Best ways to find holiday shopping deals

and this weekend we'll just be more shopping. Now, normally I don't make a big deal about the day that it is, but since this is the uh, pretty much the official kickoff to the holiday shopping season, this show is going to be dedicated to just your question So just the questions that you send me. This is a special episode to the show. And before you tune out, wait wait, wait, it's gonna be good. I got a lot of stuff to talk about, so many questions that

need to be answered. But like I said, it is Black Friday, or if you're listening on the weekend, it is this kind of you know, kickoff to the holiday shopping season. Before you know, the day we all give gifts to each other. And you might think that people are not going to be spending money this season, and yes,

some might not be, but apparently people are. And according to Adobe Analytics, I love the data that they always put out, US online holiday sales are going to total one hundred and eighty nine billion dollars this year, thirty three percent year over year increase. Wow, that's two years of growth in one season. Now, I don't know what

that is related to. I think that's because they're talking about online sales, and I'm guessing, if I had to guess, I'm guessing that's taking some of the chunk out of the brick and mortar sales as they normally say, you know, like going into a Best Buy, because I can't really imagine, you know, I used to love waiting in line for a Black Friday, and believe me, I've done many many a Black Friday in my past. And I've waited in line at Sears for a TV deal one time, Best Buy,

many times Target, one time for a PlayStation. I won't say which one because it was a long time ago, but I've been known to do that. In fact, that used to be my tradition. My wife thought I was crazy. She's like, why would you do this? Why do you do this? Now? I haven't done it in years past, Like in the last couple of years, I haven't really done it. But you know this is I'm talking. You know, ten years ago. It used to be my thing because I used to love it. You know, it used to

get such great deals. And there's also a camaraderie of sitting outside in the freezing cold. And no matter where you live, at three am when you have to be out there, it's pretty much cold. You know, there's not a warm three am anywhere that I know, and it's like this camaraderie. The store would come and like, you know, maybe give you some like donuts and some coffee or something.

I don't know. Maybe I'm confusing the Apple launch events, but you know I've done a lot of those too, so you know what, I've been outside early in the morning many times and with lots of shoppers. And the thing about it, people think they're crazy, but you know what, it is fun and there is, like I said, a camaraderie and a kind of shared experience that you know, you only get in certain aspects of life. And right now there's none. I mean during the pandemic. You know,

you're not going to sporting events together. You're not going to bars, you're not going to restaurants, you're not going to concerts, you're not going to live show. So I mean the shared experience right now is is zero. So I mean you gotta think about it. You got to you gotta take it where you can get it. Now. I'm not saying to go out for these you know, early morning things. I think you're gonna be perfectly great just sitting at home and shopping you from your from

your computer this year. And let me tell you about some of the sites that I visit because I love all these sites. I love looking at the deal sites because I'm always, you know, I always have my eye on something right. So dealnews dot com is a great website that you know. What I like about them is they just have a whole bunch of deals, endless scrolling on their on their homepage. But I like about their deals is that they're legit number one, because they do

have a team of editors. Number Two, they actually give you kind of some some basis for that deal. Like, for instance, I'm looking at this Sony noise canceling over ear wireless bluetooth headphones eighty eight dollars normally two hundred. It's the best deal we could find by two dollars,

So I mean, there you go. Or this, let's see like open box Samsung two channel wireless rear system speaker system fifty five dollars in cart It's thirteen dollars under the lowest price we could find for a new system. So it gives you just kind of that perspective on a deal that most of the time you got to go around looking for on the web, and it's not always easy to find all right, slickdeals dot Net. I love this website. I check this website every single morning.

I check about fifty five websites every morning to kind of go through the tech world and see what's happening, and slick deals dot net is definitely one of those, and I just love seeing just all the deals. And what's cool about this website is that anyone can submit a deal, but then the members vote them up. So the front page deals are going to be fantastic because

people have said, yeah, these are really good deals. And then not just the front page, but there's also a bunch of other a bunch of other pages as well, where you can kind of narrow down and see exactly what you want. Maybe you only want computers, maybe only want video game systems. But I mean, just looking at the deals here, I mean it's great, Like look at this, so I mean it's also cool because they give you like just ideas on how to use. It's just great.

Like here one month's CBS All Access membership for new or returning members. So you might think, oh, I already had a freeze. Tryal to that I can never sign up again unless I pay. Well, if you're checking slick deals, now you can watch you know, some of those shows again for free for you know, a month. Wow, let's see fifty dollars. Nintendo E Shop gift card for forty five dollars. Ooh, that's not a bad one. That's a

new egg. My kids want that three hundred and sixty day red Pocket prepaid plan unlimited talking text plus three gigs of LTE data for one hundred and seventy dollars. So if you have like a loved one like a mom or a grandma or someone in your family that does not need a lot of data, look at this one hundred and seventy dollars covers you for the whole year. Three gigs every thirty days for a year for one hundred and seventy bucks. I mean that's pretty good. So anyway,

slick Deal's always a fun site to visit. Clarkdeals dot com. I wasn't I know Clark. I don't know Clark Howard, but I know of him and I really like his show, But I didn't know this little website that he keeps clarkdeals dot Com. They're also really great, and again they kind of do the same thing that these better sites do, which they vet the deals. They say like, oh this is, you know, better than the five dollars or five dollars

