0:00:00[Music]
0:00:09Hello and welcome to episode 4 of Upgrade on Relay FM.
0:00:13This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by Hover, simplified domain management.
0:00:17My name is Myke Hurley and today I am joined by your host, as I always am, Mr. Jason Snow.
0:00:23Always, it's a pleasure to be back Myke. Hi, how's it going?
0:00:27Very well sir, happy birthday to you.
0:00:29Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. It just so happens.
0:00:32All of our listeners can wish you a happy birthday too if they haven't already.
0:00:35Oh boy. They can join the people on my Facebook page who are saying happy birthday. Nothing
0:00:41like waking up to 50 emails saying someone has added a comment to your Facebook page.
0:00:47But again, better that than nobody.
0:00:49Are you much of a Facebook user?
0:00:52No, my wife is more than I am and so she'll say,
0:00:57did you see this thing on Facebook?
0:00:59And I'll go to Facebook.
0:01:00I do use it, but I don't go, I don't check it.
0:01:03I go there sometimes to see it's,
0:01:07but I don't actually like actively check it.
0:01:12So I've got like, you know,
0:01:13you got college and high school friends who are on it
0:01:16and family members and there are people there
0:01:18that that's the only way I communicate with them.
0:01:20and I don't mind it, but I'm not a big Facebook user
0:01:25because I've just, to use Facebook,
0:01:29you just got to keep going back to their website
0:01:31and I just don't work like that.
0:01:33I mean, I use Twitter because I have a Twitter app
0:01:35that I run on my Mac anyway.
0:01:39On my iPad, I just never even think about it.
0:01:41It's just not, yeah.
0:01:43So I'm a very light Facebook user, I guess I would say.
0:01:47It's the place where on Twitter,
0:01:51it's all nerdy conversations, right?
0:01:53About technology and things.
0:01:54On Facebook, it's not.
0:01:55On Facebook, it's all pictures of the families
0:01:58and friends and, you know, it's not...
0:02:01When I post my nerdy stuff on Facebook,
0:02:03it gets a very different reaction
0:02:04from when I post it on Twitter.
0:02:05Mostly like, "Oh, Jason's got more of his computer things."
0:02:09Right? Which is, that's what they say.
0:02:12- All of your computer maths.
0:02:13- Yes, exactly.
0:02:15I started using LinkedIn. I've tried to stay away from...
0:02:20I accepted your connection request earlier today by the way, we're now colleagues at
0:02:26Relay FM.
0:02:27We are, we're very much involved in our own professional network now, which I'm really
0:02:32excited about.
0:02:33That's right.
0:02:34I don't really know why I started using it. I had a couple of requests from some people
0:02:40that I kind of wanted to stay connected with, like from a business perspective,
0:02:47like it just made sense. So I figured well now I may as well do it. So like I'm
0:02:54you know I figure it might be a way to help with business stuff like sponsors
0:02:58and stuff like that maybe. So I figured why not just invite one
0:03:03disgusting social network into my life. LinkedIn is one of the worst services
0:03:09I've ever used. Every time I do anything it tries to scrape my address book. Every single time!
0:03:15It's crazy. I hate it and I don't use it except I, you know, I use it as a resume essentially.
0:03:25Yeah. It's like I connect to people I know and I make sure that my job descriptions are up to date,
0:03:31which I got to do recently. I logged into Linkedin and I said, "Oh, I've had some changes.
0:03:36I'm going to put some different stuff down here. I've occasionally will get a recruiter or somebody
0:03:40who contacts me and says would you be interested in this job or other but otherwise I find it you
0:03:46know totally useless and it's funny because for some people I guess it works because I know they've
0:03:50tried to make it much more of a an actual social network where there are conversations and you send
0:03:55messages and things like that and it just is no appeal to me at all but then again I'm not one of
0:04:00of those you know business guys I don't have a I'm not wearing a tie so I think
0:04:05I'm not allowed into the special rooms on LinkedIn because you need a jacket
0:04:08and tie to get in there it's like every time I do anything so like I use the app
0:04:13right it's like what first I get a thousand emails then I log into the app
0:04:17to accept the requests and the first thing it would do before it let me do
0:04:22anything it's like it takes you through like a wizard every single time I open
0:04:26the app, "Hey there Myke, we've noticed that we've not been deep within your address
0:04:31book recently and you kind of have to be really careful." And then I have this
0:04:36weird thing and somebody can explain this for me because I don't understand
0:04:39it, that in the application on my iPhone there is a messages icon and the
0:04:47messages icon says 2 next to it. Then I click it and it tells me I have no
0:04:52messages and I don't understand what the number two because I the second thing
0:04:58you can do the first thing you can do is whatever and the second thing is click
0:05:01that button because the notifications things as a little flag and that has to
0:05:05a little badge like a little red badge right but then the messages it has two
0:05:10and it doesn't have a red badge it's like messages squared it's kind of what
0:05:13it looks like and I can't understand what it's asking me to do like I then
0:05:19sort of poked around and saw that upgrade to premium allows 10 in mails I don't know
0:05:24what an in mail is I assume it's something to do with that maybe I'm not in mailing enough
0:05:30and like 10 is expensive yeah yeah I do you remember when when you used to sign up for
0:05:37um network social networking services and they'd ask for your IM and if you put that
0:05:41in it would it would send a message to everybody in your address book yep because I did that
0:05:47once and literally every single person I had in my buddy list got a note from me saying
0:05:51I'm now using this thing and then I got all these angry IMs from everybody saying what
0:05:55the hell just happened. Like Path right? Do you remember Path when it did that address
0:06:00book? What did it do? It was just uploading addresses to them. Yeah it was just that was
0:06:07just like a kind of breach of trust because they were trying to connect. They're trying
0:06:11to match you to people you knew is what they said and I think that was probably the case
0:06:16But, you know, there are also cases where it's just like spam.
0:06:19It's like, we're going to tell, and they often would cloak it on like, you know,
0:06:22a next button it's like, you know, or a save button.
0:06:25Just let us know your information, like, oh, you know, your I am.
0:06:29And, and then it would just like just completely spam everything.
0:06:33Um, yeah, not good.
0:06:35Not good.
0:06:36And LinkedIn strikes me as being a little like that too, that it's, it's, it's all
0:06:41upsell, which I mean, on one level, it's great that they charge and that they're
0:06:44they're making a business of this and it's not just,
0:06:47we'll give it away and then drop ads in your feed
0:06:50or whatever, but it's a weird, like I said,
0:06:54I've never really got LinkedIn and the reason,
0:06:57one of the ways I knew I didn't get LinkedIn is that
0:06:59at IDG and especially Macworld,
0:07:04Twitter and Facebook were great outlets for us.
0:07:07And I always thought it was funny that PC World
0:07:10had much more luck with StumbleUpon and LinkedIn
0:07:14And the other part of IDG, the enterprise business,
0:07:17was all about LinkedIn.
0:07:18It was like, oh, LinkedIn, they're huge.
0:07:21They're such, are you on LinkedIn?
0:07:22It's a big deal.
0:07:23And us consumer guys were like, no.
0:07:26- So I may be divulging too much here,
0:07:31but I'm just gonna go over it anyway and see what happens.
0:07:33So I work for a very large financial corporate company
0:07:37in marketing, and we've recently been discussing
0:07:41our social strategy.
0:07:42And one of those things was to work with LinkedIn and do like articles on LinkedIn and use like
0:07:50and create a LinkedIn page and it was deemed that this would be more important than like
0:07:56others other social networks that maybe we want to go with LinkedIn first.
0:08:00And that it just seemed very peculiar to me until I really thought about it and was like
0:08:04well corporations, big business, big money, LinkedIn is probably the place to go.
0:08:10So people write blog posts and stuff there now, don't they?
0:08:13Sorry. Oh yeah, they're opinion leaders, they're thought managers, they're brand...
0:08:22Net brand promotion custodial... Yeah, that's totally... That's what they are.
0:08:29I should endorse you for something while I'm on... Now that we're LinkedIn buddies,
0:08:33I should endorse you. Please do. Please do. For something terrible.
0:08:37Somebody endorsed me for volcanology earlier. A friend of mine, Ansi.
0:08:42Oh that's good. This is always good to have. Whilst we're talking about
0:08:46horrible social networks and before we move on to follow up,
0:08:48Ello. Have you signed up for Ello? Did you just say hello to me in your accent?
0:08:55Ello. Or did you mean the... I don't know, I'm very confused now. It could be either.
0:09:01I did sign up for LO. I don't understand it. No. At all. I don't like the design.
0:09:09I don't understand that when I look at friends I don't see what they have to say. I just see who's
0:09:15following me. Those people aren't my friends. Those are the people who are following me.
0:09:18I don't get that. Like, I try to find a timeline and there kind of isn't a timeline.
0:09:24I don't know. And I don't like the fact that although it was sort of put forth as being this
0:09:30like alternative to existing social networks. You know, it's venture funded and they can talk a good
0:09:36game but it's free and venture funded and so I imagine that the monetization strategy will be
0:09:41ads or personal data or the usual, right? It's sort of like Facebook for other people who want
0:09:48your data instead of Facebook. Andy Baio wrote a great kind of mini blog post on Elo about this
0:09:58exact thing where he kind of discovered the sort of the venture funding nature of it.
