Last episode of the year, packed with your questions!

five in Los Angeles. I figured for the last show of the year, I would do things just a little differently, and so I asked you on Instagram and Facebook to send in your questions on a wide variety of topics. And yeah, yes, sent me some questions. So I've got lots of questions. I've got so many, so many to go through right here, I've got them on my computer.

So we're just gonna get started. So it's going to be a lot of I'm gonna just kind of jump around because there's questions from all over there on a wide variety of topics. So it should be a pretty fun show, because you know, it's the end of the year. We need something fun to listen to. Getting ready for Ces coming up in January. I was just in Vegas yesterday and it was cold, so it reminded me that it's going to be very cold in January. For CS.

CS is still kind of a mixed bag right now because we've still got a lot of you know, restrictions and things going on, of course, variants, and you know, it's just we're not in a place where where things are like no problem, you know. I mean last year, we thought a year later things would be a lot better, and you know, they're just kind of all over the place still. So CS is happening, but some people are not going. Some people are predicting that they're going to

cancel it. But at this point we are getting a lot of emails from CS saying that it's happening. There's a lot of exhibitors, there's a lot of people, and they're actually going to give everyone a COVID test as well now, so well see, I kind of want to go just to see how different it is. I mean, I'm curious to see what a show in this sort of pandemic world looks like. I mean, is it small? Is it it's just maybe it's easier to manage. I

don't know. But anyway, I am planning on attending unless anything majorly changes, but I will plan on attending and bringing those reports to you. All right, let's start with Cynthia. She's got the first question. I guess should I do this? I don't know if I should do this because the whole thing is this. So Cynthia's first question is needing a new iPhone and mini pad. I'm using the six s lol, no upgrade. Love. When is the best time to buy these? After Christmas? You are the best enjoying

you since you began. Oh thank you, Cynthia. New iPhone really comes down to you just kind of have to look at the deals that are out there. So they don't particularly do deals any particular time except when they launched. Been doing a lot of deals during launch. But my way to do this now the mini iPad. I have not seen any deals on at all. So if you go to iPad Mini the way I look for deals, you go to iPad Mini deal in Google okay, and

then you hop over to the news section. So this will bring up bloggers that look up oh wow after I just said that. So one day ago, iPad Mini sees rare discount one hundred and thirty dollars off. Wow, I actually want to do that. Wow, Amazon is offering Oh interesting Amazon, this doesn't oh I see, never mind, the rare discount on the iPad mini is only twenty dollars off. That's that's not really like a it's not

a huge discount. But yeah. So the way I look up any kind of deals is you just type in the name of the product in Google, type the word deal, and then the secret is you want to move over to the news section and that will give you all of the bloggers that track these things. And the reason why bloggers track these things is because they share their affiliate links, so they get a little bit of a cut of the price when you buy something, So there's something in it for them. There's an in it to

win it kind of aspect to this. So iPad mini, Yeah, just check Amazon or check those deals and see. When it comes to the iPhone again, just the same thing. So I would just type in iPhone and whatever model you want, So if you want the twelve or you can just type iPhone deals and see and it'll tell you what the deals are on the iPhone. And of course mac rumors comes up and it says we're just

ten days away from Christmas. This was a couple days ago, and it will give you if you scroll down to the iPhone just have iPhone doesn't really have iPhone, so it didn't have iPhone in that one. But that's because Yeah, so I guess what I would do is probably just check the carriers in that case if you can't find something there. But you know, it's one of these things where you just kind of have to do a little research online, just kind of just pop around. You can

call your carrier. I have a friend that actually changes carriers every time the new iPhone comes out that he wants to get because he'll get a new deal. Now, I feel like the carriers have gotten a little hip to that because these days they're offering a lot of these deals to new and existing customers. But first place to start is your carrier, call them up, see what they say, and go from there. Okay, next question from Instagram, Stefan says, how's life driving with a Tesla? Good question.

I am obsessed and I think I've mentioned this on the podcast before, but yeah, there's no other way to describe it except it is the best car I've ever purchased. I love it. It is totally changed my entire life. I mean, I feel better, I'm healthier, you know, I'm just kidding, No, I mean, it's one of those things that it just has really opened up my eyes to different ways of thinking. When I drive to work and when I drive around or I take a road trip.

It's just really phenomenal to me that I'm not using any gas, which is number one. There's other weird little things like like you would never idle in your car or leave your car on for like an hour, whereas with a with an electric car, that's no problem. So this is why they and it makes me realize why they built in the Netflix and the YouTube and all that stuff, because you can sit in your car now, so your car becomes almost like another room. It's all

because it's electric. So if it's electric, you can just leave the thing on just like any other thing that's electrics. You're not feeling this pressure when you're running a gas engine that you want to turn it off because it's you know, ruining the environment or whatever it's doing. It's just wasting gas, especially with gas prices. But overall, really really enjoy it. I do think that there's something to this whole Tesla thing and it's it's just I don't

know how to explain it. It's just really kind of changed my entire thought process when it comes to cars, Like it's just it's really really phenomenal to drive. It handles really well, and it just it just changes the way you think about cars. But it also makes me think that if everyone switched to one of these overnight, we'd have a whole other set of problems. You know, where to charge them, how to get the electricity to

charge them. So I think that we're in a good transition time, and I think I'm glad that Tesla and some of these other companies have taken the lead on this because there is going to be a transition period. That is, you know that we need we need a long runway for this. There's a lot of gas cars out there, so I'm not saying everyone needs to buy one, but if you do buy one, I think you will be very very happy. Rick asks what is the best

cell phone to buy? Rick, there's a lot of I mean, I would have a lot of choices for this, So I think when it comes to the iPhone of things or the Apple side of things, I would say either the iPhone thirteen which is just the standard iPhone or the iPhone thirteen Pro. And the main difference between those two phones is the fact that the Pro has a

zoom lens and the thirteen does not. And of course the Pro just has slightly better specs in certain ways, but it's not you know, it's got like a better screen and that kind of stuff, But that's the main thing is that is you get the zoom lens and you get a higher quality camera as well. But otherwise I think that the thirteen is great. That's on the iPhone side of things. On the Android side of things, I would recommend the Pixel six and the Pixel six Pro and I just did my review of these on

