Amazon's Voice Assistant gets a major AI upgrade. It's the end of an era as Microsoft retires Skype. I'll tell you when it's going away. There's a much easier way to remove your personal details from Google, like your phone number and address. I'll tell you how. Plus your tech questions answered. What's going on. I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich on Tech. This is the show where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's also the place where I answer your questions about technology. I believe that tech should be interesting, useful, and fun. Let's open up those phone lines at T triple eight Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Give me a call. If you have a question about technology, you need a recommendation, you're trying to figure out how to do something, whatever it is, I will try to help you out. Email is also an option. Just go to rich on Tech dot tv and hit contact guests. This week, Mike Prospero from Tom's Guide is going to join to talk all things. Oh, I'm gonna say the word already Alexa plus watch out smart speakers. Amazon's big AI upgrade. I'll tell you he'll tell you what's new, what's improved, and is it worth it? And then later in the show, Chris Gold of Geeks on Tour, we'll share expert tips on making the most of Google Photos. You know, I talk about that program a lot, so Chris will join. She is an expert in all things Google Photos. Is going to be a great interview there. Okay, Now, fair warning, if you have an Amazon Echo smart device nearby, you might want to press that mute button. I'm going to be saying the A word a lot.

Amazon's Voice Assistant gets a major AI upgrade. It's the end of an era as Microsoft retires Skype. I'll tell you when it's going away. There's a much easier way to remove your personal details from Google, like your phone number and address. I'll tell you how. Plus your tech questions answered. What's going on. I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich on Tech. This is the show where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's also the place where I answer your questions about technology. I believe that tech should be interesting, useful, and fun. Let's open up those phone lines at T triple eight Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Give me a call. If you have a question about technology, you need a recommendation, you're trying to figure out how to do something, whatever it is, I will try to help you out. Email is also an option. Just go to rich on Tech dot tv and hit contact guests. This week, Mike Prospero from Tom's Guide is going to join to talk all things. Oh, I'm gonna say the word already Alexa plus watch out smart speakers. Amazon's big AI upgrade. I'll tell you he'll tell you what's new, what's improved, and is it worth it? And then later in the show, Chris Gold of Geeks on Tour, we'll share expert tips on making the most of Google Photos. You know, I talk about that program a lot, so Chris will join. She is an expert in all things Google Photos. Is going to be a great interview there. Okay, Now, fair warning, if you have an Amazon Echo smart device nearby, you might want to press that mute button. I'm going to be saying the A word a lot.

Yes.

Yes.

I flew to New York for Amazon's Alexa event this week and the entire thing was focused on a new AI version of Alexa called Alexa Plus. Now. The event started out with the new CEO of Amazon, Andy Jase. Did you know that we have a new CEO. It's not Jeff Bezos anymore. Andy actually took over. I had to look in the notes. Twenty twenty one spent four years of this new guy. Previously, he was in charge of one of the biggest growth areas for Amazon, which is Amazon Web Services. This is our cloud computing vision. He came on stage to say, look, we're Amazon, We've got a ton of experience in AI, and he set the stage for the newest member of the Amazon executive team to introduce Alexa Plus, and then Ponos Penney came on stage. Now, he used to be in charge of Microsoft's Surface devices. He was one of the key players behind that very successful device. I can't believe this, but he actually came to visit me at the TV station when Surface first launched. That was in like think about twenty twelve. And anyway, Ponos is a guy really he's like very passionate about the products that he's promoting or talking about. So of course these days he's all about Alexa. And the first thing he did was start out by talking about how magical that first Alexa experience was right back in the day. This was about ten years ago and they launched Alexa, and I remembered I was on a shoot in Kentucky and one of the producers had one of these echo speakers, the early one, I guess, the first one, and he said watch this, and they just set a song and all of a sudden, this thing springs to life and plays the song and we were like across the room and it sounded great, and I was like, wow, that is magical. And now, of course Alexa is in over six hundred million devices worldwide, and yes, she has helped a lot of people do things like turn on and off the lights, cue up music, set timers, and answer basic questions. If you ask me, it's never really progressed past that, right. It feels like it's helpful, but it's not truly smart. But now all of that is changing with Alexa plus. So this is using a large language model in the background. And what that is is something like a chat GBT. They're not using chat GBT, They're using some others because chat gibt is the competition. But now when you hear this voice, it sounds like one of these large language model, you know, AI chatbots that we're all using these days. It's smarter, it's more cheerful, it's helpful. Now I keep saying she. I was curious on stage, you know, you always wonder with these voice assistants, is it a he? Is it a she? They kept saying she, So I guess Alexa is truly she, So I'll refer to her as she. But now you're gonna be able to speak to Alexa in the way you would talk to a human, So instead of saying something very specific like turn on the left couch light, you might say something like turn on the light that's near the side of the couch. But that's just the beginning because also Alexa is now infused with all the world's knowledge. Now keep in mind, Amazon did all of these devices on a scor all these demos that they showed on screen based devices, so they're really pushing sort of the visual aspect of all this. But eventually Alexa Plus is gonna work on both screen based devices and non screen And speaking of those smart home devices, Amazon says, the new Alexa is gonna work with ten thousand platforms and devices, So all those skills that you know all about, you know, those are going to be kind of enhanced with AI. And I tell you this because we've got so much going on here with Alexa. You know, remember you had to kind of manually configure all of these things in the past, like if you wanted to use these skills. It seems like that's going to be mostly part of the past. So now you're gonna be able to seamlessly control not only things like your smart home devices like robot vacuums and lights, but also make reservations through services like open Table, listen to music from all kinds of services, order food, get event tickets, and even ask Alexa to review your ring footage to see if someone took out the dog and when. So these are all things that they showed off on stage. Yes, it's very ambitious, but to me, I think there is some helpfulness here, especially when it comes to routines. If I can say, hey, Alexa, every night at the time, turn on my outdoor holiday lights, turn off this, turn on that, you know, change this, make the coffee whatever, without having to program all that that's gonna be a big advantage. Now, we didn't get to see all that stuff in action, and what they did let us see was kind of interesting because they showed off these demos and I was very excited because when you're at an in person event, the most exciting thing is that you get to go hands on with this stuff. Afterwards, Well, it was weird because they basically did the same demos but in like smaller individual rooms, and I kept saying, can I try, Alexa, can I try doing this? And they were very worried about letting me just have like free access to this thing, like they didn't know what I was gonna do. I was like, well, I'm just gonna try some of the like I just want to talk to it and see. But anyway, we're gonna have to wait till it comes to our houses, I guess. So I think this is gonna be pretty helpful. But there's more. The system now learns as it goes along, so it understands your preferences, It remembers things about you and your family and when you come and when you go, and so all of that is being fed into this system, so it can truly be a smarter personal assistant. And the other thing that's pretty unique is that you can now feed knowledge into the system. So for example, let's say your kid is on a basketball team. You can send that schedule to Alexa and then she can add those games to your calendar or you can cross reference them at any time. So now imagine this smart speaker's in your house and you say, hey, alex Ay, you know when is my kid's next basketball game? And she says, oh, Thursday at two pm. Oh what school? And she'll tell you. Oh, now that's helpful. Am I on snack duty? Oh? No, you're not on snack duty this week, but next weekend you are. So that's really cool and I think that's very very useful, and you're wondering, We'll wait a second, Rich, how do I tell this stuff to Alexa? Like, how do I feed this stuff into her? There's going to be a new mobile app and a website at Alexa dot com where you'll be able to chat with her and upload documents. So it's kind of like, you know, now we're getting closer to the chatbox where already using from like Google, Gemini and also chat GBT. Now the thing this part is really interesting to me because it sounds like what Apple sort of talked about when they introduced Apple Intelligence. So the big play on Apple Intelligence was, Hey, here's your phone. We're gonna add AI to this and guess what. You've already got your emails on there. You've already got your text you've already got your photos. They're all on your phone, your messages, and so the idea is that Siri would generate an index of all that information and then you can ask about any of it. Hey, Siri showed me my email from last week that I sent to my boss or whatever, or hey, you know, catch me up to speed on on what do I need to know about my kids? You know, conference happening next week. Now, we haven't gotten there yet. With Apple, they're still kind of evolving their AI and we haven't gotten to that like exact moment yet, but that's what they're going to do in the future. And that's sort of what Google's doing because we store a lot of information on Google's cloud and they've built Gemini into a lot of their products. But right now, and I even try this again this morning, it's not super cohesive.

