The following program is produced by the tech Talk Radio Network.
All Right, people, take out your notebooks and pencils and frive roles. You're listening to the tech Talk Radio with true geeks. And by the way, I'm the insider and I'm a geek too.
Welcome to this week's episode of tech Talk Radio. I'm Andy Taylor, I'm Sean dea Weird, and it is good to see you. How you doing good?
Yes, spent a week. Yeah, it's spent a week. And you know, we're getting closer to Christmas and I keep buying myself present.
That's the hard thing too. You're you're sitting there thinking, I want to get something for somebody in the Oh. Yeah, you know.
I Telkaitlin because you know, the last episode we talked about how I bought the Analog three D. I asked her. I was like, can I buy myself a Christmas President? And when she asked me, like, what is it? Oh, it's a it's a console that will play my old and Tennessee's four games, right, And she got kind of bummed because then she then told me what she had already gotten me, which was a pocket like a handheld version which will play a lot of the old classic games.
Oh I think I've seen those. Yeah, they looked pretty good.
Yeah, I felt kind of bad, but I didn't tell her how much it costs though, so.
Oh you kind of kept battle.
No, so I did get it and it's awesome.
Yeah all right, So now what is the name of this? So, because let's face it, sean the nostalgia that we're seeing now of games, and you think about it, you go, oh, yeah, that was so much fun to play and I love that, And then you think, wait, that came out forty thirty, twenty years ago, but the nostalgia factor is still good and they're still great gaming that's available.
So the Tendo sixty four came out in nineteen ninety six, so thirty years ago. So I was talking to a friend of mine last night. I was like, man, this is just taking me back twenty years to when we used to play these in our bay, you know, in the base entry snow days, and goes, dude, that wasn't twenty years ago. I was like, wait, what, Oh yeah, it was almost thirty years ago, right, wow. So it's crazy to think that gaming has been a part of my life for that long. But you know, I started
playing on original Nintendo. My mom played a lot of Zelda when I was growing up and drew her own maps. Wow, that kind of got my start there. And you know, then we bought a Nintendo, you know, a Nintendo Super Nintendo, and then a PlayStation, and then we kind of verged away from the sixty four ward. We kind of branched off with the PlayStation side of things into the Xbox and stuff. And I didn't get into sixty four gaming
because my cousin had one. It cut my friends had them, but I really wasn't into sixty four gaming then, it mostly just by proxy with my friends. I picked one up a handful of years ago and started playing the old classics again. And then with the introduction of the Nintendo Switch Online, you could buy the subscription for the year and play game Boy games and Nintendo games and sixty four games, GameCube games, all that stuff on Nintendo Online.
But it's only if you have an active Internet connection, right when, don't you really realistically.
These days nowadays?
Yeah, So I bought an original sixty four console, fixed it up, made it work, and was playing on that for a while. Shelved it a decade ago. And then about a year ago, I saw the Analog three D. That's what it's called, called the Analog three D. Analog dot Co is the website. They make an Analog pocket which plays Gameboy games and stuff. But then they announced they were making a Nintendo sixty four. It runs it all hardware based, and I was like, you know, I
didn't need it. I had my sixty four. If I wanted to play it, I didn't really wasn't into it, like I wasn't super into ritual gaming again, like I was playing current games and Pat passed. And then I saw that they were restocking, like I was just looking it up because I was curious about it, and they happened to be restocking the next morning. So I was like, this is the can't be a coincidence that I thought about it and then it.
Happened since yeah, yeah.
So then I said an alarm. I talked to Caitlin that night and then I bought it the next morning it shipped. I think I got it early December. I think like the third or fourth of December.
Yeah, we had talked about it and you hadn't received it yet.
Right then, and in that time I had dug out my controllers, try and I couldn't find any of my games. Still, you still couldn't.
Find any of them.
No, I don't know. I don't there somebody has them. I'm trying to figure out if a friend has them, if they got put in a box when I moved, and I don't know they're missing. I have some manuals, I got the controllers. I had the actual sixty four, just not the game, so they're somewhere. So I started I started paniccking because I was like, I'm gonna get this thing and I'm gonna spend all this money and games to play.
Yeah, there's no like games preloaded on it, like two or three.
You can't load ROMs on it. It's not like there's no way to play games except if you have the physical cards. I'm not gonna tell anybody where I bought them, but I started scrounging the internet and ended up buying I bought five total games now right. I bought GoldenEye, Super Mario sixty four, Perfect Dark, Mario Kart, and Operative Time.
Oh wow, those are all great games.
Yeah, and the one that I want to talk about, And I have a question for the collector I'm not a collector, right, I play games, I don't collect them, but this one stirred a little bit of the collector bug in me, and I don't know what to do. On an auction site that I was on, I found a perfect dark box and that's all it said. It didn't really say if there was a cart in it or anything.
Cardboard.
Yes, I might have been buying the box. It's like on faith. I just said, you know what, I'm sure it's just a mislabeling. I'm sure it's got a card in it. Otherwise it would say just to the box. So I got it.
Yeah, all right, we're gonna give it a give us a view of it.
It's in the box.
It is in the box though, so yeah, wow, that's the original box.
That's like the original box. So I opened it right, Yeah, the manuals are still in there.
Oh cool.
It is still physically sealed in the box by the cardboard. It has not been opened.
Oh man. So now you're wondering, should this for dirt cheat? Really?
I don't know if I just happened to find the auction at the right time or what. But I could sell this for three times what I paid.
For really, Wow, I'm not going to Well have you been like fighting with yourself trying to decide.
I really have? It's like closed in box, it's worth more money. It's put the carts in there, and it looks so clean.
