Don't Get Phished, Flight Booking Hacks & Phone Roaming Advice

and fun. Let's open up those phone lines at triple eight Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Give me a call if you have a question about technology. Email is also open. Just go to richon tech dot tv and

hit contact. We've got some great guests this week. Colin Walkee, a cybersecurity and data privacy expert, will join us to explain what twenty three in mes bankruptcy means for your genetic data, plus what you can do to protect your privacy and Later in the show, Mark Vina is a CEO and principal analyst at Smart Tech Research. He's going to share why he ditched the iPhone Yes to switch to the Galaxy S twenty five Ultra, and he's been

using the iPhone for a very long time. Well, speaking of a very long time, I did something this week that I have not done in a really long time. I wrote a letter and sent it through the post office. Now I probably sent one hundred and fifty emails this week, but a letter that does not happen very often. I took pen to paper and I sat there at a desk and I actually used my horrific handwriting to write a letter to my dad. I was staying at a

hotel and they had this inviting desk. It was an old school desk, and it had one of those nice writing mats, you know, the kind that you like the pen kind of sinks into it a little bit as you write, and they had the letter letterhead all laid out there with an envelope, and I said, you know what, I am going to write a letter. We were staying at a place called the fest Parker Inn, which my

dad is a big fan of fest Parker. Now it's a little bit before my time, but as I understand, he was a very famous actor back in the day. And I know you're probably laughing at me saying rich. Come on, we know who fest Parker is. But you

know that was a little bit before my time. And so I said, I got to write a letter to my dad on Fest Parker letterhead, tell him how the inn still had all the inklings of Fest Parker lingering in the hallways, and of course telling about our weekend we spent up in Wine Country for my wife's birthday. And then I went to the post office the tiny little town we were in called Losa Livos. I stood in line and I bought a stamp. And by the way,

that stamp was seventy three cents. Now I know why people don't write letters as much, because that is expensive. But I got the stamp, I put it on the letter, I sent it out, and I still haven't heard from my dad if he got it, but I hope he did. I'm curious how long it takes to get a letter these days. Anyway, it was kind of fun. And you know, me as someone who loves tech, but I think I've realized something about myself. I also love low tech, and I also love how tech helps us unlock things in

our world. So as much as I love technology, it's just kind of fun to go back to the times when we were not connected in a bazillion different ways. Now, the other lesson I have this week is that tech is only as secure as the people using it, namely us. So let me tell you about a guy who knows security like This guy has been on our show, Troy Hunt. He runs a website called Have I Been Poned? That's

pwned dot com. You basically pop in your email address, it'll tell you all the places your information has gotten hacked and is out there in the world. He also teaches people how to avoid scams. That's what he talked about on our very show. And guess what he got phished this week. If you're not familiar with what phishing is, it's when you get one of those emails and it says, hey,

click here, your account has been compromised. Click there, You type in your name your password, and you realize shortly after, oh no, what did I just do?

a fake site. The hackers immediately went to work. They took his entire email list sixteen thousand plus addresses, they exported it, and of course those are probably going to be used to spam those folks. He realized what he did was wrong immediately, but the damage was already done and the red flag he mentioned. He detailed all of this in his blog post about it. His password manager which he was using, so he had a good password, he had two factor authentication, but as a human, he

bypassed all of those those privacy and protections. His password manager did not auto fill the website, but he ignored it. He just did it himself. He copied and pasted his password into there. Why he said, jet Lag, You know, all this stuff can't beat the human error that we bring to the table.

these are not stamps on my passport. These are the places that were trying to log into my Microsoft account all weekend long. They didn't get in because I had two factor authentication enabled on my account, so I did change my login. I guess somehow my password was compromised somewhere along the way. But again, I'm not the only one. So many people and Troy, by the way, now, I didn't fall for it, but Troy did, He's not the

only one. According to the FTC twenty twenty four, so I record twelve point five billion dollars in scam losses. That's up two point five billion from the year before. One in three people who reported scams said they lost money. Remember the guy we had on last week, Colin said he fell victim to one of those tech scams. Scams that start online cost US three billion dollars, more than

phone calls, more than texts, more than emails combined. The most money per person phone scams median loss fifteen hundred. Biggest overall losses bank transfers, followed by crypto Yes, people are transferring money or having money transferred out of their bank accounts. This is happening all the time. Investment scams are the worst. Seventy nine percent of people targeted loss money nine thousand dollars median loss there. Job scams. How many times have you gotten those job scams to your text?

And you say who falls for these things? I get them every single day. Hey, we have a job opportunity for you. Losses there jump from ninety million to over five hundred million in the past four years. So you're talking people fall for these scams all the time, younger people. This is the thing, There is a disconnect. Younger people fall for scams more often, according to the FTC, but seniors lose the most money when they fall to the scams.

Why is that seniors have the most to lose. They've saved up money their entire lives, or at least some of them have. Young people fall for these scams. People think young people don't fall for this stuff. Yes they do. It's the young people and the old people, the people in the middle. You know, they've kind of you know, they're the people that are a little bit more aware of this stuff. They don't fall for it as often. Now, imagine this. You've got a super secure app, a messaging app.

