Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: So did you ever think we'd be talking about fires in South Carolina, like California, man?
[00:00:04] Speaker B: No, I didn't. And it's, it's, it's kind of ugly out there, isn't it?
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it is smoky and fairly close to me.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:11] Speaker A: So what is it if I get an emergency alert and run out the door, you know what happened?
[00:00:29] Speaker B: So we got a action packed list today of things to talk about. But we want to start out with a subject that was brought to us by a listener and who asked us to talk about robot vacuums and how to, you know, what kind of recommendations we have and what to consider when we're doing it. And I know Bobby, you've done a lot of research on that. Do you want to tell us what you got?
[00:00:50] Speaker A: I actually have done a lot of research beforehand. In my great flood house flood of a couple of years ago, I lost my robot vacuum and it was probably a good thing because I just bought the quickest and the cheapest thing I could find. So I set out to do it right this time. So I actually did a little bit of study that was a couple years ago and I just reminded myself with a couple of AI assists on where you should go. And there's a lot of, there's a lot to it. As a matter of fact, there's a lot to it. If you're trying to, trying to buy something like this for a senior, some or someone taking care of a kid, a loved one, the first thing you should be aware of is that these things can get complicated. So you want something easy to use, you want to make sure it actually cleans. So you know, just because it does all these nice features and doesn't clean up the spot you want, then that's not really what you want to call a vacuum thing. Most of them have very user friendly apps that you can use for remote control. And that's kind of a standard feature now. So I have sort of a top five that I'll kind of list out. They're linked, they're kind of ranked in a way that kind of emphasizes the idea that we're, we're not be caretakers looking for something for our seniors that, that we're taking care of. So I'll kind of list out. There's a kind of a top, the top 10 names, the actual and we'll have more information in the show notes about this. But it kind of tells you what the obstacle is, what this has in it that's kind of nice. So here are the ones that I have listed top five. The first one is the iRobot the Romba J7 Plus.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: It's kind of OG in the. In the robot.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: It is kind of that one and it's been around for a while but. But it has really good features. It's relatively well priced. It has AI obstacle detection in it. So it avoids cords and pets and all kinds of things like that. Maybe around the house. It's self cleaning based and that's usually one of the things you look for too. Something that will clean itself.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: That's cool.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: No need to empty it up for almost 60 days.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: Then you have an iRobot app that's very easy to use. Scheduling, mapping, voice control is built in it. It works with Alexa and Google Assistant so there's a lot of nice features there. The second one on the list is the Robot Rock Q7 Max plus this one I haven't heard a whole lot about but it has a nice combination in it. It's actually a vacuum and a mop. So it can actually do two things. So vacuuming, cleaning up the dust. But this one actually mops your floors. Strong suction. When I say strong suction, there's a rating for that. It's 4200 pa.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: Right.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: For carpets and hard floors. Has a rock up. The Roborock app has customer cleaning and then room mapping. Not as easy as the Roomba but still very functional. Number three on this list and I'm already apologize for some of the pronunciations. I have no idea how they pronounce some of these words. But the Efly Robot Vac X hybrid, that's the best budget one that's out there. It's got a very nice pricing in it, smart features in it. It has laser navigation and mapping built in. Decent suction mopping. Not as good as the Roomba Rock, but pretty good. And the Efly app is adequate. It's probably the worst of the three.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: Gotcha.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: The one I have actually it's a version up from what I have. I have a shark matrix. This is a Shark AI Ultra. Two in one. Best for easy setup and maintenance. And I'll agree with that. It was very easy to set up. Self cleaning. Got a brush roll, multi service for cleaning or different. It does have a mop feature but you have to buy it separately. The SharkClean app is actually pretty good. It's got some nice features in it if you use it to map the first time you do it. And all of these things have to map your house before they go to do it. It's probably as accurate as I've seen. It's certainly better than the one, the first one I got. So I really think if you're looking for easy setup and you're willing to pay for it, sharks are good.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: Hey, jump in there and say too that I'm a shark owner too. We have a. I'm trying to remember the, the. It's one of the shark AI series and it has, you know, laser navigation and I think it has a little lidar and that kind of thing. It's not one of the fancier ones. It doesn't have the ones that we own. Doesn't have a self cleaning base. You know, you have to, you have to actually pop the little, little container out every time after it's done and empty it. But I agree with you on the setup and the app. It's, it's really easy to set up and let it go map the house. And I like how you can separate the house out into different rooms or.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: Different rooms so you can refer to it by room. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: We use ours a lot to clean the front two rooms in the hall a little bit more than the rest of the house. So I like to, you know, when I'm, when I'm leaving the house sometimes I'll just.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: It's kind of really neat feature that it does spot cleaning too. So you can say on the map I want this spot cleaned and it will go to that spot on the map. I haven't seen the other apps do that, but this one, sharks are pretty good at that.