From my heart and from my hand, why don't people understand my intention?
Computer running slow?
Avoiding.
Caught a virus?
What?
No!
Where?
Does your computer seem to have a life of its own?
Malfunction.
Need input.
The Computer Guru is here.
My God, you're here!
Call in now.
Now, it's Mike Swanson, your Computer Guru.
Hello and welcome to the Computer Guru Show.
My name is Mike, here to deal with your technology needs and treat you like a person in the process.
790-2040.
If you'd like to be part of the show, that's 520-790-2040.
And we'll help you out with whatever technology issues are ailing you.
Because that's what we do around here.
This week is Rob is in.
Hello, Rob.
Hi, how's it going?
And then we've got Kent over there pushing buttons.
Good morning.
Doing his thing.
And we've got new stuff to play during the breaks.
It feels like I can feel the energy today.
Yeah?
Yeah.
It's not bad.
What kind of energy is it, though?
Hopefully good energy, because we're going to need it.
Yeah.
There's going to be...
We're doing the filming stage of Destruction of Furbies today.
Finally.
And so that's going to be fun.
And hopefully nobody gets injured.
Yeah, I'm really hoping that we can walk away from this literally.
Right.
Unscathed.
Right.
Although your mom said that she's going to take you out.
She's going to get hurt.
She's going to kill me.
Yeah.
I was like, that seems like an escalation that doesn't make sense, but all right.
She goes, that's my job.
Right on.
So if I even get a paper cut today, that's it for me.
You're a goner, man.
Yeah, I guess so.
You have to go on the lam.
Well, yeah, my girlfriend said that there's going to be a line of people to injure me
if I get injured.
Oh, really?
You're going to take a number?
Apparently.
All the women in my life are violent.
All right.
7-9-0-20-40 if you want to be part of the show.
All right.
This show kind of feels like a follow-up show.
Oh, yeah?
Because we're talking about a lot of things that have been talked about before.
Yeah, we're going to be kind of bringing up stuff that we've talked about before and
said that we would eventually follow up with.
And some of those things are good.
Some of those things are not so good.
Right.
Some of these things are, I didn't want to talk about them again, necessarily.
Yeah, I was really hoping that we wouldn't have to.
Yeah.
Well, let's start with one that we didn't have to.
I just wish we didn't have to talk about before.
And I just wish we didn't have to talk about now.
Which would be Pizza Hut.
It's just dumb.
Yeah.
You know, a lot of times I feel that you're almost like a little bit curmudgeon-y with
some of the stuff that we talk about.
Right.
But in this case, I'm with you.
This is dumb.
So Pizza Hut has some shoes that you can buy.
They are sort of retro-looking shoes.
They're high-tops, but they call them pie-tops.
And there's a button in the tongue of the shoe that allows you to order.
You can order a large pizza.
It's effectively an Amazon Dash button built into shoes.
And it's not even the coolest use of an Amazon Dash button that we've talked about recently.
No.
Even the donating to, what was it?
The swear jar?
Yeah, the swear jar.
Even that was better than this.
Yeah, you press a button and pizza gets ordered.
My question, though, is that if you're in a place long enough for a pizza to be delivered to you,
why are you wearing these absurd shoes?
Yeah, they're kind of dumb-looking.
Yeah.
It's so dumb!
You could really mess with your friend who has these by just, like, punching him in the tongue of his shoe.
Yeah, they said that there's some type of, uh, you won't accidentally order pizza.
They've got some sort of security built in.
I can't think of a situation in which I will need enough pizza that it'll justify.
Yeah, I don't order pizza enough.
Right.
I would even have a Dash-style button.
I wouldn't.
I don't know about even having a button.
I would have to have the app on your phone, you know?
Right, and then beyond that, I don't order pizza enough to especially get a aforementioned Dash-style button
built into a pair of relatively ugly tennis shoes.
Not to mention that you've got to think about the back end here.
So this means that not only do you order pizza enough to have these shoes,
but, like, you have a pre-defined order that you like enough to have stored.
What if you get tired of whatever type of pizza you're having?
Well, I think the only way that I would get one of these is if I could program it.
I think that's a good way to order from Brooklyn's.
Yeah, I could.
Because Brooklyn's pizza is worth ordering from.
No, it's still not often enough, though.
No, that's true.
I can't think of anything that I need so often that I would want it built into my shoe.
Yeah, the only problem with Brooklyn's, though, I mean, they've got amazing pizza
and the best garlic knots in town.
But the problem is I think they have a delivery radius of, like,
Two feet?
Yeah, 45 feet or something.
Skybar right next door?
Yeah.
That's about it.
Come on, guys.
It's because they have to ride the trolley.
It's everywhere.
Well, maybe we'll get Uber Eats here in town at some point.
Oh, Brooklyn's.
The solar-powered pizza cafe.
Speaking of solar power, we've got some news about that.
What about it, man?
Apparently, at least in 2016, solar provided twice as many jobs as the coal industry in the United States.
Wow.
It's looking sunny.
Yeah.
I mean, that's a good thing, you know?
I mean, I'm all in favor of solar.
I am, too.
I think that this is probably a very good thing.
I like solar energy.
It's hot.
I'm the one who's supposed to be doing the corny jokes, okay?
Oh, man.
I'm in a mood, though.
I'm in a mood.
What can I say?
I know we switched roles.
I don't even have a corny joke to make.
Oh, okay.
You just have to sit there and be curmudgeoning?
I guess so.
You're the curmudgeoning one today.
The Pizza Hut shoes, like, ruined it for me.
Oh, okay.
So, Mike, what are we talking about next?
Well, I did want to talk about...
I did want to talk about Ryzen again, but we'll wait to get into that, because it's
kind of a whole thing, and we already have a caller.
They want to talk about shoes and pizza and stuff.
All right.
Let's talk...
Bren?
Hello, Bren.
How are you?
You got to hit the button.
No, the call button.
They're on hold still.
There you go.
Hi.
One of those buttons.
Hi.
Thanks for taking my call.
I just wanted to know, if you have those shoes, do the pizzas come laced or unlaced?
That's a good question.
And do they know where to go?
Because, I mean, what if you're out at the basketball court shooting hoops and playing
horse with your friends?
I imagine it must have some type of...
Because it has to have, like, 4G or something built in in order for the order to even happen.
Yeah, that would suck if you have to be within Wi-Fi range of your house.
You know, I bet I could hack it so I could put Pyrmonics in there and get their pizza.
Well, that would be nice.
I think I'd still prefer the Amazon Dash button, because you could, like, put that on a keychain.
It'd be way more...
And these shoes are terrible looking, too, so...
They're kind of ugly.
We'll put them in the show notes so you can see them.
I think if you order them and put them away in 10 years, they might be worth something,
because no one's popping it up.
That's probably true.
Order them.
That's probably true.
Their value is mostly as a collector's item.
Yeah.
Thanks for taking my call, Scott.
Yeah, thanks.
And Pizza Hut's been doing the whole, like, you know, using technology as a gimmick for
a long time.
I mean, if they're just doing this as a promotional thing, whatever, if they really expect for
the...
I don't think they really expect for this to be a thing.
I don't either.
You know, besides...
Even if they do expect it, it's not going to be...
Stop trying to make it happen.
I heard that McDonald's was considering doing delivery, so maybe their shoes would be...
Like, I'd have, like, a spicy McChicken shoe thing, I guess, maybe.
A spicy McChicken shoe.
Yeah.
Like, I could want a $1 item from McDonald's far more frequently than I would want a pizza,
you know?
I don't know.
It's a toss-up for me.
I know me gusta on equal levels.
Do not want.
Say what you will about everything else at McDonald's, but the spicy McChicken's pretty
good.
The spicy chicken is not bad, with the exception of the non-chicken parts of...
I always have to tell them I'm allergic to lettuce, though, because their lettuce is
terrible, and I don't want any of that.
Yeah.
It's like...
Oh.
It's like reconstituted, and it's terrible.
Yeah, it's horrible.
When I said iceberg lettuce, I didn't mean it was in a freezer for, like, 10 hours.
There you go.
You got your mojo back.
Yeah.
There it is.
You can be the silly one now.
All right.
Let's take a moment.
I forgot to mention our sponsor.
That would be Perfection Auto Works.
They can do wonderful things for your vehicle, and you should probably check them out.
Maybe they should make, like, an oil change shoe button.
Oh, yeah.
Mike, get an oil change...
Make Perfection Auto Works shoes.
See, if you had an Amazon Dash button, you could put it on your dash.
I have to...
Oh.
Yeah.
I have to get my driving shoes on.
On their high tops.
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We'll be back right after these messages and a little bit of comedy, as usual, for the
first segment of the Computer Guru Show these days.
We'll be right back.
I think foosball is a combination of soccer and shish kebabs.
Foosball messed up my perception of soccer.
I thought you had to kick the ball and then spin round and round.
I can't do a backflip, much less several.
Simultaneously with two other guys that look just like me.
I was on the bus and it was the middle of the night, and I had a box of crackers and
I had a can of Easy Cheese.
But it was the middle of the night, so I could not see.
So I could not see how much Easy Cheese I was applying to each cracker.
