Handy Websites & Pros and Cons of Smartphone Insurance

Hope you're having a fantastic day. The website for the show rich on Tech dot TV. You can follow me on social media. I am at rich on tech. So I figured I would tell you some of the useful websites that I have bookmarked. You know, I'm always on the lookout for unique, interesting, useful websites that are also helpful, and so these are a few that I've bookmarked over

That you got.

So maybe you just wanted to get a printable PDF for some sort of confirmation. You can do that with this website again, it is called ten minute Mail. Now, this is a new one that I've recently stumbled upon through one of the newsletters that I follow, Agenda hero dot com slash Magic. I don't know about you, but people send me calendar invites all the time. It's like an email with a whole bunch of information about where I need to be where at a specific time, at

Of course, I love miles.

I love getting free upgrades, but I don't actively try to get miles or a crew miles because it's just a lot of I used to do that back in the day and I just can't be bothered anymore. So, Yes, I love when I have miles. I love when I can use them, but I'm not sitting there trying to put my two dollars Starbucks on a credit card to

And so this awards versus Cash calculator lets.

You do just that.

So you put in the loyalty program the cost in points and any fees they might charge you, and then you put the cost in cash and you hit the calculate button and it will tell you, Hey, you're better off paying cash for this, or this is a great value, You're better off using miles. It works with airlines, it works with hotels. And this is from the points guy dot com. Again, it's the pointsky dot com slash calculator.

Okay, this is a photo tool.

It's called bgraser dot com. Bgraser dot com. And what's handy about this is that it lets you remove the background from a picture in just one click. It is super fast. It is really good, and it is free. So just drag and drop a picture on there. I just did it as we're speaking, and you tap start. You can even do a couple of pictures all at once, and it does a great job. I'm so impressed. It literally got me perfectly. It got the outline of my body.

Look at that.

I'm gonna check this out. Oh, it did such a good job. It's so impressive. And then you can save that picture and put a different background on it, use a different tool or whatever you want to do. But it's just kind of a very easy way, uh, to recreate the background. Maybe you're selling something on eBay, maybe you just want to, you know, show something without a distracting background.

Again the website bg Eraser dot com.

Next up, and I know I'm giving you a lot of these, but again I'll link them all on the website.

Rich on tech dot tv.

Next up is a website that's called cleantext dot org. So how many times have you gotten a bunch of text that is just gobbledygook.

It's got a whole bunch of arrows in it, or.

Spaces in it, or lines in it, or something that's just messing it all up. So all you have to do is take it, copy it into this website cleantext dot org, and then it's one click. It says pretty it up, and it will figure out what it needs to do. It will get rid of the extra spaces, get rid of the extra characters, and it will give you the output. You can copy and paste that to where you need it. It's just one of those things that you know, every once in a while it really

Even you can make.

The list and have people say what they're gonna bring, and you can even do different quantities up down, thumbs it up, thumbs it.

Down, whatever you want.

It's just super simple and it's just so everyone's on the same page, nice and easy. Again, that is called who Brings dot Com. Now, this next website has been around for it is super handy. It is called just Delete Me, and it's a directory of direct links to delete your account from different services. So the popular ones are available in one click. That's Amazon, that's Facebook, that's Instagram, Go Daddy, Google, LinkedIn Netflix.

And what I like about this website.

Is that not only does it give you the direct link to how to delete these, it gives you information on how to delete them, including.

Step by step.

It also tells you how easy it is to delete a website. So, for instance, a log into a website for instance Amazon Easy, Instagram, easy, LinkedIn, Medium, Netflix, hard.

Skype, impossible.

So it's a really fun website. It's just delete me dot xyz. I feel like this website has gone through a couple of owners over the years. It's just a nice resource on how to delete a log in for a website when maybe you don't feel like looking up the directions or you might get some ideas on things to get rid of. This is a website that I also use on almost a weekly or daily basis. It is a way to redact information from a photo. This website is super safe, super private. It all happens inside

I found that is it is the simplest.

Way to redact information in the browser and know that it's actually gone so that you can share that photo safely on social media. So let's say you take a picture of a screenshot of your Amazon receipt or something like that, and you want to share something about it, but you don't want your home address on there so you can easily use this website. It is redact dot photo. It works really well, it happens quickly, and it's great.

All right. The website you.

Need to know for all of the links to these handy websites I.

Just gave you is rich on tech dot TV.

My name is Rich dmiro.

You are listening to Rich on Tech.

We'll have some of your questions coming up right after this. 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.

Let's go to Thurman in Winchester, Massachusetts. You're on with Rich.

Yes, I guess good morning for you. For me, I was thinking about, especially from Verismon where I've had some signal drops the last few months.

To subby.

I first I thought, I go AT and T, just try out that network, But then I understand there are things like pure Talk that use the AT and T network, and they've now added foreign coverage, so that's good. So I'm I'm tempted to make the punge, but I just wondering if you've had an opinions on these discount woild wireless carriers that are piggyback on the main network.

Great question, and I will tell you this off the bat. I trust one of these mv and o's to my mom, So if it's good enough for her, believe me, I think they are good enough for everyone. Now Here is the main difference. Okay, So with the main carriers like a Verizon, an AT and T or a T Mobile, they want you on one of their fancy unlimited plans, which includes a lot of stuff. It includes Netflix, it includes mobile hotspot, it includes some sort of foreign roaming.

For mv and os.

The main one that they've run is their own, which is called Visible, and that's basically and you know when Visible first came out, I interviewed the CEO Visible, and I couldn't even believe it. I said, how are you offering Verizon's network at a fraction of the price. I think it was like thirty bucks a month, and the big thing was that it was limited in your speed, so your speed was download limited to about five megabits per second. They've since done away with that, but that

That's right.

If you have Spectrum TV, if you're paying Spectrum TV customer, you get Disney Plus for free.

This is traditional TV.

You have to have the Spectrum TV Select package and this is not something that you just have. You know, you have to sign up for this. It's something you have to activate. But it is a free perk. So if you have Spectrum TV Select, you can go to this website Spectrum dot com slash Disney Plus and you have to log in with your Spectrum account and then you can activate a free Disney Plus basic subscription. That

Even through the Internet.

If you're doing the Zumo box, you now can activate a free Disney Plus subscription. You can find more information about that on my Instagram. I've got the step by step Instagram. I am at Rich on Tech. Just look for the Disney ears and you can find out more information. Let's go to Eddie in Temple City, California.

Eddie, you're on with Rich. Welcome to the show.

Listen.

I have an iPhone ten, which is the ex YEP, and when I go to the setting, it tells me that I still have like twenty or thirty gigabytes of Sage, right, Okay, but Apple keeps bugging me, sending me messages telling me that I'm running out of space. I'm asking me to pay a monthly fee, which I refuse because I don't want my pictures in the cloud. Okay, So the main question is maybe two questions. The first one, if I switch to samsum, would they be bothering me with the

Yeah, okay, so I mean you could do that if I mean the thing I recommend for that is called the I expand And at this point you can really plug any hard drive into the iPhone.

But I think the sand disc I that's the letter I X P A N D.

