The Tech Guy Episode 1912 Transcript

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

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

Mikah Sargent (00:00:12):
It's time for the tech guy. This episode of the tech guy was recorded on Saturday, July 23rd, 2022. This is episode number 1,912. Enjoy. This episode of the tech guy is brought to you by Cisco Meraki with employees working in different locations, providing a unified work experience seems as easy as hurting cats. How do you reign in so many moving parts? The Meraki cloud managed network learn how your organization can make hybrid work, work by visiting meraki.cisco.com/twit.

Mikah Sargent (00:00:54):
Well, hello there everybody. I Mikah Sargent in yet again for Leo Laporte the tech guy. I too am a tech guy and I am excited to talk tech with you today. The phone number to call is eighty eight eighty eight, ask Leo or 8 8 8 8 2 7 5 5 3 6. That's my preferred version since I am, am not Leo, but anyway so excited to have all of you here with me today to talk tech, you know, we're talking about the internet, we're talking about phones, we're answering questions about occasionally printers and wifi and all sorts of things in between. And I am so pumped to be here to discuss all of that with you out there. And of course, talk to our awesome guests. I wanted to kick the segment off today with I think, an important conversation. And, you know, I, I looked back on the questions that I got last week and there was one call that kind of stood out to me.

Mikah Sargent (00:01:53):
And it was it was a talking about some issue that the person was experiencing with tech and the person said, look, one of the things that bugs me about tech is that it has all of these different, complicated processes that tech gets harder and harder and harder. And that over time it seems like it is just getting more and more complicated. And a lot of times what I see when someone asks me about tech is they sort of blame themselves. Oh, I, you know, I'm just, I, I I'm, I'm in many cases, I hear this, we hear this on the radio all the time. Oh, I'm just too old. You know, I don't, I don't get it or, oh, you know, this isn't my, I I'm really good at this, but tech is not what I'm really good at. And there are a lot of excuses made a lot of, of moments where we're, we're blaming ourselves.

Mikah Sargent (00:02:45):
And I think it's even more the case when we look at folks who are handling having had data breaches or being tricked into giving up their user information. And so this is just a time we're gonna do a little bit of tech therapy here because what I try to get across, and anytime I help a family member with technology, for example, something that I always say is you cannot blame yourself. You are not responsible for the fact that this tech is failing you. The tech is responsible for the fact that the tech is failing you. And I truly believe that, you know, we will sometimes make jokes. It's what is it? Pep C problem exists between computer keyboard and the use. I don't know, but basically saying that it's the human being that's at fault and yeah, funny, haha. But let's be realistic here.

Mikah Sargent (00:03:38):
Technology does get more and more complicated. And Leo and I have talked before about how empathy needs to play more of a role in technology that the engineers, the developers, the folks behind the creation of all of this technology have to remember who their users are and some do. And I think that that's some of the best technology that we have. But look, I'm here doing this job, talking to you, answering your questions because technology is complicated and continues to get more and more complicated. And every time I help my family, they live back in Missouri. I move to California far, far away from them and I help them. And I do my best over the phone to, to give them the help that they need for the technology. But this stuff is so complicated that it's hard to do and I hear them blaming themselves and you can't do that.

Mikah Sargent (00:04:28):
And I think that's particularly the case when it comes to data breaches or the, what is it? It's social engineering hacks, where you are convinced that you have had your passwords stolen. And so you go through the process of trying to get your password back. And then lo and behold, that little email that you got was actually a fake I've had people come to me and say, oh, I'm so stupid. What was I thinking? How could I have done this? No, no, you are not the problem. The person or the people behind it, who did that thing. They are the problem. They are where you should put all of that energy that you're having put that on them. And then take the opportunity to reclaim that power. You should say, look, this was a clever thing. They got me. Yes, they got me, but it's not my fault.

Mikah Sargent (00:05:23):
I'm not the one that is to blame here. It's these nefarious people who've decided to do this thing and who were able to successfully do it. And I understand we do. We do have that moment where we go, oh, how could I have possibly be tricked by this? But so many people are tricked by this. That's why they keep doing it because they can get people. And it, it, it plays on in many cases, kind of our, our baser nature. You see that in the moment and you immediately, your fear centers are responding to that. Your, your adrenaline rises, your heart starts racing and you don't think as clearly as you normally would. So don't blame yourself, blame them. And back to the technology. I've gotta, I, I, I think we could all take a page out of the playbook of of my partner because <laugh>, I used to get really annoyed about this.

Mikah Sargent (00:06:14):
Anytime some technology wouldn't work, the apple TV is a really good example. It's like his worst enemy. Anytime the apple TV wouldn't work, there'd be Netflix would stop working or the TV would not display the video properly. And it, it would stop working in some way. He, oh, this thing is so stupid. It, it doesn't work. Out's supposed to, why is it never working? I used to get so annoyed if like, no, no, no, no. We could figure this out. We could figure out why it's doing this. Don't don't blame the apple TV. And then I had this realization of like, actually do blame the apple TV. And if you know his phone's not working, something's going wrong there. Ah, why is this thing not better? It should be doing this thing again. I used to get annoyed by that. And now I go, I think we could all take a page out of his playbook and say, actually we should blame the technology because it is at fault.

Mikah Sargent (00:07:02):
And even if it's something that yes, we can eventually learn how to do and how to fix it. Fine. We can take that on. But the fact that it's not easy, that it's not just sort of second nature, that it's not a simple process of going, okay, there's this problem. And intuitively I know how to solve it. That is understandable. And the caller that I spoke to, one of the things that he was talking about was the sort of, not a ethereal nature, but the non-physical nature of the problems that we have with tech, where a mechanical error, you know, if your sewing machine stops working and it's making this sound, I can pop open the side of my sewing machine, hit the pedal to start it going. And I see holy moly, I did not properly put the spool into the bobbin and I can fix it.

Mikah Sargent (00:07:56):
But when my phone won't turn on, I can't take the back off of it and look for the bobbin that's improperly threaded. So that makes technology even more complicated. And the folks who know how to look at the sort of virtual bobbin are the engineers who are creating this technology, but we don't necessarily every person doesn't have access, have the ability to pop, open the phone, look at the bobbin. That's why you've got us here to help you do that. And sometimes even we get stumped. You've seen that plenty of times. So I just, I want everybody to be mindful of the fact that this technology should work and it should work well. And it shouldn't be as hard as it sometimes can be. And to give yourself a little space, give yourself a little room, give yourself a little grace, give yourself a little grace and maybe even take a page outta the playbook of my partner.

Mikah Sargent (00:08:49):
Who's just like, you know what? This technology stinks. It doesn't work how I expect it to. And that's a problem and it's okay. It's okay to say that. And it's okay to be mad and it's okay to, you know, want it to be better. We should all want it to be better. And I think when it comes again to breaches data security, of course I can tell you back up your devices turn on two-factor authentication, do this, do that. And I hope that you will, but in the instance that somebody bypasses those things that they get into the system, you didn't have a backup. You didn't have two-factor authentication turned on. You shouldn't spend your time going. I am the problem here because somebody decided to do something they should not have done. And to bring harm to you through the accessing of your technology, through the accessing of your data.

Mikah Sargent (00:09:41):
And that is a them problem. And yes, then it becomes time. We gotta step it up. We gotta do what's right. We gotta fix it. And that's what we're here to do. But these calls today, when we talk, I want you to remember that and go, you know what? I may not know how to do this, but it's okay. I'm gonna learn how to do it. And I'm not the one that's at fault. It's the technology that could stand to be a little bit simpler. Just a little bit of tech therapy, a little bit of grace for you. A little bit of mindfulness of the fact that this stuff is hard. And frankly, it gets harder and harder because the technology gets more and more complex. The number to call 88 88, ask Leo 8, 8, 8 2 7 5 5, 3, 6 more acid wash. Kim, can you see if we have more acid wash? <Laugh> I need more acid wash. I don't, I don't know. I do not know what acid wash. They're talking about

Kim Schaffer (00:10:45):
<Laugh> jeans. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's part of the nineties style probably coming back. So

Mikah Sargent (00:10:49):
There you make your own jeans.

Kim Schaffer (00:10:51):
Oh yeah.

Mikah Sargent (00:10:52):
Oh, that's cool.

Kim Schaffer (00:10:53):
You miss those days. Didn't you? What kind

Mikah Sargent (00:10:54):
Of acid

Kim Schaffer (00:10:55):
Bleach, right? You just throw that.

Mikah Sargent (00:10:59):
So you buy a pair of you

Kim Schaffer (00:11:00):
Buy a pair of perfect. Perfectly good stiff jeans,

Mikah Sargent (00:11:02):
Super stiff, super cobalt, blue jeans. <Laugh> and you just throw 'em in some bleach and hope that it doesn't like

Kim Schaffer (00:11:08):
Disintegrate. No, actually you might want them to disintegrate. Oh,

Mikah Sargent (00:11:12):
Oh yeah. Cuz sometimes you pull away. Yeah. The hole. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well let me go buy some acid wash after

Kim Schaffer (00:11:19):
This. I feel way too old for that right now, but <laugh>,

Mikah Sargent (00:11:23):
I'd rather I'd rather not. I think I'll let somebody else handle the acid

Kim Schaffer (00:11:28):
Wash. Well, I've never seen that. I've never been in that, that screen before. Whoa, Kim. That's new to me. I only ever see Johnny J and Scott <laugh>, but I've never been in that screen.

Mikah Sargent (00:11:39):
Well, welcome. You know, lots of changes are taken place. I like that. <Laugh> yeah. It's fun to have you here and it, because of the way that you're facing it, it is more so, you know, normally Scott's facing out that way. Right.

Kim Schaffer (00:11:50):
It's a, it's more natural. We're having a conversation. Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (00:11:53):
Yeah. <Laugh> so did you tie dye? Did you ever do tie dye?

Kim Schaffer (00:11:57):
I'm wearing, I wear a lot of it since the pandemic, but I've never, well, I think I've done it once.

Mikah Sargent (00:12:02):
<Laugh> I? Yeah. Everybody should do it once.

Kim Schaffer (00:12:04):
Yeah. It's fun. Yeah. It's fun. Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (00:12:06):
I, I, I did it in high school. A couple of times, and I had a friend who was very, very good at it and started to do all that really wild stuff. I never got into it that much, but 

Kim Schaffer (00:12:20):
Mine might be basic, but I, I do wanna do some because I have a friend that does it and I wanna compete. <Laugh> let see if mine's better than his.

Mikah Sargent (00:12:29):
Take him on, see what you can do. Yeah. I'm sure there are lots of tie. Dye talks. I'm tie dye. You could learn very easily.

Kim Schaffer (00:12:41):
I just fall down the rabbit hole of food though.

Mikah Sargent (00:12:43):
Oh my goodness. My TikTok is all animals and food. <Laugh> and what is the other thing occasionally? No, no, that, I mean, that's almost all what it is. Oh, dances. Occasionally there'll be some dances in there, but mostly food recipes and birds dancing to music.

Kim Schaffer (00:13:04):
<Laugh> you've got a very limited diet, but have you ever tried that feta pasta with the, the, the viral feta pasta?

Mikah Sargent (00:13:10):
Oh, I haven't seen, oh, I'm lemme write that down cause I could make it gluten free.

Kim Schaffer (00:13:14):
Oh yeah. Yeah. If you can have feta and you can have tomatoes and you can have garlic and basil and olive oil and salt and pepper. Oh it's, it's the

Mikah Sargent (00:13:22):
Delicious, so it's a recipe.

Kim Schaffer (00:13:24):
Yeah. You could even use zucchini noodles in it. If you wanted to Z

Mikah Sargent (00:13:27):
Noodles. I do like I do like oodles. Yeah. Although I do feel a little bougie when I make them S like, let you make, I have my SP relies. Oh. And make some zucchini noodles.

Kim Schaffer (00:13:39):
<Laugh> yeah, I have my, oh, I don't have a spiralizer. I have the cheap one called the Vietti. Excuse me.

Mikah Sargent (00:13:48):
Let me just write that down. I dunno how that's spelled,

Kim Schaffer (00:13:53):
But E G E T T I

Mikah Sargent (00:13:55):
I think, oh, T T I. Okay. <laugh> not, I E <laugh> Hey, I'm a jetty. That's a good win. You just

Kim Schaffer (00:14:02):
Put the thing in, twist it and you get the little spiralized doodles.

Mikah Sargent (00:14:08):
Oh, this is where I ring. The

Kim Schaffer (00:14:11):
More cowbell.

Mikah Sargent (00:14:18):
Hello and welcome back to the tech guy podcast and radio show. This is of course where we take tech questions. I Mikah Sargent subbing in for Leo Laporte today, take your tech questions. And Kim Shafer, our phone angel is here to help us. How are you today, Kim?

Kim Schaffer (00:14:39):
I'm fantastic. How are you doing?

Mikah Sargent (00:14:41):
I'm doing well, because I've just learned about some new processes for making noodles. We were talking about zucchini noodles. Yeah. During the break,

Kim Schaffer (00:14:49):
Talking about acid wash acid noodles

Mikah Sargent (00:14:53):
Tie dye, and

Kim Schaffer (00:14:54):
We ran the gamut. <Laugh> <laugh>

Mikah Sargent (00:14:57):
The gamut of the nineties, I guess. Oh, oh boy. Well of course you are here to make sure that lots of great questions make their way onto the radio show. And I think you, I just imagine you with like a huge shield and there are all of these, just this huge stream of, I don't even know what coming at you. Yeah. And you've got, yeah, exactly. Those sounds are what I hear in my head. Pew, pew <laugh>

Kim Schaffer (00:15:22):
Somebody sent me the pew pew lasers at about please 11 o'clock last night. One of my friends on the iPhone. Cause if you write pew, pew lasers come up. Oh, that's have you seen all, do you have an iPhone? I'll text you

Mikah Sargent (00:15:33):
<Laugh>. Yeah. Text me, pew, pew, please. While you're texting me, pew pew though, let us go to the phones. Who would you

Kim Schaffer (00:15:39):
Like us to talk to? Let's go to Jay in Darlington, South Carolina. You know, about the iPhone. Like he's got a bunch of questions about the iPhone.

Mikah Sargent (00:15:47):
All right, Jay in

Kim Schaffer (00:15:50):
Line two,

Mikah Sargent (00:15:50):
Dialing to South Carolina. Hello, Jay.

Caller 1 (00:15:55):
How you doing?

Mikah Sargent (00:15:56):
I am doing exceptionally well. How are you today?

Caller 1 (00:15:59):
Just fine. I've been a long time listener of Leos and just I had some issues come up with an iPhone 12 and for my wife's phone with the core, the lightning plug on the bottom is loose. Uhoh when you plug it in and it's not staying connected for the charge. You keep hearing the, the little sound that it makes when you plug it up for it to let you know that it's starting the charge.

Mikah Sargent (00:16:29):
Yeah. The little chime form.

Caller 1 (00:16:32):
Yeah. It'll it'll do that. And then it'll do it again later on. Do it again later on. If you move the phone around when she's at home in the evening, sometimes she'll go ahead and plug it up, but still be using it and you'll hear it, do that chime mm-hmm <affirmative> off and on for a good bit. And I've noticed it if things loose now, at one point in time, I saw some kind of tech article that said you could take a, something like a small wind of a toothpick and clean the limp out of the yes. Plug in on the thing Uhhuh. And, but it was doing that before I did that, but I noticed it being loose after that.

Mikah Sargent (00:17:14):
Yeah. So when you say loose, you are talking about the actual port that's on the phone, not the cord, right? The, the port seems to be kind of jingling around.

Caller 1 (00:17:23):
Yeah. When you plug the cord into the port, mm-hmm <affirmative> you, it just doesn't feel, it doesn't feel snug. Now I've got a, I had an iPhone seven plus, and it was doing the same thing and I had to replace the phone anyway, and I got a 13. Promax nice. And I can tell the difference,

Mikah Sargent (00:17:40):
Ah,

Caller 1 (00:17:40):
Plug them in how SN the lightning port on the cord feels when I plug it into the 13, but on the 12, you know, it just feels loose.

Mikah Sargent (00:17:51):
Well, Jay, let me ask you, how handy do you, do you feel you are? How handy are you? What

Caller 1 (00:17:58):
Kind of sorta

Mikah Sargent (00:17:59):
Kind of sorta handy. Okay. Cuz there is an option where you could get a new port for the phone and you take off the screen of the phone and you install the new port yourself. But if you aren't, if you don't feel like you're super handy, if you wouldn't be comfortable doing that, your best bet is to take that phone into an apple store because what they will do is see that that port is loose and they will put a new port inside of there. That is fastened down properly.