TV and they're just it's just the best. It's it's just such a great Android device. And I did the update finally to check it out, and I will say I'm not totally impressed with the update, Like I think there's still more work to be done. But at the same time, I think overall, I'm very picky because I test a lot of these phones, so I'm very picky with my phones, and I think that the you know, I expect a little bit more from the Pixel because

you know, this is Google's phone, this is Google's flagship. Like, there shouldn't be any stutter, There shouldn't be any nothing should be wrong with this phone. Like Apple comes out with their phone and it's like there's a couple of little bugs here and there, but it's not nothing. That's

like that's like a deal breaker. And I'm not saying there's a deal breaker with a pixel, but it's just like I feel like with with Apple or Google stuff, it just feels a little bit unpolished compared to Apple. And that's natural. I mean, that's why Apple is the market leader, because they have figured out how to ship stuff in a way that is super polished. And to

be quite honest, Apple's been slipping in that aspect. I mean when when iPhones came out a couple of years ago, you did not see so many updates like we're seeing today. Like with the iPhone. If you are looking, you're noticing that the the iOS is getting updates like almost you know, it feels like every month, which is great because you're always getting new features and things fixed and little things. But it used to be the iPhone had one main iOS update a year and the maybe one little tiny

you know, incremental update. But now we're just seeing them all the time, and so you know, it is what it is. But otherwise, let's see if you want something that's more unique. I think that the Samsung devices are really cool. The you know, the flip phones. The fold is is really neat. It's it's nice and simple. The flip is really cool too, or sorry, am I getting those mixed up? I think the yeah, the z flip

so sorry, the fold is not simple. The fold is like the bigger, kind of clunkier one, but it's got the big giant screen inside. The flip is the smaller one that you know fits in your pocket, which is really cool. So again, if you want like a different form factor, and then if you want a lot of zoom, you got to go with the S twenty one Ultra. So there are a lot of choices out there when it comes to cell phones, there's not one fits all. I mean iPhones, believe me, you see the most of

those everywhere. But you know, as you travel you do see a lot of different phones out and about, and so yeah, there's there's lots of choices still out there. Adrian says, how was the concert? Oh, Adrian, you must follow me on social media or did I mention? I didn't even mentioned that I was going to a concert on social media. So the concert was excellent, that was

That's why I was in Vegas. I went to a Luke Comb's concert and I just, you know, I just had this feeling that Luke Combs would be pretty good in concert because I really enjoy his music, and he was great. It was t Mobile Arena. It was really really nice. Definitely a great show. And did I don't think I posted anything about it yet, but I'll probably post a couple couples of things about it. But it was just great. I mean, he did a really nice job.

Definitely definitely uh what's the word, uh, when you're your your comfort zone. Definitely impeded on my comfort zone a little bit. I mean I've been to one concert here in La which you know, was a little bit more the rules were a little stricter, so you know, with with entrance and all that stuff. But here, you know, is Vegas is a little bit more relaxed, but still still I think everything was on the up and up and it was a really nice concert. But yeah, Luke

Colmbs was great. Told his backstory, which you know, obviously you go to concerts to hear a little bit more than the CD or the streaming, I should say, but he did a great job told his story, and it was just amazing that he basically said, in six years his entire life has changed, because six years ago he was absolutely nothing, and now here he is like selling out stadiums and concert venues in Vegas. So pretty cool. Thanks for asking. I always don't mind a Vegas trip,

all right, Janet says, how do fire sticks work? I'm a technically challenged grandmother. Good question. It's so interesting because I always take for granted the fact that I understand all this stuff and it just kind of comes natural. And then you get a question from someone like I'm not going to name someone the other day, but they told me on their phone they got a little wrench

at the top, a little wrench icon. Now, to me, when I see a wrench icon, I know that that means that my phone has a software update or something like that, right, And to this person, they said, oh, I thought I needed to tighten a screw or something on my phone. I mean, that sounds funny, but the reality is like, yeah, if you don't understand, if you didn't grow up with this stuff, or you didn't you're not really technical. Why would you think that a wrench

would mean a software update? You'd say, oh, shoot, I need to tighten something on my phone because there's a wrench icon. And so it's little things like that that I take for granted that I know. And this is part of why I like doing what I do, because my tech segments on TV reach the average person. They're not tuning in for technology, they're tuning in for local news and for fun and weather and all that stuff, and then my stuff comes up and they go, oh,

that's cool. This guy explains stuff, hopefully in a way that's easy to understand, and that's always my goal. So the firesticks, it's interesting a lot of people think that when you get a firestick, that's it. You just plug it in and that's all you need, Like you don't need to get cable, you don't need to get internet, you don't need satellite whatever. But the firestick is really just a platform. It's a conduit for you know, streaming services that you choose, and so you can't just go

ahead and cancel your cable. You can't just go ahead and cancel your Internet. You have to decide what do you want on this fire stick. Nowadays, there are a lot of free streaming services. So if you just had the firestick and you just had Internet, which are the two basic things you need. Yeah, you could probably suffice on the built in news programming that Amazon provides you.

You could probably suffice on Pluto to be what else. YouTube, So there's a lot of free content out there, and it's all ad support it, so you're not going to get away from the ads. But it's just kind of like broadcast TV where it's free. You put an intenta up and you get it and there's ads and so same thing here. But if you want to step it up a notch, you can go with Netflix, you can go with Hulu all the things that I pay for every month, Hbo Max, and that's what you do. So

the firestick is just sort of the platform. You stick it into the back of your TV that kind of takes over your TV screen. So it's no longer you turn on your TV and it defaults to channel two or whatever it is. It turns on to the firestick and now the firestick is your platform, so you can look on there for movies, TV, shows, games, whatever you want.