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: It is pretty slick. And compared to the last robot robot vacuum I owned was probably 15 or 20 years ago. It was one of the original Roombas, the red one that, you know, it was one that's fresh out of the gate. I was an early adopter. It was great for what it was. But there I think, you know, this thing far surpasses it and it's probably less money than it was back then originally. But yeah, so I'll quit interrupting. Keep on going what else is on.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: And then the rounded out is the Echovac Deebot T10 plus it is the best for voice control and large houses. So it's self cleaning for up to 60 days. It's got a voice assistant built into it. No need for Alexa or Google. That may be a feature or a deficit depending on what you're looking at. If you have Alexa already, you might want it to integrate with that. But if you don't have anything at all, this was nice. It has a very nice app, a lot of scheduling features built into it, a lot of voice control features into it. So it's really. I think there's. Of the five you have, you can cover just about any need you want. You may want to look at it for different ones. I went with easy setup and it's a little expensive. Of course the iRobot's a little bit expensive too. So we have a chart that has pros and cons set up what is best for each of the robots in it. And actually I named five. But yes, there actually is a longer list that we put in and has a few more on it so you go into and you can tell where you can get them from. So thanks to our listeners for suggesting it. So I went ahead and just made a made a robot that's awesome and.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: We'Ll put that in the show notes and it sounds like, you know, just from our experience, we're SHARK fans. I've had great luck with Shark and I'd recommend it to anybody. So there you go.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: By the way, there are really good guides out there from Consumer Reports and a few other places that if you really want to get into the details of it and pick something you can do that. I always recommend Consumer Reports on that because I think they have the best non biased guides out there.
Key features you want to look for again make sure you have self emptying condo dust bins, smart navigation boards, obstacles. So on the voice assistant capability make sure you have an easy to use app and then make sure your suction strong that it can actually clean.
[00:07:50] Speaker B: I think that's good advice all around. All right, cool. So the next thing that we'd like to talk about today is cellular plans. And the reason I'm going here is I've been looking, I've been talking with my dad a good bit about cellular plans and cellular reception. We're we with our carrier at and T for a long time and you know my house, it's decent but it hasn't been amazing lately and I'm thinking about changing a carrier. Well, my dad's phone is on our family plan and I've noticed lately that ATT reception in his house is terrible. It's just bad all around and I've been looking into some of the other carriers to try to find him a carrier that gives him better reception in his house. Yeah, he's been on our plane for a long time just because of ease of use and it was easy to just roll him in and give him a Better deal. But we're getting to the point now where the reception is so bad that we really need to move him over to a carrier where he's got a better signal. So that got me looking into something. I'd been seeing these, these random carriers out there. Besides the big three, you know, the big three I think you'd like to refer to as at. And T is a big one. T Mobile is a monster one in Verizon in the US Those, those are the three. The three big ones. And I did some digging and wondered about, well, what about these other carriers out there that you see about, like Mint Mobile and US Cellular, Visible, Google, Fi, you know, a bunch of those things. Yeah, I've seen those all over. Cricket was another one. There's Consumer cellular, I think there's Straight Talk Wireless, there's, you know, Boost Mobile. There's a ton of these things. So when I did a little digging to find out what they were all about and how they could offer good prices, I learned a lot of information and I just wanted to share some of it with, with you because I'm getting ready to probably in the next week move my dad's plan over to one of these MVNOs that maybe it will serve him better and actually save us a lot of money. So what is an mvno? An MVNO is a mobile virtual Network operator. So I'm going to give you the spiel on this. So what it is is, I know mobile Virtual Network operator is a mouthful, but what it really means is these companies don't own the cell towers. They rent space from the big guys, Verizon, AT&T and T mob. And what it gets you is the same coverage without the bloated prices that these big carriers hit you with. So today I want to look at five of these big MVNOs and kind of give you some ideas about what they offer and what kind of pricing we're talking about. So we're going to talk about Mint Mobile. We're going to talk about Spectrum Mobile, Visible, Google Fi and Cricket Wireless. There's several others of these and we'll include more information in our show notes about them. Each one of these uses a different major network. And there's. Each of them kind of have their own little twist to them. So first, let's talk about Mint Mobile. If anybody out there knows who Ryan Reynolds is, you've probably seen a commercial with him talking about Mint Mobile. He's one of the owners, but he's also their spokesperson. So Mint Mobile runs on T Mobile's network. It's kind of, it's considered the darling of the budget phone world. And what, what it gets you is for, for unlimited talk, unlimited text, and 5 gigabytes of data a month, you can, you can pay just 15 bucks a month. Isn't that crazy? So crazy. If you want unlimited, it's $30 a month. So I know my, my plans are like in their at least higher than that right now with @t. And I mean, it's been a good carrier, but I had to wonder about it. So most of these plans, they give you a trial period where you can go try the thing out. So I actually tried out Mint Mobile. I tried it out in my house and I tried it out at my dad's house for a little while and they actually both work really well. There I was, it was kind of shocked my dad didn't have.