Caller 1 (00:18:27):
Okay. That's that's what I figured I would probably have to do is go to apple with it. The closest one is in Charlotte, which is about two hour drive.

Mikah Sargent (00:18:36):
Oh, I feel for you. I used to live in in, in Springfield, Missouri. And we would have to drive a couple of hours to get to the nearest apple store. Your yeah, there, there may be some there are apple authorized service providers. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> that you can look up as well. These are people who will fix your phone, who apple has actually said, Hey, they hold up to the standards. And so we allow them to do it there. If there's one that's nearby, you may check that out. Outside of that, yeah. You would have to repair it yourself. And with these newer phones, I recommend less and less that people do it because these phones have waterproofing. They have all that built into it that keep it from being damaged. So it can be kind of a, a, a concern there that, you know, you, you take it off and then you put it back on and it's not how it was supposed to be. And then you get water ingress and things like that. Now I, I, I, I really do think that your best bet is in this case, you know, having to call apple and then sending the phone off. But then of course that means that during that period of time, your wife's phone is unable to be used. And so I, I feel for you in that way too, it's, it's a hard thing to figure out what you do while you have to give up the phone to get it replaced.

Caller 1 (00:19:53):
Yeah. And, and that phone is about two years old. I got it for her a little, not quite two years ago. Actually right about the time the pandemic started, I had to get her a new phone. And so it's, it's not very old, but I, I, when you said handy, I'm kind of sorta, I could probably do it, but I, I don't really feel comfortable tear tearing these phones apart. It was a regular computer, maybe, you know, something like that, but

Mikah Sargent (00:20:20):
Yeah, with a little phone now, remind me the model of that phone again, iPhone 11,

Caller 1 (00:20:25):
He's got a, she's got a 12

Mikah Sargent (00:20:26):
Iphone 12. Okay. So that's

Caller 1 (00:20:28):
Yeah,

Mikah Sargent (00:20:28):
You could, in the, the chat is pointing out too. You could get a wireless charger for it. That's the kind that lays on the back of the phone that would provide charging without you having to worry about that that plug, that cable being an issue. Right. So that's an option, of course, then you're kind of holding it up to the phone or you're doing that and they are, they're kind of pricey. But wireless charging could be another option. Now, what was your other question that you had?

Caller 1 (00:20:56):
The other question I've got? I don't have any, I've got a bunch of my music on my computer. I've got a windows computer, had it an iTune set up, you know, where I had almost songs that I had downloaded off of my CDs. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> plus what I had bought online and whatnot. Okay. I haven't loaded anything to either one of these phones, but if I go to the music app on my phone and it'll go through and play it'll play, it's got my library of songs that I'm assuming are songs that I may have bought Uhhuh at some point in time from apple. I, I know they're on my computer, but I don't have 'em, I didn't load 'em into the phone, but it'll go through and, you know, go through the shelf and play 'em. But what I would like to do is I know how to put the songs over onto the phone mm-hmm <affirmative>, but these songs that are on there, not all of them are songs that I would necessarily want to keep on the phone and play. Ah,

Mikah Sargent (00:22:01):
So you you're trying to get some of them removed basically.

Caller 1 (00:22:04):
Yeah, but I, I, I mean, I bought 'em, I don't want it. It's not, it's not the subscription service, you know for apple music it's songs that I've actually paid the 99 cent or a dollar 29, whatever it is now. Yeah. For these songs or else I had a CD with him on it, we,

Mikah Sargent (00:22:21):
We do have to go to break, but stick around on the line and I will help you out mic Sargent in for Leo Laport, the tech guy. There we go. All right, Jay. So you basically, you are wanting to pick and choose what goes on your phone based on the music that you have in your music library, on your windows machine. Yes.

Caller 1 (00:22:54):
Right? What, what I would, I know, I know I can load songs from the computer on to the phone. And I'm just wondering about all these that are listed in this. It's got the library listed there. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> like I say, it's it's I know that pretty much every one of 'em is ones that I bought or, or something at I'm assuming they're all ones that I bought from apple simply because none of the songs or songs that I know that I had a CD for or something that I put on my computer.

Mikah Sargent (00:23:25):
Yeah. Well, okay.

Caller 1 (00:23:26):
You know, if you know what I'm saying, it was, but they're in my library on the computer as well. They're on my computer,

Mikah Sargent (00:23:32):
But you see them there.

Caller 1 (00:23:33):
I'm thinking that it is it's songs that I bought from apple. And so they've accumulated this library of what I bought mm-hmm <affirmative> and this playing from, from Apple's stuff. You know, what I wanna do is I wanna put songs on that I wanna play, and I don't want all these other songs absolutely. Necessarily on that all the time. Yeah. Or, or in showing up in the library on the phone.

Mikah Sargent (00:23:56):
Absolutely. Yeah. This is actually a very easy fix. We are gonna include a link in the show notes at tech guy labs dot coms, free website, you go to tech guy labs.com. There you'll see links for all of the stuff that we talk about on the show. And Jay I'll have a link for you that tells you exactly how to pick and choose on your windows, PC, what you do and don't want to have there on your phone. And of course it'll stay on your computer, but it won't be on the phone. Thank you so much for joining us today and for your great questions, talk to you later. This episode of the tech guy is brought to you by Cisco Mara, the experts in cloud-based networking for hybrid work, whether your employees are working at home at a cabin in the mountains, had a lounge chair at the beach, or maybe sitting on an exercise ball in a studio.

Mikah Sargent (00:24:49):
Well, a cloud managed network is going to provide them the same exceptional work experience, no matter where they happen to be. You may as well roll out the welcome mat folks, because look hybrid work is here to stay hybrid work. It works best in the cloud and has its perks for both employees and leaders. Workers can move faster. They can deliver better results. And with a cloud managed network, they are able to do so and leaders can automate distributed operations. They can build more sustainable workspaces and proactively protect the network. Super important IDG market pulse research report conducted for Iraqi highlights, top tier opportunities in supporting hybrid work. So if you're going, why do we need to support hybrid work? There are plenty of reasons why first hybrid work is a priority for 78% of C-suite executives. Leaders want to drive collaboration forward while staying on top of boosting productivity and security, of course, hybrid work also has its challenges.

Mikah Sargent (00:25:49):
The IDG report also raises the red flag about security, noting that 48% of leaders report cybersecurity threats as a primary obstacle to improving workforce experiences, always on security monitoring is part of what makes the cloud managed network. So awesome. See, it can use apps for Meraki's vast ecosystem of partners. These are turnkey solutions built to work seamlessly with a Meraki cloud platform for asset tracking, for location analytics and more. And that means that they will be able to gather insights on how people use their workspaces. You'll also be able to reserve workspaces. So this is based on vacancy and employee profiles. It's called hot desking. You may have heard of that. It allows employees to scout out a spot in a snap locations in restricted environments can be booked in advance. So like this, where I am alone in the studio those can be booked in advance and have time based door access.

Mikah Sargent (00:26:43):
And there's also mobile device management. There's a buzzword. We all know it. It means that you can integrate devices and systems so that it can manage update and troubleshoot company owned devices, even when the device and the employee are in a remote location, turn any space into a place of productivity and empower your organization with the same exceptional experience, no matter where they work with Meraki and the Cisco suite of technology, learn how your organization can make hybrid work, work by visiting meraki.cisco.com/twit. Thank you, Cisco Meraki for sponsoring this week's episode of the tech guy. Let's get back to the show. Hello folks. And welcome back to your tech guy show. I am mic a Sargent subbing in for Leola port. We are here on Saturday and we are ready to talk to the home theater geek, youtube.com/avs forum Musk, Scott Wilkinson. Hello Scott.

Scott Wilkinson (00:27:45):
Hey Mikah. How you doing?

Mikah Sargent (00:27:47):
I am doing well. And I'm doing even better now that I get to talk to you, Scott.

Scott Wilkinson (00:27:51):
Oh, well, it's always a pleasure to talk to you too.

Mikah Sargent (00:27:54):
<Laugh> so yeah, what's what's going on in the world of home theater? This one? Well,

Scott Wilkinson (00:27:59):
I gotta first of all, I want to mention that next Tuesday is the next episode of my podcast, AVS forum tech talk, and it's at youtube.com/avs forum. And I'll be talking with a really interesting guy. His name is Peter Palo Mackey, and he is an expert in quantum dots. Oh, quantum dots. Oh

Mikah Sargent (00:28:26):
Yeah. Those tiny little dots in our TV.

Scott Wilkinson (00:28:28):
That's right. That's right. And you might have heard that there's now a new application of quantum dots in O led TVs that Samsung and Sony have recently introduced, which is the next step in the evolution of quantum.technology in

Mikah Sargent (00:28:48):
Tvs. I'm sorry, just the next step of the evolution of quantum

Scott Wilkinson (00:28:52):
Dots. <Laugh> <laugh>

Mikah Sargent (00:28:55):
It all sounds very futuristic.

Scott Wilkinson (00:28:58):
Well, it is in fact futuristic, it, it is the next generation of display technology really. And so we're gonna be talking about that. He does a great series of videos where he actually buys a television and tears it apart. And I, I know where

Mikah Sargent (00:29:16):
Is this? I need to find this

Scott Wilkinson (00:29:18):
<Laugh> it's on YouTube. I, I, I'm sorry. I don't have his channel right on handy, but his name is P Mackey, P a L O M a K I Peter P Mackey. I'm sure you can find him. And he, he takes apart these TVs and looks what's inside. I mean, it's really, really interesting. And I don't think he has the QD O led video up yet, but I know that he did it, he shot it. I'm not sure he's finished editing it, but very soon we will see what's inside of a QD O led TV. I think he did the Samsung. So that's gonna be really, really interesting. And so I get to talk to him on Tuesday. So 1:00 PM Pacific time, 4:00 PM Eastern time, youtube.com/avs forum. I hope you, you, those of you who are listening here and are interested you know, can tune in, you can type questions and comments into that page, and they will show up on my screen and I will pass along comments and questions that are appropriate.

Mikah Sargent (00:30:23):
Awesome. Yeah. That that's, I will definitely be listening to that. Cause that sounds really exciting. I did find a channel called nano P Maki.

Scott Wilkinson (00:30:31):
That's him, that's

Mikah Sargent (00:30:32):
Him. Yeah. So youtube.com/nano Palo Mai and youtube.com/avs forum. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> are the two places you'll want to go to make sure you all of that magic.

Scott Wilkinson (00:30:43):
Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's a very interesting, very friendly guy. So I do hope, hope you will tune in for that. So I got a, a viewer question that I found very interesting. Let me just go to my email here and I, I, I will pull him up. Dan, Daniel, Henry who goes by the name Gumby in the chat room is in there.

Mikah Sargent (00:31:04):
Oh, I know Gumby. Hi

Scott Wilkinson (00:31:06):
Gumby. Yeah. Hey Gumby. He sent me a question. He, he wants to listen to his vinyl records now, as you know, vinyl is, is, has never really gone away. And it's, it's making a pretty big comeback in the last few years. People just love listening to that vinyl and he's got a turntable and he wondered about a a, a tube amplifier or specifically a Rockville blue tube, 70 wat tube amplifier with Bluetooth. So he could listen to Bluetooth stuff as well. And he's got a NICs SL 1200 turntable and he wanted, he also has a, a preamp, a phono preamp. And this is the key to the question is sh should I really use my pH O preamp with this Rockville B tube amplifier? And he, the answer is yes, absolutely. Because a pH, oh, a phonograph, a turntable outputs, a different electrical level, an electrical signal level than say a CD player or a other audio device. It's, it's actually much lower in level because the needle, the, the stylist that's actually reading the bumps in the groove of the record can't put out a very high level of signal. It's a very low level signal. So it needs to be pre amplified before it can be amplified.

Mikah Sargent (00:32:35):
Ah, okay.

Scott Wilkinson (00:32:36):
So that's why it's called a pH, oh, preamp. Now the, the Rockville and most amplifiers don't have a pH O input. Now most receivers, many receivers do. And I wanted to make this point very clear if you have a receiver, like a Sony receiver Denon receiver that has a pH input. What you absolutely do not wanna do is plug your turntable into a pH O preamp and then plug that preamp into the pH oh, input of the receiver, because that pH input is expecting that lower level. But if it, if you plug the pH preamp into it, you're gonna get the regular level and it's gonna blow that phono input, just blow it all to pieces. So that's called double pre amping and you really, really don't want to do that. So plug it into, if you do wanna use your pheno preamp, plug it into a different input into the CD input on the receiver or something like that.

Scott Wilkinson (00:33:39):
Now the Rockville blue tube amplifier does not have a phono preamp does not have a pH oh, input in it. So you do wanna use a phono preamp this he has a TCC TC seven 50 LC, just a bunch of numbers letters doesn't really matter. Alpha numeric soup. It's a pH O preamp. So you plug your turntable into the pH O preamp. You plug the preamps output into the Rockville blue tube. Amplifier all is well it'll sound great. But if you have a regular receiver, and in fact, he, he bought an, a, a very inexpensive Sony receiver just cause he wanted to listen to, to his records before he got the Rockville. And he says, should I put my pH O preamp in front of it? And I said, I, I say yes, as long as you don't plug it into the pH oh. Input of that Sony receiver, because then you'll have problems. But if you plug it into a different input, no problem it'll sound great. Hmm. So that's that's a little, a little vinyl wisdom for those who, who are interested in vinyl. I, myself, I'm not that interested in vinyl. I prefer digital. And I know I might be in the minority of audio files. But I just, I don't like the hassle of dealing with vinyl.

Mikah Sargent (00:35:01):
That's fair. It takes up a lot of space. And as you said, you've got multiple. If you wanna get the best sound possible, you've gotta use all these different devices, these contractions

Scott Wilkinson (00:35:10):
To make it work.

Mikah Sargent (00:35:11):
Yep. So I get that. I like occasionally I it's, because it reminds me of my great granddad as why <laugh> like,

Scott Wilkinson (00:35:19):
I would, yeah. Did you have one of those Moran systems or

Mikah Sargent (00:35:22):
Something like that had some huge thing and just hundreds and hundreds. And I would go down into the basement and listen to that. Yeah. And so that for me is why I, I really like 

Scott Wilkinson (00:35:31):
Vinyl. It's, it's a nostalgia factor. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> for you and your great grandfather, which is great. And even the youngsters today, such as yourself like to listen to vinyl and audio files, like to listen to vinyl because of an sort of an ineffable quality of warmth. I it's an analog source.

Mikah Sargent (00:35:53):
I feel it. I feel that you do. Yeah. I, I agree

Scott Wilkinson (00:35:56):
About that. All right. And that's, that's totally valid. And in fact, Dave, with his tube am pre amplifier will have a warm quality to it. Tube amplification does have a warmth to it, that digital amplification doesn't. And there's no, there's no disputing that. Now it happens to be distortion, right.

Mikah Sargent (00:36:17):
<Laugh>

Scott Wilkinson (00:36:18):
It's not accurate, but it's very pleasing Uhhuh. And so if you like it more power to you, I say, that's

Mikah Sargent (00:36:26):
What it is. If you like it more power to you,

Scott Wilkinson (00:36:28):
That's it, that's it. I, myself prefer accuracy. But that's just me. Yeah. And so, you know, okay, I'll listen to CDs. I'll listen to high res audio files from title and Cobas. Those are the two services that I really like for streaming because they offer high Def high res audio. But there you go.

Mikah Sargent (00:36:50):
Thank you. Scott Wilkinson home theater geek, youtube.com/avs forum

Scott Wilkinson (00:37:11):
Air there, zonk

Mikah Sargent (00:37:13):
<Laugh>.

Scott Wilkinson (00:37:14):
I was waiting for that, that little, that little thing at the end.

Mikah Sargent (00:37:17):
No

Scott Wilkinson (00:37:19):
Zonk,

Mikah Sargent (00:37:22):
Well underway. Will you be sticking around from the top of the hour?

Scott Wilkinson (00:37:28):
I'm happy to do that.

Mikah Sargent (00:37:30):
A little. That's wonderful.

Scott Wilkinson (00:37:31):
We don't have to go house hunting anymore.

Mikah Sargent (00:37:34):
Yay.

Scott Wilkinson (00:37:36):
We actually closed extra on our house last Tuesday.