0:10:09Very interesting. I've not signed up for Ello. I haven't had an invitation. I'm not actively
0:10:15pursuing one. I'm not massively interested in it. I think that could be a LinkedIn status.
0:10:24currently not currently pursuing an LO invitation? I think it's very peculiar to
0:10:32even though it is a beta to not have an app of any kind I feel like a social
0:10:39network only on the desktop is a critical flaw and they probably should
0:10:45have worked on that even before they got to public beta. I think alpha may be fine
0:10:50but even when you go into public beta stage you should really have some kind
0:10:55of application. Do they have a responsive site? I'm gonna guess they probably do.
0:11:01Yeah I assume they do. It looks like they do. Yeah the website looks like it would be
0:11:08responsive right? The desktop website just has that look about it but
0:11:11there's not really much going on. Right it's a very minimal layout too. It's
0:11:16all like monospace font and you know, grey and black text on a white background and you
0:11:23know, that sort of thing.
0:11:26So let's do some follow up.
0:11:28Alright, that was follow up, that was all about my birthday by the way.
0:11:32Yeah that was birthday follow up.
0:11:33Follow up from last year's birthday.
0:11:35Mmhmm.
0:11:36I'm checking again next year.
0:11:37That'll be episode 56.
0:11:41So we had a few people, including Mr. Steven Hackett and Mr. Russell Ivanovich, contact
0:11:50us and I don't know why we didn't think about this, but it was a couple of different things
0:11:57around sort of "Hey Siri" and dictation, things like that.
0:12:02Steven let us know that Google now supports voice training, which makes sense, and Russell
0:12:08let us know that the Moto X even allows you to set a custom phrase so you can just, you
0:12:16can set up the Moto X and all the Motorola phones to go, to sort of activate the voice
0:12:21dictation on a phrase that you decide, which is much more sensible.
0:12:25Which is much better. Listener Ryan also wrote in about that and that's great. I mean, one
0:12:30of the, I was telling Russell that I'm happy after a couple of years where I was doing
0:12:35PC World and Greenbot, the Android site, and TechHive as well as Macworld of being very
0:12:41much like all things to all people. I was very happy to sort of bring it down to the
0:12:45Apple perspective and but we did talk about, you know, this is a problem that everybody
0:12:50needs to solve. You know, Android hasn't solved it, but it's great that it's in the Moto X
0:12:56and I imagine everybody will get there eventually and Apple needs to get there too because we
0:13:02we triggered a lot of people's series and you know I feel bad about that. Yeah. But
0:13:07I also feel like it's sort of a topic we need to talk about that it's just it just seems
0:13:13completely impractical to me as it currently is so but it's good to know that Moto X lets
0:13:17you set a passphrase. And Google like Google at least wherever it works on that attempt
0:13:23to do some learning of your voice. Yeah. Which Apple don't even at least publicly they don't
0:13:30say that they even bother. Like it's just like whatever, just anyone.
0:13:35Anybody can talk to Siri. At any time, anywhere.
0:13:39Why not? Just let everybody in.
0:13:41Yeah. Yeah. It's for kicks, for giggles. And we proofed that by activating everybody's
0:13:50Siri in episode two.
0:13:54So we have some follow-up in the document which has today, however, today that follow-up
0:14:02has become less so.
0:14:05So the follow-up comes from @woolenhat on Twitter to remind me that iPlayer shows are
0:14:13very time limited and that a reason to use Netflix in the UK is because the BBC shows
0:14:22on Netflix don't expire so quickly. Now this is really good for the back
0:14:27catalogue stuff but it's interesting to note that today the BBC extended iPlayer
0:14:33shows from expiring from a week to 30 days. So obviously they still
0:14:39expire after 30 days but it's just interesting that I noticed that today
0:14:43and I wanted to just mention that too. So yeah I mean one good thing is if you
0:14:46want to watch That Mitchell and Webb it's on Netflix it's not on BBC
0:14:54you know it's not on the iPlayer or if you want to watch I don't know Top Gear
0:14:58I don't actually don't know Top Gear is on Netflix but that sort of idea you
0:15:01know you can you can watch these shows for a long time after they've expired on
0:15:06iPlayer but iPlayer is really great so I love it.
0:15:11All right, top hat, UK flag.
0:15:14- Yep, so slow. - Woo!
0:15:17Yeah, we don't have that.
0:15:18I mean, there are actually,
0:15:19there are like ABC's got an app and NBC's got an app
0:15:22and my cable company has an app
0:15:24that's tied into their on-demand.
0:15:25And some of this stuff does exist, but you're right,
0:15:27it's a window.
0:15:29I think in general, they,
0:15:30depends on what studio is making them
0:15:35and what network is broadcasting them,
0:15:36but they're often available in the watch again,
0:15:40or you just missed it kind of window
0:15:42and that can last a week or a month.
0:15:45But I was getting caught up on a new show last year
0:15:49and I watched the first couple
0:15:50and I thought, oh, this is pretty good.
0:15:51And I had like the last seven or eight on my DVR
0:15:54and I had three or four I needed to fill in.
0:15:56And then one day I went and the first two
0:15:59that I needed to watch had vanished
0:16:00because it turns out they were in a six week window
0:16:04or something and they had fallen out of it.
0:16:06And so they seem to do that
0:16:09where you've got that first glance where it's basically saying,
0:16:13"This is like it was broadcast. It just happened."
0:16:16And then it goes away again until they can sell it to a streaming service.
0:16:19In some Casey List-style real-time follow-up,
0:16:23I just received an important notification from LinkedIn
0:16:27to let me know that Jason Snell has endorsed me in marketing,
0:16:31podcasting, public speaking, social media...
0:16:33Social media marketing, social networking.
0:16:36It wanted me to endorse you for all those things.
0:16:38I just wanted to add podcasting and then I clicked okay and I endorsed you for everything.
0:16:41So I regret my endorsement of you for some things that I cannot actually independently
0:16:46confirm but I was going to endorse you for podcasting.
0:16:49Thank you.
0:16:50Well I appreciate all of the endorsements even though some of them are unwanted.
0:16:55All right, well I endorse that.
0:16:59We had lots of people give us suggestions this week about alternatives to Dropbox.
0:17:07So many people suggested Google Drive as a good Dropbox alternative just in
0:17:15general because I know that we were kind of bemoaning Dropbox a little bit.
0:17:20Google Drive is really great but there's a lot of things that it doesn't do so
0:17:26well in my opinion. And one of the big things that I was saying
0:17:31about why I love and use Dropbox is for the way that it integrates a lot of
0:17:35apps on iOS that Google Drive simply doesn't. And really, I completely forget that Google
0:17:42Drive is a storage solution. I just think of them as where my documents are, like my
0:17:47Google Docs. That's all I think of it for. And one host shares their audio with me that
0:17:54way. I can't remember why, but they do. The UI changes they've made to Google Docs and
0:18:00Google Drive also baffle me because now they go to different places and
0:18:04docs.google.com brings up something that looks like a drive and drive.google.com
0:18:10brings up something that looks like a list of documents and I'm completely
0:18:13confused. I very much like their apps on the iPhone except the fact that I now
0:18:18have to have four apps which doesn't make complete sense to me and they did
0:18:24make a change recently where they put some of the... so they have... I make lots
0:18:30of lists and bulleted lists. That's how we do our show rundowns. And I indent them, right,
0:18:37as you do with an outline. So you have like the bulleted lists and then you indent some
0:18:41of the lists. I'm sure there's a different way. Is it nested or something? There's a
0:18:45better term. But now to be able to do like the indent, you have to press like two buttons
0:18:53or three buttons instead of pressing one as it used to be. And I don't really know why
0:18:56I have my fingers crossed, Jason, for an iPhone 6 Plus update that will allow me better access
0:19:04to a lot of these controls.
0:19:06Although this is like another complaint that I have at the moment where I don't understand
0:19:10why companies like Google have not got even iPhone 6 optimized apps out yet.
0:19:16Like it just seems so peculiar to me.
0:19:19Like as at the time that we're recording on October 6th, like Google released an update
0:19:25today like a bug fix update for Google Drive.
0:19:27I'm like, you are Google, surely you can get this together.
0:19:32Yeah, I really like the Google Sheets app, especially on the iPad.
0:19:39It's kind of amazing.
0:19:40It is, I mean I used, when I was at IDG, I did use the Office apps on iPad and they're
0:19:45good, but the Google apps are pretty good for basic spreadsheets.
0:19:50Google Sheets actually works really well.
0:19:52was a long time coming where Google Docs and Google Drive didn't work well on iOS, but
0:19:57those apps are good. I like them a lot.
0:20:00It's like people have said to me in the past, "Oh, why do you use Google Drive and not iWork
0:20:07in the cloud?"
0:20:08Yeah, you mean Federico.