less than we've ever seen on this deal. So clarkdeals dot Com, then I've got another another way to kind of price check things, Like I do this a lot if I want a deal on a particular item. So let's say you want like the Note twenty ultra and you want to see the best deal on that. And I've mentioned this on the podcast before, but you just search Note twenty ultra deal on Google and then hit the news tab. You would think you'd hit shopping, but no, you hit news and then you'll see all the blog

posts about that deal. So if there's a deal on that item, chances are someone has blogged about it, and now here you go and note twenty is fifty percent off at Google five. Note twenty ultras is seven ninety nine. Well I want the regular one, the not the five version. Well, I guess five would be fine. Coupon cabin This one is someone I interviewed for a KTLA segment. Wasn't really

familiar with the site. It's merrily one of those sites that tries to give you, like the cash back, so like shop at Macy's and they give you, you know, ten percent back on your order or whatever, but they also have a pretty good coupon. Repository Is that a word that sounds weird? Is that really? Let me look that up. Repository Is that that sounds like, oh yeah, a place, a building or receptacle where things are stored. And uh, here I can I can prove that it's

actually a word. Oh it didn't go in repository there it is repository. Okay, I know what I'm talking about here. Let's see, so I will say, like the other day, I was searching for I order from a what's that place? Panera a lot, and I was like, ah, you know, usually they send me like a deal, and they didn't in a while, and so I was like, let me just search coupon cabin and sure enough, I got five dollars off my uh my curbside chin order, and I

got to say, coupon cabin came through. So check it out. Couponcabin dot com. All right, let's see what else Amazon dot com slash Black Friday is another place to go couple of deals. You know, if you're looking for an Amazon product like a you know, ring, Echo, fire sticks, all that stuff, tablets, anything Amazon brand, and they have a lot of brands by the way, Amazon Basics, wag Bali, Solim, Happy Belly, all that stuff is on sale. But let's see.

If you use Amazon reloads replenish your Amazon Gift card of one hundred dollars or more, you get a ten dollars bonus that you have to be the first time user for that. Oh no, I think it says all customers. Oh, maybe I'll do that. And then first time Amazon gift card shoppers get a fifteen dollars promo credit with a purchase of fifty dollars or more in Amazon gift card. So that's like a no brainer if you've never purchased an Amazon gift card, purchased a fifty dollars gift card

and get a fifteen dollars promo credit. And Amazon says they've extended returns windows to January thirty first, twenty twenty one. And if you're not aware of this, a lot of these returns you can bring to like a coal store or a UPS store without even having them in a box. And I've done this with the UPS Store a bunch. Now Cole's just twice because it's kind of far from where I live. But UPS store has been fantastic and you just literally bring the thing in there and they

think they ship it all up. I mean, I don't know how they do that, but that's what they do, all right. Two more sites to go through Wirecutter Deals, And you know, I love Wirecutter. It's a great, fantastic website that always has a lot of great picks in various categories. Their deals are cool because it's only stuff that they've said is good, so it's like stuff that they've reviewed which is really cool. And then Reddit Deals.

This is one that I don't generally check, but I've been researching for my stories on KTLA and the Reddit deals is cool. It's just a little bit more disorganized because you know, people just submit stuff they voted up. But it's not as organized as some of the other ones. But still, I mean, you just scroll through there and you see, you know a couple of great things that you might like. And so all those are sites that I will be keeping an eye on over this weekend,

and you should too. So let's get to the first question. Oh you know what, Yeah, let's just get to the first question. Enough of me talking. Oh wait, no, I have to talk to this whole show. I kind of forgot. Liz says, have you ever Oh and let's see, Liz says, have you ever checked out the photo stick? I'm always looking for something from my mister gadget brother. I saw this on Facebook and it's supposed to organize your photos,

remove duplicates, et cetera. What is your opinion on this gadget, Liz, Liz, my opinion on that gadget is I don't like it. So here's the reason. I am very suspect of anything that's advertised on Facebook or Instagram, because the main thing about the stuff that's advertised is it all looks too good to be true, Like it all like does exactly what you need, which is, oh, this stick can just go through my whole computer, find all the pictures, ferret

them out them on this thing, and organize them. And yeah, and also I've looked at these things. These websites that sell them are very kind of scammy, not scammy, I should say spammy. You know, it's a lot of high pressure sales tactics like this, this deal is going away in three minutes, two minutes, one minute, whoa, watch how

it's over? Oh, refresh the page, it's still there. So I mean I don't like it for that reason, I would say, And I know that Google Photos is kind of annoying to me at this point, but I would say stick to something like a Google Photos. And Google Photos does have a program, it's like their desktop app that will actually find all the all the photos on your computer and upload them to Google Photos. Now, I know Google Photos just went paid instead of being free.

