Refresh Computers Tech Talk
Help and advice are given on a range of technical issues from computers to everything internet-related.
Refresh Computers Tech Talk
A Cheap Charger Can Kill A Laptop
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A “deal” can be a discount, a distraction, or a straight up illusion and the only way to know which one you’re looking at is to check the receipts of the internet: price history, seller behavior, and review quality. We walk through the most common online pricing tricks that show up around major sales events, including sudden pre sale price increases that make a markdown look dramatic. If you’ve ever wondered why an item seems “on sale” every week, we give you the mindset and the tools to confirm what’s real before you click Buy.
We also share our favorite practical defenses for smarter online shopping. We talk about CamelCamelCamel and Keepa for Amazon price tracking, why wishlists and price alerts can beat impulse buying, and how to spot AI generated reviews that read like marketing copy. From there, we get into renewed and refurbished listings and why third party refurb standards can be all over the map, especially when the seller vanishes after the purchase.
Then we hit one of the most expensive “cheap” mistakes we see: mystery chargers. A no name laptop charger can damage charging ports, kill batteries, or even take out a whole device, which is why we explain when OEM chargers matter and what risks counterfeits introduce. We also tackle digital legacy planning with clear, step by step guidance on Apple Legacy Contact, Google Inactive Account Manager, and how to think about memorializing or deleting social accounts. We wrap with Google Lens tips you can use today for visual search, translation, and copying text from paper into your phone.
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Welcome And How To Reach Us
SPEAKER_00Hey there and welcome to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580 Orlando's news and talk. I'm Greg Rhodes here with Adam Littlefield, a technician at the Refresh Computer Superstore. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Or if you have a comment during the show, go and use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app. You can also check out the website at Refresh Computers.net or stop it at the Refresh Computer Superstore in Longwood at 820 East State Road 434, just three and a half miles east of I-4. Store hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., which means if you're listening to the show here on Saturday, it means you still have time to stop by. They'll be open until 7 p.m. today. Nope. For the man himself, Adam Littlefield.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you, Greg, and thank you, everybody, for tuning into another exciting episode of Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. Like Greg said, my name is Adam Littlefield. I'm one of the technicians over at Refresh Computers, one of the ones that works on your computer when you come into our store.
SPEAKER_00So actual person that actually works on your computers.
SPEAKER_01Right. I'm not some robot. That's the one that's posted by our door. So, you know, I'm one of our technicians there, and we've got a couple other great guys there. And if you ever need any help, definitely come by our store, locate on 434-820 East State Road 434. We have tons of different inventory available as well. If you have ever any questions about that, you can always give us a call as well. Our store number is 407-478-8200. And again, that'll connect you to one of us on the floor. Not going to get you some call center person. So today we got a lot of exciting set topics to talk about. We're going to be talking about uh online pricing tricks. You know, we just had Amazon Prime Day come and go.
SPEAKER_00They are notorious for some of these pricing tricks. They are.
SPEAKER_01And I hate that their mobile app always sends me deals when I when I don't want them. So we're going to talk a lot about that. We're also going to be talking about mystery chargers, you know, the laptop chargers that there's so many of on these large resellers now that may not be really good for your computer. We're going to also be talking about your digital legacy, kind of what you leave behind in the world because the internet is forever. Yeah. What you do on it, you know, stays. So we're going to talk a lot about that. And we'll end off the show today with Google Lens and kind of what you can use it for. It's something that not a lot of people know that they can use.
SPEAKER_00My son loves Google Lens. I'll tell you what we use it for at home in that segment, too.
SPEAKER_01All right. So, yeah,
Prime Day Pricing Tricks Explained
SPEAKER_01we're going to start off with those online pricing tricks. Amazon uh Prime Day just wrapped up a couple weeks ago, and you know, there were tons of great deals on it. And they actually pushed it up a little bit from its usual July spot because we had the World Cup going on. We had our country's semi-senquentennial.
SPEAKER_00Semi-quincentennial, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So, you know, big day with that. So they didn't want to get mixed up in the chops with all of that. So I was reading that actually. Analysts are projecting a record of $26 billion in online spending that week. That's no way. That's a lot of money. That's crazy.
SPEAKER_00That's it's so funny how that kind of transitioned from what it was, it was literally just Amazon Prime Day, like it was like a Black Friday sale in the middle of the year to what it is now. And it honestly competes head-to-head with Black Friday, it seems like, as far as sales numbers these days.