So each bite into the cracker was a surprise as to how much Easy Cheese I had applied.
Which makes me believe they should have a glow-in-the-dark version of Easy Cheese.
It's not like the product has any integrity to begin with.
If you buy a room temperature cheese that you squeeze out of a can,
you probably won't get mad because it glows in the dark as well.
Your computer guru, Mike Swanson, is here to help you tame that beast of a machine.
Join the chat right now at gurushow.com or call in.
This is the Computer Guru Show on KVOY, The Voice.
Mike Swanson, your computer guru, is just a click away.
Listen and watch at gurushow.com.
This is the Computer Guru Show.
Welcome back to the Computer Guru Show.
Let's go ahead and talk about the fact that everyone in the federal government is an idiot.
Is this news?
Well, apparently.
So the FCC got a new chairman.
Originally, we were a little concerned about Wheeler in the previous administration.
We were like, we don't know about that.
We don't know about Tom Wheeler because he used to lobby for the cellular industry.
And he's probably going to mess some things up and make it so that consumers are hurt
and the internet providers are super happy.
And it turned out that he did exactly the opposite.
He just angered every ISP and put rules into place that were supposed to keep us a little bit safer
as far as the wallets were concerned.
What?
The new chairman of the FCC is not necessarily on board with Wheeler's plan.
In fact, I would say that he's very much not.
Yeah, and we had originally said, let's give this guy the benefit of the doubt.
Let's see what he does.
Maybe it'll turn out to be like Wheeler.
No, not quite.
Nope.
His name is Ajit Pai.
And he said that net neutrality was a mistake.
And the commission is now on track to return to a much lighter style of regulation.
Of course, this will make one of my listeners very happy, I'm sure.
But he says some things that just don't make any sense to me.
Well, unfortunately, I think most of the people who are proponents against net neutrality
say a lot of things that don't make sense.
Yeah.
Basically, he says that, you know, look at how with the announcement of the return
or basically of ending of net neutrality,
now all of the providers are announcing that they're going to have,
you know, unlimited data plans.
And I think he's taking credit for something that he had absolutely nothing to do with.
And I think that was all Wheeler basically saying, you have rules to follow.
And if you want to, you know, compete, then you have to compete,
rather than just being able to muscle a particular market or segment of users,
which is the problem with net neutrality in the first place,
where, you know, the lack of neutrality is that a provider then has the opportunity
to, you know, have a lot of data plans.
OK.
Now, of course, they don't really necessarily count things like DSL providers or the point-to-point wireless providers because, let's be honest, they're technically not able to compete with the cable providers or even the cellular providers if you happen to have one of those.
But then you end up with a very expensive Internet bill and caps and overages and all of that stuff.
Well, also, I mean, the cellular providers is what's making this whole situation a bit scary at the moment.
Because, as you said, everybody seems to be reintroducing their unlimited plans at the moment.
And a lot of these plans, if you look closely, are pretty anti-net neutrality.
Yeah.
Specifically, T-Mobile, who's had their binge-on thing for a while now, where certain streaming services don't count against your data cap.
Right.
And they mention those in the article, which is basically the zero tier, meaning that they don't count specific sets of data against your usage,
which was exactly the thing that the…
The net neutrality was trying to prevent.
And they have been under investigation by the FCC specifically because of that plan.
Not anymore because that stuff's now been enabled.
You know, basically, the FCC says, yeah, you can go ahead and do that.
You can go ahead and zero tier stuff where you can say anything that is on this particular platform that it doesn't charge…
We're not going to charge you for or doesn't necessarily have to count against your data plan.
And now that sounds really cool if you're already a member of one.
Like, say you use Pandora's premium service or Spotify or something like that.
Right.
That sounds awesome.
Like, why wouldn't I want to?
I'm going to switch to T-Mobile and then I'll have unlimited data for that stuff.
But you're not realizing that they're forcing you to stay on that platform essentially at that point.
So if some new streaming service comes out and it's way better and T-Mobile decides that they don't want to carry that on their zero plan…
Or that company decides that they can't afford to pay T-Mobile to be in that included plan.
Because, yeah, make no mistake, they're charging those companies for that right.
Right.
Then, yeah, it's stifling competition.
Or even scarier, in my opinion.
T-Mobile decides that it wants to release its own service that you have to subscribe to.
Right.
If you want to listen to music, which a lot of people do on their phones, then, yeah, these particular couple of services are going to be provided for you with no additional fee.
But if you want to watch those other ones, man, or listen to those other ones, it's going to cost you a little bit more.
So you're less likely to do so.
This is exactly the battle that we were talking about before with Comcast and Hulu versus Netflix.
Yeah.
And, of course, everyone that's on the other side of this argument is just like, well, let them compete.
Do you know what Comcast is?
I mean, have you seen NBCUniversal, what they – what is that company?
I mean, they are everything.
They're – I mean, Disney owns all is really what it comes down to.
And so it's impossible, I think, to realistically think that you're going to be able to compete with someone.
That is able to hold down that tier, right, that has that much clout that is just able to say, well, you're going to use my service.
You're going to use nothing at all.
And that's – or you'll be penalized for using something else.
And this is why the net neutrality argument even came to light in the first place.
But, you know, apparently nobody cares.
Well, my issue is that I think that from what I've seen over the last few years, their plan is just to keep rephrasing the argument.
Until people just stop caring.
Right.
Hypervigilance is very tiring.
Yeah, it is.
So, yeah.
So apparently we're losing our net neutrality, at least for a while.
Maybe permanently.
Who knows?
But when you wonder why that you want to watch that movie on Netflix or the next service that comes out after Netflix and you wonder why you can't afford it, this is why.
And it's because the net neutrality argument was –
Yeah.
It's because the net neutrality argument was designed to make sure that everyone who wanted to provide a service was able to equally.
We're going to have to take a look at how much piracy increases as a result of this.
Oh, it will.
It will a bit, in my opinion.
I mean, yeah.
When the choice is to pay for Pandora or Spotify or whatever T-Mobile service ends up being or whatever, or, you know, just spin up your own streaming media service, the choice is clear if you're able.
Yep.
And, you know, unfortunately I can't teach everyone how to do it, but, you know, it's – there are options.
I might post some links in the show notes.
There are options.
And that's the good thing about the Internet, though, is that at least for the people who are willing to do a little bit of extra work involved in getting around this stuff, there's always a way.
So it's interesting to me, but I'm very disappointed in the FCC.
When it comes to the net neutrality decision here, to go back on something that is very, very, in my opinion, very helpful for the end user because it's forcing everyone to sort of live on – or play by the same rules.
All of the providers have to play by the same rules under net neutrality, and now they don't.
And so we'll see what happens with them.
Let's go ahead and take a call here.
We'll talk to Philip.
Hey, Philip.
Philip, how are you?
Yeah, I went to Best Buy.
I was going to buy a Galaxy Tab E for $250.
Okay.
And they sent me over to the AT&T store on Oracle, and they gave it to me for 99 cents.
With your contract, right?
Yes.
I was going to get a contract anyway, so I'm wondering, is this thing going to blow up on me?
Well, you know, it is a Samsung product, but no, it's probably not going to burst into flames.
I'm just wondering, why would they give it to me?
I mean –
It's worth it to them to get you on the call.
A contract is really what it comes down to.
So, I mean –
You mentioned the unlimited thing, which is now part of their deal.
Of course, I've experienced what unlimited really means.
It means nothing.
Well, it depends on your provider.
So, like – yeah, it depends on the provider.
Some providers do the real, truly unlimited up to a certain point.
I mean, up to an unreasonable point.
I mean, 200 gigabytes for Verizon.
I don't know about AT&T, but, yeah, Verizon does have a limit in place, technically.
Right.
So, it's – and the T-Mobile stuff does throttle you if you go over 23 gigabytes.
So, there is a certain amount of congestion there, and I think it's unlimited within reason is the way that they're looking at it.
But you don't think I'm being scammed somehow?
I mean, why would they give it to me?
Well, of course you're being scammed.
You're in a contract.
Yeah, that's the scam.
Well, I was already going to go through a contract anyway.
So, in your case, if you were already planning on going into a contract no matter what, it's a good deal?
Right.
All right.
Right.
If you're a person that is anti-contract like myself, then –
I trust the guru.
I wouldn't do it.
But, you know, hey, if you're okay with the contract, if you want to be locked into that, you do that, man.
You do you.
Well, I've never had one before, so I'll see what happens.
Thank you.
Yeah, they're fun.
You'll enjoy it.
You won't use it as much as you think you will, though.
Yeah, because you'll get tired of pressing the little buttons.
Just tablet computing is really not all that pleasant.
I've – several times.
I've really tried to, like, to be a tablet user.
And they're good.
They have a very specific use case, which is like sitting on the couch watching TV, and you're just tooling around on your tablet on the Internet or something.
Right.
If you've got a $600 way of playing Candy Crush, right?
I mean, it was pretty good for balloons.
Balloons is pretty awesome.
Yeah.
But every time I've used a tablet and I've been like, all right, let's get something done, I've been like, man, I just need a laptop.
Right.
Why am I trying to do this?
Why am I trying to do this on a tablet?
