think there's any, now I'll have to ask an eye doctor. Maybe an optometrist could call in or an Optima. But if it's out of focus the phone, can't bring it into focus. In other words, the phone is already as crisp as it could be. Exactly. So making it CRISPR is not, is not really the problem. It's the focal length. And I, I don't know. It'd be like, if you were looking at an eye chart and you said, doc, don't give those lenses, just make the eye chart in focus. I don't think you can do it.
Caller 1 (00:20:03):
Well, that's why I was thinking, you know, you've got a bunch of really smart techies that, you know, on your I think
Leo Laporte (00:20:10):
Your sister-in-law right. I think this
Caller 1 (00:20:12):
Is that they could, that they could probably come up with an app where you could actually adjust the focus.
Leo Laporte (00:20:19):
No.
Caller 1 (00:20:19):
Or the focus through your camera to compensate for your eyeballs. Not cause you know, the lenses on your glasses have to be like an inch from not even an inch from your eyeball. Yeah. So's gonna have to, to be smart to figure this out. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:20:34):
It's not doable. I'll tell you right now, it's not doable, but I'll let an eye doctor call and explain why this is, but you're looking at something, making it out of focus is never gonna bring it into focus for your particular prescription. It's not a que it's already as crisp as it can be. You need to even CRISPR you can't. So the phone cannot act as can't add a diopter. In other words, I think that's what you're basically saying is I'd like to have a diopter now Google does do some stuff to help people, including Google lookout, which will read signs to you, read menus to you and stuff like that. But I don't think there's any way the phone can focus for you. Leo Laport, the tech guy. I'm willing to hear if you're an optometrist, call me and tell me why. It's an interesting question. But I think that there's nothing that the phone can do. What you need is a lens on your you know, close to your eyeball.
Caller 1 (00:21:33):
Exactly. And that's why I was thinking there's probably an, a way to build an app where a person could adjust the app so that even if I don't have my glasses on, I could change the focus for my eyeball. Anybody could do that. They, you know, somebody with a plus five or a minus could
Leo Laporte (00:21:52):
Do it. All I can do is make the text bigger. And I'm, I'm afraid. There's no way for anything. That's why you have to have those lenses close to your eyes. Because what, what the issue is is that your eyeball are making that crisp focus point beyond where it can see it. It's, it's not in the position that you, your eye can no longer muscles in the eye can no longer adjust to get it at the precise focal point that it, that cannot be solved as far as I know. And I'd love to hear from an eye doctor. So maybe, you know, sometimes we get eye doctors and people like Julian calling in, but I don't think it's a I think it's not like that. It's it's another, it's a separate issue. You need to have some sort of focal device.
Leo Laporte (00:22:41):
Yeah. Yeah. I, I don't think that that can happen. I don't think tech is gonna solve your problem. I'm sorry to say you're gonna have to wear your going glasses. In other words, I wear contacts. You know what I do, which is interesting. I and not everybody can do this, but it works quite well. Each eye has a different prescription. So my left eye is for closeup and my right eye is far away and I've gotten used to it. You have to get used to it's called monovision, but bun, you do that. So I read with my left eye and I drive with my right eye in effect.
Caller 1 (00:23:15):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:23:16):
Yeah. But I think that's gonna, you're gonna have, that's the kind of correction you're gonna have to have. You need,
Caller 1 (00:23:21):
Don't wanna think up any more of your time, but I just want say can't is not a word I Can be done.
Leo Laporte (00:23:28):
All right. Right. We need an optical expert to call us, call us and, and tell us how we can do it. Hey, I appreciate the call. I like it. Cant is not a word in my vocabulary. Thank you, Jack. Take care. This show is brought to you quite literally by cash. Hello, cash fly cash fly is our CDN. I'm sure you've heard me talk about them. I've been talking about 'em literally for more than a decade because they came to our rescue. When we first started doing the podcasts we were trying to figure out a way to get these pot podcast to you. And you know, you can go to a website, download it, but boy, the websites will get swamped instantaneously. We tried bit torrent. Finally, Matt Levine, one of the founders of cash, I called said, Leo, we can help. And we've been using cash ever since when you download the audio or video versions of this show or any of our shows from the site through your podcast client, you're getting 'em from cash.
Leo Laporte (00:24:28):
Why cash fly? It's a content delivery network, which means you are probably not getting it. You know, know you're not getting it from us. We're called the origin. You're getting it from one of their servers. They have 50 points of presence. They call 'em all over the world. So the way cash works, when you click the link to download it, you're gonna get it from the server. That's closest to you. That means it's fast. It costs us no money, right? Because we are not serving it. In fact, we've been using for a long time cash storage optimization system, which I highly recommend they store the original. So there isn't a, a, you know, a huge origin expense. You, you send it to them. Once they propagate all the servers, there are zero cash misses. That's a hundred percent cash hit ratio. That's fantastic. A cash miss means that you go to the server, the server doesn't have the latest copy. It goes and gets it from you. Download it then gives it to the customer, which slows things down. So take a look at SOS, their storage optimization system. And if you're doing video cash flow, just added this ultra low latency video streaming less than a second latency, much better than the, you know, your traditional web RTC solution for their its web socket live video workflow, scalable to million of users.
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They will give you a free detailed analysis of your current usage trends. Bring your CDN bill. If you have one, I bet you, they can beat it. You may be overpaying by as much as 20% or more go to twi.cash.com for that complimentary analysis. T w I t.cash.com. You've heard me spell it on every show. C a C H E E F L y.com cash lie. Thank you. Cash line. Now back to the show shades of Ali McBeal, it's the dancing baby song, AKA blue SWS hooked on a feeling. The dancing baby was one of the very first jifs the, it was it wasn't the first Jiff by any means. In fact, the first Jiff I saw was probably 94 on a Netscape navigator had a compass that rotated, but the UGA chucka baby as it's sometimes called is as actually the reason the UGA chucka is the baby's doing the Chacha just matches the Uber chucka perfectly. It was one of the very first viral videos way before YouTube or Snapchat or TikTok was the dancing baby. It came with a program from Autodesk called 3d studio max, which is still around, still very popular. And it was a, it was a sample. You know, sometimes you with a program, you get sample files. It was a sample file. SK underscore, baby dot max released to 96.
Leo Laporte (00:28:16):
It was actually, let's give some credit where credits do. And I'm reading from Wikipedia. The original source file was produced and prepared by the original character studio development team at unreal pictures and kinetics Autodesk. And it was one of several sample files provided with Autodesk's 3d studio. Max, the 3d model of a human baby was one of the character skins for the rendered animation. The original toddler with diaper model was built by viewpoint data labs, John Chadwick using the physique skin deformation system and character studio final edits by Chadwick and members of the OES development team. Let the credits roll after the first pre-release application of the 3d baby model to the Chacha animation Autodesk employees realized it was amusing to see the baby dance at Chacha rather than just walk. So that's why the baby's doing the Chacha. Wasn't really famous. Oh, when Nate not actually one more step before fame reaches the dancing baby in 1996, John Woodell created a highly compressed animated Jiff from the source movie as part of a demo of the movie to Jiff process. He published the Jiff to the employee webpage of an internet startup and that's when it started to become a viral sensation.
Leo Laporte (00:29:57):
And I think it was ally McBeal that really put it on the map, oh, wait a minute. Now we've gotta find it because I'm running the original, which is pretty low res, but in, in February right before the pandemic happened somebody found the original dancing baby file and converted it to a high definition animation. I there's a tweet. There's a tweet with this information glorious HD. Okay. I'm gonna put this link in the show notes. If you, if you don't know what I'm talking about, I suspect for most people it's enough just to say the dancing baby, but once you see it you'll know what I'm talking about. A bit of ancient history, 88, 88 ly. If you're tuning in for car guy, Sam bull, Sam, he has the morning off he'll be back next week. Of course. And he will be joining us on our on our podcast this evening. This in tech, the academy award edition, Trevor is on the line from Bena B British Columbia. Hello, Trevor,
Caller 2 (00:31:04):
Can you hear that?
Leo Laporte (00:31:05):
I hear, I hear you. You're on the right microphone. It's Mack Wright from the chat room. Hi Mack Wright. You're on the right microphone this time. Welcome.
Caller 2 (00:31:14):
I don't know what I did. I used loop back and, but getting ready for this disability show is getting more and more complex. Cuz I paid for Collin studio. It's 6 cents a minute per caller.
Leo Laporte (00:31:26):
Yeah. What do you, what do you you're try? Let's explain to everybody. Cuz you picked up in the middle from a call some weeks ago. You're do you wanna do a show with a callin show?
Caller 2 (00:31:38):
Exactly. I wanna do a call show called living with disabilities and the lowest common I have to do it. Just call,
Leo Laporte (00:31:48):
Take a call the
Caller 2 (00:31:49):
Easiest way.
Leo Laporte (00:31:50):
Like we do take a call and the way we do it is the most expensive way you can do it cuz it's a radio show. And so a radio shows, you know, have fancy rollover lines. So, so multiple people can call the same number and be put on hold this, all this fancy stuff you don't need all that call in studio 6 cents a minute. Seems a little expensive to me. Didn't we talk about talk shoe last time. Did you look at some of the alternatives to
Caller 2 (00:32:17):
Yeah. Talk shoe is not the same as it was a decade ago.
Leo Laporte (00:32:20):
You still can't. You can't take calls, huh?
Caller 2 (00:32:23):
Yeah. So the issues I'm working on now and another issue that came up last night, the first issue is because I wanna make so good do so right. That I will be real stations will want to my
Leo Laporte (00:32:40):
Ah, clever, you know, radio. This is a good idea because I don't think radio stations probably do as good a job as they auto for disabled people. So I think this is a really good idea. And radio stations do have because of the FCC, they have a commitment to doing public service programming. So you might actually have found a niche that might work. So,
Caller 2 (00:33:05):
But
Leo Laporte (00:33:05):
You sound good now that's that's a good start. What's the issue. The problem, yeah.
Caller 2 (00:33:11):
Is other than a niche, a chance to get a cough drop is I really need to be to control the, I can do drop and all that with the column studio. But the issue with it is I, I can't do the time delay where you what's it called?
Leo Laporte (00:33:32):
Oh the dump button you want the, the 42nd, the dump dump button
Caller 2 (00:33:38):
Button,
Leo Laporte (00:33:39):
Which we have. So there's a few things that radio station does. It's the call rollover is one of them. And that means you need to get a special kind of trunk line from the phone company. The other thing is a call screener and it looks like a call studio offers call screening, which is nice. You have to have a partner to do it, or there's an auto screen feature, but then you're right. Every radio station we do it for instance will have a way of if a caller swears you know, the radio station doesn't wanna get fined by the FCC. So they have a way of what they're doing in effect. We used to do it with reel to real tape recorders is we'd record and play back 20 seconds later. So it was a very short, it was just a loop on a reel to reel and it would play back 20 seconds later.
Leo Laporte (00:34:26):
So for instance, if you're listening to the radio right now, what you're hearing our conversation, Trevor and my conversation happened 40 seconds ago. If for some reason, Trevor goes off the rails, professor Laura, who's sitting in the studio with her hand hover, is it a big red button professor? Laura? Probably. Yes. It used to be when I was a, when I was a lad, a big red button that said dump on it on the, on the console. And if something goes, you hit it. Now they, the reason there's this 22nd or 42nd delay is it gives you time cuz human beings, you know, we gotta think about it. Is that a bad word? That sounds like a bad word or should I dump it? Is am I gonna get in trouble? What will the fine be? I don't know. Maybe I better hit the button and then hits the button.
Leo Laporte (00:35:08):
You have 20 seconds to do that. What happens when you hit the button is we go to real time in this case because we're using a digital delay. It's a little different than a tape delay, but you go to real time and that means now, you know, you, you, if you swore I wouldn't have much to do, actually the reason we use a 42nd delay is we only dump, what is it? 10 seconds, Laura, 20 seconds. Maybe this is a state secret 11 seconds. It's a state secret. So you press the button and you go, you don't go to real time. You just jump back 11 seconds. And if he's still swearing, you hit it again. And he jumps back another 11 seconds. And then because it's a digital delay, it takes little tiny chunks out of the conversation bit by bit and then catches up.
Leo Laporte (00:35:56):
It's kinda like buffering in reverse. So there might be a slight digital garbling after the dump button is hit. Usually you can't tell the way, you know, the dump button's been hit is suddenly the conversation like there's an edit point jumps and all of a sudden we're talking about something else, cuz that 11 seconds or 20 seconds or 40 seconds has been deleted and then it jumps ahead and then it starts to catch up again so that it stays at 40 seconds. I don't know how long the catchup time is. That's probably a state secret as well. Trevor I'll help you off air Leo Laporte the tech guy gotta take a break. Did I describe it accurately? Lauren? Is it a state secret? I mean they probably don't want to publicize it too much. Right?
Laura (00:36:43):
Well, I mean, I don't know why. I mean, I don't know. That's a
Leo Laporte (00:36:47):
Good question. Cause you don't want somebody to game the digital delay. So all right.
Caller 2 (00:36:55):
The other issue I'm running into is that I realize if I have multiple colors on pollen studio, it goes into a single channel on right. My mixer. Right? And I'm just getting, I'm just overthinking this. Welcome to having autism Asperger's syndrome. Legally blind, visually impaired cerebral P policy.
Leo Laporte (00:37:17):
Well you got Delta, a tough hand. Didn't you sounds like you're. Yeah, that sounds like you're you're doing okay though. Trevor you're taking care of yourself, which is good.
Caller 2 (00:37:25):
No, I'm not. I'm I'm also morbidly obese. They won't gimme a mobility scooter because of my vision. Oh wow. I can't get it around because I don't. I have cerebral palsy. Oh wow. So it's like this. Yeah. So this is hopefully why living with disabilities will keep me sane.
Leo Laporte (00:37:42):
I love it. Yeah. This is a good thing for you to do. It's a great project. So don't take multiple callers as the first rule
Caller 2 (00:37:50):
I'm gonna do. I'm gonna start with one caller.
Leo Laporte (00:37:52):
Yeah. Cuz then you can dis then you can hit the dump button cause they do do that. Yeah.
Caller 2 (00:37:58):
Then I'm gonna do it also is notice.