SPEAKER_01It does. And you know, I'm I am seeing a lot of other big box stores starting to do this now, like Walmart and Target, for example, you know, they're starting to run their own Black Friday and summer sales, is kind of what I've been seeing it called. So, you know, it really kind of raises the question is, you know, was that deal even a deal? Because I've I've seen before that some websites, and I'm not gonna name any names for this one, but I've seen before, you know, saying that this product is now $89 and it was $199.
SPEAKER_00I'll name the website. It's Amazon. It's the one that that is like promoting this whole program. They're the ones that started that. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_01So, you know, it it makes you really feel that there is a better price on these items, but you know, if you try to keep track of an item's pricing, you may realize that maybe a week before these deals started, they rose the price to that 199 and dropped it to that 89, which was the original price before.
SPEAKER_00And I threw Amazon under the bust there, but that's been a retail practice for a very long time, in store or online. So it is something to keep an eye out for in both instances.
SPEAKER_01It is. It's a it's a dangerous thing because it can really take advantage of that deal ideology. You know, you go on online and you see something's crossed out in red, and it's got a nice attractive price for it for what it is. But then you you kind of look back on the history of it, and it never was that price to begin with. You could have gotten it off for 50% of that $89.99. So there I want to talk about some price trackers actually that I I would suggest using if you're ever thinking about making a large purchase online, because it is going to give you an idea on kind of how the the ebb and flow of that pricing
Price Trackers That Reveal Truth
SPEAKER_01on that product has been. And I've seen even some better deals come on Amazon, for example, outside of their prime day deals. So it's you're not always getting the best deal on these major events that these companies are doing. So one of the ones I'm going to talk about, it's Camel Camel Camel. Love that. That's not any glitches there. That's that's the name Camel, Camel, Camel. It's a free website, you don't have to make any account for it. And you can actually go on there, paste in an Amazon link of an item that you're just thinking about purchasing, and it'll actually show you a chart of that item's price history going back, you know, some items years. So, you know, you'll also see kind of how the prices on it have risen. You know, this product that's now $49.99 might have been 20 bucks a couple years ago. You know, you would see that kind of history. And it's something like that is gonna save you whether or not the deal is genuinely the lowest price or it's that same price with just a new sticker on it.
SPEAKER_00Right. And I believe Camel Camel Camel almost exclusively works with Amazon. Is that right?
SPEAKER_01I believe so. Yeah, they're only with Amazon or only for Amazon, which I mean for me, I consider that a better thing. If you have a place that can look over all sorts of different marketplaces, it may get the data wrong. Right. That's the way I would think about it. So, you know, it's cross-referencing other places that it's not even telling you. So there's another one called Keepa that's K-E-E-P-A. It's another good one. This one actually works as a browser extension that puts a price chart right on the Amazon page when you view it. So it edits the page in real time. You don't have to go to a website, check it out, you don't have to do any of that. It's just kind of right there integrated, like it was part of Amazon to begin with. That's another really good one. And you gotta remember too, prices online they can change at the the snap of your fingers. They really can.
SPEAKER_00Especially during Prime Day. They have their lightning deals and they have other things that are day exclusives, door busters, even. So yeah, you you've gotta know when that item you actually want it actually goes on sale, right?
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And you know, I've even seen a lot of items be listed on online marketplaces, even places like Facebook Marketplace, for example, where you have total control over the price changes, and you know, you never know that you put something in the cart, you go to shop for something else, you add that, and then you go and back into your cart, and suddenly the item you put there half an hour ago is now fifty dollars more expensive.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_01It can happen in an online marketplace. Yep. So you've also got to watch out for that because you know, if you're not paying attention and they jack the price like that, you're the one that's footing the bill for that in the end of the day.
SPEAKER_00So I know at the beginning of the talk here that I kind of threw Amazon under the bus. I will say that they have included a bit of a price tracker on their site as well. So if you look at some of the descriptions, you can see a price tracker for most of their items. It doesn't go back very far, though, is one of the things. Camel, Camel, Camel, we were talking about goes back maybe some years for some of these items on the Amazon tracker. I think it was only within the last year. Yeah. So something to keep in mind with that as well. So you can kind of see a quick brief history of recent sales on those items too.