I think they have the best software for downloading your photos from the phone. If you're an Amazon Prime member, you can sorry you didn't want the cloud.

So okay, that makes sense.

But you know, iPhone seems to have this weird thing with like the storage situation where people are getting that message that you're out of storage, and you know, they really just try to push people to getting cloud storage because the way the iPhone is set up, you can't really access the files that are on your phone, so you can't really know like what's going on, where things are,

Plug in a drive, you can move things around.

And you know, Samsung they're in the hardware business mostly where if you look at Apple, yes they're in the hardware business, but increasingly services and software are a huge which part of their.

Revenue, and so they're looking to get.

People to upgrade to these You know higher iCloud plans and all the other things in Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro here talking technology with you at triple eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. The website is rich on Tech dot TV. Cybersecurity is such a huge deal in our lives privacy. If you're online, you know, chances are your information is out there and it is

Me, Happy to be here.

Thanks.

So, explain to me what the National Cybersecurity Alliance is.

So, we're a nonprofit organization.

We're actually the founder of the Cybersecurity a wareath month every October, and our is around empowering a more secure, interconnected world. So what that means is empowering consumers and everyday people with the information they need to stay secured, to keep their information private when they choose to.

And so it's stay Safe online dot org. We have a lot of very.

Plain spoken advice. You won't find a lot of techt speak or legal ease. On our website, we have all kinds of advice for the average average citizen easy to understand.

So let's first talk about kind of like where we're at with cybersecurity, like how much are we at risk on a daily basis? Like we always hear about hacking and you know these data breaches and all that stuff, Like how much is the average consumer kind of what are they up against?

They're up against highly highly sophisticated organized crime in nation states like the Big Four, so Russia, China, Iran in North Korea.

What are kind of like the first steps we can take to protect our privacy online?

So there are a couple of things that are really really basic.

There's four main things that everybody can do, and if we all did them, they would make a massive debt in the problem.

So the first one is passwords.

We have some really bad habits about using the same password on multiple websites or a similar one.

Those are really easy to hack.

They're using software to hack them, password cracking tools. So don't use the same password on everything. You probably need a password manager to help you to keep it all straight. Then multi factor authentication, that's that thing where you go to sign on to your bank account. You have to have a text or a push notification from authenticator app before you can get into your bank account.

So turn that on on every single account that offers it.

Keeping things up to date, so when you get that remind me later option, do not take that. Make sure you run whatever update is trying to run, whether it's hardware, software, the firmware and your router operating system on your phone or any device. Keep everything up to date, especially your anti virus, and then watching out for phishing and social engineering, so not every you know, instant message you get is going to be from a legitimate person.

That you really know.

We've all gotten, you know, phishing emails that are really obvious.

They're not so obvious anymore. With the help of AI.

The bad guys are getting a lot better at creating phishing emails, texts, phone calls that make it harder and harder for us to tell that somebody's trying to trick us. And I'll add one more, and that's checking your privacy and security settings on your devices and all the apps.

That you use.

Those are not usually set to, you know, to have a default to be maybe the most private option, so.

You might not be comfortable when you start doing am to those settings.

You might be sharing stuff that you don't feel comfortable sharing, and so maybe dial those things to a level that you feel more comfortable with, for example, making your friends less private on Facebook.

Now, when you say that these aren't made private, you know they're not the best interest of the consumer generally when they're at their de faults. That's probably because these companies want to collect as much information on us as they can, right so that they can monetize it.

Yeah, because that their core.

Most social media companies are essentially advertising vehicles, and so the more information they have on us, the more targeted those ads can be, the more they can charge for that advertising.

Now, the big, the big kind of flip side to all of this I get from many many people when I say you got to use good passwords, you got to use multi factor, you got to update your software, you got to do all this stuff. They say, look rich, I got nothing to hide, They got nothing to worry about.

It's not a big deal, Like who wants to come into my you know?

Uh so I was.

I got one of my accounts I used to make like a Christmas card one year and that like, that account was hacked, right, and so the password that I used there, and my address and my phone number and my everything is just out there on the web because they were hacked. And so that's kind of like the thing that I don't think people realize is that when you share this information with one company, it can be out there in a multitude of ways if that company is packed right.

And a lot of these criminal organizations are creating massive databases that where they they're trading in your data, just like you know the data companies and the legitimate ones in the business world. They're building these massive data warehouses with a lot of information. So if your password has already been compromised, you might think, well, I don't have anything in that specific account that had the breach.

I don't have anything in their value, Like you said, who cares.

The problem is they're going to take that password and versions of it, you know, click it a little bit. Using software. They can do this at scale really quickly, and they're going to try that on every other account out there, and they can do it in minutes using technology.

To do it.

Because these are businesses and time is money for them, so they're going to use technology to their advantage, and that's why it's so important not to use the same password or similar password on multiple accounts and to use MFA. The other thing that can happen. You might think, oh, this doesn't matter to me, I don't have anything avalue there when they take over one of your accounts.

If they have access to one of your accounts, they can use that account to try and to harm to somebody else.

Right, so we've all seen the Facebook instant message that looks like it's from your Aunt Betty, but it's not Harriet Betty or Aunt Betty had her Facebook account taken over because she's probably using a weak password and no MFA. So you don't want to be the launch pad for somebody to go try and defraud other people. You also don't want the Chinese coming into your house using your router to lob an attack on your local power company.

And can you explain the concept of the dark web.

So basically, the current Internet was not designed to be secure or private.

It was designed for the free and open flow of information.

And if they could build it all again today, they would not build its own the way it's developed.

You need a special browser to get there.

What's on the dark Web is essentially marketplaces, mainly the deal in data, credit card information, social security numbers that are for sale, bank account credentials so somebody including your bank balance so that somebody knows where they're you're.

Worth trying to deal from.

And also things like drugs, guns and humans, human trafficking. Every bad, possible criminal thing that you could think of to buy and sell is available on the dark club.

Unfortunately.

Wow, it sounds like we're up against a lot of stuff here, Lisa, But I like the couple of tenants that you mentioned about, you know, keeping our stuff private at the end of the day. I mean, this is stuff that we need to stay up on, right, and we need to stay aware of this stuff because I know, I just I keep hearing in my mind over and over people say, come on, they're not what do they

We need to think about.

Our loved ones too, So older folks, aging Americans, they don't get defrauded as often, but when they do, the dollar amounts are high.

The bad guys are going to go where.

The money is, right, why do I steal the bank Because that's where a round the bank is, That's where the money is.

And our aging loved.

Ones have accumulated their life savings and so when they get defrauded, and it happens way too often, it's for large dollar amounts. So I spend a lot of time with trying to keep my mom safe online, for example.

And then younger people gen X.

Gen Y, they click a lot, they move really fast through the technology and so they're actually more likely to click on something malicious.

But the when they suffer.

A loss of their data or money, those losses are much smaller. But they're moving pretty fast and sometimes not quite paying enough attention.

Lisa Plagamaire, executive director at the National Cybersecurity Alliance. The website staysafeonline dot org. H really really good information. Thank you so much for joining me today.

My pleasure.

