transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] A major travel site gets hacked. Why you need to question every booking email you get right now. Your encrypted messages may not be as private as you think. How the FBI recovered signal texts from an iPhone. There's finally a way to turn off YouTube shorts. I'll tell you how. Plus, your tech questions answered. What's going on? I'm Rich DeMuro, and this is Rich on Tech. This is the show where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's also the place where I answer your questions about technology. I believe that tech should be interesting, useful and fun. Let's open up those phone lines at 888-Rich-101. That's 888-742-4101. Give me a call if you have a question about technology or need some tech advice. Email is also open. Just go to richontech.tv and hit contact. We've got some great guests this week. I'm pulling out her book right now. We've got 73-year-old Anne Goldberg, author of Take This Phone and Shove It! It is a book all about smartphones. It's called A Frustrated Senior's Guide to Smartphones. It kind of reminds me of the book I wrote about the iPhone a couple years ago. People need tips for this stuff. There's a lot going on there. And then we've got residential technology designer Carley Knobloch. She's going to join us to share some practical tips for choosing and using smart home tech. She's got an interesting story. We met up at Cedia earlier, I guess last year in Denver. And we had a great chat and I said, come on the show. And so she's going to talk about some of the stuff she's seeing in that world. Well, I hope you're having a fantastic week. Welcome to the show. We've got a lot planned, a lot to talk about. This is interesting, booking.com. This is a breach that exposed a bunch of traveler data. And it's not a good thing. You know, here's the thing, we put so much faith in these websites that we use, and we put so much of our personal information into them. And maybe you're doing everything right, but on the back end, if they have a data breach, there is nothing you can do about it. So booking.com confirmed the fact that they had a data breach involving customer reservations. Yes, your vacations were breached. Hackers got all kinds of booking-related information. So what was exposed? Names, email addresses, phone numbers, booking details. Basically a lot of stuff tied to trips. The good news is, this hack did not get credit cards and did not get home addresses. Now here's the thing about credit cards getting hacked. Like obviously nobody wants their credit card information out there. But the reality is, if your credit card is hacked, if someone gets the number, it doesn't really affect you that much. Now yes, it's a headache to have to change all that stuff. But there is a reason why I like to use a credit card for online transactions. And you know my rule. If my card leaves my hand, I'm using a credit card. And that is in the real world, the physical world. If I'm handing it over to a server or at a restaurant or somewhere where they're taking it away from me, I will give a credit card. If it is not leaving my hand, like if I'm tapping to pay, if I am inserting the card myself, I shouldn't be swiping anymore at this point. If I'm doing that, I'm using my debit card. And that's just to keep track of, you know, budgeting and all that stuff. It's just easier. But online, the rule of thumb is that if I'm making a transaction online, I want to use my credit card because it puts a little buffer between me and my money. And I think that, you know, when your credit card number gets hacked, it's annoying, but it's not the end of the world because it's not really your money to begin with, right? Like, you're not going to be on the hook for a charge from someone that, or a charge that you did not make. I could be wrong. Maybe someone has been over the years, but no. I remember the first time my card got hacked, it was a retailer in Spain. And it was the first time I had ever seen this happen in my credit card. And I called my company. I was like, what's happening here? Like, I'm not in Spain. How did they, how did they even do this? And like, come on, kid, like this happens every day. And now it's happening all the time. Anyway, booking.com says it detected this suspicious activity. They've now reset reservation pins. They've notified users. But here is the danger. Hackers now have enough info to run convincing scams. So they could send you an email saying, hey, we know you're staying at this hotel. Would you like to upgrade your stay and put in your credit card information? And we'll do that. Or you need to reconfirm your payment or you need to verify your reservation. And because they know all of your trip information, the dates, the hotel name, it looks legitimate. So be on guard. If you're getting anything about your vacation, double check the email, double check the sender. And when in doubt, just call the hotel directly and deal with it that way. So the good news is payment information was not taken here. So that's the good news. The bad news is it's just more of our information splashed across the open web and the dark web. And that is never a good thing. Never a good thing there. Talk about personal information. This story was really eye-opening to me. So, you know, people like these encrypted apps, like Signal, because it's end-to-end encrypted. Signal and WhatsApp are end-to-end encrypted, which means nobody is able to see the messages that you exchange inside these apps. No one, no Meta, no Signal Foundation, whoever's making these apps, because it's end-to-end encrypted. But, the FBI did find a way around that. They were able to recover deleted Signal messages from an iPhone, not by breaking Signal encryption, but they found the messages stored somewhere else on the iPhone. Huh? Yeah. So, it turns out the iPhone has its own notification database. So, think about it, when you get a notification on your iPhone, that little information has to pass through the iPhone's systems. It's not like Signal sending you that specifically. It is Signal passing along that information to the iPhone notification system, and then that's displayed on your lock screen. And so, this is where the message previews are stored. So, basically, when a message pops up on your lock screen, the iPhone is saving a copy of that message. So, even if you delete that message inside Signal or you delete the app, those message previews could still live on in some sort of little tiny database in your phone. Well, that's what the FBI found. So, they used some forensic tools which had physical access to the phone. The idea is that the iPhone is very secure. So, anytime you talk about hacking the iPhone, typically, you do need physical access to that phone. Yes, there's been exploits where they could figure out other ways around that, but most of it involves physical access. So, they were able to tap into that little tiny database stored on the phone and see these incoming messages. They couldn't see the ones that people were sending because those didn't go through the notification system. But, here is the takeaway. This only works if you have notification previews turned on on your iPhone. Now, if you think about it, the iPhone has a couple of options. You can always have notifications pop up on the lock screen when you get one. You can have it only pop up when you unlock your phone and it reveals that message, or you can have no notification preview whatsoever. It shows that you have a notification from Signal, but there's no way to see that notification unless you actually go into the app. That turns out to be the actual best and most secure solution if you value your privacy in a big way. So the fix to never have someone have access to your messages if they're encrypted is to turn off message previews. Not ideal because it's not as convenient, right? You can't just glance at your phone and see what someone texted you. So if you go into the iPhone, there's a settings, notifications, it says show previews. You can set that to never. And then inside signal, you can turn your notifications to hide content. So obviously there's a trade off here. You get more privacy, but less convenience. You will not see the message details on your lock screen. But I thought that was very interesting because no matter how secure these devices are, it is always, there's always a way around it, it seems, and the FBI found a pretty big hole there. Now, I would tell you what the deal is with Android, but I'm not really sure. So I think notifications work a little bit differently with Android, but there is still an option when you look at Android where it says to show notification previews or not depending on if your phone is unlocked. So I guess the bottom line is if you really want privacy, don't use the option where your phone can preview notifications without unlocking it, at the very least. But if you really want the privacy to stay intact, you probably have to turn off those message notification previews on your lock screen. Finally, two other items before we get to your calls. Google was very busy this week, came out with two different apps. One is for Mac, one is for Windows. So Gemini is now on Mac. So you can download the Gemini, that's their AI. This puts it head-to-head with ChatGBT and Claude. They already have Mac apps. And it's just basically a very simple way to always have your AI assistant Gemini at the ready, no matter where you are, what you're working on your computer. And the interesting thing here is that it can see your screen if you want. So I just tested it. I had Google Photos up on my screen and I said, what am I looking at? And it was able to tell me exactly what I was doing. Then I had it help me reply to some emails. It could look at the emails that I was responding to and use that as its basis. So that's really interesting. Gemini available for Mac. You can download that now. And then, kind of different, but they brought out a Google Search app for Windows. So it's not necessarily AI, it does have AI built in, but it's just more Google Search. So you can get all the AI stuff you want, but it's not Gemini, it's Google Search plus their AI mode. So this is kind of a gateway into their AI, but a little bit different. So two different apps, one's for Windows, one's for Mac. They work slightly different. But if you are a big fan of Google, if you have all their products and services that you're using, you can now make that a little easier to access on your Windows or Mac computers. And I will put a link on the website richontech.tv. Don't forget while you're there to check out this week's newsletter where I talk about all of the things I just mentioned. All right, we're gonna get into your phone calls right after this, 888-Rich-101, 888-742-4101. The website once again, richontech.tv. Thanks for being here with me. We will get more Rich On Tech coming right your way, coming your way right after this. You know I'm human when I do that. I make mistakes. Welcome back to Rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro here, hanging out with you, Talking Technology, 888-Rich-101, 888-742-4101. Let's go to Keith in Kansas. First caller of the day, Keith. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2:
[11:09] Thank you very much and thank you for all of your wisdom and help in a lot of these situations. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1:
[11:19] Appreciate your kind words. Thanks.

Speaker 2:
[11:21] Well, the question that I have is regarding digital voice recorders. I saw an ad for Plaud and I thought I am a nurse practitioner. I wanted something for Bible studies to record if a contractor comes over, those kinds of things. Well, in researching this, I was overwhelmed. There's a ton of these things.

Speaker 1:
[11:50] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[11:51] I don't know which one to really get, which ones to avoid. I know that a lot of it depends on the AI transcription service. I didn't know if you had any help in that area.

Speaker 1:
[12:07] I've used Plaud extensively. I've covered them and interviewed them since they launched, so I'm very familiar with Plaud. I think the biggest competitor to them is this one called Pocket, Hey Pocket, is their website. They act a little bit differently. The Pocket one is a little bit... Have you seen that one?

Speaker 2:
[12:29] No.

Speaker 1:
[12:29] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[12:30] I've seen the ads, but I've never seen it in use.

Speaker 1:
[12:33] Yeah, me either, and that's the thing. I have not tested it personally, but I think the big difference is the Pocket one is a little bit better on the budget. So it's a little bit cheaper, and I guess you get more transcriptions, because that's what it really comes down to. Plaud is great, but the transcription is where they really make the money, right? Because you got to pay for the transcription. So, and here's the thing, like if you're... I have sort of come to, I guess, the conclusion for myself, that I've got a recorder on my Apple Watch and that's what I've really used most of the time, because it's just simpler and easier and I'm already wearing an Apple Watch. And so, I use that typically when I'm at a big event or I am out and about at wherever I am, I'll just use that to record my meetings and things. And that will send it right to my iPhone, it will transcribe it, it will summarize it, all that good stuff. So, it really depends, do you need this? So, the use case for you is you want to just put this thing out there. It's like, think about those micro cassette recorders from back in the day. It's basically that except digital. And so, you would just place that in your meeting, you know, on the table and you would record. And so, and same thing with your notes. If you're a nurse practitioner, you want to take notes in the, you know, whatever room you're talking to people in, that's what you'd use it for. So, what's your question about it? I guess, what's your concern about it?

Speaker 2:
[13:58] Well, I just didn't know if it was worth the money. I do record on my iPhone already, but I didn't know I could send that to notes and transcribe it and so forth.