SPEAKER_01Right. And that's a that's a great point, too, is you know, price trackers are not an exact science. You know, there there are some that can only grab data from a year ago, but like camel, camel, camel, like you're saying, Greg can go back multiple years to see if there is, you know, a consistent price drop around a certain time. And I know I've seen actually on a lot of those apps too that you'll see a lot of price increases during times of influx of purchases, like computers, school, when school's going back into session. That's gonna be one of the biggest things I've seen on Amazon is they'll there'll be a lot of price raises a month before, and then a lot of cuts when the time kind of comes around. So something just to be aware of. And what I would always recommend is if it's not an urgent purchase, put it on a wish list. Amazon is one of the biggest ones I would say that's really good at letting you know when a wishlist item has dropped in price. They really want you to come back to buy it. They do, and they'll even give you the option to have, say, on your phone, for example, to with this new Amazon Alexa AI, I think is the name of it, in the app, you can ask it to send you an app notification if the price on an item drops below a certain amount. So that's something also to kind of play around with.
Spotting AI And Fake Reviews
SPEAKER_01Something else I would want to bring out is fake written reviews, you know, AI reviews. So many of them. There are, and a lot of them are very easy to point out if you know what you're looking for. Because I know me as a regular consumer, if I buy a $20 anchor cable, for example, on Amazon, I'm not leaving a five-paragraph essay on why it's the best cable in the world and why I would never choose anything else. Right. Exactly. Give it give it a five star, and just I would move on. Not even really give a description. And that's something that you got to look out for is you know, you'll see items with thousands of reviews, and that's something that a lot of people do take into consideration because you don't want to buy this really expensive items that's got 10 reviews and it's it's five stars. But also at the same time, you know, 8,000 reviews at 4.9 stars. Still, you can have to look at that a little bit, look into it because a lot of these reviews now are written by AI, and it's gotten so bad actually that there's been a federal ruling now to ban, you know, buying, selling, and posting these phony reviews with real fines, too.
SPEAKER_00Good. Yeah, I agree. Good, good. Protect the consumer. Some of these things, like you, like you mentioned, a lot of people rely on these reviews to make their decision. It's really an it's really an important factor that people take into account. It is. And with AI, it's you mentioned that it used to be really easy to figure out which ones were the fake reviews. Right. With AI, it's gotten so much more difficult.
SPEAKER_01It has. And the problem with AI too is you know, myself writing reviews, if somebody's paying me to write reviews, if I'm writing them good, I'm only gonna do maybe five an hour. Really just taking into consideration what I'm saying. But with AI, you can spit out a thousand of them in an hour. It's so quick to do that. So you gotta kind of be your own detective. It's it's really something that you gotta dig into because uh, you know, a lot of pocketbooks are tight now. Just that's how it is. And you know, we gotta think about the money we're spending, especially online, because it's so easy just to click the buy button and suddenly there's four hundred dollars taken out of your account for something that's gonna break on you in a week. So something definitely to think about. And I want to give some red flags for those uh reviews as well. Look out for just big, large amounts of five-star reviews all posted in the same week, may just be over a couple days within a single week. Keep an eye out for that because you know, there's I I can't imagine one product that gets an influx of 2,000 reviews in a week unless, you know, it's ended up on the news. Yep. That's that's what I would say. If it ends up on the news, maybe it would make sense. Still do some searching though.
SPEAKER_00Right. The new tickle mielmo might have that kind of number.
SPEAKER_01Also, look look look for the reviews that's that sound and read like a brochure. You know, it's like I was saying, the ones that are five-paragraph essays, they talk about this is this is the best cable in the world. My great-great-great-grandfather would be impressed by the technology of this. You know, things like that just they they kind of call it out themselves. And that's kind of the downside with AI, is it's so good at doing these reviews that it overdoes it. So you gotta think of it like you're the person reading the review or writing the review, if you're really gonna be leaving something like that. But also kind of just look for reviews that never even mention using the item. I know there are a lot of AI scripts out there that just give generalized reviews that you can spit out and post that never even mention the item, how you used it, if you had any difficulties with it. You know, myself, if I'm writing reviews, I'm gonna if I'm re writing a five-star, I'll still include if I had troubles using something. So maybe somebody else in the future doesn't encounter that. And that that's not something AI takes into consideration.