Next year, you're gonna have to start paying for anything over fifteen gigs of storage, even with the free high quality storage. I know I talked about it my last podcast. I'm not going over that again, but I still think think it's a pretty good way to store your stuff. Now. I don't know if there's another program that will scan your computer. I'm sure there are. But that's the thing

about these photosticks. It's like it's all about the program, like the software that has to be really good for it to kind of find all these pictures wherever they're stored in your computer. Now, Picasa used to do a really good job at this, and in fact, that's what ended up becoming Google Photos. But Picassa was really great. You would just set it loose in your computer, and you know, in an hour, all of your pictures would be organized in this wonderful timeline. And you know, that's

that's become Google Photos, just a little bit different. So I don't recommend the photostick if you want something similar that doesn't organize your photos, but you can plug into

your iPhone or your Android. Look at the sand disc I expand the other thing I like is called the eb ib i, And I think that they're going to be in a good position because It's like a networked hard drive that you connect to your WiFi and it, you know, it finds all the pictures on your phone and I I don't know if it does your computer, but it'll put them all in this drive. That's sort of,

you know, a backup at your house. And again, I always recommend having all your pictures backed up in two places, so make sure they're not just on one hard drive somewhere. They've got to be somewhere else as well. All Right, Richard writes, good morning, rich everyone says good morning. I hope you and your family are continuing to stay healthy and happy. I have a non tech related question with

your trying out new tech almost weekly at home. Does that constant swapping of phones and especially home network speakers, Wi Fi and Mesh systems create stress for your wife or is she just used to your techiness? Lol? That was just a thought as you were discussing the home pods versus Sonos on your November thirteenth podcast. Be well, rich and may you and yours have a blessed Thanksgiving and Christmas. Richard, Oh, I love this question because it

is so appropriate for the DeMuro house. And to answer your question, Richard. Yes, it is a big pain in the you know what, to live in the DeMuro house because I am always hooking up new stuff to try out. Now, that doesn't mean it always stays hooked up, and so a lot of times my family has to deal with whatever I'm testing at the time and kind of get used to that for a little bit, and usually it's, you know, a week or two before you know, I

take it down. Now, if I really like something, I will end up getting it and kind of mixing it into my my tech mix here. But to be honest, most of the stuff that I've had that stays with me is stuff that I've been using for a while now. Like my TV doesn't change. I have swapped out my YEAH underneath my TV. Like the I went like I used to be all Amazon Fire, then I went to Apple TV. Then I went to Chrome Cast with Google TV, which I still really like, but I kind of went

back to Apple TV speakers. I went through Google Home son no Apple, and I went back to my Sonos, which you know, I've collected over the years. So I mean, and I realized at the end of the day that Sons kind of offers everything that I want and I already have the speakers that I want, so I just don't have the new fancy, you know, exciting new thing,

but they work. And and Richard, to answer your question in kind of a bigger scheme of things, it is tough to test this stuff, like right now, I've got you know, like, I do like to go hands on with the stuff that I feature because I know people are gonna ask me about it, and so I do like to know kind of like how it works. I don't just like to use like the handout video. I

like to like see how this stuff works. And I think that it goes a long way because then when I get questions on the podcast or on Instagram or on Facebook or on Twitter, I can really tell people what they need to know about this stuff. So, for instance, you know, Ring is this new mailbox sensor that I've been meeting to set up, and it's been sitting here for like a week, and I need to set that up so I can have some experience and then do the story on it. But I don't really do the

stories unless I test stuff. I've got the Amazon Echo sitting here right next to my Google Home because I like to know, like if there's a question that I get about one of those two things, I want to see how they answer them differently. And you know that's why, you know, it behooves these testers and these you know,

these testers to really test this stuff. Now with phones, I really had to stop kind of putting my simcard into the tester phones because that became a nightmare and it's just easier to kind of just carry around the other phone for a little bit, just in addition to my standard bearer. Because believe me, that was like what I said earlier in a podcast, like the telegram thing.

We switched to that because you know, it'd be tough for my wife to be like, oh, I can't get a hold of you right now because your phone number is not working or whatever. You have like a test phone on you and you left your regular phone at home. So I've got a couple of little tricks up my sleeve that helped me deal with all this tech stuff on a daily basis. But that is a fantastic question. Thanks for asking. Elber writes, question which exercise bike similar

to Peloton did you recommend from the Amazon website? Thank you, Well, I'm not going to mention the one so This is kind of a wild story. This happened a couple months ago, where gosh, it was so wild. Basically, you know, everyone wants this Peloton bike that is so expensive, and you know, not only is a bike expensive, then the membership is expensive. But it's great. I mean, I love the Peloton situation.

I use the app, I don't use their bike. Now, if I was buying a new bike, I probably would buy the Peloton because when I bought my bike, I stold a gym membership and I didn't want to pay I just couldn't imagine paying even more for like the Peloton membership on top of my gym. Of course, I've since canceled my gym membership because you know, when are we going back to the gym in California, don't know. And so I bought the Bowflex C six, which I love. I saw it at CS and it just was like

the most brilliant thing ever. I was like, wait, this is amazing. It's a spin bike that has a spot for an iPad and it also connects via bluetooth to the app. So you don't get all the little kind of you know, all the little benefits of Peloton that the real bike has but you get enough Like for me, it tells me, you know, my cadence, which is how fast you're going, and that's it. I mean, that's all

