Mike has a New Gaming Build and is Windows Full Time Now – HGG432
Mike walks us through his new Gaming build and confesses that he is on Windows full time now. He asks the audience for some suggestions of the must have applications on Windows. We talk about Tony Raynor hitting the 275 million view mark on Google LocalGuides. What do you do when you run out of toilet paper and there is no back up in the bathroom? We cover some options. Jim gives an update on his Ring Cams and we talk about how you can stream the Super Bowl using Fubo! I think you will enjoy the show.
Full show notes, transcriptions, audio and video at http://theAverageGuy.tv/hgg432
Join Jim Collison / @jcollison and Mike Wieger / @WiegerTech for show #432 of Home Gadget Geeks brought to you by the Average Guy Network.
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Podcast, Home Gadget Geeks, Super Bowl, Windows, PC Build, Stream, Amazon, Motherboard, Tony Raynor, Mac, Cam, Ring, Stream Labs OBS
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Tony Raynor hit 275 million views on Google Local Guides https://twitter.com/awraynor/status/1222178195765678080
Mike’s Build
- Intel DH67BL motherboard
- i7-3770
- GTX 1060 SC 6GB
- 16GB DDR3 1600 ram
- Fractal Design Focus G Case
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Jim Collison [0:00]
This is the Average Guy Network and you have found Home Gadget Geeks show number 432 recorded on January 29 2020.
Jim Collison [0:22]
Here on Home Gadget Geeks we cover all your favorite tech gadgets that find their way into your home news reviews product updates and conversation all for the average tech guy I’m your host Jim Collison broadcasting live from the average guy TV Studios here in a kind of a snowy Mike is kind of off and on my the solar panel on my ring stick up cam we’re going to talk about that here towards the end of the show hasn’t seen a lot of sun over the last couple days right
Mike Wieger [0:45]
its that annoying like snow just enough like maybe it’ll melt and then it kind of does but then there’s another just little two layers till it comes down. It’s Yeah, it’s I hate this type of stuff. Either dump on me or give me nothing.
Jim Collison [0:56]
I know. I know and enough to kind of keep the grass covered which is right
Mike Wieger [0:59]
yeah. its true
Jim Collison [1:01]
you know hovering in that it’s maybe 30 it’s maybe 34 if it does if it’s your is it ice? Is it snow? You don’t really know. I think as as winters have been warming up the ice level used to get ice in Kansas City a lot. And I think they’re seeing more rain and we’re seeing the ice now because I just, I don’t ever remember having this much ice and this year, I think we’ve been ice three or four times already.
Mike Wieger [1:26]
Oh yeah.
Jim Collison [1:26]
And you just kind of like that’s messy. It’s kind of caused me to kind of rethink my de icing routines. So because when it’s just snow you just scrape it off right? Not so fun with the ice so I started using some thinking about de icers and I’m thinking about I’m actually using rain x wiper fluid which puts kind of a film
Mike Wieger [1:49]
I kinda didn’t think about that’s a good idea.
Jim Collison [1:51]
Kind of makes the ice come off just a little bit easier going out warming up the car a little bit earlier. You know some of those kinds of right some of the kind of get me thinking I should have thought about this a long time ago. But do I put a you know, do I put a starter? You know, remote starter with an app? Or when I buy the new car this summer? Do I just have the remote starter put on from the very beginning you have? Have you done that with any of your vehicles? We’re not
Mike Wieger [2:17]
Hannah’s cars. My car is still the same Jeep I’ve had since high school, so definitely not there. But Hannah’s traverse has it built in? Yeah, other than I don’t think she even used it. And hers has it from the phone app. Like she can do it. I could start her car from Kansas City if I wanted to. And she’d download she’s a very often she has a parking garage at work. So she’s never it’s never I mean, it’s cold. It’s not like snow, your head on top. So
Jim Collison [2:41]
just Justin says hundred and five, where he’s at. He’s down. He’s Yeah.
Jim Collison [2:47]
Yeah, he’s on the other side. And he’s encouraged me to get a Tesla. I don’t think this time we’ve we’ve had two Tesla owners on right, Dewain, by the way. Thanks to Dewain, for coming on last week. Dewain And Paul Byrne I don’t know if I have the right garage for that yet like I want it my right my wife we just have a one car garage at the moment and this this may be what actually gets me to move just to be honest that’d be careful how loud I say this like I don’t want to encourage it right but I don’t really have I was looking at Paul’s Tesla setup when we had him on so he was on a couple shows ago in my garage just is not that big and it’s one car and we fight over it like right fight and right now my son’s car isn’t it so you know I don’t want to do an outside blah blah whatever right? So I don’t know I think this time I’m still going to stay gas and but it you know most likely is going to be a Subaru just be honest. It’ll have the eyesight it’s going to have you know, which is adaptive cruise and all that other stuff that that kind of comes
Mike Wieger [3:53]
you love that Subaru you guys have do?
Jim Collison [3:55]
Yeah, I do. I do really like it. It drives great fast. But I would like a remote starter I just think I’ve lived in Nebraska long enough there are days when it be super nice to still open the app it but you know five o’clock or as I’m coming out of the fitness center Start the vehicle right ya know so yeah with winter here you kind of start thinking about those Of course you should be thinking about the show notes web a few of them posted out the average guy was that good? Yeah, we posted out of the average guy.tv You can also join us live on the mobile app easiest way to do it when you’re on the road just downloaded Home Gadget Geeks com if you’re new to the to the show, also want to thank our Patreon subscribers there who helped me pay for that every single year a couple hundred bucks a year. And if you want to be a Patreon subscriber, I’d love to have you do that the theaverageguy.tv slash Patreon will get you there. Join us in our discord group which is hot at the moment. I mean, like really good conversation going on right now on the discord group. So the average guy TV slash discord Mike will talk a little bit about that. So Those things a little bit later, as you give us an update on your build, I think that’s probably what where we need to go. Maybe we’ll start off with that. Again, you can join us in the Facebook group facebook.com slash know, the average guy.tv slash Facebook is what will get you there as well. A couple of reminders we talked about moving permanently like tonight we’re doing this on a Wednesday, if you’re listening to the recorded version, you don’t care. But for the live folks who came out on Wednesday, thanks for coming out. We will not be moving permanently to Wednesday’s just when I need to, which means I need to do a better job of scheduling a better job of letting you know some of those kinds of things. There won’t be many, maybe four or five year where I’ve got work things that come up on Thursdays or maybe Mike. So Mike, don’t be afraid if you got a Thursday night thing and we know far enough in advance. Maybe we can move some things around to make it work. But we are still back on Thursdays I mentioned earlier. Big thanks to you for coming on last week to talk a little bit about all the stuff that he’s doing. That’s just the guy you kind of wind up. Let him go by the way heard from McCabe.
Mike Wieger [6:01]
So yeah, we did on Twitter.
Jim Collison [6:04]
Yeah, Dave was like, Man, I’m feeling the tire tracks on my back.
Mike Wieger [6:08]
I hey, it wasn’t us, man. It wasn’t us. That’s
Jim Collison [6:10]
true. I loved your response which the opinions of the guests Htg Yeah, super good. So, Dewain, thanks for coming on. And Dave, thanks for being a good sport. I know he’s, he’s a listener of the show here. Thanks for being a good sport on that as well. Mike, let’s get to your build really quick because we alluded to this last week but with wayna we didn’t have time to talk about it you completely like you started with the Franken build and then you’ve been kind of documenting this on on Discord. So yeah. Follow along. Join us in our discord group. But what are you done? Like? I mean, it’s okay. Well, pretty quick. Give it of course, you’ll have it sold by next Thursday. Yeah. Give us a quick rundown what’s the build?