SPEAKER_00And I know our next tip is kind of talking a little bit about counterfeits. It kind of ties into our next topic. So I do want to save that for just a little bit. Yeah. We can get more on that here coming out of the break. But I wanted to hear a little bit more, just really quick, on renewed and refurbished when it comes to some
Renewed Listings And Counterfeit Risks
SPEAKER_00of these sales.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a big thing you got to look out for too now, because so many online retailers, resellers are using renewed and refurbished items. A lot of those don't come from the actual seller. You know, you may see them listed on like Amazon or Walmart, but you do have to take into account that these are being renewed and refurbished by third-party sellers, somewhere else, not tied with the seller that they're selling, like on their website. So the standards for that they can vary wildly, and you'll have good luck trying to find them if that if that refurbished device dies in a month or two, because you'll go back onto that marketplace that you bought it from and suddenly they're gone. Just like that. You know, you got to really compare it to refurbishing from like, you know, local shops, like refresh computers. We have a brick and mortar store that if something happens, you can go into there. We have technicians right there that will be able to help you. You don't have to search for an online forum for an obscure name that you know you're never gonna find again.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And like you, like we mentioned, Adam is one of those technicians there, so you can always give them a call there at the Refresh Computer Superstore. That hotline number again, 407-478-8200. That marketplace shell game of counterfeits ties into our next topic about getting those real honest chargers for your laptops and phones. We'll talk about that next coming up on Tech Talk right here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580.
Mystery Chargers That Damage Devices
SPEAKER_00Sitting here with technician Adam Littlefield from the Refresh Computer Superstore. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline, 407-478-8200. Or if you have a comment during the show, we'd love to hear it. Use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app. And now back to Adam.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Greg. And again, thank you, everybody, for tuning into this episode of Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. If you missed anything from the uh last segment where we were talking about online shopping, I definitely recommend going to refreshcomputers.net. Click that podcast link in the top right corner. You're gonna get a whole summary of this uh show, this podcast, no ads. You'll get a whole summary of that. We've been doing AI summaries as well, so you'll get kind of important bits in the description of each of these different episodes. So you can kind of pick and choose if it's something that you might want to go back to and listen to. So, in this uh segment, like Greg was saying, one of the uh tips that we had from our previous segment was uh counterfeits. Very, very important to be wary of counterfeits because it is so easy to set up an account on a lot of these different marketplaces now and sell anything. They don't check it, they don't.
SPEAKER_00And it's so enticing too because the pricing on some of these items, you're like, there's no way that that could that I can beat that. Right. But there's a reason. You get what you pay for in a lot of instances.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And that's that's exactly how I would put it. You are getting what you pay for, and sometimes that can cause a lot of problems down the road, you know. And that that brings us into this segment of uh mystery chargers, you know, those third-party chargers that you see on all these different online marketplaces. Those are something that you have to be so wary of because I cannot tell you how many times I've seen it. The $6 no name charger or Chicom or whatever names they decide to put on them cause so much more damage and it becomes the most expensive purchase you end up making. I've seen things like fried charger ports, completely dead batteries, you know, so many so that I've coined the the term spicy pillows around our store.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_01And even, you know, full-on dead laptops, because you know, you go onto Amazon, you find this nice cheap charger, you buy it, it's got the 20 different attachments for all these different chargers you can use it for. And in reality, when you get it, that's gonna cause, you know, the death of a $1,500 laptop in some cases. It's something that you have to be wary of. It's counterfeits are a big thing in the tech industry because there are so many developers trying to get their hands into a pool, you know?
SPEAKER_00Right. And a lot of times so many people view the original equipment as so expensive to replace. Right. But again, you've got to think about the reason it's expensive to replace.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Aftermarket parts, say for your car, for example, aren't really gonna hurt you in the end as long as you kind of do your research and you know what you're buying for.
SPEAKER_00Don't tell, don't tell Larry Perry that.
SPEAKER_01I won't. But me personally, I have to say it. You know, aftermarket parts, they they can sometimes save you a buck. And they do work in the end for automotives. Computers are way more finicky machines, they have you know a lot of electrical components that you have to have good grade equipment powering those. And if you get a mystery third-party charger, you risk blowing it up and frying the battery, losing everything in that computer because of a $6 decision you made. I I'll say it firsthand. I used to always look at you know, like $50, $60 chargers for laptops and think, you know, man, I don't want to pay that much just to get a charger for this thing. But if it's gonna save you the thousand bucks in the end, why not? You know, it's it's something that at least now I think of in retrospect, I think of it as a no-brainer. But again, it's something that does look very enticing on a lot of these marketplaces. And that's the reason that a lot of these companies do that because they're making a quick buck.
