The Tech Guy Episode 1948 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

Leo Laporte (00:00:02):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWiT. Hi, this is Leo Laporte, and this is my Tech Guy podcast. This show originally aired on the Premier Radio Networks on Sunday, November 27th, 2022. This is episode 1948. Enjoy. The Tech Guy Podcast is brought to you by Noom with their psychology first approach. Noom Wade empowers you to build more sustainable habits and behaviors. Sign up for your trial at noom.com/twit. And by ZipRecruiter. There are so many podcasts out right now, and it takes a team of people to bring them together. Whether you're hiring for a podcast or for your growing business, one place makes it easy. Ziprecruiter now, you could try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/tech guy. Thanks for listening to this show. As an ad supported network, we are always looking for new partners with products and services that will benefit our qualified audience.

(00:01:09):
Are you ready to grow your business? Reach out to advertise at TWIT tv and launch your campaign now. Well, hey, hey, hey. How are you today? Leo LePort here. Yeah. Tech guy. Time, time to talk. Computers, the internet, home theater, digital photography. Smart phones, smart watches, you know, all that jazz. 88. 88. Ask Leo is the phone number. If you wanna ask a question or make a comment or make a suggestion, that's the place to call. The number to call 88 88. Ask Leo Tollfree in the US or Canada, outside that area. You can still call, but I guess you'd have to use Skype out or something like that to make it a toll-free call. 8 8 8 8 2 7 5 5 3 6. There is a website where the notes from the show go. It's called Tech Guy labs.com. That's free. There's no sign up, wide open. There'll be links there when I mention something or product, or a a page to go to.

(00:02:08):
That link will be on the show notes@techguylabs.com. Also after the computer, chops it up and chews it out, chews it up and spits it out. The the transcript of the show will be there. Although, I guess the computer misses some things. Somebody told me they spell Sonology with Sonology, which I guess, you know, for a computer that's pretty close, but makes it hard to search. So we'll have to, we'll have to look for some of those typos. There's also audio and video from the show, so you can always listen if you get close, you know, if you get close to the spot, you'll be in there. You, you could find what you need. Tech guide labs.com. What is happening in the world of technology. You might think, oh, Leo's gonna talk about Twitter and Elon Musk again. No, I'm not sick of it.

(00:02:59):
It sick of the whole <laugh>, sick of the whole drama. Just go. I've wanted Twitter to go away for a long time, ever since they copied my name, the name of my podcast network, which is twi admittedly silly this week in text. So you get it, TWI That was years, two years before Twitter even existed. And then they decided, oh, hey, there's a good name we can steal. And they call themselves Twitter. <Laugh> for a while. People on Twitter call themselves tweets. They, they were thinking about calling tweets, tweets at first, but they decided not to. In fact, they cop, they trademarked the name a tweet, and they said, please, everybody use that. Which I think, you know, was out of respect. Here I am talking about it. But ever since <laugh>, ever since they did that, I kinda lost interest in the, in the whole thing.

(00:03:53):
And you know, whatever. It's up. It's, it, is it burning down or not? I don't know. And I don't care. Did you see that? They have, we have finally outed that horrible voice, the TikTok voice. You know, that <laugh> when they do a speech to text, to speech on TikTok and it's got a horrible woman's voice. Turns out that's actually a real, a person, a which I think is kinda interesting cuz it doesn't sound like a real person. She is on Canada's 95 1, the Beat. I don't know what that is. It's a, it's a radio station. And I'll play, I'll play her. Let me see if I can play her her, her voice. Cuz when you hear it, you'll, you'll, you'll go, oh yeah, maybe I can't, maybe I can't. I don't know. Anyway, they, she wasn't the first voice actor on TikTok. They, the original voice was very unhappy that people were getting her voice to say bad words. <Laugh>. So she sued him, said, you've done me irreparable. Hum. yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Here she is. This is this is her TikTok. See if I can play this sound.

Kat Callaghan (TikTok VA) (00:05:19):
Talk about it the way,

Leo Laporte (00:05:21):
Here, here, here you go. I'll, okay,

Kat Callaghan (TikTok VA) (00:05:24):
Let's talk about it the way I say law. So what I thought might be somewhat satisfying for all of

Leo Laporte (00:05:32):
Our, she sounds so much better by herself that

Kat Callaghan (TikTok VA) (00:05:34):
Read some of your old captions

Leo Laporte (00:05:35):
And instead of the, that makes, that makes sense, right. Anyway, Kate Callahan is, even though she for a long time did not want anybody to know, she is the voice. Now, you know, the highest court in the land of France has ruled <laugh> that a French man cannot be fired for not having fun at work. This is good news, frankly. He <laugh> the man was fired by a Paris based consulting firm for allegedly failing to be fun <laugh>, how do you say fun in French? It was not fun. It was no fun. He, he sued and said, this is wrongful dismissal. The Mr t is the guy who was fired from Cubic Partners in 2015. This has taken seven years to resolve because he wouldn't take part in seminars and weekend social events that his lawyers said included excessive alcoholism and promiscuity. You are no fun <laugh>, we you because you are no fun. <Laugh>.

(00:06:53):
Bye bye. Okay? You can't do that in France. Actually, that's that's a, you know, an interesting point, right? Because there have all sorts of laws about employment in the EU that we don't have here. We pretty much in anywhere in the United States, you could be fired for any reason at any time. They call it at will. I hope you don't experience that. But in in Europe, no, you gotta do, there's a whole bunch of things, which is, by the way, speaking of Twitter, see I keep doing that. Why? Elon's gonna have a problem in France? Cuz they just let everybody go. If I'm not having fun. <Laugh>

(00:07:35):
Maha, you Maha to <inaudible> <laugh>, okay. Okay, fine. Good news. We've been talking all this time about robocall. I get lots of calls from people saying, what is going on? This is incredibly annoying cetera, et cetera, cetera. And I keep saying, well, the fcc, they gotta, they gotta get on the ball here and start blocking people that finally done it for the first time ever. So the fcc, this goes back to the June of 2021, last June, two Junes ago, the F FCC required that all US based carriers with IP based networks, which is all the big ones for sure, use something called Stir and Shaken, which is an auth authentication technology that says this person has a phone number on our service. That's real. That's this person for sure, for sure, for sure.

(00:08:43):
September 28th, 2021, they told providers at and t t-Mobile, Verizon to stop, you know, start blocking companies. If they're not in the robocall mitigation database, it's poorly named the robocall mitigation database. Cuz that database means these people can make robocall. They're okay. Thumbs up. Let those robocalls through. It seems like they shouldn't be such a thing. But there is the robocall mitigation database. Should be the robocalls are a okay database. So, so, so now the law, the law by the end of last year was if they're, if they're not in that database, get this. If they're not in that database, block 'em.

(00:09:27):
Well, there are companies who are making Robo Co or are in that database. So now the FCC e c has cut off a provider called Global uc by taking them out of the robocall ALK database. So now that they're not in there all the carriers have to say, no, no, I came from global uc. We're not gonna pass it along. We're these the big guys? I don't know, it's just the first one. The FCC warned them in October that they were gonna cut 'em off six other firms too, because they weren't sharing their anti robocall strategies despite warnings. I'm warning you, you, I'm gonna kick you outta the robocall mitigation database cuz you're not Maha. You have enough fun. You're too much fun. Anyway, it's happened finally. So I don't know, see if you get fewer robocall or if this is just more dancing around the issue from the fcc, the good old fcc. All right, I think that's enough news. It's not cheering me up. I'm not Maha, I'm not fun enough. I will be fun, I promise. 88. 88. Ask Leo the fun has begun tech guy on the air answering your calls. How much more fun can you, can you take on a, on a Sunday? Let's go. Let's go to the phones right after this.

(00:11:09):
I just get here, just start the show. And already they wanna know who's on the next show. I don't care about this show. Who's on the next show? Is this show worth staying too? Two Nicholas de Thomas and of Fol this show coming up. Let's open the mail. Opening the mail.

(00:11:46):
Aw, this comes from showbiz David. Dear Leo, how sad I was to learn. If you're leaving, you are my favorite of all talk show host. Oh, thank you David. I could not understand why you needed a regular co. You have a room full of techies ready to offer answers so late. I've been listening to you only on Sundays, preferring you solo. That's fine. I have never called a talk show had I called you. This is the question I would've asked the cursor on my Dell latitude. Can't stay put often running away to another spot on the page. It's cuz you are no fun. I've talked to Dell Google some fixes. Nothing works.

(00:12:26):
Yeah, there's is I think this is what something you call palm rejection. Look in your settings for palm rejection and make sure that's turned on so that when you are typing your palm, hitting the track pad doesn't cause it to jump. If it does jump anyway, then it could be a bad track pad and Dell should fix that. There's nothing like the vitality of live radio. He says You are only 65. Well, I'll be 66 in three days. You are too warm, engaging a personality for radio not to want back somewhere, sometime. And I will hold that thought. One last thing. Charming Petaluma, two of my best friends now gone once lived there and I love dining with them. On a cozy riverside. Yes. Yes. And walking through the folksy shops, especially during Christmas. Yes, I agree.

(00:13:12):
Yes. A few years. Much more than so. Represe Rosa, where I was raised a few years ago, they ripped the heart outta the town by demolishing old courthouse square and replacing dozens of fell trees with cement. I was by beside myself. So he lives in the Bay Area. Here's the problem. I'm not on in the Bay Area on the radio anymore cuz Kgo went to an all gambling format. So he must have been listening to me on Sundays on kg. Well, guess what? The podcast continues. Of course. It won't be me by myself. I don't, I, you know what? That's a good point. I don't do, I don't do any solo things. Should I do a solo thing? I'll tell you what her phone number is. 88. 88. Ask Leo. We should have made it. 88. 88. Ask Kim. Yeah, if we'd been thinking we would've

Kim Schaffer (00:14:09):
I'll take it over.

Leo Laporte (00:14:10):
Yeah. I don't know what number Rich is gonna use.

Kim Schaffer (00:14:13):
I'll just having them all call me at home.

Leo Laporte (00:14:15):
They're probably ordering it right now. Call Kim at home. There you go. We'll give out your number on the last

Kim Schaffer (00:14:20):
Day. Won't have anything exciting to tell you, but <laugh>,

Leo Laporte (00:14:24):
I think you have more than a few secret admirers who will would in fact do that.

Kim Schaffer (00:14:28):
<Laugh>. Yeah, maybe

Leo Laporte (00:14:30):
<Laugh>. Yeah. Kim Shaffer is our phone. Angel. She is the person answering your calls and putting you on the radio. So that's important job. Yeah. If anybody's looking for a phone, angel

Kim Schaffer (00:14:43):
Yeah, please reach out to me. <Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:14:46):
Kim needs. Kim needs a job. She's good. I highly recommend

Kim Schaffer (00:14:49):
Her. I'm joking that I'm gonna be starting my own GoFundMe in Venmo.

Leo Laporte (00:14:52):
<Laugh>, you should. Don't joke. You should. People do. Well, I'll

Kim Schaffer (00:14:56):
Put it in the chat room.

Leo Laporte (00:14:57):
<Laugh>. People do. Well

Kim Schaffer (00:14:58):
Not in only fans though, <laugh>. No,

Leo Laporte (00:15:01):
Not in only fans. People do even better there. Yes,

Kim Schaffer (00:15:03):
They

Leo Laporte (00:15:04):
Do. Let's not talk about that. <Laugh>. What should I talk to somebody here? Sure. Just show really what

Kim Schaffer (00:15:12):
Is, what is the <laugh> what is my future? What is the future of Intel, Rick and

Leo Laporte (00:15:16):
Passion? Oh, that's good question.

Kim Schaffer (00:15:17):
Where are the

Leo Laporte (00:15:18):
Future of Intel? Don't take a job with him, I guess is the answer. Okay. I won't <laugh>. Thank you, Kim. Hello, Rick. Leo LaPorte, the tech guy. Welcome to the show.

Caller 1 (00:15:27):
Hi, how are you doing?

Leo Laporte (00:15:29):
I am great. How are you?

Caller 1 (00:15:31):
Good. I was a little stunned. I read a few days ago. I said, oh my God, he's giving up the radio show. Kim, I guess explained to me, you're not completely going, but

Leo Laporte (00:15:40):
You know what? I'm giving up. I'm, I'm not turning in my microphone. I'm turning in the transmitter and towers the radio stuff, but I'm still gonna be talk. I'm doing six shows a week on the, on the internet these days. It's interesting. Really these days. It's fun. You know, I've been thinking about this. We, we always label something by the name of its Transmission Medium. So it's radio cause it's a radio tower TV cuz it's TV tower. But really we shouldn't do that. You know, you shouldn't call it a YouTube. It's a video. It's an audio. And so I'm not giving up audio or video. We're still, cause I have this podcast network. I have a little baby internet TV station and so we're gonna keep doing that. So no, the the rumors of my retirement are greatly exaggerated.

Caller 1 (00:16:31):
I gotcha. I mean, I'm listening to you online. I'm not Well,

Leo Laporte (00:16:35):
There you

Caller 1 (00:16:35):
Go. Average terrestrial radio.

Leo Laporte (00:16:37):
There you go. Fact

Caller 1 (00:16:38):
That so many of the guys that I've, I've been on for years are all retiring. My local town out here. I mean, it

Leo Laporte (00:16:45):
Happens.

Caller 1 (00:16:45):
Everybody kind of just going and it's just, you're gonna need nothing but a smartphone, which was connecting to why I was thinking that, why you were giving up your show. That there were things not to talk running out of, you know, to talk about.

Leo Laporte (00:17:00):
No, there are no <laugh> No, there are no, there's no dearths of things to talk about, that's for sure. Right. There's more, more than ever before.

Caller 1 (00:17:11):
But it's changed, you know, back in the seventies, you know, we, we talk about receivers, pioneers, San Sui, AMFM, then I went to CD players and we talk about Getin and Yamaha, and then you have Equalizers spas, everything now, ever since the smartphone came out over 10 years ago, we things to talk about that. But now that's running out.

Leo Laporte (00:17:33):
It's just little MP3s over those little white headphones that stick in your ear. That's all. And now we don't even have wires. It's all floating through the air. Yeah. Mm-hmm. <Affirmative> stuff changes, but what doesn't change? We still listen to music. Right.

Caller 1 (00:17:47):
Well, not the way we used to. I mean, not

Leo Laporte (00:17:49):
The, well that's, see that's kind of my point is we shouldn't label stuff by how it's transmitted. We're more, we're interested in the content. You don't have to have dead trees to read a book anymore. So, you know, it's about the writing is, you know, writing can be bits and bits are really a good way to transmit content of all kinds because they're perfect. They can be copied perfectly without any degradation. They can be transmitted globally in seconds cuz of the speed of light. It's really kind of a good, it's turns out bits are a good medium. Now they're not a great medium if the power goes out, <laugh> Wow. Or, or the internet fails

Caller 1 (00:18:29):
Your old receiver again when that grid or something like that goes

Leo Laporte (00:18:32):
On. I have, and I think everybody should have. I have an emergency radio in my closet that has a crank on it. So if the power goes out, you know, you know, the radio station will be there explaining what's going on. And so I think that that's a good reason to keep a radio around.

Caller 1 (00:18:49):
Right. I think I'm gonna buy another police scanner instead. There you go. You know, on the what you call it, that broadcast, I think I'll just

Leo Laporte (00:18:56):
Credit to also to amateur radio operators hams. Because in an emergency, when there's, you know, in Haiti and during hurricane Katrina, they leap into action and they become, they form an emergency radio network because sometimes the radio stations are gone too. Right. They get towers get knocked down, but the hams go on. So we have, it's interesting, kind of a, an emergency system. Some of it is intentional created by the government, you know, the emergency broadcast system and all that. And some of it is kind of ad hoc by amateur radio operators often. They're the ones who really leap into action. It's kind of cool. Really.

Caller 1 (00:19:35):
Well, I, listen, I used to listen to all of that stuff from a seven meter and Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:19:39):
Right. Shortwave radio. I used to tune in Russia. There's nothing on at all Soviet Union. No. It's all gone. No, it's all gone to the internet. That's the funniest thing right now. She said you wanted talk about Intel. Are you worried about Intel?