I flew to New York for Amazon's Alexa event this week and the entire thing was focused on a new AI version of Alexa called Alexa Plus. Now. The event started out with the new CEO of Amazon, Andy Jase. Did you know that we have a new CEO. It's not Jeff Bezos anymore. Andy actually took over. I had to look in the notes. Twenty twenty one spent four years of this new guy. Previously, he was in charge of one of the biggest growth areas for Amazon, which is Amazon Web Services. This is our cloud computing vision. He came on stage to say, look, we're Amazon, We've got a ton of experience in AI, and he set the stage for the newest member of the Amazon executive team to introduce Alexa Plus, and then Ponos Penney came on stage. Now, he used to be in charge of Microsoft's Surface devices. He was one of the key players behind that very successful device. I can't believe this, but he actually came to visit me at the TV station when Surface first launched. That was in like think about twenty twelve. And anyway, Ponos is a guy really he's like very passionate about the products that he's promoting or talking about. So of course these days he's all about Alexa. And the first thing he did was start out by talking about how magical that first Alexa experience was right back in the day. This was about ten years ago and they launched Alexa, and I remembered I was on a shoot in Kentucky and one of the producers had one of these echo speakers, the early one, I guess, the first one, and he said watch this, and they just set a song and all of a sudden, this thing springs to life and plays the song and we were like across the room and it sounded great, and I was like, wow, that is magical. And now, of course Alexa is in over six hundred million devices worldwide, and yes, she has helped a lot of people do things like turn on and off the lights, cue up music, set timers, and answer basic questions. If you ask me, it's never really progressed past that, right. It feels like it's helpful, but it's not truly smart. But now all of that is changing with Alexa plus. So this is using a large language model in the background. And what that is is something like a chat GBT. They're not using chat GBT, They're using some others because chat gibt is the competition. But now when you hear this voice, it sounds like one of these large language model, you know, AI chatbots that we're all using these days. It's smarter, it's more cheerful, it's helpful. Now I keep saying she. I was curious on stage, you know, you always wonder with these voice assistants, is it a he? Is it a she? They kept saying she, So I guess Alexa is truly she, So I'll refer to her as she. But now you're gonna be able to speak to Alexa in the way you would talk to a human, So instead of saying something very specific like turn on the left couch light, you might say something like turn on the light that's near the side of the couch. But that's just the beginning because also Alexa is now infused with all the world's knowledge. Now keep in mind, Amazon did all of these devices on a scor all these demos that they showed on screen based devices, so they're really pushing sort of the visual aspect of all this. But eventually Alexa Plus is gonna work on both screen based devices and non screen And speaking of those smart home devices, Amazon says, the new Alexa is gonna work with ten thousand platforms and devices, So all those skills that you know all about, you know, those are going to be kind of enhanced with AI. And I tell you this because we've got so much going on here with Alexa. You know, remember you had to kind of manually configure all of these things in the past, like if you wanted to use these skills. It seems like that's going to be mostly part of the past. So now you're gonna be able to seamlessly control not only things like your smart home devices like robot vacuums and lights, but also make reservations through services like open Table, listen to music from all kinds of services, order food, get event tickets, and even ask Alexa to review your ring footage to see if someone took out the dog and when. So these are all things that they showed off on stage. Yes, it's very ambitious, but to me, I think there is some helpfulness here, especially when it comes to routines. If I can say, hey, Alexa, every night at the time, turn on my outdoor holiday lights, turn off this, turn on that, you know, change this, make the coffee whatever, without having to program all that that's gonna be a big advantage. Now, we didn't get to see all that stuff in action, and what they did let us see was kind of interesting because they showed off these demos and I was very excited because when you're at an in person event, the most exciting thing is that you get to go hands on with this stuff. Afterwards, Well, it was weird because they basically did the same demos but in like smaller individual rooms, and I kept saying, can I try, Alexa, can I try doing this? And they were very worried about letting me just have like free access to this thing, like they didn't know what I was gonna do. I was like, well, I'm just gonna try some of the like I just want to talk to it and see. But anyway, we're gonna have to wait till it comes to our houses, I guess. So I think this is gonna be pretty helpful. But there's more. The system now learns as it goes along, so it understands your preferences, It remembers things about you and your family and when you come and when you go, and so all of that is being fed into this system, so it can truly be a smarter personal assistant. And the other thing that's pretty unique is that you can now feed knowledge into the system. So for example, let's say your kid is on a basketball team. You can send that schedule to Alexa and then she can add those games to your calendar or you can cross reference them at any time. So now imagine this smart speaker's in your house and you say, hey, alex Ay, you know when is my kid's next basketball game? And she says, oh, Thursday at two pm. Oh what school? And she'll tell you. Oh, now that's helpful. Am I on snack duty? Oh? No, you're not on snack duty this week, but next weekend you are. So that's really cool and I think that's very very useful, and you're wondering, We'll wait a second, Rich, how do I tell this stuff to Alexa? Like, how do I feed this stuff into her? There's going to be a new mobile app and a website at Alexa dot com where you'll be able to chat with her and upload documents. So it's kind of like, you know, now we're getting closer to the chatbox where already using from like Google, Gemini and also chat GBT. Now the thing this part is really interesting to me because it sounds like what Apple sort of talked about when they introduced Apple Intelligence. So the big play on Apple Intelligence was, Hey, here's your phone. We're gonna add AI to this and guess what. You've already got your emails on there. You've already got your text you've already got your photos. They're all on your phone, your messages, and so the idea is that Siri would generate an index of all that information and then you can ask about any of it. Hey, Siri showed me my email from last week that I sent to my boss or whatever, or hey, you know, catch me up to speed on on what do I need to know about my kids? You know, conference happening next week. Now, we haven't gotten there yet. With Apple, they're still kind of evolving their AI and we haven't gotten to that like exact moment yet, but that's what they're going to do in the future. And that's sort of what Google's doing because we store a lot of information on Google's cloud and they've built Gemini into a lot of their products. But right now, and I even try this again this morning, it's not super cohesive.

