Is Michael Garfier. Michael Garfield. Michael Garfield's joining US and the high Tech
Texan. Michael Garfield is here with a high Tech Texans items to make life
easier, some new technology. So Michael Garfield has something you might want,
Texas. Michael Garfield is your high Tech Texan three decades helping you make magic
with your gadgets. I heard worldwide on the iHeartRadio add now your high tech
Texan. Michael Garfield will take a look at your calendar's people because this is
the last high Tech Texan show before Black Friday twenty twenty three, which means
phone calls, emails continue to come in. Garf I know the Black Friday
deals? Are you started? What do you think I got this television?
I'm trying to side between these two things. I my friends have been doing
this for twenty two years. This is a long time to do it,
back when Black Fridays actually happen on Fridays. Now, as we know,
they seem to happen throughout the month of November. And I hope your November
has been well so far. Phone number if you would like to ask them
questions. Last minute deals and there are some that I'm going to start running
down because I've had my eye on everything from your earbuds, to your TVs,
to your phones to actually remote control of cars. Seven one three,
two, one two five nine five. Oh there is Calum read Hello,
Callum, Happy early Thanksgiving to you. Wait for some turkey. Actually,
I hope I get some turkey. I do need to buy my turkey because
it is Thanksgiving next week and we will get on that, including my annual
Hey, open phone lines. What's your favorite Thanksgiving food? And don't you
dare if I hear that sweet attata with marshmallows. I'm really I don't think
I've hung up on anybody in my twenty two years i've been doing this.
I may hang up on you if you come with me with the same with
the marshmallows and this week potatoes. Michael is my name, Michael Garfield.
By the way, goods. You know what, I've been very busy these
past few weeks. Lots of events. I dig that, man, I
do a lot of MC events. Restaurants for some reason have been opening or
they've been having their anniversaries, and so I've I've been out and about quite
a bit. And it's it's nice seeing so many listeners. They come up,
and it's funny because people do recognize my voice, which I still think
is bizarre. Either if I'm standing in line or ordering something at a Chick
fil a, though, Hey are you Garfield? Do you high tech Texans?
But I'm walking around and people actually recognize me. And maybe that's just
because I do a lot on television. Still, hey, throw some makeup
on a pig, people, and you're probably gonna get recognized. Earlier this
week, I saw some folks. Where was I at? Was? How
do you know where? Oh gosh, I feel like a entertainment tonight dad
a Garden Gray Steakhouse Downtown fourth anniversary party. A really nice couple who listens
to me for a while came up to me and they actually recognized me.
Then lady taps me on the on the back. Are you that guy on
the radio? I'm like, well, there's a lot of people on the
radio. Husband's been listening forever. They came over and they talked, We
took some pictures and she actually had a flip foe, Samsung flip foe.
She's got a Samsung flip I think it was version three or four. She
thought it was the latest. Not so fast. There is a version five
with a bigger screen. This is why I exist. This really is why
I exist. So anyway, I do thank everybody for coming up and saying
hi and listening all these years, two plus decades, and I'm here to
serve you, including some Black Friday. He does you want to start with
this, Let's just get it started right off the bat here where as we
do this for the next two hours here on KPRC nine fifty in the Southeast
Texas area of specifically use if you're listening on iHeartRadio, we do thank you
for downloading that app. I was playing around on and again everything I'm about
the app. There's not one thing that has been it's sponsored, it is
not. I don't endorse it. They have not paid me to do this.
I wish these companies would pay me. I wish I would endorse them,
but I don't. But this is a it's a labor of love.
Sometimes it's just a labor that I go down this list for you play it
on Amazon. As you know, I'm not the biggest Amazon guy. I've
ordered a few things here and there. So again, if I see something
that comes across my desktop. I'm gonna I'm gonna jot it down, starting
with the Amazon Echo Show. This is the fifth This is the third generation.
It's the Echo Show five. This is one of those smart voice things,
but they also have video too. It is it's made by Amazon,
and generally you're gonna see Black Friday sales or Amazon Prime deals earlier this year
on Amazon products. Why not. It's Amazon. They're they're eating their own
dog food, as they say, and they put some of this stuff on
sale. The Amazon Echo Show five, it's the third generation. It's a
smart display and also listens to you, so you can ask it to show
you some YouTube recipes if it's in the kitchen. And I actually I don't
have an Amazon Echo Show, but I do have a smart display that can
play music that could show videos. I have it in my kitchen. I
have one of them in my kitchen ones in my bathroom too. Because they're
small, they're out of the way. Normally they're about ninety dollars they're taking.
I saw this fifty dollars off, so forty bones at Amazon normally ninety
bucks. That's a pretty pretty good deal. It's the Amazon Echo Show sho
w five. All right, now get it as I do. This show
is plausibly live on Saturday, the eighteenth of November. They may not be
on now, but these are the things that I saw of this past week.
Apple AirTags. Now, if you don't know what an AirTag is,
they're actually pretty unique for all you people who lose something, who lose your
keys, who maybe can't find your phone, or even your car. Maybe
your car potentially could get stolen, which happened not long ago to one of
my kids. If he had an Apple air tag in his car, he
could have tracked where that car was. These they have a four pack,
and they have a four pack on sale. They're eighty six dollars and eighty
eight cents. Oddly enough for some reason Amazon normally they're about one hundred dollars
or so, So that you're gonna save some money. This is a good
gift. Listen. Samsung makes these tags. They weren't the first to market.
There. There's a number of these other smart tags. I carry one.
I put one in my backpack when I travel with my backpack. Sometimes
maybe somebody can run off with it. I could leave it on an airplane.
You could go online and you could track these things. Apple makes these
air tags. You've heard people putting them on cars, and actually there are
cities. I think it was at New York City there was a brand of
a car that was getting stolen a lot, and the police in New York
they literally it was mayor too. They recommended putting an Apple AirTag in your
car to track it. Listen, get a four pack, get you know
one for what twenty twenty five dollars. It could save you a lot of
hassle, especially if you lose things, if you lose your keys. I
guess you could put it on your kid kid's belt if you get a little
kid. You don't want to lose that kid. I don't know. Sometimes
you may want to use a kid lose a kid. What else? We
have Apple AirPods Pro. I saw the second generation. They're about twenty percent
off. They have a holiday discount's about two hundred dollars. Listen, if
you want air air earbuds there are you can get a heck of a deal
if you don't mind them not having the word Apple in front of them.
Everybody seems to want an Apple air pods, the AirPods Pro. Listen,
they're fine for two hundred dollars. You know, active noise canceling. You
can get earbuds, the little tiny things that go inside your ears, for
thirty dollars forty dollars. Not going to be the biggest name brand, but
they still work and talk about losing things, This to me has to be
one of the biggest things that you lose. I have a number of different
earbuds I do not have. I've never had a pair of Apple once because
Apple doesn't give me crap. They don't let me test anything. But Samsung
and many other companies do. They fall out of my ear. I don't
run with them really because I'm a switzer. But I wear these things sometimes
on airplanes. How many times has one of these things fallen out of my
ear? It falls on the ground and under a seat. I'm sitting there
looking for it. I just see nasty crap under some of these airplane seats.
I don't actually use earbuds. I'll tell you what we're up a break.
I'm going to tell you specific. I'll give you the brand, or
one or two brands. I'm play with the specific type of earbuds headphones that
I use when I exercise when I run, and they are guaranteed never and
I'm talking never to fall off of your ears, fall out of your ears,
and fall off your head. We got that so much more, Michael
Garfield, I wish you and early happy Thanksgiving, Happy early Black Friday.
As we continue the High Tech Text show, interesting choice of bump music.
