The Tech Guy Episode 1874 Transcript

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

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Leo Laporte (00:00:45):
Hi, this is Leo Laporte and this is my Tech Guy podcast. This show originally aired on the premier networks on Sunday, March 6th, 2022. This is episode 1,874. Enjoy no ads, just the content. That's what you get when you join TWiT, you even get extras like TWiT plus our new bonus feed just for members and exclusive access to the club. Twit discord community. Join now for just $7 a month and support TWiT as we continue to create topnotch podcasts you expect and deserve just getting started. So be one of the first to join. As we build club TWiT from the ground up, you could be an early go to TWiTt.tv/club TWiT to learn more and sign up now. Thanks.

Leo Laporte (00:01:29):
Why? Hey, Hey, how are you today? Time to talk tech computers, the internet, home theater, digital photography, smart phones, smart watches, all that jazz eighty eight eighty eight que Leo the phone number. If you wanna talk iTech with me, 8 8 8 8 2 7 5 5 3 6, toll free from anywhere in the us or Canada, outside that area. You can still call, but you have to use Skype out or something like that to make the phone call eighty eight eighty eight, ask Leah website Tech Guy labs.com. That's free, open to all. If you hear something on the show and you say, what was that? Hello? Hello. You can just go to the website. It'll all be there. Links a transcript of the show after the fact and audio and video too. So you can search for and find and achieve the things you need for free tech eye labs.com Tuesday day after tomorrow apple event. I only say that because if you're in the market for an apple thing, you probably should wait just in case they announce the new thing on Tuesday.

Leo Laporte (00:02:42):
We don't know what thing the rumors are. A new iPhone se with 5g. That makes sense there do a new iPad air, kind of, kind of with a new design. I think the the pro design, you know, squared edges and a type C connector by that makes sense there do. Then the rest is up in the air, a Mac mini, the pro, maybe perhaps a a new display. People are talking about that. A new, you know, app only makes one display and it's $7,000. It's maybe, maybe a new, less expensive display, but again, it's just rumor just rumor. But if you're in the market for one of those types of things, you know, the iPhone isn't gonna get updated, just the little iPhone, the SASY. So, you know, obviously if you have an iPhone ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, you could stick with those, those aren't, those, those aren't gonna be supplanted, but I just, I tell you that, just so you know, just so you're aware, things are, things are coming.

Leo Laporte (00:03:43):
The other thing to pay attention to when an apple event happens is sometimes the older stuff now is discounted or, or eat more easily available. That kind of thing. Do you have a drone Ukraine needs you Ukrainian drone enthusiasts, the hobbyists, you know, the folks who are doing real estate over flights and things like that, you know, pictures of, of joggers in the park. Now signing up to repel, Russian forces Keve needs you and your drone at this moment of fury said the Ukrainian military Facebook post. Yes, they're recruiting on Facebook. This is such a different world that we live in such a different world.

Leo Laporte (00:04:32):
Attackers can force Amazon echoes to hack themselves with self issued commands. What it's an academic research. Somebody would have to be close enough to your echo to say something, you know, to say a command. But once they do, they can get your echo to pair with their Bluetooth enabled device. And then after that, you can issue. Yeah. You know, I'm not too worried about that, but just, you know, if you, if you can hear your neighbors through the walls, then you're probably at risk, I guess, you know, if you had an apartment walls and say, and you could hear, 'em say, Pull with phone,

Leo Laporte (00:05:20):
Kind of threw the wall loud enough for the go to hear them. And the echo said, boom, I guess from then, then you're, they're close enough to use their Bluetooth. So yeah, you know what, I guess this is for a warning for apartment dwellers, be careful out there be careful out there. What else? Volunteer hackers, I, you know, 20 years ago I did, I was a took part in a documentary about hacking hackers. And I said at the time these, these hackers have skills that might make them freedom fighters in, in a time when a repressive regime took over, you know you have the second amendment, the right to bear arms. You probably should have another amendment, the right to hack because you know, that's, that's how you're gonna, that's how you're gonna defend yourself against despotism in the future. Well, it took 20 years, but it's happening. Volunteer hackers from all over the world are converging on the war in Ukraine. This is from today's New York times. The hackers have declaimed a number of disruptions over the past week, blurring the lines between amateurs and groups linked to gut governments.

Leo Laporte (00:06:40):
The times features a picture of Mahalo of who is vice PRI prime minister of Ukraine. And they ministered digital transformation fittingly he's in a black hoodie. He's not in a suit. We are creating an it O he tweeted yesterday. That's another thing. It's the military's conscripting or not conscripting, but enlisting on Facebook and the vice prime minister of Ukraine is asking for hackers on TWiTtter. The hackers came from around the world, says the New York times they knocked Russian and Ukrainian government websites, offline graffiti anti-war messages onto the homepages of Russian media outlets and leaked data from rival hacking operations. And they swarmed into chat rooms, awaiting new description, instructions, and egging each other on, I was worried about cyber warfare.

Leo Laporte (00:07:37):
It turns out, you know, that hasn't happened really, but there is this kind of militia of hackers get getting involved. The online battles says the times have blurred lines between state back hackers and patriotic amateurs, making it difficult for governments to understand who is attacking them and how to retaliate. Well, you know what? 1776, that was why the, the red coats had such trouble in the revolutionary war, right? It's it's gr the first use of gorilla warfare. They're not wearing red coats and they keep running in on the bushes. How do we, how do we stop that? It's insurgencies. And now hackers are in the getting in the act wild. Speaking of hackers in Vidia, the folks who make the graphics cards have been hacked. And now Hm. Things are happening. Things are breaking the hackers who briefly did a ransomware thing, which was, I think quickly repelled cuz Invidia, I guess they have a good it department, right? And they were prepared or whatever, but they did while they were in there. Not for very long, they said they were able to download a terabyte of important information.

Leo Laporte (00:09:03):
And so they're starting to leak that out. That's the new thing, right? You threaten to encrypt somebody's data, but at the same time, you download stuff and you threaten to you're blackmailing them, release that data to the world. They say, we have your source. We're gonna, they're not Russian. I don't know where they're from. Maybe they are. I don't know. I'll do a, I'll do a Russian accent. We have your source code. We are going to re release this into world. Be careful, actually it's bores bad enough. Not really Russian it's cartoon character. As part of the leaks, two codes signing certificates have been compromised. Now one of those are the certificates that legitimate companies use to sign their drivers. Windows won't run 'em unless they're signed.

Leo Laporte (00:09:45):
The reason this is bad now is because you can attach those certificates to malware and I might download them. And then the, you know, if I have windows might have said, well, this is on site. I won't install it. Except now it is. I don't know how bad that is because of course Invidia can revoke those, I think can revoke those certificates. I'm thinking I hoping wishing, and they won't be good anymore. Samsung also got hacked hackers leak 190 gigabytes of alleged Samsung data, by the way, with the invi break in and I'm presuming the Samsung break in. And one of the things they get is employee information. And so they're releasing employee passwords, things like that.

Leo Laporte (00:10:39):
And in fact, the, the war in Ukraine is, is a ripe as ripe as is any national or international or global tragedy ripe for exploit by bat malware, bad guys, threat actors is from bleeping, computer.com threat actors. I love that actors. No, not Nicholas cage threat actors are distributing malware using fishing themes related to the invasion of Ukraine. This is, this is, this happens every time Ukraine is a manufacturing hub for parts and factories have had to close those emails going out saying, Hey, we can't get you your parts, except maybe not. Here's an email bit defender found dear suppliers due to the current situation of the escalating Ukraine, Russian conflict and its potential impact to the manufacturing industry and the extended supply chain bad grammar. So would like to survey the current situation of suppliers and backup plans. Please fill out the survey form as attached. What's wrong with this picture? Well, it says kindly complete this survey by March 22nd at at 1500 kindly, please. What's what's what's wrong with this picture? Do you know? Yeah. The attachment it's a zip archive instead of a survey, it contains a remote access Trojan, which takes over your machine and gives them access to it.

Leo Laporte (00:12:12):
So as always be cautious, be cautious. Don't don't just I've, I've invaded against attachments for so long. They're they're just dangerous. But you know, my wife who runs our business, she says, but I have to send attachments and other people have to send attachments to me. And she had a SIG. She said, well, I'm just gonna attach this to an email and send it said don't because, but no, I that's. How business gets done. I understand. I understand. 88, 88 ask Leo. That's how businesss done here. Right by the phone. No fishing attempts here. Although one time a guy pretended to be somebody else and then said, Baba Bowie to you. But other than that, 88 88 ask Leo Leola for the Tech Guy,

Leo Laporte (00:13:17):
88, 88, ask Leo. You wouldn't wanna give, if you were at a bar and the guy said, Hey, what's your number, baby. You wouldn't want to give 8, 8, 8, 8, 2 7 5 5, 3, 6 out. Would you? I might instead of my own number. And then he might say, be a good idea. We, a minute you have a toll free line number. What kinda business are you? You know, that's actually an interesting strategy. Weren't those 8, 7, 7 numbers though. Well, but even, even then, if you just give out a toll free number, that's gonna give him pause. If he's paying attention at all, he hasn't had. Thank you for giving me dating tips. A few too many Harvey wall bangers already. Huh? What, what, who should I, by the way, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Kim. Shaer the phone angel, a wonderful, wonderful person. Also wearing a black hoodie today, like Milo felo.

Leo Laporte (00:14:16):
There's no, no hoodie part. Oh there's no, it's just a, just black, just a black shirt dressing like a, where are you? Hoodie. Get your hoodie and your Elizabeth. What's your face. Oh yeah. Elizabeth Holmes. That girl. Yeah. Her, yeah. There's now a TV show about I'm watch I'm in I'm is it good? Yeah, it's good. I like it. It's great story. Great story. Who should I talk with first? Oh, let's go to Adam. Australia. Yeah, moly moley a and Adela Australia. Good a mate. Hello. A a thank you, Kim. Welcome. Hey, welcome, Ty. Good to talk to you. Thanks for calling.

Caller #11 (00:14:51):
No worries. So anyway I've got an older gigabyte mother board that does support TPM 2.0 or supposedly it does anyway. So you can go into configuration and enable TPM support that we're it's fine. Then there's TPM state. You go to enable it, reboot the system and it just keeps kicking back to disabled. No matter what I do, I can't get this tip to be visible to the operating system. Their support is absolutely useless. I thought maybe you or somebody in your cat were and might have some ideas on it. And you

Leo Laporte (00:15:33):
Really, really want windows 11,

Caller #1 (00:15:37):
Ideally. Yes. Is

Leo Laporte (00:15:38):
It saying you don't have TPM or is it saying you don't have appropriate system and I won't install?

Caller #1 (00:15:45):
Well, it doesn't recognize the chip. Like the board recognizes the chip. It knows it. You,

Leo Laporte (00:15:50):
You have to, so up there, I'm asking, you said it's an older computer. You have to have an eighth generation Intel later. You do have an eighth generation processor.

Caller #1 (00:15:58):
No I don't. No.

Leo Laporte (00:16:00):
So it may not even be the TPM windows 11 will stop you for either of those. Right.

Caller #1 (00:16:06):
Well, I know the CPU is unsupport, it's actually an older AMD FM two series. Yeah. So,

Leo Laporte (00:16:13):
So that's why I'm asking you if it's given you an error message saying blaming TPM, or if it's just saying no, I, I can't install on this,

Caller #1 (00:16:22):
Right. Well, I mean, I'm not so worried about the CPU not being

Leo Laporte (00:16:25):
Well, windows, Microsoft is worried about it. It doesn't, you understand Microsoft. And by the way, we know this completely auto, arbitrary windows, 11 will work on any machine windows 10 works on. And I presume you're using windows 10 right now, right?

Caller #1 (00:16:40):
It is using windows 10 yet. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:16:42):
So we know windows 11. Isn't so different that it should not have a problem. So you can get by, there are three criteria for installing windows 11, you nailed one of them TPM 2.0, you also have to have an eighth generation Intel processor later we'll work on AMD processors, but I'm not sure what the requirements are on the AMD processor. And it has to have a certain rise

Caller #1 (00:17:07):
Rise. Second.

Leo Laporte (00:17:08):
It has to be rise. So you already, already looked at this and you also have to have a APS around. So there are ways Microsoft actually has told you how to get around it. They have a registry hack. Right. Have you tried that?

Caller #1 (00:17:23):
Yeah, no, I can. I can install it. In fact, I have installed it in unsupported state. But I would very much like to get the TPM functionality working on this bull. Oh,

Leo Laporte (00:17:34):
I see. Okay. You've looked in bios cuz a lot of times it comes with TPM, but it's not enabled. You've looked in bios right now.

Caller #1 (00:17:41):
That's yeah. That's where I'm at is in the bios. And it's I think they gave you some instructions about installing windows eight, enabling bit loss. No, you don't understand that the TPM is not Is stopping it.

Leo Laporte (00:17:58):
Keith five 12 of the chairman is saying on AMD. They call it F TPM. Yeah,

Caller #1 (00:18:04):
A newer one. Yeah. Yeah. No, this system's too old for.

Leo Laporte (00:18:09):
Oh, okay. Well yeah, I do. So tell me again, not for my benefit, but for the benefit of anybody listening, who might have a help a solution for you which AMD processor is it? You said a Zen.

Caller #1 (00:18:25):
No, it's an FM two specifically an AMD. A 10 5700. It's an older one.

Leo Laporte (00:18:31):
Okay. So that's the, and and who does the motherboard

Caller #1 (00:18:36):
Gigabyte

Leo Laporte (00:18:37):
And it's a gigabyte motherboard. So if anybody listening has figured out how to turn it on TPM two with a 81 5700 on a gigabyte motherboard, this is the place to call or, you know, join us in the chat room or something like that. That's a that obviously Alan, I have no idea. It's not in my database of fixes. So I don't really know if you can't turn it on in the in the bios. TPM entails trusted platform. Module is a security thing that when it first came out, there were some qualms about it. But it's kind of like the secure enclave on your iPhone or your Samsung device. It's a hardware security chip that is good for security. And sometimes it's in software, not hardware. And I think that's the case with this processor, Sam, it will Sam at car guy next.

Leo Laporte (00:19:42):
Oh, I shouldn't sing. Sorry. Want to hear the most annoying sound in the world? It's me. Leo Laport, the Tech Guy, eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number. We're gonna take a little break from calls momentarily as we always do at this time for Sam Ebel Sam, our car guy. He's a expert in the technology of vehicles, principle researcher at guide house insights, podcaster@wheelbearings.media. Hello Sam. Hello Leo. How are you Tim? I am well, what's up in the world of cars. Well, I took the Miata out for the first drive of the year yesterday. It's temperatures up into the, did you 55 yesterday and 60 today. Did you throw out the roof so you can't take it out unless it's warm? I didn't throw it out, but but I never put it up unless the only time ever put up the top on my car is when I'm washing it. That's it? Is it a rag top? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So so really it's not, it's not a roof. It's a roof in name only. Well, no, it's a roof. I mean,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:20:46):
It's, it'll keep out the rain. So if it starts raining while I'm driving, it'll, you know, it'll keep me dry. Yeah. you know, it keeps the water out when I'm washing the car, but the rest of the time it stays down because you know, it's a convertible, it's supposed to be driven with the top down. If you're not gonna drive a, if you have a convertible and you don't put the top down. Yeah. Why did you buy a convertible? That's

Leo Laporte (00:21:05):
A good question

Sam Abuelsamid (00:21:06):
Because almost all convertibles look worse with the top up than you do with the top down, but just leave the top down. If you don't want your hair messed up, don't buy a convertible. You know,

Leo Laporte (00:21:16):
Sam, it seems you have strong feelings on this matter.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:21:19):
I, I, I have a, I have an opinion or two on this top. You know, I, I, I see people driving around in convertibles with the top up on beautiful days like today. And I wonder why, why did you bother? But speaking of convertibles, yes. This week pole star, which is see, it started off as a company in the mid nineties developing race cars, race cars based on Volvos. Oh, for touring car racing that

Leo Laporte (00:21:48):
Planes, the name pole star, a star of the pole position.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:21:51):
Well, actually it's more about the, the pole star, the

Leo Laporte (00:21:54):
Star, like star the north,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:21:55):
The north star.