Caller 1 (00:19:52):
Well, you know, I, I'm wondering sometimes. I mean, I've always loved their processors. I still got the Northridge I seven. I mean, it works. It's

Leo Laporte (00:20:00):
A good, good processor. Yeah. Most people, most of the world computes on Intel, still AMDs competing. And so is Apple with silicon and Qualcomm with the Snapchat

Caller 1 (00:20:10):
I wanted to bring up. Yeah. Where, you know, where are they going now? Because you see when Apple severed their, you know have them making their processors, they wanted to make their own Microsoft's been running into a negative situation where they've been tied, you know, you know, to the, you know, you know, connected. They were like the

Leo Laporte (00:20:29):
Wintel, they call it Wintel Windows and Intel, right? Yeah. So Intel, Intel, there's a guy named Ben Thompson who's a good analyst. He writes a, at his website, strat teery.com I'll put a link in the show notes. But he writes a lot about Intel and he has been saying for a long time that Intel's big mistake was being an integrated company. They both designed and built their own processors and they were kinda lapped by companies that focused on just the one thing. So Arm and Invidia, who, who designed the processors and companies like Samsung and tsmc, who made the processors got better at those specific skills and Intel by, you know, saying, well, we wanna integrate both kind of boxed themselves in and got to a point where they couldn't design as well as the guys who were making these and they couldn't build as well as the guys who were focused on that.

(00:21:22):
So their new ceo, pat Gelsinger a couple of years ago, actually it was last year, said, we're gonna split into two kind of functions. We're gonna, we're no, we're gonna be one company, but we're gonna have a design division and we're gonna have a build division. And he even said someday, I hope our, our manufacturing will be so good that Apple will have us make its chips instead of the Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company, which probably Apple would like to do, but Intel's gotta get as good. So Intel has taken a bold step, you know, cuz they were, they were suffering, they were not doing well, and they continue to not do well. It'll be a fascinating thing to watch if they can pull this off. And I'm rooting for him. Leo Laporte, the tech guy, car guy Sam coming up. It's a good, I mean, it's an interesting question. It's about the business life cycle, isn't it? Does it apply to technology? Is it, you know, most businesses, you know, don't last a hundred years. Hello Sam?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:22:24):
Hello Leo. How are you?

Leo Laporte (00:22:25):
I'm good, how are you?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:22:27):
I am good.

Leo Laporte (00:22:29):
What's up? What is that thing behind you?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:22:31):
That is the Genesis GV 60. Oh, nice. The first ev from Genesis.

Leo Laporte (00:22:37):
Oh, I thought Genesis was Hyundai who makes Genesis.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:22:41):
Yeah, they're part of Hyundai Hyundai's premium brand. Ah Hyundai's

Leo Laporte (00:22:45):
Are supposed to be pretty good. Are they good?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:22:47):
They are. They're excellent. They're,

Leo Laporte (00:22:49):
They're very And is the genesis even? It's like the Lexus of Hyundai.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:22:52):
Yeah, pretty much. It's, you know, a lot of the same hardware underneath. But you know, with a more premium feel who

Leo Laporte (00:23:01):
Makes the best

Sam Abuelsamid (00:23:01):
Hyundais,

Leo Laporte (00:23:02):
Who makes the best electric system, electric sled.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:23:09):
It's hard to say. I mean, there, there's a bunch of good ones out there. I mean, Hyundai's, eeg, MP platform, their electric global modular platform is actually really, really good. And that's what's used in, in this one as well as the key EV

Leo Laporte (00:23:22):
Six. Cause you know, our reason

Sam Abuelsamid (00:23:24):
Five

Leo Laporte (00:23:25):
Consumer reports just de-listed for the Ford Electrics saying they weren't reliable. And people are, you know, cause they do those surveys and a lot of people are reporting long term electrical issues and things. It's making me nervous to be honest with you. I, I mean, I love my Mustang, but I'm worried now that maybe it's gonna be be, you know, I I I already have that front fault <laugh>, this isn't gonna start falling apart. So now I'm wondering how has the right, has the skateboard that you know, to win? GM's got a pretty good system, right?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:24:01):
They do. But so far the vehicles that we've seen from gm, you know, with their, their LTM based vehicles are all rather heavy. Ah. which is a problem. You know, I mean, obviously the Hummer ev is the, the, the worst of the bunch, you know, upwards of 9,000 pounds empty. But even, even the the upcoming Silverado, Chevy Silverado, gmc, Sierra EVs that are coming next year that are based on the same architecture, they're probably gonna weigh well over 8,000 pounds empty. So, you know, we'll, we'll have to wait and see when we get more detail on some of their other EVs that are coming out. But right now what GM's got, they've got some, there's some really interesting stuff that GM's done in their, in their system, but there's not very many of them on the road yet. So we'll have to wait and see a little bit more.

Leo Laporte (00:24:58):
Hyundai though, our genesis, I, I be the Genesis is a nice vehicles.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:25:03):
They it is a lovely vehicle and it's got some interesting biometrics in there. There's a face ID camera I Oh, really? And and a fingerprint sensor on the center console.

Leo Laporte (00:25:14):
So like a little rolling smartphone.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:25:16):
Yep. Wow. That's interesting. Oh one other thing I was listening to windows Weekly the other day, and you and Paul were talking about Qualcomm's new chips. Yes. and you're wondering about digital cockpits. Digital cockpit is a term that's used to describe, you know, the modern infotainment systems in the cars. So rises, the infotainment, the instrument cluster, basically all of the interior control stuff is, is lumped under the heading of digital cockpit. Huh so when they're, when they're talking about digital, using that for digital cockpit, it's not for aircraft <laugh>, it's, although it could

Leo Laporte (00:25:54):
Be used for, I'll explain to Paul. It's not aircraft anymore. It's

Sam Abuelsamid (00:25:57):
Cards. No, it's,

Leo Laporte (00:25:58):
It's for where

Sam Abuelsamid (00:25:59):
Money is. It's to run, run all the systems in the interior vehicles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so they've got a version of Snapdragon that runs that. And then they've also got the Snapdragon ride, which is another variation. That's for the driver assist and automated driving stuff.

Leo Laporte (00:26:16):
Here we go. It's time for Sam Bull Sam, our low riding Miata driving for Wheeling Friend from the Wheel Bearings podcast@wheelbearings.media. And of course, he's a principal researcher for Guide House Insights. Joins us every week to talk about automotive technology. Hello, Sam.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:26:39):
Hello Leo. How are you

Leo Laporte (00:26:40):
Today? I'm great. How are you?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:26:42):
I'm very good. Yesterday the sun was shining, the temperature got up to 57 here in southeast Michigan. And so I decided to take the Miata out for another drive, put some, put some miles on that.

Leo Laporte (00:26:56):
You only do that when the, when you keep the top town, right?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:26:59):
Absolutely. Yeah. Well, and because it's got summer tires on, it doesn't have winter tires, so I don't drive, you know, it

Leo Laporte (00:27:04):
Might be your last ride. It could be Sam's last ride in 2022.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:09):
I might squeeze in one or two more. We'll see how the weather plays out. I've driven it as late as mid-December. As long as there's no salt on the road then I'll take it out and drive it. See,

Leo Laporte (00:27:17):
He takes good care of his vehicle. Now you're sitting in front of a very pretty red car. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And there's a vi there's a video showing that looks kind of cool. What is that? What is that you're sitting in front of?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:27):
So this is the Genesis GV 60 performance. So over the course of the past year, Genesis or Hyundai Motor Group has launched a new electric vehicle platform called E G M Peter Electric Global MO Modular Platform. And they've launched three sort of compact ish to midsize crossovers based on this same architecture. The Hyundai Ionic five, the Kia EV six, and most recently the Genesis GV

Leo Laporte (00:27:55):
60. Those are all the same platform. Oh, that's interesting.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:57):
They're all the same platform. They all have the same battery system, the same charging and everything. So they charge it up to 240 kilowatts. They'll charge from 10 to 80% charge in about 18 minutes on a, on a suitable charger. And they, what they, what they have is different bodies, different interiors and different motors. So different combinations of motors. So this, the GV 60 performance is the most powerful variant. There's also an EV six GT that has the same set of motors that are on here. So it'll have in this, this combination, it'll have over 500 horsepower and it'll do zero to 60 in about three and a half seconds. So this is a, this is a quick little

Leo Laporte (00:28:41):
Bunny, three and a half seconds. Holy cow. That's not, you know, I had a Tesla that would do like four seconds and I, I felt dangerous. Like I would pin my head the back of the seat and like I would black it three. That sounds like maybe too fast.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:28:57):
I, I would not argue with that. I think, you know, you

Leo Laporte (00:29:00):
Don't really need that.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:29:01):
Evs are getting a little bit ridiculous.

Leo Laporte (00:29:03):
They can do it cuz of all that torque, I guess.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:29:05):
That's right. Cuz you have that instant torque. You've got all wheel drive, so you can use all four wheels to put the power to the ground because

Leo Laporte (00:29:11):
Otherwise you, you'd burn rubber if you with that kind of acceleration.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:29:14):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. and so, you know, this is, this is a quick little vehicle really nice to drive. I really enjoy driving this.

Leo Laporte (00:29:24):
It's it'ss actual, it's your kinda luxury. The genesis is their luxury mark. Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:29:28):
Right. So Hyundai Motor Group has three brands. They've got Hyundai, which is their most mainstream brand, and then Kia, which is a little bit more sporty. They have a different design language. But you know, they're based on the same platforms. And then then Genesis is their premium brand. And they started off Genesis back in 2008 as just a Hyundai model. So it was the Hyundai Genesis sedan and the Genesis Coupe. And then about 2014 14 or 15, they actually split off Genesis into its own brand. So now there's a bunch of Genesis vehicles from the, the G 70, G 80 and G 90 sedans, and the GV 60, 70 and 80 crossover SUVs. And this is their first ev the, the GV 60. And reason I wanna talk about it today is it's got some interesting features on it. This is one of the, one of the first vehicles that's used that's got a bunch of biometrics incorporated into it. So, you know, we've had for years now you know, cars where you can use your phone as a key. And, you know, we've had, oh, I mean, going back to the least late eighties, we've had keyless entry, you know, using RFT fobs that would, you could use to unlock your lock, unlock your car and start it. And then you know, we started moving into Ford has their their little touch pad keypad system on the door as a backup. And I,

Leo Laporte (00:30:54):
I kinda like that. I use that a lot. Yeah, that's, that's a kind of nice thing to have.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:30:58):
So what they have on the GV 60 for biometrics is they have a camera on the outside that's on the B pillar. And you program it with, with your face

Leo Laporte (00:31:08):
And Oh, so it recognizes you as you walk up

Sam Abuelsamid (00:31:12):
Re well, when you, when you stand in front of it, if you don't have the key fob on you. Yeah. you just touch the the spot on the door handle, which is you would normally use to lock and unlock it. There's a little capacitor sensor there, and then you'll see a little green circle circling around the the, the camera. And it looks at you and takes, takes a second or so recognizes you and then it unlocks the door. And then when you smartphone,

Leo Laporte (00:31:40):
It's kind of cool.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:31:41):
Yeah. When, when you get inside on the center console, there is a fingerprint sensor on there. So you got two different types of biometrics

Leo Laporte (00:31:51):
So no one can steal your car. Right.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:31:54):
Well they couldn't do it by just holding a picture of you in front of the in front of the camera. Yeah. they could, they might be able to get in. I haven't actually tried that yet, but but they wouldn't be able to start the car without your fingerprint as well. And if you're, if you're watch for anybody watching the video stream, you can see the center console of the car. And one, a couple of neat features. The little up in the upper right left hand corner of the, the video there, you can see the, the light on the fingerprint sensor flashing to, to show you, hey, here's where the fingerprint sensor is on the screen. It'll say, please touch the fingerprint sensor. Oh, that's cool. And then you can, you can start the car with that.

(00:32:33):
Then the other thing that they've got, which is not part of the biometrics, but is a neat little feature is the, the shift knob. And you can see this thing rotating back and forth. And one of the things that, that Genesis explained to me why they did this is a, a lot of people, you know, that are relatively new to EVs, you know, they get into the car or they're getting outta the car and they're not sure if it's actually on or not. You know, because they're so quiet. And so they came up with this mechanism, it's a sphere, I forget they have a name for it, I forget what they call it. But when it's off, when the car's off it rotates up and it's got a sphere with this kind of cool little light up pattern inside it, a glass sphere. And then when you press the start button to start the car, it flips over 180 degrees and you have the knob to shift between park reverse neutral and drive. And

Leo Laporte (00:33:25):
So nobody, when you turn, nobody could actually start the car without that, including you if it breaks, which is always the first thing I think about is like, well, how longs that, that's gonna last

Sam Abuelsamid (00:33:36):
<Laugh>. Yeah. but, but it's more that if the car's off, you know, if you put your hand on it, you wouldn't, you wouldn't be able to shift because it's just a sphere there. Right. And then when it flips over, then you have the, the you'll

Leo Laporte (00:33:49):
For

Sam Abuelsamid (00:33:49):
Your

Leo Laporte (00:33:49):
Fingers we'll say, well, how do I put this car in gear? I can't. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:33:53):
Exactly. Yeah. So some, some neat features on this car and it's a really enjoyable car to drive. The GV 60 starts in the mid $50,000 range. So as I said, it's more premium. It's got really nice leather and, and metal trim and everything in the interior, the, the one I'm driving is loaded. It's about 70,000, just shy, $70,000 with delivery charge. But you can get basically the same, you can get most of the same hardware in the ionic five starting at just over $40,000. And for the ev six for 2023 models, it's about it's about 47,000.

Leo Laporte (00:34:31):
Would you recommend waiting to make sure these are gonna be reliable before you buy, like, let's wait a couple years in and, and see and, cause it makes me nervous, to be honest. I just look at all this electronic stuff and I feel like if that fails, you know, you got a big expensive repair before you can even drive your car.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:34:49):
Hyundai, Hyundai Motor Group vehicles have become pretty reliable, reliable, reliable, okay. Over the, the last 10 years. And I, I generally have no problem at all recommending them. They've got some of the, the best quality ratings from JD Power they've ranked at the, the top of the list for the initial quality

Leo Laporte (00:35:06):
Survey. I'm a lu I guess I look at these kind of new whey technologies come on. Yeah. And I worry that the, cuz I know, well cuz I use technology so I know how often it breaks <laugh>, that's part of the problem. Sam Bulls salmon principle, researcher guide, house insights, his podcast wheel bearings is a must listen if you love automotive stuff, wheel bearings.media or anywhere you listen to podcasts. And of course he joins us each week right here. Thank you, Sam.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:35:34):
Drop to you all next week.

Leo Laporte (00:35:40):
I guess if you really think about it, the internal combustion engine is probably one of the most complex mm-hmm. <Affirmative> things we've ever, humans have ever built. I mean, insanely complex. And they work pretty reliably,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:35:54):
You know, for you know, for that, that kind of reliability. You know, back in 2008 when Jaguar first launched the xf it was one of the first vehicles to have a rotary shifter. And, and on that vehicle, you know, Jaguar's, you know, and British cars in general have long had a

Leo Laporte (00:36:15):
No

Sam Abuelsamid (00:36:16):
Say reputation

Leo Laporte (00:36:17):
Choice.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:36:19):
The reliability of their electrical systems. Yes. And on the xf, they not only did it have a rotary shifter, which is pretty common nowadays, you've got one in your ma a lot of cars

Leo Laporte (00:36:31):
Have like my rotary shifter. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:36:32):
But on the xf when you turn the car off, it dropped down. So it was flush with the center console. And then when you started the car, it would rise up and then, then you could grab it to turn it. And they, they also did this with the, the vents. The vents would rotate over so that when the car was off, you saw you had a nice clean panel. And then when you started the car, they would flip back around. So you had the, the vent openings. And the first thing I thought when I saw, when I got into the XF for the first time, I was like, Jaguar's not a company that had a great reputation for quality. And, you know, they were doing this, which was either an indication that you know, they're either very confident that they fixed their issues or they're just crazy. And turns out that wasn't, you know, that wasn't, that turned out not to be a very big problem with the, with the Jaguars. So they, they, they did apparently fix that problem. They had other issues, but, but that wasn't one of them.

Leo Laporte (00:37:35):
I'm gonna let you continue while I get a cup of Joe, I

Sam Abuelsamid (00:37:38):
I, I actually need to run. 

Leo Laporte (00:37:39):
Oh. Get outta here. Go away.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:37:41):
I'm, I'm sorry,

Leo Laporte (00:37:42):
<Laugh>. It's okay, Santa. Thank you. I appreciate it. I'll talk to you next week. Okay. Always a pleasure. Take care. Bye.