I need. And then of course, oh, I think that the resistance kind of matches up and I'm not really sure, but it works for me. So anyway, I bought the Bowflex C six. It was I think it was about one thousand bucks versus you know, two thousand for the Peloton and it's been great. It has gotten us through

the pandemic. We love it. It is amazing. Now the one you're mentioning this was like the Echelon or something, and this was like a this was kind of a I don't know what happened here, but basically, this company named Shalon I think that's how you say it came out with a bike exclusively for Prime members called the the Prime Bike. It was five hundred dollars and you know, this thing was you know, widely promoted for like a couple hours, and all of a sudden Amazon was like, er, no,

they have nothing to do with us. They I think they just called it the Prime Bike. I don't know, I don't know what happened, but the whole thing is pulled. So don't get the Prime bike for five hundred bucks. If you want an inexpensive Peloton alternative, go for the Bowflex C six. You can see my video on it type Boflex C six. DeMuro into YouTube and you will see the video I did on a SCS. And that video was really the light or the idea that just

popped into my head. It was like, oh wow, this is brilliant, Like I don't need to spend all this money on a on a Peloton. I can spend half the price. And by the way, the app, when you have just the app based version of Peloton is about thirteen dollars a month versus I think it's forty for the membership that you have if you have the bike, which is kind of counto counter intuitive. You would think that if you bought the big old bike you would get the membership app for lesser, but no, you spend

more on that. So it's a great thing. You Look, I have no problems with Peloton. I think they're amazing. I did a story with them back in like twenty fifteen. I think it was. I forget what year it was, but I remember the guy who started it. I think his name is John Foley, you know, he's like, you know, they pitched me on it, like can you meet this guy at the Century City Mall here in Los Angeles,

And I'm like, sure, what's this thing? And it's like this new bike that connects to the internet and serves up classes digitally. And I was like, what, Oh, come on, give me a break. And it took me like three years to realize just what an amazing idea this guy had. And it's it's absolutely brilliant, and the peloton classes are fantastic, the instructors are fantastic. But I do see some headwinds come in their way because a gyms are going to reopen eventually, and so of course there's gonna be a

little bit less interest at home workouts. But also Apple Fitness is coming out with their version of this, and so it'll be interesting to see. You know, it's gonna be tough for people to have two memberships to two different things, and the Apple Fitness is probably not gonna play very nicely with the Pelotons of the world, so you're gonna have to have a bike like the Bowflex. So anyway, these are the things that keep me up at night. Folks. All right, Jose says, Hey, Rich, I

was wondering if I can get your help. I'm thinking about getting my wife the ie Robot S nine, but not sure if it's a goodbye or worth it. If it's not too much to ask, can I get your input? Thank you in advance, Jose. So I'm taking a look at this ie Robot Rumba S nine and this is one of the more expensive rumbas. If not is it the most expensive, it's it's pushing up almost you know, yeah, almost one thousand dollars at full price, so, you know,

not on sale, but let's see. Definitely, these robotic vacuums are going to be a very hot cellar through this entire holiday season. Do I think you need the best one? So? I think if you, you know, have a dog or some sort of animal or pet in your house, you

probably want something that's really high end. I have been testing out the I seven series, and this is the one that kind of puts itself in its own little vacuum, so it kind of, you know, like it goes back to home base and then it sucks all the stuff out of the vacuum like into a separate vacuum that

you then empty. I know it's kind of tough to imagine, but it's kind of like the uh if you've ever been to a hair salon or a barber shop that has like one of those little suction things on the wall that like they brush all the hair like nearby, and then they turn it on. It like sucks all the hair into this little like vacuum container canister thing.

That's kind of what the Ruma does. So it does its own vacuuming, then it goes to home base and then the canister kind of gets it like sucks out all the stuff that it just sucked up from your floor. So it's really cool, it's really amazing. I think that the Rumba. I used to have a d bot. I think that the Rumba is really really advanced with some of the features it has. It also gets stuck less than my old vacuum, and so I do highly recommend it. But do you need this super super expensive one. I

don't think so. I mean, you can get the I seven without the you know, the little cradle thing that sucks up the dirt, and that's even less. So I think that you probably don't need the nine, Jose, you could probably go with a slightly lesser expensive I'd go with a seven, or maybe even lower than the seven if you don't have a pet because or especially if you have like hardwood floors throughout the house. But it really depends. But I think Rumba does a really nice job.

There's so many of these out there. I mean it really, you know, like I think the differences with these things the quality of the suction of obviously, the kind of the app, how much you know, how much do you want to deal with like a poorly formed app if you even want to connect it to your WiFi, you know, and like the mapping abilities, the ability for it to kind of figure out where it's been before and not just go over the same spots, and and also the

ability not to get stuck in different places. So those are the things that I'd say are probably most important when looking at these things, especially when you go and look at like the hundred dollars ones or the two hundred dollars ones, which are fine. I think my old one was a couple hundred bucks and it was fine. It just got stuck a lot. But I do recommend

that brand I like the Rumba. I like the old brand I had, but you know, just beware when you're getting some of these really off brands that you know, the things I mentioned are the things that you might be sacrificing. But once you do have one of these things, they are fantastic. I mean, you leave the house, you turn it on, and when you come back, it's got those nice little you know, lines on the carpet where

it went over it. It's just so great. And then when you close it in a room, you know, you hear it like just hitting do it sounds like there's like a crazy like you know, someone just like having a fight in that room when it's like knocking on the door a bunch of times, just like boom boom boom boom boom boom boom. I mean, it's really funny. So these things have a mind of their own too. And just watch them around cables, because, uh, once they get that cable stuck in them, it's like, augh, that

cable is really tough to get. I've had to cut many things out of the little spinners on the bottom of these things. All right, Debbie writes, Hey, Rich, I just found a cool new feature in iOS fourteen point two. You may have already found it, but just in case you hadn't. It has to do with a new Shazam button in the control center. Pretty cool. Have a good weekend, Debbie in Bakersfield. Yes, Debbie, I did know about this because the folks at Shazam actually emailed me about this

