The following program is produced by the tech Talk Radio Network. Hey, good by the science guy here whatever I am listening to the radio, especially tech talk Radio. Welcome to another episode of tech Talk Radio. I'm Andy Taylor, I'm Sean de Weird. I am so glad that you were able to get in on this show considering how busy you are.
Yes, it's graduation season, right, so the semesters wrapped up, sports are over, We're trying. We're about to jam in twenty plus college different graduations on campus this weekend. So it's gonna be wild.
So are you thinking about are you thinking about taking a vacation like once this is all done graduation comes up, or.
Yeah, so we go. We always go camping for memortally weekend, which we're gonna we talked about pre show. I've got some little tips and tricks for some new battery stuff that I got from my camper. This summer, we are going up to the lake, you know, like my wife's family's trip every year we go to the Upper pennsul of Michigan.
Kind of humid this time of year. Does it get a little human Not that bad?
No, I mean it's it's Michigan. I don't really know how to explain it. Not like the Salve where it's like ninety five percent humidi all time. Right, he'll be daymore against that humid. But it's the weather along the lake like Michigan is really nice.
Right.
Yeah, we're gonna get some time to travel in at least, but just until graduation. Man, it's it's been busy, busy, busy.
You did something this past weekend that I thought was actually pretty cool.
Yeah, past weekend, the University of Notre Dame hosts the fish Off National Chamber Music Society, the National Chamber Music Association competition every year and it brings students from all over the world at a senior level. So that's like grad students, college students, et cetera, and then juniors, which is like twelve to eighteen, and it's two day competition. It's it's a multiple day competition where there's that to
the semi finals and then the finals. We at starting Studios produce and direct the last two days of the competition, right, So I was the technical director and director for that. And on Saturday it was eleven and a half hours live music.
Eleven and a half Now.
I think there were twenty five groups.
You're streaming this live over the campus like close circuit television.
No, it's it's to their YouTube page.
Oh wow on YouTube? Kid, Was there any way to get metrics back to see hey, people are watching this or because that's always the part about I know.
What the live metrics were, but be good. I mean we got I don't know, I'd have to look at the metrics. I don't really pay attention to that stuff, I guess. But it's a it's a worldwide international competition.
Oh wow.
So I think I think the group that won was a string quartet from Juilliard. Wow. Yeah, I mean it's it's two days of probably some of the best chamber of music you'll hear in the setting at that level.
That was kind of cool because you do enjoy that music as I do as well. So like it wasn't anything you didn't like, Like if you didn't like country music and it was a country music thing, that would be rough.
Yeah. So, I mean some of the people that have done it in the past of it just like it's you know, like one of the other engineers last year, he just he doesn't really care for classical music. So he's just kind of like, it's I have to sit here and injury the show, and I don't just sit here to play solitaire or something on my fault, Right, So I got to pop in and I actually got to TD direct this one. It's great. I'm gonna give Andy the links he can put to the two pages
up there. The last day. I'll just put the last day to seven and a half hours or almost eight hours of content.
And people go in there and they could watch it. That's pretty cool.
Yeah, watch it and then and then you kind of get an idea of what fish Off is and if if you're inclined, you can donate to fish Off. It's a non profit and they support international music and it's a really incredible international music competition, right that is hosted here. It's up end. It's been here for like something fifty something years. You know what.
I always wonder though, and we've run up against this, and I wonder how that works with classical music because we have done you know where you have maybe a song in the background. I even shot a video once at the Oral Valley Country Club and the speakers were playing music outside and I got flagged by YouTube for it for copyright infringement because of the music that was playing over the speakers. I appealed it and they okayed it. They let it go. But how does a concert venue
on YouTube streaming? Do they get by the rights?
If I remember correctly, it has to do something with the music groups that they licensed it through. They got the light the rights to stream it because they're nonprofit. I'm sure there has something to do involve. But yeah, it was incredible. I mean, like I said, some of the most incredible and some of these kids are twelve to eighteen.
Years old, oh wow.
Because there's a junior division, and then there's a senior division, which senior division is I think eighteen to like college age students, so mid twenties. The group that won, so it ends up so there's two different groups. There's a string group and a win ensemble group, so like think like saxophones and horn horn things or just strings like cello, violin, based,
et cetera. And then they compete. They compete and then there's gold win gold medal winners in each category, so a gold gold medal strings and a gold medal wins and then those two compete for a grand prize. That Grand prize includes like a residency in Europe where they play and they travel around Europe and play, and it's a very prestigious competition, right, And.
It's great for the kids because they it's a love of music, which you know that they can't go wrong with that. That's really cool. And they're playing an instrument as well. Yeah, we'll put the links up on our blog if you want to check that out at blog dot tech talk dot com. A lot has happened in
the world of tech the last week. One of the things that I wanted to talk about last week before, just for Mother's Day, I thought was interesting because you know, we call you the wise Guy, Sean because generally, I mean, you're the one who introduced us to Why's when Wy's first came around, you said, hey, you guys got to check out these wise cameras. They're a security camera that is relatively inexpensive and very easy to use. And they they kept evolving and putting out more and more product
that was like different and good. But they ran an ad for Mother's Day to give mom the gift she'll she'll love. It was a high tech vacuum.