(00:37:49):
How dare he <laugh>. He says, no, I, I can't stay. Wait for this. What are you crazy? What? But no, I forget about it. So re con's asking about how the new show will work and no, of course we don't have radio ads, so there won't be 19 minutes an hour of radio ads. We don't have these, the break that I'm in right now, those will go away. Obviously. I don't want to go an hour per call. So Mike and I have been thinking about that, cuz really the, the, I think we both agree that the, the radio show is fun because of people and the kind of nice little serendipities that happen with the calls. So I think we're gonna probably have a timer or something that says, you know, five to seven minutes a call. We're, we're still gonna move on, but we won't have to move on because we have to take a break.

(00:38:45):
 So that's gonna be the hardest thing for me. Cause you know, I'm terrible with time management is to, is to keep the show moving. Yes, in theory, Dr. Mom, we can blather. So I think, I don't know. We don't, we don't, you know, we're, we're, we're gonna be a little organic with this. One of the things I wanna still do is if somebody calls in and says, you know, I want to know about this new Hyundai ionic you know, chassis. I'll say, well, that's a great call for Sam. I'll tell you what, we'll put that, ask your question, we'll put it in the can and we'll answer next week. And then I'll send it to Sam. He'll, he can record an answer and then we'll edit it out of the, this week and put it into the whole thing into next week.

(00:39:33):
So that's what we're gonna do, I think with that. And that'll get many of these guys back on as part of the show. But answering specific questions for their, in their area be interesting. Our show today brought to you by, oh, I love these guys. I love my wife and she loves Noom. We, I started Noom more than a year ago. And Lisa, very kindly being a good spouse, well, she, I don't have that, I don't have any weight to lose, but I'll, I'll do it Anyway, she's, we both have done, I lost about 20 pounds. She's lost. She didn't have any weight to lose, but she's lost about, I think more than 15 and kept it off. I have two. It's kind of remarkable. Noom, you know, it's not a diet. This is the important thing to understand. You've probably seen the ads for Noom when we decided to lose weight.

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Really, it shouldn't be about the number on the scale, it's about other things. Wanting to feel better, to be more healthy, to look better to, you know to, to be able to do things. Be more active. There are lots of good reasons to, to ch it's not just the number, it's the feeling, right? Whatever your reason for wanting to make a change, nom weight is there to help. It is a psychology first approach. It's not, again, a diet. It's not a diet. New weight empowers you to build more sustainable habits and behaviors with lasting results. And it really works. To date num, weight has helped. This is mind boggling. 3.6 million people lose weight. Now, every journey's different. You can't base your results on mine leases. We have a, a friend who has lost, I have two friends. One lost 60 pounds, so much I didn't recognize him.

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And another one of our one of our contributors has lost a hundred pounds, a hundred pounds on Noom. She looks fantastic. I said, what did you do? She said, well, of course, Leo, I did nom. It's really good. It's based on scientific principles. Things like cognitive behavioral therapy. Maybe you've heard of C B T. The idea is to help you understand why you eat. For instance, for me, I was a, I'm a fog eater. It's an emotional eat. I get home from work and without even thinking, I'll stuff my mouth, you know, without even thinking. And that's the key to think about it. One of the things we do, it's great to do it as a couple if you can, by the way one of the things we do is we now sit down to a meal, we turn off the tv, we put away the screens, there's no phones.

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We sit down, we pick up, we have a bite of food, put our fork down and chew it. And sometimes Lisa and I will close our eyes and really taste it. And I can't tell you what a difference that makes when you pay attention, you eat, you only eat when you're paying. Attention is huge. But that's for me, everybody's different. One of the things I loved about new from day one is it doesn't restrict what you can eat. I remember with Noom, you get you get an app, you get your lessons, your daily lessons, couple minutes a day, five minutes, 15, depending on what you wanna accomplish. You get a coach, personal coach, you get a group you can be in one of the, like the first few weeks of Noom, I texted my coaches and I, ugh, you're gonna be mad at me.

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I ate a hot dog. I felt so bad. She said, what? What do you mean there's nothing wrong with eating a hot dog? <Laugh>? I said, what? She said, look, we don't tell you what you can or cannot eat. In fact, sometimes if you, if you, as you're going along with new, they'll say, bonus day, eat anything you want. Because you know what? Your brain goes, oh, I can't eat that. I want it. I can't eat that. I want it. I can't eat it. I want it. And, and pretty soon you eat it. Right? You know that whatever your health goals, noms, flexible, non-restrictive program for focuses on progress, not perfection. You could choose your level of support. You get five minute daily Check at this personal coaching if you want group, if you want. I never did the group that much. I, the coach was really helpful.

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Sign up for your trial today, noom.com/twitt noom.com/twitt. I'd seen all the ads for a long time and I finally just said, I gotta do something. Signed up. Lisa signed up and we're numerous for life noom.com/twit to sign up for your trial today. They have a book now. You might wanna check that out. In fact, I haven't got it yet. I gotta get this, the new mindset, which really explains, it's a deep dive into the psychology of behavioral change. Oh. What, no wonder I haven't read it. It's not out yet. Preordered, preorders now for the new mindset. Wherever books are sold, I wanna go pre-order that noom.com/twit. Thank you Noom, for supporting the shows. They've been a great sponsor. I I joined 'em long before they started. Lisa and I both before they were sponsors, but we're really happy to have 'em as as advertisers. And thank you Noom for what you've done for me and my wife. I really, that's, I've done every diet in the world. This isn't a diet, this works. Nom.Com/Twi. Thank you Noom. And now back to the tech guy. Cha Chacha. Oh yeah, baby Leo Laporte, the limber tech guy. So who's that? Salsaing, I believe I'm Salsaing <laugh> my way into the third segment of hour number one. And that means more calls. Terry on the line from Long Beach. Hello Terry.

Caller 2 (00:45:59):
Hi Leo. I'm a long time listener ever since you've been on kfi, so thank you for all your hints and tips and getting me out of trouble.

Leo Laporte (00:46:07):
Started in 2004, January 4th, 2004,

Caller 2 (00:46:11):
Right? The the, your competition at the time was the guy that I can't remember his name, but he was, was with the Notebook company.

Leo Laporte (00:46:20):
Yeah, I think the late Jeff Levy was my competition, but I'm not sure. Yeah,

Caller 2 (00:46:24):
Yeah. Okay. My, my question, I'm with a neighborhood watch group and we're trying to set up a phone tree texting system so that we could put out urgent information to the neighborhood lost dogs burglars crime or whatever else. And all the apps that I see on iPhone and Android are all one way kind of broadcast. It's

Leo Laporte (00:46:49):
Yeah, yeah, they're group, they're group messages. So you wanna do it like I text you, you text Jimmy, Jimmy text Sally, Sally, text Fred a phone tree. Well,

Caller 2 (00:46:58):
I'd like to, what I'd like to do is broadcast it, but then allow everybody else to put their 2 cents in.

Leo Laporte (00:47:04):
Well that's a, yeah, that's just a group. So WhatsApp, telegram iPhone messages will all do groups. You set up a neighborhood group and anybody can post in it. The problem with that is you're gonna have a lot of the signal noise ratio is gonna be not great because people are gonna use it to chat. So you could perhaps, maybe set two groups up a chat group and then a second group that is alert group <laugh>. And people try and, you know, just, you're gonna have to count on a neighbor's honor system. Not to jam up the alert group, but you certainly could do that. The trick is getting everybody use the same app. I would say almost everybody probably uses Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp. That's, those are two very common apps. They both allow you to do this. The other thing you might wanna look at, there is a website called Nextdoor that is designed for neighborhoods.

(00:47:58):
And what you do with Nextdoor is you actually join, it's kind of Facebook, but it's neighborhood focused. So you say what where your location is and you're put in a group that, that is, they tend to be kind of, at least in my experience, large, like a few square miles, but you're all in the same neighborhood. That's what people use next door for. I mean next door is full of, there was a guy walking down the street, watch out or my chickens got loose, can anybody catch 'em? That kind of thing. So that's more of a commercial entity like Facebook. Sometimes some people might be more comfortable with that. But I think any messaging, have you tried group messaging for that?

Caller 2 (00:48:37):
The WhatsApp and the other ones? The problem is most of our folks are, are not necessarily tech savvy. Basically got whatever the iPhone carries and whatever the Android cares,

Leo Laporte (00:48:47):
Right?

Caller 2 (00:48:49):
And, and, and so I was looking for something that was

Leo Laporte (00:48:53):
You can, okay, so

Caller 2 (00:48:55):
A free app maybe that say everybody put that on your phone and you'd be able to talk to everybody else.

Leo Laporte (00:49:00):
Yeah, well certainly WhatsApp is that, but they'd have to add that app. And then they'd have to add everybody. The text messaging does allow groups, both Apple's messages and Android's messages allow groups and they don't, you can have in your messages group, you can have people with Android phones but they'll be using SMS instead of the data. But that's kind of what you're, they're used to anyway. So you could just say, I'm gonna make a group and I'm gonna invite, as long as you have everybody's phone number, you can invite them all into that group. You text them and say you're in the group, make a giant group. And then that would work. I don't know what the limit and size, how many people do you need to have

Caller 2 (00:49:43):
At this point? Well 74, but you know, possibly up to like 120.

Leo Laporte (00:49:49):
Okay. So that's then not gonna be a great solution for Apple Messages. Because I think they're limited. They're smaller than that. 32 people I think I remember.

Caller 2 (00:50:05):
Yeah, I mean that's, maybe that's the problem. Cause I've tried doing the group and yeah, at a certain point it stops.

Leo Laporte (00:50:10):
Yeah, I think that's the problem. Whatsapp can get bigger. I believe they go to five tw well they work 2 56 and they've gone to five 12. The biggest in this group, and frankly a fun one that's a lot of fun is called Telegram. Also free telegram has some nice stickers, features you can do video, you can do audio and telegram groups can be in the thousands. So I would say you know, if you're gonna have to, I think the, the limit they say is 200,000 people. If you're <laugh> your neighborhood's not that big <laugh>. Unless you, unless you live in Shanghai, maybe half

Caller 2 (00:50:52):
Of, half of Long Beach on that.

Leo Laporte (00:50:53):
Yeah, that's pretty much the whole town. So I I, you know, the, obviously it's preferred that you use the built in program cuz then nobody has to download anything. They already kind of know how to use it as long as they can do texting, but it's, it is gonna be limited to the size. 32 is not big enough. So I would suggest if you can get everybody to install Telegram, you should try it first and just play with it. Because Telegram is very appealing. It's, it's, it's cute, it's fun. I like it a little bit.

Caller 2 (00:51:26):
I I loaded Telegram at the beginning of the Ukrainian war. Yes. And because there was a lot of yes info going out there. But I, what I've found is that there's a lot of spam on it. I mean, out of nowhere suddenly I've, I've got alerts going on.

Leo Laporte (00:51:40):
Oh, absolutely. That's why you wanna make it a private group and only by invitation. And you, you can even, you can even say, I don't wanna see anything from anybody. I don't know. Yeah, telegram is basically unmoderated. So they have all sorts of problems with criminal activity and pornography and all sorts of things, but you don't have to see any of that. You can, you can just make it be just your group. And I, I think, I mean look, they're all gonna have somewhat of that problem if you really WhatsApp has, is notorious for similar issues. Facebook Messenger, I bet you there, I bet you everybody in your neighborhoods on Facebook. Is that the case?

Caller 2 (00:52:22):
It could be

Leo Laporte (00:52:24):
Facebook group. A Facebook group might be the right thing to do. You know, the, the Long Beach, you know, neighborhood Watch Association. I bet you a lot of neighborhood watches use Facebook groups for that.

Caller 2 (00:52:35):
Okay.

Leo Laporte (00:52:36):
I don't like Facebook. I'm not on Facebook. I would have to be a non-combatant <laugh> <laugh>. But I bet you, I bet you everybody in your neighborhood is already on that. So if you don't want 'em to have to install something, create a Facebook group. Now the interesting question would be how could I interface this group with another system? You know, that might be an interesting question. If I, if somebody, if somebody like Leo said, well I don't wanna use Facebook, by the way, WhatsApp is also Facebook. I don't wanna use anything with Mark Zuckerberg's name on it. How would we get Leo in the group? I think we wouldn't <laugh>. I think Leo is on his own <laugh>. So do you, do you, do you have meetings of the Neighborhood Watch group? Do you get together at any point?

Caller 2 (00:53:21):
Yeah, we had a, for Neighborhood Night Night Out, we had a taco truck come up and we had a picnic on the,

Leo Laporte (00:53:27):
Oh, how fun Evening

Caller 2 (00:53:28):
Group

Leo Laporte (00:53:28):
In the, oh, how fun. The

Caller 2 (00:53:30):
Business commander came and the, the councilwoman came. And

Leo Laporte (00:53:33):
That's the time to kind of pull everybody and say, well, there's different ways we can do it. And you can tell 'em there's Telegram, there's WhatsApp, there's Facebook groups, there's Next Door. If a lot of people have Ring doorbells, like if everybody had Ring Doorbells, ring has its own neighborhoods app. But the problem is you have to have that doorbell, right?

Caller 2 (00:53:51):
Yeah. I've got Blink.

Leo Laporte (00:53:53):
Yeah, exactly. See, see, see the problem this, unfortunately, this is a, I think we're at a little bit of a disadvantage here because with messaging, cuz no one has come up with the kind of

Caller 2 (00:54:05):
A universal system.

Leo Laporte (00:54:06):
Exactly. Like the phones, you know, the phones, you can call anybody from anywhere, from any email, you can email anybody, but not with messaging. They have to be on the same platform. And that's a, I think that's a big problem. But we have all these companies competing for your attention and they don't wanna make a Universal app. So we're outta luck. Yeah. ring Neighbors doesn't require you to be a Ring customer, but I think that people are gonna say, well, you know, I dunno, that's where you do that the next time you get the get together. But you could also, you know, you sound like you're kind of an organizer which is good. Somebody's gotta do it. And you could just say, Hey look, I've created this group. Anybody wants to be in it. Please join me and say it's invitation only. So tell me your, tell me you wanna be in it and I'll, I'll I'll send you an invite. That's

Caller 2 (00:54:53):
How, that's how our Facebook group goes.

Leo Laporte (00:54:55):
Yeah. And Telegram, you could send a, you know, short code and everything, people could join it. I think that's the way to go. Leo LaPorte Deep Tech guy. I think that's probably the way to do a neighborhood watch. You know, I don't know. There are all sorts of issues associated. Wow. I don't have Sam to gimme time to go get my coffee. How do we tip? We need to tip. Kim, do you have a tip jar that we could send tips?

Kim Schaffer (00:55:35):
A tip jar. Kim's definitely have a Venmo

Leo Laporte (00:55:38):
Account. We blew, we should have set that up years ago. <Laugh>. And then you would never have to you never have to do anything

Kim Schaffer (00:55:45):
<Laugh>. That would be awesome.

Leo Laporte (00:55:47):
You could just Kim's tip jar.

Kim Schaffer (00:55:50):
I'll give you my Venmo.

Leo Laporte (00:55:52):
<Laugh>. Yeah. I don't think you, do you wanna do that? Is that, that sounds risky.

Kim Schaffer (00:55:55):
Well, they can't, they can't. I mean, they can try and charge.

Leo Laporte (00:55:58):
Well, you heard what Steve Martin said.

Kim Schaffer (00:55:59):
I did. But I, you know, if I'm on the receiving end of

Leo Laporte (00:56:02):
My, do you think he made that up? Or that he really did? Somebody did send him $35. You

Kim Schaffer (00:56:08):
Know what has happened to me in the past? I bought tacos one time from this taco popup and I sent it to the, cuz you go look through the phone number. Right as the contact and I, it was like $17 and it never got received. Well and it did eventually get sent back to me, so. Huh. I was wondering if that kind of thing happened, but he said he got like a,

Leo Laporte (00:56:33):
I don't, I'm thinking Steve Martin probably doesn't go to Taco Popups that often.

Kim Schaffer (00:56:38):
Hey, they're

Leo Laporte (00:56:39):
Great. Be kinda hard for him. He doesn't,

Kim Schaffer (00:56:41):
No. It could have

Leo Laporte (00:56:42):
Been something else. He doesn't like to, I don't think he likes to wear disguises. So I think he would just be, Hey, it's Steve Martin and then he'd never get home again.