Speaker 1:
[14:13] Yeah, and so that's the thing. It's like all these phones now, the Pixel, the Samsung and the iPhone, they all transcribe automatically and for free. So, it's kind of, it's become like, okay, well hold on. So, it really comes down to me, I think the decision for you, Keith, really comes down to do you wanna tie up your phone during these use cases? If you don't, then I would definitely get the plod because it is self-contained, it's simple. If you don't mind using your phone, I actually think the phone is easier and I'll tell you why. The number one friction with these AI audio recorders is transferring the audio to your phone or your computer once it's done doing whatever it's doing. That to me is what took too long and so what ultimately made me not use this on a regular basis. With my phone, it's already in there, the audio file, they're not huge, but it does take some time to transfer them to your device. For me, that transfer time was the friction that I'd say, well, why am I not just using my Apple Watch or my phone to do this natively and then I already have the audio file and I can just transcribe it and do whatever I want from there. So I think that's really what it comes down to with these things is will you actually use them? Will you place this thing in your meetings? And will you actually take the time to transfer these files from the device to your phone? Let them take the time to transcribe and go with that process. For me personally, I use an app called whispermemos.com. And what I love about it is it is one tap on my Apple Watch. It's a little complication as they call it. I tap, it is recording. It can record up to 90 minutes. When I press stop, it automatically uploads that recording to the cloud and my phone. It transcribes that recording, which I have the transcription on my phone. It e-mails me that transcription and it lives inside the app. And it now has things where you can summarize the transcriptions if you want as well. So for me, that process is so smooth. It's so simple. It's certainly worth the, I think I pay $30 a month. I think the price has gone up, now it's $30 a year I'm paying because I was one of the original people. I signed up the first day. The other one, Keith, the other thing, if you want to go with your phone, they've got an app called Granola. That's a very popular one that does something very similar. And then they've got an app called Otter AI, and that's also very similar. But there's so many of these apps at this point that it's getting very crowded. But the bottom line is for anyone that's thinking of getting one of these dedicated audio recording AI devices, the bottom line is, are you going to use it? That is the main thing. Or is your phone easier? If you don't want to tie up your phone during meetings, you want to sit there and surf TikTok and Instagram while people are, you know, your boss is talking and stuff like that, then yeah, you want something that's separate. But if you don't mind just placing your phone on the table and recording with that, I think that in many cases is a lot easier. Thanks for the call, Keith. Hope that helps. 888-Rich-101 888-742-4101. The website for the show, richontech.tv. Coming up, we'll take some more of your calls. And I'll tell you why you're not imagining it. Yes, gadget prices are going up. Two major price hikes this week. I'll tell you all about that coming up right here on Rich On Tech. Welcome back to Rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology. 1-888-Rich-101 1-888-742-4101. I've been testing a new website this week. I found this website called sendlinks.app. So if you are like me, and you come across a lot of stuff on the internet that you want to bookmark, save for later, you never know where to put it, right? You email yourself. I was looking for something the other day, and I was like, I don't, okay, it was actually last night. We were gonna watch a family movie with the kids, and I made this whole list. I'm Rich DeMuro, and I'm here to talk to you about the. Which has been around forever, it's like a bookmarking app, but this is a website that you can bookmark your links, and it kind of auto-organizes them for you. So it puts them by domain, puts them by time, so you can do today, yesterday, this week, this month, you can make them into folders, gives you a little nice preview of each one, you can search them. But I think the killer feature is both, not just the Chrome extension, that's obviously a lot of apps have that, where you can bookmark, but to me the killer feature is that when you're out and about and on your phone, and you have a link that you come across, you can Telegram, just text it to yourself via Telegram, and it will go into this send links website. So it's like a really easy way of like, instead of trying to figure out, oh yeah, how do I send this to myself? No, just text it to yourself on Telegram, and it goes right into this app. So I think that's the genius of it. Obviously you have to be using Telegram, but I already do. So it just makes life really easy for saving apps. So if you want to check it out, I've got it linked up on the website richontech.tv. I'll put the link in the show notes. This is episode 170. Also, if you just want to go to it, it's sendlinks.app. And I'll just tell you, this is like an independent developer. They just came out with this, so it's not perfect, but, and who knows if it will be around, but they say they're going to keep it for free forever. I don't know how they're going to do that, but that's what they say. And by the way, I was in Office Depot, which I used to work in. I was in Office Depot this week with my kids. I had to buy some paper. And I cannot believe the prices of some of the tech stuff I saw in there, like the hard drives, OMG. They really jumped up in price, like things, I'm talking like, some of them were hundreds and hundreds of dollars for something that used to be like under a hundred. And it's not just those, it's a lot of stuff. A lot of price increases. Microsoft this week and Meta announced price hikes on existing products. So Surface laptops and tablets, in some cases went up by hundreds of dollars this week. Quest headset prices went up anywhere from 50 to $100. And it's all because of AI. You know, these AI companies are building all these data server places and these cloud compute places, and they are gobbling up everything that is necessary to power our products. Memory chips, hard drives, processors, all of that stuff. It's all the stuff that's used in laptops, phones, VR headsets. So the prices have to go up because AI is eating up all the stock. So the thing really is that these chip makers are prioritizing the big AI customers because they pay a lot of money. And so they're saying, yeah, we'll make the hard drives for the consumers later. Let's make these big hard drives for Google and Apple and all these other manufacturers and companies because we make much more money on them. So if you have your eye on tech, if you're thinking about buying something, it probably is a good time because in my experience, what I've seen is that these prices just keep going up. And it's just these these tech companies have tried to hold them down as best they can. But it is getting harder and harder to do that. Let's go to Peter in Massachusetts. Peter, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 2:
[22:28] Hey Rich, thank you so much for being here. It's good to have a tech guy in the back pocket.

Speaker 1:
[22:33] Nice, thanks. I'm happy to be here. What's up?

Speaker 2:
[22:36] Well, I bought a new phone. The old one was getting out of date for security stuff. I'm talking on it now because the new phone is having issues, as you're aware.

Speaker 1:
[22:45] Sounds good. So far, so good.

Speaker 2:
[22:48] Yeah, so I'm not unhappy with it, other than there's a lot of Google I had to get rid of.

Speaker 1:
[22:53] Yeah, well, it is an Android. Is it an Android phone? It says here it's a Samsung A16?

Speaker 2:
[23:00] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[23:00] Okay, well, that's, you know, there's, yeah. So you de-Google it as much as you could, okay.

Speaker 2:
[23:06] Yeah, yeah, I got rid of all of that. And, you know, basically, well, what happened, where it might have started was I was getting phone calls and I wouldn't, it wouldn't ring. And then suddenly I would hear, like, a notification. And I'd look and I missed a phone call. So I'd call the person back. Oh, and I thought you were busy or something. No, it didn't ring. So that might have been the start of it. But one day I got up and I went to check something on the internet and it says I got no internet and it's got like five bars there. Well, what the hell's going on? You know, so then I went to text something and it's just doing like the whirly-whirly, I call it, you know?

Speaker 1:
[23:43] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[23:44] I'm trying, I'm trying. And then it went sent. And then eventually I went to make a phone call and the phone call worked for us. So right now, the internet and texting will be intermittent. Usually they're there, but like some, what I did notice is one day I had five bars and it said I didn't have internet.

Speaker 1:
[24:02] What's, who's your provider? Is this on, is this on wifi, is this on cellular?

Speaker 2:
[24:07] On regular cellular.

Speaker 1:
[24:09] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[24:09] And then the 5G came back and then I had it. So I don't know if I accidentally hit something. And then I was working internally one day and it said, oh, well, you, it appears you don't have an internet connection. You know, like trying to do something in the phone itself. So I went over to the internet and I could go to like eBay.

Speaker 1:
[24:31] So is this a new phone or a used phone? Brand new, brand new. And how did you acquire it? I bought it at Best Buy, I bought it at Best Buy. So you bought it unlocked at Best Buy and what carrier are you using with it?

Speaker 2:
[24:44] I'm using Mint.

Speaker 1:
[24:46] Mint, okay. So it could be, it sounds to me like your phone may not be properly provisioned and set up for cellular. It sounds like your phone calls are working just fine.

Speaker 2:
[24:56] Oh, no, no, the phones don't work at all.

Speaker 1:
[24:59] Oh, okay, I thought you said you were calling me from it.

Speaker 2:
[25:02] The internet and the text in that sometimes don't work.

Speaker 1:
[25:05] Okay, so it sounds to me like your phone is not properly provisioned. So have you, when you first put, did you put a SIM card into this or did you do an eSIM?

Speaker 2:
[25:16] Well, I do have a SIM card and that's how I'm calling you is when I take the SIM card out of this and put it into the other phone, everything's fine.

Speaker 1:
[25:24] Right, it works just fine. Okay, so there's something that sometimes on these phones that are unlocked when you put in a SIM card from something like a Mint Mobile, there is something called an access point name, like this has to be set up properly. Have you looked into that?

Speaker 2:
[25:41] I did. I haven't, I haven't redone it. I mean, I know what you're talking about. You go down and you can basically, I was a little afraid where it was already set up, there was a thing there where I could just hit the button and say, do it.

Speaker 1:
[25:57] Yes, right.

Speaker 2:
[25:58] You know, I think it would say set up from Mint and do it. Right. And I was a little worried because it was already there and it was working well, it had been working fine.

Speaker 1:
[26:09] Okay. So there's a way, okay, so my advice is this. Number one, you can do what's called a reset network settings. So you can go into your settings on your phone, reset the network settings, and that should trigger another programming of the Mint, you know, what Mint needs to make this work. I would maybe do that first. And if that does not work, then I would call Mint and they can send you another one of those activation texts that will hopefully try to provision your phone properly. If not, you just got to get on the phone with them, walk through. I've done this manually myself, but you want to make sure it's properly provisioned. If it's not properly provisioned, that's why you're getting all those error messages. The other thing I would do is make sure all the software is up to date on this phone, make sure that you go in and just make sure your operating system is up to date. But it sounds like a provisioning error. I use Mint Mobile. I've got it in a bunch of my test phones. It works great when you have it properly set up. If you don't have it properly set up, there could be some issues. But most people with Mint Mobile, they're bringing their own phone. A lot of them are. So these things do need to be set up properly and they work on a wide swath of phones. So that is my advice is to make sure that you get this set up properly with Mint Mobile. And it should be fine. I have no doubt that this A17 should work because Mint Mobile, the network that they run on works on a wide variety of phones. Thanks for the call, Peter. Appreciate it today. 888-Rich-101 888-742-4101. The website for the show is richontech.tv. When we come back, I'm going to tell you how you can turn off YouTube shorts. Yes, if you want to stop the endless scroll or you just don't like YouTube shorts, you can finally turn it off. It's kind of a hack, but it works. I'll explain right here on Rich On Tech. Welcome back to Rich On Tech, Rich DeMuro here, hanging out with you, talking technology, 888-Rich-101-888-742-4101. Got an email from Sue, says, I'm having an issue where Amazon links on Facebook aren't opening in the Amazon app anymore. They just opened in my browser. I'm using an iPhone 13, any way to fix this? Sue, Facebook changes their app all the time. All these apps like the links to open up inside their own app because they can control it more. Amazon is one of those. I had a thing where I could have these apps or these links open up in the Amazon app for a while and that went away. So maybe they changed something. There is a setting, so if you want to try this, you can go into your Facebook. There is a setting in your menu. You go into menu, tap settings and privacy, then settings. By the way, finding any setting on Facebook is insane. It's like impossible to find. They just hide everything. But you scroll down to media and there's a thing called links and if you go in there, there is an option to turn on open in external browser. When you tap that on, when you open up a link that's an Amazon link, your iPhone should recognize it and switch it over to the Amazon app. Doesn't always happen. There's a million of one reasons why, but it's very tricky. In fact, I just sign up for a special deal with Amazon just to get my links to open up inside the Amazon app. Somehow they gave me special links. I don't even know if that happens anymore, but that was the reality of that. So you can try that, see what happens. I'm not sure if that works or not. Let's go to Steve in Murrieta. Steve, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 3:
[29:59] Hey Rich, a couple of quick questions. One having to do with some of the stuff you're talking about earlier, the database breaches of all your personal information. I know one of the sponsors that you guys have on your show, Oikogne, is one of those companies that does that. My question is, I know you said you do that. Is there any other companies? What are the differences between the two? What's more effective? Then secondly, something you've talked about before is all of these loans spam calls for loans and says, anything change with that where I report, delete, report spam, nothing seems to work.

