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Tech News & Commentary
Nicole in Naples, Florida listens online and is calling via the App asked: “I have a question about Facebook views vs. YouTube views. I’ve heard a lot about videos being uploaded to Facebook and the views have been great, they’re saying that it’s actually going way above YouTube views. What’s your thoughts?”
Nicole, Views are all about how they’re defined. For example, if you were to reload the same video 10,000 times, YouTube would not count 
those as 10,000 views, it knows when someone is artificially padding the numbers and if they’re paying the user for ad impressions on that video, it even hurts their bottom line to count fake views as views.
Facebook will charge an advertiser for a view after the video has played for 3 seconds, so they’re probably a lot less strict as to what constitutes a view in their world.
If you’re looking to promote a business, it’s far easier to target a specific audience on Facebook so, even if you did get less views, it may still be worth it, but then again people go on YouTube exclusively to watch videos, which makes it far more likely that they’ll have their volume up while playing whatever you’re uploading.
YouTube has far more views per day than Facebook as a site, it’s what it’s for and even back in 2011 it had more views a day than Facebook is reporting now, but what your personal videos get is ultimately what matters to you in particular, so unless you’re trying to go viral with something, experiment and stick to the site that works best for you, having said that… uploads are free, why not use both?
You might also consider the fact that, unless you tell it otherwise, Facebook will automatically begin playing videos when they are displayed in someone’s newsfeed. While a lot of the Facebook users we know have turned that off, no doubt a lot have not.
If Facebook counts even a few seconds of watching a video to be one “view,” then the view count could be greatly inflated by the automatic play option.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“Into Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Shawn in Springfield, Tennessee listening on WTN 99.7 asked: “I’m not tech savvy to say the least. I’m in the start of running a small business. I currently use the iPhone 4s and love it. AT&T is my carrier. I need a second line to my phone for business purposes. What is your advice? Love the show. Thanx. Shawn”
Shawn, You can’t directly add a second line to an iPhone, unfortunately the only way to get a second line to work with one is with either an app to make and receive VoIP – which stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol – calls, or a full phone provider, VoIP or otherwise, that forwards calls to the cell phone.
There are VoIP solutions like Ooma and RingCentral that will allow you to set up a cellphone as a virtual extension, they’re not too expensive to use, and they all claim to be easy to set up.
Ooma requires a physical device, but as long as you can give it access to solid broadband it should work well, and their core service is hosted in the cloud. We actually use Ooma as our home telephone. What I like most is that you only pay the taxes on the phone line. After buying the $150 box, my monthly home phone bill is less than $4.
RingCentral does not require a local device. You could always just get a cheap phone with a voice only line and use that as the second line, if you don’t mind carrying an extra device.
There is also Google Voice, where you can get a FREE VoIP phone number that connects to either your mobile phone or a traditional hardwired phone. Google Voice offers all manner of virtual attendant and call screening services as well. One great thing about Google Voice is they have an app for your mobile phone and you can make outgoing calls using that app which show your Google Voice number in the caller ID, as opposed to your mobile number. And did we mention it’s free?
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Leslie in Decatur, Illinois listening on News/Talk 1340 WSOY asked: “I have a smartphone and tablet, (Samsung Note 3) but a dumb TV. I plan to replace my TV soon. What kind of TV do I get so I can watch content from my phone on the TV. Do I need any special cords or adapters.”
Leslie, You can use special adapters and cords, but if you’re going to replace your TV anyway, you might as well get one that let’s you view your content without needing them.
Any TV (smart or not) that is DLNA compatible should be able to play content straight from your other DLNA devices. Your Samsung devices will call DLNA “AllShare” it’s the same thing, they just gave it a different name, you’ll need to set up AllShare on your phone, but any DLNA device will be able to talk to it.
If you want to go even cheaper than a TV that supports DLNA, you can always just get a cheap device like a Chromecast to watch your content that way, at $35 it won’t make a huge difference in the prize of a TV and it will give you plenty of streaming sources beyond what’s already saved to your phone.
The Chromecast might even be the best option, because it will work with ANY device running an up-to-date version of Android, and not just your phone. So if you buy a tablet, or a friend comes over and wants to play something off THEIR phone, Chromecast will get it done without requiring that it be DLNA compatible.