and mentioned that it will be there. Let's see. So what Uh okay, this wasn't this was embargoed, so I can I can read it now. Let's see what are they saying? So Shazam has two hundred million monthly users around the world. Let's see. Oh tones an I dance Monkey, my Kid's My Kid's favorite song in the world is the all time most Shazam song with thirty six point six million Shazam's Wow, Okay, that's wild. Prayer and see Robin Schultz and passengers Let Her Go is number three. Wow,

that's wild. I love that song. Let her Go, Let her Go. Let's see. Shazam Control Center module is now available for iOS and iPad users. Uh and on a note in Shazam from notifications bar is now enabled un Android for quick recognition access to recognition of music playing. Oh not only around you. But on device and in other apps. I wonder if that. I don't think that works on iOS, but on Android probably interesting, Maybe it

does work on iOS. I should try it. Let me see, can I play I'm gonna play some music on my phone and let's see if it can recognize what the song is. So let's do let's see if I can find a song. All my music right now is h is like Christmas all right? So here I'm playing Marshmallow one thing right, and I'm gonna do this. Now, let's see Shazam Music recognition. Oh wow, it did figure it out. Wow,

look at that. Okay, good for you. Cool okay. So yeah, so you know I'm gonna do Hold on, I'm gonna turn the volume down on my phone fully now I'm gonna play the song. And now I'm gonna try it and let's see if it works. So Shazam Music Recognition on, and let's see if it can figure it out even with the mic off. H I don't think so. I think it needed the mic on. Let's see if I put my volume on. No, okay, so you have to have your mic on. You have to or you actually

have the volume up on the song. But anyway, so, yes, that is a cool feature. It is in the control center. So if you're not familiar with what the control center is on iOS, you can just swipe down from the lower right hand or the upper right hand corner of your phone, or if you have a phone with a home button, you swipe up from the bottom. But that's your control center. It's like all those little controls on

your phone. But you can add Shazam to that. So the way to do that on the iPhone is to go into settings and then look for a control center and where it says shazam, or actually it doesn't say Shazam, it says music recognition. Tap the little plus sign next to that, and now when you swipe down from the upper right hand corner, you'll see the little Shazam button and let's see, does it say anything? Okay? Yeah, the control the control recognizes music playing in apps, even when

you're listening with air pods or headphones. Works with both internal and external audio sources. So there you go. See, if I just read the stuff that I get sent to me, may I would actually have an understanding of some of this stuff. So if I just would have read that, it would have I would have known that you can use it for internal and external audio. But now I know. Anyway, cool find Debbie. I think it's awesome too. Now you know, I don't really use Shazam

as much anymore. I don't I don't really have as much of a use for it, but it's still cool. I guess if you're hearing a song for the first time, I do know that Shazam is well. I think I talked about this another podcast, But anyway, it's a cool feature. It's been around for a while, and you know, or the service has been around for a while, but now that new way of accessing it on the iPhone, which, by the way, Apple bought Shazam. That's why this is

all happening. Lorii Wrights, Hey Rich, what do you think about the app get Upside? I'm just trying it and wondering if there is a catch. Seems pretty good so far.

Thanks Lourie. All right, I had to look this one up because I don't know anything about get Upside, but I can tell what is going on here, and so what it looks like is an app that you download and then you go to these certain businesses and once you kind of use your you know card at these businesses, you get you know offers, so you know, it's like

you can save on food. About twenty thousand businesses so like Shell, BP, Circle K, Marathon, a lot of gas stations, Burger King, Papa John's, Dunkin Donuts, Popeyes, Gelson's, Wendy's, a lot of a lot of gas stations. So, I mean, here's the thing with these these sort of apps. I mean, the main thing is that I'm just searching my areas, see what's what's here. The main thing with this is that you know, you kind of well, twenty two percent cash back. I gotta see. I'm curious how this works?

Like what this It doesn't really say like how the how it works? Oh, how does it work? Okay, let me see there's a little link. So, I mean a lot of these apps, the way they work is that you know, you're doing business with the with the companies that they want them to do business with, or they're you know that they partner with, and then you know, you get the the little money I guess the kickback they're split. They're splitting some of the kickback with you

that they get from these companies. So I mean, you know what, this one actually doesn't look so bad. You know. The main thing that you're giving up is that you are giving up sort of your privacy because when it comes to these apps, you're sharing some of the data. Okay, here it is. How does it work? Claim your offer through the app, Pay as usual with any credit or debit card, check in or snap and submit a photo

of your receipt. Cash out anywhere you want. You can cash out via PayPal, E check, E gift card, or check. We partner with local businesses who want to win you over with experiences personalized for you. So I mean, it looks cool. I don't have a problem with it. I need to try it out and see if it works. But there's another one that I that I used to use called drop I think that was yeah, yeah, Earn Yes, so it was the same thing Earn withdrop dot com.

