Faster internet for free. Here's how Roku, Amazon and Sons all have new speakers. Facebook does dating the thing you should do if you use Gmail on your iPhone. Plus your questions answered?
What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro.
This is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the stuff I think you should know about happening in.
The tech world.
Plus it's the place where I answer the questions that you send me. Welcome producer Megan to the show.
Welcome Rich to the show.
Thank you. How's it going very good?
Yeah, it's been busy.
It has been very busy.
And you know, next week is the whole big Apple thing, so we've prepping for that. Megan did a great job of booking her hotel room. She was like a pit bull on the phone with the hotel because we you know, the hotels all sell out, especially the ones that are close. And I usually, based on speculation, make a hotel reservation. Wayne advanced, just guessing when the event is gonna be. Yeah, years in advance. Yeah, I have next year's iPhone already on.
And so I told Megan, well, were staying and you know, get a room, and of course they said, no, there's no rooms.
There's no availability.
Well you told me tuesday, You're like you can yeah, And I was like, okay.
Yeah, it all happens.
You get the invitation two weeks before, and then we didn't. I mean, yeah, we just didn't have time figured out. Yeah, but the reality is you did work it out. She went from having no availability at the hotel to them telling her it was a three day minimum to stay there to getting a room.
I called like ten times and then at the tenth time they were like, oh, it's a three day minimum. And I was like, uh, okay, well if I stayed three days, and then I basically yeah, you.
Got your way, So good job. That was very good. It was a new side of you that I that I have not seen.
Before, but you coached me.
Very impressed with that.
On the flip side, for me personally, I finished my iPhone book the first draft, so yesterday. That was a huge deal because I'm you know, I have this book one hundred and one handy tech Tips for the iPhone. I'm revising it for iOS thirteen, so I've been using the beta to get all the new tips, and then my goal is to have it out as soon as possible when the new one, you know, the new phone comes out and the new software. But I still have a lot of work ahead. I got to revise it,
i got to come up with a cover. I've got to everything marketing. It's a whole big thing. But in the meantime, if you do want to be notified when the new book is available, you can go to Amazon and follow my author page.
Oh I'm going to do that, so you'll.
Get notified, like literally the minute it's like up there, you'll get like the little notification.
So it's really cool. That's so exciting.
It is exciting, and I'm excited for this book because I made it simpler and better.
You know.
I've this the third version, so I've learned a lot along the way, and I'm using a new program to write it, which I'm I can't wait to do, so I to publish it or whatever.
You want to say. Let's talk about Facebook.
Facebook is finally getting into the dating game. Facebook dating is brand new here in the US. And this is interesting because Facebook, it's weird. I have a love hate with Facebook because Facebook is the place that we all know and sort of love, but I feel like it has fallen out of favor with a lot of people, but people still use it in a big way. Now are the people that are dating using it?
I'm not sure. So.
I mean you have these big dating apps like tender Match. I'm sure there's a million others out there. I think what makes Facebook dating so interesting is that they have the most data on us. And so here's the line from what they're basically what they're doing. They're not going to link you up with your friends. They will if you do something, and I'll tell you about that in
a second, But here's what they're doing. So how it works is you create a separate dating profile that's separate from your main profile, and they're going to suggest people on the Facebook platform based on your preferences, interests, and other things you do on Facebook.
Okay, they stalk people, no.
But they really understand who you are. They see what you're looking at on Facebook, they see the types of music that you like.
They just see what you interact with.
Right with something like Tinder or Match, they're not getting all that rich data about a person. The person's typing in saying I like wine, I like going for long walks on the beach. Facebook knows this person spends ninety five percent of their time looking at Iron Maiden records from the seventies or something.
I don't know, Wait through through what Like, how do they know that whatever you do?
No, while they can do that too. They can link up what you do on Google through the through the Facebook like buttons that are everywhere, so they're collecting all this data no matter where you are on the web.
Okay, because I feel like with my Facebook, all the interests and all the artists that I've liked are from when I was like.
Twelve, That's true, and a lot of people are trying to update that to be fair for you.
That was only like two years ago.
I know, because I'm fourteen. Everyone I don't know Rich told you I don't.
Want to reveal Megan's very young age.
But yes, but that's a thing that's when I started Facebook.
But they're still going to see like the kind of posts that you interact with, the kind of things that you like.
Okay, I mean, it's it.
Facebook has a lot of data, and I agree, Like what you're saying is very valid that just because they build this profile of you doesn't necessarily mean it's right. Like you can go into Facebook and look at the advertiser like targeting for you right now, like half it's wrong,
you know, but anyway, I find that interesting. The other interesting feature about this that I find could be very interesting is there's a secret crush feature where normally they don't link you up with your friends, but you can identify nine of your friends that you're interested in, and then let's say your friends identify you as one of those people that they're interested in. If you both do that, Facebook will notify you and kind of hook you up.
But it only has it's all secret, so if if if someone doesn't request, you know, put you as a crush, then nothing happens. I'm curious how many times you can change those secret crushes?
Could think about it?
What if you could change them every day and you just went through all your friends until you found a match, right.