You know, I'm not in control of the bump music like I used to
be in control. And I think that's because of licensing fees. I think
if I say, you know, because I'm an eighties guy and I say,
hey, Callum, uh, let's bump out with a little little Michael
Jackson, the little earth Win in fire, It's correct me. If I'm
wrong, Callum, is Zach costs us a bajillion dollars? Is that one
of the reasons why we're paying generic tunes? Man radio used to be so
much fun? Whatever the reason, thank you Callum Reid on the other side
of the glass for pushing all the buttons and making me sound sexy as you
have for such a long time. Phone number here. It is a black
pre Black Friday high Tech Text and Show seven one three, two, one
two, five nine five. OI teased the last segment about some earphones and
headphones. It's it's it's a it's a good gift. The ear earbuds that
sticking to your ears, you lose them, they get sweaty. The new
technology comes out, Maybe you want active noise canceling. Maybe you want all
our ones, maybe one of different brand. I will say this, and
again I actually used to did I used to endorse these. I don't know.
I've been using a pair from this company for years and I absolutely love
it. They're not paying me to say this. Again, I am not
on their pay roll. But again, my job is to review products and
tell you what is in my opinion, what are some of the better ones,
and what are some of the ones to stay for. I run,
and I run a lot from marathons and whatever, and so I listen to
music and so I have to schlap my phone on me somehow, and I
usually have like a little running belt or something, and I bluetooth it to
some ear ear They're not earbuzz, They're not in your spirit speakers or headphones.
What I use is bone conductive headphones, all right, What bone conductive
headphones is as a category, that's not the name of the product. They
slip around. They're not two separate things. It's one separate thing. Looks
like a little Do you remember when, if you're old enough maybe now,
when you have braces and you sleep at night and you had to use this
headgear and you have this and I didn't have braces. I remember my younger
sister had braceist but a lot of I see this in movies anyway. There's
this thing that goes behind your head and connects. Maybe it's over ears or
something. That is what these bone conductive headphones are. They're very thin.
What they have is they have these little tiny speakers that do not go in
your ears. They do not go on your ears. They rest right in
front of your ears, like right on your sideburns. All right, are
you with me? And what happens is they bluetooth to whatever and they've got
a microphone and speaker for phones, calls, what have you. There is
a cheekbone that they're resting on and the sound waves go through your skin.
It's a dumb serious into that cheekbone, into your ears, and it sounds
great. I'll put an asterisk for you audio files who want the most elegant
and eloquent sound with the highest amount of decibels and active noise canceling. No,
these aren't that. These are for active people, if you're walking,
if you're at a gym, if you're running, and just generally out and
about. Generally they are waterproof. Let me put it this way. Water
resistant. There's actually one there's another one from I got from a company that
was waterproof, and I'm testing this out right now. The company that I've
been using the buying and recommending these for it, it's called shocks sho k
Z and I guess at shocks dot com. They used to be called after
shocks. I saw that at Consumer Electronic Show. I'm gonna go back eight
years, eight nine years, and I have been using them since. These
cannot fall off your head because they are it's like a round headgear type of
thing, and they have hooks, little rubber hooks that that come over your
ears. You cannot shake these things off. So that's number one. You
can't lose these things. The sound is good. But here's why I think
it's important, especially if you are outdoors, you're walking, in you're running,
you need to be aware of your environment. And I remember when I
ran marathons, there was always a rule you couldn't run with earphones or earbuds
or music back in day and again, my first marathon was as I look
here at my studio nineteen ninety. I ran in the nineteen ninety six Houston
Tenneco Marathon, and I ran ten consecutive marathons. So I ran from nineteen
ninety six to I guess what two thousand and five as marathons. And back
then, I mean technology was such. I mean cell phones were, I
mean they were massive. There were bag phones in nineteen ninety six on most
But you couldn't run simply because the race officials wanted you to be aware and
hear any announcements if a firetruck, if an ambulance, if somebody said there's
a road closure, or what they needed you to hear. This actually takes
scare the situation because your ear is open, there's nothing covering your ear,
there's nothing in your ear. You can hear somebody talking to you if you're
walking next to them. Oh, by the way, if you have an
ADHD wired brain like me, you can also listen to the music or be
on a phone call. Why you're while you're listening, where you're wearing the
headphones. So it's an open ear thing. That's it. It's and again
that is a neat device. Now I just got a and they run.
Actually, you know what, let me do this. I'm gonna get online
for you because there's several different versions of it shocks. I guess at shocks
dot com, shokz dot com. Yeh, that's it. Shop. What
do we got. We've got open fanana like those open run pro. I'm
gonna look at that one open run. Well, there's an over that's one
hundred and eighty dollars, but that's a pro. Let me go see if
we're gonna give you the cheaper, cheapest wonder and then this is direct from
them. They Amazon may have cheap ones. There's one one hundred and thirty
dollars, all right, and let's see if there's even a cheaper one than
that. Should see open move up entry level. We like those words.
Eighty dollars. There you go, eighty dollars. Again, this is shocks
Now. I also just got to send a pair bone conductive, same design
by a company called H two oh Audio H two oh Audio, and these
are a little more plastic key versus rubber. I like the rubber because the
rubber flex is more the plastic. It's it's just a little more brittle,
same thing. It goes over your ears. They are let's see, now,
this one is one hundred percent waterproof, and this is really good if
you're a swimmer. You actually can use these in water. Now you're asking,
well, how can the Bluetooth connect, Well, Bluetooth sometimes Bluetooth works
within about thirty feet, so maybe if you keep your phone near the near
your pool's edge, which I don't recommend, it could work. But these
also have a built in storage so you could preload music on these h two
h two oh audios. Now you don't need at this point to connect it
to your phone to listen to music. So they are designed by water.
These are let's see, this looks like about one hundred and sixty dollars,
but I think I don't know, I'm seeing some coupon for Black Fighter or
something. But anyway, the point is if you're looking for active earbuds,
and everybody has their favorite earbud and ear pod and thing. I like the
over the ear bone conductive ones, and only because I'm just active. They're
easy to carry. They're relatively easy to charge the battery is great. These
things have lasted so far for years. The shocks one and I do like
it, so no, there you go with that. Seven one three,
two, one two five nine five. Oh, you can tell me your
favorite pair or I don't know, give me your give me your best deal,
give me your what's your favorite earphone or headphone? Do you like the
over the ear ones? The cans that when I started in radio, that's
what we used to have. Those are almost too big. Nowadays you can
get over the year ones, which I think are great for traveling. If
you're in an airplane, you want something that's active noise canceling because you don't
want to hear the kid behind you yap and are throwing up, and it
also it just pumps in noise. Now, these things that they do need
charge and they do need batteries. I mean you get those from Bows,
you can get them from Sony. But again they have to cover your ear
to be active noise canceling, which means they could actively cancel out noise.
And it's a switch that you'd go on and off. And if you got
any of those favorites, let me know it's seven one three two one,
two, five, nine five. Oh coming up, as we say,
are Apple and Android about to get married. Oh my goodness, people,
the color of your text bubbles may no longer divide friends in family. So
I action finally win some of my friends back who have ostracized me all those
years for having green text bubbles. Yikes, lack coming up next to the
high tech text and show bottom of the hour on the show before thanksgipping.
Everybody taking a diet. Everybody diet and so far, I don't know what
do you got cooking? And I know what you got in your cocktail drawer,
cocktail cabinet. If not, you better go get it. Some Papas
Pilar rum. I've become a rum fan. I've always liked rum along with
other spirits, but rum really is very versatile, especially when you get into
the higher end RUMs. Like Papas Pillar Ernest Hemingway family. They have given
the ok and they actually distill this in beautiful Key West, I mean exactly
where Papa Hemingway used to hang out. Saw this on the shelves of specs
Total wine. Also, they have several I think I have four different varietells
right now. A blonde Rum, which is interesting. You don't see a
blonde. It's called blonde. You know, it's not a true white rum.
It's a blonde rum. And listen, blondes do have more fun and
they do actually taste good when you sip them out of his wonderful bottle.
Bottle is shaped like a canteen. Just you know, he was in the
war pop hemingway. But some of these have been sitting in casks, some
rye flavored, it's just really neat sipping. And some also some good cocktails.