Speaker 1:
[30:36] No.

Speaker 3:
[30:37] Any update on any of that stuff?

Speaker 1:
[30:38] No. My wife and I were discussing this last night. Who knew in the year 2026, our biggest issue in our lives would be the amount of spam calls we get. Like you have three main carriers in the US, they can't figure this out. Like how is that possible? I just don't even understand that they can't figure this stuff out. I get it, they're using complex software and things like that to do these calls. But I'm not kidding, my phone right now, I have 87 missed calls. And I will admit, there was a time in my life when I freely gave out my phone number to anyone. Like anyone who asked, you can have my phone number. Now I'm a little bit, I put like a barrier, like I'll give like more, anything that's like a business, I'll give my Google voice, right? That's one way of kind of keeping it there. But it's still out there. So with respect to the data being out there and you have data breaches, there's two types of data that's floating around. Number one, it's the stuff that we give to companies, right? You go to a grocery store, they say, hey, sign up for our club card, give me your email address, give me your phone number, give me your address. That information goes, it's sold most of the time, third parties get access to it, they use it, they kind of cross reference it with other databases. So that's us just giving up our data. Then we have these sites that kind of collect all the data that they find about us anywhere that we've given it away. And that's these people sites like the People Search and all these Spokeos, True Consumer, whatever they are, there's a million of them out there. So that's number two. And they collect all that data and they sell it. And then number three is the dark web. And that's the data that is, it's in data breaches, it's our passwords getting lost and stolen. And that just goes out into the dark web and these big giant dumps, these buckets of information that people just kind of exchange, swap, whatever, use it. They program all their spam calls with it and stuff like that. So a lot of it, you cannot control. But there is some that you can. And like you mentioned, yeah, we have a sponsor Incogni. They do a good job. I've been using them. And they do take a lot of stuff off the internet for sure. And there are other companies that do it too. Consumer Reports did a study. This is a couple of years old at this point. But they looked at all these different data broker removal sites. And they found some of them work better than others. And so I'll link that up on the website so you can read it. But they found that Optury was pretty good and pretty inexpensive as well. And they say that you can also do this yourself. So if you want to, like before I started using Incogni, I had done a lot of this myself, but it is like a game of whack-a-mole. You know, you're sitting there, you're sending these emails. It's a whole process. So I would say if you want to try it, you know, it's probably worth it. The other thing I definitely would sign up for, have you signed up for the Google Results About You yet? No, I have not. Okay, that is like an easy, simple, free thing. You can do that right now. And I love that because basically anytime a website, you go to the Google Results About You and you pop in your information, you can put in your phone number, your address, your email, and you can put in a couple of variations. Anytime it comes across a website while it's searching the web that has your data on it, it will say, hey Rich, we found this website with your home address. Do you want that website to show up in Google search results? Obviously, what do you think the answer is? No. And so you just say no, and it will take that off the Google search results. The big difference is, you have to remember Steve, it doesn't take the website itself down. It doesn't take the data off the website. But for 99% of people that are just searching for your name and address, they're going to look through Google search results, right?

Speaker 3:
[34:29] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[34:30] That's the way to do it. So, are you being blasted? Are you getting a bunch of stuff as well or what?

Speaker 3:
[34:37] Oh, yeah. No, I get probably 10 calls a day from these loan processing. You've been pre-approved or we're waiting for your loan approval to go through.

Speaker 1:
[34:44] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[34:45] It's like everybody else.

Speaker 1:
[34:47] It's madness. Do you have an iPhone or Android?

Speaker 3:
[34:49] iPhone.

Speaker 1:
[34:50] I will tell you one thing and I don't know why this is the case, but iPhone for some reason has worse problems with all these spam calls. On my Android phones, I rarely get spam calls.

Speaker 3:
[35:02] Oh, no kidding.

Speaker 1:
[35:03] Yeah. I don't know what the deal is. On the iPhone, I'm not kidding. I even switch my SIM sometimes. I'll put my actual SIM into a different phone. No calls. Put it back into the iPhone, tons of calls. I don't know what the deal is with that. I'm just noticing that. I don't know if that's actually a thing or not. But the other thing we could do is inside the iPhone, and this is a feature, maybe you have this turned on. To me, it's a lifesaver, but it's a call screening. Do you have that turned on?

Speaker 3:
[35:31] Yes, I do. That works great.

Speaker 1:
[35:32] That is the only thing that is keeping me sane at this point because the phone calls do not ring my phone most of the time. They will just go through that call screening, they hang up and that's it. We move on. But I think the problem with that call screening is that it's still answering the phone call, and that's the real issue.

Speaker 3:
[35:54] When you select Report, Spam and Delete, what does that mean, Report, Spam? Do they block it? Do they log it? Tag it?

Speaker 1:
[36:03] I'm sorry, what was that?

Speaker 3:
[36:06] When you see that screen call command or that call, it says you want to Report, Spam. Yes, Report and Delete. Yes, the Report, Spam portion of that. Where does that go? What does that do?

Speaker 1:
[36:15] Supposedly, it goes to the carrier and Apple and helps go into their databases to give them some signals. I don't really think it does anything. I think these spammers are using too many different tactics, too many different software programs to dial these numbers. I don't really think it really helps. I mean, by the time you shut down one of these numbers calling, five others pop up. Thanks for the call, Steve. 1-888-Rich-101 1-888-742-4101. More Rich On Tech right after this. Welcome back to Rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro here, hanging out with you, talking technology at 888-Rich-101 1-888-742-4101. Coming up this hour, something we can all relate to, Anne Goldberg, 73 years old, wrote a book called Take This Phone and Shove It!, A Frustrated Senior's Guide to Smart Phones. I am flipping through the book here and it's got all the tips and tricks. She did both iPhone and Android in the same book, but it's fun too because at the beginning of the book, she kind of goes through her story of how things have changed over the years, like how simple things were back in her time growing up compared to now. And I love that aspect of the book. I think a lot of people will appreciate that because it's like we went from simple times to now the most complex thing in your pocket that everyone's just expected to know how to use. But, you know, show my kids a rotary phone. They can't figure that out instantly. 888-Rich-101 888-742-4101. Speaking of kids, we watched the movie The Princess Bride last night. That's what we, I started to tell you the story about making the list of the movies, but Princess Bride, the cool thing about the IMDB app is that you can order the movies that you put on your list by meta score. So it can like put the best movies up at the top and Princess Bride was right up there. My wife and I were like, we haven't really seen this movie. My kids obviously never saw it, so we all decided to watch it and it was good. William Goldman, I had to listen, I had to ask AI more about him because I read his book. He wrote like a very famous book. Let's see if I can find it, the screenwriting book Adventures in the Screen Trade. I read it when I was in college and it was great. It's like gospel for people that are screenwriters. I wrote one screenplay in my whole life. I wrote it in a weekend. This idea just came out of my head. It was just like from my head to paper. I sat in a room for two days and I just wrote this whole screenplay. That was the book I read that inspired me to do that. Anyway, he was a genius. Yes, the movie was great. I got so many messages about it on my Instagram. I could not believe it. I posted that I was considering watching it. I don't think I've ever gotten more messages in my life. People are like, you got to watch it. It's a classic. Inconceivable. That's one of the lines from the movie. Anyway, there's a lot of them. Let's go to Don. Don in New Hampshire. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 3:
[39:19] Good afternoon, Old Timer. I've got an iPhone 15 and I've got a Macbook Pro. I'm wondering whether anybody makes a watch, no matter what the brand is, that's good for recording sleep apnea?

Speaker 1:
[39:43] Yes. The Apple Watch has this feature.

Speaker 3:
[39:47] Is there any particular model?

Speaker 1:
[39:51] Let's see. Let me see which one you have to have. It looks like... I don't see it. Here it is. Apple Watch Series 9 or later, or the Apple Watch SE3. If you just want a simple Apple Watch, the Apple Watch SE3 is like their... I'm not going to call it budget because nothing that Apple makes is really budget, but that's kind of like... Yeah, you know that. That's kind of their entry-level watch. But yeah, you put this thing on. I have not tried this. I've done. I know Google has a feature where they can look at breathing disturbances and things, but this actually is specifically sleep apnea. Here's the thing. It looks for... It's not like 100 percent like here's everything that you need, but they give you... Let's see. When you wear your Apple Watch to bed, it uses the accelerometer to look for breathing disturbances while you sleep. These are categorized as elevated or not elevated. Over 30 days, you have to wear this for 30 days to get a good kind of like consistent reading. If you experience elevated breathing disturbances, you'll receive a notification letting you know you should talk to your doctor.

Speaker 3:
[41:03] Is there a way to get that on to a chat of some nature if you take it from your watch to the laptop or my i15?

Speaker 1:
[41:16] Yes. It says you can view your disturbances for the past month, six months or year. So that will give you like a whole, every single time you had a disturbance throughout the night, it'll give you that graph. But then you can actually download a PDF that you can share with your health care provider, your doctor. Obviously, people pop these things into the ChatGBT to get some information as well. But that's, do you know you have this or are you trying to just record instances?

Speaker 3:
[41:46] Yeah, according to my girl, I stop breathing 30, 45 seconds at a time. So I'm gonna get, I guess, trying to do it so I know what I've got. And then the other hand there, I wanna get one of those implant jobs. If I, I obviously need something, but I can't imagine being hooked at 200 feet of hose.

Speaker 1:
[42:14] Yeah, well, yeah, I think there's some new, yeah, I know a couple of people have those machines and it's not ideal, believe me, I know. But I think, you know, I've seen some different commercials for things where they've come up with like better solutions than maybe the whole, I don't know. Now I'm talking out of an expert, you know, I don't really know. But I think for you, the important thing is if you want to record these instances. And also I think another side of this is really some of the other, some of the other aspects, like some of the things that might influence this. So here it's saying like alcohol intake, if you have an upper respiratory illness, medications can lead to these disturbances. So you can also track like, okay, I had a drink last night and I had this happen, or I'm feeling sick and my temperature is up, or, you know, I took this medication, I take it, you know, three days a week and those are the nights I get this. So I think that having the information is probably a good thing versus not having the information. Is this a perfect system for sleep apnea tracking? I can't say that, but I think it's better than not having the information. That helps.