Leo Laporte (00:21:56):
I to clever

Sam Abuelsamid (00:21:56):
Sweden. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But at any rate they, they started off and then they got into building high performance road cars for Volvo Volvo, eventually bought pole star. Then Volvo got bought by GE the Chinese manufacturer. And then they decided, oh, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna make pole star a dedicated EV brand. And so they set it up, sort of spinning it out again. And they launched their first cars a couple years ago, the pole star one, which is actually a plug-in hybrid coop high performance. And then the pole star two, which is available now that you can by as a sedan. And they've got more models coming up. But they showed a new concept this week called the pole star, oh two as in oxygen. And it's a convertible, it's a Roadster and it's quite a, quite a stunning looking Roadster, I think. And they haven't said yet if they're going to build this, but it's based the same a new platform that they've been developing. It's a bonded aluminum platform that they're going to use for their upcoming pull star five

Leo Laporte (00:22:57):
High performance. It's interesting. We, you know, for years, cars are made of steel, but people are trying different materials, I guess, cuz cuz for weight reasons.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:23:07):
Yeah. aluminum is, is considerably lighter than steel. Yeah. And depending on how you put it together, it can, it can be just as strong. I mean, you know, as an example Ford has been building F one 50 S out of aluminum since 2015. And they're, they're plenty strong it's, it's not, not an issue. And what's interesting, one of the interesting things about this, this vehicle and this new platform that pull stars developing Polestar is based in Sweden, but they, they established a new R and D facility in the UK and they hired a bunch of people from companies like Lotus. Oh well Lotti the sports car maker. Yeah. Back in the nineties, they developed you know, when they were developing the, the Elise, which eventually became the basis of the original first generation Tesla Roadster, they they wanted to make the Elise really lightweight and make it out of aluminum. And they had to figure out ways to, to build this thing. What

Leo Laporte (00:24:01):
About safety? I mean, steel, you know, is strong. I don't wanna drive around in a, in a tin can,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:24:10):
Aluminum can be playing strong as well. Oh good. Okay. It can be just as strong. It can be just as strong as steel.

Leo Laporte (00:24:14):
Hence the bonded aluminum like plywood. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:24:16):
Yeah. Right. So, so what they, you know generally with steel cars, steel vehicles they're most, most of the parts are welded together or bolted together. Right. but in order to get one of the things they wanted to do with the Elise and that they're doing with the new pole star platform is they wanted to use extrusions. So an extrusion is when you take take metal and you heat it up until it's, it's almost like a, a pace it's not, not quite liquid, but you know, pliable and then you force it through a dye. So it's kind of like, oh, when you squeeze your tube of toothpaste. Yeah. You're extruding the toothpaste out of the end of the tube.

Leo Laporte (00:24:53):
Isn't that didn't Elon do that with some Teslas sounds familiar.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:24:57):
Yeah. Yeah. And he got the technology from Lotus.

Leo Laporte (00:25:01):
Ah, interesting. Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:25:02):
I mean a bunch of Lotus engineers have worked at that Tesla and so Tesla originally developed us using extrusions and they were trying to figure out, okay, how can we join these parts together? And they, they actually developed, they worked with some companies that build adhesives and they developed some structural adhesives to glue these

Leo Laporte (00:25:21):
Parts together. Okay. Now I'm sure it's very strong, but it does make people really strong. When you say you're driving an aluminum car, that's been glued together. I mean, you know, there's kind of a, that sounds like not so good. It sounds like it's maybe made outta chewing gum rappers.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:25:39):
Yeah, no, no. These, these adhesives that they've developed for joining these aluminum components, so they've got a mix of castings, extrusions some stampings and to, to join it all together, they develop these, these industrial adhesives that are incredibly strong. It's stronger than welds.

Leo Laporte (00:25:54):
Oh, interesting. Wow. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:25:56):
Wow. And so this is the kind of technology that they're using. A number of other manufacturers have adopted it. You mentioned Lotus or Tesla. Tesla has used it in the model S and the model X. And of course,

Leo Laporte (00:26:07):
So I was driving a chewing gum rapper vehicle. I just didn't know you were. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Good.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:26:12):
And, and the the, you

Leo Laporte (00:26:14):
Know, what's interesting

Sam Abuelsamid (00:26:15):
Was based on that same architecture,

Leo Laporte (00:26:16):
That is one thing I noticed. It feels like the, the hoods and the, and the, you know, the fend and stuff on a test on my model, X felt, seemed thin. It felt like I could denim by punching them. And I guess that's cuz they were thin.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:26:30):
Yeah. And the they're they, they, if you, if you tap on 'em, they'll feel yeah. Like they're thinner, but they're, they're typically actually thicker than steel panels. Oh. Because aluminum itself, you know, at, at the same thickness, aluminum is not as strong as steel, but you can get the same strength by using a thicker gauge of aluminum. And it'll still be lighter. So it'll still, it can still be about 30% lighter than a comparable steel part. Mm. And so and

Leo Laporte (00:26:59):
Of course weight's huge with electric vehicles. That's, it's really

Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:02):
Important with electric

Leo Laporte (00:27:03):
Vehicles and batteries,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:04):
Batteries are batteries are heavy. Yeah. And you know, the more, the more mass you have to move, the more energy it takes to move that. So it's gonna affect your range and your performance. You know, and as a prime example, we talked recently about the, the humer EV and you know, the battery pack in the Hummer EV weigh 2,900

Leo Laporte (00:27:23):
Pays more than a Honda,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:25):
Which is yeah. About the same as the Honda civic that's parked in my garage. And about half, again, as much as my Miata. So using, using aluminum is great. I mean, aluminum, granted aluminum is a little more expensive to use than steel, but you make up for it in other ways, by, by reducing the mat, make the vehicle more efficient. It's also, aluminum is also very easily recyclable steel is easily recyclable as well, but it's really easy to take the scrap, you know, when you're machining it and cutting off parts, taking all the scrap parts, melt em back down again, make more parts out of it. So you have very little waste with aluminum. And so this this pole star, oh, concept like the upcoming pole star five uses as bonded aluminum chassis, that should be really, really strong, very lightweight and should help the performance compared to building the same thing out of steel or some other materials.

Leo Laporte (00:28:18):
Is this the one behind you is the one with the drone in the back.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:28:21):
This is the one with the drone in the back. So the, the production version, if they build it, probably won't have a drone drone back, but this one has a drone that you can pop up and it'll follow along. It. It's paired to the car. It's

Leo Laporte (00:28:33):
The first car with cam. And I think it's very appropriate for this modern world, you know, absolutely see me driving, what can possibly go wrong? Sam BOL, Sam principal researcher will barings.media is his podcast principle researcher at guide house insights and always a pleasure to have you on. And I'm glad you were able to drive your rag top around town cuz it's warming up spring is sprung. Thanks Sam.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:29:00):
Thank you. Leo

Leo Laporte (00:29:02):
Leo Laport. The tick. I more calls right after this. Okay. Let me put the clock in the window. And this is all yours, my friend, I assuming you would like to stick around.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:29:27):
Yeah, absolutely.

Leo Laporte (00:29:28):
Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:29:29):
All right. So let's see. Mike, he asked about carbon fiber. He said that he had a BMW I three. And this also applies to the I eight, both of which are now discontinued. They were both ma they both had carbon fiber structures and there are other very high performance vehicles that also use carbon fiber, cuz it's very lightweight and lighter, lighter even than aluminum stronger than steel. But it's also very expensive. And he said that that in the I three, it worked great when it got hit, but the repair cost to fix it where it fractured between the carbon and aluminum meant that it was totaled. And this, this is a challenge. You know, one of the things that manufacturers are trying to do is use mixed materials you know, because different materials have different properties.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:30:24):
And so what they try to do is they're, they're using the, the, the materials that give them the best blend of properties at each part of the vehicle. So where they need real structural integrity, like for the the passenger compartment, you know, to keep from anything intruding on the passenger compartment. When you get into a crash, they want something really strong BMW decided to try carbon fiber on the I three and the I eight and that worked really well. They others use ultra high strength steels in certain areas and then they'll use lower strength, steels, or other materials in areas where they want it to actually be able to collapse, to absorb some of the energy of a crash. You know, so for things like frame rails at the, at the front and rear of the vehicle where you actually want the material to compress and take up some of that energy.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:31:14):
So it's not all transferred into the passenger compartment they'll use milder steels. The problem is joining D materials. That's, that's always a challenge. And in the case of the BMWs it was a challenge, you know, because obviously they couldn't make the whole thing out of carbon fiber. They had to, they had metal structures where the suspension was attached. And if, if the carbon fiber fractures joining that, repairing that and joining those different parts together can be a real challenge. It can be very problematic. Another problem is if you're using a mix of steel in aluminum so you know, cuz one of the challenges you have is if you, if you ever take two different metals take steel in aluminum or copper or copper and aluminum and you just put them together just side by side and just let it sit.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:32:09):
So they're touching, you'll get something called galvanic corrosion. So it'll, you'll actually get corrosion between those parts. And so one of the things they have to do is when they're joining dissimilar metals, they have to act, actually put an insulator in between them. So they're not in physical contact Acura on the NSX. One of the things that they did is they actually used the adhesives for joining some different components and they would have the beat of adhesive between an aluminum part and a steel part joining those two together. But it also prevented the aluminum steel from touching each other. So they didn't get that, that corrosion there. So there's a, some very creative solutions that they're coming up with. But I'll talk about that some more in the next segment.

Leo Laporte (00:32:59):
Thank you Mr. Sam Abu SAB. You wanna stick around for the top of the hour? It's good. Sure thing. Okay. Okay. Leo Laport, the Tech Guy. Ooh, mm, eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo that's the phone number marks on the line from grand rapids, Michigan. Hello, mark.

Caller #11 (00:33:24):
Hi Leo. It's good to talk to you again, my friend. Nice

Leo Laporte (00:33:26):
To hear from you.

Caller #11 (00:33:28):
Hey, I just have a very simple question and I'm sure you'll be able to answer it very easily, but if not, Sam's gonna be around. So he might help. Sam's

Leo Laporte (00:33:37):
Right here. He's sitting he's right in the he's just over my shoulder. So go ahead. No, yeah,

Caller #11 (00:33:44):
Yeah. Well, you know, ice vehicles are so mature these days and EVs are starting their maturation climb up the scale. Yes. but they're, they're looking pretty good right now. Ice

Leo Laporte (00:33:56):
Is internal combustion engines. Evs are short for battery electric vehicles or BS. So go ahead with your que I just wanted to find terms so people know what you're talking about here.

Caller #11 (00:34:07):
What's I understand completely well, what's, what's the point of a hybrid anymore?

Leo Laporte (00:34:12):
Oh, that's a good question. So hybrids have little tiny gasoline engines in there and batteries. There's plug-in hybrids that run off the battery and then there's hybrids that kind of switch back and forth between the ice and the EV portion. I'm gonna say because there are people still quite a few of them who are, have range anxiety. They're afraid they're gonna run outta juice before they find a charger. And so it makes them feel a little better to have a little tiny gas tank, a little tiny gas engine, so they know they can keep going. You Sam, you agree, you think that's the main, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:34:45):
And it's, it's it's for different use cases. You know, there's, there's no silver bullet solution yet for, you know, that meets everybody's needs. And you know, for some people, you know, as you say, you know, whether they may have range anxiety, or depending on where you live, you know, what type of vehicle you need a hybrid might be a better solution for you right now than a battery electric vehicle. Certainly hybrids have become a lot more affordable over the years. You know, battery electric vehicles are still more expensive, but you know about the cheapest EV you can buy right now. You know, it's gonna cost you at a minimum about $30,000 before oh,

Leo Laporte (00:35:23):
Cause you need bigger batteries. You

Sam Abuelsamid (00:35:25):
Need bigger batteries. Yeah. Batteries are still expensive. Whereas, you know, with a hybrid you know, the Ford Maverick is an example that launched last fall, it's their compact pickup truck it's available. It's the standard powertrain, there's a hybrid powertrain gets 40 miles per gallon. And you know, it, it starts at $20,000, you know, so it's, it's a very affordable vehicle. So you can, hybrids might be a better solution, you know, and especially if you live somewhere rural where charging might be a problem than a grid might be a better answer for you right now. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:35:59):
It's it, you know, gas prices, what's gas like mark, where you are now

Caller #11 (00:36:05):
They say it's gonna be over $4 a gallon soon. Right? Sam, is that what you're hearing about Michigan? Cause I'm in grand rapids.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:36:11):
Yeah. most, most likely I, I

Leo Laporte (00:36:14):
Get ready for this

Sam Abuelsamid (00:36:15):
Next week or two, we'll probably hit four bucks,

Leo Laporte (00:36:17):
California. It's, it's 5 99 for premium. And there are places in LA it's 6 99. So get ready for $7 gas. And I think that's gonna help, you know, my wife and I are driving by the gas station, its at $5 99 cents a gallon and we're going, woo let's go home and charge.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:36:37):
She's she's probably happy that that the mini got fixed and she was able to

Leo Laporte (00:36:41):
She's

Sam Abuelsamid (00:36:41):
Keeping the mini instead of going back to a gas car. Yeah.

Caller #11 (00:36:44):
Leo, you had that, you had that comment about ranging anxiety. Is there one good source for finding out exactly where all the chargers are in the country?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:36:55):
Yes, there is. If you go, the, the department of energy actually has a website called the alternative fuels data center it's at AFDC dot energy or do doe.gov. I think

Leo Laporte (00:37:11):
That sounds right. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:37:13):
Gov no.

Leo Laporte (00:37:14):
And what

Sam Abuelsamid (00:37:15):
You can do on, there's see,

Leo Laporte (00:37:18):
That's

Sam Abuelsamid (00:37:18):
A,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:37:19):
What you can do on there is you can search. Let's see. Oh, here it is. Afdc.Energy.Gov. Yeah, there we go. And there's a tab at the top. You can locate stations and if you click on that, you can filter, you can go on the filters and you can select, if you're looking for EV you know, for electric charging stations, tap on fuel select electric, you can also find biodiesel, compressed, CG, compressed, natural gas, ethanol, hydrogen, et cetera. But if you click on fuel and select electric, you can then find a map of all of the public charging stations across actually Canada and the us,

Leo Laporte (00:38:00):
But all the electric vehicles I've driven have in their nav systems, that information as well, how up to date it is. I don't know. But I think in most cases are getting it from the internet. It tends to be it's up to date. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:38:11):
It tends to be pretty up to date. And also Google maps also has EV charging information. I think. So when we're also starting to put that in,

Leo Laporte (00:38:19):
Well, we're driving, my car will say, Hey, you know, you're gonna, if you put in where you're going, they say you're gonna have to stop. And here's some places you can stop and here's how long it's gonna take you to charge. That's the biggest, because there are so many charging stations coming in now, thanks to electrify America, thanks to the federal government. That's becoming less of a problem. The biggest issue is how long it takes to charge. It's not like a gas station. You whip in five minutes later, you're ready to go. You've gotta, but even spend time. Even that's becoming less of a problem now we're getting higher power charging stations and vehicles EVs that support faster charging rate Teslas will charge it up to 250. Kilowats now least up until, until they get to a 50% charge and then they taper off.