Mike Wieger [6:53]
Well, so you know, we started with the Dell optiplex is the kind of getting that right and you guys can actually see if you’re watching on the video. motherboard now is hanging has a momento on my pegboard behind me. So that’s the old Dell motherboard. It worked okay, but you guys saw the Franken build and needed the it’s just there’s so many proprietary parts in there even the fan ports on a Dell optiplex boards are not standard fan port so it worked for a while but it got to a point where it’s kind of driving me nuts and the case that it just looked bad. So the new build is a lot of the same parts. So the same processor came out of that was a Actually no, that’s not true. The reason the main reasons which motherboard the twit forgiveness, the main reason was that I got the I 737 70 and it had that Dell came with an i 520 400 well what I realized was that motherboard can’t run third Gen Intel so same socket at 1135 socket, but cannot run the third Gen and that was that was really disappointing and that that CPU is not going to work for what I want to do. The whole part of that build was that was going to upgrade it. So we upgraded the motherboard to Intel, d 67 bl I believe d h 67 Vl updated that that motherboards actually a really cool motherboard 1135 socket. A lot of PCI Express I think you got to have the six gigabit per second SATA ports and then three other set of ports that you can use a great little board that I was able to get on eBay us for 50 bucks so not bad there for that motherboard. The hard part about using old hardware I found this is you can get new hardware for our sometimes the same price because a lot of people are going back saying hey I want to use this processor But that requires me to use an 1155 board and those now are there the price comes up because they’re a little bit more in demand seamless Ram. I was shocked that I was paying pretty much the same as new DDR for ram for old DDR three ram just because same thing people have older boards and they need that ram that that works with it. So the current is that board and I 737 70 we got 16 gigs of RAM, which I’m glad I went with a 16 gig DDR for three and Roy support EDR three and a GeForce GTX 1060 as the graphics card there, the thing I was most impressed with with this build was actually the case. So this case is only $49 and I think I mean, now granted I have not built in like $100 case harmfully or a $200 case. And now they have cases that are up like $1,000 I was watching thing computers podcast the other week and they have some really nice cases out there on live right now. We’re talking
Mike Wieger [9:35]
fractal design focus gks. If you guys are looking for a budget case, this thing is awesome. It’s got the glass on the side if you like that, it’s got cord, you know cable management on the back, so both sides come off in the back is where you can kind of run some wires and then cover it up so they’re not shown. It comes with two front fans. 220 millimeter fans with it for $50 fans are bad They are they have white LGB. So I chose the white case. So obviously there’s no RGB control, but the fans are lit up white with the white case, I think it looks really, really good. So all that in the case works well. And then for the cooler, I grabbed a very cheap cooler on Amazon, but I got it because it had a ton of amazing reviews. It’s the thing I talked about last week. It’s the deep cool gamma x 400. And I think it’s like a $25 cooler. It’s super tall, you have to be careful if you have a anything smaller than a mid tower, it’s going to be too tall. Even though the measurements you might measure and think it’s okay, their measurements don’t include the tiny little nubs of the heat pipes on top is what I noticed. So it’s it they’re almost touching the glass on this mid tower focus gks so just be careful there but it’s a fun build. So I finally got it all up and running a little row is if you’re having trouble like really, really random issues with your computer Check the CMOS battery, especially if you bought a used motherboard. This thing I mean, it was like randomly I would, I would unscrew the side panel to just something real quick. But just as I unscrewed it, the machine would push power off. And I think it was bumping it just nothing that battery is old probably had I don’t know where marks whatever. I was just having a bunch of weird issues replace the CMOS battery and it has been flawless ever since. And you know, I think this thing is going to get me through. So I’ve been gaming on it, I’ve been streaming on it. And streaming has really changed because the way that they start to do the encoding the GPUs, everything back from a 10 series, I think, I think 10 series, the limit 10 series, a newer has what’s called an envy and C chip in it. So that’s a special chip in the car that’s not used for the except for the encoding. So I can use that for encoding my video. So like when I run OBS, it’s using that not using any CPU, and it doesn’t affect your game performance either. So it’s not utilizing a part of the GPU that would be used for gaming. It’s only a special little part. So attend 60 now and a third Gen Intel, you can gain an stream on the same computer which before when you were having two h 264 encoding and using your CPU that just wasn’t possible because you ended up using all your CPU to stream you had nothing left for the game to use. So I think this this bill will last me for a while I’m used to using oil old hardware. But now honestly, Jim, what do I need to sell this iMac because now it’s just sitting there doing nothing. That’s
Mike Wieger [12:28]
what this is. What it kind of led into is my question for the community is so now Windows is my daily driver. So this is not just a gaming PC. This is the PC that I am. This is the computer I use on down this desk. Now it used to be the iMac, I keep pointing because my Windows machine sits over here so I can see it. It’s nice and fancy. my iMac is right to my left. But it’s taking up a slot where I could bring one of my monitors, it’s up here, I can bring it down the desk, because I I do use synergy which if you’re looking for a good app, it’s like mouse without borders. But if you have a cross platform system, so I had Mac and Windows if you You have a Mac Windows Setup synergies a good app, it lets you have the same thing as mouse that borders on both. So I can still utilize it if I need to. But this is a lot extra power that’s being run for no reason when that could just be a monitor sitting right there. So I don’t know, I don’t know, I think I’m gonna keep it for now keep it sitting here. Obviously, I changed my mind every 10 seconds. And to be fair, this old iMac probably not worth too much, I might get three $400 out of it. And at that point, it’s probably good just to keep it it’ll be a great machine for the boys to kind of play around on when they need something. And if they mess it up, I’m not really too worried about it. So I’ll probably keep it around. But the crowd the thought did cross my mind is hey, let’s sell this iMac and maybe get a better graphics card or something. And I know always always be trading up and trading in. So the new build is fun. So the question of the community is now that Windows 10 is my daily driver. What are some add ons? What are some tools productivity tools that I need to get for Windows, the things I haven’t looked into so things I used for the Mac or like TextExpander is an app for the That I lived by in TextExpander. what it was was essentially you go in and you can do keyboard shortcuts for automated text. So I had email responses for like my weaker tech stuff when I was doing tech, you know, helping you out with tech. I had like a base email that I just you know, had a keyboard shortcut for and it would just put that text right in all format I want for insert the date. So all of that at TextExpander was really nice to be able to use so things like that productivity tool that you guys like oh, you almost forget you have them installed because they just become such a daily part of your you know, everyday use. So if you guys have any suggestions like that, hit me up on Twitter or actually even better. I have pretty much now that especially I sit in front of machine a lot because of the gaming discord has been the best way to reach me but Twitter discord hit me up in either of those places. If you have those type of suggestions for things that the the must haves for Windows, this is the first time I have really used windows in a non lockdown capacity. I’ve used windows at work my entire career but it’s always been On work computers that I can’t change anything on. And at home, I’ve been on a Mac, except that the only windows boxes have sat in my server racks are in a very unique purpose like site Holland or, or something like that or running as a server. So anyways, it’s new to me to be able to have an open windows machine that has to do with what I will. And if you guys So Jim, is there anything that you’re using now? Yeah,
Jim Collison [15:21]
a couple things. Well, one before I forget, take your build parts and put them in the show notes so that I can I can move them over, since we’re on Wednesday, instead of Thursday. Got a little extra time. So if if sometime in the next day or two, you throw those in the show notes, that’d be super helpful. So a couple things and I don’t think they’re necessarily just for podcasting. But kind of think about it you’re already running like steam right? So you’ve got kind of that you got that winner. Some utilities that I use file Zilla, right that to move to transfer files have to do it for the podcasting, right. FTP stuff. TFTP Right. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s been a really good, the updated are really, really often course now that you’re on Windows you can use Audacity the Windows version of audacity which I again I use from time to time free editing if we’re going to do any audio editing on that one I like handbrake on windows so if I’m converting in this case if I’m converting video files handbrake works out really really well for that you know I run site hound on Windows and so that that that works out that application works out really well for me. I think the the newest and you don’t have to really install this but the newest kind of Windows Snipping Tool, you know, the ability to go in and do screen snipping, or it’ll do the whole thing or parts of it are, right, they got some really cool so in Windows 10. There’s an upgraded version of skipping snipping sketch or something. I forget the name of it. But that now in Windows 10 is available for you. Sleeping Yeah, well, the snipping tool is the old one. Oh, it’s a new one. Okay. Yeah, it’s called snipping sketch. Okay, that’s the new one on Windows 10. So the that that is a really now I like I’m an old Snipping Tool guy so I keep going back to it because I can, you know open it boom boom bang good grab it BAM save it it’s done right. So you can still run the snipping tool but they the new one snippet sketch is available on Windows 10. So that’s just