It's end to end ENCRYPTID. You think you're doing the right thing. It's recommended by privacy privacy experts. Yes, I'm talking about Signal. You think that's safe and secure, Well it is unless you add the wrong person to the group chat. How many times have you texted someone quickly responded to a text quickly and you realize, oh no, that's the wrong person. We've all done it. We're human again, we are all human, but not when the stakes are this high. You heard the story. I don't have to

go over it. The government officials using Signal reportedly for war planning. They added a journalist accidentally to the group. Now I get it. We've all done this. We've added accidental people to a group text, we've applied to a group text, we've added people to a group email that maybe shouldn't be on there. So when you think about this Signal app, it is very secure. In fact, most security experts recommend that you use Signal if you want

the most secure messaging. It's one of only two apps that I know that end to end encrypt messages by default. The other is WhatsApp. Now, WhatsApp brings a laundry list of issues with it because it's owned by Meta Right, and that has its whole issues with privacy and security. But Signal, this is an independent app, and there was no hacking here, There's no breach. Someone put in a bad contact. Now here's the thing. This is not supposed

to be on government devices. They don't allow Signal. But again, think about you at your work. How many regulations and rules do you have at your work about what you can use and what you can't use Oh we want you to use teams, but you probably text folks at your work using I message, Oh we want you to use Google Drive. Well, maybe you uploaded something to Dropbox and shared a link. We are human and this is

where the mistakes happen, human error. So be careful, whether it's phishing, whether it's scams, whether it's military level messaging. Technology can only go so far to protect us. The weakest link isn't always the software. Most of the time it is us, So stay skeptical, double check everything, use a password manager, and if something fills off even for a second, you have to slow down, take a breath, double check, don't click, make sure what you're doing is

the right thing. That is how we get taken in this day and age. I get emails every day from folks saying I got hacked on Facebook. Ninety nine percent of the time it is some sort of mistake they made on their account. They fell for something, they click something. Be careful, all right? Coming up Facebook brings back the friend feed and your calls At triple eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. You are listening to Rich on Tech Welcome

back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology at Triple A Rich one O one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four to one zero one. The website is richon tech dot TV. You can go there for the show notes. This is episode one hundred and fifteen. You can get links to anything I talk about right there. And if you're not signed up for my newsletter, go ahead pop in your

email address. It comes out every weekend filled with all kinds of tech tips and tricks and reviews and the stories I do on TV. Let's go to Susan in Santa Monica. Susan, you're on with Rich.

It's way too much for him. And he doesn't want the iPhone to be talking to the computer. Exfinity is his internet provider.

the crop for him. The thing about the MacBook Air is it's going to last for him ten years, so he's not gonna have to worry about a new computer for a long time.

If he's just doing you know, web searches and stuff like that, integrated graphics are going to be just fine. So and of course you want you know, the Windows. The latest Windows is Windows eleven. I think most of the computers come with that at this point. But that's I I'd stick towards the Apple MacBook Air for sure. I think that's gonna be his best choice. After that, I would just look at one of the computers there the you know that they sell, and I think they're

all gonna be a great value. And usually at costco you get a little bit more for your money than you would anywhere else. But I think when it comes to calling tech support, you know, you got to stick with the big brands. So I think, you know, Dell has good tech support. I do like as US as well. Uh, those are the main companies in Lenovo, Like I mentioned, so anyone that's doing business PCs like a Dell or a Lenovo. You know you're gonna get pretty good customer

support because that's part of their game. Thanks for the call, Susan. Hopefully he finds a nice computer he likes.

and family. That means you can see their photos, their videos, their birthdays, their friends requests. This is rolling out right now. This is going to replace the old tab that showed your friend requests. That'll still be there somewhere else, but it'll be a little bit more hidden than before. So I tried finding this on my Facebook app. It's not there just yet, but if you tap the little friends

right now, it just shows your friend requests. Soon that will show a feed of just stuff from your friends. You know what it's all about. Engagement. People are kind of getting sick of all this nonsense that's populating their feeds. So if they can make social media feel social again, that I think will be a good thing because people want that. We want more of our friends in our lives, less of this nonsense from AI, which, by the way, I've been sharing a ton of because shat GBT is

doing this great new thing with the photos. I will tell you about that when we come back. Eight eight to eight rich one oh one eight eight seven four to two, four to one zero one. More of your calls right here on rich on Tech right after this, Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology at triple eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two, four one zero one. The website for the show Richontech

dot TV. Get a lot of emails every week. Uh, deb from Agora Hills Rights in. My son is planning to get his twelve year old daughter a phone through Verizon, probably an iPhone. I remember you telling callers not to fall for the free phone deals and calling them a ripoff because of the thirty six month contracts. He's wondering what you recommend for a cheap iPhone if that even exists, and what's the best way to add her to his

Verizon plan. She doesn't need the latest and greatest. He's also considering just buying a phone out right to avoid all the sales pitches and hassles preteens yikes, yikes, is right for twelve year old. Now here's my guidance on those deals, the free phone deals. Number One, they're not free.

You're beholden to that carrier for the next thirty six months because you're basically, while you're not signing a contract, you're financing that phone, and by them giving you that phone for free, they're giving you the equivalent in a credit over the next thirty six months. So let's say that the phone is six hundred dollars. They'll take that

divided by thirty six months. You'll get the phone for free up front, but basically you are getting the thirty six months divided by the six or the six hundred divided by the thirty six months, and so they'll charge you for that, and then they'll give you a credit for that. So yes, you are getting it for free.

