Microsoft Surface Earbuds are worth a look

Joining me is producer Megan, who is mourning the loss this morning of suit plantation.

bike ride you know before that? And That's what I did, and that's kind of been my mantra every day. So yeah, my wife and I both feel like we're in better shape. So anyway, it's great. Let's start with the first story of the week, which is Microsoft. They announced several products. There's been a bunch of tech products throughout this whole situation, which I find really fascinating because not necessarily the best time to be spending money, because who knows, you know,

with all the job uncertainty. But at the same time, a lot of these things were planned before COVID, and it kind of the show goes on. And so one example that is a bunch of new products from Microsoft, including the Surface Go Too, the Surface Book three, the

Surface Headphones two, and Surface Earbuds. I'm not going to go into detail on all of these things except for the Surface Go Too because that's actually particularly interesting at this point because of work at home and the Surface Megan, when I tell you, when I first did a story on the Surface that came ATLA number one, we had the guy in charge of the whole program, Panos Pene, come into KTLA, which, by the way, he would never even give me an interview at this point, right but

back then he was just starting and he you know, he came in and you know, it was amazing and uh, really nice guy. And anyway, so people didn't understand how a computer could run Window, or how a tablet could run Windows and also be a laptop and a tablet

and have a case. It was a whole big thing. Anyway, Surface has been very popular for Microsoft, and now the Surface go To is kind of their entry level model, and it's three hundred ninety nine dollars and it has a larger screen this time, so ten point five inch screen, better battery life, better microphones, so if you're trying to use this for Skype and all that stuff, and a front facing five megapixel camera with a sharp video even

in low light. Now, the one thing I have to take issue with Microsoft with these Surface devices, they always show them in the commercial fully loaded, right, I'm talking the cover with the keyboard and the pen. Now, in reality, that three ninety nine price does not include those two things. So you're talking three ninety nine for just the tablet. Then the cover is an extra ninety nine dollars, and

then the pen. I'm not really sure how much that costs, but I'm guessing it's another ninety nine to one fifty, So realistically you're talking still four hundred five hundred, about six hundred dollars if you want it the way they portray it in the commercial. Now if I said, you know, and the good news is this thing runs Windows, so you can run like everything you need on here, and that's what I really like about it. Second thing I want to tell you about is the surface earbuds. I

tried these on. Remember I went to that event in New York City, the Microsoft event. I went by myself and I shot it. So I did try on these surface earbuds, and I will tell you they were one of my favorite earbuds I tried on this year. So I know they look weird. They're the ones that look kind of like the Frankenstein like they have that big kind of flat circle.

So it's an old radio thing anyway. So he is asking about my thoughts reviews of Simply Safe versus Ring Home Security, So soll I, it's funny because I love Simply Safe and I've been a big fan of them since they started. We did a big video with them at CS and I've used their system and I will tell you I think it's very good. But here's what I think the problem with Simply Safe and why they're in kind of a precarious position at this point. So

Simply Safe is a very simple system. You install it yourself. It's it's diy home security. They have everything you need. You put the little sensors on your windows, you put them on your doors. You got a base station, they

have cameras. They all have everything you need. But the difference between Simply Safe and something like Ring and some of the other competitors at this point is that the other competitors are more integrated with sort of the smart home devices, and Ring has got the backing of Amazon, so it works with all the Alexis stuff. I mean it really, it's everything is becoming very siloed in the

tech world. So Ring. I was actually thinking of switching over to Ring because I was thinking, well, right now, I've got a mix of a whole bunch of different stuff in my house. And over the years, you know, as I tried stuff and I use stuff, and I liked it, and I would get it, and so now I've like Nest, I've got some Ring stuff, I've got some simply safe stuff. So it's all mixed up, and I kind of thought about it. It's almost better to

be on one page. And I was looking at Ring because the thing about Ring that they're doing right now is they are doing their home monitoring for very cheap and so it's ten dollars a month, which is really cheap.

products or you're just looking at price. I would price out both systems, see how much they cost, and then I would price out maybe five years of service or three years of service, and see what comes out to be a better deal, because simply safe might be cheaper, or might be more expensive in the long run, or you know, one of them might be more expensive in the long run than the other. But I think that ten dollars a month for a ring right now is you can't beat it. But you might have to pay

more upfront for the different products. I'm not sure, but that's the way I would look at those two products to compare them. So hopefully that helps. But if you are looking at one of these systems, even if you have just a simple like apartment setup or you know anything, you're renting a house, a room in an airbnb, you know you can get one of these simple security systems that kind of alerts you if someone opens your door.