Leo Laporte (00:39:02):
Yeah. the the new Hyundai I five and Kia EV six will charge at 232 kilowats. So you can get from 10 to 80% charge in 18 minutes. So it, you can, you can put a of energy into into a vehicle pretty quickly now. Yeah. And in case you're wondering gas in the, the UK is about according to the chat room, $9 a gallon. So I guess I won't feel so bad about our $6 a gallon, a friend's son, a Mike ELGAN son has a Toyota miry we, which is their hydrogen vehicle. Now talk about range, anxiety. He's lucky cuz he lives around the corner from a hydrogen filling station. But you know, he can't drive up here because there's not nowhere to fill up.

Leo Laporte (00:39:49):
Yeah. So there's, there's a hydrogen station in Napa bar somewhere or Marin? No in Marin, just off the one. Oh yeah. I forget that. That's one though. Before you go somewhere, you really check to see where am I gonna get more hydrogen? I think that, I think that may be an alternative fuel that doesn't have much of a future. I'm just saying. Yeah. There's electric three hydrogen stations available right now in the country. 53. Yeah. Okay. How many, how electric chargers, there are 53,000. There you go. Station charging station locations with 130,000 charging points. So there's a thousand times more electric chargers than our chargers. Yeah. And it's, and that number is going up all, all the time. There is that issue. If you have a Tesla, you have to use a Tesla. You don't actually, you could use any charger for a Tesla, but yeah, Tesla, Tesla, Tesla chargers.

Leo Laporte (00:40:44):
Although Elon says he might start opening up his chargers to non Tesla vehicles. And then you, you know, the cost of the charging can be pretty high depending on the cost of electricity out here in California. It's very close to the cost of, of gasoline. If you're charging it at a remote charger, my cost at home is not. And so I, you know, I fill up at home in effect. Are you, do you have a gas vehicle mark or are you thinking about or electric vehicle rather? You're thinking about one or

Caller #11 (00:41:11):
No, we've still got gas vehicles. It's just the something that crossed my mind the other day. It's like, I don't under understand hybrids, why people need it, but I think the answer eventually came down to the same as all answers. Unanswered questions, money,

Leo Laporte (00:41:27):
Money, money, honey. Yeah. Hey mark. I pleasure talking to you. Thank you for the right job. Thank you for calling. It's nice when we can get a a car question for the car guy. I like to, I say I have a friend here. He's Sam is in the, in the house from I Salani Michigan. Thank you, Sam. And thank you mark. 88, 88. You don't have to ask car questions when Sam's here, but it's nice if you do eighty eight, eighty eight, EO the phone number tech ilab.com, the website I'm a big fan of electric vehicles. I mean you know, there are people who say, oh, the electricity's not clean that you're using. It is in my case, cuz we have a lot of solar panels or they say, you know, the, the materials that you need to make, these lithium of batteries are are not good. Like things like what is it cobalt? But there was just a recent study that showed that. In fact, even with long term, considering manufacturing, EVs are much better than gas vehicles for the environment. Leo port, the tech. Okay. Yeah. Unless you're driving the beast. If you're driving the beast, you're gonna, you're gonna have to have some gas. Okay. Sam, you are on, if you wish to be for about nine minutes, don't pay no attention to that clock. That's okay. Gonna shift over, over to eight 30 and seeing Ben nine minutes left.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:42:57):
All right. So yeah, to, to what you just mentioned about that study, that was a new study at the university of Michigan and Ford looking at the environmental impact of EVs and, and it provided roughly the same results we've seen from a number of earlier studies that it does. It does take more energy to manufacture an EV primarily because of the battery. But it uses so much less energy over its lifespan. That when you look at the total life cycle, it's, so-called cradle to grave energy use and emissions it's significantly less. The, the only, the only time when is slightly more still is if you're using exclusively cold power, right. For the electricity, right. But any other source of electricity, if it's natural gas or hydro or any of the other renewable sources, then you're gonna use significantly less energy over the life of the vehicle.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:43:54):
And that that's actually only gonna get better as we as we get more EVs on the road and those EVs reach end of life. And we start recycling those batteries recycling battery recycling is an area that's gonna grow substantially over the next decade. We haven't, we haven't done much of it up until now because there simply haven't been enough batteries to make it viable, to make it economically used well. But the earlier this week Stant had an investor day and one of the things their CEO Carlos Tevas talked about was previously last year, they announced that they Stant was gonna build 200 battery cap battery production facilities with capacity of 260 Gigot hours a year. Hmm. They've now bumped that up to 400 Gigot hours a year by 2030, because the expectation is they're gonna need so many more batteries, so many more EVs that in order to support all of that, you're gonna need a lot more of the, the, the key active materials, the nickel cobalt, manganese the lithium.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:44:58):
And obviously you can extract that from the ground, but it's a lot better if you can reuse a lot of those materials and even a, a battery that's reached the end of life where it still doesn't have the, it, it doesn't have enough capacity to be useful in a vehicle. It still has those materials can still be extracted from it and fed back into the production process and make new batteries that are just as good as the ones made from, from the Virgin materials. So you're gonna see a, a huge growth in recycling over the next five to 10 years, as we start to get more volume of batteries available to recycle. One of the companies leading in that space is a company called Redwood materials, which was founded and, and their CEO is JB stra, who was the former CTO of Tesla.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:45:49):
And there's a number of other companies like lifecycle and you know, manufacturers are also doing this. So Volkswagen has a pilot pilot recycling facility in Germany already where they're doing this stuff. So you're gonna see a lot of those materials re recycled there getting onto some of the other topics that people are about here in the chat. Let's see. Buzzy had he said he got a warning light on the dash stating that brake fluid when breaking pedals spongy, what are some possible causes? Just add brake fluid to the reservoir. That could be it, but it, if your pedal is feeling spongy, the reason why your brake pedal would get spongy is because you have air in the lines. Now it's possible your fluid level is dropped. A bit, if you've got a leak somewhere in a break line or one of the connections at the master cylinder or at the, the brakes or somewhere, somewhere in the brake line, if air is getting in there and fluid is getting out, you could be losing fluid.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:46:52):
So just filling it up is enough. I mean, you should definitely fill it up, make sure your, your reservoir is topped up, but I would also take a look you know, maybe take it in somewhere and have them check it out and look for leaks in your brake lines, because if you're losing fluid, it's gotta be going somewhere. It's not gonna get consumed. It's, it's leaking out, out somewhere and air is getting in. And that, that sponginess is from having air in the brake lines. So fill it up but then also take it in and get the brakes checked and get them bled you know, and maybe just something's loose, something's loose. And so you want to get everything tightened up bleed the brakes, get all the air out of the brake lines. And then hopefully your, your pedals should be back to normal

Leo Laporte (00:47:40):
That starting to sound like click and cl it's time for the car guys, Sam we'll see him.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:47:47):
Well, you know, some, you know, I worked for many years as an engineer, you gotta

Leo Laporte (00:47:51):
Bleach in lines. That's clearly the problem. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:47:54):
Yeah. Well, well, yeah, I mean, like I said, I, I did that for many years as an engineer and, and also, you know even before college you know, working in, in auto shop in the in high school,

Leo Laporte (00:48:04):
I'm not complaining. We should do half so well as click and cl.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:48:08):
Yeah. Let's see what else we have here. Extrusions are used in HV electric cables as well. Yep. That's true. So the, the high voltage cables in EVs and hybrids and plugin hybrids so these are the big orange cables that you see, those are the ones carrying the, the high voltage high current in, in your vehicle. It could be anywhere from four to 800 volts or more those, those copper cables are often made from extrusions. Let's see, Google maps. Yeah. Referred to Google maps as one of the sources for chargers. So most EVs you know, if they have a built in nav, they will have the point of interest database that has the, all the charger locations in there. And especially on newer ones. In most cases, if you put in your destination, they will actually look at, you know, what is your current state of charge in some cases like with Hyundai, for example, Hyundai and Kia they've take in a whole bunch of factors and, and Ford does this as well.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:49:14):
They take in a bunch of factors, so they look at your destination, but they also look at the terrain to where your destination is. So if you're driving, say, if you're driving petal, Illumina to Tahoe, you're going uphill. And so your range is gonna be less they look at weather information and they factor all of that in to give you a more accurate range destination. And if you don't have enough charge to get to your destination, it can, it can automatically show you, okay, here are chargers along your destination. Here's some recommended places to stop. Tesla does this as well. Most, most EV manufacturers are, are moving in this direction to try to, to minimize the impact. And, and what they'll try to do is try to plot out here's where you should stop so that you can get the quickest charges and get to your final destination in the shortest time.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:50:07):
So it may actually end up, you may have more than one stop along the way but they're doing it in such a they're timing it in such a way so that you're you're, you're getting shorter. You're charging at when your battery battery, state of charges at a lower state of charge, when it can actually charge faster, as you get up to 80% charge your battery can't absorb energy as fast. And so you know, instead of having you sit there and wait until you get to a hundred percent charge, it'll tell you, okay, when you get to 75% charge at this station, then continue on your journey and stop again at this station. And your overall trip length will be shorter. Pluto 64 says, well, we see a hybrid Miata anytime soon. Yeah, I think we will see, we'll see some sort of electrification added to the Miata probably in the next generation model, which is probably gonna be out in, I would say probably the next three years or so.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:51:05):
Probably by about 20, 25 likely likely a hybrid. And possibly also towards the end of the decade, we'll, we'll probably also see a, a battery electric Miata as well. Let's see Mike ice says wasn't the carbon that fractured. It was the joint. That was the problem. Yep. That's, that's usually where it is, is trying to join those similar materials. And you'd be surprised, you know, the cost of some of these repairs. You know, even though it might seem like a relatively trivial problem that sometimes the cost of the repairs is more than the residual value of the car is worth. And an insurance company will just say will total it and, and not even bother to fix it. Although I think that's probably changing now because used car prices are so high because there's so little inventory that insurance companies are probably taking more often than not fixing vehicles instead of totaling them. Now

Leo Laporte (00:52:03):
That's good. I've had several vehicles totaled for minor little fender benders in the it's. Nice if you could fix it. Yeah, I agree. Thank you, Sam. Have a wonderful week.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:52:16):
I'll talk to you next

Leo Laporte (00:52:17):
Week. Leo. Enjoy your ragtop. Take care. I'll

Sam Abuelsamid (00:52:21):
Do that.

Leo Laporte (00:52:25):
Well. Hey, Hey. Hey, how are you today? Leo? Leport here. The Tech Guy, time to talk computers, the internet, home theater, digital photography, smart phones, smart watches, serious stuff like cyber warfare, sillier stuff. Like the latest video games, 88, 88. Ask Leo anything you wanna talk about if it's, if it's got a chip in, if it's tech, I like to talk about it may not be able to help. I'll do my best. Just remember, you're not just asking me. I am merely the, the tip of the pyramid here. We've got the team Tech Guy in our chatroom@ircdotTWiT.tv and our discord chat for our club, TWiT members. We've got you know, half a million, a million listeners who can call in. So, you know, this is a, this is like a giant user group where we're all here to help one another eighty eight eighty eight, ask Leo the phone number, Trevor on the line from Bebe Canada. Hello, Trevor.

Caller #4 (00:53:25):
You're listening to Leo Laporte

Leo Laporte (00:53:29):
Trevor. Are you auditioning? You just had to listen to eight minutes of the, of and I think it's Heather Haman's voice telling you what satellite channel we're on. That's for the, of course, all the radio stations up and down the network. I who are logged in that. So their engineers don't have to worry that they're missing anything. That's why we don't change that music by the way Trevor. So they can they can they go, oh, that same junky music we've been hearing for the last 10 years. And must be we must be in a break. I've talked to professor Laura about changing it, but so what can I, what can I do to help you, Trevor?

Caller #4 (00:54:09):
Can you hear me? I'm talking through the PR 40.

Leo Laporte (00:54:11):
Oh, nice.

Caller #4 (00:54:12):
My Scarlet to my Mac.

Leo Laporte (00:54:13):
You're actually not I'm gonna tell you right now. You're not, you're talking through your max microphone. So, so that's one problem right now. Oh,

Caller #4 (00:54:25):
Cause it says FaceTime has,

Leo Laporte (00:54:27):
So here's how we test that. And this happens all the time with our our hosts. We

Caller #4 (00:54:32):
Using FaceTime.

Leo Laporte (00:54:33):
Yeah. So I'm tapping my microphone right now. Tap your microphone. Yeah. Tap your tap. Your laptops. Micro. Yeah. Camera microphone. Cause that's where I could. Oh,

Caller #4 (00:54:49):
My iMac.

Leo Laporte (00:54:50):
Yeah. Or your iMac. See, I could tell because you're not on mic, you're off mic. You're at a, you're distant from the mic. So it has to be, and this is something that comes up a lot when you're using other inputs for your audio or camera two with audio, you have to change it in the max sound settings as well as FaceTime or that. Yeah. Well get right up next to your microphone. Get up right next to your microphone. Let me hear. Yeah.

Caller #4 (00:55:20):
Okay. Can you hear me now?

Leo Laporte (00:55:21):
Yeah. You're still off mic, but that's all right. I hear you. Well enough. What can I do for you?

Caller #4 (00:55:28):
I got all this because I'm disabled. I've been locked in a, in a care facility for two years.

Leo Laporte (00:55:34):
Oh, I'm sorry. I'm thinking that stinks. Yeah. Yeah.

Caller #4 (00:55:38):
And I'm thinking, why don't I go the air every day and do talk about disabilities. Talk about, get people out of their shells.

Leo Laporte (00:55:48):
Great idea. Great idea.

Caller #4 (00:55:51):
Yeah. It's more like, you're not the only one who has that disability. Right. And then turn it into a Collins show. And that's the question.

Leo Laporte (00:55:59):
So here's the advantage. Here's the, yeah. The cos little more difficult, but here's, here's the thing I would tell anybody. Everybody has a unique point of view right? On life. You only, you see it through your eyes and that's, what's so exciting about YouTube, about podcasting before even blogging the, the internet democratizes media until the internet came along. If you wanted to do a show about your disability, you would, you would have to go to some. And this is how I started go to a radio station, pound the pavement and pound on doors saying, I'd like to do a show. I'd like to do a show. And there's a pretty big gate that the gatekeepers are keeping locked tight and you have to get in. Now anybody can do it. And if you're doing something that's of interest you know, you may not reach a million people, but you don't care about that. Trevor. You wanna reach people who would be interested in what you have to say. Other, for instance, other people sharing your disability. So, or even just people who are interested in your life. So the calling thing is hard.

Caller #4 (00:57:05):
Yeah. I looked it up online and I think it was it calling show

Leo Laporte (00:57:10):
There's talk shoe and I, that we use talk shoe for a long time. I think talk shoe is

Caller #4 (00:57:15):
Actually phone line so I can have a screener.

Leo Laporte (00:57:17):
Yeah. Talk shoe. You don't really get the screener. In fact, when we did Amber car and I did a show inside the net on talk shoe. Yeah.

Caller #4 (00:57:26):
I remember that. Remember that I was actually on, I actually called in, remember?

Leo Laporte (00:57:30):
Yeah. And we would just have to say, okay, and you know, the thing is it's podcast, so you can edit it or you can just take your chances. There's no FCC. And it's easy enough to say, you know, somebody calls, calls in and say caller you're on the air. And he says, Baba bully, you can hang up on him immediately. So it's not a big deal. And it's, it's kind of genuine. It's kind of real unlike talk radio where we have a screener and all that. I don't think you need a screener unless you really start getting this, you know, trolled by people who keep calling and annoying you then, but I do

Caller #4 (00:58:02):
Wanna do it by phone because I need, I need to make that it's easy as possible for these people.