All right, that just this stuff, And I'm telling you since since I'm here and I get all the emails, I know for a fact that this stuff happens on a daily basis. People are getting hacked, they're getting scammed, they're falling for tricks. Please tell your loved ones, Please get educated on this stuff.

It really will make a difference.

Eighty to eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Welcome back to Rich on tech. Rich Demiro here talking technology at triple eight. Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Let's go to John in Palm Springs. John, you're on with Rich.

I bought a new S twenty three phone, and when they copied everything off of the old phone, I am missing hundreds of photos. I still have the old phone and they are missing there now as well. And so I read that they are probably still there and I can hire somebody to retrieve them.

But if true, I have no idea who that would be.

Okay, where do you store these photos? Are they just on like your phone or they go to the cloud somewhere.

No, they're just on the phone. Unfortunately, I'm I am the most illiterate tech guy in the world.

So okay, and you're sure you're not using because on Samsung devices they like to send these to one drive.

Are you sure they're not sync to one drive in some way.

Well they could be. I see one drive on my phone, okay, but I never knew what it was. I didn't never even.

Clicked on it.

Okay, well click on it and and uh, there's a there's a there's a section of the Samsung phone in the settings that is called I'm trying to look here, accounts and backup and if you look there, let's see backup data. So so in here it's it says where these things are backed up. I'm trying to find this while we talk live. I know it's tricky, but there's a couple of places. A couple of places I would look. Number one, I would on a website.

I would do use Google at all, I I guess, yeah.

Okay, so if you have a Google account, I would try going to photos dot Google dot com on a website on your computer, so on a desktop browser, and see and log in with your Google and see if any of the photos made their way there. Then I would go to one drive dot com again from a computer and log in with either your Samsung account or your usually it's linked to a Microsoft account if you

Several years ago I retired and during my tenure as a worker for forty some years, I had to use I used the Microsoft Word program to do a lot of documents and newsletters, et cetera. And those were on my home computer. And so I've continued with a software. But at some point, maybe about three or four years ago, they changed it to a subscription program where I have to pay sixty some bucks a year to continue to use the software.

But sure, I no.

Longer have to do documents and newsletters, and I really don't.

Use it that much.

But yes, you don't want to pay that money.

Right, But will I be able to reference the documents I have previously made with Words if I do not have this subscription?

Absolutely? Absolutely. Now this used to be very complicated in the past. It is not anymore. Thanks to so many free tools out there, so you'll be just fine. You can continue to make these documents in the word format as much as you want, and there will be many ways to access them later. The easiest way do you have a Gmail or a Google account? Yeah, okay, easiest way Google Docs. So take these.

You can actually do this right now if you want.

You can go to Google Drive, or you can go to Google Docs and you can drag and drop one of these files into the screen and it will put it into Google Drive, Google Docs, and then you can open it and Google will make it so that you can edit that file, you can read that file, whatever you need to do. It will convert it for you on the fly, and so you'll be able to edit, you'll be able to read it, you'll be able to access it. There will be no there will be no

Welcome to the show. Hello Rich, Hello Steve. What's up?

So?

I got a Facebook business page. I'm a professional handy man in Glendale, California, and I made a post and I've gotten this message before I got a message, I actually got four separate messages. Your Facebook page is expect to be permally removed due to post the post violating

R O okay, and it sounds like a website.

So how can I help? Did you get hacked.

Well, I mean, I have it. I'm just I'm just should pay tention to that.

Okay, Okay, good question. Spam yep, yep.

One hundred percent ignores spam.

These are these are very I'm telling you, Steve, there are so many scams happening with social media it is it's almost become untenable to deal with all this stuff, and especially if you have a business account, any sort of Facebook page. So a couple of things. Number one, these are notifications that they're sending you. This says, hey, you're you're violating our terms and conditions, and they seem

So believe me, I do a lot of things.

On my Facebook page, Facebook dot com, slash rich on tech. I see these things all the time. There's a lot of scam artists also that post on your page, so when you comment something, they may comment and say, hey, we can help with that, and those are scam artists as well. Those I would block, but really these are mostly bots. But it's a good lesson to learn. And the thing that I would do is make sure if you have a Facebook account, two things I would do.

With your password.

So let's say you fell for one of those notifications, you logged in with your password, they got it, they immediately try to hijack your account. They wouldn't be able to because there would be a secondary code that is texted to your phone and that would make it so

Thanks for the call. My name is Rich d'miro.

You can follow me online at rich on Tech, the website for the show richon Tech dot tv. More rich on Tech come in your way right after this. Welcome back to rich on Tech.

Rich Demiro here.

Hanging out with you, talking technology, the website for the show rich on Tech dot TV. There you can find me on x on Instagram, and on Facebook and my email. Just click the email icon to send me a message. That's what Jessica did. She says, my daughter just sent me something on Disney Plus slash Hulu now cracking down on sharing. My daughter is a college student out of state and uses our account. Will this be an issue

So.

Disney Plus and Hulu have both updated their subscriber agreements to ban account sharing for new subscribers. This happened earlier this year, and for existing subscribers it just started around mid March. Now, that does not mean that they are

Watch history and things like that. Why are they doing this?

Well, Netflix sort of started this and they said enough is enough.

No more sharing accounts.

And by the way, when they turned off the account sharing on Netflix, they turned on a lot of money because a lot more people said, Okay, fine, I will subscribe. I will pay my own money to do this. And it's not a ton of money, but across a whole bunch of millions of subscribers, that does add up to a lot for Netflix, and for the average person, Okay, fine, for eight bucks a month, I'll get my own account whatever, and the free ride is over. I've said this many,

Netflix did it.

A lot of the other streaming services will end up doing this as well. But again my advice is just to continue sharing until you're forced to not share. Now, there's lots of signals on how they figure out if someone is indeed sharing their account.

They might look at your IP address.

They might look at how many devices you have on your account where those devices typically access your account, whether that device is a.

TV or a tablet, Because if it's a TV.

You know, they're thinking, Okay, how many TVs does this person have across the US. But if it's a tablet, they might understand, Okay, this tablet does travel to different cities, and this phone travels to different cities. Now, with your daughter in college students, I do think that's a bit of a tricky area because college students, you know, they're sort of in the household, but they're not watching in

You can't anymore.

But as we know, Netflix came down on this really fast, and it was very swift when they made that change.

So thanks for the question, Jessica, appreciate it.

Next up, June says, Hey, Rich, I volunteered to be the DJ for a party event, and I'm looking for a free software or an app I can assign a key on the keyboard that will play a sound effect, for example, a drum roll, a bell, ring, a gong, etc. I'm using a Mac I plan to use VLC media player and load all the sound effects and just double click to play them.

But maybe you have a better suggestion. Thanks very much, Best June.

June, great question.

What you want is called a soundboard.

This is something that many people in the audio industry are familiar with. It's what DJs use, it's what radio stations use. We use one here and it's just a great audio production thing to have. So it's a little piece of software that makes a board that almost looks like a bunch of squares. Each one of those squares is loaded up with a certain sound or maybe a song. And what's nice about these sound board applications is that

So there's a lot of different options.