You know, you don't have to go totally elaborate, and I kind of like that because it gives you some peace of mind, right, all right, So we did Microsoft, let's talk about Apple. This week, they updated the thirteen inch MacBook Pro. And there's not too much to talk about with this MacBook Pro. It's just the fact that they updated the keyboard. You know, they did the basic updates,

but the biggest one is really the keyboard. They gave it the new Magic keyboard, which I will tell you in personal experience, is leaps and bounds ahead of their last keyboard. And I had the last keyboard on my MacBook Pro thirteen inch, which was absolutely terrible. I had that for three years. My son is now using it. It was really bad. It felt like you were typing on a piece of paper because the keys just didn't push down very much. And there's a lot of mistakes

as well with those keys. And the new keyboard I now have of my sixteen inch MacBook Pro, which is kind of the primary reason I bought it, it's just way way better. And so I do recommend if you're looking at these things and you were kind of burned in the past, the keyboard is way better and that's kind of it. I mean there's other things that are that are new on this which you know. Double the storage two fifty six gigabytes is now the base storage.

It offers up to four terabytes. And my advice on buying a laptop, oh get the most storage you can afford and the most memory. And I will tell you from personal experience, I was very what's the word impatient when I bought my laptop, and so I couldn't wait for it to be shipped because if you want certain storage, remember this, remember this. Yeah, And so I ended up walking into the store and buying the off the shelf version, which was a sixteen gigabytes of RAM and one terabyte

of storage. And I wish I had thirty two gigabytes of RAM and two terabytes of storage, which would have cost me a little bit more, but I would have been much happier. And so don't be impatient. You know, if it takes a little bit to get your computer because you want it in the configuration you want, just just wait. Don't be a rich don't be a rich on tech impatient. The laptop starts at thirteen hundred dollars for the everyday person, twelve hundred dollars if you are

an educator, which is a pretty decent price. And my other advice with these laptops everyone the most emails I get Megan are I want a cheap laptop. But the problem with cheap laptops is, yes, you're gonna spend two hundred three hundred bucks on a Chromebook, but you're then gonna want a new laptop in a couple of years. These Apple laptops will last you. My sister is on

hers is ten years old and it's still working. Now, wow, it's getting up there, and she says she kind of wants a new one, but ten years.

it's you know, you think about it. The next bump up on this laptop, I don't know, maybe it's fifteen hundred. They're like, well, that's fifteen hundred bucks. I'm like, well, you've already gone to thirteen hundred, so really it's only an extra two hundred. You're not not spending the thirteen hundred. So good question, Megan.

public record that's in the public. So these companies just scour the public databases and they just organize it in a way that's much easier to access than say going to the library and looking up the database for the DMV or whatever. You know, like you worked on the desk at KTLA, so you know what was the thing they had lexis Nexus. Yes, like you were looking up x's all the time, right time.

rid of these. So there's a website called Join delete me dot com and they will for I think it was like twenty bucks a month take care of all of this and get you off all these sites. But as far as a month, well yeah, I mean, if you I think that's how much it is, let me let me see how much it is, you know, for some people, and maybe you don't need it, you know, every month, but let's see how much it is it is.

Join delete me. It's uh oh sorry, ten dollars a month for one person for a year, so one hundred and twenty nine dollars for the year. But it will remove you from all the major data broker websites for one year, so I mean that's not too bad. Ten seventy five a month, so you have to pay for the year. I'm guessing yeah, build annually for one thirty but that's not you know, if you want to protect

your privacy, that's not that bad. But what I like about this site and why I kind of trust them, is because they have a post of how to do it on your own, and they give you the manual, step by step instructions for all of these different websites. And so that's what I did personally. I just went through and most of the time. It requires verifying yourself on the website, signing up for the website, sending them an email, opting out, doing a confirmation. It's a whole

big process. They basically don't want you to do this, but it did work, and I can tell you from my experience at a lot of these sites. I was able to get some my information off of there, and a lot of it is confusing because it's not a lot of it's not right. They had me as way older than I really am, but yeah, exactly so, and they didn't have the best profile pictures of me, so I just wanted all of it gone. So you're like, nope,

so join delete me dot com. Check it out, and I think that you will find exactly what you need to get yourself off of many of these websites. Good question. And there's another. We did a story about this a long time ago, and you can hire someone to do this as well. Haley Kaplan was her name, and let's see what her website is, so if you want to pay someone to do it more personally, her website is what is dash privacy dot com And we interviewed her

for KTLA and she's great. She knew everything, and she will go She's a lot of celebrities will use her and they will pay her a lot of not just celebrities, but you know, like CEOs and stuff like that, you know, like big time people will pay her to get them off of the Internet, and she can do that, you know, and protect your reputation. Let's say there's a you know, so anyway, she's she's very good. What dash is dash

Privacy dot com. But that's going to be a different route, you know, a little bit more expensive obviously because it's a one on one kind of thing.