That's gonna be a tough one because you probably couldn't buy it as cheap for a second one.
But like the perforated pieces of the cardboard haven't been pulled out. I don't know what to do.
Yeah, maybe some people who watching this could share their thoughts, should Sean, crack the case and open it.
You know, this has sparked a little bit of nostalgia. I mean I've been on a retro kick the last six months and I've been playing games that I played when I was a kid. A lot of Diablo, a lot of like hocus Pocus, you know, Doom, Yeah. Wolf
was all those games that I played growing up. And I think that's what drove me to want to get this, because it's like, you know, I want to play some of those classic games because like the gaming world kind of stinks right now where it's like you don't own anything, it's all licensed. You have to be online all the time. So I got the games I started buying, the games I started finding him, spent some of my my own my saving like just money that I had saved up
just for by four whatever I wanted to get. And I think I'm good with those five games right now, right right, those five games, with the games that I grew up playing. There's a couple other games that are way too expensive for me to get that are very popular that I also played, but I'm not spending one hundred dollars or more for a cart at this point.
Wow, for some of those and how much how much were like when the original price in some of these games when they came out. Just give people an idea.
Right, right, So they were still like back in the back in the mid nineties, they were still fifty bucks for these games. I mean, with inflation and stuff like the you know, it's probably I probably play a little bit more than what I would have paid back then. But yeah, you got to find them in good condition, right, You got to find them not beat up, not corroded, not fake, because there's a lot of like the more popular titles, there's a lot of fakes floating around.
Yeah, so I'm wondering, Sean, there's there's a website We've talked about it before, GOG that has a lot of games that maybe we played, And I don't know if they ported some of the games that we played on cartridge or whatever or these consoles to this, But I mean, is there a difference, Like, say, now with this device you've got that you're playing GoldenEye, which I got a chance to see some of the video when I was
totally blown away. Is there a difference playing it there on that original kind of kind of feel that console, then playing it on GOG.
They don't do console games. They mostly do PC games. You'd have to rohm or emulate console games like and there's a difference in playing the console the ROMs versus an actual console.
Yeah.
And some people are you know, puritans when it comes to that, they'll only play on the OG console. Some people don't care. I'm indifferent, Like, I'll play them on a ROM if I have to, if I need to or want to, Like playing them on Nintendo Switch Online, I don't think there's a difference playing it on Intend Switch Online versus playing on the anlog TWD. I really can't feel a difference. The quality I think maybe better
on this just because it's hardware based. It's not streaming, it's not from my switch, but it's still fun to play. So the other thing is I was a little disappointed in is apparently they did this with the with the analog pocket, which is like their game Boy version of their hardware game Boy version, is they released special editions. Oh so, I'm gonna show you a picture a D. All right, I can I can change this.
Here, okay, all right, showing us on the video.
Much like the hardware side of the industry, a lot of people mod they're in Nintendo sixty four's with colored shells analog three D. They're releasing eight different colors besides black or white. Right, and that came out two and a half weeks after I bought mine.
Oh man, now this is the poet I know, right.
I would have waited and tried to get a colored one because these are cool, like the lime green, the turquoise, the purple, the red, the yellow, those are really cool pieces.
So how does this happen with that? How would this hook up to your TV or monitor?
HD?
I oh nice, it's.
Straight in HD's I've got it. I've got hooked up to my computer. Right now, so I can show you it's just now. God, A'll capture card HDMI in HD I out two monitors I can see and captured if I want to. It works, it looks, it looks good, it feels good, it plays good. I'm using an original Control, original hardwired controller. It supports. It supports Bluetooth or wireless controllers. So if you have the eight bit DO controllers or you have now, it doesn't work with the Nintendo Switch Online.
Controllers like the ones I have for my switch don't work, so I can't connect those to my analog treaty, which is a bummer because I've got two sixty four controllers for my switch that I was expecting to be able to use with this, it doesn't support that. Now, with a blue Retro mod adapter, you could plug that in and then connect the switch the switch controllers to the mod which then physically plugs into the device.
Now, how do you get how do you get the games on this one? Because obviously with the then.
Yeah, let me let me show you. Let me switch back over to my camera view here.
All right, and you could watch this up on our YouTube page h or blog. You'll find you'll find it all there, uh as well if you want to see it now. This is the Analog three it's Analog three D is what they're called.
Analog three D. Yeah, but it's spelled Analog is spelled the UK version with an own and e okayke. And this is this is the box right, So it's got the four controller ports on the front. The cart goes slides in the just like it.
It looks just like yeah it does.
And it's got uh USB so you can plug your controllers in USB if you want to to charge them. Uh. The operating system and everything runs off of an SD car here on the back right, HDMI and USBC charging USBC C power.
So it's so cool. That is really neat. And how much that looks?
How much was that if you don't mind with shipping and everything. I think it was like just over three hundred.
All right, And then you got to be prepared if you don't have the games, whether you're going online like Sean has found somewhere, even Bookman's that's here in.
I mean, I went scoured all the stores around here, half priced books, discreplay game stores. I was actually kind of surprised. I went into a store here I hadn't been into and I was like, do you have any sixty four games? He goes, we don't do digital gaming here. I was like, Nintendo sixty four games, we don't do digital gaming here. I was like, he was kind of rude about it. I was, yeah, okay, thanks, I'm just gonna look around. I guess yeah, and I walked out.
Thrift stores actually can sometimes you can find a good find at a thrift store when it comes to that, Like White Elephant might even have them from time to time.
But yeah, I mean you kind of got to just get lucky at those places.
So yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh wow.
Yeah. So, like I said, I got, you know, GoldenEye, Mario sixty four, Zelda Ocreative Time, Mario Kart. And now for those listeners.