0:20:10Yeah, and many listeners as well, and it's simply because Google Drive really works really,
0:20:18really well and Apple have in my opinion yet to do that like even if it works okay
0:20:23on the web because there was an episode of the prompt where we totally ripped
0:20:26into it people said like oh it's getting a lot better it's getting a lot better
0:20:30take action take action take action Apple still don't like that them app
0:20:36strategy for that is just atrocious it's just like download a copy and nothing
0:20:41will sync and then hopefully it will be okay yeah hold your breath close your
0:20:45turn around three times and nothing happens. Yeah, it's Google Drive. Google Drive, I believe,
0:20:54does selective sync, so it's actually exactly like Dropbox in that way. I don't think you
0:20:58can just sort of say don't sync this folder, which is the Dropbox issue too. Although somebody
0:21:04mentioned that Microsoft OneDrive has this offline files idea.
0:21:12Yeah, this seems really smart. I read about this at Jane Nathan.
0:21:18He said you can basically just say I want this to only be online and then it will just
0:21:23sync and then you can delete it. Very clever. They seem to have really kind of got that
0:21:27idea.
0:21:28Yeah, and there's nothing stopping from Dropbox from doing something like that and saying
0:21:33let me just mark this file as an offline file and you'd keep kind of a shortcut to it but
0:21:38it wouldn't be stored locally.
0:21:39And if you went offline, you wouldn't see it.
0:21:42So you can do your like online files
0:21:43and your offline files or save these locally.
0:21:46And the rest of these, I just wanna be in the cloud.
0:21:48And Microsoft seems to be, I mean, it adds complexity,
0:21:50but it does allow you to sort of like use your space
0:21:54a little more functionally than saying,
0:21:55I've got a folder that I'm not syncing
0:21:57that I can't see because I'm not syncing it, but it's there.
0:22:00My space monkey arrived this week.
0:22:05- Okay.
0:22:06- We mentioned this last week.
0:22:08This is this crazy thing that it's like the file transporter.
0:22:13Actually, it's a hard drive that you attach to your network
0:22:17and it acts as your own personal Dropbox.
0:22:21It's got a terabyte of data.
0:22:22You can just throw files in it.
0:22:24But what it actually is, and some people I know,
0:22:28I had a few people write in,
0:22:29are very disquieted by this idea.
0:22:31The way Space Monkey works is
0:22:33it's actually a two terabyte drive
0:22:35and one terabyte of it is your stuff.
0:22:37And the other terabyte is encrypted,
0:22:41mathematically hashed, magical.
0:22:44It basically is part of the Space Monkey storage cloud.
0:22:48So it's got this, the Space Monkey storage cloud
0:22:52is this massively distributed network of hard drives
0:22:55that have bits of your data encrypted on them,
0:22:58but stored on them so that if your Space Monkey dies,
0:23:02RIP Space Monkey.
0:23:03I think the first Space Monkey died.
0:23:05I think that the seal on the space capsule,
0:23:08the Russian setup was, anyway.
0:23:11The idea is that even if your space monkey dies,
0:23:15your data is still in the cloud,
0:23:16but it's not like a big server farm cloud.
0:23:18My understanding is the cloud is other space monkey users
0:23:21and that can be creepy.
0:23:23Although I think in practice,
0:23:24it's not necessarily much more creepy
0:23:26than relying on Dropbox.
0:23:29And it sounds like this is all,
0:23:30these are real computer nerds who put this stuff together.
0:23:33seems like it's actually a pretty secure smart idea. The thing I don't like about
0:23:37it as a podcaster is that I cannot pause it. I can limit its
0:23:43bandwidth but I can't say "Hey, Space Monkey, I'm doing a podcast now, I don't
0:23:47want you transferring any data while I'm doing the podcast to degrade the Skype
0:23:52connection" and it doesn't seem like I can unplug the network connector but
0:23:56that's about it. It doesn't seem like I have more control over it but it's smart
0:24:00in the sense that you can fill it up and it actually does some intelligent things to this
0:24:05is why I wanted to try it, where if you don't use a file for a while, it will just sort
0:24:10of like migrate it off into offline storage mode. It's trying to do some really intelligent
0:24:14things with the storage you're using on the device. It's not a one to one connection,
0:24:20you can you can pin something and say I always want this to be on my hard drive. But otherwise,
0:24:24it's doing sort of like what Apple does with the fusion drive where it's moving files from
0:24:28the fast SSD to the slow hard drive if you're not going to use them very often.
0:24:35Space Monkey seems to do that with your shared files on the Space Monkey.
0:24:39Say, you don't need this anymore, but it's over there if you need it.
0:24:44And that's smart.
0:24:45So I just wanted to try it out.
0:24:48I'll let you know what I think of it when I decide, but it's an interesting product
0:24:52and I like that kind of innovation in trying to do something smart about moving the files
0:24:57around and letting me store a terabyte's worth of data in that shared folder without having
0:25:03that whole terabyte be on my MacBook Air because it doesn't have room.
0:25:08How do you feel about doing that though? Like, I don't know if I've gauged from you really
0:25:14over time if you're very security conscious or if you're maybe more like me where it's
0:25:20like, you know, I lock down what I have to lock down but don't get really scared about
0:25:25things.
0:25:26really scared about it. I feel like there's so many things that are insecure that we don't know
0:25:30about and that we don't think are secure that worrying about--I mean, I'm not going to do
0:25:34things that strike me as being like stupidly insecure. I look at the Space Monkey stuff and
0:25:39I think, actually this is pretty smart. I don't really think anybody's going to get, you know,
0:25:43anybody's going to open up their hard drive and find my files and read them. I don't think that's
0:25:48how it works. So I've got some level of trust enough that it doesn't seem like BS to me. But
0:25:54But there are other things like I wrote about a while ago,
0:25:56this app for the pebble that controlled your nest.
0:26:01And I thought that was really cool
0:26:03'cause I've got a nest and I've got a pebble
0:26:04and I can check what the temperature is
0:26:06and make it warmer or colder right from my watch.
0:26:10And then as I installed it,
0:26:12I realized the way it works is some guy wrote this app
0:26:15and what you do is you give his server your password
0:26:18and username for nest and then it talks to nest.
0:26:22And I thought, nope, not gonna do that, right?
0:26:25I mean, there's a limit.
0:26:26It's like, I'm not gonna give some guy
0:26:27who wrote some piece of software
0:26:29that's in a third-party app store on the Pebble
0:26:32my username and password for the Nest website.
0:26:37I'm just not gonna do it.
0:26:38Even though that's not a huge security breach,
0:26:40it's like, no, that seems dumb.
0:26:41There should be an API and I should be able to authenticate.
0:26:44And until that happens, I'm not gonna use that.
0:26:47But I'm not super paranoid about this stuff.
0:26:50If there was some like incredibly important financial document, I suppose I would encrypt it in a disk image or something like that.
0:26:56But, you know, I keep, I've got, um, I've got a running tally of sponsors and things for the incomparable and a Google doc, and I've got, uh, files on Dropbox.
0:27:07And, you know, I've got those secured.
0:27:09Like two factors secured in fact, but in the end, if I, you know, I don't, I, it doesn't reach the point where I'm like, oh, but Dropbox can see it.
0:27:17Google can see that stuff because yeah, they can they can but I don't think they are seeing it and you know at some point
0:27:25It's just the feature is so convenient and and it just doesn't doesn't bug me enough to be worried about it
0:27:30That's the real thing that you've mentioned that I think about is I weigh up security and convenience
0:27:35Pete that I know that there are like a thousand listeners who just fired up their email clients
0:27:40To tell me that I'm insane
0:27:43But I really do that. There are things where I think to myself, "This could probably be more secure."
0:27:48But I think I want to weigh up the convenience of it. Like two-factor authentication?
0:27:55I don't really do that anywhere. This is probably a terrible thing to say on air.
0:27:59Because I do it now. I know people that
0:28:04they buy new machines. It was funny to watch people on a new iPhone day and they're like, "I can't log into anything."
0:28:11Just everything, everything I can't look into.
0:28:14And that just seems like a horrible thing.
0:28:16- It's not fun, but you know, I don't do, I mean, hey,
0:28:22there are plenty of times where I realize
0:28:23I need to log into my Google account and my phone,
0:28:26which is my two factor source, is in the other room.
0:28:28And it says, I need the six digit number.
0:28:30And I go, okay.
0:28:31And I have to get up, I have to go, I have to open the door,
0:28:33walk over, find my phone, bring it back over here
0:28:36and look up the number.
0:28:37And that's as opposed to just logging in.
0:28:39Yeah, that's kind of a pain, a minor pain, but it's a pain.
0:28:42But yeah, I feel better knowing,
0:28:45especially every now and then I get an email that says,
0:28:48somebody tried to log into your account.
0:28:50And I think, well, they can't get in
0:28:53because I've got two factor.
0:28:54So I'm at least in a little bit,
0:28:56or they could still trigger, you know,
0:28:58some social engineering and things like that.
0:29:00But they're not gonna, even if they guess my password,
0:29:02they're not all the way through.
0:29:03And that makes me feel better.
0:29:05I'm only using two factor for Apple,
0:29:07Google and Dropbox right now.
0:29:09but it is less convenient.
0:29:12That's always what happens.
0:29:13That's why people do things that are fundamentally insecure
0:29:15is because it's so convenient.
0:29:16It's the, I'm trying to think of the right metaphor here.
0:29:21Is it the, it's like the velvet coffin or something?
0:29:25I don't even know what it is.
0:29:26Is it the diamond encrusted handcuffs?
0:29:28It's that kind of thing, right?