Three new items. The number the biggest one is called Sonos ARC and this is a soundbar and I have the old version of this which I can't remember what it's called but it's I've had it for years and I love it. And I'll explain why this is a problem for Sonos. But the son No's ARC has a new design and it has Dolby at most support. And I love my son Nos. I don't know what it's called sound bar. Maybe I think it's just called son No sound bar. And it's been sitting under my TV

for at least five years. And the new son Nos Arc is eight hundred dollars. And I remember when I bought my son No sound bar, it was like six ninety nine, I think, And I thought that was a lot at the time, But when you do the price over the years, it's fine. But here's my problem with Sonos. I still have their stuff that I've bought for I mean, I don't think I well, I did buy a new

speaker this year, so that's not true. But their stuff lasts a really long time, and so it's tough to like say, I want to upgrade my stuff because why

But here's how they're gonna get you at upgrade. They've got a new app and operating system that's gonna come out June eighth, and it's only going to enable the new higher resolution audio, updated interface, and more personalization, including saved room groups, which is if you have sons that is something that I never knew I needed, but now that they say it, oh my gosh, because like, let

me give you an example. When I work in the dining room, I want just the dining room and the kitchen speakers on, and so I have to go into the app every time and regroup those two because the night before I had the whole house on. So it's like little things like that. Then when the kids are watching TV, they want just a living room on. So anyway, my point is that this Sono stuff is amazing, but it's number one is really expensive. So the other thing they have is a new Sonas sub, which is a

subwoofer that's six hundred ninety nine dollars. And then the Son's five, which is pretty much their most powerful speaker for music, which I have the old version in my dining room and I might think about upgrading that because it's been many years since I've had that. But that's five hundred dollars and the sound expensive. But I will say that I bought the Sons move this year, and I told you this, but It's my absolute favorite speaker.

I mean, I have gotten so much use out of that speaker for four hundred dollars in the past three months. I bring it in the backyard when I'm outside grilling, we're playing with the kids in the front yard, I bring it there. We're having dinner in the dining room, I put it behind me so we have more music in the dining room instead of just the one speaker. Sono stuff is very expensive, but it is well worth it.

If you want a cheap alternative, you can just use Google Home Products and or you know, and just linked those. They're not going to sound the same, but it's gonna kind of be the same, and it's a little bit, just a little bit not as like the Sona's app is really the magical part of it because it's so good. It's so slick. You can find music across any service you can imagine, and that's really what's so beautiful about them. Connie wrote on Facebook, my kids gave me a pair

of Sona's wireless speakers. I used to use them with music that I have on my phone. Now I can't where can I find out how to make that work? I believe they took away that functionality. It used to work with music off of your phone, Connie, but now it does not. So what I would recommend is uploading your music to a service like Plex or Google Cloud Music, and then you can play them through your phone. I believe that way. So that's the way to get around that, all right, Okay.

It would be asking us for a new log on. Thanks, and I really enjoy your rich On Tech podcast, Bill.

you have Google. At the beginning, you sort of copy your passwords into the app to load them up into there, and then you can decide if you want to use last pass to help you change those passwords to become stronger passwords. But it doesn't automatically just do that for you. But well, there might be a functionality on last pass that can do that. I know on Dashline there is, I forget if there is on last Pass. But so the question is if he ditches last Pass, what happens.

You can export a list of your passwords in various ways, so you can export them as sort of a text file as you know, a CSV whatever, so you can see your passwords. It'll say like here's your passwords. You can do that. You can bring them into a different service like last like a dash lane or one password whatever. So that's that's kind of the beginning question is yes, all the accounts you can you can see your passwords

at the end. It doesn't just like if you delete your Last Past it's like, oh, sorry, you have no more access to your passwords, so you can do that, but again, you have to do that before you delete your account. So don't delete your account before you export. That's number one. Number two, how would my family members log into the streaming services? Which I love that he's just like putting it out there that, like everyone's sharing accounts. Did I tell you that right now? With my Netflix?

Have I told you this? I mentioned this in the last how many everyone? But I'm I personally can't use my Netflix account because it does not work. But everyone my dad's works, my mom's works, my kid works. Mine does not work. So I have to do I don't know. It just says error every time when I go to use it. So I have to like reset my whole Netflix.

changed it, but you don't have to change it. So but if you're using it, if he's asking because he wants to start using better passwords, then yes, you'll want to use last pass to create stronger passwords. That's kind of the whole point of these things, and that's what I would recommend doing. But the reality is you start using it and you can just change things over time. You don't have to change it all at once, and

you can also evolve. So what you can do is then you know, you can take one week at a time and maybe change your Netflix password one weekend and make it a little bit strong longer. And the Last Pass manager and all the other ones, they will actually when you're creating this is the best part of them.