Yeah, I've seen It's not the first tech company to do something like that. It's just to stir up people are gonna post about ohla call terrible Satis, but it's just generating positive revenue for them.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a bit tacky. I think Caitlin would be upset if I got her a vacuum.
Yeah.
For Mother's Day, I got our tickets to go see Wicked.
Wicked the musical or the movie.
Yeah, the Wicked the musical is playing in Indy. Is is that the Broadway tourist coming through India in July? So I got Galen and her sister tickets to go see it.
Does she like the movie?
Oh yeah, she loved Wicked when it was on Broadway and back in the mid two thousands and and.
Well, I know that coming up next month they're gonna be showing Wicked again in the theaters, the original Wicked in the movie theaters. But the reason they want people to go is because it will be the unveiling of the trailer for the next part of Wicked. So it's kind of weird for those that don't know they put the movie out. It's a two parter, kind of like what they did with this newest Mission Impossible film, which is going to be out, but it's a two parter.
So you watched it and then people said they cried at the end of it, and now they're gonna go see it.
It's incredible. It's an incredible movie. I never see incredible show incredible. The movie and the show are incredible. I've not seen the live Broadway show. I have only seen the movie. Kalyn has. Kaitln has gone and seen it on Broadway and she saw when it was in Lansing and a couple of other places. She's seen it multiple times. But it's totally worth going and seeing and it's you know,
it's uh yeah, it's just a good show. Another wise note though, is about two months ago I got a survey from WYS kind of detailing do you want or would you use RTSP native on the camera, So those who aren't familiar with URTSP is it's a built in streaming platform that you can then pull in you know, from like VLC, LBS, et cetera, and stream live basically
live stream the image from the camera. You can then put that into your own your own recording system and record locally into your system and they kind of hinted at maybe well they were going to maybe charged for it, or if you if it was included in camplus that
kind of stuff. Well, they actually put out a actual public survey now this this past week, asking for more feedback on whether or not they would want RTSP because a lot of these other lower end, lower not lower end, but lower cost camera platforms are already including RTSP out of the box, which gives more flexibility because the the big bummer about WISE is that it's all cloud based
except for recording locally to the SD card. So if you want to view it on the app, or if you want to view it while you're away from your home, it all has to go to the cloud, all right.
So if you sean, if you have one of these WISE cameras and you have a you know, TF card that's in there, an SD card that's in the slot for it, but you don't pay for the monthly service to Wise, can you still watch video that's been triggered via a connection? You can't.
You can't watch them, you can't connect to it. You can't. If you don't pay for their subscription cost, you wouldn't be able to view it. On the app. When you're not at home on your Wi Fi, you can then view locally the local storage. When you're on your own network, you can view that. If you had a VPN, I'm sure you know.
You can get that way too.
But yeah, there's nothing stopping from just recording to the SD card. Now. They what I would recommend if you're getting into whys do you want to buy multi more than five or six cameras, Just pay for the cam Plus Unlimited, which is ninety nine dollars a year, and you get to subscribe to any number of cameras to
the camp plus platform. Oh really, Now they have they have other features cam wise monitoring, you know, basically like auto police calling, and there's a I've had just great success with just the cam Plus Unlimited, which is ninety nine bucks a year. I think I have eight cameras, but.
That also cover the doorbell because they have a wise doorbell as covers the doorbell.
Yeah, covers any of the cameras that can be subscribed to the camplus platform. So I like them. I had their two outdoor cameras, I take I take those away I travel because you can you can hot spot those and I just hotspot them to my phone and leave you know, when my phone's in the camper, I can leave it on and it will trigger me if there's this motion on it inside my camper. I could do time lapses with them, things like that. So I like their outdoor cameras too.
Would you say it's pretty important to have that camp plus service because if somebody was to come to a business late at night and they've got the Wise cameras and they drive up and you're they don't have that service and they steal the camera, then there there's that's it. That's you're not going to see. Basically maybe a screen shot and that's about it.
Yeah, I mean it's kind of up to if you're serious about doing security, you can't skimp. You gotta pay. I mean, it's just the nature of it, and that's why a lot of people are going to But again, a lot of the ones that offer POE power or the ability to do RTSP out of the box are a little bit more expensive. So I mean you're paying for what you get and a lot of people forget that.
And the quality is not too bad on those Wise cameras. It's really not.
Oh no, it's not. I mean I've had I have every almost almost every version of the cameras. I've got the version one, which I don't even have plugged anymore because it's just literally they say it's it is such a security risk on the first on the first Farmware version, you don't even want to plug it anymore. I have the version two, their version three pro, the version four, and then they went to some like o G camera.
They haven't really gone beyond the you know. Then they kind of added some different colors, and they added a doorbell, doorbell pro, some PTZ cameras, you know, a couple of those.