Mike Wieger [17:24]
put it up on this monitor so don’t forget I’m gonna look at all this stuff as a threat because that’s true the hard part for me has been learning the new keyboard shortcuts I keep going back to my Mac stuff and screenshots Oh my God, I have no idea how to. Okay, so real quick, what are you guys using on a Mac? It’s so easy for a quick, quick and dirty I’m talking nothing crazy here quick and dirty video editing. I was using iMovie for some of that stuff. I have the premier not premier from Adobe. I have Final Cut on the window on the Mac side for my heavy duty stuff. But there’s a lot of times where I’m just you know, combining a few clips, throw some music over call it good. What are you guys using there? Well we’ll wait for the chat room I am still a Windows Movie Maker guy like
Jim Collison [18:05]
it’s well no you have to track it down like getting my hand out CDs you know that it’s not that bad yet but Microsoft isn’t supporting it off of their website but seeing that is and so you can go to see that get the executable still it’s still works awesome like just for what you’re talking about easy a few edits I mean it’s what I edit this show on every single I wouldn’t do heavy stuff on it but if you’re talking about trying to make a tik tok or Instagram or what you know just you’re trying to slip a few things together. Windows Movie Maker actually works out just fine. One of the things Mike I considered to it and I for licenses for this now is stable bit Dr. Paul. So box has any you know, if it’s got two or more drives, it might be handy to have a copy of it. But Dr. Poole on it, I like it because you can kind of combine the drives into pull drives, you can do some things. The cool thing I like about it is it has an email alert if you if a drive goes bad. So if you’re, you know, if you’re doing some things and you’re kind of dependent on it, I also like if you’re going to start data on it, and it’s going to be my daily driver, I might want to like those boards don’t I mean, some of those boards have some raid on them. But BIOS good level raid is not my favorite even though I think it’s the best. It’s not my favorite to configure, right and so having stable bit on there,
Mike Wieger [19:34]
running on an SSD and then I just threw an extra 250 gig spinner in there to store like a Steam library. And like because I will record while I stream and to be able to kick that out. Those end up being 1720 gig files at the end to be able to just constantly have those stream to a spindles a lot easier, but it does have an extra slot for another hard drive. So I probably will fill both those up with high graphics and green terabyte drives to throw in there. So stable that that’s a good idea because yeah I got I’m the same way I do not like BIOS level raid anything like that
Jim Collison [20:06]
let’s let’s get some chat room in here so yeah brain meter make mkv is another as another tool I haven’t used that one Joe says that we talked about snippet sketch what’s making KB for
Mike Wieger [20:21]
you guys should let me know both Alex and Joe suggested make mkv
Jim Collison [20:26]
that audio and video well we’ll look that up I don’t use it let’s see here oh Joe says windows key plus H is the built in dictation that’s helpful for you veem is a free backup agent great great option oh I’m not a big Cronus backup guy if you you know now you can and I think that a Mac version to then actually a Cronus like they are going I don’t know they must have got some money or something because their their mobile I mean they’re they’re doing upgrading all the They got new and new stuff all the time. And I just, they just gave me the ability to backup my mobile device on the current windows license. So bio, and I always get the licenses for maybe $15 a year per PC. So it’s pretty reasonable, maybe even a little bit cheaper. Yeah, the way if you wait till the end of the year, you know, they kind of go on sale. And I was able to back up my mobile device using across
Mike Wieger [21:21]
is this, okay? This can be bad to say it’s gonna be blasphemy, and you’re going to tell me to stop talking before we get bad advice to our listeners. But I’m almost to the point now where on this machine, right if I have big files that I work on, edit on and then I have a finished project. I’ll go and throw it on the NAS write on the unread box, which has its own backup and everything with with next cloud or with Dropbox, whatever you use with next cloud. And pretty much next cloud. I mean, everything else I like my Steam library. Maybe it would be more work for me, I think to reinstall from a backup, then to just read download Windows 10 and then start fresh, right. So I I have not been backing up each individual computer because the files are backed up to a cloud service. The unbraid box stores everything when it’s done. There’s no final products that are stored on these anymore. Those are all I’m just if I’m done with it, throw it over there because I know my unread box has the backup to off site and redundancy locally. I just it’s been working well,
Jim Collison [22:21]
well, but don’t confuse sync with backup, right? You know, this. It just because you go into the cloud doesn’t mean it’s backed up. You know? versioning turned on versioning.
Mike Wieger [22:33]
Okay, I delete a file. In next cloud keeps it for 90 days. That’s what I haven’t said too. So I have 90 days to realize that’s gone. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you’re right. There are there are items like that, where if I had an image from beyond 90 days ago, and I don’t catch it, I could get I could fix it. But yeah, I’m just kind of I’m to a point where I think it would be even just easier to throw back. So plugin my windows key. I keep my windows key right? Here, you know, I have it on USB if I need to redo it, I just throw it over there and re install. Okay, so john big says uses mkv to backup his blu rays. No. So it’s almost the equivalent like a handbrake sounds like it.
Jim Collison [23:15]
Yeah. So yeah, I haven’t. I’ve been a handbrake guy. Um, he says I haven’t done any new HD rips yet. So there’s some riffing. I’m not a big I started that process of ripping all my DVDs, and then I lost them. And then I was like, This is dumb for me. Yeah, don’t get offended. But I was just kind of like, I don’t have time to. If I had a machine, I could put the DVD, the DVD in or whatever. And it would just do it and it would do all those things. And then it would spit it out. And you know, I was done. And maybe, I don’t know if I need to keep all my DVDs and like, especially today for the most part. Now again, you do what you want. It’s fine if you’re doing it that way. That Awesome, but I just yeah after I lost about 200 DVDs i’d backed up and then it was like you know I can’t ever remember the last time I even watched these much less went to the backups for them right now. Something happens in the living room and all the DVDs melt I may be sad, but I may not be either. I just don’t I don’t know. So that’s just me that’s my personal Do you back up any of your stuff that way your DVDs Do you? Do you buy DVDs?
Mike Wieger [24:31]
by a digitally Yeah, I haven’t bought too many DVDs. So the The other thing I the other pain point I’ve run into is I realized, also Don me like Jim, what do you guys What are you Windows users do if you have an iPhone, and you want your photos I got I did not realize how convenient it was having photos on the Mac and I photo library in the cloud all just like I take a photo it is instantly in my Photos app on my computer, right so that kind of just instances Not having to do anything, it’s a good backup too, because then I have a local copy. That’s what I really started like, Well, I’m glad I really started the process a long time ago of also having these Auto Upload the next cloud, because now that’s my answer. I go to the web browser in here, go to next cloud and my photos are all there. I’m sure that’s probably the same thing. You guys use Google or somewhere Amazon or whoever you’re using to backup your photos. It’s probably that same way but I for the VI photo, it’s not iPhoto anymore. The photos library on Mac and iOS is such that’s probably the best feature that Mac has done that Apple’s done. iTunes is a dumpster fire, but photos I think is actually a pretty good implementation of Cloud Sync. I just love it when you say dumpster fire.
Jim Collison [25:41]
I don’t know I just the way you say. It sound good. Drobo also has its own app that you can same thing you can find on your phone. It will do it at one point I was at one point I was uploading to Drobo is uploading to Google Photos. I was uploading to OneDrive like three copies of them. Everything. And I kind of said, okay, who’s really the best at these at photo recognition and the tools around it. And those kinds of things, definitely not Drobo. Now, they were on, they got to the Drobo, super simple, and they were there, that was great. But Google Photos is just amazing. And the reminders of some of the things that gives back to you and how it puts things together and the tools that are available there. So Mike, I kind of landed, we had Amazon to for a while. And we kind of landed and then Amazon changed some things. If I, if I remember correctly, I think maybe they stopped doing photos or something or you had to pay for it, I forget. And so I just said, Okay, I’m going to Google, at least at this point, right? I can still download those and I’ve got them locally and some other spots and such but it just for me, it just kind of made sense to Justin says to he’s he’s kind of using Google at this point.
Mike Wieger [26:54]
That’s just kind of doesn’t alter the photos and all right, and its aim is local. So I’m not using Bunch of bandwidth. It’s going here. And it’s the same folks. I know Google unless you pay, it’s doing at least a little bit of kind of shrinking those down. It’s not going to be the full image that you took on your phone once they go to go unless you pay if you pay. I think they’re the full quality.