I mean, there's a whole app store. It's kind of like a cell phone on your TV screen, and you can decide what you want to pay for, if you want to pay for anything, and then once you pay for those things, you can watch the content on those surfaces, and you can also integrate gets a little technical, but you can integrate an antenna if you want. They have a thing called fireTV recast, which lets you connect an antenna to your fireTV and then you can watch broadcast

channels through there. I find that there's so much around and all the broadcast channels that I care about have the stream apps, especially Channel five, and so you don't you basically don't even need the antenna. You just use the streaming app and that works pretty well. But the fire sticks are great. I think it's probably the best overall streaming platform. I know a lot of people like Roku.

Apple TV is excellent, but it's it's a little pricier, and Chrome Cast is great, but it's a little bit, you know. I just feel like fire TV is really there's a lot going on there, Like Amazon is really really pushing it, so it's become I think it's it might be the most popular, maybe Roku is, but I feel like Firestick is definitely the one to kind of get. That's the one I reckon the most just because simple.

That's when I have not in my primary TV. Primary TV, I still have Apple TV because my kids like to mirror stuff and you know, use all those features, not like the Apple Arcade on there. But for my secondary TV, I do use the fire Stick and then it's really nice. And I just got the new one, the fire Stick Max. It's the Amazon fire TV four K Max. Did I get that right? And so that one is it was thirty five bucks and it's just you know, it's a little bit faster, a little bit better, and so it's

been great. All right. Jumping around here, Joanna says, what food gadget do you use on a regular basis? Airfier, Vita mix, any new gadgets you recommend for the kitchen. So the the latest thing that I use is an

air fryer. I bought it at Costco. I bought the I think it's Ninja or Ninja whatever it is Ninja And we'll actually I have two things I really really liked that I bought in the past two years, the air fryer, and also the Instant it's like kind of like the Instant Pop brand, but it's a it's a coffee maker that does both in the espresso shots and regular K cups. And I swore off K cup machines forever because I thought that the coffee was gross and it was like, you know, kind of stale tasting and

watery and like not very good. But honestly, after using another coffee maker for like a year, like a ground coffee maker that actually ground the beans fresh, which I thought would be great, but it turned out to be not so great, and it was a pain to clean up, and it just it never made a cup of coffee that was very good. And so I actually just ditched that and I bought the Insta one, which was a

third of the price. It was like one hundred bucks versus like three hundred I paid for the grinding one. And the Instant one is so perfect. I love it, So now I just buy So now I just buy like the CA cups that are a little bit fresher. So they've got this brand at Costco that is like a San Francisco Pod or something, but it's like a it just feels a little bit fresher ground than some of the CA cups you can buy at the store.

And then also I liked some of the Starbucks ones that are a little bit stronger, and you know, so I'm dealing with that. And then I love the n espresial part of it. Then the espressial part is excellent. It uses then espresso pot odds and I make, you know, when I come home, I'll make like a nice espresso in the afternoon with a little bit of a I don't know if you say, panna, like a little bit

of whipped cream on it. And they actually make this stuff that's meant for it's called like sweet Foam from I think it's the same company that makes like, you know, whip cream. And it's just really good. And so I've just that's been my coffee situation. The air fryer situation has been a little bit less. I've been less pleased with it. It's cool, but I feel like it it's hit or miss, like the things I make in it,

like sometimes they're good, sometimes they're not. I know, people love the air fryer situation, and it is easy because you're not heating up like an entire oven. Things do cook fast, but I just feel like it's it's kind of hit or miss, Like sometimes things come out really good, sometimes they don't, and then I feel like the thing gets really messy inside and so it's like a lot to clean up. But overall I like it. I mean it's fun, especially for like nuggets and French fries for

the kids. Stuff like that we've made. You know, we've made like Brussels sprouts in their roasted I mean I've made I've tried everything in there. Like some things I thought we're gonna be good in there, like sand and in stuff, is like it just gets a little messy and like, you know, kind of I don't know, it's not as not as exciting as I thought it was going to be. But it stayed on my counter and it's fine. The other thing I really like is my

food thermometer that I use is the Thermo works. I got to get this right, Therma pen Therma pen one. And the reason why I like this thing is because it's so fast. It's it's takes a reading in less than a second. And I am like a I am a stickler for food temperatures. So whether I'm grilling in the back, whether I microwave something, whether I make it in the oven, I always check the temperature to make

sure that it's cooked. And I don't know, I grew up in a house where my mom was a little bit obsessed with like making sure foods were cooked, and so that just kind of carried over to me. So I do the food thermometer and I love it. It's really great, and I've had a bunch of different bunch of different ones over the years. This is definitely my favorite because it's the fastest and it's also the easiest to use. It just sort of works and there's just

no uh, there's no bones about it. The other one, this one's like eighty five to one hundred bucks. The other one I would I was using was called Lava Tools, and I bought a bunch of those. Those were closer to like thirty bucks, and those That one works really well too. It's just a little bit slower for the reading, all right. Next question from Instagram Telebela, how do you

save something on Instagram to watch later? Good question because this always happens to me where I you know, what we're doing is we're scrolling through Instagram and all these things while we are doing other stuff. So we're at we're at Starbucks in line and you're scrolling through and you're looking, and for the most part, that's fine. You just scroll through, you're watching something, something catches your eye, whatever.

But then there are things where you want to watch something later because it's a little bit more involved, or you want to remember about it, and so what do you do. So on Instagram there actually is a little feature that lets you do this, which is if you look underneath someone's post, there is a little bookmark, and so you can bookmark their post and then you can

watch it later. So that goes into you know, you can tap the bookmark or you can press and hold the bookmark and it will bring you to your categories and you can create like I've got food, family, fitness, to watch, books, travel, work, music, gadgets, wish list, so you can make your little like folders for the things that you save. Now, I will tell you in my experience, the problem with this setup is that I never ever go to my folders to ever look at any of

that stuff. So the other way that you can do it is you can share stuff to a service. So if you the one that I like is called Pocket. And so if you share, like, if you sign up for this thing, it's called it's just called Pocket. It's basically a read it later service. So if you go to get Pocket dot com you can sign up. It's free. It's owned by Firefox, and that enables you to save things to look at and read and do whatever with later. And so it comes up like a list of your stuff.