Right.

Right.

So I could be in my Gmail and there's a little Gemini icon I can ask about my email. It's not always perfect, but sometimes yes, it works, and it will find anything in your email. You can go into Google Docs and you can ask for information about your docs and it will find stuff like I needed my TSA pre check number. I said, hey, Google, can you find my TSA pre check number in my Google Drive? And sure enough, it found it. And then in Google Photos they've got Gemini built in and you can ask for any picture. Hey, show me my best picture from Hawaii last year. I want to post it to Instagram and it will show you those so it's working, and then CHATCHYBT of course could do something similar, but that would take a little bit of a leap of faith because you know, could you imagine chatchybt saying, hey, can we scan all of your email, all of your cloud storage, all of your photos, and all of your texts so you can ask about them?

So I could be in my Gmail and there's a little Gemini icon I can ask about my email. It's not always perfect, but sometimes yes, it works, and it will find anything in your email. You can go into Google Docs and you can ask for information about your docs and it will find stuff like I needed my TSA pre check number. I said, hey, Google, can you find my TSA pre check number in my Google Drive? And sure enough, it found it. And then in Google Photos they've got Gemini built in and you can ask for any picture. Hey, show me my best picture from Hawaii last year. I want to post it to Instagram and it will show you those so it's working, and then CHATCHYBT of course could do something similar, but that would take a little bit of a leap of faith because you know, could you imagine chatchybt saying, hey, can we scan all of your email, all of your cloud storage, all of your photos, and all of your texts so you can ask about them?

Now?

Now?

I think that would be very handy. But I mean, that's a lot of faith in that system, right because if there's a breach, that would be a problem. Now I tell you to tell you all of this because I feel like AI is all over the place in terms of its usefulness and its functionality. I'm using chat GBT for some things, Google for others, you know, Siri for less, but the list goes on and on. Right We're using all different things right now, and so I think the first AI to truly unify all this information about us, all of our devices, all of our smart home stuff, could win. Now. Alexa has a head start because they've got tons of smart speakers and homes, but so does Google, and Apple is rumored to be working on something there too. So at the end of the day, the question is will Alexa plus number one will people use it? Will they rely on it and will it live up to the hype. Time will tell if people start to use it past the basics, right, I think this is going to be a win. If Alexa can just turn on and off all your smart home stuff much easier than before. But if it can start to really weave itself into your life and become that personal assistant, then maybe this is a win. And also Amazon, you know, if it's working with Uber and door Dash and all these other companies, they probably collect a little bit of a percentage of any transactions you do through Alexa with those services. Now, the pricing is interesting, twenty dollars a month. I don't think anyone's gonna pay that standalone because it's gonna be included for free for Prime members. Prime is one hundred and forty bucks a year. If you paid for Alexa Plus standalone, that'd be two forty. So I think people will just either use this included in Prime or subscribe to Prime, which, by the way, of course helps Amazon's bottom line. So we're gonna have to see what happens with Alexa Plus. It's promising. If you want to get on the list, you got to go to Amazon Dot com slash new Alexa. They're going to prioritize folks that have one of these eco devices with a screen. They're gonna get it first. But it's coming out in the next few weeks. We'll see how it works, all right, coming up your questions at triple eight rich one on one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology at triple eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. I mentioned I was in New York City for the uh the Amazon event. What a fun city. By the way, I love visiting York because, well, you know, I'm from New Jersey, but I'm very familiar. But I love the fact that you can just get around anywhere anywhere you want. You can get around, whether that's you know, in a taxi uber nowadays subway walking. And of course it was raining a little bit, so I had planned on walking like this big old walk like a couple miles and it was raining, so I went as far as I could before I was like, all right, I gotta get on the subway here, but what a fun I mean. And then I stay at this hotel that ended up having a rooftop kind of area where you can just stand outside, and it was just like photogenic, like I was taking pictures up there. I mean, it was just it really really was. And the food, of course, you know, ended up going out to dinner with my family, went to this place. I always look for a place that's the closest to my hotel to walk to, just to be easy, and so it was literally around the corner and we had such a nice night. And this is the other thing I love about New York, these unassuming places like this, this little tiny restaurant. You know, you can barely see it from the street, and you go inside, it's like this whole world inside. Right, it was like two floors, all these people are having dinner, having a great time. So always always fun to be there. News this week that Microsoft is shutting down Skype. Now, I guess this is not really a surprise, like Skype is. Definitely. It's so weird because when you were using Skype back in the day, you were ahead of the curve, right like you thought you were beating the system. Because back in the day, there was like something called long distance charges for calls, and so the fact that you could do video and audio calls to anyone in the world for free was unheard of and you felt like you were, you know, ahead of the curve. And now, of course, after twenty three years, you know, we take for granted that you can call anyone, you can text anyone, you can use a million different services to video chat or to make an audio call, and so people have moved away from Skype. They were the market leader in this area, and somehow they did not capture the wave of like the next thing, right, I mean, Zoom. If you think about in recent years, what's really one out of anything? They really won during COVID, So people didn't turn to Skype. They you know, teams. Teams won, but mostly because of the Microsoft connection, because they were so connected to companies that paid for Microsoft that teams was their preferred way of doing things. But most people use Skype or Zoom no matter what. So after twenty three years, Skype is shutting down for good on May fifth, and Microsoft, of course they bought Skype about fourteen years ago, they are retiring it officially and putting all their focus on teams, and I get it. For Microsoft to do this, it makes sense. Teams is where the growth is. I mean, the last time I used I did all of my interviews during COVID on Skype and the reason why is because I thought that the video quality was superior to what Zoom had. And also a lot of the nerds, you know, a lot of the tech people that I was interviewing, they were kind of like Skype people, Like they all had Skype. We all had an old Skype user name, you know, is the first time we used it during COVID, and so that was what I turned to. So the last day of service May fifth, twenty twenty five, so you basically have about ten weeks to figure out what you're gonna do. Gosh, Skype once had three hundred million users, and you're basically gonna be able to migrate your contacts and your chats to teams or you can download your data. So if you don't want to be part of teams, you can just go in and just download your stuff. Now, phone call functionality is not going to be included in the free version of Teams, So if you're thinking you can still make you free phone calls. You're gonna have to find a different way of doing that. I mean, you could use Google Voice. There's so many ways you can make a phone call nowadays. If you have Skype credits, apparently they stopped charging for that in December, but you can continue using these until your next renewal period. Skype credit users can continue using their remaining Skype credit after May fifth. They're going to have the Skype dial pad still available to paid users within the Skype Web portal and within teams, so you'll still have a little bit just to use up your credit now. I did get one question about someone saying, what about my phone number? I guess if you had a Skype phone number at one point, you could have a phone number through them. I was looking online to see if you can like port that to a different service. Seemed very all over the place, like I couldn't find anything anything official, But people had some thoughts where, you know, the main thing you need is when you poured a phone number to a different company, is your account number and your PIN. And some people were saying the account number was the Skype phone number itself, and the PIN was zero zero zero zero. I don't know if that's true, because that would mean anyone could just poort out a Skype number even if it's not there. So there must be some level of protection in there somehow. But maybe they text the number or something. But yeah, end of an era. Skype shutting down May fifth, twenty twenty five. If you want to download your history, get in there, do it now, export it out all right? Eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Coming up. I'll tell you how it's easier than to remove your personal information from Google. You're listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here talking technology with you at triple A Rich one on one. That's eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one. If you want links to anything I mentioned on the show, go to the website rich on Tech dot tv. While you're there, be sure to sign up for my free newsletter. That way we can keep in touch. Let's go to Jeff in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jeff, you're on with Rich.