Leo Laporte (00:58:08):
So the way talk shoe works, which is great. You are on the internet, so you're using their software. You don't need a phone line or anything. You just need a laptop connected to the internet, but you can give out a phone number. At least I haven't used it recently, but that was the whole idea was you could use a phone, a regular phone to call in and you're right. That's what you wanna make it easy for your callers to participate. So talk shoe, not show S H O E dot com. Take a look at that. I bet you, there are other ways to do it, but you know, that, that, that is a great idea, cuz I, it makes the show even more interesting. If you can take callers, there's another way to do it. That might even be better. And I'm gonna point you in this direction as well. Instead of taking live callers, you can create a podcast that people can leave a message easily for you, that you can then respond to. That's. this is a tool I think is the best podcasting tool there. It's anchor FM. Do you know about anchor a N C H O r.fm. Spotify bought them for an undisclosed amount, but I think it was millions,

Caller #4 (00:59:17):
But I really wanna interact.

Leo Laporte (00:59:20):
Yeah. So that's what talk shoe is gonna work nicely for you. Anchor's neat. In fact, I was, I was, I do a, I played with anchor doing a podcast some years ago and I kind of keep it around because people can leave you a message. They can we using the anchor app, they can say, well, well you know, Leo, I think you're wrong, blah, blah, blah. And then you, you can easily edit that if you want and drop it into your podcast, you can add sound effects. You can add music. And the best thing about this, you can record the problem with doing a talk show is you have to do it exactly the same. You know, notice this radio show. It's always the same two to 5:00 PM Eastern that's when we're live. So Saturday and Sunday, and you, you know, you're gonna get calls during that time.

Leo Laporte (01:00:04):
That's the only time you can do it and you have to do it consistently. Now you probably won't do three hours, Trevor, but, but you're gonna have to say I'm gonna be on the air at noon every day, you know, Eastern time. So if you want, cuz people have to call in when you're on and that puts a burden on you and them to, to do it at that time. So that's the, the end, but the, the end result, the benefit of it is it's real interactivity like you and I were talking anchor doesn't have that. You can record bits of your podcast at your leisure. You have an idea. You sit up, you go, Hey, and you can do it on your phone. Phone. Quality is actually as good. And if you wanted to use your PR 40, I guess you could, he bought a professional great Mike, the same one.

Leo Laporte (01:00:44):
We use on my podcast network, but you can just do it on the phone saying, here's a, here's a thought I just had and record it. You don't have to publish it right away. It's stored by anchor. You can then assemble those little pieces. You could put interlude music in between it and, and the most interesting thing, because it, Spotify is you can, you can put ads in it. Now. I don't think you'll make a lot of money unless you get a lot of listeners, but there is the potential to monetize it, which I think is cool. And Spotify really is much to my dismay. I'm not, I'm talking about a Spotify product here, but they are basically buying up the pie universe at some point, independent podcast networks like mine are gonna go away because between iHeart, my, the company that owns this and does more podcasts than anybody, Spotify, number two, Amazon coming on, strong in apple they're gonna own all the podcasts.

Leo Laporte (01:01:42):
And more importantly, they're gonna get all the a, so there won't be really a lot of room to make money. If you're not on those platforms, the good news is Spotify makes it very easy to be on their platform. The other thing I like about anchor that is also a great reason to recommend it. You don't have to fiddle around with making it a podcast. It is a podcast and it shows up on Apple's podcasts. It shows up on spa Spotify. It shows up everywhere. That is a standard podcast that is, can be subscribed to on every platform. Now that's for now. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point Spotify says, oh no, it only works with Spotify. Actually, maybe I would be surprised cuz one of the benefits they get of letting people, you know, do their own thing is they can, they'll get all the information.

Leo Laporte (01:02:30):
They get all the statistics and then they can cherry pick. If somebody makes a show, let's say, Trevor, your show takes off and you've got a hundred thousand listeners. Spotify can come along to you and say, Hey, we, you know, you're doing a good job. We'd like to bring you in, bring you inside, which has worked very well for some people. Joe Rogan, 200 million over four years call her daddy, what was it? It was 20 million for two, three years. There's there's money them there. Podcasts someday. I'll figure out how to do that. So anchor, anchor.fm. I think the easiest way, if you wanted to, one of the nice things is if, if you don't know yet, if you wanna do this in a long term, you don't wanna, you've already invested a lot of money. So, you know, you're pretty committed, but for anybody listening, who just wants to try this, I love it because I do think that this is the democratization of radio of, of audio content.

Leo Laporte (01:03:28):
Anybody can do it. It's easy. And and it's free by the way. Did I mention that it's free and it has a lot of tools to make it make it pretty simple to do so talk you if you really want take live calls, remember you're gonna have to do it at the same time every week. Anchor.Fm. You wanna make it easy. Hey, good luck Trevor Leo Laporte the tech I eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number. If you've got a question, a comment, a suggestion. You wanna talk high tech? You wanna help me? Want me to help you get your microphone? Set up? Give me a ring. We'll talk. Yeah, I think you should do it. Mac Ray. Totally think you should do it. Oh, I haven't seen Collin studio. Let me look at that Mac Ray it Interesting. Yeah. So you can use zoom And you could have somebody help you with call screening. That's nice. You get a toll-free number. Wow. This is great. This is, this is better than our system up to 35 callers. This is great screen calls by a human. You provide the human or use auto screen.

Leo Laporte (01:04:56):
Okay. And then let's see all calls are 3 cents a minute. So for toll free we're 6 cents minute Canadian phone numbers are $9 a month. Toll free numbers are $12 a month. And then, so that gives you the, is that the only cost? Yeah, this, this seems good. Maximum cost per hour with one call screener five callers, which about what we do 420 minutes used per hour is 60 cents. Not expensive. It's 1260 an hour versus what it costs us, which is about a thousand dollars an hour. But we, we made the mistake of doing video that's Huh? This is actually good for me to know about if I ever wanted to fire Dr. Laura and professor Laura. And and Kim, I could just do this. I bet you, you cost more than 1260 an hour. Not much more, but you know, Oh, I'll fix that leo.am. Thank you, Joe. Yeah, it's it's just a referral and I'm gonna have that go to my Lale fund. So my idea of this Lale fund is to use anchor FM, but you know, if I could take calls, I guess I could, that's interesting call in studio pricing. That looks cool. Mac, right?

Leo Laporte (01:06:39):
Yeah. Phoenix warp it's You know, that's rent electricity staff. There's two, you know, full-time staffers on duty whenever we're working online, that's a whole continuity apartment. There's a lot of, there's a lot of expenses to this. So that's why we have to You know, works so hard to sell ads. And if, if at some point Spotify just eats, takes all the oxygen out of the air, which they might You know, I'm sh I, it's not just Spotify. So Spotify is buying up all of back, end all everything, but, but iHeart is even bigger. They I'm sure have their own way of doing all those metrics. Apple and, and Google. And Amazon seem like they're interested in that business. So if they, you know, if those big five on it, it's not gonna be a lot of room for TWiT As an independent entity. Leo Laporte the Tech Guy, eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number. We're talking high tech on the line. Neil from Santa Monica, California. Hi Neil.

Caller #5 (01:07:54):
Oh, yes. Hi. How you doing? I'd love your show. I I'd like to listen to it every week to remind myself how illiterate I, yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:08:03):
I thought you were gonna say how horrible windows he is, but okay. That's fine. Yeah. Well

Caller #5 (01:08:08):
Way. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I have a PCs, but anyway, I'm having, I'm having problems with NFTs. Okay. Okay. okay. I'm author of the book, the conscious planet I'm journalists for jet city magazine.com. Oh, neat. And I'm a, and I'm a nationally published fine artist.

Leo Laporte (01:08:27):
Okay, awesome. Now

Caller #5 (01:08:29):
I have created a series of NFTs. However, I'm having so many problems trying to have them published. I, I joined crypto.com and when I joined crypto.com I got through and I got to the point you know, I'm registered in and I got to the point where it says create. And then I assume that all I do is cut and paste a JPEG or a, or a file either from my iPhone or

Leo Laporte (01:09:03):
It's much more complicated than that. Okay. I would suggest going to open C O P E N S E a.

Caller #5 (01:09:13):
Okay. O P E N S

Leo Laporte (01:09:15):
E a open C is the number one place open c.io. The number one place for creating NFTs.

Caller #5 (01:09:26):
Okay.

Leo Laporte (01:09:26):
Almost all NFTs go through open C, so, oh, okay. Yeah. I would start with them and I think it's a little easier to follow the steps. Well, what, you're, what you're gonna have to do when you create an NFT is you actually put it on the blockchain and you don't put the image on the blockchain. You put the URL to the image on the blockchain. And so it's kind of a complicated idea. And so if you want to create an NFT, I would suggest doing it through opens and, and it's a little bit more, the, the step by step is a little bit more straightforward. Okay. However, before we go much further, you wrote a book called the conscious planet. 

Caller #5 (01:10:09):
Well, let me explain that. Let, let explain that. Yes, I, I, and I illustrated the cover of the book.

Leo Laporte (01:10:14):
The book, the, that, that leopard on the cover is gorgeous. Now. It's beautiful. You're a great talented artist, but is, let me just ask you as part of your vision of sustainability sustainability and energy use, because one of the problems with NFTs it's the same problem with, with all cryptocurrencies is they are vastly energy, inefficient, huge amounts of energy have to be used. Well,

Caller #5 (01:10:42):
I've, I I've heard that, but I heard that through the advancement of technology that it'll take less energy

Leo Laporte (01:10:50):
Hasn't happened yet all the bit, quite look, let me, I have a very skeptical take on NFTs and cryptos. So just so you know, ahead of time, my attitude towards this is that the people promoting this are the ones who are gonna make the money on this. For instance, one of the first things you're gonna experience when creating the NFT is something called gas fees, which is the money that goes to the creators of the NFT and the miners who are gonna create the proof of work that puts you on the, on the blockchain and all of that money. They're gonna pocket. And I can almost promise you as dollars and, and you may make money on your NFT, but most of the time, the people who buy NFTs buy it as speculative. There's two reasons somebody might buy Neil Neil's NFT, cuz they love your art and they wanna support you. If you wanna do that, create a Patreon, you know, just say, give me money.

Caller #5 (01:11:52):
What is a Paton?

Leo Laporte (01:11:54):
I'm a, yeah. Paton is a place. A lot of creators go to say, Hey, you like my work donate. And I will give you access to special editions or whatever or sell your work. And NFT is primarily about speculation. So there's two reasons. People will buy your NFT one to help you. But it's not a great way because of gas fees, a lot of the money they spend does not go in your pocket. It goes in the pocket of open sea and the people who are behind this, if you go to Patreon, they take a, a four or 5%, you know, they the, but you're still gonna get most of it. The, and the other thing, the other people who buy NFTs, the vast majority are not doing it to were you, but because they're speculators, they think that it's gonna be worth more down the road. Now that can benefit you because when you create an NFT, you can build in and you will. I want 20% or some percentage of all future sales. So as it goes, goes up, you will make money on it. So in a way you become one of the speculators. And in my opinion, most NFT creators are pure speculators. Look at the look at the LA the board apes. That's not great art that's

Caller #5 (01:13:03):
Yeah. I've seen that.

Leo Laporte (01:13:04):
That's somebody who wants to make money, crazy stuff. And like any pyramid scheme, the requirement is more suckers. You don't ever want to be the last person to buy an NFT cause that's money at the door. You wanna be the second to last person, right? You wanna be the guy who sold it on at a greatly inflated value. So my opinion of all of this is it is a con it's a pyramid scheme. Now, if you wanna do it, do it through open sea. We have a hands on photography episode, aunt Pru did an NFT, does a couple. He's a great photography, explained it, episode 1 0 3. And I'll put a link in the show notes to that TWiTt TV slash hop, Leo Laport, the Tech Guy. And I know I'm still online with you Neil. So by the way, very impressed by your art. Beautiful. I'm looking at your website.

Caller #5 (01:14:09):
Thank you. Thank you, sir. Yeah. So I've got trying, you know, trying day publishing is coming out with my new edition, good about four or five months and I illustrated the cover. So I thought I'd make an NFT from the cover.

Leo Laporte (01:14:21):
You, you know what, it'd be. It's a good exercise. You'll understand the whole thing better. Open C makes it a lot easier. Again, TWiT.tv/a O P 1 0 3 and an walks. You do that again,

Caller #5 (01:14:34):
Sir. I'm

Leo Laporte (01:14:34):
Sorry. Say that TWiTt TV. That's my podcast site. H O slash H O P, which is hands on photography. H O P

Caller #5 (01:14:43):
H O H O P.

Leo Laporte (01:14:45):
Hands on photography and episode 1, 0 3 is NFT art and aunt will walk. It's basically getting started with NFTs. He'll walk you through it.

Caller #5 (01:14:58):
Well say bless you so much. I really appreciate all your help.

Leo Laporte (01:15:01):
My pleasure. And bless you. I like what you're doing with the conscious planet.org. That's great. It's

Caller #5 (01:15:05):
All about, it's all about vegan.

Leo Laporte (01:15:07):
Yeah. Well that's another, you know, sustainability also is energy use, right?

Caller #5 (01:15:13):
Well, yeah, absolutely.

Leo Laporte (01:15:14):
Yeah. And so,

Caller #5 (01:15:15):
But, but you know, being vegan is the most powerful statement towards sustainability. In my opinion.

Leo Laporte (01:15:21):
I completely agree with you. If I could do it, I would. Oh, it's, it's

Caller #5 (01:15:25):
Easier now than ever

Leo Laporte (01:15:27):
Before. That's true. That's true. I've

Caller #5 (01:15:28):
Been doing it for 40 years. Do you have, do you have a, a, a, a, a company where I could get consultation though? No,

Leo Laporte (01:15:36):
You know, this is it. You're, you're getting the consultation right here. I don't do any, I don't have time to do anything else. Okay. But I do wish you luck and I am believe me. I, if I could be vegan, I would, I'm gonna work on it. I'm working my wife and I both wanna do that. Absolutely.

Caller #5 (01:15:52):
All right. Well you can it give me a shout out sometime about doing it? Thank you. Thank

Leo Laporte (01:15:56):
You, Neil

Caller #5 (01:15:58):
Planet.Org. Thank you.

Leo Laporte (01:15:58):
You just, you just, I we'll put a link in the show notes. You just got a nice big plug on the radio.

Caller #5 (01:16:03):
Bless you so much. Thank

Leo Laporte (01:16:04):
You, Neil. Take care. Bye. Leo Laport, the Tech Guy on average a minting a creation of an Ethereum based NFT, which stands for non fungible token. If you're, if you've not heard the term bless you, it's all over the place. And it's highly promoted as is cryptocurrency. It's highly promoted by people who stand to make money from it, in my opinion. And it, you know, of course the crypto bros hate it. When I say that because they have this vision. Well, some of them have this vision of a brand spank in new world where I don't know what, something, something, something blockchain. There's also a much, I think a much larger group of, of them who say, but wait, I haven't sold my NFT yet. Can you not? Can you not knock 'em until I make some more money, please? The according I'll put a link in the show notes according to memo, Atkin, who is a computational artist and engineer, he, he, he compiled data from 8,000 NFT transactions on average creating one F NFT uses 140 kilowat hours of 140 kilowat hours just to create it, to make a bid 41 kilowat hours of energy to cancel a bid 12 kilowat hours.

Leo Laporte (01:17:35):
The sale is 87 kilowat hours, a transfer of ownership, 52 kilowat hours. Why you say, is it using energy? Well, it's kind of a long and complicated story that has to do with how cryptocurrency is mine. I don't know how deep I should go into this. If you really care, it's it's a fascinating subject read up on Bitcoin. It's Satoshi Nakamoto. They're all based on the same idea, which is essentially we're gonna create currency, but instead of taking gold bars, stamping them in to coins or printing on pieces of paper, we're gonna create digital currency, but to prevent inflation, you have to make it. You have to have some burden. You can't just say, well, here here's a thousand Bitcoin. You know, you have to create them. So the burden in the case of cryptocurrency is solving hard math problems, and it has to be done computationally with a computer and very cleverly when Nakamoto created Bitcoin, he or they, or she decided that it should get harder and harder as you proceeded.