[00:11:47] Speaker A: Just say something real quick. Yeah, most people notice, maybe some don't.
Cellular coverage can vary everywhere.
So you can be literally a mile away from somebody else and have a completely different availability rating. And so I think what's really cool about what you did is those trials are a great way to find out for sure.
You can listen to the guy in the store, you can look at a map, you can hear what people say. And I'm talking about us too, but where the rubber meets the road is whether it works for you and your house. And so the trials are a really cool way to do that. And I really recommend to people that they try things out first.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: So stick with us for a little bit and I'll tell you how the free trials actually work and how I went about that. So maybe that'll help you out again. Mint mobile, they're $15 a month for 5GB or $30 a month for, for everything.
The thing about it is, is though is what they do is to get that price, you have to do some prepayment. If you decide you want the $30 a month plan, it's cheapest for you. If you pay a year in advance. So you can just actually make one payment. You got a year of coverage. You don't have to worry about it. There's no overages. There's. You don't get multiple bills or any of that kind of stuff. They keep your card number on file. You will get. At the end of the year, you'll get a, you'll get a message from them several weeks in advance saying, hey, this is going to renew if you don't tell us not to do that. And you'll get another year renewed the next time as you go along. So straight up, it's great for seniors who mostly text and call, maybe use WI fi at home and they don't mind paying upfront to save money. And you know, if you're, if you're like my dad, like I went back and looked at my AT and T bills over the last year and got an average of how much data he uses. You wouldn't believe it. It's less than a gigabyte a month. And he's on our unlimited plan. That's a lot of wasted data and a lot of wasted money for what he actually uses it for. So I think that's kind of cool. They Mint Mobile uses T Mobile's top network. It's a solid network and during the free trial there, I didn't have any trouble with it at all. So. Okay, that's that one. So another one, my brother actually has just moved to this one recently. Spectrum Mobile. If you were a Spectrum customer for Internet or for cable tv, you have the option to become a Spectrum Mobile member for their reduced prices. I guess. So it's, it's. The Spectrum Mobile deal is only available to people who are Spectrum customers. They use the Verizon network, which is pretty solid. It, honestly it's a rock solid network. And in fact my dad's area where he lives, his house, he gets better Verizon coverage than he does at and T or T Mobile. So Spectrum is a contender for Medtech because he's actually a Spectrum customer for his, for his Internet and his tv. So that, that was an interesting. So what you get there is they offer a couple of plans, have a unlimited talk and text and one gigabyte a month for 14 bucks a month. Okay, that would probably work for him, but he's skating around that 1 gigabyte thing. If I want to. I don't want him to be out in the field somewhere, you know, somewhere visiting somebody and he brings up his Apple maps and he needs to download some data and all of a sudden he can't because he's going over his, over his limit. I don't want that to happen. So the other option that they have is a 2999 per month plan that is unlimited talk, text and data. So it's very similar to unlimited like you get with Mint Mobile, but it uses the Verizon network instead of T Mobile's network. So if you're mostly in areas that have better Verizon coverage, that might out for you. It's, it's not the cheapest but it is very reliable. So it's great for folks who have already got spectrum Internet and they don't want to know. They, they want really a no fuss phone plan with excellent coverage. So straight up it, it's still a monthly thing. It just gets tacked onto your spectrum bill and you, you go with that.