0:29:30Where it's like, well, it's so comfortable to do this thing
0:29:32that's not really that great, but it's so comfortable.
0:29:35And the human nature is like, you know,
0:29:37I know that this is bad, but it's convenient for me,
0:29:41so I'm gonna do it anyway.
0:29:42And you gotta wait.
0:29:44I think we're better off engaging those issues
0:29:47than a regular person.
0:29:48That's the really scary thing,
0:29:50is that people who are not as technically savvy
0:29:53are not equipped to understand this stuff.
0:29:58They're relying on people like us who are their friends
0:30:01or people who write about this stuff
0:30:02to talk to them about it.
0:30:04And otherwise, they're relying on the goodwill
0:30:06of the companies involved,
0:30:07which is, that's scary, right?
0:30:09Because those companies don't often, you know,
0:30:12often really want to get as much as they can from you
0:30:15and they aren't necessarily trustworthy.
0:30:17- Is a question for you.
0:30:20Does, do you think that Yosemite and the SMS relay
0:30:24will make two-factor authentication better or worse?
0:30:29Is it good or bad for two-factor?
0:30:31Because obviously the good thing is
0:30:33you don't need to run around the house
0:30:34looking for the phone to get the code.
0:30:37But the bad thing is, if your phone,
0:30:40like you know, somebody in the house or whatever
0:30:42in the office could be at your Mac and just get the code.
0:30:47- Yeah, that's true.
0:30:48That's true.
0:30:49I mean, ideally not, but yeah.
0:30:54I mean, there are always scenarios in here
0:30:56where it's like, okay, well, I've got the secure,
0:30:59but if you've got my Mac and you've got my phone,
0:31:00then you can, and you can get into my phone.
0:31:03that's the other thing, right?
0:31:04My phone is also passcode locked and touch ID locked.
0:31:07I don't know, but something like Space Monkey,
0:31:10I mean, it certainly gives me pause
0:31:12and I'm not sure that I totally am on board with it,
0:31:14but I like the idea.
0:31:17And this it's like, what kind,
0:31:19it's not even how paranoid are you,
0:31:20it's what kind of paranoid are you?
0:31:23It's like, am I paranoid that parts of my data
0:31:27and you know, or the mathematically constructed bits
0:31:31that can be reassembled into my data
0:31:33are scattered across a bunch of hard drives
0:31:35of a bunch of other people around the world.
0:31:37Is that creepier than my data is saved on a hard drive
0:31:42or a bunch of hard drives in a file server room
0:31:48somewhere in Idaho that could be breached
0:31:53by a hacker who's looking to get into
0:31:56so-and-so's data facility.
0:31:58Take your poison, I guess,
0:32:01or don't do any of it and be a hermit.
0:32:03I mean, that's the other way to go.
0:32:04And then you lose the convenience,
0:32:06but you're much more secure.
0:32:07And yeah, that's fair enough.
0:32:09I mean, I don't, people who wanna be a hermit,
0:32:12a data hermit, they, I don't think they're crazy.
0:32:16I think that's perfectly reasonable if they wanna do that.
0:32:20They are gonna lose a lot of convenience,
0:32:21but it's perfectly reasonable to do that.
0:32:23I just, I don't think I care enough to be a data hermit.
0:32:29Listener Daniel wrote in to suggest Unbound for iOS and Mac as a good way to view your
0:32:36Dropbox photos.
0:32:38I don't know why I haven't thought of this because we spoke about it on the prompt and
0:32:41connected like a million times.
0:32:44But Unbound is just, it basically gives you the iOS camera view for Dropbox photos.
0:32:52That makes, and it makes that a much better photo sharing or photo storage solution.
0:32:58I'm still flummoxed about what I'm gonna do about photos.
0:33:02I think seeing what Apple does with a new photos app
0:33:04is gonna be part of it
0:33:05'cause we've got a giant photo library in iPhoto
0:33:09that's 13 years of photos
0:33:11and it doesn't fit on my wife's MacBook Air hard drive.
0:33:15So we've got an external hard drive that we back up
0:33:18and I don't know what we're gonna do.
0:33:20I would like a workflow that allows us to put photos in it
0:33:24without attaching this hard drive.
0:33:26I would really like that.
0:33:28and we don't have it right now.
0:33:29So I'm not, you know, whether we just park that somewhere
0:33:33and use a cloud service for the rest of it, I don't know.
0:33:37I feel like there are no good solutions.
0:33:39There are solutions out there,
0:33:40but there are none that are like perfect.
0:33:43And given that we have so much
0:33:46in the Apple ecosystem already,
0:33:47waiting to see what Apple does with the Photos app
0:33:50and iCloud, it seems worthwhile.
0:33:53But I definitely have thought about the,
0:33:55all that new storage on Dropbox as a potential thing.
0:33:59If we, all we'd have to change is we'd need to
0:34:03import photos from our SLR where we still take pictures
0:34:06on a digital SLR every now and then,
0:34:08we need to import those to Dropbox.
0:34:11But everything that we're doing on our phones,
0:34:14you know, can sync directly with Dropbox.
0:34:16So it's a possibility.
0:34:17- You could get one of those iFi cards
0:34:19and it will do it for you.
0:34:21- We have one of those.
0:34:23I actually, I could do that.
0:34:25Ah, very interesting.
0:34:27- Are you rubbing your hands still?
0:34:30- I did, I did.
0:34:31That was one of my like, yes.
0:34:32(laughing)
0:34:34I like the way you think, Myke.
0:34:35I'm going to endorse you for photo uploading now.
0:34:38- That's what I've always wanted.
0:34:41This was just an interesting story that I saw,
0:34:44which really made me smile when I saw it.
0:34:48When was this?
0:34:49This is October 2nd.
0:34:50Yeah, so it was a couple of days after we recorded last week.
0:34:53I saw that Adam Sandler has signed a four movie deal with Netflix.
0:34:59Yes. Strangely enough, announced on a Thursday in the middle of the day,
0:35:03and not on late in the day on a Friday when most companies report bad news.
0:35:08Sing! Take that, Adam Sandler. Take that, rich guy.
0:35:13Have you ever liked Adam Sandler movies?
0:35:16Oh, Adam Sandler movies? No. Never? None of them?
0:35:19No. I'm a fan of Happy Gilmore.
0:35:23If you haven't seen that, you should.
0:35:25I think that's his best.
0:35:27It was one of his earliest.
0:35:28And I watched it recently, actually.
0:35:32It was on TV about a couple of weeks ago
0:35:34and there was nothing on, so I watched it.
0:35:36Holds up, even after the Adam Sandlin-ness,
0:35:40'cause there isn't too much of that in this movie.
0:35:43Like he doesn't do a lot of the voices that he does,
0:35:46just his voice that he makes.
0:35:49- Yes.
0:35:50He moves his mouth, sounds come out.
0:35:52in a monotone way.
0:35:54It's still funny, it's still good.
0:35:57But I just find it really interesting.
0:35:58And if you will allow me,
0:36:00I would like to read Adam Sandler's official statement
0:36:03that he made to the press about why he did this.
0:36:07- Go ahead.
0:36:08- When these fine people came to me with an offer
0:36:10to make four movies for them,
0:36:11I immediately said yes for one reason and one reason only.
0:36:15Netflix rhymes with wet chicks.
0:36:17Let the streaming begin.
0:36:18- There you go.
0:36:21If that spoke to you,
0:36:22- Get ready. - You're sold.
0:36:24(laughing)
0:36:25- Yeah, it's a really interesting idea.
0:36:28Netflix is, you know, Netflix is experimenting
0:36:32with lots of different things.
0:36:34I read a piece this week, and I can't remember who wrote it,
0:36:36that was, it was very much like,
0:36:37what does Netflix wanna be?
0:36:39Does it wanna be HBO?
0:36:40Is it trying to beat, to be HBO before HBO becomes Netflix?
0:36:45Is it trying to do something completely different
0:36:47and take on movie theaters?
0:36:51it's fascinating. I feel like they're, this is a Silicon Valley kind of thing, right?
0:36:55They're just trying stuff and seeing how they can disrupt and probably pivot and other things too.
0:37:01You know, disrupting with Adam Sandler is an interesting idea, but what I don't like is
0:37:07exclusive content, but I know that everybody does it. It's like, I don't love the fact that if you
0:37:11love Adam Sandler, the only way you can see his movies now is going to be to subscribe to Netflix,
0:37:16but that's how they get people to subscribe. The same is true of like, if you love Game of Thrones,
0:37:20You got to get HBO if you want to see it when it airs so or you can pirate it
0:37:25But so don't talk about that
0:37:26but like one of the reasons that I did want to put this in the document was that I
0:37:31Mean we were talking about the fact that Netflix is losing content because they can't secure the deals or they can't keep the deals
0:37:39Right or somebody offers more money now
0:37:41The only way Netflix can secure content is if it pays for it like it funds it and and Netflix's statement was
0:37:49Adam Sandler's movies are some of the most watched movies on Netflix. So to them it was a no-brainer
0:37:54And you can kind of see it from that perspective if they're being truthful about that. It makes perfect sense to do this
0:38:01yeah, there's a rumor going around that that
0:38:04CBS is talking to
0:38:07Netflix about
0:38:10Doing a Star Trek series. There's no Star Trek TV series on the air right now and
0:38:14I've heard other rumors that say look until they make that third movie
0:38:17they're not gonna, they're gonna finish that trilogy
0:38:19and then they'll do a TV show.