So there's a lot of these apps out there that sort of want to reward you for shopping at places. But here's the bottom line. With all these apps, and as a person who is always trying to spend less money, not more, you know, the reality is with these apps, yes, you can argue that you would be going to Dunkin Donuts anyway, and spending that money anyway and getting that, you know, five ten percent cash back is amazing. It's

free money. But the reality is this, no matter what you think, these marketing geniuses that are employed by these apps, that have degrees in marketing and degrees in psychology and all this stuff, they are smarter than our little brains. And what they're doing is they are marketing to us. So in the back of your head, when you know that you're getting five percent cash back at dunkin Donut's just for shopping there as normal, you are a gonna spend more money there and b You're gonna go there

more often. And I know this for a fact because I know it happens to me when I you know, my credit card and you know I'm not a big credit card person, but yes I have one. But my credit card has these things called like offers built in right, and so you can activate these offers and then when you shop there, you get you know, five percent back,

ten percent back, a dollar back, whatever. But the reality is it's always in the back of your head, like, oh, I should go to this place today because I would get you know, if I use uber, I get ten percent back, and so it just it works. And this is why these companies do this, because it works. It builds sales, it generates sales, it generates higher per check averages. So yes, you can use this app. And if you only use it to buy a gas at the gas

station that you always shop at. Perfect, But you know, once you start venturing out and start buying Burger King and Wendy's and all these other things that you may or may not have purchased, you know, the couple of dollars that you're getting in cash back, I don't know, you got to see. But with that said, I am going to download this app. I'm gonna try it out and see what it's all about. But I do think you are giving up a little bit of your privacy

in exchange. And also, of course you know you're also going to be spending just a little bit more I think than you normally or typically would if you didn't have these things. But good question. And you know, hey, at the end of the day, whatever works for you, right, if you like it, you like it, and it's fine. A lot of people like these cash back apps, all right, let's see Hamela says hey, Rich, just a quick question.

I've seen your review many different products. I have two boys and I've never gotten them any video game consoles. I'd like to know how to place Xbox which you would recommend. Their ages are fourteen to nine. They're always watching other people play games on YouTube. Thank you, helima. Yeah, that sounds like my kids too. I can't believe that watching people play video games on TV, or i should say, on YouTube is a multi billion dollar business. I don't know,

it seems like it definitely multi million. My kids love watching these people play video games, and I get it. It's like it's just you're playing the game. You want to see how they do it. And they've got good personalities, a lot of them. So to answer the question, PlayStation or Xbox, I think that you can find your answer by checking out who they're watching on YouTube and the games that they're watching them play. So if it's all Minecraft,

you know, maybe the Xbox is better. If it's all, you know, Gears of War or what I you know, I don't know. I'm not a big gamer, but I think that it all comes down to the games they play and also where their friends are. That's a huge one. Now, if they're friends are all in PlayStation, your boys probably want to be on PlayStation. If they're all on Xbox, they probably want to be an Xbox. So that's my advice.

And you know, you can get an idea just by asking them, say like, hey, you know, show me some of these YouTubers that you follow. Let me see and kind of do your research on them and see what games they play, you know, because a lot of them are known for like a big game like a you know, Roadblocks or a Minecraft or a Animal Crossing or whatever. Like, they all have their favorites and so once you figure that out, I think it'll lead you to the right console.

But with that said, good luck getting your hands on these consoles. I cannot believe how popular they are. And it's just like it's the same thing that's been going on since I was a kid. I mean, I remember when I was a kid, I dragged my dad from store to store in North Jersey before I finally found the copy of Super Mario Brothers three in the yellow box that I wanted so bad, and we went from store to stooris or and I remember, you know, saving up my money for the game Boy and also I

had to have a turbographics sixteen. I mean, I just had to have all these gaming systems and it's the same thing. Nothing has changed in all these years, PlayStation, Xbox. And yes I am spoiled because I got to play with these things way before everyone else. But you know, and do you need them first day? Probably not? But do your kids know that? No, of course they want it. They're getting marketed left and right to buy these things. And it's fun, it's different. We're in a pandemic. People

want new things and you know, something that's different. But the reality is these two devices will be around in six months. They'll be around in three months. And I mean, maybe I'm wrong because here we are. I don't know how long the Nintendo Switch has been out, and it's still tough to get. So I know it's tough to wait for these things. But if you can, you know what you can wait, you can get it or you know, of course you can go to the website. So got them linked up on mine rich on tech dot tv.

Look for let's see how do I have it? Labeled? It says where to find the new Xbox in PlayStation five in stock and it's got a whole bunch of websites listed there that you can try. I say try because it's gonna be tough. It's it's really really tough to find these things anyway. Cool, good luck with that, and I hope you find one. Laura writes in Oh my gosh, I still have so many questions. Hold and

let me see if there's a Oh. I didn't realize that I had so many questions here, Okay, Laura says, I'd like to scan and store my photos front and backside. Which scanner would you recommend? I'd also like to be able to tag people, places, dates, et cetera. Thank you, Laura, Laura, easy answer. It's the epsyn Fast Photo. I'm not sure what model number they're up to, and they're a little expensive, but I'm telling you it's the best. We did this with my mom for a story on KTLA and it

was amazing. It scans the front and back. It can restore your pictures. You can add tags, although to be totally honest, I don't think you need to add tags to your pictures anymore because what's gonna happen is, you know, if you put them in something like an Apple Photos

or a even Amazon Photos or Google Photos. It's going to do a really good job of slicing and dicing these pictures by people places things inside your pictures, and you should be able to find pretty much any picture you need one of those ways, like, okay, let's find Aunt Edna and all the pictures. Okay, there here she is. Let's find all the pictures of Paris. Okay, there we are. Because now it's not gonna get every Paris picture, but it you know, if it has monuments in them, it

will figure that out too. What else is gonna do? It can do things? So all we want all the Christmas pictures, Okay, search Christmas. So you can do all that stuff. But you know, I think you're gonna be just fine letting letting this do its thing and just putting it in one of these photo organizing websites. The other thing about this device is that you can batch at it. When you put these things through the scanner, you can say, like these were all taken in April