Kim Schaffer (00:56:53):
So was he saying that

Leo Laporte (00:56:55):
Somebody sent him 35 bucks and then try and then send him a notice saying, oh shoot, I sent that to you by accident. Can you send it back? I

Kim Schaffer (00:57:01):
Was thinking maybe, you know, she didn't know it was Steve Martin's phone number, but she might have accidentally sent $34 to a phone number like I did.

Leo Laporte (00:57:11):
It could be real. It could be real. Does Venmo Venmo works by, by email though, right?

Kim Schaffer (00:57:17):
It's email phone number

Leo Laporte (00:57:19):
Or it could be phone number. Yeah. Okay.

Kim Schaffer (00:57:20):
So was he saying he actually saw that money in his Venmo account?

Kim Schaffer (00:57:28):
Cause if he did, he would have to send it back. But in my case, I sent it to a, a contact that did not have a Venmo account. So the

Leo Laporte (00:57:38):
Money just didn't go anywhere. It

Kim Schaffer (00:57:40):
Automatically came back to

Leo Laporte (00:57:41):
Me after like a month. Yeah. He says he, it looked like he'd received the money. But see if Ven, if you use, the way they do this scam is they use a stolen credit card or a phony credit card. Venmo initially says the money's been deposited and then a day or two later goes No, it is not <laugh>. It's not, it's gone. And then you already sent her 35 bucks. So Venmo Yeah, there's a page of Venmo scams <laugh>, yeah. Payments from strangers. A stranger may send a payment to you, then contact you to say they send it by mistake. Do not send the money. Tim does not share in the club Twi proceeds. No. <laugh> Kim does not work for us. She works for Premier. And that's the confusion. There's the problem in a nutshell,

Kim Schaffer (00:58:30):
I'd have my job if I worked down in LA with Laura.

Leo Laporte (00:58:33):
Right. It would be a problem. Yeah. Cause she's gonna still have a job. Yeah.

Kim Schaffer (00:58:36):
So it's,

Leo Laporte (00:58:37):
It's confusing. And we did that ages ago cuz we were having Echo on the line when we had the call screening down there. Yeah. So we wanted to move the call screening up here, which at great expense cuz we had to put in a phone, you know, phone system and all this stuff. I'm sure Premier paid for it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, they're gonna want it back. I wonder what they're gonna do with one 800. Ask Leo.

Kim Schaffer (00:58:56):
Well didn't you find out that it didn't matter what the name was at the end cuz you did Micah

Leo Laporte (00:59:02):
Too. So it could be Ask Leo and Rich, they could just make it rich. Oh, no, no, no. It's it. You can't be 88. 88. Ask Rich. That's a different number. It could be 88. 88. Ask Leo and Rich

Kim Schaffer (00:59:13):
<Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:59:14):
Anything past the, you know, the 12 digits or 11 digits. Doesn't matter. 10 digit. Doesn't matter. Whoa. Hey, hey, hey. How are you today? Leo LaPorte here, the tech guy. Time to talk computers, the internet, home theater, digital photography. Smart phones. Smart watches, all that jazz. 88. 88. Ask Leo the phone number. (888) 827-5536. Toll free from anywhere in the US or Canada outside that area. You still can call, but you have to use Skype or something like that. Skype out to call a landline. Should still cost you nothing. Kenny, on the line from Cottontown, Tennessee. I always feel like there should be a song. Cottontown Tennessee Sounds like a song. I don't know. Is there one Kenny,

Caller 3 (01:00:03):
You know, I wish I could tell you one way or the other, but I know there have probably been songs about cotton or town, but <laugh>. Anyway, it's good to be on your show again.

Leo Laporte (01:00:12):
It's good to see you Kenny. Welcome. What can we do for you?

Caller 3 (01:00:16):
Well, I wanna give you a little bit of a follow up because the last time I called was about three months ago. I was starting to go back to college and I was taking a course in introduction to programming, which I can say that I pass.

Leo Laporte (01:00:29):
Yay.

Caller 3 (01:00:31):
Yep. And the project that I had to do, I had to learn how to read weather temperatures. And the funny part about using Python is, is that you have to, and it's not so much what you put into the coat, it's how it's indented. That was the one thing that I had learned.

Leo Laporte (01:00:48):
This is the silliest thing. And it's actually my number one complaint about Python is that white as white space, which is tabs spaces. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> mean something even though you can't see them. <Laugh>, the Python interpreter can. And I think that might have been a design error, but it is the way it is.

Caller 3 (01:01:11):
Yeah. I can't tell you how many times I had to see that syntax error or valid it a point where it just drove me crazy. I

Leo Laporte (01:01:18):
Think the creative python, the benevolent dictator for life now emeritus Guido von Rossam. I think his, his reason he did it that way is cuz he wanted to force people to format their code in a standardized way so they could, so people could look at it and understand it and read it. And, and that's usually enforced in other languages just by, you know, syntax rules. Google has a whole document on all the different languages used at Google and how you should indent it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But it's not, it's not written into the interpreter. It's just, you know, it's, it's custom in, in Python it's not custom. It's written into the interpreter. You have to, you have to know it and you have to do it. Right. Usually a good editor, if you use VS code or an editor that knows Python, it'll do it for you. So that's the main thing. You, you want to use something that'll understand Python, don't do it in the, in the notepad or anything.

Caller 3 (01:02:15):
Oh, oh <laugh>. Yeah. I had to unfortunately used that a little bit. But my professor was really good. He recommended me that I use Relet.

Leo Laporte (01:02:24):
Relet is a great website. R e p l.it, it's a great website. Has many, many languages and yeah, you could just do it in the browser and mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and that saves people probably most Python iss, that's what they're called. Pythons. I say these days probably use the free open source Microsoft vs. Code visual Studio code. It's on all all platforms. You use that too. Yeah. And it understands Python. You add the Python plugins and it does a very good job. And vs. Code does some nice things like for instance, it, it will, you know, you hover your mouse over a a command and it'll say it'll give you the information, it'll auto complete it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, they call it in tele sensee, things like that. Those are nice. This is really kind of a key to learning to code. And I'm sure your professor talked about this, they call it the tooling. If you wanna write programs, you gotta have the tools to make it efficient, possible, effective. Correct. It's all about the tools. So I would, I would guess that he spent some time talking about it. Rep it is a very good choice for somebody cuz you don't have to install anything. You can use it on a, an iPad. You can use it on a Chromebook. So that's why he probably mentioned it.

Caller 3 (01:03:45):
Yeah, he, yeah, he did. And speaking of that, I was gonna ask you, because Revel is of course a website and one of those things that I learned real quickly was there's this platform known as Web Catalog. I don't know if you're quite familiar

Leo Laporte (01:03:59):
With it. No, I don't know that one. No, what is that?

Caller 3 (01:04:02):
Okay. Well it's based out of the uk and what it does is that it takes websites like Rep and converts them into desktop applications. Oh

Leo Laporte (01:04:13):
Yeah. That's nice. On Windows. Yeah. There are a number of tools that will do that. That's a great idea. So you download this program, you give it the url and then it becomes a desktop app.

Caller 3 (01:04:26):
Yes.

Leo Laporte (01:04:27):
Nice.

Caller 3 (01:04:28):
And there's another one that I've actually tried before called Unit Unite for, that's another one called ecg. Yep. And this kind of gives you sort of an idea of Unite has like its own toolkit where you can kind of build a naive app from scratch mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. So I just kind of doing, recommending that for any Mac.

Leo Laporte (01:04:47):
Are you using a, you're using a Mac? Yes. Okay.

Caller 3 (01:04:51):
Yes. Mac has a lot of reviews. In fact, I'm looking@thebcgapps.com slash unite. That's where you go to learn more about it. Nice. A lot of reviews from a lot of like MAC server. MAC stories. Nine to five Mac.

Leo Laporte (01:05:06):
Yes. For a long time we used Fluid. That was the only thing out there. Then I've used that. But there are now a number of these. You know, the interesting thing is, and it's just because Apple doesn't do a very good job supporting it. There's a technology from Google. Microsoft supports it. Chrome supports it called pwa, progressive web apps that any website can be turned into a desktop app. You know how on your iPhone, you, you, you, you select a website and you say save to home screen. It's kind of like that. But they run offline. They do a lot of stuff. And I wish Apple Safari doesn't do a very good job supporting it. Unfortunately. I wish Apple did because that's really the best way to do this. Then you don't need a big heavy extra application. You just do a pwa. I don't know if relet has a PWA capability though. So yeah, do whatever you need to do to make RET work for you. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah, I think RET can be a PWA it looks like. Yeah.

Caller 3 (01:06:10):
Yeah. I actually Am

Leo Laporte (01:06:12):
You enjoying coding or you having fun doing it?

Caller 3 (01:06:15):
Oh yeah. Yeah. It's been a blast for me so far as learning that. It's interesting cuz of all the changes that I know that you're kind of going through with the radio show being transferred over I had to switch jobs. And the funny thing about doing that was that I realized that what they were paying for and what degrees they were offering was very limited. And then when I switched to this new job, oh yeah, it became available. And so I switched my major to it because the company that I'm working for now has a huge it and I'm hoping to maybe try to get into some form of internship for that.

Leo Laporte (01:06:50):
If you look, this is a skill and I tell everybody your age, this is a great skill to have. If you want a career that will last, that will pay well, that will challenge you and keep you interested. If you're interested in technology, don't do it if you don't. But I know you do have that interest, Kenny. Cause we've talked before. If you're interested in technology, learning how to run networks, keep networks secure, how to support desktops, those are all part of it. Coding is all part of it. It is a great field to have expertise in and with a lot of growth. So yeah, absolutely. I'd, I'd I'd encourage you to do that. We have a lot of IT professionals in our audience for the radio show. Even more so for the podcasts. Good friend of mine re con five in our, in our chatroom is a, it works for a very well known personage as his personal IT person. And that's a lot of fun too. There's a lot of great things you can do in life with with it. So I highly recommend it and I'm thrilled that you'd lose learning how to code too. Now I have found <laugh> a song about cottontown. Maybe I can get <laugh>, I could get professor Laura to play it. When we come back, Fatz Waller floating down to Cottontown <laugh>.

(01:08:13):
 And I'm thinking he is talking about Cottontown Tennessee. I'm just thinking I might be wrong, but I'm just thinking eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number. (888) 827-5536. Don't free from anywhere in the US or Canada outside that area. You could call using Skype out or ask your local IT professional. Leo LaPorte d tech guy. Well, it sounds like Cottontown is a party. I gotta say Leo LaPorte, D tech guy, Karen on the line from Pinion Hills, California, our next caller. Hi Karen.

Caller 4 (01:08:47):
Hi, how are you?

Leo Laporte (01:08:47):
I'm great, how are you?

Caller 4 (01:08:49):
I'm doing well. Listen, I called a couple months ago. I was gonna buy a new computer. 

Leo Laporte (01:08:56):
I remember it. Yes.

Caller 4 (01:08:58):
But I, before I pull the trigger I have an Asus laptop running Windows 8.1. Can I upgrade office? 

Leo Laporte (01:09:12):
First you're gonna have to probably gonna upgrade Windows.

Caller 4 (01:09:18):
Will, will I be able to do that on my machine

Leo Laporte (01:09:21):
Most of the time? If you can run Windows 8.1, you can run Windows 10. You wanna do this Cuz 8.1 is going to stop getting security updates in about a month.

Caller 4 (01:09:34):
Right? Right.

Leo Laporte (01:09:37):
So you're gonna, and, and Microsoft often will not install office on an out of date version of Windows. It's their little way of nudging you along. So you probably, you, you might be able to install Office on it, but it's probably worth getting it to Windows 10 anyway. In general, it's a free upgrade. It should be able to, you should be able to just do it. Microsoft doesn't say it's a free upgrade, but if you download I can't remember on Windows eight one, it probably doesn't give you an upgrade to Windows 10 option. You might look though on your update, see if it does. If it does, that's the easiest way to do it. Otherwise you'll have to download the Windows 10 installer, which you can get from Microsoft. They have it on a page, they call the media creation tool and just download the Windows 10 installer. And, and when you run it, it will say, ah, yeah, I see you have Windows eight one. You want me to upgrade that? And you say, yes, please.

Caller 4 (01:10:31):
Okay. Yeah. So is is Windows 12 the most?

Leo Laporte (01:10:36):
There is no 12.

Caller 4 (01:10:39):
Okay.

Leo Laporte (01:10:39):
There is Windows 10, which is gonna be current until 2025. As long as, and Microsoft has this little sneaky thing they do now, as long as you keep updating it, the updates run outta time in a couple of years. So you can have an out of date Windows 10 that isn't getting security updates. So you definitely want to keep it updated. This is, look, Microsoft's wants people to update because for security reasons, you know, to keep it safe. And after a while, they're gonna stop supporting older versions. You can understand that they don't want devote all the time and energy to something you bought 5, 10, 15 years ago. So after about 10 years, they start, they say, you know, we gotta move you on windows 10. I think you'll like, actually it will look a little different, but I think it's superior to eight. One 11 is just like Windows 10, but 11 has some other hardware requirements that that Asus probably will not satisfy. Okay. So a 10 will probably be the last version of Windows you can get on there, which means come 20, 25, 3 years from now, you're probably gonna want to get a new machine.

Caller 4 (01:11:50):
Okay.

Leo Laporte (01:11:51):
All right. Okay, great. Thank you. And I You're welcome. It's good to talk to you. I, you know, the, the issue, it's, it's complicated. <Laugh> on the one hand it's sad to get rid of hardware That's perfectly good. It's working. I don't, you know, I mean, I'm not gonna, this, this Aus could probably last another 20 years, but Microsoft's not gonna put anything on it because they want you to buy the new version of Windows. Frankly, it's a commercial, you know, it's a profit deal as Steve Martin would say. On the other hand, there are operating systems after end of life of Windows that you can put on there. Linux is the one you hear all the time. And you can put Linux on that machine, almost certainly. And Linux will be kept up to date eternally because it's not run by a company that wants to make money selling you the next version.

(01:12:48):
It's run by users who have a strong interest in keeping their existing hardware working, even though it's old. So Linux is a good choice. Once Windows stop supporting it, people often ask me, well, how scary is that? Like if I keep using Windows 8.1 after January 10th of next year, at which point Microsoft is no longer gonna ship fixes, how scary is that? How dangerous is it? How, how risky is it? Am I taking big chances? And I have, you know, the answer is, is it's complicated. All I would encourage everyone to use an UpToDate version of windows. Windows is bad enough, frankly, insecure enough as it is to use an out of date version. Just opens you up to all sorts of attacks. And these attacks, by the way, come in over the transom. Sometimes they're different categories of bugs, but the worst bug is one that allows a bad guy without you doing anything to get into your machine.

(01:13:55):
That's, those are rare, but they happen. And if that happens then you know, you probably, that machine is dangerous to use cuz you, you can't buy anything on there. They could be logging your keystrokes more likely. If if you have an out of date version of Windows, the most likely scenario is somebody sends you an email with a link or you see a website. You, you go to a website, maybe even a website you've gone to many times before. But that website has been hacked and has a tax built into it behind the scenes that will look and see, oh, he's using eight one, I've got just a thing. And inject something again without you doing anything clicking a link or downloading software that's infected most of the time somebody's gotta get something running on your system, which usually requires your co cooperation.

(01:14:46):
But, you know, it's easy to trick people unfortunately. So, so that's the risk most of the time. The risk isn't to you, believe it or not, most of the time when you get hacked, unless you're a corporation, people, ransomware used to affect individuals. There's no money in that. <Laugh>. The bad guys long ago realize much better to attack companies, governments, schools, people with money who will, who will be so desperate to get their data back that they'll attack them and, and say, you know, for a mere $10,000 you can have your data back. You're not gonna give 'em $10,000. But but a company mine, so we don't have to worry so much as we used to about ransomware attacks. The biggest risk to running an insecure system is not to you, it's to the, it's to your, the internet as a whole. Because mostly now what bad, remember bad guys are looking to make the most money for their attacks.