0:38:20But what made it sound reasonable to me is,
0:38:23first off, Star Trek is popular,
0:38:26but it's probably not popular enough
0:38:30to make a show on CBS about it,
0:38:32maybe on the CW or something like that.
0:38:34But it's probably not widely popular enough
0:38:37to do a cable version because the budget would be too small.
0:38:40So where does it go?
0:38:41How do you do that?
0:38:42They tried that with Enterprise
0:38:44and it didn't really work on a network.
0:38:47they cancelled it after three years I think. So the rumors about Netflix start to sound
0:38:53really interesting because Netflix has said their users watch Star Trek. They've got all
0:38:58the series, they get watched a whole lot, people love watching that and that's powerful
0:39:02right if you're Netflix to say well we actually know what our people want and this is what
0:39:06they want. So they've got the deal with Marvel where they know that people are watching those
0:39:10Marvel movies and they ordered a bunch of different series, mini series based on other
0:39:15Marvel characters. I totally forgot about that. So they know they know what people
0:39:20are watching and so like the Star Trek rumor totally makes sense to me. I don't
0:39:23know if it'll actually happen or when it'll happen but would a new Star Trek
0:39:26series go straight to Netflix? Why not? If Netflix knows that their people love
0:39:30Star Trek why would they not do that and they know that all the Star Trek fans
0:39:34are going to want to see the show so they're going to get Netflix. So it is
0:39:37really interesting like does Netflix become half a catalog of stuff that you
0:39:43like and have a studio essentially saying, and that's what HBO does, right? HBO runs
0:39:51old movies and then they've got their originals, movies and TV shows that they do. So it's
0:39:55fascinating. It allows them to control some part of their destiny. When we talk about
0:39:59Apple, that's number one thing that Apple believes too, is they want to control their
0:40:02destiny. Anything that's important to the future of their business, Apple wants to control
0:40:06it. And this is a little bit of that for Netflix. We can't necessarily control whether we're
0:40:11gonna have a long-standing deal with Universal for their TV shows and movies, but what we can control
0:40:17is that we made our own deals for content and we, you know, we've got that. We've got Orange is the
0:40:22New Black and we've got House of Cards, although I think they actually, I think the deals have
0:40:29changed a little bit since House of Cards, because House of Cards then like got picked up on other
0:40:34streaming services and stuff now, I think for the first season, but anyway, yeah, I think that's a
0:40:39a big part of this is Netflix wants to control its destiny a little bit and if it knows things
0:40:44about its audience that nobody else knows, it can pick what it wants. So yeah, they know
0:40:50that people are watching Happy Gilmore over and over again.
0:40:53I bet it helps them assign budgets for these projects too. You can see something like Arrested
0:41:00Development. I'm sure it cost them a lot of money to get everybody in, but they probably
0:41:05knew that they would make it back or at least had a good idea for it because you could probably
0:41:09have done it with 75% of the cost, you know? But it wouldn't have been as good, but you
0:41:16could have at least made it. But I'm sure that they knew, "Okay, we need to pay this
0:41:20much for Michael Cera because he's a big movie star now, but it's worth it because we think,
0:41:25you know, we look at these numbers and we can work out a lot of people will sign up
0:41:29for this."
0:41:30Yeah, the challenge, and this is the challenge for HBO too, is how do you connect specific
0:41:36pieces of content with motivating people to either sign up or remain signed up for your
0:41:43service, right? It's not quite the same. They can do ratings and ratings are good so they
0:41:47can see plays. But beyond that, they just sort of have to hope that the more plays they
0:41:52get, the more times, you know, the more minutes you're watching Netflix in any given week,
0:41:58presumably have a direct correlation with retention. And then they probably have some
0:42:02idea based on when "Orange is the New Black" comes on, like how many people add the service,
0:42:09but it's tricky, right? Because it's not like they make their money on a play of an Adam
0:42:14Sandler movie that they produced, or on a play of "Orange is the New Black" or "Arrested
0:42:20Development" or "House of Cards". They're not making money on those. In fact, they're
0:42:24paying money for stuff that isn't their production per stream, so they've got to back out the
0:42:31math and say this is worth it to us because we've got these second level things that make
0:42:38us feel good about it.
0:42:39But they're not going to be able, even if the Adam Sandler movies do great on Netflix
0:42:44but it doesn't induce anybody to sign up for the service, was it worth it?
0:42:49How much was it worth it just to keep people happy, existing customers happy?
0:42:54It's tough.
0:42:55That's a really tricky one.
0:42:56I guess over time they can kind of just assign a figure.
0:43:00For example, if they pay, say they pay $2 every time someone watches an Adam Sandler
0:43:05movie.
0:43:06In theory, then they could assign those $2, fake $2 to themselves and work out if over
0:43:10time it was actually worth it.
0:43:13They're stealing money from their partners and funneling that content to the people who
0:43:17are, wow, that is really true.
0:43:20Like the more Netflix content is on Netflix and the more times people spend watching Netflix
0:43:25content is less time, presumably, that they're watching other people's content, which means
0:43:30Netflix is getting some of the money back just by, you know, if you spend two hours
0:43:34watching Orange is the New Black instead of The Avengers, then Netflix is not paying Marvel
0:43:40and Disney for The Avengers.
0:43:42They've kept your $15.
0:43:44Diabolical.
0:43:47Listener Olivier wrote in to say, this is something we totally didn't consider at all,
0:43:54that streaming versus physical media is an interesting discussion when you think about
0:43:58bandwidth. Olivier said that in Canada, I'm assuming he, right Olivier? Yeah. It's
0:44:06still pretty expensive. I pay almost $80 a month for 100 gigabytes of bandwidth
0:44:11and you know so he says it's way cheaper to buy a blu-ray at Best Buy for $7 if
0:44:17they find it in the discount bin. And something that I wanted to add as well is
0:44:21speeds. I don't have very fast internet. I cannot get faster internet than what
0:44:25I've got and sometimes it to download a movie from iTunes can take like four
0:44:31hours right so then what's the point in downloading it?
0:44:34These are all good points that we you know the economics can be different I'm
0:44:39not paying for my bandwidth here by the byte so I you know downloading a movie
0:44:44isn't a problem and our speeds although not fantastic are reasonable enough that
0:44:47that I can I can do that I get the 1080 Super HD Netflix when I watch it on my
0:44:53TiVo so but you're right you're right there are lots of reasons why you might not want to stream
0:44:59and get that uh get that disc in the in the bargain bin in Canada for seven Canadian dollars
0:45:08that may be an Adam Sandler movie he's probably one of the ones he's working on
0:45:12the wedding singer so there's one more piece of follow-up in here that i think is 100%
0:45:19Jason Snow related. Yeah listener Dave. Listener Dave wrote in to say I'm enjoying your
0:45:25glee at having follow-up to deal with. Yes and then he went on that wasn't the whole email.
0:45:33So Lex Friedman does this podcast called Your Daily Lex which is pretty much what it says on
0:45:40the tin. He five days a week usually will do about a five minute podcast. He just turns on the
0:45:46the microphone talks for five minutes and then turns off the microphone and posts it.
0:45:50And I realized last week that I hadn't gotten a new daily Lex in about a week and I thought,
0:45:57what is going on? I know that he had a bunch of stuff that was going on. It was the Jewish
0:46:01holidays and he had an offsite that was actually in his house from his company. So he was entertaining
0:46:07his company's executives in his house, which I would imagine is really...
0:46:10How big is Lex's house?
0:46:12So I mentioned this on Lex's podcast is I like to call it the solar mansion because
0:46:17it's got solar panels on the roof. The swimming pool in the backyard is heated by solar power.
0:46:22I envision Lex's house as being about 10 stories tall with a thousand rooms. It's not. I've
0:46:30never been to Lex's house, but he's got a basement and he's got I think a couple other
0:46:34levels and I think they did this all down in the basement maybe. I don't know. I've
0:46:37I've never been to Lex's palatial estate in New Jersey.
0:46:41The point is Lex didn't do a podcast for a while.
0:46:44And I was thinking about this
0:46:45because I haven't been listening to podcasts
0:46:48as regularly as I used to
0:46:50because I don't have my job anymore,
0:46:52which means I don't have my commute anymore.
0:46:54My new job is in my house.
0:46:56So that's great because I've spent,
0:46:59you know, two hours plus every day commuting.
0:47:02I got that time back.
0:47:03But it also means that the things I did during that time
0:47:07are not there anymore.
0:47:09I'm not doing those anymore.
0:47:11And I can do some of them if I want,
0:47:13but I have to like say,
0:47:14"I'm gonna take the time to sit here
0:47:16and listen to a podcast."
0:47:17And a lot of times it doesn't happen.
0:47:18So I missed that Lex hadn't done a podcast in a while
0:47:22until I went to my podcast app when I was walking around,
0:47:26I dropped my son off at school
0:47:27and I was gonna take a little walk to get some exercise
0:47:30and also to listen to some podcasts.
0:47:32And I realized there was only one Lex, daily Lex.