And I've had a lot of fun with cameras because some people will say, I don't want a camera in my house. I don't want a camera to do this. I don't want any kind you know of They say they think privacy, But it's the peace of mind when
you have it. When it's whether it be in the backyard, I'd be in the front on the doorbell over the garage, in the garage, just because that split second, when you get that notification if somebody breaks in to your home, that gives you the opportunity to check it, contact authorities,
if they're not automatically contacted. Some of the services will do that and have them come out and do what they need to do, and about if you didn't have that, then they have free rain and that makes it pretty nice. I'll tell you what I like is my recent purchase of the bird feeder. We talked about that last week from a company called Evergreen, and I have been having
so much fun with this. Originally I had it on top of a chimenea that's out in the backyard and if birds would kind of find it, it was under the tree. And when I decided it was a little windy that day, I moved it to the top of the jacuzzie, so we got a Jacuzie. It's got a Jacuzie cover run and I put it there. It's been NonStop to the point where birds are like they're eating a full bag
within three days, and it's been kind of cool. But the quality of the camera has been great and I don't pay an extra I don't pay the AI fee for it, which I may just do. But the AI feature will tell you what kind of bird it is, how often that bird visits. It can actually identify that bird, even give the bird a name, but I can see, Okay, that's that bird that keeps coming by. I can actually see it. And it's been a lot of fun to capture that. On the segment that's available on our website
right now, I actually include it. So we did the Fox eleven segment, but we didn't have footage. I have put that footage into the segment so you could see it. Actually, it's actually really cool. So again, it's totally worth the ninety nine bucks if you want to pay the AI. I think it's nine dollars a month for the service, but I don't have to. I just got the app.
It's connected to my home network and I get a notification on my phone or on the app, and it will just tell me, yeah, there's a bird there, and I can go look at it and watch them and yeah, it's a lot of fun.
I know. I know some people like to live stream theirs.
You haven't thought about that. I guess that would be cool, right. You get a lot of people that pop in and see it, go, there's that bird. It was cute because quails are they're really quails are like they've got an attitude. Because I hadn't filled the food, I was here at the radio station, and they were upset. They were actually trying to break the plexiglass that is on the front of the camera so they could get to some food that maybe was behind there that hadn't come out yet.
And I just thought that was pretty funny that you've seen the little attitudes and the birds because they're hungry. So yeah, if you want to find that check out, you'll find the link to Evergreen. And I got this one at Costco and again it was like ninety nine dollars on sale and it's a lot of fun. But having a good time with it the only downside to it. And I'm gonna have to build some kind of a platform that is away because the jacuzzi is kind of low to the ground. It's got a wide area. They're
very messy, the birds. But of course, one night, my camera at three in the morning caught a mouse, a little you know, little field mouse that was also trying to eat there. And so when you see those you suddenly go, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to I don't want it to attract mice and rats. It's going to But if you put it into an area where you don't if you have squirrels that could be a problem. Have this five seven nine rule. I would say, yeah, do that all right, Uh go
and camp it. I know you're gonna be doing that soon. You should be something a little while ago regarding battery power, which kind of spun my head a little because it's a new Is this a new system?
Yeah? I gotta grab it once second, all.
Right, So it's it's something like brand new. He showed me. I said, what the heck is that? It's a what kind of battery is this?
So it's a twelbo battery. It's like you would find in your car or a camper. It's just a new chemical format, right. So you have lead acid batteries, which is your lead acid plates and the chemical and it generates the reaction. And then you have lithium ion or a MG batteries. So this is a lithium iron phosphate battery. So life PO four like O four plus, it's twelve point eight folds, but it's your lot.
It gets.
It's just a better medical, better chemical structure for drawing, and better life expand, better charge cycles, better amp hours, better, you know, just overall better, just better, better, better, better, better.
Light, light, lighter. That looks pretty heavy.
Yeah, I mean it's still it's not light, but it's lighter than a lead acid battery of this size. And but a lot of people, you know, I like to research stuff that I buy. I won't glad will go down every rabbit hole finding every little detail about things when I buy it. Do you read I do? I read reviews. I read other yeah, reviews, web articles, et cetera. And what a lot of people forget is if you
have existing solar on your camper. So I have one hundred and ninety watt solar panel on the camper, I've got an additional two hundred watt panel here behind me. Then I'm gonna put on and put them put them in in in in cere in in parallel so that I can get the extra the extra wattage at the same voltage. A lot of people forget when you move battery chemical formats, so from lead acid to amg or to lithium iron phosphate, they require different voltage properties when
they charge, Oh, they require different components. Whether it's smart charging, whether it's deep cycle charging, whether it's there's just there's a lot of factors that go into it. So if you have a AMG battery in your camper and you're great, I'm gonna buy a lithium iron foss three battery. Gonn toss it in. It's not gonna destroy the battery, it's just not gonna charge it properly. Because AMG batteries charged at a different nominal voltage then with the motorn fosphate batteries,
they require different care when they're charging. So I have to I had to upgrade my solar controller, so I have I have the solar controller, so when the solar panels come in, it goes to a solar controller, takes in the I think, I think the think like twenty three volts that brites on, like twenty three volts coming out of the out of the solar panel at full bright. Well that's got to get controlled and reduced to the voltage needed to charge the battery. So that goes to
the solar controller. So that handles the d C to d C part of it, from the solar panel to the battery. Well, then you also have to get the A C to d C charging part of it. So when you're plugged into shore power, your AC voltage is coming in at one. Well, yeah, and then it's got to get reduced to whatever voltage you need for your soul, so for your battery. So I had to I have
to buy. I'm waiting for it to come in a new and basically a new entire breaker box for my camper that will allow it to be to have the proper circuitry in there to manage the lithiumnor fossil batteries. So I've got a little bit of work to upgrade. We took the camper out this a couple of weekends ago, and I kept the AMG set up in there because I was like, oh, I needed this extra piece. It didn't have time to get it. It didn't come in time.