Jim Collison [27:15]
Yeah, Tony says still free photos with Amazon. Use it and Google. So
Mike Wieger [27:21]
I use Google. You can that’s how we get on our Google show up
Jim Collison [27:24]
upstairs. Yeah, I thought something changed on the Amazon side. Maybe I didn’t have the right thing. It doesn’t matter. You know, there’s so many different ways. Now. The proliferation is the problem like, Well, did I leave? Do I still have photos on one drive? Like, whatsoever on Amazon? Like, what’s the, you know, how much is on Google? Am I gonna, you know, am I google changes, you know, they store them in a lower rez format, is that going to change? Keeping up with all the terms and services of these things? Right. No kidding.
Mike Wieger [27:59]
Yeah. So well man the chat you guys were I’m gonna have to go back I’m going to go I’m glad you guys are putting this in YouTube chat because it retains the chat so I’m gonna be able to go back and watch and and get all these down afterwards you guys are chatting maybe asking you guys for Windows stuff that just that got you guys going yeah like that so I appreciate all the help is a ton just tons of stuff that I’m have to check out now.
Jim Collison [28:20]
Yeah well you know it’s not one of the things I’m finding now about Windows is that there are fewer applications that are just better like wild wild west days of Windows you know you go into Best Buy memory could go and buy software at Walmart or Best Buy and then have whole sections of software you can buy it. Those days are gone, right there’s software for the most part tax software maybe they’ll have they’ll carry a few titles depending on where you go maybe Office Max and Office Depot, which are one now here in the US. But the the Windows software has really become really limited for the most part. I mean, you just don’t especially Like the old Windows Installer stuff where you would actually install, you know, they’re trying to push everything through the store. Yeah, the x86 or whatever, those, those applications. There’s very few of them left. I mean, compared to what we used to have some of the old Mainstays. We mentioned a lot of those. VLC is another like a VLC. Yeah, video player that’s out there. Mouse without borders. You mentioned that a little bit earlier. That’s another one you can do. I use the heck out of room in a remote desktop in Windows. Right? If you’re going Windows to Windows that works out pretty good. tax software is another one of those you’ll think about like really easy to get Windows based tax software. If you don’t do it on the web. In in kind of be honest, I’ve kind of gone completely web for my taxes. I’m almost done with mine, for sure. It was all web based. Yeah, it’s gotten it’s gotten you
Mike Wieger [29:53]
tried this directory Opus that Tony recommends as a replacement for Windows Explorer. Interesting. I always like to Those early groans for Mac to that I liked playing around with different in Mac it’s the Finder so different replacements for that and as rain meter actually I pulled it up while we were talking that looks interesting to kind of a pretty much being able to fully customize your desktop. I thought when you first had it was actually arranged me like how much rain happened outside? No, this is actually really full features really cool. Okay, who suggested rain meter? I forget anyway, whoever suggested a mere it does it is it? Like if I run this, what I always get worried about is gonna bog down and slow down the machine a little bit like all that extra stuff running on the desktop is it doesn’t do pretty well. But
Jim Collison [30:37]
yeah. Hey, speaking of that, since Tony was out there in the chat right now big congratulations, Tony. This is if this is real. This is pretty amazing. 275 million views on how local guides on Google. Right. I mean, the photos you’re submitting, yeah, so you can sign up up for, for local guides through the maps, right? So you can go in there, sign up and be one of the guys submit them. And I think I’ve done that a couple times where I’ve gone someplace and it prompts me and you take a picture of it or whatever, add a add a review at a restaurant, it’ll prompt me and say, hey, you’ve been to these places, do you want to review them? And I’ve gone back through now, if you follow Tony on Twitter, which you should, maybe the most creative tech guy out there on what he posts, right. I mean, it’s a really good Twitter account to follow. So one of my favorites shows up a lot, Tony, you are super creative. Like, I don’t know how much time you spend doing this. I hope it’s not as much as I think it is. You know, sometimes I’m like, does he have somebody paying him to do I mean, or is he paying somebody to do this for right? It’s running his Twitter for him.
Jim Collison [31:53]
Yeah, no, he says it’s real. He’s in the chat room. He says, No, it’s real. I don’t know Tony and Tony’s been on the show. Before, I don’t know how Yeah, wow, just Twitter by itself, just the creativity that you put into your Twitter account. They’re just just just amazing. So Tony, congratulations 275 million plus views in, in local guides. got me thinking today, Mike. A little bit about I was like, Well, okay, maybe I could add you know, maybe I should add that to my routine a little bit more.
Mike Wieger [32:33]
I would say that’s exactly what I thought too is you know, I go to places especially down like, let’s say in Fall City, where the farm is there’s no one is submitting those photos to the photos. I should be just spent the small towns in Nebraska area, huge area that you could just,
Jim Collison [32:47]
yeah, stop and take a picture, you know, whatever. I didn’t realize there was 275 million plus people even using that thing. Yeah, right. kind of close to the population of the knighted states I mean we’re at 340 million so you know you kind of think like oh wow that’s a that’s a pretty amazing number right? Tony says his he has almost no local tech friends. So he has to live through you know, okay well let’s let’s be really clear Tony we’re living through you like the other way around. All the things that you post out on Twitter you do such a nice job of having a variety it’s funny you find the crazy I like you must be looking at everything and every place you go looking for something odd because you just find in my opinion, you just find the most interesting things I’ve ever seen. So if you want to go out and follow Tony, let’s see I think I just put that down but if you want to follow him he is at a W Rainer A w ra y and or if you want to follow him on Twitter. I think it’s the most interesting Twitter feed that is out there and Tony congrats on that you do a nice job I saw that I thought wow. But it did get me thinking like like maybe I need to add in taking more pictures into my for local guides into my just into the habits whenever I go someplace new snap a photo go in and I’m almost always goofing around on my phone. When I get like at a restaurant. Does anybody really talk to each other in our restaurant anymore? Like we kind of go in everybody. We What are you gonna order? Everybody’s on their phones? Yeah, right. Oh, I don’t know. Give me a second that must drive. waiters nuts,
Mike Wieger [34:37]
dad. No kidding.
Jim Collison [34:39]
Yeah, just kind of crazy. Have you. Speaking of that? Have you gotten into the trend? So I’ve noticed like Applebee’s, and some of these restaurants are putting those so one they’re putting those like kiosk machines on the table where you can play games and stuff like that, but you can pay right there or two. Are you ordering more food on apps and just having it ready when you get there? Have you have you gotten into either one of those technologies?
Mike Wieger [35:04]
If we’re dining in an okay I think we’re dining in no not usually the one exception that is Kapolei chipola we will order ahead just because the line waiting but if it’s a restaurant no we usually don’t we do a lot of you know ordering head from apps and going and grabbing it and taking out but no, not usually ordering ahead. Those tabletop things are good and bad for me because I have two boys and there’s always usually one of them. And so we usually keep that off limits unless one of them is just really needing a distraction at the moment. But because there’s only one and two boys that that’s that’s not good math
Jim Collison [35:44]
for table Yeah, right. Kinda table and both of them
Mike Wieger [35:48]
I will say is convenient. We have unknown applebees known to pay there and get up and go and Joe’s
Jim Collison [35:55]
convenient. You see the chat he can kind of the order your drink straight from there. That’s Nice to and it just puts the order back at the bar when you’re when you’re ready and they just kind of bring it out to you. Yeah, um, we ordered Buffalo Wild Wings on Saturday, not this last Saturday but Saturday before after the Chiefs game. We I was like, Man, I’m I’m dying for some wings. So between the Chiefs game and the 40 Niners game, we we I downloaded the app, create an account Buffalo Wild Wings 40 minutes and I was like, okay, that’s cool. I mean, it’s a busy night it was a playoff football playoffs here in the United States. And I started thinking like, okay, it’ll be ready at 630 and I started thinking, I wonder what time it’s really ready yet. Has it been sitting there? Like a tie? How do they time that right? So all the hallway Oh, driving over. I’m like, and I don’t know, like, I don’t know if apps are good for this, right like to order food and advantage, especially when they give you that long of a window. Now if it’s Taco Bell, I’m pretty sure like it’s gonna be ready in five minutes and you’re going to get there and wait one minute in still gonna be hot. Right, right. In this case with a 40 minute window, I was a little skeptical. So I kind of stood there and it was kind of a it was not it was a little circus inside of Buffalo Wild Wings. Yeah. The food came out and then they’re like, Hey, we’re having some trouble with our point of sale machine, can you? So for like 15 or 20 minutes, they were just they couldn’t take my card. It was the craziest thing. And I don’t know if that’s because it came in on the app. It must have been so the app itself must have a separate kind of point of sale experience for them that they gotta bring up. Charge it. It’s got to go through the receipts. They tried rebooting them. Eventually the guy goes just
Mike Wieger [37:41]
just it’s costing them more in time and making everyone mad and it was worth it had the wings. Yeah. Yeah. So $35 worth of
Jim Collison [37:49]
like two wings, Buffalo.