I'm so –
No, Dom.
All right.
Let's go ahead and talk to Carl.
Hey, Carl.
How are you?
I'm doing fine.
And, you know, one of the things that bothers me is I keep talking about unlimited data.
That doesn't apply to a Wi-Fi hotspot, which is where I really need the unlimited data.
That is correct.
Well, you can root your phone and make it a Wi-Fi hotspot.
Yeah.
Don't go down that road.
No, I –
Don't listen to Rob right now.
He's saying stuff that – he's being irresponsible on the air.
That's what he's doing.
Okay.
Yeah.
But, I mean, that's –
That's one of the things because I use it for my business or what have you, and I keep saying – I think it's misleading.
You know, you have to ask the question.
But unlimited data, no, it's not unlimited for the Wi-Fi hotspot.
Right.
So the way that I do that is I do the hotspot on my phone rather than a separate Wi-Fi device.
And I have an unlimited data plan on my phone.
So that is unlimited for me.
No.
Nope.
It's not because I – that's one of the things that I've been looking for.
I have a Wi-Fi hotspot on my phone.
And it's an additional charge per month.
And it's generally limited to 10 megabytes.
And if you go over that, then it gets – see, the throttles back are stopped.
Not in my case, but I have an old one.
I have a grandfathered one.
Oh, if you've got an old plan or whatever it is, yeah.
Yeah.
So I pay an extra $29 for the ability to do the –
Right.
The hotspot on my phone.
And my average usage right now is $4.
$4.
I can't get that.
No fees.
So that's – you still can under certain circumstances.
And it depends on how the plan is set up.
But I wouldn't risk it, right?
It's one of these things like I don't even talk to the people about my phone at Verizon
because I don't want them to mess up my plan.
Right.
Yeah.
That is the problem.
So, yeah, unfortunately for people who try to do mobile work like myself and you, it sounds like,
it's pretty hard to find a reasonable way to get on the Internet without war driving.
And we'll probably see more of that if the cellular companies start clamping down.
We'll probably see more war driving.
And there's a bunch of utilities out there.
Just so you know, you can break into a Wi-Fi network in about 10 seconds no matter what password you put on there
if you have the right applications.
So there's – you're going to see people that are going to be driving around breaking into wireless networks.
You're going to see people that are going to be driving around breaking into wireless networks.
Just so they can get on the Internet.
Well, yeah, but that doesn't do me much good because I'm generally out in the field away from Wi-Fi spots.
That's what I'm looking for is for downloading maps.
Right.
You're in rough shape, man.
I don't have to tell you.
I am.
I really am.
You're going to have to have like four different cell phone numbers that you can get 10 gigabytes each off of.
Well, that may be something to look at considering how cheap some of these things are getting.
Yeah.
Well, good luck, man.
All right.
Well, thanks.
Thanks.
Sorry about that.
It does suck that the cellular companies are just sort of doing whatever they want.
You know, and the FCC is to blame.
That's how I look at it.
Jerks.
Give me the blues.
I'll be right back.
Mike Swanson, your computer guru is just a click away.
Listen and watch at gurushow.com.
This is a computer guru show on KVOI, The Voice.
Welcome back to the Computer Guru Show.
My name is Mike, here to deal with your technology needs and treat you like a person in the process.
790-2040 if you'd like to have your question answered.
Or you can join us in the chat, gurushow.com slash chat.
We've got a question in the chat.
There is a chat question.
It says, I need a new router.
I know I've...
Mike has addressed this issue before, but I cannot remember the answer.
My router is now several years old, and I have definitely noticed a loss of wireless range.
What's the best router for a decent price with decent range?
Well, there's a couple of factors involved.
Age does play a factor in routers because they just sort of burn out over time.
But generally, it's not a, you know, it doesn't get weaker.
It just quits altogether.
So your loss of range is probably interference from...
Other people.
You're probably picking up other networks around you that are stepping on your signal.
And that's especially something that looks like it adapts over time or happens over time because people move in and move out.
Right.
And a lot of people don't...
It depends on the router, really, which one you have.
If you have a several-year-old one, it probably doesn't do auto-channel switching.
So you might want to just try a different channel rather than buying a new router.
So you could...
By default, they come on channel 6, which is right in the middle of the range.
There's 12 channels.
There's technically 14, but the last two don't count.
So it's right in the middle of the range there.
And so you might want to try a different one.
You can get an app for your cell phone, especially if you have an Android phone that's called Wi-Fi Analyzer.
It'll tell you what channels are most heavily used around you.
And you can then pick a channel that may be less congested.
And that could probably help out.
Also, if you're going to go buy a new router, there's really no reason not to buy a dual-band router at this point.
Right.
So if you want a decent router that is priced somewhat affordably,
the AC routers by Asus are wonderful routers.
They have decent range.
They're tri-band in many cases, but at least dual-band.
And they are nice and quick.
And so you're looking at about $120 or so.
You know, I just bought a cheapo dual-band router because I was like,
I'm going to buy one anyway.
Let's see if this TP-Link router can actually do anything.
Surprisingly, so far...
Sure, no problems.
And you're in a highly congested area.
Yeah, it robs in an apartment complex, so there's lots of networks around it.
My Wi-Fi is now the most powerful Wi-Fi.
Right.
And if you have an older router, if you're feeling like you want to get some extra life out of it,
and you want to be able to crank up the power on it or change any setting that you like,
you can look at something like the Tomato ROMs or the DDWRT.
Just be careful with that.
Yeah.
If you think you might be buying a new router anyway, you can experiment.
Because it's entirely possible you'll brick it if you do it wrong.
Yeah, you need to make sure you're looking at the revision numbers for that firmware because it does matter.
Revisions do count.
Otherwise, you'll have a very expensive paperweight.
Yeah, so...
Yeah, if you're looking like you can afford a $100 router,
it'll last you for a good five or six years.
And that's not a terrible investment.
So, there you are.
Ow.
I just hit myself in the face.
I thought it was me who was injuring myself with the headphones today.
Yeah, it's just...
No, that didn't happen, remember?
Yeah, that's right.
Okay.
Let's talk about AMD for a moment.
Okay.
I'm actually excited to talk about this for once.
I told you last week.
I said, Rob will want to talk about this, so...
Yeah, well, especially...
I'm glad that it was this week because last week was release.
This week, we've had a week.
So, people have played around with Ryzen and benchmarked it on their own.
So, we've seen stuff outside of AMD's carefully controlled environment.
And kind of what that has revealed is that not quite meeting up to the highest-end Intel stuff right now,
but when you factor in the price and the performance you're getting for the price, it blows Intel away.
Right.
So, the performance differences are negligible.
Yeah, especially when you consider that the highest-end Ryzen processor is $500.
As opposed to $1,200?
Yeah, as opposed to the cost of the machine if you buy the Ryzen processor.
Right.
Now, a lot of people have said that the gaming performance isn't great.
That it's usually just best to use the Ryzen as a workhorse machine.
But AMD's CEO has promised that patches and tweaks will fix that and that gaming performance will only go up.
Right.
And I imagine that there's a certain amount of...
That the games are written in such a way...
Or the drivers for the processor are written in such a way that they favor Intel right now.
Yeah.
And the other thing is that CPU performance isn't...
Isn't...
It's as important as a lot of people think when it comes to gaming.
Right.
Especially if you have a nice GPU.
And you've got RAM and all of that other good stuff that is important.
Now, if you're just...
If this is like a workhorse machine that you also use as gaming, then, of course, CPU is going to make a difference.
But if you're a gamer, then...
Yeah, you should hopefully have a nice video card to go with it.
Right.
It's important to have a nice processor, but your graphics card is going to make a bigger difference, obviously.
Right.
And, of course, AMD always...
They tie in the ATI cards into their processing platforms.
So they can talk to each other directly.
Yeah.
And historically, that's what they've done.
And I'm not sure that they're doing that with the Ryzen cards, but I imagine that's probably built in.
Well, they've talked about how there's going to be a GPU refresh for AMD as well soon.
So that's good.
I mean, overall, I'm just happy to see, like, some competition.
Yeah.
And I think that first generation, we can't put all of our hopes in a single basket when it comes to first generation processors.
But I'm sure as AMD manages to, you know, kind of get the hang of this as far as, oh, yeah, we're building real processors now.
This makes me happy because traditionally I've been a fan of AMD just because the price difference is so astronomical.
Yeah.
And unfortunately, though, previously your performance difference was so astronomical as well.
Right.
But, I mean, that's for people who are comparing the highest end AMD to the highest end Intel, which isn't a fair comparison at all.
Well, I was looking at the, you know, the stuff that I normally see.
It's where, you know, clients will go out and they'll be like, oh, it's a quad core.
Right.
And then it just performs like an atom.
Well, in a lot of cases, that's because it basically is.
Like, AMD was doing this thing before where you'd only have, like, say, four compute modules on the chip.
Right.
And then they were using some software trickery to make it behave like an eight core.
So the new Ryzen stuff is actually eight core as well as actually four core.
Thanks for not lying to me anymore, AMD.
To be fair, Intel kind of did that, too, for a while.
Right.
Well, like the processor that I have on my computer, it's a fairly high end Intel chip.