But here's the thing, you're sticking with that carrier and I have nothing against Verizon or any other carrier, and my guidance on this always stays the same if you do not plan on leaving your carrier, If you're going to stick with Verizon for the next three years, anyway, it's not a bad deal. You're just paying a little

bit more for your service. Because what I would recommend to your son is to buy the iPhone sixteen E outright for six hundred bucks and then go to something like Visible, which charges twenty five dollars a month to forty five for the phone and for unlimited service. So that would be, if you do the math, much cheaper than probably adding the twelve year old to the Verizon plan. But it's also what's easy. It's also what you already have. Most people don't want to deal with having two different

cell phone services, two different bills, all that stuff. But if you want to save the most money, the easiest way is just buy the phone outright and get an mv and O. Whether it's Mint Mobile, whether it is Visible, those are two good mv and o's that will save you. Mv and o's Mobile Virtual Network Operator Visible runs on the Verizon network, and Mint Mobile is actually owned by T Mobile and it runs on the T Mobile network. So again, Dev, just you know, do what's best for

your situation. I have nothing against those deals, They're just not a free phone. You can't walk away the next day and with that free phone. Eighty eight Rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four to one zero one.

best way to do this a couple of things. If you have miles, that could be the best way to buy the flight. So a website like points yeah dot com if you maybe have a credit card with Points, or you can even see there's two websites I recommend points dot com and point dot me. And they may have some paid services. You might be able to get a flight a search for free. But the beauty of those is that they figure out ways of using your

miles in ways that you might not think of. So I know you said you had to go to a certain destination. You may find that the miles on the main airline. Let's say that Jet blueflies there. You may find that on sorry, let's say Delta. You have your miles with Delta, but yet Blue also flies there. But maybe you can transfer your miles into Jet Blue using your credit card. So those websites will help you unearth those sorts of things that you may not think of yourself.

cheapest combination of places to fly from. So on Google Flights, which is flights dot Google dot com. Instead of choosing a specific airport, like, for instance, you're in San Bernardino, I would type in is Ontario close to there? I would think so right, so I would put like Ontario, or or I would put Los Angeles right, and instead of choosing LAX, choose the city of Los Angeles, and

that will choose all of the airports nearby. Actually it's not choosing Ontario, so I guess they don't consider that. So let's say let's just type in Ontario O nta Rio Ontario, California. Okay, So if you choose Ontario, California, that will choose Ontario airport and also LAX, which is going to give you a much wider swath. But I would even open it up further to Burbank as well. So now you've got three airports that you're looking for

flights from. And then the city that you said, what was the city, Wahakah, So you put that in as your destination and see if there's any airports that are nearby. And then also the thing you want to do is just look one way at a time, So choose each flight one way at a time instead of that round trip, and that will help you sort of come up with the cheapest possible option. And I will tell you my experience, fares jump up seven days before you have to fly.

And the reason for that is because business travelers have money to burn, and that's where the airlines really make their money. They don't make it on the leisure travelers that are booking, you know, sixty ninety one hundred and eighty days in advance. They know those people are going to book because they're booking for their kids, they're booking for spring break, they're booking when they have vacation. Where airlines really make their money is on that last minute travel,

and so they know seven days before. When you work for a big company, you don't care what that airfare is because you've got to get to that business meeting. You've got to get to that event. You've got to get to that conference, whatever it is. They know they've

got you, and so that is what I recommend. I book airfares all day, every day, and believe me, at any given moment, I am searching for I've got my tracked fares on let's see right now, I've got one, two, three, four tracked fares and I watch those prices go up down around all over the place. Thanks for the call, Emma. Hopefully you can find a flight that fits your chat gbt. This week, you might have noticed people are tweeting and sharing on social media all kinds of images from chat GBT.

Chat Ebt did a major upgrade to their image generation tool, which is now built right into chat ebt. You can access chat gibt by going to chat dot com. By the way, they opened it up for free and paid users, but people started using this so much it was melting the servers at chatbt and they had to limit it to just paid users. Now thankfully, I'm a paid user and I have been using the heck out of this.

I absolutely love it. So they used to have this image generation tool called Dolly three, but now they are replacing that with just this default image generation inside chat gibt, so in the regular chat you can just say, generate me an image that looks like this or whatever you want. It's more lifelike, it has logos, you can make transparent backgrounds. The text, for the first time ever, is readable. So it used to be that AI had a real problem

with generating text. This time it is perfect every single time. And the other thing you can do is upload an image and ask it to modify that image in any style you want. So a lot of people are doing this Jibli style. This is like a Japanese animation art house. So people were generating images like that and they're amazing.

I mean, it's quite incredible. And of course, yes, there's this whole debate over AI and copyrighted images and images in the style of things and how artists are going to fare because now chat gbt can make such great images and it's all very much a concern, And yes, people will be losing jobs. Entry level jobs in generation of images will be lost because of this, because you no longer need to know how to use Canva or even Photoshop to make an amazing image. And so yeah,

this changes the dynamic of our world. But it's incredible. It's amazing, and I think you shall play with it because you can't hide from this stuff. It is happening, it is changing, and we have to adapt. And I do feel sorry for the artists that have made their living making images like this, because now you can literally, in plain text, generate something that is quite incredible. And I know because I was doing it all weekend. So take an image, upload it and say make this in

the style of whatever you want a muppet. You can turn yourself into a muppet. Yes, that's what I did this weekend. You can turn well, I mean on chat ebt and become a muppet. I mean, you could really have fun. I said, make make a an old timey newspaper poster style advertising my newsletter. It did that and it gets everything really really good. You can turn any image into a Dolly Renaissance portrait. Whatever you can think of, any famous artist, it will make an image in that style.

one zero one. This is the show where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's also the place where I answer your questions about technology. Phone lines are open, website also open Richontech dot TV. Hit contact if you'd like to email me. We'll get some of your emails and calls on as well. Let's go to Richard in Bell, California.