So what I do is I'm trying to do this more efficiently, is that when I have a little bit of free time and I'm sitting on the couch, oh yeah, let me open up Pocket and let me digest this stuff that I didn't really want to read quickly or browse quickly when I'm out and about, but now I want to give it my full attention. And so you

can also save an Instagram video whatever to Pocket. So you would just say share, which you tap the three dots in the upper right hand corner and you would say share too, and then you just select Pocket, which is right here, and now it's saved to Pocket, and then when you're on your phone or computer later on, it will show you, oh, you've got this Instagram. Now it's going to bring you back to the Instagram site

when you want to do that. But other things that will either show you the article or it will just show you the video. But with Instagram it's a little bit trickier. But those are the ways I'd recommended to save something for later. I had a whole system where I was like saving the link and all this stuff

and putting it on my to do list. But I think that the best way to do it is probably just to use pocket and just remember to check pocket, you know, regularly, Like the way that you check Instagram, the way that you check Facebook, just check Pocket as well. Just make it part of your routine so that you don't forget the stuff that you bookmark for later. Okay, let's see so many questions. Ah, let's do a travel one. Let's see NYY fan mom says best travel website for

package deals. Thanks Rich. Well, you know, it's interesting you say that I don't like package deals for travel because and maybe I'm in the minority here, but I feel like the reason I don't like those is because a lot of times they require you to prepay for stuff,

and I definitely don't like to prepay for travel. Also, I just feel like with the I mean, yes, the package deals are probably better overall, but I just don't like the idea of having to have everything packaged up and now you are beholden to the company that sold you this package. So I like to book things directly with the companies themselves because I get the most flexibility. I get the terms and conditions that I understand, and it usually does not require a deposit. You know, if

it's flights, obviously you have to pay for those. But it's just so much easier to deal directly with these companies because the problem is once you book a package, now you have to deal with that package company if there's any sort of problem. And I just had this happen. I booked a rental car through price Line, and I booked it through price Line, no big deal, saying Okay, I'm flying out the next day or it was like two days later, so I can prey this whole thing.

So I prepaid for my entire car rental because it was way cheaper that way. And what do you think happens? I got a toothache on the morning I was supposed to fly out. I ended up canceling my flight, changing it to the next day going to the dentist, and it was a whole big thing because my car rental, you know, price line was like, sorry, we can't do a thing for you. I said, well, can you just move it? Like I might be flying out there in a day or two. Can you just move my rental?

And they're like, nope, we can't do anything. I said, okay. Now, I've rented cars so many times in my lifetime, and if you have a regular car rental, it's super flexible. It's like they didn't even ask for a credit card half the time. I never prepaid, by the way, but you can just you know, change your stuff. And with this one I couldn't. So it was a real big pain, and so I said never again. That was the one time I tried booking something through a third party and

I said never again. So when I actually got to Avis, who was the rental company that they get or maybe it was hurt so that they gave me, I can't remember. At this point, I said well and I was. I was like a day late for my rental and I just walked up to the desk and I said, oh, by the way, because I couldn't get a hold of anyone at Hurts to talk to me, like at all. It was impossible to get a hold of a customer

service representative. I think when I finally got a hold of them, they told me, oh, you got to go to price Line. And when I went to price Line, they said, oh, maybe you can call Hurts and I said, you can't. It's like a circle. I can never get someone. So it was just the worst experience. And I got there and I finally said, oh, I'm just gonna go there. If they can't rent me the car, then I'll just have to eat the you know whatever. It was four hundred bucks and move out my life for six hundred

I don't know how much. It was a lot because it was ridiculous. It was like this, rental cars have been really expensive lately, and so I went up to the rental car counter and I said, hey, I'm like, I'm a little bit late for my rental and they're like, ID, and I was like, okay, give them my ID. Okay, your car's out there. They could care less, like they just I mean, so I ate the day of rental, but still my car was available. So it turned out

to be okay. But it was just kind of funny that the one time I do that, it just you know, did not work out. I thought I saw another travel question here, so I'm going to answer another travel question. Let's see here. Ah, here we go. This is from NYC oh another NYC NYC poser booking flights. When's the best time? How much in advance travel sits? Thanks? All right, So here is where I think. I here's what I do. So when it comes to flights, I always check the

Google Flights. That's basically how I search for flights. Now, when I book flights, I ninety nine point nine percent of the time book United because that's my airline that goes back to Jersey and I have status on so I will pretty much stick to United. But I'm always curious, like because not only does Google Flights give you the best days to fly, it also gives you the cheapest flights, like the you know, let's say you find So the way that I choose my flights, I typically go to

the calendar. I'll type in my my destination and my origin. Right then I'll go to the calendar and on the calendar it'll highlight the cheapest days in green. But the trick to this all is that you have to choose your options before you fly. So if you only want a direct flight, you got to make sure that you have that option chosen in Google flights, and that way, you know, sometimes you'll see super duper cheap flights, but they're connecting, and if you don't like connecting, like I don't,

I don't want those flights. I'm not even gonna consider, even if it's five hundred dollars cheaper. Well maybe for five hundred if I'm buying four tickets like I typically have to with my family, but if i'm you know, if it's just me or just me and my child, whatever, or me and my wife, I'm I'm just doing a direct flight, like if I can, I will do direct And so I will just make sure that it says direct flight. And you can be as specific as you want.

You can say I only want these particular times, but I generally just do I make sure it says that I'm bringing to carry on, and that way I get rid of the economy basic flights, which I will never

book because they're so restrictive it's insane. And then I will say I want a direct flight, and then I will then I will open up the calendar, and when I open up that calendar, it will now show me the direct flights that are not basic economy in green for the cheapest days to fly, and then I will select the first day and I will select the second day based on the first day, because sometimes when you select the first day, the second day prices changed, because

it's just the way it is. And so once I select those, then I say, show me the list of flights, and then Google goes a step further and it shows you the cheapest or best flights in green. Again, I select those, and then once I'm armed with all that information, I will usually go to the travel site to book directly, and yes, if I got the information from Google, I'll typically just tap their little their little button to take

me over to United. That gives them a little cut of the of the price to help them out for helping me out, and then I book my flight and I'm done. Now, when it comes to like rental cars, I typically use the same company and so I have got you know, a status on there, so I will I will just book them without really looking at any other company. Now, in the past six months, I have definitely been shopping around because the prices have gotten so expensive.