Mikah Sargent (00:37:41):
Congratulations. Congratulations

Scott Wilkinson (00:37:43):
To see you most so happy. Thank you. Thank you. We are super happy about it. We we've got a really nice place.

Mikah Sargent (00:37:50):
Do you have a room? You're gonna paint all black.

Scott Wilkinson (00:37:53):
I do. I actually do. Yes. it's not a, it's not a complete room. Unfortunately. I, I could build a wall to make it a complete room, but I think I'm not gonna do that for various reasons, but it's a, it's an area that can be curtained off. It'll have, it's basically a, a three-sided room. That's open then to the kitchen. Got it. And so I'm gonna paint the, the walls and ceiling that, that are enclosed by this three wall by these three walls of dark charcoal, Mon cell gray. And my wife actually has decided that there's very little actual wall in the kitchen. It's mostly tile and back splash and you know, that kind of stuff. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> cabinetry. So, but she wa she's decided it would be a good idea to paint what little wall there is in the kitchen, that same charcoal grant.

Mikah Sargent (00:38:54):
Well,

Scott Wilkinson (00:38:55):
Wow. It's gonna be very dramatic actually. <Laugh>,

Mikah Sargent (00:38:59):
It's a nice it sounds like you will get get your Monso gray room, which is great.

Scott Wilkinson (00:39:04):
I, I that's exactly right.

Mikah Sargent (00:39:06):
That's great. And you can level up your tapestry game. <Laugh> the curtains to divide between

Scott Wilkinson (00:39:13):
Exactly, exactly. We're, we're, we're looking at various options there, but you know, when we're watching informally, like, you know, having dinner, whatever it's nice to have the screening room open to the kitchen where if, oh, you know, I forgot my drink and you don't have to say, okay, well, I'm gonna pause it while you go over to the kitchen and

Mikah Sargent (00:39:33):
Come back. Oh, you can just go walk over.

Scott Wilkinson (00:39:34):
You just go walk over there and still be watching what you're watching. So that's, that's actually a lifestyle thing for us. And then when I wanna watch more seriously, we're actually thinking about maybe getting accordion. You, you know what I'm talking about? Like those. Yes. That's

Mikah Sargent (00:39:51):
Not. I remember in elementary school we had those accordion dividers. Yes, yes. Between the rooms. Yep,

Scott Wilkinson (00:39:56):
Exactly. So we're actually thinking about getting one of those so I can close it off if I want to be a little more isolated. Yeah. 

Mikah Sargent (00:40:05):
And they have, they have good sound blocking built. Those accordion walls have pretty good sound.

Scott Wilkinson (00:40:09):
Certainly better than a curtain.

Mikah Sargent (00:40:11):
Yeah. Yeah. I guess cuz of the nature of how they're shaped and if you get thick enough then.

Scott Wilkinson (00:40:16):
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So now I'm starting to shop for those things.

Mikah Sargent (00:40:21):
Cool. That's exciting.

Scott Wilkinson (00:40:23):
It's very exciting. Now we're not gonna move in for a few months actually, cuz we're doing some remodeling before we move in. We

Mikah Sargent (00:40:29):
That's

Scott Wilkinson (00:40:30):
Smart. We gonna add a, add a third bathroom. There's only two bathrooms in the place and we want to have a third bathroom. So we, and we have, we live in this we're we're in our current house till the end of the year. We're on a lease. So might as well do all the piece. Yeah. Construction while we're not in

Mikah Sargent (00:40:46):
There. Exactly. That's fantastic. Very

Scott Wilkinson (00:40:49):
Smart. So we're very happy about it. It's all coming together beautifully. Well and we get to stay in Santa Cruz. Oh man.

Mikah Sargent (00:40:57):
It's your Mecca. Is that what it's

Scott Wilkinson (00:40:58):
It is it, it is our Mecca. That is exactly what it is precisely. Right. We just had dinner with our extended family last night, pizza night at our house. It was just wonderful.

Mikah Sargent (00:41:09):
Nice. Well, Scott we'll see you soon. Thank you. You

Scott Wilkinson (00:41:12):
Bet. Happy to be here.

Mikah Sargent (00:41:16):
<Laugh> you Jeremiah folks. This is the tech guy and look, I don't want no scrubs that's for sure. <Laugh> I am here in place of Leo Laport today to take your tech questions. 88 88, ask Leo that's (888) 827-5536. That's the phone number you call if you've got tech questions and you're looking for my tech answers. All right. Let us Sue, who are we going to go to on the phones? Let us go to Barbara in Sunland, California. Hello Barbara. Oh, I turned on the wrong microphone. Let's try that again. Hello Barbara.

Caller 2 (00:42:07):
Hi, this is Barbara. How are you?

Mikah Sargent (00:42:09):
I'm doing well, Barbara. How are you?

Caller 2 (00:42:11):
I'm doing great. I just have a simple question. I'm a senior citizen. Not computer literate. I'm a songwriter. Oh. And I, I just speak for all those artists out there that wanna give back to the community, using their gifts and talents. So I have all these songs on tape cassettes. Okay. And I think, you know where I'm going with this? What do I do with, I wanna get them on the internet and have people listen to them and I can make money or not make money. It's more about the art history involved and, or should I do music videos on YouTube? Can you, can you direct me in the right direction please? Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (00:42:48):
So the first thing that you need to do of course is to take these tapes and make them digital. We happen to have the home theater geek with us here who, I wouldn't be surprised if he's gotten this question before. Do you have Scott, a workflow that you recommend for making tapes into digital versions

Scott Wilkinson (00:43:09):
<Laugh> yes. My workflow actually is to take them to a good friend of mine in LA and have him do it <laugh>

Mikah Sargent (00:43:16):
Oh, so you've got the phone number and address so we can share <laugh>

Scott Wilkinson (00:43:19):
Yeah, well actually you're in, you're in LA right? Or nearby. Yeah.

Caller 2 (00:43:23):
Yeah. Right. Yeah. I love Burbank and Sunland. Oh,

Scott Wilkinson (00:43:26):
Holy that's right. Okay. Well I used to live in Burbank, so I know the area very well. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> I, I, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure my friend would appreciate me giving out this information on the air mm-hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> although he does this for a living, but he's, he's pretty backed up. Tell you what, let, let me, let me send you if, if we can somehow work it out, I will send you his information. He's down in Hollywood. So it's not too far Uhhuh

Mikah Sargent (00:43:55):
Barbara, what we'll have you do is stay on the air after I say goodbye and Kim will take your information. She'll pass that along to me. And I'll pass that along to Scott so that you can get that information. Your other option of course, would be to purchase. There are cassette to digital converters that you can find on Amazon, correct, where you, you know, just plug it into your computer and you do that Uhhuh. But as you're saying, being someone who you know is not super steeped in tech that can get kind of complicated. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> with this, it sounds like you'll just get those files and you'll be able to do it within what you want. And I have a very easy recommendation for you. And it's one that is perfect because it also sort of fits modern culture. I don't know if you've ever heard of the site called SoundCloud

Caller 2 (00:44:41):
Mm-Hmm no. Okay.

Mikah Sargent (00:44:42):
So SoundCloud is this excellent website where people upload most of the time music and oh, and anyone can come along and listen to the music. You get to choose who gets to download it, who gets, you know, how you wanna do it. You can get paid all sorts of stuff. But what's fantastic about SoundCloud is it's kind of it is built into the pop culture of the internet. Oftentimes when something goes, what's called viral on the internet, it gets very popular on the internet. Yeah, the joke is that somebody will then follow up with that original post that got popular by saying, and here's my SoundCloud where they share a link to their own accounts where people can go listen to the music that they've created. But mm-hmm, <affirmative> because of that, SoundCloud is very well known. So you, Barbara would be super hip if you put your music on SoundCloud where people can check it out.

Mikah Sargent (00:45:36):
And I have to say one of the features that I love the most about SoundCloud is someone can be listening along to your music and they can leave a comment that is tied to that specific part in the song. So, you know, oh yeah. At a minute in 10 seconds in, in you perhaps, you know, hit this great melody and you somebody can comment and say, oh, I loved how this was. So you can get lots of great feedback on your music as well. And again, people will recognize that link soundcloud.com/barbara from Sunland or whatever you wanna make it. And they go, oh, gotta check that out.

Caller 2 (00:46:13):
Wonderful. may I ask you a quick question? Of course. So if I wanted to do music videos, would I do those on YouTube?

Mikah Sargent (00:46:20):
Ooh. Well, okay. How, how how hip do you wanna be? Because if you wanna be super, super hip Barbara talk would be the place to do your music videos.

Caller 2 (00:46:32):
Oh, TikTok. I see. Okay. <laugh>

Mikah Sargent (00:46:35):
But I think YouTube's a good place because that way it's gonna have a long history. If that makes sense, YouTube guaranteed to be around for a long time, it's often a place for kind of archiving video content there's stuff there. Oh,

Caller 2 (00:46:49):
There you go. Using

Mikah Sargent (00:46:50):
Years ago. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so, and it's also very easy to use. Tiktok is a little bit, I, I, I struggle with, I only go on there to watch things. I don't create content cuz I find it kinda difficult to figure out. So yeah. Barbara, I think you are you are instinct about using YouTube or are a good one and I's super exciting that you're gonna make music videos. What are you planning on using to, oh,

Caller 2 (00:47:12):
Just, just me playing the guitar, like, you know, like, so people could have a visual with the songs I wrote, you

Mikah Sargent (00:47:19):
Know, that sounds lovely. <Laugh> that sounds lovely. So are you gonna use an iPhone or do you have a camera that you're gonna use to do that?

Caller 2 (00:47:25):
Oh, I, I use a senior, senior citizen flip flop phone. I, I probably should get an iPhone. That's how back, back behind I am at the times.

Mikah Sargent (00:47:35):
<Laugh> I love that. You've got a flip phone though. That's fantastic.

Caller 2 (00:47:38):
Oh yeah. It saves me a lot. I don't wanna, you know, buy something I shouldn't buy, you know?

Mikah Sargent (00:47:42):
Right. And history is repeating itself.

Caller 2 (00:47:44):
I'm afraid of

Mikah Sargent (00:47:46):
<Laugh>. I understand. I was just talking about that at the beginning of the show that it's, it's totally understandable that this technology can seem super overwhelming. I, I totally understand that. Well, you know, you might consider first then ask if you've got a friend who has taken who's dipped their toes into modern technology. You could ask a friend to help you record something before you go out. I would, I would hate to have you go out and buy an iPhone just for the purpose of doing this. If you've got somebody out there, family member or something who could help.

Caller 2 (00:48:18):
So I can record some music, videos, me playing guitar or friends, playing guitar on an iPhone. I can do that and then put it on the internet.

Mikah Sargent (00:48:26):
Absolutely. Yeah. Very easy to do. Okay. Using in fact the YouTube if you, if you get, I know this is a lot more information, but if you did have a smartphone and you download the YouTube app, then the YouTube app itself will allow you to just create video right there and upload it to the YouTube platform. It would give you the link that you could then share on whatever social media you're on and you'd be able to do that. But again, I, I think between SoundCloud for just your straight up tracks that you wanna post and YouTube, you'll be right as rain. 

Caller 2 (00:49:04):
Well you answered my question SoundCloud. I'm definitely gonna do and do the smartphone with the upload of the YouTube app. Thank you so much.

Mikah Sargent (00:49:11):
You're so welcome, Barbara. And please reach out when you have have gotten your SoundCloud set up so we can, we can

Caller 2 (00:49:17):
Share it. Oh, I will. Thank you.

Mikah Sargent (00:49:25):
All right. I put Barbara on hold. I think I successfully pulled that off. Alright. Let's see, who do we have next? We've we've got one minute left. I think we'll wait to take a call. So I think you know, a lot of people end up having that question of, okay, what, what is it that I need to be able to put content online? I, I, I wanna join that, that process. I wanna have that fun and have my, the stuff that I'm making, the stuff that I care about, the stuff that I enjoy out there. And yeah, I think that YouTube is one place where you can count on it being a simple process to upload. But also they simplify it as much as they possibly can. And then as far as SoundCloud, it's just a lot of people know about SoundCloud. I also find it a very easy thing to use and I've gotten plenty of different links from SoundCloud in the past. And I, I like that I can do that there. So I'm looking forward to hearing what Barbara has for us that phone number to call if you've got questions, eighty eight, eighty eight, ask Leo for the tech guy radio show.

Mikah Sargent (00:51:01):
Thank you, Kim. Hopefully you saw that Scott.

Scott Wilkinson (00:51:04):
Yeah, I did. Thanks Kim.

Mikah Sargent (00:51:06):
I'm gonna step away and get some coffee, Scott. Yeah,

Scott Wilkinson (00:51:08):
Please do. Thanks. I only, no, I have more than 38 seconds. So I've got 38 seconds plus eight minutes in something or five minutes something. It is. Thank you. So hello, everybody. So nice to see you all as always. Yeah, I it's funny. I, I wasn't sure whether my friend who does this professionally would want his, his information out there because he does, I mean, broadcast on the radio, cuz he does do this for a living, but he's already, he's always very busy. And so to get inundated with, you know, a ton more stuff I'm just not sure I'll ask him and if he does want it out there or maybe I'll mention it next week. But I had a ton of cassettes and reel to reel tapes. In fact, I just had him do this. I had him do a large collection of real to reels and cassettes which basically represent my entire musical history, going all the way back to high school.

Scott Wilkinson (00:52:14):
I had some cassettes of me playing in my high school Dixieland band. And even further than that, I have, I had some real to reels of my father playing music and my playing music. In fact, one project that, that he did for me a little while ago was some real tore tapes of my mother at age must have been 15, 16 singing. She was a color, a tourist soprano got a full boat scholarship to USC music school. And so at 15 or 16, which must have been, and that was in the thirties or early forties, I have some recordings of her playing and in at least in one case with her father playing violin and he was a vis in the LA Phil harmonic in the twenties and thirties and my friend, Johnny digitized those for me. And and that was really special cuz I don't have a reel to reel tape deck anymore.

Scott Wilkinson (00:53:22):
I don't even have a cassette deck anymore, but Johnny has every single tape machine ever made basically. So he can, he can convert anything to digital and he's really good at it. So it was worth it to me to pay him, to convert those things into digital rather than try to do it myself, which as Mikah said and rightly so is actually a fairly complex process. Now I'm an audio guy and I could have done it if I'd had the equipment tape, deck analog output to a USB audio interface to the computer and then into the computer, but making sure the levels are right trying to reduce the noise, maybe doing, pardon me, some EQ you know, that's a whole process. And at the time that I had him do most of the stuff I was in the process of moving. So I really didn't want to do that.

Scott Wilkinson (00:54:25):
So I will look forward to communicating with Barbara and getting her that information. Hey loquacious, always great to see you in the chat room. I'm always happy to see your name there. Let's see chicken head 21. Thank you. Congrats on my home. He was also able to watch my podcast a couple weeks ago. Yes. the couple weeks ago the, the fellow that I had on was Chuck back and his home theater is amazing. I I'm gonna have him back and we're gonna talk about his home theater cuz that's not what the point of that show was, but you're right. His, his was the home theater that I, I went, yeah, that's what I would have painted all the right color acoustic treatments. Really, really nice.

Scott Wilkinson (00:55:20):
Let's see. Mac bookie says, looks like the high sense PX one pro UST projector finally coming to the UK. Woo. Have you had any experience with this projector? I have not, but I have had experience with earlier high sense, UST ultra short throw projectors. And they they're really generally very good. I'm sure that one is the next generation beyond where I had experience a and probably I have to look this up uses actually three lasers, red, green, and blue to produce the full color picture. And I know Leo has the one that I reviewed actually now and he, he likes it. He uses it at home. Although when he wants to be more, to have more critical viewing, he goes to the O led TV. Which of course I would too. Shortwave says I bought a hip deck too, really enjoying it.

Scott Wilkinson (00:56:13):
I'm so glad I love that thing. Thanks for the info on this device. I did give that info some time ago, but I still have a hip hip D one an original and it's wonderful. It just, this is a Dak digital audio converter <laugh> at this company that makes it IFI. I F I called the hip D because it kind of looks like a hip flask for, for liquor, but it's not that it's a D a digital to audio converter. You plug it into your iPhone or, or Android phone I'm sure. And it gives you much better performance than the phones. Internal D all digital music has to be converted to analog at some point. So you need a D all phones have a D, but they're not that great. I mean, they're fine for casual listening, but if you really wanna get the best out of it then you need an external D and the hip D is only what, 150 bucks, something like that, which you know is not, not too not too bad.