So if you want the paid app that does this, the company I like that makes a lot of great little handy apps like this is called Rogue Amiba and their app is called Farrago fa r r Ago and that's going to be a really nice supported app, but it's gonna cost some money. You'll get a free trial, so I would say definitely try the free trial and see if it works for you.

If you like it, you can pay for it.

But as you know, there are always alternatives to everything. So the two alternatives I have not tested, but they are available for free.

One is called.

Sound show s o U n D Show sound Show and this is a free tool for Windows, Mac, Os, Linux, and Android.

Now I say free.

It is a name your own price download.

So a lot of these independent developers will allow you to download stuff for free, but you know they ask, hey, do you mind paying just something? You can support them with any that you like, And that one seems to have all of the features that you need.

And it does work with Mac.

The other one is called soundplant soundplant dot.

Org and again this is a free download. You can download it for free.

It works on Mac and Windows, and it looks like it was last updated in April twenty twenty three, so it's pretty recent. But again, these are the type of apps that you need. So I just gave you three good examples.

I think it's so fun to do this.

I used to do this show that you're listening to off of a road mixer that had sort of a soundboard built into it. So I had a couple of if you ever listened to the show we're talking you know, four years ago, if you ever listened to my old old podcast. I used to have a couple of main things, like a ding that's right, just a couple of basic sounds that we would use.

For our show.

One of them actually drove people nuts, and whenever I did a question like this, like an email question, we would have the sound of a keyboard clocking, and it was very controversial. Some people loved it, and some people really were bothered by the fact that I would have that sound because it threw them off.

Thanks for the question, June, appreciate it.

E says, I have a couple of spectrum technicians over at my house and they mentioned something about a high split update.

Do you happen to know anything about that?

Had to look up the answer to this one because I'm not really sure what the high split update is, but E, the good news is it sounds like the internet in your area is about to get a whole lot faster. High split moves the return spectrum allocation higher to around two hundred and four megahertz, giving more bandwidth

So what does that all mean?

In Layman's terms, It sounds like your internet is going to get faster in your area, especially the upstream, which means when you're uploading stuff back to the network that will be faster, and that's an important thing for a lot of people if they're working from home like myself, I'm always uploading large files and sending them to the cloud. Typically, when you're looking at Internet, they're only advertising the download speeds.

Yes, it is modeled after Nutrition Facts.

It tells you the name of the plan, how much it costs every month, including any introductory pricing plans, and also any monthly fees you might have to pay, any discounts you might be eligible for, plus the speeds provided

Hi, Good afternoon, Rich. How are you?

I am doing fantastic. How about you?

So far, so good? But the day is young?

Uh?

I like that?

Outlook? All right, what can I help you with?

All Right?

I have a problem. I live in a two story home, and I replaced my router that was provided by the cable company Spectrum because the signal was just interrupted. I also live next to the mountains. I live in the home of President Nixon the city.

So I'm President Nixon's home.

Yes, the library, and yes, yes he was born here.

Correct, Oh my gosh, Okay, sweet.

So I had an interruption the signal because I'm really close to the mountains and I have a two story property. So I replaced the router from the Spectrum company, the cable company, and I bought my own.

Okay, and would you get I got.

This one from this company called the l NKSYS link sys. Okay, yes, And it gave me two towers to put one in the you know, above and one below the levels, and I still get interruption, and so I'm wondering what I can do to change that because when my kids come over and they're using their WiFi and stuff like that, they don't get the signal. And I don't know what I can do to change that.

Okay, Well, what so number one, the mountains don't have anything to do with your signal, so that is not causing the issue. What's causing the issue is the material of this home. So I'm guessing this is an older home and it has probably thick walls that are really tough to get this signal through. That's what I'm guessing. It also sounds like it's pretty large if it is

That is being it was in the president's home. It's said he's the city, he was born here.

Oh, he was born there.

Okay, but it is an older home and there is a lot of bricks involved.

Okay, there you go, that's the issue.

Okay, Yes, that is the issue.

So you you sort of halfway solve this issue by going with the Linksys system. It sounds like you have a mesh system, but that is what you need here, and you it sounds like you may need do you know how many square feet this house is?

Well, the lot is is big, but the house itself is thirty two hundred square Okay.

That's that's pretty large.

So I would recommend are.

You trying to get internet on the lot or just in the house.

Well, I already have it in the house, but it's still an interruption, that's signal.

Okay.

So here's what I would do. You need a mesh system, the system that you have already. I would go online and look up the name of it and see if it is a mesh system that you can expand with more what are called access points. Let me explain what a mesh system is. So typical internet you get from Spectrum is just a router that sits below your TV and it just stays there, and that's basically it. It sends out the signal. It does not reach very far because it's just the walls and everything else.

Kind of mess with it.

So what most people are upgrading now to these days is called a mesh system, and a mesh system is kind of like think about the home base under your TV sends out the signal to all these little access points around your house, and they all talk to each other to kind of make sure that the signal completely

Melody are Ellie and or Belinda.

I thought it was odd that you lived in the President's house, but I get it orball innda okay president from there.

I do have a warning though for you.

If you got gift cards over the holidays, check the balance immediately. This happened to us and it's quite scary. It's happening to a lot of people based on the comments on my Instagram and Facebook page. But basically what happens is scam artists go to the stores, they write down the numbers from gift cards, so like somehow open up the back of them, write down the number, and then they'll record that number, keep it at home, and

So what happens when you get gift cards? Right, you give them, you buy I'm.

At the store, You hold on to them for a week, You give it to a person at a birthday party or the holidays, that person gets it, they hold on to it for a couple of weeks. So, as you can see, there's a lot of time here for the scam artists to do their work. And so I've noticed that a lot of registers they will look at the cards, they will visually inspect them to make sure that they have not been tampered with, but it doesn't always catch them.

Where there are so many gift cards.

Gift cards are almost their own currency, and it's just it's very simple for these scams artist to do this apparently, and people buy these carts. They don't look at the back, they don't notice that numbers are scratched off, and he reported, and they put the money on it and it's gone.

Welcome back to rich on Tech.

Rich Demiro here talking technology, hanging out with you at Triple eight Rich one oh one eight eight eight seven.

Four to two four one zero one.

Joining me now, Titanya Jordan, author and founder of Parenting in a Tech World and Bark Technology's Chief parent Officer.

Welcome to the show, Titanya, Hi, thank you so much for having me.

I should say, welcome back to the show. You were one of the early guests last year, so thanks for joining me again. Uh so you post all about child and teen safety online, So first off, tell me what Bark is all about, the company that you work for.

Sure, So Bark launched the safest smartphone for kids within the past year, which is incredible and what's so incredible about it is that it has our tech baked into the smartphone. And so in twenty fifteen, Bark launched as an AI based software solution that alerted parents and caregivers to dangers happening in their children's social media, text and email. So we started with an app, and then we moved to a smartphone.

Okay, Now, now when parents think about you know, like I get this question, like, how do I monitor what my kids are doing on their phone?

Right? So what can Bark do?

And I know with iOS and Android things are a little bit different, right, like what you can search and what you can just get? Can you explain the difference? Like what if a parent has if a kid has an iPhone, which of course a lot of kids want the iPhone?