Let's say you're creating a new account, like you sign up for Hulu, you sign up from the website, it will say do you want us to create a strong password for you, and it will save it into last Pass, so you don't have to kind of do all that. It's it's very much automated towards the end, but it is more work. I mean, believe me. Like I I

complained about it all the time with my wife. I'm like, ah, this is so like to download a game on my kids I Pad, it probably takes like ten minutes because of all the different procedures in place passwords.

one app on there, the Peloton app. And it's super easy because it's built in. You don't have to think about it. It's so if you're only using Apple products, you can just use the Apple you know, like I said, the one that's built into Apple. If you only use Google products, you can use Google smartlock or whatever they call theirs, but I personally, I think it's better to use one that works across all of them. I just

think it's it's just planning for the future. Speaking of Google, I discovered something today that I think is pretty helpful. It's Google cloud Print. And I was aware of this for a while, but I never set it up, nor did I ever put much stock into it. But now that I think about, it's actually quite brilliant. So a lot of people have a printer in their home that's connected to Wi Fi, and I get this question all the time about rich how do I print to that printer.

It's a pain. It doesn't work with AirPrint.

I set it up on my printer. All you have to do is make sure your printer is connected to the Wi Fi network, and then you go on your Chrome browser on your desktop and you type in like, let's see, that's what was it? Hold on, let's see

connect a printer that's not. You go Chrome colon slash slash devices and press enter and then you just click ad printer under Classic Printers, you find your printer, you select it, and now you can use Google Cloud Print from any of your devices, which means your Android phone, your iPhone, your Chrome devices, anything, your Chrome book and it just kind of connects your your printer to the Chrome cloud Print network and now it's super easy to print. Now.

The only caveat to this, and I check, is that you have to have your computer on and Chrome kind of open on your computer for this to work, because it kind of goes through Chrome as like an intermediary. But if you're having printer issues or you have an older printer and you just want to be able to print from all your devices, definitely check out Google Cloud Print. It's it's pretty cool. I set up this morning in about two minutes.

but nobody actually uses them. So it's this weird thing that they They are around and they are cool, but it's just no one, like they never really took off in a big way. With that said, they are very useful. They're the QR code that kind of looks like a square, that's what or sorry, they're like the barcode that looks like a square. Kind of weird, you know, it looks

like very futuristic. So with ninety nine percent of smartphones today, you can just hold your camera, like hover your phone's camera over it, like obviously open up the camera app, hover the phone over the QR code and on your screen it will display a message do you want to to open the link that is behind this QR code? Most QR codes contain a weblink and that brings you to the website. And almost every phone, iPhone, Android, whatever, Samsung,

they all do that. Now you have an older Samsung Rita, so you don't have that built in because these things were, you know, back in the day. QR code scanning apps are pretty big. Anyway, the one I liked was purchased by Snapchat. It was called I think Scan and it was super easy, super nice. It was just very simple. But then Snapchat bought them. I think it became the snap codes. Have you ever used Snapchat just to like, when you add.

that's gone. But the one I found that I liked is actually from Kesperski, which is a this is a anti virus company, and they have QR code reader for Android Keasperski Lab, and that is the one I recommend because it's simple, it's easy, and it scans the code for anything malicious before it gives you the link, so it makes sure that because you there, there is a thing where people can be malicious with these QR codes.

They can try to get you to go to links that are that are not very they're evil, and so that's that's you got to watch out. And it was updated on April sixth, So I think that's fine. So QR code Keasperski Lab. Just search for that inside Google Play and you should find that. All right, all right, let's see here I found an app that I thought was pretty cool. Speaking of apps, and this is an app that you don't have an Apple Watch?

a developer named let's see, where is his name? All right? Well, I don't have his name, but a developer came up with a app called Activity Stats, and it is super simple. All it does is show you your lifetime totals of all the fitness things you've done on your Apple Watch.

So it just adds it all up, so you can see how many calories you've burned, how much time you spent exercising, how many steps you've walked, how much you've walked and run distance, total swimming, cycling, indoor cycling, elliptical workout time, and how many workouts you've done. This it's just kind of a fun thing if you just want to see, like, oh my gosh, I've walked one thousand miles in my Apple watch'd be kind.

can you use the there is no workout. I guess you could start a workout app on your phone.