you can uninstall those because that's a nuisance. You don't need to wake up, you don't need to disrupt your sleep in the middle of the night to unplug your phone. Now, I test every phone in the world. I leave them plugged in, I charge them up. Yes, it does have a bit of an impact on the battery life. So if you're worried and you're trying to keep your phone

for a very long time, I would be concerned. But if you have an iPhone or a Samsung, they have battery optimization and health features built right into the phone. You probably never even noticed. But if you go into the iPhone, look for battery and then tap go into settings battery and then tap charging, and you'll see there's a charge limit, so you can do eighty eighty five, ninety ninety five or one hundred, and your iPhone software

will actually recommend a charge limit for you. And so, for instance, mine is saying, based on your iPhone habits, a charge limit of ninety percent is recommended to help preserve your battery and so I can tap that and my phone will automatically optimize the battery charging on its own, So you can do that and just leave that there, okay, and if you need more, you can always just override that at any time. If you're on Samsung, if you go into your settings, Settings and then battery, you will

notice they also have a section labeled battery protection. Now this is on the latest software, which may or may not be on your phone, but it is rolling out to some of the older devices. But if you tap that and tap battery protection, turn it on, you've got basic battery protection. When your battery is charged to one hundred percent, charging will stop until the battery drops down to ninety five percent and we'll start charging again. So that way your battery is not constantly being charged all

day long at one hundred percent. It'll wait until it drops down, then it'll trigger again to charge. Then you've got adaptive stop charging at eighty percent while you're asleep, and switch to basic before you wake. Sleep time is estimated used on your phone is estimated based on your phone usage patterns, and then you've got the maximum protection, which is your battery will stop charging when it reaches

eighty percent. So my advice in general is if you're a person that swaps your phone out every three years, you probably don't have to worry about the battery and how you're charging it. It's probably going to be fine for those three years. If you're keeping it for a very long time, then yes, I would go into some of these settings and be more aware of how you charge your phone and how you're charging it. If you don't have access to these battery optimization features in your software.

Then I would say you probably want to charge your phone up, maybe up to one hundred percent, and then let it get down to about twenty five percent. Don't ride it all the way to zero before you charge it up again. Really, from what I understand, batteries when they get down to under twenty percent, that's when it really strains them. And so if you're going down, if you're going up to one hundred and down to zero every single time, that's putting a lot of strain on

your battery. And so what I'd recommend is that eighty that twenty to eighty percent is the sweet spot for today's modern batteries. That's where you kind of want to keep your phone, and you can use that software built into your devices Richard to help make that happen.

I have Peacock. Mine is not I thought it was premium was the one? Oh okay, well this is a this is a funny way to name something. Peacock Premium still has ADS, but Peacock Premium plus say that three times.

two four one zero one. More rich on Tech right after this. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology at Triple eight Rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. I hope you're having a great day. The website for the show is Richontech dot tv. If you're just finding me for the first time, I know we're recently on WOAR in New York City. Thanks

for finding us. I'm getting the emails from you folks, and I absolutely love the fact that you're finding us and enjoying the show. It makes my day when I get an email that says, hey, Rich, I like what you're doing because it's very validating. We all need to be validated in this world, right, and so my validation comes from your emails.

And when I signed in again, well, you need to go and get this secret number from your Yahoo email. So when I go to my Yahoo email to get the secret number, I'm signed out of Yahoo too now and I'm signed out of my Gmail and Gmail, which I'm trying to do all morning. When they got rid of the HTML easy fast Gmail, they screwed everybody that our old people on dial up ISP. It takes me a fast way to get into the Gmail. Now. My Gmail account is two hours of reload, reload, sit and wait.

It took me seven days one time.

of months ago. Uh, and so it does slow down things because what's happening on Gmail is they're loading a whole bunch of stuff. So I think what you can do to try to make that a little bit easier on your connection is I would recommend that you probably want to download if you can. I mean, I don't know if you can even download an app on dial up.

But what what about using on your computer something like Outlook or thunder or you know, Apple Mail built into a to an Apple computer or Thunderbird from Mozilla just to get you know, just to get your email. It'll it'll die, It'll get the email quicker, it'll pull it from the server and put it, you know, at least put on your computer. So I think that's probably number

one what you want to do. Number two, you might want to go into your settings on Gmail and just see what you can do to you know, kind of lessen the load on the internet, because it sounds like there's a lot going on. It's trying to load a lot of things, and I think maybe having you know, the view on Gmail optimized a bit more for a slower connection might help. So you might want to you know, there's maybe turn on compact view inside Gmail, and also

maybe try a different browser. So maybe the problem is downloading any of this stuff on a slow connection is going to be tricky. So I think that's what you're up against. I mean, I think that the dial up service is really tricky because not a lot of things are optimized for dial up, and even people that live in rural areas now with the addition of Starlink and all these satellite connectivity services that are getting better, you know, the speeds are just getting faster everywhere. So it's a

tough thing. But ace I think you can. I think you can figure it out. I really do. I think you got to try to switch to an email client and that way your emails are downloaded all day instead of just when you try to log on. Or I would just try to optimize the view inside Gmail and there might even be a Chrome extension that can kind of simplify Gmail or maybe bring back that HTML basic view. But yeah, Google removed that in January because they said

that most people. I think they said back then that like not a lot of people were using it, like they had some sort of number they gave that said, you know, there's only a handful of people. I think they mentioned you by name, and they said there was only like one or two people using it. Great question, Ace, Thanks for the call today. I do appreciate out there in a pair, Blossom. Do we have time for another question before the break?

one easiest option, keep your current plan. So most of the service providers like AT and T, Verizon, T Mobile, they will charge you a daily rate so you can keep your same number and your data plan. AT and T twelve bucks a day, Verizon ten dollars a day. Many of the T Mobile plans actually include international roaming, but you can pay for faster speeds. I think it's like five bucks a day. So that's number one. Call

your carrier and ask what's included on your plan. So sometimes if you have an expensive plan, Verizon might give you a travel past day every month, so if you haven't traveled in the last year, you may have twelve days banked up, so call them first. That's number one. So if you don't have free and your plan might include free international roaming, like if you're on T Mobile, so that's number one. Even if you're on a secondary carrier like a virtual carrier visible Mint Mobile, they also

have international options. They used to, not a lot of them have added that. So the second thing to consider is what's called an eSIM. This is temporary wireless service that you buy from an app and you activate it right on your phone. And you said you had a combination of iPhones. iPhone has had the eSIM for many years now, so your phone should be compatible. Of course, you want to go on Apple's website, pop in your model number and eSIM and see if it has an eSIM.

