Best ways to free up storage on an iPhone

coming in from everywhere too. This is the weird thing, not just California, not just some of the stations that I'm on across the US, but kind of like everywhere. So it's been really interesting. It's been really fun through the pandemic. I feel like I've gotten to know a lot of you through Instagram and Facebook and all these

different places that you get your questions in. So I've got a whole bunch of questions here that I've printed out for my email, and I am going to do my best to get through as many of them as possible, and I'm going to be mixing in some other stuff along the way. I want to talk first off about five G because I've been using the Note twenty Ultra, which if you listen to the last show, you know

it's a really good phone. In fact, I'm so tempted to switch to that phone, but I'm not sure if I can give up everything just yet with my iPhone and especially the Apple Watch. Although there is a new fitbit that's coming out that kind of rivals the Apple Watch for me, So we will see. Maybe that will be the winning combination. But the Note twenty Ultra is a little bit big, especially because you have to have

a case on it. But anyway, so I have been kind of checking out five G in different ways, and I have a pretty good understanding at this point of the five G offerings from T Mobile, also at and T and to a lesser extent, Verizon, because I've yet to step into a five G area with Verizon, because I believe they are far and few between, few and far between, far and few between whatever it is, so

T Mobile. The sim card that Samsung sent with the review unit of the Galaxy Ultra was a T Mobile sim and that was a five G SIM card five G phone. And I'll be honest, I really am not impressed with the five G that I saw on the T Mobile network. Now I'm not saying it's not going

to be good in the future. But it's one of these things where I really wanted to believe in it and love it and couldn't wait to try it because you see all these ads and all these things that they've been saying about how they are building like the first true five G network everywhere, and they switched the switch and it was everywhere all at once, really cool. And you have a five G signal on the phone.

The little indicator looks awesome, but when you'd go to use it, there were so many times when I couldn't even get a good signal. It was super slow. It was worse than LTE. I would switch back to LTE. So I don't think it's there just yet. And it's fine if you have a five G phone and you got five G, but I guess my thesis here is that you don't necessarily need to switch to five G

to right now now. On the flip side, AT and T another phone I have was a AT and T simcard that they sent to test out the five G there, and I will say very impressed with the five G on AT and T. It has a signal and a lot of places, not as many as the T mobile, but the signal when it was there worked a lot better. And I'm talking great speeds like one hundred plus in a lot of places. So this is just my observations. It's casual. There's nothing specific or scientific about this. I'm

just telling you my casual observations. Now, I am considering a switch to AT and T because of this. If I do get a five G phone, I think that AT and T would be the network to be on right now. Verizon, which is my personal carrier, they don't have five G. But the thing about Verizon is that they're so solid just everywhere that it's just like one of these things, where do you need five G? I mean, how many things are you really doing on your phone where you need a signal faster than you get with

your current provider. I'm not sure. Now. For me personally, as a content creator, journalist, someone who's uploading to Instagram and Facebook and videos and all that good stuff, it would help me to have something that's really fast all the time. And so for that reason, I think the

AT and T network would be awesome. Verizon apparently is just stupid fast when you have a signal, but there's not many places you have a signal, so Anyway, I just figured i'd give you a little update on the whole five G situation from my personal standpoint, and I'm excited for it, and personally, it's funny because I love T Mobile as a company. I think I've said this before. I love them as a company just the way that they don't really mess with you is very straightforward, and

so that's what I like about them. But I just feel like the signal sometimes lags the advertising that you see. But I'm also one of those people where when I like a product, I'm willing to stick with it and kind of stick to it. So I don't know. Anyway, let's get to the first question. This comes from Christine Turner. She writes, I need to buy a new router and really need a quiet one, quiet one along with it being strong. There are so many to choose from and

it's driving me crazy, so I thought i'd ask the expert. Also, what brand was the twenty seven dollars earbuds on Amazon that you tried out? The Samsung ones don't fit me and they drop out. Thanks so much, Christine. Well, the Wi Fi signal, I'm not sure what you mean by a quiet one. I don't know of a loud router, but the routers the I have a lot of experience with these Wi Fi routers because I've recently upgraded my internet at home and so I've been getting the new

euro devices that can handle the higher speeds. So I've got now three of them in my house, and my speeds are okay. I wouldn't say it's amazing. I'm getting a thousand down at the at the at the origination point, I guess the source, you can say, and then when I get it into the other areas, I'm getting about three hundred, maybe three point fifty on a good day, and sometimes less than that. So I still feel like I can do some more work to get this signal better,

but it's still pretty good. I mean, I'm very happy with it. So the routers i'd recommend are anything with a mesh network, which is pretty much all the routers at this point. But the brands that I like and the brands that I know are Euro, which I feel

