Instagram now lets you creep with friends. There's a new podcast app with a smart feature. Amazon takes a month to get you stuff, plus your tech questions answered.
What's going on?
I'm Rich Damiro and this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about and I answer the questions that you send me. My name is Rich Damiro, tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Joining me is producer Megan, who is hashtag.
Safe at home. What's going on? Producer Megan?
Hello, how are you?
Oh?
We've been working from home now for a week, right, this is the full week that we did this.
Yeah, which is so crazy.
Yeah, well it's we're recording this on Thursday, and you know it's been since.
Yeah, I know. The last day we were in at KATLA.
Was on I think it was last Thursday.
Yeah, we full. So I will tell you my feelings on working from home. It is it is.
I always thought it was a dream to work from home, and now I feel like it's a bit of a nightmare.
Isn't that funny how that works out?
Well, now you know, and now I know, and it's really weird because I did have this. I really did have this dream of like having my own little studio at home and doing my own thing and just coming and going as I please. And now I realized that I really like the tradition of going into the office doing my work, sitting at my desk, and what happens at home. And I have two kids and my wife are all at home. They're in homeschool, my wife is working from home, you know, all temporarily, of course, and
it's just a circus, you know. I've got just so many things going on, like can I have milk?
Can I have food? Can I can you set me up with this?
And I'm trying to teach them, and it's you know a lot of breaks outside playing basketball.
I mean, it's really wild. What's it been like for you?
Yeah, I mean it's super weird.
I thought that I would like it, but honestly, I'm not the biggest fan. I mean, it's nice to be able to like go on a walk or like, you know, see my parents, but I already live at home, so it's I don't know. I what's funny is I went into Katla yesterday in the afternoon to go pick up some equipment, and I was actually so excited to like go actually see my like friends at work, and like I was like, I miss like being able to come in here, you know.
And so I mean, it's so nice because no one has missed me at work.
People don't even know.
That I'm not there talking about Yeah, they have no idea like call in, They're like rich who I'm like, ah, demro, I'm on the show at seven am.
They're like, oh, hold on, let me transfer you.
That's not true.
Well, it's been interesting here. I did do my first live shot from home. We did a shoot from home, and it's there are definite pros, but I would say all the glorified images I had in my head of doing this are quickly gone.
And maybe maybe if the two kids weren't home.
It would be a little bit better. But anyway, it's been fun. I'm sure a lot of people are figuring out the same thing I am. Let's get started with some of the topics for the week. Lots of news surrounding coronavirus. No surprise, there a couple of new things that wireless carriers are doing. Basically, T Mobile and Sprint were the first to come out and say, you know, we're going to help people in this time by giving them unlimited data, and Verizon has I believe AT and
T did the same thing. I got to look at my tweets because I've gotten it all so confused now. But the last man standing was really Verizon, who was kind of a holdout in this place of giving people help during this time. And now they have said that they are going to help people out by giving them not unlimited data, but they're giving them fifteen gigs of extra data. So this is for people that do not
have an unlimited plan, which you know nowadays. I mean I'm unlimited, and a lot of people but not everyone is oh yeah, okay. So I'm looking at my tweet. AT and T is waving domestic wireless voice and data overage fees for customers nationwide for next sixty days from March thirteenth, and all the main companies are not They're waving late fees and not terminating your service if you can't pay your bill right now. And here's the thing you need to know about this though this is not
in most of these cases, this is not automatic. The automatic is Tea Mobile, Sprint unlimited data.
That's automatic.
Verizon is automatically applying the fifteen gigs. But when it comes to all these late fees and you know, the not payment thing, you kind of I believe you need to call them and say, hey, you know, I need
these things waved. I don't think that's just automatic. Maybe it will be if this gets really bad, but it's one of these things where they will charge you if they can, and if you don't notice it on your bill, then sure you'll just pay, but they know that you can, you know, call in and get these things taken off, so and I will just kind of un arelated note. Yeah, well if you see these charges, if they do show up, I don't really know because this is brand new. I've
never seen anything like this before, so who knows. Maybe they'll just wave it, you know, flip a few keys in the computer system and wave the fees.
But I'm not sure.
But if not, I mean, just look at your bill for the next two months and make sure everything's fine.
I just wanted to mention related.
You know, I was going to Hawaii and I had my stuff all booked up and everything was changed because of this whole situation, and I will say I was very impressed. I was able to change all three. I had two flights on two different airlines and also my hotel booking, and I was able to change everything. I had to do two of them on the phone, no weight whatsoever, and everything was fine. And then I had
to do one online no weight. I called it like five am, right after, right after I went live on the radio.