You're not gonna get more than a minute in another country using one hundred megabytes, But keep in mind eSIMs are usually data only, so when you leave the US, make sure you turn on Wi Fi calling and texting if you're using anything other than your main carrier. Turn off roaming, of course, to avoid those unexpected charges.

They do have some different rules about their cellular networks, but in the for the most part, roaming is almost universal. Every you know, used to be five ten years ago, it was much tricker than it is now. But I've gone to most places now and it's quite easy to find hotspots and also do that international rooming. Great question, Leslie, thanks for the call eight eight eight rich one O one.

Tech dot TV. Coming up this hour. We we've got Colin Walkee, a cybersecurity and data privacy expert, to talk about that whole twenty three and me thing. I'm sure you've seen the news that they filed for bankruptcy and folks are trying to get their DNA data out of there, and so he will speak to that and whether you should do that delete your information. A lot of you probably already did you know? That's probably what the reality

is here. I mean I posted on my Instagram. People are really eager to get their info out Dave from Joshua Tree Rights in Hey Rich, Greetings from the High Desert. I love the show and catch it both on my local radio station and the podcast through Spotify. Here's a question I think a lot of listeners might have. Is it safe to store documents with sensitive or PII personally

identifiable information on Google Drive. Well, that is a great question, and I think we take for granted the fact that we store all kinds of data in the cloud, whether it's iCloud, whether it's Google Drive, whether it's one Drive. And I think the main thing to understand is if this information is encrypted. And so Google Drive does encrypt data, both in transit and at rest, so that means when you're uploading something to Google Drive, it is encrypted, and

when it's sitting in Google Drive, it's encrypted. So if someone came across those files, they'd find it tough to figure out what's in them.

Even if you don't have two factor on, they've sort of turned it on anyway, because they will send a notification to a different device if they don't recognize a log in to get you to you know, authenticate that log in and make sure it's you. Does it happen? Do people get in of course every day, I'm sure, but that is the biggest thing is make sure that

you're protecting your Google account. And this is why I really you know, in a pinch, I will use that sign in with Google thing, but try not to use that because even though it's easy, you know, it just links up all of these different places now, especially Google drives. So there's two ways that apps might ask for access to Google Drive. So for instance, I recommend an app called SMS Backup and Restore. So if you're on Android, you can download this app and it will back up

your your text messages to us. You know, you can export them whatever you want to do, but it can also back them up to Google Drive. And the way that this app works, I really like it because it says, hey, we would like access to your Google Drive, but we would only like to be able to act says information that we create, So a folder inside Google Drive we will carve out and only that folder will we access.

And that is the right way to do it. When you go to an app and it says, hey, can we access your Google Drive and it says, see read and delete all files in your Google Drive, you do not want to allow access to that unless you really really trust that particular service provider. Now, this also happens for Gmail, and again, anytime an app asks for full

access to your account, you have to be careful. Now, there are some legitimate apps that do this, like I recommend a ward wallet, and for a ward wallet to really work, it kind of finds all my itineraries and dinner reservations and things. They want to scan your Gmail because they're looking for any sort of reservations you've made. Trip it. Same thing, if you give full access to trip it, they want to ask for access to your Gmail because they want to be able to scan for itinerary.

So you better trust these companies that you are giving full access to your Gmail. The place I want you to look third party apps and services on Google. So go to my account dot Google dot com slash connections, and you will see all of the third party apps and services you have connected to your Google account, the ones you know, the signing with Google whatever linked account. But the ones you really want to take a strong look at is the ones that says access to And

I've got sixteen you can see. Seven have access to my calendar, seven have access to my contacts, eight have access to my Google Drive, nine have access to my Gmail. And you want to go through there and make sure look at every one of those things that are connected, make sure they are legitimate. If you don't use that app or service anymore, get rid of it, disconnect that connection to your Google account. Eight eight eight rich one o one eight eight eight seven four two four one

zero one. I'll link up that Gmail or that Google account connections on my website. Rich on tech dot TV coming up, we're talking twenty three and me. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at triple eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one big news this week that twenty three and meters declaring bankruptcy.

This is a company that went from like six billion dollars in market cap to uh think their stock was trading under a buck at one point, and uh the problem is, you know, you take one of these DNA tests, which are always a top seller during Amazon Prime days, and that's it.

really are applicable. And so, yeah, it is a concerning situation because there's very limited options for individuals to have control over this data at this point.

themselves can be sold off. That obviously, that then does beg a question. So, for example, in Tol, their state privacy law says that if you have sensitive information, you have to get permission before you can collect and process that information. So if somebody else buys the company as a whole, I don't know that you have to regain their permission. If you buy just the assets, it may be the case, so that whoever that buyer is then has to get further permission. At least for Colorado residents,

it's a further process their information. But somebody like me in Oklahoma, we don't have a data privacy law. They can do whatever the heck they want with my data.