(01:15:41):
They don't wanna nickel and diamond. They want the big score. So nowadays what bad guys do once they get into your system on January 11th, <laugh> is take it over and use it to their evil ends. What kinds of things can they do with it? Well, the easiest, fastest one is send spam. But nowadays that's hard because internet service providers generally block outbound spam outbound email of any kind from your system. So that's changed over the years. Mostly. Now what they do is they have your system join a chat room that they use for command and control. And and I've seen these chat rooms. This has been going on for years. I've seen 'em, it's amazing. You'll see thousands of systems joining them every minute as they get co you know, co-opted and then they aim your system at somebody to blackmail 'em. Usually a gambling site on Superbowl Sunday, that kind of thing. You don't wanna be part of that either. Plus it makes your machine unreliable. So I think the best thing to do is update Leo Laporte, the tech guy. Chris Mark, what photo guy coming up when I forgot mins. I forgot crypto miners. Although I wonder now if that's as big a deal as it used to be. Hey Chris. Hello. How's everything? I see you were trying to sell your fishbowl, <laugh> slightly,

Chris Marquardt (01:17:14):
Slightly used fish bowl each won't even hardly used. It's hardly used.

Leo Laporte (01:17:16):
<Laugh>. <laugh>

Chris Marquardt (01:17:19):
Leo, can we, can we instead of the sensei photo thing to discover the top Florida today? Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:17:25):
Let's do it.

Chris Marquardt (01:17:26):
Because the Eastern European photo tour is now has dates and applications up and I'm starting to tell those. So

Leo Laporte (01:17:34):
How exciting. Yes, I agree with the Dai Lama.

Chris Marquardt (01:17:43):
Actually that quote, I think I write somewhere is probably not by the Dai lama, but it sounds good. He

Leo Laporte (01:17:48):
Lot of words put into his mouth. You could put Abraham Lincoln there. That's a, that's my favorite. <Laugh> Nice. No, this is a very limited group, so you might wanna apply fast here.

Chris Marquardt (01:18:01):
Well that's, that's kind of the thing. Once it is already sold, it's two times three. I just,

Leo Laporte (01:18:07):
Yeah, look, it was

Chris Marquardt (01:18:08):
A couple of days ago. It

Leo Laporte (01:18:09):
Started the only five seats left. Kids move fast. Get to ride in Chris's Tesla. Fun. Oh yes. Fun, fun, fun. Good. Well let's definitely plug that today. Get that.

Chris Marquardt (01:18:22):
And other than that, I didn't send you an email. I just wanted bring some basics up. Like some basic photo rules that everyone can of.

Leo Laporte (01:18:29):
Yeah, yeah. The basics,

Chris Marquardt (01:18:32):
The, the important stuff.

Leo Laporte (01:18:37):
Delio, we will talk in a couple of minutes.

Chris Marquardt (01:18:42):
Am I coming through? Okay? Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:18:44):
It's a little, there's a little bit of issue. Are you

Chris Marquardt (01:18:48):
Not? I'm, I'm getting the same from your side and I'm on a, on a fast network today, so I don't know, this might be a peering thing or a transatlantic thing or something.

Leo Laporte (01:18:56):
It's okay so far. It's just every once in a while this gonna hit, but I

Chris Marquardt (01:19:00):
Think it'll be okay. Cause I, nothing, nothing is using the network here. So I'm a bit

Leo Laporte (01:19:04):
John. Is it us? Is it us, John?

Chris Marquardt (01:19:08):
I don't think it is.

Leo Laporte (01:19:11):
I hope not. We're gotta do a whole twit in a few minutes. Well, I hope it's

Chris Marquardt (01:19:16):
Not us. No, I'm, I'm, my, my my my line is like 90% empty, so it's nothing happening

Leo Laporte (01:19:21):
Here. All right.

Chris Marquardt (01:19:23):
Anyway, it'll be fine.

Leo Laporte (01:19:25):
Cool. We'll talk in a minute.

Chris Marquardt (01:19:27):
All right.

Leo Laporte (01:19:28):
Our show today brought to you by ZipRecruiter hiring is so important these days. We're in a major labor shortage, right? And finding the right person when you're down a man or a woman can really be a tough thing to do. I know, you know, we're a small company. When, when somebody resigns or gives us notice, we gotta find a replacement that is problematic. Cuz usually that means Lisa, my wife was gonna be doing the hiring, is already doing their work. But I'll tell you, once we found ZipRecruiter, life got much better. We've hired some of our best employees with ZipRecruiter. It's the place to go where hiring is simple, fast, and smart. A place where a growing business like ours may be, like yours can connect to qualified candidates. Ziprecruiter.Com/Tech guy. I'll tell you why. Lisa loves ZipRecruiter. First of all, some of our best employees we've hired that way.

(01:20:23):
It's all we use. It's all we use. We love it. She'll post, you know, we'll get a, we'll get a, you know, notice on a, on a Monday morning at breakfast. She'll go, oh no, I gotta fill the job. It just happened with not so long ago. Our copywriter in the continuity department, we love her, but she got another job. She, I guess closer to home. So she wanted take that job. So Lisa says, now, what am I gonna do? Posts the zip recruiter. Now the first thing that happens, you're posting not just a zip recruiter, but to a hundred plus job boards, to social media everywhere. They put it out everywhere with one click of the mouse. You just do that. You might say, well, I don't, I don't want 'em, but get a million emails or a million phone calls.

(01:21:05):
No, you don't have to worry. It all goes into the ZipRecruiter interface. They reformat the resume. So they're easy to scan. You can have screening questions, true, false, multiple choice, even essays to eliminate people who don't fit what you need. It's very easy to scan through, rank 'em, but then another thing happens, it's kind of miraculous. Ziprecruiter uses its powerful technology to find candidates in their existing database of more than a million resumes. Cuz job seekers go to ZipRecruiter to to, to find jobs. And so they say, well, here's your requirements. Here's, here's 10 people that fit those requirements. And then you get to, if you look at 'em and say, oh, I like these people, invite them. Which means, by the way, when you invite somebody to apply for your job, that is it the best thing you can do. That person is, is so excited.

(01:21:56):
You know, they're gonna respond. They're gonna come for the interview, they're gonna follow through. So that's a, that's a great start. Ziprecruiter is so effective. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. We posted breakfast, usually before lunch. Usually in just an hour or two. I'll, Lisa will be saying, oh, we got a good one. Oh, here's another one. It's awesome. That's how we found you. Viva, right? Ziprecruiter, the number one rated hiring site based on G2 satisfaction ratings. As of January 1st, 2022, when Ashley left, we put out a post and we found great candidates right away. And we hired Viva almost instantly. And that's been a great boon. She's wonderful right now. Ziprecruiter, you can try it for free. Just go to ziprecruiter.com/tech guy ziprecruiter.com/t e c h g u y, zip recruiter. It's the smartest way to hire ziprecruiter.com/tech guy. It's time for photo guy Chris Mark Wart. He is a photographer, a a legend, a podcaster, <laugh>, a book author, and he is leading some Eastern European photographic expeditions. Soon you could find out about 'em at discover the top floor.com. Hello, Chris Marwar.

Chris Marquardt (01:23:18):
Hello le apart. How's everything today?

Leo Laporte (01:23:21):
It's great. It's great. Tell me about these Eastern European photo road trips. What are you gonna do?

Chris Marquardt (01:23:27):
So, so in summer I did a scouting tour to Transylvania from Berlin. <Laugh>, yes. From from Berlin to Budapest to Vienna, Vienna dressed Prague. And I've been yeah, testing out if this whole thing is a good idea. And it turns out, yes, it is. So

Leo Laporte (01:23:47):
Very photo, very beautiful areas.

Chris Marquardt (01:23:50):
Well, it's, it's, it's beautiful cities. It's very historic material. The Sylvania is the, is the destination and will on the way stop in different places and have like really the, from the queen streets in, in, in Vienna to the, the Jewish quarter in Prague and the big cathedrals and things. So there will be a lot of interesting stuff going on. And it's gonna happen in a, in a, in a Tesla model three. So we'll be doing an electric road trip down to there. It's, it's a 10 day tour in total. And there's two of them. One from Berlin down to Sylvania, and then one on the way back from Sylvania back to Berlin. Both will cover the same the same cities, the same places, just in a different direction.

Leo Laporte (01:24:39):
I love all those September places. That sounds

Chris Marquardt (01:24:42):
September, 2023. Yes.

Leo Laporte (01:24:43):
Oh,

Chris Marquardt (01:24:44):
Very limited space.

Leo Laporte (01:24:45):
It's a while off. Very, no, you're gonna stay in hotels. You're not gonna sleep in the car.

Chris Marquardt (01:24:49):
No, of course we will stay in hotels. We'll, we'll, we'll be driving maybe like three, three and a half hours a day in the midday. And then we'll be at these places in the evenings with the beautiful evening light. Then we'll get up early in the next morning and photograph some more. And then we'll head onto the next stops.

Leo Laporte (01:25:06):
If, if anybody is never, if you've never done, and I'm sure most people haven't a expedition with photographers, it is the best way because it's leisurely. Cuz every time you go buy something, people go, wait, wait, wait. And you stop. You take a picture. Don't go if you're in a hurry. But what a great way to enjoy something to see the sites. And I think you'll be a great tour guide for all this too. That sounds like

Chris Marquardt (01:25:30):
Fun. Well, I've done it for years, so <laugh>. Yeah, it's, and it's, and it's very tiny group, so it'll be very, it's not like a private photo tour. Pretty much you can, everyone has a say will, will be will be deciding things together as a group. And it's, it's gonna be, it's, it's gonna be a pretty great

Leo Laporte (01:25:46):
Experiences. Sounds marvelous. Well, good. Have a great time and if anybody wants to know more, discover the top floor.com. What are we doing today to get get better at taking picture pictures? Well,

Chris Marquardt (01:25:59):
You know, there's a few very simple basic things that I haven't, I haven't talked about here in years, but I think we need to talk about them again, cuz those things will be helpful for everyone. If you, if you have a big fat camera on your professional photographer, those same things apply to you as they apply to someone with a simple entry level smartphone. So it doesn't really matter what you shoot with. The first thing, three things, reduce and simplify. Take a real close look at what you frame in your, in your shot. Look through the viewfinder or on your display and and have a look at, is there clutter in the background? Is there stuff that distracts from your subject? Is there a clear subject? Are you sure you have a, it's, it's, it's clear what it's about, what the photo's about. That's

Leo Laporte (01:26:47):
The single most common mistake I see in snapshots is it's no, it's just a thing. It's just a, a, you, well, it's know the story

Chris Marquardt (01:26:56):
In your mind. The subject is important cuz it's important to you. But the viewer who looks at that photo later on, they will go, Hey, what, what's this about? So, who are

Leo Laporte (01:27:04):
All these people <laugh>? What do they, what do they mean? A super,

Chris Marquardt (01:27:08):
A super simple way to, to reduce and simplify and get the, the, the subject to be more important is get closer or zoom in. Make sure you are closer and fill more of the frame with it. That's a very basic principle, but it does work with photography and it does work really well. So reducing simplification, important thing. The second one is try to change your perspective every now and then. We take photos from up here, our eye, eye level, right? That's what we do. We hold the camera up and take a picture. This is how we see the world every day. And this is how everyone else sees the world every day. So go low or go high, try, climb on something. Try to try to try to crouch down a bit or shoot through something to make it more interesting. That will really change the way those photos look and feel. And you'd be surprised how interesting a photo can look if you, you won't have to line your on your belly. You can just lower your smartphone to the ground and shoot from there. <Laugh> give that a try. Next time you take a picture, it's, it's gonna make it more interesting.

Leo Laporte (01:28:15):
Although you shouldn't be afraid of crawling on the ground. Go ahead.

Chris Marquardt (01:28:19):
Enjoy. You know, you know, the, the, the, the, the interesting thing is if you, if you're reading into photography at one point, you will stop, you will stop worrying about what other people think that's

Leo Laporte (01:28:29):
Right about you.

Chris Marquardt (01:28:29):
So you'll, you'll just do these things. And then last but not least take stuff out of the middle. The cameras, when you look through a camera, through a viewfinder, it is often, it kinda suggests that what is important should be in the middle. Cuz that's where these little circles are in the little boxes that give you, like, that blink and tell you if it's in focus and so on. And, and that's what we often do. We point at something and put it in the middle. Now, if you take a picture of someone, let's say a person mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, what often happens is that you put their eyes in that middle spot. And that means you are wasting a whole lot of space above their head. In this photo. There's, there, there simple, simple, simple rule. If you take a porter of someone, find that, find that horizontal middle line through the picture, that virtual line that you don't see, but that is there, the middle of the picture. And make sure their eyes are above that line is as simple as that. Make sure their eyes are above that line and use a bit more of that space on the top. That's, that's true for everything. If you point, if you put stuff in the middle, you are usually wasting space, which kind of goes back to the decluttering, reducing simplification to go a bit closer, fill more of the frame with it, and you'll have better photos. Super simple, but it's very effective.

Leo Laporte (01:29:52):
I like using, and I know you wrote a whole book on it, a wide angle lens.

Chris Marquardt (01:29:57):
Oh, that means you have to go even closer. Well,

Leo Laporte (01:29:59):
That's what I was gonna say cuz it tends to bring in everything, right? You have this vast array of stuff, which is fine for some things, but mostly, yeah, you wanna get closer and closer, but don't get too close cuz people's noses get big and then it's not, then it's not

Chris Marquardt (01:30:13):
Flat. Well, with portraits, yeah. But then, but then if you, if you have something interesting that you wanna showcase a wide angle lens and help you or all the wide angle camera in your smartphone, many smartphones not have a super ultra

Leo Laporte (01:30:25):
Wide angle camera.

Chris Marquardt (01:30:26):
Yeah, yeah. I tend to use that a lot. I love the look really lets you emphasize things. You get close to something and the west kind of disappears in a distance. That's another way to declutter. Get close and use an ultra wide lens and play with that. That's gonna help you get rid of stuff in the background cuz it just shrinks to nothing.

Leo Laporte (01:30:42):
They do it in the movies. I I, I learned about this a while ago. When you see a tight closeup in a movie, usually the camera is right in the actor's face that they, they, they will switch lenses as they're filming and they'll do at wide angle for those closeups. It's interesting. Yes. Yeah. You get a better shot that way. It's a much more intimate shot

Chris Marquardt (01:31:02):
And, okay, yeah, of course. Watch, watch out for those distortions that you get when you have a super wide angle lens. If you, especially when you put something outside the middle to the side of the frame, then they'll end up having egg shaped heads

Leo Laporte (01:31:14):
<Laugh> again. It's, it's a fine effect as long as you know you're doing it <laugh>.

Chris Marquardt (01:31:20):
It's if, if that's, if it's intentional, everything's fine. If it's not, then you might get some complaints from your subjects.

Leo Laporte (01:31:26):
Yes, <laugh>. So don't show them. That's the key. <Laugh>

Chris Marquardt (01:31:31):
<Laugh> or be careful.

Leo Laporte (01:31:34):
Chris Maror did write and I recommended a great book. He's written many books, but he has a great book on wide angle photography, film photography. He's got a wonderful series of instructions on using Lightroom effectively. There's all sorts of wonderful stuff, including the workshops at discover the top floor.com. Don't forget his podcast Tips from the Top Floor, the longest running photography podcast@tfttf.com. I think though, if you go to discover the top floor.com, you could find everything you you want about Chris Maror. Chris, a real pleasure. Thank you for joining us today. We'll see you next week. Thank you. See you then.

(01:32:13):
Tell me again the assignment is mysterious blue. Blue. That's right. I will do blue when we come back. Thank you Chris. Absolutely. See you in a week from now. See you in a week. Take care. Leo Laporte, the tech guy. 88. 88. Ask Leo. I forgot to mention while Chris was on our photo assignment, a couple more weeks left to take a picture illustrating the word, the concept, the idea Blue, blue. Am I blue without you? Blue. So here's how this works. It's really just an excuse to get out and take photos. And it doesn't have to be with a fancy camera. Use your camera phone, that's fine. But once you get an image that you say, Hey, this, this this affects me, this re I once I was, I was talking to a very famous photographer, worked for National Geographic for years. And I, and I wanted to know how is it when you're looking through your photos and I was watching him do this, go through photos that you know that this one's a good one now.

(01:33:14):
He said, Leo, it'll hit me right here in the gut <laugh>. And I said, I wish I had that gut. But if you, I am always looking as I look at my photos for something that strikes me, something that grabs me. So if you take a picture and it's blue or it's about blue or it has the concept blue and it hits you there, that's the one you should upload to. Flicker.Com, that's the free photo sharing site we use and love. And then submit it to the tech guy group. There's a big group about 13,000 people in it, the tech guy group. Lots of great photos in there, but we'll know it's a submission for the assignment if you tag it. And that's one of the things you do on Flickers. You tag it, tag it, TG Blue for tech Guy Blue, TG Blue. And that way we'll know Renee Silverman or Moderate.