Mike Wieger [37:50]
No kidding. They are. Crazy overpriced
Jim Collison [37:53]
stick but, but it was it made me feel good about going to Buffalo Wild Wings because we’ve kind of we’ve kind of waved them off. as expensive as they’ve gotten there, you know, it’s not the wings, it’s all the other stuff around it. That’s like $9 beers and, you know, $18 french fries. So, so that worked out pretty well. But it kind of got me thinking like, are we to the point now, especially for carry out that are good enough that you could really and it’s kind of thinking about these Amazon devices, these Google devices? Is is are we getting there where I can start ordering not on my app, but on the digital assistant? And then it would say, it’s some point Hey, leave now. And what would you know, with the with the restaurant, right, be good enough to time that like, Google knows how far I live from there, right? It could. I mean, it could be an experience where it would be like, hey, the food is done, or at least they can predict when it’s going to be done. Yeah, get it within a couple minutes. That’d be awesome. Right, yeah, Google knows how far and how long it’s going to take and what the traffic conditions are. And when I need to leave, the Assistant could handle all of that, as well as Tell me, hey, five minutes, you need to go pick up that stuff, right? And now you can have it delivered to right. That’s another another way of doing it. But I just kind of got me thinking a little bit like I’m wondering, they’re really, really nice, tight experience. My favorite app for doing anything ahead of time is actually the sport clips app. So I when I get my haircut, I log in ahead of time checking online, it gives you the estimate, you can actually see who’s working see if your hairdressers working. Tap them you get into the line ahead of time. I just I hate showing up to sport clubs cuz you never know getting in that line. You could be waiting an hour and a half. So I’m just I at work, you know, 10 minutes before I’ll check it. check in and use I can just walk right in walk right into her and walk out. skip that one. No, that’s super convenient. The other thing I scheduled recently was my was my physical so like you Don’t think of a doctor’s appointment being able to be scheduled online. So I went to we have a, you know, our view, hc i think is what we have or whatever. I can go into their app, I can a monitor that’s kind of freaking out over here. It’s kind of freaking me out, you know how you see it. It’s kind of shaken and like, is that my old age? Or is that monitor Actually, it’s doing some boy, it’s doing some weird things kind of freaking me out. So I like I went a couple years without a physical because I just didn’t want to call I don’t want to call in to make the appointment. So as I said, There’s got to be an app for this. So just recently, my doctor ping me He’s like, Alright, it’s time for physical get it scheduled. And I went in and I was like, Oh, wait a minute, I can just schedule this online. And so I scheduled the date. And you know, eight o’clock on a Thursday in February and that sounds like that’s not a great day. Can you went back in cancel that reschedule it for a day in March. I thought holy crap this really takes and gentlemen, I’m speaking to you because there’s no women who listen The show. Gentlemen, I’m talking to you. And if you are, by the way, sorry, thank you. Keep listening. Don’t leave yours. You’re like, we’d like to have you don’t don’t don’t leave, right? Yeah, but gentlemen, gentlemen, if you’re not getting your inner physical, and you’re not doing it because you don’t want to make the appointment, but you’d make it through an app, check your check your health care provider, check your services, check some of those things. Chances are, you can now schedule that thing online. Mike, I do schedule. I do a physical a month now. It’s online. I cannot have to talk to anybody. It’s pretty crazy.
Mike Wieger [41:36]
I’d have to talk someone I would be healthy, you know. Yeah.
Jim Collison [41:39]
So Tony says he’s got he goes, Oh, yeah, I get that colonoscopy to see I’ve been putting that off and he’s right. I just need to get in there and get that thing scheduled. I probably do it after my physical they asked me so so far with the colonoscopy. So last time I went in, I was like, Okay, I cannot be trusted to make the call. Can you have them call me my doctor is like, oh, heck yeah. So three days later, I get a phone call. Since I don’t answer my phone I went to voicemail. Do you think I’ve ever called him back now? Because Jim doesn’t do that. So I gotta get I gotta get that thing that I’m, I don’t have a family history and I’m relatively I feel relatively good about that. But that being said, I do need to get that done this year. So Mike, that’s another thing where like an app kind of changed for me, kind of changed everything, you know, as far as like actually getting the physical schedule, right. You know,
Mike Wieger [42:32]
okay, you kind of you kind of lead in perfectly to my story. So here’s my story. I’m not going to I’m going to put you in a scene gym. So you’ve gone into the restroom, right? And so this is you know, it’s gonna start off great when you’re in the restroom. So you’re in the restroom. you’re scrolling Twitter, you know, you’re doing your business. And you get done. You get to after you know, you realize you’ve been scrolling Twitter for 20 minutes, and you turned your right. And there’s no TP you’re out of toilet paper. Oh and there are people in the home. But they’re worth it. They’re they’re out of shouting distance. You can stop on the floor you can yell really loud. They’re just embarrassing and it’s you know, so So what do you do? It’s the perfect use case for open the AMA. I know you have your phone in your hand, even though it’s gross. Open your phone open the Amazon Alexa app and say a lady announce Hey, yo, Will someone bring me some toilet paper? All of your Amazon devices in the house will then announce that you need toilet paper and someone will come to your rescue. I did this for the first hundred nine I’m like I’m genius. It worked. Hannah was with boys super far away. She was not going to hear me if I yelled there was no way I’m like I’m kind of stuck like I am stuck and it was perfect. He announced picture is a it was awesome and my kids just thought it was hilarious.
Jim Collison [43:50]
Oh no right on it’s a great idea. But do you have a You should also develop a safe word or a code word the family in cases get So, like, that’s a great idea. You don’t want to be announcing that to the guests. So it would be like you know, you get on there I don’t know what would you say you know, you don’t say I Code Blue. That’s pretty obvious, right? But But you know, hey, and then something you know, I Hannah, don’t you look lovely tonight. Right?
Mike Wieger [44:18]
And then everyone thinks it’s a joke and then she just giggles
Jim Collison [44:21]
Could you just Excuse me for a sec?
Mike Wieger [44:24]
See, it’s perfect.
Jim Collison [44:26]
Yeah, what else have you So Sarah does that a lot of times she’ll be upstairs and she doesn’t want to come all the way down here. It’s hard. She could yell our room is kind of up over in that corner she could yell but she’s found that drop in feature. Yeah,
Mike Wieger [44:37]
we’re up is great. You know where the right workflow announces great for if you just I just need glasses out. I don’t know where they are in the house. But hopefully they’ll hear it so you just say lady a announce. Go into your next whatever you the word announce is said in your voice. It’s like recording you and then it just does that just spits it out it shine all your all your ad will decisioning and then it’ll your voice will come out of there all at the same time. So we got a couple suggestions from the chat room. Oh, you should say code Brown. Brown. Okay.
Jim Collison [45:14]
cornholio is in the building. Maybe another way of saying it. Anybody up for cornhole? That would be, you could, you could do it that way as well. Justin says code Brown. So he’s doing that. He said that was Alex. Bananas. That would be great. Hannah, could you bring me some bananas? like where’s Mike? They needs bananas.