Leo Laporte (00:38:01):
I
Caller 2 (00:38:01):
There's also,
Leo Laporte (00:38:02):
I rarely take multiple callers, Trevor. But the way I do it is I have a mixer and each, each input is different. I can't, I don't think I could take two phone calls. I can take Sam and a caller and me because Sam is coming in. Can I take two calls John? Oh, okay. So I can't. Oh yeah, that that's right. Cause I have a hotline. I can take any two lines. Okay.
Caller 2 (00:38:28):
Phone. You can take all the calls. You can bring them
Leo Laporte (00:38:29):
The problem with doing it is I have the same problem as you would. If I took two callers, they're now merged into one input. So I can't, if they're different levels, I can't mix the levels separately. And if one of them swears, both of 'em get dumped. But I think that's what you want. I mean, are you thinking you're gonna have you think you wanna have multiple people on at once?
Caller 2 (00:38:53):
No, that's I don't know. Like I'm just, I mean started figuring out like, okay I have, I'm gonna use bring it in through the Scarlet. Good. Use the logic. So it's recording as everything as a separate channel. I I'm
Leo Laporte (00:39:05):
That's good. That's the thing. That's the way to do
Caller 2 (00:39:07):
It. Every single thing.
Leo Laporte (00:39:09):
That way, if you cough, you can edit that out without losing the caller. Things like that. That's great.
Caller 2 (00:39:14):
Yeah. Out. But that issue with that is that I still need the cough button cuz it's live.
Leo Laporte (00:39:19):
Yeah. Yeah. It's good to have a cough button I have, as you know, I have one cause I'm coughing a lot lately cuz of the allergies. So you definitely need that. I would start. I would not get Trevor. I'm just gonna counsel you to start slow. Don't worry about the big problems until you get to them.
Caller 2 (00:39:37):
Can I correspond you via email about this stuff?
Leo Laporte (00:39:39):
Certainly Leo leoville.com be patient though. Cause I get a lot of email.
Caller 2 (00:39:45):
Okay.
Leo Laporte (00:39:46):
I love this idea for you, Trevor. I think this is great. Do you have anybody assisting you in bene?
Caller 2 (00:39:52):
No. I'm living in a care facility cause I need to pay your care. Yeah. And I just don't have, I'm just alone in this box all day. Yeah. Staring at my 55 inch TV.
Leo Laporte (00:40:02):
Yeah. I'm so glad you're in our chat room cuz that's a little bit of a community for you too. Isn't it?
Caller 2 (00:40:08):
Yeah. But it's still hard to read. Text me cuz of my vision. I'm a more of a voice person.
Leo Laporte (00:40:13):
Send me an email. And I will also see sent you a membership and club TWI cuz discord might be a little bit better for you. I don't know.
Caller 2 (00:40:24):
Cause can I please be Frank with you? Cause I feel I still wanna do this with bill gates and all that. Yeah. It, this gives of some of the things you've said that are bit off. If it's really worried me like, but that's why I'm only listen to security now. But that's why
Leo Laporte (00:40:43):
Mike, I'm sorry. Songs over the ads are over. Hang on. If you wanna talk some more, we can talk some more. I'll put you on hold. Leo Laport, the tech guy, eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number Oliver on the line. Well, we had Canada now we have Mexico from Tijuana. Hell it's north America day on the tech guy show. Hi Oliver.
Caller 2 (00:41:06):
Oh hi 2 23 year, year, fall from the
Leo Laporte (00:41:11):
Wonderful. Thank you.
Caller 2 (00:41:14):
So I, a lot time laptops. I wanna buy a laptop to edit 4k.
Leo Laporte (00:41:23):
Okay.
Caller 2 (00:41:23):
So I wanna, I wanna buy the cheapest, but this margin best laptop for that.
Caller 2 (00:41:32):
What's
Leo Laporte (00:41:32):
Your budget? What's your budget?
Caller 2 (00:41:35):
I I, the shit test manly best.
Leo Laporte (00:41:40):
You can believe it or not. You can do it on an iPad, which starts at $329. The no, no you want a computer though? You want a computer?
Caller 2 (00:41:49):
Don't I don't want apple. Yeah, I can on my Samsung phone, but I laptop. So
Leo Laporte (00:41:56):
Yeah. So PC wise it 4k, the good news is 4k has gotten a lot easier than it used to be. Now eight K is the challenger. Right? do you know what software you want to use yet? Cuz that's gonna also determine what's what hardware you get.
Caller 2 (00:42:18):
You wanna edit smoothly. Okay. Just what,
Leo Laporte (00:42:22):
Yeah. So some so, so you don't want apples, so that's gonna rule out final cut, which is Apple's product. Probably. I would look at DaVinci resolve, which is free. That's the software. Okay. Okay. And then that means you want a windows machine. And I think you probably, I'm trying to think what you would need I'll look at what DaVinci says is the minimum requirements. That's probably the best thing to do. This is from black magic design. They give this away, which is kind of amazing. There's a professional version for 300 bucks, but I think certainly to start the free version is more than enough. You'll do everything. You know, at you, you, are you making any videos for YouTube? What do you wanna make these videos for?
Caller 2 (00:43:09):
For our website.
Leo Laporte (00:43:10):
For website. Okay. Yeah. So you're gonna, you're gonna put 'em up and put probably web video. You don't wanna host it. I'm thinking so you are probably doing it.
Caller 2 (00:43:21):
I, I also wanna wanna keep the 4k edit just card for the 4k.
Leo Laporte (00:43:27):
Is it your website or is it somebody else's website?
Caller 2 (00:43:30):
My website. Okay.
Leo Laporte (00:43:32):
So you don't wanna trust me, you don't wanna host video on your website that can get very expensive, very fast. What almost everybody does is they put it on YouTube and then embed it a video. The YouTube video.
Caller 2 (00:43:48):
I have money.
Leo Laporte (00:43:49):
Okay. Okay. I was assuming you're cheap. You just don't wanna spend money on the PC. Just keep that in mind. Sometimes putting video on your own website is a challenge. Most people
Caller 2 (00:44:00):
Gaming, no gaming. I just need to know if I want to buy with a, a bigger card or not, or
Leo Laporte (00:44:07):
No, you don't these days you don't because almost always these days the built-in video from Intel, the Iris graphics is enough. Do you want a laptop or a desktop?
Caller 2 (00:44:20):
No laptop. You just need the specs.
Leo Laporte (00:44:22):
Just the specs.
Caller 2 (00:44:24):
Ram
Leo Laporte (00:44:25):
16, 16 gigs of Ram. I think an I five would be enough with Intel's Iris graphics.
Caller 2 (00:44:33):
Oh.
Leo Laporte (00:44:34):
And then you need enough storage and you want SSD storage cuz you want it to be fast. If you can afford an I seven, that will certainly speed things up. But
Caller 2 (00:44:43):
For you, see, I need the best
Leo Laporte (00:44:46):
Marginally best is an I five. Okay. Do you, you need a video, a GPU video card? Probably not. You could probably get by with the Iris graphics. So if you could afford a video card. Yes, but I think at I five 16 gigs you're gonna want probably a terabyte hard drive. Depends how big these files are. Remember you wanna have a hard drive? That's big enough to get all of the video files onto the hard drive as you're editing them. Oliver, what, what is what is it? Is it, is it a gaming site? What is this site gonna be all about?
Caller 2 (00:45:18):
No, no, no gaming. Can I do a anti gaming PSA? You
Leo Laporte (00:45:22):
Can do an anti gaming PSA. You bet.
Caller 2 (00:45:25):
Yeah. Yeah. Young adults are addicted to games and waiting their lives. Playing with video games.
Leo Laporte (00:45:35):
I always think I love video games and I play video games, but I have to admit, I always feel guilty thinking what would I do with the hundreds of hours? What could I do? I could learn a, learn, an learn a instrument. I could write a novel. Yeah. But, but we, but, but you'd have to agree. Don't you Oliver that there's you have to recreate you. Can't always be working
Caller 2 (00:45:57):
20 middle, mid twenties, mid thirties and young adults that is addicted to M stop it. Get a second job. Third job. But by you, you gonna be a millionaire.
Leo Laporte (00:46:09):
You're a hardworking guy. I agree.
Caller 2 (00:46:12):
Stop, stop, stop playing video games.
Leo Laporte (00:46:15):
Not good. Oh, just think where I could be today. If I hadn't played video games my whole life, actually I probably wouldn't be sitting here because thanks to video games, I got into computing. That's what got me into computing. Okay. But, but no, I understand what you're saying and you know what to each his own I love it. That you work so hard and you don't wanna waste time messing around. Do you play chess or checkers?
Caller 2 (00:46:40):
I would. I play with something different. OK.
Leo Laporte (00:46:45):
Okay. You gotta have some downtime. Oliver, you gotta, so if you can afford to get a video card that would certainly, it's really not about whether it can edit the 4k video. It can. I think this is an important thing to understand. It's really about how fast it is. It's your time. So when you spend money on an expensive computer and often it's it's professionals who do this, that's why the Mac studio can be 7,000 to dollars. It's not to make it better. It's to save their time. So if you make a 4k video and you can edit it and do all that stuff on this machine, we just described that's inexpensive machine. You then have to save it out. And that's when you're gonna want to go and get a model Nero or something because it's gonna take a while on, on a slower machine.
Leo Laporte (00:47:37):
That's where you're saving time. If you go out and get a cup of coffee and come back 10 minutes later and it's done and you're happy with that fine. But that's why professionals spend money on video cards. Not for gaming. That's a different matter. You're right. But that's why they spend money on additional processing power. Because for rendering the video, rendering the transitions in the video, saving the video out, converting a video for one format to another that's when you need a lot of processing power. And again, it's not that work. It will, it just takes a little longer 10 minutes instead of five minutes. How much is that worth to you? And it's literally that 10 minutes versus five minutes. What is that worth to you? So no, I don't, you know I don't think a laptop with an I five and a 16 gigabyte Ram terabyte hard I've is not gonna be able to do the job.
Leo Laporte (00:48:32):
It is absolutely. But it's gonna take, you know, 20 minutes instead of five minutes to save out the file. Things like that. People in the chat room are going crazy. They twisted, Mr. Says laptop mistake for CPN intensive work. Just too hot. It'll throtle I agree. You, you, that's why I was asking laptop or desktop, but laptops are fine. A lot of people do video editing. My son is on TikTok. 2 million followers, edits everything on an I nine Intel MacBook pro everything on a laptop. And and I, I keep, I, I don't tell him, I ordered a Mac studio for him, a little, little gift to celebrate 2 million followers on TikTok because I think he deserves a desktop that can get a little hotter with bigger fans. So he can do it a little bit faster. But he, you know, the, the, that old Intel MacBook pro chugging along for him and it's working fine.
Leo Laporte (00:49:25):
So, you know, and if you're if you're making Pixar's next toy story, toy store, what is that? 5, 6, 7, whatever you know what they do. They have a hundred computers in a lab and they say, you do frame one, you do frame two, you do frame three, you do frame four. It's called a render farm. And that's the only way, at least in the old days, you can make these kinds of movies. So that's, it's really about time not capability. They, they can all do it. But if your pro time is money 88, 88, ask me good luck, Oliver with your website. Well, Hey, Hey, how are you today? Leo? Leport here. The tech guy. Yes. Mike is not here on Sunday. Sorry. There's only one of us. I'll do my best. Eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo is the phone number (888) 827-5536. Toll free from anywhere in the us or Canada, outside that area. You can still reach me, but you'll have to use Skype out or something like that. Anything on your mind with a chip in it, computers, the internet, home theater, digital photography, smartphone, smart watches, all that jazz. Open for discussion. Chris Marquardt work photo guy coming up in about half an hour. Rod pile spaceman coming up in an hour and a half. And in the meantime, more of your calls, let's say hi to John in Lakewood, California. Hi John.
Caller 3 (00:50:45):
Hey Lee, you I'm so glad I get to talk to you finally.
Leo Laporte (00:50:49):
It's nice to talk to you. Thanks for calling in.
Caller 3 (00:50:52):
Okay. Okay. You've gotta help me out if you can.
Leo Laporte (00:50:55):
I will do my best.
Caller 3 (00:50:56):
I'm I'm a teacher and I've been using my old netbook pro for the last 10, 12 years. And I finally broke down and got a new back book pro and didn't realize that they didn't have USB port on it.
Leo Laporte (00:51:14):
Yeah. You got the M one though. I hope. Yeah.
Caller 3 (00:51:17):
Yes I did. I got the M one. Good. And I've got a Moin adapter.
Leo Laporte (00:51:23):
M O K I N. How do you spell that? N say again?
Caller 3 (00:51:26):
Yeah. M M O K I N.
Leo Laporte (00:51:30):
Okay.
Caller 3 (00:51:31):
So it's a moan adapter and I'm put connecting my VGA cable to it, to my projector so that I can project my,
Leo Laporte (00:51:41):
Oh, this thing has a VGA output. How cool is that?
Caller 3 (00:51:45):
It's got about seven or eight.
Leo Laporte (00:51:47):
Yeah, I'm looking at wow. Yeah. Wow.
Caller 3 (00:51:51):
It was way better than what they were trying to sell me at the apple store.
Leo Laporte (00:51:55):
Yeah. But it is from a company that, you know, nobody ever heard of. But other than, than that it's a, it's a Chinese company. A lot of these, you know, honestly this is probably very or identical to products that are brand name. This is the company that probably in Chenin China makes it for those brand names and companies like Bekin slap their label on it. Right, right. So you're probably getting the same thing, even if you got it from a brand name for more so the apple, all the apples have thunderbolts three ports of newer apples have Thunderbolt four ports coming out, which carry a lot of stuff, including video. But it, but the VGA you want for your projector is analog video. So a device that's got a VGA port on, it has to do some Ling inside that metal to take the bits coming at of the Mac and turn them into an analog signal for VGA.
Caller 3 (00:52:54):
Well, my problem is, is it's not filling the screen on, on the wall, like, as it comes out by project.
Leo Laporte (00:53:03):
Yes.