(01:33:59):
It'll go, oh yeah, this is for the assignment. You can do up to one picture a week. Cause we don't wanna get flooded with a lot of blue pictures. Just the right blue pictures, the ones that hit you right there. So if you find one flicker.com tech guy group, TG Blue and Crystal Review review 'em all and it in a couple of weeks, do what he does best. He does photo coaching for a living and he'll help us understand what makes a great photo and why these particular ones are are good. Back to the phones we go. And Pete is on the line from San Antonio, Texas. Hi Pete.

Caller 5 (01:34:35):
Hey Leo. Hey pleasure to speak to you. Had a question that might be super easy. Oh please. Something that's been flagging me for years.

Leo Laporte (01:34:44):
No one should ever stop asking the simple questions. That helps me a lot.

Caller 5 (01:34:48):
<Laugh> Oh

Leo Laporte (01:34:49):
Yes. Keeps my brain from overheating,

Caller 5 (01:34:52):
<Laugh>. Right. it's an Android related question, but really quick before I ask, ask the question about the Android. I did wanna say there's two famous people that I've always wanted to meet in my life. I met one just a couple weeks ago. That was Kevin Smith. The other person unfortunately is about to retire from their radio talk show. Oh,

Leo Laporte (01:35:12):
Well I'm not retiring from life. Will continue to work in the studio here in beautiful downtown Petaluma, California. So if you ever, if you ever get up here look me up. Okay. <laugh>,

Caller 5 (01:35:23):
I definitely do. Good. Wanna do that? Do you still have the audio? That audience that can sit in? We

Leo Laporte (01:35:29):
Actually, since Covid, we stopped doing that. And I think we're still, you know, debating it. I don't wanna risk my staff, you know, and we, we, we, we've kind of tried to keep this a safe place. So not yet, but keep, you know, keep listening the pod. I'll be doing podcasts for many, many more years. Kevin Smith, by the way, I've never met him, but he he does a podcast does a number podcast and he, he's always talking about me as a podcast pioneer, which makes me feel old. So there's a little connection, a little connection there as well. I think Kevin got into podcasting cuz he was interested by about what, what we were doing. And I'm gonna keep doing podcasting. I love it. So what can I do for you?

Caller 5 (01:36:12):
Yes. in regards to Android os I have quite a few more than I should. Android devices, a lot of them are older ones. Okay. And I've always had an issue to where that the CPU gets ramped up, like really, really high, a hundred percent no reason whatsoever. And I can't find any way to see what's eating up the cycles.

Leo Laporte (01:36:37):
Oh, this is an easy thing on Android. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> the first and simplest thing is to look at battery because the battery will tell you what's eating battery and if something is using your CPU a lot, it's gonna have a direct impact on battery. There's almost always a one to one correspondence between programs that are running in the background using a lot of processor, a lot of resources, and the battery hogs. So that's the first thing. It's not an ex, you know, it's not exactly saying cpu, but it is definitely a way to tell. And I think for most people that's sufficient. If you wanna go farther, there is on most Android phones, there's a, a special developer options menu that you have to enable. Are you familiar with that?

Caller 5 (01:37:25):
I have seen that before. I never really use it. I've

Leo Laporte (01:37:29):
It's a trick to get into it and Google, Google's kinda wa so you go into settings, you go into about, and then there will be a an entry in the, about this phone build number. You tap that. I am not joking. Seven times <laugh>. The, after you tap it four times, it'll say you're getting close and you keep going <laugh>. And that will, after the fourth, after the seventh time, you'll see a little animation depending on the phone, on Google phones, you'll see a little, you know, dragon or whatever. And then it'll say, Hey, you've unlocked developer options. Once you have a developer options in your settings, then you can see there's a monitoring program and you can see directly how CPU usage is. So if that's what you wanna know is, you know, what's, there's also in there running services. So there's, there's sometimes it's not an app that's using up all the battery, it's a service.

(01:38:21):
You could see all of that. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, so that's, both of those are part of your phone. One is a little more hidden. It's kind of a secret, but I think between the two of those, you're gonna be just fine. That's, that's gonna give you everything you need to know. One of that's one of the reasons actually I like Android is it's much more like a computer. It's really a much more open operating system. You, you know, apple has the battery system, but there's no developer options on an iOS phone. You know, you're not, you're not expected to get in there. Yeah. Yeah.

Caller 5 (01:38:49):
Well, I appreciate the info.

Leo Laporte (01:38:51):
Hey, my pleasure. Thanks for calling. Android is one of those things that you can hack the phone. You can often do what they call root it, which means give yourself full privileges, which allows you to modify the firmware. There's all sorts of stuff. And you said you have a lot of older Android phones. You know, I wouldn't wanna do it with my main phone, right? I still wanna get phone calls, but if you have an older Android phone, that's a great thing to mess around with and, and really learn the guts of Android. Best place to learn how to do all of that is a forum, really good forum called xda Developers. This is, this is where people go who are the hardcore android ISAs xta developers.com. And you can actually look up your model. They have all sorts of information there. It's a really good site. Joe on the line from Austin, Texas. Hello Joe.

Caller 6 (01:39:40):
How's it going, Leo?

Leo Laporte (01:39:41):
It's great. How are you? You're

Caller 6 (01:39:42):
Leaving?

Leo Laporte (01:39:43):
Well, I'm only leaving the radio. You know, the internet's still here and I'll be doing that forever.

Caller 6 (01:39:48):
I'll be watching the internet for you. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:39:50):
Retire. I'm only retiring for my career. <Laugh>. Hey, I <laugh> I still have this hobby called the internet so that that'll last a while. What can I do for you, Joe?

Caller 6 (01:40:02):
I'm watching Netflix forever.

Leo Laporte (01:40:03):
Thank you. As you're on there. Yeah. Just a twit TV or We'll, we'll keep tech guy labs.com and I'll still point to everything I do. So that's the best way to do it. What's up?

Caller 6 (01:40:13):
I've got a relatives one that a very bad divorce and we think maybe that he might have placed a GPS tracking device on her vehicle. Oh, this we wanna find, we weren't trying to fi figure out how can we track out ourselves or find out if it's, there's one on there.

Leo Laporte (01:40:29):
There, I don't know of a way, like a device you could buy that would detect the GPS tracker. It's a radio by the way. They're, you know, cheap. You can buy 'em on Amazon for like 30 bucks. They're not expensive. They have little magnets on 'em. Look in the rear in the, I'm sorry, the wheel wheel wells look under the bumper, look around. It's not tiny. It's about the size of

Caller 6 (01:40:55):
That

Leo Laporte (01:40:56):
Hard. Yeah. Yeah. Or even sometimes as small as a matchbook, but it, it will, it will be visible. And if you, if you, if you carefully examine the undercarriage or get a mechanic to do that, you know, a mechanic could find it too. And you know, just say, Hey, find anything that's magnetically attached to the car. I don't know if there, there should be. Yeah, it'll just be right on there. I I I wonder if there's a, some sort of GPS detector because it does have a, it, you know, their thing is they're, they're passive in the GPS thing, but eventually they have to go onto the 3G or 4G cell network and transmit location back. Right.

Caller 6 (01:41:38):
So told us might be Bluetooths like an Apple tile.

Leo Laporte (01:41:43):
The, yeah, the Apple will let you know if you have an iPhone and let you know it's going along with you. If you don't, there's an, there's an app for Android that will tell you if you look up the air tags on Android, there are GPS tractors, track detectors. I've never tried them. But that might be worth looking up too. Leo LaPorte, the tech guy. This is interesting. So there's RF, wireless signal detector, Juans they're expensive though. They're hundreds of dollars. I think you probably air tag is not as effective. I mean if he's, if the X is not too sophisticated, he might have tried that. But it's, it's not the best way to track somebody, frankly. And it'll, and because of this, it will start beeping if he's not nearby. So it's not a very loud beep, but listen for it. 

Caller 6 (01:42:33):
I think where she worked, it's a government installation and they told her that her vehicle's emitting signals. Oh,

Leo Laporte (01:42:40):
So they have an RF detector.

Caller 6 (01:42:43):
I dunno what they have

Leo Laporte (01:42:45):
<Laugh>. Interesting. Yeah, the air tank is just Bluetooth. The air tank doesn't use 3G doesn't use a cell network. It's pure Bluetooth. Oh yeah, he could have, you know, he would've hidden it in the cushions or lots of places you could put it. It's the size of a quarter on an, so on an iPhone it will tell you. And then on Android, apple has made a, a program called Tracker Detect that's free to download that will scan for trackers. I've used it. I haven't found it to be that good, but it's worth it. At least it's free and try it. Right.

Caller 6 (01:43:24):
I'll tell her that.

Leo Laporte (01:43:25):
Yeah. Yeah. Well that's interesting. So that they said, did they tell her what kind of emissions, did they say Bluetooth?

Caller 6 (01:43:33):
They just said, I mean in signals.

Leo Laporte (01:43:35):
Huh? I wonder what that was. I mean, most cars emit signals. They have you know, a lot of cars have 3G built in.

Caller 6 (01:43:43):
Yeah. And, and, and we, we kind of thought maybe what might have been like the, maybe the Bluetooth of the vehicle or maybe a wireless.

Leo Laporte (01:43:49):
Yeah. I mean that's, that's not meaningful. Almost all modern cars have, you know, OnStar or the, that kind of thing that the telematics are, are connected to the the cell network. So that's not, I mean, yes, many cars emit signals. I would love to know what kind of signals if they say Bluetooth, maybe there's some air tags. Get tracker detect if she's on Android and, and apple apple's iPhones are supposed to say, Hey, there is an unknown and I've seen this an unknown air tag around. And and if it sees an unknown air, tag it while she's in the cart, then that for sure. That's what hubby has done. Jerk, thank you for helping her.

(01:44:34):
 I'm sorry. You have to do that. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. How are you today? Leo LaPorte here, the tech guy. Time to talk computers, the internet, home theater, digital photography, smartphone, smart watches, all that jazz. 88. 88. Ask Cleo the phone number. (888) 827-5536. Toll free from anywhere in the US or Canada outside that area. You could still call us, but you gotta use a Skype out or something like that to call 88 88. Ask Leah website where all the links are. Tech guy labs.com. The numbers are out. Friday was Black Friday, Monday is Cyber Monday. Do those really still make sense? You know, it made a lot of sense. Pre C remember people used to line up at Target and various stores, there'd be fist fights in the aisles as you got the four TVs that were priced at below cost and everybody's fighting for that kind.

(01:45:36):
That all seems to have ended, hasn't it? Or did you see any, did you see any freak FRAs in your shopping? Did you go out at all on Friday? I think a lot of people now it's just online. It's just online. There was a surge in in-person shopping this year. There was a surge last year too. And even though Covid hasn't really left us completely, people finally just said, I'm going out. I don't care. According to the Wall Street Journal shoppers still bought items online this year, but many browsed in stores, reveling in a holiday tradition according to early data shoppers who held off on purchases. This is the Wall Street Journal, are betting on even better deals. Are you doing this in the days leading up to Christmas, which is a Sunday this year, high gasoline and grocery prices also you know, inflation weighing on many households, but in-store traffic went up 7% on Friday.

(01:46:45):
That was over already increased Black Friday of last year. This is according to retail. Next traffic went up 7%. But in-store sales went up 0.1%, which is nothing, in other words. And in fact, the average shoppers spent less per visit than last year. So a lot of looky-loos. I think probably a lot of us went into stores, looked and said, that's not a deal, and walked out, or, oh, that's nice, did you do this? Oh, that's nice. I'm gonna go and buy it from Amazon <laugh>. Did you do that? I think that happens a lot. I do the shopkeeper's dilemma, right? More and more retail stores are kind of going, people coming in, asking advice and getting all the information and then leaving and buying it online. And shopkeepers are not happy about that.

(01:47:51):
Not happy about that. What else happened? Let's see, it sounds like that's what happened. Another firm sensor Amatic Solutions, that sounds like a firm from the fifties. Sensor Amatic solutions analyzed store traffic. And they said Black Friday traffic was up Amere 2.9% over Oh, 2021. Yeah, last year. Yeah. Yeah. Black Friday says the Wall Street Journal has been losing importance because people are getting deals earlier or they're buying more online. It's a little bit better this year. Mastercard, which I guess would probably know, say is Black's Friday. Sales Rose 12% year over year. That's a, that's a good amount. Apparel, electronics and restaurants. <Laugh>, wait a minute, you don't shop in a restaurant Strong per, but maybe you went out to eat. Maybe you did.

(01:48:52):
Anyway, I guess it's kind of a mixed bag, isn't it? We don't, wasn't a great, wasn't a great Black Friday, but I think a lot of this now, I think we're used to it now, thanks to internet shopping and so forth. It's spread out over the month. That's what Scott Wilkins was saying about TVs. Many of these deals will last all month. And maybe inflation's hitting it too a little bit. 88. 88. Ask Leo, did you shop this Black Friday? Did you see any good fist fights? John's on the line for Mopar, California. Our next caller. Hi John.

Caller 7 (01:49:32):
Hello Leo. How are you sir?

Leo Laporte (01:49:34):
I am well, how are you?

Caller 7 (01:49:36):
Well, I'm, I'm fine. I plan on being fine, but I was, I'm, I'm in charge of the computer room at our senior center here actually is in Simi Valley, <affirmative>. And a lady came up with me with that question, so I thought I would ask you a question. Is, is there an app that she could use in case she died suddenly?

Leo Laporte (01:49:58):
<Laugh>. Wait, wait, what? Wait a minute. She's dead. Obviously she can't use any, so it would be an app that somehow monitors her.

Caller 7 (01:50:07):
I, I don't, I'm not exactly sure of the parameters of the questions, <laugh>, but and I said, well, they

Leo Laporte (01:50:13):
Call that a

Caller 7 (01:50:14):
Beyond, just beyond my, I'll call Leo

Leo Laporte (01:50:17):
<Laugh>. They call that a dead man switch. You know, they, they have those on trains where the engineer has to keep his foot on a button to keep going. If he passes out or dies the train stops there is dead. Man, this is, this is gonna answer your question. There's no app that'll do this, but there is, there are websites that will do this. In fact, there's one called Dead Man switch.net.

Caller 7 (01:50:45):
I love it. Okay.

Leo Laporte (01:50:47):
And what it will do is it will send you a, a text message or an email or a browser notification every 30 days, 45 days, whatever you choose. And if you don't respond, <laugh>, it'll assume you're dead. Now

Caller 7 (01:51:07):
I justt ask for a password.

Leo Laporte (01:51:09):
<Laugh>. So, so imagine that you get a text message. What's her name?

Caller 7 (01:51:15):
My name is

Leo Laporte (01:51:16):
John. No, but what's her name? Do you know?

Caller 7 (01:51:18):
I did not ask.

Leo Laporte (01:51:19):
I did not ask. So let's say it's Beatrice. Imagine Beatrice, every, every month gets a text message, Beatrice or Your Life. And she goes, yes, and it goes away. But if she, if, if it goes a certain period of time, and again, dead man switch.com dead man switch.net you can then set it up. So we'll send out emails. I have died, <laugh>.

Caller 7 (01:51:44):
Oh, that was wonderful. Well, she, I do this every Friday. And this is about a two week old question because we didn't have a meeting.

Leo Laporte (01:51:55):
There's no, you know, there's no phone app. But this isn't a way a phone thing because you can have it go to your text messages. So it is kind of a phone thing that you have to respond. Now, obviously, it's not gonna be instantaneous because you, you wanna have, you know, you <laugh> you wanna have some, some time to respond, but if you don't respond, you can read all about it. Dead Man's switch.net. This is not the only one, but this is one of them. Free for up to two emails after your death. Or you can get a premium service that'll let you send out a hundred emails to all, all your friends and family. That's $50 for a lifetime. So,

Caller 7 (01:52:34):
Well, yeah, but fine. Let 'em send me a bill afterward. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:52:39):
Yeah. Just bill me <laugh>. So I think it's, now I have to be frank, who knows if this service will go forever. You know, I don't, you know, it's an interesting idea. There, there are more than one service like this. This one's been around for a while. That's a good sign. But there are other companies that do this as well. And you could even do this yourself if you were pretty sophisticated, John, you run the, the tech department, you could set up if you want a server.

Caller 7 (01:53:10):
And this was, this was beyond my capacity.