Yeah and then yeah wow yeah, So anyway, I think yeah.
Anyway, So that is Facebook dating in a nutshell. It is available starting today. The other thing that's weird about this are you gonna try it?
I don't know, maybe you should.
You should try it and report that quest.
Okay, I'll let you know how go.
But the other thing that's interesting is that they're sort of merging Facebook and Instagram for the first time because now it's cross friends, so it's your friends from Instagram as well.
Okay, yeah, because I feel like Instagram's a great way to you know, slide into dms meet people. Right, yeah, I don't.
Know theoretically, you would know better. I have no idea.
All right, So this first question comes from Jerome. And by the way, if you want to send a question, all you have to do is go to Rich on tech dot tv, click on the contact link, and you can send Rich your question. So Jerome writes in is it The subject is video chat Android to iPhone. The question is it possible? How to make it happen?
This is one of those questions that I read and I'm just like, oh wow, this is interesting that this is a question because it seems so simple in my mind. But the reality is, all we've heard about over the years is FaceTime, FaceTime, FaceTime, FaceTime. That's the way people video chat and skype. But in reality, there are many other ways to do this, and there are many simple ways.
The simplest way is the program that's probably installed in your both phones already, even if you're iOS and Android, and that is Facebook Messenger. People forget that Facebook Messenger has a video chat feature and you can easily use that. So if Facebook Messenger is installed on both phones, go ahead and use that to chat. You're already friends on there. You don't have to set up a separate account. It's
all done and it works nicely. The other thing, and I think this is probably the better way to do it, is Google Duo and Google Doo. I did a video on Facebook when this came out a couple of years ago. I think it was like five years ago at this point, let's say August sixteenth, twenty sixteen.
Three years ago.
I was nine.
Sorry, continuing with the young joke.
I like that, okay, But this app came out and I thought it was the greatest thing ever because it was really the first time you had a dedicated app that you could use to video chat. And Google Duo is very simple, it has better quality video than a lot of the other apps out there. It's totally free. It works on both Android and iOS. But for some reason, nobody thinks about it ever. Did it come to mind when you saw this?
I think about it all the time. No, no, no, I've actually never this is the first time I've ever heard of it.
But I really the first time see that.
But I was also thinking, I know people that not a ton of people, but my sister facetimes or video chats with people on Instagram, like her friends on Instagram.
Yes, you can do Instagram as well. So there, okay, So here are your options. Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, Google Duo, and obviously face and Skype.
Skype is a little bit more old school.
I think that's more like people think of that for business purposes, yeah, for personal and yeah, Instagram is probably one of those other ones that's really easy because it's already on your phone and everybody's on Instagram. So I would say those are probably the two or three ways to check it out.
But it can be done. It's very simple.
I think the main thing is that on Android versus iOS or going cross platform, it's not as simple as FaceTime because FaceTime, it's like you click their phone number if they have an iPhone, boom, it just connects. And that's of course part of the magic and nightmare of the way Apple sets things up.
Is it going to be blurry if you're on an iPhone and you're video chatting with the Android on Duo.
Yeah, no, quite quite contrary. It's Duo is very clear. In fact, they have this cool night site feature which makes your nighttime chatting like even brighter, which is kind of cool.
And no, it looks great.
And the thing that when Duo came out versus FaceTime, the thing that was different is FaceTime was I mean, it's gotten better, yeah, and plus internet speeds.
Have gotten better over the years.
But when FaceTime was first, it was it always dropped out, it was blurry, it didn't hold a connection very well. So when Duo came out, Google was using their YouTube. Google has learned so much from YouTube about compressing video and making video delivered very fast. They apply that to all their products, so Duo is no different. They're figuring out. You know, when you have a good connection, they'll make
the screen look really good, the picture really clear. When you don't have as good of a connection, they'll drop back that quality, but still keep the conversation going and still keep the video. Sometimes the video may go out if you have a really terrible connection, but I rarely see that anymore. Anyway, good question and check those things out, Jerome, Thanks for emailing in so many things to talk about
this week, including Samsung. And I'm not going to give this much more than like thirty seconds, because nobody cares about this phone. Nobody is buying this phone, and the only reason we care about it is because it's like our hurt player in sports. I'm not sports guy, so I don't even know this analogy, but like you're hope that you want to see them win, right that guy?
That never mind, I'm not going to also try to because.
No, we don't do sports analogies here because we don't do sports sports. There's a reason why I talk about technology. But the thing is, the Galaxy Fold was supposed to launch on April twenty sixth. It did not launch because there's a whole bunch of problems. We've been waiting for it to launch. Nobody's really been waiting for it to launch except the media that just wants to talk about it. Nobody really, Like, no one go up to thirty people in the street and not one person is ready to
buy this thing. But nonetheless, it's cool that Samsung is experimenting with new technologies, and I do think this will be indicative of technologies to come, and I think we will see more foldable phones. But the story is that the Galaxy Fold will launch in the US in the coming weeks. It is available in South Korea. So Megan, if you have nothing to do this weekend and you want to get.
A plane the fold, go ahead.