And it reports 12 cores.
Right.
And it's an eight.
Right.
And so there's some software trickery happening there.
No, and I mean, it's not like they're just straight up lying.
Like, you do get better performance out of that processor than you would out of just an eight core.
This is true.
I mean, and, yeah, don't get me wrong, that computer moves right along.
But it somewhat feels dishonest.
I think the reason why I've always liked AMD more than Intel is because I've never been somebody.
I can't just, I'm not going to spend $5,000 on a computer.
And I'm, like, this is my life, you know.
Right.
So I like AMD because it's like you can build a machine that does what you want it to do,
and it's not going to cost you the cost of a new car.
Right.
Yeah, because you can easily, if you wanted to build a top end, like,
really high end machine, an Intel based machine, you can drop four grand easy.
Yeah.
And especially if you're doing, like, you decide that you want to be a professional gamer,
and you've got three, you know, 1080s in there or something like that.
Yeah, and I mean, that's the other thing I was going to say is that I'm excited about a graphics refresh for AMD as well,
because I'm certainly not a fan of their graphics cards for the most part.
You know, like, the RX 480 is like a cool card if you need budget VR kind of stuff.
Right.
But if you're a serious gamer or care about graphics at all, you're going the GTX route for sure.
Right.
NVIDIA all the way.
Let's go ahead and take a call here.
Let's talk to Ron.
Hey, Ron, how are you?
I'm doing good.
Hope you're doing good.
We are.
I am anyway.
How are you doing, Ron?
Not bad.
All right.
Yep.
Status check complete.
Cool.
Good.
It passes.
Now, is it a privacy concern to log into a website that's not Facebook with my phone?
My Facebook email and password.
All right.
So security concern, not so much.
Privacy concern, yes.
So those are two different things.
But privacy, yeah.
I mean, if you want to be private, you're not logging into anything with a Facebook login.
When you log in with Facebook, Facebook sees exactly what you're doing.
They can see everything.
Just know that when you do it.
Okay.
All right.
Now, you can...
You can...
Even if you're doing something like a VPN, though, that allows that traffic to be reported
to Facebook.
So they at least...
They know something about your account.
They know that you have an account there.
And so if you're concerned about Facebook being able to collect a bunch of information
about you, you don't log in with Facebook.
Now, when it comes to security, if you're worried about that website having your Facebook
username and password, in any legit case, that's not how it works.
So you don't have to worry about that.
So...
But when you type in your password...
Or don't they have it there?
Well, when you log...
When you sign up with Facebook, normally it'll open a pop-up or a Facebook window or it'll
go to Facebook.
And then at that point, you're just authenticating with Facebook and the website is looking to
Facebook to get a thumbs up, essentially.
Right.
So when you sign in with Facebook, that little pop-up that comes up and you say, hey, I'm
allowing this to happen, Facebook sets a very special cookie that says, I am allowed to
do this.
And it's time limited.
It's a...
It's fairly secure, but it is...
All it is is an authentication process.
So the website that you're logging into then goes to Facebook and says, hey, this user
says we can log in as them.
Is that cool?
Facebook then responds yes and then deletes the cookie.
Oh.
Okay.
So as far as security is concerned, it's not really a security issue, but privacy, yes.
Okay.
Because, you know, Facebook collects everything and then will be our future overlord.
Honestly, I'm really curious.
not a fan of signing into websites with other websites. I kind of think you should have
a separate account for each one for security reasons.
It's because we are like paranoid security dudes.
Yeah.
But yes.
Mostly that extends for me. That's because of Wi-Fi, like sidejacking and that kind of
thing.
Right. We should do a sidejacking demo. We're actually planning a get-together where we
can get listeners to come down probably April.
Something like that.
And we should do a sidejacking demo.
Yeah, that would be a lot of fun.
Just to show how it works.
Sounds good.
Where you guys can come down here and then we can show you the inner workings of your
Facebook page without permission.
That sounds good.
So now I'm curious. So on that third or the other website, I guess at that point, once
they get permission from Facebook, they are able to, or their users on that website are
able to see your profile as if they are...
It depends on the permissions. It depends on the permissions that the website's requesting.
Right. In most cases...
Yeah.
So the only thing that's passing across is your basic public profile information. So
your name and anything else that you've marked as public consumption, that website has access
to.
Okay.
Anything that's marked as private or sensitive information is not passed across to those
things. And that's why a lot of pages, especially if they...even if they allow the sign-in as
Facebook, will then ask you for additional information. It's because they can't pull
that information from Facebook.
Okay.
So in other words, things you have marked as just for friends, they can't see unless
you give permission specifically.
Okay. Right.
Sounds good.
Now...
All right. Thanks for the...
And one of the reasons I don't do it is because there was a bad habit of several
websites that would be like, hey, we're going to post as you whenever the heck we want.
And we're going to be like, you signed in to twinkies.com with Facebook. And so it'll
randomly post things like, I love Twinkies.
And it's just like, come on now.
I don't think that's happening so much these days because they kind of got called
out for that kind of stuff.
Yeah. It doesn't happen. But that's what turned me off to the whole signing in as...with
another website. Not to mention that how we like every week talk about, hey, this site
got hacked. You should probably change all your passwords. And that's one of the reasons
for it. It's just like, I don't sign in with anything as Facebook. It's just like, nope.
In fact, I don't even open Facebook. I don't even...
I don't sign in with Facebook, but like once a month maybe.
I do it at work for work and that's it. I don't have a Facebook.
Yeah. So yeah. If you want my opinion, don't sign in as Facebook and just create an account
and keep...have a separate password and make sure that it's different than any of your
other passwords because security and then be safe and then don't worry about it.
So let's say if I want to...if I do that, but then I want people on the other website
to see my profile, I would just send them, I guess, the URL of my basic...
Yeah.
...Facebook page.
Yeah. You could...I mean, if you're talking like another social network or something,
you could just link to your Facebook page.
Yeah. Okay.
And then that way, at least the two social sites don't have direct communication with
one another at that point.
Right. That's a good way of doing it. Okay. Thanks.
All right. Thanks for the call. I appreciate it.
Bye.
We're going to take a quick break. When we get back, more of The Computer Guru
Show at 7902040. Give us a call.
All right.
Bye.
There's the, why haven't you changed your password recently?
And it's just the thing I complain about all the time.
Change your passwords, people.
But here's some reasons that you may want to, especially if you are traveling internationally.
Yeah, we were talking about this before the show, and I think that we were both a little bit like,
that's so silly, but then at the end of the day, as long as you're changing your passwords regularly,
there's nothing to worry about.
All right, so it turns out that the TSA is not allowed to confiscate your laptop.
They're not allowed to ask you for passwords.
They're not allowed to invade your, you know, there's some Fourth Amendment that applies to the TSA.
But not so much with Border Patrol.
Yeah, they say it's a gray area.
Well, yeah, it turns out that 10 miles on either side of the border is this gray area.
Literally, yeah.
Where you don't necessarily have constitutional rights, which is pretty interesting.
I'm sure that some lawyer will be happy to explain to me how crazy it really is,
or maybe it's more cut and dry.
than I suspect it is.
But according to the article, Border Patrol can do whatever the heck they want
when it comes to getting into your digital persona.
Including just forcibly detaining you until you give them your password?
Yeah, and then they can search your devices and see which terrorist groups
that you have been chatting with recently.
And so, yeah, there's a little bit of a weirdness in there.
Now, it just turns out, you know, that one, I go through Border Patrol,
Border Patrol checkpoints all the time.
And because I have to go out to places where there's a checkpoint in between.
And they never give me grief.
I mean, look at me.
They never give me grief.
Although, I've been kind of messing with them a little bit, you know, as far as, you know,
I come back and they'll be like, are you an American citizen?
And I'm like, see, you know, or something.
And they just wave me through, like, get out of here.
If you started wearing glasses and driving an RV down there, I think they might have something to say.
Oh, maybe I should go to Walter.
Yeah.
But it turns out that they can ask you for your passwords and hold you.
And you know what you do?
Change your password right afterwards.
That's what you do.
This is the Computer Guru Show.
Stick around for the second hour coming up next, right after these messages.
By the way, thanks to Protection Auto Works for supporting the first hour.
We'll be right back.
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Thank you.
Why don't people understand my intention?
Computer running slow?
Avoiding.
Caught a virus?
What?
No!
When?
Does your computer seem to have a life of its own?
Malfunction.
Need input.
The computer guru is here.
My God, you're here!
Call in now.
Now, it's Mike Swanson, your computer guru.
Welcome back to the Computer Guru Show.
My name is Mike, here to deal with your technology needs
and treat you like a person in the process.
Give us a call if you'd like to be part of the show.
520-790-2040.
Or you can join us in the chat at gurushow.com slash chat.
And you totally should, because there's people in there.
Yeah, we're in there.
We're chatting away.
We're chatting it up.
Chatting it up.
Let's talk about cord cutting for a second.
We haven't talked about that in a while.
Yeah, and it'll be interesting to talk about, because I just did the opposite of that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Poor you.
I got cable for the first time in like nearly a decade.
Because you just want to spend money unnecessarily.
I don't want to spend money unnecessarily.