Speaker 3:
[43:22] As you just throw it on and it will automatically hook on to your other Apple devices, do you got to set stuff up with the Verizon store?

Speaker 1:
[43:34] You can just buy this watch. It depends if you want to go cellular or not. Are you ever running without your phone or no?

Speaker 3:
[43:45] No, I always have my phone.

Speaker 1:
[43:47] If you always have your phone, I don't think you need cellular. You could purchase this watch yourself. You can go to the Apple store or wherever you want to buy it. Then you just link it up with your phone yourself. Then you do have to set up the tracking inside the health app. You'll go into the health app and you'll turn on the sleep apnea. It's like you open up the health app, you search for respiratory, and then you'll see sleep apnea notifications and you tap set up. Then you have to wear this for a good 30 days. You'll get the readings, but you'll have to wear it for 30 days for it to say, hey, we think you should see a doctor. A lot of the ways that these smartwatches track things is over time. These algorithms are looking for things that happen consistently over time before they say, hey, you have hypertension, or you have this, or you should see... They don't want to be saying you should see a doctor for everything. They want to make sure that they're seeing a pattern. Because these things are not as precise as your standard medical equipment, that's why they look for the patterns, because they're seeing it over and over. Instead of just a one-time thing or a couple times a week or something like that, they're looking for a pattern that they can say, oh yeah, this algorithm has identified this pattern, now we think you should see a doctor. So, Don, I'll put this link to the Sleep App and notifications on the Apple Watch on the website richontech.tv. For what it's worth, if you're Android, the Samsung Galaxy Watches have a similar feature. So, if you have a Samsung Galaxy Watch, you probably never even looked for this because you might not have known this was there. But yes, you do have to enable it inside the watch. So if you open up your Galaxy Watch, go into the health monitor and it says Sleep Apnea, you can set that up right through the watch or on the phone. So I'll link that up as well. Again, the website richontech.tv, I'll link up both the Sleep Apnea notification information for both Samsung and for Apple as well. 888-Rich-101, 888-742-4101, big update from YouTube. If you want to turn off shorts, you finally can. They're now giving you a daily limit option of zero minutes. The lowest limit used to be 15 minutes, but now you can set this to zero. And once you do that, shorts basically disappear from your home feed and your shorts tab. Instead of videos, you're gonna see a message saying to hit your limit if you try to open one. So you can find this under Settings, on the mobile app, Settings, Time Management, Shorts. And you can do this on iPhone and Android. It's rolling out. My least favorite words in the tech world. That means you may not have it immediately. And it's not on desktop just yet or the TVs. But if you are finding yourself scrolling or you just don't like shorts, like I personally don't really look at YouTube shorts. My kids do. I don't. But I personally like just regular YouTube videos right now. So I've already turned this off on my phone. So remember, this is not a true off switch. They're not saying, you know, because obviously shorts are a big growth area for Google. They don't want people to get rid of them altogether. But they're kind of giving you ways of getting around, you know, like if I don't want to watch shorts, sure, I'll turn this off. So I'll link that up as well on the website, Rich on Tech.TV. All right. Coming up, we'll take some more of your calls at 888-Rich-101, 888-742-4101. Plus, I'll tell you about Mint Mobile. They've got this new bundle, $45, for your phone and your home internet. I'll tell you about the fine print there, plus, what else? Emails, everything. We've got it all right here on Rich on Tech. Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here, hanging out with you, talking technology, just reading some of the emails coming in. Randy, about the spam call, says, both Android and iOS have a focus mode in the settings. Once you set it up, it will allow only contacts to ring. Those other calls do not ring. If it's important, they'll leave you a message and you can call back. Once you call that number, it will be the same as if it was in your contacts. Essentially, you approved it. I even set my phone to, so it only rings between 9 a.m. and 10 p.m. Outside that time frame, it does not ring. You can add exceptions. Thanks, Randy. Yeah, you know, I do have the focus set up on mine as well. I do not disturb, but the problem is when you have kids, this does not work. And the problem is you're going to miss a call from their school if you need it. And I've had these things, my kids, you know, broken bones, this and that, they fall, they get hurt, whatever it is. So it's tough when you're a parent. If you're, you know, no kids, no problem. You're not worried about, you know, anyone calling you. You can take those calls whenever you want. But when you have kids, you're getting calls from a lot of different places that may not be in your address book. And so, yes, the best thing to do is to put them in your address book so that you can put them on the bypass, which I've talked about, by the way. Both iPhone and Android, you can put contacts on emergency bypass, which means no matter what state your phone is in, if it's in do not disturb, you can still get their call. It will still come through. So yeah, there are lots of ways of doing this. And my wife is on like my emergency bypass. So no matter what, if my phone is in do not disturb, driving mode, focus mode, whatever it is, her call will still ring through. So that's one way of doing it for sure. And then PJ wrote in, danger Will Robinson, danger. Use of debit cards almost anywhere is a huge danger. Even when it stays in your hand, the site processing it can get hacked and then your account could be cleaned out. Bank ATMs are basically okay. Anything else? No. Some credit card suppliers offer virtual cards, good for online. I have to disagree here. So if you are using your debit card, I said do not swipe. You do not ever want to swipe any card at this point, because when you swipe, your actual card number is shared with that merchant and like you said, the processing company. When you use a dip, when you're using that chip on your card, your actual card number is not being shared. So yes, you can use your debit card and your actual card number is not shared. Now, that does not mean that they can't take more money out of your account and with debit cards, once they take that money out, yes, it is tougher to get back because you're fighting for your own money. So I do agree on that. But the idea that that number can get hacked, like let's say you use your debit card at Target and you pop it into the machine, right? You stick that debit card into their machine and it uses the chip to process your debit card. Target gets a one-time use card number. They don't get your actual debit card number. And you can look on your receipt. If they print the last couple digits, it's like different than your debit card number. And so you put that number in there, or you put that card in there, Target in their systems only has that one-time use card. And so if Target were to get hacked, they would not have your debit card number. It wouldn't work the second time. Now, back in the day when Target was hacked in a big way, that's back when we were swiping our cards. And that's why we don't swipe anymore, because when you swipe your card, they're actually getting the numbers printed on your card. And that's why I say, when my card leaves my hand, if it's typing in on the internet, you're typing in your debit card number on the internet, probably don't want to do that. Now, I do that for some sites. Like, I will do that, because I order from them so much that I don't want to have to deal with the budgeting of the credit card situation. And the credit card, the virtual card number, like, who cares? Like, the only thing that you got to worry about is your credit card number, yes, the headache of giving everyone your new credit card number for all your recurring transactions. But if your credit card number gets hacked, it's like, okay, well, Chase, you figure that out. American Express, you figure that out. You're not going to be on the hook for that. But thanks for the emails, do appreciate it. 888-Rich-101, 888-742-4101. Speaking of all of this stuff, every spam call, every scam text, every sketchy email with your name, every one of them starts the same way. Somebody found you. That's right. Your phone number right now is sitting on data broker sites all over the place. So is your home address, your email, your age, even the names of your family members. Yes, you can look these things up. It says, here's your, you know, everyone you're associated with is all on these websites. All of it is searchable. All of it is for sale. And scammers do not need to be hackers to get this information. All they need is to search online. And about five minutes of their time and they will find you. Every scam starts with one thing, your personal information being available to the wrong person. So forget about the spam filters, the call blockers. The real fix is to disappear. And that's what Incogni does. They contact hundreds of data brokers and legally force them to remove your information. I've been using Incogni for almost a year now to get my names and info away from these data brokers. And I can tell you, it is working. It is tougher to find for sure. They can't spam you if they can't find you. And right now you can get 60% off with an exclusive deal at incogni.com/rich. So go to I-N-C-O-G-N-I, that's incogni.com/rich and take back your privacy. That's incogni.com/rich. Got another email here from Ron in Seal Beach, California. Hey Rich, I've been using an sbc.net email for about 30 years. Even though I now use Spectrum for internet, I'm still paying AT&T just to keep access to that email. Oh my gosh. If I cancel AT&T, will I still be able to use it? I've gotten different answers from them. I also set up a Gmail, but I don't want to lose my contacts. Ron, this is kind of complicated, but I would say yes. In most cases, you can still use that email if you cancel AT&T. So here's the deal. If you're still logging in through the sbcglobal.net, you need to transition this to Yahoo. That probably should have been done already. So if you're going to Yahoo to access this email, you're probably already good. You don't really need to pay AT&T to keep using it. So what I would say is before you cancel anything, go directly to Yahoo, make sure you can log in, make sure it all works, and then you can call and cancel this AT&T. I can't believe you've been paying for AT&T twice or two different internets just to keep this. So double check, make sure everything is up to date, and then you can slowly move everything to Gmail, but you don't need to keep paying for AT&T. Just do a quick check before you pull the plug completely. Thanks for the email, richontech.tv. Back after this. Welcome back to Rich On Tech, Rich DeMuro here, hanging out with you, talking technology, 888-Rich-101, 888-742-4101. Take This Phone and Shove It!, A Frustrated Senior's Guide to Smartphones. How many times have you tried to do something on your phone where you just want to throw it against the wall? It's happened to me, yes, this stuff happens. And I did write a book a while back about the iPhone. And the biggest question was, why didn't you write one about Android as well? And it's tough, they function completely differently. But here to talk about her book is 73-year-old Anne Goldberg says, written by a senior for seniors. Anne, welcome to the show.

Speaker 4:
[55:29] Thank you so much, Rick. I am so excited to be here, Rich. You have no idea.

Speaker 1:
[55:34] So tell me-

Speaker 4:
[55:35] I read your column all the time and I love it.

Speaker 1:
[55:37] Oh, well, thank you. Well, I've got the book right here. I've been looking through it. I love how you started out the book with a little bit of, it's like then and now, right? It's like back then, things were easier than they are now. Was that the reason why you wrote this? Like what made you want to write this?

Speaker 4:
[55:55] Truthfully, it was just this voice in my head that just kept saying, write the book. And then one day, I was talking with a friend and she asked, what do seniors feel about, how do they feel about the phones? And I just said, they just want to take the phone and shove them. And I realized that was the name of my book. And as soon as I did, I started writing. I understood that seniors were frustrated, that it came out of nowhere for so many seniors. And all of a sudden a kid says, you have to have this. And they're like, why?

Speaker 1:
[56:32] And by the way, it doesn't come with an instruction manual. So you're just sitting there. And everyone around you seems to know how to use it. Like, you know, if you're in line at Starbucks, everyone's flipping, swiping, doing this stuff. So it's really tough. And if you're not a digital native, which means you didn't grow up with this stuff, you know, it can be tougher. So what do you think is the most common like kind of mistake you see seniors making with their smartphones?