That's what I'm going to do tomorrow after work.
They did not say anything about the price. But the other thing that I do want to mention is that there's a rumor going around that Samsung will create a second foldable phone for next year, and that one's supposed to be more like the Motorola Eraser where it folds in half, like like it flop folds down. I guess you should say, right, instead of folding in half, you know, so it folds like a flip phone, like the old.
School flip phone.
Yeah.
And I think that that's really interesting because that could be kind of cool to have a big screen phone in your pocket that folds up small, not the one square into a square, not the weird one that the Galaxy Fold is just really thick and weird, Like, yeah, you want like a thin phone that also when you open it up, has.
A giant like a nice big screen. Yea.
Anyway, so I'm rooting for it.
You're excited.
I am excited for next year the square, not for this one.
All right. This next question comes from Stephen. He writes, thank you again for all your information. You're a life saver. Oh wow, what is your opinion on thumb I D for your iPhone? I don't want my thumb print out there, so I don't use that doesn't matter.
I haven't heard uh number one. I didn't even know people still use the thumb print. But I guess you have it on your phone.
Okay, all right, but hate and this could be this could apply to various phones because the Samsung phone still have a fingerprint reader.
But is he talking about the iPhone or is he talked does this say sent for my phone?
Thumb ID for your iPhone?
Your iPhone?
Okay, So the thing about thumb I D they call it, it wasn't called it called touch id.
Yeah, but you I guess you could use your thumb. You could also you can use your finger, but not your elbow.
Not your elbow.
So the thing about this is that Apple has been very clear that they do not store the fingerprint anywhere except on your phone in what they call the secure enclave, and that's just a fancy word for like a little lock box inside your phone that all this secure stuff is stored inside, and it's really tough to crack into, and there are various safeguards that if someone did crack open your phone or try to steal it, they wouldn't be able to retrieve your information. And it doesn't go
on the internet. It's not transmitted anyway. It's not stored in iCloud. So when you take an imprint of your fingerprint on your iPhone, it's staying on that phone and that's it. And it's only being used to authenticate the device, and everything happens on device. It's not being sent to the cloud for verification all that stuff I just said. So I think that you're safe using the touch ID. Yeah, and the face ID works in the same way. And you know, Apple has been a very big proponent of
privacy on your phone, and it shows. I mean a lot of things that happen on the iPhone do happen on device. I'll give you an example, since I'm writing the book, and I was experimenting with a new photos app on iOS thirteen, and it scans your pictures for things that are inside them. So if you take a picture of a piece of p pizza, you can search for pizza and your iPhone will show.
You your pizza pictures.
And Google can do this on the you know, on any phone with Google Photos. The difference is your pictures are being sent to a server to be scanned by Google's artificial intelligence, and that information indexed through Google. So it's not as secure as the iPhone, where it's just
being done on the iPhone. So Apple sends a whole bunch of instructions to the iPhone saying, here's how you recognize pizza, Here's what a beach looks like, Here's what a dog looks like, and then your iPhone identifies those things and it's all kept kind of secret on your phone.
See the difference.
Yeah, that makes sense. But now I'm curious about Google, Like, so they have access to all of our photos basically, or am I?
Yeah? Pretty much?
I mean they're scanning them to see what's in them there but we know that well, I mean I do, yeah, but it is there is a level of trust that has to be given to these companies, especially when you're getting something for free. Now, I would argue the iPhone comes at a premium because if you really think about it, and I go between iPhone and Android a lot, and you can see, I've got my Android in front of me and my iPhone, and there's a lot of things
that are different. Like when you think about it, I message is really a service that you're sort of paying for built into the price of your phone, because that is a whole separate messaging service that is very private and very encrypted and secure photos.
I mean, even though you might pay.
For iCloud space to store your photos, again, that's a private service that nobody else is seeing your photos unless you choose to share them. But with something like Google, when you're uploading your photos, Google is looking at those photos for different reasons.
And let's see what else.
Notes, like the notes app, you know, if you look at the notes app on your iPhone is syncs with your computer. That again, it is another service that you might pay for. You might pay forever, Note, you might pay for Bear, you might pay for any of these other app note taking app programs. So a lot of things that are built into the iPhone, you're sort of they're front loaded. You're paying, you paid for it, You paid for the iPhone and you're kind of getting these
services to go along with it. And yes, you have to pay for iCloud to at more online storage. Yeah, but a lot of the software that's built into the iPhone, like maps, you know, a lot of that is much more private than what Google's doing with Google Maps. When you drive around, Google's recording everything that you do and everywhere that you go to make their products and services better. Apple, to a lesser extent, is doing that. They're still looking
at the place you're going. I'm not sure how they're using that data, but in general, it's a little bit more secure than what Google's doing.
So if you write in a doc on Google like right.
Google Docs, Yeah, I don't know, I mean, where does that? I mean it is?
It's it's yeah, So all right, good to know.
All right, let's talk about some of the there's like three speakers right now, three new speakers.
So Roku came.
Out with a Roku Smart soundbar, and the only thing you need to know about this one hundred and seventy nine bucks going to be available in October.