Caller 3 (00:53:05):
It's, you know, my old one, my old MacBook pro it's a, it's a six by six screen that I pull down every morning to project my PowerPoints from. Yeah. And with my new Mac, the, the image on the screen in part of my classroom is like three feet wide. And I can't get it to fill the entire screen. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:53:28):
So what you've gotta do is go on the display system, preference pain, and it will show now a two displays it'll show your laptop display and it'll show a secondary display which is the projector. And yeah, it's my guess that the project is a seven 20 P at best seven 20 P projector because I'll go in my soapbox briefly. We don't fund schools enough and we really ought to give 'em more money, stop spending money on stuff that we don't need, like bombs and more money on schools. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'm calming down now. Amen.
Caller 3 (00:54:02):
Amen. Amen.
Leo Laporte (00:54:03):
Amen to that. So that old Optima projector or whatever is, you know, older era stuff, what you can do usually in the display control panel is you can change the scaling for that projector. The problem is that this is a VGA connector and it may be that there isn't a variety of ways you can send a signal to that project. Yeah.
Caller 3 (00:54:26):
I have been looking for four. I bought this thing four weeks ago and have not been able to use it in
Leo Laporte (00:54:32):
My, so do you see when you're in the display control panel, do you see the choices that say you know, normal for this display or scaled? Do you know what I'm talking about when I say that?
Caller 3 (00:54:47):
Yeah, I do. It, it there's a scale. I mean, it's default for display.
Leo Laporte (00:54:51):
Yeah. Default for display. That's the words I was looking for. So,
Caller 3 (00:54:54):
Or you can click scaled
Leo Laporte (00:54:55):
And what happens when you go to scaled?
Caller 1 (00:55:00):
I'm I don't remember. I'm not.
Leo Laporte (00:55:01):
So you're gonna, what you wanna do is click scaled. So there's two things going wrong. And actually, I don't think it's the, but this changes the, the dots, the resolution of the monitor. Yeah. But that is probably not what's going on. What's probably going on is the refresh rate and that you may not have control of. And okay. So it depends if it's just dots, that's why you're getting black bars because the MacBook is sending a image that doesn't match the resolution of the monitor. Is it, is it re, is it, is it, does the name on that display, the actual name of the device? Is it correctly identifying the device? That's the first thing.
Caller 3 (00:55:43):
No, it's not. And, and like, here's another thing, like, is it the EDP or something like that?
Leo Laporte (00:55:51):
So that's probably the problem and this is a true of all computers. They need to understand what they're talking to. Yes. In order to send it the proper resolution and frame rate. And if it doesn't, it's gonna default to a, just a standard VGA output and yeah. And that actually should be perfect for that projector. I'm guessing, but apparently it's not is the text real small? Is it hard to, is it hard to see?
Caller 3 (00:56:20):
It's, it's just, I mean, I don't teach using PowerPoints, but it's my, like my opening slide and what I have conversations every once in a while for my math lessons,
Leo Laporte (00:56:29):
How could we get this to work?
Caller 3 (00:56:30):
I like my students to see it.
Leo Laporte (00:56:32):
Yeah.
Caller 3 (00:56:33):
And it's just
Leo Laporte (00:56:34):
So E D I D the charms telling me stands, forend extended display information, data, and it's, it's saying I'm getting in information about this display. And based on that, that's what I, it's not the brand name. It's not everything, but it's, it's basing, it's what it's sending out on that that should actually work. It could be, it could be in fact something with the Mo
Caller 3 (00:57:06):
If you, yeah. That's what I'm afraid of. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:57:07):
I, you know, I don't want you to buy something else cuz this is coming outta your pocket. Unfortunately. Yeah. Just like the laptop did, unfortunately, because once again,
Leo Laporte (00:57:19):
We are holding bake sales for our children's education. Yeah. And fully funding, you know, M one Abrams tanks that we will never use. But and I know I'll get email and letters from people saying, hello, Leo, but no, really this is the most to me, this is the most important thing a government can do is educate its citizenry. Why cheapen out on teachers? Oh. And schools and equipment. So if you could find another teacher with a different adapter that might be worth the time I'm trying to think the problem is you need a Thunderbolt three to VGA. That's a weird thing, you know, it's because it's an old projector. And, and so I hate for you to buy another device.
Caller 3 (00:58:06):
Do you think an HDMI cable would,
Leo Laporte (00:58:08):
Does it have a, so is that the its yes. It would be much better. But does the projector support HDMI
Caller 3 (00:58:14):
Yeah. An EPS and I mean it's a modern
Leo Laporte (00:58:16):
Oh yeah. Don't use VGA. What are you using? V yeah. If you have a more modern, yo you have a nice Epson with HDMI. Yeah, of course. Just use HTMI.
Caller 3 (00:58:27):
Okay. I'm
Leo Laporte (00:58:28):
I wish I'd heard that. I, I should have asked you the right question, but you gave me a chance to get up and down on my soapbox twice and I needed the exercise. So thank you for that. I appreciate
Caller 3 (00:58:37):
It. I can ask you one other, at
Leo Laporte (00:58:38):
Least they got you a nice projector. That's good.
Caller 3 (00:58:41):
It did. I, I bought that one myself too. Oh,
Leo Laporte (00:58:44):
God heaven. Help us.
Caller 3 (00:58:48):
I know how
Leo Laporte (00:58:49):
You
Caller 3 (00:58:49):
Know, when I have my EDP screen on my Mac, like it's a blue screen. Yeah. And, and is there a reason why it's blue? Like when I have multiple monitors,
Leo Laporte (00:59:00):
You mean the the wallpaper? Yes. Yeah. In your control panel, make sure you're in the control panel. On the external display. You can choose the wallpaper could be anything you want. It could be a nice picture of your students.
Caller 3 (00:59:13):
Okay. Yeah. There you go.
Leo Laporte (00:59:14):
Yeah. Blue is just the default. That's what it comes with.
Caller 3 (00:59:17):
Okay.
Leo Laporte (00:59:18):
Hey, thank you. What grade do you teach?
Caller 3 (00:59:21):
I teach eighth grade algebra.
Leo Laporte (00:59:23):
Oh my God. Okay. Now you deserve battle pay John, but I'm gonna tell you something. It was my eighth grade algebra teacher who taught me how computers work. I will never forget him. He was kind of a character used to throw chalk at teach at students. He thought what? Weren't paying attention. That probably is not allowed anymore. But,
Caller 3 (00:59:43):
Well,
Caller 3 (00:59:43):
I know highlighters.
Leo Laporte (00:59:46):
Yeah. Or erasers something soft. Hopefully
Caller 3 (00:59:48):
Nobody heard that.
Leo Laporte (00:59:50):
I don't blame you. Eighth graders notorious. They've got their minds in other places, but I'm telling you you're, you're forming important minds. He had us, this is in 1972, sit in chairs in a row. And he would hand a piece of paper to the first person in the, in the row and say, and each of us had an operation. He made a little computer and I would do this process. The next person did that process and this person did that process. And then the answer would come out at the end, basically teaching us how V Neman commuters were work. And that was in something I'll never forget. So you're changing people's lives. Thank you. I know they have their minds on other things, but you're doing the, you're doing God's work. Let's put it that way. Thank you for what you do, John. I appreciate it. All right, Leah? Yeah, the HT I'll solve it.
Caller 3 (01:00:38):
Okay, man,
Leo Laporte (01:00:39):
Have a great day and choose a nice wallpaper for the kids. Eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo. That's the phone number? (888) 827-5536. That's that bumper sticker. You know, why do we have bake sales? Why don't we have bake sales for the military and fun schools? Leo Laporte the tech guy. Oh, am I gonna get more now? Yeah, I think he was in Hollywood. He's in Hollywood right now. I think he shoots with Mario tomorrow. He does Mario Lopez tomorrow. Hey Chris, mark art.
Caller 4 (01:01:18):
Hello.
Leo Laporte (01:01:19):
How are you? My friend.
Caller 4 (01:01:21):
I'm doing good. I'm fighting. I'm fighting jet lag, but
Leo Laporte (01:01:27):
Where were you?
Caller 4 (01:01:29):
The daylight saving time
Leo Laporte (01:01:30):
Switch thing. You finally did that. God.
Caller 4 (01:01:32):
You know, and for some reason that completely threw me this.
Leo Laporte (01:01:35):
Yeah. It's only an hour, but at least, and I both
Caller 4 (01:01:39):
Normally doesn't bother me.
Leo Laporte (01:01:39):
Yeah, no, I know. Same thing, Lisa and I were both loggy for like days, two days.
Caller 4 (01:01:47):
I'm I'm more, I'm more in the, in the vegetable state today, but
Leo Laporte (01:01:50):
Yeah, I know the feeling that's okay. Did you send me an email? Do you have
Caller 4 (01:01:53):
An email? Yes. And I will drive and you can back
Leo Laporte (01:01:57):
Me up will look along. I will follow along.
Caller 4 (01:02:01):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:02:03):
Dokey dork. Thank haw. Yes. They're trying to it's not gonna happen, I think, but in the, in the us we're trying to eliminate the time change. The problem is that
Caller 4 (01:02:18):
Yeah, I saw the, I saw the Senate voting for
Leo Laporte (01:02:21):
It, but yeah, but is it really
Caller 4 (01:02:22):
Gonna happen?
Leo Laporte (01:02:23):
I don't think so. Because I think once the course, it was a Senator from Florida who proposed in the south. That's a great idea. But as you get farther north, it means that in standard time, what would've been standard time, kids are gonna school at, you know, in the pitch black at 9:00 AM. It's still pitch black.
Caller 4 (01:02:40):
Oh yeah. It's
Leo Laporte (01:02:41):
It's where you
Caller 4 (01:02:42):
It's, it's not a deal, especially, especially in the country, the sides of yours. Yeah, but even here, even here it's I don't know.
Leo Laporte (01:02:50):
I think it's, reality's gonna sink in, you know, if you're in Florida. Sure. It's great. But if you're in Alaska, not so hot,
Caller 4 (01:02:59):
You could save a lot of money though. I think a lot of money's burned with two changes every
Leo Laporte (01:03:05):
Year. Oh, it's terrible. I mean, the change is the problem. It's pretty probably would be all right if they stayed with standard time, honestly, but, but I'm in California. Again, it's not as, not as bad for me. Yeah. On my little tiny chair. This is the story of my life right here. Leo Laporte the tech guy, 88, 88. Ask Leo. Actually I ne I didn't used to sit on a chair for more than a decade. I've been sitting on a yoga ball. And the theory being that, you know, you're unstable, so you're moving around. So you have to be as active sitting. And it's really true. A lot of people in doing this job radio types, like to stand up while they do the job because you don't want to be be, you know, sluggish and sloppy and slumping in your chair. As you do a show, you wanna be alive and alert. But now I'm trying this thing from a company called Q O R designed by a cardiologist, which makes me think maybe the, maybe he doesn't really, maybe that's not the anyway, he's a physician, but the idea is it's more like a bicycle seat on a stick. It's still wobbly. I don't know. I'm, you know, I like it keeps, it makes me wanna stand up every hour, which is probably a good thing. 88 88, ask Leo, that's the number? What was the name of that song? Professor Laura, I have to listen to the whole
Laura (01:04:41):
Flowers,
Leo Laporte (01:04:43):
Ted flowers, dead flowers, dead flowers. I knew a guy named Ted flowers once Hershey on the line from Daytona beach, California. Is it Hershey? Hi Hershey.
Caller 5 (01:04:56):
It's Daytona beach, Florida,
Leo Laporte (01:04:57):
Florida. Why I say California? I, yes, of course.
Caller 5 (01:05:01):
I hope the weather's good up that way. And for some caller and appreciate all the work that you and the team that put that TV do
Leo Laporte (01:05:08):
Well, thank you so much. That's our podcast network. Thank you. Yep.
Caller 5 (01:05:12):
And of course on the weekends we got the tech guy podcast. And so I was listening to the first call and it seems like a 11 Y type of day or in other words, accessibility type of day. Yes. So for Android, I actually help host a show called Android insight. And so for call for, for that caller in the beginning, I would suggest Samsungs are better at magnification. Oh. Compared to Motorola and pixel phones, they do well, but they're not well on low vision side, they do amazing for screen reader users of course, with talk back. Right. And you know, a person should probably want to get into that realm or use something like select a speak where it'll read to you a little by little, but not gonna know you with the full fledge screen reader. As many people might not be familiar with or, you know, might have had diabetes.
Caller 5 (01:06:03):
And you know, all of a sudden there goes dry eyeballs and here you are trying to, you know, recoup in your life. And so sometimes it's taking the small steps, as you've always said to people, the first step is the right step. Don't overthink the big picture. Nice. And the first step, like I said, Samsung has a better magnification, the triple tap magnify screen that you mentioned earlier works just fine. You pinch zoom, and then you kind of pan on a apple thing. I think it's a, it's a different gesture, but it's similar. And the thing with, with Android, with Motorola and on phones, you will get pixelation. I don't know if that's what he means by focus deterioration, as soon as soon as you zoom in with your, you pinch in, or you get expanded to, to get bigger, you do sometimes get kind of pixelization. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why I suggest to Samsung phone
Leo Laporte (01:06:55):
Samsung doesn't have that problem. Huh.
Caller 5 (01:06:57):
Right. The screen is only better. The Q the, the screen that they use, I forget the exact name, but, you know, the Q H D FHD doesn't matter what you have it set at. You'll still get clarity out of the device. So even like F E phone for cheaper device would be highly suggestible. And another thing to Trevor you know, office hours global is definitely a good place, a resource for audio video.
Leo Laporte (01:07:20):
I've, I've preferred to Trevor to offer hours before that's Alex, Lindsay's 24 7 zoom call.
Caller 5 (01:07:28):
So suddenly I'm basically 21 hours in there. And then on the side I have,
Leo Laporte (01:07:32):
Oh, nice.
Caller 5 (01:07:33):
My, my Google speaker playing the podcast from the click network. And then my phone's, you know, and then the phone's on this card, so, well,
Leo Laporte (01:07:40):
I can't believe we've not met before Hershey. It's nice to talk to you. What's tell me again, the name of your show and where we can find it.
