Mobile Tech News
Summary: Technology is constantly evolving, especially in the mobile sphere. Steve Ripper and Lonnie Cherry from Portsmouth Computer Group discuss the latest in mobile technology. Listen or read more to learn about phablets, Surface Pro, and Windows updates.
Mike: Hi! 7:41 now on the News Talk 98.1 to WTSN. Welcome to the WTSN morning information center all powered by Portsmouth Computer Group. Check ’em out, convenient locations in Dover and Portsmouth you can check out their website pcgit.com. That’s pcgit.com. It’s all part of WTSN’s Tech Tuesday. All coming up this half hour as well, in addition to Steve and Lonnie joining us from Portsmouth Computer Group, we’ve got the Ski and Snowboard report all brought to you by the Home Brew Barn, Route 1 in Hampton for specials, kits, and classes why not go to the homebrewbarn.com. That’s the homebrewbarn.com. And we haven’t seen the guys in quite a while but they’re back here in studio. Lonnie and Steve from Portsmouth Computer Group, all part of Tech Tuesday. Good to see you guys, good to see you Lonnie.
Lonnie: Hey, Mike.
Steve: Mike, it’s good to see you.
Mike: Welcome, how are you? Everything’s good?
Steve: Doing alright, doing alright.
Lonnie: It’s great.
Mike: Final day of Winter, yay! [crosstalk]
Steve: Yes, yes, time to be done with it.
Mike: Spring arrives tomorrow I’m happy about that, I think we’re . . . I don’t want to bite my tongue and put words in my mouth but I think we’re done with our final storms.
Lonnie: Oh, you’re gonna jinx it Mike,
Steve: Yeah, yeah, you’re going to jinx it. Even if one comes it’s not going to stay, right? It won’t stick, it can’t stick.
Mike: Well, we’re not going to get — like last March if you remember last year’s March we had like three north easters, remember that? I was in Florida one week, I missed one that was good.
Steve: We’re only two weeks away from baseball.
Mike: I know, baseball season starts earlier and earlier.
Lonnie: Right
Steve: It does.
Mike: Red Sox open up on the West Coast, I think March 28th/29th a week from Thursday. A week from Thursday!
Steve: Exactly.
Mike: And we’re already talking about injuries.
Steve: Yeah, yeah.
Mike: Dustin Pedroia started on the injured list.
Steve: Oh, well you kind of knew that right?
Mike: Well I don’t know, I mean when’s he going to play again —
Steve: We won the world series without him, I mean I love him but —
Mike: Oh, now you’re, now you’re —
Lonnie: The emotional leader — [crosstalk]
Mike: I don’t think Petey’s ever coming back actually.
Steve: I don’t either.
Mike: I said that yesterday, I said that the other day —
Steve: Do you ever look at your players and go I hope they’re not a Yankee, right ‘cause you don’t think they’re going to play for the Red Sox anymore. Are they going to be a Yankee, that’s the fear, right?
Mike: Yankees got a bunch of injuries, they haven’t even started, I look at spring training, preseason for all the sports and baseball is the easiest preseason around. You know, you pull a muscle and you’re out for a month in baseball, you pull a muscle in football you just put something on it and play.
Steve: You play right, you rub something on it, in baseball it’s like “well we’ll see him in eight weeks.”
Mike: I know —
Steve: And they don’t even leave Florida, you know the team comes off and then t’ey’re like “oh, we’ll stay here, it’s fine.”
Mike: It’s the easiest preseason ever, play a game or so you golf in the afternoons, I mean —
Steve: My favorite is when they roll up in the golf carts, I’m like you’re athletes why do you need golf carts to get to the field —
Mike: I know, I know. In the old days, they used to bring the relief pitcher in on the golf cart now they kind of run and jog in, I mean football players they break a bone in their hand they play with a cast.
Lonnie: Right, true story.
Mike: Good to have you guys with us what’s new in the world of Portsmouth Computer Group, we’re going to talk about today how to get your mobile on, which I think is kind of intriguing what are we talking about here, Steve?
What is a Phablet?
Steve: So, we’re talking about — well, we talked about the weather right, we talked about the snow, we talked about the Red Sox, we’re talking about going to these places, right, leaving, like, leaving Portsmouth, leaving the sea coast going down to the Red Sox game in Florida, right, so what do you use to do on your mobile, right, like do you do phones, right, so all kinds of new ways to do it. Have you heard of these phablets? Ever heard of a phablet?