Jim Collison [45:34]
Yeah, yeah. Well, there’s something. There’s something to that like what would be you could say, Hannah. I spilled something. Can you come help me? Yeah, like, right. That would be that could be true. Yeah. But it could be a code word like, Hey, I spilled something back here. Can you come help me really quick? Yep, exactly. And that would be that could be if you’re thinking of in conspicuous code, right? Well, I like code Brown. Pretty obvious. Yeah Oh, that’s
Mike Wieger [46:06]
right. I let me i when i when i did it when I thought like this is the perfect use case for the announce feature. Yeah, it is perfect. I did not think of the guests being in the home that that thought didn’t cross my
Jim Collison [46:18]
mind. This is why this is why we bring these things up here on the podcast data.
Mike Wieger [46:23]
About you my guests are usually family members anyway. What if they’re stuck in the bathroom? Yeah. I hope they I hope they would announce it right? That’s even more embarrassing. What if you’re a guest in someone’s home? And there’s no then what do you do?
Jim Collison [46:35]
Hey, what’s even worse one time I I stopped up a toilet in order. That is the maybe one of the most embarrassing moments in my life.
Mike Wieger [46:47]
It’s gonna be common courtesy that you should be putting in Alexa in the guest bathroom so that they can announce and ask you for toilet paper if they need to. Just a thought you’d be courteous people
Jim Collison [46:57]
need a toilet paper robot. House that would you could, you know, just like a dash button in the bathroom that would be like you could just sit and then the toilet paper robot would deliver. That’d be pretty great. Justin says what happens if you have more than one possible location? Any codenames? Yeah. You need Well, if you’re gonna do that, if you’re gonna do
Mike Wieger [47:20]
one we have a spill l two. Three do just, you know.
Jim Collison [47:25]
Yeah, would you could I mean, if you’re gonna do the spill thing, it could, you could say, Hi, I spilled back here in the bathroom Can Can you and she’ll now like, you know,
Mike Wieger [47:35]
she’s like the phonetic alphabet, you know, tank up a PA and location Delta, right? Like, the TP wherever I’m at.
Jim Collison [47:41]
or, or, or maybe just a tone of some kind like, you could maybe you could do a you could do
Jim Collison [47:49]
that’s what I pictured when you said
Jim Collison [47:54]
you making a toe and I was thinking about you know, Tom, that’s, you know, one day We were today I saw I was podcasting at work today and the host.
Mike Wieger [48:05]
We’ve really tanked this podcast.
Jim Collison [48:07]
Totally, but it’s good. It’s a Wednesday we can do this.
Mike Wieger [48:10]
I took us off course
Jim Collison [48:12]
we did. I like it. I like it. We were podcasting today and there was a there was a live coaching session going on. And when we were getting close to the time, because you know, you get into these kinds of things and you forget how long like we’re already coming up on the hour, right? you kind of forget you get into this, you kind of forget. So the host had a like a Tibetan Bell and it’s like a bowl and you know, and so you couldn’t see her but she don’t hit the bell. So maybe in the bathroom. Like there’s a there’s a bell like you know, a decorative bell that it says you know, in case of, you know, ring when you need please ring and even you know, hold the venue, something like that, you know, I don’t know there’s there’s lots of great options. We’d love actually to hear your options. So if you’re watching the YouTube video in the comments below
Mike Wieger [49:00]
harelip women viewers to Josie says yeah,
Jim Collison [49:03]
yeah, there weren’t there was zero to begin with. But if you’re even if you’re listening live, go into the comments right now not the chat but go into comments. What would you do? Like what would you say if you needed to announce announced you needed more toilet paper? right what’s the what would you say we need some creative ways drop them in the chat or in the drop them in the comments below here on YouTube. We’d love to have you do that as well. Mike, you’ve been you’ve been gaming a lot lately. Right? kind of getting back into it. You said stream labs OBS mobile remote app has been a game changer for you.
Mike Wieger [49:41]
Okay, so first of all, I didn’t know this existed. And the only reason I bring it up is because I guarantee there’s someone in our listenership that is also streaming using stream labs OBS. And when I found it, I posted out I’m part of this Facebook group called like the dads gaming. It’s like a bunch of dads that do the same sort of thing. And about half of them hadn’t even heard of it. And what this is, is essentially so stream labs OBS is a modified version of OBS meant for streaming to twitch and gaming. They have an app for the iPad and iPhone. And essentially what it is, it’s almost like a touchscreen scene changer. So right like you have one scene where it’s your game and you in the corner, then maybe you have a Be right back screen. Maybe you have another scene where you can show your browser well before you either need to be in the application clicking around on my desktop. Or you can use a lot of people use these things called stream decks. It’s a physical device you buy it’s a box with programmable buttons, and you would set it in front of you and you can hit your programmable buttons. This uses your iPad screen as a remote control for your stream. And the buttons are dynamic. So if I’m on a certain scene, it shows all the different aspects like your webcam, your game, you can turn those on and off. You can mute and unmute your mic just by tapping real quick. Jim what this made me think of was men if there was a remote app like this for podcasting, and I know that some mixing boards do have like the high end mixing board, you can use an iPad. But imagine if you had your little controls down here on an iPad, you’re mute real quick, I’m going to sneeze and just tap your on your little screen controls and volume sliders, things like that. So first, it’s just if you use stream labs OBS just know there’s a mobile app there that you can use for totally free. It was it because before people need to pay a bunch of money for a stream deck, and it works really well. I told kershner about this. He’s streaming actually right now on Twitch, and he’s like, Dude, this is awesome. He has a stream deck but he was going to try this live on and he’s gonna see how it worked for switching around. Cuz he hadn’t heard of it either. So just one little cool. is a quick tip for you guys who are streaming
Jim Collison [51:45]
Yeah, and if you want to catch that show, think computers.org is is Ryan and Ben know what’s his What’s his gonna be on the show as his partner Bob over there right now, but I gotta remember that for Bob because I’m sorry Bob. It’s That’s the Bob’s right I should just be able to remember that from from office space Oh, because I’m watching because I’ve site hand up I just saw that the porch light came on in our porch lights really really sensitive now so it only comes on if you’re right there. There’s no I must have been must be an animal or something that’s out of sight I can see I’ve seen deer. Now a little rabbit going across some of those course I watched the Amazon guy fail. We bought one of those boxes that Paul Byrne was talking about right one of those package boxes for the front where you know the they can deliver it put it in the box, right? So I installed it on Saturday, put screws in the bottom and screw down to the deck. It’s not going anywhere. It’s not blowing off. It’s not you’re not pulling it off. It’s not going anywhere. And so the Amazon guy comes out we have our first Amazon delivery this week and I’m I’m watching this from the video the replay afterwards and he comes up He looks at the box and he sets it down by the door. What do I gotta do? What do I gotta do? So I think it’s gonna take a little training. Paul has that listed on his site, I’ll have a link in the show notes as well to that. It’s a it’s kind of a step two, so it’s heavy duty plastic kind of meant to be outside, it’s got a lid on it. The intention is ain’t put the lid off of the box and shut it down. It’s hard to see from the tan so it’s kind of hard to see from the street. Kind of you don’t know if there’s a box up there or not the camera I have two cameras pointed right on it. So So Mike, I finally 45 bucks, I think for that box. So what can I say to the kids? We’re trying to figure out like, okay, like, but it’s just in the box. And we’re like, Yeah, but you can’t see it. I know, but it’s not locked. Like that’s not the point. The point is, he can’t see if there’s a box up there and not it’s always up there, right. They just could not get the past the part of they’re like, well, could you put a lock on it and give the guy a key and like we’re not gonna lock it like it’s not meant to be locked it’s meant to obscure the box so you don’t you know so you don’t know and they just couldn’t get past it so there was some designs that were made about a shoot you would put it in there and a shoot would take it into the house and it would go through a one way door. So guys it’s just too obscure the box that’s all it’s there for. And now we’re still locked on how do you rock it isn’t Is there a universal key we heard that too. Is there one of the kids is there like Don’t they have like a universal key thing that I’m like not that that’s not haha you know and it’s out far enough where they put our packages the ring doorbell can’t see him because it’s right it’s right underneath it. Now I have another camera that points that we call it the porch cam points right at it. And so I can see it there when they deliver it and of course we see them when they come up on the porch. And and so that that is actually Mike Let me let me talk a little bit about kind of an update on that because some folks have been asking on the ringside. So, I did I did come to and i and i posted both in the discord group and in the Facebook group a picture of what I did with this ring cam, and there’s a new Sorry, I have a new floodlight, and I have a stick of cam. And then I got a solar panel on it. And somebody said, I think it was you and a few others. Yeah, why didn’t you just buy the flood cam right? Because for 200 bucks, I think they’re 250 I think I get to 10 Well, but I figured I actually all those things I replaced so sticker Cam 90 $950 for the for the solar panel. So I’m at 150 and I only paid 30 so I’m at 180 Okay, but that’s not that far away from flood the flood cam was on sale for like 209 this this week. Most I think it’s 250 most of the time so not that far away. JOHN said this to me. You said to me why she’s buying fun like him. Okay, here’s why. Because I did this in stages, right at first I was just going to do a stick up cam. So, when I was installing a stick up cam, I broke the floodlight, because it’s plastic and it’s in Nebraska and you like it’s been up there for 12 years. So yeah, no, he was in the back of my house. Somehow it was holding lights up. And all I did was I breathed on and the thing was,
Jim Collison [56:31]
it just broke. And I’m like, oh, okay, so don’t Note to self don’t put plastic components up on that thing, right? So I bought it. So I went on Amazon, I found this really nice floodlight led for 30 bucks. So yeah, okay. So I’ll just order it that way. I don’t I got the stick up cam. Well, then I put the stick of cam up in two weeks later, it says hey, you gotta replace your battery. Like, oh, okay, there is no way especially in the middle of winter. I want to hauling the ladder out and going up and replacing the battery. So I bought the solar panel update to that. So I installed it a couple weeks ago. I we haven’t had sun in four days, and it’s still at 98% today. Oh really?