Speaker 4:
[56:56] Oh, my God, it's passwords. I start this chapter in my book with a joke. He said he had all my passwords. I said, Oh, thank goodness, can you tell me what they are?

Speaker 1:
[57:08] That's hilarious.

Speaker 4:
[57:10] That is, sorry.

Speaker 1:
[57:12] That is, no, the passwords, I spoke to seniors a couple weeks ago, and I made a joke about passwords and I said, Hey, just show of hands, who's ever used the same password twice in this room? Everyone erupted into laughter and they all put their hands up, and I'm like, okay, I know, people do it. It's, passwords are the toughest thing. It's really, yeah, that is, I don't know if we have a solution for that, but password manager to me is like, I understand it, but when I set up it up with my parents and I'm like, okay, now you have to do this and go there, they're like, oh, come on, really?

Speaker 4:
[57:47] Truthfully, there's a way to set it up, Rich. I know you know this, where if they want an app, as long as they understand the face ID, because everything can be programmed so that they don't have to constantly log in, they can download apps. I have seniors who want to download a free app, but they don't have their Apple ID and they can't do it.

Speaker 1:
[58:11] Right.

Speaker 4:
[58:12] It's very frustrating. One of the things I recommend is to set up a locked note, and iPhones and Androids both have this capability, and make sure you have, you can put some passwords in there, or at least your Apple ID password to make sure that you can get it in an emergency, but it's got to have a lock on it. And it shouldn't be saved in contacts.

Speaker 1:
[58:37] I know. People save their, they save their passwords in contacts all the time. Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[58:42] I used to.

Speaker 1:
[58:43] I say that's not encrypted. It's not going to be safe If someone gets into your phone, that's it. It's like you just gave them the keys to the kingdom.

Speaker 4:
[58:51] Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's what people like you and I have to be constantly reminding not only the seniors, but the family of the seniors. If they're in the Apple architecture, use passwords. Set it up and just go through a couple of times with them logging into an account. Do it 5, 6, 10, 20 times, whatever they need. So, they finally get the idea of what it looks like. And then they can, where it gets dicey is when you have a PC and an iPhone.

Speaker 1:
[59:26] Yes. Yep. And because it's not necessarily like the passwords on the app. That's why I tell people, if you're using all Apple stuff, the passwords app is fine. If you're using Google stuff, Google has Android and Chrome, they have the Google passwords built in. The one trick is what I tell is that if they're using Chrome on the iPhone and they're using Chrome on the computer, they will, you know, that saves passwords as well. So that's another way of getting around it.

Speaker 4:
[59:53] How secure, in your opinion, is Google passwords and Chrome passwords?

Speaker 1:
[59:59] That's a good question. I would hope they encrypt those. I would think that Google would because there's some very smart people that work on Chrome and I don't think they would put those out in the open. Personally, and obviously if you listen to my show, I always talk about a third-party password manager. I like Bitworn because it works on everything. But I admit, it's tough for people to set up a third-party password manager. I get it. So tell me about you. So you wrote this book. So what was your life before this book? Did you have a different career?

Speaker 4:
[60:35] Before this book, for the decade, before I was teaching tech to seniors. My market were the real elders in independent and assisted living. The average age of my client is 85.

Speaker 1:
[60:49] Oh, wow.

Speaker 4:
[60:51] I have 90 and 95-year-olds that I teach. So that's why I wrote the book. Because the way I teach with metaphors, if you read the book, you understand that I try and make it relatable to them.

Speaker 1:
[61:07] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[61:08] So then a male concept.

Speaker 1:
[61:10] So what... So, okay, so you wrote the book. And what do you think... I mean, I don't know. What do you think needs to change? Like, how is this going to get easier for folks?

Speaker 4:
[61:24] Well, you know, certainly, it gets easier when we just adapt AI and allow it into our lives and don't worry about the privacy issues. That gets very easy. And I do think for a certain segment of senior population and disabled, that's not a bad thing to have robots and lots of AI helping them in their lives because it can normalize their life. And that's a wonderful thing. I like seniors to use AI. I just make sure they understand it lies. It absolutely lies. It doesn't know the answer. It doesn't say I don't know it. It just tells you something.

Speaker 1:
[62:04] It just makes something up every time. I know. It's just, it loves to.

Speaker 4:
[62:10] It happened to me today. I mean, it's just crazy. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[62:13] Yeah. And so I guess the scam aspect of things, because that's another aspect of all this, is like really seniors are targeted with these scams. They get these phone calls. They get these texts. What are you seeing in that aspect of things? Like what's your advice there?

Speaker 4:
[62:29] I remind them of what they taught their children and we taught our children and et cetera. It's stranger danger. I'm sure you teach that to your kids, stranger danger. I like to use the metaphor. Let's say you're walking on Hollywood Boulevard and somebody comes up to you, taps you on the shoulder and says, Rich, first of all, they know your name, this is stranger to you. Rich, I have the most incredible investment deal for you. I promise you, you can make 20% on your money. It's guaranteed. Come on, let's talk about it. What would you do?

Speaker 1:
[63:08] I'd say, I'm good. Thank you. Or what I do to everyone that comes up to me, I just say, no, no, no, not interested.

Speaker 4:
[63:16] Exactly. That's just do not engage. I had a situation where I got a call from my bank's fraud department, investigating whether or not there was a $2,300 gun charge on my account. Now, I don't have a gun, so that was clearly not my charge. And I am so ingrained to this that without even thinking, after they identified the charge, I said, well, thank you very much for letting me know, I'm going to call my bank now. And they hung up because they wanted me to give them information so they could get my money because at the end of the day, the scammers want your money, seniors. They want your money and they want to engage you in conversation, and they're not your friend, it's stranger danger. Do not engage. Block, delete, report spam, however you do it, and then call whomever it is that that correspondence or phone call related to.

Speaker 1:
[64:23] Yeah, and don't just Google the name. Like make sure you go to like your statement from your credit card or the back of your credit card or whatever.

Speaker 4:
[64:30] That's right.

Speaker 1:
[64:31] Because that's the other thing. They spoof that as well. The book is called Take This Phone and Shove It! It's available on Amazon. So who do you think this is for? Like give me give me the the sales pitch for who you think would benefit from this book.

Speaker 4:
[64:47] Every functioning baby boomer, not every, probably 20 percent, maybe 15 to 20 percent of baby boomers are real good with technology. Like you know, like I am. I'm good with it. I know a lot of people who are. But the rest go from barely using it to just, you know, getting the things done that they know and they know how to use those things, but they have no idea what the phone does. And for the children and grandchildren of those people who are always saying, how do I, right, because this book becomes their reference, the design of the book is to give people a foundation of what smartphones are and how they can be used in our lives for good. There are many, many, many, many good qualities and things about smartphones. And as far as the bad guys, they've been around since humans have been around. There's always been somebody who wants what you have. And now it's just gone global and they're harder to identify. So, you know, everybody should just be more skeptical and suspicious and simply do not engage. I won't even engage with the political parties now that have been sending texts for years and years and years. I block them. I will not engage with an underlined link that came out of the blue.

Speaker 1:
[66:17] Don't tap those for sure. All right, we're gonna have to leave it there. I've got to run. It's called Take This Phone and Shove It! Frustrated Senior's Guide to Smartphones. The author is Anne Goldberg. Anne, thanks so much for joining me today.

Speaker 4:
[66:30] It was a pleasure, Rich. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1:
[66:32] Really appreciate it. I'll put a link to the book on the website. Makes a great gift. Nice and easy to read. Big text, big book. I think the senior in your life would really love it. Maybe that's you. 888-Rich-101, 888-742-4101. Back after this. Welcome back to Rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro here, hanging out with you, talking technology, 888-Rich-101, 888-742-4101. Let's go to Ed in Pennsylvania. Ed, what's up? You got an old computer you're trying to do what with?

Speaker 5:
[67:13] Hi Rich, I enjoy your show. I have a 20 to 25 year old Dell desktop that I'd like to hook up to the internet. Do you think it's worthwhile, or am I going to run into too many problems?

Speaker 1:
[67:25] I don't think it's worthwhile. I mean, that's really... You're talking 2000, what? 2000? When's this... What's the deal with this computer?

Speaker 5:
[67:38] We brought it back, I guess, early 2000 and never used it.

Speaker 1:
[67:43] Never used it?

Speaker 5:
[67:45] Never.

Speaker 1:
[67:45] Oh my gosh, this is like a museum piece at this point. I would not open it. Just keep it, like, this is amazing. What kind of computer is it? It's a Dell. Is it still in the box? Is it in the box?

Speaker 5:
[68:00] Yeah, it's in the box.

Speaker 1:
[68:02] Oh my gosh, this is wild. Well, you may open this thing up, it may have the Y2K bug still on there. Remember that?

Speaker 5:
[68:10] You don't think it's worthwhile hooking it up to the Internet?

Speaker 1:
[68:13] I don't think so. At this point, it's going to be so outdated, the software. You're going to need to, I mean, I'm assuming it might have an Internet connection on the back, like it may have like an Ethernet port. I'm not sure, depending on...

Speaker 5:
[68:26] I was going to hook it up with a modem to the Internet.

Speaker 1:
[68:32] I mean, I don't even know where you dial up that modem anymore. I mean, where would you, you mean like a dial up modem?

Speaker 5:
[68:39] I don't know. I'd have to check with my cable company, see if they still have a modem.

Speaker 1:
[68:45] Yeah, I'm going to tell you, Ed, I don't think it's worth it. I would say, unless this was like a weekend project, you were just trying to have fun with, I mean, I'm not really sure it's worth the trouble because you're going to have to try to download software to this computer to use it and that's going to be an issue. It's just you're going to run into a lot of issues trying to hook this up to the Internet. So, I mean, can it be done? Of course. I mean, you can, there's going to be people, I'm going to get the emails as soon as I'm off the phone with you. People are going to be like, why would you tell them not to do it? Do it. I'm just saying, depending, unless this is just for fun and you're trying to make this kind of a thing that you show off in your house, I don't really think it's worth it because you're not going to be able to do much on this computer. You're going to run into all kinds of headaches trying to set up the software, set up the Internet. And then, of course, you have the idea of security and privacy. So, it's just, unless it's just for a project, I would say, if you're just trying to accomplish something for fun, I would say go for it, but it doesn't sound like that's what you're trying to do here. It sounds like you might be trying to use this computer. And I just don't think it's a, we live in a modern world where a 25 year old computer is really, really old at this point. I mean, I'm thinking back to my computer in that age. And these were the computers that had the giant CRT monitor. They had the giant, you know, desktop or, you know, tower kind of configuration, those big old computer speakers. So no, I don't think it's worth it unless again, we're trying to do this just for a fun side project. I would say there are plenty of inexpensive computers out there. You can get one of those if you want to get on the internet. Or if you've gone this long, maybe just go without a computer. Just get a tablet. Get a tablet or use your smartphone. Thanks for the call, Ed. Let's see if we can do one more before we have to go. Let's see. Paul. Paul's in Orange, California, Paul, you're on with Rich. Paul, you there?