So now I'm waiting. But all I'm told i'll be able to have I have one hundred amp hour battery. Currently I'm going to get another one. You know. It's one of those things where you're like, oh, this is a good deal. It was right before it was like right before the tariffs we're going to kick in, and I was like, oh, it's great. It's it's like just under four hundred bucks for this hundred one hundred damp
hour battery. I bought it right, well, like two days ago, I get an email saying here's our new two hundred damp battery for five sixty nine.
And I'm like, it's like always happens. Yeah, But what I'm going to.
Do is I will once I get the system in place, I will just get another one hundred damp hower battery, put them in parallel, get do double my storage, and then just ties in perfectly with the solar panel and the power and stuff.
So say say you go camping Sean and you park, you find the you know parking spot, you don't plug in somewhere, You've got battery, You've got the solar panels, and you want to watch maybe maybe a movie. It's late at night, listen to music. Uh do you have enough to run all night on something like this?
Yeah? So yeah, So using the AMG battery that it currently happened, we can charge all of our devices overnight using just the DC. There is an inverter it built there. I do have an inverter assigned way, so it will take the DC voltage and and basically transform it up to one hundred and twenty four AC. We don't need it, right, but you know it would if just watching the you know, just watching the TV or charging our devices, we'll get two days out of the battery with pretty with the
solo with A with a medium coverage solar panel. You know, you know, most times when you go camping, you're hoping to be parked in shades. You you're keep it cool, right, so you're hoping that when you're traveling or when the unit is sitting. Yeah, when you're I guess that when you're traveling or when you're driving, it'll be charging because you're mostly direct sull light when you're driving. But when you're camping, like where we go camping, it's usually you're
getting very broken sunlight. It'll still get decent voltage, but it's not going to keep you topped off if you're still using it. So we we supplement with a with A with a gas generator.
All right, So I'm wondering, Uh, you're gonna go on this camping trip. Have you done it yet? Because a lot of campers that I see that take the I ten through Tucson and the I nineteenth through Green Valley, I'm seeing a lot of these campers and r vs with the INSTA three sixty on top of it, have you been contemplating maybe doing something like that. I know, I believe GoPro has just come out with their own like three hundred and sixty three camera system as well, But have you been thinking about.
Yeah, GoPro has their Max camera.
Yes, that's it.
I don't I'm not a content creator.
Mm hmm.
I mean I like doing time lapses, right, I like doing the star photography, the long exposures and stuff. I have no interest in posting the time to edit that stuff. I mean, well, it's a cool concept, and I get it, like everybody's trying to be an influencer on everything they need and they want to report every little dy bitty p right right, I'm over here shooting polaroids and thirty
five millimeter film and that's what I want to do. Like, that's the stuff that I'm loving doing because I'll during our break, I'll go grab the poll rides. It took them with a camp as best we get.
Well, speaking of that, we do have to take a break. We come back. We have some listener questions. We got more news too, and something brand new that I would love to get my hands on when we come back. I'm Andy Taylor.
I'm trying toward find us on the web at tech talk radio dot com. We'll talk to you.
About and now back to tech talk radio. So we were talking about before the break about the inset three sixty, which is a device that you could put on is you might see motorcycle helmets with them, or motorcyclists or RV's cars and they put them on top and it gives a three hundred and sixty view of what it captures. Now, on one hand, and Sean, I don't know, we might be a little different on this. I look at it
as a security measure. That's why we have dash cams, and now we have dash cams at our rear facing apparently, and I'm trying to get my hands on when Cobra's got one that is three capturing from three different angles, so it captures from both sides, front and back. So that way, if you're driving and you get hit from the side, there's there's video of that, and that could be good in an insurance situation or something like that.
Into three sixties. Yeah, like you said, a lot of the influencers are posting the videos up there, but it could also be a security thing, and that's one of the things they've added to the brand new DGI Mavic Pro four. Yeah.
I was just looking at the specs.
It has three cameras utilizing that same kind of three hundred and sixty degree rotating gimbal for footage that can tilt roll and do what they they say is true vertical filming. So if your drone is going up or down, I've seen I saw footage once of a drone hitting it like a smoke stack, going down the smoke stack, which was pretty darn amazing. Yeah.
I mean you get the FPV drones. The guys apply those are nuts.
Yeah yeah.
But yeah, So the the Mavic four Pro, it's on sale, but not technically in the US.
There's only I.
Think two retailers have it. BH Photos is one of them, ye at AABA and B and H. Yeah, and it's subject to the thirty.
Percent tariff, so it's pricey. May thirteenth was the global launch, so a couple days ago. Right, They have no tactical US market release, nop.
They didn't even send the Mavic Pro for to any US reviewers. Yeah, nobody. Yeah.
Yeah, So the Mavic four Pro comes with the new one hundred megapixel Hostile Blod camera.
Uscile Blood Really wow, it's pretty amazing.
Paired with a forty eight megapixel telephoto with a seventy millimeter focal length and a fifty megapixel long telephoto with a focal length of one hundred and sixty eight milimeter. Oh man, so you've got quite the range there. There's also what and he was talking about the Infinity gible that gives three hundred and sixty degrees of rotation, allowing for better vertical shots. Right, six K sixty frame per second HDR wow on the main camera and four K sixty fps on all three elements.