0:47:36And I thought about this as an instructive
0:47:38about how my life has changed,
0:47:39that I expected there to be five daily Lexes
0:47:41that I could just listen to all in a row,
0:47:43and I didn't.
0:47:45So I came home and I recorded my own episode
0:47:47of your daily Lex and sent it to Lex,
0:47:48and he posted it as an episode of your daily Lex,
0:47:51even though it was with me.
0:47:53- So this was completely unsolicited.
0:47:55- Oh yeah, I just sent it to him.
0:47:56I thought, you know what would be funny
0:47:57is if I just recorded an episode of your daily Lex
0:47:59and sent it to Lex.
0:48:00And he said, "Do you mind if I post it?"
0:48:01I said, "Well, that was kind of the idea."
0:48:03Yes, you should post this.
0:48:05And then the next day he came back
0:48:07and he's been posting it daily again.
0:48:10- You challenged him.
0:48:11- But it was, so listener Dave said,
0:48:13"I heard you're five minutes on your daily Lex."
0:48:15And I think it would be interesting
0:48:16for the Six Colors newsletter that I'm doing.
0:48:19And I think for the podcast too,
0:48:20since he likes follow-up,
0:48:21to reflect the changes happening with you.
0:48:23So it's something for us to, I think, bookmark
0:48:25and maybe talk about a little bit that after 18 years
0:48:29working in downtown San Francisco,
0:48:31I am now in my garage in the suburbs and I haven't,
0:48:36I actually, this is the longest I have been not setting foot
0:48:39in the city of San Francisco since probably 1996.
0:48:43It's been almost a month now
0:48:47and I haven't been back in the city in that time at all
0:48:50for any reason.
0:48:52And yeah, I think it's worth talking about at some point
0:48:55over time about like the life change stuff
0:48:58'cause that is something that's happening with me
0:48:59is I'm not, you know, my life is very different
0:49:02than it was a few weeks ago,
0:49:04because now I'm working out of my house
0:49:06and I'm doing six colors and I'm doing more podcasting
0:49:09and picking up my kids at school and other stuff like that.
0:49:12So it's definitely, I touched on a lot of these same issues
0:49:15in that daily Lex episode, but it's just, you know,
0:49:18the commute is a great example that you get that time back,
0:49:22you get to spend that in a different way
0:49:24than you spent it in the past,
0:49:26but what you spend it on is different.
0:49:29And so like, I'm not reading the newspaper every morning
0:49:31and I'm not listening to as many podcasts
0:49:33and I don't have as much leisure,
0:49:36or as you would say leisure, reading time
0:49:38because I would do that on the bus
0:49:41and now I'm like busy working on stuff instead.
0:49:43I sort of come in to the garage and start working.
0:49:46And so it's just different.
0:49:47So it's worth, I think, maybe checking in on that
0:49:50every so often on this show
0:49:52because listener Dave is quite right
0:49:54that, you know, this is a very,
0:49:58Not only do I love follow-up, but this is a very different life, I think, than I had
0:50:01before.
0:50:02So, you know, thanks for being here with me, Myke.
0:50:05>> It's a pleasure.
0:50:08>> Just, you know, keeping it real with Myke.
0:50:10I don't talk to people is basically what I'm saying, so I'm glad that I get our time together.
0:50:15>> Our time together today where we've just finished the follow-up has been an hour.
0:50:19So we're crossing into ATP.
0:50:21>> ATP territory, yes.
0:50:22>> Yep, that's the goal.
0:50:24this week's episode the the topic started in the post show I think was the
0:50:29point but let's let's take a break and we can thank our sponsor for this week's
0:50:33episode and then we do actually have some other stuff that we want to talk
0:50:35about today apparently this week's episode of upgrade is brought to you by
0:50:42hover.com quite simply hover is the best way to buy and manage domain names for
0:50:50me I've been using hover for years and when I think about buying a domain name
0:50:54now I just think about hover. Hover is the place that I go to do that. There isn't a
0:50:58question anymore. I have an idea for a project. I want to be able to very quickly, very easily
0:51:05just get in, buy the domain name and get out again. I don't want to have to worry about
0:51:12all of the crazy things that I have to try and check off or all of the deals that I have
0:51:19to try and escape, like we were talking about LinkedIn earlier, and they're insane processes
0:51:24that they make you go through. Many other domain registrars I have found do the same
0:51:28kind of thing. Hover doesn't bother you with any of that. They have really great search
0:51:33tools so you can just, let's say you think, "Oh, I've got this great idea for this new
0:51:37site that I want. I'm thinking about maybe calling it five, six or seven colors. I haven't
0:51:41decided which ones yet." Put them all in to Hover and it will show you what domains are
0:51:48available. I assume, obviously, Jason, because you're a smart gentleman, that you bought
0:51:52your domain name at hover? Absolutely I bought my domain name and many other
0:51:56domain names that I didn't actually use but I did I did my research on hover and
0:52:00I and I bought many so you know Snellzone is at hover and Snellworld.com
0:52:05and Six Colors With and Without a You and I got the SixColors.me and Six
0:52:10Colors with a dash and I have Bleed6.com I mean I have lots of
0:52:20variations that I bought on on hover and it was very easy to dig down and
0:52:26find the ones that I wanted and then and actually they even one of them was
0:52:31was available but not freely licensable and they were the basically the
0:52:37agent for that so they all I had to do was go through hover and they bought it
0:52:42from whoever owned it and and brought it to me which was also pretty cool.
0:52:45That's good because those things can be like kind of shady so having a company like
0:52:50Hover do it I know would fill me with confidence. They're the experts. Exactly
0:52:54and saying about things like that about them being the experts let's say you
0:52:57have a bunch of domains somewhere else you can use Hover's valet service now
0:53:02this is where they're gonna be able to take all of the hassle away from you to
0:53:05switch from your other domain provider you just give them the credentials that
0:53:09they're gonna need and they'll just transfer it all for you for free this is
0:53:12whether you have 10 domains to 20 domains or 200 domains they will
0:53:16transfer them all over to Hover for you for free. And if you are one of these
0:53:20people like us that buy loads and loads and loads of domain names, they do volume
0:53:24discounts now for bulk domain renewal so you can actually save some money if you
0:53:28have a bunch of domains to renew at one time. One last thing I want to say about
0:53:32Hover before we wrap this up is that recently they've lowered their prices on
0:53:38pretty much all of the 200 plus TLD options that they have. Like for example
0:53:42example .com domains are now $12.99 and this of course still includes who is privacy for
0:53:47free because Hover believes that your private information should stay private and that's
0:53:51something that's awesome about them.
0:53:53So go right now to Hover.com because you should be trying them out.
0:53:56If you're not already, go do it.
0:53:58You're a crazy person.
0:53:59You want to use code HEYSIRI.
0:54:02H-E-Y-S-I-R-I.
0:54:05Hey Siri at checkout.
0:54:07That's going to get you 10% off your first purchase over at Hover.com and show your support
0:54:12for Upgrade. That's Hey Siri at checkout for 10% off. Thank you very much to
0:54:18Hover for sponsoring this week's episode. Oh Myke, Myke, Myke. They're gonna be
0:54:26angry at us again. Maybe everybody's phones just took them to Hover to buy
0:54:32some domains. I hope so. That wouldn't be a bad thing.
0:54:35yeah apple pay apple pay you wrote an interesting article in response to an
0:54:42O'Reilly piece oh yeah Tim O'Reilly wrote a thing that I was gonna link to
0:54:49it and then I thought I can't link to it because it makes me too angry and then I
0:54:54thought maybe I should write a thing about why it why it bugs me so much
0:54:57because I felt like just linking to it was not was not right and you know it
0:55:05was about Apple Pay and yet in the end there's a comment that he leaves
0:55:09replying to somebody in his own article saying well it really isn't about Apple
0:55:14Pay which actually made me a little bit more angry because because this is your
0:55:19typical let's use a current Apple thing that people are talking about and and
0:55:25then like pivot on it to grind some other acts that you would like to grind
0:55:29So even though he throws a lot of elbows at Apple and says, "Oh yeah, Apple's magical this and, you know, Apple's marketing wizardry that,"
0:55:41in the end, he's not even like talking. In the end, I think what he's really doing is promoting this company he invested in called Cover, which is like, not Hover,
0:55:50cover, which is like "Uber for restaurants" and I know Uber for whatever is a joke, but seriously
0:55:57it's Uber for restaurants. You use it and you go in and it's like you don't ever have to deal with
0:56:03the filthy, filthy paying of people or filthy, dirty having a wallet or having a credit card or
0:56:10signing a bill because we know people can't bear to do that. That is the most monstrous thing that
0:56:14that you do at a restaurant is pay the bill, have to get out your wallet. It's awful.
0:56:20You know, life doesn't need to be that way. Why do that when you can use cover and you
0:56:25just walk in and say, "Hi, I'm Joe." And they're like, "Oh, Mr. Joe, I'm so happy to see you."
0:56:30And the tip is automatically calculated and it's like an Uber ride except at a restaurant
0:56:35and you don't go anywhere because the restaurant doesn't move probably. And that's really what
0:56:40Tim O'Reilly seems to have been using Apple Pay
0:56:43as a wedge to talk about the future of payments,
0:56:47which was his point was like, look,
0:56:49Apple Pay has a solution to an existing problem,
0:56:52but Uber and Cover are solving,
0:56:54they're thinking way outside the box
0:56:57and they're solving the future of payments.