like is kind of like the gold standard. Then you also have Google, Nest Wi Fi, which you know, I think works pretty well as well and a lot of people like it, and then neckgar Orby I have not tested that personally, but I do believe that they do a good job because I get a lot of reviews

from people saying they love it. As for the earbuds, so this was something called Let's Fit, and this was a story we did on ktla a couple months ago, and this company reached out to me Let's Fit, and they said, hey, do you want to try these earbuds that are dirt cheap. They're only I think it was twenty eight dollars. They're called the Let's Fit T thirteen, and I'm telling you, this was the most popular story I've I think ever done on ktla. And these are

now twenty one dollars on Amazon. They have four and thirty six reviews. I got a ton of emails from people that purchase these and said they love them. And I've done sound tests of these devices and I will say they sound better than a majority of the more expensive earbuds. And they're only twenty one dollars. They don't sound better than the AirPods, but they do sound really really good for the price. I mean, for twenty one dollars, you can't go wrong. So again, those are the Let's

Fit T thirteen earbuds on Amazon. Fantastic little device for that price. All right, let's move on. Oh you know what, let me tell a story real quick. This was kind of crazy, So I just mentioned that I ordered the Euro so I've been these things. The Eros are kind of tough to get. I used to have the old Euros, which were just the Euro, not the pro and the beacons. And so when I got the new Internet, I realized you needed the faster eros, which are called the euro Pros,

which have the tryband. It's a whole bunch of stuff that you don't necessarily need to know. Well, unless you have really high speed Internet then you should know. But the Eros are like sold out everywhere, so I've been tracking them. You just can't go on Amazon and buy them. So I had to buy it from a third party retailer, you know, another big name which I won't mention, but you know it rhymes with let's see nest guy, That's

what it rhymes with. And I get this package in the mail after a week and I open it up and the first thing I realized there's no shrink wrap on my Euro box. I'm like, that's weird, because the last one I ordered from the same exact place, by the way, had shrink wrap on it, and so I go, all right, well, I don't know, maybe they for eco friendly reasons, they don't shrink wrap them anymore. Well, next thing, you know, I open it up and I'm like, that's weird.

The cord is kind of like mushed and smushed, and you know how you ever, you know how you take a cord apart and you have to put it back together. You never get it exactly right. Then the court also had some scotch tape on it. I was like, that's definitely not how euro packages their boxes. Then I look at the Ethernet cable and it's also repackaged, and also, by the way, there was a hair stuck in the tape. I'm like, this is okay, this is clearly an open

box that they sent me. I ordered a new one. Ah, this is kind of annoying. So I call the company. Of course, it took a half an hour to get someone on the phone, and they say, allay, well we'll send you a new one. No real apology, just oh, we'll send you a new one. And I have to send back this one. And I said, well, that's kind of a pain. I mean, I'm fine keeping this because this is clearly an open box. I'm sure it works fine, you know. Can you just give me a credit for

my trouble and I'll just keep this one. You don't have to spend the money to send me a new one. I don't have to spend the money to send back the old one. And they said, all right, hold on. After about ten minutes on hold, they finally come back with their offer and they say, all right, we'll give you a twenty dollars credit. Twenty bucks on a two hundred dollars device. I was thinking more like forty or fifty.

The whole reason I didn't buy it on eBay is because I didn't want a new one, and on eBay I could have saved fifty dollars if I would have ordered it used. So this whole thing is going on, but you know, I just wanted to make things a little bit easier, so I decided to keep it. And now I've got the device and it's it's working just fine. All right. Now that you know that story, let's move on to a question from Franci. Francie says, Hey, Rich,

I need your expertise, advice. You have two handsome kids. Well, thank you. I have two beautiful girls, nine and seven, and now with homeschool, I'm having problems finding the best headphones that are safe kids hearing. My daughters don't like the earbuds they prefer over the ear headphones, but they also need a microphone to talk with the teacher, and one that's comfortable five hours in class, also safe on the volume, no super loud to protect their hearing. The

best ones are super expensive. We've already spent money on two computers. Now we need headphones. This homeschool situation is hard, but better to be safe than sorry with this virus. Hopefully you can help me, so I will tell you

what I think are really good headphones. And I can't take I can't take the credit for this because we interviewed a person named Lauren Dragon over at the Wirecutter, which is a great reviews website, and when I talk to her about the best headphones, she said, these are the best, and the best are pure O p R specifically the BT twenty two hundreds or I guess two

twenty two hundred s and these are ninety dollars. But what I would recommend is that you want to make sure that you look for some sort of discount and right now maybe they're not offering them. But I've noticed if you kind of watch the website, and this is true of a lot of websites, just kind of oh wow, look at this. See that my little Honey extension Honey fifteen fifteen percent discount exclusive from Honey. So again, have

one of these things. I really like this Honey. I wouldn't say I really like it, but it's definitely gotten me some discounts. But what's the website for that? Is it get Honey dot com? Uh yeah, get Honey dot com or Join Honey there it is join Honey dot com and that's a browser extension that looks for coupon codes automatically. But anyway, they have a fifteen percent. But Puro I think is the best because exactly what you're saying, Francy.