I said, Okay, now it's the time to call. And it worked.
And I'm telling you that people are so kind and I didn't have to pay anything extra. So I switched my dates and I got to say I was very impressed. I was expecting to wait on hold for hours and that.
Did not happen.
Yeah, I mean I had to change.
I was supposed to be going to Italy, actually yesterday. I had to cancel this flight like a month and a half ago, because that's when coronavirus got there.
It was about a month and a half ago. But yeah, we were supposed to leave yesterday for.
Ten days and we haven't even thought about, you know, when we would go, because it's just such a mess.
Yeah, you were.
Able to like, yeah, I know, Italy is like the worst place to be right now.
And I feel bad because I wonder how long it's gonna take, because I mean, even you who had a trip plan there, I mean how I mean, when is it going to be where you feel comfortable going back there? I mean I would say maybe if we had some sort of vaccine or a solid treatment, But until that happens, it's really going to be dicey. But right anyway, all right, Megan, it is your time to shine.
All right?
Okay, So this first question comes from Jacqueline. She needs to scan or fact something from her phone. Hey, Rich, I need to sign a piece of paper, scan it and then fax it into Kaiser. Is there an efficient way to ut iPhone to scan and fax the sign document?
Thank you?
Absolutely.
This is something that I covered in my book, and it was in fact one of the inspirations for my book because this was something that I think it was Lindsay that she was asking me, Hey, can I scan something from my iPhone? I was like, yes, of course, And I was writing my first book at the time, and I I just literally emailed her the chapter I wrote on this.
But here's how you do it.
So you can do this in a couple of different ways, but you can do it from notes. Is probably the easiest.
So if you open up.
The notes app on your phone, there's literally, you know, the option to create a new note, and then when you do that, you'll see a little icon for a camera, and so you tap that and then it says scan documents. You put your document on a table anything you want, it'll automatically find the document, crop it, and scan it. And so once you have that scanned, you can then tap your document to bring up what's called the markup.
So there's like a little little share icon. You hit that, and then you bring up what's called markup and and then there's a plus sign you add signature. I know they made it really complicated. It sounds so complicated, and when I show people how to do this, it's really easy. But they should literally have on iPhone like just create like a shortcut like scan and sign document.
Right, doesn't that make much more sense?
Just do like a camera app?
But like, oh, thank you Siri. One thing about working from home is that I have. One thing about working from home is I have now everything. I sometimes when I say Siri or Apple or something like, one of these things like lights up, like whether it's my phone or something.
But anyway, but that's how you do it.
And now, oh, I just like heard myself.
That's weird. Really do you still hear yourself?
It could be just a no, now I don't.
I don't know.
Anyway.
So, uh, that's how you do it, and uh, it's it's an easy thing. But it's also it's one of those things like you know your phone can do, but that's you know, it's like you just have to figure out how to do it, and it's not easy to find, you know.
Yeah, yeah, but once you get it, then you know, yeah.
Once you get it, you get it. All right, let's talk about Instagram they have. By the way, I'm watching our reporters on Live TV do their live shots from home and it is so fantastic to watch because, especially the ones with little kids around, you just don't know what's going to happen. We I just watched reports she's literally pushing her kid out of the picture because this
is what happens when I go live my kids. They start creeping up towards me, and it's like it really makes you nervous because you're on live TV.
What are they gonna say?
Right right right?
I think your son was saying something about I thought he was talking about like his YouTube.
Yeah, he was trying to.
Promote his YouTube channel.
Yeah, he's like, hey, I'm Parker Place on YouTube. By the way, he doesn't even have a YouTube channel, but he just thinks it's funny that, like he thinks he has a YouTube channel.
It's really weird.
I'm just like, dude, you don't have a YouTube channel for real, Like why you're promoting this.
From from my perspective, I thought it was great. I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. Television's and then like that's why they like had they had you on and they weren't like going back to news because they just wanted to like show your kids because it was so cute.
I know, it is.
It is really funny. I mean, I know people love that.
But as a parent, you are you are so petrified of anything they're going to say or do you know, just be terrible.
Yeah, no, I'm sure, I'm sure.
I feel like my dad is so mean, he's the worst. All he does is yell at me, which is true, by the way.
All right, but you didn't you you were like welcoming them into the shot. It wasn't you didn't like, you know, knock them down or anything.
Instagram has a new feature that I believe has arrived just in time. It's a media sharing feature that lets you view Instagram posts with your friends over video chat. And what do people do on Instagram ninety nine percent of the time anyway? Right, you have someone in the office or you're at home, You're like, hey, come over here, look at this post. Can you believe they posted this? You've done that?