And the thing.
That I think is kind of interesting about this is that it includes Roku in the bar, which is kind of cool because I don't know about you, but most TVs have terrible sound, Like even my TV like it just don't have very good sound. I have Sonos, so it sounds better, but it's still sometimes really tough to hear dialogue. Maybe I'm just getting older, I don't know, but.
It's tough to you can't hear It's tough to hear.
Dialogue, and you know, my wife complains about that. And Sonos has like a feature that supposedly.
Makes it better. It really doesn't, I don't think.
But the Roku Smart Soundbar apparently makes dialogue sound better, and I think a soundbar is just a good thing to have on any TV because think about it, TVs are mainly screen. They're not known for their speakers. So one hundred and seventy nine dollars you get a Roku plus the soundbar built in, which is kind of cool.
Now.
I don't see anything when it comes to compatibility for either Airplay or chrome Cast, which are two services that might make it easier to use audio from your phone with this soundbar. But if you have Roku, you don't really need that because you can just dream, Spotify and stuff from the Roku. Yeah, you'll have Roku, right, So they have like a Spotify Appy, Pandora app.
Yeah, they have. They have it all almost.
So that's that.
The other thing that I'm more excited for because I'm out of Roku house, but I am a Sono's house. They have a new speaker called the Move and this is the first battery powered Sono speaker.
That you can use outside.
And not only does it connect to your existing son No system, but it also uses Bluetooth. So for me, for instance, let's say I'm having a party. I've had a son No speaker on my back patio for a while. Problem is, I always forget it in the rain and next thing you know, you know, it's plugged in.
So that's dangerous. Number one.
Number two gets in the rain. It's lasted even getting wet rain, yeah, which is I guess it dries out and it's fine. I don't really trust it as much and the control on it has kind of worn out because of the rain, so I have to use.
It doesn't really rain that much, no, but it did for a while, but you forget, Yeah, and it did for a while all the time.
So I think that's really cool. So anyway, this is going to be much better outside. So in the backyard it would just connect to my existing Sonos system. But let's say we go to the beach and you want to use your son No speaker. You can now take this speaker and it has a battery which lasts for let's see, ten hours, oh wow, which is fine. And it also has Bluetooth streaming, so you can just use it with Bluetooth on your phone.
Nice.
I love this.
It also has an IP fifty six rating, which I don't believe is that that with stands falls, bumps, rain and moisture, dust and dirt. I don't think IP fifty six is as good as you know, like a higher rating. But that's still fine. It's still going to be able to withstand being outside. I don't think it's meant to be left outside, but it can be brought outside and kind of like if you forget it overnight, it's gonna be okay, right, okay, what else? Hands free Airplay two.
Here's the kicker on this whole Sono speaker. And what my problem with Sona says over and over is that it is a three hundred and ninety nine.
Dollars I was about to ask is it the praise?
Oh wait, hold on, that's for Is that a different story? Oh that's not Yeah, it is three and ninety nine okay, yeah, three.
Hundred nine dollars. That's expensive for a Bluetooth speaker.
You can get a blue Tooth speaker for way cheaper, way cheaper.
But the thing is, if you're like me and you're in a son's house, you're kind of building out that system that works really well. Like the first thing I do every single day when I get home is put on Sonos every single day.
What do you listen to?
Actually, recently I've been listening to I found a new feature inside YouTube music which I use, and it basically you search for an artist and then you scroll all the way down it gives you all the similar artists. So one of my favorite artists for like working is Tycho.
It's like instrumental music, and so it just I just pick one of the other artists and listen to them on shuffle or I do Tycho Radio Artist Radio, and it mixes in all the Taycho songs and then all the other artists that are similar, and I just leave that on for like hours. It's very easy, kind of like yeah, eats like cool, just chill beats.
Oh I want to listen, so Tycho write that.
Down, Tycho.
I believe that the album that I really fell in love with is called Awake, and it is fantastic.
If you just want to get some.
Work done, Yeah, you can like focus.
Yeah, Tycho away, it's really great.
Yeah, because when I listen to rap music, I can't really.
Yeah, it's tough.
It's tough.
It's tough with little Nas, Little Nas as your study guide. There, let me do one more. I'll just get all the kind of audio video stuff away. But they also have a new Amazon Fire TV Cube. This is kind of the highest end Fire TV as far as I know. And the thing about the cube that is different than the Fire TV sticks is that the cube lets you
control your TV hands free and your cable box. So it has a lot of smarts built in where you can say tune to channel five and it will turn on your TV and tune into that channel on your cable box.
So it's kind of cool.
It's only one hundred and nineteen dollars, and I think that this is now the most powerful fire TV stick because I have the or the Fire TV because I have the stick four K, which is forty dollars, and I'm looking at this and it has Yeah, the fire TV Cube has a built in speaker, which means you can have Alexa right there. You've got far field voice control, which means the thing can be off and you can just scream from across your room and well, yell whatever, and you can you know, you don't.
Have to press anything.
Yeah, you need to say a turn on the TV and tune into whatever Netflix there's and it works with a lot of different things as well. Okay, so the processor is now hexacore instead of quad core, and HEXA.