They hit all the marks. They have volume limiting, which is really good, they go over your ears, and they also have a microphone, and they're super comfortable and they last forever. So these are the headphones myke have after Lauren recommended them, and Lauren tests headphones for a living. So when she said that these are the best. I took her word for it, and we've been using them ever since and they are fantastic. My kids love them.

They've had them for I think two years now, and believe me, they're not taking care of them like you know, sitting there putting them back in their cases and stuff. They're just using them all over the place and we've had no problems and they work great. They also work Bluetooth or wired, which I really like as well. So again look up. The website is Purosound purosound dot com. And I just mentioned the BT twenty two s, but there are a twenty two hundred s, but there are

a whole bunch of different headphones. They have them for adults and kids. But that is going to be I think the best case scenario, all right, Mary says, hey, Rich, I watch you regularly. I saw the info on the Google Pixel recorder on KTLA this morning. I have a Pixel one and I went to the Place store to find it. However it's not listed. Hmm. The website shows a similar icon, but it's not from Google like yours.

I found the voice recorder smart Moby Tools. I'm unable to locate the exact recorder in my Google Pixel Play store. Is there anything I can do to locate the app that you mentioned? So I did a little digging on this one, and it turns out that the recorder app is only compatible with Pixel two and up. So Mary, you are out of luck on this one. And this is another thing that happens very often when I talk about things on TV and I notice this on my Facebook page, I notice it on Twitter, I notice it

on email. People for some reason think that they know what I'm talking about and just google things, and next thing you know, they're emailing me saying, Rich, I bought this and it's you. You were wrong, this is not or this is cheaper than what you said or what you got it. This is why I do the blog post on ktla dot com and on my website. I make sure that I give you the direct links to the things I'm talking about. If you just go on Google Play and Google recorder app, what do you think

is gonna happen. You're gonna find some random app, not the exact what I'm recommending. And this was part of a story I did on KTLA about transcription apps, and I did some really good recommendations and I'll just go through them really quickly. Number one was Google Docs. You can do voice typing in Google Docs. Number two is Office three sixty five. They launched a new transcribe feature where you can upload audio and it will transcribe it, or you can just tap dictate and it will do

something similar. The Google Recorder app is only available for the Google Pixel, but I'll be honest, I was able to install it on my Samsung As or the Samsung and testing, I should say, with an APK that I got from Xda, say that ten times fast. Now, I don't recommend you install APKs unless you know what you're doing, because there could be some security issues. I trust XDA and I did install it and it works fine on

the Samsung. Doesn't work on every phone, and i'd recommend this to Mary, but I'm not sure that I want to be recommending people downloading and installing APKs because you have to allow your phone to install things outside Google Play, and unless you're a total nerd and not what you're doing, that could be a bad thing. So anyway, that's the

Google Recorder app. If you do want something similar that works on all androids and iPhones, I recommend an app called Otter Ai and you get six hundred minutes of free transcription each month, and then finally Descript. This is the one that's great for Zoom calls because Otter works with Zoom as well. But Descript lets you upload a recorded Zoom call and they will transcribe it. Unfortunately, that one's only good for three hours a month. After that

it's twelve dollars a month. So to answer your question, Mary, the pixel the recorder thing from Google is amazing. I've been using that the most because it's so easy. In fact, I use it to transcribe almost all of the virtual meetings that I've had in interviews because I just love having the transcript and it's unlimited, it's as long as you want, and it kind of works. So Mary, if you're not open to upgrading your phone, then you're probably gonna have to do Otter for now. But good question,

and yeah it happens. Not every app is compatible with every Android phone, and that you know, when I do my stories, I do think about this stuff. I do try to make sure that I find stuff that works with a lot of different phones and platforms and cross platforms especially. You know, I could do only iPhone apps all the time, but then people email me like, rich,

what about Android. I'm like, I know a lot of apps come out on Android first, all right, sorry, on iPhone first, and then they come to Android, and so that's you know, the problem there. So I always try to think about, okay, is this app available on both? That's really what I'm trying to do, all right. Next question coming from oh classy lady, classy lady. A classy lady on AOL says, how do you screenshot on a Galaxy X pro cover? How do you screenshot on a

Galaxy x Pro cover? So what I've discovered is screenshotting is pretty much usually the same across Android. It's usually the down especially on the Samsung. It's the volume down along with the power button, and you hold that down for about a second and then you release. You'll see your screen turn white with a flash, and then it will take the screenshot. On the iPhone, it's the opposite. It is the volume up and the power button at

the same time. Or I guess I should say side button on the new phones, so power button as well as the up button on the iPhone that will take the screenshot. So those are the two ways to take the screenshots. There are also other ways on some of the phones. On the Samsung or what was it not was it the Samsung, you can do like these gesture controls.