Leo Laporte (01:18:48):
So the in initially was very easy to create. In fact, my friend, Steve Gibson, who does a, our security podcast when he was first researching, Bitcoin said, you know, I should make a Bitcoin minor. That's what they call it a minor. I should dedicate a computer to mining Bitcoin. And of course, what's that computer doing? It's not ha wielding a picks, a pick in a, in a, in a goal in a gold mine. It, the mining is solving these hard math problems. So he set it up overnight, early days 50 Bitcoin touching. Now at the time 50 Bitcoin is worth maybe a buck wasn't worth a lot. So he didn't pay much attention to it. He probably thinks today, he should have he erased that hard drive later had he saved it. Those 50 Bitcoin today would be worth more than $2 million overnight just setting up a computer.

Leo Laporte (01:19:42):
But that was in the early days as more Bitcoin was mined, it gets harder at a harder to do. And in fact, there's eventually you're gonna mine. The total maximum number of Bitcoin, and no more can be created. Again, all of this is to avoid inflation, to, to kind of give Bitcoin a, a value. So at this point, it's so hard to mind Bitcoin, that unless you live somewhere where energy is very, very cheap or free it's gonna cost you more than you make. It's gonna cost you more than you make. So that's why for a long time, many or most, if not, all of Bitcoin was being mine in China, by minors who had massive operations, lots of computers, lots of graphics cards, cuz those mine faster near hydroelectric dam where energy was cheap or free. Doesn't make sense. If you were to set up a Bitcoin minor in your basement, you would spend more on electricity and cooling too, because the computer generates a lot of heat.

Leo Laporte (01:20:39):
Thank you. There's a company in Scandinavia that sells Bitcoin minor heaters that you use to heat your home and mine. Bitcoin. It's a, it's very so bottom line. All of these cryptocurrencies currently are very energy intensive. They use a lot of energy for nothing. You know, if you're using energy to get to work, that's one thing if you're using energy so that you cans tell somebody the idea that they own a sketch of a board ape, I don't think that's a good use of the energy people make the point. Look, a lot of things use energy. You know, our banking system uses energy. Yeah, it's all computerized. It uses a lot of energy, but it's our bank system. Anyway, I I'll put a link in, in the show notes to the article. You can decide if, if you think it makes sense or not on, we go with the show, Fletchers on the line from Groveland, Florida, high Fletcher,

Caller #6 (01:21:47):
Hey, how you doing Leo? I

Leo Laporte (01:21:48):
Am. Well, how, how are you?

Caller #6 (01:21:50):
Not too bad, but first I need to congratulate you before I get to my question. Do you sir, have the most amazing ability to use the nasal voice that I have ever seen in my life? You

Leo Laporte (01:22:00):
Mean, are you talking about the geek voice that I use when I

Caller #6 (01:22:03):
Do that?

Leo Laporte (01:22:06):
It just comes naturally when you're a geek. I just, I, I

Caller #6 (01:22:12):
I've been a geek for it at least 40 years.

Leo Laporte (01:22:15):
You don't sound like a geek. You need to work, get a little more nasal on me.

Caller #6 (01:22:19):
If I hold my nose, I can do it. There

Leo Laporte (01:22:20):
You go.

Caller #6 (01:22:21):
Doing that. So

Leo Laporte (01:22:23):
Yeah, it also helps if you kind of do a little buck teeth thing going along with it. Oh, it's very, Jerry Lewis is what it really is,

Caller #6 (01:22:30):
You know? Okay. I, more older movies,

Leo Laporte (01:22:36):
Somebody in the chat room is saying don't encourage him. Don't don't encourage him. Fletcher,

Caller #6 (01:22:42):
You cannot discourage talent like

Leo Laporte (01:22:45):
Talents. One word,

Caller #6 (01:22:49):
Hey okay. For Christmas my wife, let me buy a nice OED. Bravia with 77 inch TV.

Leo Laporte (01:22:57):
Nice.

Caller #6 (01:22:58):
And she said, if you're gonna do that, you're gonna have to get a decent story. Sounds,

Leo Laporte (01:23:01):
Oh man, I like your wife more and more now, by the way, she's benefiting from this. Isn't she?

Caller #6 (01:23:08):
She absolutely is. Yes, she absolutely is.

Leo Laporte (01:23:10):
Cause you have a home theater system now that rivals any movie theater. I mean, it's beautiful.

Caller #6 (01:23:15):
It is wonderful. And I got a the sound system I got with a PO audio surround sound, beautiful

Leo Laporte (01:23:23):
Polk audio makes very good stuff. Did you get a sound bar or did you get a, a receiver and all that?

Caller #6 (01:23:28):
I got a sound bar. Yeah. I have a, I have a receiver it's in stores. We're currently renting, so I don't want to pull holes.

Leo Laporte (01:23:35):
Oh yeah. If you're renting. Yeah. So the last thing you want is a big old subwoofer. That's gonna rattle a whole building. So yeah, no, that's a good start. And they does very good stuff. It's good surround it's not gonna be The, you know, window rattling sound eventually that you will want when you get your own home and your miles from the nearest inhabitants, but

Caller #6 (01:24:00):
Very true for

Leo Laporte (01:24:01):
Now a very nice thing. And it is, you know, it's better than gonna the movies.

Caller #6 (01:24:06):
It, it really kind of is it? I you and oh goodness.

Leo Laporte (01:24:10):
Scott Wilkinson our home theater guy, Scott

Caller #6 (01:24:12):
Have talked about how wonderful Ola is let alone the Sony Bravia my,

Leo Laporte (01:24:18):
My wife says it's too real. We'll sit now by the way, one of the things, and then my suggestion, you got a big screen, which is great. 77 inches sit close because if you have 77 inches, 20 feet away, you might as well be looking at a laptop screen. You, you know, so we have a 70 inch EDD that we sit about seven feet away from. And then, so the whole idea is to, to be like a movie theater, it's filling the periphery. You can, you can just see the edges of the screen. Now it's immersive. And my wife says it's too real. Sometimes we were watching 1883 the other day she's like with, I don't wanna be out in the Prairie with these pioneers. It's too real. It's too real.

Caller #6 (01:25:02):
You know, the, the most amazing thing I ever have done so far with this TV is I hope the, my laptop to which is the gaming laptop that you recommended. Oh,

Leo Laporte (01:25:12):
Oh,

Caller #6 (01:25:13):
Just to be silly. I played Microsoft flight simulator.

Leo Laporte (01:25:17):
Now you're flying

Caller #6 (01:25:17):
Really close. Now you're

Leo Laporte (01:25:18):
Flying.

Caller #6 (01:25:20):
Oh, I got almost motion signal.

Leo Laporte (01:25:22):
I gotta run. Hang on for a second. Okay. Leo, LePort the Tech Guy. That's the only negative it makes you see sick. It's too real. It's too real. All right. We're in the break, but you're still on. The podcast is still, the tapes are still rolling. Fletcher.

Caller #6 (01:25:38):
Okay. Sounds good. Well, my, the, the problem I'm having is that my poke audio randomly makes electric popping noises and I can't locate where it's happening.

Leo Laporte (01:25:49):
What's happening. So you're watching a show and you just hear like a pop

Caller #6 (01:25:53):
Right. Pop, puts a star Trek next generation on. And usually it happens when I'm pausing when there's no other sound.

Leo Laporte (01:25:59):
Oh, interesting.

Caller #6 (01:26:00):
But it'll just sit there and all of a sudden it'll pop, pop, pop, pop.

Leo Laporte (01:26:03):
That's not good. That thing that's bad for speakers. Those transients like that are bad for speakers. Yeah. And it usually means there's electricity getting into the system. It's not something it's not interference. You know, you get that when you turn on and off your amp, right. That big pop, that that's, that means there's electrical in the system. And that's definitely not good. So. Okay. You're not using an amp you're using, it's coming straight outta the TV via toss link via optical

Caller #6 (01:26:37):
I'm use, I'm using E a

Leo Laporte (01:26:39):
Okay. One thing to try that PO soundbar will also have optical and that TV will also have optical get a little optical cable going from the TV to the soundbar. What that does, is it isolates? So that H DM I cable that you're using, honestly, H DM I, in my opinion, is poorly made it it's, it can be loose. And so it could be moving in the socket that could do it. There could be static electricity there. There's also, I would, I would get rid of the for the audio anyway. I would get rid of the HTMI at least try that.

Caller #6 (01:27:19):
Okay. Can I, so I could plug in the optical and still have the oh yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:27:23):
Yeah. It's the best way to do it. Handle.

Caller #6 (01:27:25):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:27:26):
Yeah. It's the best way to do it. You HT, I, for video optical for audio, they'll be in sync. That's not gonna be a problem. It's digital it's same. It's really the soundbar's getting the digits. It's just getting it through a different channel. And optical does not have any electrical issues as one might imagine. It's just light. So that, that's the first thing to try. And that may well get rid of all of the issues, if it does, then, you know, it was the E a that was causing the problem.

Caller #6 (01:27:53):
So need, I be concerned. You mentioned electricity getting in need. I be concerned that something else.

Leo Laporte (01:27:59):
Well, if it doesn't fix it, yes.

Caller #6 (01:28:01):
If it

Leo Laporte (01:28:01):
Doesn't fix it, yes, it could be the soundbar itself might have a problem with its capacitors discharging. There's all sorts of things that could be going on.

Caller #6 (01:28:12):
Okay.

Leo Laporte (01:28:13):
Try the optical. You can get, you can go to Amazon there. Five bucks to get, make sure you get the right end points. Usually it's like the tos link on the TV side. And I think toss link on the soundbar side, but make sure you get the right connectory sometimes it's, it looks like a headphone Jack, but it's got a little light coming out the end of it. 

Caller #6 (01:28:32):
So right. Thank you. Very

Leo Laporte (01:28:33):
You're very welcome. The one other thing to do, and you should do this anyway. I always recommend it is to put the whole thing on a good U P or SA or power conditioner. Cause if you a line conditioner yeah. A line conditioner. Cause that's the other way it can be coming in through the grid. So maybe the refrigerator's turning on and you're getting a spike.

Caller #6 (01:28:58):
Oh, that could very well be okay. I will definitely do that as well.

Leo Laporte (01:29:02):
Yeah. It's always good. You spent a lot of money on that equipment. It, the TV's very sensitive to spikes. So you really wanna protect the, the, the home theater stuff. A lot of people don't do that. And I think it's a good idea.

Caller #6 (01:29:15):
Okay. You sir are so awesome. You're soft.

Leo Laporte (01:29:17):
Okay. You know, good. My

Leo Laporte (01:29:25):
No ads, just the content. That's what you get. When you join club TWiT, you even get extras like TWiT plus our new bonus feed, just for members. Add exclusive access to the club, TWiT discord community. Join now for just $7 a month. As support TWiTtter, as we continue to create top-notch podcasts, you expect and deserve. We're just getting started. So be one of the first to join. As we build club TWiT from the ground up, you could be an early member, go to TWiT.tv/club TWiT to learn more and sign up now. Thanks. Leo Laport. The Tech Guy. Yeah. 88. Why do they make Batman always talk like that? Why is that? I don't understand. Is that so people won't know it's Bruce Wayne be Antons like that. That's what, that's it. And then Badman talks like this and you, you, I thought, who is he? Who could it be? Who could it be? It's not as bad as Superman. I mean, come on Clark Kents all only disguise his nerd glasses. And he does, he does the whole thing with his voice. That's his only come on 88, 88. I'm the Batman 88, 88 as I'm the tech man, Kevin on the line from Missoula, Montana. Hello, Kevin.

Caller #7 (01:30:40):
Hey, good afternoon. How you doing? I

Leo Laporte (01:30:42):
Am great. I am great. How are you today?

Caller #7 (01:30:45):
I'm doing fine. Just kinda looking at upgrading my smartphone. Before this, I have a Samsung galaxy S E and Chan SD, excuse me. And before that I had the Samsung galaxy S five.

Leo Laporte (01:31:02):
You sound like a Samsung guy.

Caller #7 (01:31:05):
I am Android. And the whole works. My, even my television,

Leo Laporte (01:31:08):
I am in love with my S 22 ultra that I just got would have.

Caller #7 (01:31:14):
That's what I wanna talk about. Yeah, that's what I wanna talk about.

Leo Laporte (01:31:17):
What do you wanna know? Cause I will tell you, I, I paid a pretty penny for this, although when you buy it, do the upgrade thing cause they'll even buy an S 10.

Caller #7 (01:31:30):
Okay. They'll trade that. Use that as a trade in, huh?

Leo Laporte (01:31:32):
Yeah. I traded in a galaxy fold and I got like 800 bucks or something. I, so it makes a big difference if you, you definitely do the trade in at the Samsung site.

Caller #7 (01:31:41):
Okay. I, I appreciate the yeah. Suggestion and the recommendation. Yeah. Well, no, the other, the other one is what am I gonna be experiencing? Or you know, I'm looking at the other oh, let's see here. I got it right. The information right in front of me here, the, the regular S 20 twos, the

Leo Laporte (01:32:01):
Well, they, so Samsung like money companies does a variety. So the 22 is this year's model came out in 2022. Oh. and the base model has less memory has less, has a slower processor. And then it goes up from there more cameras, more lenses, that kind of thing. So the ultra is actually not like the other ones. There's the S 22, the S 22 plus. And then there's the ultra, the ultra doesn't even look like the S 22 plus it's really the galaxy note. Remember the note?

Caller #7 (01:32:38):
Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:32:39):
It's a big it's squared and it has a pen. It has a stylist. So it's really, for people who are willing to spend $1,400 to maximize everything beautiful screen hundred 20 Hertz, Samsung does the best screens their cameras, even on the S 22 and the S 22 plus are very, very good. Some people, you know, the three right now, the three phones with the best cameras, the iPhone, the Google pixel six and the S 22 and all three companies make different choices about processing the image. Apple's probably the most natural, well, maybe Google's the most naturalistic. Apple makes some decisions. Samsung's generally opts for popping the colors a little more. They're a little more vibrant. It's a look. I like, it's not quite as natural. So some photographers say, well, that's inaccurate that red should not be that bright, but I think Samsung does a very good job.

Leo Laporte (01:33:43):
I think the camera is spectacular. One of the things that Samsung does do better, I think, than almost anybody is the tele photo. They have such a good telephoto. You can get a hundred effectively, a hundred millimeter digital zoom, but, but 10 optical I've been really happy. And the poor portrait mode the all of the features of the Samsung I think are very, very good. You know, the ultra wide, the zoom. So is it, is, is photography important to you? Is that one of the things you care about? No. No. So, no, don't worry about that then, then

Caller #7 (01:34:18):
I don't, I don't even do selfies.

Leo Laporte (01:34:21):
It's got a great selfie camera you might wanna start. Yeah. Then in that case, I wouldn't, if you don't need the stylist, you don't need the size, you don't need five, 12, or a terabyte of storage. You don't need, you know, 12 gigs of Ram. Then I think the S 22 or the S 22 plus is fine.

Caller #7 (01:34:40):
Okay. Very good. No, this is this phone's wearing out. I've only had it for a little over two years and there's just some glitches going on with it right now. And

Leo Laporte (01:34:49):
So, yeah, that's, unfortunately they really don't make these phones to last, as long as they should, Samsung has done the right thing. The most important thing, if, if you ask me with an Android phone, is that you get updates and Samsung has committed to, I think, four years of updates, which is really good, but you're right. They, you know, these phones after a couple of years, they don't expect anybody to keep 'em for more than two or three years. So they, they kinda, they began start to wear at it a little bit.