Scott Wilkinson (00:57:21):
Towed sloth says I have more than 500 Ks cassettes someday. Maybe, maybe not convert. You know, that's another thing about doing a conversion of a large selection, which I didn't want to do is the time involved. Even if you set up all the tech correctly, you hit play. You wait for that side of the cassette. You have to manually flip it over, do it, do it the other way. Then put the next one in. Do that 500 times. Holy smokes. No, I think I shall not do that. I shall pay someone to do that for me, who has all the equipment already to go that's that's how I felt about it. Anyway. oh, somebody said here Oso, hang onto those Ned MD MD MDs, maybe mini disk, the, the little Sony mini disk. That was another interesting. That was a digital format though. So you could with, if you had a player, you could just squirt those bits straight into your computer. It's the converting from analog. That's a problem.

Scott Wilkinson (00:58:41):
So let's see here, web 9 0 9. Would you, would you recommend the Sony XR? 48, a 90 K over the LG O led 48 C2 for 48, 48 inch TV in a darkish room, mostly watching movies and cable TV. That's a good question. The LG is gonna be less expensive. The Sony probably will have better processing by a little bit. Anyway. Sony is probably better higher quality slightly, but they both use the same panel, the same O led panel. So it's the, the difference in quality is not gonna be dramatic. So if you wanna save money, I'd go with a Sony of the LG. Sorry. but if like seeing that Sony name plate on your TV and, and you wanna bump up the quality maybe a little bit then, and you have the extra money, then Sony would not be a bad choice. So that's how that works. Let's see, I still have many disks, but my JVC MD recorder player died. Yeah. See, that's another problem. Mars worm the equipment, if you keep it long enough, it doesn't work anymore. I still actually do have a cassette deck. I will, I will say that I, and it's a, a professional cassette deck. It's sat unused for years. And when we moved, I actually had it refurbished so that I could actually use it, but probably not.

Scott Wilkinson (01:00:31):
Oh, the music is here. <Laugh> and there's Mikah.

Mikah Sargent (01:00:35):
Yay. Thank you so much for your time every week.

Scott Wilkinson (01:00:38):
I genuinely my pleasure.

Mikah Sargent (01:00:39):
Thank you.

Scott Wilkinson (01:00:39):
Oh, sure. I hope you hope you had a good cup of coffee.

Mikah Sargent (01:00:42):
I did. Thanks. <laugh>. Hey bet. Hey, hello and hi out there. I, you know what? I keep trying to come up with some sort of tagline. That's not, Hey, Hey. Hey. How are you today? I'm so used to that one. It's I mean, it's a good one. It's a good one. Leo has a good tagline. But in any case, Aloha friends, <laugh>, I am Mica Sargent the other tech guy tech guy as well stepping in for Leola port today on the radio show, the tech guy. And if you, if you don't know, well, let me tell you the number to call is (888) 827-5536. Calling that number will give you the opportunity to chat with me and hopefully you'll get an answer for that tech question you have. So let us kick things off by going to the phones and seeing who's out there. We have Lamar calling in from, it seems LA Lamar

Caller 3 (01:01:44):
There, Mikah man, I used to watch the rapport back on tech TV way back when I was a kid, actually I couldn't get him, but this is probably a better question for you anyway. I don't know how up you are on current, the video game console landscape or anything like that, but I was wondering what you, if you had any thoughts at all on the position Nintendo is in, I think you, a few weeks ago, you mentioned you brought a steam deck onto the show, right? Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (01:02:13):
Yeah. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> that's correct. So you now hold on

Caller 3 (01:02:18):
Audio, cut out and 

Mikah Sargent (01:02:21):
Go

Caller 3 (01:02:21):
Ahead. Go ahead. Still with me.

Mikah Sargent (01:02:23):
Yeah, go ahead.

Caller 3 (01:02:26):
Yeah. And the seam deck has come out and it's kind of neck, not, I don't wanna say neck and neck competing with the switch. We'll say, and the switch is already an old device as it is. And I was just, and Sony's already moved on to the PlayStation five. Microsoft's obviously moving on to whatever new Xbox model there is. I was just wondering if you had any thoughts on what Nintendo should or ought to do or anything like that?

Mikah Sargent (01:02:55):
<Laugh> this is an interesting question, Lamar, mostly because I can speak anecdotally. I, I don't have the, the data obviously, so I can only speak anecdotally, but from everything that I've seen, people absolutely love the Nintendo switch. There are new games coming up in the Nintendo switch all the time games that often in the past would only be available for PC and console are making their way to the Nintendo switch Nintendo was doing so well with the switch that they came out with a new version of the same thing, just with the O led screen and some updates there. That's

Caller 3 (01:03:28):
Right. That's right. The Olen. Yeah,

Mikah Sargent (01:03:29):
They are going all in on the Nintendo switch. And I think with good reason, I had the steam deck in hand not too long ago, I showed it on, on this show and I did a review of it before that. And one of the things that's bugged me and continues to bug me about the steam deck is that it's being marketed as a portable console, but it is not a portable console. It is, oh, really? The battery life is terrible. And so you almost always have to have the thing plugged in. If you want to get good use out of it, it gets hot very quickly. I just had to replace the fan in it because the fan started whining. And this is an issue that a lot of people are experiencing where they end up having to buy a new fan for it.

Mikah Sargent (01:04:08):
It's not doing well. And it is, it, it is what it is in terms of, of what it provides, which it's, it's a, the great idea that you have this portable console that can do that can play desks top level games, but, but valve still hasn't even released the doc for it yet that it's supposed to make it into this device. That's supposed to be versatile where you can make it into kind of a, a desktop PC at some time at some point and a portable console at other times. And Nintendo already has that handled. The switch can be used as a console that, that sort of plugs in via the doc and becomes a whole TV. You can have two players using just what you get with it. I think Nintendo's doing just fine. I don't think they need to pivot at all.

Mikah Sargent (01:04:50):
I mean, what I could see for the next iteration of an Nintendo switch is of course, just keep upping the processor, keep upping the graphics, keep making sure that the battery life, that it has continues to improve, but I don't think they're in any kind of bad place in terms of where, where they are in the market. I think they own that portable gaming console market right now. I mean, PlayStation, we haven't had, there's no new PSP Microsoft way that they're focusing on. It is through Xbox cloud gaming where you use the smartphone that you already have, the only person I, or company that I see successfully pulling this off right now is Nintendo. Because as much as I think Val, what valve's doing is super cool. It's just, it doesn't hold a candle. It doesn't hold a battery, not there yet to the Nintendo switch. So yeah, I don't think Nintendo has anything to worry about right now.

Caller 3 (01:05:43):
Interesting. wow. I'm glad I got to hear your thoughts on that actually, to get back to work. Thank you so much for taking my call.

Mikah Sargent (01:05:49):
Yeah. Thank you for calling in. We appreciate it all. The next call comes from Gary in Rockford, Illinois. Hello, Gary.

Caller 3 (01:06:01):
Hey Michael, it's me Gary. That's you are Gary in discourse.

Mikah Sargent (01:06:06):
Oh, Hey Gary. What's up?

Caller 3 (01:06:10):
<Laugh> that much. How are you doing?

Mikah Sargent (01:06:11):
Oh, I am. I mean, I'm doing well and I it's always nice to see a familiar face. I don't know, hear a familiar voice. No, not even like that. Just know a familiar name. There we go. <Laugh>

Caller 3 (01:06:23):
Yeah. Yeah. So anyways the reason why I called was because this past week you know, I asked Mary Joe Foley from windows weekly on the trip networks podcast mm-hmm <affirmative> if the rumors were true, that windows seven was gonna have an extension for the paid subscribers until 20, 26 mm-hmm <affirmative>. Because the reason it was supposed to end on January 20, 23 mm-hmm <affirmative>. So of course the rumors were not true. Mary Jo reached out to Microsoft on that issue and their ending support has a January, 2023. But my question is, I know you may not know much about windows because you're more involved on apple, of course <laugh> but my question is why would someone want to still use windows seven? You know, it's almost like they're using, and it's like windows X, P you know, no one wants to change the operating service. I mean,

Mikah Sargent (01:07:17):
Honestly, if I could still be on windows XP on Elvis, my my, my windows machine, I would still be on windows, XP windows XP was great. So why no one why people aren't wanting to make the switch? I mean, it does, it goes back to that. This is something that, it, it, this is one of those things that ends up irking me is when people say they love change. I promise you that 99.97256% of people who say they love change are lying to you and lying to themselves. We are hard wired at the very root of our being to dislike change, because for, for folks who believe in modern science, we know that humans have been around for many, many, many, many, many years, and only have just now gotten into the ability to create tools and, and create technology and all of that magic.

Mikah Sargent (01:08:13):
And in that longer period of time where we were these nomads, these, these folks who hunted and, and got food change was something that was very dangerous to us change meant death. And so we, because we've only spent a short period of time being in a more comfy place where change doesn't result in death is it's still hardwired in us to not like change. So somebody who's still on windows seven, they don't want to change. They see that update and they think, oh, no, if I do that, I'm gonna have to relearn the system. I'm gonna have to figure out new things. I'm not gonna know how to do this. And at the same time that we don't like change, we're also very prideful beings. And so there's also that, that fear of like, I have a handle on this. I don't want to feel stupid.

Mikah Sargent (01:08:59):
I don't wanna feel incapable. I don't wanna feel like I can do what I need to do. And yeah, I hear that I'm not supposed to keep this old system because I could be getting data breaches and I could have viruses to worry about, but I'm comfortable here. I don't want to change. And that I think is the big reason. And then there's also huge companies who are on older systems. We talked about on windows, weekly dentists. They aren't changing because they're comfortable with the system and it would be expensive to make the change. Why would you wanna make that change and pay the money to do so if you don't have to. So, yeah, I, I, you, you said it correctly when you mentioned change, I think that's at the very root of this. That's why people are, are sticking with it. And only whenever they are dragged, kicking and screaming into the future, will they make that change? And we know of course that it's good for them to do so, and we hope that they will do that. Gary, I wanna thank you so much for calling in. We're about to get to another ad break. But it's always a pleasure to hear you on the show and see you in the chat. Thank you,

Mikah Sargent (01:10:03):
Leo Laport. It's the tech guy, mic Sargent is in for him today. Oh, John's got the shot of me pouring some cream into this coffee. Yes, folks today I do have half and half for my coffee today. I am a monster. I pulled over the cowbell from the door for whenever the cow bell music happens.

Mikah Sargent (01:11:08):
So I haven't gotten my new MacBook area yet. I get it on Monday. What's annoying is that it's been, been in Petaluma since Thursday? No Friday since yesterday. But I can't, it's scheduled to arrive on Monday and since apple scheduled it to arrive on Monday, I'm not allowed to get it until Monday, whenever they have officially released it at that point. I imagine like, if you knew some, if I knew someone at FedEx and I would be able to get it, but I don't know someone at FedEx, so they're like, yeah, you have to wait until Monday. That's when it's scheduled for delivery, but now I'm kind of nervous. I gotta tell you, I don't know if you've all seen the fingerprints on the midnight finish of the MacBook boy, it's very fingerprint heavy. Oh, no redacted. Cuz I'm a dissident. <Laugh> the government wants to put things on my computer. Wow. Look at that. I did a good job. There's a lot of foam could make like a little bird with the foam. It should come with gloves. Maybe I'll always wear gloves with it. I'll I'll get that affectation.

Mikah Sargent (01:12:34):
Did you know this is Kim playing this

Mikah Sargent (01:12:39):
<Laugh>

Mikah Sargent (01:12:46):
Boo and that is Laura playing the trumpet cow is Jeremiah when it comes in. <Laugh> the <laugh> fair enough. I just get a feeling that Jeremiah probably gets lots of comments on his voice on the regular. So I try not to point it out. It's like when you're tall and everyone's like, you're so tall. How tall are you? Yes, I know. I've, I've been this way for a while now.

Mikah Sargent (01:13:24):
Welcome back to the tech guy radio show. I am Mikah Sargent subbing in for Leo Laport, the other tech guy happy to be here with you today to answer your tech questions. This of course is the radio show where you call in with your tech questions. And I do my darnest to answer them as much as I possibly can. You know, it's, it's, it's important to, to help those folks out as much as I can. Let's see, what's going on out there with Al I see in orange county, California, welcome to the show

Caller 4 (01:14:04):
Al. Hello, Mikah. How are

Mikah Sargent (01:14:06):
You? I am doing well. Thank you. How are you?

Caller 4 (01:14:08):
Wonderful. Good to hear from you. Listen, sir, I have a friend that is doing a pro doing a YouTube news. He's got, he uses a green screen. Okay. But the thing is most green screen is just a little screen with a green on it and they put in an image in the back or whatever they do. They do. But he's looking for he when he has a, a like a guest mm-hmm <affirmative>, it depends on what they're wearing. Some of these screens kind of become crazy and it doesn't show correctly. He told me some user station, they do have smart screen screen, or they do something. They have this suspension device with a USB, or maybe even it is a green screen with a cable coming out of the background or something. Yeah. Adjusted the color for the, some of these clothing or colors that maybe his guest is wearing it adjusted. So they don't look weird on the screen. Yeah. Is there such a thing called the smart green screen?

Mikah Sargent (01:15:13):
So there is it, obviously it doesn't have that term. But here's, so I, I think that honestly, the best thing that your friend can do is always say, Hey, if you're gonna come under the show today I do use a green screen for the show and it so we ask that you don't wear green. That is the most important thing that you can do,

Caller 4 (01:15:35):
But understand

Mikah Sargent (01:15:36):
Outside of that. And, and honestly, there's not as, as far as I know, there is not a green screen technology in the world that is going to be able to make somebody who is wearing green fully show up on screen. Even though the background is green because just by the nature of the technology, it's, it's not something that's able to be done when if that is ever the situation, then what is happening there is that this is not there wouldn't be in a live situation. It would be in a recorded situation. They would send that footage off to a professional computer, computer folks who computer graphics, folks who would then properly do that. But here's what I wanna tell you depending on the budget of your friend there is a simple way that is meant for those of us who exist outside of the news broadcast network.

Mikah Sargent (01:16:32):
And it is called the ATEM mini. This is from a company called black magic design, and it's at black magic design.com. Again, all of these notes will be posted on tech guy labs.com, but black magic design makes a device called the ATEM mini and built into the ATEM mini is a green screen key. These are called keyers and its green screen key is a professional keying technology that is made in the same way that that broadcast news uses and that lots of different companies use. And so it is more powerful and more tuneable than you're going to get from just a software key that is built into, you know, zoom for example it is I've, I've used it in the past and it's kind of incredible at how good it is. It's not like when you are watching a show where somebody has turned on that background and you can still see parts of their actual background sort of near their ears and over their shoulders.

Mikah Sargent (01:17:40):
And you can tell that they've turned on the weird zoom background or the Skype background, or what have you with this, it is a full on key that basically works at the, as close to the video input level as it possibly can. So it's going to do a much better job being able to show that live versus what your friend is probably using, which is the software version that's doing its darnest and trying its hardest, but just does not have that level that you would get with something like you would from the ATEM mini from black magic. Now ATEM makes several different versions of the, or excuse me, black magic makes several different versions of the ATEM mini, so that it's well within, you know, price points that you might have. And for your friends' purposes, the smallest one, it's the one that I have at home would serve the purposes that your friend needs.

Mikah Sargent (01:18:35):
There are some other options out there and you could do you could have your friend you know, do a, do a search for John, are those upstream or downstream keyers have your friend do a search for downstream key and see what's out there. My experience has been with the black magic designs, a 10 mini. And so that's the one that I would recommend in this situation. And I'm sure that in that case it would help your friend get a better key. But again, if the person's wearing green, unless you've got understood. Yeah. Then that's, that's just not, not solvable.

Caller 4 (01:19:17):
Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm grateful for the, this is probably what he's gonna need, but he wasn't quite sure what it is and what's the name of it. Most likely it is that ATM from black magic. So thank you for everything and keep all the good, good work. Thank I'm very happy on listening.

Mikah Sargent (01:19:36):
Thank you so much, Al, and good luck to your friend on, on the show. Appreciate

Caller 4 (01:19:40):
It. Thank you. Thank you, byebye.

Mikah Sargent (01:19:43):
All right. Now we have Dennis calling in from San Jigo. Hello, Dennis.