So I will tell you because I have the three, the Mavic three Pro, and I really do love it. I mean, the quality of the video is great. I put it up in a thunderstorm, a lightning storm because we get monsoon season here, and it captured it risky. It probably was a little it was off of the distance, but it captured some great video. Not that I'm saying you should do that, but it captured some great video. But the problem with this is again going to be cost.
I saw the pricing, like if you want the full setup, it's gonna be somewhere around four grand all the way. Like that, you want everything, the retailers have it up for sale.
I'll see what BNH has it for. Basically, the camera plus the controller with the screen twenty seven hundred. The fly More combo which is the camera, the case, the controller, two intelligent Flay batteries thirty five hundred. Right, the Creator combo which looks like it's got internal storage, two batteries, controller fast charging. That's for almost five grand.
Wow. Now the other thing about it, it's similar to the three which gets what fifty almost fifty one minutes of battery life, which is great. And again here's the thing. If you if you go to Canada and you go to Mexico because you want to buy it, and you're able to get across with this and I don't even know how do they do do they tear a few when you're crossing. But they're saying that even if you do DG, I won't honor its limited warranty if you do that.
So, I mean, that's just the nature of the political climate right now. That's just the way the world market is right now.
Okay, So is there a drone that that could compete with DJI and be just as good on the market, that is in the US, made in the US. Yeah, I saw something a couple of days ago and I thought, okay, it was It was very clickbaity, you know, check out this new drone from the US that rivals the DJI product. And of course I didn't. I didn't click through. It just looked okay, yeah. Sure. DJI has been known for being one of the best. I'll tell you a funny story.
The other day, my neighbor asked me to move my car because she's putting her house on the market, and she thought, you know, the guy's going to come out and photograph it. Didn't want to have the car in the shot. So I said, yeah, no, no problem all. So then I came here to work and then uh, I reached out to Gloria and I said, hey, did that guy show up? And he goes, yeah, he's out there right now, and and I said, don't tell me he's doing a drone. She goes, yeah, he's got a drone.
So she I said, go out there take pictures, so she did. He had a little hell he had a little like landing pad that he put in the street, which I thought was cool. He must have his part one O seven, which you know you have to do if he's charging for it. But yeah, he put his his It was a Maverick three, put it in the air and got some great shots. From what I understand a quick a quick Google food.
It looks like there are some US companies that have skidio is one, I think that's right. One brink drones. A lot of these are for like firefighting, agricultural agricultural stuff, so really not much for outside of like I mean, what DGI offers.
Right, I have seen one that Customs of Border Protection use that was huge. It wasn't DJI enormous. It was seriously it was about the size of a cabin of a vehicle, you know, from front to back. And it had these weird slots on the top of them. And when I asked the agent, I said, what is that for? Is it batteries? Just pop keep popping the batteries in so they can have They had probably a spot for about fifteen batteries that they could put in there and get longer flight time.
A lot of space to cover along the border.
Yeah, they were huge, so anyway, if you only get more info about it, you go to Dji's website and find out.
Now it doesn't mean not on their website.
It's not even on their website yet, you can't.
It's not even on their website right now, I cannot. I was looking for it because you mentioned it was open. Right there's PC mag has an article. I mean, but there's it is not on their website.
And they might be blocked because because of location.
They're like, if you google it, you can get to uh a website. You know, you get to the website the links and it came to a four or four page So I don't don't see it on their website at all.
Right now, I would I would want to test a VPN, do a VPN into Canada and then see if it comes up. I kind of wonder if that would be right.
Now, here's a Google Mavic four specs. I go to it four a four page.
Fil right unless people are crashing it because they want to they want to order it, maybe thats all right. We got a listener question in from Rick in Celwite. I thought we'd tried go go ahead and cover one of these. It says, Hey, all, well, Justin and Matt and slicker out. But hey, y'all love listening to your show, and I've been thinking I really want to learn more about the basics of technology. So I told my friend about this and he said, just watch YouTube videos. Wouldn't
it be better to take a class? Your thoughts from Rick and Celidia.
You need to narrow the scope a little.
When you when you say technology, a.
Lot of technology up there. What you need to kind of pick a focus? What niche part of technology? Do you want to get to your cameras, drunes, computers, cars, cameras, that's true, videos, solar panels, batteries, wow.
Putting together? Does he maybe want to put them together?
Do you want to get into like technologly because there's a ton of technology and like h VAC, right you want to go program your furnace or you know, it's like there's so technology is such a broad term. But YouTube is not a bad place to start. No, extron Academy, you dot me those tens of places too where you can actually if you if if you're more of a book learner, like you want to read articles and take tests and stuff like that instead of just watching somebody
else explain it to you. You got me Academy code. Uh, there's a couple of other websites if you know you too.
Do you remember? Do you remember what we had? Do you remember what we had?
We had?
I mean, YouTube really wasn't around when I got started.
Encyclopedia Britannica.
No, the Dummies books. You know that you had bos for Dummies, Windows for Dummies, it computers, computers for dummies. I think did you ever see Fast Times of rich One High?
Long time?