I'm gonna post more and more of these fun cocktail rum making things on
my Instagram. You can go to high Tech Texan. But in the meantime,
why not give a great bottle. It's a beautiful package for a holiday
gift giving and bringing over to somebody's house for Thanksgiving. And if somebody does
invite me over for Thanksgiving, I will bring a bottle of Papa's PLR Rum
so we can mix up some cocktails as we watch the Cowboy Game, which
is an annual Thanksgiving Day tradition for the Garnfield family. Papa's pr p I
l a R Papa's PILR Rum. Go get it, go sample it and
you will thank me. I'm actually kind of for clemped about this next news.
I have been ostracized by so many of my friends because I am an
android guy, and it's still it still amazes people. As recently as two
days ago, I was at an event Thursday night that the high tech textion
doesn't use an iPhone. I do not use an iPhone. I actually bought
purchase the very first iPhone in the city of Houston when they came out June
twenty eight, two thousand and six, two thousand and seven. I was
there six pm the Big AT and T store, right across from the Oasis
of Love. Six hundred dollars I bought I wanted. They didn't give it
to me. Apple gives me nothing. Apple doesn't. When I say Apple
does not give me the time of day, I am not kidding you.
I do not know what time it is right now. I am a technology
entertainalist, journalist, reviewer twenty plus years. I do TV, I do
radio. I got a lot of friends in the industry where they get invited
to the Apple things. I'm not ill towards Apple. I think they are
gorgeous products. I think they are pricey, but I've never been a shield
for Apple, and people think, oh my gosh, how come the high
tech Texan I talk about iPhones. Well, I'm not going to go out
and buy a new iPhone because I have to test. I probably get four
or five, six seven new phones per year from other manufacturers that I am
constantly testing. If I go get another iPhone, that's one that I'm going
to have to purchase. And again, the ones I test generally, I
signed a thirty day review and I and I send it back to the company.
So I am never going to be the guy, nor do I want
to be the guy who's going to try to switch you from one operating system
to the next. Yes, I am, and I love Android. I
love everything about Google again unpaid, they don't pay me to say this.
I just it works well everything together. I have a Microsoft Windows desktop because
I used to work at Microsoft, and back then I think Bill Gates planted
a chip on our brains that We're always going to be Windows operating system.
Not that it has anything to do with Google, but they work together.
It sinks the calendars and everything, and so I'm just not Apple guy.
I think androids for midi aspects. They have much better features. There's every
foldable phones, flippable phones. Most every manufacturer in the world makes one,
except Apple. It's their prerogative. A ton of money and a lot of
people use the Apple iPhone. I will say this. One of the reasons
I do talk about Android is because more people in the world and this is
a massive fact than you could jack fact check me not false news. More
people in the world use the Android operating system three to one, almost more
than iPhone iOS. Seventy percent, maybe seventy five percent of the market worldwide,
okay worldwide. I mean I went when I went to South Korea last
July on behalf of Samsung. This is a this is an Android dog Samsung.
I don't think they let iPhones in the country. I may be joking
about that, but I went to the Samsung manufacturer factory. I mean there
is just there's no iPhones to be found. Conversely, I bet you if
you go down Coupertino, you're not going to see any Android phones over there.
But I'm talking around the world because it's free. The Android op sitting
is free, and they give it to other manufacturers LG. Motorola, Google,
Pixel, which is its own Samsung OnePlus those are androids. Okay,
think about that. There's only one manufacturer that uses Apple iOS, the Apple
iPhone. So by sheer numbers, that's why Android is used by more people,
is more popular. I didn't say that. It's a fact that is
used by more people around the world. And I do want to talk to
more people around the world, and I want to text with more people around
the world. And people know when you are texting or chatting with someone who
is not on an Apple iPhone, because the Apple iPhone famously goes through your
eye message and all of the messages pop up those little cute little bubbles with
the color blue blue collum. That's a cue for you to play blue by
a famous country. And then again, we'd have to pay a bazillion dollars
for the licensing for the storry about that big news, because what happens is
when someone from an iPhone and they chat with me, my little bubble shows
up as green. Oh you're a green bubble. I mean you talk about
ostracizing. I mean this goes beyond religion sometimes or your beliefs, the color
of your skin. If you're a democrat, if you're a republic you're a
green bubble. I mean people, you phone snob, get out of my
face and then we land they laugh it off. I might just leave me
A long point is And that was a big build up people. In a
very surprising move, a few days ago, Apple, probably through gritted teeth,
they sit out a press release and they announced that it will adopt the
RCS messaging standard, which is Rich Communication Services. It's a feature should launch
next year on iPhones with a software update later next year, twenty twenty four,
and it's going to bring a good range of new eye message style features
to messaging between iPhone and Android. There you go, Hey, Bunny and
WOI live together in perfect hu money. I just dated myself because no one
remembers that song. If you're young enough to have an iPhone, it's about
time. Apple did not want to do it. Apple is very closed knit.
They want proprietary everything. But that green bubble Blue bubble divide is gonna
get smaller pretty soon. Again. This is reported by an online gossip rumery
type thing. It's called nine to five Mac nine two five Mac, and
I'm gonna quote them, but they're reporting that Apple has confirmed it will support
this RCS messaging standard that it long did not want to do. Now that's
not to say the messages from Android devices will no longer appear green on Apple's
Messages app, but it does mean that text from iPhones to non I you
know, iPhone operating system devices will support the newer rich communication services. And
it works like this. If you ever trying to send a video, if
you're an iphoner, you ever trying to send a video via taxs to someone
on an Android on the Android receiving end, and the mayword vice versa,
it's if rainy, it's choppy. This should fix that. It's a standard,
it's an industry standard, so it's going to work along with I Message
Listen. Google is long taking some potshots at Apple for not supporting RCS,
and they're saying that the texting listen, the texting experience really between iPhones and
not iPhones. It's so outdated. Might as well have pagers or smoke signals.
Google said it was happy to see Apple support RCS. I mean,
just can't we all get along. We're on an iPhone fifteen right now.
iPhone fifteen. They finally went the way of Android because it comes with a
USBC charger. Nope, that's right. See Apple can change. They were
actually forced to put a USBC in by the Europeanian Union. There's no more
lightning charger devices on the new iPhone fifteen and going forward. Now. I
don't know where this is brought by EU regulations or other motivations, but it's
nice that Apple is opening up parts of its walled garden to play nice with
out of the devices. And so now you're not gonna have to buy your
mom an iPhone so that can be a blue bubble person. Come on,
peep, listen, I got this. If you don't want to go blue
or green, let me go back to when I was in second or third
grade ARC class. If you mix blue and green, doesn't it give you
red? Or is it purple? I'm not even sure. This is what
an idiot I am. Make that the new color. If you mix blue
and green, maybe it's like a teal or something. Makes that the new
color. So we can live in a harmony like Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder.
All right, we're back out of here. Happy early Thanksgiving on the
High Tech Textan Show. If you know my phone number, you feel free
to text me and if you have an iPhone, you're going to get a
green bubble because we're just talking about that. But next year, people,
I don't know, we may be the same color. I don't know.
One world, people, one world. As we bring you back to the
high tech textan show. If you miss somewhere part of the show you want
to hear it again. Need to do is go to iHeartRadio download that app.
Great app. The show you can hear as long as many times as
you want, especially after giving you wonderful information on Black Friday deals that have
already started. No longer do you have to wait till Black Friday to actually
experience Black Friday deals. Black November, then it'll be black December. Actually,
we need a new white December. I'm dreaming of a white Christmas.
January comes. I'll be in Las Vegas the second week for the annual CES
Consumer Electronics Show, where I actually I find a lot of neat early adopter
type of gadgets. We could talk about phone number here if you want to
say Hi, seven one, two, nine five Oho. If you are
shopping for things I do, I'm a very good shopper. I compare.
I give you some good, good products, better products, best products,
products to stay away from. So I'm more than happy to answer that for
you. I had another conversation earlier this week about TikTok. Was it with
Deborah? No? Yeah, I was out with Deborah Duncan because I do
a lot of stuff on Great Day Houston, and we were reapping about apps.