Caller 5 (01:07:46):
Absolutely. I B U G today.org. And I haven't called, but I'm always on IRC and discord on VIP Hershey on there. Oh yeah. So I, I just, we appreciate all the stuff you guys do. Like I said, and it always get to have more resources. You know, I know tech JV is definitely a good resource. And with iBook today they go over Mac stuff. So on Monday they do Mac iOS stuff on Wednesdays. They do ma Mac computers. So, and then on third Wednesdays is when we do our Android inside call. So to zoom, you jump on in, you ask any question hour and a half call. And if you, if not just email us, or even if you need to email us personally, if you have questions that come into you guys feel free
Leo Laporte (01:08:30):
And it's good to have you as a resource IBU is the eye blind end users group, which is a, a really great name. And you got a little ladybug logo. I'm looking at your website right now.
Caller 5 (01:08:40):
Absolutely. And they're from Texas. I, I, they actually approached me. I just started answering Android questions one day on their call. And they said, well, you stick around and I've been there for a year and a half. Nice.
Leo Laporte (01:08:49):
So, so they have a number of podcasts absolutely for blind users of a variety. There's the IBU cafe and the buzz, same zoom link. That's great.
Caller 5 (01:08:58):
Jump on that zoom link and then a resource. And then on Fridays you have audio described movies. So even if you,
Leo Laporte (01:09:03):
Oh, how fun
Caller 5 (01:09:04):
Wanna watch a movie just for fun, you know, while you're sitting around
Leo Laporte (01:09:06):
And you watch it together, that's neat. Watch
Caller 5 (01:09:08):
It together. And you don't have no picture, but at least you'll be able to look at each other and still have out your description.
Leo Laporte (01:09:13):
Yeah. I love that idea. That's great. It, yeah. Who needs a picture? You describe it to me.
Caller 4 (01:09:19):
Well,
Caller 5 (01:09:19):
I mean, I know Lisa get scared of the, the realistic picture with all the, you know,
Leo Laporte (01:09:22):
All the gore oh, GT Hershey, a pleasure. Thank you. And, and thank you for the plug IBU today.com. And there's a lot of podcasts there. There's the Android podcast and so forth, and it's great to meet you finally after all this time. Hershey. Thank you.
Caller 4 (01:09:36):
Yes,
Caller 5 (01:09:37):
Sir. And I'll keep in touch. Thank you.
Leo Laporte (01:09:38):
Yeah, my pleasure. This is one of the great things about doing this show is, is a, there's a community of people and, and we're all helping each other. I'm just the ti tech guy, but we're all tech people together through the chat room@ircdottwi.tv, the website tech I labs.com the podcasts at TWI dot. And of course let me give a plug to Alex. Lindsay's 24 7 media extravaganza office hours.global Leo Laporte. There's a plug Fest, Leo Laporte the tech guy, Chris Marquardt work coming up. It's nice to have a theme song in this world. You know, when you come in the door, you go, I'm here. It's me. It's my theme song. That's his theme song. Chris Marquardt photo guy. He's my personal photo sensei@sensei.photo. And he joins us every week to help us take better pictures. Hello, Chris?
Chris Marquardt (01:10:30):
Hello. I'm trying, I'm trying.
Leo Laporte (01:10:34):
It is it is great to have you here now welcome into the summer time zone Chris lives in Germany. Yes. It changed where they just changed. So you are an two weeks later than us and an hour. It
Chris Marquardt (01:10:47):
Always creates this, this, this window of two weeks where you never really get the calendaring. Right. And the scheduling right between the time zones. It's yeah, let's see where this goes. Every
Leo Laporte (01:11:02):
Week. Chris inspires us gives us a photo assignment, but also gives us some insight into thinking about taking pictures. And of course, nowadays everybody's got a great camera in their pocket with their smartphone. So what are we talking about today, Chris?
Chris Marquardt (01:11:17):
Well, so there's, there are these kind of segments that we do here, where I explain something. And it's often a very helpful if you try to figure out things yourself. So I call this reverse engineering of photo. So you look at a photo and you might think, oh, that's a nice photo. And then that's, that's where I, as a photographer will start thinking about, okay, wait a minute. What is, where's the light coming from? How is that thing set up? How did it come into existence? What did the photographer do to get this kind of a picture? And the moment, the moment I understand that goes click and I can do it myself, cuz yeah. And I know how it works, figure it out. I brought a few, I brought a few pictures. Just, just as a few a few hints on how to do this kind of reverse engineering. And I wanna start with this picture of a sunflower and
Leo Laporte (01:12:10):
It's, we will, by the way, tell everybody that the, the link to the photo gallery that Chris has assembled will be in our website@techguylabs.com. So
Chris Marquardt (01:12:19):
Yes, you can
Leo Laporte (01:12:19):
See the images,
Chris Marquardt (01:12:22):
Right. And I'll try my best to explain. So what we're seeing is the sunflower in the sun. And the reason you see that it's in the sun is because all of all these hard shadows, you have very bright areas in the very dark areas and some, some shadow on the leaves and some shadow on the, on the pedals. So this is a very obvious in the bright sunlight picture. There's not much reverse engineering. You know what this situation is like. If, if we look at the, I'm gonna bring up the second one here, here's another sunflower and it doesn't have almost any shadows. It's very, very subtle in its lighting. So no hard shadows. And that of course gives you the hint that this is a picture that's been taken in the shade. So the shade and the sun, those are two very different kinds of lights and some work better for this sunflower here.
Chris Marquardt (01:13:13):
This one I think works better. It makes it more, more soft in appearance and that suits the sunflower pretty well. So the light is a very important thing to look out for. Here's a portrait of someone and this is very, very dramatic studio type portrait you have you can tell from, from the, like the little strips of light on the shoulders and on the hat that there's light, probably either coming from the sides or even from behind, and then there's more light on the face. So there's probably three light sources, you know, one from the right one from the left and one from the front. And you can tell just by looking at how the light fall on that person. It's a, it's, it's pretty basic stuff. But if you, if you exercise these kind of things, then you will you will, you will be become better in telling how these things work.
Chris Marquardt (01:14:10):
Here's another portrait where we have half of the person lit and half of a person not lit. So that is obviously light coming in from the side. It's easier when you look at something like a statue, but you can tell much easier where the lights coming from. And one area that I look at to deter in the direction of the light is the shadow under the nose and the shadow under the eyebrows, those two areas. And under the chin, of course, those areas give you a very good indication of where the light's coming from and looking at this on a statue like this is it's makes it easier than on a person. So here's another one old Greek statue, and you can tell the, the harsh shadow of the nose kind of cuts the face almost in two, and it's not very flattering. So if you wanna take a photo, wanna take, take a portrait of someone, then that might be a type of a lights situation at you that you might wanna avoid. Cuz it'll, it'll not be flattering. You're a Greek
Leo Laporte (01:15:17):
Statue and he doesn't care
Chris Marquardt (01:15:19):
If you're a Greek statue at you're in a museum, then maybe that works out. Another indication of of light and direction is glasses. Believe it or not. If you look at glasses on people here's one example of a girl she's wearing glasses and there's no shadow of the glasses on the face whatsoever. So what tells that tells us that that the light source is a very soft light as opposed to this other portrait and the person, the, the, the glasses cast a very hard shadow on the face, which means, first of all, you can easily tell the direction of the light. And you can assume that that's a point light source, a smaller light source, smaller light sources, cast cast, harder shadows. So glasses aren't under other indicator that help you reverse engineer. How a picture came to be.
Chris Marquardt (01:16:15):
Motion is another thing in pictures. You can, you can show motion by doing a longer exposure. Here's a, a fairground, right? And that is a longer exposure. You see the lights all smeared. So that will give you an indication that this is a long exposure on water. It's very, to see long exposures, make water go silky. And this is a waterfall that gets a very different feeling than, than if you're there. Or this is a shot. We are looking at a bicycle. Everything is in motion. Apart from the bicycle, the BI is tech sharp and the ground and everything is smeared sideways. And that is what we call a panning shot. So the photographer's moving the camera with the bike and the background gets motion blur. So again, if you, if you start seeing these kind of pictures, understanding these kind of pictures, then you end up being able to recreate them. And here's a, this is a, this is a motion blur kind of photo. That's a zoom blur. You know, that's, that's where the photographer took a picture while either moving the camera forward. And that this gives you this tunnel tunnel kind of effect or while zooming. So those are the kind of things that you do. You wanna
Leo Laporte (01:17:37):
Create that effect that looks like a mistake
Chris Marquardt (01:17:40):
If you want. Well, well, try try that with Christmas lights on, on Christmas or little point, light sources, little in the background, that'll be an interesting effect. And it's certainly worth playing with these kind of things.
Leo Laporte (01:17:55):
Well, I was, I remember a photo safari with one of my favorite pro photographers, M Oland, and he kept turning his zoom ring as he was taking the picture and he kept doing
Chris Marquardt (01:18:05):
It. That's exactly what he did. He
Leo Laporte (01:18:06):
Kept doing it. I said, what are you doing? Miel he said that, well, that's what he was trying to do is create that weird zooming effect. And it takes a little practice, cuz your timing has to be just right, but
Chris Marquardt (01:18:17):
It, you will, you will create pictures that you will have to throw away, but maybe one out of 10 or one out of 20 will be good. One.
Leo Laporte (01:18:28):
Let's tell people what our assignment is is you last week pulled an adjective out of the fishbowl and it is
Chris Marquardt (01:18:36):
Expensive.
Leo Laporte (01:18:37):
Expensive. This should be a fun one. So you've got a month to do it or three weeks left. Now, go out, take an image. Doesn't have to be with a fancy camera. Your smartphone's fine of something that illustrates the word. Doesn't have to be a expensive thing, but illustrates the word, the concept expensive. And if you get something you go, oh, I like that. Should you should feel it in your gut. It goes, yeah, that's a good shot. Then upload it to our flicker group. It's called the tech guy. You'll know you're in the right place. More than 10,000 members and lots of pictures. Renee Silverman, our moderator will accept your image. Make sure you tag. I get though flicker. All the images are tagged TG expensive. That way we'll know. It's your submission. In three weeks, Chris will pick three and talk about 'em Chris. Mark war is@sensei.photo. I'm just take a picture of my like us. Somebody suggesting that that's expensive. Yeah. The photographic term for expensive is like a, I just saw the the new, the wire just reviewed the new M what is M 12, 1 11,
Chris Marquardt (01:19:42):
M 11.
Leo Laporte (01:19:44):
It's like $9,000. It's crazy.
Chris Marquardt (01:19:48):
But you, you can sell your old like or traded in.
Leo Laporte (01:19:51):
I have my, a film M three, which I is still a work of art. I love looking at it. Oh yes. And I have my nice, like a lens. I already spent enough money on a, like a lens. I probably should just use. I think anybody would work with a, like a lens though, right? If you can.
Chris Marquardt (01:20:05):
Yeah, they will. Especially the mirrorless ones you get adapters know it's it's it's that the shame you use a, like a lens on a non, like a board be
Leo Laporte (01:20:16):
I gotta spend nine grand on an M 11 just so I can use my lens.
Chris Marquardt (01:20:21):
Well,
Leo Laporte (01:20:23):
Is it better? Have you ever, you played with one
Chris Marquardt (01:20:27):
I've I've I've not played with the latest one, but it's
Leo Laporte (01:20:30):
A digital range finder, which makes me nuts. It's like, you don't need to do
Chris Marquardt (01:20:36):
A range. You know, they are, they are an experience. They're a haptic experience. Yeah. I mean the fine mechanics, the, the craftsmanship on these cameras is amazing.
Leo Laporte (01:20:47):
That's the thing. It's a,
Chris Marquardt (01:20:49):
Is that camera gonna make you better photographer? I doubt it's
Leo Laporte (01:20:52):
That's
Chris Marquardt (01:20:53):
Not
Leo Laporte (01:20:53):
Happening. I know having spent a lot of money on camera gear. It does not.
Chris Marquardt (01:20:59):
Yeah. Doesn't it's like, it's like an expensive car. It's not gonna make you a good driver.
Leo Laporte (01:21:03):
So anyway, but you know, my mouth waters, I look at these and I go,
Chris Marquardt (01:21:12):
Oh yeah. That's, they're good at that,
Leo Laporte (01:21:16):
At that. Oh yeah. But fortunately it's it's weight way outta my price range. Thank you. 60 megapixels thing here. I don't know why it's 60 megapixels. That doesn't seem to like a good idea, but,
Chris Marquardt (01:21:29):
Well, it's a big number, a big number sell.
Leo Laporte (01:21:31):
Yeah. Who makes their sensors? That's what I want to know.
Chris Marquardt (01:21:35):
Who makes their sensors? Ah, I don't even know. I would, I would venture a guest and say, it's so neat. Cuz Sony is they
Leo Laporte (01:21:42):
Make all the sense. The
Chris Marquardt (01:21:43):
World's the world sensor maker. So I feel like's a good chance that they make,
Leo Laporte (01:21:48):
They was a like maybe it was the Q2 or something. That was a Fuji. You could get a Fujitsu for less. That was the same. I seemed to yeah,
Chris Marquardt (01:21:56):
The Panasonic, I think
Leo Laporte (01:21:57):
Pan Panasonic. That was it. Yeah.
Chris Marquardt (01:22:00):
Didn't they didn't they yes, but then, you know, but it's not a like, has blood has blood did did cameras with wooden wooden handles and they were not necessarily better than all the other cameras, but they were twice the price. So fashion
Leo Laporte (01:22:19):
Range finder. I used one once you, is it still the thing that you have like a prism and you have to line the image up to be. It's crazy.
Chris Marquardt (01:22:28):
Yep. Well, if you're used to that, it's, it's quick. It's very quick to get the focus. Right. And yeah. Very precise. So for street photography range finder is, but you have to practice. It's not like you pick one up and then it's automatically gonna be magical. Right? You have to, you have to work.
Leo Laporte (01:22:46):
I already spent the $8,000 on the 50 millimeter F two lens. So,
Chris Marquardt (01:22:51):
Which is one of the best blends after.
Leo Laporte (01:22:53):
It's an amazing lens. But if am I not doing it justice, you didn't get on a Sony alpha.
Chris Marquardt (01:23:03):
You're so torn. It's
Leo Laporte (01:23:06):
$8,990.
Chris Marquardt (01:23:09):
Yeah, but it keep keeps its value. If you wanna sell it.
Leo Laporte (01:23:12):
Oh, that's true.