Okay, so here's the story. A lot of people don't know this, but in the movie Fast Times of Richmond High, you might remember the guy who worked in the movie theater that liked Stacy and he was kind of a nerdy character. He is the guy, Andy Rathbone, that wrote The Dummies, a couple of the Dummies books. But Andy was the inspiration for that character because he went to that school and talked with the writer of that film, the director of that film, and that's where he became
inspiration for Mark Rattner, that character. And I've always thought that was kind of funny. That's based on the guy. That's like something you'd read on the IMDb trivia. Yeah, I've always known it. We've had Andy Rathbone on this show before years ago, but yeah, and it was always fun to kind of bring that up. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I would tell Rick, like, find it. If you're interested in technology, find something that piques your interests, like, oh, I want to learn more about how to play with the stream deck and how to integrate it into my computer, or I want to repair my old Xbox or you know, things like that. There are tons of great guides for pretty much anything you can think about.
All right, here's one I was thinking, And tell me what do you think about this one? Sean. I got into it by one day, you know, getting a computer and tearing it apart and then putting it back together. And then that was with the Apple, and then I ended up moving towards the two eighty six and then the three eighty six. I'm actually this is kind of
funny too. I rented a three eighty six, an old laser computer from rent to Center when they used to rent PCs, and I rented this thing and I would like take it apart, and I would like, Okay, this is how it works, this is memory, this is you know you. I would learn all the basic aspects of it. I don't know, what do you think the idea, depending on your budget is maybe Rick's idea. And if this you know anybody else that's thinking about doing this is the thought, maybe build your own system.
And yeah, if you're if you're if you're interested in computers, like, if you're interested in doing computer stuff, go to like watch a couple of YouTube videos on people that are doing it. M HM, budget out what you want. Go to PC part picker, put your budget in there and buy some pieces of components. And doesn't it to be a blazing fast computer doesn't even have a dedicated graphics card.
Like get the motherboard, get the process or get the RAM, get the case, slap it all together, put the powers play they're plug things in and then push the power button and it doesn't turn on because you forgot to turn the power supply switch on. Don't know that from personal experience. But yeah, so, I mean it's technology is as much as you put into it is what you're going to get out of it.
Yeah. Absolutely, Like Andy said.
He started with, you know, with Mac computers and taking computers apart. My journey with technology started with more with actually working on cars and dirt bikes with my dad fixing cars. Technology, and it's all technology. It's just analog, it's just different mechanical technology. Then I got into photography and started taking cameras apart, and then I got into
digital video. I did some offset press printing in high school, and then when I got into college, then I really kind of got into the computer side of things, where I had to start editing on computers and doing that kind of stuff, and didn't really even build my own my own computer until like twenty ten.
Oh wow, that's when I first really.
Built my That's that's when I bought and purchased my own computer, my own parts, and built my own computer. Right now. My mom was super into computers, and I helped her put the computers together and stuff, and you know, she we had a bunch of you know, I learned how to do doss and that kind of stuff, and I had friends that were super into computers in high school. But I never built my own until and then once and now it's you know, that's kind.
Of you I kind of missed the doss days. I mean, I missed the commands. I miss you know, the dos stuff. And then you know, Microsoft will have our os do it for you.
And yeah, I mean there's something to be said about being able to understand how the computer thinks. Okay, how do I change the directory? How do I load from the A drive? How do I load? How do I load it to RAM? And how do I load it? You know, there's a fundamental understanding of how that works. Right, you don't get now because it's just the computer's doing
it all break the operating systms doing it. But yeah, I mean, if if you really want a deep dive into computers work, and you really want to go crazy and work in that kind of an environment, put Linux on it.
They go, oh there you go, yeah, maybe you already understand Windows and that Linux would be a whole And that's actually rather satisfying when you do a litic and like you said, maybe build a computer system and then install Linux instead of Windows and take it.
Take an older laptop, something that's maybe got an older I five or an older AMD processor in it that you're like, oh, this computer is so slow. Put Linux on it, yeah, and tell me how it runs.
Yeah, and then figure out which.
You can You can revive so many older system you can revive so many older systems with Linux.
Yeah, that's so true because.
They don't have there. I mean, there's obviously minimum restrictions for like the guy the web, you know, the Guy's and stuff like that, but Linux is very low weight in terms of resource management.
All right, we got to take we got to take another break. We come back. I was able to make a decision when it comes to software and upgrading, what is going to be the way to go. And it's all because I took a look at one of the products that they offer. So tell you more about that when we come back. I'm Andy Taylor, I'm Seanda Weird.
Find us on Facebook at Facebook dot com tech Talkers.
We'll be right back now back to tech talk Radio. Welcome back to tech talk Radio. If you have a question for the show, you can get it to us anytime just by emailing us tech Guys T E. C. H. G U y s at tech talk radio dot com. We may use it on the show. I want to remind you too to follow us on YouTube. Subscribe to
our channel. There you can check out all the videos we have from our TV segments to extra videos we do kind of covering the products that we've taken a look at and again that's tech Talk Radio up on YouTube. You can find us there. And speaking of question for the show, Sean, you've got one.
I know this one is in Arizona, and it's not I'm not I know.
This is too soon. It's not gonna get you caught this time. Right, I'm gonna get me.
Called this time. This one is from Laura in Tucson.
All right.