I think that would be very handy. But I mean, that's a lot of faith in that system, right because if there's a breach, that would be a problem. Now I tell you to tell you all of this because I feel like AI is all over the place in terms of its usefulness and its functionality. I'm using chat GBT for some things, Google for others, you know, Siri for less, but the list goes on and on. Right We're using all different things right now, and so I think the first AI to truly unify all this information about us, all of our devices, all of our smart home stuff, could win. Now. Alexa has a head start because they've got tons of smart speakers and homes, but so does Google, and Apple is rumored to be working on something there too. So at the end of the day, the question is will Alexa plus number one will people use it? Will they rely on it and will it live up to the hype. Time will tell if people start to use it past the basics, right, I think this is going to be a win. If Alexa can just turn on and off all your smart home stuff much easier than before. But if it can start to really weave itself into your life and become that personal assistant, then maybe this is a win. And also Amazon, you know, if it's working with Uber and door Dash and all these other companies, they probably collect a little bit of a percentage of any transactions you do through Alexa with those services. Now, the pricing is interesting, twenty dollars a month. I don't think anyone's gonna pay that standalone because it's gonna be included for free for Prime members. Prime is one hundred and forty bucks a year. If you paid for Alexa Plus standalone, that'd be two forty. So I think people will just either use this included in Prime or subscribe to Prime, which, by the way, of course helps Amazon's bottom line. So we're gonna have to see what happens with Alexa Plus. It's promising. If you want to get on the list, you got to go to Amazon Dot com slash new Alexa. They're going to prioritize folks that have one of these eco devices with a screen. They're gonna get it first. But it's coming out in the next few weeks. We'll see how it works, all right, coming up your questions at triple eight rich one on one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology at triple eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. I mentioned I was in New York City for the uh the Amazon event. What a fun city. By the way, I love visiting York because, well, you know, I'm from New Jersey, but I'm very familiar. But I love the fact that you can just get around anywhere anywhere you want. You can get around, whether that's you know, in a taxi uber nowadays subway walking. And of course it was raining a little bit, so I had planned on walking like this big old walk like a couple miles and it was raining, so I went as far as I could before I was like, all right, I gotta get on the subway here, but what a fun I mean. And then I stay at this hotel that ended up having a rooftop kind of area where you can just stand outside, and it was just like photogenic, like I was taking pictures up there. I mean, it was just it really really was. And the food, of course, you know, ended up going out to dinner with my family, went to this place. I always look for a place that's the closest to my hotel to walk to, just to be easy, and so it was literally around the corner and we had such a nice night. And this is the other thing I love about New York, these unassuming places like this, this little tiny restaurant. You know, you can barely see it from the street, and you go inside, it's like this whole world inside. Right, it was like two floors, all these people are having dinner, having a great time. So always always fun to be there. News this week that Microsoft is shutting down Skype. Now, I guess this is not really a surprise, like Skype is. Definitely. It's so weird because when you were using Skype back in the day, you were ahead of the curve, right like you thought you were beating the system. Because back in the day, there was like something called long distance charges for calls, and so the fact that you could do video and audio calls to anyone in the world for free was unheard of and you felt like you were, you know, ahead of the curve. And now, of course, after twenty three years, you know, we take for granted that you can call anyone, you can text anyone, you can use a million different services to video chat or to make an audio call, and so people have moved away from Skype. They were the market leader in this area, and somehow they did not capture the wave of like the next thing, right, I mean, Zoom. If you think about in recent years, what's really one out of anything? They really won during COVID, So people didn't turn to Skype. They you know, teams. Teams won, but mostly because of the Microsoft connection, because they were so connected to companies that paid for Microsoft that teams was their preferred way of doing things. But most people use Skype or Zoom no matter what. So after twenty three years, Skype is shutting down for good on May fifth, and Microsoft, of course they bought Skype about fourteen years ago, they are retiring it officially and putting all their focus on teams, and I get it. For Microsoft to do this, it makes sense. Teams is where the growth is. I mean, the last time I used I did all of my interviews during COVID on Skype and the reason why is because I thought that the video quality was superior to what Zoom had. And also a lot of the nerds, you know, a lot of the tech people that I was interviewing, they were kind of like Skype people, Like they all had Skype. We all had an old Skype user name, you know, is the first time we used it during COVID, and so that was what I turned to. So the last day of service May fifth, twenty twenty five, so you basically have about ten weeks to figure out what you're gonna do. Gosh, Skype once had three hundred million users, and you're basically gonna be able to migrate your contacts and your chats to teams or you can download your data. So if you don't want to be part of teams, you can just go in and just download your stuff. Now, phone call functionality is not going to be included in the free version of Teams, So if you're thinking you can still make you free phone calls. You're gonna have to find a different way of doing that. I mean, you could use Google Voice. There's so many ways you can make a phone call nowadays. If you have Skype credits, apparently they stopped charging for that in December, but you can continue using these until your next renewal period. Skype credit users can continue using their remaining Skype credit after May fifth. They're going to have the Skype dial pad still available to paid users within the Skype Web portal and within teams, so you'll still have a little bit just to use up your credit now. I did get one question about someone saying, what about my phone number? I guess if you had a Skype phone number at one point, you could have a phone number through them. I was looking online to see if you can like port that to a different service. Seemed very all over the place, like I couldn't find anything anything official, But people had some thoughts where, you know, the main thing you need is when you poured a phone number to a different company, is your account number and your PIN. And some people were saying the account number was the Skype phone number itself, and the PIN was zero zero zero zero. I don't know if that's true, because that would mean anyone could just poort out a Skype number even if it's not there. So there must be some level of protection in there somehow. But maybe they text the number or something. But yeah, end of an era. Skype shutting down May fifth, twenty twenty five. If you want to download your history, get in there, do it now, export it out all right? Eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Coming up. I'll tell you how it's easier than to remove your personal information from Google. You're listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here talking technology with you at triple A Rich one on one. That's eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one. If you want links to anything I mentioned on the show, go to the website rich on Tech dot tv. While you're there, be sure to sign up for my free newsletter. That way we can keep in touch. Let's go to Jeff in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jeff, you're on with Rich.