Caller #7 (01:35:13):
All right. Well, are you gonna have a, a review on your 

Leo Laporte (01:35:16):
That's a good question. I don't really do reviews. There's so many good reviewers out there. You just heard kind of my thumbnail review, very happy with the S 22 ultra. I have, I have no negatives battery life is excellent. And I would, I would expect the same with the S 22 and the 22 plus you know, just, they're just a little smaller, a little, the fingerprint's very good. It does have face recognition as well. That's a little less secure. All three of them offer 120 Hertz screen refresh, which is really nice for smooth scrolling. I actually turned my S 22 ultra screen up to the highest resolution 4k resolution, which is not normally recommended, but it does not impact the battery life badly. It's it's a very nice bright screen. The S 22 is not quite as bright. The plus is brighter. So if you use it outside, they're all three, you know, very similar. You, you don't care about the camera. I think they're even more similar that that's one of the big differences between the three models.

Caller #7 (01:36:21):
All right. Very good.

Leo Laporte (01:36:22):
Enjoy.

Caller #7 (01:36:23):
If I'm ready to make, I

Leo Laporte (01:36:24):
Think you should do it. I, I have no hesitation. There's my review. So do

Caller #7 (01:36:28):
You, would you, would you have, let me ask you this, Leo, would you go for like a box store trade in your phone or would you just go strictly do Samsung check,

Leo Laporte (01:36:36):
Check? I would check 'em all. So I think Samsung's fairly liberal, cause remember they're gonna, you're gonna buy it direct from them. They're gonna get the most bang for the buck. So, but you can go before you buy, you can say, what am I gonna get for this phone? Remember though, that when they get it, they may downgrade you if it's not in the same condition. So they ask you about the condition. You can also go to SWAPA is a, a online place. People sell their old devices and get a quote. You can get a quote from, yeah, you can get a quote from a big box store. I would get quotes from all of them just to see who's gonna give you the be most generous. My experience was that Samsung was very generous with with what I was offering.

Caller #7 (01:37:18):
All right. Thanks for the advice with,

Leo Laporte (01:37:20):
Hey, enjoy your new phone. New phone day is always a great day. You know, people have been knocking the pixel six, which is Google's you know, current high end phone. Honestly, maybe I just lucked out. I think the goo, the, the pixel six pro is very, very good as well. All three of hop phones, the iPhone 13, actually I stayed with the iPhone 12. My wife got the 13 cuz you know, she's my wife and she loves it, but I don't, I don't see that much difference between last year's iPhone in this year's. So I didn't feel the need to upgrade. The pixel six pro is fantastic. I took it to Mexico with me in October. Got amazing low light photos. I've just started taking pictures now with a Samsung in my opinion, the S 22 ultra in almost every way, replaces the need to carry a fancy pro camera with you.

Leo Laporte (01:38:18):
I mean, this thing is this, this is, this thing is, is Cray Cray. It has four cameras, a 12 megapixel super wide 108 megapixel wide angle. Now that's that pixel number is deceiving cause they use pixel B inning. So, but it's, it's a good sensor. Let's put it that way. It's got two telephoto cameras of 10 megapixels and then it has this digital zoom, which is actually surprisingly good. The camera is doing a lot of computational stuff. That's what everybody's doing these days, Google, apple, Samsung. They have such fast processors. They're doing a lot with the image as it comes in. And I think the zoom is, is kind of amazing. You'll only get 30 X, which is plenty by the way, on the 22 and the 22 plus Leo Laporte the Tech Guy

Leo Laporte (01:39:24):
Show notes always are still at tech. I labs.com. The one difference now is it doesn't take you it doesn't have a thing on the front page with of today's show. You'll see, when you go to tech, I labs.com all, all the last, say five shows or something like that. But the as, and of course there's nothing here, there for today's show yet. But yesterday's show is up 1873 and this is 1874 and probably by the end of the day or early tomorrow that will be up the show notes, take a little longer to we get the audio and the video up the show notes are links. Those go up a little bit later and there's also a which usually 48 hours later, there's also a transcript that goes up that you can search, which is, is very handy. On Sunday we put the links to all of the songs that professor Laura plays that takes a little bit longer too, making me use IRC like a teenager. Actually. I don't think the teenagers use IRC. I think as old folks who use IRC

Leo Laporte (01:40:44):
If you wanna use discord, which is what the teenagers really use, join club TWiT, then we we have a lovely discord. I think it's one of the best places ever. This is our discord. So this is a little more modern than IRC. More like the teenagers use. The nice thing about oh, hello there. Hello. This card kind of goes crazy when they, when they get on camera, they don't get on camera that much. I like IRC to be honest with you, but Now we got the discord and the, the IRCs up on top and the discords down below. I wish I could get rid of that right bar, I guess I can, if I just if I zoom that's but then it zoomed in more. So I don't know. I don't know if that's a good solution. Just a crumb of attention, please. Just a crumb. Just a little bit. Hello list. Mr. Penguin looks just like Mike penguin that Micah gave me. Oh, it's lunchtime. Let me go get some please, sir. Have some more, more, more,

Leo Laporte (01:42:30):
Well, Hey, Hey. Hey. How are you today? Leo Laporte here, the Tech Guy to hot computers, the internet, how theater, digital photography, smart phones, smart watches, all that jazz. Eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo that's my phone number. If you wanna talk high tech, the website free available to all Tech Guy labs.com. For those of you who are, you know, use the old site, you might be a little disconcerting for cost reasons. We decided not to keep the old site running. It was running on old software Droople, which is a very good content management system. I've used, oh golly, almost 20 years now I've been doing a D Droople site, but we had not really updated. I think we were a few generations behind Droople announced we are not gonna do security patches for the older versions, kinda like windows. Right? And we talked to the company that runs the site for us and they said, that'll be a quarter, a million dollars please. And I said a quarter.

Leo Laporte (01:43:41):
So instead of spending a quarter million dollars to keep the tech eye site safe, we obviously don't want you to use an unsafe site and insecure site. We don't wanna run that. We are another site for the podcast network, which is TWiT this in tech TWiTt TV. So we just took the tech eye site and folded into the podcast site. It's now that way it'll be secure and up to date, you don't have to be worried about using it, but it does look a little different. We don't have the same capabil. So it is now one of the shows, one of the show pages for the podcast network Tech Guy labs.com still goes to that show page, the, the, the Tech Guy show page, then you'll click the link that takes you to that particular episode. In this case episode, 1874, don't be discombobulated by the change.

Leo Laporte (01:44:29):
The links are still there. In fact, we've added some features. We now have a auto generated AI generated transcript to the show, which is actually pretty good. We do have a human actually goes through it to make sure it's not crazy and fixes up a little bit. And so there's about a 48 hour a eight, our lead time. We'll put that transcript up, you know, by Tuesday, let's say. And that has time codes in it too. So their audio from the show, the video from the show and the transcript. So you can search the transcript. You can read my answer exactly. As I said it with all the ums and hems and Haws. But you also see the time. So you can jump to that part of the audio or video. And again, the links are all there.

Leo Laporte (01:45:17):
So if it's just a link you're looking for, you should be able to get those links. And that comes, that takes it less than a day. I think, to get that up tech ilab.com, all of that's still free it's because it's free. I didn't wanna spend a quarter of a million dollars updating it. I didn't know where that money was gonna come from. That's I don't have Joe Rogan money. You know, Frank is on the line from Boston mash. Tochu its M a w S a C H U S E WT S hi, Frank,

Caller #8 (01:45:46):
How are you Leo?

Leo Laporte (01:45:47):
I'm see. Yeah, I can spell. I'm good. How are you?

Caller #8 (01:45:50):
It's fast. True.

Leo Laporte (01:45:52):
It was this song. I don't know. I learned it as a kid. What's up.

Caller #8 (01:45:57):
Well, a lot of the stuff that I hear you talk about as I listen to your shows is I feel well, well above my head, but let me try to tell you my simple problem. Okay. my laptop, which is probably about 11 years old, I I've, I've upgraded things in it through the years, but it's now given me a problem where when I go to power it on it starts to power up and then it just immediately shuts down and I get a flashing green and orange light. I I tested the power supply. I'm getting power from that.

Leo Laporte (01:46:35):
That's interesting. A flashing. So no, the screen doesn't come on at all.

Caller #8 (01:46:40):
It starts to come on. Ah, and then it'll immediately go off. And then the

Leo Laporte (01:46:47):
Off meaning like there's no power going to the screen. Right?

Caller #8 (01:46:51):
Exactly.

Leo Laporte (01:46:52):
Sounds like a dead battery.

Caller #8 (01:46:55):
Would, would the power supply still operate the computer without the battery?

Leo Laporte (01:47:03):
One would think a lot of laptops, it goes through the battery. So if the battery battery stops functioning, having it plugged in, won't help unless, and many batteries, many laptops is the case. You take out the battery and then the laptop, some not all, but some laptops will say, oh, I guess I can't route through the battery. Let's just take the power direct. So if you have an older laptop where the battery has failing, you know, they only last a few years, it's not abnormal. They have a limited number of charge and discharge cycles, usually around 500. So once it stops taking a charge, if the laptop is routing through the battery, which almost all laptops do, that's that unless you can remove the battery you have, is it easy to access the Bo battery on it, Frank?

Caller #8 (01:47:48):
Oh, yes. Right, right.

Leo Laporte (01:47:50):
So just try this, take out the battery. Your laptop may operate now, if, obviously it's not gonna operate off power, but it'll still, but it,

Caller #8 (01:47:58):
It doesn't seem to, I pulled the battery out and it doesn't seem to, it

Leo Laporte (01:48:00):
Doesn't do that. Okay. So not all laptops will do that. And I guess who, who makes it

Caller #8 (01:48:10):
Samsung? It's a Samsung R F seven 11.

Leo Laporte (01:48:15):
Okay. So I guess, let me just see if you can operate that without the battery, because that's, that's the first question. If that's one of the, and you know, a surprisingly large number of laptops, if you take the battery out, continue to operate, even if the battery has died, but I don't know if this is one of them. You can, the first thing I would do is see if you can get a replacement, looks like Samsung is selling 'em for 79 bucks or well, laptop battery expresses for 79 bucks. That can't guarantee that it fix it. But how old is

Caller #8 (01:48:52):
Actually it's 11 years old. Oh

Leo Laporte (01:48:53):
Yeah, absolutely.

Caller #8 (01:48:57):
You

Leo Laporte (01:48:57):
Got a, you got a lot of mileage outta that battery come to think of it. Did you notice, did you notice that the charge wasn't lasting as long? Like you'd only get half an hour out of the thing?

Caller #8 (01:49:10):
It it's been gradually. Yeah. Diminishing. Yes.

Leo Laporte (01:49:13):
Yeah. 

Caller #8 (01:49:15):
And most of the time I use it powered with the charger with,

Leo Laporte (01:49:20):
Right. But, but like I said, many, many, if not, most laptops go through the battery, if the battery's present and I guess not all laptops still work without the, a battery present or it's possible that yours does, but there's another problem,

Caller #8 (01:49:41):
Right? That was my

Leo Laporte (01:49:42):
Yeah.

Caller #8 (01:49:42):
Biggest worry. Like,

Leo Laporte (01:49:44):
And you'd hate to spend 79 bucks on a new battery and it doesn't fix it.

Caller #8 (01:49:48):
Right.

Leo Laporte (01:49:49):
Honestly, 11 years old, it might be time to get a new laptop.

Caller #8 (01:49:52):
Well, you know, that's, I, I mentioned this to a, to a friend of mine. He, he says, why, why are you even playing with this? He says, it's time. It's time. That brings up another question. Now I'm kind of old fashioned. And I noticed that a lot of the newer hops just, you know, browsing through the the retail stores. They don't have a lot of the older things that I'm used to.

Leo Laporte (01:50:14):
Yeah. They don't have CD ROMs anymore. DD DVDs. I know. And those, those are long gone, no floppy discs anymore. Nope. And in fact, a lot of 'em no longer have things like ethernet jacks, which try me nuts.

Caller #8 (01:50:28):
That's right.

Leo Laporte (01:50:29):
But you know, they're trying to make these more compact. Not that many people run laptops, I guess, on wired networks. So they just eliminate a lot of those pieces save some money too, obviously.

Caller #8 (01:50:41):
So that being said, would you have a recommendation of the type of laptop up I should be looking for? I, I, what

Leo Laporte (01:50:49):
Are you prize in a laptop? What are your, what are you, what are you really, all laptops are compromises. You know, you're not, you can't do everything for everybody with, with a device. So you wanna choose one that compromises in a way you don't care about. So some people care about battery life more than they do about thin and lights. Some people want more, more ports. Like maybe you want an ethernet port. So all of that. So what are your, what are the things you most value in a laptop? What are you looking for?

Caller #8 (01:51:17):
Well, the, the ports are important. You know, 15 inch screens, 16 inch screens, ports are important. The I'm gonna have to, you know, probably do an external CD driver, if I, so

Leo Laporte (01:51:29):
Yeah, the good news is you can buy those for like 20 bucks. They're really cheap. They control, they, they connect via the USB port and then you're not carrying that thing around when you don't need it. And when you do need it and you'll, I, you know, like you, I'm an old timer. I bought one. I never use it. So it's one, it's one of those things where, eh, maybe I didn't really need it, you know, maybe it was okay, but you can easily buy one. I think a lot of the,

Caller #8 (01:51:54):
Go ahead, sorry. A lot of the things that I do involve music and music editing and a lot of stuff. So you do through yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:52:03):
Yeah. So yeah. You need that. Yeah. Yeah. So Dell makes business laptops, like on that the business laptops tend to be bigger, heavier, better battery life, bigger screen, and more ports because they're not going for sexy, they're going for functional. So I would, I'm, I, you know, Dell makes the sexiest laptops today, which are the Dell X PSS, but they also make you know, the more prosaic business laptops. You know what else also probably still has an ethernet port, although it may be a proprietary ethernet port that you have a dongle for is Lenovo. You want, you're basically, you're looking at the business laptops, right. Because those are more likely to have those ports. Let me look at the Dell latitude, 35 20. See if that has an ethernet port on it has an HDMI port. That's crazy. I don't know, but I guess, you know, that's what people want. Yeah. It still has an ethernet port. So that's an example. It's a business laptop, the Dell latitude and latitude. Yeah. And they're not expensive, but you, you know, cause, and they're not sexy cause you don't want a sexy laptop. You want a functional laptop.

Caller #8 (01:53:19):
Exactly. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:53:20):
Yeah. it's a good

Caller #8 (01:53:22):
Style. It's a good style. There you go. I, I think that should address it. I, I probably shouldn't waste time with the existing one being

Leo Laporte (01:53:31):
That they probably not, I mean, you battery, you can throw money at it and gosh, if it's not that, and at that age it might well not be that. Then you've wasted 80 bucks on something it's too bad. We can't just like go to the battery store and say, can I just try another old timey idea? Hey, it's a pleasure talking to you, Frank.

Caller #8 (01:53:53):
Thank you, Leo.

Leo Laporte (01:53:54):
Take care. Have a great day. Leo Laporte the Tech Guy, eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo. That's the phone number. Love it. It's a great start. Well more of you call all's coming up right after this. Yeah. I love the think pads. I, you know, but I remember that my Lenovos stopped using standard ethernet ports very early on. They have these like weird compressed ethernet ports. Let me look at this X 13, hold up X 13 Snapdragon Snapdragon. Oh, forget about it. I don't, I don't wanna, I don't no windows unarm. No. Yeah, yeah. Paul Thurrott was talking about this. It's kind of cool. See how it's got the camera bump and all that, but no, no, I don't think so. I don't think so. Uh not me, Uhuh. 

Leo Laporte (01:55:14):
Whoa. So Phoenix warp is, is it all the accents you hate?