Like what can parents monitor on that?

Ooh great question? So yeah, I will say, if you're listening to this and you have not yet bought your child a smartphone, please avoid the iPhone. That's the equivalent of giving your child a Ferrari when they turned sixteen instead of a very sensible Honda or Toyota. Apple is great for adults who need privacy, but it's very cumbersome

My wife works with teens, and she was telling me that Snapchat is everything. I mean, text messaging is not even They don't even care anymore, Like I thought it was all about, you know, for adults, this whole blue, bubble, green bubble I message thing.

But for teens it is all about Snapchat.

And I think it's because of I'm guessing the fleeting nature of the chats, which.

I'm laughing, but it's really serious.

It's like they you know, they like it because things disappear, right, It's very serious.

They do like it because things apparently disappear. But you know, one thing that we've really got to get across to everybody that uses tech is that anything you do online, even if the platform tells you it disappears, doesn't actually disappear. It lives on a server somewhere. You know, if you recycle your phone to get a new phone, like, there's still data that lives on that phone even if you

Wow.

Yeah, that's an interesting one too.

What do you think is the most pressing kind of situation affecting teens and children right now when it comes to technology?

Ooh, that's uh, we need a lot more where we start.

Yeah, right.

Overall, it's the fact that parents and caregivers and ed and physicians and legislators currently cannot help protect kids digitally like they can in real life with seat belts and sunscreens and healthy diets, et cetera. There's a world of danger living deep in children's digital signal, and it is harming them, not at low rates, but at frequent rates. And it's the worst of the worst, whether it's exposure to extreme violence, graphic sexual content, suicidal ideation, disordered eating,

Do we have a solution or do you know.

What what is the solution?

Because parents, you know, they want, like you said, we do all these things for our kids, you know, teach them how to you know, walk and ride their bikes safely, and all this stuff, But when it comes to the phones and tablets, most of the kids are actually more advanced than the parents.

They are, and that's why it's a multifaceted approach. While the Bark app and the Bark smartphone are one key component to it right because at least we're giving you insights and helping you help your child have a healthier relationship with tech, it's not the total solution. It starts with education and awareness. As parents and caregivers, we need to know what is happening and the rate at which

It starts with us, Wow, that's a lot of money.

Okay, you posted something the other day about incognito mode. People think that they're protected or private. Tell me what we need to know about incognito mode.

Essentially, children are using incognito mode because they think it's completely anonymous, when in fact, this goes back to the Snapchat conversation we just had that information lives somewhere. Just because your parent can't get on that computer and see your browser history. The internet service provider, the websites and apps that you visited, they know where you went, and if needed, that information can be shared with your parent or let's say, employer when you get older. So it's

What's your advice to parents about the safety tools that are built into some of these products?

Oh my gosh, well cut me off at any time, but here we go, lightning round. Don't give your kid unfettered, unmonitored access to the internet. Keep connected tech and common areas at the home, not in their bedrooms. Don't let them access it overnight. Don't let your child have access to things that you have not spent time on yourself.

T Tanya Jordan, author and founder of Parenting in a Tech World and Bark Technologies Chief Parent Officer. Please follow Titanya on Instagram. T t a n Ia Jordan on Instagram. She posts great rules about all this stuff that you need to know. At least it'll get you thinking. At least it'll remind you that you have to do this stuff.

Hi, Rich, how are you?

I am doing fantastic.

How are you well.

I'm getting ready to go out of the country for a couple of weeks, and obviously I can't use an e SIM on my phone. I have to actually physically swap out sim through each country I go to. And I'm just wondering, is there a way, even if I'm using a foreign SIM that I can still text and receive in sentex the folks.

Back here, is this an iPhone or a different type of phone?

No, it's a it's a Google Pixel five A five G, which is not you know, I heard your recommendation a long time ago about using a SIMS. Unfortunately I can't use an SIM on this phone.

Okay, yeah, that might have been before. Is that before the SIM started on those yes? Okay, all right, So you've got so you basically have a carrier here in the US, like a T Mobile, Verizon, whatever it is, and you're going to pop that SIM card out, and then you're going to pop in a SIM card for

Like, like, I.

Want to be able to check my text messages on a different device, and it's really tricky to be able to do that. So I think It's one of those things where once that SIM card is out, it's just that those texts are not going to come through on there.

Let me ask you this. I have a backup phone that I take with me because I learned the hard way. If you drop a phone on a remote island, Yeah, and it cracks, you're out of luck.

Yep.

But you can still use a backup phone via Wi Fi. So I was just wondering if I bring my backup phone with my US domestic SIM in it, will I be able to text by a Wi Fi?

Oh yeah?

Does that?

Does that phone have Wi Fi calling on it?

Oh?

Yeah, yeah, turn on the wife. So here's what you do.

Turn on the Wi Fi call, put the take the SIM out, put it in that phone. It will activate. You know, usually it's pretty automatic. It just switches over if you if you pop the SIM in there, uh, it will activate. Once that's activated, your old phone will have no service, you know. Now you can use that

Now here's the thing.

I learned this actually from a friend when I was in Japan, because I had my phone off and I was like, oh, yeah, I've got my I don't want to use my US carrier. He's like, dude, He's like, why don't you just turn on your Wi Fi calling. I said, well, text messages won't come through. He goes, yeah, they will, and sure enough they came through as soon as I activated that Wi Fi calling on that but

If it's a it's called Fiji.

Oh okay, well, enjoy Fiji.

It's actually even warmer than southern California right now.

I've had water from there and it's it's pretty tasty. So I imagine the whole island is even better. Thanks for the call today, triple eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. You know, the Fiji water is so good. Even my kids. My kids are nine to twelve, and even they know the quality of Fiji water. When they're in the store and I'm like, look, you can pick out any water

I guess you know you find things at CS.

I'm gonna give you a recommendation of a product that I really found there and I've been using ever since. It's called the Gator Grip. This thing is so simple, it's so easy. It's literally a almost like a clothes pin for your phone, and it has a very simple functionality. You put this thing on your phone and you can now prop up your phone so you can watch videos on it. It's like fifteen bucks rich on tech dot TV slash Shop if you want the link to that.

Triple A.

Rich one on one is the phone number eight eight eight seven four.

To two four 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 tech questions.

Gina in Venice. You're on with Rich.

So I'm wondering. I'm an Apple person, I have across the AU platform, and I'm wondering if there's a way to think applications that I have like to sink Gmail across all applications. So when I i'd wather it a message or email and on my iPhone and delete it, it's all also deleted on my Mac or my iPad or whatever.

Yes.

Yes, So there's a couple of ways you can do this.

If you download, like specifically for Gmail, if you download the Gmail app, you can install that on your various devices, and if you delete a message on one device, whether it's the web, whether it's the iPhone, whether it's the iPad, it will delete on all the other devices as well, if you're using the Apple Mail app, as long as you set up the email using kind of like their flow, which if you haven't done this in a while, like if you set it up a long time ago, you

Perfect and I learned stuff. And I have one teenie quick.

Question famous last words on this show, Gina.

I know.

When you click the box trust this device, yes, does it?

Yes?