You can also do the little s pen if you have one of the notes, you can also do I think on the samsungs you can wave your like the side of your hand over the phone slowly and that will take a screenshot if you have that enabled. Those are some of the different ways. And then what's the other one I saw the other day on the one plus, I think they had if you place three fingers on the screen and swipe to the right, it'll take a screenshot.

So lots of options for screenshots. Just remember with iPhone it's usually the volume up plus the side button, and on Android it's volume down plus the side button. There all right, Jennifer writes in and says, hey, Rich, my son is oh thoughts on iPhone eleven versus iPhone eleven Pro. My son is looking into getting a new phone. Unfortunately his camera stopped working in his Samsung seven Edge. He has obviously had this phone for four years and well

he needs a camera for his school stuff. So your thoughts I'm a single mom of two, and if I'm going to invest in this phone he is looking at, I'd like to know if it's worth the buy. I appreciate your feedback. And again the subject was thoughts on iPhone eleven versus iPhone eleven Pro. Well, I think that he probably how old is he? Did he say? Did he say how old he is? I'm a single mom. I don't know, doesn't say how old he is, but uh oh, sixteen, so he's sixteen. I would probably recommend

just the iPhone eleven. I mean, why does he need the Pro? The Pro is going to give you a better looking screen, it's going to give you slightly better battery life, and it's also going to give you a better camera because it's got the zoom the telephoto lens. Now, you can still zoom in on an iPhone eleven, it's just not gonna be as clear as the the Pro. And you can do everything you can do on the Pro on the iPhone eleven. So for that reason, I think that the iPhone eleven is the way to go.

I mean, why would you not. Now I'm gonna throw something out there. I don't know if your sixteen year old's gonna be happy with this because he's got the Samsung seven Edge. I'm not sure just how big that screen is, so he may not want to take a step back in screen size. But you also have the iPhone se which has a smaller format, a smaller screen,

no face ID, the camera's still great. And that's only three hundred ninety nine dollars if you go with the Samsung seven Edge, even if you trade that in, I don't think you're gonna get very much for that. So let's just see if you go for the iPhone eleven, Let's see how much that's gonna cost you. You've got purchase options. Let's just go with white sixty four gigs with kids. I mean they use a lot of pictures and videos. I'd probably spend the extra fifty dollars and

get the one hundred and twenty eight gig model. I mean, you're literally doubling your memory for fifty extra dollars. You're already spending six ninety nine, so spend seven forty nine get double the memory. And now let's say we've got a trade in, yes, and let's select our model, which is a Samsung Galaxy S seven. Ah they're not even doing the S seven anymore. Rope rope. All right, Well that's unfortunate. So you're not gonna get anything for the

S seven unfortunately. Now you can go to another website. You can always sell things on eBay. But let's see if you can get anything on gazelle dot com for the S seven. If you're looking for a used device, by the way, you can sell your device here. So sell Samsung. It's a good sign that the S seven looks like it's the phone they have on there. So let's just say it is a factory unlocked and it is the S seven. Let's scroll all the way down S seven edge. Let's see how much they're giving you

for it, and let's say it's in good condition. Sixty nine dollars. So there you go, sixty nine bucks. You I just saved you sixty nine dollars. So sell the phone on Gazelle, or if you're really good, put it on eBay. I always say eBay, you're gonna get a little bit more, but you're gonna have to You're gonna have to do more. So eBay is a lot more work, but you're going to get a higher return on your product.

Versus Gazelle. Super easy. You drop it in the mail in two minutes and boom you get your sixty nine dollars. But it's going to be less than you'd normally get because you're not doing as much work. There's another website called Swapa. I don't think that they would be taking the S seven Edge though, because that seems like kind of an older phone. So I'm just not sure you might be able to sell it there. But I think

that Gazelle is gonna be your best bets. But I would go with the iPhone eleven or the iPhone S for him. All right, Maraud says, did you ever find a fix for the Samsung Galaxy Note twenty ultra issues with social media? I think you said you were gonna try her of Verizon sim and see if the issues were network related. What happened? Good question. This was related

to the review of the s twenty Ultra. I said, my biggest problem with it is that social media looks like garbage on it, and it's still kind of happening. So I did try the Sorry when I had the problems, I was on T Mobile and I realized that T Mobile generally throttles video to four eighty P, which I don't like. I want full HD. Well, even on the best carriers now they're still doing just seven to twenty P.