Speaker 3:
[70:46] Uh-oh.

Speaker 1:
[70:48] Paul, one. Paul, going once. There you are. Hello.

Speaker 3:
[70:53] Oh, that's better. I'm sorry about that. So, I am visually impaired and I have an iPhone. Okay. And I do have pretty good accessibility things for visual, visually impaired. Yeah. However, what I'm trying to do is it's getting really difficult for me to use my, to use a screen. I have the big, I have an old iPhone 10 with a big screen and it works just fine. But my question is, are there any phones or programs out there that would allow me to, for example, access Uber through voice commands, like an AI system that would, I could say, okay, Uber, find me a ride to work or find a ride to here or there.

Speaker 5:
[71:30] Yeah. And do it for me.

Speaker 3:
[71:32] Let me try to navigate through the whole screen.

Speaker 1:
[71:33] Yes. On Android, they do have that where you can, actually, Uber has a phone number you know, you can just call Uber. Do you know that?

Speaker 5:
[71:41] I do know that.

Speaker 3:
[71:42] I just haven't gone that route.

Speaker 1:
[71:44] Okay. So that's one option. But on Android, they have this thing called agentic AI and so you can actually, and Uber is one of the specific first use cases of it, where you can say to your, and it's only on certain phones right now, I believe it's some of the Pixels and some of the new Samsungs, but you can say, hey, grab me an Uber and it will go through all the steps of getting the Uber, but the thing is you do have to approve it at the end. So are you able to see the screen at all?

Speaker 3:
[72:15] I am. I hold the iPhone, I can, you know, I have the colors inverted, because that's pretty sensical, I invert the colors, I triple tap to make the screen as big as possible and I scroll around until I find the buttons to push. So technically, yes, I could, I could hit that button if I knew where to look for it.

Speaker 1:
[72:32] Because you have to like finalize the Uber at the end. Let's put it this way, I think, and by the way, have you played with like Gemini Live and ChatchipyT Live and all that to talk to it?

Speaker 3:
[72:41] I have not done Gemini. I played with ChatchipyT a little bit here and there, but I haven't found it really doing what I'm looking for.

Speaker 1:
[72:49] Oh wow, okay, I think you should try Gemini Live and they have one where you can actually have Gemini look at things. So you can hold your phone camera to things and it will like identify them, it'll tell you about them. So I think that's one of them. That's really interesting, yeah. When it comes to the Agenetic AI stuff, it's still very early stage, but yes, you can do it theoretically. I don't think it's going to be perfect at this time. And the other brands I like for this stuff are BlindShell and Kapsys. They make phones specifically for the visually impaired. Back after this. Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here, hanging out with you, talking technology at 888-Rich-101-888-742-4101. If you're not subscribed to my newsletter, it is free. It's on the website, richontech.tv. And it's basically, it's kind of like this show just written out. But I talk about a lot of the things that I've come across that week that I think you should know about. And one of those things is actually from last week's show, we had the guest on that talked about Orb. And I am obsessed. Now, I will tell you, I've had access to this app since the beta. Like I was invited to the beta. We're talking, let's see, it's probably like two years ago at this point. I'm embarrassed to say. But it was a long time ago when they said, hey, this new thing is coming out, this new app, you can monitor your internet connection. I downloaded it, I didn't really understand it. Then when I talked to the guest last week, I'm like, oh, this is what I love about it. It puts a little score in your menu bar of your internet connection, not just the speed, but like the quality score. So right now, I have a 95. And so that means that my internet is really good. It tells you your location. So it grades it on responsiveness, reliability and speed. It also does a speed test too. It's the guy who created the original speedtest.net. This is his new project. But the neat thing is you can see your score over time. And I think that's what's really interesting is that, let's say in, you have an office in your house, but you have a bedroom as well, and you're using the internet in both places. You can see that in the office, it's really good. The bedroom, it's not very good. So you can say, okay, I need to improve my signal there or outside or whatever. I mean, it's just a really, really cool, I just, I'm obsessed with seeing my internet score now. So the website is a orb, let's see, is it orb.net? Yes, orb.net. So if you want to download it, it is completely free on up to five devices. You can install it and you can, the other cool thing is you can install on a family members device so you can get an alert if their internet is acting up. But this is like my new favorite thing. I just love seeing my little score all the time, my orb score. And right now, like I said, I'm a 95. I can tell you my office at home, I'm like a, it runs between a 90 to like a 92. So I do need to improve the internet in there. But I just, I love that. Anyway, that's in the newsletter today. If you go to richontech.tv, you can find the link. Just look for the, up at the top, it says newsletter. It's the top newsletter. Says I'm obsessed with this app that shows you internet quality in real time. So that's there on the website. Alvin writes in from Massachusetts, I've got years of files sitting in my downloads folder, even stuff carried over from an old computer. I'm nervous about deleting anything because I don't want to remove something my computer needs. Is it safe to clean out? By the way, great radio show, I've learned a lot from it. Yes, delete the downloads folder. You don't need it. There's nothing on your computer that needs that. It's stuff that you've downloaded from the internet. It's mostly just files and things. Now there may be some important files in there, but if it's from years, you don't need it. I clear out my trash probably every hour. I'm obsessed with it. I have two folders. I have my downloads folder and my trash. I clear out the downloads into the trash, then I empty the trash. I probably do that twice a day. So get rid of it. Marie Kondo that. Bobo's looking at me like, you know Marie Kondo. She did the little book, like the art of like, oh my gosh, let me see what her book is called. I bought it. I never read it. Marie Kondo. I got to find her.

Speaker 3:
[77:07] I have no idea what you're talking about.

Speaker 1:
[77:08] She did this system. My wife folded, look it up. My wife folded her shirts like a certain way. It's like a whole organization thing. Basically like get, yeah, Kim is saying, does it spark joy? Does it give you joy to have this? No, if not, throw it out. Yeah. So it's a whole organizational, it's called the life-changing magic.

Speaker 6:
[77:29] I'm a sneaker head. I'm not throwing my shoes out.

Speaker 1:
[77:31] Of tidying up. Yeah. You see, you've got all those, see? You may find some joy in getting rid of some old pairs of sneakers. Never. But I bought this book and I never read it. Typical. But I do love getting rid of things. I really do. This was a number one New York Times bestseller. Anyway, Marie Kondo that downloads folder, get rid of it. You can do it. I know you can. If you need something, you'll just have to re-download it. I am brutal. I throw out so much stuff. And of course, inevitably, six months later, I say, where is that? My wife goes, oh, you threw it out. I said, oh yeah, I did. Because I grew up in a house where things were kept forever. Like, you know, very, like nothing was thrown away ever. Nothing. You know, you did a tiny little stick figure in your art class. My mom would save it forever as if it was like, you know, I know there's people. Yeah, it was not. And I'm in the middle. Like I struggle a little bit. I'm not a hoarder, but I struggle a little bit with like, so my default is just keep everything. And I'm trying to learn. My wife's default is to throw out everything. And so I'm learning to be somewhere in the middle there. Let's go to Kim in Santa Cruz. Kim, welcome to the show.

Speaker 7:
[78:48] Yes, Rich. Thank you for taking my call. Desperately, well, first of all, I currently have a flip phone, a Verizon flip phone. And I'm desperately trying to transfer from the flip phone to a new iPhone.

Speaker 1:
[79:13] Oh, nice.

Speaker 7:
[79:13] I bought to Pure Talk.

Speaker 1:
[79:17] Okay.

Speaker 7:
[79:17] And the first and main phone, I can't remember the two security codes that just about everybody has.

Speaker 1:
[79:30] Yes. You need those.

Speaker 7:
[79:33] Yeah. I should have written them down, but I didn't.

Speaker 1:
[79:39] Can you go into, who's your carrier?

Speaker 7:
[79:43] Verizon is my provider.

Speaker 1:
[79:45] Can you go into a Verizon store?

Speaker 7:
[79:48] I went to a Verizon store to buy this flip phone back in December.

Speaker 1:
[79:54] Okay. But you're moving to Pure Talk, you said. You're moving to a new carrier?

Speaker 7:
[79:57] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[79:58] Okay. So what you need, you need your account number and you need your number transfer pin. So do you have those two things?

Speaker 7:
[80:07] Just an account number. What was the other one, sir?

Speaker 1:
[80:13] The other one, this is the important one. It's called a number transfer pin and the reason why you need that is because then I could just take your phone number and put it on my phone if I didn't have that. So you need to get that generated. Now you can do that by calling Verizon and they will generate a pin. So basically they generate this six digit pin that only you know, so that you pop that into the website or however you're porting it in, I'm guessing Pure Talk, you might call them. You give them those two pieces of information, which is your phone number, your account number, I guess it's three pieces, your phone number, your account number, and your six digit number transfer pin. If you don't have those, you're not going to be able to transfer because it only lasts for seven days because of security reasons. But once you have those, it is very easy and it's in most cases, instantaneous to port your number. But you have to have those ducks in a row to do that.

Speaker 7:
[81:07] Well, they're more than six days old now. So, what do I do in that case? I did get those numbers from Verizon. I went directly to the store and they gave me the account number and transfer pin. But now it's been more, in a way, it's been several months now.

Speaker 1:
[81:31] Okay. You got to go back.

Speaker 7:
[81:33] I bought this flip phone.

Speaker 1:
[81:34] Yeah. You got to get them again. So, you got to either go to the Verizon store again, or you can call Verizon. You could just call them up and ask them for that number transfer pin. Now, typically, I would tell you that, I mean, there is another, I can't verify this, but it says you can dial on your Verizon phone, pound 7678.

Speaker 7:
[81:58] It's not pound 670.

Speaker 1:
[82:03] It's pound port, P-O-R-T. So, pound port, which is 7678, and that should give you your pin. And the reason why, you know, you have to do this from your Verizon phone or from the website, or, you know, you can go into a store, but you have to do that for security reasons, because they don't want, there's a lot of problems with people taking these phone numbers. But once you have those, you'll have no issue getting those, you'll have no issue porting that out. So again, just to review, Kim, you got to do the pound port on your Verizon phone. That will give you your six digit number transfer. You've got that. Look at one of your bills, find your account number, 10 to 14 digits, you'll find that. And then you have your phone number. You call up Pure Talk, you have both phones sitting in front of you, call up Pure Talk and say, hey, I want to transfer my number in. And you can't, here's the other rub, you can't call Pure Talk from your old phone. Because as soon as they grab that number, your old phone's gonna stop working. So ideally, you have to do this at a friend's house or with another phone so that you can have the old number, leave that flip phone and go into your new iPhone. Sounds like you've got quite the upgrade there with the iPhone. But the easiest way might be to do that in a Verizon store and get that all figured out. But I've ported numbers, I've transferred numbers, I've changed numbers. It's all very easy once you have all the paperwork in hand. Thanks for the call today, Kim, really appreciate it. 888-Rich-101, 888-742-4101, the website, richontech.tv. Coming up, two items of note, one, I'll tell you the first router company that is being approved by the government under their new Cyber Security FCC router rules. Plus, Mint Mobile has a new home, internet, and wireless bundle for 45 bucks a month. I'll tell you about that and what the catch is coming up right here on Rich On Tech. Welcome back to Rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro here, hanging out with you, Talking Technology, Triple 8, Rich 101, 888-742-4101. Eric has been waiting patiently on the line in Mexico. You're on with Rich. Eric, are you there? Eric going once, Eric going twice, Eric. Okay, I think Eric left us. Eric was on hold for a while, so.