Chris Marquardt (01:23:13):
You should probably
Leo Laporte (01:23:14):
Stop you
Chris Marquardt (01:23:14):
Probably most of that back stop.
Leo Laporte (01:23:17):
Thank you, Chris. My sense. Say photo is the devil on my shoulder. That's who he is. Have a great week. We'll see an next week.
Chris Marquardt (01:23:25):
You too. Bye. See
Leo Laporte (01:23:26):
Them. Leo Laport, the tech guy, eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number back to the phones as we go. Jill's on the line from San Diego. Hello Jill.
Caller 6 (01:23:41):
Hi Leo. My question to you is I heard a rumor that apple is considering offering a subscription service.
Leo Laporte (01:23:50):
Yeah. I saw that rumor too. Iphone. Yeah.
Caller 6 (01:23:54):
So kinda like the Adobe model so that we'd have to pay a monthly fee for our iPhone instead of buying them out road. I wanted to get your take on that.
Leo Laporte (01:24:01):
Well, I hope they don't make that the only way to buy an iPhone, cuz that will be the end for me. As far as iPhones apple sort of already offers something similar, you know, you can pay in effect a monthly fee and when the new iPhone comes out, you automat, as long as your old one's still in good shape, you can trade it in, get the new one, continue with the same monthly plan. That would be to me, something similar to what a subscription would be like. I can't imagine apple ever saying, oh, the only way to get an iPhone is like Netflix to subscribe. Unless it's really a low pro, like it's 10 bucks a month, maybe I'd consider it. It won't be I, you know, I it's a rumor, first of all, first thing to say always is it's just a rumor usually where there's smoke, there's some fire. So I don't think the rumor is wrong, but I think that we don't really know the details. And, and you know, this comes from mark Garman, who is a very good rumor guy. He's got excellent connections at apple, but even he will always say this is what I'm hearing. Apple could change their mind. This may not happen. The details may vary, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So don't, I think it's nothing to worry about yet.
Leo Laporte (01:25:33):
Okay. Would you not like it?
Caller 6 (01:25:36):
I would hate it because I will always, I, I don't wanna rent my iPhone. I wanna it
Leo Laporte (01:25:41):
Out well, and more importantly there's a lot of people who buy iPhones and keep 'em for four, five, six years.
Caller 6 (01:25:48):
Yeah. That would be me.
Leo Laporte (01:25:49):
Right. And this would be, you know, I mean, if apple were a greedy corporation, which, you know, you kind of don't get to be a $2 trillion company without wanting a little bit of money then they would say, well, we don't like this. We want everybody to have a new iPhone. So this is one way to do it. Right. You make sure that people are always using a new iPhone, but I don't, I, no, I don't see that happening. I think too many people, I would say most iPhone users keep their iPhone for several years.
Leo Laporte (01:26:22):
Yeah. Now maybe this subscription plan allows for that. And I mean, you know, I mean, you can already do that. You buy it on time, right. That's just basically saying I'll pay $15 a month for 20 months or 50 months. And that's that, that wouldn't be an innovation in any, any way would just be apple doing the financing instead of a firm or your credit card. But I, you know, so I'm, I think that if, if apple did something like this, it would be somewhat of a greedy way to get people to have new iPhones every year. I don't. And they already offer that. So I don't, I don't really understand what the rumor means and like you, I wouldn't do it. I you know, for the first time my job always requires me to, you know, try all the new stuff. But for the first time ever, I just didn't see a reason to get the iPhone 13. I'm very happy with last year's iPhone. And you know what, if the iPhone 14 isn't much better. I probably won't get that one either. And a normal person. What? There's no, absolutely no reason to buy a new iPhone every year or even every two year years, maybe every three or four. If you want to have the latest technology. So I'm with you. I don't, I don't. And again, don't worry about it. It's just, it's just a,
Caller 6 (01:27:34):
I just hope they'll give us a choice, at least I know, you know, you can have the option. Yeah. See,
Leo Laporte (01:27:39):
That's what I don't understand. It's like, what are you saying? Are you saying this will be the only way to do it. I'm gonna have to read the rumor. I CA you know, I'll be honest. I saw the rumor, I saw mark talking about it and I immediately ignored it. Mm. Because I just, it doesn't it. If I, if apple were to do that, they would lose 50% of their market. So it's not gonna happen. It's just not
Caller 6 (01:28:04):
Oh, good. Because Adobe did that. They took away the right to buy Adobe.
Leo Laporte (01:28:09):
Yeah. Yeah. No, and that's a lot and Microsoft's headed that way as well. Software companies love the idea of an annuity of a monthly or yearly subscription. And I, it drives me nuts. I don't like it, but I can't think of a hardware company doing that. Is there any hardware company that says, well, you can't buy our product. You can only rent it.
Caller 6 (01:28:32):
Well, I think this would be the first,
Leo Laporte (01:28:33):
I, I can't think of maybe. Is there anybody else does this, could, are there TVs that you, you can't buy, you can only rent? I don't think so. Cars, I guess, but that's usually, again, not through, you know, I guess if you're doing it through GMA, when you buy a GM vehicle, you're doing it through the car company, I guess it's really a separate business. Yeah, but that's just a loan. I don't think that's what they're talking about here. I think they're, I, you know, so I, you know, I could see it with software software. I understand that I'm not a happy camper about it, but I understand it cuz they, they, the reason they do it with software is their costs are so you, I, you sell me a phone. That's done. You're not doing any R and D in the phone.
Leo Laporte (01:29:15):
You're gonna update it for security flaws. That's about it. But if I buy a piece of software, you have to constantly improve it, fix it, update it. So subscription makes a little more sense. The, the costs from the company's point of view of, of the hardware are continuous on rather of the software. Continuous, not of the hardware. I don't think so. Let's see. We'll hold our we'll hold, hold our outrage until apple actually does it. Let's put it that way. Don't worry yet. If they do it and Garman says they'll might do it. As soon as this year, they'd announce it in September. And I'd be the first one to say, well, that's that on an iPhone? Matthew, Marietta, California, Leo Laport. The tech guy. I'm Matthew.
Caller 7 (01:29:57):
Hi Leo. I'm a soon to be expecting father have a, a tech baby question for
Leo Laporte (01:30:03):
Congratulations. I've been looking first
Caller 7 (01:30:05):
Kid. Thank you. Yes.
Leo Laporte (01:30:08):
Yay.
Caller 7 (01:30:10):
Okay. To 37. We're getting a late start, but
Leo Laporte (01:30:13):
Oh, that's all right. I had my first, I had my first at, at 30 eight. So I believe me. I, I know how that is. It's fine. You're gonna be a great dad. What do you wanna know?
Caller 7 (01:30:23):
Thank you. Yes. I'm looking at baby cameras and they do all kinds of monitoring of the baby, right? Tracking, sleep and everything. We're not really into that. We're tech people, but we're not looking for that. So I was wondering if there's like a security camera I could use with my fire TV stick a lot like the ring doorbell. Oh, what a
Leo Laporte (01:30:41):
Good idea.
Caller 7 (01:30:41):
Watch it on the TV.
Leo Laporte (01:30:43):
Oh, what a great idea
Caller 7 (01:30:44):
Automatically, but I need something that's gonna automatically do audio with it too.
Leo Laporte (01:30:49):
So in my day, my kids are now 28 and 30. So in my day you had a little litter come, you'd put in the baby's bed and you'd put by your side, as you were watching TV in the living room and you, you hear the baby go and you get up and take care of them a baby monitor, but now they have cameras. And as you say, they are smart. Amazon sells some that are specifically echo enabled that will in fact work with the TV. So if you have a fire TV, Google sells 'em that work with the Google TV stuff, but you wanna have it to work with your echo one, I'm looking at 50 bucks, smart baby monitor from project nursery, not expensive has a camera and you can put it on your fire TV, which I think is kind of fun.
Leo Laporte (01:31:41):
Instead of watching TV in the living room will just stare at our baby, which by the way, with your first is something parents do. I remember sitting and staring at Abby hours at a time. They're so fascinating. So fascinating. So I don't have any experience with this project nursery product, but it sounds like a great idea. You can talk to it through echo it's. It has an echo skill and you can view it on your fire TV or other devices most what I like the most is it doesn't have a a monthly subscription, which I do. These guys are gonna start doing, as we were talking about last with a last call. Everybody wants to charge you a monthly subscription, but these project nurseries as far as I know, do not. So take a look. Have you looked at that brand?
Caller 7 (01:32:33):
No, I haven't, but I will definitely take a look.
Leo Laporte (01:32:35):
You can even say, this is my favorite. You can say, if you'll look and there's nobody in the crib, you can say, Hey, echo, pan the baby camera to the right. Where'd the baby go. I like that feature Leo Laporte the tech guy.
Leo Laporte (01:32:57):
I, I guess somebody's saying it's probably, you should be aware of security on these things we've seen in the past baby monitor devices and others you know, not having good security and bad guys can hack into 'em and stuff like that, which is not a good thing. I, and I don't know anything about project nursery, but I like the name and I kind of like the, the, the, the capabilities is pretty impressive. It's a pan tilt zoom for 50 bucks. That's pretty impressive. You don't, you, you probably don't use it to stream. Did you want to like sit and watch the baby on TV? No. Yeah. You don't care about that. This is more like if the baby moves, you can also play a lullaby. You can check a temperature, you can record a video. It has an SD card that goes in it. How exciting when's the baby do
Caller 7 (01:33:51):
Due in October?
Leo Laporte (01:33:53):
Are you excited?
Caller 7 (01:33:56):
Yes, definitely.
Leo Laporte (01:33:57):
Are you nervous more like,
Caller 7 (01:33:59):
Not so much. I'm just kind of calm. I, I live two neighborhoods down from my sister. Good out in Marietta, in the Temecula wine country. My dad's 15 minutes away. My mom's an hour in San Diego,
Leo Laporte (01:34:10):
So important. We
Caller 7 (01:34:11):
Have all the support we need.
Leo Laporte (01:34:12):
That's a huge, huge thing. Cause you and
Caller 7 (01:34:16):
My niece just had a baby a year and a half ago, so. Oh, good. So she'll be the recent, the most recent case to tell me, do this. Don't do this.
Leo Laporte (01:34:24):
Oh, good. Oh, that's great.
Caller 7 (01:34:26):
I'm looking at project nursery cameras now and there.
Leo Laporte (01:34:29):
I'm looking at the reviews are not great. So I, you know
Caller 7 (01:34:33):
It's one 60, it's 1 49 for the camera. Online, if you buy it from them and the other one looks like it's a previous model.
Leo Laporte (01:34:41):
Ah, that's why it's 50 bucks. I'm also seeing
Caller 7 (01:34:44):
My question for you.
Leo Laporte (01:34:45):
The other one that maybe, maybe isn't specifically for babies, but I'm a big fan because they're much less expensive and they really do everything you need to do are the wise, w Y Z E cameras. And
Caller 7 (01:35:00):
That's an Amazon company now, right?
Leo Laporte (01:35:02):
Did they get bought by Amazon son of a, I thought they did. I, yeah, that would be surprised. So they make stuff very inexpensive
Caller 7 (01:35:10):
Audio because when I'm looking for something where, when you view the camera, the audio comes in and the microphone turns on immediately. So you can hear it. Yes. Like the nest, like the nest doorbell in the
Leo Laporte (01:35:20):
Ring, right. The Wises will do that. I've used the wise. We, we like the wise a lot.
Caller 7 (01:35:25):
I'll work with my fire TV stick
Leo Laporte (01:35:27):
That I don't know about. I'll have to check on that. That was the thing that made me look for this this, you know, this other camera that specifically we've
Caller 7 (01:35:34):
Got little echo shows in the, in the bedroom. 'em Two of 'em one call that call one call. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:35:39):
That's the way to do it.
Caller 7 (01:35:40):
These little eight inches. And then we just have 'em as our alarm clocks on either side of the bed. But I was looking in the great room. All we've got is Sonos is two of the Sonos, one speakers paired together. And we thought the, the Firestick I think just use the camera on the TV because the TV 65 inches, you can see it from any part of the, and it just makes it less of the hassle. Talk to Alexa, be the baby.
Leo Laporte (01:36:03):
Eco B makes one with echo built in it's an apple home kit, which is good. Cuz apple home kit has high standards for security and eco B is a well known name. Let me look. I
Caller 7 (01:36:14):
Need an iPhone because I'm a Samsung Android.
Leo Laporte (01:36:16):
This does not require an iPhone. In fact, it works with smart things, which is Samsung's solution.
Caller 7 (01:36:21):
Good, because I use smart things with Levitin, Z wife switches all throughout. Perfect.
Leo Laporte (01:36:27):
I just like seeing home kit enable because it means that they, that there's a higher security standard apple. Won't let you put that name on there without that. Oh, okay. Well this one does have a monthly subscription, unfortunately, but that means it's probably streaming all the time.
Caller 7 (01:36:43):
Yeah. That's yeah. That's why I got rid of my smart hub and went to the, into the Samsung because it connected to my TV, which the other one didn't and it and I didn't have the 4 99 fee because in one year I can go buy a Samsung smart hub instead of paying their fee. Right, right. For the link for the link. Right. And it went down for two weeks and I just kept out rid of it.
Leo Laporte (01:37:05):
Right. I'm just looking and see if this doesn't look like this specifically says fire TV. So that's
Caller 7 (01:37:11):
But why? Well the wise one sound good if it really is what you
Leo Laporte (01:37:15):
Really need is an app on the, in fact, this is the other way to do it is start at the fire TV store or, and see which of these have an app. If they have an app, then you'll be able to watch it on the fire TV. So, and if they don't, then you won't. So that's an easy way to figure that out. So eco B wise, I bet you there's a wise app. I bet you anything. They're they're they seem very, they are, they were not by bought by Amazon by the way. But they were started by former Amazonians. So as well as apple guys. So I think they're a good company
Caller 7 (01:37:47):
To, yeah. They're started by former people in the in the in their smart speaker division. Exactly. Decided to spin off.
Leo Laporte (01:37:55):
They said could do this better and cheaper might.
Caller 7 (01:37:58):
Yeah. Just like a lot of tech companies have come that way. So exactly. That might be the best way to go. Exactly. Do something like that. And then just get like a little get one of those bar height, side tables, a little one, put it next to the crib and stick it on there. And we're good to go.