Don't quote me, but hex is what eight hexagon? How many? How many sides does a hexagon have? Six sides?
Okay, so six cores and two Okay, so six cores versus four. And it has sixteen gigs of storage versus eight. And it also has an Ethernet adapter built in, which is really cool because if you want really fast Internet instead of using Wi Fi, you can plug an Ethernet cable into the.
Back of the fire TV Cube.
So if you want the best kind of home system for fire TV, the cube is now the best.
I may have to upgrade. But I'm very happy with my stick. It works.
Just that's what my mom and dad have.
I gave it to them, oh Christmas.
They never use it.
Well, then it's oh it doesn't work. What do they use?
They just you know, watch cable. I can't really get into it right now.
We need an old school, old.
School, all right. So this next question comes from Sam. He says, who do you recommend for online backup? I had a bad experience with Carbonite, so not them.
Oh wow, abrupt endings Carbonite. I'm wondering what the bad experience was. I think that the experience with all these online backups, and the reason why I don't use them is because there's two number one. Almost everything I'm doing is in the cloud these days. So I'm laughing because Megan was taking a sip of her was it coffee, Yeah,
trying to trying to get caffeinated here. It was just a very funny sip because we wear these microphones and you kind of have to, like anything you have to do, you have to.
Like kind of do it around and Ale, Yeah, it's it's just funny.
Yeah. I was trying not to look at you.
Yeah, I know, but you did and you looked like those funny eyes that are like off to the side that you're doing something wrong.
So classic.
So uh, the reason why I find these online backup services kind of tricky is because a almost everything I'm doing is in the cloud. Anyway, I'm using Google Docs, all my pictures are with Google. I like to have a physical backup close by. Because Number one, to do one of these backups, if you have everything on your computer, takes a while to like actually get the first backup,
and then after that it's fine. It's incremental, so anything that changes on your computer, it will update, but that first update could take a couple of weeks depending on your internet connection.
And I used to do I should probably do this again.
And because last week we talked about on the show how I did lose my desktop because that wasn't backed up. But if you have iCloud and a Mac, your desktop can be backed up on iCloud. In fact, a lot of your computer can be backed up in die cloud.
So anyway, to.
Get to his answer, I would say, the other one to look at is Backblaze, and Backblaze is kind of like the biggest competitor to carbonite and all of these companies. There used to be a ton of them out there. They've all pivoted sort towards the enterprise or business solutions. But Backblaze, I am checking. They still do a personal backup for six dollars a month. Now, six dollars a month doesn't sound expensive, but over time, that is a very expensive way to back up your computer. Six dollars
times twelve is seventy two dollars. You can get a drive on Amazon to back up your computer for I think it's like sixty dollars for like a terabyte or even wow, let me look that up.
You know what. You're right, that's definitely how much mine was what I think.
It was sixty Yeah, for like one terabyte of hard drive.
It might even be two terabytes. At this point, Western Digital two terabyte drive is now sixty dollars, So imagine a two terabyte drive sixty bucks. You plug it into your computer. Both Windows and Mac both have very easy to use backing up systems, which on Makets Time Machine. On Windows it's just backup, so search on your Windows and if you just go to backup settings and if you go into there you plug in a drive. Windows will say hey, backup using file history.
So that's what it's called. So you just plug in your drive.
Every time you plug in that drive, it automatically backs up all the new stuff and boom, sixty bucks, a lot cheaper than seventy two for the year. The benefit to the online is that it's online, so you don't really have to think about it as much. You don't have to worry about your backup drive crashing. The problem comes when you want to restore from an online backup and guess what, Downloading all those terabytes.
To your computer takes forever.
And so what they want to do is they'll say, oh, we'll send you a hard drive with all this stuff on it. Maybe they do it for free, but a lot of times it might cost you a one time fee of like, you know, twenty five fifty bucks, okay, which again, now add that all up and you're talking it's a lot of money.
Yeah.
But with that said, it's peace of mind totally.
And you're using back blaze or carbonite. It's very simple because it's peace of mind.
Yeah, and that reminds me, I think I really need to backup my laptop, my old laptop.
You should, yeah, but I think in general, if you have the external hard drive with Time Machine or on Windows, and you have everything on your computer that's in two places, so hopefully both of those things don't crash at the same time. Yeah, you're hoping either you're not hoping, but either your computer hard drive is going to crash or the external is going to crash, hopefully not at the same time.
Yeah.
The only time that you have to be worried is I mean, God forbid, you're in the house, your computer's in your house, and your heart drives in your house and everything burns down, right, Yeah, that's when you.
But again the other but if there was a fire, I'd probably just grab my laptop.
No, you probably wouldn't grab my dog. You'd want to save yourself and you know, anyone else, my puppy.
Yeah, but I always think about that.
I'm like, oh, with a fire like that puts you in a tough place if you didn't back up.
Yeah, because you're like, I knew I should have listened to Rich on tech.
I don't know why, but that really stresses me out.
Oh, it's totally stressful.
It's the worst, like anything that has to do with your house or that's why it's.