Oh.
Oh, I see what's going on here.
Well, we have to call your girlfriend out on it.
Well, she wanted certain channels that I didn't want to go through the hassle of setting up and making it work.
And also, she's just like, I just want to turn on the TV and have it be on.
I don't want to have to turn on 12 devices and sync everything up and cast things to things.
Right.
It's nowhere near that bad, but all right.
So the Food Network.
Well, she's a baker.
So she wanted the Food Network.
And also, I will say that it's kind of nice to just be able to turn something on and have something on there.
But I don't know if that's worth $40 a month or whatever.
It's too boring for me.
I like to use casting in the sense of I have to use like a magical spell to get what I want on the television.
I will also say that I forgot how terrible commercials are.
Yeah, I haven't seen a commercial in like three years.
Yeah, I was in the same boat.
Like I only saw commercials when I went to people's houses or something.
You know?
Yeah, I don't go to people's houses.
There's so many commercials.
It's like one minute of show and then there's an hour of commercials.
It's dawning on me that I am turning into Howard Hughes, right?
Minus the money.
And the pee jars, hopefully.
Yeah, none of that either.
But it's just like I don't go to people's houses.
I am mildly germaphobic.
Are you going to be scrubbing your hands until they bleed?
No, I don't think I'll go that route.
Not that bad.
Well, I don't think you had hand sanitizer either.
Yeah, that's not good for you anyway.
But anyway, there's a new option on the playing field here as far as the ability to do some cord cutting.
And that would be, believe it or not, YouTube.
YouTube is offering a new service called YouTube TV.
They will have 40 networks to launch with and they're adding local providers.
I think the name is kind of silly though because like the whole point was that it was like, you know, a tube is like slang for TV.
Yeah, a little redundant.
Yeah.
But for $35,000.
For $35,000 a month, you can basically have on demand.
So, I mean, Sling exists, which is basically the same service except it's not as good in any way.
Right.
They do provide local channels but I think you have to pay extra for them.
You do have to pay extra for them and they have fewer amounts of devices that you can stream to simultaneously.
And it's just bad.
I've tested it out before getting cable.
I was like maybe this will be the way to go.
Nope.
Yeah, but YouTube, they do a pretty decent job of getting your…
Yeah.
…their content to you and they have, you know, they have the infrastructure to be able to pull this off whereas I think Sling just doesn't.
We could do an entire episode about how YouTube delivers a video to you.
It's actually fascinating.
There's a lot going on, a lot more than you think there is as far as hitting play on a video.
Like the science behind how the counter goes up for views is crazy.
Yeah, which is why it doesn't work.
It merely gives the appearance of not working while it computes how to work in the background apparently.
Right.
Well, the Gangnam Style like broke the counter.
Yeah, it turns out that you couldn't have over a billion views.
I don't think they ever thought that was going to be a problem.
Yeah.
That is a huge amount of views.
But anyway, YouTube is going to give you an option for cord cutting that requires less science involved.
Considering that most streaming devices, in fact, I think all of them, the Roku, the Apple TV, the Plexbox, you know, Plex or not Plexbox, Amazon Fire TV,
all of the different streaming devices have a YouTube app built in.
And with the launch of YouTube TV, I'm sure they'll get a more refined, very YouTube style app for those things.
So it's something that I think is going to be useful just because I completely disagree with the entire business model of cable.
And so I have this aversion to anyone using cable.
Yeah.
But, you know, it's not like I'm anti-cable.
I'm just a cable.
Well, I have cable and I'm still anti-cable.
So I'm planning on seeing if I can, now that I've had it for a while and I'm not like blown away by how amazing it is, I think there might be some renegotiation happening.
Oh, well, maybe you can figure out how to, you know, cut the cord for Food Network.
Good luck with that, man.
Yeah.
See, I like to argue with people though.
It's kind of a hobby.
It is kind of a, yeah.
We're not going to talk about that right now.
Let's talk to Thomas.
How are you?
I'm okay.
I'm enjoying your show.
I don't always get a chance to listen to it because most of the time, including today, you're talking about stuff I have no idea.
It's all way over my head.
Then you should call and say, I don't understand that, Mike.
Explain it to me better.
Well, I'm 77 years old and I got my first computer in 1998 and I still about the only thing I can really do is work.
OK.
from Cox, my internet is $67.99.
Yeah, I think he was just talking about the TV portion.
Yeah, for the actual internet itself, I pay about, I think it's about $80.
For the actual internet?
Just for the internet, and then I pay an additional $40 now for TV as well.
Well, I got, under mine, under new charges, for TV, it says $146.99.
Internet, $67.99.
Telephone, $14.09.
$14.09.
See, this is one of the reasons that I, I'm going to use a word that I don't use very often.
I hate the cable company.
Well, I do too.
And this is the reason why, is because they'll sign you up and they'll say,
hey, for $9 a month, we'll get you on the internet and you can watch TV,
and then suddenly your bill is $4,000, and you don't know why.
And they do this all the time.
I mean, Rob, you had the, that old place, you had this, a war with Comcast.
Yeah, for sure.
You know, talking about how they were like, they kept raising his price without telling him.
Yeah, I'd just get my bill and it'd be like $20 higher.
And then I'd call them up and they'd be like, oh, we'll take that off.
And then they slowed your internet down.
Yeah, and I'm like, what, why did, why?
You're just trying to see if I noticed?
It's not cool.
So, you might have to call up and force a renegotiation of your bill.
I just renegotiated with them in August.
Well, do it again.
The magic words are usually, I can get this cheaper elsewhere.
Right.
The magic words are usually, I can get this cheaper elsewhere.
Oh, I see.
I see.
Okay.
And you talk a lot about passwords and it's changing passwords.
You know, I have a, when I go to the bank, I stutter wondering whether I'm going to have the right pin.
And I only have two accounts and that's only four, four numbers.
Right.
Let alone, I've started writing them down in a book.
Which is?
Passwords to go to this guy, to go to that guy, to go to this guy.
Because when I...
If I'm not using it every day, my mind says, what the hell is that?
Right.
So, I have to, you know, I go to this bank and tomorrow I go to the other bank and I
got to go and get my little book that I got it written down in to make sure that I'm putting
all the right information in.
And so, like, I don't like changing passwords.
I understand that, but it's for your own good.
I mean, you don't want anybody to have access to your stuff.
And believe me.
They will have access to your stuff.
In fact, there's a website that you can go to that will tell you whether or not somebody
has probably has your password or not.
And in a lot of cases, if you use common websites, they do.
Right.
So, I'm not a Facebook guy.
I'm not on there.
I'm not a Twitter.
I don't...
Who's your email provider?
My what?
What's after the at symbol in your email address?
I don't know.
Oh, doc.com.
No, before that, though.
Cox.
There you go.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Yeah.
Cox.
Cox.com.
Yeah.
No, I don't have Cox.com.
I've got...
You see?
See?
All right.
So, chances are that if you're using a provider email, right, if you're, like, either email
provided by your internet provider or especially if you're using something like Yahoo for mail
or AOL, that those...
Oh, I know what it is now.
Hotmail and Google.
All right.
The Google one, you're probably relatively safe there.
Okay.
There was a Hotmail breach, wasn't there?
But there's several Hotmail breaches.
So, if you haven't changed your password since, I don't know, ever, then somebody knows your
password.
And in some cases, you know, people just don't care, right?
They're just like, I don't really have anything to hide here.
But it can cause larger problems than that.
You can end up being basically the source of a spam email.
So, if you're using a provider email, if somebody can guess your email password, and that happens
a lot on Hotmail.
So, the idea of password, keeping yourself safe online is an important topic.
And especially for those that have a larger digital presence, right, where they're doing
more stuff online than just checking email.
But as you said in the beginning of the call, there are many places where you just can't
do anything but to use an online service as an example for paying bills.
Or like my daughter's homework.
Right?
They don't send paper homework anymore.
They have a laptop that is provided, a Chromebook that is provided to them, and they have to
do all of their assignments online.
And if I want to be able to check on any of her work, I have to be able to sign into those
accounts also.
So, the world is moving completely digital.
And so, password protection is important.
And you should probably get a password manager if you really want to sort of be safe.
That way, you only have to remember one password.
And the...
The software takes care of the rest and remembers all the rest of your passwords.
Is that a program that you buy or a place, another place you go to on the internet to
come up with that?
Both.
So, you have to go to the website to get the software and then purchase it.
The one that I like right now is LastPass.
And it's...
They taught themselves that the last password you'll ever have to remember.
I'll put a link in the show notes.
Right.
So, if you manage to make it over to gurushow.com and check out the show notes, there'll be
a link there.
But there are several password managers.
There are a lot of password managers out there to help keep you safe.
They remember your passwords for you.
And if you get the paid version, then it remembers all of your passwords across all of your devices.
So that if you happen to have a smartphone or another computer...
No smartphone.
So, if you happen to have another device of any type that you get online with, it will
synchronize those passwords to the other device.
So, you never have to remember a password ever other than the main password for LastPass.
And it'll actually even sign in the websites for you.
So, you don't even have to see the login page anymore.
I have a laptop and it sits right by me when I'm watching TV.