You should only click that box when you are attaching the device a trust the device to your computer or like if you see that message when you are plugging into like an outlet at the airport, run as far as you can, because that is why they put that there. That is only for your phone to your computer, and that is because it means that you can transfer data between those two things. If you see that message anywhere else, if you're at a library, public computer, you do not want to do that.

You don't want to trust that device.

Your device can still charge off of that computer or that outlet, but it will not send data. So trust this device is Take that very seriously when you see it. That's there for a reason.

All right, Thank you so much.

Rich.

I really appreciate your program and all the information you provide.

Well, Gina, I appreciate you listening. You are the best part of the show.

Thanks so much.

Speaking of being out and about and traveling, if you're a nerd like me, the first thing you do when you get to any new place, whether it's a hotel room or or you know you're traveling in an airport, you want to download something. I'm always doing a speed test, so I wanted to share just the app that I really like that does this easily and fast, and I

Based on this speed test. And the neat thing is.

You can select the apps that you use the most, so you can see if the things that you do will work. Now, I will tell you, having done many many speed tests over the years, internet speeds out and about on cellular and Wi Fi have gotten way better than they ever have been.

So I think for ninety nine percent of things you want.

To do, you're going to find the speed that you need just about anywhere you are, unless you're trying to download a movie.

Welcome back to another hour of Rich on Tech.

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. My name is rich Demiro. The website for the show Richontech dot tv. If you want to get in touch with the show, you can tap the email icon that'll send a message right to my screen. And yes, you send a lot of them. Thank you for that. I do appreciate it. Let's get to the first question this hour. It comes

Internet to play?

There are restrictions in the group home that he lives in. Thanks for any input you can offer, Chris.

Well, Chris, it really depends on the game.

So most of these tablets do not come with built in games. You may find that some of them do, but I think typically tablets just come kind of without anything installed on them, and you install the apps that you want, so you probably will need internet access at least for the initial setup. That's the way it works with most of the tablets that I've set up, and you'll probably need internet access at least to download the games.

The first time.

But if you search in Google Play, you will notice that some games are marked offline play. So if you go into Google Play, if you have an Android phone and just go ahead and search offline games, and you can search for that, and you will see a whole bunch of games come up. And if you tap into one of those games, it says about this game, and there's a couple of little kind of boxes underneath this one says Strategy Simulation Casual offline, So that tells you

If you tap offline again, you can see a.

Whole list of games that are offline games, and you'll find a whole bunch of them.

That is probably the best way to do it.

Set up the tablet, download the games at your place, and then hand it over to him. Now, when it comes to tablets, you didn't ask for any recommendations, but I'll give you a few that I like. I think it depends, of course, how much you want to spend. I know that the Amazon Fire tablets are always very inexpensive,

So what do I recommend?

The one plus Pad is a really nice tablet that starts at four hundred and seventy nine dollars. It often goes on sale, so I would definitely look for that at a cheaper price. But that is a fantastic combination of really high end specs and a great price, so I do like that one. The other one, if you want to go on the cheaper end, is the Nokia T ten. Now, this is a small tablet, it's just

Have tested this.

It's easy to hold, it's fine for basic things.

You know, some of the games might be a little sluggish on it, but that is another option. If you want something that's going to be the best combination of price and performance and features, I think you go with a Galaxy tab S nine FE and that starts at three hundred and eighty nine dollars.

That is from Samsung. It is great. It's water resistant, it's dust resistant, it's.

Got a nice big screen, it's got an spen included, it's got a nice long lasting battery. That is a really solid tablet. My only downside of that it is a little bit on the heavier side. But those are some great solutions. And thank you for listening in Texas. Next up, Tony says I have an iPhone fourteen plus limited warranty ending very soon. I currently pay fourteen dollars a month for Assurion with Verizon. At what point is insurance protection no longer worth it? And is there better

Gonna be very controversial in my answer, but I am.

Not a huge fan of these extended warranty programs.

I never have been.

And I get it.

Retailers, the carriers.

The phone companies, they all make a lot of money off of this. What are they making money off of. They're making money off of fear. Fear that you're gonna drop your phone, and fear that you're gonna break your phone, and fear that you're gonna not have the money to replace it or repair it.

But in many instances, and I will tell you this, I just don't.

Think that the insurance is worth it. Let's just do simple math. So you're talking fourteen dollars a month times twelve months, that's one hundred and sixty eight dollars you're paying on top of your expensive smartphone. And by the way, that does not include any deductibles. And so when you go to get your screen repaired or if it's a bigger repair, it's gonna cost even more money. So now you're talking just for one year. Let's just say you're

Let's see how much does Apple charge hold on?

Okay, so checking the Apple Support website, it is to get a screen repair if you're out of warranty.

Now keep in mind this is from Apple. They're going to charge the most.

You can go to a third party repair facility that may charge less, but it's three hundred and twenty nine dollars if you have no coverage on your phone. Now, if you have an Apple Care Plus plan, it is twenty nine.

Dollars to get that repair. That sounds a lot better.

But how much is the Apple Care Plus Well, for two years, it is one hundred and seventy nine dollars, So do the math. Two years one hundred and seventy nine dollars plus the twenty nine. Now you're up to two hundred and ten dollars for that screen repair. So just under that three hundred and twenty nine dollars cost. Now, I will tell you I have tested hundreds of phones.

Over the years okay, and I bring them everywhere.

I have them in my car, they fall out of my pants pocket whatever. I have broken, maybe maybe two or three screens in my entire lifetime. Now, if you have a good case on your phone and a good screen protector on your phone, ninety nine percent of the time your phone is going to be protected anyway. And what does that leave Well, that leaves theft. So if your phone is stolen and you don't have it, now you're paying even more for.

Your coverage for your insurance.

So I feel like my advice is always to take that fourteen dollars a month, put it in a separate savings account, and before you know it, you will be self insured against anything that happens to your phone. And by the way, you may even save up enough money to buy a new phone completely.

So that is my thought.

If you feel better paying that fourteen dollars a month for that insurance plan, by all means, go ahead and do it. I'm just giving you my perspective on this, and I will tell you over the years I have had to you know, since I don't buy the Apple Care on my laptop computers either, I have had to repair my laptop computer twice, and both times the repair is worse. Six hundred dollars, which is a lot. Probably would have been cheaper with Apple Care, but that's twice in probably fifteen years that.

I've had Mac.

So you know, you got to do the math on these things. If you feel good having it, go ahead. But my feeling is that you're paying a lot for something that.

You may not use.

One more quick one here, Jennifer says, Hey, Rich, do you know if Amazon does anything with the how is your delivery responses after each delivery? I hope to reward the drivers who manage to deliver my packages to my door rather than to my neighbors. I've been diligently responding each time, but wonder if it's worth the effort. I'm a devoted follower. I've learned so much from you over the years. Thank you for providing interesting, useful information in

Their driver's performance.

It's also the best way for customers to show their appreciation. So let your listener know that those responses are important and are linked to the driver who delivered their packages, not their neighbors.

Well, there you go, Jennifer.

It sounds like every time you leave a good review, it is doing good things for that driver.

Keep them coming.