SPEAKER_00And like we mentioned, it's one of those tips and tricks for helping protect you when you're doing your online shopping as well. It's not just chargers, there are so many different aftermarket parts, and it can even go down to your USB cable that you're buying. Right. That can really affect the way the performance, but also just kind of the longevity of your devices. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's there's so many different variables that you have to consider with electronics that if you are paying a little bit more for them, that's not always the bad case. Now, I'm not saying go out and buy a $600 HDMI cable, you know, because you think it's gonna it's gonna be the best thing in the world to connect your laptop to your TV. But, you know, buying like your chargers, for example, are a really good idea to get OEM chargers. And if you never know, you know, what charger your laptop takes or cable your it takes, bring it on by to our store. We have tons of different genuine OEM chargers. We have tons of different high-quality cables as well. So we're gonna make sure that you get the equipment that's gonna keep your computer as best as it can be.
SPEAKER_00Coming up next here on Tech Talk, we'll talk a little bit about what your digital legacy might be and how your loved ones can help access that and preserve it. We'll have more on that coming up next here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580.
Digital Legacy Planning Basics
SPEAKER_00Hey there, and welcome to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073 FM and AM580, Orlando's News and Talk. I'm Greg Rhodes here with Adam Littlefield, a technician at the Refresh Computer Superstore. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Or if you have a comment during the show, go ahead and use that open mic feature inside the WDBO app. You can also check out the website over at Refresh Computers.net or stopping at the Refresh Computer Superstore in Longwood at 820 East State Road 434, just three and a half miles east of I-4. Store hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. And if you're listening to the show here on Saturday, it means you still have time to stop by. They'll be open until 7 p.m. today. And now for Adam Littlefield.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Greg. And again, thank you, everybody, for tuning into this episode with Refresh Computers, a 26 and a half year long company in central Orlando servicing servicing thousands of computers from businesses, consumers. So if you ever have any any troubles going on with your computer, you can always give us a call at our free tech support hotline. That's 407-478-8200. That'll connect you with one of our technicians on our sales floor. So it's going to be one of the guys that have a lot of knowledge and should be able to help you over the phone, give you some tips. And if it's not something that can be, you know, figured out over the phone, we always recommend bringing it in. We do provide about you know 10-15 minutes of free diagnostics. So we can definitely help you out any way possible. And if you have any, you know, if there's any missed segments of this, you know, you're just jumping into the show now, go to our website, refreshcomputers.net. We have this show in podcast form. You can click the podcast link in the top right corner. That'll give you this show and shows going back years of Dave and I, and Dave himself, and Dave and others. Talking about all this different tech. So kind of see how things have changed and how it's just progressed over the years. You know, we've kind of left a uh informational legacy on how things have been changing. And, you know, that's that's an important thing on the internet, is it's it's as far as I'm considering right now, forever. And that's something that I think myself as a person and everybody out there should think about too is your digital legacy, you know, what you're gonna leave behind on the internet. You know, your your photos, your your emails, you know, everybody's got accounts that are set up, everything like that. It's what what is gonna happen, you know, with those, with all of that. So we're gonna spend this segment a little bit today just talking about how you can kind of set this up as kind of what I would say is just, I don't want to say doomsday plan, but it's something that everybody should take into consideration because, you know, what if I were to pass tomorrow, all of my accounts that I have online, they're not just gonna transfer to my next of kin or somebody like that. It's it's not like a bank account, you know? Right, yeah. There's privacy laws and terms of services that really lock them down tight. And if the person that owns that account is gone, you can't override those laws and those terms and conditions. There's no way to really be able to get around and do that, or at least not an easy way. You know, it's not as easy as just resetting a password at that point. So, something I would say is they there are a couple different what are called legacy contact settings that you can set up. I know that specifically on like Apple devices, Google devices, you can set these up. So I kind of want to go over those today because it's something, again, that's gonna be important to just establish now, have set up. So in case of an emergency, you're able to get into these devices.