And I looked at it the other day.
I turned it on.
And a message came up that says Microsoft no longer supports...
Not number seven, but it's the one before seven.
Well, you probably had it set for Vista?
Vista.
Yeah.
Vista.
My other computer in my room over here, which I haven't used in a few years, no longer supports
that one that was before that.
XP?
XP, right.
We've got to get you with the times, man.
You're way behind.
Oh, yeah.
I don't...
You know, it's just here because I don't use it.
I'm not...
I use it to maybe play a game or run a language thing or something where I don't have to go
on the internet.
I just stick in the DVD.
All right.
Well, the one that...
If you're not using it online, you're probably fine.
But if you're on the internet at all with something that old...
No, I'm not.
Definitely not.
Even the Vista machine?
Even the Vista machine.
I know.
I was a little bit...
I was surprised they're not supporting Vista.
It's 15 years old.
They're not going to support that.
Oh, it's 15 years old?
Yeah.
Seven was out for 10 years.
Vista was out for three years before that and was in beta for another year and a half
before that.
So it's 15 years old.
Oh, okay.
So you got to get with the times, man.
Come down and see us.
Yeah.
Well, I was forced into Windows 10 because they just kept...
They'd break into whatever I was looking at and tell me, don't miss your opportunity to
get the free Windows 10.
Finally one day I just said, I can't take this anymore, so I did.
Yeah.
They got in trouble for that.
That's pretty much how all 10 users became 10 users.
We got to take a break though.
Sorry about that.
Okay.
Thanks a lot.
Bye-bye.
Well, come down and see us at the shop, 510 East Fort Lowell.
We'll talk to you about your technology and keep you up to date.
We'll be right back with more of the Computer Guru Show right after this.
Thanks for joining us.
Your computer guru, Mike Swanson, is here to help you tame that beast of a machine.
Join the chat right now at gurushow.com or call in.
This is the Computer Guru Show on KVOY, The Voice.
I'm nerdy in the extreme and lighter than sour cream.
I was in a V Club and Glee Club and even the Chess Team.
Only question I ever thought was hard, what do I like, Kirk, or do I like Picard?
Spend every weekend at the Renaissance Fair, got my name on my underwear.
I've seen these trolls, I've seen these trolls, I've seen these trolls, I've seen these
trolls.
Welcome back to the Computer Guru Show, 7902040 if you'd like to be part of the show or you
can join us in the chat, gurushow.com slash chat.
Let's go ahead and talk to Sandy.
Hey, Sandy, how are you?
Hi.
Well, I have a question about password manager and it might sound dumb, but I just want to
make sure I understand it.
Okay.
If I use a password manager, I don't have to know the password, but then I go and visit
my daughter, I won't be able to log on to my account not knowing the password.
It's physically on my computer.
Right?
A physical.
There's a few ways around that and it turns out that they've thought of that.
You have a couple of options.
You can carry around a backup copy or a portable version of your password manager on a memory
stick that you keep in your pocket or something.
Then when you go somewhere else or using a machine that is not yours, you can put that
flash drive in and launch the password manager off of that particular stick.
Super.
Or in a lot of cases, you can just go and log in.
In a lot of cases, as long as you have internet access, you can just sign into your account
and it will allow you to access your passwords.
Super.
Thank you very much.
You're quite welcome.
Okay.
Bye-bye.
Thank you and thanks for calling.
It turns out that security is something that is an important thing.
In fact, it can cost you a little bit of money.
A little bit or a lot of it if you're Marissa Meyer.
So how much money did Marissa Meyer lose?
$54 million.
Marissa Meyer, by the way, is the formerly CEO of Yahoo.
One of her exit contract agreements was that if her performance was good, she would get
$54 million.
But because of that gigantic Yahoo mail breach that happened last year.
Didn't qualify.
Yep.
$54 million no longer in her pocket.
I mean, I'm sure she's not hurting for money, but that would have been nice.
But who doesn't want an extra $54 million?
You know what I mean?
She was that close.
Yeah.
I guess Bill Gates could probably be like, meh.
Yeah.
There's a few people that are just like, eh, $54 million, whatever.
Yeah.
Not a big deal.
Yeah.
But Marissa Meyer is not one of them and I'm sure she's pretty sad.
I'm sure that that will affect her overall retirement plans.
To be fair, she definitely didn't deserve it.
No.
No, she did not.
Just because the scope of that Yahoo breach was so massive.
Yeah.
She handled it and tried to cover it up.
If you write a book about Marissa Meyer's time at Yahoo, I'm pretty sure it would be
called Mismanagement.
Oh, that would be a good one.
I like that one there.
Oh, yeah.
That's a good one.
I'm going to have to patent that or trademark it anyway.
Just go ahead and write the book.
Yeah.
On the first page, it'll just say, I don't know any of this stuff.
I just came up with the title.
Right.
Obviously, there was mismanagement.
The end.
I mean, that pretty much sums it up.
Yeah.
There was a gigantic breach and it caused some problems with the acquisition of Yahoo
Mail by Verizon even.
I mean, when they say gigantic, they mean the biggest data breach that had happened
to that point.
It was like two billion accounts.
Yeah.
That's a lot of data.
I mean, that's impressive in its own route, I guess.
I mean, how much time does it take to actually get the information for two billion
accounts?
I mean, it's not instant.
No.
Even if they were one bit per file.
Right.
That would take a long time.
And nobody noticed that they were in there.
I mean, it's much like the movie production house hack that happened a few years ago and
it turned out that it was an inside job because people started going, wait a minute, there
is hundreds of terabytes of information that are-
Yeah.
At the very least, you'd notice that when your ISP called you and was like, hey, stop
using that much bandwidth.
Right.
Well, I mean, I don't know that the movie houses are going to have the ISP call them,
but-
Yeah.
I mean, it's just, I mean, there's a physics question here, right?
Maybe they smuggled the data out in their blood.
Oh, they could have.
They could have.
In fact, one person.
Yeah.
Like many times over.
So let's talk about DNA for a second here.
It turns out that DNA stores a lot of information.
We talked about DNA being tested as a storage medium about two years ago on the show.
Yeah.
And they didn't really have any hard numbers about how much data they were able to store,
but it turns out that 215 petabytes per gram of DNA.
And so this is coming to light right now because there were researchers who were able to completely
write an entire operating system into-
And a movie.
And a movie and an Amazon gift card and also a computer virus into a DNA sequence and then
recover it and run it.
Oh.
And when they recovered, there was zero errors.
I mean, there's not even zero errors when you just transfer it to your flash drive.
Right.
There's errors when you read it off the hard drive that you use every day.
That's insane that they could pull that with zero errors, that much data.
And so, yeah, they say that the storage capacity for DNA is pretty absurd.
Like you said, 215 petabytes per gram of DNA.
So we did a little napkin math based on the average amount of DNA that a person has in
their body, which I guess equates to about 300 grams in your whole body.
Right.
So you could store something like, what was it?
64 Yottabytes of data.
Yeah.
It's exabytes.
Exabytes.
Yeah.
It is insane amounts of data.
It is more data in one person than exists in entirety anywhere.
Now, I mean, I doubt the read-write speeds are super great for DNA.
Right.
But imagine though that you have some type of secret information, right?
And then it opens up another challenge for security, which is if you're storing important
information within your own DNA, then ...
Yeah.
That brings a whole new meaning to trust fund baby.
Yeah.
Well, but think about it.
Somebody could technically take the glass at the bar and then have access to your information.
Yeah.
I mean, that's true.
You'd have to encrypt it, I guess.
Yeah.
It's going to be an interesting ...
Don't the police already have the right to get your DNA?
No.
That's another one of those weird areas too when it comes to ...
Because they can offer you like a soda in the ... Or is that just the movies?
Well, I mean, if they offer you something, then it's entrapment.
But if you ... They just take it up out of the trash.
If there's just sodas on the table and you just grab one ...
Right.
Then it's not.
There you go.
All right.
Let's take a call here.
Let's talk to Frank.
Hey, Frank.
How are you?
Hey.
Good, guys.
Hey.
I heard you talking about the ...
You were talking earlier about YouTube TV and I'm curious.
How does that work?
I have one of those bundled packages with phone, internet, and direct TV and I'm thinking
I'd like to get out of it pretty soon and that YouTube thing sounds interesting.
Yeah.
It sounds pretty good.
I mean, you have to worry about data caps, of course, depending on your provider.
But $35 a month and being able to watch all kinds of stuff and they allow you to do like
full DVR where you can just watch on demand and you even get the ability to fast forward
which you don't in Sling.
You'll have to check out their channel list for a full list and I'm sure it'll vary depending
on where you are.
Yeah, because we ... I mean, we recently got a smart TV and we tend to watch Netflix through
the TV more than we do any of the cable channels.
Right, which is normal.
Yeah, which ... So I'm thinking that once I'm able to get out of my ... Whatever the
cutoff deal is with the cable, I would prefer to get out of that and try something different.
So just having an internet connection is all you need then to hook into it.
Yep.
Oh, great.
All right.
Okay, thanks a lot.
Well, good luck with that.
I mean, I'm all down ... I'm totally down for people not being on cable.