Yeah, Rich, I recommendation I got for a password manager, which I got from Kim Commando was a Nord passed. Oh well, it gets good ratings. All over the place. But I tried to set it up, and the setup feature is very Uh. I couldn't understand what they wanted, and I didn't manage to get one app. One website entered into it, and it obviously recognized it because it had the whole website's logo.

Yeah, Rich, I recommendation I got for a password manager, which I got from Kim Commando was a Nord passed. Oh well, it gets good ratings. All over the place. But I tried to set it up, and the setup feature is very Uh. I couldn't understand what they wanted, and I didn't manage to get one app. One website entered into it, and it obviously recognized it because it had the whole website's logo.

Uh.

Uh.

But when I tried to log onto it, it the auto field suggested that the nord past password, and of course, and then it came back and said password not recognized, but my and my old password still work. So I guess probably when I set it up. I don't know how you get the website to recognize the nord past password.

But when I tried to log onto it, it the auto field suggested that the nord past password, and of course, and then it came back and said password not recognized, but my and my old password still work. So I guess probably when I set it up. I don't know how you get the website to recognize the nord past password.

Okay, well, did you change the password with the website?

Okay, well, did you change the password with the website?

Yes, I took the one that they auto suggested.

Yes, I took the one that they auto suggested.

Okay, okay, so I will I will tell you, Jeff. I do think that password managers are a little tricky to get started with because it's a it's a departure from what you're used to and how you're typically signing up for websites. So it does take a little bit longer when you sign up, but in the end it helps. So I think nord Pass is a completely fine password manager. Are you on iPhone, Android a combination of.

Okay, okay, so I will I will tell you, Jeff. I do think that password managers are a little tricky to get started with because it's a it's a departure from what you're used to and how you're typically signing up for websites. So it does take a little bit longer when you sign up, but in the end it helps. So I think nord Pass is a completely fine password manager. Are you on iPhone, Android a combination of.

Things iPhone and the thing I really didn't like about it was the the help center, of course, and they don't have a phone number that you can talk to a person.

Things iPhone and the thing I really didn't like about it was the the help center, of course, and they don't have a phone number that you can talk to a person.

But the chat the.

But the chat the.

Guy was chatting with on the health center, he obviously had no idea what my issue was. He was asking me questions like, have you cleared your the catch in your browser? Have you hit the auto field? Have you extended the auto field time?

Guy was chatting with on the health center, he obviously had no idea what my issue was. He was asking me questions like, have you cleared your the catch in your browser? Have you hit the auto field? Have you extended the auto field time?

Which had?

Which had?

I sent him a picture of the error message I got, and that has nothing to.

I sent him a picture of the error message I got, and that has nothing to.

Do with my issue.

Do with my issue.

Well, okay, so are you only using the iPhone for this.

Well, okay, so are you only using the iPhone for this.

Right now?

Right now?

That's I began with just the iPhone and that's as far as I got. I eventually gonna put it on my desktop too.

That's I began with just the iPhone and that's as far as I got. I eventually gonna put it on my desktop too.