Deborah also an Android user. That's why we get a lot and the
one app we're all on social media. Again, we are of age where
we're above fifty, where we don't have a lot of the apps that you
young whipper snappers out there have. And you know you're a whipper snapper when
you don't know what the word whipper snapper means. That is the definition of
whipper snapper. And the one that deb and I particularly are not on is
TikTok. For some everybody has the reasons TikTok. Maybe because it started out
as just really really young teenagers they're doing this. Maybe we're not great enough
to do the dances. Maybe because it's owned by a Chinese company called Byte
Dance that allegedly gets every bit of information from your phone. We don't know,
but I saw this was interesting. More and more people are getting their
new news on TikTok, and this is in contrast with other social media sites
because consumption has either declined they stayed about the same in recent years. But
roughly one third of adults under thirty under the age of thirty regularly scroll TikTok
for news. That is, according to Pew Research Center, a two hundred
and fifty five percent increase since twenty twenty COVID. This is not just younger
Americans too, this is across all these demographics. Facebook, by the way,
still the most popular social media platform for news consumption. About one third
of US adults get their news from the site. Twenty five percent of people
get their news from YouTube, along with Instagram, TikTok, and x they're
following that popularity. But I thought it was interesting TikTok because I just I
my kids, all three of my boys, they're their twenties. They use
TikTok for business. Also, they're very very good at it. I just
think again this is me. I just think TikTok is for showing off how
to do some kitchen recipes and dance videos or something. So I don't know
what kind of news they're getting. Hopefully it's not fake news because I'm sick
of all the fake news on X and actually Threads, man, I've been
using threads. That's the Twitter killer. I'm using air quotes right there.
That launched in July, that started up with unbelievable response. I mean,
millions and millions of downloads. Works the same thing as X slash Twitter,
and they were very nice. There was they were just getting launched. There
was was. There was no you know, fake news, bad rhetoric like
that. It's I don't know what Threads is getting a little bit nasty right
now. And again it's hard to you know, monitor all that stuff.
Elon must doesn't want it. Whether you like Elon or not, who is
it? I guess officially a textan, so we should like him, I'm
not sure. Seven one five oh, but do this. You can get
your news from me, get your use from nay oh on Black Friday.
A lot of people, so many people that we use. We don't even
shop in regular stores. We go online. This show is so twenty two
years. I've been doing this to think about this, so two thousand and
one, two thousand, yeah, one is two thousand and two hours.
I started the show and was Amazon Amazon was around, but Amazon was stelling
books. Every Black Friday or every Monday after or Cyber Monday, they would
release how many millions or tens of millions of dollars were sold online. And
I used to every year it was twelve million dollars were sold over the Thanksgiving
Day weekend online, and then it would go to fifteen. They were going
to twenty five, and they would be impressive that I would give interviews like,
hey, Michael, you cover technology. You know it's just going to
be the new norm. I don't even know what the number is going to
be this year. It'll certainly be in the billions of dollars. But the
point is you shop online, which means they have to mail these things to
you. And when they mail it one of the big issues about this.
I have a few issues about this. I like immediate returns. Oh I
want that return on investment, but I want if I buy something again.
I grew up where I went to a store, I paid for something,
they would give it to me right then and there you walk out of it,
just like you do a grocery store. Well, for the most part,
people may not even go to grocery stores. Right now, I don't
like waiting. Okay, yes, with Amazon now you can get it the
same day. Maybe Prime you're going to get one to two days. But
the point is your packages are delivered to your door and sometimes after the ups
Amazon, whoever deliver it, your package wherever you order from, it ain't
there because it's stolen. And we know what we call these people, bad
people, porch pirates, porch pirates, And nearly a third of people will
track their package delivery online, which is good. I'm going to give you
we got to buy what two or three minutes some quick ways to protect your
purchases and stay away, and hopefully porch pirates will stay away. Seventy four
piers of staff seventy four billion dollars in e commerce items are expected to arrive
on doorsteps this holiday season seventy four billion, but only sixty eight percent of
shoppers have preventive actions planned to deal with the risk of theft. Those porch
pirates forty four million package staffs in the US last year, forty four million.
This is a security dot org. How do you do it? Because
online shopping is bigger, how do you discourage package theft? Well? Number
one, don't deliver to your house. Send them to a UPS store,
a FedEx store, an Amazon locker. I live near all Whole Foods.
I walk in, I see an Amazon locker's Amazon lockers a lot of places.
I live right around the corner from a FedEx store. There's a UPS
store not along with me. If you know you're not going to be home,
send it there at that point after work, you go over there,
you show your ID, then you pick it up. That's that to me,
is the easiest. Is it the most convenient because it's not at your
door. No, But if you have something you absolutely positively want delivered overnight
but also notte send it to one of those stores. Amazon has something called
in garage delivery. You can give your Amazon delivery driver a key that will
open your garage and they will slide it under the garage door. I don't
know if you want to do that yet, but that's pretty cool because Amazon
is trying to help this. You know, porch pirates. A lot of
people now have these video doorbells, and that's a big, big opportunity to
see that package and see and catch somebody if they're stealing it. You know,
it doesn't have to be ring there are so many more on the market.
Home security cameras and those doorbell cameras are really good. I highly recommend
getting some of those. Is that going to stop that security, because no,
you're not going to be home, but maybe you can catch these thieves,
deliver it to your office address, maybe pick it up in a store.
But wait, think about this, because I don't want you to be
victim of all the great items that I am telling you to potentially get.
His gifts, ask for a gift, forgive a gift to be stolen.
Because it is a big, big business. As as I said, seventy
eight billion, seventy four billion dollars in e commerce items are expected to be
delivered. If you want to send something to me, right here, iHeartMedia
and Houston right here on the Loop six to ten, you're the Galery.
Put it in care of Michael Garfield. I do thank you in advance for
that hour Number one is Oba Next Hour got some other ideas including if you
want to buy a car, it is going to be so simple to buy
a car next year for at least one manufacturer. I love this announcement that
ties my love of cars and my love of online shopping. And everything technology.
You're going to like that. And also kid parents, if your kids
are Taylor Swift fans, I got some news for you. Oh if that's
not a tease, I do not know what is is? Michael Garfier Michael
Garfield. Michael Garfield's joining in the high Tech Texan. Michael Garfield is here
with a high tech Texans who items to make life easier some new technology.
So Michael Garfield has something you might like about. Michael Garfield is your high
Tech Texan? Three decades helping you make magic with your gadgets, occurred worldwide
on the Iheartware. Do you ad now your high Tech Texan? Michael Garfield
halfway through the High Tech Texan Show, and it is a pre Black Friday,
halfway to half hour. You know what a lot of people aren't working
this coming way right? You get? Does everybody get you should get Thursday
off? Hopefully maybe Friday. Some people are taking the whole week off.
Happy Hour starts right now. Don't worry about it, even tho we're halfway
to half hour on my show. You guys go ahead and start your hope.
You're drinking papas p laur rum good rum mix it in there. I
hope everybody had a good first hour and we are entertaining you still taking calls
fave Thanksgiving food. I'm getting a lot of stuffing. I love stuffing and
I'm a weirdo, but just give me the stove top box stuffing. I
want to make it simple. And I like cooking. I'm not like the
Okay, I'm a bachelor and Okoyd, I don't want to go No,
I'm more than happy to cook. I also like mash I do like mashed
potatoes a lot of carbs. It's very simple to get the box mashed potatoes
where you put water in there. I like those, but it's just that
they're they're kind of creamy. Sometimes you want the lumps in there. That's
the one that actually divides people when I tell people, like I love just
make me a stove top stuffing. Just open a box, you put the
stick of butter in there, and it's just so good. And then I'll
say, for you know, I'll settle for box mashed potatoes. What I
can't believe you eat box mashed potatoes. You don't buy real mashed potatoes and
mash them up? My new I don't. I'm too busy outside smoking my
turkey and getting ready for the Cowboy game on Thanksgiving? So what is your
What is your pumpkin pie? I don't need a lot of pie. I
yeah, I pumpkin's okay. I will eat a little slice of pumpkin pie
just to just say I have pump pie seven three two five zero best turkey
recipe. Feel free, more than happy to uh have you on the the
or if you if you buy you're uh if you, I guess we could
talk about ham if you're really done too. I don't need ham, but
the ham turkey. I'm here for you people. I need some good recipes
too, because I'm giving I'm giving you good information. Do I do?