Better to live in a brick house, right, because I can't catch on.
I don't know.
I'll never forget asking my Oh my gosh, this is embarrassing.
You have to tell us now.
I didn't even want to tell because it gets into religion and stuff, but I'll never forget. In third grade, my teacher we were talking about fires and somehow like a church came up and I was like, well, a church can't burn down because it's God's house. Yeah, and my teacher was like, and I didn't go to Catholic school, it's just public school, and she's like, oh, no, I can burn down.
I was like what.
I was like devastated to know that, Like, oh my gosh, God can't protect his own house.
It was really that's really sad.
I'm just going to end the podcast here.
Yeah, well, if it's made out of stone, right, I don't know anyway I.
Can still burn. I've seen churches burn, Notre Dame that wasn't that a church that burned?
That was really sad.
All right, let's talk about something fun, talking about backing up your stuff. If you live in the LA area or any area that is serviced by Spectrum in a large city, you might want to do a speed test. I saw commercial on TV and I think we talked about this in a previous podcast where it said now speeds you're double to two hundred, and I pay for one hundred. So I was like, what I want two
hundred because faster internet is always better. So I tweeted about this and I got some responses online and some of the folks said that, yeah, they live in the LA area and they're all already getting the faster internet, and one person told me that you don't have to do anything. They chatted with the Spectrum folks and they said, yeah, just reset your modem and you'll notice.
The faster speeds we have.
Spectrum I think.
Went to my house, went to my house and did a speed test, and sure enough, I was not getting the faster speeds. So this morning I chatted with Spectrum and they said, oh, we looked up your account. You are getting you got it. We are automatically upgrading pretty much everyone that's paying for one hundred to two hundred, which is awesome. Wow, never mind you I pay sixty five dollars a month, so two hundred sounds, you know,
way better than one hundred for that price. Yeah, long story short, I did a speed test and sure enough I got over two hundred down. Still ten up, but whatever, it's fine. So the thing is, they figure most people are more downloading than uploading. But when you're uploading, that comes in handy for things like backing up all that good stuff, you know. But they're thinking most people are just downloading stuff.
So wait, sorry, my brother has a YouTube channel, yes, and he's always uploading stuff. Does that like slow our internet down for us?
It could?
Yeah, I mean you get a certain amount of bandwidth, so yeah, it could do that if he's uploading all the time.
Yeah, it can. You know, you only get so much of the pie, you know.
Yeah, And that's why with cable internet in your neighborhood, when all of your neighbors are online at the same time, that's one of the downsides of cable internet versus the internet from the phone company is that you're sharing that line among your neighbors. Now, I think that things have gotten so good these days that it's not that much
of an issue. But I will say sometimes at night on a Friday or Saturday night, when everyone's streaming Netflix, you might notice a hit on your speed versus two pm during the day when I'm normally home. So anyway, my advice to you is, if you have Spectrum, definitely do a speed test. Couple of ways you can do that. Number one, go to fast dot com on a web browser that is connected to your Wi Fi at home and check out the speed and see if you're getting
close to two hundred. If you're not, I would call in. If you're getting something under one hundred. You got to check see what's going on with your internet.
Now.
Your WiFi is not necessarily the best way to test your internet because Wi Fi is generally slower than what's coming into the modem because the signal is sometimes getting interrupted. But if you have a system like Ero or one of these mesh Wi Fi systems, generally like me, I get the perfect Internet throughout my house because of that system. The other thing to do if you're not getting it is to just unplug your modem and restart it and
see if that triggers the upgrade. But otherwise, I put this on my Facebook page and I got a lot of responses, and people are all posting their Internet speed tests and they're saying.
Yeah, Rich, I got it.
Oh my gosh, that's so cool, and it just feels good to get more for what you're already paying for. Right the other way to test and I like an app called Meteor met eo R. It's available for both iOS and Android, and you can do a speed test with that. It's just a fun little app that just looks cooler than your typical speed test app.
All right, Megan, it's all you, all right.
So this next question comes from Madelina. She writes, Hi, do you have any solutions for stopping mail from a sender that uses various forms of an app called spot dot com. I've been getting hundreds of unsolicited trashy emails on my hotmail account. She says the suggestions that she's read, I wait suggestions to set rules, and the settings do not work. Although they automatically go to junk box, they're irritating just the same. One blogger said they're even going
to his child's account. And then she goes on to say, I've never seen this addressed by tech pros.
Thinks you've never seen spam addressed by tech pros.
Come on, I think it's specifically this. No.
I looked up that website number on that website is not trashy, so I don't know what there might be, like a variation on that website. Yea, I looked up the spot website and it's not trashy. So look, the reality is she's saying that these are going to her junk spam.
I mean, have you ever checked her spam? There's all kinds of garbage.
Yeah, that's the thing.