0:56:59And it just seemed really silly to me
0:57:01because in the end, I'm not quite sure what,
0:57:04I mean, Uber still requires you to put your credit card in
0:57:09to set up your account.
0:57:10And if your credit card changes
0:57:11or you have to cancel it and get a new one
0:57:13because of fraud or something like that,
0:57:14you have to give Uber your credit card number again.
0:57:18You have to use the app in order to call the car,
0:57:22at which point I'm not sure how that's much different
0:57:25than pulling out your phone and going beep
0:57:28and paying for something with Apple Pay.
0:57:30It actually doesn't seem,
0:57:31it seems kind of disingenuous to me.
0:57:33I'm not sure that something like Uber
0:57:37is really that different from something like Apple Pay,
0:57:39except for the use cases, which is, you know,
0:57:42the Apple Pay use cases may be going to Whole Foods
0:57:44and doing some shopping,
0:57:45and the Uber use case is calling a car.
0:57:48- I think what he's trying to say,
0:57:50which I don't agree with, is that for some reason,
0:57:54having something that debits a transaction from your card
0:57:58each time you use it,
0:58:01whether you use your card or some other method, you know,
0:58:05but he's saying that that's somehow antiquated.
0:58:09But everything that he's doing still devots a card.
0:58:12It's just doing it under a veil.
0:58:15- Yeah, well, that's it.
0:58:16It's like when you call an Uber,
0:58:18your interaction is when you call it.
0:58:20And then that's the last time you use your phone,
0:58:22although you still have to see the car
0:58:23and you might look at the screen
0:58:26to see if this is the driver of the car that you wanted
0:58:29and they need to see that it's you.
0:58:30And that all still happens.
0:58:32So it's not less complicated.
0:58:34it's just sort of different. I think he's, and I made fun of him in my piece a little
0:58:39bit, I think this is this sort of Silicon Valley utopia thing, which is like, well,
0:58:45in the future, we will need to carry wallets, or you because we'll be recognized, you know,
0:58:51on our own, it's just like our own our own faces will be our passport. And they'll say,
0:58:56you know, it's like what Square Pay tried to do, which is like, you walk up to the counter
0:58:59at the deli having ordered a sandwich and just say, I'm Bob. And they're like, Oh, yeah,
0:59:04and they'll put it on your account,
0:59:05which totally doesn't scale
0:59:07because if every single customer uses that service
0:59:09and is checking in,
0:59:10it's gonna get really confusing really fast.
0:59:13But in the end, these services need to authenticate.
0:59:16They need to say, I am who I said I was
0:59:19and you have an ability to receive money from me.
0:59:22And Apple Pay is one way to do that.
0:59:25And the way Uber does it is a different way,
0:59:27but they're not that different.
0:59:28And to suggest that one is like mired in the past,
0:59:32And in fact, Uber you give your real credit card to,
0:59:34whereas Apple Pay is using this one-time code.
0:59:37So it's actually more secure and more private than Uber is.
0:59:42So, you know, again, he's pushing his own thing,
0:59:46but it really bugs me this idea that first off,
0:59:48I'm gonna use Apple to get attention for my thing.
0:59:51Then I'm gonna run down Apple's thing
0:59:52and say that it's not the cool thing
0:59:54because my thing is the cool thing,
0:59:55when in fact it is serving the exact same purpose
0:59:59and it's not any different.
1:00:00You throw in a little Silicon Valley utopia,
1:00:02which is like, oh, we're totally gonna pivot
1:00:03the entire world with our new super train
1:00:08that we're building.
1:00:09And it's kind of ridiculous 'cause in fact,
1:00:13I mean, my final point was,
1:00:14do these people go to the supermarket?
1:00:16I mean, in the end, you have to buy,
1:00:17you have to put things in a basket and check out somewhere.
1:00:20I mean, that's, and you have to pay.
1:00:22And that's just, I mean, that's not old school.
1:00:26It's gonna be a long time before there's RFID tags
1:00:28on everything and you can literally just walk into a store,
1:00:31grab some stuff, put it in a bag and walk out.
1:00:33It's gonna be a while before that.
1:00:35That's not a realistic vision of the near future.
1:00:39- Well, Square tried to do this idea
1:00:41of replacing the checkout process with a different process,
1:00:45which is Square Wallet, and that folded.
1:00:47- Where they'd see your face,
1:00:48and they were, but then you set up Square,
1:00:51and I think what it's basically doing
1:00:52is it's detecting your presence,
1:00:54because you've got Square on your smartphone,
1:00:57which again is really not that different from Apple Pay,
1:01:00because what we're doing is we're using our phone
1:01:02to create or authenticate
1:01:07and then we're using sort of like Uber,
1:01:09they're looking at your face or whatever
1:01:10and saying, oh yeah, it's you.
1:01:12You know, it's not that different.
1:01:15It's, I don't know.
1:01:16It's, I love that different companies
1:01:18are trying different things and this cover idea
1:01:20where you'd like, you make your reservation
1:01:21and then you just don't have to worry about it
1:01:23when you're done eating, you just leave
1:01:25and it's auto-tipped and auto-paid and all of that.
1:01:28I mean, that's neat and all, but like I said,
1:01:30I don't think the big inconvenience about going to a restaurant is waiting for the check.
1:01:35I think that idea sounds really good, but it's not the problem that he's trying to paint
1:01:44it as.
1:01:45Yeah, oh yeah.
1:01:46And then this is real-time follow-up from Red King in the chat room, saying "Sometimes
1:01:49startups in Silicon Valley are crazy out of touch with people in the real world."
1:01:52This is, I think, ultimately what set me off about this piece, is I feel like Tim O'Reilly
1:01:57is writing from a position of being so far inside the Silicon Valley vortex that he doesn't
1:02:05have any conception of like how real people pay for products and live their lives and
1:02:13it's all about these fantastical Uber. You take your Uber to your cover restaurant, you
1:02:19never take out your wallet, it's all amazing. And just that's not, those are exceptions,
1:02:25aren't the future that everybody's going to be going to. Those are simple examples that
1:02:32don't scale and that are pretty much exclusive to a Silicon Valley mindset. And that bugs
1:02:40me because it's like, you know, you can criticize, there are lots of reasons to be skeptical
1:02:45about the future success of Apple Pay, but to say, well, it's not Uber, not only is wrong,
1:02:52But it's completely without perspective.
1:02:54So you know, it was thanks to Tim O'Reilly for writing that post and getting me all riled
1:02:58up.
1:02:59That was good.
1:03:00Because there is that other part of Apple Pay as well, which is interesting, right?
1:03:03Which is kind of like what you can imagine that Uber part being, which is the APIs that
1:03:09they're building.
1:03:10Right, where you can pay right on your device.
1:03:12And again, then it's sending a one-time code and you don't have to ideally, like Uber could
1:03:19work with Apple Pay and then you wouldn't need to give Uber anything, right?
1:03:23Oh, yeah.
1:03:24Okay, so you don't need to give Uber your credit card.
1:03:26You don't need to give Uber your identity, essentially.
1:03:29All you need to do is verify payment.
1:03:30I think they're calling it Uber Ride, sorry, Uber Ride Now, I think they're calling it,
1:03:35something like that.
1:03:36That's nice.
1:03:37It sounds like Override.
1:03:38That's great.
1:03:39Good job.
1:03:40Good branding.
1:03:41Hey, Siri, Uber Ride Now.
1:03:42I'm sorry.
1:03:43Oh, dear.
1:03:44I'm sorry. Oh dear. People are gonna hate me so much.
1:03:52Mm-hmm. I already, Mykey R in the chatroom said I set off his phone. Of course you did.
1:03:57So I've probably just done it again. He's probably screaming at me. Do you want to talk
1:04:04about Pebble? Sure. I got one. Yeah I have one too and I kind of mentioned to you do
1:04:12ever want to talk about Pebble and you said that you were getting ready to
1:04:15publish something within a couple of days so I figure why not talk about it now so you have a
1:04:19original Pebble right? I do I have the Kickstarter. You have the Kickstarter one? Look at you. I have a
1:04:26Pebble Steel which I picked up as soon as they went on sale. Do you wear it every day?
1:04:34Yes I mean for again life changes if I'm if I'm going out of the house and going
1:04:41out and about and not just sitting in my pajamas in my garage and writing things
1:04:45i i do wear it absolutely
1:04:49what do you do you like it i mean i love mine i love my okay do you wear yours
1:04:53every day yeah i do yeah 100 i like it i mean i've
1:04:56been wearing it for a year and a half now i i like it
1:04:59um uh they announced last week that they are cutting the price to 99
1:05:05for the base model which i think is really smart
1:05:08and then they added a bunch of uh sort of software features like background
1:05:11tasks and things like that. And I was thinking about this and then I subscribed to Ben Thompson's
1:05:18Stratechery site and get his newsletter and he made a bunch of the same observations that
1:05:22I'd been thinking so I had one of those like "I'm gonna write about this, it's gonna be similar"
1:05:27and he's like "well okay go ahead it's fine" and so I just wrote this thing that I'm gonna post
1:05:32shortly after the show is done that I think saying that Pebble is dead because there are
1:05:41all these other smartwatches with the bright color screens and stuff isn't right because
1:05:45it's got a week-long battery and it costs under a hundred dollars now. And when it was focused,
1:05:52as it was initially on notifications, I think it actually did a pretty good job. And I think
1:05:57they've done some good updates to the notification system. It works better with iOS. It works really
1:06:02well with Android. I think there's a place for a watch like that and say, "Look, we're not going
1:06:08gonna be brightly colored and anything like that,
1:06:10but we're gonna give you your notifications,
1:06:11we're gonna be really focused on that,
1:06:13and it's gonna be under $100.