SPEAKER_00And it takes maybe five minutes to do.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. You know, this is it's kind of like we were talking about the find my device the other day. It's something that's kind of sitting in your phone settings right now that you never really were prompted to set up to
Apple Legacy Contact Setup Steps
SPEAKER_01begin with. So I'm gonna start off with Apple. They have theirs, which is called Legacy Contact. On your iPhone, you can go to your settings app, tap your name at the top in the, I believe the top left corner, and then sign in in security, and then legacy contact. From there, you're able to pick a trusted person, either I believe you can specify a custom person, or you can choose somebody in your contacts list, and they're given what's called an access key. What this basically does is you can either print it for them or Apple can send them digitally this copy, and it's a key that they can hang on to and they are not able to use unless, you know, say the day comes that you, the owner of that account, is no longer able or no longer here to access that account. So when that comes, you know, you present that key plus just proof of this person no longer being with us could be a death certificate, you know, just some sort of officialized document. And Apple will give you access to photos, notes, messages, and files, even. So that's gonna be a really good thing to note because I know with Apple devices, you set up your Apple account, a lot of the times it does set you up what's called iCloud. You know, we've talked about OneDrive before. iCloud is just another cloud service, and a lot of your phone's documents and a lot of your pictures upload to that cloud. Now, Apple, they're notorious for their phones being impossible to get into. Right. So if you don't know the passcode that's on that phone, you can't get in there to view the photos.
SPEAKER_00And they're also very notorious for not giving that information up on how to get in them.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. You know, we've we've seen before in the past, you know, court cases where phones were need to get into more for legal problems. I will say that. However, you know, needing a court order to open up somebody's phone and open up their documents and their their cloud account, you know, that's you're having to put out a lot of legal fees, I would say, to just be able to do that. So save yourself the the time, the stress of doing that. Setting up this legacy contact, I think is gonna be the best thing to do. Because even if you don't do that, you go to Apple with a court order to get all of this these files and information, they may not even be able to recover everything.
SPEAKER_00And remember, with all of these steps, we're gonna there's gonna be an included notes here with the with all of our episodes that you can access that'll show you all of these steps. I know we're gonna be going over a lot of steps here. So just want to make sure people are aware. You can find those on the Refresh Computers website. Is that right, Adam?
SPEAKER_01That's right. Yeah, the podcast link, when you go to refreshcomputers.net, that podcast link in the top right corner, you can view this show and all of our other shows going back years. Our latest shows we've been doing summaries that do actually put out in bullet point format that you can view on your computer or on your phone to basically read through these steps. So, you know, you don't have to be fiddling with your phone right now if you're listening, you know, on the radio, driving somewhere. Just know that there is a place that you can go on our website to get this information because this is important information. That's just how it is. You know, it's it's a it's a tough topic, I would say, to to really speak on, but it's an important one, especially with how digitalized our lives are now. It's such a hassle to get into a lot of these accounts if you do have a loved one pass or just a uh unfortunate just accident happen.
Google Inactive Account Manager Options
SPEAKER_01So I'm gonna go over Google's now on the Google Phones. This is called the inactive account manager. So Google's version works actually a little bit differently instead of having uh just to provide documentation to them. Theirs actually works on a timer. So your account, you know, can go quiet for a period of time you choose, three months, six months, up to even 18 months if you want to. And Google will actually contact the people that you designated as your inactive account managers. So, what this does is you can decide in advance exactly what they're gonna be able to see if your account does go inactive. So your photos, your Gmail, your Google Drive photos or files, or you can tell Google, hey, if my account's inactive, just delete it, just get rid of it. Just wait, wipe me off the face of the digital earth from you guys. And that's that's you know, again, that's a choice I know some people would want to make. Because there's so much stuff that we collect over our lives digitally that I don't think my you know next of kin would have to be digging through my emails. Right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you don't need to try and get me unsubscribed from all of these other random things I've signed up for.