Who were thinking, okay, we're talking about these some older games. That means you know, eight bit, you know, blotchy blog, like maybe it doesn't have that good look. I don't know if you can fire up GoldenEye. Well, well we're on the video just to show you the video gameplay of this unit from Analog three D. Actually this looks really good, and if you remember.
This is so if you're watching the stream. Right, this is the old games still because it uses the RAM to store the saves, it doesn't have to store it with a battery. Save files are still on these games from whoever owned these previously.
Really, oh wow.
There's a complete Yeah, there's a complete game with almost every mission completed in here already because somebody whoever owned this game before. So I built a new one and was playing it. But so yeah, I was just playing. I just finished the level right before we were you know, we were talking. So right now I have to get the goldennikey and leave, and I got to photograph the
main video screen. So the gameplay is fun. I'm just playing off my screen, so it doesn't it probably doesn't look the best to me right now, but you're seeing a direct output of the capture card that.
Still looks pretty amazing. Now, pires Brosdon. Actually did he do the voice?
I guess there's no there's no voice.
No.
I mean there's some cut screens, but it's there's no oh real uh screens or anything. But the gameplay is really good. Yeah, he's gonna hit the alarm up.
Up, it's uh, it's it's James Bond stuff. So yeah, well back then, we probably not for the kids, you know, it was for the grown ups. But it's still fun to watch.
Yeah, this is like stuff that my parents probably didn't let it like it. That's probably why I didn't know it.
Now what you're playing with a controller, right, I'm a mouse. I'm a mouse keyboard guy, you know, And I guess I gotta I'd have to get used to that. Again. It's still pretty. It looks like it flows really well, not a lot of lag, I mean.
That's what I'm saying. Like the Analog three D was built on hardware and it's over clocked, so it actually plays some of the games at a at a better bit rate or a better processing speed, so they actually are smoother. Hey, I picked up the Goldenike.
Oh id that guy that's the that that he did that big pose in there when he Yeah, I remember that.
Yes, Boris, Boris, I gotta photog. I gotta photograph something and I'm not sure how to do.
Does this make you want to see the Golden Eye movie again? Because it follows the movie pretty close?
Right, It follows the movie almost to a t, right, so you actually play all the missions and stuff.
It's awesome pretty cool. It's so cool.
But yeah, so anyway, so that's that's pretty much the extent of what that is.
So all right, so can I ask how much was the Golden Eye game?
I think I paid twenty five bucks for it.
Well, that's not bad control.
There's the controllers original wired and sixty four controller atomic purple.
Now you had that though, still right, Yeah.
I bought another. I bought another one because I only have two. I want to have four. I only have two, so I bought a third one. This is my third one, right because I can't because I can't because I want to be able to have do four player games.
Right.
I had two wired ones and I have two Nintendo Switch Online sixty four controllers to play on my switch. I didn't know those weren't going to work with the analog three D, so that gave me my four. Right, So now I need to get two more or I got one, so I need one more wired one to be able to have four total controllers.
All right, So we've mentioned we mentioned you know, like the White Elephant. We mentioned you know, thrift stores. We had a good question from al this week who wanted to know some tips about buying a used computer. He's getting a new computer. It's gonna be a used computer. He told me the specs. I'll tell you one thing that made me say, yeah, get it. That's a good deal.
He wanted to get a high He wanted to get a gaming machine, not because he games, but because he believes that a gaming machine is going to have the highest quality graphics, the highest you know processing. You know it's gonna have it's gonna have good specs on it, so you're gonna be able to do stuff. And he said he doesn't game, but he just figured that the gaming system is gonna be pretty good. And he said
he was looking at this Dell system. I want to say it was a thirty eight to forty, might have been thirty four eighty. I'm going off my memory, but he was going through the specs. He said it was an I nine processor that was running Windows eleven Pro, so he didn't have to worry about that. He's got a Windows ten machine at home he's afraid to use, you know, rufous or it doesn't qualify for the upgrade. So he didn't want to lose anything on there. So
he's going to start fresh with this. Had a had two four had two two terabyte drives in it, right, So I thought, okay, that's good, that's pretty good. You know, they're not as they're not as you know M two's, which are great, they're SSDs. But then he said it had one hundred and twenty eight gigabytes of memory. And that's what got me because I said, right now, the
cost of memory is through the roof. If anybody has tried to buy memory sticks, they get online, they go, wait a minute, what happened to the cost of memory. It's crazy. This system he was going to be able to purchase for eight hundred dollars And I told him, I said, you know what, make sure boots up. But he said he wanted to know you know what're just some tips about buying a used computer.
Oh boy, that's a load of question.
Right.
So it's like, you want to inspect it yourself before you get it. You want to make sure it power's on, and you want to make sure it posts. If it has a hard drive in it, I would just take the hard drive out. I would just buy a new hard drive from what, just not even bother with it. I mean, unless they're really good solid state drives, you can run smart on them and see how long they've been on. No, many read rights they have because mechanical
drives specifically, they have a lifespan because they're mechanical. Solid state drives have a read write life. They actually can't. They actually have a specific amount of read rights they can do before they start to degree.
Yeah, you might. You might actually find that over time they'll start to the quality you just you know, you have little things that will happen and stuff like that, so you have to think about that.
So those things like you want to make sure it has a power supply that's going to be powerful enough to support any peripherals like graphics card or your processing power, your processor, any other PCI cards you may have in there. If you have an all one water pump or water cooler, you want to make sure it can support that. You're taking risks buying us used equipment like you just are. It's just there's nothing around getting around that. But you
can inspect for physical damage. You can expect for water damage, you can expect for corrosion, those sort of things. If you open up machine, if you open up a machine and a bunch of crumbs and dust and mouse caked for a mouse or you know it's cover caked in dust like that is a sign that somebody didn't take care of it, right. Yeah, So there are obvious signs to look out for, but more often people selling.