Mike Wieger [57:14]
Yeah. So it’s not sunny. It’s still pulling some,
Jim Collison [57:18]
ya know, at night night it shuts off, right? There’s no power and then the device on the app that says, hey, you should attach your solar panel. Well, no, it’s there. In during the day when the sun is out. It says, Hey, solar panels attached, right. But apparently or I’m getting enough of something that it’s keeping that 98% it’s been on there. 10 days. I think I installed that last weekend. So nice job ring, man. That solar panel is dynamite. So I’m not sure it’s either south facing exposure there in like in the summer. I may just leave that thing on full time. Right because it’s like, why not? Yeah, no. Check out you know,
Mike Wieger [58:01]
and so the good part about this though is if you did want to upgrade to the floodlight cam that stick up in in the combo there the stick up in the solar you could put that anywhere your back porch, Cam sidewall, you know, whatever you want, if you ever did want to.
Jim Collison [58:17]
Yeah, I did, I did silicone it in and I did a really nice install on that when I was putting it in and it kind of that I was like, now I could if it here’s my thought if the floodlight cam price gets good, maybe under 200 bucks, maybe I find a slick deal on it. I’ll probably pick it up and replace it. But it’s my choice, like at this point and then I have a really nice led floodlight that I could replace in the back in the motion sensor all that other good stuff. It’d be great back there. It’d be perfect for back there. I could move this stick up cam back there and replace the the Z moto Kham that’s doing it now and that’s doing a fine job but stick up cams better, right. It’s just better And so yeah I could move some things around I have I have new options and now if I take it in the back then I’m going to do something different because the back does not have the same solar capabilities that the front does like the front was made for solar back right? Not so much. So I’d have to kind of think like where do I want to put the stick up camp it’s just as a ton of fun by the way I’m I am loving this whole cam thing like I’m gonna have about 18 of these things
Mike Wieger [59:26]
it’s a bad addiction.
Jim Collison [59:28]
Yeah, no.
Mike Wieger [59:30]
I my few remaining 720 p cameras. It’s been taken the most willpower I have to not upgrade those to at least 10 at If not, if not more.
Jim Collison [59:40]
Yeah, yeah. I did. The subscriptions have all like the 30 day free subscriptions have all come up. I renewed the new the the ring one so $30 a cam per year, which is great. So $3 a month or? Yeah, yeah, no. $30 again,
Mike Wieger [59:59]
I missed the pretty Whoa,
Jim Collison [1:00:00]
okay, yeah, yeah, per year. 60 bucks for the cloud. You don’t have to have it, I don’t think but it’s just so freakin convenient at that price. z moto has something similar again. So z moto is in my garage, not as important that I have that on all the time, or at least I’m capturing it. And the Z moto devices actually have onboard memory. So they’re writing it to the memory first, you can get them from there, then they’ll fill up you’ll get a notification yet delete the memory doesn’t auto do it. This is the value of the cloud, right? It’s always just going there. It’s more convenient that way. So z Moto, I’ll probably just manage those manually. They’re not there in spots that aren’t as important. And so like the backdoor just doesn’t get a lot of use. So as they become I have apps open so I’m kind of monitoring them. The front ones are the most important and those are all ring based and, and they were great. So 30 bucks or 60 a year. It’s kind of the way to go that just kicked in. And it’s all going to the cloud. So Mike I don’t think I’m gonna mess with it. I think I’m just kind of kind of leave it as is for now. Until I get a really sweet deal. Yeah.
Mike Wieger [1:01:09]
Summertime or whenever they come out like the gen two of the floodlight bring maybe the you know flash sale the gen ones get a good deal on it Yeah.
Jim Collison [1:01:17]
Other Jim says the wise cam. Now let you turn off the IR in the night vision independently which is kind of nice. It might help you shoot through glass through glass recording and I do package cam is behind glass. I’d like to have the the light on because it’s a deterrent. Like the light the the actual there’s enough light where that you will know there’s a it always has a little so there’s a little red light that’s in the top that when that’s on that that kind of kind of helps. If you turn that now it’s off right now everything is off and I can see it’s the middle of the night. There’s no lights on I can see my porch. So I don’t need the infrared there. I only like that light on because it’s a deterrent like you see it in the middle of the night you see a light is on behind glass. Except when that light is on it really behind glass. It just ruins everything. So so that’s a good that’s a good point. Yeah, it’s got me Jim other Jim. Thanks for throwing that in the chat room. It’s got me thinking a lot about other things. And so I threw the discord group this week like, Okay, I gotta have a backdoor here that we lock to the garage. So somebody compromise the garage, back doors locked, you’re not getting it right. In the butt. Do I need to like do any smart door lock on that thing? Because how handy would it be to be able to open that one now? I installed that one. I didn’t do a very good job in it. So the the, the you know, the deadbolt, you got to kind of push the door and push the deadbolt. You can’t with automation. That thing’s gotta be slick, right? You just know I am exact boat,
Mike Wieger [1:03:02]
because I want to put one on my back door to my back patio, but it’s the same thing. It’s just barely not like the heights off scan, I actually had to lift up a little bit and then turn for it to be. And imagine
Jim Collison [1:03:11]
if I put a little grinder in there and kind of just ease that out, you know, or took my Dremel or my Dremel. Yeah, I do have a Dremel. If I took the Dremel and then just kind of stretch that part and did it until it closes. What I like about it is when I do push it in the seals, since it’s a garage door, it’s cold out there. It really seals so that kind of holds it in and I mean that seals the door really well when I do that but it would keep me from putting a door lock from you know from putting an automated door lock, it’s got a deadbolt on it today. So that can be kind of thing about door locks. We have a schlagg Is that the right pronunciation? I’ve always said it. We have a flag on the back. That is dumb, but it has a keypad so you can
Mike Wieger [1:03:59]
get that rolling I need when I’m moving I need to be in the backyard and go inside and grab like a cup of water or something.
Jim Collison [1:04:03]
Yeah, and they’re all key because we have schleich locks all around they’re all key the same so that’s one key you know and I’ve just one key does all the does all the doors so it’s like okay do I want to be if I go with an August or if I go with a one of these other have to figure out the key situation with it and do I really do I or do I want to go keyless in some of these, like, when you’re walking in the back door, this is the door, you know, everybody has a front door that they don’t use. Everybody has a backdoor somewhere that they use all the time, right? That’s our drives all time coming through the garage. Do I really want to be fumbling with an app? to like, I’ve got usually I’ve got stuff in my hands. Yeah. You know, and you don’t then you’re thinking well put an Alexa, put an Amazon device out there. Sorry. And then you’re like, Well, no, you don’t want people to shout. Honey, if they know that they could shout things, you know through us It won’t let you on.