SPEAKER_01So, you know, having that option to tell Google to delete everything, delete your account, you know, that's is a good option, I would say, still to have because another thing to think about with having these accounts go inactive because you know, the person that was accessing them and using them every day is no longer here, is there is the potential that somebody somewhere along the way, 20 years down the road, could get the password and start using that account as that person and start extorting people, can start using it for blackmail. There's so many different misuses of our accounts that I'm sure we don't really think about if we weren't here to be policing them every day, you know? I know myself, if I get a notification that there isn't a account sign and attempt on one of my accounts, I'm changing all my passwords immediately. Like that's that's just ingrained in my head because I don't want anybody getting into my stuff, imitating me, because again, there's an image of myself. And if I wasn't here and my account was still out there being used like that, you know, that image of who you were could be tarnished so quickly because it it just changes the opinions because people think it is you. So that is something to consider. So with Google, what you need to do is on their website, you have to do it through their website, you go to myaccount.google.com. We'll have that link in these AI podcast notes as well. Search for inactive account manager, and in there you'll get all of the options to select what you want people to see, what you don't want them to see, if you want your account to be deleted after a certain amount of time, if you want to give control of that to, you know, whoever you designate as your inactive account manager. So there are a lot of options there. So if you have a Google account, I really, really suggest setting that up, doing that. Same thing with Apple, but this is this is actually a big one that I'm sure you know you may be thinking about
Social Media Memorials And Account Deletion
SPEAKER_01right now. What about my my Facebook account? You know, your other social media accounts, there's tons of them out there. There's X, Instagram, just to name a few of them. So I know Facebook specifically lets you choose a legacy content contact who can memorialize your profile. So instead of having just control over it, they can make posts as you and edit stuff. It's it stays, your account is set up to stay as a place for friends to share memories with remembering above your name. So it's actually kind of an indicator that the person that that account belonged to has passed away. So it's no longer an active profile, as it is a memorial for you. So that's something to think about too. Facebook actually kind of does it in a different way, it's not just recovery at that point, right? This is actually memorializing your history on Facebook, just on the internet.
SPEAKER_00And I think that's a big part of this, too, is that it does become a big part of your memorial because this is the first generations of where a large portion of our lives have been online, whether that be photos and events with friends and family, right, big trips, big achievements and accomplishments have all been shared on these social media sites because that's kind of what we've been ingrained to do. But also at the same time, that's how we've connected with so many friends worldwide at this point. Right. So it really does give them that opportunity to still remember you as after you've passed, but also kind of gives that opportunity to set up your own memorial as well.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And, you know, that's a I would say that's the best way to put it, really. And, you know, as time is going to go on, there are going to be people that have more and more of their lives memorialized on the internet, too. You know, myself, I would say maybe around 14 or 15 is when I had my first Facebook account, started establishing myself on social media and just online.
SPEAKER_00My mom thinks it was when I was 16, but yes, it was 14.
SPEAKER_01That that's yeah, that's around the age. So you have to think about that. I started building that portfolio for myself, you know, half of my life ago, right now. Right. So considering how much time I do have left of my life or that I hope to have left in my life, there's gonna be such a larger parf portfolio that I would want memorialized, just because it shows me as a person as a timeline almost.
SPEAKER_00I wonder how that's gonna work out for the TikTok crowd.
SPEAKER_01That's that's something I was thinking about too, you know, because I know with X, for example, you can kind of set up the same thing to uh set up uh a uh an activity, basically, for your account. Right. But TikTok is just one of the ones I just I I don't know how they're gonna handle that.
SPEAKER_00You get to inherit your grandmother's TikTok one day. Yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't know. See, see the first viral video that that your grandmother made back in in 2017 or something like that. You know, and that's that it is fun to put a little bit of a laugh on this kind of topic, you know, because it is one of those things that you you look back on the history of somebody. And again, myself who established myself when I was a kid, for my family that'll be looking back on that, it's gonna be hilarious. Sure. And it's it's kind of almost like looking back, you know, in your photo albums and your your old camcorder recordings. It is fun just to be able to look back on that and reflect rather than it be destroyed online if it's left unprotected or not in this inactivity bubble. And I know you can also tell Facebook in advance that you want them to permanently delete your account instead if it does go inactive for a certain amount of time. It's really your call, what you want to do, but make that call. You are the only one that can make this call. And I want to stress that it's important to really just do that.
Password Access Without Public Wills
SPEAKER_01Final thing I do want to talk on here is your phone and your passwords. You know, a lot of our lives right now are saved on our phones, on our computers. And if our loved ones do have to get into anything of ours when we pass, they there's no way to reset your phone's pin anymore, really, without resetting the whole phone, as far as I'm aware. And that that therein lies a problem. If you are one that don't like all of your stuff going to the cloud, you keep it on your device. Well, now you have a password or a pin there that your loved ones aren't able to access. So I would really suggest just setting up a pin, a password that your loved ones are gonna be able to find, put it in a fireproof safe or a safety deposit box and tell one person you trust. Just one person, that's all it all they need to know. From there, just get it set up, make yourself good to go, because that way they can get into your phone. And, you know, like I was saying earlier, you don't need a court order from one of these companies to get into your stuff then.