Leo Laporte (01:55:22):
Is it the adenoid voice? The other voice like that? Yeah. I wish I could have Micah every day, but Micah does have to have some days off, so he doesn't come in on Sunday just Saturday. I'm I'm sorry, but don't worry. He's gonna be taken over for me in someday. As soon as he starts, as soon as he starts shaving, you know, one of the things I would love to be able to do and I, I need a dialect coach is, you know, the Tennessee accent is softer and more kind of like a Southern gentleman than the, the Texas accent, which is more, I don't know. You know, so all there're different kinds of accent sense, but I do like the Tennessee accent. I think it is very cultured, but I don't, I can't really distinguish between Tennessee and Mississippi. I think Mississippi is more, more like this Mississippi. It's a colorful Elion if you know what I mean, everybody loves the rich POAs, yellow yacht voice accent. That's my actual real voice. Lovey.

Leo Laporte (01:56:37):
You want me to talk in French? Is that it? You like the French accent? Eh, Linda mama LA, the Leo Laport, the Tech Guy, 88 88, ask Leo, we're talking about accents and you know, look, I, I don't, I'm not doing impressions. I'm doing cartoon voices. Okay. And yeah, I understand. There's certain voices. You can't do any anymore. I used to do it. I thought was a very credible east Indian accent, but it's, it's properly. So deemed racist, I guess. And I mean, is APU on the Simpsons anymore? Probably not. So you just, you know, I'm trying to be sensitive, but I don't think if I do a Russian accent, I'm making full of Russian people. He's just, it's just cartoon voice. He's bought his bed enough, Natasha Duling so please don't take offense. I'm not mocking any ethnic group. I, you know, it's a cartoon voices and honestly, I can't help it.

Leo Laporte (01:57:42):
I can't help it. In fact, I've embarrassed myself many times if I'm if I'm visiting a friend in the, in, in the house in Birmingham and I start talking like this, it's not on purpose. It's just, I slip into the accent. I'm one of those people who, if I lived in Britain, I would talk like that because it just gets in my mind. And then it comes out of my mouth and that's part of the problem. It, I have no filter. My wife tells me this all the time. I have no filter. All right, let's go to Downey, California, say hello to Julie. Hello Julie.

Caller #9 (01:58:20):
Hi Leo. Hello. I'm hoping you, I I'm hoping you can help me with a problem that I have created. I'm not sure how I did it, cuz I did it a couple months ago and I've been frustrated ever since. So contacts on my laptop trying to sync them with contacts on my phone. Yeah. Follow followed some instructions, some YouTube thing I saw.

Leo Laporte (01:58:42):
There's your mistake. I know. No, no, no. Honestly, this happens all the time. Go on, keep on telling me what happens.

Caller #9 (01:58:50):
So now I have like triple yeah. In quadruple context on my phone.

Leo Laporte (01:58:55):
Not your fault. It's not your, it's not even the YouTube guys fault.

Caller #9 (01:59:01):
No. Okay. How do I fix it easily?

Leo Laporte (01:59:05):
So this is a problem with syncing it's if anything, it's the fault of syncing anything because so what you have is two different systems. You have your Android phone, your contacts there, you have your contacts on your laptop and they're trying to talk to one another, but the problem is, well, wait a minute, I have this contact, but you don't. Does that mean Julie deleted that contact on purpose? Or should I copy that contact to you? Or I have a contact for Sam, but he's got a phone number that begins with one, two, three, you have Sam's contact, but he gives a phone number at four, five, six. So almost invariably what these systems do is air on the side of caution. They don't wanna delete stuff that you need. That would be terrible, better that you should have three Sams than no Sams. Right? Right,

Caller #9 (02:00:03):
Right.

Leo Laporte (02:00:03):
So that's what happens. Synchronization often creates duplicates. And it's again, it's to protect you from accidental deletion. Unfortunately, sometimes that does happen and that's really a nightmare. I have a good friend. I, I felt bad. I recommended you know, a synchronization backup system. And he said, Leo, it deleted everything. It deleted everything. And I felt terrible. But that's, that's the worst case scenario and that even can happen. So it's not your fault, please. I know people blame themselves for this. You, you didn't do it. You didn't do it. How do you fix it? Well, that's a little more complicated. What I always tell people, because this is, this is a very common question is, you know, sometimes the best thing to do, you know, which phone number you want for Sam, you know, which Sam is the best. There are automated systems that delete duplications or merge them together, but you're invariably gonna get mistakes. Or, you know, sometimes times I merge a lot of contact systems. Even, maybe even the one on your phone allow you to merge contacts or even will automatically merge contacts. And then you get one person with 14 phone numbers and that's not what you want either. So the best way is to do it by hand, which I know is a lot. I mean, I have how many, you have probably hundreds. Right?

Caller #9 (02:01:26):
Right.

Leo Laporte (02:01:27):
And that's, you know, that's problematic. But if you can do it once and then the trick is make a backup, make a backup because then you'll have the definitive contact list. And if this happens again, you go, okay. It happened again. And you can delete all those backups and restore from the backup. So that's one solution. I will tell you one that's automated that I think is pretty good. When Marisa Meyer, she went left Google. She was very famous. She was in charge of the front page, on Google to become the CEO of Yahoo. They brought her in to save Yahoo, which she failed to do after about eight years, she quit and Yahoo's just going down the tubes and it wasn't her fault. Her next thing was a thing called sunshine, sunshine contacts@sunshine.com and the she's trying to solve this very tough problem of what happens when you have duplicates.

Leo Laporte (02:02:30):
What happens in your contacts have multiple entries that are different. It's worth taking a look at it, sunshine.com. You can do it and then see if it gives you a good result. Leo Laport, the Tech Guy, but now we're off the air, but I will continue cuz I haven't really helped you that much, the best, the best. I mean, except to say, it's not your fault. This happens. It happens to everybody. Some, some of us just ignore it. You know, I have 19 entries in my contact list of which probably 600 are duplicates. So manually is one way. It doesn't take as long as you might think. And then, but then back it up, save it to some place that's not being synced just in case or okay, try this sunshine, sunshine.com. They have an app. I think it it's free. It was free when I started using it. And the idea of it is exactly that we're gonna go limp. We're gonna merge duplicates intelligently. And the reason I mentioned Marisa Meyer's name is she's very high powered tech person and this is her thing. So I, you know, they're really trying to use AI to make something that really works for people. So you know, there are other contact managers you can use that say we'll eliminate duplicates. They work, you know, in varying ways, I still would make a backup. Cuz what if it deletes something you really want?

Caller #9 (02:03:59):
Right. Okay. Okay. Not

Leo Laporte (02:04:02):
Your fault. It happens all the time to everybody.

Caller #9 (02:04:05):
I know. Have you gotten into the word CRA?

Leo Laporte (02:04:07):
Oh yeah. My wife and I, before we go to bed every night we do word together.

Caller #9 (02:04:11):
I love it. Is it great? Coffee, coffee and Wordle. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:04:15):
And the smart thing he, they, he did now. The time's on it, but the, but the guy who created originally Josh ward, he made it for his girlfriend, you know? And he wasn't even, he heard that. Yeah. It wasn't even public for the first few months and they thought, oh, I should put it online. And then he sold it for millions of dollars to the New York times. Good for you, Josh New York times.

Caller #9 (02:04:32):
Yeah. Right. Those aren't charging us soon. Right?

Leo Laporte (02:04:34):
Well, you know, I honestly, I pay for the crosswords and all that stuff, but so I get it. But the thing he did, I thought that was brilliant. Is he only one a day?

Caller #9 (02:04:45):
Yes. You can't get like spend hours

Leo Laporte (02:04:48):
Doing it one that's it?

Caller #9 (02:04:50):
Yes. Yep. I love it. So it's

Leo Laporte (02:04:51):
Your morning ritual. It's our bedtime ritual. It's really. It's nice. There's just one. Now you can't do it anymore. You gotta go to, to bed or you gotta get going, right? Yep.

Caller #9 (02:04:59):
I love it. Exactly. It's brilliant. Okay,

Leo Laporte (02:05:01):
Cool. Hey, nice to talk to you. Thank you, Julie. Same

Caller #9 (02:05:04):
Here. Have a great rest of your day.

Leo Laporte (02:05:05):
Thank you. You too world. We have a we have a Wordle channel on the discord, by the way, we got channels for everything. Food, barbecue movies, music. Sci-Fi we have a Wordle channel under the games and all, all that's on the world channel is that's. But you know, when you do a really good, oh boy, that's a terrible one. When you do a really good Wordle, you wanna post it? Lisa will say like this one, see in three, in three que three guesses, Lisa will say, oh, you gotta post that. Oh, two guesses. Look at that. Nice job, Nate. Wait a minute.

Leo Laporte (02:05:56):
No. Oh, that's he's doing something else. That's world, world. You gotta guess a country. So yeah, we, we have fun. We have fun with world, world, world, Leo Laporte de so maybe bear. Explain to me professor Laura heartbreaker. I always wait at the end of the, at the half pass break, you start playing the music and I give it 30 seconds. It's the only time I do that. I think I'm supposed to do that. Am I not? You are. I am whatever's so if I start talking as I did this time, 15 seconds in don't don't don't don't don't don't play. Don't turn the music. Keep going to 30. I'm just, I'm not, I shouldn't do the all are affiliates up and down. We have hundreds, hundreds of radio stations who depend on you and me not to interrupt their commercials. So, or they, or they're bottom of the hour news. So let's do it right. Let's be good. Radio citizens. Leo Laport. The Tech Guy, Jeanie is on the line from Huntington beach, California. Hi Jeanie.

Caller #10 (02:07:12):
Hi, this, this is for last week. There was a fellow that wanted an E printer. Yes. And I have an absent printer. I have never used. Oh

Leo Laporte (02:07:23):
No,

Caller #10 (02:07:24):
I never used it. It's a photo RX. Five 80. It's not as big, I guess as

Leo Laporte (02:07:30):
Oh, those are good. That's a nice, that's a nice one. Yeah. He wanted a wide one cuz he is a photographer. So he wanted that big 15 by 14 printouts. Yeah.

Caller #10 (02:07:39):
Well this is, this is a smaller one, but he can have it if he wants. Oh,

Leo Laporte (02:07:42):
Aren't you sweet? 

Caller #10 (02:07:44):
I've ne I've never used it. It's never used.

Leo Laporte (02:07:47):
Well how'd you get where'd you get it? Why do you have it?

Caller #10 (02:07:49):
I, I got it to do photos eons ago. Never did doing other stuff. Yeah. And it's just sat here and, and I, if someone can put it to use, I'd be happy. Call your

Leo Laporte (02:08:03):
Call your nearby elementary or high school.

Caller #10 (02:08:08):
Okay. They

Leo Laporte (02:08:08):
Will AB they will embrace it with open arms really? Okay. Especially if the high school has a photo class. Huh. Cause that's a good photo printer.

Caller #10 (02:08:17):
Yeah. That, that's why I got it. But yeah. I'm not doing what I thought I was gonna do, so, and it's just sat here and, and when I've offered it to people because it's not wifi, they go, huh?

Leo Laporte (02:08:29):
No, nevermind. No, but a school might well like it or a church. The only reason I don't have the guy's number from last week, so I have no way. Okay. Unless he's listening and we don't really wanna start this, turn, this show into a swap meet. Right. although there are such radio shows, at least there used to be in my youth. I got an old John Deere six 50 Carine harvester. I'm willing to trade for 12 toilet seats. Is anybody got got that. I'd be glad to, they used to be didn't they didn't am I wrong? Didn't they used to be shows like that radio shows like that. I think they did.

Caller #10 (02:09:00):
Well, they probably were. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:09:03):
Only in very small towns. Yeah. I don't want to get in the, in the, in that business, but there are definitely charities that would love to get that and you get a deduction.

Caller #10 (02:09:13):
Okay. That's great. Because it's really sad. I, I didn't wanna just, I know trash it and, and no one seemed to want it because of the wifi.

Leo Laporte (02:09:21):
Right. Nowadays printers, you know, you have to hook that one up with a printer cable, which is

Caller #10 (02:09:26):
Right. And I have that.

Leo Laporte (02:09:28):
Yeah. Well, good. Write that on the, write that on the note cable included. Yeah. That'll help. Yeah. Thank you. That's very sweet of you. Thank you, Janine. Oh, okay. All right. Thank you. You gin take care. I'm laughing through my tears because of course, as you might imagine, my home and officer filled with things that I bought with the best intentions and and never used, never used not uncommon in the life of a tech person. Hey, let's go to Napa California. I was just there last night. Lori on the line. Hi Lori.

Caller #11 (02:10:07):
I didn't see you.

Leo Laporte (02:10:08):
I, well, I was over at GOs getting a hamburger man. The oh God, the lines. Wow. Oh,

Caller #11 (02:10:16):
I know. I actually live in San Helen. It's the same here. Oh,

Leo Laporte (02:10:19):
There's a gods in St. Helen, Helen too. Yeah. I love St. Helen. Helen. Yeah. That's my favorite 10 in the world. Yeah. Really cute.

Caller #11 (02:10:27):
Yeah. I just move here about 10 months ago. It's so cute. I know. Cute. Totally walkable. Yes. Very nice. Yes. So I have, my question is about router. Yeah. I'm wondering how, you know, when a good router has gone bad

Leo Laporte (02:10:44):
10 PMs tonight when good routers gone bad.

Caller #11 (02:10:48):
When you know,

Leo Laporte (02:10:49):
20, 20 route good routers gone bad. There are a number of I had

Caller #11 (02:10:54):
This thing for a long, long time and I don't know if it's an apple thing or what, but I mean, sometimes I cannot get my phone to connect. I can't, that's one way I have a tablet that I use only for cuz it's old. I use it for time and temperature and I have it right here and it seems like I'm constantly having to hook up. And yet my, I never have a problem with my iPad. My TV is online all the time. Oh my TV is wired though. Nevermind. But the tablet is

Leo Laporte (02:11:24):
So that's one of the ways you know, is if you're having trouble, in fact, apple stopped making that router quite a while ago.

Caller #11 (02:11:31):
The route. No I it's a net here.

Leo Laporte (02:11:33):
Oh, it's a Nick here. I'm sorry. I thought you said it was an apple. Okay. yeah, they got out of the router business. It was a terrible business. No money to be made in routers. So routers don't go bad so much because they're solid state. They are computers and because most routers don't have fans in them. They can they can go bad from oh, overheating from getting, you know, too much use. Sometimes a router will stop working at higher temperatures. So you'll be downloading something big and it just fails because it gets hot as this, all those bits are coming in and eventually goes, I give up. That's not what you're having. It's just a specific pairing to a specific device. And that's the only device

Caller #11 (02:12:15):
And it's sporadic too. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:12:17):
Yeah. yeah. The biggest thing that obsoletes routers is simply technology moving on and you said, how old is it?

Caller #11 (02:12:28):
Oh gosh. It's probably at least 10 years old. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:12:32):
So WiFi's come a long way baby. So a lot, it's a lot better than it used to be faster, more reliable better for things like zoom or, or since you're using an iPhone you know FaceTime, things like that. So yeah, it might be time for a new router. I would mostly cuz of technology has, has come and gone. Another symptom of a bad router would be, if you have to reboot it frequently you know, you lose internet and you have to unplug it and plug it in again. That's very common.

Caller #11 (02:13:06):
That's what I'm thinking.

Leo Laporte (02:13:07):
Yeah. I think you prob now here's the one problem. Get ready for sticker shock. Cuz that router probably cost you, you know, 50 bucks, a hundred bucks. They're very, they've doubled in price at least. And I don't know if that's chip shortages, new capabilities or price gouging, impossible to tell, but they are, you go to the router store and they're much, much more expensive. What do you have hooked up to your router?