Caller 4 (01:19:51):
Hi Mikah. I'm calling about a TiVo issue. Oh, I believe. Okay. Last I've had TiVo for a long time and I noticed I wasn't getting a the Doy sound 5.1. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> added my Sonos system. So I called TiVo. Well, I first I called Sonos and Sonos did some troubleshooting with me and they, the TV box and only use the TV and the apps that are on the TV with the optical cable, from the TV plugged into the sound bar mm-hmm <affirmative> and they were able to get the the Doby sound. And they said, well, it's not Sonos because as you can see, when you're playing your TV with the apps that are on the TV, you're getting the sound. But when I go through the TiVo and use the optical connection from the TiVo to the TV, they're not delivering the the digital sound. Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (01:21:12):
So the box something that you just said had me, Paul had me go, wait, what you said optical cable. There is, there is, for some reason out there, this idea that optical cables are the way to go. And in fact, it's HDM. I, and we'll talk about that. During the break, I do need to take a quick break, but don't worry, stick around. We'll talk about why optical is not superior to H D M I so stick around for that mic Sargent in for Leo Laport, the tech guy radio show. All right. Still there.

Caller 4 (01:22:11):
Yes, I'm here.

Mikah Sargent (01:22:12):
All right. So yeah, the, the most important thing that you can do is make sure this, this is funny. This is quickly becoming a theme on the show is, and I know that you talked to two different support teams and I'm curious you know, why, why they didn't have a pause at, at using optical while optical was very, very good at passing along audio for quite a while. The more modern codex, the more modern methods of passing along audio are supported by H D M I and are no longer supported by the optical cables. And so you are going to get in any situation, a better signal passing through by using a modern H D I cable to, to pass that along. So I wouldn't be surprised if this is as simple we've recommended in the past. We'll include a link in the show notes to some H D I cables that are the, as modern as you can get. And they're from a company called cable matters. I've replaced all of the H D I cables in my home with this and using the arc port on your television. So there will be an H D M I arc port on your television. There will be probably an H D I arc port on the Sonos device that you're using. And essentially,

Caller 4 (01:23:33):
Well, there's only one, there's only one HDM I port on the, on the Tevo

Mikah Sargent (01:23:37):
On the TiVo or on the on the Sonos.

Caller 4 (01:23:42):
I'm sorry, on the, yeah, there's only on the play bar. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> just lemme take a look at

Mikah Sargent (01:23:53):
It. Yeah. The Sonos play bar should hopefully have more than one. H D M I port, no,

Caller 4 (01:23:58):
It the Sonos play bar. No, it has two Ethan that ports one optical port mm-hmm and that's all

Mikah Sargent (01:24:10):
It doesn't have any H DMI ports on it.

Caller 4 (01:24:14):
No. Interesting. No, not on this Sonos play bar. No.

Mikah Sargent (01:24:19):
Two ethernet ports.

Caller 4 (01:24:21):
Two ethernet ports. Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (01:24:24):
All right. I'm looking at the Sonos play bar now.

Caller 4 (01:24:27):
Well, this is, this is series one play bar.

Mikah Sargent (01:24:30):
Ah, okay.

Caller 4 (01:24:33):
Interesting. No, it was, now's working just fine. Last month and I, when I called TiVo, they, I, and I explained to them what Sonos did by bypassing it go directly into the play bar with the optical mm-hmm <affirmative> and it worked, they said, oh, okay. We'll send, it's probably the box. And, and they sent me a new box. They charged me 25 bucks because it was at a warranty for, they wanted 70 bucks. And I talked them down to 25, but they sent me a new box. And, and I, it add the same problem.

Mikah Sargent (01:25:07):
Yeah. I don't, I don't think that this is a solvable problem. So it sounds like your play bar might be too far out of date to be able to handle it the way that you are hoping to handle it, because what's happening here is the way that you're bypassing it, of course will let you pass that data through as it needs to be, but to get it all working together, it needs not just the the ability to pass that high quality data, but it also needs to speak with essentially a modern language. And so your, your play bar, your Sonos play bar generation one, it's speaking Latin. And unfortunately at this point, Latin is a dead language and your other devices are wanting to speak English to it. And so when they try to then that communication isn't taking place, because that, that translation that's happening, isn't there. We will include, there have been a few links, including some from the TiVo community forums that might have a little bit more information for you, but ultimately it sounds like we've got a problem here with the connection methods. And honestly I would request to get that money back that they charged you given that yeah, I,

Caller 4 (01:26:20):
I am for sure. And, and, but it doesn't explain why a month ago it was working. Yeah. And now it stopped.

Mikah Sargent (01:26:30):
Okay. See the, yeah, that's, that's some more information that definitely plays a role. Unfortunately, I do have to get back to the show but we will have some links for you in the show notes. Thank you so much, Dennis. He's been everywhere. He's been there. He's been here. He's been all the way to Canada and back is Johnny jet. Hello, Johnny.

Johnny Jet (01:26:55):
Hello, Mikah. I'm listening to your last segment and I've actually brought up a question for you, but also I'm wearing a green shirt. I'm like, I'm glad I don't have a green screen.

Mikah Sargent (01:27:03):
<Laugh> yeah. Well, as far as we know, maybe you're working with a blue screen back there and you've always done a background that's fake.

Johnny Jet (01:27:09):
Yeah. You never know <laugh>, but you're doing a great job. You're you are even more relaxed than last weekend, which is hard to do.

Mikah Sargent (01:27:15):
I'm glad you feel that. I'm glad you feel that. I do feel a little bit more comfy this time. Thank you.

Johnny Jet (01:27:19):
Definitely. I can only imagine so good work. Thank you. So my quick question for you is we came back from Canada, as you said, and we can't find the Roku for one of our TVs, the remote, and right now I'm using my phone. They, they have a great phone app. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> but my phone upstair is upstairs right now. Cuz my son to keep him quiet. He's watching PBS

Mikah Sargent (01:27:38):
Kids. Oh, nice. Nice.

Johnny Jet (01:27:40):
But I'm like, can I buy just replacement? Remote, do you know? Ah,

Mikah Sargent (01:27:44):
So you just want a new Roku remote because you can't find the one that you have. Yeah.

Johnny Jet (01:27:49):
So can you just get one in parrot

Mikah Sargent (01:27:50):
Or yeah. So this is actually, what's kind of cool is that there are different remotes that they have and some are more powerful. So there's the Roku voice remote pro that it is rechargeable. It has a lost remote finder, a a, a, you might want that yeah. Available for 30 bucks. And then there's the one that's available for 20 bucks that has the voice control and all of that kind of stuff, but without the lost remote finder. Gotcha. And then if you, if you just wanna budget one, while you wait to find the one that you lost, $15, there's a Roku simple remote, and you just go into the Roku settings and there'll be an option. I think it says remotes and devices is the option and it'll have the ability to do that. And you can use the app as you're doing to, you know, get to that menu and, and pair the new one. Great.

Johnny Jet (01:28:34):
Thank you for that. Yeah, no problem. I have some stuff planned, but listen last week you asked me a question and it was a great question. So, you know, if you have any travel questions yourself that you want to talk about. Yeah. I'm happy to answer. I know that, you know, you did mention like a month or two ago that you said you'd never been outta the country.

Mikah Sargent (01:28:53):
Yes. This is true. This

Johnny Jet (01:28:54):
Is true. And, and I dunno if you want to talk about it on air, but do you mind saying, why is it, you know, is it either, no. Is it a fair or, or financial or,

Mikah Sargent (01:29:02):
Yeah, so as a kid I grew up pretty, pretty poor. So our family, we didn't go, we didn't do many vacations or anything like that. Anytime there was a vacation, it was because it was tied to something else. I was for example, part of an international nerdy kid competition. And so we ended up going to Colorado for that, but it was always, you know, there was a reason to do it, not just kind of a for fun thing, because we couldn't afford to do that. And that has kind of stayed with me over time. And now I have two dogs and gotcha. So then that adds to the financial burden definitely of taking the trip. Yeah. So there are many reasons I, but that said, it's not one of those things that I'll never do. I absolutely 100% want to do it. Okay. Yeah.

Johnny Jet (01:29:47):
Well, listen, I, I, we never traveled internationally growing up either. And my first trip overseas was when I was 23. Oh

Mikah Sargent (01:29:55):
Really?

Johnny Jet (01:29:56):
Yeah. Where'd you go? My problem was, well, first of all, it was financial and then it was fear cuz I used to have asthma and then I had anxiety. I was afraid to leave the house at one point. And my first trip was to Hong Kong, but no way it's a long, but I was afraid of long flights. I didn't know if I'd be able to breathe on the plane. I didn't know if I'd be able to breathe when I got to Hong Kong and once I got there, I just fell in love. I was there for a month and I traveled all around. I got addicted to my miles and that's when I started my newsletter. I was 20 Johnny.

Mikah Sargent (01:30:26):
I love this story. I didn't know this.

Johnny Jet (01:30:28):
Oh really? How did you, how

Mikah Sargent (01:30:29):
Did you overcome that? Cause I, I, that's not something that I have experienced, but my mom for example, is she is not a huge fan of, of taking planes. Did, did you, did you knock yourself out <laugh> and then you no. How did that

Johnny Jet (01:30:42):
Go? No, you know, I've talked about this many times. I actually did an interview this week. So it all depends my fear. First of all, it was crashing. And then I spoke to so many flight attendants and pilots and I realized, I looked at the statistics. I realized it's much safer to fly than to drive. I remember once I landed from London to LA and the pilot, the British airways pilot said the safest part of your journey's now over, please be careful on those freeways.

Mikah Sargent (01:31:05):
I love that. I love that.

Johnny Jet (01:31:07):
And then also my, I was afraid of not being in control because I had asthma. What if I had an asthma attack, the plane can't just pull over to the side of the road, take me to the hospital. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and so that was a big thing. And also I had problems, you know, claustrophobia almost like. So I realized that, you know, what, spend the extra money to either get upgraded or get a bulkhead seat, the aisle seat, exit row, whatever, give you more leg room. And I got over it. I realized it's actually I feel better on the plane. And things like that. It's a long story. I should, I should read another blog post about it, but yeah, I just want, I pride myself in trying to help people get over and to see the world because as corny as it sounds, I truly believe that the more people travel internationally, the less prejudices there will be in the world.

Mikah Sargent (01:31:52):
Amen.

Johnny Jet (01:31:53):
And so I just wanted to see if I could help with that, but looks like you're.

Mikah Sargent (01:31:57):
Yeah. I mean, yeah, but no, but it's, it's helpful because I've talked about this before, too. I think that travel is for folks who do it and can do it regularly. A lot of the time it's, it's a certain financial soundness a group with a certain financial soundness. And so it can feel kind of alienating for folks who, you know, can't afford to do that as much. Definitely. But whenever you look at it from that perspective and you also, I, I feel like you do a good job. You've always done a good job of acknowledging the humanity that's involved with all of this. And I've always appreciated that. And I think that that, that plays a role here too, for the, not just for the people who are on the plane, who are doing that hard work, but also for the people who, you know, it, you, you might go on a cruise, but you spent all your money on the cruise. So you can't afford to buy the plane ticket into the place where you're going on the cruise in the first place, you're having a drive there instead, all these different, you know, things that people have to remember whenever somebody is there, if they're investing in, in taking a trip. And so I think that's super important to keep in mind. And I think you do a good job of that.

Johnny Jet (01:33:03):
Thank you. And actually, speaking of cruises, there's a deal. One of my readers sent me $179 for six nights on a Northern Europe cruise MSC. That's $29 a night. Wow. It's actually cheaper to go on the cruise than it is to stay home. So right now a lot of the cruise ships are trying to fill up their inventory, fill in their inventory. So, you know, look at these deals. If you wait till September, October, you'll find cheaper flights and you'll also, you know, better weather and beat the crowds, especially in Europe. So think about that. Also I'm gonna put in the chat room, there's a, the us travel association has some deals for the next two weeks to August 12th and every day at 1:00 PM Eastern they're releasing them deals. And actually one that not all of them are great deals, but one of them that's pretty good is you can get a $250 Marriott Bonvoy gift card for $200.

Johnny Jet (01:33:53):
So you save $50. If you're booking Marriott hotels, that's gonna come out on Wednesday, July 25th, you can see their calendar and see which deals are, which, and if you like, 'em they have, they have everything from package deals at universal Orlando to Hyatt points. So that's a good way to save money and be able to travel. And that, I mean, that's, listen, I don't have a lot of money, so I I've always had to figure out ways how to travel the world and I've been able to do it. Yeah. You knock on wood. Yeah. And and one way is using your miles and points

Mikah Sargent (01:34:23):
That that's, there you go. You, you mentioned last time, that was a, a good tip. As long as you're paying it off a travel credit card can be very helpful. You just have

Johnny Jet (01:34:32):
To commit, you gotta pay it off in full every every month. No,

Mikah Sargent (01:34:36):
No questions. Ask

Johnny Jet (01:34:37):
No question to ask. Thank you. Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (01:34:39):
Yeah. Yeah, those are great tips. Anything from your blog? You wanna share?

Johnny Jet (01:34:43):
Sure. How much time we got? 

Mikah Sargent (01:34:45):
You've got about a minute.

Johnny Jet (01:34:47):
Okay. So you know, what, what can I tell you? There's a service called, did I talk about this last week? Blue ribbon bags? I don't think I did

Mikah Sargent (01:34:53):
No. Uhuh.

Johnny Jet (01:34:54):
So there's, this it's cost $5. And if they, if your bag does not show up in 96 hours to the destination airport, not to your hotel, they'll pay you a thousand dollars. If you, if you pay the $10, which is the far, the highest you can go, they'll give you $2,000. And I'm like, man, I really hope my bag goes missing. <Laugh> especially the one with just t-shirts.

Mikah Sargent (01:35:13):
Oops. I forgot to put an air tag in that one. <Laugh>

Johnny Jet (01:35:15):
Yeah. So, so, you know, it's, you can buy it up until a minute before your flight takes off, you gotta do it on their website. They don't have an app it's called blue ribbon bags. And so what they do is the airlines do not have the staff right now. They'll actually go locate your bag. So they'll just go find it, find out where it is. And they'll let you know it's at that destination airport, wherever you, where you're say you're going. And they, you know, I just interviewed one of their experts and they made it from San Diego to, to actually from South Africa to San Diego in three hours, three hours, less than their cutoff

Mikah Sargent (01:35:47):
Johnny jet. Thank you.

Johnny Jet (01:35:50):
You're welcome.

Mikah Sargent (01:35:53):
Sorry that cut out pretty quickly there, but

Johnny Jet (01:35:55):
No, I heard it. I heard the music and I was like, I gotta, I couldn't get it

Mikah Sargent (01:35:58):
Out. Blue ribbon bags though. This is yeah. BRB. Oh, I love that. BRB. That's clever. We'll track and expedite the return of your undelivered baggage. Ah, yeah. See, and I think this is, this is another place. One of my, my partners family members is it's it's control for them. They, they don't like that. They can't see the pilot. They're worried about their luggage. That's what keeps them from. And this is a person who like, will not get on a plane. I I've had a few family members too, who are like, I will never get on a plane kind of people. And I, I, I always I'm like, come on. Let's just because I'm very logic driven. And so I very much am like you realize driving to the airport is more D you know, I, I love those statistics. I use those, but some for some, it just, they can't get past that. But the idea that, you know, if your luggage is not found that everything's gonna be fine. As long as you didn't put your, I don't know.

Johnny Jet (01:36:50):
You, you never put anything valuable in your check luggage. Well, you definitely not. Yeah, but you don't, first of all, you don't want to, you try, try not to check a bag. You really don't want to check a bag right now, especially some of these major airports, actually, I'm writing a post today on the airports that are having the most delays in cancellations. You wanna stay away from, especially like heat throw Gatwick, Amsterdam, Dublin. There's just there, you have huge piles of bags, but if you do Kim, just putting the chat room that she just bought some air tags. It's a great way to track 'em, but really don't want to check a bag, but if you do make sure you bring everything of value on top O on the board with you, especially your medications, electronics, cuz the airlines will not reimburse you for that stuff. And you're even supposed to have receipts of $25 or more to show proof of what was in your bag. Oh, so I mean, who keeps

Mikah Sargent (01:37:38):
Receipts? Yeah. Come on like that. I guess we'll have to,

Johnny Jet (01:37:41):
Oh, I mean I do my receipts, but I'm not gonna be able to find them. I have a pile. I have a, you know, a pile of eye.

Mikah Sargent (01:37:47):
Yeah. Well no, no checking banks. Well,

Johnny Jet (01:37:50):
So anyway, I gotta take you out on the road sometime internationally. We gotta film it.