nineteen ninety eight or whatever. But that's the one epsyn fast photo. It's a little expensive, so you know, like my mom's advice was to split it with a friend or family member. Like, you know, even if this thing is like four hundred bucks, once you're done with it, you can, you know, of course, sell it on eBay, but you can, you know, maybe split it with a family member who also wants to do the same thing. And now now you've just had your costs and you

don't need this thing forever. So there you go. All right, let's see Timothy who Timothy via Instagram. Rich love your podcast Thank You was listening this morning and you stated that your phone bill was two hundred dollars for two lines. Take a look at Visible. It works off Horizon cell phone towers. It's all set up for forty dollars a month per line, unlimited everything. Start a party and get three others to join Visible, and your bill becomes twenty

five dollars a month. Have a good one and stay safe. This is a great idea, Timothy. In fact, I was one of the first people ever on TV to feature Visit, and even I couldn't believe the price. I didn't know what was going on because I knew they were owned by Verizon. I knew they were kind of a startup inside Verizon. But I was like, I don't get it. How can Verizon be ninety bucks in this be forty

and so a couple things. Number one, Yes, it's unlimited, but the data is capped or the speed is capped at it was at least at five megabits per second, so which is plenty fast for most of the things that you know the typical person is doing on their phone. Now, I am a power user. I want the full throttle speed, so this would actually not be that good for me because of that reason. When I'm out and about, I

need to live stream or upload giant files. When I'm in the field, video files we're talking about, and so I can't be limited in any way, shape or form. So I do want the maximum throughput of the network, So that's number one. Number two, they don't support Apple Watches, and so I have a cellular Apple Watch and I need that connection, and so I can't for those those two reasons, I can't do it. Now with that said, I've gotten some of my family members to sign up.

My brother signed up and he loves it. It's fantastic, it works, it's forty dollars a month, it's predictable, and there you have it. I mean, what more do you need? To know. So yes, Visible is fantastic. The other one I really like, and I got my mom to sign up for this one is mint Mobile, and mint Mobile is really good. The difference is you can get even cheaper than their plans, you know, forty dollars a month.

So I think her plan is like, I think it's twenty five or thirty a month, and you know, it's only a certain amount of gigs per month, but that's all she needs. I think it's eight gigs a month and that's it. And Visible Mint now has a unlimited thirty dollars a month plan, which is even amazing too. Now unlimited after thirty five gigs of data, they do slow you down. So but anyway, there are Timothy, to answer your question, there are lots of alternatives. Like I said,

I personally need I am. I am like a power power user, and so I just need the maximum maximum and that's just the reality of it. So I do appreciate you trying to save me money, and believe me, I'm always I did save on my bill twenty dollars a month because I did switch my plan recently. In fact, it was so jarring to my credit card or bank account or something that I got like a message saying you normally spend two hundred dollars a month at Verizon

and this month you only spent one seventy five. What is wrong? And I was like, uh no, sweat, you know, virtual assistant over here checking my account out. But I didn't know they spied on my account like that. But yes, I saved twenty dollars a month by switching my plan, and so I lost like fifteen gigs of hotspot data a month, but otherwise everything's the same. And you know, I was looking at my data usage anyway and it wasn't even that great. So I mean, I get it.

It's smaller right now because of the bend, but I can always go back. But for twenty bucks a month, you know, I immediately went and spent that on something else. The Hallmark the Hallmark app, which we've been watching all those cheesy Hallmark movies which are so good during the holidays. So good question, Thank you, thank you, thank you. Rich Can you point me in the direction of the Apple refund rebate for the iPhone six S plus? Is Apple

still issuing a twenty five or thirty dollars refund? Jay Zambrano. No, that one that you're talking about, the iPhone speed settlement, there was a oh gosh, I forget what the website was, but that one is expired. There was a there was a thing where they would pay you twenty five bucks to do that. But now there is a new one. So now there is a new battery gate, another one hundred and thirteen million dollars that Apple is paying out.

But I'm unclear if states are going to see this money or if people are going to see this money. So I don't know. We I don't know still, so it'll be one of these things where I'll just kind of watch it. But yes, there is another settlement coming up, and I will of course keep you posted on that. But right now the old one is closed up. I believe the deadline was a couple of weeks ago because I did do a segment on it for News Nation, our national news program, and that was it was like

the deadline was there. So but I will keep you posted on the new one. All right, I'm just getting right through these questions. We got so many. Veronica says, have you checked the app total av for Android users? It's three dollars. Please let me know if it's good. I watch Enjoy and try to use your good info. Gosh,