1:06:15The problem I have is that they also announced
1:06:19these background tasks and things like that,
1:06:21which threaten to wreck that battery life
1:06:24that is part of their appeal.
1:06:27And so we're in a fascinating point,
1:06:30Ben Thompson definitely made these points too.
1:06:32We're at a fascinating point where Pebble needs to decide
1:06:35what it wants to be,
1:06:36And I think it needs to swallow its pride.
1:06:38I think the guys at Pebble need to swallow their pride
1:06:40a little bit and say, look, we are not going to compete
1:06:43on features with the Apple Watch and with the Motorola Watch
1:06:48and with the other Android Wear watches that are coming out.
1:06:50We're not gonna do it.
1:06:52We will compete on battery life and price,
1:06:57but we're not gonna add 50 different features
1:06:59and a whole bunch of apps that drain the battery
1:07:01because quite frankly, our screen is black and white.
1:07:05and low resolution and we only have buttons and not a touchscreen.
1:07:10So don't try to play that game. Be the alternative.
1:07:14Be the under $100, really great for showing your phone notifications on your wrist,
1:07:20lasts for a week device because there's probably still a place in the market
1:07:25for something like that, at least for a while. And if you focus on that and you
1:07:28focus your future development on that, you might find a niche with people who
1:07:33just want something with neat customizable faces and basic notifications for a reasonable
1:07:38price instead of spending $350 for an Apple watch that needs to be recharged every night.
1:07:44Or in the middle of the day if you use it hard, we just don't know.
1:07:49So there are interesting crossroads where they can like really embrace being different
1:07:53or I fear not want to give up on some of these other features and that's choosing is hard
1:08:01and focusing is really hard and I think Pebble is an interesting place right now
1:08:05where they might have some potential but they may not be able to resist
1:08:11branching out instead of focusing.
1:08:14So they just sort of had a new marketing campaign
1:08:18which is on their site now.
1:08:20Their new marketing branding thing is like "we're just a watch."
1:08:26Right.
1:08:27Which is good, but then they added the background notification things
1:08:30and they did the, you know, the playful Johnny Ive, like, "Relax, Johnny. Breathe, Johnny,"
1:08:37kind of thing. It's like, don't even compare yourself to the Apple Watch. You are not the
1:08:41Apple Watch. You don't want to be the Apple Watch. I think that's the important thing
1:08:47is for them to not... Don't play their game. That's not your game. You're never going to
1:08:54be good at that game. Play a different game.
1:08:56- Then on the day that they dropped the price recently,
1:09:00they added sleep tracking and fitness tracking to the Pebble,
1:09:05which is kind of like, okay,
1:09:07you're kind of really crossing your--
1:09:09- Yeah, you know, again,
1:09:11and they've got lots of those sensors in there
1:09:12and they sort of sold people on this stuff
1:09:14and we'll see where it goes,
1:09:16but that's my concern is that they're trying to do too much.
1:09:19And look, if fitness tracking ends up being a thing
1:09:21that actually has resonance,
1:09:22that they're like, for $99, it's a fitness tracker,
1:09:25it's a watch, it's notifications,
1:09:26that's what it is and that's great but then you know then it's like well we got
1:09:30ESPN so you can check the scores and that apps interface isn't very good and
1:09:34if your if your iPhone auto quits the pebble app because it's it needs to free
1:09:39up the memory then the connection drops and you have to launch the pebble app
1:09:42again and you know it's at some point I feel like they're they're not in this
1:09:48arms race they need to pick their spots now they need to admit to that the world
1:09:52is changing and that their product is not going to and their company is not
1:09:56going to compete with those guys. They're not going to make a product that
1:09:59competes with the Moto 360 or the Apple Watch. It's never going to happen. They
1:10:02need to be playing on a different field and I think it's an
1:10:07interesting question because I like the product and I know people are a lot of
1:10:11people are really skeptical. I think they believed it to be something
1:10:16that it just isn't but what it is I kind of like. It's just it needs to be true to
1:10:23itself right and not become you know ruin itself by trying to be something
1:10:29it's not so on connected which is another fine show on this network I know
1:10:36that Steven is interested in the public and he wants to talk about it this week
1:10:40so I'm sure him and Federica will have some some interesting opinions about
1:10:46that later on this week. But I mean I am a fan, I am a big fan of my
1:10:53purple and I think that it's a nice kind of entry into understanding what I
1:10:58want and don't want from an Apple watch.
1:11:02Example? The notifications. Like I think that there is a benefit in having
1:11:11that stuff on your wrist. People think that it's crazy, but once you kind of get it to a point where
1:11:17you understand what you do and don't want, just the act of looking at your wrist is much better
1:11:22and more comfortable than looking at your phone in a lot of situations. Yeah, I agree. I mean,
1:11:27some people believe this and some people don't, but I would rather... and this is why I always wore
1:11:35a watch and not a pocket watch. Glancing at my wrist to see the time or to see a notification
1:11:41now is a lot less cumbersome than reaching into my pocket and pulling out my phone and
1:11:47pressing the button and checking and then putting it back. And so yeah, yes, it's a
1:11:52matter of degree, but I think there's some value in doing that. I definitely think that's
1:11:57why I bought the Pebble. One reason was I thought this would be an interesting category
1:12:00and there would be new devices like the Apple Watch eventually, and to get a sense of what's
1:12:05it good for. And the glanceable notification stuff I think is great. I'm much more skeptical
1:12:10about in-depth interaction than I am about glanceability, like just what's going on really
1:12:18quick and maybe like a quick response to a text, but not like now I'm going to start
1:12:23dictating things and do work on my watch.
1:12:27I don't see that as something I wanna do.
1:12:30I like, keeping it simple makes a lot of sense to me.
1:12:33So, you know, the Pebble on that level has told me,
1:12:35yes, there is value in having something on your wrist.
1:12:38I think these other watches have to prove
1:12:41that there's value in doing more than that
1:12:44and what that value is.
1:12:45- Well, let's see.
1:12:48Mr. Snapp. - We'll find out.
1:12:51I think that that about comes to the end of this bumper birthday episode.
1:12:55I think so.
1:12:58You know, we're eventually going to talk about the Kindle.
1:12:59It may happen when I get my Kindle.
1:13:03When do you think you're going to get it?
1:13:04Oh, it's like a couple weeks, I think.
1:13:07I think it's in a couple weeks.
1:13:08At this point it might just be worth holding it.
1:13:10It might be.
1:13:11I don't know if you've noticed, dear listeners, but we keep mentioning it.
1:13:15Every week we have a Kindle on the topic list and then we just keep bumping it.
1:13:19We actually had some follow-up that we didn't do that was about the Kindle, who were following
1:13:23up that we mentioned it, which is like, no, no, we haven't talked about it yet.
1:13:27This is all just, well, we're going to talk about it.
1:13:30There's going to be a Kindle episode.
1:13:31It's going to happen, but we don't know when, because there's so much follow-up.
1:13:36Just so much.
1:13:38I love it.
1:13:39I know you do.
1:13:40I love it too.
1:13:41I don't have a show that goes this in depth on follow-ups, but it's fun.
1:13:46I enjoy it.
1:13:47If you want to catch our links for this week's episode of Upgrade, go to relay.fm/upgrade/for
1:13:53if you want to get in touch with us, there's a contact button there but you can also get
1:13:58us on Twitter.
1:13:59I am @imike and Jason is @jsnell, J S N E double L on Twitter.
1:14:06Of course you can keep up with all of Jason's fantastic work including his upcoming piece
1:14:10about the pebble over at sixcolors.com spelt however you choose really, as long as you
1:14:16just changing the U or not. If you use all different letters you won't get there. You'll
1:14:22have to write six colors in some sort of English language.
1:14:24Yes, S-I-X-C-O-L-O-R-S. Yeah. You can enter the U if you choose.
1:14:33You can. And we'll be back next week's... next week's?
1:14:37Mm-hmm. All the weeks. We're back next week. You're going to Singleton in between, right?
1:14:42I am, I'm going to be fresh off of a plane. We may have to record at a different time than usual
1:14:47for those live listeners out there. But yes, I should be fresh back from Canada
1:14:52where streaming is expensive to talk next week.
1:14:56Excellent stuff. Keep an eye on the schedule. If we need to change it, you'll find it there.
1:15:01It's at relay.fm/schedule, which is also where you'll find out when all of our shows record live.
1:15:06We'll be back next week. Until then, bye-bye.
1:15:09Goodbye.
1:15:10[Music]