[00:15:59] Speaker A: So, so you can pay that monthly whereas at the other one you have to pay it yearly.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: Right? You're right. I think Mint Mobile don't really have a yearly. You can pay it quarterly if you want to but, but they don't go month. The more you buy at a time the better deal you get with, with, with excuse me, with Mint Mobile. But yeah, this one's just straight up monthly. You don't have to do it up front. That is pretty cool. Now this one, I don't know a lot about this one but I know some folks who have this one and it piqued my interest. It's called Google Fi. It's, it's made by, by Google obviously and it's run by them. It's considered a little more on the techie side but it's packed with a lot of smart features. It runs on the T mobile network and it, it says it's also on the US cellular network and it automatically switches for whoever's got the best signal in the area you're in. They have a flexible plan that is 20 bucks a month plus $10 per gig per month. So if you use 1 gigabyte of data it's going to cost you 30 bucks a month. All right, that seems kind of high to me. That's just me. But they offer an unlimited plan starting around 50 bucks a month. So you know there's, there, there's some trade off there if you're, if you're, especially if you're an Android user. I think these are a no brainer. I think that works really well with their, with their Google produced devices. So you know, something to think about. You also get international calling and spam protection are built into it. Again, I don't have a lot of experience with that but I know a few people who do it and love it. So it's great for tech savvy users or family caregivers managing a parent's phone remotely. There's tons of control, there's a clean app and there's reliable service for this thing. All right, let's talk about Cricket Wireless. This is one of the few out here that are run on AT&T's network. It's solid if you're in a spot that AT&T is got great coverage. It's owned by AT&T actually. So their most popular plan is like $55 a month for unlimited everything. And that includes 15 gigabytes of hotspot and hotspot data and access to ATT's 5G. Now that sounds pretty cool. But all the other ones all have access to 5G as well. They all have hotspot allowances. The thing that Cricket throws in there for AT&T is you also get a subscription to HBO Max is included with it. So if you're, you know, if you're into that, if you're into a streaming thing, that might be a good deal for you or if you're, you know, your parent or your loved one is, who does. It might be something that they, it's an extra perk for them if they want that. So here's the bottom line. If you're, if you're paying 70, $80 a month for self service, you might want to think about one of these. It could save you a lot of bucks. All these MVNOs, they offer reliable coverage. They have way lower prices. There's no long term contracts. The stuff that you just, you know, you just re up them as you need to and if you're helping a loved one manage their bills or trying to simplify their bills, switching to one of these might be a smart budget friendly move.
The thing is just check your, check your coverage map and as we talked about earlier, all of them have these free trials. You just have to really do a, do a Google search for the name of the carrier and free trial and it'll take you to a page for that almost every time.
What I did with the Mint Mobile trial is really interesting. If you have a, I think I like a fairly recent phone. In a case of iPhones, like Anything since like iPhone 12, you can do this. You can download the Mint mobile app. You put in just a little information about what area you're in. And what they'll do is they will create what's called an esim. It's like, it's like the SIM chip that's in everybody's phone or used to be in everybody's phone. Well, the ESIM is an electronic version of that and they can stick that on your, on your phone remotely. And what it does is gives you another telephone number that your, your phone will ring to or that you can, you can, you can go out on. So if what I did with that trial was, is That I had. I kept my normal number, I kept my normal AT&T plan, but I had this extra number that got shoved onto my phone that I could use to try Mint Mobile's coverage and their network. And it was pretty slick. You could decide which phone number you wanted to dial out on. You had a telephone number that people could call you on that would come over that network. It was a great way to test it out. And I recommend that if you're going to try this, do the free trial first with whatever carrier you're looking at. Make sure it works good in all the areas that you're going to be in. And if it works out, then they have an easy way to port your number over to their network so that you become one of their customers instead of your older.
[00:20:35] Speaker A: Two things. How long were those trials?
[00:20:37] Speaker B: Okay, it varies. The Mint mobile one was seven days. Visible wireless it's around 15 days. Some of the other ones I haven't checked. I think spectrum is something like 15 days. Even one of the big carriers have these pre trials. I just happened to notice that T mobile has a 30 day trial that you can do this with. So you know, they all want you to check it out and make sure it's cool for you before you come there. So something to think about.