Once a bankruptcy preceding occurs, there's what's called the automatic stay, which prevents anybody from going after any of the assets of the debtor. Well, if I call in the middle of a bankruptcy proceeding and I asked for them to delete my data, while I'm not a creditor, I do have the right to do that. I'm deleting assets from the bankruptcy.

Chinese individuals, meaning this was a targeted hack. And so your genetic and data and information like that is sensitive and unlike your social Security number or your name, you can't change that. So for both good and bad actors, there's a ton of value in this type of information.

as geolocation data being sold, et cetera. But now fast forward ten years later, we're dealing with AI and robots who need to learn how to navigate the real world, and they're doing that through everybody's use of Pokemon Go because it helped map a three D world that individuals were going through.

And in theory, you're like, well, okay, then they can't identify me. But the problem is is you note, Rich, I just have to find one more data set sitting out there on the internet, and if I can find a few data points that link back up to the twenty three and meters data set, I can reidentify whoever I want to.

And so when you give your email address or phone number at a grocery store right for the discount, that information is merged with other databases from a whole different variety of places, and they come up with this full picture of who you are, and it's very crystal clear.

We're gonna leave it there. Do you have a website?

it out. I've also got the show notes there as well. This is episode one fifteen, So if you want the link to uh anything I mentioned here on the show. So I mentioned earlier the permissions for your Google account if you want to review those, I've got the link there, the instructions on how to delete your genetic data, how to activate that Peacock premium if you're a Spectrum customer, A whole bunch of stuff, all the travel stuff, I recommend it. It's all on the website rich on tech

dot TV. Nintendo is working on virtual game cards for the switch to. This means it'll be much easier to lend your games to family members. I remember when my kids got switches a couple of years ago. I was like, wait a second, do I have to buy two copies of the same game so they can play them?

People are like, wait a second, is this real a company doing something the way that they should have done it, Like, we actually liked this idea, and yeah, this is going to happen starting late April, So if you've been frustrated with lending out your games to family members on the Nintendo devices, it will get much easier. And by the way, Nintendo Switch to coming out this year, It's been many years since the Switch has come out, it's time for

an update. Nintendo keeps hinting, and they showed us what it's going to look like, but they keep dropping little details. The next amount of details are going to come out on April second.

an update. And you know, Nintendo devices are never as high powered, you know as the xboxes of the world or the PlayStations of the world. But they're just fun and they're great for the family. And the games, I mean the IP they have with all the Mario stuff and zell they just keep regurgitating kind of new games with their familiar IP that people just love. Let's go to Mary in Los Angeles. Mary, you're on with Rich.

get that code, They're like, something's not right here. We're just going to pause that delivery of that code for a while. So I don't know what the secret sauce is and they don't really reveal it, and every company in bank is different, but it's these fraud systems that they're using to try to make sure that nobody's getting access to your account. So that's what I'm guessing happen. Did they give you any sort of explanation.

So that's why your username may be saved there. Sometimes you use your name on your password and you just have to log in and then it gives you that code.

the account. But if you are clearing your browser history, typically it is clearing out those cookies and that cash and that is what's making that new login trigger, and so if you don't want that to happen, sometimes there are ways to clear your just your browsing history, but not all the cookies, not all the other stuff, so

that you can still stay logged in. But in general, Eduardo, I think it's a good thing that your bank locked you out because that means that they're on top of things, and hopefully that means your account safer.

our representatives start at eight am or nine am. You're like, wait, what this used to be a twenty four to seven service. So I think we're paying more these days for things and we're getting less and these companies just continue to find efficiencies with technology that sometimes bug us eighty eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one zero one. More of your calls coming up right after this. Welcome back to rich On Tech.

Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology at triple eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight, seven, four to two, four one zero one. Coming up this hour, we've got Mark Vena. He is going to talk about the Samsung Galaxy S twenty five and how it lured him away from the iPhone. Yeah, after seventeen years of using it. And I got to say, the reason why I want it to have him on the show is because it's kind of doing the same thing to me.

I mean, I get the Samsung every year, I play with it and it's great, but there was always something that kept me from wanting to use it full time. And now it's the opposite. I have to force myself to use the iPhone because you know, if I start texting people with those green bubbles, they get all annoyed at me. Even though it's gotten a lot better with RCS, I was texting someone the other day and it's like

the RCS stuff is just perfect. It really is, because you can see when they get the message, you can see when they've read it, you can see when they're typing. You can send big photos and videos and they don't look all pixelated anymore. So, I mean, I feel like that issue is gone, Like, choose the phone that you want, don't just choose the one that forces you to stick to it because you know you can't get I message anywhere else.

And to me, that's like when you can do that and just walk to all the places you want to go and have dinner and wine tasting and all this stuff. It's just so fun. So anyway, if we want to see that, it's at rich On Tech. Give me a follow. Let's go to Stanley in Bettsville, Ohio.

helps us protect our community. I cannot figure out how to get that YouTube video to play, how to sign in to confirm with someone I don't even know who to confirm that I'm not a bot.

using some sort of automated software to buy tickets. So there's a lot of reasons why these companies and websites make you verify who you are and that you're an actual human. Typically, what you're describing is when you are using some sort of VPN or a proxy.