So I did try. Basically everything looked all garbily so all the like Instagram stories, they just look garbly like pixelated, and a lot of the videos I'd look at on whether it was Facebook or even Instagram, they just looked bad. I just wasn't used to it. On iPhone, social media videos look fantastic. They look just as crystal clear as the camera that took them, but for some reason, when you upload them through Android and view them through Android,

they look horrendous. And so I did find that with Tea Mobile a lot across the board. When I tried it with AT and T. It's still happening, just not as much. I think it's looking better, but I think that the problem is iPhone just looks really good with social media and the rest just can't touch it. And that's mainly because I've talked about this before. The thing is, all of the phones are optimized for social media. On

the iPhone. All these developers do is concentrate on the iPhone and they're sitting there and if you've noticed you're getting updates for your apps all the time on iPhone. It happens on Android, but just not as much. And I think that's because this prevalence we have of the iPhone in the US, at least, it's very iPhone centric, and so these developers make a lot of money on the iPhone. They want to service their iPhone audience first. Now, when you're talking a big app like Instagram, why does

it act like garbage on the Android. I don't know, it shouldn't. I know. For a long time, Facebook was so iPhone centric that they didn't even think about Android, and it was a problem. And now I'm seeing more of the apps and more of the features come to Android and iPhone around the same time. But still there is a major discrepancy between these two platforms. And if you have an Android, it's kind of frustrating because I

get why it happens. It happens because there are a million and one Androids out there, and if I have an app and I'm an app developer, I can't sit there and optimize my app for million and one phones. So what you end up doing is you do basics that work on a variety of Androids, but it doesn't work very good. And the best way to illustrate this is case in point Note twenty ultra. If I create a story on the Note twenty Ultra and then I look at that Instagram story on the iPhone, it looks

like garbage. Whether it's a video that I uploaded or the placement of the text, everything's blown up, blown out, things are cut off. It's very frustrating. If you only have an Android phone, you don't really know that because you're not looking at different phones like I am all the time to see the differences. I don't think it's a deal breaker for the Note twenty Ultra because it's still such a great phone. I just wish that social

media was a little little bit better. All right, let's see Pamela says Hi Rich, I hope you and your family are doing well. We are, thank you. Here's my problem. I have Lenovo Flex five with some keys not working. This has been a problem off and on for about two years. But now since I can't get all of the keys to work at all, I want to replace the keyboard myself. I have tried looking up self help

on doing this, and it looks very difficult. It looks as if I would have to remove almost everything inside the computer before getting to the keyboard. What do you think, do I have to remove everything before getting to the keyboard? Is this something I should attempt? Any suggestions do not

do this yourself, Pamela, I would not attempt. If you're talking about going underneath the entire laptop and unscrewing the bottom four screws and taking out the motherboard and then getting to the keyboard, I would not recommend doing that for the mere mortal not something that you should be

doing yourself. With that said, you know, if you've watched these little videos and you've seen them and you have you have some hesitation because you're emailing me so clearly you're thinking, I don't know if this is a good idea. So that tells me that you have not done this before, and you probably don't want to attempt it on your

laptop that you rely on. I have done this with several laptops, but mostly back in the day when laptops were much more forgiving to upgrades, and the main things that I upgraded were the memory and also the hard drives, back when you could do that very easily. Today's computers just not so easy. Now, when it comes to the keyboard, there are two things you might be able to do.

You might be able to pop off some keys with a little tool and find some replacement keys on eBay or from you know, just look them up on Amazon and pop those keys back on and they might work. In fact, the problem might be just little crud underneath the keys. So I would maybe try popping off one of the keys that's not working and put a new one on, Or just maybe use some canned air on the keyboard and see if maybe blowing some canned air

underneath these keys might work. Just be careful because you don't want to make this thing worse than it already is. At the end of the day, I think, if you want to get use out of this laptop, let's say Flex five. Oh, this is a chromebook. Let's see is it? Is it a chromebook? I don't know. It's a two

in one laptop and it's no longer available. So I would say, if you still want to get some use out of this thing, it's probably fine if it's only two years old, but I would bring it somewhere like a you break, I fix one of these National places you can go to like Best Buy, geek Squad. They're probably going to charge you more. But I would go to one of these little local fix it places, and if you need to find one in your area, I would check you break I fix first and see if

that works. If not, I would just check Yelp and look for a highly rated computer repair facility near you. I've done computer repairs to these places nearby and they're great. It's a little inconvenient. You got to bring your computer there. There's always a chance they could wipe your hard drives. You want to make sure you have everything backed up. But at the end of the day, you know a couple hundred bucks, you're gonna be using your computer, and

it's more of the process. That's kind of a lengthy process, And yes, you have to bring your computer there and wait and this and that, But at the end of the day, you're gonna enjoy having your computer fixed by someone. I always say it's better to have this done by someone who does it on a daily basis. Why do you want to attempt to do something for the very first time on a gadget that you rely on when there is someone out there doing this every single day.