[00:21:03] Speaker A: The other thing I want to mention is that sometimes the discount carries are a great option. You should definitely look at them, but sometimes you have the answer right in front of you.
I know that most of us are on plans that will carry multiple lines. So if you and your wife are on one, adding your mother or your father may not be a hard thing at all. And then you're taking the management away from them completely and now you're doing it for them. So consider that an option as well. And then there are plans for people of a certain age. So if you're 55 and older, they have a plan for you probably that will save you some money. So you may be able to do it without even doing anything. So just look into those options as well. I know we're talking about discount plans, but there are also options with the big carries that you want to look into.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: I think that's great advice. And I'll tell you this just to kind of be a little open here. The reason I'm doing it so my wife and I both have iPhones, we both have Apple watches with cellular plans on those Apple watches and we all have that rolled up into one family plan of AT&T. So my dad and my mom also were part of my family plan. My mom obviously has passed away. We don't have her line anymore, but my dad's still there. But because Kay and I were having trouble with our AT&T plan and we wanted to move to a carrier where we had better signal, what I had to do was, is move him first because we wanted to make sure that he got a better signal too and that we didn't want to have to coordinate everything all together at the same time. So actually this week we're going to move him over to a Verizon based MVNO where he'll get a better signal in his house. And then once that's done, he and I will probably go and move to one of the other carriers where we get a better signal here at our house. The other one thing I did want to bring up too to remind folks though is check with the MVNO to make sure that they, they can handle all the things that you have techno technologically.
[00:22:57] Speaker A: So you're talking about smartphones, smart watch.
[00:23:00] Speaker B: Or something more than anything. Yep. The one that I ran into, Mint Mobile is awesome, but they don't support cellular plans on smartwatches. So, you know, if that may be a thing for you, it may not be a thing for you, but it's something to pay attention to if you're going to change one of these. Make sure that they can handle all the things when, when you get there.
[00:23:20] Speaker A: All right, cool idea. You have to have me thinking about my situation. I didn't realize that all the information about the spectrum option, so that's something to remind myself of.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: Yeah, something to look into for sure. So I think you're going to talk to us a little bit more about today about screen sharing because you've run into some situations where you, you really need to take over some folks screens from a distance.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: So this is a lot of options.
[00:23:43] Speaker A: 3/4 of the way through the problem. But I think I've learned some things. And you know what? First let me set the mood.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:23:51] Speaker A: Because we've all been on the call, on the phone call, where your loved one calls and says, I can't do this. And you go, okay, that's simple. We can do that in a few minutes. And two hours later you're still on the phone having a conversation about how to get them to move the phone or take a picture, reset the printer or whatever. Lots of things that you learn or go into the bank account or check the webpage or get on a zoom call. I can name a lot of what you really need to do. If you're in that world where you're on a phone describing to someone what to do and how to move the mouse, screen sharing is your savior and you need to go find it, believe me. So we both, my wife and I have both realized that this is something we must have and there has been sort of, you know, a reigning champion for a while and it's probably still a good choice. I think it is actually a great choice on how you do this. So first of all, there's a lot of things out there that I want kind of name you can do this with Zoom. Like we're on Zoom right now and on Zoom very on it. You can share a screen on Zoom and if your loved one is good at Zoom, maybe that's a good option. There's also teams, which is kind of workish and you know, corporate like thing, but it has features and a lot of those features are built into the free versions of Microsoft apps that are out there. Right there's Google Meets wonderful product, doesn't have a screen sharing app, but does allow you to see things a little bit better. But there are two reigning champs right now. TeamViewer has been out there for a long time and has a free version. And then you can pay for TeamViewer out there and spend a lot of money. And corporate people who are doing support on their, on their, people who are remote want to spend that money so they can maintain control. It has a lot of features in it that are really built for that. But they were kind enough to say, you know what, if you're a person with one or two connections and you're just trying to help somebody with support, we're going to dumb down our version and give you a free version of it that you could just download and use. And it has been our mainstay for a long time. Tried and true cross platform doesn't do mobile features are in the one you pay for and it's been really our good one. Now the problem with TeamViewer has always been is sometimes they think, hey, you're not a free guy, you're a corporate guy trying to get over and it'll do something to kind of mess you up, not let you in. And of course those are the times when you really need to get into something.
