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Tech News & Commentary
Joshua in Sparta, Tennessee listens on WTN 99.7 asked us: “I lost a battle with my Samsung Galaxy S4 phone, I crushed it up against the wall so the screen is black but I can still receive phone calls– the screen is shot otherwise. I was wondering if you thought it was worth fixing? As well as my Sanyo television, the HDMI plug in the back is starting to cause trouble. It’s probably a 9-year old television, I was wondering if that would be worth repairing?”
Joshua, We’re extremely sorry to hear about your recent troubles with electronics! Be gentle with them. Tech is your friend! That must really cause plenty of inconveniences, especially the way you’re limited to not being able to make phone calls on your own. Just being forced to take calls from telemarketers and bill collectors must be a nightmare!
Now, your best bet is definitely not to get another phone as it will likely be way more costly than just repairing this one, and to do so, you will probably need to visit a local repair shop and have them take a look at your phone. Prices will vary depending on the issue and what the particular repair shop charges– but it seems like that would help, because you’re still able to receive calls, meaning your phone is not entirely dead and could likely — hopefully — be fixed.
The more tedious but pocket-friendly solution is to order a repair kit for your phone, finding good instructions and doing it yourself. It may sound difficult, but plenty of people — including me — have been able to save money by doing this. Our intern, Fidel, had an issue previously with a broken phone screen and before paying $100 to a repair shop to fix it, his father was able to order a repair kit on Amazon that came with instructions and after it arrived– it was fixed within an hour. He thinks that if his father, who is actually Fidel Castro Sr., was able to fix a phone, just about anyone could do it too!
About your TV, you’re probably better off not fixing the port, a 9 year old TV is probably not worth an awful lot today. If you have another working HDMI port, you could buy an HDMI switcher and just use that to plug in whatever was connected to the dead port.
We’ve seen estimates of about $150 to replace a broken HDMI port, a switch can cost you as little as $5.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“Into Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Scott in Nashville, Tennessee listens and is calling via the App asked us: “Wondering if there was a way to transfer a movie I recorded on Dish Network to a thumb drive so my kids can watch it on a road trip.”
Scott, There are certain ways to do this, but it is entirely dependant on what type of Dish Network DVR you used to record your movie. Most newer models, like the 626, come with USB ports that can transfer your movies from your DVR to a computer by simply plugging in your external drive and exporting them. However, the 625 model does not support this feature although it also has a USB port.
The reason some models have USB ports but do not allow users to export media is because it’s only intended to perform Pocket Dish transfers (like a portable media player) and to view images from devices, such as a camera. If you do have a Pocket Dish, then you can easily watch your programs from there, but because you asked, its probably safe to assume you don’t or you might be required to purchase one to do this, depending on your DVR.
With just about any DVR from most companies, there are ways to go about getting recordings onto other devices. There are even ways to do it without a USB drive! We have heard of a seemingly difficult method that requires a digital transfer box and an S-Video cable, others that only require a firewire or eSATA port, and some very questionable ones– but where theres a will, theres a way, and you are entitled to view your programming as you’d like. Where and when you like!
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Guest Segment:
Francesco Baschieri, CEO & Founder – Spreaker
create your own podcast and discover new content.
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
At IFA in 1995 Schneider, a German company which disappeared soon after, showed a sensational new technology: displaying TV images with laser beams. The technology never made it to the market, despite continuous developments by several companies and heavy investments. We still see prototypes of Laser Display Technology (LDT) with amazing picture quality at trade shows but it seems that this Berlin world premiere would have to be filed in the failure bin.
Vince in Albuquerque, New Mexico listens to the podcast asked: “I am calling about the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, I’m with Verizon. They have an app that comes in the phone called VZ Protect and Verizon recommends getting the app going, and it’s supposed to offer a better protection I guess for the phone if you’re downloading apps. It’s like a virus protection thing. My question is– are they just promoting their own app, are there any apps that are better than that one, that are free? If there are, let me know, or is that one the best one to go with on the phone?”
Vince, Frankly the app is mostly useless. The whole virus scanner aspect of it is basically worthless unless your phone is rooted, the risk of malware tagging along with your apps is almost non-existent.
They do have some other features and some of them might be more useful, for example, their Site Advisor integration should warn you if you’re visiting potential malware sites (which could be achieved through a DNS server, no need for an app). Their premium features do include a privacy tool that could be useful to know what information each of your apps is trying to access.
The app is pretty much providing a service you don’t need though, most of it is just handled by Android to begin with and having an app running in the background checking everything at all times can’t be fantastic for your battery life.
Speaking of battery life, their app will estimate how long you can talk on the phone, browse the web, or use other functions on however much battery you have left, which sounds nice to know… not very useful, and totally dependent on what you’re doing that very second, but you know… nice… but you can get that for free from plenty of apps like BatteryTime without having to let them run in the background constantly.
There is one useful feature that comes with that app and it’s the ability to track your phone if you lost it, but again, Android can handle that natively too… you just need to log in to Android Device Manager, device tracking should be turned on by default, but you may need to turn on the ability to remotely lock and erase the phone.
If that’s not good enough for you, Samsung phones like yours also come with Find My Mobile to do the same thing… you probably don’t need to install Verizon’s version of the same thing too.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
If you have any questions about any of this week’s show info, please email us here.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Breathometer: Several of their Breeze – Smartphone breathalyzers
NewPotato Technologies:Classic Match Fooseball Turns your iPad into a fooseball table
Firefold:Ultra High Performance HDMI Switcher
NewerTech:Voyager Q – SATA Hard Drive docking solution