Right?
Oh?
Yeah?
Okay, So now you can do this over video chat, which is really cool. And to do it, you go into your chats and you go into an existing thread or you can start a new one, and you look for the video chat icon, which, by the way.
I do not have on my Instagram.
So I don't know if I'm running like a weird version of Instagram or if something's wrong with my Instagram, but I cannot find this feature for the life of me. I was looking for a way to video chat. They used to have a group video chat feature on Instagram. I can't find that. So have you ever used Instagram to video chat?
Uh?
No, I did when it first came out, like that feature for I.
Want to test it now?
Yeah?
Oh, I see. Okay, so I see the camera. Let me try to chat my sister and see if it works.
But there's no like I it will not video chat online. I see camera, but I don't see anything about chatting. Did you get it to work here? Wait?
Let me try to chat you?
Well, yeah, you can try chat. Yeah, go ahead, try it okay, because I don't have the feature at all.
It just doesn't can't join your video chat.
See, I'm telling you, it's weird. I think.
I think because your page is like a business page.
You know what, That's exactly what it is. That's You're exactly right, because I have I have my page as a business page. That's exactly what it is. And I don't even know what the advantage is of having a business page. I just think it's Oh, yes, I do know what the advantage is. I can have a button on my on my profile that says email me, so otherwise you can't have that, and I really don't need
that because I do have a link. I don't know if you noticed, but I got rich on tech tv to work again with my links now, so it actually is really easy for It's not as easy as it was before when I had the website, but it's easy to find the links to what I talk about on TV. So that's what I'm doing anyway. But that you just solved it. That's the thing I can video chat because it's a business account.
Well, okay, you're gonna have to make a fin stock producer.
Megan solves it again slowly.
But Shirley taking my job boy.
Nope. Okay.
This next question comes from Sherry. The subject is three way FaceTime call. My sister and I want to make a three way FaceTime call with my mom as she lives alone. We both have our husbands living with us.
What is something that is free and easy to do?
Okay, so you can do a group FaceTime call through FaceTime. And do you remember when FaceTime So this is a relatively new feature. When group FaceTime came out, you can add up to thirty two people to your call. But remember they had like that major bug that lets you kind of spy on people. So that was bad. They took us down for a while, and now it's back up. And it's funny because I feel like people are forgetting the fact that you can actually make group FaceTime calls.
Yeah, I never use this feature, but nobody remember when that happened.
I think it's because of that. I think people were just like I guess that went away. Yeah, I don't remember them like re announcing it right, and like, well.
They didn't because they're just like they kind of like shied away.
Like I feel like we messed that up.
But the way to do it it wasn't.
You could like hear people.
You could FaceTime someone and you could hear them and they didn't even accept the call.
Yeah, I mean that is so.
Wild, so creepy, so wild.
Okay, so what you want to do is go into a if you want to do it, the easiest way to do it is already from a group conversation. So if you already have a group conversation with someone going, all you have to do is tap kind of again, this is an example of how Apple is so weird
about like hiding things that are very useful. But you would never think to go into a group call and then tap the little icon at the top with the people and then there's a FaceTime icon that's revealed, Like why isn't that just always there to like let you know, oh, you can FaceTime with these people, And so it's there, yeah, and so you tap FaceTime and it will be there and you're all good, and then it will bring up you know, start calling all the people and doing it that way.
That's I think the easiest way.
If you already have one of these group calls going or a group message going, you can also do it from the FaceTime app as well. So if you just go into the FaceTime app and you just start typing in a bunch of names, just keep adding names with the plus sign and then you tap video and you can do it that way. Those are the two easiest ways to do it. And it's cool, I mean, it works. It's funny because you know, we've talked about Zoom. Everybody
is using Zoom right now. It's been the way. But yes, you can use FaceTime and you can also use Google Duo. FaceTime is great, but it's only going to work on Apple devices, so you have to keep that in mind. So if you have a big family and you've got a bunch of people using different things, you can't use FaceTime. So again, try Google Duo and that'll work just as well, and you can do group calls. I believe up to eight people on Google Duo versus thirty two on FaceTime
versus like a thousand on Zoom or something insane. Have you seen a Zoom with like a lot of people on there, because my kids are are meeting up with their entire class and so it's like forty five to like fifty. Well maybe not that, Oh no, it was like the whole pre k, so it was like fifty kids in one thing.
That's so cute.