I talk about the Taylor Swift thing now. I tease the fact that I
have some Taylor Swift news, and so I've got now every kid probably in
the country whose parents listen to me, I'm you're twenty years old, they're
tuning in right now. Hey kid, how you doing? Uncle garfy here?
Who saw the Taylor Swift eras tour? I did not see it.
I did not see the movie. I like Taylor Swift. I don't know
Taylor Swift. I think she is in her team and her team are absolutely
brilliant. Her marketing, prowessness, the ubiquity of what she does and where
she is is unmatched. I think, right now, is it I don't
really, wasn't born? Is it beatlesque? Where she is sweeping the country
and sweeping the world, well wherever she goes in these erators, I think
show. I think she's doing a phenomenal plus marketing by dating or allegedly dating
Travis Kelsey. So she's getting the NFL kind of fans, and in the
NFL is absolutely loving it because now they're picking up new young fans that they've
never seen before. Neither here nor there. Congrats to Taylor Swift. There's
a tech spin here standby when Taylor goes to concerts, and she came in
Houston to NRG. She came to Arlington, I think for several stops for
AT and T stadium, but anyway. AT and T data network measures how
much data traffic can be shared or moves through stadiums for football stadiums, concerts
and whatever, and they measure it generally in terabytes a terabyte of data.
A terabyte of data represents about two hundred thousand photos. Keep that in mind.
One terabyte of data two hundred thousand photos or four hundred hours of video
moving across this network one terriblet. Okay, two thousand photos. A general
football game, A football game could have anywhere between four terabytes five terabytes of
data. Dallas Cowboys they push about twenty one terabytes of data. Number one,
because the Cowboys is the greatest. Number Two, it's at and T
Stadium. Three. It's a big stadium, and people call I say this
now leading up to Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift went to stadium. It's actually
stadium, but we're going to call it stadiums. And they measured how much
terabytes of data during her concerts she has used. Fans of hers have used
record amounts of data. During the aerostur in North America, a staggering twenty
nine terabytes of data glittery data moved through AT and t's network when she was
in Arlington, Texas. That's the Arlington went on twenty nine terriblet. As
I said, one terabyte is two hundred thousand photos. You do the math.
That's the most data AT and T network has moved at any stadium for
any event this year again average Cowboys game twenty one terabytes of data. So
yes, I guess Swifty is above or better than the Cowboys. Maybe she
did twenty three terabytes of data in Nissan Stadium in Nashville, twelve terabytes in
Atlanta, eight point six terabytes in Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, four gigabytes
in Foxboro Stadium in Gillette. What is this? Does this I'm trying to
look at this data and good? What is this show that bigger markets,
bigger fan bases, because it's tough to be a bigger stadium and a big
market between Dallas and Fort Worth. And number two is Nissan Stadium Nissan,
which is in obviously Nashville. Is does she live there? Big country,
not to u'st country, big music fans, absolutely, some music century city.
That's the top two. NRG was number three. NRG was twenty gig
twenty terabytes of data. Sofi Stadium though, was twelve. So far that's
the huge one in Los Angeles? Does anybody have any problem going to stadiums
nowadays? In getting a connections connectivity it used to be a bear, I
mean because there was only in the cell system. Maybe there's one or two
cell phone towers outside of stadium right now, nowadays it's different. Verizon I
believe has wired NRG Stadium in Houston. I know this because I think I
got a press release earlier this year where there are antennas all over this stadium
and there may be in there's Wi Fi. I know AT and T did
it for the past several years. AT and T is a big partner with
the Final Four, the March Madness dan caa tournament when they play the Final
Four in these big, big stadiums. They put a a basketball court on
the floor on the field and it's a raised stadium. Underneath that raiy stadium
is just an array of antennas, so the potential eighty thousand, ninety thousand
people can actually get better reception out there. It's getting easier and better.
So anyway, there is your Taylor Swift update, which is probably the first
time I've ever done it on this show, and I'd say it's the last.
Are we gonna play any Taylor Swift pump out music? We'd have to
play up bajillion dollars all right? Coming up after this, how would you
like to buy a car online? Oh? My, the world is converging
next year coming up on the High Tech X Show. I hope everybody is
having got one the whole day. If you are listening live here on Saturday
afternoon as we do it on kp RC Radio nine fifty, if we also
have a encore broadcast that repeaks at eleven PM and goes into one am.
So right now, if you're listening driving your life away, it's actually on
Sunday, Sunday morning, so you actually should know what the outcome of the
football game. So, speaking of football games, I will be hanging up
as I do the show right now on Saturday, actually early afternoon, I
will be hanging up the earphones and the microphone and jaunting off to the aero
because I am added to Ames Iowa. Anyone, anyone Aimes Iowa. I
will be going to the university. I have Texas Longhorns versus Iowa State game
tonight. Anyone when I join, no going out with a few buds of
mine. I went there about four years ago. It's cold. It's going
to be thirty one degrees tonight at some point, so I am wrapped up
in my burn orange. I am a traveling long horn honk and could not
be more excited. Hopefully the Longhorns on the right track for the Big twelve.
And by the way, the Natty the National Championship will be held right
here in your home city of Houston, Texas, January eighth. Could it
be the Texas Longhorns that ain't gonna be the Aggies. I'll tell you that
right now, So Horns. And also I need to stop and get some
I need to bring some food on the plane with some of my buds.
And I want to prove we're going to Iowa, and I want to show
Iowa's and I like, I got a good buddy of mine who and Iowa
need to show them what real Texas barbecue is. Like, I'm gonna stop
by jbar M, jbar M. If you haven't been to this barbecue joint.
It's on the east side of downtown, relatively new. It is massive.
It's such a great neat place to first of all, eat food.
They're more than happy to take you through the pit room with the smokers out
there. Oh it's great. Hawfy is my man. Haffey is the general
manager. And this dude is just so freaking cool, just from his looks
to the way he talks and just to the way he just runs a great
organization. Some of the best slices of brisket, they got chicken, they
got turkey, big bars, they got a stage outdoor stage for entertainers.
Out there, you can watch all the games. It's cool. Definitely a
place that you can take visitors to. Hey, man, I want some
Texas barbecue by anyway. I placed in order and I'm gonna go pick it
up after the show here from J bar M and we're gonna be snacking all
the way up to Iowa on that. So very excited. I think they
make a turkey too. I may just blow off making my Thanksgiving turkey and
go get it. I like smoke turkey, man. I walk back in
the jbar Ms smoking pit room back there, they I forgot his name.
Who is our pitmaster? What a cool dude, man. He like lives
out there for twelve to fifteen hours a day and night. Puts those things
on what at five six in the morning, and they're just smoking. They
look so good, they look so tender. So for some reason, you
got no Thanksgiving plans, I'm guessing, and I'm probably sure that you can
get to go orders j barr M. The M stands for Michael. It
really doesn't, but I'm just gonna go with that. As we continue the
high Tech Texting Show Kate Percy nine to fifty am, Hook them Horns.