I'll tell you one one that I've found once. Take a look at the fans, especially if the graphics card and had a thirty I think you said had a thirty in it. Take a look at the fans. If if you were in a house that somebody smokes in and they had a computer, you're making that face. The fans become not only do they not maybe spin as much, but they get this brown krud that is on the fans, that that gets over everything, every on the motherboard, everything it gets.
I have cleaned computers for people's parents that have smoked their entire lives, and it is disgusting.
Yeah, it's gross.
It's gross.
It comes into like a yellowish brown kind of it's tar.
It's cleaning tar and nicotine, and it's gross cleaning a smoking computer or a computer that's been in a dirty environment where maybe there's wood smoke. Like I cleaned one that somebody had in their basement that had a woodstove in it, so it still had a lot of wood, like, oh, smoke smell to it and stuff kind of that kind of smoke to it.
But yeah, check the fans too on it.
Yeah, check the fans. Make sure they all spin and if you you can actually spin them with your hand freely and see if they if they feel like they're dragging. I mean, fans are cheap.
Yeah, you can get you can get new.
Fans for relatively inexpensive. So I wouldn't. I wouldn't make or break a deal on just a fan.
But I know I saw somebody went was doing a yard sale out here and they had an old CRT and they had a computer for sale, and I'm thinking it had to be probably Windows seven. Maybe I just.
Sold a ton of stuff at the yard sale. I got rid of a ton of old laptops and old MacBooks, and like I was selling them for dirt cheap.
Did you let people boot them up like it? Because I would make sure.
I put Yeah, I put Linux Mint, Oh we am on there and it said if you're ready to this is this is you can just turn it on and put your user and password in and go. You know, I would say max max if you put it in recovery mode. You can reimage and then you can let them as soon as you get to that first page. For a Mac, you just shut it off and then it boots up and like, yeah, I mean I I I sold video cards, I sold ram I sold all sorts of stuff. So I think my last year.
So I was thinking, I have a couple of old half nine thirty two's from Killer Master. I mean they're massive, These things are massive, and you know, I thought about selling them online because I don't use I go for the smaller computers now, you know, just they're they're much nicer. But shipping would kill me because they're super heavy. Yeah, so I thought maybe selling them, you know, at a guard sale in my but then I thought.
Somebody would pick it up for ten bucks.
Well, I'm just thinking, Now, take one of the old motherboards I have, install you know, Linux on it, put Minna and sell it as Hey, it's a working Linux computer. You want to get into Linux. This would be the way to go. Hmmm. That's actually you can be a good idea there. All right, we're gonna take quick break. We come back. We'll talk about maybe some holiday gift giving ideas of things we're going to be looking at coming up, and I know one you're going to be
really excited about. So we'll do that when we come back with more of Tech Talk Radio. I'm Andy Taylor, I'm Sean.
We're subscribing like to us on all the streaming platforms that we're on, Spotify, Spreaker, tech Talk Radio, YouTube, x, Facebook, you name it, find us there.
We'll be right back and now back to Tech Talk Radio. So I know one of the things that is a passion for Sean has been drones. We've talked about drones quite a bit. You got Dji, you get into three sixty with their devices, and there's a new one on the market that I started looking at and I thought this should be kind of fun to take a look at. It's called Anti Gravity. It's the Anti Gravity A one and I saw one of the launch videos on it
and I thought this would be kind of cool. So a couple of weeks ago, I said them an email saying, hey, I'd love to show this on the Fox eleven segments we do. It's always fun to get, you know, the news anchors to be able to fly the drones. The last time we looked at A drone was the one that I ended up buying was the Mavick. Which one do I have? I have the three of the four? Yeah, I think I have the three mini. And we flew
in the studio and it was a blast. Andrew Capasso was there at at Fox at the time flew it and then before we had done one and she became an ABC News reporter. Uh, and Kana wentworth and flew it into the building, into the ceiling. All I could say was there she goes. And that was it for that drone. So this new one, the Anti gravity A one, looked pretty good. And I was going to ask you, Sean, if you had looked at this one yet, because I know you like looking at this This is a great,
you know, kind of field for you. You love the drone stuff. But it looks like it could be kind of cool and not that pricey as well.
I have not looked at it. I knew it existed because we had talked about it before when they announced it isn't realized it was out yet.
Uh.
And it hasn't been out very long, right.
Yeah. They said that they're going to be sending one over so we can give it a flight.
And then yeah, yes, please, but this has a three it's got a three sixty four K camera on it, which was the top end round I remember, Yeah, yeah, I do three sixty. Let's look at the specs, right, Uh, it's it falls within with the flight battery falls under the two or fifty grand weight limit, which is the big one for a lot of places, because that prevents you from having to register with the FAA, which I think is a little ridiculous, but.
Yeah, I mean you don't have to go around.
Everybody's going to skirt around the regulations somehow because they want to get into the hands of consumers.
Now, is the rich regulation for fa like if it's above that weight classes that the one O seven or is that only if you want to make money doing it or you have to do both?
Right, you have to you have to register it at all, Like anybody has to register their drone if it's over two or fifty grams, right, So yeah, I'll have to look at clarification on this, but that's my understanding.
I know, if you want to make money with a drone, like, we've got some good guys out here that do some great work real estate photography that kind of thing, even weddings if you're if you're if you're a videographer and they hire you for your wedding and you decide, oh, I'm gonna put a drowne up in the air, you have to have a one o seven because you're you're putting it in as a part of the package. Yeah, So it looks like it.