I don't think you need this, Veronica. Total av does a really good job of advertising, and it's pretty clear because when you look through the websites, ninety nine percent of them are pretty much somehow related to total Av's website. So total av is you know it's there. I just don't think you need it on your mobile phone. I really don't. I mean Android devices. I mean, let's see, let's see features, and I've gone through this before, let's

see applications. I just don't think. I think on your it's just really tough for me to recommend this, especially on iOS. You don't need it Android device. Make sure your phone is virus free, reclaim disk space and increased speed. I don't think you need to pay for that. So virus free. You probably don't have a virus on your Android unless you're downloading stuff from third party app stores

which you know, or you're sideloading apps. And if you don't even know what those things mean, then you probably aren't going to get a virus. Reclaim disk space. You can use the free Google's Files app to do that. That will do it for free, so you don't need anything except that free thing, free app to do that

increase speed. If you have a Samsung, you can just go through and they have like a little thing in the settings that will speed up your phone by kind of closing out all the apps, or you can just close out the apps, or you can just restart your phone and you'll probably do the same thing. So for all those reasons, I say, don't go with the total av I know it sounds like it's only three bucks, but I'm sure there's some bigger cell later on, so just don't worry about it. All right, We're gonna wrap

up soon. Get through two more questions. Hey, Rich, any recommendations on portable instant photoprinters El Mikey vs. Okay, El mikey VS. This is funny. You asked this because my wife wants to get this from my kids for the holidays, and I'm kind of like, eh, I don't know. I mean, okay, So the one I tested a while back was called the HP Sprocket, and this is like one of those. There's a company named Zinc that came out many years ago.

They were the ones who pioneered these portable printers, and I think that became the Sprocket And this is about eighty bucks, and they make two by three inch prints and I think some of them can be stickers. It's cool and it's like a small, tiny polaroid picture. And yeah, it's cool that you can stick it up. And I'm sure that you know, the teens and the tweens would probably like this, But I think that it's a whole

bunch of nothing. I mean that the paper is expensive, the device itself is expensive, and how many times are you really going to print out these little stickers? So I think that that's something I would not recommend, but

that's one option. The other option and this is something I actually think I would get and I might even get this from my kids is a Canon selfie printer and selfie not like the selfie you take but it's Selphy and these are about a hundred bucks and they're on sale, you know, because it's the holiday shopping season, and you know, the printer paper, I think you do

need special paper, but it's not as expensive. But you can print from your phone, which is kind of cool, and I think it just gives you more options and of course there's more sizes of paper. I think it's a four x six or there might even be larger paper, but I think that is a better choice. It's a little bit more expensive, but I think the printer is more more flexible. Now I might even step it up a notch a little bit more and just go with

a nice printer that can print photos. So like a nice Cannon printer or a nice HP printer that's highly rated that can handle prints up to like eight x twelve, because for me, that's what I you know, I started at what you were saying, like my wife's like, oh, let's just get one of these little photoprinters. I'm like, ah, let's go with the Cannon. Well that only does four

by six. Let's go even bigger. Let's just go with a photoprinter, and that way I can print and I can finally put some new pictures in all these photo frames around my house that are just sitting here with pictures that are ancient or pictures that I never even bothered to replace from the factory. But I would recommend one of those. So, el mikey Vis, there you go. That's my recommendation for a instant photo printer. All right,

I think we have time for one more. Let's uh, let's see Ca moon Forever rights buying myself a gift? Is it better to buy now or will prices get better after the holidays? And they sent a link to my Instagram story that I posted about Apple's Black Friday deals and Cyber Monday deals? Is it better to buy now or price? Prices will probably not get better on

these things after the holidays. So specifically, Ca Moon Forever was looking at the Apple deals for their Apple Black Friday Cyber Monday deals, which goes the whole weekend, and what they're doing. Apple doesn't really discount their items, so they'll give you like a gift card in addition to

your item. So some of the deals they have are fifty dollars if you buy an iPhone se and iPhone eleven or a ten R, twenty five dollars with an Apple Watch Series three, twenty five dollars with an air pods, one hundred bucks with an iPad pro or a Mini, and up to one fifty with a computer. So I'm assuming you're probably getting yourself a phone, maybe, but I don't know. I mean, I think that these are good

but I think you can do better. I think that you can do if you look at some of the deals, Like let's say you want an iPhone twelve, which I highly recommend, I would just search like iPhone twelve deals and see if on Google, like I said earlier the news, and just see if you can get like a better deal, and I think you're gonna find. iPhone deals are always tough, especially on the new model, but and usually have to

like switch lines or switch into a different carrier. But I think you know that that might be a better way to do it. Or if you want one of these that they're advertising, let's see iPhone se eleven or ten R, I'd maybe go with the eleven out of all those phones. But I think that you know, you'll just keep an eye out for deals on these iPhones if you If that's what you want for the other ones,

I think again, just search. Sometimes these third party websites like a best buy or an Amazon actually have way better deals on Apple products than Apple themselves does. And with the competition very intense right now, most of the time, if Apple is offering like a twenty five dollars gift card with AirPods, you could probably find air prods for twenty five dollars less at some other retailer. Oh wow, there it is the music you know and love. That's

gonna do it for this episode of the show. If you would like to submit a question for me to answer, just go to rich on tech dot tv hit the email button at the bottom of the page. Sure, you can write me on my Facebook page. You can DM me on my Instagram or reply to me on Twitter, but you know, the guaranteed way that I'm mostly gonna see your message is through email. Hello at richontech dot

TV's the email address. Also, I would love it if you would rate and review this podcast to help other people discover Just go to rate this podcast dot com slash rich on Tech. You can find me on all social media at rich on tech. Come on follow me on Instagram. That's where I'm putting a lot of my effort these days, So spar I'm spending a lot of time. What else do I want to say to you? Have a fantastic weekend, happy shopping, don't buy anything that you

don't really need. If you need advice on stuff, you know, try not to text me too much because I might be off my phone. I might be trying to detox from my phone on Saturday and Sunday. MY name is Richdimiro. Thanks so much for listening. Stay safe, I'll talk to you real soon