I've only seen like, because I'm not on Zoom, I'm like the only person that's not on Zoom. You skype to like you know, talk to you and to like interview people. But I've seen just like really funny awkward videos yes Twitter, of people not realizing that they're yes, their camera is on.
I know. That's a big problem. It really is.
Because the way Zoom is set up, it's very like strange because you kind of you kind of open up your room and then people come into it.
So it's a weird.
Like with most video calling, you call it rings, they pick up right with the way something works. You open up a room and you're sitting there waiting in the room, and then the person comes into your room. So you can be sitting there with like your mic on and your camera on just kind of like waiting then you
kind of forget. But it's just it's it's an odd way of doing it, and I think that's it's also good for you know, the uses, but it's still just odd and I think that's why people are being caught off guard with it. But personally, I'm good with just one. I only need one person because like that's how many friends I have, so it's really easy for me to just I've never needed the same. I actually am doing a happy hour tonight with my friends, so I think.
You do have friends.
I do. I have a couple, but I actually it's funny because in all seriousness, I don't get to see my friends during the week because I go to bed so early. And now I'm actually thinking that if this is successful, this little happy hour thing, I would probably do it again because it makes it, you see, to.
Kind of hang out with your friends.
And I would never I never ever thought of doing something like that, Like I don't video chat people like ever, but now I'm kind of like, I like it. You just sit there and you've got your phone in front of you, and you know, you can have a little happy hour with your friends and just sit and catch up. And it's like different than texting or calling, So guys don't call each other, right.
I don't know if this is sad, but I feel like I'm talking to some of my friends.
More than I did before.
Me too, Me too.
Like wait, now we're like I have a friend that lives in New York and we are like facetiming every day and I'm like, we did not talk this much when you lived in LA But okay, I agree.
It's so it's so interesting, and I think that again, I think we are learning a couple of things from this whole situation. I think we really are all right.
You know app to tell you about Google Podcasts. App is now available on iOS And you might be thinking, why the heck do I need a podcasting app on iOS when I have when I have Apple Podcasts built into my phone, and there are some advantages to the Google podcast I don't think that this is meant for a lot of people right now, because I do think that the Apple version is better, and it of course is integrated with Siri and your phone and your computer.
But I'm just telling you about the alternative, which is now Google podcasts. It's a very simple app and there's.
Not much going on.
It's a way to subscribe to podcasts, a way to play them or to queue them up. You can't even make playlists. There's really not much you can do except see the podcast you have and listen to them. But I will tell you what I think. Megan is the killer feature on this podcast app, and I think it might set it apart from all other podcast apps.
Let me give you a hint.
Google knows everything that you do online, right, Yeah, so it has a play Yes, so it has a pretty good idea of your interests. Now, imagine that you're interested in you know, when you were looking when you're looking at your trip to Italy before everything went south, you were googling Italy and you're googling things to do in Italy and travel and restaurants. Now, all of a sudden, you open up the Google Podcasts app and it surfaces a podcast about traveling to Italy.
I love that, right, And I think I.
Think, just like YouTube has been able to surface videos that it knows you're going to be interested in, because it knows everything about you, I think that this is going to be the magic of Google Podcasts. Now, Google Podcasts is already searching inside every podcast for what you're saying, so it kind of knows what your podcast is about, even if you don't put good descriptions in your show notes. So I think that is the brilliant move by Google
to make podcasts like, I mean, think about it. So anyone could do a podcast and now it could be relevant and discovered by a lot of people, even if they're not searching for it, right.
Right, that's really cool. So does this mean that like.
When you search a podcas castor you search like a topic, Google pop podcast come come up first before like Apple podcasts on.
The INTERNETOD that's been going on on Google for a while now. And that's just that's just Google kind of being you know, they're Yeah, it's that, it doesn't it doesn't always come up for me as much as I'd like it to. But I think that right now that was never I don't know if people just don't think of Google for podcasts right now, but maybe they will in the future. Yeah, yeah, you heard the sound.
Oh sorry, I like kind of heard it.
I didn't hear the full Okay, Well, anyways, this next question comes from John Hey Rich. I would imagine you're a pretty busy guy these days, but we have a virus problem. I'm hoping you can help us. Help us with this. We are a bunch of elderly guys. We don't feel or act elderly, but we are labeled so by by stay at home order who have been playing a weekly poker game for over forty years now. Small steaks twenty dollars twenty points buy in dealer calls the game.
The virus has caused the cancelation of this event. We would like to find a platform that we can easily meet, chat and play our stupid games. Check out some checked out some of the poker sites, but really nothing that meets our needs. We would be willing to make a one time purchase. Any suggestions, So.