Mikah Sargent (01:37:54):
Happy to do so happy to come along. We'll just go for a weekend. We'll go somewhere. Wherever you wanna go. I am 100% down for that. I, I used to, I used to write, so you know, I could do a guest spot on your blog if you wanted me to. Yeah, let's do it. All right. Let's do it. We'll talk about it. All right. Well listen. Good luck. And I keep doing a great job. Thank you so much. Thank you. Take care. Bye bye folks. Welcome back to the tech guy radio show. I am Mike a Sargent sub in for Leo Laport today on the tech guy radio show. Leo will be back next week. No Sunday show. Well, there will be a Sunday show but it will be one that you may have heard before as it will be a rerun as they call them.

Mikah Sargent (01:38:42):
I mic a Sargent am here with you today to take your tech questions and answer them or try my best to answer them anyway. And you, if you've got a question out there can call 88 88, ask Leo 8 8, 8 8 2 7 5 5 3 6 and no scooter X. He will not be back tomorrow. It will be next week. But anyway, call that number eighty eight eighty eight, ask Leo. And you will ask Mikah is, is how this works. Let's see who we've got on the line and where coming from. We've got hop frog. <Laugh> from Paris, California calling in. Hello, Dave,

Caller 5 (01:39:23):
How are you doing today?

Mikah Sargent (01:39:25):
I am doing well. How are you

Caller 5 (01:39:28):
Doing well? I just wanted to kinda add a little bit to the gentleman who was having a bit of trouble with his crew key, the green screen program and stuff.

Mikah Sargent (01:39:37):
Yeah. Tell us, tell us what you got, what you got in mind.

Caller 5 (01:39:39):
Yeah. I have a YouTube channel that I do on the side as a hobby. And there's a lot of times where I'll do skits where I'll need two characters and I'll end up playing both characters. And I've just with trial and error. I figured out, you know, some backgrounds work better than others. Sometimes green is the best. Other times you have to use a different color because a lot of software will allow you, like I know Hollywood uses blue screen sometimes sometimes clothes, you I've had shirts that were looked black. They actually had small flex. When I tried to Chrome a key, the part of the background is actually showing through my shirt. So that's one, the most important thing though is lighting. I found using what they call daylight temperature, light bulbs and L E D bulbs that are daylight. Those are the best ones to use.

Caller 5 (01:40:33):
You don't have any other issues cuz if you try using soft light, then you're fighting with the, the yellowing or the orange that it might do. So it's just kind of trial and error find stuff that works. And if you think you have enough lights, add two more <laugh> <laugh> and also have a, have a light behind you a smaller light that's kind of off camera where you can't see it. That'll separate you from the background and also give yourself at least two to four feet. If not more from you to the background for a good separation, make sure your green screen or whatever you're using has no wrinkles. Make sure it's evenly lit no hot spots.

Mikah Sargent (01:41:09):
I think people don't don't don't pay enough attention to that separation thing. That is a big one. And it was one that I didn't know at first when I mm-hmm <affirmative> had done some green screen stuff in the past and there are a couple of reasons for that one is that it helps depending on the nature of the camera that you have the sort of focal length of the camera can aid you. If the green screen is actually the surface is far enough back because it sort of ends up resulting in a blur of that green screen, which will provide a more level color overall. But also it makes sure it makes sure that the shadow that your body is casting doesn't cast onto the green screen behind you, which is what often results in that strange outline that some people get with their green screen. So yeah, that's a really, really good tip and you're so right about the lighting. Can't I can't understate that enough and it can also be helpful to manage your lighting. If you've got lighting that can have different color temperatures manage the lighting in such a way that it sort of corrects the skin as it might be affected by the green screen that's behind you so that you don't appear sort of green and sickly <laugh> as the, as the camera is on you.

Caller 5 (01:42:27):
Oh, another tip too. I'm of Irish descent. So I, I deal with having reddish skin all the time. My cheeks always look flushed. I found that using a piece of over the camera or actually I take that back over my ring light, I'll put blue cellophane and that it cancels out the redness.

Mikah Sargent (01:42:48):
Okay. Oh, that's

Caller 5 (01:42:49):
You can get that anywhere.

Mikah Sargent (01:42:50):
Interesting. I, I didn't realize that. Yeah, that's a good tip.

Caller 5 (01:42:54):
Yeah, you can. And that way you can get better skin tones, just, you know, trial and error. Don't be afraid to experiment with different things. And, and then also another thing too, for your lighting, if you wanna cuz a lot of I'm doing this really low budget. I'm using clamp lights and L E D lights and strip lights and stuff. But if you use parchment paper that you can get anywhere, Walmart target anywhere in close pins, if you put that over your lights, that'll diffuse the light it'll soften the light. So you won't have a lot of harsh shadows on your face, no bright spots on your face. It just like makes everything look so much better. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>

Mikah Sargent (01:43:31):
All right. Well that's a another good tip and I appreciate you calling in to share some of your, your hot tips there. Hop slash Dave <laugh>. Thank you.

Caller 5 (01:43:41):
Well, thank you for your time.

Mikah Sargent (01:43:43):
Yeah. Thank you. All righty. Let's go to the next caller on the line, Ted from diamond bar, California. Hello, Ted.

Caller 6 (01:43:54):
Hello Mikah.

Mikah Sargent (01:43:55):
Hi there. How are you?

Caller 6 (01:43:57):
I'm good.

Mikah Sargent (01:43:58):
Good to hear it. So what can I help you with?

Caller 6 (01:44:01):
Well, I have an iPhone seven, which probably needs to be upgraded to something newer, but

Mikah Sargent (01:44:06):
Hey, if it works and it's been working for you, no need to upgrade. I understand

Caller 6 (01:44:10):
The problem I have now is when I'm at home I can receive texts from everybody, but when I leave home, I can. And when I'm roaming, like driving in my car or whatever, or mm-hmm, <affirmative> walking, I cannot receive texts. And when I arrive back home my text, I assume come to me back to me from the iCloud.

Mikah Sargent (01:44:36):
Okay. So when you say you don't receive texts while you're out, you don't receive any texts at all or only some texts don't seem to come through

Caller 6 (01:44:47):
All texts? No, no texts at all. Okay.

Mikah Sargent (01:44:49):
And who, the people that are texting you regularly do these people also have iPhones?

Caller 6 (01:44:56):
They both have iPhones.

Mikah Sargent (01:44:58):
Okay. Yeah. So what's happening here? Ted is for some reason the cellular service that you have while you're out and about is having trouble getting what is called your iMessages. Okay. Apple has a special service for text messaging called iMessage. And what it does is instead of sending the old school style of text message they send it in sort of just a tiny bit of data. And so it shows up and your phone as a bit of data. And when you're out and about where you're either not getting service or the service that you're getting is kind of not not a great connection, then those messages aren't getting through. There are some ways that you can adjust for this because it could be, I, I, I guess I should ask. Do you have cell service or do you just use the wifi for your phone?

Caller 6 (01:45:57):
That I don't know.

Mikah Sargent (01:45:58):
<Laugh> so, well I'll, I'll ask, do you pay maybe at and T or Verizon or T-Mobile or one of those big companies or maybe us cellular? 

Caller 6 (01:46:09):
No I'm with I'm with track phone,

Mikah Sargent (01:46:11):
Track phone. That's what I needed to know. Okay. So you pay track phone to place calls on your phone? Correct. And so what track phone does is, and, and do you feel like you have good signal when you're, when you do leave your house and you go out and about you're able to place phone calls. Okay.

Caller 6 (01:46:27):
Oh yeah, fine. Fine. Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (01:46:28):
Okay. Yeah. So this sounds like what's happening here is track phone is not properly letting you access all of the data that you should be able to access. And it could be because your plan your track phone plan is phone calls and text messages based. So it says, Hey, you can have you, you know, a hundred phone calls a month or unlimited phone calls, and you can have X amount of text messages each month, but because of the way that iMessage works, it's actually a, it's considered different from that. So what I'm gonna do the website is tech guy labs.com. I'm gonna send you to a page from apple that shows you how you can make your iMessages turn into SMS, text messages, which is what you need here. So that page is gonna walk you through everything Ted and hopefully will be able to help you out. This is Mica Sargent in for Leo Laport, the tech guy.

Speaker 13 (01:47:26):
Thank you.

Mikah Sargent (01:47:42):
Yeah, this sounds exact. Exactly. Like, so track phone probably has a plan where you get so many text messages and so many calls every month and because the iMessages are not considered part of that text count. Then it's not letting you get those text messages while you're out and about, but when you go back home or I should say, when he goes back home as we're no longer on the line with one another, then it ends up popping up and letting letting that come through. So I think that what's happening here is only over wifi. Are they properly getting the connection needed to make that happen, to make that pop up, which is frustrating because it should work while you're out and about, but unfortunately it's not. So the best thing that the listener can do in this situation is there are two settings in the, in apple settings that lets you basically send messages as SMS.

Mikah Sargent (01:48:48):
But track phone actually suggests as scooter X is posted in the chat, something that I would not recommend, which is to turn off iMessage. No thank you. Especially because the caller mostly talks to people with iMessage, so, or with iPhones. So this is, this is really frustrating to me that because the the, the other data is being treated as a third, or it's, it's considered not a call or a text, then it's not letting it through for the, the caller to be able to receive the messages that they're after. And so the way that track phone is handling it in, just by saying just don't use iMessage, just send everything as SMSs. Well, that's obnoxious. That's, that's not the way that things should be handled. So what we can do is by turning on a feature where it lets you set, lets you send iMessages as SMSs.

Mikah Sargent (01:49:51):
It temporarily allows you and the person that you're talking to to have a quote unquote green bubble conversation, an SMS conversation. And so you will be able to talk with green bubbles. And then the next time that the caller is back home and in a place where the wifi is allowing them to send data over the network, then it will go, oh, you can use iMessage again, you're back in part of that network and able to use that. So I think I, I forget now the, the caller's name, but yeah. If you're still listening let me know how that works for you. Oh, wait, if you're listening on the radio, then you aren't hearing this, but if you're listening via one of our live streams, one of TWIs live streams, then definitely let me know. Cause I'm curious and would love to help you out further if you have any more of an issue rebooting may help, but I really do think this is a problem. I, and this always comes up with these with some of these MVNOs particularly the super budget MVNOs. My mom has had this issue in the past where I wasn't able to get in touch with her while she was out and about. And it was because it was at the end of the month where her data was supposed to transition over and it had not transitioned over. So yeah, it can be, it can be a problem.

Mikah Sargent (01:51:18):
Well, hello there. Well, hello there everybody. I am mic a Sargent subbing in for Leo Laport. I too am a tech guy and here to answer your questions now in the final hour of the tech guy radio show of course, if you have questions, tech questions in particular or tech thoughts or tech answers, you can call me eighty eight, eighty eight ask Leo. That is not my name. It is mic up, but that's okay. 88, 88 as Cleo or 8, 8, 8 8 2 7 5 5 3 6. Calling that number within the United States, or if you're outside of the United States using something like Skype to place that call will get you through to the Kim Schaffer who will take your call and get you on the air to chat with me. Let's see what we've got here. Oh, I know this name. It's Mikah from Maine. Hello Mikah.

Caller 6 (01:52:20):
Hey, how's my favorite Mikah doing?

Mikah Sargent (01:52:22):
Oh, I'm doing well. How's my favorite Mikah doing?

Caller 6 (01:52:25):
I'm doing great too. It's so nice to talk to you. And it you're doing such a wonderful job on the show and yes, like Johnny said, I can feel the relaxation in your voice a lot more common. You were last week, although last week was great. Thank you. This week is even better.

Mikah Sargent (01:52:38):
Yeah, I'm feeling a lot more Zen. So thank you. Thank you for noticing that. That's very kind.

Caller 6 (01:52:44):
I wanna tap into your area of expertise cuz you are a, a Mac person from what I understand,

Mikah Sargent (01:52:49):
I am indeed

Caller 6 (01:52:51):
And I have never been other than I switch up on an iPhone back in 2016 and I got an iPad and I think I'm becoming one of the, one of the drones, cause it's time for me to replace my computer, which is a 2014 Haswell processor PC. Wow. And I'm starting to have trouble with things like zoom, which slows things down and and Riverside that we record the airplane geeks on. So it's time to do something new. And I'm thinking about going with a Mac mini, I think it's time to, to do that. I've already got a good monitor. I've got a great keyboard in mouse and this would be an inexpensive way to get me started with that. Yeah. But I had a couple of questions.

Mikah Sargent (01:53:35):
Okay. I'd like to help.

Caller 6 (01:53:36):
One is one is that I'm pretty sure that I'm probably gonna end up running parallels on it at one time or another. I think I may need to use some windows programs. The one primarily that I use is audacity, but I think I'm gonna be able to switch that over and use that on the Mac as well. But should I go, I'm gonna definitely go with the 16 gigabytes of memory. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> should I go with one or two terabytes on the SSD?

Mikah Sargent (01:54:04):
So here's the thing, this, this, I have a MacBook pro in front of me that I've had for a while now. And this MacBook pro is an Intel machine and it we, we had to get me, we had to get one pretty quick. And so Leo was saying, Hey, just get, you know, find the best one that they have at the apple store locally and get that one. And so it has two terabytes of storage and I have to tell you, it has been one of the most relieving things to have that two terabytes of storage. I don't have to think about my storage space because of it. So when I, I like I've got all of my photos stored locally on it. I have you know, I've, I've had to do backups of my devices and I just don't need to think about it.

Mikah Sargent (01:54:48):
And I have one terabyte of storage in the desktop computer that I have, which is the Mac studio. And just the other day I had my first moment of, oh, crud, I'm coming up to running out of space. And so my, the advice for you is advice that I would give to anybody. And that is get as much storage as you can comfortably afford because you there's, there's no reason that you would be sort of have buyer's remorse about having more storage other than, you know, the buyer's remorse that we all get about anything there's, there's only benefit from having more storage. There's the only downside of course, is paying more, but as much as you can comfortably afford, you should get it, that much storage so that you don't have to think about it. And with you working with audio files on the regular, and I don't know if your podcast has video with it as well.

Caller 6 (01:55:45):
Sometimes not not of that podcast, but other ones

Mikah Sargent (01:55:48):
Do. Okay. Yeah. Then doubly. So it's a good idea even. I mean, I've got network attached storage at home, and so I end up moving a lot of those files off of my desktop onto the network attached storage, but just not having to think about it, knowing that I can put a bunch of stuff on this machine and not have to think about it has been great. And I'm honestly, I got, I have the one terabyte MacBook air. That's gonna be replacing this one and I'm a little nervous about it. I'm a little sad to give up this two terabyte Intel machine because I just haven't had to worry about or think about space. So I kind of wish that I had gone for the bigger, hard drive for that. So yeah, as, as big as you can go ahead.

Caller 6 (01:56:29):
Let me ask you two for going up from one terabyte to two terabytes on that iPad, iPad Mac mini is $360. I mean, that's quite a, quite a big jump for just the terabyte at a storage. I'm also considering I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get a I think that's pronounced Sati type C stand hub that also has an SSD enclosure with it. So I can put in another one gig Samsung Evo SSD, right. Built in, and it's pretty much a second hard drive. So mm-hmm, <affirmative>, that will, that would be $240 $99 for this, for the hub. And I'm gonna need the hub and another $150 more or less for the extra gigabyte of SSD storage. So I think that might work around it unless I'm gonna need it for the operating systems, both parallels and max.

Mikah Sargent (01:57:19):
So, so the, the Sati type C hub, I'm seeing this here and you're going for the Hitachi one that has the built in SSD. I don't know. Do you, is it NVMe or is it I'm having trouble finding one

Caller 6 (01:57:35):
It's it's M N two a SSD is what it says. Okay. Okay. On a listing on apple.