Okay, so you're gonna put on your desktop too, Okay? All right, So I think you can still use nord pass. I think that that's going to be a fine option for you if you don't mind paying. I mean, there are you know, there are free alternatives and I on my website if you hit the search icon and just type in password manager, I have a full post on you know what my recommendations are. But in general, there's there's three free options that I recommend to people, which is Apple Passwords app if you only use Apple products. The Google Password Manager is completely free if you're using Android, iPhone and Chrome, like a combination of those things. And then if you just want something that's free that you never have to pay for, Bitwarden will always have a free version and it's open source, which is nice, and it works on all platforms. So if you don't want to get on this train of like paying for your passwords forever, you can use one of those three free options. Now, when it comes to paid options, I think nord pass is fine. I put it in my recommendations. I like dash Lane as well, and one password that's the number one, and then password. Those are all three popular paid options. Now, when it comes to actually using this, Jeff, it gets a little complicated because you have to make sure that your phone is up to autofill from the password manager or you can copy and paste. So if you go on the iPhone and you look at the settings, the first thing you need to do is search for autofill and where it says passwords, make sure that it says autofill from and then make sure that Nord pass is highlighted and you should turn off the other one. So on my phone, I've got passwords, which is the Apple one, I've got another password manager. I've got Chrome and Google, so turn off all of those and just have your nord Pass highlighted and toggled on. So that's the first thing. Now, when you go in to create a password, the first thing you have to do is actually generate a password for the website and then save that into the password manager. Now, what happens sometimes is you go to a website. Let's say you go to you know, Yahoo dot com, right, and you generate a password and you save it in your password manager, and then you go back to Yahoo. Sometimes you might be on Yahoo Finance or you might be on Yahoo Entertainment, and it might not link up the website properly, the website properly, and so in that case you might have to go in to nord Pass, search for Yahoo, copy the password, and then paste it into the website. Now, on desktop, it's a little bit easier because your browser takes care a lot of this stuff, and so it's just due to the architecture of the iPhone that's a little trickier to do that kind of stuff. But in general, I think that what you're talking about is you have to first change the password, make sure it's saved in your password manager, and then the next time you go to that website, use that password. And most of the time the password manager should spring into action if it's recognizing the website that you're going to. The way they're set up is that it will just spring into action above your keyboard and say, hey, do you want to auto fill this, and typically it should find that, or you can do a little search on your password manager for that website and it should fill in that information. If it's not doing all that stuff, you know, it's I would check those autofill settings. That's really what's happening. But again I understand that password managers do take a little bit more setup and they're not the easiest thing to use if you're not used to using them, and you have to get used to it, and you have to continue to use it and set this up for every website, or change the password for your existing websites, and you have to save it and you have to just continue doing it. And this is why when you go to websites it says sign in with Apple sign in with Google, because it's so much easier to do that because it's one click and it's using the account you already have that you're logged into Google or Apple or some other services. Sometimes you see on there, but I don't recommend that, because it's better to keep these websites insulated from each other and separate. And I get it in a pinch. I've been guilty of it myself. I will log in with Google when I'm signing up very quickly, but in general, take the extra two seconds to make a password on the password manager, save that password on your password manager, and the next time you go to log in, and it should find that. And by the way, Jeff, when you sign up for a website fresh, there should be a little setting on your password manager that says a plus sign, and so you press that plus sign and that's how it links that website to the new password that you're linking or that you're generating. I know it all sounds very complicated now that I'm speaking this, I'm like, this sounds more complicated to use a password manager than to not use a password manager. But I think at the end of the day, once you get used to it. It will become second nature. And I'm using it. My wife uses one, you know, I've got my mom to use one, and a bunch of other people I know. So it's something that just takes a little bit of time and a little bit of routine. But I think nord pass is a fine suggestion. I think you'll be good with that. Thanks for the call, Jeff, appreciate it, and continue to make sure you install the extension too on your web browser. So nord pass will have an extension that you install on your web browser that will help auto fill on the web as well. And maybe if you're top you know five six websites like yours, five or six logins, go to the web and start doing it there and then go back to your phone. But there's gonna be a lot of copying pasting when you use a password manager, that's for sure. Jose writes in from Los Angeles. I'm considering the Riyoko Portable Wi Fi hot Spot? Is it any good? So I have to look this one up. Ryoko they do have it the right. Ryoko pro Portable Wi Fi hot Spot offers global Internet access, allowing you to connect to any device anywhere and it's oh, seventy percent off. Get a seventy percent discount, don't miss out already. I can tell from this website that I'm not a fan of it because I don't like the websites with the high pressure stuff that says your seventy percent discount has been applied, limited time offer, free delivery. It's all very vague, right, and it's all on one page, really trying to do the hard sell to get you to purchase this thing instantly and quickly. But here's the question I have. How much is the internet connection once I have this and I'm looking on the website, I cannot find that information anywhere. I can't find it in the bottom of the website. I can't find it on the top of the website. I can't find it anywhere. How much is it going to cost me to use this once I purchase this device? So for that reason, I can't tell you I would recommend getting this. I have tested one called Cemo s I M and that is a same thing. It's the mobile Internet, same exact thing. It's a little hot spot and if you look on their website, it tells you exactly how much it costs for the different countries that you're purchasing your coverage for. So I've used this, it works. I can tell you that I would go with something that you know the price for. By the way, Jose, you can also use your phone as a hotspot. You can also use your mobile you know mobile hotspot feature on your phone. You can all so just use your phone because a lot of phones now have this included in their international plan. So, uh, did you mention you're going out of town? No, So I would just be careful any website that here's my thing with any website that you go to make sure it has all the information that you're curious about. If they're making you hunt for information on the website that you think should be there very clearly, like how to cancel their phone number, their email address, a customer service contact. If all that stuff is hidden when you're trying to purchase the device or the thing, then that's a red flag. And also the first thing I noticed when I search for this on Google is uh is Reddit people asking you know, is this thing legit? So anytime the next search underneath you know the result is is this product legit? That's usually a red flag that it may not be the thing that you want. Eighty eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one the website rich on Tech dot TV. I know I promised it before, but coming up I will tell you about the new easy way to remove personal information from Google Search. This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at eight eight eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. So Google this week has made it much easier to remove information, your personal information like your phone number or your address in Google search results. So they've long had this tool for the past couple of years. I've talked about it many times, called Results about You. This is where you can put in your information. You sign up, you say, here's my name, here's my phone number, here's my address. If you find that online, send me an email or notification and give me the option to take that down. And so that's been working very nicely for a couple of years. But now they added another level of this. So now if you go to Google Search and you can try this. You can type in your name and then the word phone number, and you can scroll and see if one of those services shows up that says, you know like spokio or you know true people search all these different zoom info. Let's see, I've taken away so many of my results that I don't really have that come up anymore. But oh yeah, white pages. So if you find one of these results that has your personal information in it. Now, if you look at the search results, and you've probably never even noticed this before, there are three little dots next to the search result. You tap those three little dots, and all of a sudden you see this new option that says remove result. So that is the new way that you can just get your information off of Google Search. And so you tap a remover result and it says, why do you want to remove this? And the option I see it shows my personal information and I don't want it there, or I have a legal removal request, or it's outdated and I want to request a refresh. And I'll explain that in a moment. But you can tap that first one. It shows my personal info and I don't want it there. And then it says, well what does it show? Contact info, government ID numbers, financial info, passwords, restricted records, other and so you can search or select one of those and submit it. And it does take a little bit and not everything's going to be removed, but in my experience, I have only had one denial request. But if your phone numbers on there, your email address, your home address, you can get these removed pretty easily. Now keep in mind this only removes the information from Google search results. It does not remove it from the original website. If you want to remove it from the original website, you have to do a takedown request at the original website. And if you go to a website like whitepages dot com, you'll notice at the bottom of the page it says something like, you know, do not sell my personal information or you can Actually it's probably they kind of hide this stuff sadly, but usually you can say something like takedown requests. So I would do something like white pages remove my information, and then that will bring up the page that will get your information off of there. So here's what it says White Pages Consumer Privacy Rights. You can opt out and have your listing removed. Copy and paste the URL of your profile, so that's how you can submit the request. They don't make it very easy to find on the website. But if you Google search for that, you know, I said, whatever the website is, remove my information, you should find that or opt out whatever. That's another way of looking at it. But again this is for Google, and ninety nine point nine percent of people are finding this through Google. So this is a nice easy way to get your information off of Google Search. I would also recommend signing up for the free Results about You feature from Google that is completely free, and this will proactively alert you anytime a new website pops up with your information on it. It will say, hey, well, we just found this information on the internet. Do you want us to remove it? And in one, one or two clicks you can say yes, please remove it. They will somehow do whatever they do on their back end to approve that or not approve it, and they'll get it removed and it works pretty well. So again that's called Google Results about You. But the new feature is the fact that when you're on any website search results, you can just tap those three dots and click removers all and that will bring you right to the option to get rid of it. Let's go to Patrick eight eight eight rich one On one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one, Patrick in Colorado Springs. You're on with Rich Fayvoritch.