Looks like, just from my quick greeting that the video recording on this is actually their own proprietary video format that you have to export through their anti amigret. Like you can't natively take it right off the memory card into your own editing platform.
Right, like you can with DJI, which is ye nice.
Before or an MLV, depends on how you have a set up. But hm, I mean it looks cool and it's not the FPV goggles. I mean they're all kind of the same if you look at them from a top like a wide view, right, they all fly, they all take video, right, Which why is one better than the other?
The three six stay idea.
It's not really to your experience and how easy it is to use and reliability, customer satisfaction kind of stuff, right. I would buy a dj I hands down, No, problem because I've I've I've got multiple I've flown, I've flown a bunch. I know they're gonna fly well. I know the I know the UI, I know the software, I know the hardware. I know I'm gonna get good quality with it. It's like that's why I would buy a GoPro again, right, because I know I'm going to get
good quality. So I can't go I don't think.
I don't think you could go wrong with GoPro if you're looking for an action camera at all.
But again, I don't know anti gravity. The only thing I can go based off is their their media coverage, their influencer, their you know, the people that have gotten them out and played with them and flown them. You've flown it, so I mean it could be good hands on them.
I really want to try this three sixty stuff, you know, and see how that how that can be put into an editing program, how you can generate something, you know. The last video I did was for the the Control Lined Model Club that flies their airplanes out here in Tucson, and that was a blast. That was a lot of fun. But this would give me even more capabilities, I think in the editing process. So some people don't edit the video, just keep it this whole under their video.
And yeah, I mean I'm not I have not been a content creator for a long time, right, I don't do a whole lot of content creation on my own anymore. And so it's like I don't have a need for a drone. I don't. So it's like I'm not the right person to target for this kind of stuff right now. I do like them, I do know a lot about them. I just don't have a I don't have a need for them. If I bought a drone, it'd be a waste of my money.
The technology has come a long way. I remember my Sun bought one and he brought it out here to a park and he flew it. We got five minutes flight time, So that's that's changed quite a bit. I get a lot more flight time with the DJI product. Indeed, that makes a great product. But we'll see what Anti Gravity puts together, and hopefully we'll get one in our hands. Then maybe after depending on Hong, we get to use it.
Maybe I could forward it over you and then you could take a spin with it and you know, shoot some video. It would be kind of cool. Also, we got to question in I thought this would be perfect for you. Art sent me a note the other day and he wants to know the best place to buy a Mac and he said, Costco, best Buy. Where should I go? And I thought about it. I said, I don't. I don't have a back.
Three places right, Three places right, Apple Direct? Okay, that's by Costco.
Those three are are good Apple.
I would buy it from Apple first, Costco, second, best Buy, third right, Apple Direct because you're just dealing with Apple directly. There's no middleman, right Costco because you're protected by all their awesome benefits as a member of Costco mm hm. And they have great deals on Max and macmini's and stuff, and you can go in and see them on display, just like you can't at the Apple store. Best Buy has been always been great, and Caitlin's bought hers there before.
They have a great display set up there. You're not gonna go wrong. I would avoid buying him on Amazon or other third party retailers online, though those three I would I would buy them from there, no problem Apple, Like I said, Apple, Costco, then best Buy. If you want it right now, Costco, you can walk out of the store with it.
You can walk Yeah, that's true. They have it ready to go.
You can do that at Apple too, but if you do it on Apple's website, you can order it and have it shipped to you. It's easier that way if you want to do it that way.
Now he has a MacBook, he has a MacBook Pro, and that's his wife wants. This is going to be a gift for his wife. So with a MacBook Pro, I don't think you should go with MacBook Air. Get her what you have if that's what she wants.
Oh, hold on, So don't discount them. The mac Airs, MacBook Airs, they're all. They're great. Right, If you get an M four Macair, it's gonna blow a early M one MacBook Pro or MacBook Pro M two out of the water.
A little better.
The M four chips great M five chips are even better. But like the leaps, the leaps from the M one chip to the M four chips have been significant, hm like like, way better than any other jump in any Intel version or rise in version. Like the leaps from the M chips have been fantastic, like if she's not doing any gaming, hard pressed to believe she's gonna be
doing any hardcore gaming. But if she's just web browsing, surfing the web, Netflix, whatever, a Mac Air, it's gonna be lighter, it's gonna have great battery life, it's gonna be slimmer, it's gonna be you know, you can get. It's just gonna be a better form fit form factor wise.
So if somebody is looking, then if they're looking at a MacBook Air, what would be the kind of top spot for that with the with the M five Do they have an M five?
I don't know if the M five MacBook Air exists yet, the M four does. Just take a look, I'm curious. Now it's to Apple's website.
Look look, yeah, he is us. She has used his MacBook Pro, and that MacBook Pro is going to be about two or three years old, I believe. So this would be a good reason maybe then to look at the MacBook Air. And she's she's more mobile, so that would also be another idea. Right there, it's it's going to buy.
Also, you have you have two options of thirteen inch and a fifteen inch, right, M four and so it's the M four, So there's no M five mac anything. I don't think right now. So let's say you wanted so the thirteen inch, you can get him starting at nine nine.
That's good. Yeah, if you want.
A fifteen inch, they start at eleven.
And software software for both they are going to be the same. Right for the MacBook.
Pro would be back OS twenty six, Tahoe, Right, but depending on how old his back book is. All right, any well, any any m Chip series will be We'll still support Tahoe. I think do you recommend how it might be the last version that doesn't support Intel?
Oh, now do you do you recommend somebody buying an extended warranty whether they buy it from Apple, Apple.