We covered the Taylor Swift thing. Oh, we're gonna tell you how to
buy a car. I cover cars a lot. I test drive cars every
single week, not from a dealership, but straight from the manufacturer. I
will not recommend a dealership. You just going. I will tell you what
cars, what vehicles, with minivans, with sports cars, with electric cars
are good, decent, not good, what they need to improve, et
cetera. But generally it's up to you. At that point, you're gonna
go, oh, garf man, let me go test drive these things all
right, now, let me go find a dealership, all right, let
me go negotiate with a dealer. Well, those days could be coming to
an end. You may be saying, hey, Alexa, buy me a
Hyundai, because earlier this week Amazon announced they are gonna sell cars online for
the first time, starting with Hyundai. Starting next year, people, you're
gonna be able to go on Amazon and get all your toiletries, your groceries,
your headphones and oh, by the way, I'll think I'll get a
car. They announced the deal Amazon Hyunday announced the deal that they're going to
allow dealerships to sell cars through the site. And just because there's the whole
law of dealers, you have to go through a dealer, but dealers now
will be able to list cars on Amazon to make it, I guess easier
for people to find now. Previously you could browse car showrooms compare prices on
Amazon, you couldn't actually buy a car. All gotta change. Next year,
several Hyundai dealers start to list models for sales on the site, so
you can browse cars, make a purchase using your preferred payment method. Then
you could choose to pick up the car at a nearby dealership, or you
could have it delivered to your home at your convenience. But remember this importantly,
the in seller of the vehicle, it's still going to be the dealer.
Amazon's simply a platform between the middleman between the customer and the dealership.
I'm not sure if Amazon's talking to anybody else, but Hyundai first to market
about this thing and at least getting headlines, and it's got me to talk
about it. For two or three minutes. Amazon has been slowly moving into
the car space. I mean they were offering virtual showrooms for some brands,
price comparison tools, and you can buy I mean you can buy car parts
and accessories site. But as part of this deal, Amazon's Alexa voice assistant.
Oh, by the way, it's going to be available in Hyundai vehicles
starting in twenty twenty five, and Hyundai is going to use AWS Amazon Web
Services for cloud services. Nice deal back and forth. Is this going to
help your car shopping or better? I mean, it's pretty smart on Amazon
because it really nicely sidesteps the issue by ensuring that dealers remain a very crucial
part of the process. Most dealers allow customers to browse and buy a car
through their own websites, but having Amazon as an additional platform, I mean,
think about Amazon has millions of daily customers. I mean, it's going
to it. My guess is make the process even better. I've got like
four ways of payment on my Amazon and I've got my credit card. I
think I have a fifty dollars gift card. I've got VIM, I think
I have Vemo or PayPal. Can you just so I could just buy a
car? Is it one click check out? Could I just want? Oh?
I like this. Here's an day Kona, which is actually a very
nice vehicle I tested a few months ago. Let me just get a day
Kona A right way twenty nine thousand dollars one click out of here? Can
I put this on my fifty dollars Amazon gift car? Oh? You need
another method of payment? I like it. This is the convergence of technology
and automobiles coming together. I absolutely like that a lot. I absolutely do.
He speaking of cloud storage, and I also was talking about Taylor Swift
last segment breaking all the data records and eras tour all her fans would share
so much terabytes of data more so than any other event concert football stadium.
That was cool. And then there's cloud Then I just talked about Amazon Web
Services in cloud storage. Verizon is actually getting in the game. Somebody these
companies have cloud storage options, and you have to understand the pricing and how
much is there a limit? Not e limit? Verizon just they announced that
they have cloud storage options for unlimited. I'll repeat unlimited for thirteen dollars and
ninety nine cents per month. Just new it's coming out, so pretty much
Verizon wants to back up your entire life for fourteen bones per month. So
it's a new plan, unlimited space, so you can put your photos,
your videos, your documents and everything. That's actually kind of unusual. A
lot of other cloud services come with data caps. Here's it's just x amount
and then that's it. But this is a wireless carrier, so I mean
they want you to use their signals, carriers and their system to actually upload
everything. I actually was wondering about the word unlimited, because there's a lot
of different carriers, including Verizon, that have funny definitions of unlimited, and
there are some limited. There's a few limitations, so individual files can ex
see ten gigabytes, you can only upload fifty gigs per day. Those are
pretty high ceilings, though I don't think a lot of people can hit that.
Before fourteen nine and Night Listen, Dropbox they just eliminated as a unlimited
plan for business customers. There's Google One, There's back Blaze, there's all
of these cloud storagees. If you don't, I would absolutely because I use
a few cloud services. I obviously also have in my next to my computer
several hard drives that back up everything. As again, I'm an eagle scout.
I mean I want to be be prepared, back back, back,
back protected. For some reason, the cloud servers go bye bye whatever.
At least I have a hard copy here on my desk. For some reason,
something happens to my home, theft, fire, flood, I've got
the copy in the cloud. I mean, I've got the pictures when I
was a kid, and I got my baby, the kid's baby pictures.
Just a lot of documents. Something you should always always do. You should
always back it up. You should absolutely do that, Toway. That's one
option. I just noticed the Hoverzon. It's unlimited, which is is pretty
cool, but fourteen bucks per month. There are a lot of cheaper options
off there, but I don't know if you're going to get unlimited. That's
what I do. Just give you some ideas and opportunities. Hey, speaking
of ideas, do it yourselfers If for some reason you have issue, you
want a plumber, and you want TVs hung or you have anything that a
handyman can or can't do. There is a company here in Houston, been
around for a while that I actually use their services recently, all through an
app where you could schedule almost anything, anyone to come help you do something
around your home. It's like a handyman on steroids. I will talk to
this company on the other side. We are back at it. Michael garfieldy
long long, almost too long, running high tech text in show kPr nine
fifty am. If you're in and around the south East Texas area, and
thank you also for downloading that iHeartRadio app. You could be listening all over
the world. My next guest, I kind of got some bad news.
If you're all over the world, it may not matter to you unless you
have an idea of actually kind of creating what this pretty smart service organization and
app does, because they do service the Houston area and a lot of areas
around that. And I want to start with this for long time listeners.
You know, I'm an eagle scout, so my job is to do things
myself. Do it yourself. I can figure things out as much as I
can. I can I remember how to do it. I got the life
saving Merit badge. I think I need a refresher, but that's neither here
nor there. But when it comes to replacing disposa you know, garbage disposals
and hanging TVs and I could do it. Problem is do I have the
time to do it? And this is where it gets tricky. There's a
local company here that's been around for quite a bit, but I love it
because of their tech based app that I just used not long ago, and
I wanted to kind of talk and find out their history and share the info
with It is called good Smith. It's called good Smith Home Repair. Eric
Klein is one of the co founders, and he joins me right there,
I'll start with this, Eric, were you a boy scout. I was
a cub Scout. I did not go too far into it, but I
certainly, just like you, was always brought up that you need to be
able to fix your own things in your house. So well, see now
I let my kids do it. Hey, you know what, something wrong
with my computer? That's what you have kids for. Oltimately like that,
But when it comes to tricky stuff, when it comes to plumbing and just
get other kind of a handyman type of project. You saw a niche over
there. So for the people I unfamiliar, they may see your trucks driving
around Houston area. Good Smith Home Repair give us the overview of the company.
We are a tech enabled turnkey home service and repair company. What does
that mean? We, through our app and through our technology, we make
it as easy as possible for our clients to get on their phone type in
couple words, say that their light is broken, their toilets clogged, and
before they know it, they can have a goodsmith truck with a vetted professional
heading their way to take care of all of their issues that they might have
in their home. So what we created this because I was a homebuilder for
twenty years. I'd built somebody's house and three years later they'd be calling me
up and go, hey, Eric, I've got twenty things in my house
I need to get done. I've got all the guys and the skills to
get that done. But homebuilders and contractors aren't set up to come fix the
hole that the door knob punched in the sheet rock, are coming out to
fix three shingles on your roof. So what we do is we do everything
that large contractors are capable of doing, but just aren't set up to do.
I immediately got it when I saw the website, and then I also
downloaded the app, which is obviously it's very simple to do. I like
how you say it's a tech enabled maintenance and repair company, because you are
the can I call you this? It's you're a virtual superintendent. You're the
superman. I mean you're like Schneider okay, reference reference from back in the
day, or or bookman if you go back to good times that instead of
just calling the number. And obviously I have my own home too, It
doesn't matter what it is because you can hndle everything from that the handyman stuff
to the maintenance, to the appliances into everything. The list of things that
you do it continues to grow. Give us again, I just gave some
generalizations over there, but what do what? What services do you offer?