I'm not always near a computer, and sometimes I will see a story on my phone that I want to copy the text. Is there a simple way to do that? If I take a picture of the text.
Oh, okay, most most newer phones.
I could do this with my iPhone thirteen. If I take a picture of text, or if I take a screenshot in my photo library, I can just highlight the text like I want on my keyboard and copy it.
Yeah. I know. If you use Google Photos photos dot Google dot com, if you whether you have an iPhone or you know an Android device. I have my my pixel Pixel nine. I can just go into Google Photos, look at that photo that maybe I've taken, whether it be a picture off a story in the newspaper or screen capture. Maybe I've done that with screencaps before and using the lens, the Google lens feature, I can highlight the text and then copy it to word pad or notepad or word or whatever. You know.
I screen I screenshot tons of stuff on my phone.
All the time.
Articles. Weblinks. Oh that's a cool picture, or that's a cool thing I want to remember, or oh I need to remember how to do that, you know, two days from now, or I just screenshot it. It's two It's the top button and the right you know, the top left button and the right button on my click screenshot.
Yeah, I AGLORI I can.
I can crop it, I can edit it, I can highlight it. So on my iPhone, I know that Android or Google pixel like very similar process to do. And if you just want to copy it, you should just be able to on any web page on your phone, just press it hold, highlight the text within the article itself, copy the text into a note, into an e mail, to a text message.
Yeah. With that. The other day she saw a recipe online, so she was able to screencap, you know, screen cap it. Then she said can you print this for me? And I said, oh, what are you gonna do with it? She's well I want to. I want to, you know, put it in my thing of recipes. And I said, oh, if we do this, So I showed her basically copying the text and all that, and she said, yeah, I'm not going to do that. She said, it's too much work.
Also, you think about so if you want to revisit it later and it's run a weblink. They just sink your book barks between your mobile and your Chrome. Like, if you have Chrome, you can sink. You can sink book barks between mobile and desktop.
Yeah, my Mac does it all the time.
If I'm sitting at my desktop right and I had my phone open and I'm browsing, like, it'll pop up an icon and I can just click on it on my Mac and it'll pop up that into my Mac.
A lot of people don't know about that. That's good.
It's very easy to if you save a bookmark on your phone and then if your bookmarks are sync, go to your computer and write continue off where you left off.
So all right, So there's a story that has been out there about aiars technica. Actually the story and I read it and it just made me shake my head. It was something that I think we're going to see more and more of the new owners of VPN provider VPN Secure have been canceling lifetime subscriptions. So you know, you sign up with the service, you pay X amount
of dollars and you've got a lifetime subscription. The owners apparently told customers they didn't even know about the lifetime subscriptions when they bought the company, and that there's no way that they can honor those purchases. And I don't know, you know, at some point, we could see attorney generals, we could see lawsuits being filed, because when somebody buys something in perpetuity, or they buy a lifetime license, they should that is what they should get.
Right in a a world driven by software as a service, you were going to see this so much more. I get it from a from a bottom line standpoint. If you if I like I have plex, I bought like plex pass, right, this is another good example like it. Plex Pass did this where they're like, hey, FYI were raising our price on our lifetime subscriptions to plex pass.
You've already paid people.
If you don't buy it before this date, it's going to go up by a significant amount of money. And so a lot of people bought it, or you know, I bought my like eight years ago and it's been fantastic, right, But if Plex have decided to just nuke my lifetime subscription, I would just go to someone else, like I would, I would refuse to go back to Plex after that, claiming to not know they existed. That's just shoddy business management. But you saw stuff like this with Broadcom taking over VMware.
Oh that's right, that just happened recently too.
Where Broadcom came in and said we bought VMware. We're raising the price by three thousand percent, and companies were like, what what do you mean? Well, yeah, if you want to keep your product past your current contract, you're gonna have to pony up three thousand percent more money. And people lost their mines because you don't think how much content lives on virtual machines in the cloud. It's a lot.
Well, especially now where we're seeing Windows eleven coming around for the consumer or even business user Windows eleven coming around, it could cause computers that needed to be reinstalled. Maybe they can update a computer so they have to reinstall software. Suddenly their software won't install because well, they've taken down activation servers we saw that with Adobe. It's what I've been going through. I used the Adobe Master Suite of five,
which has been phenomenal. I got it back in twenty twelve and I love it Photoshop Adobe Edition Premiere Pro, and I've mastered how to use it after effects and it's been great. But now go into Windows eleven. I wanted to install it on the new eleven system I bought, and it won't let me install it because their registration servers are not accepting any more registrations because they want
everybody software and services. And I'll tell you, Sean, I was really upset about it, and I started thinking, Okay, I'm gonna have to look for other means. I do know that Adobe right now is doing their creative cloud licenses at are reduced price. So basically, if you want everything in their software pool, it will cost you about fifty bucks a month, maybe even maybe fifty nine dollars a month. And I was ready to say forget it.
I started learning a different audio program, Render which was recommended no Reaper, which was recommended by Matt, and I've kind of mastered that one, but I've got to pay for a license a sixty five bucks and then I noticed my mixture that I have the MACI has a free license for pro Tools. So I went ahead and in Salt Pro Tools. And it took me about a week, but I've learned how to use it to do what I need to do for work. And I was ready to say, Okay, that's what I'm gonna end up doing.