They know exactly what they're doing, they have the expertise, and yes, it's gonna cost you money, but at the end of the day, then you don't have to worry about breaking this thing. And then it's on you and you're gonna be even more frustrated if you short circuit it, or if you mess something up, or if you get it all done, which is great, and then you can't get the back back on or something like that. So find a fix it place, get it done, and move

on with life. That's what I would recommend. Okay, hey, let's move on to or Mo's or Mo's or Mo's writes in one time credit card question. Hey Rich, thanks for your awesome podcast. Oh great, I butchered your name and you actually listen to the podcast. I'm sorry, uh h o r Moz or Moz. I remember that you mentioned once about a one time credit card number website slash app that is generated from my original credit card. Can I know the name of that app slash website? Thanks? Yes,

the website is called privacy dot com. Privacy dot com and what privacy dot com does is you sign up and you log in and next thing you know, you can use your Oh I just okay, hold on, I'm trying to log in here, so so I can actually tell you because I've been using this website since I did the story. I did the website. I signed up on the website and it's great. So I have a whole bunch of cards for different things that I'm getting

charged for. And what you do is you sign up with your I believe it's your bank account, maybe your debit card as well, so you might be able to use your debit card. But again, once you sign up, you cannot use your credit card. So yeah, funding okay, yeah, my debit card. So you can use your debit card or your bank account. And so I went with my

debit card, which is linked to my bank account. But you sign up with that and then when you want to charge something, you generate a card number, and this card number can be good for one time use or it can be good for recurring use, but it will only authorize for an amount you want. So, for instance, I've got my Serious XM card and that will only authorize for ten dollars a month. So if Serious XMS decides to get sneaky and tries to charge me for

a full year in advance. Once my little promotion is up and they try to charge me two hundred dollars, this card is just going to deny that transaction. So it puts a lot of control in the consumer's hands, and I love it. It's been great. I've been using it for a lot of these random transactions that either it's a website that I don't normally do business with, like I ordered some outdoor stuff from this one website I

never used before. I didn't want them to have my debit card number, so I just generated a one time card number. They did the transaction. That's it. That card has expired. They can they can't do anything else with it. If someone finds that that card number or their website is breached, they can't use it. So the website is privacy dot com. They make money by getting a little tiny percentage of the transaction. So if you charge one hundred bucks, Privacy might make a dollar off of that.

I don't know how much the amount is, but that's how they make money. So it doesn't cost anything. You get a certain amount of cards each month, and if you want more than that, then you have to pay. I have not hit that at all. So there's also a cash back. Let's see, when you make a purchase using a private don't know, there's a cashback system as well, so you can make one percent back. But that's the website.

I really like it. It helps me. If you've listened to the podcast many times, you know that I like to use my debit card over my credit card, and a lot of times on these random websites. I don't want to use my debit card because I don't want that number to get stolen or hacked or taken or whatever, because it's a headache to get a new one and it's my money. So I'd rather use something like privacy where yet it's still coming out of my debit card.

But if something ever happens to that website, I don't have to worry about it because that card is not really going to work again. So there you go, Privacy dot com. Don Williams Rights, Hey Rich, I'm an instructional aid for a special need special needs kids and school starts on Monday. Well, Don, I have a lot of respect for you for doing that. Thank you. I know that takes a lot of patience and good heart, so

thank you for doing that. My laptop is dying and I'm looking for a good quality laptop for work and social media. I'm trying to stay under one thousand dollars. Do you have any suggestions. I will also use it for personal stuff like social media, music, etc. Thank you for your time and help. Don Don. I would say, if you're looking for a laptop under one thousand dollars, I would go with a MacBook Air. And the reason I would say MacBook I know rich you only care

about Apple stuff. Oh Apple, Apple, Apple, Well, let me give you my reasoning. I have purchased Apple laptops for a couple of years now, and I'll just tell you they are I call them the workhorse. They just work. They work and work and work and work and work and work. There's no fuss, you don't have to think about them. There's not a whole bunch of pop ups happening all the time. There's not a whole bunch of

software you're always downloading and uploading. And every time I turn on a Windows computer there's some sort of major software update on my Mac. Yeah, there's a couple of software updates here and there, but it's not that big

of a deal, and it just runs smooth. You don't have to think about a lot of stuff when you have a Mac And for that reason, I think if you want a headache free experience and you're willing to spend one thousand dollars, if you said you were spending you want to spend less than fine, I would have recommended some sort of budget Windows laptop, but you're looking to spend a thousand bucks. The MacBook Air is eight ninety nine in the Education Store on Apple, and you

get free air pods at this point. So I I that to me, that sounds like an amazing deal. And I've had MacBook Airs. I've had them, I've edited video on them. I used them for my first couple of years at KTLA and they're great. Now over the years, I've upgraded higher and hire to now a MacBook Pro sixteen. I used to have a thirteen. But again, all these

laptops have been fantastic. And the best thing about Apple laptop versus a Windows laptop when you are done with it, after you know it could be four or five years, it could be six, could be seven. You can use these things for a really long time, and when you're done with it, you can still use it by giving it to a friend or a family member because it's still going to work. And yes it's gonna get a little bit slower over the U, but not like a