My name is rich Dmiro.

The website for the show.

Rich on Tech dot TV more rich on Tech come your way.

Right after this.

Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at Triple eight Rich one O one eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one. Marshall and Risita, you're on with Rich I.

Shi in the Jersey It.

Hey, how's it going.

Hanging in there?

I hope you doing on?

I twitched over from that note twenty Ultra I had that you saw me and Amazon Fresh. I have a twenty four. I'm sorry I didn't know twenty Now we've got the twenty three, but you know that it doesn't have a standal my memory. I got a five twelve memory when I bought the phone. Because they doubled your memory.

Tell them whoever you talk to the jam come to put the expandable memory back in because they did this back in the five or six senteries, and I don't know if you remember, Oh yeah, Marshall, they put it back in and on the seven or something like that because people can brained, yep.

And then they took it away.

Yeah, here's the thing.

People love the expandable memory. But these phones are getting to the place where they have the phonemakers want no ports whatsoever.

I need a good success from your part. I want a tangible thing. I could put it, take it like, you know, because if I put the micro c car once I filled it up, you know, I could take it out and put a fresh one in, sure, but take it with me and then.

Whatever I want to do with that car.

I don't want to put myself up in the cloud.

I don't want to put it onto a laptop.

And like I want something I could take and put into the you know, plug into the phone, download all the stuff from you know, the pictures and videos. However, I have put into something candile that I can put you know, Terry Ren with me because it's got five twelve told memory on it, so it probably needs to be considered something large to you know, you know, not physical arts, but like you know, data largs.

That's what it is.

Well, the good news is, look, the good news is with these phones with the USBC, you could plug any drive into them. Just get a hard drive if you want to do it that way, that's the cheapest. If you want something small, get a flash drive. And the phone actually has an app built in called my File.

It's very simple to do it that way. If you don't want to go to the cloud.

The drives that I recommend, if you want to just get a regular hard drive, just go on Amazon search you know hard drive Western Digital and you can get like a probably a two terabyte drive for like sixty bucks. At this point. Make sure it's USBC. But if you want to get a flash drive, PNY has what's called the duo link and this is a USB three point two C drive USBC. Plug it into the bottom. They make it in one twenty eight gigabytes or two fifty six.

You can find me on social media.

I'm at Rich on Tech on Instagram, Facebook X, all the places online, the website for the show rich on Tech dot TV. You can also watch the segments that I do for television there, and you know, just a lot of stuff you can do. Listen to the podcast. You can download this show later to listen again. You know, maybe you didn't catch something. You're like, what did Rich say about that? Let me listen to all three hours

I should say, Katie is in.

La Century City, Century City, Welcome to the show.

If we change carriers on our cell phones from one to another, from AT and T to something else, can we keep our phone numbers the way they are?

Yes?

This is called yeah, This is called poorting out a phone number and basically all the cellular all the cellular companies use a system that allows them to grab the phone number from your old account bring it to the new account. Now, how easy that is can sometimes be a little tricky. So the thing you need to know about porting a phone number out number one, do not cancel your old service. That is the number one thing

As you know, it is.

My goal to make this show as useful as possible. That's why I do a mix of things. I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. That includes the news of the week. That includes reviews, that's tips, that's useful apps, And a big part of all of this is my website, rich on tech dot TV. You might know that I do have a job as a TV reporter in Los Angeles for ktlaight Channel five, So of course I have my articles on there as well on the website, and I have my TV segments.

Of like this show. It's the best way to keep up with me.

I will send out one to two emails per week.

One of them is my main newsletter.

One will be an audio version of this show, so that's nice and easy to listen to later.

And get all the links to everything I mentioned. Plus, like I said, you could watch my latest TV segment. You can see links to all of the previous shows. So I've got all the episodes lined up in.

A wiki for the radio show What's Going On?

Rich tamiro here rich on Tech, Welcome back to the show. Joining me now is Jose Brionez. He runs a website called Dumb phone Finder. He is a digital minimal Jose, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me. Rich.

You embraced digital minimalism a couple of years ago.

Tell me why and what that journey's been like.

So for me, I think the idea is that I was spending too much time online and that's because I went from one environment to another. So I got out of college, I went to university, and I had a very structure life, going to school, going to work hours, and then going home. But then I went out of that structure life to the life that I had to build myself, and I found myself spending too much of that lifetime online.

So when I got my first.

Job, I was spending roughly about twelve to thirteen hours online work and leisure altogether, and I did not want to do that. So I started to find alternatives in my life that will allow me to live what I call a better life, a more balanced life, and interact with technology but not be overcome by it.

Okay, so the first thing you did in this journey, I assume was get rid of the smartphone.

What tell me about that aspect you switched.

What did you try to do, Like, what was your goal in Did you try to reduce your time on the smartphone or just get rid of it all together?

So I think at first I was trying to keep my smartphone and use the tools that are with it, so screen time or other you know, kind of like little hacks. But at some point in time I realized that I am not a smartphone person. If I have something available and I have the technology available to me.

I want to use it. If I have a smartphone in my hands, I want.

To use it.

I want to get the most out of it.

So taking that and going to a simpler phone at the time, I tried a Life phone too, which has been my device for the past four years, and it had enough.

It had enough things that I liked.

I liked the company, and it wasn't perfect, but it had the things that I wanted and appreciate it, and I started to look for alternative ways to do all of the other smart things that I had become accustomed to.

And real quick I have tested the light phone. It's basically a Kindle like a Kindle screen on a phone. It's really small, it's very minimalistic. It's not a color screen as far as I know. The one I tested wasn't and it's very basic. I mean I had a

I think the biggest challenge for me is that you have to relearn how to operate in the twenty first century but with twentieth century principles.

So when you go to a.

Restaurant and they have a QR code, you need to ask, hey, can I get a paper menu? Or when you go to the airport and instead of having the QR code ready for you to use and board your plane, you have to be mindful of printing it at home or going to the kiosk and talking to somebody so that

What have the improvement's been.

I think the main improvement is that I can have a conversation with my wife and not be distracted by the notifications on my phone because I'm not deeply attracted to it anymore.

Even when we go on a trip.

I do have a smartphone that I keep for international trips because when I'm international, I don't know the language, you know, I may not be able to figure it out all the things that I have figured out here in my local context. But even when we go international,

When it comes to.

Work, I finish work quite faster, you know, just because I don't have a lot of distractions pinging me or grabbing my attention. You kind of remain more focused in your work and you do it faster, and then you get more time for relaxation and other activities that I want.

Do you ever feel like you're missing out?

I do miss out, but I think that's a mindset that you have to accept. I did not start this in order to have the niceties of the twenty first century and the principles of the twentieth century and then you know, kind of like interact back and forth between them. I started this as a lifestyle change. I wanted my lifestyle to change. I wanted to start interacting more with print media. I wanted to kind of have a little bit more of a slower life. So, yes, I am

You know.

I've missed out on a couple parties that my friends organized because I'm not in the group message or I don't have that app that everybody has. I missed out on quote unquote posts that are important. And one time I did miss out on some email communication that was pretty prompt. It wasn't a super emergency because This is something that I tell everybody. If it's a true emergency,

Because when it's a real emergency, they will do that.