I will still have I have the Master Suite on one system that I will just keep using even when everything goes Windows eleven and you know, on Windows ten. But then I found Firefly from Adobe, and that has changed almost everything in the way. I'm thinking it is worth it when you look at and Firefly is separate,
but you get the creative cloud. You're going to master all of the cool new tools that are a part of Premiere Pro, all the cool tools that are part of the new Photoshop audition, dream Weaver, if you use that. So many different parts of this. But you've got generative fill for Photoshop, generative extent for Premiere and now with Firefly, you could create images from text that you could drop
into videos. You know, I need an angry sun and the boom it pops up an angry sun, or I need a hit one of the things they had on their gallery a hippopotamus that is wearing a watermelon that is in the water. It's a video and it's pretty amazing stuff. It's AI. Of course, they're doing it separately outside of the Adobe Creative Cloud. So when you pay for your credit, you get credits. You'll pay nine dollars in ninety nine cents a month and you'll get I
believe it's two thousand credits. You could pay more, or you can pay all the way up to two hundred bucks a month, depending on how you're going to be using this, Like I could imagine that, you know, graphics design shops of film houses, they're all going to be,
you know, probably delving into Firefly a little more. But that's what kind of changed my mind that and maybe realize that, yes, I've been using the Creative Suite for almost ten years, but I have lost the innovation that the company has done with some of the changes they've made with version six and now with the Creative Cloud. So it looks like I'm probably gonna have to bite a little of the a little of that and go with the next version of Creative Cloud. So that's I
think that's the way I'm going. But if you get a chance take a look at Firefly. Just go to Adobe dot com. I believe you can set up a free count if you don't have one already, and then they'll let you generate two of them and it might be pretty amazing for you to see.
Yeah, I mean, I don't. I haven't used I don't know. I haven't used a whole lot of the Adobe Sweet outside of light Room and Photoshop Right Premiere for some basic editing. I mostly use Final Cut, Final Cut pro YEA for my video editing, or Da Vinci Resolved for color grading. So I don't. I don't have a need for I don't have a need for it. To get to pay the license, I also with my with my edu with the Notre Dame. Oh I get I get the student I get access to the suite through the university.
So I was I originally was paying for the photography bundle, which was like twenty eight dollars a month I think, which came with Photoshop, Lightroom, light Let Classic and you know, like the couple gigs of storage on the cloud. But yeah,
I don't. I don't have experience with the Firefly AI generative stuff Hey, you know I've I took part of the I took part in the chat GPT pilot with the university, and I still use chat GPT on almost a daily basis at with with at work doing basic things like what I use it for primarily is searching for search and searching manuals, like hey, I have this specific close captioning encoder and I need to see the seven to eight captions as open.
Captions right right, boom, here it is, here's the manual.
Here's what you need. I don't have to go find the manual. It finds the page right. It's great. That's what I use it for. I use it for troubleshooting, time saving, right and things like that.
But all right, well listen, we got to take another quick break. We come back with more of tech Talk Radio if you get a chance to check that one out though Adobe dot com. I'm Andy Taylor, I'm.
Sean de Weird.
Follow us on x at tech talk Radio and now Factor tech talk Radio.
So everybody knows that I love flashlights, like everyday carry a flashlight a software in EC three pro, and I decided to make Max his first lash light.
Now how old is Max three three okay, good.
Everybody that was born in the eighties had this flashlight growing up.
Play school. Look at this.
It is the play school try color flashlight, all right, now, this is this is the special translucent translucent one I had. This. This is not the one I had growing up. That one is long gone. They have multiple solid colored versions. But it came with a Measley. I don't even remember what watch the light bulb was, right, So I said, you know what, I'm gonna put an led in there?
An led So I gutted it right.
And I took a I don't even remember what the battery size is. It's the you know the sixteen eighty forty five, sixteen eighty forty five whatever the battery size, took the battery holder out, which was which was the two D cells or two C solid batteries. Yeah, so just just over three volts of power. Those batteries put out three point seven vaults. I got a three point seven volt ten watt LED, wired it all into the switch and Bengo bright.
That's brighter than that light has ever been. Right, Brier's last event.
It's still got the it's still got the color. I can still do greed. I can still do red. It's awesome. I hear. I'll even turn off the lights for you guys see on the video and in the video it's bright. It lights up my room and it's cool.
I Max, did you find step by steps online or you just I just.
I just hack and toshed it myself. I found some I found some people that had done it with just dropping in like a flashlight right like pouring out the middle. But yeah, I just kind of went on my own. And it's also charge rechargeable USBC.
You actually built that as a part of it. That is pretty amazing.
Yeah, I mean this battery. I'm I probably geta to charge it once before it gets destroyed by Max, I mean. But yeah, so it's.
We'll put video up on the website too. You send me some really cool video on that, and you could change the colors the whole bit. Ye.
Yeah, it's using the existing switch. I added some wiring to it because some of it was broken when I got it, because I bought out the ar chanl for two dollars. But uh yeah, so this is this is one project for me to do and uh yeah.
Check it out blog dot tech talk radio dot com that wraps up this week's Tech Talk Radio. I'm Andy Taylor, I'm Shonda Weird, and this is my ghost story. It's kind of that's kind of scary, yeah,