So we from the most simple things, we have maintenance programs that will come
out quarterly or bi anally. If you like to change your light bulbs,
change your air filters, plush your water heaters, clean your dryer vent,
do chemical drain cleaning on your drain to keep the sinks running. You know,
those are kind of the oil changes, entire rotations that we all do
for our for our cars. We forget to do those for our houses.
And so we do have programs that will take care of that we have.
We are a master plumber, We're a master electrician. We've got expert painters,
carpenters, sheet rockers, everything to also just our generalists aka handyman to
come out there hang some pictures for you. We also have in house an
exterier cleaning company that will wash your exyr windows, power wash, clean your
gutters. Ninety percent of what needs that can be done in your home,
we have someone in house that can do it that other ten percent that we
don't have in house. We've got service partners that will manage that whole,
that process all the way through. The biggest glaring part of that is,
as of right now, we don't have an HVAC service in house, which
we're working on doing that, but we have multiple, multiple partners that we
trust to come out to your home and take care of those take care of
any issues that we do not have in house. It's got an email.
I just got an email here from an Amy and she says, love this
interview. I think they need to redaim the company to the ultimate husband.
I'd like you ever heard of that one? That's a good one we have.
Yeah, we joke around here that you know, we've been saving marriages
in Houston for the past four years. So yeah, we started this right
before, right before COVID started off. And you know, my partner and
I we were looking at each other and the beginning of twenty twenty going well,
you know, that was a good four months. You know, COVID
just killed us a little, did we know. A month and a half
two months later, our phones are ringing off the hooks because everyone was at
home. Everyone was breaking things. You had the one spouse to the other's
spouse was going, hey, how long is that that cabinet being crooked?
And the other spouse is going, well, about seventeen years, and so
it's it's amazing at what we are able to do to really get things around
the household, sort it out. Eric Kleine, he is the co founder
of good Smith. We'll make sure we give you the the web dress and
also how to download that app. This is when I first downloaded one of
the first things that I saw and I got because I understand how customer service
works. It's a membership plan and then you have several maintenance plan and I
and I understand that, and I'll probably let you kind of explain it this
way, but the fact is you know I joke about the superintendent. I
mean everybody has them on you know, speed doff. You're living in a
high rise or an apartment like that, but you have a relationship. I
mean, the superintendent of your building knows everything that was built, when it
was built. What's wrong when you're maintenance scheduled and I my guess is that's
you want that relationship with the customer. Absolutely, it's being being a membership
and having that relationship. When you put a request in on the app that
your upstairs air conditioner isn't working, we know the model, we know the
serial number, we can we can send the guy out there and he is
ready to work on the house. We're not having to redo work time after
time after time when we come into your home. That that relationship allows us
to have that intricate knowledge of the home. So that makes saves you time
and saves us time when we're service a service sing your home. It's a
real win win situation because just like most everything's, a lot of our services
are charged by the hour, and if we can come in there and do
it at half an hour and you only get charged for a half an hour,
that's a win win because I can get onto the next job and you
can get on with your life. What process? Tell me about the process.
I went through it, but you probably explain it better than I can.
Starting from choosing the plan to download in the app to start it to
do list absolutely online at my goodsmith dot com. There's a quick summary of
all of our service plans that are out there, everything from maintenance which is
paid upfront for throughout the year, and also describing our three different tiers of
membership that go everywhere from zero dollars a month to eighty nine dollars a month.
Once you decide you want to become a good Smith member, you can
fill that form out online, download the app, and then from that point
forward once you have the app downloaded, our kind of mantra was if you
have something wrong in your house, you should be able to get a request
in while you're sitting out a red light. That is how quick and easy
we want that request to go in so that you can get on with your
life. Now, not suggesting you texted your car, but that's how quick
it needs to be done. Because we want to be the experts for the
home. So if you tell us that you're thinking me, jigobobber is leaking,
We'll ask you. We'll ask you, hey, send us a picture
of your thing to need jiggerbobber, and on our end we'll figure out that,
Okay, it's their shower head or it's something else that's going on.
You just need to feed us some information so that we can send out as
easily and quickly a quick estimate of how much the work is going to take,
and then we get it on your schedule so we can get in there
to get it taken care before you. It's all about ease of use.
Craziest job you've ever been asked to do. Man, a couple of them,
probably I'm not going to share on air because they are the very personal,
very personal in nature. There's been some bedroom accessories that have been asked
for. Man just absolutely stumped me on this one. You know, some
of the most fun things we're doing going into the holiday season. Once the
week before Christmas were putting together everyone's Christmas lots of Christmas presents for them,
the things of mom and Dad don't want to take the time to put together,
or frankly they get halfway through. We get to do a lot of
really fun intricate things. You know. I'll tell you you know, one
of the silliest jobs. We had a member that was just down the street
from another member and they saw that one of our maintenance crews was there and
they had just moved here from New York and they had no idea how to
take care of anything in their house. And God forbid, there was a
flying cockroach up on the top of the twenty foot ceiling. She called,
She went into the apps, put a request in, and our guide just
walked from three or four houses down, came over there, got the ladder
up and got rid of the cockroach. For like, that's the level of
service that we want to give to our customers, that they know that we
are in the community and we're there to help them out when no matter how
small or how big the project is. Hanging Christmas lights and ornaments outside we
do some. We do some. It's it is something that that it is
a it's expensive to get it right if you want to intricate process. That's
one thing we really do also pride ourselves on that if there's a service that
we are we can do anything. There's nothing money in time can't fix,
right, But if we are not going to be the best value for you.
We will certainly let our we let all of our customers know that upfront,
because there are certain things that those guys that specialize in that you know,
they're really really good at it and they're going to do it more efficiently
than we are. And so like, yeah, well i'll tell you what,
just from personally to go to experience. A few weeks ago, I
downloaded the app. I needed a few things done. And what I like
is I like the communication, the upkeep, the customer service, went back
and forth, confirming with time. I was going to be a confirming with
time, what's your address? And in everything, so very very upfront and
it's a success. And uh, you know what, maybe you're gonna expand
nationwide. Who knows, but I know all my Eustonians they don't care because
you're here for them. It's just which its counts. Eric Lein, the
co founder of good Smith. If people, I think you already gave the
gave out the website, hit it one more time along with the app.
Yeah, so it's my Goodsmith dot com. And if you searched good Smith
Home Care on either app or Android, you'll be able to find the app
right there, simple enough. Listen. Congratinator success my man. And by
the way, if you need an eagle scout and do some life saving you
can actually add me to your repertoire perfect. Thank you, Hey, happy
all days, my man. Thank you so much, and I appreciate your
time. All right, thanks for having us suck the absolutely eric lyin that's
it really listened. Really is a good service these I want you to try.
It didn't cost anything to download the app, and they actually I think
there's a level of membership that's actually free, along with a few others.
And so sure, I love Houston based companies. I love talking to Houston
based owners and people who come up with creative stuff like this and good Smith.
All right, get done right now, Michael Garfield, I'll give you
a open phone number seven one three two one two five nine five oh as
we continue the long running Hi Tech Texan Show. Final segment of the pre
Black Friday Hi Tech Textan Show. Michael Garfield, I'm not gonna give out
that phone number because we just got to have a few other things that we
want to hit. But for some reason, you want to reach out to
me this week, Michael at high tech Textan dot com. Go to high
tech Textan dot Com. I'm getting more and more of these fun gift guide
items that I'll be putting on my Instagram, which is shockingly high tech text
and h I G h T e c h t e x a n go
check that out. Earlier this show, I talked about some Black Friday deals.
If you want to podcast at Callum, the podcast will be up what
about ten minutes fifteen minutes once we finish the shizzo, go to iHeartRadio and
just search for kp RC or high Tech tex Center Michael Garfield, I think
and you can hear the this show, I talked about some earbuds, some
bone conducting, bone conductive earphones, headphones. That's what I use because I'm
always out and about. I don't want these things falling off or sweating out.
These things have lasted a while, so it'll give you some good ideas
for that. Big shout out to some of our partners and sponsors, do
US Coins and Jewelry, Kenny and Matt Duncan. I'll tell you what.