So it doesn't to me if it's going into spam. I don't really care. Yeah, and yes, I will take a casual glance at the spam every once in a while just to see like what's in there besides the spam, and sometimes some legit emails do get in there. But if you look at this stuff in spam, I mean, it's garbage. A lot of it is just terrible, terrible stuff that you know, who cares though it's in your spam. So I wouldn't worry about it too much. I think if the spam filter is doing its job, people are
gonna send spam. You're not gonna like put these people in jail. It's like, the spam is going to come no matter what. I think that if it's coming to your inbox, that's a problem. And yes, some people are saying to do filters, and usually I know a Gmail, you can go into the menu for any email and say filter messages like this. If it's not if your spam blocker is not working, you can filter a message and just send it straight to trash. If it's like
a mailing list that will just not stop. The other thing you can do is report spam, and almost all of the email providers let you report spam by pressing the report spam.
She mentioned Hotmail.
I mean, realistically, if you're still using Hotmail, like, it's not the best email out there, So I would switch over to something like Outlook dot com or Gmail dot com or anything but Hotmail. Yeah, just I don't think it's really kept up with the time.
So my mom uses AOL and it's so annoying.
My parents use SBC Global.
I don't even know what that one is. That like back in the day.
I made my dad a Gmail, like four years ago.
Yes, so did I my mom dad, and they barely use it, and it's like it's just one of these things where Gmail has sort of mastered email. So even if you have to use iCloud, like you can set up a free iCloud email address if you want, and there's probably not as much spam there, but.
Anything but hotmail.
Yeah.
Oh, speaking of email, if you're using Gmail on the iPhone, there is a setting that I think you should look into and this will help cut down on spam and all kinds of emails that you don't want. But now, in the iOS version of Gmail, there is a way that you can turn off automatic image loading. And I have this setting turned on on both my Android device and also my web Gmail. What it does is it does not load images. So when you get an email like this, you can see.
Well, that loaded the image.
Wait, I thought you said it was on iOS.
Well, this is new on iOS. It's always been available on the desktop and on Android. Now it's coming to iOS. So let's see if this one works.
Well.
That one that's weird. Uh, both of those images loaded. That's so strange.
Here's one okay, So here's my Spectrum bill. See this and see where it says Spectrum logo at the top. How it's not loaded. It's like a broken image.
Ye.
That means that it's not going to load the images until I press display images below. And now you see how it all comes in the reason why I do that is because inside these images are a whole bunch of trackers, and those trackers help identify when you've opened an email, where you've opened an email, how many times you've opened an email, and it just generally lets people track you in different ways.
It's crazy.
So by having these off, you are less apt to be tracked. Also, it does not send a signal to these spammers that your email address actually works. Because let's say you look at a spam email, it loads that image. It tells a spammer, oh, we know that Megan just opened this email. It then tells you that that's a good email address. A lot of times spammers are just spamming, they're just sending a bunch of emails. So if you have this feature turned on, it helps protect your email
address just a little bit more. And yes it's annoying because a lot of times you do have to press you know, let me see these images. But you can also press the option for let me see these images every time for this email address. So with people like my family and friends, like obviously I press always load images for them, and when they send me something, I see it immediately. I don't have to take that extra step.
But for all the other garbage that you get, all the bills and the you know, random unsolicited emails and all the mailing list, it's just kind of one extra little step. So you can go into settings on iOS and look for the option to turn image blocking on, which it probably will say something like load images by default or ask and I.
Would change it under the Gmail like.
Yeah, should be under the You have to probably go into the app settings, so it's probably into Gmail apps side. On iPhone, there's two different settings. There's your setting settings and then there's like inside the app you have setting right. Very confusing sometimes, but there you go. All right, let's see what do I want to talk before we go? Let's see, Well, Android ten I know launched, but nobody has it, but I do have it on my Pixel. And the problem with Android ten this is like the
new version of the operating system. It's great, but nobody really gets it unless you have a Pixel And if you have a Samsung phone, you're not going to get this for six to nine months, which is wild because with iPhone, when the update comes out with iOS, you get it that day. With Android it takes forever, so I have been playing with this on my Android on the pixel and it's really cool.
It's very beautiful. They've had a lot of new features that are just very nice.
It works great. Smart reply is one of my favorite features on Android. When someone sends you a text, it gives you a bunch of options at the bottom, which I don't know if you know that, but so for instance, like if you look at this text message on here, this one didn't work, of course, but okay, so you sent me a text that says everything's set up, and at the bottom it says yay, little smiley face, awesome and great. So with one tap, I can just send
you that message. So that's really I don't have to think about it. And they're expanding it into more apps so it works across various apps. They've got a dark theme, so you can now have dark theme. I noticed on my phone this morning as I was driving in everything was black. That was kind of cool because it gives you that dark theme. Easy on the eyes. Gesture navigation, which is just like the iPhone. Location sharing is really
upgraded in Android ten. So a lot of apps when you first use them, like Yelp, it gave me a notification and said, hey, YELP just asked for your location.
In the background.
Did you know that? Did you want that? And it'll give the option to say no. You don't realize that all these apps are asking for a location in the background all the time. So now with Android ten, you'll be much more aware of that. Somehow you can mark notifications to be silent. I've not really figured that out,
but there's definitely more control there. And there's Focus Mode, which I've talked about I think in the last podcast, where you can now press one button and kind of gray out some of the apps that disturb you or distract you.