Apple users, you have the same option using Apple TV. Being Apple, of course, it’s $69 to the Chromecast’s $35, but we should all be used to that by now.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Bill in Hendersonville, Tennessee listening on Supertalk 99.7 WTN asked: “I have Outlook on an exchange server and use an iPhone and iPad. They all sync together well but have one problem. When I put an event in my calendar with my iPhone, it will record the event correctly on the iPhone and sync properly but in the iPad, put under the event in the correct time but also it records the time in GMT. Looks like this 7am GMT). When I put in an event in my iPad, it records the GMT in the iPhone. In other words, they do it to each other. I have checked all my settings and they are on Chicago (CST) but there must be a setting that no one can find that says to record the GMT time under the event. Interestingly, this did not ever happen until the last big update from Apple. Do you have any insight?”
Bill, As far as we can tell this was an iOS 8 bug affecting some users but, unfortunately for you, it wasn’t too widespread so it hung around for a while.
Some people have reported that it went away after logging in to iCloud.com and changing Time Zone settings for their calendars there. For others that didn’t make a difference, and they had to resort to temporarily changing their calendar time zone to “London” on the device.
That does seem to fix the problem, but it’s obviously a temporary patch, not a real fix, as it may be a problem for people traveling to different time zones who need their calendars to show events at the right time.
The latest version of iOS, version 8.3, seems to have finally handled this calendar sync bug. The problem only showed itself when using something like Microsoft Exchange or Google Apps as your calendar provider. If you used iCloud, everything worked fine. So upgrade your iDevices to iOS 8.3 and see whether that doesn’t make your problem disappear.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Guest Segment:
Manish Patel, Co-Founder – NOIZY Brandswireless bluetooth sport headphones, earbuds and speakers
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
In 1928 the time finally had come for the world premiere of television, after many years of intensive research and development around the globe, with Germany as focal point. The venue: the 5th “Grosse Deutsche Funkausstellung” in Berlin, today known as IFA the number one global show. The screen, developed by Denez von Mihaly, was as tiny as a postage stamp, just an inch and a half, square, with only 30 lines and 900 pixels. Von Mihaly received the first license “to build and operate” a television station from the German Post.
Eddie in Tulsa, Oklahoma listens to the podcast and is calling via the App asked: “What makes a USB cable charge your phone much more quickly than others?”
As it turns out, there is such a thing as a “quick charging” cable… or maybe we should say there is such a thing as a slow charging cable, which is probably what you got.
Cables come in different gauges, different gauges have different resistance values, that means that some of the power or the data you’re sending through the cable may be lost along the length of it.
Most 3rd party cables are 28/28 gauge cables, while OEM cables are more likely to be 28/24 cables, that means that using the same charger the OEM cable you just bought is probably better able to transfer more charge quickly than the 3rd party cable. Cheap 3rd party cables also often have cheaper connectors and after several cycles of plugging them in and unplugging them, they can get slightly compressed and degrade their performance even further.
Most cables perform well enough that users don’t see a difference, but if you’re buying especially long cables, or very cheap ones you may very well notice.
If what you’re looking for is just speed, it’s likely that the OEM cable will get you the best speeds, as long as they have a good enough charger and battery to handle fast charging, manufacturers are unlikely to bundle in a cheap cable that won’t let the rest of their tech perform as well as it can.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Richard in Habsburg, Mississippi asked: “I recently received a wifi antenna for my desktop computer (plugs through a USB cable connector). It works fine for free internet, I’ve had free internet for the past four months, is this okay? Is there anything illegal about doing this? I also have a an antenna, its a analog digital converter box for my Tv with a clear TV antenna and it works free and good too. I have been able to shed Comcast from internet and TV and it is great. Am I doing anything wrong?”
Richard, Using someone else’s WiFi network may or may not be legal depending on where you are. Usually, it’s illegal but few people get in trouble.
Here in Florida, for example, it’s a third-degree felony, but not many people will get in trouble for it. Sometimes even using your neighbors WiFi with their permission is not allowed because of the service contracts that users sign when they get internet access.
The thing is, you probably won’t get caught sitting at home on a desktop on someone else’s WiFi, it’s not like you’re going to be parked at night in some dark alley with the screens glow making your ski mask stand out in the darkness…
You are most likely safe, and you are most likely also breaking the law, if you want to be on the legal side, you should probably be paying, but you’re probably not gonna get in trouble.
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
OWC: Dual USB Flash Drives – The amazingly small flash drive with both a Micro USB and a regular USB interface all-in-one.
Jabra: SoleMate Portable Bluetooth speaker for your laptop, tablet, smartphone or music player
PhoneSoap: Several Antibacterial – All Natural Touch Screen Polish
Livio Radio: Bluetooth Internet Radio Car Kit – FM transmitter that allows you to bring Internet Radio and hands-free calling to your car.
iLuv: A pair of ReFashionOlogy Canvas Exterior, Collapsible Headphones with a Titanium Diaphragm
Westinghouse: Unplug Wireless Bluetooth Sound System