or whatever it is. And the reason they're saying that is because they're seeing a bunch of requests coming from the same IP address, which is Apple servers, right, because they're all everything is funneling through this server to try to like clear or you know, hide everyone's personal information from this website or their IP address, whatever it is. So typically Stanley, that is the reason. So if you're running a VPN, I would try turning that off. If

you're running some sort of proxy, turn that off. And so there are some web browsers like Opera, we'll have like a proxy built in, and so you will, you know, if you can disable that, try reloading that website without that proxy turned on or without that VPN turned on. So and also I would do what we talked about earlier with Eduardo and Tampa is clear the the browser history and cash and see if that helps. So go into your settings on Chrome or whatever you're doing, and

just clear out your delete browsing data. And once you delete that, that may help reset things and make it so that you don't see that notification every time you go to a YouTube video It's interesting that it's happening on no matter what computer or account you're on. That tells me that it's at a very network level. So that could be also a feature on your router that you have toggled on, some sort of proxy. I'm thinking it's some sort of proxy or VPN feature, so I

would check that for sure. A good question. Thanks for the question. Let's look at the emails here. We got a question from Mark in San Diego. He says, Hey, Rich, I really enjoy your show. I live in San Diego and MeTV is no longer over the air and free. I tried your suggestion to use over the air apps on my rokup, but they don't offer me TV. They do offer a handful of local stations on a per city basis, but no MeTV. So in San Diego, the only way to get it is to subscribe to an

expensive stream. So for just MeTV and that's all I want, this is not practical. Can you offer any suggestions to get me TV for free? I've heard of MeTV. I'm not fully familiar with it, but I'm looking at their website and it's basically looks like a website. It looks like a like sort of a station that shows older programming. So I'm looking at the Yeah, Alfred Hitchcock, Adam twelve,

Andy Griffith. So it looks like these like dot two stations, Like if you have a station in your area, they subscribe to this MeTV to sort of air and broadcast using one of their secondary channels, so you know, like a four dot two four dot three, four dot four and it's just basically to use up the airwaves and

have some sort of programming on there. I checked in San Diego, putting into the zip code, and it looks like it is not available over the air anymore in San Diego, so it looks like it's only on the cable services cox AT and tu Verse Direct TV. But they do have it on Friendly TV, So I'm not sure. If you checked. You said expensive streaming. Friendly TV is like the cheapest streaming service you can get out there.

It starts at six dollars and ninety nine cents a month. Now, I know you didn't want to pay anything, but I'd say seven bucks a month. If you really enjoy this MeTV, that might be a decent way of getting it, and you can at least try seven days for free, so I would at least investigate that, But that's really your

only way as far as I can tell. It must have been that whatever TV station had this MeTV dropped it and they switched to something else, or they just air their own programming, whatever it is, but you're not gonna be able to get it with an antenna as far as I can tell down in San Diego, so I would check out the Friendly TV. It's also where a lot of people go for Hallmark programming over the holidays because it's one of the cheapest ways to get

the Hallmark channel. But I have a feeling MeTV doesn't do its own streaming app because its whole play is to sell its programming to these cable providers and also the channels that then broadcasted over the air. And so if they had their own service, like their own streaming app that they charged three four dollars a month for, they sort of be cutting into their own business, which is selling this channel to these broadcasters.

your other content. So if you go to your settings, click your profile picture in the top right corner, click settings in privacy, then click settings again, then click account center, then click your Information and Permission, then click download your information, then click download or transfer your information, and that's all you have to do. That's it, Diane, Very easy.

my gosh, now I'm getting spammed. But yes, so you do have to go to your Facebook settings and you can download your information. But the good news is it is pretty simple, and I will link up the instructions in the website. But Facebook, for some reason doesn't like all of their like settings and things always involve so many steps, and I think they do that on purpose,

just to make life a little bit tougher. The only easy Facebook url I know is Facebook dot com slash hacked, and that's because so many people get hacked on Facebook that they have to have an easy URL where you can go and try to regain.

just given up your account. So Rich on tech dot tv for instructions on how to back up your Facebook photos eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Let's go to uh Mark, Mark and Tarzana Mark.

hard drive. That could be different these days, but that's the main downside of getting it from a place like Costco is that they're probably not going to have that two terabyte hard drive unless they do. If they do, then great, That's where I start if you have a costco membership. Otherwise I would look at some highly rated

systems like an HP Envy all in one. So I think that's a great system and you can get it with a two terabyte hard drive, or I would just go to I mean, if you want to build it yourself, you can go to somewhere like Dell dot com and get the two terabyte hard drive. The thing is most of the computers, a lot of.

they're doing great on laptops. Yeah, I don't see as many as the ace US and the all in one. They probably have them. But I think what it really comes down to, Mark is when you go to best Buy or wherever you go, you're looking for the specs that are going to make sure this computer lasts for a bit. So again, I think that's depending on what

you're doing. Since you want that two terabyte drive, maybe you want a better processor, So I would say at least an Intel five seven is going to give you a much faster speed, and then same thing with the AMD. If you go five or seven, that's really what you want. You don't want anything below a five at this point. And then with the memory, I always say sixteen gigs a RAM minimum, But if you're really outfitting this thing like I went thirty two last time, it just gets

very expensive. That's the unfortunate side of memory. When you're getting it the day that you buy the computer, and then the hard drive two terabytes, it's very reasonable. That's what I did on my last computer. So the higher you go with these specs, the more you're gonna spend. That's that's basically what's going on, because most people are getting that. You know that simple, simple, processor, hard drive at five twelve or maybe a terrorbyte, and the memory

at sixteen gigs, so good luck. Feel free to email me if you you know. Some people will email me if they're trying to decide between two things. But that's what I would do, is start at Costco. That's usually the best place to start.