Apple Care, apple Care, apple Care, apple Care every time, all the time, apple Care.
Get Apple kind of.
So here's a good safety teep tip for everybody. You can probably hear in the background right now. The beeppt bepepp. It's the weekly test for my weather alert radio. So if you're in an area that gets your weather, buy yourself a Noah weather radio. It does a weekly test, it gives you provides alerts. So if you're hearing that in the background.
Yeah, weekly test, all right, cool? Cool, all right, So it's a good safety note there. I like that Noah radio. That's a good one, all right, So definitely apple Care, you get it.
Yeah, so so cool. Cool thing too is like I think this just came out earlier this year, earlier, earlier, twenty whatever year.
This is.
You can bundle your Apple Care devices under one Apple ID. So Apple Care costs me twenty nine ninety ninety a month, but it covers my watch, it covers my phone, it covers my Mac, my m for Mac Minie, all under the same Apple Care. So I don't have to have an apple Care for an apple Care subscription for that, an apple Care subscription for my watch, an apple Care
subscription for my phone. It's called apple Care one. It's I think it's up to four devices that require apple Care or that are able eligible for apple Care for one subscription cost which is great.
Now another for my phone.
I was paying for my watch and I didn't I didn't want to pay for the m Form Macvinie that I got, but it was eligible. And then I realized I could do this. I would. Here's what I figured it out. When I upgraded to the Tahoe Beta and screwed up my phone. It went to the Apple store, and because as I'm good about doing my backups, like they were like, oh you can now you have Apple Care,
it'll all help. We can replace your battery for apple Care. Oh, by the way, today we're like the day I went in, they launched this Apple one, apple Care one or whatever it's called. So look at if you have multiple devices, it's per Apple ID. So it's like the devices that are registered under my Apple ID are eligible. Kaitlin and I would have to have her own, et cetera. So but makes it cheap. It's cheaper and then I have more devices protected for the same cost.
Here's a good reason apple Care is such a good idea. If if you have something under AppleCare, and you have an iPhone and you drop it and you know, we got all like great cases, you know, whether you're get in an outer box or whatever, you drop it and there the screen cracks. I've seen people who.
Have just really want to remember what happened with my phone? Right, yeah, the day the day I got it, I didn't have a case yet because it hadn't come hadn't come in the mail. Oh no, set it on the edge of the bathroom sink. It work and it slipped off and hit the tile on the floor and shattered the bad glass. I hadn't had it twelve hours and it was the
day it was like four days after released. So I took it back and this caused a whole kerfluffle with my SIM card, right because I had actual physical sin in it. Because it was so new, they didn't have any repaired, repair able parts for them yet, right, so they had to give me a whole new phone like two days after it.
But if you didn't have Apple Care, you would oh.
I would have had to buy a ho new phone.
Wow, that's crazy.
Or pay or pay because if they didn't have the reparable parts then I was waiting. I'd have to ship it in. Because I had Apple Care, they were just like, yeah, well here's the new phone. Here you go. I was in and out in less than twenty minutes with a new phone because Apple Care.
Right now, I'm kind of wondering, have you ever tried the I Fix It kits on devices? Because I Fix It Will Will, We'll do kits if you break your phone and it's not warranty that you can do stuff. I got one for my iPad. It's still sitting there. I've never used it.
I've replaced screens. So when I worked at Fox, we had Apple phones for all the reporters. So you can only imagine they're not gentle with equipment, and they're out on the street all the time. They're on the road, they're traveling there, they're beating stuff up. We had a steady stream of I Fix it screens coming in for phones in my free time, which I didn't have much. It was please replace the screen.
There you go.
Now, that was before they that was the all aluminum backs, before they had glass on the front and the back. I don't know if I would risk trying to do a phone now right, but I have repaired old, older screens on phones from like an iPhone four and iPhone six whenever they stopped, whenever they before they started doing the back glass on the phones.
All right, we'll tell you what we got to take a quick break. We come back. We'll talk more tech with tech talk Radio. Make sure you check us out on our YouTube page. Subscribe if you will at tech talk Radio. I'm Andy Taylor, I'm Seanda Word.
Find us all the web tech talk radio dot com.
We'll be now back to tech talk Radio. So you can imagine that you order something you know from when you know, buy something you know on eBay, you get it in you're just hoping it's what it says it was going to be. But you can imagine if we're buying something from a big box store, you can go online to their websites and have something shipped to you.
And there was a story on Reddit recently about somebody that had purchased a high end graphics card and when they got that high end graphics card shipped to them via best Buy, they went to open it up and instead of that graphics card, there were four rocks, four rocks actually stone rocks there that were in place of that graphics card. And again he ordered it from best Buy, so he kind of has gone through the process saying, hey, you know, I kept this box was full of rocks apparently,
and again we're going based on a Reddit post. But then after some time he kept waiting for them to, you know, take care of this, he got a note saying they will not be replacing or refunding his twelve hundred dollars purchase after their investigation because there's no real proof to say that, well, we shipped you this and you open it up and know that there were rocks in it. So which leads to a really good point. I mean number one, that's that's shady as it is.
But whatever you're buying, when you're buying something on eBay, you're buying something on Amazon, you're buying something on best Buy, or any of the microcenter, whatever you're having good shipped to, you go ahead and set up opening it out of the package, a video do it. It's just for your safety, opening the package, taking it out, opening the box, show the label on the video. Member it's just for you, and opening it up, taking it out and showing what
it is. Because if you imagine if this person had videoed them the pay here's the package, it's sealed. Look at it's got my name on it. Open it up, Open it up, open up. There's rocks. There's no they're really very very hard to deny that that's what this guy got. But now he he he has no recourse in this case. I'm sure he does legally he will probably follow through.