I mean, if this turns out to be good enough, maybe I should have waited a bit.
Yeah, well, you can take a look at the list.
I can also cancel anytime.
I made sure of that.
Yeah, no contract for you, man.
Correct.
That's not how we roll around.
We don't do contracts.
All right, stick around for more of the Computer Guru Show coming up right after these messages.
790-2040 if you want to get in line to have a conversation with us.
We'll be right back.
.
Guru Show on AM 1030, KVOY The Voice.
Welcome back to the Computer Guru Show.
My name is Mike.
Here to deal with your technology needs and treat you like a person in the process.
That's 790-2040.
That's 520-790-24.
Wait, 2040?
2040, or join us in the chat, gurushow.com slash chat.
You can ask your question there, and we'll answer it on air.
A lot of times, also, if we don't answer the questions on air, Howard's in there as well,
and he's helping people out, too.
I think John's in there, too, right?
Yeah.
You've got mostly the whole crew in there, answering questions away.
I try to get everybody to agree to the uniform guru underscore name, but only me did that.
Right.
I never did.
Yeah.
I am the guru.
Is that what I am?
It's just the computer guru.
Okay.
Well, let's talk to Rick.
Hey, Rick.
How are you?
Hey, I'm doing okay.
Hey, occasionally, I house-sit my son's house, and he's got internet television services
like Roku and Hulu and all that.
Right.
I find it kind of problematical and a little bit of a pain in the ass, but I don't think
it's as good as having satellite or cable.
It depends on what you're looking for, and especially if there's fragmentation, right?
Right.
So if they're using multiple services on different devices.
Right.
Well, you've got about eight different ... You can do Hulu or Roku or this one or that one.
There's about six or eight different choices.
Then I notice that, okay, I'll see a program that's on the menu.
Hey, I'd like to watch that, right?
Well, then a lot of times it'll be like $3.99, $7.99, $15.99.
You know what I'm saying?
In other words, you've got to enter a credit card number right then in order to use it.
This is true.
Now ...
So channel surfing and stuff, I mean, in the past I've had not only cable from a Tucson
cable or whatever, but then I had the Dish Network satellite top package, which was 200
plus channels.
So here's the thing with the Rokus.
Roku and Apple TV both have this fatal flaw, in my opinion, is that they sell you a relatively
cheap device.
They say you can get online and watch whatever you want, but by the way, we're going to microcharge
the heck out of you.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
I mean, in other words, there's many programs where it would say, yeah, you can watch this,
but it's like $7.99.
So here's ...
Key in your credit card number or whatever.
Here's how I deal with it.
I have an Apple ... Or I'm sorry, an Amazon Fire TV, and I have an Amazon Prime account.
With the two things together, I can watch basically any TV show.
I can watch any video or any movie, and it's included in the price of my Amazon Prime account.
Well, that's good.
See, I'm being just a house sitter.
I wasn't ... I didn't have all of those.
Well, this is information you can give to your son then, so he can have a better experience.
Yeah, he probably knows already.
I'm just saying, when I was watching this ...
Well, what I found is a lot of people, they get locked into this idea, right?
They're like, well, I bought this Roku.
It cost me 40 bucks or 60 bucks or whatever, and then they never think, there's probably
something better out there.
It doesn't cost much.
Right?
So, like the Amazon Fire Stick costs $35, and then your Amazon account gives you access
to effectively everything.
Now, Amazon is not to be trifled with when it comes to the number of programs that they
have available to you.
They are ...
They have a lot?
Oh, yeah.
They are Netflix and then some.
It's like if you were to take Netflix and Hulu and stick them together.
They have got everything, and it's all included in the price.
So, it's a lot ...
They have more than like Dish Network?
As far as ... They have basically everything that's on ...
The amount of choices.
Like if you get the top of the line Dish package, they got like 200 plus.
I have never, in my personal experience, I have never asked for a program to be displayed
on my television that was not available.
Okay.
Like the Heroes Channel, which formerly was called the Heroes Channel.
The Heroes Channel is the military channel.
That's one I like to watch a lot.
I don't know.
They definitely have a lot of those kinds of shows on Amazon Prime, because I watch some
of that stuff too.
It might be worth just looking around.
You can go to the Amazon website and check out what they've got available as far as TV.
Yeah, I have to tell them about that, because like I said, when I was taking care of his
place for a week or two, I was both frustrated and a little PO'd about the way that they
had it set up.
I mean, there was a lot of choices, but almost everything.
There was a few things that I was a little bit frustrated about.
I mean, I was a little bit frustrated about the fact that I was not able to get a lot
of the things that were available for free, maybe half a dozen things that were free, and
then the rest was key in your credit card.
You still have to consider, though, that there is a ... He's paying probably nothing per
month other than internet for that, as opposed to what would be involved with a monthly charge
for a satellite or cable.
Right, right, right.
I'm just saying, not carrying a calculator around with me at all times and all that,
I could see where my bill ...
Yeah, I understand.
I was paying like $90 a month for the Capital Nine Dish Network.
At the rate I would watch interesting programs in a month, I would way, way exceed $90 a
month if I were to go ahead and pay for those programs individually.
Yeah.
When it's set up right, a cord cutting service, like I said, when it's set up right can cost
a fraction of that, and you'll have access to nearly everything.
Right.
So everything that I watch, if I were to take a ... If I were to add everything I'd have
that is involved with the system that I use for being able to get everything.
Like I said, I've never run across a program that I did not have access to for the included price.
I pay $80 a year for Amazon Prime, and then I paid about $30 a month for the additional services
that go on some of the back-end stuff of what I use, and then Internet.
And that's it.
Oh, that's pretty good because, I mean, yeah, obviously at $90 a month, you'd be paying a lot of money.
Right.
And you'd be paying $1,200 almost a month.
When we do the get-together in, like, April or whatever, we'll show a demo of how to do it right.
And you guys can come down and check out what cord cutting actually looks like if you do it properly.
But thanks for the call, Rick.
Yeah, I've got a question for you.
Yeah, go ahead.
I've got a question for you.
Yeah, maybe quick, though.
Yeah, I've got an HP executive laptop computer, and I've got the Dragon software.
Oh.
And an inexpensive printer.
I was thinking about putting out a book on my own.
You know, I have an incredible life story.
I was thinking about coming out with my own book and maybe self-publishing it or whatever.
But where is your shop on Fort Lowell?
Because I may have to come over there and get your advice.
510 East Fort Lowell.
It's at 1st and Fort Lowell.
All right.
Thanks, Mike.
All right.
Appreciate the call, Rick.
Thank you very much.
Hey, one more thing.
You are the guru.
Yes, I am.
Thank you very much.
All right.
We're going to take another break, I think.
That's what we're going to do.
I'm going to make Kent push some buttons here.
And when we come back from the break, more Computer Guru at 790-2040.
Thank you.
She would do what you told her how to walk this way.
Walk this way.
She told me to walk this way.
Walk this way.
She said give me a kiss.
Computer troubles? Need some advice? Call in now.
Mike Swanson will be back after these messages.
The Computer Guru Show.
AM 1030, KVOY, The Voice.
Mike Swanson, your computer guru, is just a click away.
Listen and watch at gurushow.com.
This is the Computer Guru Show.
Welcome back to the Computer Guru Show, 7902040.
If you'd like to be part of the show,
or if you'd like to be part of the show,
join us in the chat, gurushow.com.
You can ask your questions there,
and you'll get a multitude of answers.
Probably too many.
You'll be answered so hard, you'll just want to leave.
And then probably people will disagree about the answers
that other people gave, and everyone will just argue.
And then I will settle it.
And start kicking people out of the chat.
So I did want to mention one more thing
in the cord cutting world for a second.
A lot of the complaints that people have
about the whole cord cutting setup
is that it doesn't feel like actual TV,
where you can just flip through channels.
There is a solution for that, though.
There's a software called Pseudo TV Live,
which you can set up on a computer,
or any device, really.
And then you just hook up all of your services to it,
and it makes them all into a pseudo cable device.
So you can just flip through your channels.
There's stuff playing constantly.
It's pretty cool.
Yeah, I guess that I've been doing this for so long now
that I have no nostalgia.
Yeah, I agree.
For any of that stuff.
I mean, so there are circumstances
in which I like to do this.
I like to just have something on in the background.
But in that case, I'll just turn on autoplay, you know,
and I'll just watch a whole show or something.
I guess I'm weird in that respect,
is that a lot of people like to put things on
for background noise.
And the only background noise that I have in my life
is a fan.
And then the rest of it is silence.
I just enjoy silence so much
that I have noise-canceling headphones
that I don't plug into anything.
Well, what you don't have, Mike, is tinnitus.
So...
This is...
This is true.
So, yeah, my dad was told me.
He said that he's developed tinnitus recently.
I've got some of that going on.
It's because you go to those acid rock concerts
that you go to.
Acid rock?
It's what my grandfather used to call anything that was...
anything that was harder than the Beatles.
Right?
Yeah, it's all those acid rock shows that I go to.
Oh, man.
That was...
That just came out of nowhere.
I just remember him saying that one time
and I was just like,
oh, that's the funniest thing I've ever heard.
Speaking of old man stuff, though,
I wanted to kind of...