Mikah Sargent (01:57:41):
Yeah. so this is a great device to sort of expand the storage. Again, though, if, if you're looking at the operating system itself, having as much of that storage space, be part of the system and not having any plug in between you and the data you're trying to access is going to be better. And that means that especially if you're gonna be running parallels where you are think about now, instead of having one computer, you're basically trying to rock two computers in one system, the windows machine's gonna have its own files. The, you know, even if it's just the apps that you keep on there and you keep all of your actual files stored in the cloud or, or something like that, you still, when you install those apps, then all of that is packaged into its own container. So now you've got the Macs basic system and all the files you have there, the windows machine and all the files that you have there. I, I dig the idea of going with that. Saachi stand, I think it's a great idea, but in terms of getting the best performance you possibly, can I, again, still think that the investment is worth it, especially, it sounds like you are a person who keeps your machines around for a long time, which is fantastic, but

Caller 6 (01:58:55):
I was just gonna say that. Yeah. I mean, I keep, I keep 'em around till the wheels fall off. Yeah. So I'm really talking about if I keep it 10 years, it's $36 a year. It makes, there

Mikah Sargent (01:59:03):
You go. There you go. And honestly, whatever we need to, to be able to justify what I think is an investment for you in especially given how you plan on using it, I would recommend for sure trying to make the jump over to Mac OS for doing your editing of your video of your, your podcasts simply because then if you are locked into this for the next 10 years, you're not always having to launch parallels to be able to do that. And you know, there's, there's a lot of intuitive software for, for audio editing. I'm not a, I don't use GarageBand or logic to edit the podcasts on the rare occasion that I do, I use audition from, from Adobe. But I definitely am all about having that editing happening as much as I can on the machine that it is, but I've heard that windows absolutely sores on these M M one M two apple Silicon devices with using the, you know, the, the, the parallel machine. So it can be pretty great.

Caller 6 (02:00:07):
And two final, quick follow up questions, if I can, Ooh, we've got

Mikah Sargent (02:00:11):
30 seconds.

Caller 6 (02:00:12):
<Laugh> biggest question is that I use Thunderbird on windows. I've got email that goes back forever. Some of it in pop, will I be able to transfer that over and continue to use my Thunderbird on the Mac? If I copy the files?

Mikah Sargent (02:00:23):
Let's see. I think the Thunderbird is compatible with Mac. I

Caller 6 (02:00:27):
Know I can download a, I know I can download Thunderbird for Mac, but I just don't know if the files will transfer the same.

Mikah Sargent (02:00:33):
I think that they would, because there's a built in email use on there, mic a Sargent Inver, Leo Laport, the tech guy radio show.

Mikah Sargent (02:00:57):
So, yeah, Mikah most of the time these email archives are stored in a standard file format and Apple's own mail app is able to open those. So I have to believe that Thunderbird would be able to as well. I'm looking now and it, you know, there, there are plenty of different guides on importing mail into Thunderbird from one system to the other. And yeah, it, it, it would be different if you were working with more complicated files, like video that's specifically coded to a format for for windows versus Mac. But even then a lot of the times it's gonna be able, able to transfer over. I, I don't see there being an issue with this. And I guess then if that is the case, this would be the opportunity for you to use parallels, I guess, to, to continue to a access via Thunderbird. But I, I have to believe that it's able to be transferred over to the new system. That's

Caller 6 (02:01:56):
Great. That's great. And then finally, the other one I wanted to ask you is, is there a new iPad? I, a Mac mini coming out in September, should I be waiting for an M two processor? Is it gonna make a huge difference? I always feel that since I forget it, till the wheels fall off yeah. By the best that you can, when you do. So, if the M two comes out, I get the M two.

Mikah Sargent (02:02:15):
So we, there are rumors that it'll launch in 2022, perhaps in October. And I mean, the fact is anytime you're buying a new thing, especially from apple, you know, that there's another new thing right around the corner. I will say this M one is already, and this is not hype. This is just plain truth. M one is already such a huge hop over what's out there right now that the M two. Sure. You know, then you're, you're one generation behind, but again, anytime you make that purchase, you're going to be one generation behind pretty soon. So you can wait until October. It, I mean, you've waited this long, so you might wanna wait until October, but then apple could push it back more. And then you don't have that new machine that you were hoping to have because you waited until, you know, October to get it. But yeah, I

Caller 6 (02:03:08):
Mean, well, it's gonna gonna say makes sense anyway, because you know, it was already gonna take a while to get up to 1500 bucks now with the two terabytes, it's gotta get up at $2,000. So, you know, it's okay. I can wait a couple of more

Mikah Sargent (02:03:19):
Months. I was gonna say, and another reason to wait is then you could see the price of the M one drop. If you decided you wanna go with, with that, I think anyone who's making the jump to apple Silicon from non apple, Silicon is going to really be impressed. And you, especially coming from a machine that's as old as it is. Even if you went to a modern Intel version, you would be happy, I think, with what it's able to provide you.

Caller 6 (02:03:43):
Well, thanks. I really appreciate your time. Thanks for answering my questions. Thanks for doing such a great job in substituting for Leo. And I hope you're gonna continue to be working with Leo on Saturdays, cuz it's great hearing

Mikah Sargent (02:03:52):
You. Thank you so much, Mikah. I appreciate it. Have a great day.

Caller 6 (02:03:55):
You too. Bye.

Mikah Sargent (02:04:00):
Hello and welcome back to the boogie woogie tech guy radio show. I am your fill-in host Mikah Sargent in for Leo Laport, who is getting back from the TWI cruise, where he was hosting the cruise and going along his Merry way. We are back and I am here to take your tech questions, those questions you have about the technology you own. And I'm hoping to make things a little bit easier for you a little bit better for you. Let us see who we've got on, on the air. Joining us from Adele. Oh, Iowa. It's Robert. Hello, Robert.

Caller 7 (02:04:47):
Hey, how are you? How are you?

Mikah Sargent (02:04:49):
I am doing well. How are you Robert?

Caller 7 (02:04:52):
I'm doing fine today. My last day. My first time calling Joe bear with me. Okay.

Mikah Sargent (02:04:58):
Yeah, no problem. I appreciate you calling.

Caller 7 (02:05:01):
Okay. I am in a wheelchair. I am type. I am in a wheelchair. I, I I have literally, I have a little speaking pen, so I, I don't know if you can hear me.

Mikah Sargent (02:05:15):
I can, I can hear you and I can understand you and I am looking forward to helping you out.

Caller 7 (02:05:21):
Yeah, I have I have a Android Android phone, you know, what, do you know what Android phone is?

Mikah Sargent (02:05:31):
I do. I do. I actually have an Android phone too. I've got a pixel six Android phone.

Caller 7 (02:05:40):
Oh, that's good. So my question for you how can you share your file with anybody? With anybody on it?

Mikah Sargent (02:05:56):
Okay. So you are, you have some files on your phone, on your Android phone. Yeah. And you would like to be able to share them. Do you wanna share them with somebody who's in the room with you or are you wanting to share them online? How, how are you wanting to share them?

Caller 7 (02:06:13):
I was, I could share 'em over zoom.

Mikah Sargent (02:06:16):
Oh, over zoom.

Caller 7 (02:06:18):
Yeah. Over zoom. I, I believe I can download a file. I believe I can download file and then try to bring, try to find a file and, and I don't know how you do dad. Okay. And zoom.

Mikah Sargent (02:06:40):
Yes. So there is a way to share files on zoom on your Android device. I'm looking right now on the zoom website and they've got a guide that helps you figure out how to share files and you're able to even do it during a meeting. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you a little bit about it. It says you know, make sure that you've joined the meeting. And once you're in the meeting, down in the meeting controls, there is a button that says share. And when you do hit that button, then it is going to pop up, what's called a file sharing service screen. So this, this is where it gets a little complicated essentially here what the, the, the, the sort of problem is, if you will, is that it requires you to use a file sharing service, like, do you know of, of Dropbox and and box or Google drive or Microsoft OneDrive. Do you use any of those?

Caller 7 (02:07:43):
Well, I, I have a OneDrive on my phone.

Mikah Sargent (02:07:47):
Beautiful. Okay. Well, this is gonna be super easy for you.

Caller 7 (02:07:51):
Yeah. But not on my laptop.

Mikah Sargent (02:07:53):
Okay. No, that's okay. So you want to share a file that is on your laptop. But you wanna use your phone to do it. Is that what you mean?

Caller 7 (02:08:05):
I, well, I have my, let me, I'm very, let me back. Okay. Uming to you. Okay. I have a one, one drive on my phone. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and I, and I have the zoom app on my phone. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so, so so I would like to know how you put, I, I know how to, and open and find prior sharing and zoom mm-hmm <affirmative> I do have to pay for it when you file sharing.

Mikah Sargent (02:08:46):
Oh, good question. Okay. So as long as you have something like one drive, which it sounds like you do have, you do not have to pay to do this. Oh, it will actually just the only thing that you have to do, and the reason why, you know, you, there might be some hesitation. There is, because it is going to pop up a screen that tells you, you need to connect one of these services. And so what you'll do Robert is you will tap on the button that says connect, and then it's gonna show you a bunch of different options. Dropbox, OneDrive, Google drive. You're gonna find the one that you use. And in this case, it's OneDrive, you'll tap on that. And then you will log in with your OneDrive account and zoom will authorize it. And then you will be able to share a file from your phone.

Mikah Sargent (02:09:36):
The only thing that is important here is that whatever file it is, that's on your phone that you want to share using zoom. Yeah. You need to first put that file into your OneDrive, right? So you let's, I'll give you an example. Let's say I've got I, I I look out and I see this really pretty bird. So I take a photo with my Android phone of that bird. Then I'm gonna go into cuz I'm using an Android phone, my Google photos library. I will find that photo of the bird and I will tap to share that photo. And when up pops all those different options, I'm gonna say, share this to my OneDrive. Then it goes into my one drive. Then when I have the, the zoom call with let's say my sister later in the day, and I'm in the zoom call, I'm having that conversation. I will tap that share button and the meeting controls and I will use one drive. So I'll tap on one drive and then up pops that photo of the bird in my one drive folder, I'll tap on that photo, choose share, and then it will share right in that zoom meeting. And it won't charge me.

Caller 7 (02:10:40):
Okay. So how about if I wanted, like, I have a meaning for my w 8 0 13 TV if I wanna share a file or not a file a text if I wanna share a text on zoom, can I do that or not

Mikah Sargent (02:11:05):
Share a, did you say a text?

Caller 7 (02:11:08):
Yeah. Or not?

Mikah Sargent (02:11:09):
Yeah. You should be able to, to share a text on zoom. I mean, well, one way you can share a text is just by using the chat option that zoom has and you are able, you're able to copy and paste text into there, but if you're wanting to share photos or other kinds of files, those, you will have to actually use this feature where you connect, but I've got some good news for you, Robert. These, I've got a step by step guide. That's gonna walk you through all of this to make sure you know exactly what you need to do. You just had to tech guy labs.com, tech guy labs.com, and there, you will see a link to zoom where it is the exact walkthrough for using zoom on your mobile device and being able to tap those share controls in the meeting controls. Robert, I wanna thank you so much for taking the time to call in and

Caller 7 (02:11:59):
Ask. Can I have, can I have it on

Mikah Sargent (02:12:02):
Time? We do have to go to a break, but just stick around and I will take your question off air mic Sargent in for Leo port, the tech guy. All right. Robert, you still there?

Caller 7 (02:12:27):
Yeah, I'm here.

Mikah Sargent (02:12:28):
All right. How can I help you?

Caller 7 (02:12:31):
My other question. Okay. My other question for you is on my, on my Android phone, mm-hmm <affirmative> the app if, if I, is there a app that you can, I am, I am a movie on TV, Bob.

Mikah Sargent (02:12:51):
Oh, me too.

Caller 7 (02:12:53):
Yeah. So as a way that you can, that, that app that will, will show you upcoming movie or upcoming show, like who Hulu or, oh,

Mikah Sargent (02:13:09):
Oh, so you're wanting kind of a, an app that's gonna, so I've got a, a music version of this. It's an app that lets me know these new albums are gonna be coming out in a couple of months so I can be ready for them. But you won a version that's telling you about new movies that are gonna be coming out that you might want.

Caller 7 (02:13:26):
Yeah. Mo yeah. Movie or TV, so,

Mikah Sargent (02:13:28):
Or TV shows. Yeah. Okay. So there are a few that, that I'm seeing. One of the most popular one is an app called taste T a S T E taste. And it is an app that not only will show you movies that are coming up, but it'll also show you different suggestions for movies that you might want to check out based on kind of what you've watched before. So I kinda like the idea of not only getting information about what's coming up, but also I can, there may be movies I haven't seen yet that are out there somewhere that I can watch. Another one that the chat has shared with us scooter X in our, our chat has said that the app called TV time, which it's gotta, I got a simple name, but that this seems to be a pretty good one. It's called TV time. And it will definitely let you find new movies, worth movies and TV shows. I should be clear. Yeah. both that you can check out

Caller 7 (02:14:26):
So you can, it will upcoming coming like ed, it will show you ed Hulu and <inaudible>.

Mikah Sargent (02:14:39):
Yeah. So it actually looks like it'll even give you links to, you can basically tap and say, I wanna watch this right now. And it'll automatically open up Hulu or it will open up Netflix or it will open up the app. And at the very least it can give you information about where you can watch that show. So yeah, it's got all that stuff built in this. I haven't heard of TV time until now. So you've helped me out too. Robert, with your question. I appreciate that.

Caller 7 (02:15:05):
Well, I, I appreciate you. I do me. I hoping me you very, very good job. And I hope that I can hear you again, man.

Mikah Sargent (02:15:16):
Thank you so much, Robert. I really appreciate that. Thank you.

Caller 7 (02:15:19):
I love your voice.

Mikah Sargent (02:15:21):
<Laugh> that's so kind. Thank you. You're gonna make me cry on the radio.

Caller 7 (02:15:25):
<Laugh> don't cry too much.

Mikah Sargent (02:15:27):
I'll do my best. I'll hold them in. <Laugh> have a good day.

Caller 7 (02:15:31):
You every nice day. Bye bye.

Mikah Sargent (02:15:33):
Bye. Oh yeah. Now I am getting a little weepy anyway. Oh my goodness. Arizona, Lou, I was just thinking about Arizona Lou, the other day. Literally I was I can't remember where I was. I think I was sitting on my couch and I thought we haven't heard from Arizona Lou in a while and now he's called in. That's so exciting. Hello and welcome back to the tech guy radio show. If you were wondering who the heck's voice, this is, it's Mikah Sargent who was here for Leo Laport today. Very excited to be taking your questions. And I have to tell you, I am so pumped. I was just thinking about our next caller a couple of days ago. And I said, I want to know what's up with Arizona, Lou and lo and behold, who calls us today, but Arizona, Lou, welcome back to this show, Arizona, Lou,

Caller 8 (02:16:42):
Hey, I hope you weren't having nightmares.

Mikah Sargent (02:16:45):
Not at all. Not at all. No. I, I was thinking I haven't heard his voice in a while. His voice always puts a smile on my face and oh,

Caller 8 (02:16:52):
I'm

Mikah Sargent (02:16:52):
So glad. I'm glad you're here. What's

Caller 8 (02:16:55):
Up. I put a smile on some faces in Denton, Marilyn last night, doing a comedy show for some veterans there at American Legion.

Mikah Sargent (02:17:03):
That's fantastic.

Caller 8 (02:17:04):
Yeah. That's not why I called you because I received about a week ago, an email from a square. And as you know, they're the people that you're on your phone, you can use as a cash register. And that's what I use for selling my t-shirts and albums and stuff. Okay. It says the Emil, the email address for your square has successively been changed to, and then it's 15 random characters@hotmail.com. Okay. You no longer receive messages at at my old email address. And if it's fraud, let me know. So I sent them replied, let them know mm-hmm <affirmative> and lo and behold, I got a reply from them that essentially was no reply, no help. They said the best thing you can do is change your password. Well, I can't get into my email because I, I tried that, that weird email address Uhhuh and my old password. And couldn't get in. So I'm wondering if, is it a chance that my account may be rated or do

Mikah Sargent (02:18:15):
You have those

Caller 8 (02:18:15):
Emails, any ideas?

Mikah Sargent (02:18:17):
Do you have those emails still from the, that that said, Hey, your account has been hijacked. Do you still have those in your email account?

Caller 8 (02:18:24):
Yes, I do.

Mikah Sargent (02:18:24):
Okay. The first thing I want you to do Arizona, I don't know what app you use or if you use Gmail or however you do it, but go to that email. And then mm-hmm, <affirmative> look at the, from area, see who that email was sent from. And here's the important thing. Sometimes Gmail, for example, it will give you a name. It will say that this email was sent from square and it won't show you the actual email. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. What I want to know is what the email address is. So actually go and find where it says

Caller 8 (02:18:57):
Amazons dot messaging, do square.com square up.com

Mikah Sargent (02:19:04):
Dot square up.com. Okay. Square. Yeah. Up.Com. Okay. so square up.com does seem to be actually owned by square. And what was it at first mm-hmm <affirmative> could you read that first part for me?