I mean I would, yeah, I mean, you've you're seeing more and more of this, and it's not just best Buy. It's pretty pretty blatant on Amazon also, right, Yeah, somebody buys it ten whatever, A fifty ninety buys it, opens it up, carefully, reseals it, returns it, says I don't want it because they put up there, but they're keeping the original setting back rocks. Amazon brings it back and sees it. It's sealed. I'm sure it's not even touching
a human being. I'm sure it's just getting scanned by a bot and it gets kicked right back into the system's good inventory.
Yeah, so you're buying that in some cases, and.
That's you've you've been seeing more and more of that. I mean, obviously the Internet has made it so there's a lot more content available, a lot more people are available to show you the stuff that they get. But yeah, like people are videotaping themselves opening content or opening it at stores like FedEx and UPS have been having issues with damaged product or a missing product or you know, somebody from UPS knows you're a reseller and they open your package and take it or fed X.
Unfortunately, so a.
Lot of resellers or I don't want to say scalpers, but that's kind of where it's at, are now opening their packages in front of a up an employee. Yeah, yeah, and saying this isn't this isn't right, or it's damaged or whatever. That way, it doesn't leave the store.
That's when the downsides. Downsides having stuff shipped out to you. You're always hoping it's gonna be. You know what you ordered, and this could be. You know, a way to save yourself, to protect yourself, don't do still photos. Do a straight video from start to finish, and honestly, if there's nobody that'll hold your camera for you. There are tripods that are out there on the market, very inexpensive. You can find those, go in and buy them at the store.
But you can find those. Just snap the video in there and hit the video, but hit your camera and hit the button. Belkin makes that one. I like that actually moves with you, and that's just a good way to just capture it. You know, it's just having that little piece of evidence on there. There was also something as Sean, I want to get your thoughts on this too. We've talked before about VPNs. You know, there are many different out there. Nord has one, Semantic has one, Bundled
Malwarebytes has one. I believe that's that's bundled. But the Department of Homeland Securities SISA. We've had Mike Lettman on before from SESA. They're a government agency which would handle basically the cyber infrastructure.
Uh.
They're telling people, and they're reminding people, especially during the holidays, now stay away from the free VPNs because there we're seeing more and more of the free VPNs that are out there, and that they're saying that this could put you know, harmful apps on your devices, and this is dangerous. So if you want something that's going to protect you, spend the money on it.
You know.
Let's say say this again.
It's the age old the adage that says, if it's free, you're the product, right, since they're your data and doing some with it. Yeah, with a VPN, it's your data. Like it's like you don't want that data just going out there.
Now. Virtual VPN stands for virtual private networks. So what that happens is some people have said, well, you've talked about this before. I talked about it on our Fox segment. Where you know you're going you're sitting in a coffee shop, UH, and you are decided you want to do some shopping while you're online, Uh, enjoying your your latte or whatever. Doing that just on a public Wi Fi is just
not good. So what you want to do is is, you know, get a VPN virtual private network, so it encrypts your information from your point of origin and decrypts it on the on the connection side. So what happens is all that the encryption that's going on with a VPN then protects your information. Uh. And that's why having the VPN is is a good idea. But again, don't fall for the cheap ones. Maybe get one. Do you have a preference? I mean I.
If I need one, I use the mallorbytes one because it's included to do with my plan, my route, my my netgear router has one built in. If I wanted to enable.
US, I could link says, I think it has one.
Just open VPN, I think is what it is that your your your big vendors have them, Nord right, cloud Flare. I wouldn't use call cloud flair. They've been down too much lately for Yeah, yeah, but Nord Semantic. But again avoid the free ones, right because there's a million free ones out there and they all want the same thing your data.
Yeah, all right, one of the I'm gonna talk about I'm gonna mention this one of the benefits of the VPN is and I don't know if this is if this is legal, but like, uh, I remember years ago there was a documentary about Gordon Lightfoot, you know, the guy who's saying sundown and you know, good musician, not the direction.
I thought this was going to.
Well, Gordon's by this. This the great film, this biography they put together because he was Canadian, so they aired it in Canada on the Canadian Television Network and I just said I wanted to see it. It wasn't available here, so I went ahead and fired up the VPN connected to a Canadian server and I was able to watch it there. And that's you know, one of the benefits too.
You know, TV gardens has changed a lot of that for many people, but this is kind of a neat that's kind of a neat way too, to be able to experience something in a different origin.
So there are a lot of people who use VPNs to watch specific content on Netflix or Disney Plus or things like that. Because it's regional locked, right, so licensing agreements say this film can only be viewed in these countries or YouTube example, like some YouTube countries. Some this all has to do with copyright law and viewership morality laws or whatever. Whatever your country says you can't can't watch, right,
it's not available in another country based on those laws. Right, So, if you wanted to watch something from Germany or you know, England, the UK, Spain, or or if you're in the UK, you want to watch it in the US, just have to point you just have to point your VPN to a server that originates in the US. Therefore, when your data comes out of the VPN, it thinks you're in the US. Run how that works until the VPN works. So then therefore your your home country is where your VPN resides.
If you're traveling, is it smart to use the via VPN? Oh, you can be yeah, yeah.
Because otherwise otherwise, if you're connecting to an Internet provider here in the US via free Wi Fi, you're connecting to US based servers, right, So if you're traveling from the UK, for example, and you want to watch your UK content, you're not you might not be able to it all. Like again, it's it's so specific to every person who's trying to watch whatever like you could be watching one piece of content that may or may not
be available. It might be available in Canada, it might not be available in the US, but it might be available in the UK. There's weird. It's gets it gets really weird and kind of trippy on how you have to handle where you're watching your media because of different laws for every country. So VPNs allow you to do that.