Leo Laporte (01:53:14):
<Laugh>. Okay?

Caller 7 (01:53:15):
I said this, this is why I said, well, you know, weekend is coming up. It's a Friday. I'll wait till Saturday or Sunday and call Leo. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:53:23):
So that's, that's what they call it. A dead man switch. And there is email, there are services. You could create your own, of course. Little,

Caller 7 (01:53:32):
I'm writing this down

Leo Laporte (01:53:35):
And

Caller 7 (01:53:35):
Always have an answer.

Leo Laporte (01:53:37):
And as long as we're talking about this, it is, it is prudent. We talked about this yesterday too. Put together every, in fact, you could have your group do this, you know, like as a group project, hand out, print out a thing that says, my ma my password manager, master password is this, my login to my phone? Is this, my login to my computer is this, I have bank accounts here, here and here, et cetera, et cetera. You could leave it blank, hand it out to all the seniors. Say, would you fill this out and put it somewhere safe? You don't wanna mail it to anybody yet, but put it somewhere safe. I have mine in my desk drawer at home so that if something should happen to you. Cuz I get calls on the show all the time. That's why I came up yesterday.

(01:54:17):
Somebody's uncle had died a couple of years ago and they still couldn't get into his email. And if you think about it, that's problematic. There's also, Facebook has this number of services, have this memorialize your account. If somebody passes, you send a Facebook, Hey, here's the death certificate. She's passed. They take the account, they turn it into an immor for that person. They don't delete it because those pictures and stuff, that's great, right? You wanna keep that. But people can only leave messages saying, I miss you Aunt, aunt Beatrice, I miss you. That kind of thing.

Caller 7 (01:54:51):
Interesting, interesting.

Leo Laporte (01:54:52):
Yeah. So this is not, this is not unheard of. Yeah. <laugh>. And it's a good idea for those of us of a certain age to plan. Yeah. Yeah. And in fact most password managers will have an emergency contact you can designate which I would also do in my password manager. I've designated my wife and my daughter as emergency contacts, and I've told them both. And so if I should pass suddenly without giving them any information, they can then contact the password manager saying, Leo's gone. And, and the password manager will then automatically send me an email. Leo, are you really gone or are they just trying to get your money? And if I don't answer and I can set the parameters on that, I've said it for seven days. If I don't answer in seven days, the password will be sent to them so that they can get in my password fault. And that's a really important thing to do.

Caller 7 (01:55:42):
And this is a service by Google. They have, they

Leo Laporte (01:55:45):
Have this is mo if you have a password manager, last pass, one password bit warden all do this. They call it an, you know emergency access. And if by the way, that's something you really could set your seniors up with, is to teach them how to use a password manager. I know it's challenging, but it's a good thing for them to do. And maybe even turn two factor and so forth. But at the very least, hand out a piece of paper with blanks for all of that stuff. My password, my login, all that stuff. And they, and just say, put this somewhere safe. Put it in a safe. You need to put it in a safe deposit box. Or just put it, you know, in your, in your desk drawer so that when your next, if kin comes to settle your estate, they can get into your stuff. Cuz I can't tell you how often that happens.

Caller 7 (01:56:33):
Well, of course, I, I'm gonna discuss this with the manager of our center and, and see if we can start, you know you know, discussing that as a option. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:56:43):
They may, some people may take poorly, but you know, I know with my mom, she's 89 years old. She'll be 90 in a couple of, in about a month. We've had that conversation and we've talked about, you know, what her last wishes are and stuff. It's a difficult conversation, but I think you do it out of respect and love for your next tokin because they're gonna have to deal with it when you're gone. And so,

Caller 7 (01:57:06):
Well, yes. And, and I had Thanksgiving dinner with a woman whose husband suddenly passed away and she does not have access to their mutual computer.

Leo Laporte (01:57:17):
I rest my case. It happens all the time because nobody wants to think that that's gonna happen. But even if you're 22 years old, you can get hit by a bus. These things happen. You should make sure you've done this no matter what age.

Caller 7 (01:57:31):
Exactly.

Leo Laporte (01:57:32):
Do it because you, because you love them and you don't want 'em to suffer after you're passing.

Caller 7 (01:57:37):
Thank you for your help.

Leo Laporte (01:57:39):
Great question, John. Thanks for asking. 88. 88. Ask Leo. That's the phone number. We're gonna talk about space with our very own spaceman Rod Pyle in just about 15 minutes. I'll take more of your calls. Two, the Tech Guy show continues episode 19 forty8@techguylabs.com. I am not coming back. <Laugh>, I'm not going anywhere. Leo Laporte, the Tech I 88. 88. Ask Leo the phone number if you have a question, a comment, a suggestion. If you wanna talk high tech. I'm your man. I'm right here. I'm right here. Baby Robert on the line from Hinesville, Georgia. Hi Robert.

Caller 8 (01:58:21):
Hey, what's going on? Leo? Motown listener. First time caller. Welcome.

Leo Laporte (01:58:25):
Oh, I, I love my first time callers. Welcome

Caller 8 (01:58:29):
<Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (01:58:29):
Good to have you

Caller 8 (01:58:30):
On one of your Yeah, I, I just called because on one of your segments a little while ago, you was talking to a guy about a gp tracker maybe?

Leo Laporte (01:58:38):
Yes. Yeah. So he was, his friend was worried cuz she had a evil X that he, he might have put a GPS tracker on her car and he wanted to know how to find it. How do he find it?

(01:58:47):
Okay, well check this out. He may not have a GPS track on the car because my Evil X did this to me. Oh no. She knew my, she, she, she knew my Google login on my Google account. Oh. And I know, but new this, but on the once, once you log into Google and if Google attached to your phone number Yep. You go to that right hand corner and do the drop down. Yep. When you hit your maps, it got a link that say timeline. And when you click timeline, it shows you everywhere you've been, every day all the time. Where you go, it's only like maybe 15 minutes off of wherever you go. Wherever you go with your cell phone, it tells you where you at.

(01:59:26):
Oh man, you must turn off. Well, there's, you got two choices. One, you probably should just change your password if that happens. Right. You should, if your spouse has your passwords, change 'em all If your ex Right. That's a very good point. Yep. Cause you're, you're, and you know, another one, that's a good one. If you use iPhones, I have find my turned on and so does my wife, so I can see exactly where she is at any time. And she could see that that would be another thing to turn off if you're worried. There's lots of ways, aren't they? Yeah. I mean, Google can track you <laugh>.

Caller 8 (01:59:57):
Yeah. That that's, that's right. And see we both got Samsung and drug phones. Yep. You know, we both, well we had 'em when we were together, but I changed my Google password. Good. And then I changed my account from Google on my phone to my Microsoft account.

Leo Laporte (02:00:12):
Good. That's smart. Yeah. That's really smart. Yeah, I didn't even think of that. You're right, Google. Because most of the time you want location turned on. Google will always, you know, is always asking me when I'm doing searches. Okay. You wanna, you wanna say where you are and Yeah. And and I actually like having that timeline. That's a nice feature. 

Caller 8 (02:00:32):
Yeah. But

Leo Laporte (02:00:33):
You don't <laugh> you don't wanna be tracked. It's not a good feature to hand off to anybody else. Yeah. Thank you for letting me remind me of that, Robert and everybody who's listening. That's really good. I hope I trust you figured it all out. And she's not, she's not stalking you still?

Caller 8 (02:00:52):
No, no, no, no. That, that, that been like over a year and a half ago. Yeah. But it just struck a little thing with me when he about that, like, yeah. Oh, looking for a GPS tracker. You don't need a GPS tracker. Technic.

Leo Laporte (02:01:06):
It's

Caller 8 (02:01:06):
True.

Leo Laporte (02:01:07):
Your phone, your phone. People forget, you know, we're always, I hear people all the time. I'm not gonna have an Amazon Echo on my house. I don't want it listening to me. People forget your phone is always track it, always listening. <Laugh> always got a camera on it. It's got a microphone, it's got GPS built in. It's broadcasting your location all the time.

Caller 8 (02:01:27):
Yeah. Last thing, I'm a, I'm a technical trainer down here at the military base down here. Nice. And I be doing classes all the time and I be saying certain things. My phone soldiers phone with Apple, Android come on and be like, oh, you need to look that up on the rail. Oh,

Leo Laporte (02:01:44):
I hate that.

Caller 8 (02:01:45):
What you said. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:01:46):
I d know, maybe I can help. Maybe I found this on the web. Yeah. Now don't you tell the recruits to, to turn that stuff off.

Caller 8 (02:01:56):
Well, you know, we, we tell 'em to, you know, we technically can't tell 'em to turn their phone off, but, you know, we tell 'em to silence the phone. Yeah. But a lot of soldiers won't silence the phone. And then when you search certain things, then the phone will say something or try to answer, give

Leo Laporte / Rod Pyle (02:02:12):
Answer. You know, it's not silent now. <Laugh>. Yeah. That's what you do, Robert. You come into the classroom and you say, and see who answers Leo Leor. <Laugh> the tech guy. Great to talk to you, Robert Rod Pilot coming up.

(02:02:30):
I'll see what I can find on the web without, that's, that's hysterical. That's great, Robert. I appreciate that. Really good to talk to you. Have a good day. Now, <laugh>. Yo echo. Did I activate your iPad? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. <Laugh>. These things activate all the time anyway. My echo now. Oh no, I guess it's Google Now if I just say, hey, anything it wakes up. If I say anything with two syllables, Hey, anything with two syllable, it will wake up. It's crazy. Hey everybody, it's Leo LaPorte, the founder and host of many of the TWIT podcasts. I don't normally talk to you about advertising, but I want to take a moment to do that right now. Our mission statement at twit, we're dedicated to building a highly engaged community of tech enthusiasts. That's our audience. And you, I guess, since you're listening, by offering them the knowledge they need to understand and use technology in today's world.

(02:03:37):
To do that, we also create partnerships with trusted brands and make important introductions between them and our audience. It's how we finance our podcasts, but it's also, and our audience tells us this all the time. A part of the service we offer, it's a valued bit of information for our audience members. They wanna know about great brands like yours. So can we help you by introducing you to our highly qualified audience? And boy, you get a lot with advertising on the TWI podcasts. Partnering with TWI means you're gonna get, if I may say so humbly the gold standard in podcast advertising. And we throw in a lot of valuable services. You get a full service continuity team supporting everything from copywriting to graphic design. I don't think anybody else does this or does this as well as we do. You get ads that are embedded in our content that are unique every time I read them, our hosts read them.

(02:04:34):
We always overdeliver on impressions and frankly, we're here to talk about your product. So we really give our listeners a great introduction to what you offer. We've got onboarding services, ad tech with pod sites that's free for direct clients. We give you a lot of reporting so you know who saw your advertisement. You'll even know how many responded by going to your website. We'll also give you courtesy commercials that you can share across social media and landing pages. We think these are really valuable people like me and our other hosts talking about your products sincerely and informationally. Those are incredibly valuable. You also get other free goodies mentions in our weekly newsletter that's sent out to thousands of fans. We give bonus ads to people who buy a significant amount of advertising. You'll get social media promotion too. But let me tell you, we are looking for an advertising partner that's gonna be with us long term.

(02:05:30):
Visit twit tv slash advertise, check out our partner testimonials. Tim Broom, founder of ITProTV. They started ITProTV in 2013, immediately started advertising with us and grew that company to a really amazing success. Hundreds of thousands of ongoing customers. They've been in our network for more than 10 years. And they say, and I'll quote Tim, we would not be where we are today without the TWI network. That's just one example. Mark McCrery, who's the CEO of Authentic he was actually one of the first people to buy ads on our network. He's been with us for 16 years. He said, and I'm quoting, the feedback from many advertisers over those 16 years across a range of product categories is that if ads in podcasts are gonna work for a brand, they're gonna work on Twitch shows. I'm proud to say that the ads we do over deliver.

(02:06:25):
They work really well because they're honest. They have integrity. Our audience trusts us and we say this is a great product. They believe it, they listen. Our listeners are highly intelligent. They're heavily engaged, they're tech savvy. They're dedicated to our network. And that's partly because we only work with high integrity partners that we have thoroughly and personally vetted. I approve every single advertiser on the network. If you're ready to elevate your brand and you've got a great product, I want you to reach out to us, advertise@twi.tv. So I want you to break out of the advertising norm, grow your brand with host, read authentic ads on twi.tv, visit twi.tv/advertise for more details. Or email us advertise@twit.tv if you're ready to launch your campaign Now. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it's time to head out into space. Your captain for our flight today. Commodore Rod Pyle, editor in chief of Ad Astra magazine@spacedots.org.

(02:07:33):
 Author, so many great books about space, including first on the moon, the 50th anniversary of the of the lunar landing. It's kind of cool cuz we're now reliving the Apollo program in a way, aren't we, rod? Yeah, we really are. And I think it's a good thing as you were invoking all those search activation words that you didn't say, Hey, Callisto abort, but you don't wanna send <laugh> the Artemis capsule to the lunar server. Let's talk. So in, in the Orion there is an iPad and an Echo device. Yeah. And I'm and a database, a database of answers. Yeah. Cuz there's no time to send it back and forth. Right? So they think, they think that astronauts, rather than flipping a switch or tapping a button, would rather talk to echo. Well, so let's say you're out, do it a space walk, right?

(02:08:28):
Oh yeah. And traditionally, if you had a question Yeah. You know, you, you would radio down to Michigan Control and they'd answer it. And of course they can still do that. But you know, if you're out there doing an DVA and you're replacing a solar panel, they just shipped up some new solar panels and you're thinking, gosh, what was the first role Rock Hudson ever did in the movie back in the 1940s? You know, then you could say, Hey, Calisto, does it have the data? They say, does it really? Well, that's the question. You know, so there's, as NASA has phrased it, and, and they developed this in conjunction with Amazon, Cisco and Lockheed Martin, who I figured prime contractor pumped in a bunch of money. And that's why the is why NASA's doing it, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But you know, if you wanna say, Hey you know, how much more how much more capacity is my back, my backpack, my Eva backpack?

(02:09:15):
You know, it'd be really funny if they programmed echo to say, when you said, Alexa, open the pod bay doors, please <laugh>. If she said, I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that. <Laugh> that Now that would be funny. Yeah. Unless she followed through. Oh yeah. Right. Which would kind of stink, but I don't think there's a remote solenoid lock on that thing. No. Now you, you touched on this yesterday in the show people can go onto a couple of websites. There's an Explorer Ryan app for phones, or you can go onto the NASA website. I think I sent you a link for that. And you can send your message up to Calisto. It may or may not be selected. They are of course, screening them. They don't want any commercial messages as they should. Yes. The inflammatory or so forth. Very sensitive about that as they should be.

(02:10:01):
Right. And it may show up and be televised on the, one of the, the one of the three cameras that's looking down at the device. And, and you may get your, your message out. So I sent one up yesterday. We'll, we'll see if it's, oh, did you? What you now you didn't say open the pod bay doors. What did you say? No, I sent very funky, poorly written haiku. I said, this is really schmaltzy. The moon shines bright below me as I head ever further into the darkness. Heralding a new dawn for humanity. I am Artemis now. That's good. That's good. I think, and na, who is it Lockheed that has to approve it? I think they might approve that. Nasa, I I think, I mean Lockheed may pass it on, but if you had said something like, listen to Rod Pile and the tech guy show Sundays, I don't know if they'd approve that.

(02:10:46):
That's true. Yeah. And since we're, we're not long for this earth on Sundays, you know, that would be a bit of a reaction, a waste of a, a good message. But anybody can do this. And you know, it's a great piece of public outreach. I mean, NASA's gotten very much better over the last decade of doing public outreach on the Juno orbiter around Jupiter. They've got Juno cam, which was designed for the beginning as a citizen science thing so that people could download the images and participate. There's a bunch of other stuff they're doing to kind of similar nature. Some of them with the Mars rovers. So, you know, this is a good way to get people engaged in the project to say, okay, you're part of this adventure. You're a taxpayer. Cuz you know, back when you and I were growing up as a taxpayer, your right to access the Apollo lunar loaning landing program was to watch the news.

(02:11:29):
Right. <laugh>. That's kind of it. So this is, this is cool. This is nice. No, I like it. And I think so will they send you a photo if they, if they display it on? I don't think so. I think you have to catch it. And I did not dig deep enough into the website to see if there's a way for you to be notified. So you may have to go back and scroll through. So somewhere on the website, there's a picture of this Calisto Tech demo that we can watch waiting for your message to show up. I haven't actually seen it, it's just that that's the only thing I saw was that cockpit picture. Yeah, what a cool cockpit though. Yeah. There's no one in it. Just a snoopy floating around, but still. Well there's the, the, the mannequin. The mannequin on the left.