These folks busy year round, but this next month or so they are going
to be crazy busy. They are located on Katie Freeway just at vos Voss
Road. Go to US coinsand Jewelry dot com. If you want some extra
cash and you're sitting on coins and jewelry that you want to sell, they
will give you top dollar if you want to buy things for a lot of
collectibles. New mismatists coin collectors. US Coins and Jewelry one of, if
not the top dealer in the country, Kenny Dunk I love. I've watched
Kenny back in the back row. He will look. He'll take just a
matter of seconds. He can look at these coins. He can decide,
Okay, is this of value? What it is? How much they will
pay you for it. They got great security there, so you don't have
to worry about slapping all your valuables in. They've got Rolex watches to protect
phillips. They've got jewelry. I see a lot of ice, a lot
of tennis bracelets, a lot of neat stuff for the ladies. Great Texas
memorabilia, I mean real stuff like flags, you know, and old maps
of Texas before it came a state, and things of that nature. But
do go check them out as you as Coins and Jewelry dot com and they
actually have a great, solid, very strong, secure website too. If
you're not in Houston and so thank them for that partnership. Papa's PLR Rum
go make yourself a nice, good cold cocktail and just put it on ice.
Go get go, get the cask strength little sherry oak cask Papas PLR
P I l A R Papas Pilar. If you're thinking about something new to
try during this holiday week, I really do like that. I do cover
cars. As I talked about and I saw this news, I've been doing
a lot of I've had a lot of conversations over the past month or two
about electric cars. I over the past three weeks have driven testro for each
week I get, I have a I have a vehicle for over one week.
And over the past few weeks, I have been in an electric vehicle,
one of which it was a Mercedes EQB two fifty. It's an suv,
relatively small suv, and it's electric. About forty thousand dollars. Okay,
that's actually is that right? Hold on? Nope, sixty thousand dollars
fifty two thousand dollars to just a retail price. As I'm looking at the
AMUNTRONI over here, I was in a Kia and what you're fine too.
I'm not the biggest electric car electric car fan. Electric cars work for some
people and they work for others. If you drive locally and you know you're
going twenty five thirty forty fifty miles, you know your range, You've got
a charger at work and charge you at home. Perfect. It's good as
a second car for taking the case slepting against the soccer practice. But me,
single guy, kids out of school, living alone, I can hop
in the car if I need to go to Austin, which is over two
hundred miles away, Dallas, which I go to frequently, well over two
hundred fetey miles away. I don't want to have range anxiety. I do
not want to wait at it the charger. I do not want to pray
that the charger actually works. I do not want to sit there for well
over an hour. I don't puts around. I want to get where I'm
going. And that's it my mind. The way it works, the way
it's wired, it's just not right ready for electric vehicles just because of the
charging time. I think they are fast, I think they are quite I
think they are sexy. We don't know the long long term of what's happening
or the batteries are so, you know, biodegradable, what have you.
They can be expensive x so they are expensive for what they are versus some
of their counterparts. So I'm not going to talk you in. I'm not
going to talk you out of one. But I just want the battery system
to get better and slowly but surely it is because I saw this come across
my inbox. BUCkies. We love BUCkies. BUCkies just announced a strategic agreement
with Mercedes Binz to deliver Premium EV charging at BUCkies locations nationwide. By the
end of next year. There's gonna be I think thirty one Bucky travel centers
and they are gonna have Premium EV charging stations. I'd stop at BUCkies once
in a while. They're amazed. I'm not gonna get into this is not
a Bucki's commercial, but they have so many gas pumps, gas bumps.
I mean, they just got it. It seems what seems like acres and
acres of gas bumps at some of the larger ones. I don't know if
they currently have any charging stations because I just go, I get gas,
I go in, and I spend another one hundred and eighty six dollars on
crap that I don't need. Welcome to BUCkies. Love them, though charging
stations at BUCkies are dangerous. Follow me over here because you already go in
and kill enough time and kill enough money while you're waiting for your card.
I fill up in five minutes. Imagine having nothing to do for an hour
while your car charges. You literally may spend as much as the car when
you walk out of BUCkies. How many beaver nuggets can fit in the back
of your electric car? And how much is gonna cost you? I kid
because I laugh, because it's the only thing I can do. I'm glad
that BUCkies there needs to be more locations of high end, high powered chargers.
It's as plain and freaking simple as that. So good for BUCkies of
actually doing something. So yay, yay yay. On that same note,
people ask me about Tesla all the time because it Tesla. Again, let's
go first to market at least here in the United States, and they came
out strong with all of their Tesla cars. It's electric chargers, but Tesla's
charging charging system generally doesn't work with any other charging system and a GARF is
there ever going to be a standard because listen, there's a standard gas laid
well. Of course you've got different levels of premium unleaded and super unleaded and
everything, but it's gas. A gas station with a typical gasoline powered engine,
and you're gonna be able to fill up. But if you go to
a typical charger, different charging systems may not work. But evs soon from
four to GM to Lucid to Pollstar, they're actually slowly announcing that they're going
to adopt a Tesla's charging standard. Okay, so this seems like it's a
win for Texas based Teslap, but according to who is this? According to
sales of electric vehicles are expected to increase by thirty five percent worldwide this year
and to hit fourteen million sold by the end of this year. China make
up sixty percent of all vehicle sales. But I'll just say it again right
now, one of the biggest concerns you're deciding whether to buy an electric car
is how often you're going to have access to a charger when you need one.
You do not want to get stuck in the middle of nowhere with a
dead battery. But Tesla's really quickly becoming the dominant force in charging infrastruction.
Sure, and there's a lot of global car makers now now reaching agreements with
Tesla to make their own cars compatible with the Tesla superchargers that are pretty much
widely available. Again, good things, and that's good news. Why I
started this segment going not a big electric car fan in terms of buying and
recommending one, because I don't like the infrastructure, at least here in the
United States of how to charge your vehicle. I don't want to wait.
And there's so many different EV chargers right now. There's two main ways electric
cars are charged. One is called the Combined Charging System, which is a
CCS, and then there's another North American charging standard in ACS. Tesla actually
devised the NACS over ten years ago, and there's there's technical differences. One
is smaller in the cable's more light, way, easier to plug in,
blah blah blah blah blah. But demands are increasing and it seems like there's
gonna be a S which Ford actually partnered with Tesla, who's by the way,
if you think about it, it's a competitor, GM followed now partnering
with him too. By partnering with Tesla GM alone. The CEO, Mary
Bira, She said, Tesla deal that would save GM up to four hundred
million dollars from GM going to have to starting a whole new charges system.
This i'ma leave you with this as we're closing out the show. I love
reviewing so many things. I got into cars fifteen years ago because I realized
cars are technology. Technology are cars, and it goes back and forth.
I am lucky to be able to know the manufacturers. I'm on a board
member of the Texas Auto Writers Association. I appreciate you listening to my opinions
and trusting my drives and my post whether it's good, whether it's bad.
They're not endorsed. These are totally my opinions right here. But I will
tell you right now, when EV's coming along and people think EV's maybe the
greatest thing that they have seen since Henry Ford and Bit of the Car,
there's a lot of things that are blowing down the growth. Number one,
there pricey, but number two, there's a lot of people who just do
not want to worry about the charging system. To me, if there was
a better charging system across the United States, I probably would be much more
easier. Let's just put it's much easier for me to recommend EV's until now.
It's a wait and see thing. Tell you what you're going to wait
and see. I want you to wait and see of how much you're going
to eat, how many calories you're going to eat, and then how much
you're going to expend when you're going to run them off. Happy Black Friday.
Next week Saturday, it is the big Saturday Thanksgiving show where I'll tell
you some of the deals that you missed on Black Friday, and house sales
are only going to get better. So if you miss out on that Black
Friday deals the Saturday next to week from right now, you're going to probably
find some even better deals to buy things for. Everybody who's been a part
of the show, I do thank you for tuning in for all these years.
My name is Michael Garfield. Happy Thanksgiving, my friends, hook them
morns. Right now, my show is over.