But the place that I'll kind of check for car rentals will actually I'll just tell you the one that I think is the best. It's just cost Go Travel. They have the best prices for car rental. So if you go to if you're a member of Costco, definitely go to Costco Travel. They're going to be the best price for car rentals. And if you don't, and I would just go to Kayak and do a search and

then you know, a get a narrow down. But the problem that the trick with the car rentals is that for me personally, I don't want an off site rental company. So I've I've made this mistake before where you have to take a shuttle, like you know, twenty minutes out

to your car rental place. I want one that's on airport because I want to be able to take the airport tram or train or whatever right to the rental car place and be on my way because if you're waiting for a rental car shuttle, it could take a really long time. And I'm not talking a shuttle to

like the rental car facility. I'm talking further out like I've one time I got burned by renting from a different place at Newark Airport and I did not realize with all of our luggage we had to go from the airplane to the tram to a bus to this place that was way off and it was so far and it was just like, Okay, I saved, like, you know, it probably saved a couple hundred bucks, but still it

was not a very nice experience. And then with hotel rooms, again, typically in the past couple of years, I've been booking the same chain because I've got you know, membership with them, and I just recently switched to a different chain, and so I kind of look at them first. But quite honestly, I with hotel rooms, I want to stay loyal, but I feel like the loyalty has burned me in the past, where now I kind of want to just stay in

the best hotel for the place I'm going to. So if you're staying loyal to a hotel, sometimes you pick a subpar location or hotel because it's something that you're getting points for or you get, you know, your free

breakfast or whatever. But I find that I kind of gave that up in the last year because we had too many experiences with hotels where I just felt like they were subpar, and I was like, you know what, why am I sticking with this chain when I don't necessarily feel like we're getting the best experience every time? And so I'd rather now lets them go into Charleston, South Carolina. I will look at trip Advisor and see

which are the top rated hotels in Charleston. And if you search Charleston on trip Advisor, you have to make sure you sort by I think it's called traveler reviews or traveler ranking, not their ranking, because they default to

their ranking, which gives them the most money. If you book, but you want to do traveler ranking, you'll say, okay, this is the number one, number two, number three hotel in Charleston based on all the reviews that we have, And then I will go and kind of pick from those, like if the first one's like too expensive, I'll go to the second one, If the second one looks too you know, too inexpensive, I'll go to the third. So out of those top three, there's generally a choice that's

pretty good. And typically those hotels, because so many travelers like them, are either close to like the things to do, or they just have a lot of good options, or you know whatever, they're just really good hotels. So that's a really long answer to everything. But and I never book a refundable a non refundable hotel room ever, because even when you think your plans are not going to change, life has a way of throwing you little curveballs and

sometimes they do change. And you know, sometimes I also book. I also will track the prices as we get closer, so especially with hotel rooms, like, for instance, we were going to Irvine, California a couple months ago, and we had booked this really nice room on the top floor. It was like a big suite and you know, it was not that expensive, so I was like, all right, let's splurge for the suite. But then as we got closer, we were sitting there like, ah, really it was like

double the money on just for a regular room. And I said, you know what, let me just save the money. So we ended up downgrading to a smaller room, which saved us like fifty percent. And I just said, you know what, that's like all of our spending money for the entire weekend. Like the you know, a couple hundred bucks that I just saved will be like dinner, breakfast, whatever. And now it's like we thought we were going to pay that much for just the room. Now it's going

to be our whole thing. So always kind of monitor for changes with the hotel and also how you're feeling. You might change hotels completely, you might change rooms, or you might might want a smaller room or bigger room. So and the room turned out to be just fine. Sometimes with four people in one room, you know, it could be a little bit, you know, it's like a

little cramped, but it turned out to be fine. Depends what you're doing, you know, are you're spending your whole time in the room or are you are you leaving the room? All right, that was a very long answer, but hopefully now you know how I book stuff. All right, Marissa says, have you heard anything about this charging station? Costco has it on sale, but there are But are these charging station really great gifts that work or are they just something that sucks up a lot of energy

and not worth it? And she attached a picture of the Ubo Labs four and one wireless charger. Marissa, I would say, stay away. So what I've noticed with the chargers that charge a lot of stuff, a lot of them are not very good, and especially just taking a look at this one, I don't think it's going to be very good. I think it's gonna be very very slow at charging your gadgets. Apple themselves couldn't come up

with a four to one wireless charger. They had the air power charger, which was going to charge your iPhone, your Apple Watch, and your air pods, and even Apple couldn't come out with that. And the reason why is because it's really tough to charge three things at once on charging coils. And so there's another company that came out with a charging pad that I tested and it was fine. It was fine for like three Apple products maybe, but the problem is it doesn't charge things the fastest possible.

Now there is some exceptions to that if you have a charger like a like Belkan makes like a three to one mag safe charger that has been the best that I've tested. But it's using mag Safe and so it's aligning the magnets, it's charging at a faster rate. But again, wireless charging in general is going to be slower than a wired charging. So, for instance, on the Belcan, I believe it tops out at twenty watts, whereas the biggest iPhone like thirteen Promax I think, can charge north

of like thirty watts. So you're gonna take a little bit longer to charge your gadgets if they're not properly lined properly lined up, they don't charge as fast. So I would say just stick to the ones like maybe just like the Belcan that has the it looks almost like arms where it's got the place to charge your phone, the place to charge your Apple Watch, and a place to charge your air pods. But if you're looking for Android, I would say in general, I have not been impressed

with any of the wireless charging on Android. It's kind of slow, except for the one plus phones. But I would stick to plugging in I would get if I had my way. I mean, wireless charging is nice, but I think that the wired charging is just faster, and here it's just it's really just better. So I would check out. Speagan makes something called the oh what is it, the power station Pro. Let me see the arc station Pro. And this is a fast wall charger. And this is

one of the fastest wall chargers I've ever seen. So maybe maybe do that. I would skip the skip the four and one charger. Maybe a three and one would be fine, but the four and one not so much. All right, Teres says, how can we block those annoying live chat bubbles which pop up when shopping slash ordering items? They take up too much screen space, they're never helpful, and they waste too much time. Thank you, Teresa, you are so true, So right. I can't stand those things.