You run a website called dumbphones dot org. Tell me about the website and what that helps people do.

So about three years ago I started this website and the animus or the idea was to help people find their perfect phone.

When people hear dumb phones, they usually.

Think, oh, it's an old flip phone, it doesn't have any capabilities, but actually they do.

It's just that, you know, it's not in the media as much.

You don't get the shiny new announcement from Samsung or Apple out there. So if you go to the dumbphone Finder, you can find the perfect phone for you. So the website just runs different filters and you can explore it and it has a lot of other useful resources for people to start the journey.

What's a dumb phone run these days? And do you have a top pick?

Yes?

I do have three top picks, and they all range from different price points. I think most people associate the sub one hundred dollars, but they can go all the way to three hundred dollars, like the light phone. You know, the light phone is more of a minimal device, you know, something that you really want for a lifestyle change.

The CATS twenty two.

Flip is more of the smarter device. You can still have apps and you know, all of the nice city and convenience of the world. That one runs you about seventy nine to one hundred dollars, depending on the condition. You can get them on Amazon. And then something more like in the middle will be a Nokia. You know, there's still Nokia devices out there. The twenty seven to eighty can run you eighty bucks or so, and there's

If I'm not ready to give up my smartphone and I'm not ready to get a dumb phone, give me a tip to sort of be more intentional and have less screen time.

I'll give you two quick tips.

The first one is give your screen time password to someone else. So that's one of the biggest things that has helped me whenever I go, you know, and I have to use my smartphone for whatever reason. My wife has set up the screen time passcode, so if I try to bypass it, I can't because I don't know the passcode, And if I really want to do it, I'll have to factor you reset, and I really doubt you're going to do that. The second one is find

They both lock you down with physical devices.

You tap the physical device and it blocks everything from your smartphone, and if you tap it again, you have access to it again, so you can leave it at home. You can have a relaxed day. You come back, you may not need to have to check email. You tap and then you have access to all of the things again.

All right, Jose, this has been great.

Tell folks how to find you online.

So the best way is to go to the don't phone Finder Downphones dot org is my website where I run all the things for digital minimalism. I also have a personal website at Jose Brionez dot org and you can find email and different ways in there to contact me.

My special thanks to Jose who really got me thinking.

Could I even go a day without my smartphone? No email, no Instagram, no maps, no photos. I'm not sure I could do it. More rich on Tech coming your way right after this.

Welcome back to rich on Tech.

Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology.

It is time for the feedback segment.

These are the emails, the comments and the questions I get from you. If you'd like to submit yours, just go to the website richon Tech dot TV. First up is Gwendolyn. She says, Hi, Rich, I trusted the Mohu antenna, However.

It didn't make a difference on my TV.

I also talked to a representative as I went through his instructions, yet I was informed that I would have to pay return postage to return the antenna that was not explicit in the box or upon receiving my payment. I want my money that I paid for the antenna returned in full.

Gwendolyn, I am sorry this happened to you.

I love the Mohu antenna, but antennas are finicky. They don't always work, they don't always get every channel, depending on a wide variety of variables in your case doesn't sound like it worked out. But here is the lesson learned from this situation, and I do this myself anytime I shop at a store that is not Amazon. Amazon makes returns very simple and easy, but many other retailers don't, and so we've come to enjoy this Amazon return policy.

But when you shop at a different store, it may be different.

And so what I always do is before I shop anywhere, whether it is a bricks and mortar store or an online retailer that's not Amazon, I will always check to see what the return policy is. Sometimes you have to search in the tiny print down at the bottom of the website, but if I'm at a retail I will literally ask before the cashier rings me up. I will say, hey, what's your return policy, even if it's a storelike best Buy where I've purchased stuff before, because these retailers are

Thanks for the email Gwendolen.

Next up, Tony says, just want to let you know Samsung is trying to pull a fast one. If you go to their website and search twenty twenty five, you'll see that their AI is free only until the end of twenty twenty five, but when you click on the actual S twenty four by page, it is not there.

I just want to mention this to you.

I heard only one tech YouTuber talking about this. I hope this cautions anyone looking to buy the S twenty four. I hope that Apple doesn't follow suit. Tony, thanks for this. Yeah,

Doesn't miss a beat.

Now that's convenient, but sometimes you want that fresh start, and you know, if your number gets compromised or if you switch cards, you're like, okay, fine, I won't have to deal with all these cancelations and changes. But then you realize, so I noticed, if you go inside your app on at least on some of them, it will give you a list of all of the recurring charges that are on your account, And I guess that's kind of the basis for what they end up sharing that

I've saved earbuds.

That my husband has dropped in the pool more than once. Bonus keep the packets out of the landfill. Thanks Christy. Well that is a great idea. Wow, I never thought about doing that because we just tossed those little silica packets in the trash. Next up, Dan, this is a long one. Hi Rich, love the podcast. I've been listening since the first episode. Very helpful. I wanted to say that I agree with you when you said you kind

For Christmas, I bought a fifty five inch High Sense U eight K. I was really unhappy.

Cable looked horrible in the morning, some channels, the people's lips looked purple. No amount of playing with the settings helped. I returned it and went with a Sony x nine to y L another LED. Things are slightly better, but not normal. Streaming looks good, but live TV is bad. I've learned my mistake with the High Sense. I was putting the brightness too high in trying to make live

I would agree with that, Dan.

I think that OLED overall has the best color my TV. I ended up going a little bit cheaper at the end, I was gonna go O LED. I went with LED Micro Led and at first we were really stunned at the picture, like it was vastly different than our old TV. But then after a couple of weeks we got used to it and now I've really grown to love.

My new TV.

And that says I teach at the high school level, and kids bully for everything, not just iPhones.

All the anti bullying rhetoric does nothing.

It's just so difficult to be around them as everything is driven by their social media and what others think of them.

They are so addicted to their phones.

That is all they think about constantly, and they cannot stop a net And I.

One hundred percent believe this.

I think that the phones are the most amazing thing ever invented, but at the same time, they are really not very good in a lot of situations. Kids are very much addicted to these things, so are adults. And you know, the tech companies and the social media companies, you know, it's in their best benefit to have us stare at these things as much as humanly possible. And then you add in all the challenges on TikTok and stuff like that, and I agree. I think you're referring

That would be my luck.

I would like you to consider having an EV car battery expert on your show explaining the pros and cons of buying a used EV, especially that.

Used evs for sale will be increasing forward.

As it stands now, the only car I would consider if I were in the market for a new car and I could afford it, would be a hybrids Steven, Steven, that's a great idea, because yes, we are going to start to see a lot of evs on the market that are used, and what is the deal with the battery.

I'm not sure now I will tell you with mine.

When I first got it, I was very concerned about the battery, and I actually purchased my car to not lease, so I was very concerned about the longevity of the battery. And now, of course I got lazy and I'm just charging it whenever I feel like it, with no real plan. So I'm not sure what the effect is on my battery.

I do appreciate you spending it right here with me. Thanks to everyone who makes this show possible. My name is rich DeMuro. I will talk to rail sick