Caller #11 (02:13:35):
I have

Leo Laporte (02:13:36):
The TV you said is hardwired. So you're using some hard wire and then some wifi

Caller #11 (02:13:41):
And yeah, a couple of iPads. The one iPad is just static. I just have it for time and temperature. Nice. But it's always losing its connection. Maybe it's cuz it's old. I don't

Leo Laporte (02:13:52):
Know. It may be old. Oh

Caller #11 (02:13:53):
The other thing. Yeah. And then so my, I primarily my iPad, my newer iPad and my iPhone. Yeah. Those are the two main things. So I, I'm not a heavy user. No, you're not. I'm the only one.

Leo Laporte (02:14:05):
And the TV, the TV is connected via ethernet to the router. Yeah. Yeah. So that in fact that's gonna be fine that those technologies have not changed. Ethernet is ethernet. So that will be as fast as it ever was. Although, you know, it depends on your internet service provider. It's completely possible that you can get faster service without paying more by getting a new router because the technologies for the outers have changed too. Are you on a cable modem Phone, phone company, phone company?

Caller #11 (02:14:39):
No, it's Comcast. Comcast.

Leo Laporte (02:14:41):
Yeah. It's cable mode. Yeah. So Comcast supports a technology called docs 3.1. That's only a couple of years old that lets you go up to a thousand megabits a second. Now you may not need that. May not be paying for it either, but you may, you may be artificially limiting the speed by using an old router that is only DOCSIS two. So all of these things are involved in this yeah. Get a new router. You could call Comcast and say, I want a new router and they'll give you one. You'll rent it to you for 10 bucks a month, but that's maybe

Caller #11 (02:15:12):
Oh yeah, no. See I've had this for 10 years. You're

Leo Laporte (02:15:14):
Smart. Yeah. Look how much you got out of it. Yeah. That's a hundred, that's 1200 bucks. You saved. That's a lot of money

Caller #11 (02:15:22):
At least. Yeah. Odd. Do you

Leo Laporte (02:15:24):
Have get another net gear? They're very good. Asus is very good. And you don't need, spend much more than 150 bucks. I don't think Leo Laport, the 10 security features will be better for instance, 10 years ago. You probably couldn't use WPA too. And so the w yeah, I could, oh, you can. Okay, good.

Caller #11 (02:15:44):
You know, it was kind of leading edge at the time, you know? Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:15:47):
And you've and you've you updated the firm wherever on it?

Caller #11 (02:15:51):
Yes.

Leo Laporte (02:15:52):
Okay. So yeah, probably that was part of the improvement too. I don't know if it's bad,

Caller #11 (02:15:58):
Would that cause on my eye, you know, when I am trying to hook up and I've got you know, the 2.5 in the, you know, both, both frequencies, you know, the, both, it's a dual band,

Leo Laporte (02:16:14):
You have 2.4 and five gigahertz on that

Caller #11 (02:16:18):
And five, correct?

Leo Laporte (02:16:19):
Yeah. So is it, it's probably 8 0 2 11 two. I'm gonna guess. Yes. Yeah. I mean, you know, you can get, you can, you know, for a hundred, 150 bucks, you can get a better router for sure. TP link makes the least expensive routers out there. They're not bad. I, net gear makes very good routers. And I actually you know, the Nighthawks are very good. They're more, a little more expensive. I'm looking at a Nighthawk net gear 379 bucks. That's crazy. I know sticker shock. So maybe TP link, you go to Amazon. It should work outta the box. You just swap it in.

Caller #11 (02:17:07):
Oh yeah. Okay.

Leo Laporte (02:17:10):
Don't forget though, to go in on you know, my do my five fixes to all wifi routers. You wanna change the password so it's and, and, and, and name. So it doesn't say, you know, TP link or, or net gear on it and change the login password, turn off a couple of things you want to turn off. One is wide area management. You don't want to be able anybody to manage your router from outside your house to turn off wan management, they call it, you want to turn on encryption and use WPA, a two encryption. I set a good password for that. And then the last thing you wanna do is turn off universal plugin play. We'll put we'll put well

Caller #11 (02:17:49):
That I don't. And because I did that one time per your suggestion and nothing, nothing worked anymore.

Leo Laporte (02:17:58):
Well, in that case, don't turn it off. Yep. Wow. Nothing worked.

Caller #11 (02:18:03):
No, I, I turned it off and all of a sudden nothing would hook up to the router.

Leo Laporte (02:18:10):
Wow. that's not right. That shouldn't be universal. Plug and play is really only used by a few things like your Xbox so you can serve games. I don't know why you would use up U P and P for apple. Doesn't use it. Huh?

Caller #11 (02:18:30):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:18:31):
When you get your new router, you can turn it off. I'll

Caller #11 (02:18:33):
Try it again. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:18:35):
Yeah.

Caller #11 (02:18:35):
I'll try it

Leo Laporte (02:18:36):
Again. Something else went wrong there.

Caller #11 (02:18:39):
Yeah. so when I am trying to connect, let's say, I mean, sometimes my phone will go most of the day and I keep going in and trying to reconnect it to my router. And it won't, if it's,

Leo Laporte (02:18:51):
If it's dry, it may also be that it's just weak and you're going a little bit beyond its capability. And then the phone turns off and doesn't join it again automatically. And I think a new route will absolutely fix that.

Caller #11 (02:19:01):
So, you know the part about where the apple devices will say or put it next to another apple device, it hook up to the yeah. And I mean, I'm them into each other?

Leo Laporte (02:19:13):
No, that's not gonna help. That's

Caller #11 (02:19:17):
Not gonna help. And, and I don't understand too why it says, this is the wrong password for da, da, da, you know?

Leo Laporte (02:19:23):
Yeah. Well, that's what, okay. That's why it's not joining up. Yeah. That's weird. I get a new, get a new router, but don't spend more than 150 bucks. You don't need anything fancy. Yeah.

Caller #11 (02:19:33):
Usually they have at Costco for that. Yeah. Okay. Thank

Leo Laporte (02:19:38):
You, sir. Nice to talk to you. Have a good day,

Caller #11 (02:19:40):
A nice day in the neighborhood. Isn't

Leo Laporte (02:19:41):
It. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood and

Caller #11 (02:19:44):
The neighborhood

Leo Laporte (02:19:45):
A beautiful day for neighbor. Well mind, I'll see you in Hedberg. I love Healdsburg. Take care. Thank you for letting me be your Tech Guy again. I really do appreciate it. Thanks to professor Laura musical director. She holds the Baton directs. The orchestra keeps us entertained. I don't know how you got the tuba player to sing VLE VE but more power Toya professor. Thanks also to Kim Shaffer. She's our phone angel without whom no show should be without. And thanks, especially to you for calling in for listening in couldn't do it without you. So I appreciate it. I really do. I know everybody says that, but I do. I mean it last couple of calls before we hang it up for the week. Don is on the line. Springfield, Illinois. Hello, Don. Hello, Don. Wrong line. I press the wrong button. Oh, it's John. Not Don. Don. I'll get to you an next John from Richfield, Connecticut. Hi John.

Caller #11 (02:20:51):
Hey Luke. Good evening. How are you doing?

Leo Laporte (02:20:53):
I am well, good evening to you, sir.

Caller #11 (02:20:55):
Well, it's almost evening here on the east

Leo Laporte (02:20:57):
4 47 on the east coast.

Caller #11 (02:20:59):
There you go. I got some CDs and some old audio books and music that I was wondering if there's some way I could listen to them on an iPhone.

Leo Laporte (02:21:07):
Yeah, but you, you have to rip them.

Caller #11 (02:21:12):
Freeplay I can make them export 'em to MP3. I didn't know about digital rights management and everything else. And then I don't have a player.

Leo Laporte (02:21:18):
Well, the beauty, the beauty of the CD is there's no digital rights management. No copy protection on it. So that's easy. You just, you just, in fact, you can do it. Do you have iTunes?

Caller #11 (02:21:30):
It's on my computer. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:21:31):
So you do with iTunes. So you obviously have to have a CD player. We were just talking about that. If you don't. Yeah. You can get one for, you know, 20 bucks that connects by the USB port. You put the CD in iTunes. There's some settings that you can say how high the quality is rip it as high as the quality as you are willing to spend the disc space for of course, bigger, best, better quality means bigger files. I generally rip in apple loss list, which means I'm getting exactly the same bits that are on the CD. And the iPhone will play that back just fine. You can copy to your iPhone from iTunes. So you rip it into iTunes. It'll become part of your iTunes library, and then you can copy it under the iPhone. That's how to do it with that. Now the audio books are copy protected. Where did you get them?

Caller #11 (02:22:18):
Oh, it's been a long time, but I just have the beauty of it. I don't remember.

Leo Laporte (02:22:22):
I have no idea. So it, you can tell maybe by looking at the file extension if it's ax, for instance, that's a copy. That's a copy protected audible file from audible.com. If it's M four B, which is the book format that iTunes uses it prob it may not be copy protected. And then you could just copy. Go

Caller #1 (02:22:44):
Ahead. Yeah, they're on a disc.

Leo Laporte (02:22:46):
Oh, they're on a disc. Oh, if it's all on CDs, if it's all on CDs, you can just take one by one, put the CDs in. You don't even have to use iTunes. That's just easy. Cuz the iTunes will then copy it to the phone. But you just put 'em in one by one. Itunes has an import function. You'll import the content to the CD iTunes. And the other reason you use iTunes, it looks up the CD and it assigns the right name of each to each song and so forth in the artist and everything. So you're importing it. The books. It may not do that. So you'll have to manually name those files. When you import them with iTunes, you wanna make sure you check the box that says this is a book because it'll then make it an M four B file.

Leo Laporte (02:23:30):
It's functionally the same, but it tells the iPhone or your computer or whatever else you're playing it back on. This is a book. Unlike music don't restart at the beginning. Every time I play it with a song, you don't wanna start a song in the middle where you left off, you start a song at the beginning with a book you wanted to start where it left off. So that's how apple makes the distinction. It's the same file format and everything, but it just says, oh, this is a book. So start it where you left off. And that's the didn't

Caller #11 (02:24:01):
Realize I had iTunes on the, on the iPhone. I saw the iTunes store.

Leo Laporte (02:24:05):
No, no, no, no. So what are you using windows?

Caller #11 (02:24:09):
No, I have, I use on my Mac. Computer, your

Leo Laporte (02:24:11):
Mac. Perfect. Actually they call it music now, but whatever. Yeah, that's how you should do it. You have a Mac and you have an iPhone when you hook up the iPhone and the Mac it'll if you've never hooked it up before, it'll say, do you trust this computer? You say, yes, I trust it's my computer. You press the trust by then. Itunes will give you the option to copy those file. The music files or the book files over to the, the iPhone. And then the iPhone will play them back in the music player

Caller #11 (02:24:38):
And the music player. Okay, great.

Leo Laporte (02:24:41):
Great. Yeah, the only the tricky, the tricky thing is one is copy protection, but it's, if they're all on CDs, there won't be any copy protection. The other thing is to make a book, be a book, not a music so that it doesn't start up again in the beginning, which is very annoying. Right?

Caller #11 (02:24:58):
Yeah. I definitely wanna know where I left off.

Leo Laporte (02:25:00):
Yeah. You so annoying. Yeah. that's the only tricky thing. Okay.

Caller #11 (02:25:05):
We'll give I'll look for that checkbox. Thank you very much.

Leo Laporte (02:25:07):
Hey, you come John. It's in the settings in the import settings probably or the info settings on the song or the book. Hi Dan Leo Laporte the tech I Don I'm sorry. Or is it Dan? I can't tell

Caller #11 (02:25:20):
It's Don

Leo Laporte (02:25:21):
It's Don a looks just like an O on that little tiny print. What's

Caller #11 (02:25:24):
Up. It's okay. So I bought a new, I bought a new Dell laptop. We're windows 11. Yep. And they won't let me use Chrome on it. So I've been using, wait a minute,

Leo Laporte (02:25:34):
Wait a minute. They won't let you,

Caller #11 (02:25:37):
They won't let me download Chrome.

Leo Laporte (02:25:39):
Oh, they'll let you no guy,

Caller #11 (02:25:43):
The guy that store. I, I can only download apps from the store.

Leo Laporte (02:25:46):
Okay. You got windows 11. Not at not windows 10. S

Caller #11 (02:25:55):
I'm not sure what they call

Leo Laporte (02:25:56):
It. So there is a very simple, they don't by Microsoft. Doesn't offer this anymore. Very simple version of windows called S which is the only version of windows that won't let you download Chrome. It says all from the store. Now the guy at the store may be wrong. If you do have windows 10 S the first thing you're gonna do, and this is the reason Microsoft doesn't sell it anymore. If you got it, you get it. A big box store, like a Costco or a Sam's club or something. Yeah. Best buy. They may have had old systems with S mode on it. Actually, I guess you can have windows 11 and S mode, but the good news is, turn it off. You don't want it because you want Chrome. You don't want Microsoft to tell you what you can, so you go to settings.

Caller #11 (02:26:40):
Okay.

Leo Laporte (02:26:42):
And it's now on 10 it's in the security section, but it, it says, sounds like you got 11, right?

Caller #11 (02:26:49):
Yeah. I got

Leo Laporte (02:26:50):
11. Yeah. I didn't realize they had ESMO for 11. You go to the system control panel under activation

Caller #11 (02:26:58):
Activation. Okay. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:27:02):
Wait a minute. Are they gonna charge you for this? They, there should be a way to switch out of S for free on the page. It appears in the Microsoft store select the get button. Yeah. It sounds like it's gonna take you to the store where you're gonna then say, I don't wanna use S and it will then upgrade. It should do this for free. Don't do anything that costs money to win 11 plane. Then you can install whatever the heck you want.

Caller #11 (02:27:30):
Okay. Yeah. My main point was I was using edge and I kept coming up with all these silly ads for using Bing and using,

Leo Laporte (02:27:37):
Oh, I know edge is, is so annoying.

Caller #11 (02:27:39):
It keeps, it even comes up when an act, you use edge and I'm already using edge

Leo Laporte (02:27:43):
Annoying. So edge is Chrome. Basically Microsoft took Chrome de Googled it, put their own stuff in it, including weirdly things like a coupon finder which I should not be in a browser. I'm with you a hundred percent. It's not a bad browser. You could turn all those features off, but you want Chrome get Chrome. Chrome was, you know, totally dominant in the browser world, but you have to turn off at that's the key.

Caller #11 (02:28:07):
Okay. Sounds good. I didn't know that. I appreciate it, Leo. Thank you.

Leo Laporte (02:28:10):
You're welcome. I can't believe they still doing it. You must have gotten an older system and actually 11 S I guess it's for schools, I think, right? Peop you know, kids, I don't know. Anyway, that's it for the Tech Guy show the website Tech Guy labs.com is open now and free to all, all week long. I will be back next week. Might have something to say about what apple announces on Tuesday might even be the proud owner of a new max. Something. If I am, I will tell you about it. Otherwise, I hope you have a great safe geek week. Leo Laporte the Tech Guy, I guess I have. What, how many, how much time do I have 20 seconds? Okay. I would like to, I would like to thank every person up in the network operations center who makes this show possible? I'm gonna start with Sam and Joe. Thank you. Thank you, Fred, Tom, Alex. Jason. I appreciate it. Thank you, Timmy. Sally thanks to all of you. I see Johnny. I see Joey. I see all the boys up at the transmitter site.

Leo Laporte (02:29:18):
Have a great keep week. Well, that's it for the Tech Guys show for today. Thank you so much for being here and don't forget. Twit T I T. It stands for this week at tech, and you'll find it@TWiTt.tv, including the podcasts for this show. We talk about windows and windows weekly, Macintosh on Mac break, weekly iPads, iPhones, apple watches on iOS today. Security and security. Now, I mean, I can go on and on and, and of course the big show every Sunday afternoon, this week in tech, you'll find it all at TWiTt TV and I'll be back next week with another great Tech Guys show. Thanks for joining me. We'll see you next time.