[00:26:12] Speaker B: So no doubt.
[00:26:14] Speaker A: Yes. So there is a new contender that I want to talk to you a little bit about. It's called anydesk.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: Anydesk.
[00:26:19] Speaker A: And when Anydesk does, it runs on Mac Windows, chrome os and iOS. It is lightweight, fast and access. It has a free version with limited features. You can pay for a version and it's not crazy. TeamViewer wants you to pay $200 a month to get the full version of it. That's just not in people's loan. But the free version of any desk is less than $15 a month. That's actually not bad. Yeah, especially depending on it. I actually, let's be fair to TeamViewer. I think their tier starts at 20, a little less than $25 a month. So $10 difference.
It has very nice features in it. One of the cool things about it is it runs on iOS and that means you can have your phone and do a remote connection to your loved one's PC or Mac. Now if you have a tiny phone, still ain't all that great, but the fact that you can even do it and if you have an iPad, it might be even workable. So I want to put that out as one of the options out there because it looks like that's a real good option.
Very quickly we have a chart I'm going to put in the show notes that list all of the options that I've found, everything from Zoom all the way down to Mac screen sharing and some of the differences that you have in it. Yes, you can do this on Chrome. Yes, you can do this with Chromebooks. So there are a lot of good options out there to look at and many of them are free. Matter of fact, the one thing that I have on all these products is there is a free option for all of it. So look at the chart, see what you think. Let me give you a couple examples. So if you're doing Google's meets Pro is free. No installation works on a browser. No remote control. All you can do is look. So you still have to guide your loved one through.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: Gotcha.
[00:28:09] Speaker A: So depending on what you need, that might be okay. They might be okay to tell you as long as you can see it. Maybe you can help them with it. But if you need to take control, then you have to use something like any desk or teamviewer to do that kind of thing. There are free versions built into the os. They have some limitations with them. Of course, if you're on a PC trying to control a Mac, then Mac screen sharing ain't gonna work for you. But there are other ways to do that. So look at their list, see what you think. And I think for most people, AnyDesk and TeamViewer will be great choices.
[00:28:39] Speaker B: Cool, that sounds like really good options. I know A couple other small things along those lines like Chrome Remote Desktop is one of those also.
And I've been using a product for years that honestly I think I'm paying way too much for. But it's one of those that I put in place a long time ago. My particular loved one who is on the other end is used to us having it there, so I didn't want to change it. So I'm still paying for it. But it was a log me in Remote Desktop was pretty. It's been solid.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: I used to use LogMeIn but what I've seen with LogMeIn is that they changed their pricing configuration a little bit. So it's a little bit more than it used to and it's not as full function. So if you're on iOS. Right.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: Right.
[00:29:19] Speaker A: It doesn't have that.
[00:29:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So it's. It's one of those things that, you know, just the only reason I haven't changed it is because. Because she's used to it and it's just one of those things. So most of these are the. Most of these things that they have to do something on the far end to say yes, I need to. I'm going to allow you to come in and take over my skill. Yes.
[00:29:36] Speaker A: So the, the good thing about this, they're all built on something called vnc, which is Virtual Node Control, which is a Unix kind of thing from long ago that they're built on a protocol for this. So you don't want. So the good thing about this is they take some setup sometimes these. And what these applications do is try to ease you through that. TeamViewer is very good at that. AnyDesk is very good at that. Some of the other ones kind of leave you on your own. So if you're trying to do this with Mac, yes, there are easy ways to connect, but setting it up is not always as simple as it could. So you go to Apple support and say how do I set up remote viewing or screen sharing? And it'll walk you through it. So a little more effort on your part to get to that level as far as, as far as, you know, the downloading team viewer and it walks you through with a panel that tells you what to click on. So there's a lot of cool things there, just general screen saving kind of things. Google Google Meets is free and gives you the viewing and no cost. But if you want real remote control, it's any desk and probably some of the quick start I assistants out there depending on what you want. So TeamViewer has a quick assist for someone. You might want to install that on your loved one's machine so they can give you a number. And you do want some control here. So if you're used to the user administration and permissions, say on a UX machine or even a Windows machine, then you'll probably get through these pretty quickly. If you're not, you might want to use some of the things that guide you through it.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: Cool. Well, I think that's a lot of good, good advice and that a lot of folks will get some, some help out of that.