Okay, so you're gonna put on your desktop too, Okay? All right, So I think you can still use nord pass. I think that that's going to be a fine option for you if you don't mind paying. I mean, there are you know, there are free alternatives and I on my website if you hit the search icon and just type in password manager, I have a full post on you know what my recommendations are. But in general, there's there's three free options that I recommend to people, which is Apple Passwords app if you only use Apple products. The Google Password Manager is completely free if you're using Android, iPhone and Chrome, like a combination of those things. And then if you just want something that's free that you never have to pay for, Bitwarden will always have a free version and it's open source, which is nice, and it works on all platforms. So if you don't want to get on this train of like paying for your passwords forever, you can use one of those three free options. Now, when it comes to paid options, I think nord pass is fine. I put it in my recommendations. I like dash Lane as well, and one password that's the number one, and then password. Those are all three popular paid options. Now, when it comes to actually using this, Jeff, it gets a little complicated because you have to make sure that your phone is up to autofill from the password manager or you can copy and paste. So if you go on the iPhone and you look at the settings, the first thing you need to do is search for autofill and where it says passwords, make sure that it says autofill from and then make sure that Nord pass is highlighted and you should turn off the other one. So on my phone, I've got passwords, which is the Apple one, I've got another password manager. I've got Chrome and Google, so turn off all of those and just have your nord Pass highlighted and toggled on. So that's the first thing. Now, when you go in to create a password, the first thing you have to do is actually generate a password for the website and then save that into the password manager. Now, what happens sometimes is you go to a website. Let's say you go to you know, Yahoo dot com, right, and you generate a password and you save it in your password manager, and then you go back to Yahoo. Sometimes you might be on Yahoo Finance or you might be on Yahoo Entertainment, and it might not link up the website properly, the website properly, and so in that case you might have to go in to nord Pass, search for Yahoo, copy the password, and then paste it into the website. Now, on desktop, it's a little bit easier because your browser takes care a lot of this stuff, and so it's just due to the architecture of the iPhone that's a little trickier to do that kind of stuff. But in general, I think that what you're talking about is you have to first change the password, make sure it's saved in your password manager, and then the next time you go to that website, use that password. And most of the time the password manager should spring into action if it's recognizing the website that you're going to. The way they're set up is that it will just spring into action above your keyboard and say, hey, do you want to auto fill this, and typically it should find that, or you can do a little search on your password manager for that website and it should fill in that information. If it's not doing all that stuff, you know, it's I would check those autofill settings. That's really what's happening. But again I understand that password managers do take a little bit more setup and they're not the easiest thing to use if you're not used to using them, and you have to get used to it, and you have to continue to use it and set this up for every website, or change the password for your existing websites, and you have to save it and you have to just continue doing it. And this is why when you go to websites it says sign in with Apple sign in with Google, because it's so much easier to do that because it's one click and it's using the account you already have that you're logged into Google or Apple or some other services. Sometimes you see on there, but I don't recommend that, because it's better to keep these websites insulated from each other and separate. And I get it in a pinch. I've been guilty of it myself. I will log in with Google when I'm signing up very quickly, but in general, take the extra two seconds to make a password on the password manager, save that password on your password manager, and the next time you go to log in, and it should find that. And by the way, Jeff, when you sign up for a website fresh, there should be a little setting on your password manager that says a plus sign, and so you press that plus sign and that's how it links that website to the new password that you're linking or that you're generating. I know it all sounds very complicated now that I'm speaking this, I'm like, this sounds more complicated to use a password manager than to not use a password manager. But I think at the end of the day, once you get used to it. It will become second nature. And I'm using it. My wife uses one, you know, I've got my mom to use one, and a bunch of other people I know. So it's something that just takes a little bit of time and a little bit of routine. But I think nord pass is a fine suggestion. I think you'll be good with that. Thanks for the call, Jeff, appreciate it, and continue to make sure you install the extension too on your web browser. So nord pass will have an extension that you install on your web browser that will help auto fill on the web as well. And maybe if you're top you know five six websites like yours, five or six logins, go to the web and start doing it there and then go back to your phone. But there's gonna be a lot of copying pasting when you use a password manager, that's for sure. Jose writes in from Los Angeles. I'm considering the Riyoko Portable Wi Fi hot Spot? Is it any good? So I have to look this one up. Ryoko they do have it the right. Ryoko pro Portable Wi Fi hot Spot offers global Internet access, allowing you to connect to any device anywhere and it's oh, seventy percent off. Get a seventy percent discount, don't miss out already. I can tell from this website that I'm not a fan of it because I don't like the websites with the high pressure stuff that says your seventy percent discount has been applied, limited time offer, free delivery. It's all very vague, right, and it's all on one page, really trying to do the hard sell to get you to purchase this thing instantly and quickly. But here's the question I have. How much is the internet connection once I have this and I'm looking on the website, I cannot find that information anywhere. I can't find it in the bottom of the website. I can't find it on the top of the website. I can't find it anywhere. How much is it going to cost me to use this once I purchase this device? So for that reason, I can't tell you I would recommend getting this. I have tested one called Cemo s I M and that is a same thing. It's the mobile Internet, same exact thing. It's a little hot spot and if you look on their website, it tells you exactly how much it costs for the different countries that you're purchasing your coverage for. So I've used this, it works. I can tell you that I would go with something that you know the price for. By the way, Jose, you can also use your phone as a hotspot. You can also use your mobile you know mobile hotspot feature on your phone. You can all so just use your phone because a lot of phones now have this included in their international plan. So, uh, did you mention you're going out of town? No, So I would just be careful any website that here's my thing with any website that you go to make sure it has all the information that you're curious about. If they're making you hunt for information on the website that you think should be there very clearly, like how to cancel their phone number, their email address, a customer service contact. If all that stuff is hidden when you're trying to purchase the device or the thing, then that's a red flag. And also the first thing I noticed when I search for this on Google is uh is Reddit people asking you know, is this thing legit? So anytime the next search underneath you know the result is is this product legit? That's usually a red flag that it may not be the thing that you want. Eighty eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one the website rich on Tech dot TV. I know I promised it before, but coming up I will tell you about the new easy way to remove personal information from Google Search. This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at eight eight eight rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. So Google this week has made it much easier to remove information, your personal information like your phone number or your address in Google search results. So they've long had this tool for the past couple of years. I've talked about it many times, called Results about You. This is where you can put in your information. You sign up, you say, here's my name, here's my phone number, here's my address. If you find that online, send me an email or notification and give me the option to take that down. And so that's been working very nicely for a couple of years. But now they added another level of this. So now if you go to Google Search and you can try this. You can type in your name and then the word phone number, and you can scroll and see if one of those services shows up that says, you know like spokio or you know true people search all these different zoom info. Let's see, I've taken away so many of my results that I don't really have that come up anymore. But oh yeah, white pages. So if you find one of these results that has your personal information in it. Now, if you look at the search results, and you've probably never even noticed this before, there are three little dots next to the search result. You tap those three little dots, and all of a sudden you see this new option that says remove result. So that is the new way that you can just get your information off of Google Search. And so you tap a remover result and it says, why do you want to remove this? And the option I see it shows my personal information and I don't want it there, or I have a legal removal request, or it's outdated and I want to request a refresh. And I'll explain that in a moment. But you can tap that first one. It shows my personal info and I don't want it there. And then it says, well what does it show? Contact info, government ID numbers, financial info, passwords, restricted records, other and so you can search or select one of those and submit it. And it does take a little bit and not everything's going to be removed, but in my experience, I have only had one denial request. But if your phone numbers on there, your email address, your home address, you can get these removed pretty easily. Now keep in mind this only removes the information from Google search results. It does not remove it from the original website. If you want to remove it from the original website, you have to do a takedown request at the original website. And if you go to a website like whitepages dot com, you'll notice at the bottom of the page it says something like, you know, do not sell my personal information or you can Actually it's probably they kind of hide this stuff sadly, but usually you can say something like takedown requests. So I would do something like white pages remove my information, and then that will bring up the page that will get your information off of there. So here's what it says White Pages Consumer Privacy Rights. You can opt out and have your listing removed. Copy and paste the URL of your profile, so that's how you can submit the request. They don't make it very easy to find on the website. But if you Google search for that, you know, I said, whatever the website is, remove my information, you should find that or opt out whatever. That's another way of looking at it. But again this is for Google, and ninety nine point nine percent of people are finding this through Google. So this is a nice easy way to get your information off of Google Search. I would also recommend signing up for the free Results about You feature from Google that is completely free, and this will proactively alert you anytime a new website pops up with your information on it. It will say, hey, well, we just found this information on the internet. Do you want us to remove it? And in one, one or two clicks you can say yes, please remove it. They will somehow do whatever they do on their back end to approve that or not approve it, and they'll get it removed and it works pretty well. So again that's called Google Results about You. But the new feature is the fact that when you're on any website search results, you can just tap those three dots and click removers all and that will bring you right to the option to get rid of it. Let's go to Patrick eight eight eight rich one On one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one, Patrick in Colorado Springs. You're on with Rich Fayvoritch.