SPEAKER_00And a good additional note do not put that information in your will. Right. After probate, your will becomes public record. So just keep that in mind as well. You've been listening to Tech Talk right here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580. I'm Greg Rhodes here with Adam Littlefield, a technician at the Refresh Computer Superstore. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Don't forget to check out their website at refreshcomputers.net. And now back to Adam.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Greg. And I want to say thank you, everybody, for tuning into this episode of Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. Like Greg said, visit our website at refreshcomputers.net. We have our whole inventory there. We also keep our podcast there on the podcast link in the top right corner. So you can listen to all of our shows going, you know, years back in their entirety. No ads. It's easy listening. You can also get our podcasts really anywhere podcasts are available. So it's definitely something to check out because we give out a lot of information. There's a lot here to process. And I know just driving, listening in your car, it's hard to grasp all of it.
SPEAKER_00It's a lot of great information in that last segment. If you didn't miss it, go back and listen. And also remember to check out those notes if you're on the website. So that way you can get some of those password reset programs that we set up for you in case you happen to succumb.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. That's a that's a great point. Those notes are really good to go back and read through. They they list out how to go through and do these easy things, and that's how it
Google Lens Tips For Daily Life
SPEAKER_01is. It really is easy, but you're not prompted to set it up. So in this segment, I want to talk a little bit about the the secret search engine that's been hiding in a lot of our phones that I'm sure a lot of people haven't used, and that's Google Lens. So, Google Lens, this is, you know, it's almost like Google with eyes, is what I like I like to call it, because you can point it at almost anything, you know, point it at a bug, a dog, a landmark, and just ask it, you know, what is it? What is this, what is this brown beetle I found in my in my pool? And Google Lens is able to identify it almost instantly, and you know, give you a whole Google search basically on what you're looking at, telling you about it. So that's a really important thing I would say because I know in Florida there are tons of bugs, lizards, everywhere, and all kinds of things that can try and kill you. Exactly. Is this berry edible? You know, it's always that that question I've seen on like YouTube before. So Google Lens is really good for that kind of thing, and it's really easy to search with a picture instead of typing, I would say.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. No, it makes it so much simpler. Honestly, my son loves Google Lens. If you've listened to the show, you know I have a he's now three and a half. Okay. And uh he's getting into the questions all the time of what's that? What's that? Usually I can answer his questions, but if it comes down to something like, what is this dinosaur? Because he's got a few dinosaur toys. I'm not I'm not very well brushed up on my dinosaur names these days. So I open up Google Lens, I take a picture of his dinosaur toy, and it tells me which dinosaur it is. And also if it breaks, I can find a new one because it pulls up those shopping options for it as well. Well, there you go.
SPEAKER_01Smart shopper archaeologist Greg over here using it for that. And you know, it's not just even for identifying stuff. I know you can now have it translate signs and menus in real time. So you can point it at you know a foreign sign and it'll read it to you in English.
SPEAKER_00Shoot, even some areas in Orlando you could use that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So that's something definitely to keep an eye out for with Google Lens. And I've even used it personally before to take a picture of something. I have a hard copy and I want to copy a large body of text off of it. You can take a picture select the text. The phone, your phone will intelligently select that text like it was typed out, let you copy it, and you can post it in a note anywhere. And this is snapping a page of a receipt, a whiteboard, you know, a page of something. You can paste those words just like you typed that text. And it is really seamless, I would say. It's very fast. So that's something to look out for. I know me, myself, I get annoyed sometimes. I had to scan something in to be able to get a little bit of this information that I don't want to type out manually. So, and that's really good too for taking a picture of something and texting it to someone. I know I've had to do that before, getting uh large like invoice links, for example, paste that into my web browser. So I know in Android, this is a built-in function right into our camera.
SPEAKER_00If you've got that Google search bar on your front screen like I do, it's right there, that little that little camera icon to the right side of your search bar. But in on uh on iPhones, you actually have to download the Google app, right?
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah. On iPhones, you do have to download the free Google app from the App Store, tap the camera icon in the search bar, and that'll bring it up. So I think we're getting to the uh the end of our
Wrap Up And Where To Listen
SPEAKER_01show today. So again, I want to remind everybody um that this has been Refresh Computers. Give us a call at 407-478-8200 if you have any questions, and view our podcasts at our website, refreshcomputers.net, click that podcast link in the top right corner. We'll be talking to you again uh tomorrow with a uh different edition of Tech Talk with Refresh Computers.