Yeah, and I love that feature and it's been really fun.
So and you have that on your Instagram.
Right showing I think I put on my Instagram to show the folks. I think it might be on Twitter.
I don't. I don't. I don't think it made it to Instagram. Did it? No? It did not? Sadly, Oh that's so sad. Did not?
Should I talk about cyber insurance anyway? If you think you need cyber insurance, Mercury's got it. You can google about that one.
Do you want to do? One more question before we go? Quick question A quick one.
Yeah, I have a quick one from Kathleen. She just bought a Sony Bravia Bravia Ravia. On the box it says I must agree to a Google account to use the TV. I'm not thrilled about giving up my privacy. Is this TV just an excellent spy that's.
Yeah.
If she's saying that you have to have a Google account, Yeah, I have a Sony TV that was pre Google, pre Android. So the Sony TVs, you know, like you have a Roku TV, or you have an Amazon TV or a Samsung TV or an LGTV, they all use different operating systems, but the Sony uses Android Android TV specifically from Google.
And yeah, you probably have to agree to that, which, if you think about it, Google is collecting stuff, collecting data, probably information on what you watch, what you're streaming, how you're using the TV. They're getting some of that data. So if you're not comfortable with that, I would recommend taking the TV back. And the TV might also have a microphone on it, depending on the model.
I don't know.
That could also be a considering excellent It's probably funneling more information to Google about you now. It also depends on whether you think that's evil or not. Do I care if you're seeing what I'm watching on my TV? Not really, I don't really care. So at Google it if you do care, and that's a concern, And since you're emailing me, that probably is a concern of yours, I would say go with a different TV.
Now.
The problem is all the smart TVs are doing the same thing. Whether it's Visio, whether it's Samsung. They're all collecting data on what you're doing on that TV, and now with the internet connections, they're sending it back.
But you don't need a Gmail account for Roku, do you?
No? But Roku's doing their own thing. Yeah, they're also they're doing their own thing. Yeah, Roku they're a huge advertising platform. Why do you think they're trying to get people to get their system? It's all advertising. Yeah, they say, hey, we've got twenty million people using Roku's we can sell ads against them, and we know that Megan is this age and she makes this much money and she lives in this area, and we can target ads to her. Don't you have ads on your homescreen on Yoku?
You do? It's like a billboard in my room.
Exactly, and they know exactly who you are, and they also know what you're watching. They know what you like, they know what you don't like. It's all linked up.
That is so so if you don't want that to happen.
If you don't want that to happen, you need to get a TV that is not smart. Alternatively, you can not connect your TV to Wi Fi. Then it's going to be tough to stream stuff.
Aka, it's not gonna happen.
It's not gonna happen.
All right, that's going to do it for the show. Thanks so much for listening. We do appreciate it. If you have a question for me, you can go to my website rich on tech dot tv, hit the contact button and send it my way. I can't guarantee at this point any personal responses because I'm getting so many emails, so many emails, I do try to respond to each
and every one of them. If it's something that I don't understand or can't really easily explain in an email, I just or you know, I may just explain it here and I may just ignore you. It's nothing against you, and you're free to email again if you think you're not getting the service.
You should email ten times a day. If you don't, please don't don't do that.
But again, I am one person and I you know, I do try to respond best to my abilities. But I do have family, kids, and.
This is just part of my job kind of a life.
Oh, I don't have a life, So that's okay, that part you're covered with. Yeah, let's see. I told you about the book. If you want to follow me on Amazon, go ahead and do that, or you can sign up for my newsletter go to rich on tech dot TV hit newsletter and that is where I tell you about all the stuff I think you should know in newsletter format and that's kind of fun. And Meghan, how can people get in touch with you?
I'm on Twitter and my Twitter account is producer Megan, and I'm on Instagram. But it's not like.
Really tough to find until she changes it to producer Megan, which she's really how is it hard to find?
Meghan mcmonoca?
Oh yeah, that's that just rolls off the monocle.
Yeah, it's a very easy last name to pronounce.
I am at rich on Tech and you can find me there on Instagram and Facebook. On Twitter, I'm at Rich DeMuro, which is really tough to find too. I mean, how are you going to find that? You know how to spell DeMuro? Just off the top of my head.
Should I changed my Instagram handle to Meg with tech No.
I think you should do producer Megan. It's good because here's how easy this is.
You say producer Megan, and now you can just be like I'm producer Megan across all things and people just find you Preucer Megan. But for a while, producer Megan had her face, had her Instagram closed down. So but now it's open again.
You had a private Oh yeah, I've gone in and out. Yeah yeah, I changed my mind periodic.
All right, that's gonna do it. Thanks so much for listening to the show. If you like the show, please rate and review us on iTunes. Tell your friends about the show. We do appreciate it.
You know, we're trying to grow, trying to grow the show, grow the show. Yeah, I am going to rhyme in no time.
Oh maybe we should just end the show now, I think so.
Thanks so much for listening. Have a fantastic day, Umrich shmiro Rich on tech dot TV.
We'll see you real soon.