I mean, who number one, they're totally fake. It's like, oh, hi, I'm a live person ready to help you, and you chat with them and they're not a live person. Now it has to like put it in the queue to get a live person. So it's it's really like most of the time they're just kind of of misleading you, And you're right, they're annoying. Like if you want a live person, you're gonna you know, you're gonna find a

way to talk to a live person. Most of the time you just want to shop on the website, and by the time you have to like find the tiny x to close out the pop up, it's like you might have clicked something else. It's just it's never a good thing. So I agree Now, doing some searching, I found that there is a Chrome extension called pop out Chat Blocker. Now the problem is there's only eighty three

users of this. Now that doesn't mean that it's not good, but I would just be you gotta be a little bit weary, you know, is weary the word weary weary. You gotta be, you gotta be on guard because anyone can create one of these, one of these things, and you just never know if it's like legit or not. And so it seems legit, but you just don't really know. And so I would you know, you can try something

like that, see if that works. But you're right, we need we need a bigger pop up blocker for these chats because they are so they're like on every website now you go everywhere, it's like best Buy and maybe they don't have it. I don't know, let's see do this best Buy have it? But I feel like you go to every website and there's someone trying to help you chat, and it's like I don't need the chat.

I don't need to chat with anyone, but especially the newer websites, like all the like the really I don't know, just the newer ones. They all have someone on them helping you chat and believe me. So the other day I need a little help with my with my wireless company, and I tried chatting them and it was like the worst experience ever. They're sitting there like, oh, we're so

sorry you had this problem with your bill. And by the way, the problem with the bill was that I had two calls to four one one which I have not called for one one in a decade, right, And so I get this on my bill and it's an extra four bucks. I'm like, well, four dollars is not the end of the world. But at the same time, why should have to pay four dollars for something I didn't do? And so I was like, oh, eat, chatting will probably be the easiest. So I go to the website.

They're like, oh, do you want to chat? I'm like sure. I chat with them, and the person is just so overly like nice, like oh, we're so sorry you we value as a customer, and I'm like, okay, well here's the problem. Okay, and then they just keep going into like more and more like tiny details about it. They're like, Okay, we see what you're talking about. And I'm like, yes, I know, I just mentioned it, and they're like, okay, we see it's on page nine of your bill. I'm like, yes,

I know, I saw it already. That's how I saw it, okay. And we see that the charge was for four dollars. I'm like, yes, can you please just take the charge away? And they kept going more and more into this, and I'm not kidding. This chat conversation probably went on fifteen twenty minutes, and they said, okay, let me let me look into this, and I said okay, and I said, well, there's not really much to look into. It's just like

a four dollars credit on my bill. And so finally they just kept like looking into it more and more and asking more questions but saying how valued I was as a customer. That I finally disconnected the chat, and I you know, at this point they've this is why I don't like auto pay. But they already builled me for the you know, my bill, so now it's my money that I have to get back from them, which

good luck for that. But it's like one of these things where the chat was so whatever, and I know what you're saying, like rich, aren't you the tech guy.

Can't you just call someone at that company and like telling me the tech guy like yes, But I like to do things the normal way, like as a regular person, and so that way I get to experience the frustration that the millions of customers around the world are around the US of these wireless companies are experiencing, because it can be very frustrating to just you know, go through the channels that you have to do. Sometimes, like I said, with the hotel, I couldn't get a hold of someone

or sorry, with the rental car company. With this, it was just they were so nice but so not helpful. It's just like, oh my gosh, what is going on here? So I ended up just for now, I've paid the four dollars, but I will when I feel like I have time to call, I guess I will call and hopefully get some of that. But anyway, live chat Bubbles, maybe if you have a better extension, let me know, all right, Rob says, what is the best ad blocker app for iPhones and iPads? Okay? Interesting, So the best

ad blocker app for iPhones? I mean ad block is kind of like the big one, So that's probably the one that I would go with I don't know. I don't think I have an AD blocker installed on my iPhone. If I do, I it's because I've got one through an app called Firefox Focus, which also has a built

in ad blocker, so you can download that. But the way that ad blocker works on the iPhone is that it kind of works inside Safari, So you have to use Safari to get the ads blocked, and so ad block Plus definitely has a Safari helper, but if you're using Chrome on the iPhone, you're not gonna get any ads blocked. Now there's other ways of doing it. You could use a VPN to block ads, but that is a little bit more involved and obviously have to subscribe

to a VPN. But if you just use Safari, then just download ad block Plus and you can surf the web. And the reason why the ads could be a problem on the web is because sometimes they could have malicious they could have malicious payloads in them, so you might get a served up an AD that brings you to a website that you don't want, or it may be doing something kind of not so good with your phone. So it's kind of nice to have on there, but it's not a necessity, but I know a lot of

people do like that. So that's the one that i'd probably recommend on the iPhone. All right, good question. Let's see what else do we have here? More tesla questions. Oh, here's a good question. Gil says, lots of commercials about cheap phone carriers, Cricket for example, Are they worth it? Absolutely? So here is the deal with the cheap carriers. So you've got Cricket, You've got Metro by, T Mobile, you've got Ultra, you've got Mint Mobile. There are so many

of these. You've got US Mobile. So here's how these Number one, there's only three wireless carriers in the US. Three major Okay, you've got AT and T, you've got T Mobile, and you've got Verizon. That's it. Now there is US Cellular, but they're they're a very small footprint in I think the Midwest, so they're not as prevalent

as the big three. So when you're getting one of these what we call mvn os mobile virtual network operators, they are just a company that is almost like a service company, but the back end is all being provided by AT and T, T Mobile, Verizon, So they're actually operating on their networks. So if I wanted to start one of these companies, I would say, Hey, Verizon, I would like to open up a wireless carrier. I will pay you one cent a minute for everyone that uses