Leo Laporte (01:38:11):
You can in fact show all your wise cams on your fire TV. So excellent. And wise is the way to go. Yep.
Caller 7 (01:38:20):
Cause I've got the ring ones around the outside of the house. I've got the older version that they don't make anymore. That does the that does the the power over ethernet and those work good. Those two that I have out there with the ring doorbell camera, all work great and everything, but I just felt like the baby monitor and three, $400 to get.
Leo Laporte (01:38:37):
I know it's crazy. Yeah. Wise is very affordable.
Caller 7 (01:38:41):
I don't even, I don't even do. I don't even do that with my sleep number. Ben. I would wanna do that. Cause I'm an older one.
Leo Laporte (01:38:47):
I know. I don't like the monthlys. I agree. It's just a, it's just a money grab. I agree. Yeah.
Caller 7 (01:38:52):
And, and they weren't even, and one of 'em wasn't even monthly. It was just, it was just, you have to buy, you have to buy the pad for the baby, then you have to, and, and, and then the chest strap comes with the camera. Then they have a bundle with the pad, but you gotta buy the pad for the, for the crim. If he wants the floor fan to make it like a floor lamp and make it easier to use. And they started telling you the accessories I wanted came with stuff. I didn't even, it was all junk.
Leo Laporte (01:39:20):
Yeah. I know. There's a lot of crap out there. And, and it's a particular issue for security. I mean, especially with a baby monitor, you really don't want people, especially
Caller 7 (01:39:29):
When you watch shows like nine one, one and stuff on phone. Yeah. And you see, and you see people hacking the baby monitor and the little seven year old decides to like the house on fire. Cause you kept talking to the baby and the toddler and telling it to do
Leo Laporte (01:39:42):
Things. Yeah, exactly. I don't know if that's ever happened, but remember the story about the guy who was posing his Santa Claus on the smart, smart camera. Yikes. Yeah. All right. Have a good one. Well, thank you. My pleasure. Take care. Matthew byebye. Well, Hey, Hey. Hey. How are you today? Leo Laporte here. The tech guy, time to talk computers, internet, home theater, digital photography, smartphone, smart watches, giant moons, rockets, space guy, rod pile coming up in about 25 minutes. We don't normally talk about space that much, but since we've got an expert joining us we'll do that too. Phone number, eighty eight eighty eight, ask Leo 88, 8 8 2 7 5 5 3 6, toll free from anywhere in the us or Canada, outside that area. You can still reach me, but you'll have to use Skype or something like that. Website tech guy labs.com. And if you hear me talk about something and I say, I'll put a link on, on the show notes. That's where that goes. Tech guide labs.com. Back to the phones. We go to the high desert where TJ's on the line. Hi TJ.
Caller 8 (01:40:49):
How you doing Leo?
Leo Laporte (01:40:50):
I'm great. How are you?
Caller 8 (01:40:52):
Good. I just wanna say, we go back to the TV days.
Leo Laporte (01:40:56):
You and me? I remember I was looking through the camera and I saw you there.
Caller 8 (01:41:02):
Hey I I've got an 83 old father. Who's got a, I do believe it's not iPhone XR.
Leo Laporte (01:41:08):
Yeah. 10 R we called it. Yeah, it's confusing. It's confusing. Apple has you know, it's a letter, but there's a number. I don't know. That's very confusing.
Caller 8 (01:41:16):
Yeah. Well the, the thing is, is he needs it because that's where his blood blood glucose monitor reports to and excellent scale or something like that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:41:25):
What
Caller 8 (01:41:26):
What's frustrating for me is, is he was the air force. So his hearing isn't all that great. Is there anything Bluetooth wise it he can have at the house that will make it ring louder or that the speaker will ring louder so he can actually hear when I call? Oh,
Leo Laporte (01:41:41):
Absolutely. There are a lot of very good Bluetooth speakers that will pair to the phone. And as long as the phones within 30 feet now, that's one of the limits of Bluetooth is it only go was about 30 feet, 10 meters. So as long as the phone is near enough to speaker when it rings, when you talk to 'em, in fact I'd recommend there are a number of these. There are many, many of them, the ones I use are the UE booms, cuz they're loud as the name would apply. They're fairly compact act. You pair it to your phone, you can use it as he can use it to talk to you as well as to hear you. And they make booms in a variety of sizes all the way from boom three to mega boom wonder boom and hyper boom, depending on how Duffy is. The hyper boom is, you know, is four to 50 bucks is big. It's, it's really, it's a music device. But if he's, if he really is hard a hearing, it might be, he might need a hyper boom. I don't think he will. I think the regular boom or the mega boom is more than enough. It's pretty loud. And
Caller 8 (01:42:47):
Well, I mean, like I said, it's frustrating for him because he constantly apologizes on me and I'm like, I know,
Leo Laporte (01:42:54):
No, no, my dad step as well. Hey, he's 83. He served our country. I mean, God bless him. You know, and and yeah, so there, so this is a very big category, Bluetooth speakers. In fact, it might be one of the hottest categories there is cuz everybody's got a phone and everybody's got Bluetooth now. So I would suggest one that has a microphone in it so that you, he can talk as well as listen. In fact, that's another, maybe a reason to look at the Amazon echo devices. My mom, 88 loves her echo cuz she can talk to it and say set, you know, she turns on the hot water in the shower. Doesn't wanna forget. She says, echo set a timer for 30 and it'll remind her, she's got the water running. I there's a, and she, you know, you can ask for music, but these echoes can also be paired to a phone.
Leo Laporte (01:43:46):
So so it will also, you can also use it as a speaker phone. In fact, I'm gonna give you one more reason to do this. Even if the phone's not there, if he falls trips and stumbles, he could say, Hey, echo call my son and it will call it will call over the internet. So, so really I think maybe this is the, is the best way to go. You can pay to the phone. So we'll act as a speaker and a microphone for the phone, but it has all these additional capabilities. And I think honestly Amazon echoes or if you prefer the Google speakers, which do the same thing are a really great choice for a senior. For a lot of reasons, you know, you can just, my, my my, my wife's parents, my in-laws their favorite thing is to say, echo, play Elvis. And they'll just dance like crazy to Elvis music for hours.
Caller 8 (01:44:40):
No, that was great. I mean, with him, it's like, I, you know, I, he might go for it, but I think he's been avoiding it cuz
Leo Laporte (01:44:48):
He doesn't want listening. I understand.
Caller 8 (01:44:51):
Yes. I think that what it is is he doesn't want, you know, something listening to him. I
Leo Laporte (01:44:54):
Don't wanna scare him, but sir listening to him on his phone all the time.
Caller 8 (01:44:59):
Yeah. Yeah. And I, cause I told him, I said, you know, I'm on Facebook. If I was on like five minutes ago, it was on Amazon looking at you know, Bluetooth speakers, the next thing you know, oh,
Leo Laporte (01:45:09):
You're gonna get ads everywhere. Yes you are. Yeah. Yes you are. I'll give you another, I'll give you another suggestion. So maybe to look at an apple watch and I did get my mom an apple watch because it has fall detection. And if she takes a fall, it will call 9 1 1 and oh wow. For an older parent, this is a really good idea. And you set up the watch, it will vibrate on your wrist when a call's coming in. And if he's not near the phone and the watch is vibrating, he can answer on the watch. And actually I've had full, full conversations on the watch where people didn't know I was, I was Dick Tracy talking to my watch. So that's another thing, you know, if, if it's expensive, you know, it's a few hundred bucks. Okay. And, but he has the iPhone already, which is a good thing. I think, I think an apple watch might be a very good choice. I got one from my mom, cuz I, if she takes a walk and she leaves her phone behind and she falls, I want her to be able to get help.
Caller 8 (01:46:10):
Yeah. Well, in, in this case, I don't think he'd spend the money, but he can't keep me from spend ha
Leo Laporte (01:46:16):
It's a great gift. I bought it for my mom. It's a great gift. It's not hugely expensive. I think they're 250 bucks. You probably, depending on how far away he gets from the phone, you may consider, some of them have cell capabilities. They actually can be online. Even when the phone is at home. If he wanted away from his phone, you'll really appreciate that because you can also figure out where he is.
Caller 8 (01:46:40):
Right. Right. All right. Well the first one you were talking was a you boom.
Leo Laporte (01:46:47):
So ultimately yours, which I should mention that
Caller 8 (01:46:49):
For myself.
Leo Laporte (01:46:50):
Yeah. Yeah. The boom is great. I have, I have stereo booms. I've paired them. Ultimate ears is a sponsor. I should mention the podcasts. That's not why I mention 'em. I actually mentioned 'em cuz I've had them for a long time and I like them. But those are simple speakers. Next step up an Amazon echo. He may not like the intrusion. I think a spot watch or a smart watch from apple is a very good choice for seniors because of that fall detection. Okay. That thing is amazing. I feel, I feel mu I don't worry about my mom nearly as much as I used to cuz she lives alone 88 years old. My sister's only a couple blocks away, but she lives alone if she took a fall. I, I worry. So having that watch and the echo speaker and the iPhone means that, you know, chances are much better of her being able to get help and that's comes really important as you
Caller 8 (01:47:41):
Know, well, he's, he's already been told okay. By myself and my brother and now I'm only like a, a mile away, but he's been told by my brother, no step stools, no step ladders. Cause he's already had, he had cancer in his hip.
Leo Laporte (01:47:55):
Oh gosh.
Caller 8 (01:47:56):
And he said, that could be, that could be a potential that's right. Well, when you fall crack a hip and they say, once you break a hip, you go downhill real
Leo Laporte (01:48:04):
Quick, very quickly. Mobility is super important.
Caller 8 (01:48:07):
Right. And he's independent. He's still dry and so good for him and good for him. Yeah. And that's, that's something and he, and he is not afraid to say, you know what? I don't drive at night cuz of my eyes. Good, good. You know, I don't wanna do this.
Leo Laporte (01:48:20):
Good. He's realistic. It's
Caller 8 (01:48:21):
A little too much.
Leo Laporte (01:48:22):
Yeah. What'd he do in the air force?
Caller 8 (01:48:24):
He was well, what I know from when I was born, he was in Chanel. But, but prior to that he was on the flight line and stuff like that, doing security, cuz everybody had to do a rotation right back in in the sixties. So.
Leo Laporte (01:48:40):
Nice. Well thank him for his service. You take, you, you're taking good care of him, which is awesome. It's awesome.
Caller 8 (01:48:47):
That's that's my, that's my goal. You know?
Leo Laporte (01:48:49):
Good man. DJ. You're a good man.
Caller 8 (01:48:51):
Okay. I appreciate your help. Leo.
Leo Laporte (01:48:52):
My pleasure have a great day. Yeah. I'm I'm a big fan. Apple's actually made it. So you don't have to have an iPhone. Somebody in the family has to have an iPhone, but you can set up a watch for a kid or a senior using your iPhone and then give them the watch. They don't even have to have an iPhone. The trick is of course, to keep get 'em to keep the watch on that's that's the trick. 88, 88 as Leo. But if they're used to wearing wrist watches, somebody preserved in the air force. I bet you. He is. This is a great solution. He'll love it. Eighty eight, eighty eight as Leo. That's the phone number? Leo Laporte D tech guy. Hello Rodney. Hey pops. Who's this Dick Tracy guy. Your guy, Dick Tracy used to talk his wrist. Remember that? Hello? What I remember were the guys with little spoons on their heads.
Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (01:49:39):
Didn't figure out what they were about. No, the aliens. Oh alien spoon heads. Yeah. What was that about? So, okay, so I had my boomer moment earlier today. Yeah. Okay. Boomer. I, I did what I do every couple years. I, I jumped online and I thought, okay, let's just check one more time to see if anybody still makes a query keyboard phone. They just aren't out there. There's like one they're for old people. They make 'em for old people. But I still, I know I can't type on an iPhone. You know, I make some many mistakes on my iPhone. It's it's awful. I don't have pointy fingers. And you just, if they, if they charged me for autocorrect, I would be broke, you know? Yeah. Its every now and then I just look and there's like one company struggling on Kickstarter where we'll have it out by 2034 and oh no, no it's over.
Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (01:50:28):
Or, or, or the phones that run like Android four. Yeah. Right, right, right. They're still selling them. Yep. Right. Or more, more realistically 10 or 11, but still it's like, well, come on, don't lock me out. The wine bit can use a Bluetooth keyboard if you want to carry that around. Well, yeah. But you know, for a while they were making those keyboards in a case for something like an ator. And I worked in yeah. Not even now. They don't. Yeah. They're just universal. Honestly. Just loose keyboard. I talk to my phone. I dictate most of the time now. Well that does work pretty well. Doesn't it? Yeah. That's pretty much how, by the way, don't search for alien spoon heads on on, on Google. Cuz the first thing I find is the dark side of the spoon.shop, where they sell spoons of all kinds, including a spoon with an alien schwa head.
Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (01:51:24):
So don't just be careful what you search for. Okay. I don't know why I searched for alien spoon heads, but I did. Oh I see. Somebody's mentioning the Kardashians on the yeah, that's another kind, but this is what I found. Ooh, look at that. Look at that. It's actually kind of styling. Yeah. Oh they say don't leave little quartz crystal there it's their flagship spoon from the, a side of the spoon website. It just takes everything. The internet we've got bless the avatar head there, right? Yeah. God bless the internet. Oh you can get a vacuum cleaner straw SWER for your sniffer, sniffer, sniffer. You know how about a secret spoon? Because you know, don't want people to know you're carrying a spoon around, so you carry this around and they say what's that? And go dark side, this spoon. It's a spoon.
Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (01:52:17):
So do you ever wonder how much revenue some of these sites can possibly be making on a daily basis? It's like walking into a gift shop in Santa Monica that hasn't anybody in it for a year. Yeah. You know, my friend used to work at a magnet store on PI 39. Yeah. Well that's actually that all magnets for a while. All the time. Yeah. Yeah. But spoons really? This is bizarre. Why would you want a straw that looks like a vacuum cleaner. I suspect that's used more for powdered. Good. Oh my God. It's just me. This is a Coke. This is a Coke spoon you know, just thinking, oh, I'm never indulged, but these are not that kind of spoon.