Mike Wieger [1:05:05]
Well, it’ll let you unlock and you have to use a voice. Do you have to use a pin? Yeah. It’s like my extremely safe right? I can tell her arm it. I cannot they don’t even allow it with a pen I cannot disarm it with with Alexa.
Jim Collison [1:05:18]
Okay, well, it’s
Mike Wieger [1:05:20]
lining up over here.
Jim Collison [1:05:21]
Yeah, the other thing I’ve been saying lady a lot is I’m I’m leaving. That’s all you say. And she says, I’m guarding? You know, have a good trip. I’m guarding and then it’s listening for glass breaking digital. Yo, yes. Yes, you go into your Amazon app. Enable that is a skill. It’s a it’s a native skill for Amazon. Okay. And when you’re just leaving, just say that lady a. Hey, I’m leaving. Here. We’ll just say
Jim Collison [1:05:52]
Alexa, I’m leaving.
Amazon Alexa [1:05:57]
Goodbye. I’ll start guarding now.
Jim Collison [1:06:00]
So she’s guarding you can see the you can see it right now in garden mode on on these devices listening for breaking glass and fire alarms. Right as soon as I set that to garden mode got a notification on my watch Sarah is probably like what is he doing down there? Like is he setting this at night before bed? You could it’s not motion it’s just listening for sounds right so thing for breaking glass and fire which wouldn’t be a bad thing to have on anyway. So maybe a good thing to put on at night. You can see it circling. If you’re watching the video, you can see cuz you can tell it Okay, it’s in garden mode. And then I’m setting off everybody’s Alexa, but I’m gonna say it anyway. So Alexa, I’m home and then
Amazon Alexa [1:06:46]
got it. I’ll stop guarding now.
Jim Collison [1:06:50]
I think that’s cool. Yeah. So pretty cool. You have to enable it and put it in it’s kind of like those one of those the tricks about announcing right And so that’s been another, you know, kind of based on the the the the burglary we had earlier or late late last month just been thinking more about those safety features and home automation. And, you know, where do I put when and where do I put door sensors on some of those kinds of things. We had a we had a door sensor on the back door for a while that would be putting opens up and those kinds of things. I found that pretty annoying. After a while. That was honey,
Mike Wieger [1:07:28]
we have simply safe and I turned all those beeps off.
Jim Collison [1:07:32]
Yeah. So yeah. So a little update on some of the home automation stuff. I figured this would be a good week to kind of talk about it since we have guests for the next couple weeks coming up. But then one last thing, Mike it’s Super Bowl Weekend coming up. Maybe you’re listening to this and it’s already happening or it’s already gone. But there’s been a new I’ve never heard of these guys before, but then they’re all over the place right now called fubo fQ bo.tv They seem to kind of be a YouTube competitor at this point as far as offering all the major networks, a bunch of sports that’s in there 5499
Mike Wieger [1:08:10]
or define all the other streaming sites? Yeah.
Jim Collison [1:08:13]
Yeah. So 85 plus channels for $55 a month fubo TV like, I found them through I was as I was trying to come up with segments tonight. I’m cool technology on Super Bowl. I didn’t find stuff but CBS was using like they were saying, How do you watch the Super Bowl? Well, you can watch it on Fox, which is pretty interesting. I was this was a CBS com. You can watch it on Fox, or you can stream it on this, this fubo I’m assuming that’s how they pronounce it. Anybody in the chat room? Have you guys tried fubo just kind of interested if that’s it, kind of came out of nowhere?
Mike Wieger [1:08:50]
Do they have a free trial,
Jim Collison [1:08:51]
they do a seven day free trial. So if you’re listening to it the weekend before the Super Bowl and you want to want to stream it to devices at a time. If you want stream it to a third or more device you have to buy their family plan to get that done. I think it’s five bucks more a month they have the payment plan. So you’re at 60 for that again, your youtube tv prices. Yeah, you are, you know, in your stream. You
Mike Wieger [1:09:15]
said again, DVR.
Jim Collison [1:09:17]
It does have DVR. Yeah, they do have a DVR feature. Let’s see if I’ve got did I still have fubo? Why did I close that? That was a dumbest thing ever. Let’s just open it back up. If you go to fubo and you scroll, you scroll down. They are definitely making a gigantic sports play right now. There we go. You know, in other words, they’re, they’re, you know, counting on the Super Bowl for this. But yeah, their FAQ. Can I record games and shows? Yes, every fubo TV account includes 30 hours of cloud DVR space at no extra charge. Not a lot there. You don’t think so.
Mike Wieger [1:09:56]
Okay. I’m just thinking of all the things that build up like our shows and I just like well maybe I just got used to I just record everything
Jim Collison [1:10:05]
YouTube unlimited. Okay. Yeah, you can hit record from one device start watching on another and finish on a third. If you want to do it that way
Mike Wieger [1:10:18]
you can just use trial even if you are like I might even try it as a YouTube.
Jim Collison [1:10:22]
Any person. Cancel it anytime. You can watch it on just about anything. iPhone, your computer, iPhone, iPad, Android tablet, Roku, Apple TV Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV. So I don’t know where these guys came from, like all of a sudden. Okay, and they got the Super Bowl. Well, they didn’t get Super Bowl they have Fox. Right. And if you have Fox everybody is cool.
Jim Collison [1:10:54]
All right, Mike, anything else?
Mike Wieger [1:10:56]
No, I I am I’m excited to go in and start googling after the show all the things they suggested for Windows.
Jim Collison [1:11:03]
Yeah, that’s a guy. keep busy over the weekend. Don’t forget the show notes. Yeah. Oh, yeah. couple couple reminders as we kind of wrap it up if we won’t have a long post show. By the way, if you’re listening last week, Duane went into a big deal on VR. And we posted that to the Patreon account is free. I used to you used to have to be a Patreon subscriber to get that you can now get that for free. If you head out to the average guy.tv slash Patreon, we took that VR conversation. I know you’re used to that being a crypto conversation, which by the way, crypto is doing pretty well this week.
Mike Wieger [1:11:39]
Yeah, it is.
Jim Collison [1:11:40]
I know. And it’s available out there on Patreon but the video and audio if you want to do it, the average guy.tv slash Patreon. Don’t don’t feel any pressure out there. Just go out and watch it. Duane does a really nice job and we have a really good conversation around VR. So if you haven’t done that yet, check it out the average guy.tv slash Patreon We are live every Thursday 8pm Central if you haven’t joined us for a live show, kind of plan on it, it would be fun to have you maybe so something you can do out in the new year is come out and join us live. I think it’s the best way kind of to enjoy it and the way to get it done. Join us in our groups Facebook or discord says the average guy.tv slash whatever we’re doing there send me an email if you want Jim at the average guy TV always love to hear from if you got something you want to share along those lines, subscribe rate and review where you’re at if you feel like I don’t care if you do or you know, but it’s always fun to have you do that as well, especially on YouTube, YouTube subscribes to help and actually YouTube comments help too. I do moderate those. So you know, I know some people are leery of YouTube comments because it’s such a say it for me. My YouTube comments are out there. But I moderate them so if you’re worried about that, don’t worry. I moderate them drop some comments and YouTube that that helps us especially on the on the non live channel. The one where we post the recorded kind of the edited one out there. So subscribe out there and get that done. Don’t forget both web and media hosting. Powered by Maple Grove partners get secure, reliable high speed hosting from people that you know and you trust and of course that’s Christian and so get more information plans start as little as $10 a month great way to host the dude really takes care of you. So head out there Maple Grove partners. com Download the app Home Gadget Geeks com will get you there as well. And we are live every Thursday at 8pm we’re not every sometimes Wednesdays now. Every Thursday 8pm Central. I get a calendar set up. That’s not true. I’m never gonna sell
Mike Wieger [1:13:40]
out because they don’t say it.
Jim Collison [1:13:42]
It’s this this miners still shaking freaking out.
Jim Collison [1:13:46]
We are alive most Thursdays 8pm Central nine Eastern out here the average guy.tv slash live if you’re listening in the live show. Stick around for a smidge of post show while I freak out even more about this monitor shaking with that will say goodnight everybody.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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