Windows laptop. I'm not bashing Windows stuff, but I'm just saying, since Dawn, you want to spend one thousand dollars, get something that's really good and get something that's really going to work for the long haul. So that's what I would recommend. And thank you again for being a fantastic teacher. Our kiddos need it and you're doing a great job there, Lisa Nole says on my Facebook page. Hey, Rich I

really enjoy your on tech reports. I've been searching for the name of a cell phone that you had on your show. I believe last year. It was mainly for senior citizens and it makes calls no Internet. Do you recall the name of the phone. My mother is in need of a new phone. She's in a senior facility and needs a simple to use phone. She's not allowed any visitors at this time on I'm unable to teach her how to use a new phone in person. Thank you for your time and help have a great day. Well.

The phone that I mentioned, I believe it was two of them, and one of was the light Phone. And this is a phone that just does phone calls. That's it. It's a very simple phone. You can what the cool thing is, you can actually link it to your Verizon account. And it's just a phone. You can't do anything with it. And now that I think about it, I should use this this weekend so I can just disconnect from the grid. But the light phone is a little phone. All it

does is make phone calls. It's got an e ink screen, the battery last forever, and that's it. You can do text on there as well, but that's it. It's a light phone. It's a simple phone. And how much is it Let's see how much is that phone? Wow? Three hundred dollars, So it's kind of expensive for what you get that. That's kind of an expensive phone. It's unlocked,

but you do put a SIM card in there. I think the other phone that I mentioned was a T Mobile flip phone and it was from Alcatel and I think let's see, was it the Flip three And this was a really good little phone. Two. Yeah, go Flip three from Alcatel on T Mobile and it's four bucks a month. The full price is one hundred dollars. And this is a flip phone. It's simple. Yes, it has a camera, but it's got nice This is so funny. The website does not show it when it's open. I mean,

that's kind of U T mobile. Come on, you gotta show the buttons and the screen. They don't show it. That's so weird. But if you google it, I'm sure you can find it. But the cool thing about this phone is that it also has Google Assistant built in, which is really interesting. So if you want, you can ask Google questions, which you know, maybe your mom would get a kick out of. But this phone is also pretty simple because it's just a tiny screen, a little

screen and big keys. And I think that that's probably a better way to go. That is a hundred bucks. The other thing I would check out is go look at the website called Jitterbug, and Jitterbug makes all of the phones for seniors. They have nice, easy, big, big button phones like the Jitterbug Flip, which is a hundred dollars and there's really nothing to it. It's just a

phone to make calls. So those are the three places that I would look I think the light phone is probably too expensive, although it's nice because you it's unlocked, which means you don't have to have a plan with it. The jitterbug, you're going to talk, you got to get a plan for that. So the Jitterbug is one hundred dollars. But let's see how much a plan is minimum two hundred and fifty minutes fifteen dollars a month. Then you

got to do your texts. So if you want to do text which I don't think Grandma is going to be doing or Mom's going to be doing, So you're talking fifteen dollars a month for only two hundred and fifty minutes. So if you want twenty five hundred minutes, you're thirty dollars a month and then unlimited as forty. So I personally like the idea of the a cheaper phone. Anyway,

you got to decide what you want to do. But that's those are the phones that i'd recommend with your mom, and I think they'll all be simple enough for her to use. All right. Next question comes from Sandra. I really enjoy your segments on KTLA. Thank you, oh your podcasts and your newsletters. If you haven't signed up for my newsletter go to Rich on tech dot TV. I usually send it out every other week, and it's kind of like this podcast. It's all the stuff I think

you should know. The information that you share is always timely and useful. Now to my question, I'm on a twenty fifteen MacBook Pro with Mojave operating system. I have not upgraded to Catalina because I don't want to lose Microsoft Word. I no longer have access to Word because I am retired. The Word program is the twenty eleven version I only do. I only use Word to do word processing. I don't want to pay a monthly fee to get it. Should I be using the latest operating system?

Is there another word processing program that I should be using? Would my files and documents be accessible in another word processing program? I hope you can help me, Sandy. Sandy, I think you should be running the latest Mac operating system. Why not? Your computer's still relatively new. I think it'll handle Catalina. You don't need it, but for security reasons, it's always a good idea to run the latest. When it comes to Word, you might lose your compatibility. That's true.