Hopefully we'll get some comments on our and our video here about which VPN you like to use and which one has worked the best for you.
And VPNs, like Aighties said earlier in Crypto traffic, right, so your internet provider doesn't know what you were watching or doing, right, because it's encrypted from point to point and back from the VPN provider to you. So it's to protect you.
Yeah, exactly, all right, this is kind of a this is kind of a cool thing. I told you about it. I was going to do it. I was thinking about it. You know. I had moved away from app Adobe because it was not very happy with the fact that I had to pay to use a Cloud Pro subscription because I had the Creative Suite and I couldn't get it installed anymore. And on Black Friday, and we didn't do a show last week. I didn't get a chance to
tell you. I went ahead and I jumped in. I said, you know what I talked to working about it, and I said, it's thirty nine dollars a month for a year and then it'll go up to seventy nine. And her thoughts were, go ahead and do it if you think it can you know, benefit your workflow, it can help you out. And I thought, yeah, I want to give it a shot. And a lot has changed since five', five which is WHAT i used to what they're doing now With Premiere, pro AND i got the Full Cloud pro,
suite So i've Got premiere Dream. Weaver YES i still DO html website, stuff BUT i got all of this Light, Room, firefly AND i got to tell You I've i've. Dumped i've jumped more Into photoshop and doing stuff with the tools that are part Of. Photoshop it is absolutely mind.
Blowing it is amazing what you could do now versus WHAT i could do With AND i was pretty good With photoshop with the original five to, five AND i still Have, photoshop you, know the older, Version but WHEN i compare, them the tools to make stuff, happen like the brush. Tool remove this. Change this is just absolutely worth. It and you, Know i'm STILL i still Have Da
vinci AND i still use. IT i matter of, FACT i still did a video at it the other day THAT i. NEEDED i still am, using you know, what an audacity and still using pro tools for. Audio But i'm starting to kind of move a little more towards audition because it just is got the extra tools in it to make stuff. Happen BUT i took photos And
i've been. Working there's a photo with me and A Sevestis stallone that was taken at a film festival In Palm, springs and, unfortunately When gloria took the, photo it was kind of bright and a flash and it kind of you, know put a lot of light on our, faces, right and it WAS i was always like disappointed because you could tell it's it's me and And, stallone but it
just looked washed. Out SO i started working With photoshop with this photo AND i started adjusting and then highlighting his face and all, that AND i did that AND i cleaned up a couple of. Things THEN i, thought, well fireflies a part of this With Nano, banano So i'm gonna go ahead and let's do a generative and see if it can clean it. UP i got to tell, you it's. Amazing it looks like that photo was taken, perfectly no, issues and matter of, Fact i'll put it
up in our. Blog but it's it came out really. Good colorized a photo with me and my mom WHEN i was a, baby took a photo Of gloria that was completely just spotted because over overtime photos, degrade and completely cleaned it. Up so Now i'm telling all my, friends if there's listeners you need a photo, redone send it to. ME i want. TO i want to do more of, these just to keep them.
Going, yeah there's a there's actually a great subreddit called photoshop. Requests oh, yes if you want a requests Like i'm Not i'm not going to photoshop AND i and THE ai stuff like THAT'S i don't. Care that's. Stuff so Like. Caitlin's When kaitlyn's grandma, passed she wanted a specific picture of her on a black, background and it wanted to be cut out of the specific. Picture SO i just put it up there On photoshop requests and paid someventy five.
Bucks there you go to to completely clean it, up and it took fifteen minutes for somebody to do.
It it's a blown.
AWAY i was blown away at how cool it. Was And i'm sure they used the same tools and good for, them but that's not something that's not a skill THAT i really need to. Foster And I'm i'm sure with THE ai stuff it's probably really, easy but Again i'm Just i'm still kind of hesitant to use a lot A.
It's it's pretty amazing stuff if you want to check it Out adobe dot. Com but will take a quick. Break we come with more of Tech Talk. Radio i'm gonna get your opinion on. Something. Sean I'm Andy.
Taylor I'm sean The. Word find us On facebook at Tech Talk radio.
And now fact to Tech Talk.
Radio thanks your help and keep up the good.
Work you got a great.
Show Ricky lake has got a story on social media right. Now her house, was of, course you, know part of the fires In malibu. Lost her house lost all of those belongings photos as. Well she thought she had lost and apparently some of these photos ended up with a flea market and there were photos of her kids and
stuff like. That just you, know stack of photos being sold to the flea, market and somebody bought them and realized these belonged To Ricky lake and returned them to, her and she's overjoyed about it and sharing the story on social. Media but here's a good. Reminder digitize those. Photos make.
Backups three, three the three step rule on, site off site cloud, yep do it and. PROTECTION i, mean that's that's How i've got it with my family, stuff, Right i've Got i've got it on my, Nass i've got it on ANOTHER i have just an eight terrribyte hard drive that's just full of stuff that lives not at our. HOUSE i think it's at. WORK i don't remember where
it's so who. KNOWS i might even have lost the backup and then in the, cloud, right so it's all backed up To Google, Cloud Google, photos And google The. Cloud so that's that's kind of the best practices on prem off prem.
Cloud remember the street. Steps that is it for us this. Week we'll have another show next. Week it'd be just the last one Before. Christmas so think about some of the great things you're looking at and what more stuff that you. Buy, sean you'll have to share WITH, Us I'm Andy, Taylor.
I'm my wall is not gonna. SUPPORT i will not financially recover from.
This oh, boy have a great.
Week