It would be like for a private.
Like eye right. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean there's a lot of like public sites where you can play, like all the you know, betting sites and stuff. But I had to do some research on this one because I play poker, and I love poker, but I don't really play online ever. And I know, you know, if you want to play with random people, there's a million places to do that. But after doing some research, I found a website named blockchain dot Poker, And this is an
odd website. It's really strange, like you don't download anything, you just like you can immediate. It looks like you can meet you like, sit down and play, which is kind of weird. But I looked a little further and it seems like you can set up your own private room. So if you go to kind of like the main page, there was a way I saw there was a way to go and just kind of set up your own Oh yeah, you go to the lobby.
So you go to the lobby.
It says create table, and you can create your own table name and give it a password, and then share that link with your friends, and you can do up to nine seats. So that may not work for them, because didn't he say as twenty people. How many people is he doing this with. Let's see, let's let's see. I don't think he says, oh, it just says A says a bunch of elderly guys. Okay, so it's just a bunch of elderly guys anyway.
So that's the first thing.
So, but the weird thing is it's got this weird blockchain undertone, which I don't really understand.
You can't really use real like it's not even like dollars.
It's like you have to use like blockchain money, which is so weird, like bitcoin anyway, So that one works, and then the other one is PokerStars dot bet online. It says that there's a couple of there is a way to create your own private room, but I did not download it to try that out. So those are
the two suggestions I would look into. But again, this is one of those things where now that I think about this, because I get together with my friends every once in a while to play poker in person, and now that I think about it, I'm like, oh, it'd be cool if we could play online together.
But again, it's like a lot of these things.
I don't know if I'm feeling just nostalgic for like the fact that I can't go out and see my friends, or if I really think that this is cool even outside of a crazy virus taking down everyone, you know.
Yeah right, I don't know, right, And I think also people are just kind of like board stuck at home and they're like, you know what, it's time for some poker.
Yeah, exactly, all right, YouTube this speaking of CV, I call it CV by the way, coronavirus CV. So speaking of CV, YouTube is lowering its quality across the world to kind of save the Internet in the light of.
CV.
And so they're gonna be streaming in standard definition by default.
And what standard definition? Standard definition is what you used to have when you had DVDs, which I know back in the day sounded really great, but now if you look at a DVD, you cannot believe how bad it looks compared to today's HD, and especially four K. And this is what YouTube's going to do to kind of save bandwidth because if you imagine everybody is using the Internet right now, and you can even tell on our stream here because Megan and I are in separate places, that
the quality is just not as good as it typically is because so many people are on these networks are really stressed right now, and over in Europe they appeal to Netflix, Amazon, Disney Plus and Apple to say, hey, would you mind just like lowering your quality for a bit so we can get through this, And I guess they've all said yes, except YouTube's you know what, We're just gonna do it for the whole world, and you
can change. You can change your quality to higher quality by going into your settings on YouTube, but by default, when you start playing a video, it's going to play in that standard definition, which you may not notice. It depends on the screen. If you're looking on a smaller screen or your phone, you probably won't notice as much. But if you're looking on a bigger screen, especially your TV, you'll probably notice.
So there you have it.
Cool. This next question comes from Brian Hi.
I manage the social media for a nonprofit that engages primarily with.
High school kids.
Could you suggest an app, website, or program that I could use to hold an interview, preferably live that can stream on both Instagram and Facebook. If it was interactive, that would be a bonus.
Okay, so you know what we used last week for the podcast's That's what I'm gonna recommend here. There's a program called ECAM Live. E c AMM Live, so ECAM Live, So he wants to do live onto Facebook and Instagram at the same time. That is not, as far as I know, you cannot do that. I don't think that there is what's called an API for Instagram to go live, which means you can only use the Instagram app to go live. You cannot use a third party app to
stream into Instagram. Now you can for YouTube for Facebook, and what's the other streaming Twitter, periscope, you can use it for that. And this app, ecam Live, will allow you to do all those at the same uh, not necessarily at the same time.
Actually, Facebook has a rule.
Where you cannot be streaming to Facebook if you're streaming to other places simultaneously. I don't know if that rule is still in effect, but they did, They used to have that rule, And I don't know if they.
Think it's funny because they own Instagram.
Like yeah, but you know what, instance has been trying to stay as organic as possible, right, and if you have a bunch of people, everything they do on Instagram is not logical, Like you can't have links, you can't have this, you can't have videos longer than sixty seconds on your feed.
So they do a lot of these things to try.