[00:31:05] Speaker A: I'm going to put in our show notes too. Something really specific on any desk because it's the new kid on the block, but it really has some nice things. I was impressed by it. So I came in thinking that TeamViewer was going to be the thing I choose. And I'm actually at the point now where I'm considering switching over what I'm doing with TeamViewer to any desk because it gives me the iOS stuff.
[00:31:24] Speaker B: Wow, that's pretty strong. Awesome. Good deal. Okay, well, thanks for that. So I've got one other small cell phone related thing actually this particular iPhone tip. So lately I've been talking to my dad and again, my dad has terrible reception right now. And usually when I'm talking to him, he'll be walking around his house and, and I know his kitchen in particular, he has terrible reception. Invariably he will end up in the kitchen while we're talking. At some point in time in the ends, the beginnings and ends of his sentences would get clipped and I had the hardest time doing it. So lately what I have been doing with him since we both have iPhones and this is just an iPhone to iPhone thing, is that he'll. I'll. If it gets to be a bad conversation like that, I'll say, dad, tell you what, let me call you back in just a second. I'm going to call you back in a different way. And what I do is there's a, there's a, I use FaceTime and you know, most people think of FaceTime is it's actually video face to face and you want, you want to, you want to see the other person. But there's kind of a hidden feature in there a lot of people don't know about called FaceTime audio. And if you go into a person's contact information in the iPhone, you can, you have the option of going down and you can see, you'll see FaceTime. You can click on FaceTime and it'll ask you do you want to do video or audio? If you do audio, it's just like a phone call except it is super clear. It is. I mean it's amazing quality. The difference is, is it's all digital from. From your phone to the other person's phone. It's completely digital and it is clear as a bell and just crisp. The difference is, like I said, it's all digital. A regular cell phone call, when you call your. Your phone picks your voice up as digital and it does some processing on it, but it turns it into an analog radio signal to send it to the cell towers where it gets jumped around those networks, maybe crosses a couple other networks and then goes through another analog radio signal to the other person's phone. So that all kinds of potential for interference and bad quality digital.
[00:33:22] Speaker A: There's something that a lot of people don't know about cell phone kinds of perceptions like that. It's called quality of service. So as they're trying to. They're not working on the Christmas of what you're saying. They're trying to get the timing of what you're saying in line. So, so, so you make a sacrifice on a cell phone like that. It doesn't. That may not be as clear as what you can do with, with FaceTime audio. I use it all the time too, man. It's really cool.
[00:33:47] Speaker B: Excellent point. And lately I even went as far to change on my, my, my phone. I have a favorite section in my phone. You know, the people I talk to the most. And I went in and I erased my dad's name from that. And then I went back and I re added him. And when you re add him at a person to a face to a favorite, it'll ask you how you want to talk to him. How do you want to call him? And I went down and I picked FaceTime audio. So now every time I call my dad, it's over FaceTime audio. And the next time I see him, when I get to get a hold of his phone, you change. I'm going to, I'm going to change his phone and erase my contact out of his favorites and put it back where when he calls me, it's always FaceTime audio when he calls me. And neither one of us get aggravated. It's. We get crystal clear reception. It's all good.
[00:34:30] Speaker A: So I think now the caveat with that is if you got to be on your wi fi sometimes or, or at least have a really good signal because you can have trouble with that. But most of the Time. You are so right.
[00:34:42] Speaker B: In today's world, it uses data. So if you're on one of those spectrum mobile one megabyte, I mean one, one gigabyte per month plants, you may have to think about it. But you know, like Bobby said though, if you are on WI fi, and in his case he is, he has WI fi in his house, it will force that FaceTime call over, over WI Fi. So, you know, there's, there's, there's a little, there's some technical glitches. Not glitches really, but technical specifics in there. Most people won't have to worry about them, especially if you're on a. An unlimited plan. So I highly recommend FaceTime audio. The quality is great and if you know the person on the other side's got an iPhone, there's no reason not to call them that way. It'll freak him out the first time because I think it looks a little different when the call comes in or it makes sound a little different. Yep, yep. So. But other than that, it's all cool. So he's used to it. He seems to love it now. So I'm gonna try to fix it on his side where he always calls me that way. And then we're, we're never too much fuzzy about it. So there we go. So that's all all I've got today with the exception of. Just wanted to ask, how's your mom?