the data on your lines or whatever. And they say, okay, Now I can market my company in my own way. I can provide customer service in my own way. I can provide phones in my own way. So I get to call the shots when it comes to how I run this little carrier, and some of them are better than others. Now, when it comes to cricket, Cricket I Believe is owned by AT and T Visible is owned by Verizon, and Metro is owned by T Mobile. So you've got those three that are basically just the baby

brothers and sisters of the big carriers. Then you've got the other ones. So like mint Mobile is its own company and it runs on T Mobile, and then something like US Cellular or US Mobile is its own company, and they give you a choice of do you want T Mobile or Verizon, and then it goes on and

on and on. So there's a whole bunch of these things. Now, the difference is the price and the features so typically when you're going with one of these carriers, you have to be very careful about the features that you need. And that's also what's so great about them is a lot of times you're not paying for features that you don't need. Like when you when you sign up for like t mobiles big plan, it's got like Netflix included, it's got you know this, it's got that, it's got

one hundred gigabytes of online storage. Maybe you don't need all that stuff. Maybe all you need is unlimited data and unlimited talk and text and that's it, and you don't you know, you don't need a lot of hotspot or something. And so something like a mint Mobile plan which has you know, very they have very limited plans, or they have plans that are unlimited for thirty bucks a month, And so you can go to these services and still get the quality of service that you expect,

but you're not paying for a lot of extras. And typically they are prepaid, so you're you're paying in advance. So with something like mint Mobile, you can pay your entire year in advance for thirty dollars a month, three hundred and sixty dollars for the entire year of cell phone service all at once, you don't have to think about a bill again for a whole nother year. Or you can go with one of their cheaper plans and you can get something that's cheaper. And again, it really

down to what do you need. So, for instance, my mom is on one of these mv and os because all she needs is basic data and basic calls and texts. She is nothing, doesn't need anything exciting or fancy with her phone, and so these are perfect for her because

they save her money. So with me personally, I've got a big plan from one of the big carriers because I want all I want the best number one and I want the bells and whistles, so I want, you know, the hot spot, I want the international roaming if I ever go international. I want, you know, all these little things that come with it. I need, and that's not

something that every single person needs. So if you don't need those things, just just be sure to look at what features you get and what features you don't get. A good website for comparing this stuff is called whistle Out and they do a pretty good comparison of these various carriers and kind of tell you the pros and cons of them, but just look closely before you buy. I mean Visible from Verizon and for twenty five dollars

a month is like phenomenal unlimited. But I've gotten a lot of emails from people saying, you know, Visible customer service, it's tough to get a hold of. There's no stores to go into, you know, if you need help, it's like you know, you're chatting with someone. So that's not for everyone, but for my you know a family member that has that, it's great. They love it because it's it's simple, it's cheap, it's dirt cheap, and they get unlimited service on Verizon. Maybe not at the fastest speeds.

That's another difference. You may get Verizon service, but they're not going to give you the fastest download speed. They cap it at a certain speed. But again, if you don't need the fastest speed, then you're fine. Like I do I need I need uploads and downloads the fastest possible because I'm doing a lot on social media. If you don't need that, no big deal. So good question,

and that's a that's a yeah. Oh let's see, okay, next question here, Oh my gosh, so many Uh here we go Pog says it wants to take my Mac to a mom and pop shop to get it serve, or to the Apple Store for more money. I learn a lot from you when I watch you on KTLA five. You're doing awesome work, Thanks POGs. It depends. I've talked about this on the podcast before, but I think it

depends what you need done. So I've taken mine to the Apple Store and I've taken it to a mom and pop shop, and honestly, the experience was quite similar. I think that it depends if it's under warranty or not. If it's under warranty, you probably want to take it to an authorized repair center because they can do all the warranty stuff it's not, then yeah, take it to the mom and pop. I mean, in many cases, the mom and pop might be better because it's a better experience.

It's simple, it's easy, it's in your neighborhood. You're supporting a local business, and they might give you better customer service than the Apple Store, which is great. But you know you're gonna be bringing it to this big store. They're gonna be either doing the repair in house or shipping it out. And so if you can get it done to mom and pop, go for it, So I'm

all about that. The other place to check out is I know it's not Mom and Pop, but it's you Break I Fix and they are owned by one of the big insurance companies and so they do a good job as well. All right, Kenny says, I'm an artist. I traditionally use paper paint pens. I'm considering trying out digital art using something like an iPad Pro or a Samsung tablet. Are these the best alternatives or should I consider another tablet that may work just as well. No,

I definitely go with the iPad Pro for sure. I mean iPad Pro with the Apple pencil. The new one is going to be your best bet. And the reason I say that is because I think that Apple is, you know, their creator company. The stuff they make is definitely has creators in mind like you. And I also think the software that you're gonna get is just gonna be way better than the software you can get on any other sort of tablet. So I would Kenny highly recommend the the the iPad Pro and the Apple pencil.

Hugo says, what are your thoughts on the whole meta thing? Virtual videos? Headgear, etc. I'm gonna tell you I am so so hyped up about the meta thing. I am a hundred thousand percent in on this, and I'll tell you why. I think the last two years have really solidified the fact that people can work from home. People don't mind being in their own little bubble to an extent, and we don't want to be locked in our places without you know, the ability to go somewhere, but if

you can explore. Let's say you're going on a trip to Tokyo and you can explore Tokyo virtually before you ever get there and kind of understand it and get the lay of the land and like walk in your shoes in Tokyo, like down the streets. Ah, that's pretty amazing. And so I see a huge, huge market for virtual reality, the metaverse, things happening in the metaverse, and I just really truly think that we are going to see this. Now,

let me just give you a very simple example. Let's say that you want to have a beer with a friend and that friend is in another city. Well, the chance of you guys having a beer together is is slim to none. Now, you're not going to call each other up on the phone and have a beer over