To keep it seeming like it's small and kind of intimate, right, And they don't want it overtaken by professional accounts, and by professional you know, you have to work within their guidelines, and they do that to make it sort of special because if you're broadcasting think about it. If you're broadcasting the same video to Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter all
at the same time, it's pretty generic. And so by making it that you have to do this, especially just for Instagram, it makes it a bit more special than the other guys. That makes sense on it. Yeah, Yeah, Let's talk about Amazon, because I had this experience this morning and Amazon, I can't believe it.
And I my brother first texted me like, what's the deal.
Why can't I get this thing until look at this delivery date of like April thirtieth, And I was like what. And then my boss Jason Ball, who, by the way, check out his podcast called The News Director's Office. I was on that today, so that new episode is dropping, and he said the same thing.
He said, Hey, have you seen this? I can't even get this.
He asked me about some gadget for his computer, a little Ethernet cable.
And he said, what's up with this?
It's not saying delivery until like April twenty First, I said, yeah, I mean Amazon is like taking four weeks to deliver things, not everything. But they announced that they were some of the non essentials were going to be delayed by about a month, and I didn't really believe it because I placed a bunch of orders on Amazon and I've gotten them. Everything took a little bit longer, but it wasn't a month.
And now today, this morning, I needed a couple of items off off of face, Facebook, off of Amazon, and I could not believe that the delivery date for these standard items that are nothing special. They're just little gadgets, like a little accessories. We're saying like April thirtieth. And I was like, that's not going to help me. I need this stuff today. And yeah, I ended up placing my order with best Buy and doing order pickup, which, by the way, was available in about as soon as
I placed the order. It was available probably less than an hour later.
And Different did that the other day.
Yeah, I'm going to have you tell your story in a second. But the difference is Megan, and you know this, you have to go pick it up. Yeah, so what did you do?
Tell me about your experience.
Well, as you know, we've had a lot of our internet. We have good internet, but the Wi Fi signal is not that strong in my house. So I got Google Wi Fi and I ordered it on best Buy online and then there is an option to like just go and pick it up curbside in front of the Best Buy, and it was so easy. I just ordered it and then forty minutes later I drove over and they literally
walked out the Google Wi Fi to my car. So that was great because then I didn't have to wait like a week or longer to get it.
Isn't that great?
Yeah?
And I've ordered things from best Buy in the past because you can so you can order something. They really are like all the instore pickups are really easy, and I think it's it is one advantage that they do have over.
Something like Amazon.
Amazon is is great because you can get things in two hours with Amazon Prime now. But we have noticed that they have failed during this crisis. And I'm not knocking them. This is something we've never seen. It's unprecedented. But the reality is we have grown to love Amazon, We've grown to love the speed, but now we realize that in bad times we will not be able to rely on them. And that is the reality of this
virus is that they broke down within a day. I would say of things happening like where you couldn't get toilet paper and you couldn't get hand sanitizer and you still can't and it's been two weeks at least, and so the reality is their system works. And I've said this before, Megan. When the going is good, things are easy. It's when the going is not so good that things are hard, and that's when you realize just how tough things can be. Everything's easy when it's easy, but when
it's not easy, that's when it gets hard. And people sometimes forget that things can change, like Amazon go ahead.
Yeah, well it's interesting too because on Amazon, like it always tells me that toilet paper is available, and then I'll like go and then it's like Amazon Fresh and it'll say like no delivery dates available for the next like two weeks. And it's like, okay, well, why are you telling me that you do have toilet paper? You just can't bring it.
Like it's just I don't know it it.
I mean, obviously now they're gonna like work out the kinks and try to figure out how to even like make all these deliveries. But yeah, like you said, like I think right now, like it's not easy, and you know, we'll see. I mean, it's nice that a company like Best Buys like working with it and curb side pick up is a great easy way to get what you need, right And.
It really is.
And like I said, I mean, I've ordered from Best Buy before in normal times, and it's interesting because it's you can order at work and then on your drive home from work, if you pass one of these stores, which chances are you do or it's close, you can have your item. And it's so funny because we've I
always joke about this with my wife. I'm like, we think it's so cool that Amazon can deliver something to us in like two hours or less, but the reality is you could go like to CVS in five minutes and pick up that same thing and you kind of forget. And I think we've also become accustomed to the slightly better pricing on Amazon as well. But anyway, it all fell apart in this situation. Let me give you a website that we've a couple of things I did post.