I wanted to call you out
and see if you're as good as your word on something.
Okay.
The Nokia 3310 is available once again.
That's the famous phone
that could stop a speeding bullet, as they said.
It used to be able to.
Yeah.
So, you were saying a couple weeks ago
that you like the old phones?
I still have a wish
that I could just have a non-smartphone.
So, is this more of like a...
I dream of a world
in which I would be able to do that kind of thing?
Well, it's...
Because of my need for my smartphone
for my data plan that I use all day,
I cannot switch.
However, if I could,
if I did not need that plan anymore,
I would not have a smartphone.
Do you think that you would go
to the new old Nokia phone?
Yeah.
I wish it would have been more like
the old, old Nokia phone.
The new one.
Or like, here's a name
you haven't heard in a while, probably.
Like the old Kyocera phones.
The StarTAC phones?
Yeah.
Remember playing Brick Attack on those things?
Although,
I have to...
I have to admit,
the only thing that made me really happy
about the new Nokia phone,
which is modeled after the old one,
the one that was...
The one that you find...
The only cell phone
that will be found in archaeological digs
is the Nokia 3310
or that whole family of Nokia phones.
I was very happy to know
that the Snake game still works on that.
Yeah, if you weren't playing Snake, man,
just get out of town.
Yeah.
You don't know how to use a phone.
So, this one has a two...
It has a two megapixel camera,
whereas the old phone
had like a two pixel camera, I think.
It had a potato.
They had cameras, right?
Some of these older...
Oh, I'm thinking of the Kyocera ones.
There were cameras on those.
Yeah, Nokia's did not have cameras.
But they were measured in like...
Like I said, just pixels at that point.
They were terrible.
Yeah, they were terrible.
All right, let's fit a call in here
before we run out of show time here.
Hey, Dave, how are you?
Yeah, hi.
Good morning.
Hey, wanted to ask
what you think about
how, if you're going to be a cable cutter
or get away from cable TV,
how do you get your regular TV network stations?
Are you talking about local?
Yeah, local stations.
Now, I can't get over the air.
I'm in a problem area
where there's no reception, whatever.
Many of the official services,
like the upcoming YouTube TV
that's being released here,
will offer...
Yeah, I read that with interest.
They will offer local channels as well.
So there's going to be...
Most of them offer some type of local add-on.
And it's usually an additional charge.
But apparently, from what I understand
with the YouTube TV one,
that they're going to be included
for your local area.
So that'll be interesting.
That's the only one you've heard of so far?
Sling offers it as well, but it's a premium.
You have to buy the extra package.
Yep, Sling TV offers it.
YouTube TV is going to offer it for free.
There's a couple of other services
that historically have offered it.
I know that one of them is in lawsuit entanglement
at the moment,
so they're no longer offering it.
But there were several out there that offer that.
And to me, though,
it's another one of those things
where when I started doing the cord-cutting bit,
there was no option for local channels.
So I've not seen a local channel,
and I've been on a local channel in about a decade.
So I don't really know what that's like,
other than I just go to their website
and watch the videos that they put up.
Yeah, a lot of times, if you're worried about news,
almost every news channel nowadays
slices up their news segments
and throws them on YouTube.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I give them enough already for the internet.
Yeah, well, I mean, it's coming to this.
It's much like cell phones.
We were talking before the show
how voice minutes and text messages
used to be a big...
determining factor on which plan you're going to get.
And now it doesn't really mean anything.
Everything's data.
And it's going to be the same thing when it comes to TV, right?
Because even your TV that you're watching on your cable box,
probably half of it comes directly over data anyway.
It's not real cable anymore anyway.
It's all digital DVR craziness.
Yeah, I mean, your Cox box is essentially
a really fancy Roku at this point.
Right.
It's this mandatory Roku box
that you have to have to watch that service.
And it's specialized for them.
So it's really coming down to the fact that
at some point, you're just going to have a data package
and you're going to do whatever you want with it.
And that's fine.
Interesting you brought up the Roku.
I have a Roku.
And because of that, I can watch news
in like three other cities already, you know,
which I already use.
Right.
And I'm not a fan of the Rokus myself, personally.
I don't like the Rokus.
I mean, I bought one just to check it out.
And I think it's sitting at the shop now.
It is.
We were actually thinking about hooking it up.
And it's one of these things.
It's just like, I don't like the interface.
I definitely don't like the packages involved,
you know, that they include.
And then everything's a micro charge on top of that.
And I don't like that either.
That's why I went with something like the Fire TV,
which I thought was a better deal.
And to me, it feels better.
And so as far as the interface is concerned,
not to mention that I'm not being charged
for every little thing that I do.
Yeah, with the right services,
those local channels aren't an issue.
Right.
They've gotten better, I'll tell you,
on the Roku over the years.
Well, we'll fire up that Roku at the shop
and we'll check it out and I'll give you an update.
Please do.
All right.
Thanks for the call, Dave.
I appreciate it.
Bye.
Well, before the show ends,
I wanted to take a moment to thank Desert Pro Cleaning
for being our Patreon sponsor.
Yeah.
They do a great job.
Did we pay off and send those recordings in yet?
Not yet.
But this way, we will never, ever forget
to do it like we accidentally did a couple of weeks ago.
I'm sorry about that over Desert Pro.
I mean, I forget things.
I'm just here trying to fix people's problems on the air
and I forget to say things like,
hey, thanks for giving us money and supporting the show.
And they've been a big sponsor on Patreon for us
for quite some time now,
so we definitely appreciate them.
Yes.
And they also do really good work
because we use them in our Eastside location
and every time I go there, it looks nice.
It does.
Yeah, so Desert Pro Commercial Cleaning.
I don't know why Mike loves the Eastside more than he does.
He likes the Fort Lowell office,
which could definitely use it, but...
Well, we'll just say that there's a political matter involved
with Fort Lowell.
Ah.
And, you know, there's an agreement
that has already been reached for cleaning of Fort Lowell
and, you know, I can't go messing with that.
That's true.
So, it's politics, man.
You know, what can you say?
Especially family politics.
Yeah, and I shouldn't, you know,
the job gets done very well.
Good.
Good recovery, man.
Yeah.
I'm going to take this part of the podcast out
and then I'm going to send it to my mom.
Or you could not do that.
So, yeah.
You could just take this part of the podcast out, actually.
There we go.
So, yeah, Desert Pro Commercial Cleaners,
you can visit their website.
You can check them out.
It'll be linked in the show notes.
And we really appreciate them supporting us on Patreon.
They do a great job of cleaning Harrison
and it's just lovely.
They're very, very nice people to deal with.
Especially because...
You know, when I get to go blow things up later,
that's in large part thanks to them.
Yeah, and I don't get to, you know,
I don't get to see those guys
other than on the security cameras at night
when they're in there cleaning.
But they seem to be doing a great job.
And every time I go over there,
the place is clean.
So, that's good.
That's what I like.
So, you can be a Patreon sponsor, too.
Yeah, and if you want to be able to help us out,
you can go ahead and support us on Patreon.
Go to gurushow.com
and there's a link, a Patreon link
that you can go to to support us
with as little as a dollar a month.
You find more in your couch cushions.
And if you do that,
if you contribute that one dollar a month,
you will get access to this awesome video
that we've been planning for a while
as well as many others
that we have already started planning
and are going to do.
Because it turns out this stuff's really fun
and we really like doing it.
Right.
The one I'm looking forward to
is the home automation project.
That's going to be a lot of fun.
So, the recording studio is going to get fully automated
so I can walk in the room and, you know,
just do whatever.
Star Trek style.
Yeah.
And then we're going to show you the weaknesses.
We're going to basically hack the system.
See, I'm excited for that part
because this is my interest anyway.
So, go to Patreon.
Go to our website, gurushow.com.
Click the Patreon logo.
Get signed up for a dollar a month
and you will get access to all of this and more.
Right.
And if you're concerned about security,
if you want to make sure
that you're being a little bit safer online,
get yourself involved with some VPN service,
you go to gurushow.com slash VPN
and you can be linked up with TunnelBear.
And that's the VPN service
that we're recommending for everyone to use
to keep yourself just a little bit safer online.
Make sure that you can maintain some anonymity.
You can also visit us at 510 East Fort Lowell
or 64 North Harrison in Tucson.
That way you can help us keep the show on the air
by, I don't know, supporting the business.
Letting us fix your computers and all of that.
Because that's what we do all week.
This is just a hobby on the weekends.
But thanks again for listening to the Computer Guru Show.
Give us a call down at the shop, 304-8300.
And we'll see you next week.
You know, we really enjoy doing this show.
I mean, I've been doing it for, what, nine years now?
So I must be liking it.
But here's the thing.
It costs a lot of money to put this show on.
And you can help us keep this show on the air
for as little as a dollar a month.
All you've got to do is go to gurushow.com
and click on the Patreon link.
And from there, you can see that we have
all kinds of rewards for Patreon members.
You also get exclusive access to content
that is made strictly for Patreon members.
We get to blow up Furbies, automate homes,
and put fun tech videos
on.
We're here to help you learn.
And maybe you can help us keep that going
by supporting us on Patreon.