(02:12:07):
What's his name? Oh, MUN Sky Acker or something. Golden Friger. Yeah. Yeah. I do have one other thing I wanted to mention. This is kind of a nice Christmas thing. If you're looking for something to do. There's a a show that I reviewed about a month ago for the magazine called Goodnight Opie, which is all about the opportunity Mars Rover and it's long less risk career. And I gotta say, you know, I'm pretty critical of space documentaries. I've made a few, they weren't spectacular, but that doesn't mean I'm not a snob about it. Right. The last truly great space documentary I remember watching, although it was a little more of a promo, the documentary was the IMAX film. The Dream is Alive, narrated by Walter Cronkite in 1984. It was a very optimistic look at the shuttle program, but wonderfully done. So this is one of the best things I've seen since that Oh, of course.

(02:12:58):
I watch Op Shut down in 29, 20 18. Yeah. And you know, there's a few things. If you're watching this and, and you're, you know, a person who pays the types of the stuff, there's a ton of CGI of the rover. It's a little anthropomorphic and it's making a lot of cute noises, but it's, it, there's almost no voiceover. There's kind of a disembodied voice of the rover slash voice of NASA that's done by Angela Bassett very well. But the rest is interviewing the engineers and scientists and rover drivers and so forth. Really lavish score and just a great way of telling the story story. And if you're not in tears by the end of it, you're not human. Aw. It's really, it's that much of a tear jerker. It's on Amazon Prime. Yeah. Okay. And it's free. And it's free if you have Amazon Prime, obviously.

(02:13:42):
Yeah, yeah. Well, so there's nothing free about that <laugh>. No, absolutely. In general, you know, the, the Coit is that it's free. Yeah. Yeah. But really worth watching and, and a good family thing. Kids will enjoy it. People that don't know or care about the missions will enjoy it and bring your hanky cause yeah. Even though oppi is inanimate it's gonna, it's a tear jerker. It is. And those last, you know, those last few weeks were pretty dramatic. A big dust storm moved in. There wasn't enough light for the solar panels to continue to opportunity. It lasts a lot longer than it was supposed to. Was that, oh, it was supposed to last 180 days. Yeah. And it went years and it lasted 14 and a half years. 14 and a half. Wow. But this is, you know, this is how, how NASA's and JPL engineer their stuff.

(02:14:28):
That's why it's so expensive. One reason nice. It's just made to really be up to the task of surviving that environment. And this is a brutal environment. I mean, there's all that fine grain, sharp dust and plunging temperatures and so forth. They have to put heaters all over the place. They have to really be careful about sealing up any kind of bearings or anything else. So really well worth checking out. Finally, finally, like we were talking about Artemis. Yes. It has entered its distant retrograde lunar orbit, which is this big weird lunar looping orbit that, you know, there's a combination of reasons they, they talk about, but the big one is they just had an underpowered upper stage. So it was the easiest way to, to get it around the moon. Are they sling? Are they doing a slingshot around the moon?

(02:15:12):
Yeah, they did a slingshot and then they went into a high orbit, which is interesting because it's so far out. It's actually surpassed the fly by that Apollo 13 did. So it's the farthest man. No, it's not. Once it, it is, it's the farthest crew capable spacecraft as of tomorrow. True. Capable. That's the key. 270 through 3000 miles tomorrow, which beats Apollo 12, 13, excuse me, by about 25,000 miles. I mean, who cares about these records? You know, it's up there, it's working. Everything's fine. We're happy about that. The big test will be on December 11th when it comes home and reenters and splashes down off the coast of Southern California. You wanna see how that heat shield did at the 25,000 mile per hour, 5,000 degree Fahrenheit reentry, because that's but so far a big success. Important. Yeah. Yeah. And I apparently owe an apology to everybody. I triggered their Amazon, Hey, Ziggy <laugh> opened the pod bay doors, please. <Laugh>.

Amazon Echo (02:16:13):
I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. Also, I'm not Hal and we're not in space

Leo Laporte (02:16:19):
<Laugh>, so I apologize to everybody who got that message. <Laugh>. I, I promise I will not use a trigger word in vain. Oh, again, thank you Rod Powell. My pleasure. Space.Nss.Org. Oh, and this week in space, the podcast t w i s. Yes. Yes. <Laugh> <laugh>. So you are the king of the live read. You know, I, I listen to him every week. I used to listen to him and think, well that's pretty good. Now I listen to him thinking, <laugh>, I gotta do that better. And now of course I have to add to my inventory. You have to do ads now. You have to do ads now. But I have to learn how to do Eli impression. Like you, you know, when I ad for, was it Melissa or, oh, ZipRecruiter. Zip recruiter. <Laugh>. <laugh> <laugh>.

(02:17:10):
But that's a real, that's a real skill. Yeah, I watched too. You know, I used to watch on the Carson show, ed McMahon feed Alpo to dogs. I, you know, I used to listen to Paul Har feet talk about the bows sound wave and all that stuff. And so I you're putting your your words way too close together for Paul Harvey. But Paul, I understand Harvey, what you mean? Somebody once told me towards the end they were at wherever. He used to WGN somewhere in Chicago and they were in the elevator and they, the, a door opens and there's Paul Harvey and he says, hello American <laugh>.

(02:17:46):
Wow. That's a true believer. So I think, I think he knew that he was, you know, kind of this cultural phenomenon towards the, he worked, unlike me, he worked practically to the day he died. He'd never stopped doing it. He was in, I think don't do nineties. Don't do that. Well, you know, don't have fun. I kinda like doing podcasts. I've been thinking about that. Cuz this whole retirement don't work as hard as you have been. You know? Yeah. Well, I'll have Saturdays off. I will only work three days a week. I'll do six shows in three days, but I'll only work three days a week. Yeah. I I was thinking, well, would I, would I be bereft if I literally were hanging up the microphone and just walking away? And I think I would. That'd be hard. I think it'd be hard.

(02:18:28):
I'm so used to people having to listen to me. You, you'd start like doing random conversations with people on market. I gave up radio once before when I was 32. I thought, oh, I'm too, no, actually I was 30. I thought, oh, I'm too old for this. I should get a real job. And I started working for a startup as marketing director. And about a month or two in, I started doing, you know, routines in the cubicle. I would stand up and start talking. You get really used to having people forced to listen to you. Yeah. So, well, they're not forced to. You're, you're right. Is voluntary. As far as I know, they can turn the dial. It's not only Lisa forced to listen to me. Well, yeah. And the irony of it is I don't talk when I get home. I'm all talked out <laugh>.

(02:19:15):
I got nothing to say. In fact, I try to, you know, get on ma on and, and social networks. And I, I realize I said everything I have to say, I don't <laugh>. I just, I've, I don't have anything to say. I'm done. I'm, I'm used, used up. Well, and and then you gotta sit there and type, which is a whole different Yeah. It's too much work. Metal process. Too much work. Let me see if I can find the monkey game. The monkey game. <Laugh>. Yeah. That game we were playing with our tails. Let me see. Oh, oh yeah, it, what was it? It was called, it's called animal Amazing or something. It's bananas. It's bananas. Couldn't have been much further off there. And and Lisa, Lisa, here it is. I had a moment of cognitive dissonance when I first saw what was going on. It's like, what are the Oh, oh, that's not right. Yeah, it's a little weird.

Leo / Lisa (02:20:08):
Red in a blue. Get

Leo Laporte (02:20:10):
It right. Her sister is so funny cuz she's cackling

Leo / Lisa (02:20:14):
<Laugh> red. You too. You oh

Leo Laporte (02:20:28):
Two for one. Oh, almost. And then I think she posted me doing it. She did. I get these things. I get these things so that we had to I gotta go. Sorry. Thanks. You're not gonna do this to me for the next three weeks, are you? Oh, aye, aye. Leo Leor. <Laugh>, the tech guy. Not none of that. Thank you for letting me be your tech guy or anything. Huh? Just goodbye. Just goodbye. Thank you. I do wanna thank you though, professor Laura, our musical director. You always choose Apropo music except just now thanks to <laugh>, thanks to Kim Shaffer, our phone Angel who answers your calls. And thanks most of all to you because I couldn't do this without you. I really love being your tech guy, Jim, on the line from Charlotte, North Carolina. Hello, Jim.

Caller 8 (02:21:27):
Yes. Hi. I'm not gonna hold it against you. You stole my running back.

Leo Laporte (02:21:30):
Ah, thank you <laugh>. We love him. Mr. McCaffrey is a very talented individual. I'm sure you guys miss him.

Caller 8 (02:21:39):
I question before

Leo Laporte (02:21:40):
You're a Panthers fan, I take it <laugh>.

Caller 8 (02:21:43):
I am. We, we finally won one at home. Good. I know you've had this question before, but the, the back end of it is the hard part. I had my wife call and her number came in. Michelle or six others. Yeah. Her name had duplicated itself six times. Yeah. Not one, not one. Duplicate remover on it was App Store, had any good reviews. So I used the Apple Duplicate remover, which which is within the Apple contacts. And it wiped out 32 years of contacts. Went back to my first pilot in 1990.

Leo Laporte (02:22:23):
Oh no,

Caller 8 (02:22:25):
I have everything singular, but I lost four, four fifths of what I had in there. Oh,

Leo Laporte (02:22:30):
That's awful. Apple did that when, and you said remove duplicates and it killed your contacts.

Caller 8 (02:22:37):
It took anything with any semblance of a similar name. And it's gone. And it was from within the within the contacts app on the MacBook. So I opened Time Machine. My old Mac time machine ran consistently from the first day I had it. This is a relatively new MacBook Pro time machine hadn't been set up. So I messed myself over. And of course when I went to my phone and my iPad, they were instantly gone.

Leo Laporte (02:23:03):
Now it's blank. Did you so immediately <laugh> cross your fingers? Oh, I should have, do you have, do you have an iPhone or do you have iCloud?

Caller 8 (02:23:14):
I have iCloud, but that's a problem because when it deleted from my contact on my MacBook Pro, they deleted from my iPad and my iPhone.

Leo Laporte (02:23:22):
You know, this is a perennial problem with sinking in general is causing duplicates or worse accidentally deleting contexts. You have the worst case scenario. That's the worst I've ever heard. 

Caller 8 (02:23:38):
Since you, since you started with the PO pilot.

Leo Laporte (02:23:40):
Wow. So it's years and Yeah, me too. Right. Years and years in our, I have like 1500 contacts, most of whom I don't even know who they are. <Laugh>, but, but I don't wanna throw anything out cuz I might, you know, someday need it. Oh, so your question is, can I get those back?

Caller 8 (02:23:59):
I mean, basically the time sheet's not working, they're pretty much gone. Correct.

Leo Laporte (02:24:03):
Yeah. If you don't have any other backup iCloud you know, of course, you know your phone, you're syncing to both of those. But if, unfortunately the lesions got synced before you could do anything I don't where else? Oh, on the, I, okay, so Scooter X in our chat room says, oh, I hope this works. I hope this works. Scooter asks to the rescue, he says, when you go to icloud.com, you'll see a data recovery program in the app launcher. So click the app launcher button and there's something called data recovery. I've never seen this, but I've never needed it. See if, see if you can go back in time on iCloud. It's kind of like time machine for iCloud. Cause you know what? They know people are gonna do this. It's kind of maddening cuz you didn't do it. Apple did it with their duplicate deleter, which is incredibly frustrating.

(02:25:01):
 Right. Yeah. So I, I didn't know this. I'm gonna, I'm going right now to my iCloud. Perhaps you heard my phone say Hey, is this you? Because I'm logging into MyCloud just to see this. I I didn't know this existed. So icloud.com. Then, you know, there's that button up in the upper right hand corner that has all the different, different apps. And one of 'em is apparently data recovery. Now one hopes that, that that'll take you back. Actually. It's it's not, it's under more. So there's a menu of stuff at the very bottom. It says Data recovery, restore files, restore bookmarks, restore contacts. And I'm looking at mine and I have two archives. One from November 21st, not so long ago, and one from November 11th, a little longer ago. Maybe cross your fingers that restore contacts will work for you.

(02:25:56):
And if it does, you can send Scooter exit coffee. <Laugh>, I crossed my fingers for you Shape. Yeah. Enjoy your show. Thank you. And I hope that works. That's a nightmare. Back up your contacts. There is a way to do that on every device. You can export contacts as a file. If you get 'em back, just do that. Keep it as a data file. You got, what is that, 20 years of contacts on there? Me too. Keep that as a data file. Never. I have to say I don't trust synchronization or, or duplicate deletions. Anything that's gonna delete context. Even synchronization can delete context by accident. I've had that happen where you synchronize with an empty contact list and it decides the empty contact list is the right one and it deletes everything. That's nightmare. Gotta have backups turn on that time machine backup. But fortunately, and this is probably true of a lot of cloud services, iCloud has a backup They do just kind of automatically. Thank you. Scooter X. Good job. Good job, Sharon. Our last call of the day, Rialto, California. Hi Sharon.

Caller 9 (02:27:01):
Hi.

Leo Laporte (02:27:01):
Welcome.

Caller 9 (02:27:03):
Oh, welcome. Okay, welcome,

Leo Laporte (02:27:05):
Welcome. You're welcome. Welcome. What can I do for you?

Caller 9 (02:27:09):
Yes. I wanna know if how I can get pictures off my deceased daughter's Google account.

Leo Laporte (02:27:18):
Oh, I'm so sorry. Just to hear those two words. That's terrible. I'm so sorry. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So we were talking about this earlier, the idea of having something that you know, has your passwords on it for your next akins. So something happened to you. Yeah. You don't have access to it, huh?

Caller 9 (02:27:38):
I don't have access to it. No.

Leo Laporte (02:27:40):
Yeah, Google will not give you access, nor would Apple or Microsoft because they presume that you don't necess, even if you're her mother, that she didn't, wouldn't necessarily want you to have access to it. And so they just don't, they don't do that. You could contact them, provide a death certificate sometimes with Apple, for instance. That will work. But they, but you understand the reason they're reluctant to, and I think that they won't, is they don't know what your daughter's wishes were. And Oh, I

Caller 9 (02:28:14):
Understand.

Leo Laporte (02:28:15):
Yeah. Oh, and I understand why you want it. Oh, I'm so sorry. Oh,

Caller 9 (02:28:19):
Let me ask you could I get a court order?

Leo Laporte (02:28:23):
Yeah, you could try <laugh> under those, under those circumstances. They could not ignore a, a legitimate court order. So if you could get the court to order it. Yeah, there is, and I'm gonna put it in the show notes. Again, scooter X to the rescue, there is a Google page on requesting a deceased user's account. And at least you should go to that page. Oh. Okay. It's at support.google.com. It's a long url. So we'll put it up@techguylabs.com. But also you could probably Google it something like, request a deceased user's account at Google and see if, see if they can do that. I, I'm gonna guess that you'd need to, let's see, inactive account manager people pass away. We can work with immediate family members and representatives to close the account when appropriate. And certain circumstances we may provide content from a deceased user's account. In all of these cases, our primary responsibility is to keep people's information secure, safe, and private. So, yeah, you understand yeah,

Caller 9 (02:29:35):
I can understand that.

Leo Laporte (02:29:36):
You could at least you could at least ask, and you're right if you could get a quarter, but the court's gonna have the same attitude, which is, well, we don't know what your daughter's wishes were and we wanna respect her privacy even though you're her mom. I can't even get my kids' medical records or I couldn't get their college grades <laugh> cuz because their privacy was protected. Unfortunately. I'm so sorry. My deepest condolence is Sharon. Thank you all for joining me. I appreciate you being here. We'll see you next week. Leo Laporte the Tech Guy. Have a great geek week. Well, that's it for the Tech I Show for today. Thank you so much for being here. And don't forget twit, t I t it stands for this week at Tech and you find it at twit.tv, including the podcast for this show. We talk about Windows and Windows Weekly, Macintosh, a Mac Break, weekly iPads, iPhones, apple Watches on iOS today, security and Security Now, I mean, I can go on and on. And of course, the big show every Sunday afternoon this week in tech. You'll find it all at twit.tv and I'll be back next week with another great tech guy show. Thanks for joining me. We'll see you next time.