Thanks so much for your wisdom. I sure appreciate it.

Thanks so much for your wisdom. I sure appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

A few months ago I got a new MacBook Pro, and then at a couple months ago I got the suite called Microsoft Office for Mac. Okay, and it works fine. But the thing I want to I have turned off the updates so they did not automatically update. You have to do it manually. But what I'd like to find out if I can turn it off, is can I turn off the updates so it doesn't even present the updates to me and tell me that I can manually download them.

A few months ago I got a new MacBook Pro, and then at a couple months ago I got the suite called Microsoft Office for Mac. Okay, and it works fine. But the thing I want to I have turned off the updates so they did not automatically update. You have to do it manually. But what I'd like to find out if I can turn it off, is can I turn off the updates so it doesn't even present the updates to me and tell me that I can manually download them.

Oh that's a good question. Hmm. There is an option to. So you've already turned off the option to automatically keep the app up to date. Correct, so you have the thing where it's now it's just telling you, hey, there is an update, and you have to say no, I don't want that. Just close out of that screen. Yes, I don't know if there's a way to actually turn off the search for an update. I mean, you may be able to use like a third party program that keeps you know, the Office tool from phoning home. But as far as I know, there's probably not a way to just say, like, hey, please don't even check for updates, because most of these programs they want you to update because you know, it's mostly for security reasons that they're keeping them up to date. There's some sort of issue, but you're still seeing the auto update menu even though you said don't automatically install it.

Oh that's a good question. Hmm. There is an option to. So you've already turned off the option to automatically keep the app up to date. Correct, so you have the thing where it's now it's just telling you, hey, there is an update, and you have to say no, I don't want that. Just close out of that screen. Yes, I don't know if there's a way to actually turn off the search for an update. I mean, you may be able to use like a third party program that keeps you know, the Office tool from phoning home. But as far as I know, there's probably not a way to just say, like, hey, please don't even check for updates, because most of these programs they want you to update because you know, it's mostly for security reasons that they're keeping them up to date. There's some sort of issue, but you're still seeing the auto update menu even though you said don't automatically install it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, but it's just to say, well, what's the problem, pat, It's just a nuisance. It's constant. I've had it about two months now and I have eleven just for a Word, and there's a suite. I don't use any of the other programs in the suite. I only use Microsoft Word. But it's just a nuisance to constantly be having to deal with updates. And I don't need anything. That's said, I don't need perfection. I just need something to work.

Yeah, but it's just to say, well, what's the problem, pat, It's just a nuisance. It's constant. I've had it about two months now and I have eleven just for a Word, and there's a suite. I don't use any of the other programs in the suite. I only use Microsoft Word. But it's just a nuisance to constantly be having to deal with updates. And I don't need anything. That's said, I don't need perfection. I just need something to work.

Yeah, well I would, I would recommend, and I know, you know, I understand updates are annoying and this and that. But most of the time, when there's an update, you know there is a for it, and I know it changes features a lot of the times, which is why people are hesitant to do them. But it also most of the time they're patching any sort of security exploits or issues that they've found in that software. So for that reason, I would recommend that you do the updates. And I totally get it. I've got one program on my computer, it's a scanning program, and pretty much every time I turn on my computer, it's saying, hey, do you want to do the update? And I just press cancel because I barely use the program. So I understand where you're coming from. But in general, it is good to do those updates. But I think you're gonna be stuck with just xiting out of that screen. Thanks for the call, Patrick eight eight eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Coming up, I'll tell you about the new life saving feature on a smartwatch. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology. The website for the show rich on Tech dot TV. Be sure toscribe to the podcast so you can always listen no matter what. Just searching your favorite audio app for Rich on Tech hit subscribe. Obviously, the best way to listen is right here with me live. But if you can't make it or you want to catch the end of the show, just go to the podcast rich on Tech. Also, you can give me a call eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. If you have a question about technology, give me a call. We'll get to the phone lines in just a moment. This hour, we've got Mike Prospero from Tom's Guide joining the show to talk all things Amazon. They made a big upgrade to their voice assistant. Mike covers that voice assistant. I'm trying not to say the name, but it's alex Ay. You know what it is. You've set up many times to control your lights. But she's getting a big old upgrade. AI, So we'll talk about that. Alison writes in on the website from Corona, I own a business in a remote area. I need cameras set up with no power on property. You can get cell reception up there. Hell lots of ways you can do this, Allison, but I would get a camera first off. I would if you need cell reception, like do a cellular camera. But obviously if you had Wi Fi access up there, which maybe you don't because there's no power, that would be a lot cheaper and easier. But two brands to check out. The first is Real Link R EO l I n K. They've got a four G camera that also has a solar panel, so you can get one of those. They look like they range from about two hundred about two hundred dollars for one of those. Now, don't forget, you're gonna have to pay for the cellular service. So let's see how much are they asking for it. It's probably listed on the monthly, but you know, keep in mind you're gonna have to put some sort of interesting It looks like it works with a bunch of different cellular providers, so you can put the simcard in there so you can get you know, you can shop around, but again this is a pretty easy solution. Solar plus a cellular camera is going to be great. Two hundred bucks for that. The other brand to look at is UFI EUFY and they've got a couple of cellular cameras with also solar and there they look like they're anywhere from one seventy five to about four hundred. And they've got a couple of them that have like a you know, different packages and things like that. So now again let's see what their cellular is. So again, these are the kind of things you should look for before you buy something. Is make sure that you see, like, Okay, I see that I can get this camera with the cellular, but can I bring my own cellular or am I forced to use the cellular that they want me to use? And so that's the main thing that you need to check on these cameras. And just quickly looking at this cellular. Yeah, I'm trying to see you want to see the price? Okay, simcard included compatible with the three major networks in the US, no activation fee, no contract, one hundred megabyte trial data for seven days, and so I'm guessing you're going to have to yeah, see, this should really tell you how much this thing costs on the cellular after the seven days, right, Like you would think that would be front and center. But again, anyway, so that's what I would check for. Those are the two brands I would look into, Real Link and UFI. They both make a cellular camera that you can use and just set up. And once you set it up, it's pretty much set it and forget it. Thanks for the email. Let's go to John in Granada Hills, California. John you're on with Rich.