Nike app. And now, of course all of that is moot because GPS is like super accurate to like the millimeter.

like working from home. But imagine you're, like, you know, you teach in front of a class every day, and then all of a sudden, they're like, oh, by the way, you need to like record yourself on a phone, set up a tripod, make sure you're in good light, make sure the audio sounds good. Then upload it to a website, get it to these kids, put it in Google classroom. Everything just got so much more complicated other than drive to work, get in front of your class and talk

to your kids and then collect papers. Right, It's it's like teachers are really good at that. They're not necessarily performing artists that know all this tech stuff of how to like upload and do all this stuff. And I'm not saying they can't figure it out. They have been. But I'm watching my kids and all these videos. These teachers have to learn how to you know, they've got to do like a whiteboard whatever, like they're drawing on exactly. It's it's a pain, and I'm sure that they all

think that, and so kat I feel your pain. Number One, the whole upload thing iPhone, the process of uploading a video to YouTube from the iOS platform is the biggest nightmare in the world. And I'll explain why because the app does not work in the background, so you can't just and I'm sure every teacher in America has figured this out the hard way. You can't just sit there, press upload on YouTube and then close out your iPhone. Guess what, when you come back to the YouTube app,

it's still sitting there. It says oh, one percent progress. Because the YouTube app has to be open and functioning and not working in the background to actually upload the video file. So my number one piece of advice is if you can upload from an Android, find it because guess what, it lets you upload in the background. You don't have to be sitting there babysitting your phone. That's

number one. Number two, these files that you're recording are probably huge, and that is the reason why they're taking even longer because even if you babysit your iPad, screen on lock, leave YouTube open, it probably still takes a

long time because we're all using so much internet. And the video is really a big video because if you're reading to them a twelve minute video, I mean, that's that's a long video, right, Yeah, So I would recommend using a smaller video quality when you record the video. You can do four eighty. Just go into the camera settings on the iPad or the iPhone and that is under the general settings and you can switch to a lower quality resolution. I'm not even sure if that does

the iPhone offer four eighty. I think it may not. Let me look in there. I'm going to go under camera and let's see, can you record in that terrible seven twenty is the lowest. So I would think that.

Believe me, I've seen so many of these videos. I feel so bad for these teachers because I'm just watching and I'm like, she's on her patio and you know, she's in her It's like you're trying to find a little spot to work in your house that you never really needed before. But continuing with the thought, I would say that's the number one. Record it at the lowest quality. Number two, I would export it in a third party

program to make it even smaller. The best program for this would be Adobe Premiere Rush, and you can export it to YouTube and you can choose the quality you want. So I would choose like the lowest possible quality, like four eighty, not lower than that, because you want your kids to actually be able to see your face. Like if you go lower like three sixty, it's gonna be I might just see like old you know, like a

tiny little like thumbnail video of you. Yeah, so I go four eighty or seven twenty, even seven twenty with some good compression will still be way better. And then you can upload it to YouTube that way. But that's the advice. It's just these video files. A twelve minute video file is pretty big. That's that's the large file. You know, it could be a gigabyte, you know, it could be more than that.

of time built into the day. Right You're you're not teachers are not sitting there drilling students for eight hours. You know, Like here's what you need to know. That's not what's happening at school. You know, there's there's creative time, there's played time, there's outdoor time, there's solo time.

He uses the camera on your iPhone. You have to have a newer iPhone with true depth, but it kind of sees you in three D and it corrects you as you do it. What did you think of this workout? It was like a five to seven minute workout?

of like an automated version of that. Like I was doing like a I was doing a thing where I was doing a plank and then I kind of put my arm up, you know, to the sky like that, and the little trainer was like, make sure that you look up at your arm when you're putting it up to the sky like so instead of just going like this, I you know, knew to now look up, which I thought was a great I would have never gotten that if I was doing an audio guided workout or just

a peloton you know, where you're just watching the person on the screen. So it is really fascinating. The app is called Onyx. It's free to start. There is premium stuff which costs fifteen bucks a month, But if you want to just get started, I would I would download it and check it out. It is a very cool take on the workout, and the workouts are only I only found five to seven minute workouts in there, but they were very, very efficient.

a newer iPhone. You have to have an iPhone ten and up to get that. The counting and all the virtual stuff. That's that's the phone you need for that. Can you believe that's gonna do it? For this episode of the show. If you'd like to submit a question for me, all you have to do is go to rich on Tech dot tv hit that email button at the bottom of the page. Also, we would love it if you would rate and review this podcast to help

other people discover it. Just go to rate this podcast dot com slash rich on Tech producer Megan Where can folks find you on social media?