Speaker 2:
[84:31] I'm here.

Speaker 1:
[84:31] Oh, there you are. Hello.

Speaker 2:
[84:33] I'm here, Rich. Guy, I toggled a mute button accidentally.

Speaker 1:
[84:38] Okay, what's up?

Speaker 2:
[84:40] Hey, so I'm trying to connect a portable SiriusXM radio to my car. My car is a 2020 Ford Fusion, got all the bells and whistles.

Speaker 1:
[84:57] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[85:00] The radio is a 3.5 port.

Speaker 1:
[85:05] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[85:06] And the Fusion is a USB. So I got the adapter, how 3.5 to USB, but the adapter got hot. So I got scared and then got a transmitter, receiver, Bluetooth to try and connect the radio to my Bluetooth.

Speaker 1:
[85:36] Yeah. That doesn't work very well.

Speaker 2:
[85:38] It didn't.

Speaker 1:
[85:39] No.

Speaker 2:
[85:39] It didn't work. And the car said that it wasn't compatible. So I'm calling you.

Speaker 1:
[85:47] Yeah. Go ahead. Okay. So you've tried the converter. So does your USB accept the audio connection? Was it working at some point through that connection?

Speaker 2:
[85:56] It did. It worked.

Speaker 1:
[85:58] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[85:59] It worked. I did test it 100%. But I tested it enough to make sure that the radio and the antenna so forth and so on, you know, everything was receiving. So, and it seemed like it worked.

Speaker 1:
[86:19] Well, yes, but I'm saying, did the signal make it to your car radio? Like, could you hear the programming in the radio through the USB port?

Speaker 2:
[86:29] I believe, well, listen, this was over a year ago because I got frustrated and quit.

Speaker 1:
[86:36] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[86:37] And the adapter that I got was an off-market, you know, it was a... Anyways.

Speaker 1:
[86:48] So how can I help? What's the question?

Speaker 2:
[86:50] Well, the question is, do you have any idea how to get the darn thing to work?

Speaker 1:
[86:57] Well, I was going to say, I mean, look, if the car has an aux in, which it sounds like it doesn't, is that the case? There's no... It doesn't accept an aux input, huh?

Speaker 2:
[87:06] It doesn't have... All it has is the USB ports. And it does have the lighter, you know, the lighter input.

Speaker 1:
[87:17] That's just for power though, yeah. So, I mean, look, your options are, if you can get this USB-C adapter, or sorry, USB to 3.5 mm cable, if you can get that to work as an input in the car, that's your best bet. Now, the fact that it got hot, that could have been because, you know, this is a power port, this is a powered USB port. It also could be that that's not really the use case of that port. But I would say, if you plug in this 3.5 mm cable into the back of the receiver, that SiriusXM receiver, and then you plug the USB into the car, and you can toggle to that USB input, and it works, it sounds like everything's working. If it's getting hot, that's another situation. You gotta figure out why that's happening. Maybe that port is not meant to be used this way, or maybe you just need a higher quality cable. They definitely make these cables that do 3.5 to USB-C. They had that for the iPhone for a while, and kind of in the in-between stages of things. The other option is, the FM modulation stuff rarely works. It's just not very good. I don't have another way of getting this connected, except for the, if there's no cassette player in here. Is there?

Speaker 2:
[88:34] No.

Speaker 3:
[88:36] No, it's a CD.

Speaker 1:
[88:37] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[88:37] CD.

Speaker 1:
[88:38] Yeah. I mean, and you can't, there's no CD adapter there. So, I mean, realistically, it comes down to, will this USB port work with the 3.5 cable? If it does, you've got a connection. What about just using your phone? Do you have Bluetooth in this thing?

Speaker 5:
[88:52] Well, yes, I do.

Speaker 2:
[88:55] And your, the young lady that took my call, she asked if I have the app on my phone, if she answered yes.

Speaker 1:
[89:07] Okay. Well, here, if you, okay, bottom line is, if you have Bluetooth in this car, get what's called an AirFly transmitter. And you plug it into the 3.5 jack on the Sirius receiver, and it will transmit Bluetooth to your car. Done.

Speaker 2:
[89:25] So you, you called it an AirFly transmitter?

Speaker 1:
[89:29] Yeah. It's just called AirFly, A-I-R-F-L-Y. And they make, yeah, that's what you need right there. It's 35 bucks.

Speaker 2:
[89:36] I will look that up.

Speaker 1:
[89:38] Yeah. That'll solve all your problems. All your problems, Eric. What are you doing down there in Mexico?

Speaker 2:
[89:44] I live down here. I'm making my wife happy.

Speaker 1:
[89:48] That's amazing. Is that like a, an area by the beach or something or what?

Speaker 2:
[89:52] Negative. I'm surrounded by cactus. Oh, wow. 365. My wife doesn't, she, we used to live in the Carmel, Monterey area. Oh, wow. She didn't like the beach. Okay.

Speaker 1:
[90:05] So, she got rid of the beach. You traded it for cacti. Okay.

Speaker 2:
[90:09] Well, because she's got family here.

Speaker 1:
[90:12] Okay. Well, hey, like they say, happy wife, happy life.

Speaker 2:
[90:16] That's it, brother.

Speaker 1:
[90:18] All right. Well, I think the AirFly is going to solve the only problem you had down there in Mexico. So, thank you.

Speaker 2:
[90:24] All right. I'm going to look that up. AirFly. Thank you, Rich. All right, Eric.

Speaker 1:
[90:28] Have a great day. Appreciate the call. All right. 888-Rich-101. Sometimes, you know, sometimes these solutions are so easy that you forget that there are things like there are easy solutions to problems. So, the AirFly transmitter, if you're not familiar, it's a little gadget. It's mostly meant for travelers that it connects. It's like a bridge between the in-seat entertainment on a plane and your headphone. So, a lot of the planes now allow you to connect your Bluetooth headphones to the seatback entertainment. But a lot of the planes still don't. They just have that 3.5 jack. So, what you do is you plug the AirFly into the jack and it transmits the signal to your Bluetooth headphones. So, it becomes a bridge. But you can use it pretty much with anything that you want to transmit that way, including what he was talking about. 12 South is the brand that makes that. 12south.com. I'll put a link to it on the website, richontech.tv. Back with Carley Knobloch to talk about Smart Home Tech. Welcome back to Rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology, 888-Rich-101-888-742-4101. Before we get to our guest, two quick stories. Mint Mobile has a new bundle called Minternet. Well, I guess that's just one part of it. But anyway, the bundle is their unlimited wireless plus 5G home internet for $45 a month, which is really good. You're getting your phone wireless and your home wireless, 5G home internet. The thing is you do have to pay the full year upfront. So $540, but you could probably save a lot of money doing this. So if Mint Mobile has a good wireless speed at your home and you're thinking about saving some money on your internet connection, not a bad deal at all. This is brand new. It's called Mint Mobile Home Internet and Wireless Bundle, $45. So check it out. I'll put a link on the website so you can see about that. And then Netgear. Remember all these new rules about routers, foreign-made routers? The FCC was banning them because of the whole idea of botnets and cybersecurity attacks. So, Netgear is the first retail router brand to get conditional FCC approval, which means they can keep launching new routers in the US. Nighthawk and Orbi are two popular brands they make. And yeah, you can bet that the other router companies are busy trying to get this approval. So I think that the company TP-Link is probably going to have the toughest time, even though they're one of the biggest providers, but they are made in China, and even though all of these are. But anyway, it's going to be, well, we'll see. This is so confusing. It really is that it's like, OK, Netgear, what's the difference between Netgear and all the rest of them? You know, it's like, why can't they all just be approved? We'll see. All right. Let's bring on residential technology designer Carley Knobloch. Carley, welcome to the show.

Speaker 6:
[93:25] Hey, Rich, thank you so much for having me. And I've decided I need Hall and Oates to perceive me wherever I go.

Speaker 1:
[93:31] Oh my gosh. I pick all the music for the show and I sit here and I find the songs that really speak to me. So I didn't know I was going to match that up with you specifically, but I think it fits perfectly. So tell me about your sort of new life here. You are a residential technology designer. What does that mean exactly?

Speaker 6:
[93:50] What does it mean? Let's get into it. So for the last 15 or so years, you might have seen me on KTLA, on the Today Show, working with HGTV. I've sort of been like your girlfriend's guide to technology, first personal tech and then moving into smart home tech as a content creator and a TV personality and really just kind of like an educator. And I've taken all of that experience and started at my new role for a company called AudioVisions. They're the largest custom integration company in California. We design and build all the technology layers in luxury homes. And the way I like to think about like residential technology design is that we sort of design the nervous system for the home. It's the network and all of the devices that are connected to it that can work together to create your smart home, like intelligent lighting and motorized shades and distributed audio, climate control, security cameras. And then the fun things like home theaters and the wellness things like air and water filtration. Basically, the job is sort of figuring out what the house needs to do for all the people living in it, and then specifying all the gear, engineering it, designing it, wiring it so that it works all as sort of one system, like that nervous system that kind of makes everything run and is sort of beautifully integrated.

Speaker 1:
[95:09] And I love as opposed to 99.9% of like the average person's home, like myself, where you just get a bunch of different stuff, you throw it all together, you're like, oh, this doesn't work today. Oh, that camera is broken. Oh, those lights don't activate with Google Home. You've got this all figured out at a very macro level where it's like, okay, let's figure out the whole system for this house. So this is for people, obviously, that can afford that kind of thing, which is, you know, that gap has been bridged, which is nice, you know, but there's still very high end stuff that you can get. What do you think is the tech upgrades that people get the most out of these days?

Speaker 6:
[95:44] Well, I personally am particularly passionate about lighting. I've studied lighting design and lighting control, as well as sophisticated fixtures for the home. There's something that we sell into homes all the time, but I'm particularly excited because these LED downlights are, you know, now almost have like little mini processors in them. They're little mini computers. They can be programmed to change their color temperature throughout the day to match what daylight is doing. They're very sophisticated. So we love installing them all the time. CE Pro just did a survey, and people said that the number one most desired home, smart home upgrade, is lighting. And so, you know, ahead of security cameras, ahead of smart doorbells. So people are getting interested in lighting now. I would say the least sexy, but the most vital thing is really your home network. So consumer-grade systems like Eero and Google Wi-Fi or the router that your ISP gives you, those are totally great. And they're good for regular household tasks like streaming a movie, checking your email, going online. But if you're planning on adding a lot of connected devices, you're definitely going to want a more sophisticated network. It's sort of like building your home on a plastic foundation rather than a concrete foundation. It just takes the reliability and the connectivity to the next level.