Leo Laporte (01:52:58):
This is not your grandfather's spoon. No, you could take your cereal to go with his handy pocket bullet. Oh, oh, I didn't realize this is drug druggie stuff. The bullet is what's that do druggie paraphernalia. Oh, look how small that spoon is. I wasn't paying attention. Yeah. I was kind of thinking, do people really do this still? I thought this was very eighties. I did too. I, I don't know. All I know is when I was working at TV commercials, everybody at the studio used to disappear upstairs about six. Oh my God. I thought, God, what are they doing up there? Golly. It turned out. They were doing things I wasn't involved with. And thank God because they're all dead now. Or at least broken addicted. Yeah. Leo Laport, the tech guy, eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo D phone number, Goleta, California bill. Next on the line. Hi bill.
Caller 9 (01:53:57):
Hi. How are you? Leo?
Leo Laporte (01:53:59):
I am. Well, how are you?
Caller 9 (01:54:01):
I am good. Did you ever make it to the Bacca down here? If you did, I didn't get the call.
Leo Laporte (01:54:06):
I didn't and I would've called you immediately, but next time, next time
Caller 9 (01:54:12):
That's I have Intel ice five that I have put a new solid state drive in and everything. And I'm ready to, to take all the data off the old machine. That's windows 10. Yeah. And put it on the new windows. 10. What software would you recommend to get just the data? Not the, not the operating system that I've already loaded out.
Leo Laporte (01:54:39):
Yes. And you're right. You don't want to in any way migrate the operating system, you, sometimes people wanna, they, they call me saying I wanna move my apps and that is challenging as well. Yeah. You
Caller 9 (01:54:54):
Can't do that
Leo Laporte (01:54:55):
Really? I wouldn't, I would reinstall both windows and the apps. That's gonna give you your best results. Okay. Does windows not have, I believe there's a windows 10 migration tool, I think. Am I wrong? I know. You know, it it's been a while since I've, it'll
Caller 9 (01:55:13):
Be going from 10 to 10.
Leo Laporte (01:55:14):
Yeah. But that, but like I bought a new computer, see apple I'm getting a new Mac tomorrow and all I'll do is I'll plug it in to the old Mac. And when I start it up, it says, you wanna move your data over and you say, yes. And you're done. I can't believe leave the windows 10 doesn't have something similar. But I, you know, it's been a while since I've done that. Oh, remember the old days of lap link, you get a, a cable that would go on your printer port.
Caller 9 (01:55:43):
I never did use it though.
Leo Laporte (01:55:45):
No, I don't recommend, I didn't recommend it. I think there is I, yeah. Windows easy. Oh, it's not available on windows 10. What the, what windows easy transfer. But they have partnered with lab link. There's a name from the past to bring you PC mover express. So this is I guess this is it's, it's not free. It's 15 bucks, but I guess this is the way to do it. Can buy it to be honest with you the way I, the reason I don't know, this is the way I almost always do this is just by copying the folder that documents and settings folder, or just your home folder. If you just want that, that will just copy your data. And just make a, it's a good thing anyway, to make a backup of that on an external USB drive of some kind and then copy it over since you're not moving apps and you're not windows good, man. Smart.
Caller 9 (01:56:46):
No, I watched the data, the everything else. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:56:50):
A good way to do this would another way to do this would be to have a backup service, an iDrive or something like that. That was always one of the pitches for for a backup service is you've got everything backed up. Now you just log into your, a computer and say restore, and it's gonna move right over. But absolutely the fastest way to do it would be, I think, would just be getting a, a USB drive and copying the data over.
Caller 9 (01:57:17):
Okay. Yeah. Well that sounds right. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:57:18):
And then you have, the nice thing is now you have a backup, you have the original, you have a USB copy and you have the copy on the new computer. That's
Caller 9 (01:57:26):
Of course the, the problem is how do I know that I'm getting all the data, ah, spread over here and
Leo Laporte (01:57:31):
There here's the trick. Don't use the windows file Explorer to do the copy. You know, just don't just drag a folder. Windows has a command line utility that's designed to do a better job of copying. It's been a, a well kept secret, at least from Microsoft that their copy routines are terrible. No, they've kept an app on there for years called robo copy, which they say is not robot, but robust and okay. Robo copy. You'll see it in the command line. And I'll put a link in the show notes to, if you just Google Rob book, copy, you'll find the Microsoft docs is a command line tool that will copy from one folder to another. So the two computers have to be connected or you could copy to external drive and then do it, but it does verification.
Caller 9 (01:58:19):
Ah,
Leo Laporte (01:58:19):
And it's multi-threaded, which means it'll it'll copy a little bit faster. So it's a, it's a, it's much better tool. It's the one I recommend you do for this kind of thing. In fact, they even have a backup mode, which will copy all of the permissions and the you know, the ACLS and that kind of thing.
Caller 2 (01:58:37):
Right. Okay. That sounds well wonderful.
Leo Laporte (01:58:40):
Robo copy is your best friend. Everybody uses windows sh it's kind of a dos like command and do look that. Yeah. And do look at all of the the settings, cuz there's some really good settings for it. Like compress, which will do compression over the network to speak.
Caller 9 (01:58:56):
No, I don't need to do that. No, you're I have one more question.
Leo Laporte (01:58:59):
Yes sir. Yes, sir.
Caller 9 (01:59:01):
On my iPhone, I have an iPhone seven messages. I will get sometimes messages that are obviously trying to trick me or do
Leo Laporte (01:59:09):
Something. Yes. Spam. Yeah.
Caller 9 (01:59:11):
Well, I'll get 10 of them.
Leo Laporte (01:59:12):
I know.
Caller 9 (01:59:13):
And all the numbers are down and on the bottom is email address. And I look at the messages and I blocked my, most of the numbers
Leo Laporte (01:59:23):
Won't help though, because they change the number every time.
Caller 9 (01:59:26):
Yes. I know. I know. But the numbers are already blocked, but yet the thing comes through. Yeah. And I think they're using, is there any way to get around that?
Leo Laporte (01:59:34):
Not really. Not really. Okay. Your phone company. This is such, I get this call all the time now. So something's something happened. The people that these scammers there's scammers, there's try to spread. Sometimes if you click the link, you'll get malware. Sometimes you'll get a, a, you know, spammy link to buy something. Never respond, never click the links, never respond to the email, never do anything with the phone number don't type stop. That's the worst thing you can do. They'll even say that sometimes, oh, you don't want this type stop. And all that's saying is, ah, you got a live one here. Yeah. There's this number, cuz they're doing random numbers and they're providing random numbers now really it's up to the phone companies to stop this because they can tell if it's a real number or fake number they are reluctant to do so because revenue generator but you can complain to your phone company, most phone companies, you know, Verizon at and T T-Mobile all offer spam filtering for your text messages.
Caller 9 (02:00:34):
Oh yeah, they have it, but they want to charge 4 95.
Leo Laporte (02:00:38):
Did I mention the revenue opportunity?
Caller 9 (02:00:42):
The ring? And it tells me, oh, PO telemarketer.
Leo Laporte (02:00:47):
Yeah. It's very frustrating. There are third party tools like the bouncer that supposedly will work. But this is, this is look, you're all I can tell you is you're in the same boat. Some of these are incredibly offensive. I've gotta call a few, few weeks ago from a very nice elderly woman who says, I don't want porno coming in on my phone. And of course I agree a hundred percent. It's terrible. Call the phone company and complain. That's the best thing
Caller 9 (02:01:17):
It's about all you can
Leo Laporte (02:01:17):
Do. Yeah. And you can't really stop them.
Caller 9 (02:01:20):
One more quick question.
Leo Laporte (02:01:21):
Yes.
Caller 9 (02:01:22):
I have outlook and it also has, you know, the outlook, but I can't find the PST file. If I delete a message, it goes away. It doesn't go into the trash folder. Is there something I missed? It used to work, but all of a sudden
Leo Laporte (02:01:38):
It doesn't, unless they've changed it in outlook, there is in the settings, a command to reveal your PST folder. Okay. If you wanna find it and by the way, that's one of the things you absolutely will be copying over when you get this new computer, right? Yeah. I would, I would dig through the settings. There's a lot of them now. I, it looks gotten to be a, quite a hairy little program. There's a definitely way to do all of that. Leo Laport, the TECA host of this weekend space, the podcast of twi.tv/t I S the author of many great books, including interplanetary robots, including amazing stories of the space, age, including battle star blueprints, including versed on the moon. I have 'em all here. Editor in chief of ad Astra magazine. I've got that somewhere too. The space society's official publication, space, dots.org, ladies and gentlemen.
Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (02:02:37):
I give you rod, have you ever been a in space? Only in my head. I wish. Yeah. I wish, you know, there are virtual reality moments that come close enough, which is probably as far as I'll get. But I wanna ride a 80,000 ton explosive into the sky. Yeah. I wanna go, oh, I guess I'm park. And I were we're discussing on the, on the podcast the other day, we were talking about the fact that they're switching out seats on these these blue origin, new shepherd, tourist flights. Yeah. Pete Davidson, often chicken. Now what they call us, you know? Yeah. Really I'll go. But I don't think that's I have radio show. I have a podcast. We have a big radio show. Yeah, you should go. Well, if I go you first, you can sit in my lap or something. We'll figure it out.
Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (02:03:28):
Oh boy, did he, did he? What happened? Did he not go? Sorry so that he was gonna go, he had a, okay. Get this. He had a scheduling conflict. So he had a scheduling conflict that was worth giving up a half million dollar flight heat chicken. Now that's what happened. Well, I wonder, you know, nerve famously, the, the opera singer was supposed to go on on the Virgin gala galactic flight. And she, she backed out, even though they weren't close to flying yet. So there are people that thought it was cool enough to put down deposit. And that said, you that's just a bomb with, with a cork taking outta one end. I don't think I want to go well, and it's not really space. You're just going a, you know, kind of, sort of space. So I, I want, I want orbit. I wanna orbit.
Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (02:04:12):
No, no, no. Well, there's that. Or for the orbit, there's a company called I think earth perspective, which it's a balloon, that's a balloon in a go and you go up with the stratosphere obviously is not as high as the rocket goes. I guess that's, you're up there for hours. Yeah. And you've got champagne and crackers and crackers 300,000 crackers. It's it's I think that's only 125, but yeah, these are all things that are a little little out of my $125,000. But speaking of real space SEG we have the Axiom ax, one mission coming up on April 3rd. I never heard of this. Who's that? So this is Axiom is a company that's been in business for a number of years and it's a bunch of NASA veterans in the space station program and so forth. And they have been working on trying to get a private space station built and flown.
Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (02:05:05):
So they finally have some agreements to move ahead with that. But, and this is a module that'll dock with the space station. And then ultimately when the space stations decommissioned, it'll undo, and these guys look as old as you and me. I think we, prior to that, we should be, well they're close. Yeah. So this is, but this is their, their first commission crude space flight. So they're buying space on a SpaceX crude dragon capsule. Oh, okay. It's gonna launch around April 3rd. Yeah, not sure the exact date because they're flying off pad 39, a at Kennedy space center, which leases, but the S SLS is currently sitting out at 39 B doing fueling and unfeeling tests, prelaunch tests. So they gotta finish messing around with the S SLS. Is it, is it a SpaceX capsule? It kinda looks like a SpaceX capsule. Yeah. It's a dragon tube.
Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (02:05:52):
Oh, okay. So, so this is you know, and we've only been flying that machine, the, the crew dragon and the SpaceX rocket up to the space station with people since mid 2020. So, you know, this is a big deal coming in this short order have, because this is all private flight. These are four private astronauts. Axiom bought the flight. Are they paying for this or are they scientists? What's the deal? Three of them are paying. So Michael, a guy named Michael Lopez. Allegre, who's a former as astronaut that four shuttle missions holds a space walking record for 10 EBAs and all that. He's not paying for it. He's the pilot, but three guys, Larry Connor, who's a, a big investor in real estate and tech guy named mark Paty. Who's a two chair of a group called Mar Canada that I hadn't heard of before their innovation and socially responsible, best Jose Andres is making their meal.
Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (02:06:47):
Yeah. And, and how can there not be a TV show on that yet? Right? What I mean, the learning channel's gotta be like right there. What, and then this et Debbie, think his name is pronounced. Who's also an, these guys are all like big money investors, but he invests in Africa. So they're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. They're space tourists. Oh, oh no, no, not hundreds of thou millions. I mean, they're probably spending. Yeah. But they get to go to the ISS. This is like a, yeah. They're going to the ISS. Can they get out and walk around? Well, if you mean space walk. No, they're just in the station, but they get to get walk around the space station. Oh yeah, no, they're there. They're staying there. They're paying for the privilege. I mean, it's many, many millions for the flight, but you get 10 days.
Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (02:07:33):
I mean, its good. It's a good deal. Million each. Yeah. It's a good deal. And, and you have to pay for your time in the ISS and they are doing research while they're there. So they make a very big point of saying, look, this is not as, as Allegre Lopez has said, this is not noses against the glass time. No. In fact that qualifies them as an actual astronaut. If they do scientific research. Well that's and technically, actually, according to the handbook that has to put out in 2005. Yeah. If you do socially relevant safety related, et cetera, research you're in the club. So they're doing stem cell research, cardiac health they're testing some in flight, in flight spacecraft component assembly, but meaningfully at think for the cardiac health thing, they're studying cells that stop dividing in zero G in heart, heart tissue it's we know it's make work.
Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (02:08:23):
So you get the little pin. We know that if you paid 50 million, this is the real deal. You gotta get an astronaut pin at. It's not that there aren't other people that could do it, but they are gonna, I, I think the one that I thought was was meaningful is they're gonna be doing some experiments and they're there for 10 days. They're eight days on stations. They got time on the issues we're having with human eyes for some reason. Oh yeah. We've talked about this before the eye change of shape. The, of humor, these tens. Well the actual eyeball change of shape, but it stays that way after they get home a lot. I mean only with men in. Yeah. What's that about? Right. I know how it is. Very drawback. Do you ever, ever see who framed Roger rabbit? I'm just saying I can't help, but I've just drawn that way.
Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (02:09:07):
There's another launch. Spacex is gonna do another launch a few days later. Yeah. Oh. They're like working around the clock. This crazy. This is a crew dragon fours going up. Yeah. This is a NASA webpage, but I, I just wanna point out they didn't do a good job of Photoshopping. The astronauts pictures into the space suits. That's the worst Photoshop job I ever saw. Be nice though. Come on man. But there was a time on the website where you could go and, and get your stuck in the, maybe that they use that tool. That's probably what it was, but that's not. No, they were. It's amazing. I mean, it used to be, you'd wait a long time. It launches would be months apart, but sometimes years apart now, weeks apart. Well, and, and they, you know, again, we run into this PO this possible downside of SpaceX makes it look really easy.
Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (02:09:55):
Yes. And some point something's gonna happen really? Not on a, on a crude flight. No, I pray that, but they'll lose a rocket or they'll have a bad reentry or something someday. Well just the law of numbers, you, it is still very dangerous. And if you start sending hundreds of people up the chances of an accident go hire yeah. I pray. Nothing happens to any of these people. But you know what, if you sign up like you and I, I wanna sign up, I'll do it. Right. I figure, you know, I couldn't when I was a kid, cause my eyesight wasn't good enough. I always right. Well, you can't be a fighter pilot cause you didn't have perfect eyesight, which means you can't be an astronaut, but now you don't need perfect eyesight. You just need millions of dollars. Right. I wanna figure.
Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (02:10:39):
And if it blows up, so be it. That's fine. Well, let's wait like another 15 years. So we don't have as many years left I around. I'll be. Yeah, but that's the whole point you do it when you might have five years left. I'll something happened. No I'm old enough now. Space, dots.org. That's the national space society. Everyone should be a member of you to get the ad Astra magazine. This cat here's the editor in chief. And of course for absolutely nothing for free, you can go to twi.tv/twists, Ts and listen to rod and talk. And there's sweet and space podcast. Thank you much. Thanks to you and Lisa, thank you.
Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (02:11:19):
Oh, we should have mentioned. It's good news. The Russians are going to give mark van. Dehe a, a ride home back to the United States. You can come home. You can go home. God, you may go home and we're gonna send you on a, a very special rocket. Yeah, one big to trip. March. I should even try to do a Russian accent when you're, when you're on the air, you know, it's okay. I could do it's for you. Yeah. I Don I just do Boris bad enough. That's all. He's Bo bad enough accent. Or maybe I'm Natasha don't know. Yes, Natasha. Yes. March 30th. Mark's coming back after a year. Yeah. Boy, his eyeballs are gonna be so weird. Well, and yet some, some don't have that or they have people, it doesn't doesn't and then it comes back. It affects some more than others.
Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (02:12:10):
The big question is why it doesn't fix itself once they come home or, and why we, women don't have this problem. Right. Because we thought it was intracranial pressure of fluid on the back of the eye, but they're just not sure that's part of it, but it, but it could also be something else. But yeah, there's so many, so many questions. The human body is a mystery. And, and just once again, it's one of those, you know, I get to discussions with my friend, Frank White, who's the overview of guy who says space loves or people love space. And I go, yeah, but space a doesn't love people. So we get in this kind of armrest like about, you know, so what's the happy medium there. Well, you gotta adapt people to be able to stay there, stop trying to contain him and make it safe.
Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (02:12:49):
You know, I'm reading a fun science fiction book. Steve Gibson recommended called the Baba verse. Have you read the a Baba verse books? No, what's it about? I love the premise. So this guy is a software millionaire just sold his company. So he says, what the heck he's gonna pay to get his head frozen if he dies. Right? So he is just signed the contract. He's in Vegas for a sci-fi conference, gets run over. Next thing he knows. He wakes up in a it's 150 years later. It is like this, right? No. He says, I don't feel anything. He said, well, strictly speaking, we, you know, cause we scanned your brain, but we have to throw the head out. So you're actually in a machine and here's he says, okay and what am I gonna do? Am I gonna be a garbage truck?
Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (02:13:35):
Am you know, artificial intelligence? And the guy says, no, you're a, you're our space probe. So he he is as for all intents and purposes, he feels like the guy he was, but he's pilot. He's a space probe. He figure years out how to do VR so he can have a body. Then he, then it turns out they got 3d printing so they can print anything they want, including more of him. So he creates more. And that's why his name is Bob, but that's why it's called the Baba verse. Cuz there are many, oh first book is called. They basically you meat printing to make more. Yeah they do. They, they print anything, any molecular item at all. So they BA build explorers and it's, it's fun. I mean, it's not deep, but it's fun. And it's very much has that Andy Weir, the Martian kind of snarky attitude.
Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (02:14:23):
So it's on audible, highly recommend. It's fun. It's fun. We are. I think we're all just gonna be little, little cockroach side robots with our brains implanted in. I hope because it's cheaper to fly that way and you've got extra arm. Yeah. Well that's the beauty of it. He can accelerate at 15 G cuz there's no body. That's true. So he's, you know, he's going zipping around. Of course they have, you know, it's a little bit phony sci-fi cuz he figures out how to do fast and light communications and they've gotta, you know, they have to figure out all sorts of ways of, but I mean the story really bogs down. Yeah. Have to wait 13 years. Right? Exactly. There's gotta be a way. Ooh, cork entrapment that'll win. Yeah. It's fun. I enjoyed it. I that's neat. Yeah. So, and I, I thought of you and Steve's been raving about it.
Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (02:15:11):
It's not the best scifi ever. It's kind of, it's a little Martian like where he has to solve problems, especially the first volume. It's getting a little weird in the second volume it's you know, but he's a big star Trek fan, so there's a lot of star Trek and well Steve's judgment for these kinds of things. Yeah. Steve's good. Smart guy. Yeah. I liked it. Hey Ron, have a great week. Thank you such as it is. I thank you for letting me be myself, your tech guy on the radio. Thanks to professor Laura. Our musical director did good. A great job today with the UGA chucka UGA chucka. Thanks to Kim Shaffer phone angel who answers the calls and gets you on the air. Pace down your Callick for your parents on national radio. Most of all though, I thank you for listening. Thank you for calling in. Couldn't do this show without you. I appreciate it. Leo Laport, the tech guy time for one more segment. So I got time for a couple more calls. Let's take Mary in LA. Hello Mary.
Caller 10 (02:16:11):
Oh, hello. You're
Leo Laporte (02:16:12):
On the air congrat. You made it.
Caller 10 (02:16:16):
Thank you. I made it. Yeah. Hey, well thank you. I'm not very techy, so
Leo Laporte (02:16:22):
That's okay. We, if you're too techy, then I get lost. So that's good. What can I do for you?
Caller 10 (02:16:29):
Well you mentioned about the password manager that was his last pass yesterday. That
Leo Laporte (02:16:37):
That's one of many there's last pass. There's one password there's bit warden. Do you have a password manager?
Caller 10 (02:16:45):
No, that's why I'm I think of want good,
Leo Laporte (02:16:50):
But we all have this problem, right? Where every website, every app, every account, they, they want you to create a password and the natural tendency. And I did this, I think everybody does it is to use the same password over and over problem is if any, one of those sites gets attacked and breached, and this happens a lot, then that a address and password is gonna work on all the other sites. They call it credential stuffing. And it's a big problem because bad guys go, ah, I have Mary's login and password for this site for target.com. Let's try it everywhere else. And suddenly you're, you know, you're compromised everywhere. And you don't want that. So the ideal would be to make up a new password for every site, but who's gonna remember all of those passwords. In fact, better than that, the password shouldn't be your birthday and your nickname and your dog's name.
Leo Laporte (02:17:42):
It should be something completely random and long 20 or 30 characters of just meaningless gobbly go burn lower case letters, numbers, punctuation. So you really can't remember 'em it turns out the harder it is to remember the better the password. So the only way to really do this realistically is with a program that will a generate the passwords B, remember them and ideally C fill them in when you get to that website or that app. And that's a password manager. It's a very popular category. There's lots of 'em. Now last pass is very well known. So as one password we have a sponsor called bit warden. It's actually my favorite, cuz it's open source. It's free. You could pay 10 bucks a year if you want for some additional features, but you don't need to. All of them are gonna take a little bit of effort on your part.
Leo Laporte (02:18:36):
The reason most people don't use password managers is cuz it's a little techy and you said you're not very techy, so it's challenging, but, but I think you can do it. I think, you know, any int inte any normally intelligent person can figure it out. It's just going to tell a little Ling. What you'll set up is you'll install the software. You'll set it up in any browser that you use. They'll have a little extension that can run in the browser. That's how it fills in the password. And then the main thing is you're gonna create one password that you have to remember. You could write it down, put it in a desk drawer somewhere that no one can get to. That's fine. But that password, your master password is what unlocks the vault. So every time you launch your browser or turn on your computer, you'll unlock the vault with that master password. And then all those other passwords will be available when you go to those sites. So that's the one tricky thing is the master password. There's one other thing that's even more geeky. You ready to be? That's a, that's a, that's a gold star geek, a silver star geek. You wanna be a gold star geek, two factor. And you've probably heard about this two factor authentication. You know what I'm talking about?
Caller 10 (02:19:44):
Yes. Use send your code to your phone, right? Typing
Leo Laporte (02:19:49):
And your bank probably requires it cuz that you really wanna secure that. The advantage of that is even if somebody got your password, it wouldn't be enough. They'd also have to have your phone. So wherever you could turn that on, I know it's a pain, but wherever you could turn that on. In fact both of these are kind of pain. There is definitely a scale, a think of a little, a scale where you're weighing things. There is the more security you have, the more difficult it's gonna be. There's a, there is a balance between convenience and security, more secure means less convenient. We, I don't wanna make it so inconvenient. You don't use it. That's really insecure. Right? So there's a little bit of a friction, but I think it's doable and it's really important. I wish everybody would do it. Mary. I'm glad you're asking about it.
Caller 10 (02:20:42):
Okay.
Leo Laporte (02:20:43):
Yeah. So go to bit warden.com. You can download that. It works on every phone, your desktop and everything. They have a brow extensions for the browser. You'll install it on edge or Chrome or whatever you use for your browser. And just kind of start playing with it. Eventually. You'll want to go through all those old sites where you did use your cat's name and your birthday as the password and change it.
Caller 10 (02:21:06):
Okay. You change it through that one.
Leo Laporte (02:21:09):
Yep. And bit ward will help you do that. All of these passwords managers will look at your passwords and say, Hey, you've got D duplicates here and I'll help you change it.
Caller 10 (02:21:18):
Okay.
Leo Laporte (02:21:19):
Hey, thank you for asking about that. Cause now I can, I can tell everybody about it. And so I appreciate it.
Caller 10 (02:21:25):
So you're saying that wording better than last.
Leo Laporte (02:21:27):
It's my favorite. Yeah.
Caller 10 (02:21:29):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:21:30):
Okay. One, password's also very popular bit. Warden's the least expensive because it's open source. So it's basically free. But I pay 'em 10 bucks a year, which is I think a pretty good deal just to support 'em cuz I want them to, I really think they're a good company doing a good, good deed.
Caller 10 (02:21:48):
Okay. Very good. Yeah. Thank you so much.
Leo Laporte (02:21:51):
Oh, I'm so glad you asked. Thank you. And there are plenty of these there's dozens of 'em. If that one doesn't suit, you know, chat rooms recommending others, I just feel like open source is good, cuz it means people can look at the code and know that it's not nefarious. It's not doing bad things. And it also means that, you know, they're gonna give it away, you know, cuz it's hard to charge for something. If somebody else can, you know, just say, well I'm gonna make it myself. And it's free Lile. Our last caller, is it Lyle Jackson, Mississippi. Hi Lyle. How you doing? I'm good. How are you?
Caller 11 (02:22:24):
I'm fine.
Leo Laporte (02:22:25):
Welcome.
Caller 11 (02:22:26):
I'm just calling about I'm planning on getting a, a doorbell cam and I wanna, and first I gonna get the doorbell first and, and eventually get the camera to go with it later on. But first of all, I wanna know if the doorbell cam is still working.
Leo Laporte (02:22:42):
Yeah, I have. If they call it the hello? Hello, the nest. Hello? I don't think they sell the doorbell separately. I think you, you get the whole thing. Do you have a on your house? You have a doorbell, right?
Caller 11 (02:22:54):
Yes
Leo Laporte (02:22:54):
I do. Do you know if it's wired? You probably don't. You never took it off, but if you, if you take it off, there'll be one little wire that goes to a little transformer.
Caller 11 (02:23:02):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:23:03):
So that hooks up. It's very easy to stall. I'm no handyman, but I was able to do this. I've done it a couple of times. First with the ring doorbell from Amazon, then I did it with the nest. Hello? You take off your old doorbell. You have the wires. You, they actually have a video. You attach it to the new hello. You have to have wifi though for the camera. Do you have wifi?
Caller 11 (02:23:23):
Yeah, I have that.
Leo Laporte (02:23:24):
Okay. So attach then, then you use the app on the phone to say hello to the hello and give it the wifi credentials. Now it's online. You screw it in just like your old doorbell. There's a camera built in when somebody, I, there are a couple reasons. I love it. First of all, when somebody comes to the door, my doorbell rings on my phone and on my Google devices. In fact, my Google devices go there's somebody at the front car.
Caller 11 (02:23:50):
Okay. And I do have that around my house.
Leo Laporte (02:23:52):
Yeah. I love that cuz I never miss it. And then and you can see who it is and if there's a package left, you can see how the PA the package is there. And if somebody should steal it, you'll see them stealing it. So it's, I think a great thing. I I'm an a fan highly recommended pleasure talking to you. Eli. I hear the music. You know what that means? I'm sorry to say. It's time for me to wrap things up for another week. All week long. I podcast about these subjects in a fairly geeky way at our website twit.tv. That's This Week in Tech.tv. You'll find this show there along with all of our other shows, audio and video shows about Mac and windows and security and news and stuff. Lots of stuff. Space T W I T.tv. And I will see you right here next week as always.
Leo Laporte (02:24:47):
I'm Leo Laporte the tech guy. I hope you have a great geek week. We'll see you next time. Well, that's it for the tech guy show for today. Thank you so much for being here and don't forget. TWiT T W I T. It stands for This Week in Tech and you'll find it at twit.tv, including the podcasts for the show. We talk about windows on windows, weekly, Macintosh on Mac break, 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.