Mike: No, I haven’t.
Steve: So, these phablets are like the phone tablet, which is really funny when you see someone hold them to their head, and it’s like really big and they’re talking to it and the screen is bigger than the side of their head.
Mike: Is it really a phone and a tablet?
Steve: Yeah, so they call them phablets, the idea is you have the phone but the screen’s not big enough, so you just make it bigger, but you still put the phone in it whereas a tablet just doesn’t have the phone you’re doing your iPad and you’re doing games and you’re doing whatever.
Mike: Yeah, yeah —
Steve: But the phablet can do both, but it’s pretty funny — you’ll see someone walking down the street, especially in cities and stuff, where they got this big thing in their hands, big screen and they’re talking to it and doing the video phones.
Mike: Are they really holding it up to their ears?
Lonnie: Yeah, yeah.
Mike: Oh my gosh —
Lonnie: I mean, in this day and age everyone is trying to get everything in one little compact situation and those things can allow them to do everything they need to do —
Mike: Well, I get the idea Lonnie that the phone is where we’re at now that everything is in our phone, ‘cause our phones are kind of really like a little computer and stuff like that. You know, I was watching a sitcom yesterday and one of the young women in the show she plays a young child and she says “you actually make a phone call with your phone” . . . you know that type of thing. [crosstalk]
Steve: Like “what, who does that anymore?” It’s just a texting machine, that’s all it is.
Mike: I know. So phablets — that’s quite amazing. So these new devices I mean, you wonder about the phones themselves I just wonder about this I mean how much bigger will the phone screens actually get? Cause everybody wants it bigger.
Steve: Yeah, well —
Mike: But I don’t want to be holding a tablet to my ear.
Steve: We’ll get to mostly video, we’re halfway there now, but we’ll get to the point where I don’t know if you’ll hold it to your head anymore and a lot of people are doing it, you’ve seen the studies whether how healthy it is to hold it to your head —
Mike: We’ll find it’s not good for you —
Steve: So, they’ll get to a size of the screen I think that it’ll end up being a little bit bigger than it is now, where you’ll just hit the button and you’ll just video, you’ll just video talk to the other person almost all the time now.
Mike: Yeah, wow, so let’s talk about some of these . . . the ways in which people get tech mobile obviously so you’re talking about these new devices which are kind of lighter, they’re sleeker I know Apple’s coming out this week with the new iPads and things like that.
Surface Pro Basics
Steve: And then the Surface Pros. Alright, so the Surface Pros are probably the biggest player in the Windows side of things.
Mike: They are?
Steve: Microsoft makes those so, they detach from the keyboard so you can have a keyboard like a laptop, but they detach from the keyboard. It’s got Windows in it so that’s really the drawing point for that, but it’s also a tablet so you’re taking it out. We see a lot of the sales people really like the Surface Pros because when they’re at a company or wherever they are on the road during the day, they use it as a laptop but when they go back to the hotel room disconnect it as a tablet, watch movies right, do whatever, video with the family back home —
Upcoming Windows Support Changes
Mike: Sure, so this is really, you guys are front and center about the new technology coming out. I’m excited about my iPhone, but my iPhone is not the newest iPhone. But I always say to myself, well you know I’m going to let one model go we’re talking about windows 10 I wasn’t a big fan of windows 10, have I told you that? I like windows 7 but you guys said that within the year Microsoft isn’t going to support windows 7 anymore. So, they’re going to kind of make you buy the new platform.
Lonnie: Exactly.
Mike: Is that how it works now —
Steve: So, they’ll do the, they’ll obsolete it, so the obsolescence will make you. The other thing they will make you do is that just when you go to get a new one there just won’t be Windows 7 anywhere.
Mike: So obviously the new laptop what you’re saying is Windows 10 will be there.
Steve: So, like eBay if you want to do Windows 7, you’re going to have dig through eBay for some older machine because if you go down to the store or you come see us we’re going to go, “here’s Windows 10.”
Lonnie: That all we have.
Steve: That’s the only way we’re going to get it.
Mike: And that’s the other thing too, when they stop supporting these platforms obviously your software will never be up to date, you will be finding mistakes on your computer, you’ll say “why isn’t my computer running well?” All of a sudden, everything is becoming outdated little by little by little.
Lonnie: And you’re leaving yourself vulnerable essentially —
Mike: Yeah —
Lonnie: By not updating and not having whatever the latest and greatest is . I think that’s a part of a road map part of their plan to make sure you’re buying the new products, to stop serving up the old ones.