Speaker 1:
[97:00] And especially if you're talking, you know, some of these homes you're working on, I'm sure, many, many, maybe probably tens of thousands of square feet. So it's like, you need a pretty rock solid network if you're going to get, especially if you're putting all these things in there. By the way, I had a friend come into my home the other day and he's like, how come you don't have LED downlights or whatever you call them? I was like, oh, I'm like, wait, the ones that are... Now I feel like I need to upgrade to those.

Speaker 6:
[97:23] Well, it's so funny because I just recently did a remodel and I sort of completed it right as I was beginning my interest in smart lighting and lighting in general. And while I was doing my remodel, I ripped out a bunch of my builder grade downlights, the cheap downlights that were in our spec home that we bought 11 years ago. And then after I completed all these courses and really got into it, I was like, oh, I don't hate downlights. I just hate bad downlights. And so there is like an amazing thing that happens when you have good quality lighting. A lot of designers and a lot of people in the design build community don't really like downlights. They want to rip them all out and just use decorative lighting, which can work in certain environments. But as you get older, you need more light to see. I think we all need downlights in certain environments in our home. But there's a big difference between the cheap Home Depot special versus good quality ones.

Speaker 1:
[98:19] Totally. So you mentioned the lights. What other smart home device do you think everyone would benefit from?

Speaker 6:
[98:25] Yeah, I would say a video doorbell. It's useful multiple times a day. It's not that expensive. It changes how you feel about your front door, whether you're home or not. If you pair that with a smart lock, now you have keyless access to your home. Your kids can come and go and not worry about losing keys. You can let the dog walker in or the housekeeper or anyone who's dropping something off at will. Both are really great for monitoring access to your home, letting people come and go. You can add access, remove access, do conditional access. It really has so many different use cases and I think those are life-changing things.

Speaker 1:
[99:07] Oh my gosh. I was coming home this morning. I always do a run before the show. I came home this morning and I just looked at it. I've had a Ring doorbell forever, but I just looked at it and I realized, I was like, this company was so brilliant back in the day. Think about it. This is the entry to your home. For most people, it's their biggest investment in the world. For so many years, it was just left like you didn't know. Now, you have this doorbell that videos every single person that comes in and out of your home. It's just such a brilliant idea. It just makes sense. It protects your little kingdom there.

Speaker 6:
[99:40] I completely agree. I felt the same way when Nest came out. I was like, this is transparency into a world that none of us understood and none of us had any kind of granular ability to control. You just kind of set your thermostat. And even if you were home all day or not home all day, you just kind of didn't really know how much energy you were using. You weren't able to dial in the controls. Now Nest came along and all of a sudden we had this window into our HVAC and our sustainability, the savings that we could get by really dialing things in and running things at certain times. And yeah, those are the life-changing kind of touchstones and smart home lore.

Speaker 1:
[100:22] Those are the two things I installed when I bought my house. The first two things, I went in and I installed the Nest Thermostat and I did it myself by the way, which I was very proud of. And I did the doorbell. Yeah, and in my house, the Thermostat is a war because I turn off the air all the time. I just don't want any air blowing on me ever and I don't want it cold. Whereas everyone else in my house loves it freezing. And so it is always, my wife will come home, I'll be working from home for like eight hours. My wife will be like, why is it so hot in here? I'm like, oh, because I turn off the air like eight hours ago. And it's like, oh, I need it on. Anyway, it's a war in the DeMuro house.

Speaker 6:
[100:57] It's definitely a Mars Venus thing with men and women for sure. But I do particularly hate cold forced air blowing on me. I actually hate hot forced air blowing on me also. So you can fix that with those re-directors in your vent and at least get it blowing indirectly, not directly. But yeah, the temperature war is never going to be over for sure between the sexes.

Speaker 1:
[101:20] All right, we've got just a minute left. Anything people can do this weekend to make their home tech better?

Speaker 6:
[101:28] Yeah, I definitely think, let's see, changing the default password on your router. If you never did it, do it this weekend. Everything in your house runs through that box. So if someone has access to it, they can see into your email, your files ruin your life. It's not fun. I would say move your router. Most people stick it in a closet or behind a TV. You know, they're not attractive. You want to hide them, totally get it. But I would do a speed test. You know, you can go to speedtest.com, run a speed test and then get it out in the open up high and centrally located if you can. You know, get maybe a little bit of a longer wire and you'll be shocked at how much better your Wi-Fi gets and you're absolutely free. I would go into your smart lock, go into your smart garage door opener and do like a who has access audit. So whoever you've shared access with for over the years is probably still in there. That dog walker that you don't use anymore, the ex-contractor, your kids' old babysitter, you can clean house. Let's see, you could plug your important stuff into a surge protector with battery backup, like you, your router, your modem, your doorbell, keep those things alive through the little power blips that otherwise knock everything offline for a while. And maybe set up one good automation, just like lights fading at sunset or the porch lights turn on when the doorbell detects motion, something that will kind of enhance your experience of your home. And that's the moment that people go from having smart gadgets to actually having an intelligent home.

Speaker 1:
[103:02] I love it. Those are great suggestions. Carley Knobloch, thanks so much for joining me today. Anywhere folks can find out more information about you?

Speaker 6:
[103:10] Yeah, my personal website where I muse about the intersection of design and home technology is called warrenroad.co and then my company is called AudioVisions and that's audiovisionswithins.com.

Speaker 1:
[103:25] All right, Carley Knobloch, thanks so much for joining me. Really appreciate it today. Coming up, we are going to open up the Feedback to see what you are emailing me this week. Welcome back to Rich On Tech. We're going to get right into the Feedback because there is a lot to get through. These are the emails, the comments, the questions, all the stuff that you send me throughout the week, whether it's through email, Instagram, however you get in touch. I put it all together and we call it the Feedback. That is a mix of Feedback and Mailbag because you've got opinions and you have questions. Jill writes in, by the way, if you want to submit, just go to richontech.tv, hit contact. Jill writes in, I heard your segment about Amazon ending support for some Kindle, so I checked mine and it turns out I'm in the clear. I just want to say your tech advice is so helpful to me. I really appreciate what you do. Well, thank you, Jill. Brian writes in, Rich, hey Rich, before we trash tech for destroying our lives, here's a different perspective. My brother-in-law's brother is going through serious health issues, possibly cancer. Sorry to hear that. He just completed a battery of tests, but the results were confusing and hard to understand. Our nephew plugged the results into ChatGBT. It explained everything in plain language they could actually understand. Score 1 for AI and now prayers. Thank you, Brian, for sharing. And yes, prayers to your brother-in-law's brother. And also, yes, I don't trash all this stuff. A lot of people do. I'm trying to give you the positive of it, but also I give you the pros and the cons of just about everything. Maurice, listening on 710 Wor in New York, says, I've had a landline for decades out here on Long Island, mainly because when the power goes out, the old copper line still works, since they were powered by the phone company. When I started having issues, Verizon would not repair the copper and instead switched me over to Fiber with Fios. They installed an ONT in my apartment and included a battery backup, so my phone still works during outages. It connects to my same home phone. They did the whole setup for free. My bill is still about $35 a month. The backup battery isn't as strong as the old system, but I could always add a UPS since the ONT doesn't use much power. Yeah, everyone's kind of converting these, getting rid of those copper lines for sure. Glad it's working out for you. No name here, but I heard the woman who called about AT&T disconnecting landlines. I wanted to share what AT&T is offering as a replacement. It's called AT&T Phone Advanced. It's basically a small box that runs on their wireless network. You plug your home phones into it. You can keep your same number. They offer self-install or a technician can come set it up. It's about $65 a month, and there's a number to reach a real person if needed. Rogelio, I don't know if I'm saying that right. In Fresno, I came across an app called Dual Shot Recorder. It's pretty incredible. It lets you record both horizontal and vertical video at the same time using your iPhone, and saves both versions separately. Perfect for creators or just capturing family moments without having to shoot twice. Love the show and newsletter every week. Yeah, it's so funny. I used to be so against vertical video. Now, I need that app. I really do. I'm going to try that out. Brian, I found an easy way to fax documents from your phone. It's called TurboFax. Just open your document in TurboScan, tap share, send it to TurboFax, enter the fax number, hit send. It uses your internet, so no landline needed. You can even send your first page for free. After that, you can just pay per page instead of a subscription. Super simple setup. TurboScan and TurboFax. That's the name of it. Chi says, I was listening to your show and you mentioned MagicJack. It took me back. I used to work in telecom and when I first heard about it, I knew right away our permanent business model was on its way out. Sure enough, within a few years, VoIP completely flipped the cost structure and minutes-based billing faded away. Great show. Thank you, Chi. Yes, MagicJack was transformative, as were many things in the past 25 years here. Anonymous says, I saw your segment about handling phone calls and I get the concern about scammers and even AI voice cloning. But in my line of work, calling people is necessary. If they didn't engage or answer, it could trigger an emergency response like a false alarm. It feels like we've lost basic phone etiquette. Maybe we need something simple like a clear greeting to show you're a real human, or even a system where businesses or alarm companies use a specific word at the start so people know it's legitimate and don't hang up immediately. It's frustrating on both sides as a consumer and as someone trying to reach people for important reasons. I agree. Every phone call I get when someone calls me, even when it turned out to be legitimate, I'm a little rude at the beginning because I'm like, now, why are you calling me? Who is this for? And it's like if it turns out to be a legitimate call, I'm like, oh, I'm sorry. I'm like, I was a little mean back then, but I'll be nicer. Let's see. George in Redding, Pennsylvania listening on WRAW says, I like Mozilla Thunderbird because of the look. It reminds me of the old days. I connect my Gmail for an extra layer of safety. When you open an email, it automatically blocks remote content that could be a problem and lets you delete it before anything loads. I love that. Those hidden images can track when you open an email. So stopping them does help reduce tracking. I have this turned off on my Gmail. Remote image loading, I have that turned off for sure. Roman says, I've been using Winscribe for years, even back when I was a beta tester. Proton's another good free VPN. Like you mentioned, I've also tried Octohide. Good suggestions there. Frank listening in Connecticut on WOR says, hey Rich, keep up the good work. I listen every Sunday here in Connecticut. Becky says, I really enjoy your show on the radio and your emails. They're actually the ones I read all the way through. Well, thank you, Becky. I'm glad you read them all the way through. Well that's going to do it for this episode of the show. You can find links to everything I mentioned on the website. All you have to do is go to richontech.tv. You can also find me on social media. I'm on Facebook and Instagram at Rich On Tech. Be sure to sign up for my free newsletter on the website, richontech.tv. You can also find the show notes, richontech.tv. This is episode 170. So if I mention something on the show, it's all in the show notes. I take very, very good notes. Thank you so much for listening. There are so many ways you can spend your time. I really do appreciate you spending it right here with me. One reminder before I go, I see so many people driving around with their phones in their hands. Please put it down. Do not drive distracted. Those texts can wait. Believe me, I want to look at my phone too. I make sure I don't. Thanks everyone who makes this show possible. Bobo on the board today, Kim on the phones, my guests. My name is Rich DeMuro. I will talk to you real soon.