It's so crazy, how Megan, I've posted about toilet paper now at least three times on my Instagram. I never thought that would be the case, but it's some of the most popular posts on my Instagram. And I posted a box of toilet paper that I had delivered the other day, and I couldn't believe how many people said, how'd you get that? How'd you get that? And I
will tell you I did a story on it. Everything you see me do online is basically some sort of research for something I've done on ktla, right, or something I've featured, Like, there's not a lot that I don't share because or feature. I'm trying to tell you and teach you things, because I'm trying things out to see if they really work. And one of these websites we featured on ktla is called now in stock dot net.
And what you do is you leave it open on your web browser on a certain product page like toilet paper or hand sanitizer or household cleaning products, and it will send you an alert like it will make an audible tone on your web browser when those things are online and in stock, and then you have to run over to the website, click the link and see if it's actually available. It's not always available, but it worked for me for hand sanitizer, and it worked for me
for toilet paper. And that's how I got the giant box of toilet paper. And then there's a new website that someone sent me called the Supplyfinder dot com and
it checks inventory at Amazon, Target and Walmart. And they've got hand soap, pan sanitizer, paper towels, which, by the way, are all in stock right this moment, toilet paper which is all out of stock, tissues which are in stock, and multi surface wipes, and right now it says Clorox disinfecting wipes are in stock at Walmart and let me click the link and tell you if that's actually true. And it is out of stock. So again it doesn't always work perfectly. But oh look at this.
Wait, what's in stock on Amazon.
Life Ale disinfecting wipes are in stock right now, and I'm going to buy them.
So I'm going I'm oh wow, delivery.
Oh one left. I'm not going to get it.
It doesn't it's too late, but you can try it. Do you need wipes because they are there?
Yeah, we like need everything.
You guys are out, We're.
Like running low. Like it's not good.
It's really crazy. Well, I do have TP, so I can't tell you if you if you guys are getting desperate, I do have I do have a large box. I did get delivered which you.
Know, it's funny.
It's just crazy that this is what people are talking about because it's a reality.
It's really wild.
No, it's just it's getting so real, you know.
I mean it's been getting real for the last month or so, but now it's real.
Now it's real. Okay.
So this next question comes from they didn't leave a name.
They just left human chess, so.
What that means?
So anyways, Hi, or maybe his name's just human, I don't know, Hi, Rich. Is there a free slash easy way to move several playlists from Amazon Music to Apple Music.
I've been using Amazon Music for a while now, and I've created several playlists.
I own five Amazon Echo devices, and now that I can use Apple Music on them, I want to switch back to Apple Music. However, not knowing how to move my playlist is the only thing keeping me from switching back. Any help would be appreciated.
Mmmm, this is a good No.
I feel like that's not a thing.
It's so funny because I don't create playlists anymore, Like I have not created a playlist in probably a decade at this point.
Like, I just use all cloud services, you know, like Spot.
I guess that's what he's saying, though, right, he's is he saying that he made his own playlists that I guess he did.
Huh, he's saying that these are yeah, he said, I've created Okay, so I also have cannot create a playlist to save my life, Like I forget about them.
I'll start and it's yeah, songs and then I forget.
I agree, it's just kind of like one of those things.
But yeah, these are the playlists that he's created.
So he's created them, all right, Well, that's that's fair enough. And maybe you you know, there are some people that really do want to create their own stuff and curate their own stuff, and that's fine, so that's good for you. But the website that I would recommend is free your Music dot com. And I have not tried this website, but it seems to be the biggest one, and you
have to pay a little bit. If you want to get this for free, you only get one playlist and a hundred songs, which is going to be just to try it out. That's mainly just to test it out. But if you want to do this, you know, with all your playlists, you're gonna have to pay ten dollars and that's how much it is, which I think is fine. That's like one month of streaming service, and you have to think about it.
Someone did come.
Over here and you know, they had to figure out how to make this work, and they had to code this app and figure it all out. But they do it for everything. And you can go from Apple Music to Spotify. You can go from YouTube Music to Pandora. I mean, you can go any way you want any two music services. Just pick your poison and you can convert your tracks. So that's the website is free music dot Com. It looks like they have apps for just about every platform and nine ninety nine for the year,
I mean for the lifetime. I think that's pretty worth it. If I had play now, I want playlists in different services so I can use this. Yeah, okay, speaking.
Of free, did I just mention free?
I don't know if I did, but I want to mention this. So a couple things for free. There's a lot of free offers. This is gonna be our story on KTLA on Friday. But depending on when you listen to this, that doesn't really matter because time is you know.
Is relative.
But we're going to talk about a bunch of free services, and this one's really cool, Sling Sling TV. They are really killing it. I think it's really interesting to see some of the companies that have just stepped up in this coronavirus crisis time and said, you know what, we're really going to help people out.