the phone. That's just not a thing. But if there was an app that you know or whatever in the metaverse, there is a bar that you can meet at and you could both have a beer inside with these you know and see each other and chat face to face while having this beer. That is an unbelievably new, wild and weird concept. You might be saying, rich, come on, give me a break like that is that is not cool, But it's going to happen. And we're going to see

that times a million. With every little aspect of life. There will be ways to do things with other people. There will be ways to interact, there will be ways to see things, there will be ways to learn. And I know it seems weird right now, but it is going to be a thing. There's no reason why it won't be. We saw people except Zoom in a way that we never saw something accepted so fast in our entire lives. When it comes to tech, I mean the

adoption rate of Zoom from every walk of life. I mean, whether you are a tech person or not a tech person, you figured out Zoom in about three minutes. And so this is going to be a little bit slower, but it's going to eventually happen, and I truly believe that, and I just I can't wait. Personally, I think that the couple of times I've had a virtual reality set on, I am just amazed at the visual trickery for your brain.

I mean, I've done, you know, virtual reality, and I've tested so many different types of it, you know, like different things like movies and experiences and entertainment. It's just it's such like a different way of looking at things, like quite literally and physically. And the fact, you know, when you get in, you know, there's different types of there's augmented reality, there's virtual reality. But no matter what, I think is going to have a huge impact on

our world. And I think that there's going to be so many businesses made inside VR and AR and the metaverse. The metaverse is kind of like the bigger, kind of like the all encompassing vision of this, right. The metaverse is just however you get yourself into a virtual place, whether it's augmented reality, virtual reality, a mixture of the two. But I think we're gonna see just so much and I think there's a lot of opportunity for people, whether

it's you know, creating stuff for this. So a good question, HUGO, really really good question. Uh, let's see. K B in Chicago says everyone thinks WiFi is the rage, but at home wiring is often better, right, son No's TV, et cetera. You know, it's funny you say that because I was. I was one of these wired snobs, and I kind of gave that up with the Wi Fi because it became Yes, I always think that wired will be a

more reliable connection. It will also be faster in most cases, but it's like the difference is so small nowadays that it doesn't really matter. Like in my house, pretty much everything is wireless, and I was a holdout. I was doing my so nos wired, I was doing my a like streaming box wired my TV, and then I just decided, you know, what doesn't really matter. It seems to be the same, Like it's not. The difference in speed was so negligible to my eyes that it just didn't really matter.

And I think that a lot of that is due to the fact that streaming has gotten so efficient and so good that it doesn't really need like people think you need like a really fast connection to stream stuff and that's not really true. It's more about the quality of the connection and also your set up. You know, the device, the you know, the buffering is a lot of times that's just because it's like other factors on

the network. It's not necessarily your speed. Because with Netflix, for example, you need like almost nothing to to stream stuff from Netflix. They kind of invented the fact that, you know, Netflix streaming, like they made streaming easy. Now, if you're uploading and downloading big files, that's a different story that you do want wired. If I'm if I'm downloading and uploading giant files, often I will go to my wired connection and it's like it's like blazing fast

up and down. So yes, good question, Rubin. Are you going to see yes next month? Yes, I said, planning on it. And Matthias says, how do you organize your principal screen at your iPhone? Apps, et CETERA good question. I've actually gone to one home screen on my iPhone with just my most used apps and a widget, and then if I swipe over it, you know, since I'm only using one screen, it brings me to the app

library and that's where all my other apps. So I've realized that I don't really need apps on the on the screens because I search for apps when I need them, and I find that that's faster than remembering where they are on the screen. So I've got my main apps on the home screen, which is like email, me, Telegram, phone, IM message, web browser, camera, Instagram, Twitter, to do notes, my car app, Google Calendar, music apps, Google Maps, photos,

and that's it. And then if I swipe over to the app library, ninety nine percent of the time the app I want to use is in either suggestions or recent or social. And then if I need something more, I just swipe down search for my app, and I find that that's a really fast way of doing it. So I think that's that's it. Oh my gosh, is that is this it? Oh? So many more question thoughts on the pixel pro charging speed. Yeah, it should be faster than it is. Do you have house plants, No,

I can't keep them alive. Best affordable external hard drive to save pictures, I would say Saga or Western Digital. Of all the evs coming out, Should I stick with my model? Why? Yes? Stick with it? Oh my gosh. What's the simplest way to explain five G to older adults? It's faster. It's faster and better. Wow. Lots of questions. Oh, your favorite podcast is past year? And why all in show? Excellent? Thanks for recommending it, Robert, my friend best best show.

It's really really great, Anthony, I see you wearing your Gooder sunglasses. Do you run too? Yes? I do. I love running. That's my favorite thing to do. Suke says, did you reserve a Rivian? I did not, but I'm tempted. Honestly, I kind of want to get the I was thinking I would. I would take the Rivian Suv and then I'd give my wife the Tesla and we'd be a full electric house. But I'm not ready to do that just yet. I'm not ready to totally do that. And I got to see what. I gotta give Rivian a

couple of years just to see how they develop. All right, that's gonna do it for this episode of the show. If you'd like to submit a question for me to answer, you know what, It's probably not worth it because I'm not answering new ones until the next year. But if you want to, you can go to my Facebook page, Facebook dot com slash rich on Tech, hit the big blue send email button. Or go to Rich on tech dot tv hit the email button. I'd love it if

you would rate and review this podcast. Just go to the listening app of your choice now Spotify has ratings as well. Write a quick line about what you like about this show to help people understand why they should listen. You can find me on social media. I am at rich on tech. Don't forget to download the ktla plus app on Apple, TV, Fire TV, and Roku. Scroll to the tech section. There you can watch all of my TV segments on demand. My name is Rich Dmiro. I

cannot believe it is the end of another year. Thank you so much for all of your listening. This was the best year ever for my podcast. Lots of downloads, Thank you so much, Lots of feedback on the show. I know there are so many ways you can spend an hour of your time. I do appreciate you spending it with me. Have a happy holiday, stay safe. Hopefully you get some good tech this holiday season, or enjoy your time off. I will see you in twenty twenty two.