[00:35:41] Speaker A: She's doing okay. She went to Macon, Georgia and saw a loved one. We. He celebrated her life. She passed away, but she got to see family and I got the best picture of her so happy among all her family. So I, you know, that was really cool. One of these days we're going to have to do a thing about hotels and what we can do about. How do you create a experience with your loved one if they're used to being in the house? And I have some recommendations for that.
[00:36:06] Speaker B: So I'll save for later upcoming episode. So our last episode, we did talk about doing road trips with, with our loved ones. Anything about the road trip that was, that was out of the ordinary or did you surprise any surprises?
[00:36:22] Speaker A: Well, let me tell you, the difference between Google Maps and Apple Maps became apparent in lots of places for the good and for the bad.
And it all depends on whether the Apple truck or the Google truck got to the place where you talked about. One of the things we dealt with was the fact that we dealt with Hurricane Helene a while back. There are roads and things that are not there anymore.
[00:36:45] Speaker B: Right.
[00:36:45] Speaker A: So when you get to them. The Apple Map said, nope, that's blocked. And the Google Maps said, nah, you can go right through. And we were like, okay, the truck ain't been there yet. So if you're in that kind of situation with that, you know, make sure you're flexible and that you pay attention because sometimes you can be led astray. And then there was a couple of times where Apple Maps sent us in all kinds of directions, and Google Map was like, just turn over here.
So one of the things that we do is that she loves Google Maps. I am an Apple Maps zealot. And so we have both running, so they kind of tell us one way or the other.
So there were some funny moments when we went, Apple says to turn right here. Oh, that's just a curve in the road. Oh, I get it. So, you know, there's stuff like that.
[00:37:28] Speaker B: You know, my wife and I do the same thing. She's a Google Maps person and I'm an Apple Maps person.
[00:37:31] Speaker A: I didn't know they'll probably get together. I like mine because Apple watch actually tells me on my watch it's time to turn.
[00:37:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I actually love that a lot. And I've heard that Google Maps have added that recently. But I know it works on the Apple Maps thing. It just taps you on the wrist and says, hey, one's coming up. And it has a tap for right versus left. So you get used to that.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: Yeah, they do that too. It's actually cool. And my mind has actually picked up on it. So pretty slick.
[00:37:57] Speaker B: Pretty slick.
[00:37:58] Speaker A: Well, this feels to me like we had a bunch of guides and the stuff that show people and you know, if you, if you like this kind of stuff, then you need to like us and then you need to write a review and you need to subscribe.
[00:38:09] Speaker B: Because we could always okay those five star reviews on Apple podcast on Spotify too. They help big time and we always appreciate the feedback. We appreciate your ideas about what you like for us to cover and want to hear more of it if you could take the time.
[00:38:25] Speaker A: Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I know. Do you have any news about our growth? Anything that puts us out there? Any strange places?
[00:38:34] Speaker B: Not lately, but you know, I think it's mostly the. The old favorites here lately. I haven't seen any new cities, but, you know, every once in a while we get. Somebody will pop in there.
[00:38:44] Speaker A: Every once in a while I want to do Russian. You're an astrodon or some whatever. So I know we had somebody in Russia was listening to us.
[00:38:51] Speaker B: Yeah, we did. We had a Russia. We had. I think recently about the only international that we've had license has been Canada. We had a few folks from Ottawa, Canada, who popped in. So that. That's kind of nice. And. And then we. I do get random ones from around the states that I haven't seen before. You know, like Evansville, Indiana, a couple of weeks back.
[00:39:08] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:39:08] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:39:08] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:39:09] Speaker B: Hi, Evansville. It's good to see you guys. Glad you're listening to us. So spread it around, if you would. That'd be awesome. I think Chicago's still high up in the. In the rankings. Few people in Pennsylvania, Colorado, Virginia. I think there's a New Jersey in New York. You know, it's. It's all over the board. Some Florida, wherever, but you know me, really nice.
[00:39:28] Speaker A: Growing the community is what we want.
[00:39:30] Speaker B: Somebody in every one of our. Every one of the states, so that'd be that.
[00:39:33] Speaker A: Wow. That's even good.
[00:39:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.
All right, well, thanks, everybody, for taking your time and hanging out with us for a little while, and we'll see you in a couple of weeks.
[00:39:44] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:39:45] Speaker B: Take care, y'all.
[00:39:46] Speaker A: By here.