Mike: So, it’s helping the people like your business because you’re actually creating the incentive to buy the new products, but you’re also saying “listen, you don’t buy the new products you are going to leave yourself vulnerable to viruses and hackers” and things like that because your software is not going to be updated.
Lonnie: Yeah, you know what’s funny though, you see people all the time like yourself, be like I don’t want to change I don’t want to go to the new Windows 10.
Mike: I’m comfortable, I like the look of it.
Exploring the iPhone
Steve: But people will get a new iPhone like crazy, they’ll be like the newest, they’ll stand in line.
Mike: Why, why do you think?
Steve: I don’t understand the bells and whistles, so Lonnie you have newer phone than what I do, I’m going to put you on the spot right here —
Lonnie: It’s the bells and whistles, it’s the newest features, it’s having what the next guy doesn’t have, you know and with technology it’s how fast can I transfer data from one place to another.
Mike: Are you one . . . I mean, if a new phone is coming out, whatever platform it is you’re out there first to get it?
Lonnie: I’m not out there exactly first, but I try to be on the cutting edge. I want to stay up to date about what’s out there.
Mike: Well, it’s your business too, it’s your business too so it’s a learning curve and an educational thing for you because you’re trying to sell these things to customers.
Steve: And then I think the other part of it is, is it’s fine if your computer’s a little older on your desk at home, no one knows, no one cares — you can just be like “it’s fine, I’ll get to it eventually”, but you’re carrying that phone in your pocket all the time it’s with you so you’re pulling it out of your pocket and people are seeing you with it and no one wants to see you pulling out the World War II walkie talkie . . . we used to make fun of Dave you know “when are you getting something better than the World War II walkie talkie?”
Mike: You mean boom boxes aren’t coming back —
Steve: No, they’re not [crosstalk].
So, you don’t want to be looking like . . . it’s very social, you go and sit at a table with six other people you don’t want to be pulling out the old phone you want to pull out the new phone.
Mike: Yeah, yeah absolutely —
Steve: We see a lot of that and then it puts a challenge on us, on the IT part of it, because we’ll be doing the same thing we’ve always done whatever the software package is or the email or whatever. But then someone will whip out . . . and I’ve never even seen that phone before. I’m like “what? What is that?” “Well, this is the new iPhone 19”, you know the leopard the mini leopard or whatever like I don’t even know where the buttons are on that. And they’re like “how do you not know?”
Best Software When Working Remotely
Mike: There you go, so what type of software should people be using to help when they’re working on the road and being mobile and stuff like that?
Lonnie: I mean there are so many things —
Mike: What are the things that are important?
Lonnie: You want to make you have a good VPN if you’re on your mobile device I you’re going back to the corporate network —
Mike: V-P-N meaning?
Lonnie: Virtual private network, that’s the secured highway to get back to your corporate data because you want to make sure no one is getting that data on your mobile device. You also want to make sure that when you have a mobile device that you make sure it stays on public networks and your private network and the reason for that is also security, but also that these mobile devices are out in the world and they’re on multiple different Wi-Fi networks and so on and so forth. So, you just don’t want to bring something back that potentially could be harmful to your internal network.
Mike: Yeah, Yeah.
Steve: And if you’re doing laptops, you know if so, if not less than the phones if you’re doing laptop and that security software is up to date antivirus any kind of anti-malware stuff, you know so for the company owners out there those are the things the company owners need to do before their sending their people out the door, make sure that their VPN is configured correctly so that if there connecting back to data that’s at the office, that its secure.
Then all the security protocols — so, if you’re sending your sales force out with ten laptops you’ve got ten people, antivirus up to date the security measures are up to date, passwords are being changed, multifactor authentication we’ve talked about this on many, many visits here — ways of authenticating you are you. It happens all the time — laptops gets left on airplanes and buses, they get stolen so you have to have a plan in place for what happens when your sales person calls you back and goes “lost my laptop.” So what is the plan, got to have that plan, can you wipe the data, can the person that has the laptop not log into it . . . so you want your sales person to be able to log in to it you want the person who is not your sales person to not be able to log into it. Sounds simple, it’s not as simple.
Mike: Alright going mobile and security, thank you Lonnie and Steve with us today from Portsmouth Computer Group, check it out. PCGIT.com, PCGIT.com for world class IT service and customer support. Always good to talk to you guys.