And Sling is one of them.
They know that people are sitting inside cooped up, they need stuff to watch, and so they have unlocked their Sling Blue service, which has forty five live channels of content to watch, including CNN, Fox News, Headline News, MSNBC, Bloomberg, Cheddar, My Favorite, Newsy and Local Now. So you can watch all these news stations for free. And that is through Sling dot Com. You don't even need a credit card
to sign up. You do have to log in, you know, create a little log in, but you get fourteen days totally free on that, which is kind of cool, right yeah. And then if you have T Mobile, they are giving you two months of T Mobile Premium or sorry, YouTube Premium. And I'm a subscriber to YouTube Premium.
I love it. I have not seen it an ad on.
YouTube in probably four years ever since they started the premium. I just love it so much because I never I don't think about ads on YouTube, and with YouTube Premium, you can watch ad free, you can download videos to your phone, you can get access to YouTube music, which is you know it basically like Spotify without ads. And you can get two free months by going into the T mobile Tuesday's app or the website t Mobile Tuesdays dot com. And you just have to save the offer
and redeem it by May first. So let's say you don't need it right now, you want to save this for when you run out of something to watch on Hulu. You can redeem it then It's usually twelve dollars a month. This is one of those deals that you do need to put your credit card down. You are actually signing up for YouTube Premium, but you just have to remember to cancel it. So just set a reminder on your calendar to cancel it before it's time up. And let's see what was the other thing I by the way,
I know I talked about my house. I tweeted this thing where I went through and I was just thinking about all the subscriptions I have because right now is when they really come in handy and I actually in the last week subscribe to both HBO Now and Hulu, which, by the way, I know we did you have Hulu. I got to say, I am very impressed with Hulu, Like how much stuff there is on there.
It's all garbage, but it's a lot of stuff.
I use Hulu more than Netflix for sure, because it has all the reality TV.
That I write. It's all the trash.
I mean, it's like if you wanted to just waste your time in life and watch like what are those shows like if you Love Love is Blind on Netflix? There's like a thousand of those types of shows on Hulu. It's just all the stuff that's just on all day long.
Yeah, Real Housewives, right is there? Yeah? All Bravo and E is on Hulu.
And I joke, but it's it's really like, I gotta say, the content. If I watch that kind of stuff, it's like a dream. Like Lindsay was like, oh my god, where was this in my life? And it's which show everything we were just going through and like I was impressed, Like it's it's all the stuff from Fox, it's all the stuff from Disney, it's all the stuff from ABC, it's all the stuff from Bravo, it's all the stuff from e. I mean they have a wide like Shark Tank is on there. I mean they have a lot
of stuff. And I did the I think it was twelve dollars a month, right for like no ads, And I'm impressed. I haven't watched anything yet. But if I end up breaking down during this time and watching some of this trashy TV, I'm going to Hulu and they have a lot of great hit stuff as well. I couldn't believe that either. I mean really really impressed.
So yeah, I love Hulu.
It's it's pretty impressive for the money. I think there's no real movies on there.
I mean there's a couple like documentaries and stuff, but and there's a couple of movies as well. But I think that, you know, Netflix gets all the attention, but Hulu actually has a decent amount of stuff, so uh and HBO. Now I'm just watching The Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is really funny. Nice, all right, if you can believe it, Megan, that is going to do it for this episode of the show. If you want links everything we talked about, I don't know, maybe google search or
take a look at the show notes. If you have a question for me, you can find me at richon Tech dot tv. Scroll all the way to the bottom. You'll see a little envelope. Hit that and that will email me and yes, I do get your emails. As evidenced by this show. Please rate and review this podcast. It helps other folks discover it. Go to rate this podcast dot com, slash rich on Tech, or just text the link to today's show to a friend. Megan, how can people find you online?
I am on Twitter at producer Megan.
And you can find me on social media at rich on Tech. And let me just find a quick review of the show. Since I'm telling you to review the show, don't you think we should read one of the reviews. I love reading what these folks say. And let's see here I'm trying to find uh, let's see I like this one. Jim Meek fifty five says this is a great show for anyone that is unsure about tech as it moves rapidly forward. Rich will help you make purchasing
decisions by being well informed. He also has an easy going way of delivering the information without being condescending.
Oh, Megan, I wish you agreed with that. You can find me on social media at rich on tech dot TV.
I'm Rich damiro On behalf of everyone that helps get this to your ears. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk to you real soon. Stay safe out there, and most importantly, stay at home.