I don't know, because i'd have to upgrade on your system and see what happens. But I don't think you need Word anymore. Number One, you're using a program from nine years ago. A lot has changed in nine years. You can go to Google Docs and use it absolutely free, and you're gonna get all of the modern conveniences that you may not even have in the Microsoft Word program

that you have there. So I would recommend just firing up your computer and going to Google Docs, which is let's see docs dot Google dot com, and as long as you have a Google account, you can use that totally free. I've been using it for I believe ten years now, and I've had zero problems with Google Docs. In fact, it just keeps getting better and better. And I was one of those old holdouts. I thought, oh, there's no way that Google could do something as good

as Microsoft, because that's a paid, expensive program. But they kind of do and it works. Will your files and documents be accessible, Yes, they will. You can upload them into Google Drive and they will convert over to the Google Docs and it'll be great. It'll be great, and it'll be totally free. Good good question there. All right, we're almost to the end of the show here, so

let's see here, what do I want to answer? I'll do one more question, and let's do this one, because this one is a question that a lot of wrong. That was the that's the touchstones. When I get phone calls back on the show, we'll use that. But no, this is what it is. It's typing, because you guys are typing your questions to me. Alyssa says big fan. Here, quick question. Can you point me to the right direction for how to create more storage for myself as an

older iPhone seven s? Can you any tips you can help provide? It would be awesome. I trust you, Lissa. I think the number one thing you need to check on your iPhone is your iCloud backups, and that is by going into settings, that is tapping your name at the top and then iCloud and then manage storage. And when you look into manage storage, you'll notice that a lot of your stuff is probably used up by two things,

photos and backups and also messages. So this is where you want to go into your iCloud storage and delete any backups. Now you said create more storage for yourself on your phone, So this is just one aspect. A lot of people confuse the two. It'll say we need more storage, but it's talking about iCloud, or sometimes it's on the phone. More often than not, it's really the iCloud storage that's filling up that you need to empty.

But I'll tell you both ways. So number one on your phone with the iCloud go to where I said and just kind of look up and see what's going on. So for me, I've got fifty one gigs of photos in photos. I don't need fifty one gigs of photos on iCloud because guess what, I don't use iCloud for my photos. So I can go in and disable and delete that, no problem. I'm gonna get a big scary screen that says delete photos and videos. Yes, I don't need that. So that's number one. Then you've got iCloud drive.

See what you've got filling up that. For me, I've got all kinds of stuff, not a lot of stuff, but it's just enough random stuff that's taking up eight gigs. Then I've got my backups, and after this question, I actually went in and deleted some of my old backups. But you want to see how many backups do you have in there? And for me, I had a whole bunch of lingering backups. So the only backups you need

in there are your current backups. So if you've ever upgraded from a new iPhone, you probably have the old iPhone backup in there and you don't need it, so you can go ahead and delete that. Just be careful with that, because I don't want you to delete backups that you might need. The other thing you want to do is go into the storage settings on your phone, so general iph settings, General iPhone storage, and look up what's taking up the storage on your phone and they'll

show you some recommendations. So for me, the recommendation is the three things. Let's see. The things taking up the biggest storage of my phone again are photos, podcasts. I have forty five gigabytes of downloaded podcasts. Delete, Delete, delete, and you can delete those by just swiping left on the podcasts and it will delete the podcast that it is downloaded to your phone. I don't need forty five gigs of podcasts on my phone. Wow, that might be taking up a lot on yours. Adobe Rush four gigs.

I can go in and delete some of stuff there. And my photos. I have forty five gigs of photos on my phone. I can delete some of my videos and also the recently deleted and save some space there. So those are just a few of the simple ways to free up some storage on your iPhone. Believe me, that is one of the trickiest ways that Apple gets you to pay for more storage is your phone runs out of storage or your eCloud. It's just a whole bunch of stuff you don't need that's sitting in there.

So good question, all good questions. Can you believe it? That is going to do it for this episode of the show. I hope you enjoyed this version of the show. I'm not going to do this every week, but I just want to do it this week as a special episode because I've gotten so many emails. If you have a question for me, you can email me. It's hello at richontech dot TV. I'll give you a new code word this time. The code word this week is highlight. If you put highlight in your email, I will notice

it and I will send you a response faster. So just put it in the subject line, start it with highlight, and that way I know you're a big fan of the podcast, and I will take you more seriously. If you'd like to send me an email, just go to rich on Tech dot tv hit the email button at the bottom of the page. Also, if you would rate and review this podcast, it really helps other people discover it. Just go to rate this podcast dot com slash rich on Tech got a lot of reviews since the last one.

Let's see. Die d Aguilaire nineteen eighty three said rich always has great information to share. Highly recommended. Thank you and KD six ywk hmm sound like a ham radio thing. Great as always. Thank you for sharing your knowledge in a very easy to understand way. Well you're welcome. My name is rich dmiro On behalf of everyone that gets this show to your ears. Thank you so much for listening. Stay safe, we'll talk to you real soon.