Caller 8 (02:19:19):
Sure. Let me go back to that. The email address of your square account has successfully been updated to, and then it's 15 random lowercase letters.

Mikah Sargent (02:19:34):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative> at

Caller 8 (02:19:36):
Hotmail.Com.Com. Okay. Then said you will no longer be receiving receive messages at then gave me my email address, or be able to use that email address to sign into square.

Mikah Sargent (02:19:49):
Okay.

Caller 8 (02:19:50):
If you did not make this request, please let us know as soon as possible, which I did. And I got an email from them that was really not helpful at all.

Mikah Sargent (02:20:02):
Yeah. So they, they let you, this is the part that's interesting. They were able to send you an email in response and mm-hmm, <affirmative> in it. They said, change your password. Did they have a link in that email?

Caller 8 (02:20:19):
Oh, let me look and see, he says, thanks for, for, again, for searching. We'll let you know if we need any more information, this number if you've not done so already steps, you should, you should update your password, which I can't do. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> because you can't get into the account and then enable to step for application, which I can't do. Cause

Mikah Sargent (02:20:45):
You can't get into the account

Caller 8 (02:20:46):
Into the account.

Mikah Sargent (02:20:47):
Now this is a silly question, but I do wanna ask it, did you try to log into your square account using the email that you used already? So instead of using that one with all the random numbers, did you just go ahead and give it a try and see if you could, even though it said that it had changed your email did you try to just use your normal email?

Caller 8 (02:21:08):
I, I did. And could not get

Mikah Sargent (02:21:10):
In. Okay. well it sounds like so, so my concern was that someone knew that you were using square, some bad guy out there knew that you were using square mm-hmm <affirmative>. So they sent you an email that looked like it was real in order to get your password. And whenever you got that email, if you had clicked on anything in that email and gone in and tried to change your password, then that's whenever they actually took over your account. But

Caller 8 (02:21:38):
Now I think I didn't do that because I, I really avoid and realize that that is frequently the way people get your password with bogus.

Mikah Sargent (02:21:48):
Absolutely. And Arizona, Lou, it sounds like you, you did your due diligence there for sure. And we checked and you, it sounds like the email did come from the right person. So what the, what can be done in this situation is not reaching out to square via email, but instead reaching out to square via their contact their contact guide. So over email if you kind of just responded to that email to try to get help the team that's, there is not necessarily the same team that helps if you are a customer as you are and a client of theirs. So we'll include again in the show notes, tech guy, labs.com, a link that takes you directly to the contact page for square. But in the meantime Arizona low, if you wanna try to get this handled a little bit sooner, if you go to the website, square up.com and I believe if you choose resources and support up at the top of the page, that can start to get you to the contact guide.

Mikah Sargent (02:22:53):
But if you can, if you can hold out until we get those show notes up then we'll, we'll give you a direct link to that contact page mm-hmm <affirmative>, but they should be able to better address the question that you have. And hopefully what will happen is you'll be able to prove, Hey, this is my account. And here's, you know, my identifying information to show you that it's my account. And then they'll be able to give you access. And if you know, somebody who logged in and did this took any money that you have in the account out, then they'll be able to get that money back. And all of that can be ironed out. I think the best thing you can do is talk to square directly. But I, what I'd like for you to do also is give us a call back if you have trouble getting in contact with him that way, because sometimes it takes a little conversation on the radio. Oh yeah. You know what I mean? <Laugh> to, to let him know, Hey, they need to

Caller 8 (02:23:43):
You Mikah. Exactly. Yeah. I'm I'm at square resources. You say support,

Mikah Sargent (02:23:49):
Uhhuh support. And then you'll see some options down at the bottom that say, get answers to your questions. Live help when you need it.

Caller 8 (02:23:58):
Search question or keywords sign in for

Mikah Sargent (02:24:03):
Yeah. So you see. Yeah. I can't, no, you can't, but scroll all the way down to the bottom and you'll see that in the middle there's one with the little chat icons, it's got two speech bubbles. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and it says, get support. You want to click on that one? Okay.

Caller 8 (02:24:17):
Yep. I will do that. Boy. I, yeah. And, and I hope my length checking account is not

Mikah Sargent (02:24:25):
I

Caller 8 (02:24:26):
Jeopardy

Mikah Sargent (02:24:26):
Here. Yeah. And the good, the good thing about that is that the modern way these are all set up is essentially whenever you, you link your checking account, it will obscure some of the numbers. And it also, it's a special link where it is kind of a one time thing, the link between your checking account and the service, instead of it being one that is sort of addressable over and over again. And they do that for security reasons. So that should be okay. But if you do have money in that square account, that could be at risk here. But

Caller 8 (02:24:59):
I, yeah, well, they send it to me about every day. Oh, that's good. That's good. After, so there's not a lot, lot in there, if any.

Mikah Sargent (02:25:05):
Okay. Well, I'm wishing you all the best. And like I said, give us a call back. If you run into issues or even if you don't, it'd be good to hear that everything went well and you got back what you, what you'd lost. I appreciate you calling Arizona. Lou, we do need to head into another break, but thank you for your time today. And I'll talk to you soon.

Mikah Sargent (02:25:22):
Oh my pleasure. All right. Le mic Sargent in for Leo Laport, the tech guy.

Dick DeBartolo (02:25:51):
Well, how D Dickie D how you doing? I am doing well. How are you today? I'm good. Thank you. You really look, you settled in right there. He already, you already made it so that Leo's coming back three days later, right? <Laugh> that was the concern I thought, oh boy, people are gonna think I've I'm keeping him away or something. <Laugh> oh, no. They're not thinking that they know that that <laugh>. Yes. As long as I don't acknowledge it, then it's still evil master plan. <Laugh> and you've then you're good. What's is it is it's hot there where you are, isn't it? Oh yeah. It's like 96 or 98 or so. And I word that, I know, I never know what it is. I still see, I was just down in the park and they have all these fences up and everything.

Dick DeBartolo (02:26:42):
And normally that goes up because of the triathlon and I, and I'm thinking, are they gonna try the triathlon tomorrow, which is supposed to be a record break worse than today? Oh, no. I was just watching some medical drama and this woman suffered heat stroke, and it led to all of these other complications. And so, oh man. And she was running, she was just out, running on a running. Oh my, yeah. Might be you just said we it's now a hundred in the New York city Metro area. I were, yeah. Well, you know what? They may have to eliminate the Hudson river part because the R the river was boiling when I walked in <laugh> so that's, that's a very, when a, when a fisherman catch fried fish. Oh my gosh. You know, the water is too hot, but I guess if it's boiled, you can drink directly from the river. Yeah, no, you're right. You're that's probably, this is probably a blessing. Yeah. It's all good. <Laugh> oh man. It's disco time. Welcome back to the tech guy. Radio show. I Michael Sargent I'm subbing in for Leo Laport, the other tech guy, tech guy as well of, I thank you. All for calling in today, loves taking your calls, loved answering your questions, but now it is time to join the disco man of the hour. It is Dicky D Bartolo, our gizz whiz. Hello, Dick. How are you doing?

Mikah Sargent (02:28:21):
Ah, I'm doing well. I'm staying cool. Thanks to AC, do you have AC where you are as like a window

Dick DeBartolo (02:28:27):
Unit? Oh yes. Abso absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's just a window unit.

Mikah Sargent (02:28:30):
So

Dick DeBartolo (02:28:31):
You're also central. And you have central, you have central air conditioning at home.

Mikah Sargent (02:28:34):
Oh, I have it at home. I have it here. I, I come from Missouri and we have AC back where I'm from, so I'm spoiled with it. And I said, if I'm moving to California, I don't care. What all of these people out here do. I want my central air <laugh>.

Dick DeBartolo (02:28:47):
Oh, okay. And when I go out have neck fan, last year, we did neck fan. It's a thing that you charge up and it sits there on your neck and it blows air straight up at you. Oh,

Mikah Sargent (02:28:56):
My.

Dick DeBartolo (02:28:57):
And I have the misting fan. Yes, yes, I have. I have a lot of gadgets.

Mikah Sargent (02:29:02):
Well, I'm glad you're staying cool. Keeping it cool as it were. And I mean, it also, I think coolness is a it's, it's a way of life as well. And you, you

Dick DeBartolo (02:29:12):
Just, no, absolutely.

Mikah Sargent (02:29:13):
You got that cool jacket or that cool shirt on for sure.

Dick DeBartolo (02:29:16):
That's it? My cool travel shirt. I found a cool gadget for you. Last week. I said, I would find something unique. I ran through my business cards and I, I found my business card from this company. And I thought, oh, you know what? I'm going to call my friend at uncanny brands. It's a great name. So I, I called Matthew Hoffman. He's a president. And I said, what do you got? That's really different. He said, you a star wars fan. And I said, yes. He said on May 4th in honor of star wars day, we introduced the doth Vata light, saber toaster the light, the doth Vata toaster that makes doth Vader sounds, we're showing you. And he said, I said, oh, you know, I get

Mikah Sargent (02:30:01):
It on that screen. Sorry, just a sec.

Dick DeBartolo (02:30:04):
Oh, there we are. Okay. I was gonna say, wait, I'm suddenly gone. Okay. So it looks like the helmet of doth Vader.

Mikah Sargent (02:30:10):
Wow. Whoa. This is, oh my goodness.

Dick DeBartolo (02:30:12):
And that they're so clever because the toast regulator, it says dark side <laugh>

Mikah Sargent (02:30:19):
Ah, light sided, dark side.

Dick DeBartolo (02:30:21):
That's so clever. Isn't that? Isn't that clever. Oh, and,

Mikah Sargent (02:30:25):
And it's almost life size. Like this is a full on doth Vader, mass.

Dick DeBartolo (02:30:28):
Wow. It really is. And, and it makes, they, you know, he said, you know, we license everything from Disney. He said, so we have a little sound chip in there when you push the toast down, it's a, a 10, second sound chip of the light saber going on. Wow. And then there are a red light, the whole bottom of the toast, the lights up red while it's making toast. And then when the toast is done, doth, Vata starts breathing in and out that deep breath. And you know, that get ready because your toast is about to come up.

Mikah Sargent (02:31:02):
Let's see if we can hear some of those sounds.

Dick DeBartolo (02:31:05):
Oh yeah. I actually go to there, go to the end of my video. Okay. Be because I had them send me a video with enhanced sound effects.

Mikah Sargent (02:31:15):
Let's see if we can't.

Dick DeBartolo (02:31:16):
Yeah. You don't just doesn't have the, the oh, I was hoping there were gonna

Mikah Sargent (02:31:23):
Be, oh, there we go.

Dick DeBartolo (02:31:25):
<Laugh> yes.

Speaker 17 (02:31:28):
Wow.

Mikah Sargent (02:31:31):
Honestly, that's intimidating.

Dick DeBartolo (02:31:35):
It's not as loud in your home, but you do hear it. It's it's very, very clever. That is

Mikah Sargent (02:31:41):
So clever. I love the light side, dark side. Just that little touch is enough to that.

Dick DeBartolo (02:31:44):
That is great. That was so great. So it's $70 on Amazon earlier today. It's probably still up there. There's a 10 off coupon. And if you really, a star wars nuts, the same company makes the R two D two popcorn maker. Oh,

Mikah Sargent (02:32:01):
That's perfect.

Dick DeBartolo (02:32:03):
And they're so clever. So you take the, the helmet off and that's what the popcorn falls into. And then at the back of the device, there is a clear plastic could that replaces the helmet. Oh. So you can watch the corn popping and watch it come down that clear shoot into the thought famous thought, fades head. I now the bowl.

Mikah Sargent (02:32:30):
And you know, what's, it's very, what's interesting about this is so I've, I've done a lot of, I don't know why, cause I don't eat much popcorn anymore, but I used to eat a lot of popcorn and I, so I've done a lot of research on popcorn poppers, and oftentimes they have this problem where the popcorn either it doesn't heat up enough because it doesn't get popped or the way that the hood is shaped. It ends up putting popcorn and unpopped kernels all over the place. It's so funny. That one that is sort of more novelty actually looks like it's better designed to

Dick DeBartolo (02:32:59):
Oh

Mikah Sargent (02:33:00):
Yeah. Make the popcorn experience better.

Dick DeBartolo (02:33:01):
No, it, it, it has a, a careful shoot to aim for the bowl. And the guy told me, he said, Dick, we don't just make a product and stick a name on it. We really, we, we get the plans from the company, I guess, in this case, Disney. So we can make it as much like the real it's

Mikah Sargent (02:33:18):
Very detailed. Yeah.

Dick DeBartolo (02:33:20):
Very detailed.

Mikah Sargent (02:33:20):
I was, like I said, I was super impressed with the the Vader helmet cuz I thought, oh, it's gonna be, you know, it'll have like a little bit stuck on the front. No, it looks it's. It's just like, it's huge. It looks exactly the same. Yes. Very impressive stuff. Yeah. What's this company again,

Dick DeBartolo (02:33:36):
It's called uncanny brand and they're on I have a links to them on Amazon.

Mikah Sargent (02:33:42):
Awesome. Yes. You can add to giw.biz where you'll find a link, just click on the GWiz visits, the tech guy, and then there'll be links to those and you'll also be helping out Dicky D by doing so. And there was a, you said a coupon at one point that could come back. So worth

Dick DeBartolo (02:33:59):
Check that I could. Is it not there now? Okay.

Mikah Sargent (02:34:01):
And then you should also join the phone of the what the heck is it contest? Where you can try to guess what the heck this is. Let's see if I can think of something for this week. Oh, okay. This looks like one, one of those. Oh, I know. It's, you know, Mentos those, those little chewy candies. Yeah. Yes, yes. It's a Mentos dispenser. That's what that is.

Dick DeBartolo (02:34:27):
That's not bad guess at all. Thank you bad guess at all.

Mikah Sargent (02:34:29):
Now what happens if people do guess I know it has something to do with this magazine right here.

Dick DeBartolo (02:34:35):
Oh, okay. So we give away up up to six meds. If we get six right answers. If there are more, we do a, a drawing and then we give 12 for a funny, weird, strange answers so that the, you have a much better chance making up something stupid or dumb. I mean, you can send that in if you want. Oh, I'll have to do that. And, and so, so we love silly answers more than the real answers, but we'll take either and consider them. And we gave up to 18 issues for every game I've been running for people like this. I think we are on year 13 of the game. Wow.

Mikah Sargent (02:35:10):
That's several quite a few years. <Laugh> yeah, I know. It's I, I always have fun. Just seeing what strange thing, where do you find these things that you share?

Dick DeBartolo (02:35:20):
Well, you know what, sometimes when at trade shows, I was at a trade show yesterday in this company had some little giveaways and I said, oh, can I have that, that and that. And you she said, do you know what they're for? And I said, no, you can tell me, but that's why I'm picking them because I don't know what they're for. <Laugh>

Mikah Sargent (02:35:39):
Oh, that's

Dick DeBartolo (02:35:39):
Fantastic. So trade shows and sometimes I just roam through Amazon for hours.

Mikah Sargent (02:35:44):
So this is not, this looks like it's an antique, but maybe it's is this one an antique or is it it's new?

Dick DeBartolo (02:35:49):
No, no clue.

Mikah Sargent (02:35:51):
Okay. No clues. Okay. Oh,

Dick DeBartolo (02:35:52):
But I should, I should tell you everything is a commercially available product.

Mikah Sargent (02:35:57):
That's a good tip.

Dick DeBartolo (02:35:59):
And it's the whole product, you know, people, one guy sent me something in and he said, here, use this for you. What heck is it? And I, I sent him an email and said, I cannot figure it out. He said, it's part of a table leg <laugh>. And I said, well, wait a minute. Fuck. Could anybody guess that?

Mikah Sargent (02:36:14):
All right. Well, Dickie D thank you so much for thank you buddy time today. It's always good to see you. And I guess this means I've got to say goodbye to all of you out there. Thank you for tuning in to the tech guy radio show this week with MICUs Sargent Leo Laport will be back next week. Thank you for your time and have a great geek week. Goodbye.

Leo Laporte (02:36:34):
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 it stands for this week@techandyoufinditattwit.tv, including the podcasts for this show. We talk about windows and windows weekly, Macintosh, a Mac break, weekly iPads, iPhones, apple watches on iOS, today's security and security. Now, I mean, I can go on and on and on. And of course the big show every Sunday afternoon, this week in tech, you'll find it all at twit TV and I'll be back next week with another great tech guy show. Thanks for joining me. We'll see you next time.