Even though I haven't played with it just yet, I can just tell. Because it's a Pixel, it's gonna have great software. It's got a decent chip inside, It's got eight gigs a RAM up to two hundred and fifty fifty six gigs of storage, got a nice big screen, brighter than before, great refresh rate, big battery, good IP rating, so IP sixty eight, which means gonna be water and dust resistant, and it's got that great Google software that's,

by the way, updated for seven years. So if you're looking for a budget phone, you want a great Android you don't really necessarily care about the iPhone side of things, go with the Pixel nine A I mean five hundred bucks launching April tenth. This is their answer to the iPhone sixteen E that's five ninety nine, which is also great if you are on the iPhone side of things. And Disney Plus, by the way, getting a feature users have been asking for for a while, the ability to

remove shows and movies from the continue watching row. I know it sounds silly, but you weren't able to do this, so if you started watching a movie or a show, it would just linger there forever. So this is helpful if you started something or didn't finish something and you just want to get it away from your screen.

like it just haunts you. Now you can finally get rid of the ghosts on your Disney Plus screen. All right, I'll put links to all of these things on my website rich on Tech dot tv, also the Instagram at rich on Tech. Coming up, we're gonna talk Samsung versus iPhone. Mark Vina is going to talk about why he has ditched his iPhone in favor of Samsung. Right here on rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich

DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology. The website for the show rich on Tech dot tv.

rising to the occasion with its latest Snapdragon technology. They're playing a great role now as you know, in PCs kind of you know, reshaping that category.

and an iPhone, it's an incredible cohesive ecosystem AirPods. But as soon as you try to like mix and match, it's like, oh, that doesn't work.

Snapdragon based PCs and others. I had mentioned Intel, but that's a different story.

the battery life that you'd like. Now, Samsung I think has done I mean, what's your point of view. I think Samsung has done a really good job in the battery life department.

ecosystem or the other. And so I think it's really tough for these companies to even get people to switch at this point. And I think both have their pros and cons.

Leo from the Laptop Elf Project writes in great show, I think it's helpful to separate voice typing, dictation, and transcription. They each serve different needs for most basic tasks like email or filling in text fields. The built in dictation tools in Windows, Mac and Chrome are simple and work great. On Windows, Press Win plus h to launch voice access. On Mac, go to System Settings Keyboard dictation to turn

it on and set a shortcut. And on Chrome go to Settings Accessibility, Keyboard and text Input toggle on dictation. These don't have those fancy AI features you were talking about, but they get the job done without needing any extra software. Keep up the good work, thank you, Leo. Tony from Oshkosh writes in after listening on WTAQ, when you were mentioning Fax machines, you missed the mark a bit when they came into use. The US Army was using them

regularly in the late nineteen seventies. Massive machines impractical for most civilians unless you had serious mind honey. Fun fact, Fax technology actually started in eighteen forty three, and by eighteen eighty eight you could fax the signature. This will be on the test, so make a note of it. Thanks Tony. I was saying all that tech when I did the nostalgia tech when I came across it, not when it started.

kept the paper copies. Your listeners might want to ask their banks or credit unions how far back they can go. It might surprise them. And yes, Scott, great, Yes, great tip. Because my one of my bank accounts only goes back like one hundred and eighty days or something. It's very short. Again, I guess it's less for them to keep. Diane writes in, I'm listening to your pot cast for the second time. I don't want to miss a thing. I wanted to share how I back up my credit cards in case

they're lost or stolen. I make a copy of the front and the back of each card, especially since the back has the important phone numbers to call. I keep that paper in a safe place just in case. Diane, that is a great tip I do that. I actually used to do this once a year. Photo copy everything in your wallet, so all of your cards front and back, and your driver's license and your passport, and that way, if anything ever gets lost or stolen, you have an easy way to recover it, or at least start on

the path of recovery. But great, great thing to do, also very smart to do before you go on a big trip. Photocopy your wallet. Put a copy of that, maybe in your suitcase, obviously somewhere safe. Andrew from Oakland writes in I've been a tech listener on KFI, going all the way back to Jeff Levy, and I can't tell you how much I enjoy your show. You strike the right balance of tech info and nostalgia. How it all fits into our lives is what really makes your

show stand out. During today's show, I guess this was last week your story about the evolution of how we consume media, from Walkman's to CDs really hit home. I live for music and work in entertainment, and it instantly brought back memories of my own tech milestones, my first portable CD player, the Rio, which I also had I forgot to mention that last week, and eventually the iPod. I even have a little museum of all those devices. And yes, I still have that very first CD player.

It doesn't work, and I'm glad I kept it.

fear of messing things up. Even more, thank you again, Erin Erin. That is my goal is to give you that confidence. You're not going to break something, You're not gonna mess something up. So many people are afraid of just like using their technology, because something is gonna break or get broke, just whatever. So many things that people are scared of. And my whole job is to make this stuff seem fun and enjoyable. And so if you're not trying to break stuff, you're not using your gadgets enough.

So definitely try to break things. Um, okay, we oh, we have one more. Let's see here. Victor from Ermont. I just discovered your show on wo and I'm hooked. Thank you, Victor, I love it. We just added an affiliate in New York City, as you know WR seven ten, and people have been finding us there on Sunday nights and we do appreciate it because that is where I'm from. I'm from New Jersey and so being on in New York City has been a lifelong dream of mine and

I'm glad that we're resonating with the show there. We've got so much more on the website rich on tech dot tv. If you're not subscribed to my newsletter, please find me there. Subscribe to the newsletter. We've got almost forty five thousand of you getting the newsletter every weekend and just enjoying that version. It's kind of a version of this show. You can find links everything I mentioned on my website. Just go to rich on tech dot tv. You can find me on social media. I am at

you guessed it. Rich on tech Next week we're going to talk to Joel Santo Domingo of The Wirecutter. He's going to break down mesh networking, what it is, why it matters, and the best systems to buy. If you want better Wi Fi in your home.